Abolish Public Sector Unions, or risk Greek’s fate

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by JB Williams

As Rasmussen reports – “New Jersey and California are just two of the states that are wrestling with high numbers of well-compensated unionized public employees as they try to reduce growing budget deficits. But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that Americans are generally favorable toward these unions…”

Dow Jones Newswire reports – “Greek Police Clash With Protesters As March Turns Violent - police have fired tear gas and stun grenades as groups of angry youths rampaged through the city center smashing shop windows, overturning garbage bins, and setting fire to at least two businesses.”

The Greek protests are led by government employee labor unions. In the states, we know SEIU (Service Employees International Union) under the AFL-CIO. And as the New York Times reported back in January, most U.S. union members now work for the government.

“The clashes come as tens of thousands of protesters gathered to protest the government's recently announced austerity measures in one of the largest protests in recent years, and coinciding with a nationwide general strike that has paralyzed the country.”

Overtaxed and still over spent, Greece’s public sector labor unions are revolting against government cutbacks. Obama and SEIU have the good ole USA poised to follow that utopian trail into national bankruptcy. In both countries, the majority of union employees now hold taxpayer funded government jobs, the only kind of jobs that government can create.

The labor union protests in the streets of bankrupt Greece are in opposition to forced cutbacks in government spending and related services, all necessary to securing additional bailout funds from the EU and IMF in excess of $100 billion to keep Greece from sinking into complete anarchy.

Protesters who have already bled the nation dry of resources in their endless demand for socialist government handouts, are angry over the fact that it is government jobs, protected by public employee labor unions and paid for by Greek taxpayers, that must be cut in order to stop the excessive deficit spending that left Greece the first of many nations to collapse under the weight of socialized economics.

Right-to-Work States in US much better off

California and New Jersey are the first to follow in the economic-suicide footsteps of Greece and if it weren’t for ongoing multiple federal bailouts of these two states, all at U.S. taxpayer expense, streets in the U.S. would look just like the streets of Athens.

To no surprise, states with the most labor union influence are first to belly up in America. So-called “right to work” states (aka, states where workers can reject labor unions) seem to be faring much better, even in the economic downturn.

Still, according to Rasmussen, 53% of U.S. citizens support labor unions for public employees, without connecting the dots between labor union demands for ever shrinking worker productivity and ever increasing pay and benefits, and the fact that the U.S. economy is only months behind Greece, Iceland and much of the EU, at best…

Americans Had Better Connect the Dots Soon!

Labor unions have destroyed manufacturing in America. They made U.S. students the most under-educated lot on earth. Now they are driving the cost of government through the roof, just like in Greece and there is NO way for this to end well.

When labor unions demand every increasing wages and benefits for government employees, the taxpayer takes a direct hit every time. When the economy stumbles, and tax revenues shrink, the cost of government and welfare services in particular, become unsustainable.

Protesters in Greece are right about one thing - it is the lowest people in the economic pecking order which will get hurt the most when oversized government has no choice but to shrink in size and scope. Said another way, government dependents don’t know what to do when the public trough runs dry.

But they fail to make the connection between lack of productivity, increasing cost and shrinking resources. The end is inevitable for any government that tries to become all things to all people, while robbing the most productive members of society of their rightful earnings to keep it all afloat.

In the end, no nation has access to a bottomless well of resources.

For the record, Greece was already one of the highest taxed nations on earth, with 33.5% of GDP burned up in taxes. The United States is not far behind with 28.2% of GDP swallowed up in taxes, while red ink still runs all over the page in unfunded promises as far as the eye can see, with more unfunded promises made daily.

Only a handful of communist/socialist nations have a higher tax rate than Greece, yet Greece was unable to sustain its government no matter how much money they robbed from their productive members of society.

Yet many Americans don’t seem to have the critical thinking skills to connect these dots and predict their own demise, even as other nations begin to collapse under the weight of excessive government and related taxation without real representation for taxpayers.

No FREE Lunch

The FREE-LUNCH mentality of the “entitlement generation” in America is driving the United States right off the same cliff that Greece just fell off.

However, Americans, believe they hava a birthright to big screen TV’s, fancy cars and homes they can’t afford.

The Unites States was once the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth, largely because it was the only nation on earth that didn’t fall for the false promise of equal free stuff. But today, our “entitlement generation” has fallen for the lie and they won’t be set free until they are once again able to separate fact from fiction.

Bottom line… if we don’t do away with public sector labor unions, we cannot reel in our runaway government or the high cost of bailing out the unions while the nation goes under.

Just ask the folks in Greece!

Terrorists Kidnap Man, Kill Dog

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We have terrorism in the streets and homes of the USA. Watch the black clothed terrorists in this video break into a family home, murder the canine, and kidnap the peaceful man. You can hear the terror in the voices of the family members. You can see the robotic way in witch the heavily armed terrorists complete their mission, blinded by a false ideology and an evil moral code.

The 2008-2009 Report of the President’s Cancer Panel: Mostly good, some bad, and a little ugly

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Mark Crislip is always a hard act to follow, particularly when he’s firing on all cylinders, as he was last Friday. Although I can often match him (and occasionally even surpass him) for snark, this time around I’m going to remain mostly serious because that’s what the subject matter requires. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m a bit of an odd bird in the world of cancer in that I’m both a surgeon and I run a lab. Sadly, there just aren’t very many surgeons doing basic and translational research these days, thanks to declining NIH funding, increasing clinical burden necessitated by declining reimbursements, and the increasing complexity of laboratory-based research. That’s not to say that there aren’t some surgeons out there doing excellent laboratory research, but sometimes I feel as though I’m part of an endangered species, particularly years like this when grants are running out and I need to renew my funding or secure new funding, the consequence of failure being the dissolution of my laboratory. It’s a tough world out there in biomedical research.

As tough as biomedical research is in cancer, to my mind far tougher is research trying to tease out the relationship between environmental exposures and cancer risk. If you want complicated, that’s complicated. For one thing, obtaining epidemiological data is incredibly labor- and cost-intensive, and rarely are the data clear cut. There’s always ambiguity, not to mention numerous confounding factors that conspire to exaggerate on the one hand or hide on the other hand correlations between environmental exposures and cancer. As a result, studies are often conflicting, and making sense of the morass of often contradictory studies can tax even the most skillful scientists and epidemiologists. Communicating the science and epidemiology linking environment and cancer to the public is even harder. What the lay person often sees is that one day a study is in the news telling him that X causes cancer and then a month later another study says that X doesn’t cause cancer. Is it any wonder that people are often confused over what is and is not dangerous? Add to this a distinct inability on the part of most people, even highly educated people, to weigh small risks against one another (an inability that has led to phenomena such as the anti-vaccine movement), and the task of trying to decide what is dangerous, what is not, how policy is formulated based on this science, and how to communicate the science and the policy derived from it to the public is truly Herculean.

The President’s Cancer Panel (PCP) marched straight into this fray last week by issuing its 2008-2009 Annual Report entitled Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk, What We Can Do Now. The Panel on Cancer was mandated under the National Cancer Act of 1971, the legislation passed as a result of President Richard Nixon’s declaration of “war on cancer,” and its function is to “monitor the development and execution of the activities of the National Cancer Program, and shall report directly to the President.” Previous reports have addressed subjects such as Promoting Healthy Lifestyles (2006-2007); Translating Research Into Cancer Care: Delivering on the Promise (2004-2005); Living Beyond Cancer: Finding a New Balance (2003-2004); and The Meaning of Race in Science–Considerations for Cancer Research (1997). Not surprisingly, this year’s report is more contentious than the average President’s Cancer Panel Report because few areas of cancer research are as controversial or impact as directly on public policy as the assessment of environmental risks of cancer and what to do about those risks.

The PCP report is very long (over 200 pages), although there is a lot of white space on each page, but for those of you who don’t feel inclined to read the whole thing, the executive summary does a good job of boiling down the vastness of the report into a more digestible chunk. It begins, as all such reports do, by pointing out the enormity of the cancer problem in the U.S.:

Despite overall decreases in incidence and mortality, cancer continues to shatter and steal the lives of Americans. Approximately 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and about 21 percent will die from cancer. The incidence of some cancers, including some most common among children, is increasing for unexplained reasons.

Public and governmental awareness of environmental influences on cancer risk and other health issues has increased substantially in recent years as scientific and health care communities, policy makers, and individuals strive to understand and ameliorate the causes and toll of human disease. A growing body of research documents myriad established and suspected environmental factors linked to genetic, immune, and endocrine dysfunction that can lead to cancer and other diseases.

Between September 2008 and January 2009, the President’s Cancer Panel (the Panel) convened four meetings to assess the state of environmental cancer research, policy, and programs addressing known and potential effects of environmental exposures on cancer. The Panel received testimony from 45 invited experts from academia, government, industry, the environmental and cancer advocacy communities, and the public.

In order to address the question of environmental influences on cancer, the Panel decided to address the following areas:

  1. Exposure to Contaminants from Industrial and Manufacturing Sources. These include a wide variety of manufactured chemicals and industrial by products used in the manufacture of mass-produced products. The report notes that numerous chemicals used in manufacturing remain on products as residues or are integral parts of the products themselves. It is also noted that new chemicals are being created continually.
  2. Exposure to Contaminants from Agricultural Sources. There are numerous chemical exposures due to chemicals used in agriculture, particularly pesticides, solvents, and fillers. Some of these leech into the soil and water and produce exposure this way.
  3. Environmental Exposures Related to Modern Lifestyles. These exposures include pollution from vehicles, chemicals used in pest control, and exposure to radio waves and electromagnetic fields from cell phone radiation and electrical power lines, respectively.
  4. Exposure to Hazards from Medical Sources. This source consists primarily of radiation from medical tests and the potential of contamination of the environment from discarded pharmaceuticals.
  5. Exposure to Contaminants and Other Hazards from Military Sources. There still remain a lot of areas around military bases. Nearly 900 Superfund sites are abandoned military facilities or facilities that produced materials for military use.
  6. Exposure to Environmental Hazards from Natural Sources. This class of exposure includes naturally occurring carcinogens such as radon, uranium, and arsenic.

Overall, the report is a comprehensive look at environmental exposures that could potentially contribute to various cancers and that we can do something about. In all my years in cancer research, I can’t recall ever seeing its like coming from such a mainstream source. The panel proposes several suggested approaches to this problem, including:

  1. The adoption of a new “precautionary, prevention-oriented approach” to replace our “current reactionary approaches in which human harm must be proven before action is taken to reduce or eliminate exposure.” As a part of this approach, it is recommended that the burden of proof of safety should be shifted to the manufacturer, rather than the current burden of proof being upon the government to prove harm.
  2. A thorough new assessment of workplace and other exposures to quantify risk.
  3. A more coordinated system for promulgating environmental contaminant policy and regulations driven by science and free of political and industry influence.
  4. Epidemiological and hazard assessment research in areas where the evidence is unclear.
  5. New research tools and endpoints to assess environmental exposure and risk, including high throughput models to assess multiple exposures simultaneously, methods for long term monitoring and quantification of electromagnetic energy sources, such as power lines and cell phones.
  6. Better policies regarding cancer risk due to radon.
  7. Actions to minimize exposure to medical radiation sources.
  8. Addressing the unequal burden to known and suspected carcinogens.
  9. Encouraging physicians to take better health histories of environmental exposures.
  10. “Green chemistry” initiatives.
  11. Measures to increase public awareness of risk due to environmental exposures.

As you can see, if the recommendations, some of the details of which are fleshed out (mostly) in the 200 page report, if adopted would require enormous policy changes. Of course, one thing that must be remembered about reports like this is that they are every bit as much political documents as they are scientific and medical documents. After all, they point out problems that very well could require new laws and/or new regulations in order to address. This report definitely falls into this category in a big way because, if adopted, its recommendations would demand action by the government. Indeed, the report itself blames weak laws, lax enforcement, and overlapping and conflicting regulatory authority, but, more strongly, it blames the attitude that industrial chemicals are safe unless strong evidence that they are not safe emerges.

But how strong is the science?

From my perspective, the report is a mixed bag, a mixture of the (mostly) good, a (little) bad, and (at least one) ugly thing. It’s also rather annoying that, of the over 400 references, most of them appear to be government reports and review articles, with very little primary literature cited. First the good, though. The report emphasizes quite strongly that what we know about the environmental contribution to cancer has lagged far behind our knowledge of other aspects of cancer. More importantly, one aspect of the environmental contribution to cancer that we often don’t consider strongly enough is that children tend to be more susceptible to environmental insults of many kinds, particularly carcinogenic insults:

An analysis by the National Academy of Sciences found that children are particularly vulnerable to environmental contaminants for several reasons. Due to their smaller size, children’s exposures to toxics are disproportionately large compared with adults. Because their metabolic pathways are immature (particularly during fetal development and in the first months after birth), they are slower to metabolize, detoxify, and excrete many environmental chemicals. As a result, toxins remain active in their bodies for a longer period of time than would be the case in adults. In addition, children have lower levels of some chemical-binding proteins, allowing more of a toxic agent to reach various organs, and their blood-brain barrier is more porous than that of adults, allowing greater chemical exposures to the developing brain. Children’s bodies also are less able to repair damage due to toxic exposures, and the complex processes that take place during the rapid growth and development of children’s nervous, respiratory, immune, reproductive, and other organ systems are easily disrupted.

Children have many more years of life ahead of them than do adults—more time in which to be exposed to environmental toxics and time to develop diseases (including cancer) with long latency periods initiated by early exposures.

Moreover, at the same time that mortality rates for childhood cancers have been plummeting dramatically, the incidence of childhood cancers has been steadily climbing, as shown by this graph “borrowed” from the report:

ChildhoodCancer

The reason for this increase is not known, but genetics is an unlikely cause for such a rapid increase. In addition, it is unlikely that better diagnosis due to the introduction of MRI and better CT scanning is likely to be the cause, because the increase is too steady. That leaves environmental factors as one suspect for a major cause. Certainly, this is worth examining, as it may provide the “greatest bang for the buck.” Such studies could even benefit adults in terms of cancer risk. For example, lately, our cancer institute has become very interested in environmental contributors to breast cancer. One thing that has become clear is that such exposures may have their greatest effect in childhood or, in particular, during puberty, which is when the mammary gland undergoes its most rapid growth and development. Indeed, although this increases susceptibility to carcinogens in children has long been appreciated, but the characterization of these differences, again, has lagged behind other areas of cancer research. This is especially relevant to the section on the risk of medical radiation, with recent studies suggesting the possibility of tens of thousands of excess cancers in the U.S. due to medical radiation from the increasingly common use of CT scans and studies suggesting that radiation from mammography may contribute to a small number of breast cancers.

Another good part of the report is its emphasis on the deficiencies in our current technology and tools for assessing the carcinogenic potential of various chemicals. Related to the report’s emphasis on how little we know about carcinogenesis in children, the report criticizes current animal models because they fail to capture the impacts of early exposures and miss the late effects of such exposures. Also problematic is that most animal studies use long-term, high-dose exposures that may have little relation to humans. Consequently, the report urges the development of alternatives to animal testing involving testing in human cells in vitro. I’m rather skeptical that this recommendation will produce much benefit very fast. After all, one reason we use animals is because, as imperfect as animal carcinogenesis studies are, the correlation between cell culture studies is even more unreliable than that of animal studies.

One recommendation of the report that intrigued me was its assessment of how science has generally focused on one compound at a time without considering how they may interact. This reminds me of how in the past we concentrated on one gene at a time as a causative agent for cancer (such as oncogenes); yet over the past ten years it has become increasingly clear that cancer is often driven by many genes, each of which individually plays a relatively small role. The Panel thus recommends the development of high throughput screens that can examine many chemicals at once and test for interactions, a recommendation that struck me as worthwhile, although I am having trouble envisioning what such a test would look like or how it would be validated. The problem, of course, is that, as more chemicals are tested, the possible combinations skyrocket exponentially.

One major part of the report deals with one specific environmental exposure, the thousand pound gorilla these days, namely BPA, which was discussed in the context of the report’s increasing emphasis on the precautionary principle. This part of the report, to me, was a little bit dicey in that the precautionary principle is very difficult to apply. I’ve discussed this matter before in the context of how preemptively removing mercury from vaccines helped fuel an anti-vaccine panic over the mercury in the thimerosal preservative that used to be in vaccines. The question of how much evidence is necessary to justify banning a compound doesn’t go away, and it still remains a profoundly political question. The report basically glosses over the question of where one should draw the line in implementing the principle, other than suggesting shifting it to more caution. It also dances around the question of how we would pay for this, given that the implementation of the recommendations in this report would require massive increases in the budgets of the relevant agencies — particularly since the report itself documents just how short-staffed and under-funded many of these agencies are.

One glaringly dubious part of the report compared to the rest is how it deals with the issue of cell phones and cancer. After emphasizing that there is no good evidence to support a link between cell phones and cancer and pointing out that the epidemiological evidence is in essence negative, the report proceeds as though a link between cell phone use and brain or head and neck tumors were biologically plausible. As I’ve described before, it’s not. Indeed, from a biological standpoint, a strong link between cell phone use and brain cancer (or any other cancer) is not very plausible at all; in fact, it’s highly implausible. Cell phones do not emit ionizing radiation; they emit electromagnetic radiation in the microwave spectrum whose energy is far too low to cause the DNA damage that leads to mutations that lead to cancer. While it is possible that perhaps heating effects might contribute somehow to cancer, most cell phones, at least ones manufactured in the last decade or so, are low power radio transmitters. It is also necessary to acknowledge the possibility that there might be an as yet undiscovered biological mechanism by which low power radio waves can cause cancer, perhaps epigenetic or other, but the evidence there is very weak to nonexistent as well. Basically, based on what we know about carcinogenesis, a postulated link between cell phones and cancer is highly implausible. It’s not homeopathy-level implausible, but it’s pretty implausible nonetheless. Consequently, in the absence of better basic science, I have a hard time managing to muster any enthusiasm about recommending more studies than the ones that are already going on.

That ugly bit aside, though, the President’s Cancer Panel report is in general cautious and makes sensible policy recommendations. It also makes a number of (mostly) sensible recommendations for individual citizens. In general, it is cautious and highlights a neglected aspect of cancer research.

That must be why the pro-industry group American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) is on the counterattack, for example:

Elizabeth M. Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, whose views often coincide with industry’s, noted that despite the growing exposure to chemicals in the environment, “cancer death rates are going down. The so-called environmental trace levels of chemicals play no role whatsoever in the etiology of cancer.”

And:

“This so-called Presidential Cancer Panel, which consists of two physicians, has obviously been politically pressured by the activists running the EPA,” says ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross. “When they mention babies being ‘pre-polluted’ and the alleged dangers of all of these chemicals, they not only sign their name to activist screeds, they neglect to mention that the dose makes the poison, and that finding traces of chemicals at levels of parts-per-billion does not imply a health hazard. And of course they do not address the potential health hazards of banning important chemicals from consumer products.”

Of course, the obvious retort to that is that the presence of chemicals at levels of parts-per-billion doesn’t imply that there’s isn’t problem, either, but that’s apparently what ACSH wants you to believe. There may be a problem; there may not. We’ll never know if we don’t study the issue. It is probably true that most trace contaminants are not health hazards, it’s also very likely true that some of them are, and if we don’t study the issue we will never know. But that’s ACSH’s M.O.: deny there is a problem; deny even the possibility that there might be a problem; criticize the tools used to study a problem even if they are the best we have, however imperfect. Sometimes ACSH even takes it to ridiculous extremes. In other words, other than tobacco, when it comes to the assessment of health risks to listen to ACSH is in essence to hear industry’s viewpoint, as Jon Stewart demonstrated so brilliantly last year. Any organization that can claim with a straight face that encouraging healthy eating is “elitist” is not one that I can take seriously.

A more reasonable criticism comes from the American Cancer Society’s Michael J. Thun, MD:

Issues highlighted in both reports include the accumulation of certain synthetic chemicals in humans and in the food chain; the large number of industrial chemicals that have not been adequately tested; the potentially greater susceptibility of children; the possibility that some chemicals or combinations of chemicals may have effects at low doses; and the potential risks from widely used medical imaging procedures that involve ionizing radiation.

Unfortunately, the perspective of the report is unbalanced by its implication that pollution is the major cause of cancer, and by its dismissal of cancer prevention efforts aimed at the major known causes of cancer (tobacco, obesity, alcohol, infections, hormones, sunlight) as “focused narrowly.”

This seems to be missing the point by more than a bit. The very point of the report was to focus on an aspect of cancer prevention that the Panel considered to have been historically underrepresented. This year, the President’s Cancer Panel report was designed to focus on one aspect of cancer, namely environmental influences on cancer. As such, of course it emphasized — shockingly — environmental influences on cancer. It’s also just plain wrong that the report “dismisses” cancer prevention efforts aimed at the stronger known exposures and risk factors for cancer; rather, it argues that we should be doing more to ameliorate cancer risk from environmental exposures, be it to chemicals or the excessive use of medical radiation in imaging tests.

Basically, I found the ACS’s objections to be rather puzzling, given that just last fall the ACS published a position paper, many parts of which sound eerily similar to the President’s Cancer Panel report. For example, these are the things that the ACS recommends:

The position statement on cancer prevention also says:

  • New strategies for toxicity testing, including the assessment of carcinogenicity, should be implemented that will more effectively and efficiently screen the large number of chemicals to which people are exposed. This very same recommendation is in the President’s Cancer Panel report.
  • Occupational and community exposures should meet regulatory standards, and research to identify and reduce carcinogenic hazards should be supported. Ditto.
  • The agencies that set and enforce environmental standards need to be appropriately funded and science-based to keep pace with scientific developments and to update their standards accordingly. This is more or less the same as what the President’s Cancer Panel recommends.
  • Although certain exposures are unavoidable, exposure to carcinogens should be minimized or eliminated whenever feasible. A little different emphasis, but basically the same idea as embodied in the President’s Cancer Panel report.
  • The public should be provided with information so that they can make informed choices. Absolutely the same as the President’s Cancer Panel report.
  • Communications should acknowledge and not trivialize public concerns, but at the same time should not exaggerate the potential magnitude or level of certainty of the potential risk.

The last point seems to be the only point where the ACS and the President’s Cancer Panel differ significantly, and I will admit that the President’s Cancer Panel report is a bit too certain in its tone when it comes to several issues. And, straight from the article:

The exposure levels to the general public are typically orders of magnitude lower than those experienced historically in occupational or other settings in which cancer risks have been demonstrated. The resulting cancer risks are generally so low that they cannot be measured directly. Nevertheless, there is reason to be concerned about low-level exposures to carcinogenic pollutants because of the multiplicity of substances, the involuntary nature of many exposures, and the potential that even low-level exposures contribute to the cancer burden when large numbers of people are exposed. Concerns about the toxic and carcinogenic potential of these exposures are amplified by broader public concerns regarding the effectiveness of hazard identification and the regulation of potentially toxic exposures in the United States and other economically developed countries, as well as high levels of exposures to known carcinogens that still occur in many developing countries.

All of this is very similar to what is in the President’s Cancer Panel report, the main difference being more of emphasis than anything else and a disagreement over whether environmental contributions to cancer other than the strong, well-characterized ones (like smoking) are underestimated or not. At the risk of falling prey to the fallacy of the Golden Mean, I rather suspect that the real risk is somewhere in between the position of the ACS and that of the President’s Cancer Council. The reason that I don’t think the Golden Mean fallacy will be a big deal here is because the positions of the two are actually pretty close, despite Dr. Thun’s objections. When the ACSH points to the ACS as “harshly criticizing” the report, even going so far as to entitle one post Praise be to Thun, it’s clearly exaggerating the extent of disagreement for its own purposes.

The President’s Cancer Panel report represents a document that is at the same time scientific, medical, and also highly political, and that needs to be remembered. It has also been heartening to epidemiologists and public health officials, some of whom have criticized the National Cancer Institute system for publicizing avoidable causes of cancer other than smoking to be “virtually non-existent.” This report, as flawed as parts of it are, represents a refreshing first step towards addressing that shortcoming. My only fear is that, if the results are not communicated well, we could have a series of environmental cancer scares on the basis of very little evidence, given the uncertainty inherent in many of these studies. However, if this is handled well, the result could be science-based health policies that minimize public exposure to known carcinogens and give people the information necessary to allow them to act for their own benefit.


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Climate Scientists Restate the Science

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More false claims from a right-wing organization called the Heartland Institute, advertising their latest conference for global warming denialism and celebrating their ignorance of facts:yet

“The theme for ICCC-4 will be “Reconsidering the Science and Economics.”  New scientific discoveries are casting doubt on how much of the warming of the twentieth century was natural and how much was man-made, [false] and governments around the world are beginning to confront the astronomical cost of reducing emissions. Economists, meanwhile, are calculating that the cost of slowing or stopping global warming exceeds the social benefits. The purpose of ICCC-4 is the same as it was for the first three events: to build momentum and public awareness of the global warming “realism” movement, a network of scientists, economists, policymakers, and concerned citizens who believe sound science and economics, rather than exaggeration and hype, ought to determine what actions, if any, are taken to address the problem of climate change.”

The denialism movement and right-wing think tanks are not using science to determine actions on climate change at all, but they are using the second thing they mentioned, the driver of all right-wing ideology — economics, and economists.  They are also using politics, but they are certainly not using science.  By economics is how they make all their policy decisions, including decisions on scientific subjects like climate.  What good is the climate going to be to anyone once it’s been declared expendable by economists?  Calling the climate expendable and negotiable is the same as declaring the human race expendable.  We will go extinct with this type of thinking.

Most scientists believe that the evidence of global warming is unequivocal and they find themselves having to state this over and over again, mainly due to these deniers and their movement against reality.  The effects of the denialism movement are serious enough that scientists had to recently re-state the science on climate change and defend their work from this denialist group — most of them funded by big oil and big coal.

Scientists defend climate research, condemn ‘McCarthy-like threats’

Text of an open letter published in May 7 issue of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It is signed by 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel Prize winners.

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet.

Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory [...]

Dr. Alexander R. Judkins Named Department Head of Pathology Laboratory Medicine at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles

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Had an opportunity to meet and hear Alex speak a few months ago on the progress he was making at CHOP with digital pathology and bioinformatics. He is clearly a thought leader in this area and forward thinking beyond his other professional and academic achievements.  Alex has accepted the chair position at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles.  Look forward to more accomplishments in your new role Alex!

(Abbreviated press release below)

Alexander R. Judkins, M.D., has been named the new Department Head of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, according to an announcement last week by Richard D. Cordova, FACHE, president and CEO of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.  Dr. Judkins begins his duties on July 1, 2010.
   
Since 2007, Dr. Judkins has served as the chief of the Division of Neuropathology, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).  He also is director of the Pathology Core Laboratory at CHOP and assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Dr. Judkins will replace Timothy Triche, M.D., Ph.D., who is stepping down after 21 years to create a new Center for Personalized Medicine at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

"We are pleased we were able to convince Dr. Judkins to join our team," said Mr. Cordova.  "He will serve as the liaison between the Pathology Department here at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and the appropriate laboratories and the Department of Pathology with our partners at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California."
   
Dr. Judkins will be responsible for the overall performance and quality of the pathology and laboratory services program at Childrens Hospital.  His administrative and clinical oversight duties will include integration of pediatric pathology programs, academics, research, patient care, fiscal planning and monitoring.

In addition, he will oversee teaching and education as it relates to the Department of Pathology at Childrens Hospital and will serve as the Vice Chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at USC Keck School of Medicine.

Dr. Judkins is recognized for his diagnostic expertise and research in pediatric brain tumors, particularly embryonal CNS neoplasm including atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumors (AT/RT).  He is a contributor to the 2007 World Health Organization Classification of Tumors.  Pathology & Genetics: Tumors of the Nervous System and a reviewer for Children's Oncology Group.
   
Dr. Judkins is also recognized for his work in non-neoplastic pediatric neuropathology, where his focus has been on developmental malformations and the neuropathology of seizure disorders.  He is a co-author of the recently published Non-neoplastic Disease of the Central Nervous System, First Non-Neoplastic Disease Fascicle Series, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

Dr. Judkins has developed unique expertise in digital pathology and is working to build tools to integrate bioinformatics and pathology image data analysis.  He also has made significant contributions to both the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.  He developed the Pathology Core Laboratory to offer services and support to researchers at the CHOP, as well as the broader University of Pennsylvania research community.

Dr. Judkins received a bachelor's degree (1991) from State University of New York Geneseo, graduating Summa Cum laude.  He received his medical degree (1996) from the University of Rochester School of Medicine in New York.

Dr. Judkins trained at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed residency training in anatomic pathology (1996-97), and served as chief resident (1998-99).  He completed fellowships in neuropathology (1999-2001, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania) and forensic pathology (2001-02, Office of the Medical Examiner in Philadelphia and MCP Hahneman University).

Dr. Judkins is board certified in anatomic pathology, neuropathology and forensic pathology.  He joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the staff of CHOP as a neuropathologist in 2002.
   
He currently serves in editorial positions at a variety of journals and publications, including Brain Pathology, the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology and Acta Neuropathologica.

   
http://www.CHLA.org

A Spreading Peril for Women’s Privacy and Freedom – New York Times

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USA Today
A Spreading Peril for Women's Privacy and Freedom
New York Times
... up other obstacles, they have primarily succeeded in making it harder for women of modest and meager means to obtain a safe and legal medical procedure. ...
Demographics of Abortion: Race, Poverty and ChoiceHuffington Post (blog)
Letters: Ultrasound amendment draws strong responsePalm Beach Post

all 26 news articles »

Global Spirit

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A series of one-hour programs, available on TV and through the web, that explores the spiritual, psychological, and scientific belief systems from around the world that animate our actions; featuring a fascinating and eclectic group of spiritual and scientific teachers; hosted by Phil Cousineau.

YAY – A New Book

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Simon & Schuster has a new book out on its Free Press label by Maceleo Gleiser, A Tear At The Edge Of Creation.

Dr. Gleiser, long a believer and researcher for the String Theory, has given up his ideals of a unified, universal “answer” to the origins of matter and the universe and takes off in an entirely new direction.  His book, “A radical new vision for life in an imperfect universe”, stems from his new belief that life, as complex organisms, is extremely rare.  So rare, in fact, that we are virtually “alone” in the universe.  Dr. Gleiser then believes that we have an overwhelming mission to preserve life here on Earth, and even to spread our version of it further out into the universe.

In his book, Dr. Gleiser puts forth the idea that nature and the universe are basically asymmetrical and imperfect, and that we all stem from these imperfections.  That there is no “final theory” (as in the String Theory).

A Tear At The Edge Of Creation is an engaging and interesting read.  Dr. Gleiser presents his ideas cleanly, and his position is well-thought and well-researched.  The book is logically presented and easily followed.  At about 255 pages of text (hardback), it is a great “rainy day” book to keep you awake and alert.  I think it’s a good selection for your home library.   I certainly enjoyed it, especially the “We Are All Mutants” chapter.

Dr. Gleiser is a professor at Dartmouth College, and the author of three other books:  The Prophet and the Astronomer, The Dancing Universe, and A Harmonia Do Mundo.  He has been featured in several TV documentaries, including Stephen Hawking’s Universe, and The History Channel’s Beyond the Big Bang.

NCBI ROFL: Scientific analysis of Playboy centerfolds reveals Barbie-like vulvas. | Discoblog

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Evulvalution: The Portrayal of Women's External Genitalia and Physique Across Time and the Current Barbie Doll Ideals. "Media images of the female body commonly represent reigning appearance ideals of the era in which they are published. To date, limited documentation of the genital appearance ideals in mainstream media exists. Analysis 1 sought to describe genital appearance ideals (i.e., mons pubis and labia majora visibility, labia minora size and color, and pubic hair style) and general physique ideals (i.e., hip, waist, and bust size, height, weight, and body mass index [BMI]) across time based on 647 Playboy Magazine centerfolds published between 1953 and 2007. Analysis 2 focused exclusively on the genital appearance ideals embodied by models in 185 Playboy photographs published between 2007 and 2008. Taken together, results suggest the perpetuation of a "Barbie Doll" ideal characterized by a low BMI, narrow hips, a prominent bust, and hairless, undefined genitalia resembling those of a prepubescent female." Image: flickr/SantaRosa OLD SKOOL Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: You might want to put a condom on that symbolic penis.
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Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: If Vladimir Nabokov did primary research... WTF is NCBI ROFL? ...


Hand Washing After a Decision Scrubs Away Those Lingering Doubts | 80beats

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hand-washingShakespeare’s Lady Macbeth may have had the right idea when she scrubbed her hands following the murder of King Duncan. An odd new study suggests that hand washing may help people deal with the emotional consequences of decisions–and not just big decisions, like whether or not to participate in regicide, but also minor calls, like which free CD to take home.

[Psychology researcher Spike W. S. Lee] and a colleague named Norbert Schwarz decided to test hand washing’s effect on one kind of bad feeling: the lingering tension we feel after being forced to choose between two attractive options, because picking one option makes us feel that we’ve lost the other. Psychologists know that people usually try to soothe this inner conflict by later exaggerating the positive aspects of their choice. “In other words, after they make the choice, they will like the chosen option more than before the choice,” Lee explains [NPR].

For the study, published in Science, the researchers told students they were evaluating products for a consumer survey. The students first ranked 10 CDs in order of preference, and were then told they could take home either their fifth- or sixth-ranked CD as a token of appreciation. After they made their choices, they were told it was time to evaluate a liquid soap–but some students washed with the soap, while others only looked at its packaging. Finally, the students were asked to rank the same set of CDs again.

When the two groups re-ranked their ten CDs, students that did not wash their hands ranked the CD they chose higher, as if to indicate to themselves that they wanted that CD anyway. Students that did wash their hands, though, ranked their chosen CD about the same, showing that hand-washing somehow dispensed with the need to justify a choice [Ars Technica].

The results suggest that hand washing “wiped the slate clean,” Lee says, and removed the emotional baggage and rationalizations associated with the students’ choices. In another version of the experiment, researchers got the same results when students cleaned their hands with an antiseptic wipe after choosing a jam, which implies that a traditional scrub down with soap and water isn’t required.

While this is a neat trick, Lee notes that the typical mental processes that surround decision making have served humans well.

“Justification has a purpose, it makes people feel good. Washing away the need to justify past decisions also washes away the cognitive good.” It’s possible that those who washed their hands won’t enjoy the CD or jam as much as their unwashed counterparts will, he says [New Scientist].

Related Content:
Discoblog: Does Washing Your Hands Make You Less Judgmental?
80beats: Warm Hands Give People a Friendly, Generous Outlook
DISCOVER: The Biology of …Hand-Washing

Image: flickr / Arlington County


The Dream: Print-Out Solar Panels That Can Be Stapled to Your Roof | 80beats

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MITSolarCellWho needs big silicon panels? MIT scientists just coated paper with solar cells, reportedly the first team to ever do that. Vladimir Bulovic, director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Research Center, unveiled them this week, and said the design was being submitted for peer review.

The printed solar cells, which Bulovic showed at a press conference Tuesday, are still in the research phase and are years from being commercialized. However, the technique, in which paper is coated with organic semiconductor material using a process similar to an inkjet printer, is a promising way to lower the weight of solar panels. “If you could use a staple gun to install a solar panel, there could be a lot of value,” Bulovic said [CNN].

Right now the solar cells on paper get just 1 to 2 percent efficiency at converting sunlight to electricity (some cells have achieved 40 percent or more in lab trials). But they carry the advantages of being flexible, and Bulovic says he could potentially use a number of different materials, not just the carbon-based dye used in these first attempts. And they’re tunable:

MIT is focusing much of its effort on quantum dots, or tiny crystals that are only a few nanometers in size. A human hair is about 50,000 to 100,000 nanometers thick. By using different materials and sizes, researchers can fine-tune the colors of light that quantum dots can absorb, a way of isolating good candidates for quantum dot solar cells [CNN].

Bulovic gives the standard warning about new technologies—it could be a decade before it’s ready for commercial development.

And once it is? There’s no telling how it could revolutionize the home solar industry, which currently relies on pricey professional installers to set up panels [Inhabitat].

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DISCOVER: Sun Catcher Promises Cheaper Solar Power
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80beats: Self-Assembling Solar Panels Use the Vinaigrette Principle

Image: Martin LaMonica at CNET


Scientist Smackdown: Are Environmental Toxins a Huge Cancer Threat? | 80beats

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presidential-cancer-panelYesterday, a government entity called the President’s Cancer Panel released an alarming report declaring that environmental toxins are causing “grievous harm” to Americans. The authors of the report (pdf) went on to say that while much more research needs to be done to determine the long-term effects of exposure, they believe that the “true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated.”

But no sooner had they released the report than other cancer experts came forward to say that it wasn’t alarming, but rather alarmist.

First, the panel’s findings. In the 240-page report, the advisory panel noted that Americans are exposed to chemicals whose safety hasn’t yet been definitively established–like the chemical BPA that’s found in some everyday plastics, pesticides, and the substances found in industrial pollution. They write:

“With nearly 80,000 chemicals on the market in the United States, many of which are used by millions of Americans in their daily lives and are un- or understudied and largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread” [TIME].

The authors go on to suggest a more precautionary approach to approving new chemicals, and argue that under the current regulatory system the government doesn’t act until there’s some proof of harm. They write that cancers could be prevented if the government required more proof of safety from companies before approving a new chemical.

But the report’s release brought an immediate rebuttal from an authoritative source: the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Michael Thun, an epidemiologist from the cancer society, said in an online statement that the report was “unbalanced by its implication that pollution is the major cause of cancer,” and had presented an unproven theory — that environmentally caused cases are grossly underestimated — as if it were a fact. The cancer society estimates that about 6 percent of all cancers in the United States — 34,000 cases a year — are related to environmental causes (4 percent from occupational exposures, 2 percent from the community or other settings) [The New York Times].

Thun went on to say that the report does a disservice to the public by suggesting that the risk of environmentally caused cancer is much higher than 6 percent, thus diverting attention from the real top cancer causes, like smoking and obesity.

“If we could get rid of tobacco, we could get rid of 30 percent of cancer deaths,” he said [The New York Times].

The report’s authors maintain that their findings were balanced and judicious, so the spat doesn’t seem likely to end anytime soon. But the opponents do all agree on one thing: More research on the effects of exposure to everyday chemicals would be tremendously useful.

Related Content:
Image: President’s Cancer Panel