Health Officials and News Media Complicit In Ongoing Lie That Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs Save Lives

20 Years After Introduction Of The First Statin Drug, Americans Achieve Ideal Cholesterol Number. But Mortality Rates Are About The Same

For the first time in 50 years, America has reached the ideal cholesterol number! Twenty years after introduction of the first statin cholesterol-lowering drug, Americans have reached the 199 figure. In 1960 the average circulating cholesterol number in Americans was 220. [Associated Press Dec. 13, 2007] A Centers of Disease Control report says use of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins, particularly by older Americans, is thought to be the main reason for the improvement. But how could this be? Only about 6 million out of an adult population of 225 million actually take statin drugs, many of them inconsistently. Statin drug users represent just 2.6% of the adult population.

The effect of statin drugs in a minority of the population would have to be a whopper to affect the overall number in the population at large. In fact, the 6 million Americans on statin drugs would have to have such low cholesterol numbers to affect the aggregate number that they would likely be ill from liver disease. Very low total cholesterol (below 160) increases the risk for mental depression and cancer.

Dr. John Abramson, MD, of Harvard Medical School, says statin drug therapy for primary prevention of heart attacks in people over age 65, or women of an age, is not supported by the bulk of the evidence. Using statin drugs, the absolute risk reduction for adverse cardiac events (heart attacks, strokes) is small, only 1.5% (94.5 of users derive no benefit).

Of nine statin drug trials used to produce the current cholesterol-lowering guidelines relied upon by doctors, none provide evidence for use of statins. [Sources: Abramson J, Wright J. Are lipid-lowering guidelines evidence-based? Lancet 2007; 369:168-169; Lancet Comment Questions Benefit of Statins in Primary Prevention, from Heartwire, WebMD, Shelley Wood, 2007]

The assumption is that a low cholesterol number equates with heart health. But the number of sudden cardiac deaths remains about the same, about 50% of the annual deaths due to heart disease annually. There are about 325,000 sudden cardiac deaths annually in the U.S. out of 652,486 annual deaths due to heart disease. The incidence of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest has declined modestly in the past 2 decades, but the proportion of sudden coronary artery disease deaths in the U.S. has not changed. [Source: Sudden Cardiac Death, Ali A Sovari, MD, July 17, 2006, EMedicine WebMD]

The release of this data by the Centers for Disease Control, and its widespread dissemination by the news media, shows that government health authorities and the news media are willingly participating in this long-standing ruse upon the American public. Not one news reporter dared to report whether cholesterol reduction actually saves lives.

Source






Laugh at lard butts - but just remember Fatty Fritz lives longer

Some British satire with a serious point at the end

The government is considering a scheme to pay hideously obese people to lose weight, offering them "vouchers and rewards" for shedding enough pounds to enable them to see their own genitals for the first time in 30 years. This is part of a programme which will cost the rest of us, those of us who are merely "chubby" or "fat", some œ327m. If you take the health advice at face value, almost the entire nation is overweight, encased in blubber, our poor arteries clogged like the straws of a McDonald's vanilla milk shake when you get to the bottom of the carton. We are all afflicted and all to blame, etc.

For years we have been cautioned against stigmatising people for a whole array of unfortunate situations - teenage single mothers, divorcees, fat people. But, of course, stigma is the means by which society expresses its disapproval of people who choose lifestyles which, one way or another, cost the rest of society money. Remove the stigma and people think such behaviour is perfectly fine. As a result we have become a nation of obese, sexually incontinent lunatics.

Perhaps instead of offering fat people money, which they will only spend on pies, we should once again stigmatise them. School children could be encouraged to pelt fat classmates with cakes, exclude them from playground activities and subject them to cruel jibes. And pinch them on their horrible fleshy arms during assembly (if schools still have assemblies). Fat adults could be forced to pay for two seats on public transport, could be given the worst seats in restaurants and scolded over their choice of dessert. "Have the fruit salad, you fat pig," and so on. Most obesity is, after all, a consequence of stupidity and indolence and not of some genetic affliction. It is a lifestyle choice which people would be less inclined to adopt if they knew we all hated them for it.

There is another, better approach, of course, which is to leave people alone to live the lives they wish to lead. I was in Austria recently where everybody is truly, grotesquely fat. All of them are huge, flatulent, pasty-skinned spheres of compacted frankfurter sausage, fried potato, sour cream and stale beer, rolling around their pretty mountains belching and singing in a tuneless, guttural manner.

The average life expectancy in Austria is 79.21 years - one of the highest in the world and a good five or six months longer than we can expect to live - and increasing rapidly. In fact, much though the quacks and government ministers might hector us, there is very little correlation between obesity and early death, according to recent studies. So you might conclude that this is a sort of fashionable meddling for the sake of it by a government which is never happier than when telling us how to conduct our lives.

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].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre's yield of cotton. He calculated the correlation coefficient between the two series at -0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic conditions and lynchings in Raper's data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his analysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic conditions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

"What we should be doing is monitoring children from birth so we can detect any deviations from the norm at an early stage and action can be taken". Who said that? Joe Stalin? Adolf Hitler? Orwell's "Big Brother"? The Spanish Inquisition? Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde? None of those. It was Dr Colin Waine, chairman of Britain's National Obesity Forum. What a fine fellow!

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

Tamiflu effectiveness weakening rapidly

Revival for Relenza? So much for all those millions of doses that our wise governments have stockpiled. The money would have been better spent on research and on emergency manufacturing facilities

Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu may be losing potency against seasonal influenza in Europe after tests showed resistance to the drug in more than one of 10 samples. Tests on 148 virus specimens from patients with the H1N1 flu strain in 10 European countries found 19 that harbored resistance to the pill, most of them in Norway, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said today.

The results show viruses capable of evading Tamiflu, also known as oseltamivir, may be spreading. Some resistant viruses were also found in the U.S., leading doctors to consider GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Relenza and other treatments for a disease the World Health Organization estimates causes 250,000 to 500,000 deaths globally each year. ``These preliminary results are in contrast to previous years where little or no resistance to oseltamivir was observed,'' Martina Rupp, a Roche spokeswoman, said in an e-mail today. More surveillance is needed to establish the prevalence and geographical distribution of the resistant H1N1 variants and to assess the impact on Tamiflu's effectiveness, she said. Basel, Switzerland-based Roche has ``informed health authorities worldwide about this situation,'' Rupp said. Roche fell 1.8 Swiss francs, or 0.9 percent, to 192.2 francs in Zurich trading. The shares have dropped 1.7 percent this year.

The H1N1 viruses identified in Europe that aren't susceptible to Tamiflu carry a so-called H274Y gene mutation that confers ``high-level resistance,'' said Frederick Hayden, a researcher with the WHO's Global Influenza Program in Geneva. Preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta ``indicate that there have been some of these kinds of resistant variants detected, albeit at low frequency, in the U.S.,'' Hayden said. Teleconferences will be held this week to gauge their geographic distribution, he said. Of 204 viral samples tested by the CDC during the 2007-2008 flu season, six, or 2.9 percent, were resistant to Tamiflu.

All those resistant samples were among 109 H1N1 viruses, for a rate of 5.5 percent in that strain, said Joseph Bresee, chief of the epidemiology and prevention branch of CDC's influenza division in Atlanta. ``It bears watching,'' he said today in a telephone interview. ``Our recommendations for use of oseltamivir haven't changed, but we're going to continue to do close monitoring on flu viruses from here on out.'' There's no evidence the mutation is associated with increased transmissibility or increased likelihood of causing disease, Hayden at the WHO said by telephone from Geneva today. ``This is an unexpected circumstance to see the circulation of H1N1 viruses harboring this particular mutation,'' he said.

Relenza and amantadine, an older class of antiviral medicine, are capable of fighting the mutant variant, health officials said. However, large numbers of flu viruses have other mutations that make them resistant to amantadine and a related drug, called rimantadine, Bresee said. Neither drug is recommended for treatment of seasonal flu in the U.S.

A WHO report last April said 2.2 percent of H1N1 samples from Japan, the world's biggest user of Tamiflu, had the H274Y mutation. There have been no reports from Japan of recent cases. The samples tested in Europe were taken from patients who hadn't been treated with Tamiflu, and resistance rates varied from country to country, Hayden said.

In Norway, 12 of 16 H1N1 samples taken from patients across the country this winter showed ``a high degree of resistance,'' the Norwegian Institute of Public Health said in a Jan. 25 statement. An H1N1 variant from the Solomon Islands is the dominant flu strain now circulating in the Scandinavian country and other parts of Europe, the Oslo-based institute said.

``It is disturbing that resistant viruses are now being detected in Europe, which has a very low level'' of antiviral use, said Jennifer McKimm-Breschkin, a virologist at the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization in Melbourne. ``This suggests that resistant viruses have obtained a growth advantage elsewhere on the globe, and have been sufficiently fit to now start spreading possibly globally even in the absence of widespread drug use.''

Tamiflu, which generated 2.63 billion francs ($2.4 billion) in sales for Roche in 2006, is the company's fourth-best-selling drug. Relenza, an inhaled medicine, had sales of 91 million pounds ($180 million) in the same year for London-based Glaxo. The medicines are being stockpiled by the Geneva-based WHO and governments around the world for use in the event of a pandemic, and to treat the H5N1 avian flu strain that's spread to more than 60 countries, infecting people in 14 of them.

``With the global focus on oseltamivir as the drug of choice for treating influenza, many clinicians are not even aware that there is an effective alternative: Relenza,'' McKimm-Breschkin said in a telephone interview today. Relenza and Tamiflu work by blocking neuraminidase -- one of the two surface proteins in influenza viruses and the ``N'' in H5N1 and H1N1 -- that allows the virus to spread from infected cells to other cells in the body.

The H5N1 bird flu strain could trigger a global outbreak if it adopts some of the characteristics of seasonal flu that enable it to be spread easily through coughing and sneezing. Seasonal flu strains with resistance to Tamiflu and other so-called neuraminidase inhibitors could potentially exchange genes with the pandemic strain, making the medicines a weaker weapon to fight the global contagion. ``Antiviral resistance to neuraminidase inhibitors has been clinically negligible so far, but is likely to be detected during widespread use during a pandemic,'' the WHO says on its Web site.

Source






New AIDS drug

A new class of drug for people with HIV is being introduced in Britain today, having been described by researchers as a huge step forward in treating the deadly infection. Raltegravir, available as tablets to be taken twice a day, is approved for use with other antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV in about one in ten patients whose therapy has stopped working. Because of their potential to prolong life by decades, HIV drugs are considered cost-effective and raltegravir is likely to be available on the NHS for all infected patients.

Doctors believe that the drug could become standard treatment, potentially preventing HIV progressing into full-blown Aids. Three quarters of trial patients showed a significant reduction in viral load - the prevalance of the virus in their bloodstream - compared with 40 per cent taking current medication alone. Some patients had a marked improvement to the point where levels of the virus were "undetectable", doctors said.

An estimated 73,000 people in Britain are infected with HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, which culminates in Aids (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). Although HIV infection is still considered serious, early diagnosis and appropriate treatment can allow for a relatively normal lifespan.

HIV continually changes and can become resistant to treatment, leading to a continuing search for new drugs. Raltegravir is the first in a new class of HIV treatments called integrase inhibitors, which it is hoped will avoid the risks of heart attack and cancer associated with existing medication. It works by blocking integrase, an enzyme that HIV relies on to replicate itself. It affects the ability of the virus to infect other cells, thus reducing the blood's viral load.

During the trials, patients were given raltegravir or the dummy drug plus optimised background therapy (OBT), a regime of antiretroviral drugs tailored to individual patients.

One study published in The Lancet in April last year was based on 178 patients with advanced HIV. They had been taking regular antiretroviral drugs for about ten years but were not responding to them. Patients taking raltegravir had an average of a 98 per cent drop in their HIV ribonucleic acid (RNA) count, compared with 45 per cent in the dummy group. The number of CD4 cells, an indicator of the immune system's ability to fight disease, was also boosted.

Made by the US-based company Merck, the drug is also known by the brand name Isentress. Mark Nelson, director of HIV services at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, said that it had already provided a life-line to 30 of his patients. "While this is not a `cure' for HIV it does mean we can suppress the virus to where it is virtually undetectable."

Dr Nelson added that the drug's long-term safety record would be very important, given that more adverse effects from existing treatments were emerging after many years of therapy.

"Raltegravir is going to be popular because it's very effective and it seems to have a good safety profile," he said. "Previous drugs have done a terrific job keeping people alive. But now we have to start thinking about safety."

Eight years and four different drug cocktails after Philippe B, 41, learnt that he had HIV, he almost gave up.

"Ten years ago nobody told you anything about the drugs or how to take them, so I stopped for a few months. I became resistant and had to change my combination. Every new combination meant new side effects - nausea, diarrhoea. Sometimes the fatigue was so bad, I couldn't get out of bed."

Philippe, who works for the Terence Higgins Trust, had a viral load of 500,000 (more than 100,000 is considered high) and was in hospital with toxoplasmosis, ulcers and paralysis. After three months, he started a new regime that was the first to work - his viral load is below 50.

Philippe says that he is lucky because he has yet to run out of drug options. "It's very important that there are new drugs. HIV is not a death sentence any more but there's still no cure. After you become resistant, you start running out of options."

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].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre's yield of cotton. He calculated the correlation coefficient between the two series at -0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic conditions and lynchings in Raper's data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his analysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic conditions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

"What we should be doing is monitoring children from birth so we can detect any deviations from the norm at an early stage and action can be taken". Who said that? Joe Stalin? Adolf Hitler? Orwell's "Big Brother"? The Spanish Inquisition? Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde? None of those. It was Dr Colin Waine, chairman of Britain's National Obesity Forum. What a fine fellow!

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

Vitamin D can be bad for you

It looks like even I was not skeptical enough. Journal reference: Marshall TG. Vitamin D discovery outpaces FDA decision making. Bioessays. 2008 Jan 15;30(2):173-182.

Low blood levels of vitamin D have long been associated with disease, and the assumption has been that vitamin D supplements may protect against disease. However, this new research demonstrates that ingested vitamin D is immunosuppressive and that low blood levels of vitamin D may be actually a result of the disease process. Supplementation may make the disease worse.

In a new report Trevor Marshall, Ph.D., professor at Australia's Murdoch University School of Biological Medicine and Biotechnology, explains how increased vitamin D intake affects much more than just nutrition or bone health. The paper explains how the Vitamin D Nuclear Receptor (VDR) acts in the repression or transcription of hundreds of genes, including genes associated with diseases ranging from cancers to multiple sclerosis. "The VDR is at the heart of innate immunity, being responsible for expression of most of the antimicrobial peptides, which are the body's ultimate response to infection," Marshall said. "Molecular biology is now forcing us to re-think the idea that a low measured value of vitamin D means we simply must add more to our diet. Supplemental vitamin D has been used for decades, and yet the epidemics of chronic disease, such as heart disease and obesity, are just getting worse."

"Our disease model has shown us why low levels of vitamin D are observed in association with major and chronic illness," Marshall added. "Vitamin D is a secosteroid hormone, and the body regulates the production of all it needs. In fact, the use of supplements can be harmful, because they suppress the immune system so that the body cannot fight disease and infection effectively."

Marshall's research has demonstrated how ingested vitamin D can actually block VDR activation, the opposite effect to that of Sunshine. Instead of a positive effect on gene expression, Marshall reported that his own work, as well as the work of others, shows that quite nominal doses of ingested vitamin D can suppress the proper operation of the immune system. It is a different metabolite, a secosteroid hormone called 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, which activates the VDR to regulate the expression of the genes. Under conditions that exist in infection or inflammation, the body automatically regulates its production of all the vitamin D metabolites, including 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the metabolite which is usually measured to indicate vitamin D status.

Vitamin D deficiency, long interpreted as a cause of disease, is more likely the result of the disease process, and increasing intake of vitamin D often makes the disease worse. "Dysregulation of vitamin D has been observed in many chronic diseases, including many thought to be autoimmune," said J.C. Waterhouse, Ph.D., lead author of a book chapter on vitamin D and chronic disease. "We have found that vitamin D supplementation, even at levels many consider desirable, interferes with recovery in these patients."

"We need to discard the notion that vitamin D affects a disease state in a simple way," Marshall said. "Vitamin D affects the expression of over 1,000 genes, so we should not expect a simplistic cause and effect between vitamin D supplementation and disease. The comprehensive studies are just not showing that supplementary vitamin D makes people healthier."

Source





New info on scent and sexual attraction

I have put up below just an excerpt but it is a "read it all" article. It suggests that taking the pill derails the scent selection process and leads to women choosing incompatible partners!

When you're turned on by your partner's scent, taking a deep whiff of his chest or the back of her neck feels like taking a powerful drug-it's an instant flume ride to bliss, however momentary. Research has shown that we use scent-based signaling mechanisms to suss out compatibility. Claus Wedekind, a biologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, created Exhibit A of this evidence by giving 44 men new T-shirts and instructing them to wear the shirts for two straight nights. To ensure that the sweat collecting on the shirts would remain "odor-neutral," he supplied the men with scent-free soap and aftershave.

After the men were allowed to change, 49 women sniffed the shirts and specified which odors they found most attractive. Far more often than chance would predict, the women preferred the smell of T-shirts worn by men who were immunologically dissimilar to them. The difference lay in the sequence of more than 100 immune system genes known as the MHC, or major histocompatibility complex. These genes code for proteins that help the immune system recognize pathogens. The smell of their favorite shirts also reminded the women of their past and current boyfriends, suggesting that MHC does indeed influence women's dating decisions in real life.

Women's preference for MHC-distinct mates makes perfect sense from a biological point of view. Ever since ancestral times, partners whose immune systems are different have produced offspring who are more disease-resistant. With more immune genes expressed, kids are buffered against a wider variety of pathogens and toxins.

But that doesn't mean women prefer men whose MHC genes are most different from theirs, as University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Martha McClintock found when she performed a T-shirt study similar to Wedekind's. Women are not attracted to the smell of men with whom they had no MHC genes in common. "This might be a case where you're protecting yourself against a mate who's too similar or too dissimilar, but there's a middle range where you're OK," McClintock says.

Women consistently outperform men in smell sensitivity tests, and they also make greater time and energy sacrifices on their children's behalf than men do-in addition to bearing offspring, they look after them most of the time. These factors may explain why women are more discriminating in sniffing out MHC compatibility.

Men are sensitive to smell as well, but because women shoulder a greater reproductive burden, and are therefore choosier about potential mates, researchers are not surprised to find that women are also more discriminating in sniffing out MHC compatibility.

Unlike, say, blood types, MHC gene complements differ so much from one person to the next that there's no obvious way to reliably predict who's MHC-compatible with whom. Skin color, for instance, isn't much help, since groups of people living in different areas of the world might happen to evolve genetic resistance to some of the same germs. "People of different ethnicities can have similar profiles, so race is not a good predictor of MHC dissimilarity," Thornhill says.

And because people's MHC profiles are as distinct as fingerprints-there are thousands of possible gene combinations-a potential sex partner who smells good to one woman may completely repel another. "There's no Brad Pitt of smell," Herz says. "Body odor is an external manifestation of the immune system, and the smells we think are attractive come from the people who are most genetically compatible with us." Much of what we vaguely call "sexual chemistry," she adds, is likely a direct result of this scent-based compatibility.

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].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre's yield of cotton. He calculated the correlation coefficient between the two series at -0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic conditions and lynchings in Raper's data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his analysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic conditions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

"What we should be doing is monitoring children from birth so we can detect any deviations from the norm at an early stage and action can be taken". Who said that? Joe Stalin? Adolf Hitler? Orwell's "Big Brother"? The Spanish Inquisition? Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde? None of those. It was Dr Colin Waine, chairman of Britain's National Obesity Forum. What a fine fellow!

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

Mother's diet shapes offspring's future weight?

Another study of rats, not people and another despicable attempt to prey on the anxieties of pregnant women. The full report is not public yet but all these creeps seem to have discovered is the earth-shattering finding that fat mothers have fat children. Anything to do with genetics? No mention of genetics. That would be against the prevailing religion. And do mothers on a restricted diet get all the nutrients that the baby needs? Even if the baby appears to be OK, is the individual concerned OK in the long term? No mention of that! It is totally inappropriate to be making recommendations to the public based on this scrap of unreviewed research. But we see that the article below is full of confident recommendations from attention-seeking knowalls who obviously would not know the meaning of scientific caution

Australian scientists have made the world-first discovery that a pregnant woman's diet determines whether her baby grows into a fat adult or a skinny one. The research suggests women who are overweight before they fall pregnant, and during it, may condemn their children to a life of overeating and obesity. It reveals that a mother's diet during pregnancy affects the baby's brain circuits, determining appetite and energy expenditure in their offspring. "This suggests that mothers should think twice about overindulging, or using the excuse that they're eating for two during pregnancy," University of NSW professor Margaret Morris said.

Unlike previous studies, the groundbreaking work highlights the pre-natal period as a critical time for "programming of post-natal and adult appetite". It found that even before a woman falls pregnant, she is potentially "programming" a child's future appetite. "The major finding is the dramatic increase in body fat in offspring of overweight and obese mothers," Professor Morris said. Mothers fed a high-fat diet had offspring that were heavier, with more body fat and altered appetite regulators in the brain, meaning they overate, she said.

The results are supported by a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition last year. It found that mothers who eat junk food during pregnancy may produce children who crave the same foods. Professor Morris will present her findings at the Australian Neuroscience Society conference in Hobart this week. She said the study was particularly relevant, given that about 30 per cent of mothers enter pregnancy in an overweight or obese condition.

The study was conducted using overweight female rats who mated with healthy males. The females continued to be fed a high-fat Western diet during and after pregnancy, Professor Morris said. "The mums were overeating for that whole period. We found the offspring were a third heavier than the rats fed a low-fat diet," she said. Professor Morris said the brain pathways regulating appetite in rats were similar to those in humans, suggesting similar trends could be expected in people.

Sydney University nutritionist Dr Jenny O'Dea said it had become "quite well accepted" that a woman's diet during pregnancy impacted on the fetus. "We also know that obesity during pregnancy more often than not causes gestational diabetes and high blood pressure," Dr O'Dea said. She said that although nutritional needs were high during pregnancy, women should not be "eating for two".

Professor Morris studied mothers who were already overweight before they fell pregnant. The experiment results also found their offspring were showing signs of developing diabetes at a young age.

The findings are particularly relevant for overweight mothers, highlighting the importance of maintaining a normal weight before and during pregnancy. Further research will examine how methods of intervention during breastfeeding can reverse bad nutritional habits and overeating.

Susie Burrell, a pediatric dietitian at The Children's Hospital at Westmead, said the study sent a powerful message to women planning to fall pregnant. "They need to get their weight under control before conceiving, and those who are pregnant need to have minimum weight-gain during pregnancy," Ms Burrell said. She said an increasing number of women were overweight before they fell pregnant, creating a "snowball effect". "Their babies are more likely to have a high birth weight. This then leads to lifestyle diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease."

Source






Anything you really like is now an addiction

Last summer at their annual policy meeting, the American Medical Association considered having "excessive video gaming" formally certified as a psychiatric disorder and listing it in the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the bible of mental diseases to which psychiatrists are addicted. Official bureaucratic legitimization will accomplish a vital goal of the professional psychotherapy community: enable the condition's victims to get medical coverage so psychotherapists can suck insurance companies dry with their $400-per-hour behavior-modification and rehabilitative-therapy programs.

Used to be we knew what addiction was - the inability to kick booze or cigarettes or drugs. But then a second tier of addictions was identified, and we were introduced to the shocking, secretive world of obsessive gamblers and caffeine freaks and sex addicts and suburban chocoholics

Since those relatively innocent days, our world has exploded with addictive behaviors. Now we are all substance abusers, tormented with bottled water syndromes and new-car-smell obsessions and iPod fixations and ringtone manias and Britney-watching compulsions and reality-show fanaticisms and cutesy-wutesy baby-talking to your poochie-woochie dysfunctions.

This is professional stalking at its worst - the endless cycle of concocting supply to satisfy escalating demand. Not only are new addictions being discovered every day, but new discoverers of new addictions are being discovered as well. Everybody, it seems, knows what addiction is. What people used to call "food cravings" the American Heart Association now calls "carbohydrate addiction. AOL did a survey claiming that people are addicted to e-mail. (And, since AOL is a major supplier of e-mail access, doesn't that make them pushers?) The Web site Switched.com reported on a Harvard Business Review study under the title "Rise of the BlackBerry-Addicted Work Zombie.

Computer-industry professionals, in fact, seem to be exceptionally proficient, and prolific, at identifying addiction. After coining a new discipline, psychotechnology (not to be confused with technopsychology), they quickly identified such human aberrations as Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD), Internet Behavior Dependence (IBD), Internet/Computer Addiction, Online Addiction, and addiction to Web-surfing.

Even as new addictions are being discovered, all the trusty old dependencies are exploding exponentially. CNN quoted a UN report that used the phrase "runaway train of drug addiction" and followed it with "5 percent of the world's population aged between 15 and 64 used drugs at least once in the previous 12 months.

The implication is that partaking of a governmentally disapproved substance once a year makes one a drug addict. This would be like counting every shopping-cart door ding as an auto accident or declaring every blink, wink, and nod as an instance of sexual abuse.

Funny how neither the UN nor the AMA nor the American Psychiatric Association has ever concluded that any psychiatrist who has psychoanalyzed one person between the ages of 15 and 64 during the past year is afflicted with the runaway train of psychoanalization addiction

Why are hardworking business people called "workaholics" while people who invest thousands of hours raising millions of dollars while telling hundreds of lies just to get elected to public office are never called "powerholics"? Why is it that people who incessantly use a PDA to communicate with people have their handhelds referred to as "crackberries" while people who incessantly use their rosaries to communicate with the Blessed Virgin never have their handhelds referred to as "bead speed"

Perhaps, then, the definition of "addiction" has more to do with contrived self-serving sociopolitical constructs than with medicine. Addiction is in the eye of the professional beholder, who can charge $400 an hour to "cure" it.

Then again, maybe not all addictions are bad. Case in point: While Republicrats are control freaks hopelessly addicted to taxbucks and world empire, people who call themselves "libertarian" are addicted to a philosophy of maximizing freedom and minimizing coercion. In the meantime, something has to be done about those delusional sufferers hopelessly addicted to reading opinion articles such as this one.

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].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre's yield of cotton. He calculated the correlation coefficient between the two series at -0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic conditions and lynchings in Raper's data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his analysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic conditions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

"What we should be doing is monitoring children from birth so we can detect any deviations from the norm at an early stage and action can be taken". Who said that? Joe Stalin? Adolf Hitler? Orwell's "Big Brother"? The Spanish Inquisition? Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde? None of those. It was Dr Colin Waine, chairman of Britain's National Obesity Forum. What a fine fellow!

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

Where's the Beef?

The nonsense about food from cloned animals

It's not often that American food companies join hands with environmental and consumer activists to call for greater government control over the nation's food supply. But that's just what happened last week after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration concluded that meat and milk from cloned cows, pigs, and goats are safe for consumers.

Despite the overwhelming science behind that finding, industry and activists have called for a ban on cloned food products. Naturally, you might think that lockstep agreement from such unlikely bedfellows is a little fishy. And you'd be right. The losers would be American consumers, farmers, and the environment.

Since 1996, when Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, thousands of animal clones - including other sheep as well as cows, goats, pigs, horses, rabbits, and several other species - have been born and studied more intensely than the progeny of almost any other animal breeding technique. Critics claim the process will create monstrous new hybrids in some kind of barnyard "Boys from Brazil ," but the reality is that consumer safety is not seriously in doubt.

FDA took more than six years investigating the matter, and its comprehensive, 968-page report shows that thousands of nutritional and other compositional comparisons reveal no differences between the safety of clones and conventionally bred animals. Stephen Sundlof, head of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition said at a news conference last Tuesday that agency scientists have "done a very extensive job of looking at anything that could possibly be a food hazard, and to be honest, we found nothing."

Regulatory authorities in New Zealand , France , and the European Union agree. And government scientists in Australia , Canada , and Japan are expected to issue their own clean bills of health in the next year or two.

This overwhelming agreement among scientists should pave the way for animal clones - or to be more exact, their offspring - to come to market. Cloning is expensive, costing as much as $17,000 for cows and $4,000 for pigs. So, the vast majority of clones will be used just for breeding. Only their naturally produced off-spring should find their way into grocery stores during the next few decades.

Since there are no real questions about consumer safety, the critics have had to capitalize on zany scare stories and the public's ambivalence about unfamiliar technologies. The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) says that a "flood of milk from highly productive cloned cows is not good for the taxpayers" who buy surplus milk from dairy farmers. The group also claims cloning will make our kids fat because "[s]urplus milk is turned into high fat products that then go to school children."

At one FDA meeting, CFA's Carol Tucker Foreman even exploited religious and ethical concerns, criticizing the agency for studying food safety without first considering any ethical and religious implications. Of course, FDA is not legally permitted to consider religious objections, as the activists point out when the agency evaluates controversial products they want approved.

More importantly, humans have been using sophisticated scientific methods to control animal reproduction for decades, so we have already settled the ethical arguments critics of animal cloning now raise in opposition. Cloning is really just a technological extension of methods such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo transfer that are now commonplace in animal breeding, though it uses one animal's DNA to create an exact genetic copy, essentially an identical twin born a generation later.

While it has been just a decade since Dolly was born, most of the individual steps that make cloning possible are a close to a century old. The transfer of living embryos from one animal's womb to another, for example, dates to the 1800s. Cloning itself has been conducted with invertebrates, amphibians, and other non-mammalian animals since the turn of the 19 th century. And IVF was developed for animal breeding in the 1950s.

Even today's proven method of cloning mammals - transferring an adult animal's genetic material to an unfertilized egg - was first envisioned in the 1930s. Its use simply had to wait until these intermediate steps were perfected over the following decades. As a consequence, scientists know today far more about the health and well-being of cloned animals than the skeptics would have us believe.

Furthermore, none of the technical difficulties that cloning critics highlight is unique. Many clonal pregnancies result in miscarriage, and some clones have neonatal health problems, so critics insist that moving forward now is inhumane and unethical. But, each of these problems is also present in other assisted reproductive technologies, such as IVF and embryo transfer, as well as natural mating. Animal breeders have managed them for decades, so their presence in cloned animals presents no unique ethical or consumer safety issues.

The abundant evidence of safety is why the critics have had to focus attention away from the science. Instead they ask, even if we can clone animals safely, why should we? The answer is simple. Breeders can produce better and safer food by cloning rare animals that produce leaner meat, for example, or are especially resistant to common livestock diseases. Researchers in Asia have even cloned a cow that appears to be resistant to mad cow disease. The ability to drastically reduce illness among animals and to improve consumer safety arguably makes cloning more, not less humane than traditional breeding.

But that's not all. Producing more meat or milk per animal helps reduce farming's ecological footprint by, for example, allowing for a reduction in the size of herds and lowering the amount of waste the animals generate. And cloning is already being used to help increase populations of threatened and endangered animals, such as the gaur and banteng, which are related to our beef and dairy cattle. Many scientists hope that, one day, cloning can help recover endangered species such as tigers, rhinos, and pandas.

Still, the activists' antics have scared one group of influential Americans: the dairy and packaged food industries. Rising demand in the U.S. for organic products makes many food companies believe consumers will reject meat and milk from clones. Others fear a trade backlash from technophobic consumers in places like France and Italy . That's why several major food companies, including the largest U.S. meat producer Tyson Foods, have already announced that they had "no immediate plans" to buy cloned livestock.

They may not have the chance. Ever since 2001, animal cloners have complied with a "voluntary" moratorium on selling food products from clones while they awaited FDA's safety study. Yet, even as FDA unveiled its final assessment last week, the U.S. Agriculture Department bowed to food industry pressure and asked to extend the moratorium until consumer concerns could be resolved - possibly as long as two or three more years. And Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski introduced legislation that would keep cloned animals off the market indefinitely.

Knowing that they are ultimately at the mercy of consumers and retailers, Texas-based Viagen and Iowa-based TransOva Genetics - two of three private sector U.S. cloning companies - developed a system to track cloned animals so that farmers, meat packers, and retailers who wish to do so can avoid them. John Kleiboeker, of the Missouri Beef Industry Council told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that "the FDA may say it's not required, but consumers may want labels, so discerning marketers will do it."

Kleiboeker is right, of course. From organic milk and free trade coffee to kosher and halal meats, many consumers have shown a preference for foods produced in certain ways. But, that is exactly why extending the moratorium is unnecessary. American farmers and the food industry have proven perfectly capable of segregating foods from various new and old production systems whenever a genuine consumer demand for it exists. Whether it's religious, ethical, or environmental concerns, all that is needed is for regulators to make a science-based judgment on safety and then get out of the way.

Source





The pill is good for you/bad for you, good for you/bad for you, good for you/bad for you...

There is such a regular oscillation in the findings about the effects of taking oral female hormones that I think it is clear that we are looking at a random walk here: There is no systematic effect -- just random fluctuations due to factors other than sample size

Women taking the contraceptive pill are protected against ovarian cancer for decades after they stop using the medication, a British study has found. Oxford University scientists found evidence that women taking the pill for 15 years halved their chances of developing the disease in a study published in The Lancet medical journal. They believe the pill has prevented some 200,000 cases of ovarian cancer and 100,000 deaths from this disease since its introduction nearly half a century ago.

Lead author Professor Valerie Beral, an Australian who is director of the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University, and her colleagues found the risk remained low more than 30 years later, although the benefits diminished over time. "It's been known for over 20 years that the pill protects against ovarian cancer but most of the effects of the pill are short - only really just while women are taking the pill," Professor Beral said. "But for cancer of the ovary that gets much more common in older women, the really important question was, how long does protection last. "What we've shown here is that it lasts for over 30 years. It's really very long-term protection."

The research reviewed data from 45 studies covering more than 100,000 women. The scientists gathered data from 23,257 women who had developed ovarian cancer and 87,303 who had not. Of the first group, 31 per cent had used the pill, while 37 per cent of the second group had taken the medication. Ovarian cancer can be particularly aggressive and the symptoms are such that it is often detected at an advanced stage. "Worldwide, the pill has already prevented 200,000 women from developing cancer of the ovary and has prevented 100,000 deaths from the disease," Professor Beral said. "More than 100 million women are now taking the pill, so the number of ovarian cancers prevented will rise over the next few decades to about 30,000 per year."

Other research has found a statistically significant increased risk of cancer of the breast, cervix or central nervous system among users of the pill. But, in an editorial, The Lancet called for the pill to be made available over the counter rather than restricted by a doctor's prescription, given that, in its view, the benefits for cancer prevention and reproductive health outweighed the risks. "We believe the case is now convincing," the British journal said.

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].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre's yield of cotton. He calculated the correlation coefficient between the two series at -0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic conditions and lynchings in Raper's data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his analysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic conditions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

"What we should be doing is monitoring children from birth so we can detect any deviations from the norm at an early stage and action can be taken". Who said that? Joe Stalin? Adolf Hitler? Orwell's "Big Brother"? The Spanish Inquisition? Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde? None of those. It was Dr Colin Waine, chairman of Britain's National Obesity Forum. What a fine fellow!

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

Transplant teenage girl changes blood types

A major rethink of what we know about blood types coming up, I suspect

FIFTEEN-year old Demi-Lee Brennan defies belief. Dubbed the "one-in-six-billion miracle girl", the NSW South Coast teenager is the first transplant patient ever to change blood types and take on the immune system of her organ donor. Her body's ability to accept a new liver - and then produce new blood cells on its own - has left doctors mystified. The rare phenomenon now means Demi no longer has to take a cocktail of anti-rejection drugs for the rest of her life. It also gives hope to the 1800 gravely ill Australians awaiting a transplant.

Demi, of Kiama, resembles a healthy teenager who displays no signs of her ordeal - other than the scar on her body. And, in an unexpected medical first, she has experienced a change in blood type from Onegative to Opositive, as a result of her body seeming to perform its own bone marrow transplant.

"It's kind of hard to believe," Demi said. "When I look back, it doesn't feel like it happened." When Demi was nine she became seriously ill and needed a life-saving liver transplant. Doctors at the Children's Hospital at Westmead believe a yet-to-be-identified virus caused her liver to fail. A donor was found but after nine months Demi fell ill again - with doctors unable to identify the problem. During that first nine months, Demi was put on routine anti-rejection drugs after her liver transplant surgery.

Then doctors found that Demi's body had begun to destroy its own blood cells and, at the same time, the donor's blood stem cells took over her immune system. Doctors then halted the anti-rejection drugs, realising her blood type - and immune system - had taken on the characteristics of her organ donor.

Their discovery is now the subject of medical research being pursued around the world. Former head of Westmead's liver transplant unit, Dr Stuart Dorney, said there is no explanation for what occurred. "We now need to go back over everything that happened to Demi and see why, and if, it can be replicated," he said. "It may not be (replicated). We think because we used a young person's liver and Demi had low white blood cells that could have been a reason."

It has been almost four years since Demi received her liver and is hoping to permanently stay off anti-rejection drugs. "I am really thankful (to the donor's family) and I hope that so many people can do this too," she said. "I would say to other transplant patients, 'stay strong and determined'.

In Australia, about 100 liver transplant procedures are carried out each year. Of those, paediatric liver transplantations account for 20 per cent. Recipients have an 85 per cent survival rate one year after successful surgery but the rate reduces to 70 per cent after five years due to possible organ rejection complications.

Source




D'Oh! Correcting nutritional deficiencies is helpful

Perhaps I am being a bit cynical but this sounds a bit like a proof that grass is green to me. It DOES confirm the importance of vitamin D but did anybody doubt that? I suppose we should at least be glad that it was one of the rare double-blind studies and not the usual epidemiological crap. Note that it does NOT show that ALL older women should take vitamin D. Popular summary followed by abstract below

VITAMIN D supplements may help to prevent falls among older women, and should be given to those with a history of falling and low vitamin D levels, concludes an Australian study in the Archives of Internal Medicine this week. Richard Prince and colleagues from the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth recruited 302 women aged 70 to 90 years with low blood vitamin D levels and a history of falling in the previous year. They were randomly assigned to take either 1000 international units of vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) or an inactive placebo, and all received 1000mg of calcium citrate per day. Information about falls was collected from participants every six weeks. During the year-long study, 53 per cent of those in the vitamin D group and 63 per cent in the control group fell at least once. After adjusting for height, which affected the risk of falling, vitamin D therapy reduced the risk of having at least one fall by 19 per cent.

Source

Effects of Ergocalciferol Added to Calcium on the Risk of Falls in Elderly High-Risk Women

By Richard L. Prince et al.

Background: Ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) supplementation plays a role in fall prevention, but the effect in patients living in the community in sunny climates remains uncertain. We evaluated the effect of ergocalciferol and calcium citrate supplementation compared with calcium alone on the risk of falls in older women at high risk of falling.

Methods: A 1-year population-based, double-blind, randomized controlled trial of 302 community-dwelling ambulant older women aged 70 to 90 years living in Perth, Australia (latitude, 32øS), with a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration of less than 24.0 ng/mL and a history of falling in the previous year. Participants were randomized to receive ergocalciferol, 1000 IU/d, or identical placebo (hereinafter, ergocalciferol and control groups, respectively). Both groups received calcium citrate, 1000 mg/d. Fall data were collected every 6 weeks.

Results: Ergocalciferol therapy reduced the risk of having at least 1 fall over 1 year after adjustment for baseline height, which was significantly different between the 2 groups (ergocalciferol group, 53.0%; control group, 62.9%; odds ratio [OR], 0.61; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.37-0.99). When those who fell were grouped by the season of first fall or the number of falls they had, ergocalciferol treatment reduced the risk of having the first fall in winter and spring (ergocalciferol group, 25.2%; control group, 35.8%; OR, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.32-0.96) but not in summer and autumn, and reduced the risk of having 1 fall (ergocalciferol group, 21.2%; control group, 33.8%; OR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.28-0.88) but not multiple falls.

Conclusion: Patients with a history of falling and vitamin D insufficiency living in sunny climates benefit from ergocalciferol supplementation in addition to calcium, which is associated with a 19% reduction in the relative risk of falling, mostly in winter.

Arch Intern Med. 2008;168(1):103-108.

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

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].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre's yield of cotton. He calculated the correlation coefficient between the two series at -0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic conditions and lynchings in Raper's data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his analysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic conditions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

"What we should be doing is monitoring children from birth so we can detect any deviations from the norm at an early stage and action can be taken". Who said that? Joe Stalin? Adolf Hitler? Orwell's "Big Brother"? The Spanish Inquisition? Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde? None of those. It was Dr Colin Waine, chairman of Britain's National Obesity Forum. What a fine fellow!

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

"Cheating" in medical research

I must say that I am not surprised at all. Most of what I see in the field is deeply unserious and irresponsible

Cheating is on the rise in academic circles, as scientists increasingly claim fradulent glory by plagiarising the work of others - and even themselves. In medical research alone, the number of such "duplicate" scientific reports has roughly trebled since 1975, as scientists face increasing pressure to publish or perish and the likelihood of escaping detection is high.

The disturbing claim comes from Mounir Errami and Harold Garner at the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center in Dallas. They developed and used an automated text-matching tool, eTBLAST, to trawl through more than 7 million related scientific abstracts held in the online database Medline, which indexes more than 5000 international journals. "We estimate there are potentially more than 200,000 duplicates in Medline (now)," they reported last night in the journal Nature.

They claimed that not only can eTBLAST detect suspect publications, it could be used to discourage "unscrupulous scientists" from behaving badly. "The fear of having some transgression exposed in a public and embarrassing manner could be a very effective deterrent," they suggested.

Ken Baldwin, head of the umbrella group Federation of Scientific and Technological Societies, agreed that tools such as eTBLAST could be wielded against cheats once checks were built into the system to prevent false identification. "There is the potential for even stronger deterrence of this sort of practice which is already at a very low level (in Australia)," he said.

That's why Dr Errami and Dr Garner will not reveal names and insitutions flagged by eTBLAST until they have manually checked each duplicate and contacted the individuals and journals affected. They have, though, broken their data down by country of origin and posted results in an online database called Deja Vu.

More than 600 duplications originated in Australia. Most duplicates came from countries that submitted the most papers for publication: the US, Japan, Germany, China, Britain, Italy, France and Canada. But the duplication rate for China and Japan was twice that expected.

Source




Marijuana deadlier than cigarettes

HEAVY pot smokers will suffer serious lung disease two decades earlier than their cigarette-smoking counterparts, researchers have found. The deep, slow inhalation and long breath hold is predisposing cannabis smokers to a condition of rapid lung destruction much younger in life, a study by Melbourne scientists has found.

A team from the Department of Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine at Monash University reviewed the lung condition of middle-aged chronic cannabis smokers. They found high rates of bullous lung disease, a debilitating condition where air trapped in the lungs causes obstruction to breathing and eventual destruction of the organ. It is often caused by exposure to toxic chemicals or long-term exposure to tobacco smoke.

Studies have shown the disease will most likely strike tobacco smokers around the age of 65, but the new review, published in the journal Respirology, shows dope smokers are being hit 20 years earlier, while in their early 40s. Lead author Dr Matthew Naughton said the disease could easily go undetected as patients suffering lung breakdown may show normal chest X-rays and lung functions.

"What is outstanding about this study is the relatively young ages of the lung disease patients, as well as the lack of abnormality on chest X-rays and lung functions in nearly half of the patients we tested," Dr Naughton said.

Marijuana smokers inhale more and hold their breath four times longer than cigarette smokers. Dr Naughton said the breathing style increased the concentration and pulmonary deposition of inhaled particulate matter, causing greater and faster rapid lung destruction. "Marijuana is inhaled as extremely hot fumes to the peak inspiration and held for as long as possible before slow exhalation," he said. "This predisposes to greater damage to the lungs and makes marijuana smokers more prone to bullous disease as compared to cigarette smokers."

The researchers said the effects of marijuana smokers on the lung were rarely reported and poorly understood considering the popularity of the habit. A recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report suggested 11 per cent of Australians smoke marijuana. Rates are must higher among teenagers, with almost one in five trying the substance.

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].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre's yield of cotton. He calculated the correlation coefficient between the two series at -0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic conditions and lynchings in Raper's data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his analysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic conditions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

"What we should be doing is monitoring children from birth so we can detect any deviations from the norm at an early stage and action can be taken". Who said that? Joe Stalin? Adolf Hitler? Orwell's "Big Brother"? The Spanish Inquisition? Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde? None of those. It was Dr Colin Waine, chairman of Britain's National Obesity Forum. What a fine fellow!

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

DO SHORTER BABIES GROW UP SUICIDAL?

The short answer: Some do but not many. This is nonetheless a matter of some concern as older mothers are now very common and older mothers are more likely to have difficulties resulting in premature birth. And premature birth is a major cause of smaller babies being delivered.

As usual, however, the social class connection appears to have been ignored. Do lower class mothers have more premature deliveries and shorter babies generally? I am pretty sure they do. The workers are in general less healthy and adult height is class-correlated. So are we seeing just a class effect here? Is it just working class people who are more suicidal? I suspect it is. Popular summary below followed by journal abstract:

Pregnant women may wish for a smaller baby to ease the pain of labour, but babies born small could have serious mental health problems in later life. New research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health has found that male babies born less than 47cm [18"] in length are more than twice as likely to attempt violent suicide as adults compared to normal-length babies, regardless of the height they reach as adults. The findings are based on 318,953 Swedish men who were followed from birth (between 1973 and 1980) to the date of attempted suicide, date of death, emigration or to the end of 1999, whichever came first. Those born prematurely, both short and underweight, were more than four times more likely to attempt violent suicide, including hanging, drowning and use of a knife or gun, as those born after 38 weeks of pregnancy. The brain chemical serotonin, which can decrease aggression and suicidal behaviour, may be lower in men who were born small, say the authors, and these men may need to be monitored more closely for psychiatric disorders.

Source. Another summary here

Fetal and childhood growth and the risk of violent and non-violent suicide attempts: a cohort study of 318,953 men

By E Mittendorfer-Rutz et al.

Background: Inverse associations of birth length with suicide attempts have recently been reported. Whether growth during childhood alters this association is not known. The influences on patterns of growth in fetal life and childhood might be different for violent and non-violent suicide attempts.

Objective: To investigate the effect of fetal and childhood growth and possible effect modification on suicide attempts, both violent and non-violent, adjusting for potential maternal confounding factors.

Method: 318,953 Men were followed by record linkage from the date of birth in Sweden (1973-1980) to the date of attempted suicide, date of death, emigration or to the end of 1999.

Results: The risk of suicide attempt was increased for men with reduced linear growth in fetal life across all levels of adult stature. Men with appropriate birth length for gestational age but short adult height also experienced a raised risk of suicide attempts: 1.56 (95% CI 1.2 to 2.1). Tall adult stature was protective. Short birth length for gestational age was more strongly related to violent (2.39; 95% CI 1.1 to 4.9) than non-violent (1.53; 95% CI 1.1 to 2.1) suicide attempts. The risk of violent attempts was most strongly increased for men with low birth weight and adequate adult stature: 2.54 (95% CI 1.1 to 5.7).

Conclusions: The inverse association of linear growth in fetal life and suicide attempt does not seem to be modified by linear childhood growth. Short adult stature entails an additional risk. Short birth length seems particularly to increase the risk of violent suicide attempts

J Epidemiol Community Health 2008;62:168-173




NYC revives push for calorie disclosure by area fast-food restaurants

The city Board of Health is poised to reenact Tuesday a bitterly contested rule requiring restaurants to post the calorie contents of each dish on their menus. The proposed regulation - part of Mayor Bloomberg's campaign to reduce obesity and diabetes - would make eateries with 15 or more outposts around the country prominently display calorie counts before patrons order.

City health officials expect the regulation to result in 150,000 fewer New Yorkers becoming obese over the next five years and to prevent at least 30,000 cases of diabetes. "The more fast food people eat, the more likely they are to become obese," Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden told the Daily News. "Some people may choose to ignore [the calorie information], and that's totally fine. But other people will use it to choose healthier food."

The original rule applied only to restaurants that were already voluntarily offering customers calorie information. A judge threw it out in September after the New York State Restaurant Association sued, but opened the door for the city to tweak it. This version would impact 10% of the city's 23,000 eateries. Since the board is led by Frieden and appointed by Mayor Bloomberg, the provision is expected to pass. It would go into effect on March 31.

Restaurant association officials could not be reached yesterday, and it was unclear whether they would sue again.Justin Wilson of the Center for Consumer Freedom attacked the city's "nanny-state public health policies." "It doesn't take a Ph.D. in nutrition, let alone a high school diploma, to tell the difference between a 12-piece bucket of chicken and a salad," he said.

While the rule's immediate intention is to affect New Yorkers' food choices, Frieden expects it to translate into the food industry offering lower-calorie, smaller portions. "When restaurants post the information prominently, they'll make healthier options available, so I don't think we'll be seeing 2,700 calorie appetizers or 1,400 calorie breakfasts," he said.

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].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre's yield of cotton. He calculated the correlation coefficient between the two series at -0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic conditions and lynchings in Raper's data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his analysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic conditions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

"What we should be doing is monitoring children from birth so we can detect any deviations from the norm at an early stage and action can be taken". Who said that? Joe Stalin? Adolf Hitler? Orwell's "Big Brother"? The Spanish Inquisition? Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde? None of those. It was Dr Colin Waine, chairman of Britain's National Obesity Forum. What a fine fellow!

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