Quotulatiousness

April 15, 2010

“Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Oh, never mind . . .”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Health, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:04

Marni Soupcoff points out that the World Health Organization should have been far more forthcoming after their intial “the sky is falling” announcements caused panic last year over H1N1:

Admit your mistakes before others exaggerate them. That’s the oft-quoted wry advice of writer and retired surgeon Dr. Andrew V. Mason. Perhaps the World Health Organization (WHO) was trying to follow it this week by convening a three-day meeting of outside experts to review the organization’s handling of the recent swine flu outbreak. The problem is, despite claiming to want to know what went wrong as much as what went right, the WHO seems unwilling to even entertain the possibility that it created a counterproductive panic by labelling H1N1 a pandemic of the highest order (“level 6”).

Swine flu, as you’ve probably realized by now, has turned out to be a mild, not particularly deadly virus — it’s certainly far less deadly than the regular seasonal flu that most of us consider a mundane part of everyday life. If one were feeling charitable toward the WHO, one could point out that it didn’t know back in the spring of last year — when it shouted “level 6!” from the rooftops — that H1N1 would prove to be such a relatively innocuous bug. But it’s precisely because it didn’t know that the WHO should have been more cautious with its labelling. You don’t shout “fire” in a crowded theatre just because it smells like the popcorn might be a little on the burnt side. It’s not worth the chaos and alarm you might cause. (Or in this case, the run on vaccines and the resorting to quacks and sketchy “home” remedies.)

Between the unrestrained use of the term “pandemic” and the noted ability of the mass media to hype real and imagined risks, it’s almost surprising we didn’t have doomsday-style cults spring up over H1N1.

April 14, 2010

Unexpected findings on delaying or avoiding PTSD

Filed under: Health, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:58

With American troops being deployed so frequently to combat missions over the last few years, efforts to diagnose and treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have become far more urgent. The risk of troops suffering from PTSD goes up the longer they are in combat or combat-like situations. The repeat deployments can’t be avoided, but other things can be done to reduce the risks:

The U.S. Army has found that PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) often does not appear immediately after combat, but gradually, over a longer (5-10 year) period. Short term, the army has found that 14 percent of troops on their first combat tour have stress problems. That goes to 18 percent for those on their second tour, and 31 percent for those on their third. But in the longer term (after five years of being in combat), 24 percent of troops who have served 12 months (one tour) in a combat zone will develop some PTSD. That goes to 39 percent for those who serve two tours and 64 percent for those who do three. The army wants to limit the number of troops suffering from PTSD. This is essential if the army is to maintain an experienced combat force.

[. . .]

Once a soldier has PTSD, they are usually no longer fit for combat, and many troops headed for Afghanistan are falling into this category. PTSD makes it difficult for people to function, or get along with others. With treatment (medication, and therapy), you can recover from PTSD. But this can take months or years. In extreme cases, there is no recovery. And while being treated, you stay away from the combat zone.

The army has found that PTSD can be delayed, or even avoided, by providing the troops with what previous generations of soldiers would have considered luxuries. For example, when possible, combat troops sleep in air conditioned rooms, and have access to the Internet and video games, as well as good food and other amenities. The video games and Internet resulted in an unexpected positive effect. The surveys found that troops that spent 2-4 hours a day on the Internet or playing video games (even violent ones) had far fewer stress problems. Having exercise facilities available also helped, despite the physically strenuous nature of combat in Afghanistan. While the combat troops spend most of their time out in the countryside, living rough, their commanders know what even a few days back at a larger base, with all the goodies, makes a big difference in attitudes, morale and combat effectiveness.

March 30, 2010

Self-esteem versus self-respect

Filed under: Health, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:23

Theodore Dalrymple on the crucial differences between self-esteem and self-respect:

With the coyness of someone revealing a bizarre sexual taste, my patients would often say to me, “Doctor, I think I’m suffering from low self-esteem.” This, they believed, was at the root of their problem, whatever it was, for there is hardly any undesirable behavior or experience that has not been attributed, in the press and on the air, in books and in private conversations, to low self-esteem, from eating too much to mass murder.

[. . .]

When people speak of their low self-esteem, they imply two things: first, that it is a physiological fact, rather like low hemoglobin, and second, that they have a right to more of it. What they seek, if you like, is a transfusion of self-esteem, given (curiously enough) by others; and once they have it, the quality of their lives will improve as the night succeeds the day. For the record, I never had a patient who complained of having too much self-esteem, and who therefore asked for a reduction. Self-esteem, it appears, is like money or health: you can’t have too much of it.

Self-esteemists, if I may so call those who are concerned with the levels of their own self-esteem, believe that it is something to which they have a right. If they don’t have self-esteem in sufficient quantity to bring about a perfectly happy life, their fundamental rights are being violated. They feel aggrieved and let down by others rather than by themselves; they ascribe their lack of rightful self-esteem to the carping, and unjustified, criticism of parents, teachers, spouses, and colleagues.

The other side of the coin is rather different:

Self-respect is another quality entirely. Where self-esteem is entirely egotistical, requiring that the world should pay court to oneself whatever oneself happens to be like or do, and demands nothing of the person who wants it, self-respect is a social virtue, a discipline, that requires an awareness of and sensitivity to the feelings of others. It requires an ability and willingness to put oneself in someone else’s place; it requires dignity and fortitude, and not always taking the line of least resistance.

[. . .]

Self-respect requires fortitude, one of the cardinal virtues; self-esteem encourages emotional incontinence that, while not actually itself a cardinal sin, is certainly a vice, and a very unattractive one. Self-respect and self-esteem are as different as depth and shallowness.

March 26, 2010

The case against Jamie Oliver

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Education, Food, Health, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 15:59

March 23, 2010

Post-traumatic stress in soldiers

Filed under: Health, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:35

Strategy Page looks at the rising rate of reported Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the forces engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq:

As expected the U.S. Army is beginning to see more widespread effects from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). There are two main indicators. The suicide rate, which has gone from 9 per 100,000 troops in 2001, to 23 last year, gets most of the media attention. The less noticed indicator, which impacts a lot more people, is the use of anti-stress medications. These have gone up 76 percent since 2001. About 17 percent of all troops now take these drugs, including six percent of those in combat zones. In 2001, the troops used these drugs to about the same degree as the civilian population (ten percent.) The impact of these drugs, especially in combination, can be unpredictable. The army is still waiting to see how this increased use of anti-stress medications will play out. This is all unknown territory.

[. . .]

Nearly a century of energetic effort to diagnose and treat PTSD (including much recent attention to civilian victims, via accidents or criminal assault), had made it clear that most troops eventually got PTSD if they were in combat long enough. During World War II, it was found that, on average, 200 days of combat would bring on a case of PTSD for American troops. After World War II, methods were found to delay the onset of PTSD (more breaks from combat, better living conditions in the combat zone, prompt treatment when PTSD was detected). That’s why combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan often sleep in air conditioned quarters, have Internet access, lots of amenities, and a two week vacation (anywhere) in the middle of their combat tour. This has extended their useful time in combat, before PTSD sets in. No one is yet sure what the new combat days average is, and new screening methods are an attempt to find out. But more troops appear to be hitting, or approaching, the limits.

QotD: The future of Obamacare

Filed under: Health, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:14

There will be court challenges to Obamacare but I doubt if they will be entirely successful. I further find it unlikely that the GOP, if they achieve majority status again, will be able to repeal it. Perhaps a combination of the two but that may be the most unlikely scenario at all.

Prediction? In five years, the Republican party will be embracing Obamacare and will be running on a platform that boasts they are the best party to manage it efficiently.

Rick Moran, “NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM DONE”, Right Wing Nuthouse, 2010-03-22

March 18, 2010

What if they could make smoking safer?

Filed under: Australia, Health — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:38

My bet would be that the anti-smoking campaigners would still be as stridently opposed to smokers and their habit even if there were no health risks:

Australian boffins have developed a treatment which allows mice to smoke cigarettes without the usual negative health consequences. The method could potentially allow gasper-loving humans to sidestep some of the self-destructive results of their habit.

The key to the business, according to lead cig-boffin Ross Vlahos, is Granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), an agent released by the lungs when they are exposed to cigarette smoke. GM-CSF causes inflammatory leukocytes to activate in the lungs, which then leads to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other complaints such as “oxidative stress, emphysema, small airway fibrosis, mucus hypersecretion and progressive airflow limitation”.

Vlahos and his team at Melbourne uni decided to tackle this by the use of a blocking agent known as “anti GM-CSF”. As called for by tradition, they got hold of a group of mice and dosed half of them with the miracle smoko-proofing drug, and left the others alone. Then all the mice were given “the equivalent of nine cigarettes of smoke each day for four days”.

At the end of the test every single mouse was dead. However, this was simply because the boffins had killed them in order to examine their lungs. According to the mouse autopsies, the ones treated with “anti GM-CSF” were in much better nick than the others.

Of course, “safer” is not “safe”. This research implies that human smokers could benefit from use of this drug or similar formulations, but it doesn’t address all the health risks of smoking (chances of developing cancer appear to be the same, for example).

A rational reader would assume that this new research would be welcomed, but my belief is that anti-smoking groups will condemn it for “encouraging smokers” and call for the research to be discontinued. After all, this is a moral rather than a scientific campaign for many activists.

Full disclosure: I’m not a smoker, and never have been. I’m not particularly fond of being in smoke-filled rooms, but I do think the crusade against smoking long ago passed the health advocacy point and became mostly moralizing (see this for example).

March 11, 2010

Food follies: the pinNaCle of idiocy?

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Food, Health, Law — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:15

The food police are after your salt:

Some New York City chefs and restaurant owners are taking aim at a bill introduced in the New York Legislature that, if passed, would ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.

“No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises,” the bill, A. 10129, states in part.

The legislation, which Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, introduced on March 5, would fine restaurants $1,000 for each violation.

I can only assume that Rep. Ortiz has no tastebuds, as the diet he’s prescribing would be bland, bland, bland. There’s also little chance that it’ll be passed into law, but you can consider it a shot across the bows of the restaurant trade . . . or a ranging round for the next salvo.

Colby Cosh tries to introduce physics into hockey debate

Filed under: Health, Sports — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:37

Aside from women’s hockey at the Olympics, I don’t follow the sport, so I’m happy to depend on the educated opinions of those who do. Colby Cosh points out that the debate over blows to the head in hockey should concentrate on a simple, clearly defined rule:

A memo to those who are concerned with (hitherto) legal checks to the head in the NHL: I sure hope you’re not just fighting physics. Because you’ll lose.

I see nothing wrong with the proposed new rule against blind-side hits to the head. I’d be willing to take it even further, and adopt an easy-to-apply strict-liability standard; if you hit somebody in a way that induces unconsciousness, or causes a concussion, you sit out the next n games. This would spare us from adopting hard-to-apply rules whose enforcement might ebb and crest, vary between personalities, and differ between leagues and regions. (It would occasionally lead, like all strict-liability rules, to unfair-seeming results and punishments for actions that didn’t look unjust or vicious aside from the outcome. But almost anything is better, at least to my mind, than a rule defined by excessively complex language, taught by means of intuitive references to a mass of individual cases, and left to evolve so that everybody thinks he knows the offence when he sees it.)

[. . .]

It’s sometimes observed, for example, that the players are bigger and the game faster than 20 or 30 years ago. But nobody ever sorts out the relative importance of these effects; a player whose mass is 5% bigger has 5% more kinetic energy in open ice, but if his velocity is increased 5%, the energy varies according to the square, and thus increases by more than 10%. If you watch early ’80s hockey, what immediately strikes you, once you get past the sheer horribleness of the goaltending, is the relative slowness of the game. There’s no one reason for this: plenty of things have changed just a little bit, from the quality of icemaking to skate technology to the way skaters are trained. And the change isn’t that extreme, or else Chris Chelios, who actually played early ’80s hockey in the early ’80s, would be unable to draw a paycheque in his weak-bladder years. Still, it’s a factor with exponential weight.

Chris Chelios is nearly as ancient as I am . . . it’s utterly amazing that he’s still able to play at a professional level.

Researchers say that fat may actually be a flavour

Filed under: Food, Health — Tags: — Nicholas @ 07:13

This may provide some clues to obesity, as tests show that some people can detect fat at much lower concentrations . . . and therefore consume less:

It’s a theory set to confirm why humans are so fond of fatty foods such as chips and chocolate cake: in addition to the five tastes already identified lurks another detectable by the palate — fat.

“We know that the human tongue can detect five tastes — sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (a savoury, protein-rich taste contained in foods such as soy sauce and chicken stock),” Russell Keast, from Deakin University, said Monday.

“Through our study we can conclude that humans have a sixth taste — fat.”

Researchers tested 30 people’s ability to taste a range of fatty acids in otherwise plain solutions and found that all were able to determine the taste — though some required higher concentrations than others.

[. . .]

The results, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, have not definitively classified fat as a taste but Keast says the evidence is strong and mounting.

For something to be classified as a taste there needed to be proven receptor mechanisms on taste cells in the mouth, he said.

March 4, 2010

Teenagers: Mom was right about your need for a good night’s sleep

Filed under: Education, Food, Health — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:02

I know, you stopped listening to your parents around age 12, but every now and again, they do have useful advice for you:

Only 5% of high school seniors get eight hours of sleep a night. Children get an hour less than they did 30 years ago, which subtracts IQ points and adds body weight.

Until age 21, the circuitry of a child’s brain is being completed. Bronson and Merryman report research on grade schoolers showing that “the performance gap caused by an hour’s difference in sleep was bigger than the gap between a normal fourth-grader and a normal sixth-grader.” In high school there is a steep decline in sleep hours, and a striking correlation of sleep and grades.

Tired children have trouble retaining learning “because neurons lose their plasticity, becoming incapable of forming the new synaptic connections necessary to encode a memory. … The more you learned during the day, the more you need to sleep that night.”

The school day starts too early because that is convenient for parents and teachers. Awakened at dawn, teenage brains are still releasing melatonin, which makes them sleepy. This is one reason why young adults are responsible for half the 100,000 annual “fall asleep” automobile crashes. When Edina, Minn., changed its high school start from 7:25 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., math/verbal SAT scores rose substantially.

Furthermore, sleep loss increases the hormone that stimulates hunger and decreases the one that suppresses appetite. Hence the correlation between less sleep and more obesity.

So, even though the temptation is to stay up as late as you possibly can . . . don’t. You’ll actually notice the difference the next day.

February 23, 2010

BBC accused of bias in euthanasia debate

Filed under: Britain, Health, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:00

The BBC’s decision to broadcast Terry Pratchett’s speech on euthanasia tribunals is cited as evidence that the corporation is acting as an advocate on this highly emotional issue:

The Care Not Killing Alliance accused the BBC of flouting impartiality rules and adopting a “campaigning stance” in an attempt to step up pressure on the Government to legalise assisted suicide.

The decision to broadcast Sir Terry Pratchett’s speech advocating “euthanasia tribunals” in full earlier this month was an example of unbalanced reporting, the alliance claimed.

Lord Carlile, chairman of the alliance and the Government’s independent reviewer of terror legislation, has demanded a meeting with BBC bosses to seek answers over the “biased” coverage.

In a letter to Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC trust, the Liberal Democrat peer also raised questions over the corporation’s failure to inform police that a veteran presenter had confessed to killing his lover on one of its programmes.

H/T to Elizabeth for the link.

February 9, 2010

This week’s silly health panic: third-hand smoke.

Filed under: Environment, Health — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:48

Don’t worry, anti-smoking campaigners! Even though the evil smoking empire is in retreat, and smokers get worse press than child molesters and people who talk at the theatre, there’s a new moral front opening up: third-hand smoke! The war isn’t over yet:

Lingering residue from tobacco smoke which clings to upholstery, clothing and the skin releases cancer-causing agents, work in PNAS journal shows.

Berkeley scientists in the US ran lab tests and found “substantial levels” of toxins on smoke-exposed material.

They say while banishing smokers to outdoors cuts second-hand smoke, residues will follow them back inside and this “third-hand smoke” may harm.

Efforts are currently underway to determine if there’s a strong media response to this “new threat”. If so, funding will be sought to research the possibility of “fourth-hand smoke” and possibly even “fifth-hand smoke”.

February 3, 2010

More on Premier Williams’ medical decision

Filed under: Cancon, Health, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:07

Following up to yesterday’s post on Newfoundland and Labrador premier Danny Williams and his decision to seek care out-of-country for his heart condition:

I have always argued that every Canadian should be free to seek treatment wherever he or she wants. Elective or lifesaving, complicated or straightforward, it is none of my business where Danny Williams goes for his operation, or who pays for it.

True, there would be something of a hypocrisy factor at play if Mr. Williams has preached the virtues of Canada’s state-monopoly care and now, when he has to put his faith in the system, he has flown the coop rather than stand in line for a treatment he could receive here.

But we don’t know what exactly is wrong with the brash and charming politician, who is one of the few chunks of flavour in the floury roux of Canadian politics. Perhaps what ails him can only be fixed south of the border — in which case, the province might even have paid for his treatment in a foreign clinic.

The point I am trying to make here is that only because we have turned health care into a political hot potato are any of us even wondering whether the premier is justified in going to an American clinic.

Well, when an ordinary person has to wait months and months just to see a specialist, and then wait even longer for surgery, while the political class can (apparently) get immediate attention and care, it becomes difficult to continue believing that all Canadians are entitled to equal care . . .

I can’t disagree with Lorne Gunter here:

What I resent is the way premiers and prime ministers won’t free you or me to buy insurance that would enable us to procure first-class care in times of need. What I resent is the way many limousine liberals lash us to the mast of the good ship Medicare, then run off to the United States when it’s their lives or their families’ on the line. They are like public school trustees who send their kids to private school.

February 2, 2010

The Lancet formally retracts controversial paper on Autism

Filed under: Britain, Health — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:56

In a long-overdue move, British medical journal The Lancet has retracted a paper by Andrew Wakefield on links between the MMR vaccine and Autism:

The Lancet medical journal formally retracted a paper on Tuesday that caused a 12-year international battle over links between the three-in-one childhood MMR vaccine and autism.

The paper, published in 1998 and written by British doctor Andrew Wakefield, suggested the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot might be linked to autism and bowel disease.

His assertion, since widely discredited, caused one of the biggest medical rows in a generation and led to a steep drop in the number of vaccinations in the United States, Britain and other parts of Europe, prompting a rise in cases of measles.

The knock-on effect of parents avoiding getting their children vaccinated creates opportunities for much more serious outbreaks of these diseases. Dr. Wakefield’s “research” has been harmful to the population at large for helping to create and exacerbate parents’ fears for their children, and in encouraging them to take the greater risk of not getting the MMR (and, in many cases, other vaccinations) for their kids.

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