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FEBRUARY 2008
NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE IGNORES
NATURAL OPTIONS
NATURAL NEWS In an article
included in the latest edition of Cancer Monthly's free newsletter
CancerWire, researchers analyzed statistics obtained through
the National Cancer Institute in order to gain a clearer perspective
on what type of cancer research is being undertaken in the country.
. .
The authors found that
of the 7,080 clinical trials for cancer currently ongoing, over
3,000 are focused on chemotherapy -- a treatment that already
has over 50 years of research to its credit with relatively little
practical return on investment. Of the remaining trials, over
2,000 were focused on more advanced biological treatments such
as anti-angiogenesis drugs, which work to cut off the blood supply
to tumors.
In all, only 123 of the
trials deal with any type of alternative or complementary treatment.
"These 123 represent only 1.7% of the total and included
trials of various foods, herbs and modalities such as: soy, ginger,
Valerian, Curcumin, acupuncture, Reiki, meditation, garlic, Green
tea, and Tai Chi," the authors state.. . .
"The overwhelming
majority of these trials examined questions that did not focus
on whether these approaches alone improved survivability from
cancer," the authors report. What this means is that the
treatments were actually being evaluated not as treatments, but
as adjunctive therapies to improve the rate and intensity of
symptoms among those patients already undergoing conventional
therapy.
Of the 7,080 clinical
trials for cancer currently underway in the U.S., only three
focus on natural alternative methods of treating the disease.
PSYCHIATRIST SAYS WE'RE TOO DOWN ON DEPRESSION
BBC - A leading psychiatrist says that
depression is not a human defect at all, but a defense mechanism
that in its mild and moderate forms can force a healthy reassessment
of personal circumstances.
Dr Paul Keedwell, an expert on mood disorders
at the Institute of Psychiatry, argues all people are vulnerable
to depression in the face of stress to varying degrees, and always
have been.
The fact it has survived so long - and
not been eradicated by evolution - indicates it has helped the
human race become stronger. . .
Aristotle believed depression to be of
great value because of the insights it could bring. There is
also an increased empathy in people who have or have had depression,
he says, because they become more attuned to other people's suffering.
. .
The Banda tribe in Uganda calls it "illness
of thought" and those affected are allowed time out from
the group, a concession not extended to many with the condition
in the UK.
The high and rising incidence in the UK
and US - compared to countries like Brazil and Mexico - could
be due to the breakdown of family bonds and the fragmentation
of society. And compared to past decades, there are increased
expectations of success.
Dr Keedwell says his theory does not cover
severe depression, which is an illness accompanied by a catatonic
lack of energy, cannot be worked through
WE ONLY HAVE A BILLION YEARS TO GET IT RIGHT
SCIENTIFIC BLOGGING - University of Sussex
astronomers predict that the Earth will be swallowed up by the
Sun unless the Earth's orbit can be altered - but we have about
7.6 billion years to do it. Dr Robert Smith, Emeritus Reader
in Astronomy, said his team previously calculated that the Earth
would escape ultimate destruction, although be battered and burnt
to a cinder, but they did not take into account the effect of
the drag caused by the outer atmosphere of the dying Sun. . .
Life on Earth will have disappeared long
before 7.6 billion years, however. Scientists have shown that
the Sun's slow expansion will cause the temperature at the surface
of the Earth to rise. Oceans will evaporate, and the atmosphere
will become laden with water vapor, which (like carbon dioxide)
is a very effective greenhouse gas. Eventually, the oceans will
boil dry and the water vapor will escape into space. In a billion
years from now the Earth will be a very hot, dry and uninhabitable
ball.
Can anything be done to prevent this fate?
Professor Smith points to a remarkable scheme proposed by a team
at Santa Cruz University, who suggest harnessing the gravitational
effects of a close passage by a large asteroid to "nudge"
the Earth's orbit gradually outwards away from the encroaching
Sun. A suitable passage every 6000 years or so would be enough
to keep the Earth out of trouble and allow life to survive for
at least 5 billion years, and possibly even to survive the Sun's
red giant phase.
OF MEDICATIONS AND MASSACRES
SAM SMITH - Once again, in the case of
the North Illinois University killings, there is a possible link
to medications - reportedly anti-depressants. And, once again,
media and officials are downplaying it. In this case, the reported
situation is that the killer stopped using his meds a few weeks
before the massacre, but this statement by a police official
does not qualify as serious inquiry. For example, if there was
actually some connection, it could have been because:
- Some people have extremely violent reactions
when they stop using the drugs. If so, what steps need to be
taken to avoid this?
- The drugs had altered the killer's brain
in some way that not only contributed to the violence but got
him to give up taking the drugs.
Of course, there may be no connection at
all, but - as pointed out here in the past - the use of anti-depressants
and similar drugs is so prevalent that one need not have more
than a miniscule chance of violent reactions to have major consequences.
While there are no answers at present,
we do know this: neither medicine nor the media seems to care
much.
Medicine is part science and part gambling.
That's what all the small print on your prescriptions is about.
We need to look at the odds more closely.
ABOUT A QUARTER OF WOMEN, 11% OF MEN
REPORT SUFFERING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
MSNBC - About a quarter of U.S. women suffer
domestic violence, U.S. health officials reported, with ongoing
health problems that one activist likened to the effects of living
in a war zone. Some men also experience domestic violence, a
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found.
The CDC said 23.6 percent of women and
11.5 percent of men reported being a victim of what it called
"intimate partner violence" at some time in their lives.
The CDC defined this as threatened, attempted
or completed physical or sexual violence or emotional abuse by
a spouse, former spouse, current or former boyfriend or girlfriend
or a dating partner. The CDC estimates that 1,200 women are killed
and 2 million injured in domestic violence annually. . .
Black women were more likely to report
domestic violence than whites or Hispanics, but it was most frequent
among multiracial, American Indian and Alaska native women. Women
of all income and education levels suffer such abuse, although
it was more frequent among the poorest and those who attended
but did not graduate from college.
"Perhaps one of the factors at play
here is the high prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses,
and dating violence," Michele Black, a CDC epidemiologist
who helped write the agency's report, said in a telephone interview.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23056009
JANUARY 2008
STUDY: NEARLY A QUARTER OF GENES CONTRIBUTE TO
BODY WEIGHT
SCIENTIFIC BLOGGING - Genetics Researchers
from the Monell Chemical Senses Center have attempted to count
the number of genes that contribute to obesity and body weight
- and it isn't a pretty number.
The findings suggest that over 6,000 genes,
almost 25 percent of the genome, could help determine an individual's
body weight.
"Reports describing the discovery
of a new 'obesity gene' have become common in the scientific
literature and also the popular press," notes Monell behavioral
geneticist Michael G. Tordoff, PhD, an author on the study. "Our
results suggest that each newly discovered gene is just one of
the many thousands that influence body weight, so a quick fix
to the obesity problem is unlikely.". . .
Tordoff comments, "It is interesting
that there are 10 times more genes that increase body weight
than decrease it, which might help explain why it is easier to
gain weight than lose it."
DECEMBER 2007
REPORT DOCUMENTS LINK BETWEEN BOOZING AND UNSAFE
SEX, SUGGESTS FREE CONDOMS AT CLUBS AND IN TAXIS
BBC - Free condoms should be given away
in pubs, clubs and taxis to reduce the levels of unwanted pregnancies
and sex infections, experts say. Research by the University of
Southampton found strong links between binge drinking and unsafe
sex. The poll of 520 people attending sexual health clinics found
76% said they had unprotected sex due to drinking.
And those with sex infections drank 40%
more on average, the International Journal of STD and Aids reported.
In total, only a sixth of those quizzed said they always had
safe sex with a new partner. . .
Journal editor Professor Wallace Dinsmore
said: "The young people interviewed in this study frequently
said that better access to condoms at the time and place they
were needed would have enabled them to practise safer sex. Young
people can get free condoms from their GPs, family planning and
GU [sexual health] clinics but it might make more sense to give
condoms away in pubs, clubs and taxis."
DRUG DENIAL IN MASS KILLINGS (CONT'D)
OUR PIECE on the possible connection between
prescription behavioral drugs and mass slayings stirred up a
lot of correspondence pro and con, with the latter missing a
key point: we didn't blame the drugs, we blamed officials for
not investigating their possible role and the media for ignoring
it. As we pointed out, a drug that works for a million people
but causes violence or suicide in just one percent means 10,000
people who could kill themselves or others.
Speaking of which. . .
ABC NEWS - It was the first, anguished
thought that sprung to the mind of the mother of the Omaha mall
sniper Robert Hawkins when she realized her son was the killer.
. . Rodriguez said her son's life had been a challenge from the
start. She divorced Hawkins' father when the boy was 3-years-old,
she said, and by 5 he was taking prescription Ritalin and Zoloft.
. .
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3994022&page=1
MASS KILLINGS AND DRUG DENIAL
ANOTHER TEENAGER, another mass killing,
another round of totally predictable reactions: flags at half-mast,
outrage, tightened security, a statement from the White House.
And one other thing: virtually no mention
by police, media or politicians of the possible role of behavioral
drugs in the killing.
This despite the fact that such drugs appear
in the background - albeit well hidden by the media - in just
about every one of these mass killing stories including the latest.
Why is there this drug denial? A number
of reasons, including the fact that blaming it on the guns is
a lot easier, a mass brain drain achieved by Big Pharma in public
discussions of such matters and the uncomfortable possibility
that drugs that have helped millions might also cause a much
smaller but significant number of people to do bizarrely violent
things.
The pharmaceutical, medical and media industries
have trained us to acquiesce to something called "acceptable
risk." Yet we should be leery of letting others determine
what the acceptable risk of our own death or illness is as they
may not have the same vested interest in it as we do.
Let's consider the example of anti-depressants.
Let's assume there is only a one percent chance of a violent
or otherwise serious adverse reaction. Sounds small, but it means
that if one million people are successfully taking the drug,
about 10,000 may be potential Omaha shooters or have some other
adverse reaction. Ten million prescriptions and you have a population
the size of South Bend, Indiana or Cambridge, Massachusetts at
risk to themselves or to others.
At present, we are unable to even discuss
this anomaly. Admittedly it is confusing, frustrating and contradictory
to have a drug that is both a salivation and a major danger,
but we do no one a favor by pretending the problem doesn't exist.
NATION, MAY 2001 - While many explanations
have been proposed for the epidemic of rampage killings, one
that has not been given much attention in the media is the possible
involvement of psychotropic medications, particularly selective
serotonin-reuptake inhibitors such as fluoxetine (Prozac). Dr.
Julian Whitaker, writing in the March 2001 issue of Health and
Healing, calls attention to the fact that an uncomfortably large
proportion of the people who have gone on shooting sprees were
all taking Prozac or related drugs. A 42-year-old software tester
from Massachusetts was, according to Whitaker, taking Prozac
when he killed seven of his coworkers. One of the teenage murderers
from Columbine High School, and the man who killed seven people
at a Kentucky printing plant, were taking Prozac or similar drugs.
And Prozac was found in the car of the Atlanta day-trader who
murdered his wife and children and then killed or wounded 22
people at two brokerage firms.
While it could be argued that the deranged
psyches that led these people to violent acts preceded their
use of SSRIs, it is possible that the side effects of the drugs
played a role in their murderous rages. Whitaker cites a study
by Dr. David Healy, showing that when people without mental illness
were given the SSRI drug sertraline (Zoloft), 20% became suicidal.
There has also been a long-held suspicion that Prozac causes
some people to become obsessed with killing themselves. The hall-of-fame
singer Del Shannon, whose 1961 smash hit Runaway was number one
on the charts for eight weeks, shot himself in the head in 1990,
15 days after starting Prozac. According to his wife, Shannon
was, at the time, an emotionally healthy individual who had been
prescribed the drug to help him through a period of relatively
minor stress. Abby Hoffman, the political radical and founder
of the Youth International Party, also committed suicide shortly
after starting Prozac.
A drug-induced obsession with violence
could lead not only to suicide, but, for some personality types,
to violence against others. It is noteworthy that certain drugs
used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder also affect serotonin
reuptake. It should not, therefore, be surprising if some people
develop obsessive thoughts when their serotonin metabolism is
"messed with." . . .
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH, 2007
- Specific variations in two genes are linked to suicidal thinking
that sometimes occurs in people taking the most commonly prescribed
class of antidepressants, according to a large study led by scientists
at the Institute of Mental Health. Depending on the particular
mix inherited, these versions increased the likelihood of such
thoughts from 2- to15-fold, the study found. About 1 percent
of adult patients were deemed to be at high genetic risk, 41
percent at elevated risk and 58 percent at lower risk.
If confirmed, the findings may hold promise
for genetic testing, as more such markers are identified. . .
. Overall, about 6 percent of 1,915 patients with depression
reported that they started to have suicidal thoughts while taking
an antidepressant. This rate soared to 36 percent among the few
patients with both of the suspect gene versions; 59 percent of
the patients who had suicidal thoughts had at least one of the
versions. . .
Earlier studies had shown that about 4
percent of youth treated with antidepressants experience suicidal
thinking compared with about 2 percent of those taking placebos.
WIKIPEDIA - Over the years there have been
many accusations by patients and their families of SSRIs causing
suicidal ideation and aggressive (or homicidal) behavior. The
scientific evidence supporting this claim has been criticized
by drug advocates, but alternative medicine sites often claim
that patients committed suicide or engaged in aggressive and/or
criminal acts using SSRIs. Manufacturers of SSRIs historically
have vehemently denied any such link and have always blamed the
disease rather than the treatment. However, evidence from case
studies, epidemiological studies, experimental research, and
theory supports the view that SSRIs increase suicide risk for
some patients.
In the United States there is a required
box warning for suicide risk in children. In the UK, all "antidepressant"
medications except Prozac have been banned for people under 18.
In late 2004 the first U.S. black box warning was added which
applied only to children 12 and under. Recently experts recommended
expanding the warning to adults. In general the risk of suicide
is twice as great when taking an SSRI regardless of the type
of diagnosis or whether the patient was considered a healthy
volunteer for trial purposes.
On Dec 13, 2006, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration
advisory panel recommended that "black-box" warnings
on SSRIs be raised from 18 to 25 years old. The FDA is not obliged
to follow the recommendations of its advisory committees but
usually does.
THE RISK OF RISK ASSESSMENT
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
- At least since 2003, and especially after hurricane Katrina
hit, the White House has broadly attempted to control which climate
scientists could speak with reporters, as well as editing scientists'
congressional testimony on climate science and key legal opinions,
according to a new report by a House committee. "The Bush
Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate
climate change science and mislead policy makers and the public
about the dangers of global warming," said the report, which
is the result of a 16-month probe by the Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform. "The White House exerted unusual
control over the public statements of federal scientists on climate
change issues."
ISRAELI STUDY SAYS REGULAR MOBILE USE INCREASES
TUMOR RISK
AFP - Regular use of mobile telephones
increases the risk of developing tumours, a new scientific study
by Israeli researchers and published in the American Journal
of Epidemiology revealed. An extract of the report seen by Israel's
Yedoit Aharonot newspaper put the risk of developing a parotid
gland tumor nearly 50 percent higher for frequent mobile phone
users - more than 22 hours a month. The risk was still higher
if users clamped the phone to the same ear, did not use hands
- free devices or were in rural areas.
NOVEMBER 2007
BRAZIL 'REMARKABLE' SUCCESS WITH AIDS
REFLECTS TOUGH STAND WITH PHARMA CORPS
GARY DUFFY, BBC - Bargaining with pharmaceutical
firms to bring down the price of Aids drugs and producing cheap
generic versions has saved Brazil $1bn, a study has shown. Infection
rates in the Latin American country have been kept at a similar
level to the US, the report finds. And more than 180,000 Brazilians
have access to Aids treatment.
Brazil's achievement is described as "remarkable",
in the study published by researchers at the Harvard School of
Public Health in the United States. . . In 1996 it became the
first developing country to commit to providing free and universal
access to Aids drugs. . .
By threatening to produce cheaper generic
versions of existing drugs, the government has repeatedly persuaded
companies to reduce their prices. Earlier this year Brazil broke
the patent on the Aids drug Efavirenz and decided to import a
cheaper version from India.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/americas/7093809.stm
CALORIE CREEP FOUND IN POPULAR FOODS
FRAN ABRAMS, GUARDIAN, UK - Fast food,
fizzy drinks and larger portion sizes have all been blamed for
rising levels of obesity. But figures obtained by the Guardian
suggest changes to the recipes of many of our favorite foods
could be to blame. Of a dozen leading brands for which we were
able to compare nutritional information from a decade or more
ago with today, nine showed an increase in calories, sugar or
saturated fat. Kellogg's Rice Krispies contain 36 more calories
per 100g than in 1983 - an increase of about 10% - while Kraft
Dairylea Triangles contain 15 more calories per 100g than in
2001, a 7% rise. While cheese used to be their main ingredient,
followed by skimmed milk, whey and butter, it now comes third
and accounts for just 16%.
Häagen-Dazs Belgian Chocolate ice-cream
- always marketed as a dangerous pleasure - contains 16% more
calories than in 1994, and 26% more fat. Even products marketed
as healthy options are not immune to this "calorie creep".
Jordans Original Crunchy bars have 16% more calories than in
1986, and more fat. Experts said the findings, derived from a
comparison of current labels with old ones stored in museum archives,
fitted a pattern whereby manufacturers remove salt and some types
of fat from food for health reasons, only to replace them with
sugar and more fat.
CDC STUDY BLOWS HOLES IN WEIGHT MYTH
[This is not new data. Some of it has
been noted by the Review. The CDC still, however, continues to
use the mathematical illogical BMI as a standard, which assumes
that we are two dimensional rather than 3 dimensional creatures.
This creates a substantial bias against taller people. The formula
also doesn't consider genetic differences, body type, or percentage
of fat]
INDEPENDENT, UK - After years of anti-obesity
public health advice, a major new study causes an outcry by concluding
that the overweight live longer. A startling new study by medical
researchers in the United States has caused consternation among
public health professionals by suggesting that, contrary to conventional
wisdom, being overweight might actually be beneficial for health.
The study, published in the respected Journal
of the American Medical Association, runs counter to almost all
other advice to consumers by saying that carrying a little extra
flab – though not too much – might help people to live
longer.
Struggling dieters, used to being told
that staying thin is the best prescription for longevity, are
likely to be confused this morning if not heartily relieved.
While being a bit overweight may indeed increase your chances
of dying from diabetes and kidney disease – conditions that
are often linked with one another – the same is not true
for a host of other ailments including cancer and heart disease,
the report suggests.
In fact, scanning the whole gamut of diseases
that could curtail your life, being over weight is, on balance,
a good thing. The bottom line, the scientists say, is that modestly
overweight people demonstrate a lower death rate than their peers
who are underweight, obese or – most surprisingly –
normal weight.
The findings will be hard to dismiss. They
are the result of analysis of decades of data by federal researchers
at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta,
Georgia. This is not a study from a fringe group of scientists
or sponsored by a fast-food chain.
Being overweight, the report asserts in
its conclusions, "was associated with significantly decreased
all-cause mortality overall". . .
That the CDC has even published the report
and thus threatened to muffle years of propaganda as to the health
benefits of staying slender has enraged some medical experts.
. .
The scientists are careful to stress that
the benefits they are describing are limited to those people
who are merely overweight – which generally means being
no more than 30 pounds heavier than is recommended for your height
– and certainly do not carry over to those who fall into
the category of obese.
OCTOBER 2007
WATCHING TV MAY RAISE KIDS' BLOOD PRESSURE,
WEIGHT
DAILY MAIL, UK - Children
who watch more than two hours of TV a day are twice as likely
to be obese and suffer high blood pressure, say researchers.
A U.S. study found those glued to the screen for between two
and four hours a day were 2.5 times more likely to have hypertension,
which can lead to heart disease and stroke in later life. That
increased to 3.3 times the risk for children watching TV for
four hours or more each day, says a report today in the American
Journal of Preventive Medicine. The study also found that children
tended to be more seriously overweight the more time they spent
watching TV.
SEPTEMBER 2007
THE MATING HABITS OF LADY BUGS
 VIDEO
AUGUST 2007
TOO MANY BEING DIAGNOSED AS DEPRESSED?
SCOTSAMN - Doctors are over-diagnosing
depression, resulting in thousands of people wrongly being prescribed
drugs to treat it, an expert warns. Professor Gordon Parker says
the current threshold for what is considered to be "clinical
depression" is too low and he fears that it might lead to
the condition becoming less credible. He argues that the problem
has been reduced to the "absurd" and we risk medicalizing
normal human distress and viewing any expression of depression
as necessary of treatment.
Prof Parker, a psychiatrist based at Australia's
University of New South Wales, says it is "normal to be
depressed" and points to his own cohort study, which followed
242 teachers. After 15 years of research, 79 per cent of respondents
had already met the symptom and duration criteria for major,
minor or very mild "subsyndromal" depression.
Anti-depressants have a range of side-effects.
About 25 per cent of patients have problems when stopping them
and studies have found that they can cause a rise in suicidal
thoughts and actions. Patients also report a loss of libido.
Prof Parker blames the over-diagnosis of
clinical depression on a change in its categorization, in 1980,
which saw the condition split into "major" and "minor"
disorders. He says that the simplicity and gravitas of "major
depression" gave it credit with clinicians, while its descriptive
profile set a low threshold.
Criterion A required a person to be in
a "dysphoric mood" for two weeks, which included feeling
"down in the dumps". Criterion B involved appetite
change, sleep disturbance, drop in libido and fatigue.
This model was then extended to include
what Prof Parker describes as a seeming subliminal condition,
"subsyndromal depression".
Writing in the British Medical Journal,
Prof Parker said: "It is normal to feel depressed. A low
threshold for diagnosing clinical depression risks treating normal
emotional states as illness. . .
A recent study in the United States found
that as many as one-quarter of people currently labelled as depressed
were reacting normally to stressful events. It suggested that
even psychiatrists regularly miss the broad picture. Some experts
say that once patients tick enough boxes for symptoms, then they
get diagnosed as depressed even though they may just be sad.
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1300982007
FIRST IN WAR, LAST IN PEACE AND 42ND
IN LIFE EXPECTANCY
AP - Americans are living longer than ever,
but not as long as people in 41 other countries. For decades,
the United States has been slipping in international rankings
of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition
and lifestyles. Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan
and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.
. .
A baby born in the United States in 2004
will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks
42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international
numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from
the National Center for Health Statistics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6843591,00.html
WIDELY USED PLASTIC CHEMICAL MAY BE
CAUSING REPRODUCTIVE DISORDERS
MARLA CONE LOS ANGELES TIMES - In an unusual
effort targeting a single chemical, several dozen scientists
on Thursday issued a strongly worded statement warning that an
estrogen-like compound in plastic is likely to be causing an
array of serious reproductive disorders in people.
The compound, bisphenol A, is one of the
highest-volume chemicals in the world and has found its way into
the bodies of most human beings.
Used to make hard plastic, BPA can seep
from beverage containers and other materials. It is used in all
polycarbonate plastic baby bottles, as well as other rigid plastic
items, including large water- cooler containers, sports bottles
and microwave-oven dishes, along with canned-food liners and
some dental sealants for children.
The scientists, including four from federal
health agencies, reviewed about 700 studies before concluding
that people are exposed to levels of the chemical exceeding those
that harm lab animals. Infants and fetuses are most vulnerable,
they said. . . No studies so far have looked for effects in people.
http://tinyurl.com/2e4ygy
OVERWEIGHT CHILDREN STIGMATIZED BY PEERS,
TEACHERS, PARENTS
MSNBC - Overweight children are stigmatized
by their peers as early as age 3 and even face bias from their
parents and teachers, giving them a quality of life comparable
to people with cancer, a new analysis concludes.
Youngsters who report teasing, rejection,
bullying and other types of abuse because of their weight are
two to three times more likely to report suicidal thoughts as
well as to suffer from other health issues such as high blood
pressure and eating disorders, researchers said.
"The stigmatization directed at obese
children by their peers, parents, educators and others is pervasive
and often unrelenting," researchers with Yale University
and the University of Hawaii at Manatoa wrote in the July issue
of Psychological Bulletin. . . .
Children as young as 3 are more likely
to consider overweight peers to be mean, stupid, ugly and sloppy.
A growing body of research shows that parents
and educators are also biased against heavy children. In a 1999
study of 115 middle and high school teachers, 20 percent said
they believed obese people are untidy, less likely to succeed
and more emotional.
"Perhaps the most surprising source
of weight stigma toward youths is parents," the report says.
Even parents tease Several studies showed
that overweight girls got less college financial support from
their parents than average weight girls. Other studies showed
teasing by parents was common.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19725025/from/ET/
THE ECONOMICS OF GOOD HEALTH
BRYDIE RAGAN, YES! MAGAZINE - In 1967,
British epidemiologist Michael Marmot began to study the relationship
between poverty and health. He showed that each step up or down
the socio-economic ladder correlates with increasing or decreasing
health.
Over time, research linking health and
wealth became more nuanced. It turns out that "what matters
in determining mortality and health in a society is less the
overall wealth of that society and more how evenly wealth is
distributed. The more equally wealth is distributed, the better
the health of that society," according to the editors of
the April 20, 1996 issue of the British Medical Journal. In that
issue, American epidemiologist George Kaplan and his colleagues
showed that the disparity of income in each of the individual
U.S. states, rather than the average income per state, predicted
the death rate.
"The People's Epidemiologists,"
an article in the March/April 2006 issue of Harvard Magazine,
takes the analysis a step further. Fundamental social forces
such as "poverty, discrimination, stressful jobs, marketing-driven
global food companies, substandard housing, dangerous neighborhoods
and so on" actually cause individuals to become ill, according
to the studies cited in the article. Nancy Krieger, the epidemiologist
featured in the article, has shown that poverty and other social
determinants are as formidable as hostile microbes or personal
habits when it comes to making us sick. This may seem obvious,
but it is a revolutionary idea: the public generally believes
that poor lifestyle choices, faulty genes, infectious agents,
and poisons are the major factors that give rise to illness.
Krieger is one of many prominent researchers
making connections between health and inequality. Michael Marmot
recently explained in his book, The Status Syndrome, that the
experience of inequality impacts health, making the perception
of our place in the social hierarchy an important factor. According
to Harvard's Ichiro Kawachi, the distribution of wealth in the
United States has become an "important public health problem."
The claims of Kawachi and his colleagues move public health firmly
into the political arena, where some people don't think it belongs.
But the links between socio-economic status and health are so
compelling that public health researchers are beginning to suggest
economic and political remedies.
Richard Wilkinson, an epidemiologist at
the University of Nottingham, points out that we are not fated
to live in stressful dominance hierarchies that make us sick
-- we can choose to create more egalitarian societies. In his
book, The Impact of Inequality, Wilkinson suggests that employee
ownership may provide a path toward greater equality and consequently
better health.
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/57529/
AMERICAN SCIENCE IS IN TROUBLE
BENNETT GORDON, UTNE - Science in the United
States is in trouble. "The numbers indicate that the American
scientist population is not healthy," writes Marc Zimmer
for Inside Higher Ed, "especially not in comparison to scientists
in other countries." Only 13 percent of US graduate degrees
are in the sciences, as opposed to 40 percent of degrees in Japan,
South Korea, Sweden, and Switzerland. Numbers like these make
Zimmer wonder if the American scientist is quickly becoming "an
endangered species."
The blame for science's drop in popularity,
according to Zimmer, can be squarely placed on a culture that
does not respect the "authority and autonomy of science."
Creationism and other "pseudosciences" are undermining
the institution as a whole, and Americans just don't seem to
care. "There are no modern Einsteins," Zimmer points
out, "gracing the cover of Rolling Stone.". . .
http://www.utne.com/webwatch/2007_307/news/12653-1.html
JUNE 2007
GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE
BODY
MASS OF PLAYBOY CENTERFOLDS
THROUGHOUT HISTORY
MAY 2007
MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS TO BE DONE WITHOUT
PATIENT'S CONSENT
ROB STEIN, WASHINGTON POST - The federal
government is undertaking the most ambitious set of studies ever
mounted under a controversial arrangement that allows researchers
to conduct some kinds of medical experiments without first getting
the patients' permission. The $50 million, five-year project,
which will involve more than 20,000 patients in 11 sites in the
United States and Canada, is designed to improve treatment after
car accidents, shootings, cardiac arrest and other emergencies.
The three studies, organizers say, offer
an unprecedented opportunity to find better ways to resuscitate
people whose hearts suddenly stop, to stabilize patients who
go into shock and to minimize damage from head injuries. Because
such patients are usually unconscious at a time when every minute
counts, it is often impossible to get consent from them or their
families, the organizers say. . .
Some bioethicists say the new research
is more ethical than some of the earlier studies in several ways,
including that patients are not being denied highly effective
therapies. Most patients who receive the current treatments do
not survive. . . But others say that the studies could be done
by finding patients or family members who are in a position to
provide consent, even though that might make such studies more
difficult.
"This just seems like lazy investigators
not wanting to try to get informed consent in situations where
it is difficult to get it, so they say it is impossible,"
said George Annas, a Boston University bioethicist. . .
Annas was particularly disturbed that children
as young as 15 might be included in the research. "Suppose
a 15-year-old child is in the back of a car that is in a terrible
accident," Annas said. "The EMTs arrive and say: 'We
are doing an experiment with two techniques. We think they are
about equal. Is it okay if we flip a coin to see how we treat
your son? Or would you rather we just give him the treatment
we think is best?' Unless you think all parents would have the
EMTs flip a coin, consent here is necessary."
Others are concerned patients may be getting
experimental therapies that could turn out to be inferior to
standard treatments.
http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/4839234.html
ECHOES FROM THE PAST
GINA KOLATA, NY TIMES, 1996
- For the first time in a half century, new Federal regulations
allow investigators to enroll patients in some medical research
studies without their consent. The Food and Drug Administration
regulations, . . . apply only in carefully circumscribed situations.
The patients must have a life-threatening condition, like a severe
head injury, and must be unable to say whether they want to be
part of a study. They would be selected only if it was not feasible
to obtain consent from a relative. Furthermore, the community
in which the research is done must be notified about the study,
and the research design must have been reviewed and approved
by the Food and Drug Administration.
Even the most ardent supporters of the
new regulations say they understand the seriousness of what they
have done. They have repealed a principle that dates back to
the Nuremberg trials of Nazi doctors after World War II, when
American judges were agonizing over rules that might prevent
doctors from ever again using human subjects in horrendous experiments.
The judges wrote a code of ethics, the Nuremberg Code, whose
first principle was that no one should ever be forced to take
part in a medical experiment. "The voluntary consent of
the human subject is essential," they wrote. . .
"It's a fateful step," Jay Katz,
an ethicist and lawyer at Yale University, said in a telephone
interview from Germany, where he was at a conference marking
the 50th anniversary of the Nuremberg doctors' trials. "The
first sentence of the first principle of the Nuremberg Code,"
he said, stated that nothing should be done to human beings without
their consent. And now, he said, "here we are making exceptions."
US HOLOCAUST MUSEUM - During World War
II, a number of German physicians conducted painful and often
deadly experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners
without their consent. Unethical medical experimentation carried
out during the Third Reich may be divided into three categories.
The first category consists of experiments aimed at facilitating
the survival of Axis military personnel. In Dachau, physicians
from the German air force and from the German Experimental Institution
for Aviation conducted high-altitude experiments, using a low-pressure
chamber, to determine the maximum altitude from which crews of
damaged aircraft could parachute to safety. Scientists there
carried out so-called freezing experiments using prisoners to
find an effective treatment for hypothermia. They also used prisoners
to test various methods of making seawater potable.
The second category of experimentation
aimed at developing and testing pharmaceuticals and treatment
methods for injuries and illnesses which German military and
occupation personnel encountered in the field. . . The third
category of medical experimentation sought to advance the racial
and ideological tenets of the Nazi worldview. The most infamous
were the experiments of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. Mengele conducted
medical experiments on twins. He also directed serological experiments
on Roma (Gypsies), as did Werner Fischer at Sachsenhausen, in
order to determine how different "races" withstood
various contagious diseases. The research of August Hirt at Strasbourg
University also intended to establish "Jewish racial inferiority."
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005168
LANCET, 2005 - Patients the world over
need adequate protection from overreaching physicians who use
patients to test experimental drugs and procedures without their
informed consent. Jacques Michel, a retired director of Hadassah
Hospital in Jerusalem who also heads the hospital ethics committee,
triggered an investigation of 39 hospitals by Israel's State
comptroller, the government watchdog.
The findings of non-consensual experiments
conducted primarily on children, the elderly and psychiatric
patients, shocked Israelis. . . The violations were found to
be worst in geriatric, rehabilitation, and psychiatric hospitals,
where some children had their eardrums deliberately pierced so
that a drug could be applied. In another painful procedure, a
needle was used to draw urine from the bladder for testing without
health ministry approval.". . . "Anyone who performs
a medical experiment on someone who doesn't or is unable to give
his informed consent should be tried for physical assault."
A striking difference between this and
similar research scandals at major US
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/07/26.php
WIKIPEDIA - The Tuskegee Study of Untreated
Syphilis in the Negro Male. . . became notorious because it was
conducted without due care to its subjects, and led to major
changes in how patients are protected in clinical studies. Individuals
enrolled in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study did not give informed
consent and were not informed of their diagnosis; instead they
were told they had "bad blood" and could receive free
medical treatment, rides to the clinic, meals and burial insurance
in case of death in return for participating.
In 1932, when the study started, standard
treatments for syphilis were toxic, dangerous, and of questionable
effectiveness. Part of the original goal of the study was to
determine if patients were better off not being treated with
these toxic remedies.
By 1947, penicillin had become the standard
treatment for syphilis. Prior to this discovery, syphilis frequently
led to a chronic, painful and fatal multisystem disease. Rather
than treat all syphilitic subjects with penicillin and close
the study, or split off a control group for testing penicillin;
the Tuskegee scientists withheld penicillin and information about
penicillin, purely to continue to study how the disease spreads
and kills. Participants were also prevented from accessing syphilis
treatment programs that were available to other people in the
area. The study continued until 1972, when a leak to the press
resulted in its termination.
SCORES OF COMMON CHEMICALS CAUSE BREAST
CANCER IN ANIMALS
MARLA CONE, LA TIMES -
More than 200 chemicals - many found in urban air and everyday
consumer products - cause breast cancer in animal tests, according
to a compilation of scientific reports published today. Writing
in a publication of the American Cancer Society, researchers
concluded that reducing exposure to the compounds could prevent
many women from developing the disease. . . Experts say that
family history and genes are responsible for a small percentage
of breast cancer cases but that environmental or lifestyle factors
such as diet are probably involved in the vast majority.
"Overall, exposure to mammary gland
carcinogens is widespread," the researchers wrote in a special
supplement to the journal Cancer. "These compounds are widely
detected in human tissues and in environments, such as homes,
where women spend time.". . .
The researchers named 216 chemicals that
induce breast tumors in animals. Of those, people are highly
exposed to 97, including industrial solvents, pesticides, dyes,
gasoline and diesel exhaust compounds, cosmetics ingredients,
hormones, pharmaceuticals, radiation and a chemical in chlorinated
drinking water. . .Toxicologists say that other mammals, such
as rats and mice, often develop the same tumors as humans do,
and that animal tests are efficient means of testing the effects
of chemicals. Environmental regulators, however, often want conclusive
human data before taking action.. . .
Twenty-nine of the chemicals are produced
in volumes exceeding 1 million pounds annually in the United
States. Seventy-three are present in consumer products or are
food contaminants - 1,4-dioxane in shampoos, for example, or
acrylamide in French fries. Thirty-five are common air pollutants,
25 are in workplaces where at least 5,000 women are employed,
and 10 are food additives, according to the reports.
NEW DRUG BILL STRENGTHENS BIG PHARMA'S
CONTROL OVER FDA
JAMES RIDGEWAY, MOTHER JONES -
Last week was a good week for Big Pharma. Wednesday's passage
in the Senate, 93 votes to 1, of a bill sponsored by Ted Kennedy
has been heralded by some for strengthening the Food and Drug
Administration. In fact, it only serves to tighten the drug companies'
grip on the FDA by allowing the industry to pay for the testing
of its own products, setting up potentially huge conflicts of
interest. At the same time, the Senate helped tighten the drug
companies' grip on the market, blocking the importation of low-cost
drugs from Canada.
It is true that the legislation steps up
regulations on advertising and gives the FDA more authority to
scrutinize drug safety. It also sets up a surveillance scheme
to follow adverse effects of drugs; in theory, this might signal
some change in philosophy in the sense that the FDA will now
look at a drug over its lifetime, not just in the years before
it gets approval. But in practice, the FDA doesn't have the money
or the staff to be an effectively regulator. Instead of giving
the agency the money to do its job, Kennedy's legislation allows
companies to underwrite the paychecks of the regulators after
a drug goes to market - just as pharma "user fees"
now pay for much of the regulation that goes on before a new
drug is approved.
This legislation doesn't even begin to
get at what's really going on in the drug business, where the
big companies are well along with their program to turn doctors
into veritable drug salespeople through an elaborate system of
thinly disguised kickbacks. A brand new example comes courtesy
of the New York Times, which reports on psychiatrists who have
been prescribing an antipsychotic drug called Risperdal in teenagers
- including many who were not suffering from psychosis, but entirely
unrelated disorders such as eating disorders - while also receiving
payments from the drug's maker for speaking engagements.
WHY WE GET SO UPSET ABOUT 9/11 AND VIRGINIA
TECH
BRUCE SCHNEIER - The Virginia Tech massacre
is precisely the sort of event we humans tend to overreact to.
Our brains aren't very good at probability and risk analysis,
especially when it comes to rare occurrences. We tend to exaggerate
spectacular, strange and rare events, and downplay ordinary,
familiar and common ones. There's a lot of research in the psychological
community about how the brain responds to risk but the gist is
this: Our brains are much better at processing the simple risks
we've had to deal with throughout most of our species' existence,
and much poorer at evaluating the complex risks society forces
us face today.
We can see the effects of this all the
time. We fear being murdered, kidnapped, raped and assaulted
by strangers, when it's far more likely that the perpetrator
of such offenses is a relative or a friend. We worry about airplane
crashes and rampaging shooters instead of automobile crashes
and domestic violence - - both far more common.
In the United States, dogs, snakes, bees
and pigs each kill more people per year than sharks. In fact,
dogs kill more humans than any animal except for other humans.
Sharks are more dangerous than dogs, yes, but we're far more
likely to encounter dogs than sharks.
Our greatest recent overreaction to a rare
event was our response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I remember
then - Attorney General John Ashcroft giving a speech in Minnesota
in 2003, and claiming that the fact there were no new terrorist
attacks since 9/11 was proof that his policies were working.
I thought: "There were no terrorist attacks in the two years
preceding 9/11, and you didn't have any policies. What does that
prove?"
What it proves is that terrorist attacks
are very rare, and maybe our reaction wasn't worth the enormous
expense, loss of liberty, attacks on our Constitution and damage
to our credibility on the world stage. Still, overreacting was
the natural thing for us to do. . .
Consider the reaction to another event
from last month: professional baseball player Josh Hancock got
drunk and died in a car crash. As a result, several baseball
teams are banning alcohol in their clubhouses after games. Aside
from this being a ridiculous reaction to an incredibly rare event
(2,430 baseball games per season, 35 people per clubhouse, two
clubhouses per game. And how often has this happened?), it makes
no sense as a solution. Hancock didn't get drunk in the clubhouse;
he got drunk at a bar. But Major League Baseball needs to be
seen as doing something, even if that something doesn't make
sense - - even if that something actually increases risk by forcing
players to drink at bars instead of at the clubhouse, where there's
more control over the practice.
I tell people that if it's in the news,
don't worry about it. The very definition of "news"
is "something that hardly ever happens." It's when
something isn't in the news, when it's so common that it's no
longer news - - car crashes, domestic violence - - that you should
start worrying.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/05/rare_risk_and_o.html
APRIL 2007
STUDY: BOOMERS SEEM LESS HEALTHY THAN
PRECEDING GENERATIONS
ROB STEIN, WASHINGTON POST -
As the first wave of baby boomers edges toward retirement, a
growing body of evidence suggests that they may be the first
generation to enter their golden years in worse health than their
parents. While not definitive, the data sketch a startlingly
different picture than the popular image of health-obsessed workout
fanatics who know their antioxidants from their trans fats and
look 10 years younger than their age.
Boomers are healthier in some important
ways -- they are much less likely to smoke, for example -- but
large surveys are consistently finding that they tend to describe
themselves as less hale and hearty than their forebears did at
the same age. They are more likely to report difficulty climbing
stairs, getting up from a chair and doing other routine activities,
as well as more chronic problems such as high cholesterol, blood
pressure and diabetes. . .
Boomers tend to report more stress than
earlier generations -- from their jobs, their commutes, taking
care of their parents and their kids -- all of which can take
a physical toll, which is compounded by having less support from
extended families and communities, experts say. "People
are working two jobs. They are not sleeping as much. They're
experiencing more job insecurity. They have less time to take
care of themselves. They are more socially isolated," said
Lisa Berkman of the Harvard School of Public Health. . .
When researchers examined the first wave
of baby boomers to enter the study -- 5,030 adults born between
1948 and 1953 -- they were shocked to discover that they appeared
to report poorer health than groups born between 1936 and 1941,
and between 1942 and 1947. . .
It is unclear whether boomers are really
sicker or are simply more health-conscious by dint of being better
educated and having better access to information. They may also
have higher expectations, making them more likely to notice and
complain about aches and pains that earlier generations would
have accepted as just part of getting older. "As they age,
they may be less tolerant of the changes they see -- minor pains,
less stamina, muscle loss and strength," Soldo said. "I
don't just think they are crybabies or whiners. I think there
is a changing definition of what good health means."
But self-reports of health tend to be powerful
predictors of risk of death at any given age, Soldo and others
say.
THOSE HELPING OTHERS HAPPIEST IN THEIR
JOBS
JEANNA BRYNER, LIVE SCIENCE
- Firefighters, the clergy and others with professional jobs
that involve helping or serving people are more satisfied with
their work and overall are happier than those in other professions,
according to results from a national survey.
"The most satisfying jobs are mostly
professions, especially those involving caring for, teaching
and protecting others and creative pursuits," said Tom Smith,
director of the General Social Survey at the National Opinion
Research Center at the University of Chicago.
Across all occupations, on average 47 percent
of those surveyed said they were satisfied with their jobs and
33 percent reported being very happy.
Here are the Top 10 most gratifying jobs
and the percentage of subjects who said they were very satisfied
with the job:
Clergy 87 percent
Firefighters 80 percent
Physical therapists 78 percent
Authors 74 percent
Special education teachers 70 percent
Teachers 69 percent
Education administrators 68 percent
Painters and sculptors 67 percent
Psychologists 67 percent
Security and financial services salespersons
65 percent
Operating engineers 64 percent
Office supervisors 61 percent
A few common jobs in which about 50 percent
of participants reported high satisfaction included: police and
detectives, registered nurses, accountants, and editors and reporters.
. .
"The least satisfying dozen jobs are
mostly low-skill, manual and service occupations, especially
involving customer service and food/beverage preparation and
serving," Smith said.
AUSTRALIAN STUDY FINDS LAWYERS MOST
DEPRESSED
NEWS, AUSTRALIA - Lawyers, insurance brokers
and accountants are among the most depressed workers in Australia,
according to a wide-ranging study. Nearly 16 per cent of lawyers
who responded to the survey displayed "moderate or severe
symptoms of depression" with nearly a third of those using
alcohol and drugs to deal with the problem.
Patent attorneys and insurance underwriters
were the next most likely to suffer from depression, with professional
workers overall having higher levels of symptoms than the general
population.
The survey also found age to be a factor
influencing depression. "The younger professionals have
higher rates of depressive symptoms than older professionals,"
the report by Beyond Blue and Beaton Consulting said.
Nearly 5 per cent of people working at
actuarial firms, which have the seventh highest proportion of
workers suffering from depression, also used drugs and alcohol
to try to combat symptoms.
And about 9 per cent of architects also
reported symptoms of depression.
President of the Law Society of NSW Geoff
Dunlevy said he wasn't surprised by the results of the study.
"For a long time, the Society has receieved anecdotal evidence
from solicitors regarding the prevalence of depression,"
Mr Dunlevy said. "Law, unfortunately, is a high-pressure
profession.". . .
More than 17,000 people responded to the
survey with more than 7500 of respondents working in the ten
professions identified as being worst for depression.
1. Law 2. Patent Attorney 3. Insurance
underwriting 4. Accounting 5. IT services 6. Architectural 7.
Actuarial Firm 8. Engineering 9. Consulting 10. Insurance brokering
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21604172-2,00.html
DANCING IN THE STREETS: A HISTORY OF
COLLECTIVE JOY
BARBARA EHRENREICH
[Excerpt on the rise of depression]
"Historians of European culture are
in substantial agreement," Lionel Trilling wrote in 1972,
"that in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, something
like a mutation in human nature took place." This change
has been called the rise of subjectivity or the discovery of
the inner self and since it can be assumed that all people, in
all historical periods, have some sense of selfhood and capacity
for subjective reflection, we are really talking about an intensification,
and a fairly drastic one, of the universal human capacity to
face the world as an autonomous "I", separate from,
and largely distrustful of, "them". . . .
Historians infer this psychological shift
from a number of concrete changes occurring in the early modern
period, first and most strikingly among the urban bourgeoisie,
or upper middle class. Mirrors in which to examine oneself become
popular among those who can afford them, along with self-portraits
(Rembrandt painted more than 50 of them) and autobiographies
in which to revise and elaborate the image that one has projected
to others. In bourgeois homes, public spaces that guests may
enter are differentiated, for the first time, from the private
spaces - bedrooms, for example - in which one may retire to let
down one's guard and truly "be oneself". More decorous
forms of entertainment - plays and operas requiring people to
remain immobilized, each in his or her separate seat - begin
to provide an alternative to the promiscuously interactive and
physically engaging pleasures of carnival. . .
The notion of a self hidden behind one's
appearance and portable from one situation to another is usually
attributed to the new possibility of upward mobility. In medieval
culture, you were what you appeared to be - a peasant, a man
of commerce or an aristocrat - and any attempt to assume another
status would have been regarded as rank deception. But in the
late 16th century, upward mobility was beginning to be possible
or at least imaginable, making "deception" a widespread
way of life. . .
If depression was one result of the new
individualism, the usual concomitant of depression - anxiety
- was surely another. It takes effort, as well as a great deal
of watchfulness, to second-guess other people's reactions and
plot one's words and gestures accordingly. . .
Urbanisation and the rise of a competitive,
market-based economy favoured a more anxious and isolated sort
of person - potentially both prone to depression and distrustful
of communal pleasures. Calvinism provided a transcendent rationale
for this shift, intensifying the isolation and practically institutionalising
depression as a stage in the quest for salvation. At the level
of "deep, underlying psychological change", both depression
and the destruction of festivities could be described as seemingly
inevitable consequences of the broad process known as modernisation.
. .
http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,2048204,00.html
ORDER
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0805057234/progressiverevieA/
MAR 2007
POSSIBLE HEALTH SECRET: COCOA
ROGER HIGHFIELD, TELEGRAPH - The
health benefits of one ingredient of cocoa are so striking that
it "may rival penicillin and anesthesia in terms of importance
to public health". The ingredient - epicatechin - can reduce
the risk from diseases such as stroke and heart failure, Norman
Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School,
told the journal Chemistry & Industry. Prof Hollenberg has
spent years studying the benefits of cocoa drinking on the Kuna
people on the San Blas islands off the coast of Panama. They
drink up to 40 cups of cocoa a week. Among the Kuna, he found
that the risk of stroke, heart failure, cancer and diabetes was
reduced to less than 10 per cent. Advertisement. "Epicatechin
could potentially get rid of four of the five most common diseases
in the western world," Prof Hollenberg told the journal.
The cocoa that the Kuna drink is homemade and very rich in chemicals
called - flavanols, notably epicatechin - which is known to have
cardio-vascular benefits. Flavanols are removed from commercial
cocoas because they tend to have a bitter taste.
FEBRUARY 2007
AFTER 200 YEARS, AMERICANS NO LONGER
TALLEST IN WORLD
MEGAN SVOBODA, DAILY NEBRASKAN - Americans
are no longer the tallest people on Earth. That honor now goes
to Europeans, including the Dutch, Norwegians, Danish and Germans.
According to the Annals of Human Biology, Europe has overtaken
the United States in the height department, a distinction the
Americans had for the last 200 years.
In the United States, the current average height of an adult
man is 5 feet, 9 inches, and for an adult woman, it is 5 feet,
3 inches, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the Netherlands, though, men average 6 feet tall while the
average woman is 5 feet, 7 inches, according to the Leiden University
Medical Centre in the Netherlands. Though there are many reasons
for the disparity in height, the Annals of Human Biology suggest
the shift in growth trends might have something to do with the
amount of junk food Americans consume in comparison to Europeans.
http://www.uwire.com/content//topnews022707002.html
STUDY FINDS LONG TV WATCHING ASSOCIATED
WITH MANY ILLS
FERGUS SHEPPARD, SCOTSMAN - A new report
claims that Britain's love affair with television is causing
far more damage - both physically and psychologically - than
previously thought. The findings have been compiled by Dr Aric
Sigman, a psychologist who has previously written about the effects
of television on the viewer. His report, analyzing 35 different
scientific studies carried out into television and its effect
on the viewer, has identified 15 negative effects he claims can
be blamed on watching television.
Among the most disturbing findings are
the links he claims to have found between long hours of television
viewing and cancer, autism and Alzheimer's. . .
His report, published in the respected
Biologist magazine, claims the problem with television lies in
the length of time we spend in front of the set. For most people,
watching television now takes up more time than any other single
activity except work and sleep. . .
Dr Sigman claims the battery of ill effects
takes its toll on both body and mind. He claims the effect on
the brain is not stimulating, but almost narcotic, numbing the
areas of the brain stimulated by, for example, reading.
The influence of modern editing techniques
- for example the rapid "jump cuts" - also plays its
part. Attention spans fracture while at the same time, according
to Dr Sigman, the brain is programmed to reward itself with the
neurotransmitter dopamine for being able to cope with an onslaught
of novelty on screen.
The litany of bodily ills Dr Sigman links
to television makes for equally bleak reading. He associates
it not only with obesity, but Alzheimer's, diabetes and even
the breakdown of cells capable of healing wounds. Dr Sigman claims
a significant body of research now points to television as a
key factor in reducing levels of the hormone melatonin, the substance
that regulates the body's internal clock and also governs the
speed at which puberty develops.
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=265852007
WHY YOU DON'T WANT TO RUSH TO MAKE A
VACCINE MANDATORY
REUTERS - The U.S.
Food and Drug Administration said it was notifying health-care
providers and consumers about reports of some 28 cases of infants
suffering a serious bowel condition after receiving Merck &
Co's new vaccine against the Rotavirus. The FDA said it was not
immediately clear how many of the 28 reported cases were caused
by the vaccine. It said the condition, known as intussusception,
can occur in the absence of vaccination. Some 3.5 million doses
of Merck's Rota Teq have been distributed in the United States
since its approval last February, the FDA said.
RISING HEALTH COSTS, IMMIGRATION RULES
DRIVING HEALTHCARE UNDERGROUND
VIJI SUNDARAM, NEW AMERICA MEDIA - Rising health care costs and crackdowns on undocumented
immigrants are making many U.S. residents seek medical care from
alternative health practitioners -- some of whom have dubious
credentials. . .
"This is the richest country in the
world and yet, millions of people here don't have access to health
care," lamented Dr. Arshia Arjumand who, until recently,
worked at the Tri-City Health Care Center in Fremont, Calif.
"There's something worse than a Third World country within
the U.S."
Community clinics such as the one where
Dr. Arjumand worked are often the only primary health care facilities
available to the underinsured and the uninsured. And even though
these clinics never ask their clients about their legal status,
not every immigrant knows this. Often, fear of being reported
"keeps them from going to community clinics," Arjumand
said.
With federal officials increasingly cracking
down on undocumented workers, immigrant rights activists expect
those fears to increase. Last November, under a new federal policy,
the automatic entitlement to health insurance through Medicaid
was taken away from children born in the United States to illegal
immigrants. And under the health care plan Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
unveiled last month, undocumented residents will not be covered.
"You can't blame them for being scared," Arjumand said.
Chinese immigrants, and increasingly others,
flock to traditional health care practitioners in acupressure
and acupuncture clinics, as well as to herbalists.
"The people who come here are mostly
uninsured or underinsured," said acupuncturist Pamela Olton,
who is a clinic instructor at the American College of Traditional
Chinese Medicine on Connecticut Avenue in San Francisco. . .
Some Latino immigrants in the San Francisco
Bay Area are drawn to the inexpensive treatments offered by sobadores
(massage therapists) and hueseros (chiropractors), some of whom
operate out of their homes or small storefronts without the right
credentials or licenses. . .
The rising cost of health care has contributed
to a rapidly fraying public sector system. Nearly 50 percent
of California's hospitals are operating in the red. For the majority
of Americans, employer-related insurance is still the main source
of coverage.
OVER HALF OF NEW HIV CASES
HIT BLACKS
DAHLEEN GLANTON, MORNING CALL - More than 25 years into the AIDS epidemic, HIV
continues to spread in the black community, accounting for nearly
half of the newly diagnosed infections in the United States in
a recent assessment by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
. . Of the roughly 1 million people estimated to be living with
HIV in the United States, 47 percent are black, according to
CDC statistics for 2005, the most recent year for which numbers
are available. Although blacks represent only about 13 percent
of the U.S. population, 56 percent of the newly diagnosed cases
in 2005 were blacks.
JANUARY 2007
BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL DEBATES WHETHER
SMOKERS SHOULD BE DENIED TREATMENT
BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL - Last
year a primary care trust announced it would take smokers off
waiting lists for surgery in an attempt to contain costs. In
this week's BMJ, two experts go head to head over whether smokers
should be refused surgery.
Denying operations is justified
for specific conditions, argues Professor Matthew Peters from
the Concord Repatriation General Hospital in Australia. Professor
Peters says that smoking up to the time of any surgery increases
cardiac and pulmonary complications, impairs tissue healing,
and is associated with more infections.
These effects increase the costs
of care and also mean less opportunity to treat other patients,
he writes. In healthcare systems with finite resources, preferring
non-smokers over smokers for a limited number of procedures will
therefore deliver greater clinical benefit to individuals and
the community.
He believes that, as long as
everything is done to help patients to stop smoking, it is both
responsible and ethical to implement a policy that those unwilling
or unable to stop should have low priority for, or be excluded
from, certain elective procedures.
But Professor Leonard Glantz
from Boston University School of Public Health believes it is
unacceptable discrimination. "It is astounding that doctors
would question whether they should treat smokers," he says.
"Doctors should certainly
inform patients that they might reduce their risks of post-surgical
complications if they stop smoking before the procedure. But
should the price of not following the doctor's advice be the
denial of beneficial surgery?"
Cost arguments are made to support
the discriminatory non-treatment of smokers. But why focus our
cost saving concerns on smokers? Patients are not required to
visit fitness clubs, lose 25 pounds, or take drugs to lower blood
pressure before surgery. And many non-smokers cost society large
sums of money in health care because of activities they choose
to take part in.
Discriminating against smokers
has become an acceptable norm, he writes. It is shameful for
doctors to be willing to treat everybody but smokers in a society
that is supposed to be pluralistic and tolerant. Depriving smokers
of surgery that would clearly enhance their wellbeing is not
just wrong - it is mean, he concludes.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7583/20
HEALTHCARE IS MAKING US SICK
H. GILBERT WELCH, LISA SCHWARTZ
AND STEVEN WOLOSHIN, NY TIMES - For most Americans, the biggest
health threat is not avian flu, West Nile or mad cow disease.
It's our health-care system. You might think this is because
doctors make mistakes (we do make mistakes). But you can't be
a victim of medical error if you are not in the system. The larger
threat posed by American medicine is that more and more of us
are being drawn into the system not because of an epidemic of
disease, but because of an epidemic of diagnoses. Americans live
longer than ever, yet more of us are told we are sick. How can
this be? One reason is that we devote more resources to medical
care than any other country. Some of this investment is productive,
curing disease and alleviating suffering. But it also leads to
more diagnoses, a trend that has become an epidemic.
This epidemic is a threat to
your health. It has two distinct sources. One is the medicalization
of everyday life. Most of us experience physical or emotional
sensations we don't like, and in the past, this was considered
a part of life. Increasingly, however, such sensations are considered
symptoms of disease. Everyday experiences like insomnia, sadness,
twitchy legs and impaired sex drive now become diagnoses: sleep
disorder, depression, restless leg syndrome and sexual dysfunction.
Perhaps most worrisome is the
medicalization of childhood. If children cough after exercising,
they have asthma; if they have trouble reading, they are dyslexic;
if they are unhappy, they are depressed; and if they alternate
between unhappiness and liveliness, they have bipolar disorder.
While these diagnoses may benefit the few with severe symptoms,
one has to wonder about the effect on the many whose symptoms
are mild, intermittent or transient.
The other source is the drive
to find disease early. While diagnoses used to be reserved for
serious illness, we now diagnose illness in people who have no
symptoms at all, those with so-called pre-disease or those "at
risk.". . .
As more of us are being told
we are sick, fewer of us are being told we are well. People need
to think hard about the benefits and risks of increased diagnosis:
the fundamental question they face is whether or not to become
a patient. And doctors need to remember the value of reassuring
people that they are not sick. Perhaps someone should start monitoring
a new health metric: the proportion of the population not requiring
medical care. And the National Institutes of Health could propose
a new goal for medical researchers: reduce the need for medical
services, not increase it.
Dr. Welch is the author of "Should
I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here's Why" (University
of California Press). Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Woloshin are senior
research associates at the VA Outcomes Group in White River Junction,
Vt.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/health/02essa.html
MILWAUKEE STORES PUTTING CONDOMS BEHIND
THE COUNTER
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL -
Many convenience stores in Milwaukee have again placed condoms
behind the counter to keep shoplifters from pocketing them, and
some major pharmacy chains have placed them in locked glass cases
along with other frequently stolen goods such as costly replacement
razor blades. The difference, some advocates say, is that making
it more inconvenient to buy razor blades is not a matter of public
health. . .
Brad Clifford, a 27-year-old
Milwaukee man, said he was surprised to find condoms locked behind
a glass door in the pharmacy at the Jewel-Osco at 1100 E. Garfield
Ave. After finally finding a store employee with a key to the
case, the employee watched over Clifford's shoulder as he nervously
made his selection. "There are a lot of them, and I am trying
to figure out what to get and he's just standing there,"
Clifford said. "I just decided to get the family pack so
I wouldn't have to go through that again.". . .
Other stores, such as Walgreens,
mostly keep condoms in a highly visible area in the store where
thieves would be more concerned about employees catching them
in the act of stealing. Several Walgreens that had placed condoms
behind their counters have since been instructed to return them
to the sales floor, said Carol Hively, corporate spokeswoman
for the pharmacy chain, based in Deerfield, Ill. "It's our
policy not to lock up condoms," Hively said. "Shrink
can vary from store to store, but in general it is in the interest
of public good and safety to keep the condoms unlocked."
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=547996
BLAIR CONSIDERING INTENTIONAL BIAS IN
HEALTH CARE
[Not only is obesity far from
always 'self-inflicted' and smoking and alcohol often a manifestations
of dysfunctional families, all three are closely related to class.
Hence the move under consideration would be aimed primarily at
the poor]
ANDREW GRICE, INDEPENDENT, UK
- Smokers, people with alcohol problems and the obese could be
denied priority treatment on the NHS if they do not try to change
their lifestyle. The Cabinet is discussing the controversial
idea as part of a drive by Tony Blair to secure his domestic
political legacy by pushing through a final round of public service
reforms before he departs next year.
Ministers will confront a panel
of 100 ordinary people with some of the "tough choices"
facing the government under a consultation exercise giving the
public a direct say in the new policies. One question will be
whether people whose lifestyle makes them ill should get the
same priority as other patients. This would mean changing NHS
guidelines saying that people should not be discriminated against
"even if their illnesses are to some extent self-inflicted".
. .
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2103722.ece
QUEEN BEE BOSSES MAY DISCRIMINATE AS
MUCH AS MACHO MALES
TIMES, UK - Women bosses are
significantly more likely than men to discriminate against female
employees, research has suggested. The study found that when
presented with applications for promotion, women were more likely
than men to assess the female candidate as less qualified than
the male one. They were also prone to mark down women's prospects
for promotion and to assess them as more controlling than men
in their management style.
The findings, based on experiments
carried out among more than 700 people, suggest that the "queen
bee syndrome" of female rivalry in the workplace may sometimes
be as important as sexism in holding back women's careers.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2524299.html
NOVEMBER 2006
BRITISH BREAST CANCER UP 81% SINCE 1971
INDEPENDENT, UK 0- Breast cancer
cases have hit a new record, official figures show, and the increase
shows no sign of slowing. A total of 36,939 women were diagnosed
in England in 2004, an 81 per cent increase in incidence of the
cancer since 1971, after statistical adjustment for the ageing
of the population. Over the year, 41,000 cases were diagnosed
in the UK. . . The relentless upward trend in breast cancer is
driven by increasing prosperity and modern lifestyles, experts
say. It accounts for one in three of all newly diagnosed cases
of cancer in females. . .
One woman in nine now develops
breast cancer but lifestyle factors, including diet, obesity
and family size could account for only half of the increase,
and exposure to pesticides and other carcinogens in the environment
must be investigated, the charity [Breast Cancer UK] said. .
.
Professor Sir Richard Peto, Britains
foremost cancer epidemiologist, of the University of Oxford,
said: "There has been a slow drift upwards since the 1950s,
basically due to society becoming more prosperous. Breast cancer
is roughly a disease of prosperity. The rise was much more rapid
in Spain because their rate of [social] progress was quicker.
"Having fewer children before the age of 30, early menarche
[first period], late menopause and being obese or overweight
after menopause are all factors behind the increase.
"On top of that, there has
been the increase due to HRT, though use of HRT has dropped sharply.
Women are drinking more and that probably already has an appreciable
effect. They are all minor factors but taken together they mean
a general trend up."
Better diagnosis through screening
and improved recording of cases in local cancer registries had
also contributed to the increase, Professor Peto added. He dismissed
as "rubbish" suggestions that exposure to pesticides
or other chemicals was fuelling the disease. "There isn't
any good evidence [for other causes] over and above changes in
lifestyle and improvements in diagnosis and registration,"
he said.
Ruth Yates, head of statistical
information at Cancer Research UK, said it was difficult to offer
advice to women on how to avoid breast cancer.
"There isn't one thing women can do, such as giving up smoking
[to avoid lung cancer]. You can control your weight, eat fresh
fruit and vegetables and curb your drinking but it won't make
a huge difference, though it will have an impact."
She added: "Where women
do have a choice is over breastfeeding. In terms of influencing
the reproductive factors, that is the most practical thing they
can do. We don't want women to beat themselves up over things
they can't do."
RISK FACTORS
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article1771835.ece
NEW MEDICAL STUDY LENDS SUPPORT TO THEORY
THAT WE SHOULDN'T BE SO CLEAN
AP - Gritty rats and mice living
in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than
their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs,
two studies indicate. The lesson for humans: Clean living may
make us sick. The studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory
that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring
rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases,
such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The theory,
called the hygiene hypothesis, figures that people's immune systems
aren't being challenged by disease and dirt early in life, so
the body's natural defenses overreact to small irritants such
as pollen.
The new studies, one of which
was published Friday in the peer reviewed Scandinavian Journal
of Immunology, found significant differences in the immune systems
between euthanized wild and lab rodents. When the immune cells
in the wild rats are stimulated by researchers, "they just
don't do anything they sit there; if you give them same stimulus
to the lab rats, they go crazy," said study co-author Dr.
William Parker, a Duke University professor of experimental surgery.
He compared lab rodents to more than 50 wild rats and mice captured
and killed in cities and farms.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-06-16-sanitized_x.htm?csp=34
MEDICAL RESEARCH TAKES MORE U-TURNS:
NOW FAT FIGHTS CANCER AND SLOUCHING IS GOOD FOR YOU
PRESS WATCH - Using a new form
of magnetic resonance imaging, a team of radiologists has found
that sitting up straight puts unnecessary strain on the spine
and could cause chronic back pain due to trapped nerves or slipped
discs. The study at Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen involved 22
healthy volunteers with no history of back pain or surgery. They
adjusted their posture while being scanned by an MRI machine,
which indicated that the relaxed posture - one of three sitting
positions adopted by the participants - best preserved the spine's
natural shape. . .
Women with puppy fat at the age
of 18 have a lower breast cancer risk, research has revealed,
and girls around one to three stone over their ideal weight reap
the most benefits. Researchers at Harvard Medical School in the
United States conducted a study involving 110,000 women, the
findings of which contradict current medical advice. . .
http://www.presswatch.com/health/
THE DISAPPEARING PUBLIC HOSPITAL
GAUTAM NAIK, WALL STREET JOURNAL
- A building boom under way in the U.S. hospital industry is
sparking concern about economic and geographic disparities in
health care. Much of the construction is occurring in fast-growing
suburbs, as hospitals target the most affluent, insured patients
who can afford to pay for top care. At the same time, many urban
hospitals -- which often treat poorer people -- are struggling
financially, and scores have had to shut their doors.
Propelled by low interest rates,
the need to replace outdated facilities and the promise of future
demand from an aging population, hospitals around the country
have embarked on the biggest construction spree in half a century.
Between 2000 and 2005, the hospital industry spent $100 billion
to build new facilities and expand existing ones, almost double
the amount spent in the previous five-year period, according
to figures compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2005 alone,
the spending hit $24 billion, a record. A further $200 billion
will be invested over the next decade, according to the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation. . .
Private and public hospitals
face growing financial pressures, amid rising numbers of uninsured
patients who fill emergency rooms without paying their bills.
There were 46.6 million uninsured Americans in 2005, an increase
of 1.3 million from 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
. .
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