revere | August 8, 2007It is clearly true that those who abstain in sexual intercourse are not at risk of becoming pregnant (with apologies to the Virgin Mary). There is less of a protection against sexually transmitted diseases because there are other ways to have sex besides having intercourse with a partner of the opposite sex while in the Missionary Position (maybe you hadn't heard that. Yes, it's true. I heard it on good authority from a junior high school student). But even for pregnancy, abstinence-only education programs don't work. At all. This has been shown repeatedly. But it doesn't affect Bush…
revere | August 8, 2007Maybe I'm not the right person to bring this message as I drink very little in the way of fluids each day, at least compared to my students who will, I am sure, have to be surgically removed from their water bottles. Of course I've also had kidney stones twice, so I'm not suggesting anyone do as I do. How much you should drink is unknown. The 64 oz. recommendation everyone has heard is probably way too high and has no basis in science. But whether it's 40 oz. or 50 oz. or something else I don't know and neither does anyone else. My 30 oz. is probably too low.
But I would also urge you to…
revere | August 7, 2007&otFrom The Onion's "American Voices; (man in the street interviews)
Congress Approves Surveillance Measures
The Democratic-controlled House passed a bill that will allow wide-ranging domestic and foreign eavesdropping that would be authorized by a secret court. What do you think?
Ed Albaugh, Elevator Repairman
"You won't need to eavesdrop to hear this: I voted for you assholes because you said you were against shit like this."
Is this really satire?
revere | August 7, 2007Dr. John Agwunobe is the federal official in charge of the US Public Health SErvie Commission Corps and of coordinating the nation's response to pandemic influenza. At least he will be until the end of this month.
Announcement from Department of Health and Human Services:
For Immediate Release Contact: HHS Press Office
August 7, 2007 202/690-6343
STATEMENT FROM HHS SECRETARY MIKE LEAVITT ON THE RESIGNATION OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH DR. JOHN…
revere | August 7, 2007We all know we should eat lots of fruits and vegetables. I do it because I happen to like fruits and vegetables, but there are good health reasons, too. But my father always said that with diet as with life, "Everything in moderation." A whole lot of fruit and vegetables is not necessarily a whole lot better than just enough. It may not be better at all, and if they take the place of other sources of essential nutrients, maybe worse.
First a disclaimer. I'm a physician. By definition that means I know practically nothing about nutrition or diet and don't even know what I don't know. But I do…
revere | August 6, 2007I usually vote Democrat. That's because where I live they are much more likely to uphold democratic values -- including the value of personal liberties guaranteed in the US Constitution. The current Republican Party is hopeless on civil liberties, being such cowards they are ready to throw personal freedoms under the bus whenever George W. shouts "terrorist." Upholding personal liberties is not the sole property of Democrats. Many Libertarians also hold this position strongly, although not all do. And unfortunately, not all Democrats do either. I will not support any Democrat whose regard for…
revere | August 6, 2007A long story in The York Dispatch discusses personal preparation for a pandemic. Taking personal responsibility is a good thing, although it means different things to different people. I have reserved my energy for community activities. I don't have a stash of Tamiflu or water or canned goods, despite the fact we have written (often) here about the possibilities of supply chain and infrastructure. With the understanding I am not against personal prepping, I would still like to urge both some caution and perspective.
Here's some of the news story that attracted my attention, with some of my…
revere | August 5, 2007I wrote the post on Texas A&M that appears below while sitting in an airport lounge, sans connection. In the car on the way home from the airport late last night I heard on the BBC World Service the following story, to which I found links provided by two kind readers upon being reconnected (hat tip PM and KR).
Consider this BBC story a preamble to the Texas A&M post that follow it:
The strain of foot-and-mouth disease found at a Surrey farm has been identified, [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)] has said.
The strain in infected cattle is identical to…
revere | August 5, 2007Steven D. Levitt, the economist and author of Freakonomics, has made a living explaining counterintuitive notions to people on the basis of hidden incentives for human behavior. I haven't read Freakonomics, although it sounds interesting. My behavior is constrained by time. Maybe an incentive will come out of hiding and ratchet the book up my priority list. Still, you'd think a best-selling author of an economics book wouldn't be so surprised when another genre, that on its face doesn't seem like the stuff of best-sellerdom, makes the grade. But Levitt is still surprised that atheist books (…
revere | August 4, 2007While you busy being scared by the Bush administration about phantom weapons of mass destruction, there are real WMDs and have been for many decades. We even know where they are (no, not north, west and south of Tikrit, as claimed by the cowardly Donald Rumsfeld). They are in the former Soviet Union. They made bioweapons. They had stockpiles. They even had a well-studied accident with anthrax from a weapons research facility that killed dozens of community residents when a fairly small amount was inadvertently vented in Sverdlovsk. But Putin's Russia is not a target in George Bush's "Global"…
revere | August 3, 2007We don't usually talk about stories published in Physics Today, a publication of the American Institute of Physics. But a recent one caught our attention for two reasons. One, it is about the effects of non-ionizing radiation (in this case an oscillating electric field) and a biological effect, cell division. The second reason is that physicists have been telling us for decades such effects are physically impossible. The only physical effect would be heating a cell, they said. They ridiculed epidemiologists who found an association between powerline frequency electromagnetic fields and…
revere | August 3, 2007Stories about experimental vaccines that "work in animals" are a dime a dozen these days. That's not bad. It means there is a lot of activity on the innovative technologies front. But there is a huge distance between "works in mice" and "works in humans." So news that one of these technologies is entering human trials, even small scale Phase I trials, is rarer. Recently we posted on the proposed start of Phase I clinical trials for a "universal flu vaccine" that works across subtypes (H5N1, H1N1, H3N2, etc.) as well as across drift variations within subtypes (the genetic differences seen from…
revere | August 2, 2007When it comes to protecting us from chemical carcinogens, the Bush administration has never been part of the solution. In fact they have consistently taken the side of the solvent, in this case the ubiquitous (and notorious) chlorinated ethylene solvent, trichloroethylene, or TCE for short. One of the most prevalent contaminants in US groundwater, TCE has been in regulatory limbo for years while EPA does one evaluation after another. If it doesn't like the answer it gets from its scientists and outside panels, it kicks it over to the National Academy to study some more. NAS then confirms what…
revere | August 2, 2007Dangerous drugs that got approved and are widely and intensively marketed; dangerous imports from China and elsewhere that are never examined; conflict of interest allegations; contaminated consume products from toothpaste to lens solutions; vaccine supplies that go from shortage to glut. Just business as usual at the broken US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). So it's an important problem and fixing it is a priority. It's always a dilemma when a really excellent piece appears and you just want your readers to go read it instead of what we are writing about it. That's the case with an Op Ed…
revere | August 1, 2007I haven't given much credence to the hype about internet child predators. But now it turns out the predators are really there, we know there names, and they even live in our neighborhoods, although they haven't registered anywhere except the phonebook:
Some of the world's leading food manufacturers have begun marketing to children on social networking websites and internet chat programs.
Brands such as McDonald's, Starburst, Haribo and Skittles are using the internet to target children now that new rules from the media regulator Ofcom have made it difficult to advertise during children's…
revere | August 1, 2007The intellectual property issues surrounding H5N1 and pandemic influenza in general continue to deepen and ramify into uncharted territory. Currently the usual suspects are meeting in Singapore to try to resolve issues that have arisen when some developing countries, led by Indonesia, have upset the international flu applecart by refusing to provide viral isolates to the WHO laboratory network, asserting that the practice of supplying "their" isolates to pharmaceutical companies who then make vaccines the originating country can't afford was inequitable and intolerable. I have waded into…
revere | July 31, 2007It's mid summer, so it's time to drag out what we say each summer about spraying for West Nile Virus. First, why we have to say it:
Sacramento County authorities plan to launch a mass aerial-spraying campaign to combat the West Nile virus on Monday.
Mosquito control officials will spray insecticide over 55,000 acres of urban neighborhoods north of the American River. About 375,000 people live in the area.
Last week, county health officials announced that two people have contracted the virus, and West Nile had reached an epidemic rate in the region's mosquitoes.
"We are seeing infected…
revere | July 31, 2007One reason Helen Branswell is such a good flu reporter is she has the best contacts. Of course this is a chicken-and-egg proposition, because she has the best contacts because she is the best flu reporter. She gets it right and she explains it the way it was told to her. [By the way, I am not on her payroll. In fact she is uncomfortable about being praised. But I don't do it for her sake. She doesn't need it anyway. My motive is to show other reporters what good flu reporting is and encourage them to do the same. And there are a number of other excellent reporters, which I try to acknowledge…
revere | July 30, 2007When it comes to controversial reports, one that said it would be good to include combatting widespead disease as an element in foreign policy would hardly seem to qualify. And ordinary person might be forgiven for thinking that was already something that was considered. You'd think. But then you'd think a lot of things that wouldn't be true, for example, that if you were going to start a major war you'd have thought it through pretty carefully. Back to global health:
The draft report itself, in language linking public health problems with violence and other social ills, says "we cannot…
revere | July 30, 2007I don't know what to say about this, except it appears at this point to implicate theuse of slave labor in the construction of the US Embassy in Baghdad, aided, abetted and with the knowledge of the US State Department (hat tip Boingboing) . You decide:
The US State Department is denying the claims of occupational health and safety violations while at the same time saying they can't control how foreign laborers are treated:
"At this time our reach does not extend to third-country hiring practices," said William Moser, the deputy assistant secretary for acquisitions. (Washington Post via…