... To be skeptical of climate models and credulous about things like carbon-eating trees and cloudmaking machinery and hoses that shoot sulfur into the sky is to replace a faith in science with a belief in science fiction. This is the turn that “SuperFreakonomics” takes, even as its authors repeatedly extoll their hard-headedness. All of which goes to show that, while some forms of horseshit are no longer a problem, others will always be with us.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The ultimate take down of the disgraced Levitt and Dubner
Next up: AAFP to endorse e-cigarettes
I had a real bad feeling when the American Academy of Family Physicians closed our once excellent web site to public access. So I wasn’t all that surprised by their latest move …
How the World Works – Family Doctors go better with Coke - Salon.com
… directed to this story from the Cleveland Plain Dealer reporting that the American Association of Family Doctors has "a six-figure grant from the Coca-Cola Co. to create content about beverages and sweeteners for the academy's consumer Web site, FamilyDoctor.org."…
… From the AAFP press release: “The Consumer Alliance program is a way of working with interested companies to develop educational materials to help consumers make informed decisions so they can include the products they love in a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle," said AAFP President-elect Lori Heim, M.D., of Vass, N.C…
…The Consumer Alliance program also will create a new source of funding for AAFP, which, in recent years, has broadened its search for funding outside the pharmaceutical industry…”
I just sent these guys over $600 for my 1 year membership – to find out that the AAFP’s consumer health site is doing covert marketing. Next up – the health benefits of e-cigarettes.
Worst bit? Maybe this is an improvement over pharmaceutical funding.
I expect this will be my last year of AAFP membership.
Update: I received a standard response letter signed by AAFP President Lori Heim when I wrote the academy. It included a bit of further context ...
... I would finally note that this is not new territory for the AAFP. Over the past 4 years we have had funding relationships with Pepsi and McDonald's for support of the AIM program - and we have managed them very well in maintaining a positive image for the Academy while advancing our message about fitness, activity, and healthy choices. And Coca-Cola has been a corporate member of our Foundation for several years as well which is why we reached out to them initially.So why not Philip Morris? These are publicly traded companies -- their mission is not public health. Their mission is to make money from people who buy Pepsi, Coke and McDonald's products.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Dems for a rationalist GOP - is there somewhere to donate?
Op-Ed Columnist - Paranoia Strikes Deep - NYTimes.comKrugman is not always right. Unfortunately, he's the best prognosticator we've got, even if he's better at forecasting doom than at coming up with practical alternatives (perhaps because we don't have a lot of practical options).
Last Thursday there was a rally outside the U.S. Capitol to protest pending health care legislation, featuring the kinds of things we’ve grown accustomed to, including large signs showing piles of bodies at Dachau with the caption “National Socialist Healthcare.” It was grotesque — and it was also ominous. For what we may be seeing is America starting to be Californiafied...
...In fact, the party of Limbaugh and Beck could well make major gains in the midterm elections. The Obama administration’s job-creation efforts have fallen short, so that unemployment is likely to stay disastrously high through next year and beyond. The banker-friendly bailout of Wall Street has angered voters, and might even let Republicans claim the mantle of economic populism. Conservatives may not have better ideas, but voters might support them out of sheer frustration.
And if Tea Party Republicans do win big next year, what has already happened in California could happen at the national level. In California, the G.O.P. has essentially shrunk down to a rump party with no interest in actually governing — but that rump remains big enough to prevent anyone else from dealing with the state’s fiscal crisis. If this happens to America as a whole, as it all too easily could, the country could become effectively ungovernable in the midst of an ongoing economic disaster...
Smart Smoker e-cigarette: From China without regulation
Cigarettes Without Smoke, or Regulation - June 2, 2009 - NYTimes.com
FALL RIVER, Mass. — During 34 years of smoking, Carolyn Smeaton has tried countless ways to reduce her three-pack-a-day habit, including a nicotine patch, nicotine gum and a prescription drug. But stop-smoking aids always failed her.
Then, having watched a TV infomercial at her home here, Ms. Smeaton tried an electronic cigarette, which claimed to be a less dangerous way to feed her addiction. The battery-powered device she bought online delivered an odorless dose of nicotine and flavoring without cigarette tar or additives, and produced a vapor mist nearly identical in appearance to tobacco smoke.
... the Food and Drug Administration has already refused entry to dozens of shipments of e-cigarettes coming into the country, mostly from China, the chief maker of them, where manufacture began about five years ago. The F.D.A. took similar action in 1989, refusing shipments of an earlier, less appealing version, Favor Smoke-Free Cigarettes.
“These appear to be unapproved drug device products,” said Karen Riley, a spokeswoman for the agency, “and as unapproved products they can’t enter the United States.”
But enough of the e-cigarettes have made their way into the country that they continue to proliferate online and in the malls.
For $100 to $150 or so, a user can buy a starter kit including a battery-powered cigarette and replaceable cartridges that typically contain nicotine (though cartridges can be bought without it), flavoring and propylene glycol, a liquid whose vaporizing produces the smokelike mist. When a user inhales, a sensor heats the cartridge. The flavorings include tobacco, menthol and cherry, and the levels of nicotine vary by cartridge.
Propylene glycol is used in antifreeze, and also to create artificial smoke or fog in theatrical productions. The F.D.A. has classified it as an additive that is “generally recognized as safe” for use in food. But when asked whether inhaling it was safe, Dr. Richard D. Hurt, director of the Nicotine Dependence Center at the Mayo Clinic, said, “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure anyone knows for sure.”
Of the e-cigarettes themselves, Dr. Hurt added: “We basically don’t know anything about them. They’ve never been tested for safety or efficacy to help people stop smoking.”
Public health officials also worry that the devices’ fruit flavors, novelty and ease of access may entice children.
“It looks like a cigarette and is marketed as a cigarette,” said Jonathan P. Winickoff, an associate professor at the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children and chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Tobacco Consortium. “There’s nothing that prevents youth from getting addicted to nicotine.”
Sales and use of electronic cigarettes are already illegal on safety grounds in Australia and Hong Kong, and some other countries regulate them as medicinal devices or forbid their advertising. So far the United States has focused only on stopping them at the border, although Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, has asked the drug agency to take them off the market until they can be tested.
Distributors of electronic cigarettes fear that a bill making its way through Congress that would give the F.D.A. the authority to regulate tobacco could be used to put them out of business as well. The bill has passed the House and could be taken up by the Senate this week.
The only American study of electronic cigarettes, now under way at Virginia Commonwealth University and financed by the National Cancer Institute, deals not with the kind of safety questions raised by propylene glycol but rather with the amount of nicotine processed by the bodies of the products’ users.
Another study, conducted this year at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and financed by Ruyan, an electronic cigarette company, shows that users typically receive 10 percent to 18 percent of the nicotine delivered by a tobacco cigarette...
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Forgotten things - Gypsies and Indians
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Sunday, November 08, 2009
Angela Merkel's second crossing
Berlin's moment of freedom that turned world history | World news | The Guardian
...Later that night, a young East German scientist called Angela Merkel walked across the same crossing. Now the chancellor of united Germany, she will do the same again this afternoon, accompanied by a group of East German opposition activists, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa and doubtless a media scrum."...I knew Angela Merkel was Chancellor of course, but I'd forgotten that she was born in East Germany. She crossed over on the day East Germany was freed.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Bad back better
Update 7/3/2013 - six years after my summer 2007 injury
Around 2010 I had another episode of reasonably severe back pain and I returned to PNBC for another rehab session. In retrospect that was probably unnecessary, but it proved I'd done a bad job of maintaining my muscle tone.
I have been utterly reliable at my morning stretching exercises, which I credit for 60% of my prolonged remission. The rest is core muscle; I've done better at maintaining that, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing. In June of 2013, while engaged in an arguably insane level of physical activity for non-elite 54 yo at CrossFit St Paul, I injured my back when I lost form doing my 16th front squat with a 120+ pound bar. (More on CrossFit in a 2013 post I think). Clean and jerk and squats likely voided my PNBC warranty. That pain resolved in about 24 hours, and 48 hours later the discomfort is mild.
It must be noted PNBC's aggressive strengthening program doesn't make one completely invulnerable. (That's a joke.) I'll go easy for the next six weeks, then keep my free weights under 90lbs for the next six months and focus on reps.
After 2009 PNBC was acquired by a local healthcare enterprise; I suspect it's lost a bit of the old intensity. Sadly, their 2009 approach to managing back pain is still radical.
Update 12/24/2015 - 8+ years later.
Over the past 4 years I've had 2-3 back strains related to pushing the envelope while weight lifting, most recently on the dead lift. I don't think one can complain about this sort of thing! So far they've all resolved fairly quickly with nothing like the severe pain I once new. So far :-).
Further notes:
- Acute back strain management - one anecdote 6/2013, I noted this in the last update, since then it's been a template I've followed 1-2 times.
- Bad backs: not necessarily hopeless 6/2014
- Growing old grudgingly: The CrossFit Inversion
Friday, November 06, 2009
How business stories are made - the inside scoop
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Exclusive Story Opportunity...
...One of the filthiest hacks on the beat has been trying to curry favor with Katie, and she's playing along, pretending to be his friend, hoping we can maybe use him for something at some point. Katie calls this her "back pocket strategy," meaning it's always good to keep a few of these frigtards in your back pocket in case you need them someday....
...If you want to see the full version of the pitch letter you can find it here. I didn't want to fill up this post with the whole thing because it's pretty long. But it's also pretty hilarious reading, especially if you've ever wondered how those big features on giant companies end up in your magazine.
Little hint: The companies think them up themselves, and put together a complete package, with charts and statistics, phone numbers for analysts and "independent observers" (all of them fully prepped and totally on message) -- and then, when they've got the whole thing wrapped up with ribbons and bows, they go looking for a hack to write it up for them.
What makes this case especially ridiculous is that the hack who passed us this pitch has had a somewhat rocky relationship with the Original Borg. In fact, this hack was once on an O.B. blacklist...
Another time the two top flacks at IBM actually met with the top two editors at this hack's publication and demanded that the editors remove this hack from the IBM beat. Another times, an O.B. exec and his minions orchestrated letter-writing campaigns against this hack, bombarding the hack's publications with letters denouncing him. The O.B. exec wrote his own letters to the publication, too, and in his he demanded that the hack should be terminated...IBM won't be trying pitches to Lyons for a while. Must have been someone who didn't know the back story.
Now they want a favor. Funny how that shit comes around, isn't it?
Death by rosary bead - poisonous plants
When my science kid asked me about the deadliest plant, I asked Google. Google sent me to the "five most poisonous plants". Plant #3 was used to make Rosaries. I have a strong suspicion that the rosary my mother had 40 years ago was made with this seed ...
HowStuffWorks "Rosary Pea"
.... rosary pea seeds contain the poison abrin. The seeds are only dangerous when the coating is broken -- swallowed whole, the rosary pea doesn't present any danger. But if the seed is scratched or damaged, it's deadly. The rosary pea poses greater danger to the jewelry maker than to the wearer. There are many reported cases of death when jewelry makers prick a finger while handling the rosary pea...
Why are automotive web sites so ugly and disorganized?
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Thursday, November 05, 2009
Eye Glasses and other iPhone health care related apps
Medical Apps for the iPhone - Pogue’s Posts
... Eye Glasses. As an over-40-year-old, I’ve become addicted to this app. It simply turns the iPhone 3GS into a magnifying glass. Hold it in front of some tiny type—on a menu, a receipt, a ticket, a medicine bottle—and Eyeglasses, after a moment of autofocusing, shows you a magnified version of it on the screen. Keeping your hand steady is tough, and the 6X and 8X images sort of fall apart—but the 2X and 4X views have saved me more than once. ($3)...
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
The magical bomb detecting wand saves Iraqi police
When you read this story, there are 3 things to keep in mind.
The first is that US money, directly or indirectly, pays for these “wands”.
The second is that policemen who discover explosives have a high risk of sudden death.
The third is that Iraqis don’t, by and large, like dogs.
Emphases mine.
Iraq Swears by Bomb Detector U.S. Sees as Useless – Rod Nordland - NYTimes.com
BAGHDAD — … Iraq’s security forces have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States military and technical experts say is useless.
The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq…
… the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles…
… The Iraqis, however, believe passionately in them. “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives…
… Aqeel al-Turaihi, the inspector general for the Ministry of the Interior, reported that the ministry bought 800 of the devices from a company called ATSC (UK) Ltd. for $32 million in 2008, and an unspecified larger quantity for $53 million. Mr. Turaihi said Iraqi officials paid up to $60,000 apiece, when the wands could be purchased for as little as $18,500. He said he had begun an investigation into the no-bid contracts with ATSC.
Jim McCormick, the head of ATSC, based in London, did not return calls for comment.
The Baghdad Operations Command announced Tuesday that it had purchased an additional 100 detection devices, but General Rowe said five to eight bomb-sniffing dogs could be purchased for $60,000, with provable results.
Checking cars with dogs, however, is a slow process, whereas the wands take only a few seconds per vehicle. “Can you imagine dogs at all 400 checkpoints in Baghdad?” General Jabiri said. “The city would be a zoo.”..
… ATSC’s promotional material claims that its device can find guns, ammunition, drugs, truffles, human bodies and even contraband ivory at distances up to a kilometer, underground, through walls, underwater or even from airplanes three miles high. The device works on “electrostatic magnetic ion attraction,” ATSC says.
To detect materials, the operator puts an array of plastic-coated cardboard cards with bar codes into a holder connected to the wand by a cable.
… the operator must walk in place a few moments to “charge” the device, since it has no battery or other power source, and walk with the wand at right angles to the body. If there are explosives or drugs to the operator’s left, the wand is supposed to swivel to the operator’s left and point at them.
If, as often happens, no explosives or weapons are found, the police may blame a false positive on other things found in the car, like perfume, air fresheners or gold fillings in the driver’s teeth…
Effective dog teams: $60,000. Plastic wands: $60,000,000. A thousand fold cost difference, and the wands, of course, do nothing.
It is very likely that good portion of that $60 million sits in the bank accounts of “Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri” and other Iraqi decision makers. Assuming the wands cost $100 each to make (probably much less) ASTC’s owners must also be rather wealthy now.
On the other hand, use of these wands must have reduced the death rate of Iraqi police over the past year or two. The police may not be as gullible as one might think.
The worst is that this is probably not the worst.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
The Abyss. Averted?
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Monday, November 02, 2009
Marcia Angell on the corruption of physician expertise
Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption - The New York Review of Books - Marcia AngellI've been long away from the world of practice, but my recollection is that there were very good thinkers on groups like the US Preventive Services Task Force. On the other hand, confident experts ruled the big panels, and they were as predicted, often confidently wrong. (The American Cancer Society was infamous for this, but lately they've surprised.)
... The problems I've discussed are not limited to psychiatry, although they reach their most florid form there. Similar conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.
One result of the pervasive bias is that physicians learn to practice a very drug-intensive style of medicine. Even when changes in lifestyle would be more effective, doctors and their patients often believe that for every ailment and discontent there is a drug. Physicians are also led to believe that the newest, most expensive brand-name drugs are superior to older drugs or generics, even though there is seldom any evidence to that effect because sponsors do not usually compare their drugs with older drugs at equivalent doses. In addition, physicians, swayed by prestigious medical school faculty, learn to prescribe drugs for off-label uses without good evidence of effectiveness...
The hero of the marketarians ...
Two biographies of Ayn Rand. - By Johann Hari - Slate MagazineI can see why.... In her 70s Rand found herself dying of lung cancer, after insisting that her followers smoke because it symbolized "man's victory over fire" and the studies showing it caused lung cancer were Communist propaganda. By then she had driven almost everyone away. In 1982, she died alone in her apartment with only a hired nurse at her side...
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