INTERESTING AIDS CASE

A scientific theory is to be judged in an Australian court! The judgment is more likely to turn on prestige rather than science, however. Many well-informed people do question whether the HIV virus is the cause of AIDS. There are some murky episodes in the history of research on the question -- with the "discoverer", Gallo, being an undoubted crook driven by a huge ego.

Nonetheless, on the evidence I have seen so far, I am inclined to conclude that HIV does cause AIDS -- chronic skeptic though I am.

All AIDS is not the same however. The defence would do better to concentrate on the case of African AIDS only. They call anything AIDS there.

The Perth skeptics have a critical survey of the main scientific evidence here

Leading scientist Gustav Nossal has stepped into a courtroom showdown, labelling a group of self-styled experts who claim HIV does not exist as "a considerable scientific embarrassment". Sir Gustav, Australian of the Year in 2000 and an immunologist of global stature, will join upto six leading Australian HIV-AIDS scientists in Adelaide this week to give evidence in the appeal of an HIV-positive man convicted of endangering the lives of three women.

Andre Chad Parenzee, 35, was convicted in February last year on three counts of endangering life. South African-born Parenzee - who had unprotected sex with the women but failed to tell them he was HIV-positive - is in custody awaiting sentencing and faces up to 15 years in jail.

Sir Gustav and the eminent scientists will dispute Parenzee's two defence witnesses, Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and Val Turner, who lead the Perth Group of HIV-AIDS sceptics. During two weeks of evidence at the appeal hearing late last year, the Perth Group witnesses presented scientific research and arguments claiming that HIV does not exist and was not responsible for the global scourge of HIV and AIDS. The defence hopes the hearings will lead to a retrial and acquittal.

HIV-AIDS specialists believe the case has the potential to set a dangerous precedent for public health campaigns and the criminal law. Sir Gustav yesterday called the HIV sceptics "a very considerable embarrassment" to Australian science. "HIV-AIDS is the most serious communicable disease ever - worse than the bubonic plague. It is a pretty serious thing to set yourselves up attacking the science behind it," he said.

South Australian prosecutors will today continue their cross-examination of Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos, a medical physicist at the Royal Perth Hospital, and Dr Turner, who told the court last year he was an emergency medicine specialist. They believe HIV has never been isolated as an antivirus, since its discovery in the early 1980s, and that it does not cause the AIDS disease and cannot be transferred by sexual contact.

Up to seven prosecution witnesses will begin appearing from Thursday, when Emeritus Professor Peter McDonald of Flinders University will take the stand. He is an expert in infectious diseases. On Friday, the Royal Perth Hospital immunologist Martin French will take the stand. Next Monday, two HIV-AIDS researchers, including world-leading researcher associate professor Elizabeth Dax, will take the stand. Several of Professor Dax's papers have been quoted by the Perth Group and the prosecution has accused them of misrepresenting Professor Dax's findings. Professor John Kaldor of the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology is scheduled to appear next Tuesday, followed on Wednesday by professor David Cooper, director of the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research at the University of NSW.

Sir Gustav will appear next Wednesday if he chooses, otherwise he will send a written report to the court. From his office at the University of Melbourne yesterday, he rejected the claims made by the Perth Group. "The evidence of AIDS being due to a virus is as strong as any other infectious disease you care to name - from measles to polio," he said. "I was recently chairman in a meeting of the foundation that gave $300 million to finding an AIDS vaccine - I doubt Bill and Melinda Gates would be giving that money if AIDS was not caused by a virus."

Monash University professor Suzanne Crowe, head of the Burnet Institute's HIV Pathogenesis and Clinical Research Program and not a witness in the case, said that unless the prosecution wins the legal showdown, it would set a "dangerous precedent" in the global AIDS fight.

Source





OBESITY WAR PUSHING PEOPLE INTO UNSAFE SURGERY

The number of people having liposuction treatments to remove fat has risen by 90 per cent in a year, prompting a warning from experts that it should not be seen as a solution for obesity. The operation, which involves vacuuming fat from areas such as the thighs and abdomen, was the third most popular cosmetic procedure last year, after breast enlargement and eyelid surgery.

But the surgery is not without risks. Last year Denise Hendry, the wife of the former Scotland football captain Colin Hendry, accepted more than 100,000 pounds in compensation after suffering complications during liposuction in 2002. She was in intensive care for nearly two months after sustaining nine punctures to her bowel and colon during a procedure. At one point her heart stopped for four minutes.

According to figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, at least 4,000 of the 90,000 cosmetic surgery operations carried out last year were liposuction procedures, compared with 2,100 in 2005. Patients included men wanting to remove excess fat from their chests, often referred to as "man breasts". Side-effects can include permanent scarring and loose skin, but Adam Searle, a consultant plastic surgeon and the association's former president, said that the procedure was becoming more refined.

However, it should not be considered as an alternative to losing weight, he said. "There are lots of misconceptions. Every week someone comes into a clinic weighing 25 stone [159kg] and wanting liposuction. This technique is not appropriate for the obese. "It should be reserved for very specific areas of fat in an otherwise fit person. The ideal candidate would be a woman who says, `I go to the gym, I have lost weight but this area on the side of my thigh refuses to go'."

Members of the association carried out 28,921 plastic surgery procedures last year - up about one third on 2005. The association said that the number of other plastic surgery procedures - such as breast and nose surgery - had also risen.

The figures show that anti-ageing procedures were also popular, with facelifts up 44 per cent on 2005, eyelid surgery up 48 per cent, and brow lifts up 50 per cent. The vast majority of procedures - about 92 per cent - were carried out on women, 6,156 of whom had breast surgery. Nose surgery was most common in men, but they also had eyelid surgery, liposuction, altered their ears, and had face and neck lifts.

Louise Braham, the director of the Harley Medical Group, said that demand had increased in the past year. More professionals - including lawyers, teachers, estate agents and accountants - had opted for treatment, she said. She said that "growth hotspots" included the use of botox - the number of procedures had risen 89 per cent in the past six months - breast reductions, which rose 85 per cent in the same time, and nose surgery, which rose 25 per cent.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

*********************

Child obesity

Is the next generation of Brits facing an epidemic of ill-health?

Panic: The UK House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts has published a new report lambasting the government for failing to tackle child obesity. The report notes that `obesity is a serious health condition', `a causal factor in a number of chronic diseases and conditions', and that `overall, it reduces life expectancy by an average of nine years'. According to the report, `there has been a steady rise in the number of children aged 2 to 10 who are obese - from 9.9 per cent in 1995 to 13.9 per cent in 2004.'

Don't panic: If the committee wishes to attack the government, and demand ever-greater intervention against parents, schools and companies, it had better get its facts straight. Obesity is not a serious health condition. It is a category of body morphology. The definition employed by the committee, the standard one in health circles, is that someone is `obese' if they have a body mass index (BMI) above 30; essentially, if the ratio of their weight to height is above a certain level. Aside from the fact that this ratio can just as easily describe excess muscle as excess fat, being fat does not necessarily imply ill-health. The majority of fat people are pretty healthy. In fact, it is those who, under today's abitrary categories, would be defined as `overweight' or moderately obese (with a BMI between 25 and 32) who seem to have the best life expectancy.

We do not know to what extent, if at all, obesity is a causal factor in chronic disease. We do know that obesity - particularly morbid obesity - is associated with increased risks of heart disease and type-2 diabetes, for example, but causation is a different matter. Given that fat people who are also fit seem to have very similar health profiles to thin but sedentary people, it may well be that lack of exercise not fatty tissue is the most important factor. In any event, untangling all the potential confounding factors makes the simple `obesity=disease/death' equation far too simplistic.

Specifically, the figure given for years of life lost is wrong. It appears to be repeating a statistic from a National Audit Office (NAO) report in 2001. However, what that report actually says is: `On average, each person whose death could be attributed to obesity lost nine years of life.' While this kind of attribution is fraught with problems, it is also very different from the statement in the latest report. The NAO report said six per cent of deaths were due to obesity - suggesting that most obese people die because of some other factor. Therefore, simple maths suggests the average number of years lost due to obesity is substantially lower than the nine years suggested by the new report.

As for child obesity, there is much dispute about what is an appropriate measure - BMI, for example, is even less relevant in children than in adults. But, according to the Health Survey for England in 2002: `About one in 20 boys (5.5 per cent) and about one in 15 girls (7.2 per cent) aged 2 to 15 were obese in 2002, according to the international classification.' While children have got a bit fatter in recent years, average weights for children have changed little.

We are facing an epidemic, it's true: an epidemic of regulation, intervention and fear-mongering. And it will all be based on reports like this one from the Committee of Public Accounts. While the motivations of these politicians may be sincere, their role in the obesity panic is likely only to make us more unhealthily obsessed with food and weight.

Source




A diet of misinformation

John Luik, co-author of Diet Nation, tells Rob Lyons that the obesity panic is being fattened by savvy interest groups and junk science



`More than any other government, the UK government has bought into it. The UK leads the world in bad obesity policy.' I'm sitting in the offices of the Advertising Association discussing the obesity panic with John Luik, co-author of Diet Nation: Exposing the Obesity Crusade. Luik is a genial American policy analyst who's gunning for the `relatively small group of people around the world who have decided, manufactured, this as a problem, and who have sold it to governments.'

`If we had gotten paid by the advertising industry to write this book - which we didn't - people would say, "You guys are on the take". But you can have people on the other side who get hundreds of thousands of pounds from those who have a deliberate interest in making people think they're fat, and no-one thinks that is a question of corruption.'

In Diet Nation, Luik and his co-authors, Patrick Basham and Gio Gori, show that the fear of expanding waistlines is nothing new. But they argue that the modern hysteria about getting fat has little to do with real dangers to our health, or that of our children; rather it has become the obsession of an unholy alliance of sophisticated lobby groups and junk science.

This is perfectly illustrated by a report published by the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts this week, which leaps from making plainly untrue statements about the problem of obesity to berating the government for not doing enough to address it, by clamping down on the food industry, for example, or frightening parents and stigmatising children.

Fretting over our waistlines has a long history. There was already medical discussion about the problem of obesity in the late nineteenth century, but as a `product rather than a cause' of the prejudice against excess weight. Within a few years, this issue started impacting on popular culture. In 1907 a popular American play called Nobody Likes a Fat Man was staged, and in 1913 Edith Wharton described one of her characters fretting about being anything more than `perpendicular'. As the authors of Diet Nation note, in one respect `the century-long European and American preoccupation with thinness and the rejection of fat is very much a social construct in which obesity is increasingly associated with the morally unacceptable' (p33).

The first obesity crusade took off in the Fifties, and was particularly inspired by the work of Louis Dublin, a biologist working for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in the US. He was a man on a mission. He wrote hundreds of articles on the subject and produced just the kind of research that is the mainstay of obesity discussions today: he rather dubiously compared the weight of individuals (often self-reported) with mortality many years later. There were many obvious limitations, especially the fact that the subjects were self-selected (insurance buyers were not typical of the population then), and that their weight was not regularly measured over the period of study; in fact, it was often not measured independently at all. And yet, Dublin tried to persuade America using this shaky data that not only was being morbidly obese bad for your health, but even levels of weight 10 per cent above his `ideal' could shorten your life.

While much of the medical profession supported Dublin, others were puzzled to find his results difficult to replicate. Anyway, his worst fears were not realised, as Diet Nation notes: `As the 1960s and 70s came and went, Americans did not lose significant amounts of weight, though they dieted continuously. They enjoyed better health, while the prevalence of most major diseases declined and longevity increased.' (p42)

For Luik et al, while the modern obesity crusade - which began in earnest in the 1990s - still has a moralising tone to it, the message coming from the crusaders emphasises another message just as much: `obesity is no longer a moral failing of bad fat people, but a sickness, acquired in large measure from a "toxic food environment", that requires medical treatment' (p34). It is true that contemporary campaigners against obesity talk about `evil corporations' as much as they do feckless individuals. So, much of the debate increasingly focuses on processed food (like the infamous Turkey Twizzler), fast-food restaurants like McDonald's, agonised debates about labelling, and bans on adverts.

However, it would be wrong to understate the powerful moralistic streak in discussions of obesity and food. In the focus on junk-food restaurants, for example, there is often a barely concealed contempt for the largely working-class people who eat there, who are presumed to be lazy, unthinking and not sufficiently concerned with healthy cooking and physical exercise. They are seen as `junk' people. At a time when it is unfashionable to pass strictly moral judgements on people's lifestyles, the lower orders tend to be maligned through the coded issue of food and health.

The crusaders have maintained a clear and oft-repeated message, according to Luik and his co-authors: `Overweight/obesity equals death; weight loss is possible and necessary; the sources of the problem are to be found in corporate misbehaviour, not individual gluttony or sloth; and personal responsibility is insufficient, as significant governmental action is required.' (p43) While the authors concede that many campaigners may be sincere, `the existence of an obesity epidemic offers enormous commercial, financial and power-maximising opportunities for. the medical profession, academic researchers, the public health community, the government health bureaucracy, the pharmaceutical industry, the fitness industry and the weight-loss industry' (p44).

From this point of view, it's the persistence, brilliance and deviousness of the campaigners, backed by the attitude-distorting presence of very sizeable amounts of money and influence, that have driven the current panic. There is no doubt much truth in this. Often, it is the same relatively small band of experts who conduct research, get paid to be consultants for industry, sit on the boards of specialist journals, and are asked to give evidence to, or advise, governments on public health policy.

The mechanics of how power and influence are grabbed are intriguing, especially when the players involved occasionally make a hash of it. Consider the report of the House of Commons Health Committee published in May 2004, which focused on the effect of obesity on children. The report made a huge splash with the case of a three-year-old girl who had died `from heart failure where obesity was a contributory factor'. The doctor giving evidence on the case described children on her own ward as `choking on their own fat'. However, as spiked revealed at the time, this was not a case of parents negligently feeding a child to death; rather the little girl suffered from a rare genetic disorder (see Choking on the facts, by Brendan O'Neill).

Then there is the case of the US report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004, which proclaimed that obesity was causing 400,000 deaths a year. This immediately sparked calls for massive government intervention. However, the authors of Diet Nation note how the report was prepared, not by the CDC's top experts on the subject, but by the CDC's director and other researchers attached to her office. After what appears to have been considerable internal criticism of the report, another group of CDC researchers reviewed it, and their review eventually found its way into the public domain under a Freedom of Information request. This second report suggested that a more accurate figure for excess obesity deaths was about 25,000 - 94 per cent lower than the original estimate. Strikingly, the original report was produced under pressure to `get the right result' because a range of groups had an interest in reaching the highest possible figure.

Such methods of securing influence may be increasingly common; yet there is something slightly unsatisfactory in using this as an explanation for the obesity panic. Are governments and the public simply being suckered? Or have there been social and political changes that have left individuals more open to being spooked about their health, and politicians more enthusiastic about interfering in areas of our lives that were previously off-limits? These questions aren't really answered in Diet Nation.

Too often the debate about obesity ends up in a mud-slinging contest over which side is the more corrupted. This provides little illumination into the facts of the matter, and it feeds the cynical outlook that suggests anyone's position can be evaluated by those who have paid to support it. On that basis, Luik and his co-authors could easily be pigeonholed as `free market libertarians' or something similar, as a means of dismissing them. But they clearly have a great deal more to say about obesity than the question of who-paid-who.

The chapter on the science of obesity will surprise many. Luik tells me about a presentation he gave recently at the offices of a major international bank in London. Having discovered that the audience's main concern was with the possibility of dying young from being overweight, he told them: `You'll probably find this astonishing but the people who are most long-lived in these studies are people who I would call "pleasantly plump" or overweight. In fact, even moderately obese live longer those who are the "norm".' The reaction he received shows how deeply imbued the panic has become: `People look at you like you're someone who has two heads.'

Yet Diet Nation claims that in the arbitrary weight categories set by the health authorities and their supporters today, those who are `overweight' - officially `ill', according to today's standards - live longer than those whose weight is apparently `ideal'. This would seem to highlight the ridiculous nature of the Body Mass Index and weight charts that are so popular now. Even those who are morbidly obese are likely to be able to reduce many of the risks associated with their weight by simply taking moderate exercise, even if they fail to lose any weight at all. And the usual prescription for losing weight - dieting - is, by any sensible medical standards, a failure. Weight loss is very difficult to sustain; around 96 per cent of dieters are at least as heavy as their starting weight five years later.

The myth of dieting is a subject that Luik and his colleagues are keen to return to in another book. Having looked at 28 separate papers on the long-term effects of dieting, Luik tells me that 24 show no benefit to losing weight. Even where a benefit is found, it's small. `Here's an example. One study concluded that if you were successful in losing 50 pounds and keeping it off for the rest of your life, you would have a longevity increase in the order of 11 hours.'

Another area where the science is pretty much the opposite of what we've been led to believe is the effect of advertising on children - a topical issue in the UK since Ofcom's recent decision to ban the advertising of `unhealthy' foods during children's TV programmes. Luik sums up the evidence pithily: `We're saying that kids that can operate computers from the time they're three, and have immense media literacy, are so unaware of advertising up to the age of 16 that they can be convinced to buy a packet of crisps by seeing an advertisement, or that a cartoon character is going to convince them to buy a breakfast cereal.' All of which explains why I'm meeting Luik at the offices of Advertising Association: he's just given a talk to the association about why they must tackle the dubious claims made about obesity and the draconian measures being proposed to deal with it.

This isn't just a concern for advertisers, though. The lessons of the campaign against tobacco illustrate that a tactical move to attack industry will sooner or later lead to further attacks on our individual freedoms. Having convinced the world that cigarettes were an evil brought down upon us from on high by Big Tobacco, smokers now find themselves banned in public places; some agencies now ban smokers from lighting up in their own homes if they are being visited by health or social workers; and doctors are increasingly feeling free to refuse treatment to those who won't give up. In turn, the obesity panic is already leading to parents being instructed about how they should feed their children, while hospitals are also turning away the obese.

For the moment, Big Food or the advertising industry might be the fall guys; but it's in all of our interests to oppose the stringent measures being implemented on the basis of this junk panic. Diet Nation has its flaws, but it is an important contribution to our understanding, cutting through the flabby debate that has taken place so far.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

*********************

British "social workers" put fat children on "abused" list

The Unhinged Kingdom devises a new madness

Social workers are placing obese children on the child protection register alongside victims thought to be at risk of sexual or physical abuse. In extreme cases children have been placed in foster care because their parents have contributed to the health problems of their offspring by failing to respond to medical advice. The intervention of social services in what was previously regarded as a private matter is likely to raise concerns about the emergence of the "fat police".

Some doctors even advocate taking legal action against parents for illtreating their children by feeding them so much that they develop health problems. Dr Russell Viner, a consultant paediatrician at Great Ormond Street and University College London hospitals, said: "In my practice, I can think of about 10 or 15 cases in which child protection action has been taken because of obesity. We now constantly get letters from social workers about child protection due to childhood obesity."

Viner points out that children are not placed on the child protection register simply for being obese but only if parents fail to act on advice and take steps to help their children lose weight. "Obesity in itself is not a child protection concern," he said. "When parents fail to act in their child's best interests with regard to their weight - for example, if they are enrolled on a behavioural treatment session and only get to two out of 10 sessions or if they miss medical appointments - then the obesity becomes a child protection concern."

Dr Alyson Hall, consultant child psychiatrist at the Emmanuel Miller Centre for Families and Children in east London, said that in some cases children were put into foster care to ensure their safety. "I have known instances where local authorities have had to consider placement outside the family. It has been voluntary so far, and has not gone to care proceedings, but that could happen," she said. "These are children suffering from sleep apnoea and serious health complications from diabetes. Initially, social workers try to help the parents but, in some cases, the parents are the problem."

Earlier this month two brothers were convicted of causing unnecessary suffering by letting their dog become obese. The labrador, Rusty, was 11 stone, more than double the weight he should have been, and could hardly stand. "We wonder whether the same charge should be applicable to the parents of dangerously obese children," said Dr Tom Solomon, a neurologist at Royal Liverpool University hospital. "I think it should be considered. It depends on the parents' attitude. If the parents say there is nothing they can do because their child only likes to eat chips and biscuits then perhaps it might be worth the state intervening. "The state intervenes with schooling. Parents who do not send their children to school are prosecuted eventually. To be badly educated is not dangerous but we are making our children diabetic, and even killing our children by our feeding habits."

Tam Fry, chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, a charity that fights childhood obesity, agreed. "It should be a punishable offence," he said. "Very obese children are taking up NHS resources that should be used for legitimate purposes. Parents have got to be held accountable for overfeeding their children or letting their children become fat without taking action."

Other health workers, however, argue that parents should not be punished because social circumstances sometimes prevent them from ensuring their children follow a healthy diet. Last week the government's strategy for tackling childhood obesity was criticised as "confused" and "dithering" by the Commons public accounts committee. MPs warned that ministers are set to miss their target to halt the rise in childhood obesity by 2010. The number of children aged under 11 who are obese leapt from 9.9% in 1995 to 13.4% in 2004

Source




The Internet is making kids fat?

The Internet is making kids fat, and it's time the government did something. That was the impression "American Morning" gave its January 25 audience with a report by Dr. Sanjay Gupta that neglected to give parents tips for supervising their children's Internet usage, while lamenting a lack of government regulation. Not only are more American children than ever overweight, "Now there's evidence of hidden messages that could be adding to America's weight problem," anchor Soledad O'Brien teased as she introduced Gupta's story on kid-friendly online games at food and candy Web sites.

CNN's in-house doctor used his "Fit Nation" story to hype a 6-month-old study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. "As we look at the problem of childhood obesity, and as we look at the possible role of food marketing . we need to be sure we're looking at online food marketing to kids," insisted Kaiser's Vicky Rideout, pointing to her group's July 19, 2006, study that suggests candy and cereal Web sites featuring online games aggravate the nation's "obesity epidemic" among children.

Rideout's prescription for the outbreak of pudgy kids hunched over the keyboard seemed to point to government regulation. "The Internet is potentially way more powerful than television advertising ever dreamed of being, but it's also way more challenging in terms of any kind of oversight," Rideout added.

Of course, computers and cable modems have off buttons and software exists for parents to block unwanted Web sites. And of course most young children rely on their parents for food shopping or allowance money they might use to buy snacks. Yet rather than giving parents practical advice to get their kids more physically active and less reliant on Internet games, Gupta lamented a lack of government regulation of the Internet. "Where television ads are regulated in length, Internet ads for now are only regulated voluntarily," Gupta noted, before tossing in a 6-second sound bite from industry spokesman Daniel Jaffe. "I believe that if you really did look at these sites, you would find quite a number of foods that are healthy," said Jaffe of the Association of National Advertisers.

Back in the New York studio, O'Brien told viewers the government might be riding in to help after all. "The Federal Trade Commission is also studying junk food ads to see how manufacturers are marketing to children," the CNN host told her breakfast-hour audience.

The Business & Media Institute has reported on the media's recurring hype about food advertising to children. For example, ABC's Lisa Stark picked up on the Kaiser study with her July 26, 2006, "World News Tonight" story, and on the December 7, 2005, "Early Show," Dr. Emily Senay compared cartoon characters that hawk cereals and candy to one that was an icon for tobacco. "Parents certainly have a role to play, here, but this is very powerful stuff," CBS's medical correspondent lamented of Internet advertising, "it's not unlike, for example Joe Camel."

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

*********************

"Smart Growth" town-planning now justified on (spurious) health grounds

Our self-appointed "betters" tell us: We will dictate how you live "FOR YOUR OWN GOOD"! As usual, it's about depriving people of choice. The idea that if people want to live in suburbs and drive everywhere, that's their own personal prerogative is totally alien to these neo-Fascists

Lawrence Frank is no couch potato. Taking full advantage of his city's compact design, the Vancouver, British Columbia, resident often bikes to work and walks to stores, restaurants, and museums. That activity helps him stay fit and trim. But Frank hasn't always found his penchant for self-propulsion to be practical. He previously lived in Atlanta, where the city's sprawling layout thwarted his desire to be physically active as he went about his daily business. [How awful for him! But strange that he could find no other way to excercise if he really wanted to!]

"There was not much to walk to," says Frank, a professor of urban planning at the University of British Columbia. For example, he recalls that there was only one decent restaurant within walking distance of his old home. Many restaurants and other businesses in Atlanta cluster in strip malls that stand apart from residential areas. In Vancouver, by contrast, Frank's neighborhood contains dozens of eateries, and he often strolls to and from dinner. "I'm more active here," he says.

The glaring difference between the two cities' landscapes figures in Frank's professional life as well as in his personal one. Frank is part of an emerging area of cross-disciplinary science that's examining the relationship between the shapes of our cities and the shapes of our bodies. He and other researchers have evidence that associates health problems with urban sprawl, a loose term for humanmade landscapes characterized by a low density of buildings, dependence on automobiles, and a separation of residential and commercial areas.

Frank proposes that sprawl discourages physical activity, but some researchers suggest that people who don't care to exercise choose suburban life. Besides working to settle that disagreement, researchers are looking at facets of urban design that may shortchange health. As scientists investigate the relationship between sprawl and obesity, a compact style of city development sometimes called smart growth might become a tool in the fight for the nation's health. However, University of Toronto economist Matthew Turner charges that "a lot of people out there don't like urban sprawl, and those people are trying to hijack the obesity epidemic to further the smart-growth agenda [and] change how cities look."

In September 2003, two major studies linked sprawl and obesity. Since those reports, researchers in fields as disparate as epidemiology and economics have generated a spate of similarly themed studies [They would]. In the first of the 2003 reports, researchers analyzed data from a nationwide survey in which each of some 200,000 people reported his or her residential address, physical activity, body mass, height, and other health variables. Residents of sprawling cities and counties tended to weigh more, walk less, and have higher blood pressure than did people living in compact communities, concluded urban planner Reid Ewing and his colleagues at the University of Maryland at College Park's National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education.

In the second study, health psychologist James Sallis of San Diego State University and his colleagues reported that residents of "high-walkability" neighborhoods, which have closely packed residences and a mix of housing and businesses, tended to walk more and were less likely to be obese than residents of low-walkability neighborhoods. In 2004, Frank and his colleagues produced additional connections among urban form, activity, and obesity. The data on more than 10,500 people in the Atlanta area indicated that the more time a person spends in a car, the more obese he or she tends to be. But the more time people spend walking, the less obese they are.

Frank's team, like the other groups, found that areas with interspersed homes, shops, and offices had fewer obese residents than did homogeneous residential areas whose residents were of a similar age, income, and education. Furthermore, neighborhoods with greater residential density and street plans that facilitate walking from place to place showed below-average rates of obesity. The magnitude of the effect wasn't trivial: A typical white male living in a compact, mixed-use community weighs about 4.5 kilograms (10 pounds) less than a similar man in a diffuse subdivision containing nothing but homes, Frank and his colleagues reported. [That people of middling weight live longer is a bit pesky so we won't mention that!]

Such studies can't prove that living amid sprawl leads to inactivity; it may also be that inactive people choose to inhabit areas where driving is the easiest way to get around. In other words, people with different health habits and different propensities to gain weight may sort themselves into different kinds of neighborhoods. That's what Turner suggests is going on. Turner conducted a study that tracked people over time, as some of them moved from one neighborhood to another. He and his collaborators found no change in weight associated with moving from a sprawling locale to a dense one, or vice versa. "We're the only ones that have tried to distinguish between causation and sorting... and we find that it's sorting," he says. "The available facts do not support the conclusion that sprawling neighborhoods cause weight gain."

Turner's team analyzed data collected over 6 years on more than 5,000 young adults living across the United States. Most of the volunteers moved at least once during the study. The researchers compared individuals' weights before and after they moved between communities with different degrees of sprawl. To measure sprawl, they used satellite images to calculate the average distance between residential buildings. They also determined the average density of nonresidential establishments such as churches and shops in each volunteer's zip code. "We're estimating the effect [of sprawl on weight] to be zero or very close to zero," Turner says. Any weight gain attributable to sprawl, he says, is at most "a couple of ounces."

More here




British Conservatives go nuts too

They have become the "me too" party

Food and drink manufacturers could be given strict quotas for producing fatty and sugary foods and alcohol under plans to tackle obesity and excessive drinking being considered by the Conservative Party. Under the plan drawn up by the Working Group on Responsible Business, set up by David Cameron last July, producers would be allocated production limits allowing them to produce a certain quantity of fatty food or alcoholic drink. Manufacturers wanting to produce more would have to buy credits from companies prepared to produce less. The regime would give a financial incentive for producers to make products containing less fat, sugar, salt and alcohol.

The consultative paper, aimed at making business more responsible, described obesity and excessive drinking as "social pollutants" that might be tackled in the same way that carbon emissions trading schemes reduced environmental damage. The proposal surprised food and drink makers, who said that the idea was not wanted and would not work.

In the foreword to the paper, Mr Cameron said that he wanted the Conservatives to reclaim responsible business from the Left. While paying tribute to the benefits of capitalism, he said: "I've never believed that we can leave everything to market forces. I'm not prepared to turn a blind eye if the system sometimes leaves casualties in its wake."

Emissions trading had been an invaluable tool in addressing environmental pollution, the paper said. "If . . . social and environmental pollution may be seen as in some ways analagous, might not a process of social emissions trading be a way of addressing some aspects of social pollution?" The amount of fat, sugar and salt in processed foods was easily quantifiable, which would make setting quotas straightforward, the report said. Similarly alcoholic consumption across the country was easily quantified, which would simplify setting quotas for companies. "In this case, companies who lowered the alcohol content of their products would have a significant incentive, as well as selling off alcohol quotas they did not need."

Manufacturers questioned whether the system could work in practice. It would have to be applied to imports to work, and could have the opposite of the desired effect by pushing up the prices of targeted products and so widening profit margins.

Graeme Leach, the policy director of the Institute of Directors said: "This sounds pretty radical. For this to get off the ground a lot of detailed work would have to be done and a very large number of problems would have to be overcome. I don't think it's going to happen."

The Food and Drink Federation was surprised, saying that it was already making progress in reducing fat, salt and sugar levels in processed foods. Spokeswoman Christine Welberry said: "No form of quota system would be wanted by the industry." She said that the FDF had asked to see Mr Cameron but had been rebuffed. "So far he's refused to meet us." The group has also proposed that responsible corporate behaviour be rewarded by lighter regulation. Companies could be awarded bronze, silver and gold standards, according to their behaviour.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

*********************

"Obesity" confusion in Britain

Plans to halt the rise in childhood obesity are confused, poorly co-ordinated and lack clarity and forcefulness, according to an influential Commons committee. In 2004 the Government set a target of 2010 to halt the year-on-year rise in obesity in children under 11, but there are still no ring-fenced funds nor any specific programme to bring this about, the Public Accounts Committee says in a scathing report.

Particular anger is directed at the Department of Health's plans to weigh and measure children in all primary schools but not tell parents the results. This policy provoked one of the briskest exchanges in a public hearing in the Commons as the committee chairman, Edward Leigh, accused three Whitehall permanent secretaries of "talking drivel".

Yesterday Mr Leigh said: "If a primary school finds that a child is overweight then the parents must be informed. To do otherwise would be to keep parents in the dark about health risks to their children. "A campaign aimed at parents, children and teachers is supposed to be launched this year, three years after the target was set. When it appears it must bring home all the risks of being obese and show that obese children can make small changes to their behaviour that help them lose weight."

Responsibility for the childhood obesity strategy is divided between three departments - Health, Education and Skills, and Culture, Media and Sport - and 26 bodies or groups of bodies, the report says. This leads to confusion over roles and responsibilities. Mr Leigh said that it was "tricky territory". That made it all the more urgent that the departments involved should work together to set a clear direction. "It is lamentable that long after the target was set there is still so much dithering and still so little co-ordination," he said.

Departments had been slow to react and efforts to work with the food industry to change the way that unhealthy products were marketed had failed, the committee said. It also called for the appointment of a high-profile figure to champion the battle against obesity. Parents were still not being engaged, and a public information campaign was finally being launched only this year. The report found that "the departments' strategy of working alongside the food industry to influence its approach to the marketing of foods and drinks that are high in fat, salt and sugar has not been successful in changing the way the majority of unhealthy foods are marketed".

Meanwhile, the Department of Health has no idea if the strategy is working because there was a delay of two years in getting data on childhood obesity from the Health Survey for England. The attempt to measure obesity in primary school children ended in failure when fewer than half turned up, although the committee does not report this. The results of the exercise were meaningless because the parents of fatter children opted them out, as they were allowed to do.

Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, claimed that a lot had been achieved since the evidence on which the report was based had been gathered. She said: "There are no easy answers or quick-fix solutions. Changing behaviour requires long-term action on a number of fronts and that is what we are putting in place. People's awareness of the importance of healthy eating and exercise had increased significantly, she said, and food labelling had become the norm. Ofcom had made recommendations about food advertising on television; there had been "a transformation in school food" and the target of 80 per cent of children doing at least two hours of school sport a week had been beaten, she said. But Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: "Conservatives share the committee's alarm at the dramatic increase in childhood obesity and the apparently uncoordinated way in which the Government is dealing with it."

Source




Doctors hope to switch off brain’s craving for tobacco



Smokers who suffer damage to a particular part of the brain can give up quickly and easily without feeling any urge for a cigarette, according to research that promises new approaches to treating nicotine addiction.

A study of smokers who suffered strokes has shown that part of the brain, the insula, appears to be intimately involved in their addiction, indicating that it could be targeted to help people to give up the habit. Patients who had strokes that damaged the insula, which is thought to be involved in emotions and cravings, lost the urge to smoke immediately, and many have not touched a cigarette since.

The findings suggest the possibility of helping smokers to give up by manipulating the insula to kill their addiction, without causing the extensive brain damage of a stroke.

Drugs could be developed to alter its activity, or it could be disrupted using magnetic fields. Another technique called deep brain stimulation, in which electrodes are implanted in the brain to switch off particular areas, has already been used successfully to treat Parkin-son’s disease and depression.

Such treatments, however, will require much more research into exactly how the insula affects smoking and other addictions before patient trials could begin; it will be important not to disrupt other activities in which the region plays a critical role.

The insula lies in the centre of the brain and is thought to translate information from other parts of the body into feelings such as hunger, pain or cravings for a drug.

“The insula also carries out lots of normal everyday functions, so we would want to make sure we only interfere with functions that disrupt bad habits like smoking but not something vital like eating,” said Antoine Bechara, of the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of Iowa, who led the research.

Nevertheless, the work is exciting because damage to the insula appears to break many smokers’ habits instantly; their brains seem to forget that they are supposed to crave cigarettes.

“There is a lot of potential for pharmacological developments,” Dr Bechara said. “One of the most difficult problems in any form of addiction is the difficulty in stopping the urge to smoke, to take a drug, or to eat for that matter. Now we have identified a brain target for further research into dealing with that urge.”

Antonio Damasio, Professor of Neuroscience at USC, who first suggested the insula’s role in feelings, said: “It’s really intriguing to think that disrupting this region breaks the pleasure feelings associated with smoking. It is immediate. It’s not that they smoke less. They don’t smoke, period.”

The study, pubished today in the journal Science, was inspired by a patient who smoked 40 cigarettes a day before having a stroke that damaged his insula. He quit immediately, telling doctors that he “forgot the urge to smoke”.

The scientists then turned to a database of stroke patients held by the University of Iowa and identified 69 who had smoked at least five cigarettes a day for at least two years before they suffered brain damage. They found that 19 of these patients had damage to the insula and 13 of them had given up smoking, 12 of them quickly and easily. The other six continued to smoke — possibly reflecting damage to different parts of the insula.

Of the 50 patients who had strokes that did not disrupt the insula, 19 also gave up smoking, but only four did so instantly and without any cravings.

The difference in the two groups’ experience of quitting suggests that the general stroke patients gave up in standard fashion because of the health risks. The insula-damaged patients, however, gave up because it no longer occurred to them to smoke.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

*********************

Experts divided over obesity issue

Australians aren't getting fatter at all, according to a group of academics who claim the obesity epidemic is a money-wasting illusion. National and international researchers will convene in NSW on Thursday to argue that statistics supporting obesity and its health consequences are much more uncertain than people realise.

However, the concept has been met with intense criticism from a leading diabetes expert who says it "comes from another planet". The conference organiser, Jan Wright, says the commonly reported belief that Australians are generally fat, and growing all the time, is a "beat-up" with its own agenda. "There's no epidemic," says Professor Wright, associate dean of education at the University of Wollongong, which will host the event. "There's not these radical increases in terms of overweight and obesity like everybody thinks, so the entire argument is wrong from the start."

Prof Wright says there is no longitudinal figures to support expanding waistlines and most calculations rely on the Body Mass Index (BMI), not an accurate marker of obesity. "Using that scale, the entire All Black team would register as obese, so that can't be right."

She said many industries - especially fitness, food and pharmaceuticals - have a vested interest in perpetuating the obesity "myth" because they can make money out of the solutions. Many scientists also support the concept because, says Prof Wright, there is a huge amount of funding thrown at the area by governments. "Money is a huge motivator for people to support the position that there is an obesity epidemic," she said, "but millions of dollars are being wasted".

During the three-day conference, called Bio-pedagogies, academics, including people from the UK, Canada and New Zealand, will develop a plan to stay the momentum of the obesity argument, she said. But Paul Zimmet, director of the International Diabetes Institute, immediately discounted the "myth" concept as "from another planet". "We conduct the national Australian diabetes and obesity study and there's no question from the data that obesity is on the increase," Professor Zimmet said. "There's no illusion here, no scare-mongering - this is really wrong."

Source





Alzheimer's cure patchy

A new skin patch showing promise as an Alzheimer's vaccine has been greeted with caution by Australia's peak advocacy group for the disease. US researchers have developed a needle-free vaccination method found to be safe and effective in clearing brain-damaging "plaques" in mice with the neurological disorder. The scientists from the University of South Florida said their technique blocked the development of brain inflammation, a serious side-effect that caused patient deaths in an earlier study.

Alzheimer's Australia national executive director Glenn Rees said the research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was promising but must be approached with care. "It's in a very early stage," Mr Rees said. "This research is one of many exciting possibilities . . . but it remains exactly that, a possibility."

The organisation's research development manager, Susanna Park, said the failure of the earlier study had made those in the field very cautious. "Obviously, because of the problems with the trials last time nobody wants to get too excited," Ms Park said. She said the new approach had been successful in mice but there was no proof it would work in humans, and the time needed to develop it from a basic, one-study mouse model was considerable.

The vaccine works by triggering the immune system to recognise beta amyloid -- a protein that abnormally builds up in the brain of an Alzheimer's patient -- as a foreign invader, and attack it. Previous research on an injectable Alzheimer's vaccine proven safe and effective in an animal model was suspended indefinitely when the initial clinical trial caused brain inflammation and death in some patients. Those serious side-effects were triggered by an auto-immune reaction that occurred when immune cells aggressively attacked the body's proteins produced by the vaccine. But the researchers say their skin patch avoids that response.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

*********************

HAVING WORMS IS GOOD FOR YOU

But only if you have MS. Popular summary below followed by journal abstract:

Parasite infection could benefit patients suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study in the current issue of Annals of Neurology. The study involved 24 patients with MS, half of whom had a current parasitic worm infection. Over an average follow-up period of 4.6 years, patients were checked every three months for any worsening of their symptoms. Those infected with parasites had fewer relapses than those who were parasite-free. There were only three relapses in the infected group compared to 56 relapses among the uninfected patients. When they invade the human body, parasites are able to dampen down the immune response to prolong their own survival. As MS is the result of an overactive immune system, the authors suggest that mimicking a parasite infection could be an effective treatment.

Source

Association between parasite infection and immune responses in multiple sclerosis

By: Jorge Correale & Mauricio Farez

Objective
To assess whether parasite infection is correlated with a reduced number of exacerbations and altered immune reactivity in multiple sclerosis (MS).

Methods
A prospective, double-cohort study was performed to assess the clinical course and radiological findings in 12 MS patients presenting associated eosinophilia. All patients presented parasitic infections with positive stool specimens. In all parasite-infected MS patients, the eosinophilia was not present during the 2 previous years. Eosinophil counts were monitored at 3- to 6-month intervals. When counts became elevated, patients were enrolled in the study. Interleukin (IL)-4, IL-10, IL-12, transforming growth factor (TGF)- , and interferon- production by myelin basic protein-specific peripheral blood mononuclear cells were studied using enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT). FoxP3 and Smad7 expression were studied by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction.

Results
During a 4.6-year follow-up period, parasite-infected MS patients showed a significantly lower number of exacerbations, minimal variation in disability scores, as well as fewer magnetic resonance imaging changes when compared with uninfected MS patients. Furthermore, myelin basic protein-specific responses in peripheral blood showed a significant increase in IL-10 and TGF- and a decrease in IL-12 and interferon- -secreting cells in infected MS patients compared with noninfected patients. Myelin basic protein-specific T cells cloned from infected subjects were characterized by the absence of IL-2 and IL-4 production, but high IL-10 and/or TGF- secretion, showing a cytokine profile similar to the T-cell subsets Tr1 and Th3. Moreover, cloning frequency of CD4+CD25+ FoxP3+ T cells was substantially increased in infected patients compared with uninfected MS subjects. Finally, Smad7 messenger RNA was not detected in T cells from infected MS patients secreting TGF- .

Interpretation
Increased production of IL-10 and TGF- , together with induction of CD25+CD4+ FoxP3+ T cells, suggests that regulatory T cells induced during parasite infections can alter the course of MS.

Source




FATTIES DO BEST IN NORTHERN EUROPE

Virtually no pay discrimination there

Fatter people pay the price of being overweight by earning less, a Europe-wide study has found. For every 10 per cent increase in body mass index (BMI), a man loses 3.27 per cent in earnings, and a woman 1.86 per cent.

The effect is much stronger in the countries of Southern Europe - the Olive Belt - than it is in the "beer belt" of Northern Europe, say the authors, Giorgio Brunello, of the University of Padua, and B‚atrice D'Hombres, of the European Commission's research centre in Ispra, Italy.

One explanation is that fatter people are so common in the beer belt that they are less likely to be discriminated against than are those living in the svelte world of the "olive belt". But the issue is fraught with difficulties. The most obvious is distinguishing cause from effect: does being overweight reduce earnings, or do lower earnings cause people to be overweight? Poorer people may have an unhealthier diet, or do less exercise, for example.

Writing in Economics and Human Biology, the authors gathered data from the European Statistical Office on more than 40,000 people from nine countries: Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Ireland.

The raw statistics suggest quite a strong link between being overweight and reduced earnings, a 10 per cent increase in BMI being linked to a 3.49 per cent reduction in earnings in women and a 5.29 per cent reduction in men. But when occupations that require physical strength are taken out of the equation the association weakens and the reductions in earnings are roughly halved.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

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HEALTHY PRISONS

Because of total calorie restriction plus fewer illegal drugs, presumably. Rare evidence that calorie restriction prolongs life in humans as well as in white rats

State prison inmates, particularly blacks, are living longer on average than people on the outside, the government said Sunday. Inmates in state prisons are dying at an average yearly rate of 250 per 100,000, according to the latest figures reported to the Justice Department by state prison officials. By comparison, the overall population of people between age 15 and 64 is dying at a rate of 308 a year. For black inmates, the rate was 57 percent lower than among the overall black population — 206 versus 484. But white and Hispanic prisoners both had death rates slightly above their counterparts in the overall population.

The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics said 12,129 state prisoners died between 2001 through 2004. Eight percent were murdered or killed themselves, 2 percent died of alcohol, drugs or accidental injuries, and 1 percent of the deaths could not be explained, the report said. The rest of the deaths — 89 percent — were due to medical reasons. Of those, two-thirds of inmates had the medical problem they died of before they were admitted to prison.

Medical problems that were most common among both men and women in state prisons were heart disease, lung and liver cancer, liver diseases and AIDS-related causes. But the death rate among men was 72 percent higher than among women. Nearly one-quarter of the women who died had breast, ovarian, cervical or uterine cancer. Four percent of the men who died had prostate or testicular cancer. More than half the inmates 65 or older who died in state prisons were at least 55 when they were admitted to prison.

State prison officials reported that 94 percent of their inmates who died from an illness had been evaluated by a medical professional for that illness, and 93 percent got medication for it. Eighty-nine percent of these inmates had gotten X-rays, MRI exams, blood tests and other diagnostic work, state prison officials told the bureau.

Source





Food industry choking on red tape

Rules and regulations are strangling innovation and are overdue for a purge

The Australian food industry at first glance appears to be thriving. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics recently highlighted that its value-added contribution to the economy had increased by more than $3 billion between 1995-96 and 2004-05 to be worth around $20 billion in that year. However, when you take a closer look at this key sector, there are some major concerns.

Firstly, the sector's R&D spending has declined relative to other manufacturing sectors in the past few years. Its growth rate is lower than other major manufacturing sectors such as machinery and equipment and publishing. Furthermore, the share it contributes to GDP has been shrinking over the past 25 years. Clearly, all is not well within the food industry.

It is not difficult to identify one of the causes of this malaise. Food businesses must hurdle a multitude of rules and regulations just to remain in business, let alone to introduce a new product or process. This is not to say that unsafe practices or processes should be allowed but simply that regulation tends to breed regulation, and we are now at the tipping point for the food industry.

More and more, consumers are demanding benefits from the foods they purchase beyond that of simple nutrition. Health conscious consumers want to take control of their health and they expect to take on some "do it yourself doctoring" for diet-related chronic disease. This new trend was recognised by the Australian Government when it announced its Better Health Initiative at COAG in February last year. The initiative emphasises prevention and early intervention rather than treatment.

The health benefits of foods are a key driver for industry innovation and have been a centrepiece of two government initiatives under the $137 million National Food Industry Strategy (2002-07), the food innovation grants scheme and the National Centre for Excellence in Functional Foods. But the benefits don't just accrue to consumers and industry from this form of innovation. Governments also reap rewards as the striving for "better for you" foods has an indirect, positive impact on government health funding by improving the health of the nation and contributing to reduced healthcare costs.

It is lamentable that the food regulatory system works against effective innovation in responding to this initiative. Take the example of an application to allow fruit and vegetable juices and drinks, soups and savoury biscuits to be fortified with calcium. Lack of calcium in the diet contributes to osteoporosis in old age. The application showed that increasing calcium intake through these foods had the potential for reducing osteoporosis in the elderly, a disease with a cost burden, according to Access Economics, of $9 billion annually.

The initial proposal was accepted by the regulatory agency, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) in December 2001. The proposal took almost two years to pass each stage of assessment and public consultation before it was submitted to the Australia New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council in September 2003. The Ministerial Council returned the proposal to FSANZ for reassessment, citing numerous areas for review, many of which had already been covered and reviewed thoroughly in the first stages of assessment.

FSANZ reviewed and returned the recommendation to the Ministerial Council in March 2005 and it was again returned (by a majority) to FSANZ in May that year. FSANZ once again reviewed and returned its recommendation for approval to Ministerial Council and the application was finally gazetted in November 2005. It took four years for this simple request to become part of the food standards code: an unacceptable delay that cost the industry market access.

Another example, fortified beverages, resulted in a lost opportunity of $350million for Australian manufacturing. Australian consumers have shown that they appreciate the opportunity to purchase water and juices with vitamins added to complement their lifestyle. This growing market has been available to New Zealand manufacturers for import into Australia for many years but until recently it was not open to Australian manufacturers. Changing the rules had the potential of increasing Australian jobs, providing niche products for the smaller independent beverage bottlers to explore, and expanding what is now only a small market in Australian non-alcoholic beverage exports. It took four years from 2002 to late 2006 for the Australian Beverages Council to steer an application through the regulatory morass to level the playing field with New Zealand.

Unlike most Ministerial Councils that set policy and permit their agencies to set the rules that allow the policy to be expressed, the Food Regulation Ministerial Council has power of veto over the regulations proposed by the agency. In this case, the council has not one but two opportunities to veto decisions of the agency, first by a single vote and second by a majority vote.

The current system must be fixed. The duplication of review responsibilities given to both FSANZ and the Ministerial Council creates inefficiencies and an additional cost burden. The veto powers of each member of the Ministerial Council, without regard to the constituents that that minister represents, allows Australia's smallest state to stand in the way of a proposal supported by its largest state.

The food regulatory framework was last reviewed in 1998 (Blair review). Its purpose was to simplify food regulation in Australia and New Zealand. However, the sad fact is that the operation of the new system has accumulated even more excessive red tape and poorer delivery in commercial time frames. It has disadvantaged industry without generating the benefits consumers and government deserved from the reforms. Given the difficulties that are needlessly added to the process of bringing new products to market, manufacturing overseas is beginning to look like a preferred option.

The Australian Government recognised this problem 15 months ago and offered a short-term and a longer-term fix. Recognising that some of the delays in the system were the product of the act under which FSANZ operates, the Government undertook extensive stakeholder consultations to streamline the operations of the agency. These were agreed in early 2006 but the bill to amend the act still hasn't been introduced to Parliament 12 months later.

The Prime Minister commissioned the Productivity Commission to report on reducing the regulatory burden on business (Red Tape Review) as a longer-term solution. The Red Tape Review highlighted issues for attention, calling for a reconsideration of the Australian Government's role in the food regulatory system, including aspects of enforcement, which are currently a states and territories responsibility. The Government's response was to endorse the recommendations and initiate a review to report.

The Government announced this week the appointment of the independent chairman of this review, Mark Bethwaite. The review is to be completed by April 2007. The outcome of this review and the implementation of changes by all governments will determine whether the excellent science and knowledge in Australia can be turned into commercial opportunities for the food and agriculture industries.

It is not just commonwealth regulations that stifle industry. The states and territories have the responsibility for enforcement of food regulations and this can lead to a lack of uniformity in response due to resource constraints, which itself creates uncertainty for industry. For example, is it better to set up in NSW, which has a single agency for food matters, or in Victoria or Queensland, where responsibilities are spread across a number of agencies? With 80 per cent of food manufacturing concentrated along the eastern coast of Australia, the Victorian Government has taken leadership in the national reform agenda to build on its competition reforms by reducing the regulatory burden in its food regulatory system. Victoria commissioned an inquiry into food regulation in September 2006 through the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission. This is a welcome opportunity and may lead to the establishment of a one-stop shop for food regulation in Victoria, similar to the establishment in NSW some years ago of the NSW Food Authority.

The clock is ticking for food manufacturing in Australia. Delays in reform will increase the potential for more R&D to leave Australian shores. It is imperative that the food regulatory system returns without delay to the fundamentals of protecting public health and safety while removing unnecessary impediments to innovation and competitiveness.

Source

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Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

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