Blue Collar Scientist burst on the blogosphere last December. News from Pharyngula is that Jeff Medkeff’s liver cancer took him — he died last night.
With luck, someone will be sure his on-line and in-print work is archived. His voice, his activism, his enthusiasm, his patience and deep knowledge seem irreplaceable. Scientists and other rational people will have to work much harder to fill in the gaps.
So long, Jeff.
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Health care, Point of personal privilege, Science, Weblogs | Tagged: blogs, health, Personal, Science | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
If your family has not been touched by a member with Alzheimer’s Disease, senile dementia, or some other form of memory-killing disease, you’re in a lucky minority.
A good friend told how her brother-in-law eased the pain of her mother’s slide into dementia, with little lies. The mother developed an invisible friend who had to accompany her on most outings. The problem was that the invisible friend was also invisible to the mother. The brother-in-law, frustrated at the mother’s refusal leave her room for an outing because the friend was not apparent to accompany them, finally told the mother that the friend was already in the car. Mom happily scooted to the car and forgot about the friend completely by the time they got to the car.
The friend was “already there” for much of the rest of the mother’s life. It was a lie, a falsehood, but it made things so much easier.
CBS Evening News tonight featured a story on a potential new treatment for dementia. In one segment, a husband was quizzing his dementia-affected wife, and she could not recall what he had told her just a few minutes before, how many years they had been married. Frustrating for the victim as well as the family.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
A British psychologist, Oliver James, has a new book out that suggests such quizzes do more damage, and are unnecessary. Help the victim along with cues, he says. It’s a trick he got from his own mother-in-law, Penny Garner, from her experience working with her mother.
In Dorothy’s case, Garner found that while she [Dorothy] had no idea what she had done moments before, she automatically tried to make sense of her situation by matching it to past experiences. Dorothy had always enjoyed travelling, and so if she was asked to sit with other people for any length of time, she assumed she was in the Heathrow departure lounge. By not challenging this assumption, Garner found that her mother would sit peacefully for long periods. If she did wander off, Garner found she could encourage her to return by reminding her of her former skill as a bridge-player, telling her that the other players were waiting for her. “Given a properly set up bridge table, my mother would spend hours happily looking at her cards and waiting to play,” she says.
People with dementia are often exhausting to care for because they forget what they are doing during routine activities. Garner found that she could enable her mother to remain relatively independent by providing cues. “If while getting ready for bed, I noticed she had lost track of whether she was buttoning up the cardigan ready to go out or taking it off to go to bed, I would fiddle with my buttons alongside her and say ‘Oh good! No more travelling for us today! Glad we’ve got a bed for the night!’ I found that this simple cue was all she needed. Without it, she was inclined to get half-way through undressing and then start getting dressed again.”
We all look for such cues in everyday life, and we use them to remind us of what we are doing, where we are going, and why. Why not make it easier for victims of dementia?
Who is president of the United States? Half the time I’d prefer to forget it’s George W. Bush. Don’t quiz me on it. Ask me if it isn’t great that we’re electing someone to replace him, this fall.
Smart human tricks.
Resources:
4 Comments | Botany, Family, Health care, psychology, Science | Tagged: Alzheimer's Disease, Books, Dementia, Family, health, psychology, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
In continuing efforts to slam environmentalists and Rachel Carson, Instapundit and RWDB complain (whine?) about the European Union’s efforts to block the importation of cotton from Uganda on fears of DDT contamination.
Meanwhile, back in Kampala, the news is that the EU has done the opposite, and is encouraging the use of DDT officially, not blocking its use at all. If DDT is used to fight malaria and not in uncontrolled agricultural use simply to keep products blemish-free, in carefully-controlled sprayings, EU has no complaints.
Is there any western news agency with a stringer in Kampala who could chase this story down? Beck and Reynolds still offer no evidence to back their odd claims, but the story could sure benefit from a solid chunk of reporting from BBC, or Reuters, or Agence France Presse, or someone who could talk with the EU and Uganda officials.
Other resources:
Full text of report, below the fold.
2 Comments | Africa, Business, Business Ethics, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, Hoaxes, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: Africa, Business, DDT, Environmental protection, health, Hoaxes, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
From a blog called Teachers Count:
A middle-school health teacher (in a small, conservative [read that religious] community) was put on administrative leave for teaching details about sexuality. The original story inferred that she was holding forth on details on homosexuality, masturbation, and oral sex. The truth is that she had taught the regular curriculum and thereafter fielded student questions, which turned to these things.
On the one hand, the outraged and prolix parents had every right to wax eloquent, loud and long on the violation of their parental rights in teaching their offspring about sex. It is even possible that some of those innocent students were hearing details theretofore unimagined by them
On the other hand–probably not. I teach junior high students, the same age as the endangered middle school kids in question. My students know lots about sex, far more than I ever knew at that age. For sure, these students see very explicit material on prime-time TV, and they surely see plenty of sex in the movies they watch. From time to time we discuss cinema in art class, and I am often floored at the kinds of movies these young kids view, both for violence and for sexuality. Furthermore, they watch and rewatch very explicit music videos–and many of them use outright porn. And furthermore, walking around the art room as kids work and talk, I overhear that many of them are sexually active at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
No wonder they have questions about sexual practices. I believe the young health teacher caught herself in a trap. Experienced teachers know that there are certain things you never say, never discuss, because of community reaction. Young teachers, hoping to help kids understand a sexual world they really are much too young for, can get tripped up on answering questions.
No doubt our Utah middle school health teacher will not have her contract renewed next year. I think that is a shame. Obviously, the offended parents have no clue about what their kids’ lives are really like. They do not realize the misinformation–and the pressure–these young students experience. I would not be surprised to find that these offended parents have not given their kids much information on sex. Maybe the teacher crossed a line–and maybe a few students pushed her there. Still, I’d rather see her keep her job and learn the hard lesson of staying very conservative on certain subjects, like sex.
Accusations included the charge that the teacher distributed a list of 101 ways to have sex. In a heated meeting at the school, it turned out that the list was of 101 things to do instead of having sex. Ooops. And for this, parents want the woman fired?
Good analysis and background data in column by in the Salt Lake Tribune.
From that column, a list of what can and cannot be taught:
Careful what you sayWhat teachers can, and cannot, teach
as part of Utah’s human sexuality curriculum:
Teachers can:
* Stress the importance of abstinence from sexual activity before marriage and fidelity after marriage.
* Provide factual, unbiased information about contraception and condoms with prior written parental consent.
They cannot:
* Discuss the intricacies of intercourse, sexual stimulation or erotic behavior.
* Advocate homosexuality.
* Advocate or encourage contraceptive methods or devices.
* Advocate sexual activity outside of marriage.Source: Utah State Office of Education
Who knows what’s really going on? It will be interesting to see how this case is resolved. It’s been hanging fire for a month now.
Other resources:
2 Comments | Education, Health care, Public education, Public health, Science | Tagged: Disease Prevention, health, Rampant stupidity, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
University of Illinois researchers found the protein that allows mosquitoes to metabolize DDT.
Biochemistry professor Mary Schuler and postdoctoral researcher Sanjeewa Rupasinghe used molecular modeling techniques to identify a protein that can metabolize DDT. Photo by L. Brian Stauffer, University of Illinois News Bureau.It’s good news in mosquito research, and may someday provide some insight into how to kill mosquitoes that seem to be resistant to DDT.
But, for all those DDT advocates out there, isn’t this rather embarrassing? Here these researchers have discovered the molecular level mechanisms for a process that the DDT apologists claim doesn’t happen. Oops. Rachel Carson proven right, once again.
There they are, caught red- and bumpy-handed.
Press release text from the University of Illinois below the fold.
Leave a Comment » | DDT, Evolution, Health care, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Research, Science | Tagged: DDT, Evolution, health, Malaria, mosquitoes, Natural Selection, Rachel Carson, Research, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Don’t breathe the air, don’t eat the eggs. Life next door to a DDT plant in India.
In case you were wondering where nations that want to use DDT might find some, now that it’s not being made in the U.S.
1 Comment | DDT, Environmental justice, Environmental protection, Health care, History, Politics, Public health, Science | Tagged: DDT, Environmental protection, health, India, Politics, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
DDT advocates continue to smear Rachel Carson and “environmental groups” with a campaign of made up calumny. To the frustration of scientists, health officials and the gods of fairness, these people continue to get credence from people who should know better, like the contributors at the Volokh Conspiracy (Quiggin and Lambert are the good guys, if you’re not following closely).
Reality is a different story. Business interests appear to have started a false rumor that someone stole a massive quantity of DDT from Uganda’s mosquito control program in an attempt to make the mosquito control guys look incompetent and dangerous. From The Monitor in Kampala, via allAfrica.com:
21 May 2008
Posted to the web 21 May 2008Safina Nambafu
KampalaThe Ministry of Health has denied reports that some people were last week arrested in possession of stolen DDT drugs in Oyam District.
The head of the Malaria Control Programme, Dr Rwakimari, said it was the detractors of the campaign that are inciting the public to spread falsified information.
He was addressing the press at the ministry headquarters on Monday.
Dr Rwakimari said some local leaders are trying to fail the DDT campaign yet over 94% of the district had successfully been sprayed as of last Monday. Last week, civil society organisations led by the National Association of Professional Environmentalists [Nape] held a half day sensitization meeting with stakeholders in Kampala where they collectively condemned the government for carrying out the exercise.
They claimed that many of the crew members had reported strange illnesses, which they fear could have been caused by exposure to DDT. Dr Rwakimari said the government would not just look on as individuals de-campaign the exercise, adding that DDT was being sprayed in eight district in an effort to fight malaria.
Erute North MP Charles Angiro Gutomoi told Daily Monitor that he was bitter that government had had sprayed DDT, saying the exercise threatens the food market.
“National Association of Professional Environmentalists” — in Uganda. Don’t you love it? The group’s website, lacking much information, looks like the site of an astroturf organization to me. The organization exists, though, but DDT doesn’t appear to be a major concern of the group (it earns no mention in their April 2008 report).
There is real opposition to the use of DDT in Uganda, and there is a lawsuit to stop use of DDT. The suit was filed on behalf of nine different agricultural businesses. Farmers claim the spraying is not following the strict guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), and they fear their crops will be contaminated and unsaleable.
Effective malaria fighting uses only small quantities of DDT, in a few places, on a few occasions. The fight also requires use of screens and nets to protect people at night, when the mosquitoes are active in feeding. The New York Times featured a story on the successful Nothing But Nets program today — not a government-run program, not a program favored by the Rachel Carson critics, but a useful and necessary program.
Leave a Comment » | Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, Malaria, Politics, Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, health, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Jill Bolte Taylor’s inspiring story of stroke and recovery in a brain function specialist got a nice treatment in the New York Times a week ago: “A superhighway to bliss.”
2 Comments | Brain development, Brain learning, Health care, Heroes, psychology, Science | Tagged: Brains, health, Jill Bolte Taylor, Science, Stroke | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Bill Howdle lives, for a while longer anyway, in Manitoba. He’s got heart disease and a brain tumor, which explain the name of his blog, Dying man’s daily journal.
He used to drive a taxi. One woman was grateful he did.
That story is well worth the time to read it. Click on the link. After all, each of us is dying. We might learn something.
1 Comment | A Good Story, Ethics, Good Deeds, Health care, Life | Tagged: Altruism, Dying, health, Life, Philosophy | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Steve Milloy and an entire host of DDT denialists hope you never read any newspaper from Africa. Your ignorance is their best argument.
If you don’t read African newspapers, they can continue to blame environmentalists for any case of malaria that occurs in Africa. They’ll claim, though it’s not true, that environmentalists urged a complete ban on the use of DDT. They’ll argue, falsely, that African governments were bullied into not using DDT by environmentalists, ignoring the fact that some African nations have just never been able to get their kit together to conduct an anti-malaria campaign, while other nations discovered DDT was ineffective — and most of the nations have no love for environmentalists anyway (Idi Amin? Jomo Kenyatta? Who does Milloy think he’s kidding?).
If you don’t read African newspapers, you’ll miss stories like this one, from the Daily Times in Malawi, that say it’s Milloy’s old friends in the tobacco business who stand in the way of modest use of DDT.
If you don’t read African newspapers, you’ll miss stories like this one, from New Vision in Kampala, Uganda, that say it’s the cotton farmers who stand in the way of modest use of DDT.
If Steven Milloy wanted to get DDT used against malaria in Africa, in indoor residual spraying (IRS) campaigns, all he has to do is pick up the phone and ask his friends to allow it to be done.
Someone who will lie to you about their friends’ misdeeds, and try to pin it on a nice old lady like Rachel Carson, will go Charles Colson one better: They’ll walk over your grandmother to do what they want to do. In fact, they’ll go out of their way to walk over your grandmother.
The New Republic seems to have come around to get the story straight. Truth wins in a fair fight — it’s a fight to make sure the fight is fair, though.
John Stossel? Your company doesn’t get tobacco money any more. What’s your excuse? Do you really believe the Bush administration is beholden to environmentalists on this one issue? How long have you been covering politics?
(Texts of news stories below the fold.)
Leave a Comment » | Africa, Business Ethics, Conservation, DDT, Environmental protection, Ethics, Health care, Hoaxes, Junk science, Malaria, Newspapers, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Ethics, health, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
DDT denialists like Steven Milloy like to paint Rachel Carson as a lone, cranky and crackpot voice in the wilderness against DDT (never mind how that makes the DDT industry look, unable to use facts and the $500,000 public relations campaign to get their message out).
It’s not so. As Carson noted, concerns about DDT were raised early, and often.
The Dallas Public Library makes available much of the news from the Dallas Morning News of the last century. On my way to find something else, I plugged in “DDT” as a search term. Among other articles that popped up was a May 9, 1951 story of Texas scientists warning a Congressional committee of the harms of DDT.
“Hazard to health,” was the flying head, “Renner Scientist Cites DDT Harm.” The story, by the News’ Washington Bureau reporter Ruth Schumm, covered a hearing before an unnamed committee of the House, “investigating the use of chemicals in foods.” (Where was the copy editor on that one?)
John M. Dendy of the Texas Research Foundation delivered the testimony. Dendy worked out of the Foundation’s laboratory in Renner. Renner was an independent community then, located south of Renner, west of Coit, and north of Campbell Roads (no, it’s not there today).
Studies in the foundation’s laboratories at Renner, Dallas County, have proved that DDT and other chemicals are now causing mass contamination of milk, meat and other foods, Dendy said.
Dendy said that crops absorb the DDT sprayed on them — still true, and more problematic since it’s been discovered that DDT is also damaging to some plants — and animals that graze the crops get that dosage. Dairy cows, beef cattle and sheep were the chief animals mentioned.
Even though the Texas State Health Department has ruled that no DDT should be present in milk comsumed by human beings, DDT is showing up in the Dallas milk supply even in December, long past the usual season for spraying with insecticides. About half of the Dallas milk supply is imported from Oklahoma, Missouri and Wisconsin, he said.
* * * * *
In the Texas Research Foundation tests, the degree of contamination ranged from 3.10 parts per million in lean meat to 68.55 parts per million in fat meat, Dendy testified.
In milk, the DDT conamination ranged from less than .5 parts per million to 13.83 parts per million.
Dendy testified that so far as he knew, the exact effects of such poisoning on human beings has not yet been established.
Dendy warned in his testimony that DDT builds up over time in “human and animal fat tissue,” so the dangers to human health become greater as the exposure grows over time.
The worried Congressmen wanted to know if there is a substitute for DDT.
Dendy said he was not working on that problem, but he knew others were.
Notably absent from the hearing was the committee chairman, Rep. James J. Delaney, D-NY, according to the list offered by the DMN. That’s right: Delaney was the one who, in 1957, got his amendment passed to the Safe Food and Drug Act, the organic act for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) making it illegal to use anything known to be carcinogenic as a food additive (DDT doesn’t count, because it’s not a food additive, but a food contaminant, which is regulated not by the FDA, but by the Department of Agriculture).
So, in 1951, before Rachel Carson had left the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 11 years prior to the publication of her book Silent Spring, 21 years before the EPA banned use of DDT on crops, conservative scientists from Texas were alerting Congress to the dangers of DDT.
It’s in the history books. You can look it up.
2 Comments | DDT, Health care, History, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: DDT, health, History, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I got some very nice cards, especially those that were hand made, from the heart. I got a candy bar when I really needed it.
This woman got a kidney from a former student. How could you top that?
In Elwood, Indiana, former student Angie Collins saved Darren Paquin’s life. What did he teach her, besides English?
Leave a Comment » | Education, Education quality, Good Deeds, Health care, Heroes, Teaching | Tagged: Education, Good Deeds, health, Teachers Appreciation Week, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Copy a couple of these articles and give them to your school nurse to pass out to people who say they don’t want to inoculate their kids.
In 1991, we could have inoculated every unvaccinated child under the age of 10, in Dallas County, for much less than $20,000. Then the epidemic hit. One of the early hospitalizations for the company I worked with was $100,000. One kid went in, and after $1 million of care, spent the rest of his life in a local hospital (another decade).
The economic arguments for measles vaccination should be clear.
Update: Bug Girl is right (see her comment below): Go check out Orac’s post on the issue, “Antivaccinationsim versus measles in the U.S.: Are the chickens coming home to roost.” I was posting in a hurry; Orac is posting after visiting the issue several times. Contrast Orac’s views as a physician with those of people who tend to get herded into panics without the facts, only through the fault of not having the facts about the dangers of the diseases they let off the hook (make no mistake: most of these people are well-meaning).
My more complete measles story, below the fold.
2 Comments | History, Public education, Public health, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: Education, health, Measles, Public health, Schools, Science, Vaccines | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Rachel Carson’s careful citations in her book Silent Spring have been reinforced by a recent study that shows a more direct link between DDT and human cancers, contrary to claims by lobbyists, junk science purveyors and practitioners of voodoo science.
Another study suggests DDT causes damage to the reproductive organs of children of people exposed to the pesticide. The connection is again to the daughter product, DDE.
Danger appears to result from exposure in utero or from breast feeding. The Reuters India story said:
Researchers led by Katherine McGlynn of the U.S. government’s National Cancer Institute examined blood samples provided by 739 men in the U.S. military with testicular cancer and 915 others who did not have it.
The link between DDE and cancer was particularly strong with a type of testicular cancer known as seminoma, which involves the sperm-producing germ cells of the testicles.
If diagnosed, testicular cancers are among the most treatable. It generally strikes men in their 20s and 30s. About 8,000 new cases per year show up in the U.S. In an average year testicular cancer kills 380 Americans. The NCI study suggests about 15 percent of cases in the U.S. can be attributed to DDT exposure.
It is possible some of the men who later developed cancer of the testicles were exposed to DDE at very young ages — in the womb or through breastfeeding, the researchers said.
“In testicular cancer, there’s a fair amount of evidence that something is happening very early in life to increase risk,” McGlynn said in a telephone interview.
DDE remains ubiquitous in the environment even decades after DDT was being banned in the United States — and is present in about 90 percent of Americans, McGlynn said.
“The trouble with these chemicals is they hang around a long time. It’s in the food chain now,” McGlynn added. People who eat fish from contaminated areas can absorb it, for instance.
The study was published on-line in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute on April 29, 2008, ahead of print publication.
Image from Testicular Cancer Diagnosis page at M. D. Anderson Center in Houston, Texas
Resources:
3 Comments | Accuracy, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, History, Junk science, Public health, Rachel Carson, Research, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: cancer, DDT, health, Junk science, Pesticide, Rachel Carson, Science, Testicular cancer | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 25, 2008, is World Malaria Day. I’ve purchased some bednets thorugh Nothing But Nets to help fight malaria. Educating others about the disease is one of the chief goals, too.
Will you help, please?
See the statement from the World Malaria Day community below; pass it along to someone else.
A Malaria Community Statement –
April 25th is World Malaria Day and also Malaria Awareness Day in the United States. In observance of this day and in recognition of the tremendous opportunities to reduce the burden that malaria imposes on the health of people worldwide, we, the Malaria Community, stand in support of the following statement.
We Have Made Progress
Dynamic new public and private partnerships and renewed commitments to strengthen
longstanding efforts to combat malaria are showing positive results. Global partners include
bilateral, multilateral and U.N. programs, faith-based groups, business coalitions and private
foundations. The single largest U.S.-funded malaria program, the President’s Malaria Initiative
(PMI), has accomplished the following:
- Indoor residual spraying benefiting more than 17 million people;
- Procurement and distribution of 5 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets;
- Procurement of 12.6 million artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) treatments and training of more than 28,000 health workers in use of ACTs; and
- Procurement of malaria treatment for more than 4 million pregnant women.
Expanding Access to Current Interventions
It is imperative that stakeholders in the fight against malaria maximize global access to existing proven interventions including insecticide-treated nets, indoor residual spraying with insecticides, and effective medications. Through generous donor contributions, access to essential interventions is improving—yielding dramatic successes in places like Ethiopia and Rwanda where malaria infections and deaths have decreased by more than 50 percent. But the availability of interventions is only half the battle. We must find means to expand delivery of proven interventions, strengthen the capacity of partner countries to administer basic interventions at the community level, share best practices across countries, and motivate individuals to protect themselves and their families.
Investing in New Tools
Simultaneously, we must increase investment in developing new, improved technologies for controlling malaria, including effective drugs, insecticides, and vaccines. Resistance to the most commonly prescribed drugs in most countries has been rapidly increasing. Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) must be readily available and affordable, and new therapies must be developed to prevent resistance to ACTs and eventually replace them. The U.S. government’s commitment to expedite the development of highly effective malaria vaccines is needed now, understanding that the process will take significant time and investment. The potential of developing a vaccine of even limited efficacy could have a significant impact on deaths and illness, especially among infants and young children.
Global Problem, Local Solutions
Achieving results will also depend on the effective engagement of national, regional and local governments in the effective deployment of malaria control tools. To guarantee the best use of resources, steps must be taken to ensure that anti-malaria tools, research and investment reach the communities that need them the most, while ensuring that no community is left unsupported. Community-based efforts to deliver malaria prevention and treatment programs must inform the development of the comprehensive global strategy needed so that efforts can be sustained over time. All stakeholders need to be engaged in thoughtful, coordinated planning that brings to bear the best evidence from all levels of efforts to control or eliminate malaria while addressing changes in the epidemiology of the disease.
Note carefully and well that the major organizations fighting malaria neither slam Rachel Carson, whose methods they use to fight malaria today, nor call for a return to wholesale poisoning of Africa and Asia with DDT, but instead urge wise use of resources including an expansion of health care to aid the human victims of malaria. Malaria is the problem, not science.
World Malaria Day is a logical extension of Earth Day; the two are not in opposition.
More Resources:
Leave a Comment » | Africa, DDT, Health care, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Travel, War on Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, health, Politics, Science, World Malaria Day | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 