Category: health

Health, healthcare, science of food, and related topics

GOP Plan To Stick It to Medicare

Seth Anderson0 comment

Don’t Call Me Yellow

According to Rupert Murdoch’s paper of record, the GOP just needs to stick to their plan of destroying Medicare, and eventually voters will flock to their side. Hmm, well, that’s an option I guess.

Republican lawmakers reaffirmed Wednesday their embrace of a controversial Medicare overhaul despite an electoral setback, ensuring the federal health program will remain a divisive issue through the 2012 election.

Republicans responded to Democrat Kathy Hochul’s Tuesday victory in a traditionally Republican New York Congressional district by saying they needed to attack the Democrats’ Medicare position more forcefully, rather than back off their own plan.

“We need to make it a choice between a do-nothing approach that will ultimately destroy Medicare, and life-saving reforms,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R., Okla.). Added Rep. Cliff Stearns (R., Fla.): “It’s a wake-up call on how you frame it. It obviously wasn’t framed right.”

Democrat Kathy Hochul defeated Republican Jane Corwin in a closely watched House race in western New York State. The race gained national attention when Corwin announced she favored an overhaul of Medicare.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), who authored the Medicare plan, said Democratic attacks on his plan were effective in Tuesday’s election to fill an open House seat near Buffalo. “They are shamelessly demagoguing and distorting it,” Mr. Ryan said, adding that Republicans would have a better chance to make their case over the next 18 months.

(click here to continue reading GOP Sticks to Plan on Medicare – WSJ.com.)

Everything's Been Returned Which Was Owed - Pinko version

The proof will come in 2012, especially now that Senator Reid finally scheduled a vote on the Ryan plan

The GOP continued its bloody walk into the Medicare buzzsaw Wednesday, when 40 out of 47 Senate Republicans voted in support of the House GOP budget, and its plan to phase out and privatize the popular entitlement program.

The test vote failed by a vote of 57-40. But the roll call illustrates that Medicare privatization — along with deep cuts to Medicaid and other social services — remains the consensus position of the GOP despite the growing political backlash against them.

Voting with all of the Democrats against debating the plan were Sens. Scott Brown (R-MA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME) — both 2012 incumbents — along with Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). Rand Paul (R-KY) voted against it because it wasn’t radical enough.

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) did not vote.

Democrats intentionally scheduled the vote less than 24 hours after a Democrat won a special election in New York’s 26th — and heavily Republican — congressional district, on the strength of defending Medicare from a GOP onslaught. The outcome of that election heightened the political stakes, but sent few Republicans bolting for the exits.

“I’ve been surprised a lot of the times about how they’re voting here,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at a press conference after the vote.

(click here to continue reading Senate Republicans Vote Overwhelmingly To End Medicare | TPMDC.)

Che Guevara - Detail at Casa Aztlan Community Center

Parenthetical point: the WSJ used to attempt to be neutral in its non-editorial pages, but since Murdoch purchased it, that’s been scrapped. WSJ now operates in the Fox News model: note how many Democrats are quoted in the above article versus how many Republicans, and also notice that half the rest is regurgitated GOP talking points. Too bad. I dropped my print subscription, but am hanging on to the online WSJ because there is good business news there, sometimes.

Novak Djokovic and His Gluten-Free Diet

Seth Anderson0 comment

Pot O Rice

Interesting, yet not definitive since this is not a controlled experiment. Would Novak Djokovic suddenly start losing if he had a cold, refreshing beer?

How did Novak Djokovic conquer the tennis world?

Maybe the answer is as simple as this: Since last year, he’s swearing off pasta, pizza, beer, French bread, Corn Flakes, pretzels, empanadas, Mallomars and Twizzlers—anything with gluten.

It’s no secret that Djokovic has had a breakout season, or that he has been, by any reasonable standard, the world’s best athlete of 2011. On Sunday, he beat Rafael Nadal in the Rome Masters, his fourth-straight win over the Spaniard. It was his second win over Nadal on clay in two weeks, and again, amazingly, he did it without losing a set. The match ran Djokovic’s 2011 record to 37-0 with seven titles.

As the French Open begins Sunday, Djokovic’s amazing streak—the longest to start a season since 1984—is threatening to push Roger Federer (the winner of a record 16 Grand Slam titles) and Nadal (the French Open’s five-time champion) off the front pages. But the transformation from odd man out to invincible overlord also is leaving gobsmacked tennis fans searching for answers. Clearly something has clicked for the Serb. But what?

Djokovic’s serve, sloppy as recently as last season, is now precise, fluid and, at times, devastating. His forehand used to break down in tense moments; now he hits winners that seem to subscribe to undiscovered laws of physics. His backhand, always solid, is now impenetrable, even with Nadal’s famously high-bouncing forehand. And then there’s the gluten.

Last year, Djokovic’s nutritionist discovered that Djokovic is allergic to the protein, which is found in common flours. Djokovic banished it from his diet and lost a few pounds. He says he now feels much better on court.

(click here to continue reading Novak Djokovic’s Gluten-Free Ascendancy – WSJ.com.)

Schlitz

Keep Your Hands Off My Medicare

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Red and Blue

How many low-information voters regret their votes for economy-destroying, Medicare-ending, environment-despoiling Republicans now? Even some of the Teabaggers wish they had paid a bit more attention to the lying Republicans who asked for their votes…

Katrina Vanden Heuvel reports:

It’s been a common refrain of politicians in Washington for as long as the capitol has been unpopular: “It’s good to get outside the beltway, good to go get back to the real America.” But in recent days that cliché might feel a bit stale for Republican House members, who voted last month for Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. Inside the beltway, Ryan is called “courageous,” a “visionary,” a “serious man,” for having the bravery to put forth a budget that pays for tax cuts for the wealthy by ending Medicare as we know it. Back home in his district, he’s becoming known as the leader of the most serious assault on seniors since President Bush’s attempt to privatize Social Security.

In April, Ryan was greeted, not with the outsized praise of New York Times columnist David Brooks at his town hall in Milton, Wisconsin, but instead, with sustained boos. On Friday, according to Politico, he asked police to remove a man from his town hall because the man refused to stop yelling about the impact the Ryan budget would have on Medicare.

He’s not alone. In New Hampshire, the first six questions posed to Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH) were about his vote in favor of Ryan’s budget. “I’m not surprised it’s controversial,” said Bass of his vote. But for a man who won his seat during the 2010 Republican wave by a little more than 3,000 votes, it’s an open question as to whether his career can afford such controversy.

In addition to Ryan and Bass, at least six other GOPers have faced pointed questions and outright protest at town halls, reminiscent of the tea party anger seen at Democratic town halls in 2009. Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) arrived at his town hall greeted with signs that said “Hands Off Medicare.” The meeting became so contentious that police officers intervened to quiet the crowd. The New York Times described one such town hall as approaching “near chaos.” The Orlando Sentinel described another as reaching the level of “bedlam.”

Already, some members are backing away from their votes. By the end of Charlie Bass’s town hall, he already seemed to be wavering. “If there are certain facets of the budget that are manifestly unpopular, I think that should be taken into consideration… this is the beginning of a long conversation.” How manifestly unpopular is Ryan’s plan for Medicare? A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that more than 80 percent of all Americans disapprove of cuts to the program. A whopping 70 percent of Republicans opposed them, as well, making it one of the most unpopular positions supported by a national party in modern memory.

(click here to continue reading Keep Your Hands Off My Medicare! | The Nation.)

Amusing to contrast/compare the media and fake media1 response to contentious Town Halls in 2008 versus now. I don’t recall any police throwing out teabaggers.

Keene Block

Still waiting for Harry Reid to schedule a Senate vote on the Ryan ridiculousness so that Senate Republicans can face similar tough questions.

And the Ryan plan doesn’t do much, really, besides shift the burden the state level…

Enter the House Republicans’ budget proposal. Instead of a commitment to insure as many people as meet the criteria, it would substitute a set amount per state. Starting in 2013, the grant would probably equal what the state would have received anyway through federal matching funds, although that is not spelled out. After that, the block grant would rise each year only at the national rate of inflation, with adjustments for population growth.

There are several problems with that, starting with that inflation-pegged rate of growth, which could not possibly keep pace with the rising cost of medical care. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that federal payments would be 35 percent lower in 2022 than currently projected and 49 percent lower in 2030.

To make up the difference, states would probably have to cut payments to doctors, hospitals or nursing homes; curtail eligibility; reduce benefits; or increase their own payments for Medicaid. The problems do not end there. If a bad economy led to a sharp jump in unemployment, a state’s grant would remain the same. Nor would the block grant grow fast enough to accommodate expensive advances in medicine, rising demand for long-term care, or unexpected health care needs in the wake of epidemics or natural disasters. This would put an ever-tightening squeeze on states, forcing them to drop enrollees, cut services or pump up their own contributions.

This is not the way to go. The real problem is not Medicaid. Contrary to most perceptions, it is a relatively efficient program — with low administrative costs, a high reliance on managed care and much lower payments to providers than other public and private insurance.

The real problem is soaring medical costs. The Ryan plan does little to address that. The health care law, which Republicans have vowed to repeal, seeks to reform the entire system to deliver quality care at lower cost.

(click here to continue reading The Ryan Plan for Medicaid – NYTimes.com.)

 

Footnotes:
  1. aka Fox News [↩]

Our Broken Healthcare System

Seth Anderson0 comment

Blue and Moist

My sister Katie writes about her travails with America’s broken healthcare system, and her insurance provider, Aetna:

I don’t let Lupus define me. Most of the people I encounter everyday don’t know I have it. But, I do, and for the first time since I was diagnosed 10 years ago, I am speaking up.

The fall of 2000 and the beginning of 2001 was a busy time for me. I was planning a March wedding, in college full-time, had both an internship and a part-time job. For most of that time, i was feeling run down and achy, which I attributed to my hectic life. However, I then developed what looked like a rash on my legs. After a week or so, when it didn’t go away, I had it checked out by my family doctor. He referred me to a specialist, a hematologist. The hematologist examined me, ran several tests and since the “rash” was actually inflamed blood vessels, he gave me a prescription for a corticosteroid (Wikipedia: prednisone). A few days later, while with my brother picking up his groomsmen tuxedo for my wedding, my Dr. called me with the results. All the test results pointed to Lupus (Wikipedia). He told me to enjoy my wedding and I would see him again a few weeks later. That was the first (of many) occasions where I told myself to bear up and focus on the positive. 

Over the years, I have seen the specialist at least twice a year and have controlled a fairly mild case of the chronic disease. I have had two, healthy children, hold a full-time job that I love and lead a fairly normal life. However, there have been many days of pain. My joints are arthritic and achy. I run low-grade fevers often. I can’t spend much time in the sun and I sometimes am so fatigued that I can’t get enough sleep. Recently, I have had new symptoms that include pain and a heavy, tingly feeling in my legs. This may be from arthritis in my spine. (I’m waiting to get some lab work back.)

Besides a handful of short rounds of prednisone over the years, the drug that has given me the most relief has been Celebrex (Wikipedia). Celebrex is classified as a Cox2 inhibitor non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). It suppresses the inflammation, so fevers, arthritis, and fatigue aren’t a problem while I am on the medication.

I was recently denied coverage of Celebrex by my health insurance company, Aetna. When the nurse called me with the news, I was shocked. My first thought was: how can I live the rest of my life in pain? My doctor’s office is still fighting the insurance company, but I am starting to lose hope that the drug will ever be covered. The out of pocket cost is $180/month. Aetna has specific criteria the patient must meet for the expensive drug to be covered. One of them is having documented gastrointestinal bleeding. In other words, I have to be bleeding internally from taking cheaper medications, in order to be on a more expensive one. Make sense? No.”

I would describe our healthcare system in one word: broken. Why should anyone, including the health insurance companies, make a profit from people being sick? Why aren’t more politicians trying to change this? I don’t want to fight this problem for the rest of my life. People who are really ill don’t have the time (and many don’t have the resources) to do so.

While I know that this blog post won’t change the system or make my pain go away, it feels good to put it in words.

Yummy Cadmium-Tainted Rice From China

Seth Anderson0 comment

Rice, Steam and Wine

Well, possibly. I wonder what percentage of U.S. rice is imported from China these days?

Move aside, melamine. Cadmium-tainted rice might be China’s new scare of the season.

In a recent study, researchers from the Nanjing Agricultural University found 10 to 60 percent of the rice sold in markets in six regions contained cadmium, a heavy metal associated with high blood pressure, fluid accumulation in the lungs and a potentially fatal softening of the bones.

In some samples, the cadmium level was found to be equal to five times of the legal maximum, the researchers said.

A China Daily report on the discovery is careful to include caveats.

For one thing, the report says, the pollution is confined to a few, mostly southern, regions. For another, the samples were taken in 2007 and 2008, according to the findings, originally published in Century Weekly magazine.

(click here to continue reading China’s Newest Food Scare? Cadmium-Tainted Rice – China Real Time Report – WSJ.)

 

F.D.A and Dairy Industry Spar Over Testing of Milk

Seth Anderson0 comment

R. J. Rous Wholesale Milk and Cream

Yet again, a federal agency chooses to let a regulated business make the decisions. Too bad there isn’t a consumer advocate that could demand the FDA be firm with industry.

Each year, federal inspectors find illegal levels of antibiotics in hundreds of older dairy cows bound for the slaughterhouse. Concerned that those antibiotics might also be contaminating the milk Americans drink, the Food and Drug Administration intended to begin tests this month on the milk from farms that had repeatedly sold cows tainted by drug residue.

But the testing plan met with fierce protest from the dairy industry, which said that it could force farmers to needlessly dump millions of gallons of milk while they waited for test results. Industry officials and state regulators said the testing program was poorly conceived and could lead to costly recalls that could be avoided with a better plan for testing.

In response, the F.D.A. postponed the testing

(click to continue reading F.D.A and Dairy Industry Spar Over Testing of Milk – NYTimes.com.)

The FDA even says, bluntly, that they don’t give a shit about consumers:

The F.D.A. said that it would confer with the industry before deciding how to proceed. “The agency remains committed to gathering the information necessary to address its concern with respect to this important potential public health issue,” it said in a statement.

Tired And Confused? B12 May Be The Answer

Seth Anderson0 comment

Healthy or insane shelf 2

Everyone needs a bit of extra B12, especially in the winter…

Tired? Depressed? Forgetting things? Who isn’t these days?

Those are also symptoms of a deficiency of B12, a key nutrient needed to make red blood cells and DNA and keep the nervous system working right.

Vitamin B12 deficiency is officially considered rare, affecting about 1 in 1,000 Americans, according to a 2005 study. But the incidence rises with age, to about 15% of elderly people. The rate is also much higher among people who don’t eat meat or dairy products, people with absorption problems, people taking acid-blocking medications and those with Type 2 diabetes who take the drug Metformin.

…Other conditions can also interfere with B12 absorption, including celiac disease and Crohn’s disease. “I thought I was going to die in my sleep because I had so little energy,” says Ellen Icochea, a senior executive at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who had a very low B12 level along with several major medical problems. Weekly B12 injections made a dramatic difference. “It was like, ‘Wow, here’s energy!’ ” she says.

“B12 deficiency is much more common than the textbooks and journal articles say it is,” says Alan Pocinki, an internist in Washington D.C., who routinely tests his patients who fall into those categories. He also notes that since the Metformin connection was discovered only recently, some physicians aren’t aware of it. “They assume that if patients complain of numbness and tingling in the feet, it’s a diabetes issue and not a B12 issue.”

Other symptoms of low B12 include anemia, depression, dementia, confusion, loss of appetite and balance problems. Long-term deficiency can bring severe anemia, nerve damage and neurological changes that may be irreversible.

Sometimes the symptoms are subtle. Internist Linda Assatourians, one of Dr. Pocinki’s partners, says that a surprising number of her young female patients also have low levels of B12. Typically they are healthy and active, but they don’t eat much meat and they have minor mood, memory or balance problems. “When I supplement their B12, they feel better,” Dr. Assatourians says. “It’s not a controlled study, but I see a lot of them.”

(click to continue reading Tired And Confused? Vitamin B12 May Be Low – WSJ.com.)


“B-Complex Chewable – 50 – Chewable” (Solaray)

I have a bottle of Solaray B-Complex sublinguals on my desk right now, actually.

Autism Study a Fraud

Seth Anderson2 Comments

Bin-Seena Pharmacy

Gee, really? What took the British Medical Journal and Lancet so long to discredit, Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children? As punishment, Andrew Wakefield should contact each and every parent who didn’t give their kid a needed vaccine, and apologize.

An influential but now-discredited study that provoked fears around the world that childhood vaccinations caused autism was based largely on falsified data, according to an article and editorial published Wednesday in the British Medical Journal.

The article, by journalist Brian Deer, found that important details of the cases of each of 12 children reported in the original study either misrepresented or altered the actual experiences of the children, the journal said. “In no single case could the medical records be fully reconciled with the descriptions, diagnoses, or histories published in the journal,” the editorial said. It called the study “an elaborate fraud.”

The original article, by British doctor Andrew Wakefield and other researchers, was published in the highly regarded journal The Lancet in 1998. The study concluded that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine—a mainstay of public health disease prevention efforts around the world—was linked to autism and gastrointestinal disorders.

The findings provoked a still-raging debate over vaccine safety and they prompted thousands of parents to forgo shots for their children. Measles outbreaks were subsequently reported in several Western countries. Several epidemiological studies conducted since the Wakefield paper by public health authorities haven’t found any link between the vaccines and autism.

The Lancet withdrew the article in January of last year after concluding that “several elements” of the paper were incorrect. But the journal didn’t describe any of the discrepancies as fraud. A British regulator stripped Dr. Wakefield of his medical license last May, citing “serious professional misconduct” in the way he handled the research.

(click to continue reading Medical Journal Says Autism Study a ‘Fraud’ – WSJ.com.)

And the British Medical Journal article, begins:

In the first part of a special BMJ series, Brian Deer exposes the bogus data behind claims that launched a worldwide scare over the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, and reveals how the appearance of a link with autism was manufactured at a London medical school

When I broke the news to the father of child 11, at first he did not believe me. “Wakefield told us my son was the 13th child they saw,” he said, gazing for the first time at the now infamous research paper which linked a purported new syndrome with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.1 “There’s only 12 in this.”

That paper was published in the Lancet on 28 February 1998. It was retracted on 2 February 2010.2 Authored by Andrew Wakefield, John Walker-Smith, and 11 others from the Royal Free medical school, London, it reported on 12 developmentally challenged children,3 and triggered a decade long public health scare.

“Onset of behavioural symptoms was associated by the parents with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination in eight of the 12 children,” began the paper’s “findings.” Adopting these claims as fact,4 its “results” section added: “In these eight children the average interval from exposure to first behavioural symptoms was 6.3 days (range 1-14).”

 

(click to continue reading How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed — Deer 342 — bmj.com.)

What’s in Your Water

Seth Anderson0 comment

If you are curious what toxic chemicals are in your water, the New York Times took the data from the Environmental Working Group and turned it into a slick little database. Click through, and check out your community:

The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientists say are serious health risks — and still be legal. Examine whether contaminants in your water supply met two standards: the legal limits established by the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the typically stricter health guidelines. The data was collected by an advocacy organization, the Environmental Working Group, who shared it with The Times.

(click to continue reading What’s in Your Water – Interactive Feature – The New York Times.)

Fees Go Undisclosed in Medical Journals

Seth Anderson0 comment

Conflict of interest in the media? and in the health care industry too? Shocking!

Entre nous

Twenty-five out of 32 highly paid consultants to medical device companies in 2007, or their publishers, failed to reveal the financial connections in journal articles the following year, according to a study released on Monday. Multimedia

The study compared major payments to consultants by orthopedic device companies with financial disclosures the consultants later made in medical journal articles, and found them lacking in public transparency.

“We found a massive, dramatic system failure,” said David J. Rothman, a professor and president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University, who wrote the study with two other Columbia researchers, Susan Chimonas and Zachary Frosch.

(click to continue reading Consultant Fees Go Undisclosed in Medical Journals, Study Finds – NYTimes.com.)

Trust us, in other words. Or not. Since there are no real repercussions, in this field, or in others1, what is going to change?

People's Friend, People's Journal, Sunday Post, Dundee Courier

Like this2

Tom Ridge, was on MSNBC’s Hardball With Chris Matthews, offering up his own recovery plan. There were “modest things” the White House might try, like cutting taxes or opening up credit for small businesses, but the real answer was for the president to “take his green agenda and blow it out of the box.” The first step, Ridge explained, was to “create nuclear power plants.” Combined with some waste coal and natural gas extraction, you would have an “innovation setter” that would “create jobs, create exports.”

As Ridge counseled the administration to “put that package together,” he sure seemed like an objective commentator. But what viewers weren’t told was that since 2005, Ridge has pocketed $530,659 in executive compensation for serving on the board of Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear power company. As of March 2009, he also held an estimated $248,299 in Exelon stock, according to SEC filings.

Moments earlier, retired general and “NBC Military Analyst” Barry McCaffrey told viewers that the war in Afghanistan would require an additional “three- to ten-year effort” and “a lot of money.” Unmentioned was the fact that DynCorp paid McCaffrey $182,309 in 2009 alone. The government had just granted DynCorp a five-year deal worth an estimated $5.9 billion to aid American forces in Afghanistan. The first year is locked in at $644 million, but the additional four options are subject to renewal, contingent on military needs and political realities.

In a single hour, two men with blatant, undisclosed conflicts of interest had appeared on MSNBC. The question is, was this an isolated oversight or business as usual? Evidence points to the latter. In 2003 The Nation exposed McCaffrey’s financial ties to military contractors he had promoted on-air on several cable networks; in 2008 David Barstow wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning series for the New York Times about the Pentagon’s use of former military officers–many lobbying or consulting for military contractors–to get their talking points on television in exchange for access to decision-makers; and in 2009 bloggers uncovered how ex-Newsweek writer Richard Wolffe had guest-hosted Countdown With Keith Olbermann while working at a large PR firm specializing in “strategies for managing corporate reputation.”

These incidents represent only a fraction of the covert corporate influence peddling on cable news, a four-month investigation by The Nation has found. Since 2007 at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials–people paid by companies and trade groups to manage their public image and promote their financial and political interests–have appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Fox Business Network with no disclosure of the corporate interests that had paid them. Many have been regulars on more than one of the cable networks, turning in dozens–and in some cases hundreds–of appearances.

(click to continue reading The Media-Lobbying Complex | The Nation.)

Corruption is endemic in our corporate culture.

Footnotes:
  1. like the generals who are always trotted out as experts on the television news shows, while simultaneously being paid big bucks by defense contractors [↩]
  2. which I may have blogged about before, or not, who can remember [↩]

Egg Inspectors Failed to Raise Alarms

Seth Anderson0 comment

Surprise, surprise, another federal regulatory agency more concerned with the industry it is supposed to oversee than with the public it is allegedly supposed to protect and serve. If the USDA was a person, it could be jailed for crimes, but…

You Are Beautiful with Amish Meat

U.S. Department of Agriculture experts found growing sanitary problems including bugs and overflowing trash earlier this year on the Iowa farm at the center of the national egg recall, but didn’t notify health authorities, according to government documents and officials.

The problems laid out in USDA daily sanitation reports viewed by The Wall Street Journal underscore the regulatory gaps that may have contributed to delays in discovering salmonella contamination. Tainted eggs sickened at least 1,470 Americans.

Wright County Egg of Galt, Iowa, recalled 380 million eggs in mid-August, but people likely began getting ill around May 1, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Robert Arnold said he reported problems at Wright County Egg when he worked there, but was ignored.

The USDA was the only federal body with a regular presence at Wright, but it says it wasn’t responsible for safety. USDA graders were at a Wright egg-packing plant seven days a week to oversee designations such as “Grade A” on egg cartons.

The Food and Drug Administration, which has overall responsibility for egg safety but didn’t inspect the Wright facility until this August, says it never heard from the USDA about problems such as dirt and mold. The two agencies have a formal understanding about the USDA giving the FDA notice over sanitary issues, but the USDA declined to give details.

The USDA said it didn’t give notice because “the conditions at the egg plant packing facilities were routine.”

(click to continue reading Egg Inspectors Failed to Raise Alarms – WSJ.com.)

Routine. Yikes. That makes me feel like eating 50 eggs!


“Cool Hand Luke” (Warner Home Video)

Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits

Seth Anderson0 comment

Interesting research. Maybe this is why I always am reading several books at once, on varied topics? Who knows.Erected by the Board of Education 1892

Yet there are effective approaches to learning, at least for those who are motivated. In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying.

The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.

For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.

…

The advantages of this approach to studying can be striking, in some topic areas. In a study recently posted online by the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, Doug Rohrer and Kelli Taylor of the University of South Florida taught a group of fourth graders four equations, each to calculate a different dimension of a prism. Half of the children learned by studying repeated examples of one equation, say, calculating the number of prism faces when given the number of sides at the base, then moving on to the next type of calculation, studying repeated examples of that. The other half studied mixed problem sets, which included examples all four types of calculations grouped together. Both groups solved sample problems along the way, as they studied.

A day later, the researchers gave all of the students a test on the material, presenting new problems of the same type. The children who had studied mixed sets did twice as well as the others, outscoring them 77 percent to 38 percent. The researchers have found the same in experiments involving adults and younger children.

“When students see a list of problems, all of the same kind, they know the strategy to use before they even read the problem,” said Dr. Rohrer. “That’s like riding a bike with training wheels.” With mixed practice, he added, “each problem is different from the last one, which means kids must learn how to choose the appropriate procedure — just like they had to do on the test.”

These findings extend well beyond math, even to aesthetic intuitive learning. In an experiment published last month in the journal Psychology and Aging, researchers found that college students and adults of retirement age were better able to distinguish the painting styles of 12 unfamiliar artists after viewing mixed collections (assortments, including works from all 12) than after viewing a dozen works from one artist, all together, then moving on to the next painter.

The finding undermines the common assumption that intensive immersion is the best way to really master a particular genre, or type of creative work, said Nate Kornell, a psychologist at Williams College and the lead author of the study. “What seems to be happening in this case is that the brain is picking up deeper patterns when seeing assortments of paintings; it’s picking up what’s similar and what’s different about them,” often subconsciously.

(click to continue reading Mind – Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits – NYTimes.com.)

I’m luckily not a teacher, but I do remember how I performed best in college exams: review the material a few days before the test, let it percolate, revisit the topics the night before, sleep well, and depending on how challenging the material, review a last time the morning of the exam. Of course, not all classes benefited from this sort of regime – too boring, or too many social activities conflicting, or whatever – but the tests that I studied for in different places, at different times, I nearly always aced. I also never crammed, more so because I was lazy, and there were other items on my agenda, but also because I never found staying up all night to give a good end result.

postscript – this correction amused me:

Correction: September 8, 2010

An article on Tuesday about the effectiveness of various study habits described incorrectly the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics. The principle holds that the act of measuring one property of a particle (position, for example) reduces the accuracy with which you can know another property (momentum, for example) — not that the act of measuring a property of the particle alters that property

New Alzheimer’s Discovery by Paul Greengard

Seth Anderson0 comment

I have an1 irrational fear of Alzheimer’s Disease. Losing control of one’s mind is a horrible fate.

[Paul Greengard] got interested in Alzheimer’s about 25 years ago when his wife’s father developed it, and his research is now supported by a philanthropic foundation that was started solely to allow him to study the disease.

It was mostly these funds and federal government grants that allowed him to find a new protein that is needed to make beta amyloid, which makes up the telltale plaque that builds up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.

The finding, to be published Thursday in the journal Nature, reveals a new potential drug target that, according to the prevailing hypothesis of the genesis of Alzheimer’s, could slow or halt the devastating effects of this now untreatable disease.

The work involves laboratory experiments and studies with mice — it is far from ready for the doctor’s office. But researchers, still reeling from the announcement two weeks ago by Eli Lilly that its experimental drug turned out to make Alzheimer’s worse, not better, were encouraged.

“This really is a new approach,” said Dr. Paul Aisen, of the University of California, San Diego. “The work is very strong, and it is very convincing.” Dr. Aisen directs a program financed by the National Institute on Aging to conduct clinical trials of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

(click to continue reading New Discovery Encourages Alzheimer’s Researchers – NYTimes.com.)

 

Footnotes:
  1. probably [↩]

Antibody Kills 91 percent of HIV Strains

Seth Anderson0 comment

Too early to return to the Studio 54 era1, but positive news nonetheless.

Rain slicked streets 1

In a significant step toward an AIDS vaccine, U.S. government scientists have discovered three powerful antibodies, the strongest of which neutralizes 91% of HIV strains, more than any AIDS antibody yet discovered.

The antibodies were discovered in the cells of a 60-year-old African-American gay man, known in the scientific literature as Donor 45, whose body made the antibodies naturally. Researchers screened 25 million of his cells to find 12 that produced the antibodies. Now the trick will be for scientists to develop a vaccine or other methods to make anyone’s body produce them.

That effort “will require work,” said Gary Nabel, director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who was a leader of the research. “We’re going to be at this for a while” before any benefit is seen in the clinic, he said.

The research was published Thursday in two papers in the online edition of the journal Science, 10 days before the opening of the large International AIDS Conference in Vienna, where prevention science is expected to take center stage.

(click to continue reading Antibody Kills 91% of HIV Strains – WSJ.com or here for non-subscribers)

 

Footnotes:
  1. shorthand for promiscuous, anonymous, unprotected sex, well, allegedly, I was too young to witness it myself, but I’ve heard tales [↩]

Fresh Picks – Awarded USDA Grant

Seth Anderson0 comment

Excellent. I’ve been a customer of Fresh Picks for nearly two years, and have been1 quite pleased with the quality of their foods, and the friendliness of their staff. If they deliver to your area, give ’em a try.

CHICAGO, July 2010– Irv & Shelly’s Fresh Picks, the service that brings the Farmer’s Market to your door all year-round, has been awarded an $81,000 grant by the United States Department of Agriculture. Owner Irvin Cernauskas states, “We are honored to be recognized by the Small Business Innovation Research Grant Program as an innovative business that has the capacity to i

Morel Mushrooms

mprove the health of people, farmers and the environment through our work.” Partnering with local sustainable farmers and the University of Illinois, Fresh Picks will use the grant to increase the fair trade supply of local food.

The Small Business Innovation Research Grant Program is very competitive, with only 15% of applications being awarded funding after review by an expert panel. The purpose of the Grant Program is to provide an opportunity for small businesses to submit innovative research and development projects that address important problems facing American agriculture and have the potential to lead to significant public benefit if the research is successful.   Along with taking the local sustainable food community to the next level, Fresh Picks aims to improve distribution of food into Chicago for local farmers. Co-owner Shelly Herman states, “With this project, we’ll encourage even more local organic food making its way to folks in the Chicago region. Our goal is to design ways to alleviate distribution bottlenecks so the many benefits of local food, principally to public health, the environment, and rural economies, can be increased and more broadly enjoyed.”

(click to continue reading Fresh Picks – Awarded USDA Grant.)

I love supporting local farmers and artisans, but find that actually getting out of my office to go the various Farmers’ Markets more difficult than it should be, so for me, having fresh, delicious produce and groceries delivered right to my door is awesome. I got two bags of stuff today as a matter of fact: various sprouts, fruits, brown eggs2, herbs, vegetables, cheese, a couple of steaks, even an onion bagel.

Via GapersBlock

Chuck Sudo of the Chicagoist added

Ah, vague press release boilerplate. For the plainspeak, we called Fresh Picks co-owner Shelly Herman. Herman said that she and her partner Irvin Cernauskas are looking to use the grant to streamline their distribution pipeline. “Our biggest challenge is getting food here from the farms we deal with,” Herman said. “With this grant, we’re making a concerted effort to create local hubs to aggregate food collection.” Herman hopes to eventually reduce the length of travel for farms to get their food to Fresh Picks and provide even more variety for her customers.

(click to continue reading Irv & Shelly’s Wins Grant – Chicagoist.)

Footnotes:
  1. mostly [↩]
  2. so much more delicious and fresh than the eggs you find even in a high-end grocery store like Whole Foods [↩]