A SCOTS psoriasis sufferer has told how the condition has impacted her relationship by leaving her not wanting to be "touched, cuddled or kissed".

Jude Duncan, 26, has had the irritating skin condition for six years and says it can affect intimate relationships and dating.

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The marketing officer, who is a 'Skinfluencer' on Instagram has been with her boyfriend for two years and says she is lucky that he is very supportive.

But she also has moments where her itchy and flaky skin affects her mental health and leaves her not wanting intimacy.

Psoriasis, which affects around 2 per cent of people in the UK, is a skin condition that causes red, flaky, crusty patches of skin covered with silvery scales.

Jude, from Gourock, told the Scottish Sun: "Im very lucky to have a supportive partner but I know that if I'm not having a great nights sleep, and tossing and turning, then hes not getting a great nights sleep and that can have an impact on them as well.

"Actually having that communication with a partner is really important but it can be really difficult as well for people to open up.

"I'm in a lucky position where I feel very confident with my psoriasis but also sometimes it has felt like if I'm having a flare up I dont want to be touched, I dont want to cuddled, I dont want to be kissed. So it does have that impact on it.

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"I wouldn't say that because Im with someone I havent had those difficulties."

She added: "Its very hard to get your partner to understand what you're going through mentally as well as the physical aspect of it.

"And the fact that they cant do anything to help puts a strain on it, so its just different."

Jude also had a period of time before she was in a relationship where she was trying to date - but potential suitors were put off by her condition.

She has hit out at the 'Insta perfect' world which means people can be very shallow and focus on a person's perceived flaws.

She said: "On every date I would be asked 'what's wrong with your face' and stuff like that, so it was definitely a topic of conversation.

4

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"It was the elephant in the room, like when is this going to be brought up.' And thats not how it should be.

"It shouldnt matter if I have a bit of psoriasis on my face or not whether you want a second date, but it really did impact that a lot.

"We live in this Insta perfect world where people with flaws or differences arent seen to be good enough and people dont want to be seen with someone like that.

"But to be honest with you if you have a problem with how I look, I dont really want to date anyone that treats people like that anyway."

Negative affect on Mental Health

Speaking on Mental Health day, Jude explained how various factors surrounding the condition can affect a person's mental wellness.

That includes the discomfort itself, but also the negative impact of how other people treat you.

Stats show that 67 per cent of sufferers believe that the condition can have an affect on your mental health.

Jude said: "If you are uncomfortable and thats causing you to not sleep then thats going to have an affect on your mental health, but also just that uncomfortableness all the time, being in a constant state of irritation, not being able to relax - that is going to have a toll on your mental health.

"A lot of people are like oh lets focus on treating the skin but they dont look at surrounding factors such as mental health.

"Because its such a visual condition it can make you incredibly insecure and really lonely and isolated because it's not really talked about. So that can also have an impact on your mental health because you feel like youre bottling it up and not talking about it.

"If youre not getting any sleep that means the next day you're not going to be functioning to your full potential, and you're stressing yourself out because you're not maybe getting as much done as you want and that's going to result in you stressing out more, which is going to affect your sleep, which is going to affect your mental health and its just a really vicious cycle.

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"I think for me as well, when people stare or make comments, sometimes they mean well but that can really also play on your mental health."

She added: "I definitely had comments in the past. I've had people say really horrible things to my face.

"But I'm OK that in that I'm in a position where I'm confident enough. There's so many people out there that arent and a situation like that would knock their confidence.

"I was in a position that I was able to move on and deal with it but thats not always the case."

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans on (free) 116123.

We pay for your stories and videos! Do you have a story or video for The Scottish Sun? Email us at scoop@thesun.co.uk or call 0141 420 5300

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Scots psoriasis sufferer opens up on how skin condition can affect mental health and leave her not wanting to - The Scottish Sun

Research from Taltz, Olumiant and mirikizumab highlight the impact Lilly's medicines may have for patients around the world

INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) announced today that it will present new data for Taltz (ixekizumab), Olumiant (baricitinib) and mirikizumab at the 28th annual European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress taking place Oct. 9-13 in Madrid, Spain. The research being highlighted at this year's meeting reinforces Lilly's commitment to developing treatments for individuals living with dermatological conditions such as psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, atopic dermatitis and alopecia areata.

"Lilly is proud to showcase data from our dermatology portfolio at EADV this year. Our scientific expertise in dermatology has helped increase the number of available treatment options for patients around the world living with skin-related diseases," said Lotus Mallbris, M.D., Ph.D., vice president of immunology development at Lilly. "We aspire to raise expectations as to how these diseases are treated so people can live their lives without compromise."

Lilly will present findings from a Phase 3 trial of Taltz for pediatric patients with moderate to severe psoriasis as a late-breaking oral presentation at this year's meeting. The company also will be sharing results from a patient survey evaluating treatment expectations and burden of disease for patients living with psoriasis.

For baricitinib, Lilly will present a late-breaking presentation of the BREEZE-AD7 clinical trial. BREEZE-AD7 is an investigational study measuring the efficacy and safety of baricitinib in combination with topical corticosteroids for the treatment of moderate to severe atopic dermatitis (AD) in adults. Lilly and Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ: INCY) are partners in the clinical development of baricitinib. Further, Lilly will present data findings from a real-world study assessing how elements of an individual's quality of life (both functional and emotional) may be impacted by AD.

Posters to be shared around Lilly's investigational compound, mirikizumab, include research from a study measuring patient outcomes and health-related elements of quality of life for individuals with moderate to severe psoriasis.

Studies, along with the times and locations for the data sessions, are highlighted below.

Taltz Data

Oral Presentations

Thursday, October 10

Saturday, October 12

Poster Presentations

Baricitinib Data

Oral Presentations

Saturday, October 12

Poster Presentations

Mirikizumab Data

Poster Presentations

INDICATIONS AND USAGE FOR TALTZTaltz is approved for the treatment of adults with adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy. Taltz is also approved for the treatment of adults with active psoriatic arthritis and active ankylosing spondylitis.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION FOR TALTZ

CONTRAINDICATIONSTaltz is contraindicated in patients with a previous serious hypersensitivity reaction, such as anaphylaxis, to ixekizumab or to any of the excipients.

WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS InfectionsTaltz may increase the risk of infection. In clinical trials of patients with plaque psoriasis, the Taltz group had a higher rate of infections than the placebo group (27% vs 23%). A similar increase in risk of infection was seen in placebo-controlled trials of patients with psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. Serious infections have occurred. Instruct patients to seek medical advice if signs or symptoms of clinically important chronic or acute infection occur. If a serious infection develops, discontinue Taltz until the infection resolves.

Pre-Treatment Evaluation for TuberculosisEvaluate patients for tuberculosis (TB) infection prior to initiating treatment with Taltz. Do not administer to patients with active TB infection. Initiate treatment of latent TB prior to administering Taltz. Closely monitor patients receiving Taltz for signs and symptoms of active TB during and after treatment.

HypersensitivitySerious hypersensitivity reactions, including angioedema and urticaria (each 0.1%), occurred in the Taltz group in clinical trials. Anaphylaxis, including cases leading to hospitalization, has been reported in post-marketing use with Taltz. If a serious hypersensitivity reaction occurs, discontinue Taltz immediately and initiate appropriate therapy.

Inflammatory Bowel DiseaseDuring Taltz treatment, monitor patients for onset or exacerbations of inflammatory bowel disease. Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, including exacerbations, occurred at a greater frequency in the Taltz 80 mg Q2W group (Crohn's disease 0.1%, ulcerative colitis 0.2%) than in the placebo group (0%) during clinical trials in patients with plaque psoriasis and in the Taltz Q4W group in ankylosing spondylitis trials (Crohn's disease 1.0% [2 patients], ulcerative colitis 0.5% [1 patient]) than in the placebo group (Crohn's disease 0.5% [1 patient], ulcerative colitis 0%). In the ankylosing spondylitis trials, serious events occurred in 1 patient in the Taltz group and 1 patient in the placebo group.

ImmunizationsPrior to initiating therapy with Taltz, consider completion of all age-appropriate immunizations according to current immunization guidelines. Avoid use of live vaccines in patients treated with Taltz.

ADVERSE REACTIONSMost common adverse reactions (1%) associated with Taltz treatment are injection site reactions, upper respiratory tract infections, nausea and tinea infections. Overall, the safety profiles observed in patients with psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis were consistent with the safety profile in patients with plaque psoriasis, with the exception of influenza and conjunctivitis in psoriatic arthritis.

Please see accompanying Prescribing Information and Medication Guide. Please see Instructions for Use included with the device.

IX HCP ISI 23AUG2019

Indication and Usage for OLUMIANT (baricitinib) tablets (in the United States) for RA patientsOLUMIANT (baricitinib) 2 mg is indicated for the treatment of adult patients with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis who have had an inadequate response to one or more tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonist therapies. Limitation of Use: Use of OLUMIANT in combination with other JAK inhibitors, biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), or with potent immunosuppressants such as azathioprine and cyclosporine is not recommended.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION FOR OLUMIANT (baricitinib) TABLETS

WARNING: SERIOUS INFECTIONS, MALIGNANCY, AND THROMBOSIS

SERIOUS INFECTIONS: Patients treated with Olumiant are at risk for developing serious infections that may lead to hospitalization or death. Most patients who developed these infections were taking concomitant immunosuppressants such as methotrexate or corticosteroids. If a serious infection develops, interrupt Olumiant until the infection is controlled. Reported infections include:

Carefully consider the risks and benefits of Olumiant prior to initiating therapy in patients with chronic or recurrent infection.

Closely monitor patients for the development of signs and symptoms of infection during and after treatment with Olumiant including the possible development of TB in patients who tested negative for latent TB infection prior to initiating therapy.

MALIGNANCIES: Lymphoma and other malignancies have been observed in patients treated with Olumiant.

THROMBOSIS: Thrombosis, including deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), has been observed at an increased incidence in patients treated with Olumiant compared to placebo. In addition, there were cases of arterial thrombosis. Many of these adverse events were serious and some resulted in death. Patients with symptoms of thrombosis should be promptly evaluated.

WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS

SERIOUS INFECTIONS: The most common serious infections reported with Olumiant included pneumonia, herpes zoster and urinary tract infection. Among opportunistic infections, tuberculosis, multidermatomal herpes zoster, esophageal candidiasis, pneumocystosis, acute histoplasmosis, cryptococcosis, cytomegalovirus and BK virus were reported with Olumiant. Some patients have presented with disseminated rather than local disease and were often taking concomitant immunosuppressants such as methotrexate or corticosteroids. Avoid Olumiant in patients with an active, serious infection, including localized infections. Consider the risks and benefits of treatment prior to initiating Olumiant in patients:

Closely monitor patients for infections during and after Olumiant treatment. Interrupt Olumiant if a patient develops a serious infection, an opportunistic infection, or sepsis. Do not resume Olumiant until the infection is controlled.

Tuberculosis Before initiating Olumiant evaluate and test patients for latent or active infection and treat patients with latent TB with standard antimycobacterial therapy. Olumiant should not be given to patients with active TB. Consider anti-TB therapy prior to initiating Olumiant in patients with a history of latent or active TB in whom an adequate course of treatment cannot be confirmed, and for patients with a negative test for latent TB but who have risk factors for TB infection. Monitor patients for TB during Olumiant treatment.

Viral Reactivation Viral reactivation, including cases of herpes virus reactivation (e.g., herpes zoster), were reported in clinical studies with Olumiant. If a patient develops herpes zoster, interrupt Olumiant treatment until the episode resolves.

The impact of Olumiant on chronic viral hepatitis reactivation is unknown. Screen for viral hepatitis in accordance with clinical guidelines before initiating Olumiant.

MALIGNANCY AND LYMPHOPROLIFERATIVE DISORDERS: Malignancies were observed in Olumiant clinical studies. Consider the risks and benefits of Olumiant prior to initiating therapy in patients with a known malignancy other than a successfully treated non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) or when considering continuing Olumiant in patients who develop a malignancy. NMSCs were reported in patients treated with Olumiant. Periodic skin examination is recommended for patients who are at increased risk for skin cancer.

THROMBOSIS: Thrombosis, including DVT and PE, has been observed at an increased incidence in Olumiant-treated patients compared to placebo. In addition, arterial thrombosis events in the extremities have been reported in clinical studies with Olumiant. Many of these adverse events were serious and some resulted in death. There was no clear relationship between platelet count elevations and thrombotic events. Use Olumiant with caution in patients who may be at increased risk of thrombosis. If clinical features of DVT/PE or arterial thrombosis occur, evaluate patients promptly and treat appropriately.

GASTROINTESTINAL PERFORATIONS: Gastrointestinal perforations have been reported in Olumiant clinical studies, although the role of JAK inhibition in these events is not known. Use Olumiant with caution in patients who may be at increased risk for gastrointestinal perforation (e.g., patients with a history of diverticulitis). Promptly evaluate patients who present with new onset abdominal symptoms for early identification of gastrointestinal perforation.

LABORATORY ABNORMALITIES: Neutropenia Olumiant treatment was associated with an increased incidence of neutropenia (absolute neutrophil count [ANC] <1000 cells/mm3) compared to placebo. Avoid initiation or interrupt Olumiant treatment in patients with an ANC <1000 cells/mm3. Evaluate at baseline and thereafter according to routine patient management.

Lymphopenia Absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) <500 cells/mm3 were reported in Olumiant clinical trials. Lymphocyte counts less than the lower limit of normal were associated with infection in patients treated with Olumiant, but not placebo. Avoid initiation or interrupt Olumiant treatment in patients with an ALC <500 cells/mm3. Evaluate at baseline and thereafter according to routine patient management.

Anemia Decreases in hemoglobin levels to <8 g/dL were reported in Olumiant clinical trials. Avoid initiation or interrupt Olumiant treatment in patients with hemoglobin <8 g/dL. Evaluate at baseline and thereafter according to routine patient management.

Liver Enzyme Elevations Olumiant treatment was associated with increased incidence of liver enzyme elevation compared to placebo. Increases to 5x and 10x upper limit of normal were observed for both ALT and AST in patients in Olumiant clinical trials.

Evaluate at baseline and thereafter according to routine patient management. Promptly investigate the cause of liver enzyme elevation to identify potential cases of drug-induced liver injury. If increases in ALT or AST are observed and drug-induced liver injury is suspected, interrupt Olumiant until this diagnosis is excluded.

Lipid Elevations Treatment with Olumiant was associated with increases in lipid parameters, including total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Assess lipid parameters approximately 12 weeks following Olumiant initiation. Manage patients according to clinical guidelines for the management of hyperlipidemia.

VACCINATIONS: Avoid use of live vaccines with Olumiant. Update immunizations in agreement with current immunization guidelines prior to initiating Olumiant therapy.

ADVERSE REACTIONSAdverse reactions (1%) include: upper respiratory tract infections (16.3%, 14.7%, 11.7%), nausea (2.7%, 2.8%, 1.6%), herpes simplex (0.8%, 1.8%, 0.7%) and herpes zoster (1.0%, 1.4%, 0.4%) for Olumiant 2 mg, baricitinib 4 mg, and placebo, respectively.

USE IN SPECIFIC POPULATIONSPREGNANCY AND LACTATION: No information is available to support the use of Olumiant in pregnancy or lactation. Advise women not to breastfeed during treatment with Olumiant.

HEPATIC AND RENAL IMPAIRMENT: Olumiant is not recommended in patients with severe hepatic impairment or in patients with moderate or severe renal impairment.

Please click to access full Prescribing Information, including Boxed Warning about Serious infections, Malignancies, and Thrombosis, and Medication Guide.

BA HCP ISI 01JUN2018

About Taltz Taltz (ixekizumab) is a monoclonal antibody that selectively binds with interleukin 17A (IL-17A) cytokine and inhibits its interaction with the IL-17 receptor.1 IL-17A is a naturally occurring cytokine that is involved in normal inflammatory and immune responses. Taltz inhibits the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines.1

About OLUMIANT OLUMIANT is a once-daily, oral JAK inhibitor approved in the U.S. for the treatment of adults with moderately- to severely active rheumatoid arthritis who have had an inadequate response to one or more TNF inhibitor therapies, and approved outside of the U.S. for patients with moderately- to severely active rheumatoid arthritis who have had an inadequate response to one or more DMARDs.2 There are four known JAK enzymes: JAK1, JAK2, JAK3 and TYK2. JAK-dependent cytokines have been implicated in the pathogenesis of a number of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.3 OLUMIANT has greater inhibitory potency at JAK1, JAK2 and TYK2 relative to JAK3; however, the relevance of inhibition of specific JAK enzymes to therapeutic effectiveness is not currently known.2 OLUMIANT is approved in more than 60 countries.

About Mirikizumab Mirikizumab is a humanized IgG4 monoclonal antibody that binds to the p19 subunit of interleukin 23. Mirikizumab is being studied for the treatment of immune diseases, including psoriasis, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.

About Moderate to Severe Plaque Psoriasis Psoriasis is a chronic, immune disease that affects the skin.4 It occurs when the immune system sends out faulty signals that speed up the growth cycle of skin cells. Psoriasis affects approximately 125 million people worldwide, approximately 20 percent of whom have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis.4,5 The most common form of psoriasis, plaque psoriasis, appears as raised, red patches covered with a silvery white buildup of dead skin cells.4 Patients with plaque psoriasis often have other serious health conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease and experience negative impact on their quality of life.4

About Atopic DermatitisAtopic dermatitis (AD), a serious form of atopic eczema, is a chronic, relapsing skin disease characterized by intense itching, dry skin and inflammation that can be present on any part of the body.6 AD is a heterogeneous disease both clinically and biologically, but may be characterized by chronic baseline symptoms of itch, redness and skin damage that are often punctuated with episodic, sometimes unpredictable, flares or exacerbations.7,8 AD affects approximately 1-3 percent of adults worldwide.9

Moderate to severe AD is characterized by intense itching, resulting in visibly damaged skin.10 Like other chronic inflammatory diseases, AD is immune-mediated and involves a complex interplay of immune cells and inflammatory cytokines.11

About BREEZE-AD7The BREEZE-AD7 clinical trial is a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, Phase 3 study that evaluated the efficacy and safety of baricitinib in combination with topical corticosteroids in adult patients with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis. Two doses were evaluated separately such that the primary objective of the study could be met if one or both doses achieved the primary endpoint. The primary endpoint evaluated significant improvement in disease activity as determined by the proportion of patients on baricitinib achieving clear (0) or almost clear skin (1) with a greater than or equal to 2-point improvement as measured by the validated 5-point Investigator's Global Assessment for AD (vIGA) scale at 16 weeks of treatment. BREEZE-AD7 is the third of five Phase 3 studies that make up the BREEZE-AD program. Lilly previously announced results for BREEZE-AD1 and BREEZE-AD2 earlier this year.

About Lilly in DermatologyBy following the science through unchartered territory, we continue Lilly's legacy of delivering innovative medicines that address unmet needs and have significant impacts on people's lives around the world. Skin-related diseases are more than skin deep. We understand the devastating impact this can have on people's lives. At Lilly, we are relentlessly pursuing a robust dermatology pipeline to provide innovative, patient-centered solutions so patients with skin-related diseases can aspire to live life without limitations.

About Eli Lilly and CompanyLilly is a global health care leader that unites caring with discovery to create medicines that make life better for people around the world. We were founded more than a century ago by a man committed to creating high-quality medicines that meet real needs, and today we remain true to that mission in all our work. Across the globe, Lilly employees work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. To learn more about Lilly, please visit us at lilly.com and lilly.com/newsroom. P-LLY

This press release contains forward-looking statements (as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) about Taltz (ixekizumab), OLUMIANT (baricitinib), and mirikizumab, and reflects Lilly's and Incyte's current beliefs. However, as with any pharmaceutical product, there are substantial risks and uncertainties in the process of development and commercialization. Among other things, there can be no guarantee that mirikizumab will receive regulatory approval, that Taltz or OLUMIANT will receive additional regulatory approvals, or that any will be commercially successful. For further discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties, see Lilly's and Incyte's most recent respective Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, Lilly and Incyte undertake no duty to update forward-looking statements to reflect events after the date of this release.

_______________________________1 Taltz Prescribing Information, 2019.2 Olumiant Prescribing Information, 2018.3 Walker JG and Smith MD. J Rheumatol. 2005;32;1650-1653.4 Psoriasis media kit. National Psoriasis Foundation website. https://www.psoriasis.org/sites/default/files/for-media/MediaKit.pdf. Accessed September, 2019.5 Skin conditions by the numbers. American Academy of Dermatology website. https://www.aad.org/media/stats/conditions/skin-conditions-by-the-numbers. Accessed September, 2019.6 Zuberbier T, Orlow SJ, Paller AS, et al. Patient perspectives on the management of atopic dermatitis. The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2006;118: 226-32.7 Thijs JL, Strickland I, Bruijnzeel-Koomen C, et. al. Moving toward endotypes in atopic dermatitis: identification of patient clusters based on serum biomarker analysis. The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2017.8 Langan SM, Thomas KS, Williams HC. What is meant by "flare" in atopic dermatitis? A systematic review and proposal. Arch Dermatol. 2006;142:1190-1196.9 Nutten S. Atopic dermatitis: global epidemiology and risk factors. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism. 2015;66(suppl 1): 8-16.10 Yosipovitch G, Papoiu AD. What causes itch in atopic dermatitis? Current Allergy and Asthma Reports. 2008;8:306-311.11 Weidinger, S, Novak, N. Atopic dermatitis. The Lancet Volume 387. 2016;10023:1109-1122.

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SOURCE Eli Lilly and Company

Company Codes: NASDAQ-NMS:INCY, NYSE:LLY

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Lilly to Unveil New Data for the Treatments of Complex Dermatological Conditions at the 28th Annual European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology...

PSORIASIS AWARENESS CAMPAIGN. Dr. Victoria P. Guillano, MD, FPDS, president of the Psoriasis Foundation of the Philippines, Inc. (PFPI) speaks with stakeholders and patients during the World Psoriasis Day celebration in Davao City on Wednesday (Oct. 9, 2019). Guillano says the stigma associated with psoriasis remains but notes that public awareness has continued to increase in the past years. (PNA photo by Digna Banzon)

DAVAO CITY -- The stigma associated with psoriasis disease remains but public awareness continues to increase, a health expert said.

in an interview during the World Psoriasis Day celebration on Wednesday here, Dr. Victoria P. Guillano, MD, FPDS, president of the Psoriasis Foundation of the Philippines, Inc. (PFPI), attributed the increase to more patients seeking treatment .

Guillano said that according to psoriasis patients, the public has slowly learned to understand them.

She said psoriasis is a chronic, immune-mediated inflammatory disease that causes physical, emotional and social burdens.

The presence of associated itch and lesions on visible and sensitive body areas in psoriasis patients are closely related to decreased psychosocial well-being and impact on the quality of life,' she said.

Davao City Mayor Sara Z. Duterte, whose message was read during the celebration, encouraged stakeholders to raise awareness and information on the proper treatment of the disease.

Sara commended the organizing committee of the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) Department of Dermatology for spearheading the awareness campaign and creating a platform where people with psoriasis can share their experiences and have their voices heard.

I hope this celebration be instrumental in giving the people with psoriasis the access of affordable and appropriate treatment, the mayor said.

Meanwhile, Guillano said psoriasis remains incurable but the skin can be cleared--its treatment ranging from PHP17,000 to PHP250,000 depending on the severity of the case.

"Our campaign includes lecture and wellness programs for the patients and the public as well," she said. (PNA)

See original here:

Public awareness on psoriasis increasing: health expert - pna.gov.ph

Interleukin (IL)-41, also known as Meteorin-like, is expressed in the synovial tissue of patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and osteoarthritis (OA), and is present and inducible in the enthesis, according to study results published in Clinical Immunology.

The study included data from patients who were treatment-naive. Researchers extracted synovial fluid and measured IL-41 levels using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; results from the synovial fluid had <10% reproducibility error. Cell cultures and receptor analysis by flow cytometry were performed to achieve appropriate samples. Researchers also obtained patient demographics.

Study results indicated that IL-41 was detectable in synovial fluid samples in patients with PsA, RA and OA, although it was significantly higher in PsA and RA compared with OA (median, 7722 pg/mL; P =.0011 and 8325 pg/mL; P =.0003 vs 5044 pg/mL, respectively). Researchers also obtained levels of IL-41 in synovial fluid from patients with gout; it was higher compared with IL-41 in patients with OA, but statistical significance was not achieved.

Researchers investigated the production of IL-41 in healthy enthesis samples and noted that although minimal IL-41 was produced from enthesis mononuclear cells, entheseal stromal cells produced a significant amount of IL-41 in comparison. Synovial fibroblasts also showed similar levels of IL-41 compared with entheseal stromal cells.

In addition, the researchers assessed whether IL-41 could be induced by disease relevant mediators, including tumor necrosis factor (TNF), IL-17A, and IL-17F. Results showed that when used alone, TNF, IL-17A, and IL-17F did not induce an increase in IL-41, but TNF with IL-17A or IL-17F led to a significant increase in IL-41 production. Study investigators observed similar results with synovial fibroblasts.

Overall, IL-41 was significantly elevated in the synovium and was induced from enthesis stromal cells in patients with PsA.

The precise role of IL-41 in PsA immunopathogenesis requires further study, the researchers concluded.

Reference

Bridgewood C, Russell T, Weedon H, et al. The novel cytokine Metrnl/IL-41 is elevated in psoriatic arthritis synovium and inducible from both entheseal and synovial fibroblasts. J Clin Immunol. 2019;208:108253.

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IL-41 Levels Elevated in Synovium of Patients With Psoriatic Arthritis - Rheumatology Advisor

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Novartis data show Cosentyx treatment results in rapid and sustained resolution of signs and symptoms of psoriatic arthritis in patients with and wit...

Eugenics was taught at the founding colleges of the University of Guelph for more than 30 years at the start of the 20th century, according to documents discovered by a researcher at the school.

Eugenics,often associated with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, is the idea that it's possible to improve the human race through selective breeding, based on traits such as race.

The unearthed documents and other archives, which show support for eugenics in Ontario around the time of the Second World War, are on display as part of a new exhibit at the Guelph Civic Museum called "Into the Light: Eugenics and Education in Southern Ontario."

The exhibit is a collaboration of activists, Indigenous artists and researchers. It's meant to reveal a troubled legacy, but also to share stories of survival.

It opens with an Anishinaabe prayer spoken by one of the co-curators, Mohawk elder Mona Stonefish; a gentle point of entry ahead of what's inside.

It wasn't an easy path to find old course material on eugenics.

Evadne Kelly, a postdoctoral researcher at the Revision Centre for Art and Social Justice who found the documents, remembers searching in a number of University of Guelph archives that came up blank.

"It took quite a bit more digging and also speaking with archivists who were willing to create unrestricted access to these archives," Kelly said.

Kelly said she doesn't believe anybody at the university was aware eugenics had been taught.

"It was really shocking,"Kelly said.

"I think that this history has been obscured ... I don't think people really want to acknowledge that such hurtful and hateful ideas were being taught for decades in Canada."

The search began with a hunch on the part of Kelly's academic supervisor that eugenics may have been taught at one of the founding colleges at the university.

Turns out it was taught at two: Macdonald Institute and the Ontario Agricultural College.

The first sign of eugenics weaving its way into course material was a 1914 biology course. Kelly also found it was taught in psychology courses and a course called mothercraft.

"[Mothercraft] was in my mind one of the more dangerous courses,"Kelly said.

"Students were being taught how much affection is appropriate. What kinds of behaviours are OK and how to punish for behaviours that are not wanted."

Kelly noticed the course material shifted around the Second World War. The language ramped up and became much more nationalistic with anti-immigration sentiments.

One exam question got students to think about policies to sterilize the unfit.

The last time Kelly found evidence of eugenics in course material was 1948, but she suspects the subject matter extends beyond that point.

There is research on eugenics being taught at universities in western Canada, but the archive appears to be the most substantive amount of research on eugenics education in Ontario, according to Kelly.

The University of Guelph course material was just the starting point.

Kelly also found transcripts of radio addresses from Ontario legislators and academics at the University of Toronto and McMaster University in Hamilton. They were pushing for eugenics policies to be applied in the province.

In the corner of the exhibit, there's an old radio and a couple of chairs. Through headphones, people can listen to readings of the old radio messages.

One of the addresses from 1938 is written by former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Herbert Bruce, praising the sterilization policies of Nazi Germany.

"It is an uncomfortable and difficult history to share," said Dawn Owen, the curator of the Guelph Civic Museum.

"Eugenics was not only theorized about and practiced within the university, but there were multiple decades where the practice of eugenics not only happened locally within this community, but then also because the students who were learning eugenics were then going into teaching professions ...we can actually trace lines into other institutes across the province and, frankly, across the country."

By putting these radio addresses, course material and other artifacts out there for the public, the collaborators hope the exhibit is a move toward reconciliation.

"The message isn't one of hopelessness. The message is one of truth,"Owen said.

"We hope that with truth, with knowledge, that will lead us down the path toward reconciliation."

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New Guelph exhibit reveals history of eugenics education in Ontario - CBC.ca

How would it be if it were possible to order the birth of a baby girl who would grow to be as beautiful as Venus and as intelligent as Marie Curie? Or the birth of a baby boy who would grow to be as handsome as Adonis and as intelligent as Einstein? How would it be if it were possible to choose the colour of the eyes, hair and skin tone? Does the idea sound outr, utopian? Recent scientific advances indicate that the idea of designer babies is neither all that outr nor all that utopian. It is a possibility in the not too distant future. It is the ethics of the issue that should worry mankind. Is genetic engineering ethical or even desirable?

Man created angels, gods and goddesses in his own image. It is for this reason they are referred to as anthropomorphic gods. In his creation man-made gods and goddesses the most beautiful creatures; again beauty being a product of his own imagination. The creation of anthropomorphic gods is but an expression of mans endless quest to replicate nature or improving upon it. It was an enticing subject that drew artistes and scientists alike. In general, the artistes were wary of the dangers of replicating or improving upon nature. Here are a few examples. Mary Shellys 1918 Gothic novel Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus described the horrors that would result in tinkering with nature. So did Aldous Huxleys dystopian Brave New World (1932) and Ken Folletts science-fiction The Third Twin (1996), but to a less horrific degree.

But the scientists would not be deterred. For as long as the history of science could be traced, maverick for want of a better word scientists in many nations conducted experiments with the objective of transmuting base metals into gold, to find a universal solvent and to find a potion that would extend longevity. The scientists were collectively known as alchemists. Although for long they were dismissed as charlatans and although they did not achieve the objectives they set out to do, their work had advanced science as far as the purification of metals.

In recent times genetic engineering has been focusing on four areas of human development. They are muscle enhancement to improve athletic performance; memory enhancement to improve intellectual performance; growth hormone treatment to improve physical stature and selection of sex and genetic traits of children. The selection of sex is already a reality. It must be noted that gender screening tests are illegal in India. There are several companies in the USA which already offer sex selection with certain pre-conditions that would preclude its possible misuse. The process/product is offered to only those couples who have one child and who desire to have a child of the opposite sex to balance their families.

The theory of eugenics is as old as Aristotle. It appears the fourth century BCE philosopher had suggested that men should tie their left testicles prior to intercourse if they wanted a male child! In The case against perfection: ethics in the age of genetic engineering (2007), Michael J. Sandel discussed both the pros and cons of genetic engineering.

As societies evolve, old mores give way to new norms. Sandel cites a character from the 1981 British historical film, Chariots of Fire. It was the story of two athletes, Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who competed in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Prior to 1924, employing professional coaches for training to compete in amateur sport was scoffed at. It was considered ungentlemanly. Abrahams defied the custom as he felt that it was just a cover for anti-Semitism. The point being made is that today employing coaches is an accepted norm. In fact, it is unimaginable for any athlete to go into high-level competitions without a personal trainer.

Much of the opposition to genetic engineering stems from the negative connotations associated with eugenics. The objective of eugenics was to increase the proportion of healthy and intelligent individuals in the general population. Conversely the poor and unhealthy were prevented from conceiving by forced sterilisation. It is generally assumed that forced sterilisations as a measure of eugenics were practised only in Nazi Germany. According to a report published in the website PsychCentral.com, by the 1930s thirty states in the USA had sterilisation laws. Between 1927 when Carrie Buck, the first victim of the Virginia sterilisation law was sterilised and the 1970s, 65,000 Americans with mental illness or developmental disabilities were sterilised. When the Buck case reached the Supreme Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ruled: It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kindThree generations of imbeciles are enough.

To forestall genetic engineering for ethical considerations amounts to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Scientists believe that the key to finding remedies for diseases like thalassemia and cancer is in genetic engineering.

When the banking industry introduced information technology tools in the 1980s doomsday predictors hollered that it would lead to thousands going out of employment. We live in a world of over the counter (OTC) remedies and food supplements for growth and beauty enhancement. Not an hour passes when we dont see bamboozling advertisements about them on television. Bariatric surgery and cosmetic surgery for beauty enhancement are fairly common with only the cost being the limiting factor. Would it be the only limiting factor for made to order babies too? Or are ethics involved?

Should we, in the end, accept and live with advances in genetic engineering or heed the warning of Mary Shelly and Aldous Huxley about Promethean hubris? The last word in the debate is yet to be pronounced!

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Playing God, Ungodly? - Times of India

By now, the steps are familiar to everyone working in the stacks of Alderman Library: pick a book off the shelf, scan it, fit it into a cardboard tray, scan a barcode on the tray, load trays into orange crates and stack the crates into a truck.

It takes a long time to pack and move 1.7 million books and other library materials across the University of Virginia, but contractor Jacob Bastian estimates his team is halfway done with their part of the job. The project is the first leg of a $160 million renovation of the library, which opened in 1938.

Its not very glamorous, said Bastian, with Backstage Library Services, as he recently wound his way back and forth through various floors of the stacks. But it has to be done.

In 2017, Bastian and fellow project manager Jared Scherer led a team that cataloged Aldermans inventory. The team counted, cleaned and verified each item books, pages, scrolls, maps and items in the building, and fixed thousands of catalog errors.

Theres a lot of little details to a library that you never realize, said Scherer, a graduate of UVa.

The renovation will require demolishing the Old and New Stacks and moving most of the librarys collection off-site to Ivy Stacks; a significant portion will return to Alderman when the renovation is completed.

The cramped 10-floor layout of the Alderman stacks, which were never meant to be open for public browsing and which are not ADA- or fire-code-compliant, will become five stories with compact shelving, more seating and study and class rooms.

The project also will restore the historic MacGregor Reading Room and add an entrance to the north side of the building.

Some faculty and staff opposed the renovation. The new compact shelving system, on which a series of bookshelves are clustered together on a track and a user moves them and can access one set of shelves at a time, will discourage serendipitous browsing, according to petition created in June 2018.

As workers pack books into crates and move them to Ivy Stacks, they are also careful to keep everything in order, because, unlike other moves Backstage has done, most of the items will return to Central Grounds (plus, during the move, all books will remain available for checkout at either Ivy Stacks or Clemons Library).

We dont just haul the books out, said Esther Onega, senior project director of the Alderman renovation. The online catalog must be updated with the new location and the books must remain in call number order so we can bring them back in call number order. It would take a long time to get them back in order if we dont keep them that way.

The buildings quirks also make boxing up books a delicate affair. Workers must navigate the stacks cramped ceilings and wedge crates into a tiny freight elevator.

Aldermans collections are kept according to the Library of Congress classification system, but some sections are scattered across different floors. That means that Scherer and Bastians team, which is currently working its way through the H books (social sciences), are ferrying books from multiple floors down a tiny freight elevator to a loading area.

The team already has identified the books that are most frequently requested, and have ferried items on the hit list to the recently renovated Clemons Library. The first floor of Clemons reopened in May with different study spaces and compact shelves.

Now, most remaining items are on their way to Ivy Stacks, guided by moving subcontractor Overton & Associates.

Once the books are out of Alderman, the metal shelves will be recycled and workers will begin preparing the building for partial demolition. During the spring semester, Historic Alderman will remain open. Construction manager Skanska will begin demolition preparations such as abatement in the stacks and site utility work during the spring semester.

Onega has been planning the move for the past two years.

I used to work in a law firm, and this feels just like finishing up a big case and saying, now what do I do with the rest of my life? she laughed, looking around at now-empty metal shelves.

The university has not yet responded to calls for the renovated library to bear a different name.

Edwin Alderman was the first president of UVa, serving from 1905 to 1931, and helped to organize the modern university. However, he also supported eugenics and the local Ku Klux Klan; in 1921, he thanked the Virginia state Klan for a $1,000 gift to the university (In 2017, former President Teresa A. Sullivan announced a donation equaling the current value of that gift from the university to victims of the Aug. 12, 2017, car attack).

Alderman also delivered the acceptance speech for the Robert E. Lee statue at Market Street Park donated by Paul Goodloe McIntire in 1924 on behalf of the city of Charlottesville.

Several university buildings originally named after eugenicists have been rededicated recently; UVa spokesman Wes Hester did not say whether Alderman has been referred to the universitys committee that considers renamings.

The naming of facilities on the Grounds is an important and ongoing dialogue, and Alderman Library is a part of that conversation, though no decisions have been made at this time, Hester said in an email last week.

Alderman will close in May and the partial demolition will start during the summer of 2020. The project is expected to be completed in phases in the fall of 2022.

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Alderman Library in midst of removing 1.7 million books, other items - The Daily Progress

Brendan Grace: Thanks for the MemoriesMonday, RT One, 9.35pmBefore he died earlier this year, comedian Brendan Grace embarked on an ambitious project: to stage a big variety show featuring the Forget-Me-Nots Choir, made up of people suffering from dementia along with their friends and family. The choir had long been a passion of Graces, and he rerecorded a version of his hit The Dutchman with the choir last year. This three-part series documents the process of putting on the show, but soon morphs into a poignant look at Graces final months as he succumbed to cancer. But, as they say in showbiz, the show must go on, and Brendan kept the cameras rolling right to the last minute, and his showbiz friends kept the dream alive by staging the show posthumously. The result is a fitting farewell to one of Irelands favourite entertainers.

PlebsMonday, ITV2, 10pmIts not easy surviving in ancient Rome. Youve got to deal with the decadent lifestyle and navigage the cut-throat politics and theres always the danger of getting thrown to the lions in the name of entertainment. Luckily our titular underachievers have made it to a fifth season of the comedy series without getting stabbed in the Forum, but perils still lie ahead, not least Amanda Holden, who plays a perma-horny aristo out to turn Jason into her sex slave.

What Britain Buys and Sells in a DayMonday, BBC2, 9pmNew series. As the UKs trading relationships face their biggest change in decades, Ed Balls, Ade Adepitan and Cherry Healey explore the science and systems that enable Britain to import and export goods around the world on an unprecedented scale. Balls is at the London Gateway port to reveal all the tricks of the fruit and vegetable trade, Adepitan visits Peru to see how Britains obsession with healthy eating has created a booming economy for avocado growers, and Healey meets one farmer keeping the Middle East supplied with apples.

The HuntingMonday, Channel 5, 10pmThis Australian drama opens with well-behaved teenagers Nassim and Amandip beginning a burgeoning romance. When a teacher (Sam Reid) discovers a naked image of Amandip on Nassims confiscated phone, he attempts to protect his students privacy but soon finds the decision has been taken out of his hands. As the scandal unfolds, issues of misogyny, privacy, sexuality and exploitation are forced into the open, changing the lives of four teenagers, their families and their teachers.

Imagine: EastSide StoryMonday, BBC1, 11.35pmThis edition of the arts strand features young people from two local estates in Londons Waltham Forest who take part in an arts intervention programme designed to change the course of their lives for good. Young Vic artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah, EastEnders star Tameka Empson, 22-year-old Leytonstone-born actor, writer and director Harris Dickinson, and Mercury Prize-winning composer Talvin Singh are among the mentors helping the cast write and perform a musical based on their lives. BBC arts guru Alan Yentob guides us through the proceedings, part of Londons first Borough of Culture celebrations.

SurvivorsTuesday, RT One, 11.15pm

How do you pick up your life again after suffering severe trauma? Answer: with great courage, inner strength and incredible, indomitable spirit, if the people showcased in this new series are anything to go by. Clinical psychologist Paul DAlton meets four people who have shown superhuman resilience as they rebuild their lives following a catastrophic event. In the first episode, DAlton meets Geraldine Lavelle, who suffered a spinal injury in a road accident, leaving her with limited movement. With sheer determination and a lot of hard work, Lavelle got her life and independence back, and in the process became an inspiration to others.

SnackmastersTuesday, Channel 4, 9.15pm (repeated Wed, 11.05pm)

Some of the UKs finest chefs have to try and work out the secret techniques and recipes behind the publics best-loved snacks. Thats the hook for this new series hosted by Fred Sirieix, with KitKat the focus in the opener. Double Michelin-star chef Daniel Clifford, from Cambridges Midsummer House, takes on chef patron Vivek Singh, from Westminsters Cinnamon Club, to craft the perfect replica. Having completed their masterpieces, theres a cook-off at the KitKat factory, where the chefs are judged by the assembly line workers and bosses behind the real thing. Comedian Jayde Adams also goes behind the scenes in the factory to reveal the process behind the chocolate-covered biscuit bar.

No Stone UnturnedWednesday, RT One, 9.35pm

In the summer of 1994, as the country watched Ireland beat Italy in the World Cup, armed men entered a small pub in the Co Down village of Loughinisland and shot dead six poeple as they watched the match. The families of the victims have never had justice nor closure for the atrocity, as no one has ever been convicted. RT is now the first public broadcaster in the world to air Alex Gibneys 2017 documentary. Twenty-five years after the massacre, Gibney brings some disturbing new evidence around events of that terrible day. Following the making of No Stone Unturned, Belfast journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey were arrested over the alleged theft of police documents, and material was seized in early morning raids on the journalists homes and the offices of the film-makers. The case brought worldwide attention to the films revelations, and the charges were eventually dropped. In her mixed three-star review for The Irish Times, Tara Brady wrote that Coded diagrams referring to suspects in the case are often more confusing than illuminating. The fact that [2016s] Ombudsmans report agrees with Gibney confirming collusion with security forces lessens the documentarys impact. But it does name the key suspect for the first time. (Full review here)

The ApprenticeWednesday, BBC1, 9pmWhen this UK series premiered in 2005, some thought it would be a pale imitation of the Donald Trump-fronted game show. How wrong they were, as this has become one of the BBCs biggest hits. Series 15 kicks off with 16 more candidates hoping they get the chance to be Alan Sugars trainee. And they are thrown in at the deep end for the first challenge jetting off to the Cape Town, they have to set up and run their own safari and vineyard tours. However, its not long before there are major problems as one teams brash approach to ticket sales causes commotion, and another sides premium prices prove problematic.

Bus GhlaschWednesday, TG4, 8.30pm

The story of the Glasgow Bus, a lifeline between Donegal and the Scottish city to which successive generations from the Forgotten County have flocked over the past two centuries. Glasgow Bus operates through the port of Larne four times a week in high season and twice a week in the low. From transporting coffins to IRA hijackings, there isnt much that the Letterkenny-based operator, Bus Feda Teoranta, hasnt experienced during 50 years of running this service. Contributors to this four-part documentary include bus owners and drivers, as well as some of the famous and colorful characters who have used this bus over the years, including Ireland and Glasgow Celtic legendary goalkeeper (and Donegal native) Packie Bonner and Lorraine McIntosh of Deacon Blue.

New AmsterdamWednesday, RT2, 9pm

This promising American medical drama stars Ryan Eggold as the brilliant and charming Dr Max Goodwin, who is about to take over the running of an ailing hospital. Goodwin has no hesitation to break the rules in order to heal the system at Americas oldest public hospital. The staff have heard it all before, but Goodwin will stop at nothing to breathe new life into the understaffed, underfunded and underappreciated New Amsterdam. Inspired by New York Citys Bellevue hospital.

The Science of Sleep: How to Sleep BetterWednesday, Channel 5, 9pmIf you are plagued by insomnia or sleeping problems, it seems youre not alone. In the first of two programmes, Gaby Roslin and Amir Khan aim to put things right by applying the latest science to some of Britains worst sleepers. Naturally with a show like this, that involves a sleep deprivation experiment. There is also hope on the horizon for an extreme snorer, and a man who suffers from night terrors.

Eugenics: Sciences Greatest ScandalThursday, BBC4, 9pmIn this one-off film, disability rights activist Adam Pearson and journalist Angela Saini reveal that eugenics, the controversial idea that was a driving force behind the Nazi death camps, originated in the upper echelons of the British scientific community. The presenters discover how alarming eugenic beliefs permeated the British establishment and intelligentsia. They also see how eugenics influenced the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913, which resulted in thousands of disabled people being locked up for decades.

The Met: Policing LondonThursday, BBC1, 9pmAs a third series of the documentary saga begins, detectives from the Mets Sapphire team deal with the case of a distressed young woman who is raped by a stranger on her way home. Naturally detectives need to find the attacker as soon as possible, and uncover some vital CCTV evidence near the crime scene. When the Sapphire team view the footage, detectives are stunned by what they uncover and bring a man in for questioning. The suspect denies rape, so the team have 24 hours to get enough evidence to prove he is lying. Knife crime is also tackled in this edition little wonder, as the capitals four major hospital trauma centres have treated more than 400 stabbing victims in the first seven months of 2019.

Les MisrablesThursday, RT One, 11.15pm

It doesnt have any songs, but this RT repeat of the BBCs 2018 adaptation of Victor Hugos novel does boast an impressive cast and a script by Andrew Davies, who wrote the 1995 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice as well as the recent War & Peace. Set against a backdrop of civil unrest in France, Les Misrables follows Jean Valjean (Dominic West), a former convict who is struggling to leave his past behind him especially as police officer Javert (David Oyelowo) refuses to believe he is a reformed character. Lily Collins co-stars as the tragic Fantine, rising star Ellie Bamber is Cosette, and Olivia Colman is Madame Thenardier.

Rich House, Poor HouseThursday, Channel 5, 9pmThe return of the life-swap series sees self-confessed workaholic and diet entrepreneur Terri-Ann Nunn and her family exchange homes, budgets and lives with accident-repair driver Mick Ross, his wife Anne and their children. The Nunns live in a luxury six-bedroom home, complete with hot tub and gym, in west Doncaster, whereas the Rosses rent a three-bedroom council house in the east of the town. How will Terri-Ann cope with putting her business to the side and how will she manage without her mobile for a week?

The Graham Norton ShowFriday, BBC1, 10.35pm

Oscar winning Bridget Jones star Rene Zellweger describes playing iconic singer and actor Judy Garland in the film Judy (above). Lenny Henry, Louis Theroux and Andrew Ridgeley also guest.

Inside the Cockpit: The Concorde CrashFriday, Channel 5, 9.15pmIn the summer of 2000, an Air France Concorde took off from Charles de Gaulle Airport heading for JFK International Airport in New York. It crashed shortly after take-off, killing all 109 passengers and crew members on board, as well as at least four people on the ground. In 24 years of commercial flight, Concorde had an unblemished record and was considered one of the safest passenger planes in history, so little wonder the world reeled in shock. Almost 20 years after that fateful day, this film re-examines the causes of the incident, as revealed by British and French air crash investigators. Just what was it that led to the deaths of so many people?

Contributing: PA

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TV guide: 18 of the best shows to watch this week - The Irish Times

September 30, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) On Thursday, September 26, failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gave an address to the 50th-anniversarydinner of NARAL Pro-Choice America, one of the most powerful abortion lobby groups in the country. NARAL had put all of its hopes on Hillary during the 2016 election.Her defeat to Donald Trump reduced many top abortion leaders to tears that evening. Onephotograph of NARALs Ilyse Hogue she had triggered applause at the Democratic National Convention when she declared shed aborted one of her babies staring in stunned grief at the election results, which were supposed to be favoring Clinton, went viral.

Clinton, unsurprisingly, announced to a receptive crowd that Trump posed a clear and present danger to Americas future and to democracy itself, and she praised Nancy Pelosi for her leadership in initiating an impeachment inquiry. But it was the threat the Trump administration posed to legal abortion, she told Molochs top lobbyists, that people everywhere should fear the most. America was at a crossroads in the abortion wars, and feticide advocates everywhere needed to fight like their freedoms depended on it. Pro-life activists, after all, would be fighting like the lives of millions of children depend on it because they do.

In the last Democratic debate, there was not one single question about abortion rights, Clinton complained. It has to be a critical issue in 2020. She need not have worried: Democratic candidates fell all over themselves to genuflect at NARALs bloody altar on the 50th anniversary of their tireless work to reduce human beings developing in the womb to non-persons unworthy of consideration. Cory Booker congratulated them on their fifty-year fight for abortion and said America is better for what they had done (without explaining why the loss of 60 million lives is something to celebrate). Beto ORourke took a break from his campaign against firearms to tweet his congratulations as well.

Bernie Sanders, a dyed-in-the-wool socialist who knows you need to break a few eggs to make an omelet (and that some people are more equal than others), also sent the abortion lobbyists his best wishes. Pete Buttigieg, who has been attempting to convince people that Christianity is about an empty womb rather than an empty grave, promised to fight alongside them. Squad member Ilhan Omar, who uses Islam for intersectional points but not for ethics, also praised NARALs half-century of abortion advocacy.

But it was Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who also addressed NARALs anniversary dinner, who displayed the most chutzpah. The pro-life laws being passed around the country, she said, ignore basic morality. She did not explain how basic morality or any morality, really permits the grotesque physical destruction of societys youngest members. Unperturbed by this reality, Pelosi forged on. We will fight to defend Roe v. Wade using every tool at our disposal, she announced. From there, she moved to impeachment. I say to you with great sorrow and prayerfully, she said with that sanctimony peculiar to those defending the indefensible, that we are at a place that I hoped we would never be.

Perhaps Pelosi and Clinton do not realize it, but their speeches to Americas abortion lobbyists appear to confirm the suspicions of many, many pro-lifers: That regardless of Trumps very real and very obvious flaws, they are simply awaiting the opportunity to eliminate his administrations ability to appoint anti-abortion judges to Americas courts. That regardless of his guilt or lack thereof, this is all about Roe v. Wade and abortion on demand. Abortion is not an issue that Americans can agree to disagree on, and so democracy has become an exercise of raw power by one side against the other, with lives hanging in the balance.

Abortion activists will do whatever it takes to protect the fictitious right to feticide a right, it must be said, that would have stunned the Founders and the framers of the Constitution. And so regardless of whether or not Trump violated the law, this battle, at the end of the day, is reallyabout abortion even if it shouldnt be.

Jonathons new podcast, The Van Maren Show, is dedicated to telling the stories of the pro-life and pro-family movement. In his latest episode, he interviews Douglas Murray, British journalist, author, and political commentator. The two discuss Murrays newest book, The Madness of Crowds, and what Murray calls the four biggest hot-button issues in politics today: gays, women, race, and trans. You can subscribe here and listen to the episode below:

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Hillary Clinton proves impeaching Trump is all about protecting abortion - Lifesite

Toby Young has apologised to Philip Hammond after he said the former chancellors suggestion that Boris Johnson was backed by speculators who have bet billions on a no-deal Brexit was antisemitic.

Hammond, following on from similar comments made by Johnsons sister, Rachel, made no mention of the religion or ethnicity of the speculators supporting the prime minister in his warning in the Times on Saturday that there is only one outcome that works for them: a crash-out no-deal Brexit that sends the currency tumbling and inflation soaring.

However, on Twitter Young accused Hammond of propagating a disgusting antisemitic controversy that Boris is being manipulated by a secret cabal of city financiers who stand to profit from economic ruin.

Youngs comments prompted a furious response from Hammond, one of 21 MPs who lost the Tory whip for backing legislation to stop a no-deal Brexit, who said on Sunday that they were absurd and defamatory. He also said he was considering taking legal action.

Following the threat to sue, Young deleted the tweet shortly before midnight on Sunday, and issued an apology while maintaining that speculators is sometimes used as a euphemism for Jewish financiers.

Hedge fund managers who have backed Johnson include Crispin Odey, a fund manager who has also previously endorsed Vote Leave and Ukip. Over the summer it was reported that his fund had made a 300m bet against British businesses and stood to profit from an economic slump in the UK. However, the fund also backed other British companies. Odey has denied backing a no-deal Brexit as a shorting opportunity.

The Financial Times quoted a senior No 10 official responding to Hammond by saying certain MPs are sounding like conspiracy theorists rather than former cabinet ministers with this kind of absurd and undignified mudslinging.

Young is close to the prime minister, having been a columnist at the Spectator when Johnson was its editor. Johnson opened Youngs West London free school in 2011 and defended his ex-colleague when his appointment last year to the executive board of the Office for Students, the newly created higher education regulator, was criticised.

Youngs selection was called into question over his lack of qualifications for the role, exaggerated CV and long track record of offensive remarks. But Johnson, then foreign secretary, described the journalist as the ideal man for the job and condemned the ridiculous outcry surrounding his appointment.

Young eventually stepped down from the role following criticism by then prime minister, Theresa May, and amid further controversy over his espousal of what he called progressive eugenics.

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Toby Young apologises for accusing Hammond of antisemitism - The Guardian

Academics and media experts warned of the limits of inclusion in technology at a forum hosted by the Institute of Politics on Wednesday evening.

The panelists at the event dubbed The Politics of Difference: Race, Technology, and Inclusion discussed a variety of topics, ranging from targeted advertising in social media to video game culture wars.

Joan Donovan, the director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at the Shorenstein Center, moderated the event. Donovan opened the panel by pointing to a culture shift in technology and inclusion.

Theres a lot of inclusionary rhetoric that we traffic in exclusionary politics, she said.

Harvard Kennedy School professor and panelist Khalil Muhammad spoke about his research on state-weaponization of big data. He said crime statistics have been used as a measure of citizenship and justification for eugenics and immigration restrictions.

They claim the data itself was divorced from a political agenda. It was just a simple articulation of the facts of the choices that individuals made in some way. And the data just accumulates in their behavior, he said. But of course, their behavior was subject to surveillance and was subject to different standards of treatment, and justice, etcetera.

Panelist Latoya Peterson, known for her award-winning blog Racialicious.com, shared the story of the time a reader suggested she look into a piece about white supremacists using search engine optimization to hijack the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Peterson said she found that white supremacist groups were manipulating search rankings to reroute people looking for information about King to white supremacy pages disguised as sites focused on civil rights.

We're now also dealing with the rise of white supremacy online, she said. Racial terror tactics migrate.

Panelist Ruha Benjamin an associate professor of African American Studies at Princeton explained this phenomenon as the innovation of racism.

We're trained to think about racism as sort of what happens in the backwoods as a byproduct of not knowing things, she said. But the fact that is that its often forward looking.

At the end of the event, the panelists stressed the need for more diversity in newsrooms, digital platforms, and technology, as well as collective organization to push innovation in the right direction.

The more you come to a community of people who can collaborate and share resources to get those apps or whatever it happens to be off the ground, the more likely we are to move the needle, Muhammad said.

Graduate student Cierra B. Robson who attended the event said her main takeaway was that technology moves in very interesting, often unintended ways.

That doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad, but it does mean that we need to be cautious, she said.

Staff writer Amanda Y. Su can be reached at amanda.su@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter at @amandaysu.

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Panelists Discuss Technology and Race at Harvard IOP Event | News - Harvard Crimson

This Dystopian Hell Hole Nightmarish Hellscape That Democrats Are Putting Out

Whoopi Goldberg repeatedly fact-checked Meghan McCains analysis on The View of Sen. Bernie Sanders remarks about population control in light of climate change.

The Democratic presidential candidate agreed that family planning was a key feature in addressing climate catastrophe, and McCain backed her friend S.E. Cupps assessment of the remarks as an endorsement of eugenics.

Population growth is on the decline, McCain said. The worlds population is projected to nearly stop growing by the end of the century and in all clarity, I think people know this, but S.E. Cupp is one of my closest friends, and I agree with that. We were actually texting each other when this moment happened in the climate change debate.

Any time youre talking about population control, she added, if youre a pro-life person, it starts sounding alarms. Because, again, like in China they enacted a one-child policy, and now men outnumber women by 70 million in China and India. Its disgusting.

Related: Gross Distortion: S.E. Cupp Roasted for Insane Attack Accusing Bernie Sanders of Promoting Eugenics

Co-host Sunny Hostin pointed out that wasnt eugenics, which Goldberg had already defined earlier in the discussion, but McCain pressed on.

I believe its a slippery slope towards that, McCain said, and I do think this dystopian hell hole nightmarish hellscape that Democrats are putting out that climate change is just going to end everything to the (point) that were going to have to have population control in this country seems very extreme.

McCain and Abby Huntsman agreed that Sanders seemed to be supporting population control through abortion, while Hostin and Joy Behar argued thats not was he was saying at all and Goldberg cut in with a fact check.

Lets be clear about what he is saying, Goldberg said. Lets not make something up when its not what he said, because when you bring in eugenics, thats a different conversation. That is the controlling of a population because you dont like the size of your nose or theyre too dark.

McCain interjected to say that eugenics disproportionately impacts minorities and people with disabilities, but Goldberg said that was beside the point.

Eugenics doesnt have anything to did with minorities or anybody else, Goldberg said, over McCains protest, and I will say this to you also. Think about all the women in Ireland who for years just wanted birth control, they just wanted birth control because they live in a Catholic country that said you cannot have it.

They were having an insane amount of children, Goldberg added. What these women fought for and pressed for and marched for and got was the right to make that decision for themselves. I think thats clearly and maybe I misinterpreted it, but when he says, I think especially in poor countries around the world, where women do not necessarily want to have large numbers of babies, and where they can have the opportunity through birth control to control the number of kids they have, thats something I support. Thats different than eugenics.

McCain said she heard Sanders through the prism of a conservative, and she was alarmed.

I was shocked by what was coming out of his mouth, McCain said, and clearly everyone else at the table thought it was normal and just in the vein of climate change.

Huntsman was also alarmed, and the panelists argued over Sanders meaning, but Goldberg stepped back in again to restore order.

Listen, you can be pissed at what he said all you want to, she said, but report it correctly.

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Trump Attacks Obama, Hillary, Biden, and Supports Putin in Off-the-Rails Press Conference With Ukraine President - The New Civil Rights Movement

Every day on TV, the radio, or in the pages of the Alameda Sun, we are confronted with warnings of looming armageddon. With few exceptions, the speaker or writer assumes that we all know as a matter of established fact, that human activity is causing the warming of the planet and that reducing our carbon footprint is the moral thing to do. But is this actually true?

Children are getting this message in ever-louder doses in schools. This is going to escalate with the hoopla around the U.N. Climate Action Summit. Students are being organized to go on strike in protests across the country. Similar strikes in Europe have already led to the blocking of traffic and the defacing of statues of Bach and Beethoven by the Extinction Rebellion.

Its a time to pause and reflect. I certainly do not believe that most people advocating reducing our carbon footprint intend to cause economic misery and premature deaths by the millions in Africa, or the turning of American youth into zombies who hate humanity, but we must soberly look at the real world consequences of the growing frenzy.

According to an Energy Access Database study in 2017, more than 1 billion have no access to electricity at all. This impacts food production, sanitation, health care virtually everything. We need to produce a lot more power over the coming few decades. We simply cannot do it with windmills and solar panels.

Even nuclear power, a very reliable source, does not produce carbon dioxide but can only make a modest contribution in the near future, as the entire world cannot build enough power plants fast enough.

I believe well need to add something like 8,000 gigawatts over the next couple of decades to bring the worlds population up to a reasonable standard. Thats triple our current capacity! I believe that without a large increase of electric power from fossil fuels, millions of people will die and die young.

The undercurrent of the environmentalist message given to young people today is that there are just too many people on the planet using up a shrinking supply of resources and polluting pristine nature. This has been the theme since the early days of the environmentalist movement.

Senator Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, was a big advocate of population limitation. Julian Huxley, a founder of the World Wildlife Fund, was a leader of the British Eugenics Society; his co-founder Prince Bernhard of Holland had been a member of the Nazi Party. There are many other unsavory cases.

With this message being drummed into our children, is it a wonder that some go bonkers? Patrick Crusius, the El Paso killer, who in the manifesto he allegedly posted before his killing spree, titled, The Inconvenient Truth About Me, he not only railed against Hispanics, but also against human beings in general and consumer culture, saying, If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.

I wont detail the massive funding of the climate-change campaign by well-known billionaires, but will point out whats more significant.

The big central banks, at the Paris Climate Summit of 2015 and the follow-up One Planet Summit in 2017, established the Network for Greening the Financial System. This is where the real muscle lies to nudge the economy away from fossil fuels into green investments. Public celebrities, like Greta Thunberg of Sweden, are merely media-created show-pieces.

But what about the science? Despite the hype, there are thousands of expert scientists who disagree with the alarmists. Many argue that 400 or even 600 ppm of CO2 is nothing to worry about its even helping to green the planet. Others point to the many other factors governing temperature and climate, besides greenhouse gases.

Unfortunately, these scientists have been heavily intimidated and their research suppressed. Who has heard of Nir Shaviv, the Israeli scientist doing groundbreaking work correlating cosmic rays and cloud formation with global ocean temperatures over millions of years? A recent interview with him in Forbes got 40,000 views in a few hours, and then was pulled. Just an example.

The late economist Lyndon LaRouche made enemies by pointing out the connection between environmentalism and fascism, as the cutting of consumption would necessarily require use of force at some point. Now one of the early environmental doomsayers, Dennis Meadows, co-author of The Limits to Growth, admits it, stating in a recent edition of the French newspaper Liberation, that, The rise of authoritarianism is unavoidable.

Maybe its time to rethink the entire paradigm. Why not work with China and India, etc., and build all those power plants we need to uplift humanity? Havent we been sold a bill of goods all these years?

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Questioning the Truth behind 'Climate Catastrophe' - Alameda Sun

John Stanley Ford, my father, was the first black software engineer in America, hired by IBM in 1946. Passed over for promotions, discriminated against in pay, with many inside IBM working to ensure his failure, he still viewed his job as an opportunity of a lifetime. He refused to give up.

Minority underrepresentation in high tech has been present since the earliest days of the industry. In reflecting upon my fathers career for a new memoir I wrote about him, I saw important lessons about the history and nature of racism in high tech, and about the steps that corporations and individuals can take to bring about much-needed change.

IBM publicly represents itself as a company with deep roots in diversity and inclusion, but history tells a different story. The roots of racism in high tech coincide with the advent of the digital age, when in the late 1920s a fledgling company run by a cutthroat but savvy businessman named Thomas J. Watson saw an opportunity in eugenics.

Eugenics is a pseudoscience that seeks to create a racially pure master human race by eliminating those deemed inferior. In 1928, the Eugenics Records Office in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., had undertaken a project to identify mixed-race individuals on the island of Jamaica for forced sterilization and other means of population control. Realizing the massive amount of data to be collected and compiled, Watson stepped in with IBM to provide the punched-card technology crucial for the Jamaica projects success.

In 1933, Watson offered IBMs services, based on similar punched-card technology, to the Third Reich and automated every aspect of Hitlers war machine including Luftwaffe bombing runs, train schedules for carrying Jews to camps, and the measures by which Jews were apprehended and exterminated. Concentration camps had IBM rooms, where the gruesome tallies of life and death were encoded on IBM punched cards.

In recognition of IBMs extraordinary service, Hitler created a medal festooned with swastikas that he pinned on Watson in 1937. Although Watson returned the medal when America entered the war, IBMs support of the Nazi regime never ceased. (IBM has never acknowledged the companys role in the Holocaust nor disputed historical accounts of it.)

The defeat of Nazi Germany did not end this distasteful marriage between high tech and racism. IBM turned next to South Africa, where for decades the company provided critical computer technology to help classify and segregate South Africas population, producing the passbooks used for the brutal subjugation of blacks.

Then, a decade after Nelson Mandela stepped from prison in South Africa, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers. In the aftermath of that horrific event, the New York City Police Department created a massive closed-circuit television surveillance center. IBM secretly used camera footage of thousands of unknowing New Yorkers obtained from the centers cameras to refine its facial recognition and video analytics software to search for and identify people by hair color, facial hair and skin tone.

IBM no longer stands alone. Other high-tech companies are advancing against race. A few weeks ago, Never Again Action, a Jewish peace group, marched from a Holocaust memorial in Boston to one of Amazons offices in Cambridge, Mass. The group cited IBMs involvement with Nazi Germany as a reason Amazon should not supply facial recognition technology for use at the U.S. border. Amazon, in turn, has attacked an MIT researcher who demonstrated built-in racial bias in facial recognition software.

A Google search delivered misleading information on black-on-white crime to Dylann Roof, contributing to his desire to massacre nine black men and women in a South Carolina church. Microsoft released a chatbot named Tay, designed to learn from Twitter users. Within 24 hours, Tay claimed the Holocaust never happened, professed hatred for women and suggested that black people should be hanged.

Garbage in, garbage out, software engineers say. Likewise, racism in, racism out. Biased developers produce biased code. But from my father, I learned there are ways to fight back. Facing racism encountered daily within IBM, my father relied on his community for support.

His Baptist church attended to the moral and spiritual needs of the many black firsts in various fields by those in our Williamsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx. And many of the women he met through the church possessed technical skills, such as switchboard operating, learned during World War II, that would prove useful in the early days of computers. My father helped some of them gain employment at IBM.

Today, community-based organizations such as the Technology Access Foundation in Seattle or Black Girls Code in San Francisco carry forth the work of providing STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education for minority youth, and provide the moral support to help them reach their fullest potential.

My father always found ways to give back. He felt it was only a matter of time before other black men and women broke through the barriers to advancement he faced at IBM. Somehow, he managed to obtain copies of the IBM entrance examination questions and answers, which he surreptitiously shared with promising young black job applicants. He coached them on passing the exam and succeeding in their interviews. Many were subsequently hired.

Yet the percentage of blacks and non-Asian minorities in high-tech professions consistently remains under 2%. For minority women, the numbers are even more dismal. Recent studies conclude this is not a pipeline problem qualified candidates can be found.

Training of software engineers can shed light on the historical and cultural issues that give rise to biased code. Data used to train algorithms can be scoured for embedded bias. Quality assurance can be expanded to include tests on users of all demographics.

Organizations like Never Again Action, which seeks to end technology used for racial discrimination, also have a role. They can insist on digital literacy curricula in all classrooms, especially classrooms of marginalized communities and communities of color; promote software and algorithms already vetted as bias-free; and align themselves with groups working to evaluate and hold algorithm makers accountable.

But these measures are not enough. Only when more people of color and other minorities ascend to the boardrooms and C-suites of high-tech firms the highest levels of decision-making and power will the systemic changes required to end racism and bias in high tech begin to take place.

My father believed that technology offered the possibility of a more democratic, egalitarian future. But he also often admonished me to learn to control technology before it learned to control me. We are at a tipping point where my fathers words must be taken seriously if technology is to be used for a society that we choose to live in rather than one that high-tech corporations find most profitable to create.

Clyde W. Ford was an IBM software engineer from 1971 to 1977. He is the author of a memoir about his father, Think Black, from which this is adapted.

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My father was IBM's first black software engineer. The racism he fought persists in the high-tech world today - Los Angeles Times

PARIS Frances Catholic bishops opposed legislation to allow medically assisted procreation for single mothers and lesbian couples and urged citizens to help block its enactment.

We hear and understand the suffering of those who cannot have children from their union with a person of the opposite sex and of homosexual women who aspire to have children, said Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort of Reims, president of the bishops conference. But our societies are making a collective mistake when they pretend to resolve sufferings with medical and juridical techniques, and when they turn medicine intended for caring and curing into a vehicle for demands and frustrations.

The archbishop spoke at the College des Bernardins in Paris, as Frances National Assembly prepared to debate a revised bioethics law extending rights to state-funded medically assisted procreation.

He said the French bishops repeatedly had outlined what was at stake in the projected measures, but added that the Churchs attitude of listening and dialogue had been ignored by legislators in their fascination with the promises of medical and juridical techniques.

De Moulins-Beaufort warned the measures risked pointing the way to a liberal eugenics, and said the beauty of parental love for children could not justify surrendering procreation to medical manipulation and family relationships to DIY.

Archbishop Eric Aumonier of Versailles urged citizens to consider the grave transgressions embodied in the legislation, which would place the desire of adults before the welfare of children.

The child risks no longer being received as a gift, but as a right, he said in a Sept. 19 statement.

He said the Catholic Church welcomed every conceived life and every family as it is, but called on Catholics to help awaken consciences, by explaining to friends, colleagues and relatives what is at stake.

Changes to the law, promised by President Emmanuel Macron before his May 2017 election, are opposed by some legislators, who fear they will spur legalization of surrogacy and further deregulation of embryo research.

Around 80,000 children are born annually in France through member-assisted procreation, which is available to single mothers in 26 of the Council of Europes 47 member-countries, and to lesbian couples in 14.

In a September survey by the French Institute for Public Opinion, two-thirds of citizens backed the proposed measures.

Crux is dedicated to smart, wired and independent reporting on the Vatican and worldwide Catholic Church. That kind of reporting doesnt come cheap, and we need your support. You can help Crux by giving a small amount monthly, or with a onetime gift. Please remember, Crux is a for-profit organization, so contributions are not tax-deductible.

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French bishops oppose medically assisted procreation for single moms, lesbians - Crux: Covering all things Catholic

87-year-old Floridan woman was charged with murder of her disabled grandson.

On Sunday, September 22, Bradenton police found30-year-old Joel Parks diedat a Florida apartment complex. Lillian Parks, the grandmother, was charged with second-degree murder after she told the police she fatally overdosed him on purpose, authorities said.

Information on Mr. Parks disability has yet to be disclosed to the public. Bradenton police say his grandmother cared for on the weekends and he lived in a group home during the week. Bradenton residents told thelocal newspaperthat he acquired cognitive disabilities from an accident when he was an infant.

According to Bradenton Police Departments Captain Brian Thiers, Ms. Parks was concerned about her medical condition and was worried about who would be caring for him in the event that she passed away,TheNew York Timesreports. Mr. Parks father is deceased, and his mother is estranged,according to the Bradenton Herald.

On Wednesday, a judge signed a warrant for Ms. Parks arrest, and authorities will take her into custody after a medical evaluation.

Unfortunately, cases like this arent that uncommon. Although there is no national database, filicides, when a parent or caregiver murders a dependent, is more common among children with disabilities than among those without disabilities. TheRuderman Family Foundation reportsthat these murders occur approximately once a week, but the actual number is predicted to be much higher. The killings of people with disabilities are under-reported, and the fact that the victims had disabilities is often undisclosed.

During trials, the perpetrators are likely to receive a lesser sentence than those charged with other murders. The juries often are sympathetic to these killers, claiming hardship as a justification for their acts.

Peter Berns, the chief executive of the Arc, an advocacy organization for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, told theTimes, We hear too frequently of parents or caregivers who murder their family members with disabilities or individuals they are caring for. Its tragic that this happens with the frequency that it happens. It is plain and simple a horrible crime. And there is, like most murders, no justification for it whatsoever.

One of the most underrepresented aspects of the Holocaust is themass genocide of people with disabilities. The Germans considered disabilities not measuring up to their concept of a master race. Since they believed the physically and intellectually disabled as useless members of society, the Nazis targeted them for murder in what they called the Aktion T4, or euthanasia program. Around 200,000 people with disabilities were killed in Germany between 1940 and 1945. Many German doctors supervised the actual killings, which happened in specially constructed gas chambers.

The erasure of people with disabilities also occurred in the United States. In 1927, the Supreme Court upheld astatute that provided for the eugenic sterilizationfor people considered genetically unfit, namely those with disabilities. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. cited that three generations of imbeciles are enough. Thirty states administrated an estimated 65,000 coerced sterilizations.

With those thought patterns and horrid actions woven into disability history, it is no surprise that Ms. Parks, along with many others, still hold the belief in mercy killings.` Also, with a justice system founded upon the idea that people with disabilities are less than the general population, justice for disabled victims of murder might be slow to come.

The state of healthcare in America increases the chances of these killings. To date, there is no national support system for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Once they age out of the school system, these adults face limited opportunities and living situations. They are often dependent on family members for care, and those family members may or may not be best equipped to provide care.

Over the past few decades, there has been an enormous push todeinstitutionalize people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Advocates and individuals firmly believe that this population deserves full integration with the community.

However, the recent murder of Joel Parks raises the question of if government agencies and community organizations are providing the best line of support and resources to these individuals and their families.

Captain Thiers explores the possibility of Ms. Parks receiving sympathy from the court, noting that she felt like she had no other option. However, hetold theWashington Post, but, again, she took a human life. We dont discriminate based on age or race anything. We have to look at it from the totality of the circumstances. And, at the end of the day, we have to protect his rights, too.

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Not A Unique Case: 87-Year-Old Murdered Disabled Grandson With Overdose - Forbes

Anna Merlan has made a distinguished journalistic career out of covering conspiracy theories, particularly far-right ones, for Gizmodo Media; her book-length account of conspiratorial thinking, Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power, is a superb tour not just through the conspiracies that have taken hold in American public discourse, but also in the real, often traumatic conspiracies that give these false beliefs a terrible ring of plausibility.

Merlan's thesis is that the "contagion" model of conspiracy thinking -- the idea that some people are just so danged convincing that merely hearing them will make you a conspiracy theorist -- is at best incomplete, and at worst, totally overblown.

After all, the arguments for the flat Earth, or anti-vax, or eugenics, have not gotten better since they emerged decades or even centuries ago, and to an objective ear, the people who advocate these ideas sound ridiculous.

Some people argue that the rise in conspiratorial thinking is about contagion, but that patient zero is the internet, where Big Tech's almighty algorithms can use machine learning to systematically explore its targets' cognitive defenses, finding and exploiting their weak spots and winning converts, with fully automated proselytizing tools that allow even the most fumbletongued conspiracy peddler to amass a following and found a cult.

This theory is supported by Big Tech's own commercial communications: if you want to find testimonies to the devastating power of Big Tech's persuasion tools, you need look no further than their own sales literature, in which they boast that potential advertisers can expect endless returns from their machine-learning mind control rays.

It's weird that we'd believe these boasts, though. Big Tech, after all, is led by "morally bankrupt liars" whose every pronouncement about their labor practices, economic activity, tax planning, private data handling and political lobbying turn out to be bullshit -- it would be pretty remarkable if the only time Big Tech told the truth was when they were trying to entice customers to given them money in exchange for access to their advertising products.

It's indisputable that Big Tech's nonconsensually assembled deep dossiers on billions of internet users are good for something, though, and that something is finding people based on whether they possess certain hard-to-find traits, like "people who are thinking of buying a refrigerator" or "people who have nonbinary gender identities" or "people who are fed up and ready to get involved with #BlackLivesMatter" or "people who want to carry tiki torches through the streets of Charlottesville, chanting 'Jews will not replace us.'"

This people-finding capacity is at the heart of the rise in conspiracism. It's what lets recommendation algorithms find people who are susceptible to videos about eugenics or the flat Earth, and it's what lets people who find these ideas compelling locate similar people to form groups with; groups that give them a sense of belonging, community and capacity for action.

Which leaves us with the question: why are so many people so vulnerable to conspiracism? What are the traits that give rise to a susceptibility to believe in conspiracy theories?

Merlan's answer echoes much of the consensus among psychologists: conspiracy is trauma's traveling companion. People who have encountered situations in which real conspiracies have harmed them or the people they love find it easy to believe that other conspiracies are at the root of harms they are living through now.

Take the persistent belief that the flooding in New Orleans's Black neighborhoods during Hurricane Katrina was caused by dynamiting the levees in order to spare white neighborhoods from flooding. This did not happen, but in 1927, the Black homes of Tupelo, Mississippi were wiped off the map when the authorities decided to blow the levees in order to spare the richer, whiter homes that were at risk from the floodwaters. Both floods followed a common pattern (right down to the mass expropriation of Black homes after the floodwaters receded).

The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 isn't a conspiracy theory, it's just a conspiracy. The fact that the white establishment was willing to conspire to drown and rob Black people in the region is what made the theory that perhaps it had happened again in New Orleans plausible.

We are living through a moment in which official truth-seeking exercises are being remade as auctions in which the wealthy bid to decide what the official truth will be, from the safety of opioids to the urgency of climate change. Which is another way of saying that we are living through not just an age of conspiratorial thinking, but also of actual conspiracies, often conspiracies that are so bold that the conspirators are barely phoning in their cover stories.

Merlan has spent time embedded in conspiracy communities of all stripes, from daffy New Agers to vicious white nationalists, and her keen anthropological analysis of the dynamics of these communities and the personalities within them foregrounds the historical precedents that conspiracists rely upon in shoring up their own beliefs. Scratch a vaccine denier, find someone who'll tell you about ghastly pharma coverups and experiments from Tuskegee to the opioid epidemic. Ufologists can go chapter-and-verse on real military/aerospace coverups and conspiracies (see also: Pizzagaters driven to frenzy by Jeffrey Epstein revelations).

From Watergate and Iran-Contra to MK ULTRA and Cointelpro, the US establishment has shown itself time and again willing to engage in coverups and palace intrigue. The "Deep State" isn't what the far-right imagines it to be, but it does exist, in the form of career civil servants and prominent government contractors who can and do exert pressure to maintain the status quo for good and ill, from keeping Guantanamo Bay open to frustrating the most unhinged plans of Trump and his cabinet.

Inequality is a driver of conspiracy, because with unequal distributions of money come unequal distributions of power, and thus corruption, self-dealing, and, naturally enough, cover-ups to keep the boat from rocking too much.

Countering incorrect conspiratorial beliefs is important and urgent work, but it is purely reactive -- ideological fire-fighting. The case that Merlan forcefully builds in her outsanding book is that we need fire-prevention, not just fire-fighting: we need to change the conditions that prime people to believe conspiracies, which is to say, we need to root out corruption and impunity and rebalance the inequality that gives rise to them, otherwise, the fires will become too numerous to extinguish.

Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power [Anna Merlan/Metropolitan Books]

I'm coming to Maine to keynote the Maine Library Association conference in Newry next Monday; later that day, I'm appearing with James Patrick Kelly at the Portland, Maine Main Library, from 6:30PM-8PM (it's free and open to the public) This is the first time I've been to Maine, and I can't wait!

Christopher Brown (previously) is the guest on this week's Agony Column podcast with Rick Kleffel (MP3) (previously), discussing his outstanding legal thriller/sf climate change dystopia Rule of Capture.

I travel a lot and wherever I go, I bring an Aeropress, because life is too short for shitty coffee.

You already take your games and movies on the go. Why not share them? Thanks to the PIQO Powerful 1080p Mini Projector, you can have that communal, drive-in movie experience anywhere on your own massive screen. This gadget packs a lot of functionality into a roughly 2 square package. First and foremost, its got a []

Want to build your own website? Even for a modest personal site, it was once assumed you might wait for days or weeks while a web designer hammered through arcane code on your behalf. That all sounds a little ridiculous today. And if you had to thank one company for that, it would probably be []

Its a long road from a song in your head to a song on the charts especially if youre just learning to play. The good news is, anyone whos willing to practice can make music. These online classes can make that process painless, with methods that can teach anyone guitar, piano or even the []

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Republic of Lies: the rise of conspiratorial thinking and the actual conspiracies that fuel it - Boing Boing

When Lee invokes velocity of processing power, he converts IQ from a weapon in a race/class/gender blood sport into a toola value-neutral speedometer.

It's a tool with consequences, though. Where many high-IQ opiners provide straight memoir, Lee attends to the needs of the questioner, who's concerned with how to love someone with a low IQ score. He doesn't mince words when discussing the hard road of kids like himself.

Teachers and parents get impatient, Lee explains, and even use epithets; moreover, a tendentious intelligence hierarchy from the American eugenics movement still casts a long shadow. But there can be an upside for low- or average-IQ kids determined to prove themselves: They learn to work. Lee, who wrote his honors thesis on George Eliot's novel The Mill on the Floss, has very much not had his motivation torpedoed. He actively enjoys, as he says, challenging and repetitive work, but only if the challenge can be overcome by practice instead of a good brain.

Then comes Lee's forthrightness when he describes balking at learning new stuff. This should offer readers of any IQ score (or none) a feeling of profound liberation.

My peers learn wine-tasting while I get drunk from my favorite Long Island iced tea, Lee writes. My peers learn yoga while I lie in bed playing with my phone. Sing it, brother. To be honest, playing videogames all the time at home sounds pretty good to me, if I don't have to go to school or work. He also doesn't finish many of the novels he starts, doesn't like to draw, and seldom goes to museums or art galleries. Becauseoh yesI don't appreciate aesthetic stuff. Is Alex C. Lee the first honest witness to the human condition or what?

Like Elias Lazar, whose bio says he studied at the University of Vienna and who writes that he scored around 80 on an IQ test, Lee has trouble following directions, including the rules of games. (Lazar writes that he records people when they give him oral instructions, so he can privately play back their words over and over till he gets it.) It's impossible for me to pick up something, as Lee puts it. I'm not a fast learner. When I learn a language, I have to systematically study, writing it down and getting familiarized.

Hold up: When I learn a language.

I asked Lee about this. My first language is Mandarin, he explained. I know English well. (Clearly.) Then he added, I know a bit of French and German too, and that he's written in French on Quora. Could it be that Lee is learning far more at what he perceives as his tortoise pace than his peers with their Mensa speeds? Languages are an intriguing case, since unlike much of mathematics, vocabulary cannot except in rare cases be learned a priori. (Where you might derive the surface area of a triangle from a couple of measurements, you mostly don't know a word till you encounter it.) Any test that fails to register that talent and tenacity is itself a failure.

And of course it is. Lee is right that we're in the thick of eugenics almost the moment we acquiesce to the implausible conceit of fixed Intelligenzquotient, as the phantom human quality was originally dubbed in Germany in the early 1900s. A hundred years later, Adam Hampshire, Roger Highfield, Adrian Owen, and Beth Parkin wrote an article for the journal Neuron debunking the notion that a unitary, measurable intelligence even exists.

The idea that populations can be compared using a single measure of intelligence is dead, Highfield wrote in WIRED at the time. The IQ test, it seems, is about as scientifically rigorous and reliable as the zodiac.

But as with astrology, what's illuminating are people's emotional and ideological responses to the possibility of universal typologies of personhood. Where astrology offers visual psychedelia, dream states, and oneness with the firmament, other typologies like the IQ arouse the left brain. And it seems that zillions of people still cotton to the idea of ranking our intellects, from top to bottom, the ingenious to the comatose, the gods to the rocks.

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Forget Mensa! All Hail the Low IQ - WIRED

The Statue of Liberty, which stands on Ellis Island in New York Harbor, was the America's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images hide caption

The Statue of Liberty, which stands on Ellis Island in New York Harbor, was the America's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954.

Nearly 100 years ago, Congress passed a restrictive law that cut the overall number of immigrants coming to the United States and put severe limits on those who were let in.

Journalist Daniel Okrent says that the eugenics movement a junk science that stemmed from the belief that certain races and ethnicities were morally and genetically superior to others informed the Immigration Act of 1924, which restricted entrance to the U.S.

"Eugenics was used as a primary weapon in the effort to keep Southern and Eastern Europeans out of the country," Okrent says. "[The eugenics movement] made it a palatable act, because it was based on science or presumed science."

Okrent notes the 1924 law drastically cut the number of Jews, Italians, Greeks and Eastern Europeans that could enter the country. Even during World War II, when hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and dying, access remained limited. The limits remained in place until 1965, when the Immigration and Nationality Act ended immigration restrictions based on nationality, ethnicity and race.

Okrent sees echos of the 1924 act in President Trump's hard-line stance regarding immigration: "The [current] rhetoric of criminality, the attribution of criminality not to individual criminals but to hundreds of thousands of people of various nationalities that's very similar to the notion of moral deficiency that was hurled by the eugenicists at the Southern and Eastern Europeans of the 1910s and '20s."

Okrent's new book is The Guarded Gate.

Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America

by Daniel Okrent

On what immigration was like at the turn of the 20th century, before the Immigration Act of 1924

Ellis Island opens in 1892 and within a few years it becomes one of the busiest port spots anywhere in the U.S. Ellis Island was a teeming hive of activity as hundreds of thousands in some years more than a million immigrants came pouring through. [It] was a very, very busy place and a very alienating place for a lot of people, because of the examination that people had to go through, particularly for tuberculosis, trachoma and other diseases. But once through the line, and then onto the ferry boat that took people to Manhattan, it was really a wonderful place to have been.

On the Immigration Act of 1924, and the quotas set up to restrict immigration

First, there is an overall quota. At various times it was 300,000 people, then it got chopped down to ... 162,000 people. ... The second part is where did these people come from? And it was decided that, well, let's continue to reflect the population of America as it has become, so we will decide where people can come from based on how many people of their same nationality were already here. ...

If 10 percent of the current American population came from country A, then 10 percent of that year's immigrants could come from country A. Except and this is probably the most malign and dishonest thing that came out of this entire movement they didn't do this on the basis of the 1920 census, which had been conducted just four years before, or the 1910, or even the 1900. But those numbers were based on the population in 1890, before the large immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe had begun. So to any question about whether there was any racist or anti-Semitic or anti-Italian intent, this established there clearly was. ...

... in the year before the first of the quota laws went to effect, more than 220,000 Italians came into the U.S. And the year after, under the quota, it was fewer than 4,000 ...

Daniel Okrent

So if you take the Italians, in the year before the first of the quota laws went to effect, more than 220,000 Italians came into the U.S. And the year after, under the quota, it was fewer than 4,000 and similar numbers stretched across Eastern and Southern Europe. Suddenly the door has slammed in the faces of those people who had been coming in the largest numbers, based not only on bogus science, but based on a manipulation of American history itself.

On how eugenics began

The origin of eugenics was in England in the latter half of the 19th century. It really comes out of Darwin in a way, out of some very good science. Darwin upsets the entire balance of the scientific world with his discovery and the propagation of the ideas of evolution. And then, once you establish that we are not all derived from the same people from Adam and Eve which was the prevailing view at the time, then we learned that we are not all the same. We are not all brothers, if you wish to take that particular position. And the early eugenicists believed that and thought that we could control the nature of the population of a nation the U.K. at first, or the U.S. by selective breeding. Let's have only the "good" breed with the "good," and let's not let the less-than-good breed.

On how eugenicists believed morality was an inherited trait

You find some very well-established scientists, [Henry] Fairfield Osborn, the head of the American Museum of Natural History for 25 years, he outright declared that it is not just intelligence, it is also morality that is inherited, and criminality is inherited. It's really stunning to think that people who are very, very well-credentialed in the natural sciences could believe these things. But if you begin your belief by thinking that certain peoples are inferior to other peoples, it's very easy to adapt your science to suit your own prejudice.

On the evaluations to determine which ethnic groups were the smartest

There were any number of tests in various places, almost all of them of equal unreliability to determine whether people were of sufficient intelligence. One of the most famous ones was the so-called "Alpha Test" that was given to nearly 2 million soldiers in World War I by Robert M. Yerkes, who is now memorialized in the Yerkes Primate Research Center in Atlanta, a federal facility.

Yerkes gave tests that included questions that were almost [like] Jeopardy questions, although in reverse. A question like: "Is Bud Fisher a (choose one): outfielder; cartoonist or novelist?" If you've just been in the country for five years and you don't speak English terribly well, how are you possibly going to answer a question like that? But it was taken seriously as a measure of intelligence.

On how Trump's hard-line position on immigration echoes the anti-immigration and eugenicist sentiments of the early 1900s

When you choose your immigrants, when you choose your next door neighbors on the basis of their ethnicity or their race rather than the nature of the individual him- or herself, you're engaged in, in this case, official legal discrimination.

Daniel Okrent

I think that one could say that today's Central Americans and today's Muslims ... are the equivalent of 1924's Jews and Italians, or ... the Jews and Italians then were treated and regarded as these Latin American and Muslim nationalities are today. When you choose your immigrants, when you choose your next door neighbors on the basis of their ethnicity or their race rather than the nature of the individual him- or herself, you're engaged in, in this case, official legal discrimination.

Sam Briger and Mooj Zadie produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the Web.

Continued here:

Eugenics, Anti-Immigration Laws Of The Past Still Resonate ...