Scattershot news

Americans throw away 40 percent of their food every day

Less government...

Someone who is very displeased with Windows 8.

Why Pennsylvania's Voter ID Law Is Unconstitutional

But will the pharmaceuticals let this kid ruin their business?  I bet no.

Depression comes from eating too much trans-fats.

Never insult an Irishman:

Michael D. Higgins (who was elected president of Ireland last year) is fed up with over-the-top Tea Party rhetoric, and he isn't afraid to show it. Listen to him call out radio host Michael Graham on everything from health care to foreign policy in this heated exchange from 2010. Trust me, you don't want to miss this one.

The Drought Map.  And those who make money off of food shortages caused by drought.

The Problem with Men Explaining Things.

Bush's legacy

To the Iraqis because of his decision to use bunker buster bombs made of depleted uranium:

Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.

And for those who think this is just a passing or minor thing... the results of the Chernobyl disaster 24 years ago are still being paid for today. (Distressing pictures) And Hiroshima victims from the end of WWII.

Depleted uranium is in the very dust of Iraq and Afghanistan where it is being breathed in by the innocent inhabitants and our soldiers. Guess who is next for birth defects and cancers?

Sometimes we do things right

City stops to help Electron Boy defeat the bad guys:

Thursday was shaping up to be just another school day for 13-year-old Erik Martin, but then something extraordinary happened: Spider-Man called.

Spider-Man happens to be one of the few people who knows that Erik, too, has a secret identity — he's Electron Boy, a superhero who fights the powers of evil with light.

And Spider-Man needed Erik's help.

Erik, who is living with liver cancer, has always wanted to be a superhero. On Thursday, the regional chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation granted him that wish with an elaborate event that involved hundreds of volunteers in Bellevue and Seattle.

[snip]

Pulling off a wish like this one required a big story, and a lot of heart. And so, with a note of panic in his voice, Spider-Man explained the dilemma: "Dr. Dark" and "Blackout Boy" had imprisoned the Seattle Sounders in a locker room at Qwest Field. Only Electron Boy could free them.

Erik got into his red-and-blue superhero costume, and called on the powers of Moonshine Maid, who owns a DeLorean sports car. For good measure, more than 20 motorcycle officers from the Bellevue Police Department and King County and Snohomish sheriff's offices escorted Electron Boy to Seattle.

"They shut down 405 — they shut down I-90," marveled Moonshine Maid, aka Misty Peterson. "I thought it would just be me, in the car."

At Qwest Field, Electron Boy was directed by frantic fans to the Sounders locker room, where the entire team was shouting for help behind jammed doors. With a little help from Lightning Lad, the alter ego of local actor Rob Burgess, Erik opened the door with his lightning rod. The Sounders cheered.

Pharmaceutical companies hope you will not read this

The best efforts of the scientific community to prove the health benefits of vitamins keep falling short.

[snip]

Everyone needs vitamins, which are critical for the body. But for most people, the micronutrients we get from foods usually are adequate to prevent vitamin deficiency, which is rare in the United States. That said, some extra vitamins have proven benefits, such as vitamin B12 supplements for the elderly and folic acid for women of child-bearing age. And calcium and vitamin D in women over 65 appear to protect bone health.

But many people gobble down large doses of vitamins believing that they boost the body’s ability to mop up damaging free radicals that lead to cancer and heart disease. In addition to the more recent research, several reports in recent years have challenged the notion that megadoses of vitamins are good for you.

We won't help you live a little longer

But we will help you die faster:

The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay.

What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.

This occurred in early summer of this year. Her doctor was able to arrange giving her the medicine for free. In googling her story, it seems that she has since died.

Well... they were going to die anyway...

This will make it happen just a bit faster:

New York, NY (AHN) - The pill popping days of Americans will soon be over, another victim of the economic crisis. After a number of cancer patients in the U.S. have reported cutting back on medical treatments due to soaring costs, the next item in line for cost cutting are prescription drugs.

Dr. James King, chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians confirmed seeing patients who no longer buy Lipitor, a cholesterol-lowering drug, due to its high cost. "People are choosing among gas, meals and medication," King told the New York Times.

Pfizer, which man manufactures Lipitor, confirmed the dip in the sale of the world's top-selling prescription drug in the U.S. by 13 percent for the third quarter of 2008. IMS Health, a research company that monitors prescriptions, added that for the first eight months of the year, number of all prescriptions filled out in the U.S. went down compared to last year.

What is John McCain hiding by not releasing his medical records?

Update 9/28: DaveV at Daily Kos notes the noticeable droop of the left side of McCain's face.

Update 10/1: Steve Bates of The Yellow Doggerel Democrat notes the various stages of melanoma that McCain has had and what the survival rate is.

Water, water everywhere

And all of it is in plastic bottles.

Exposing drinking bottles made from polycarbonate plastic to boiling water significantly speeds up the release of the chemical bisphenol A compared with room temperature water — and the amount of leaching is similar whether containers are well-used or brand new, researchers say.

The scientists at the University of Cincinnati found that when new and used polycarbonate drinking bottles were filled with boiling water and left for 24 hours, concentrations of bisphenol A (BPA) were released at rates up to 55 times more rapidly than with room temperature water.

Amounts of the chemical, which acts like the hormone estrogen, also leached out in higher quantities at the higher temperature, said study co-author Scott Belcher, an associate professor of pharmacology.

[snip]

Bisphenol A, widely used in such products as reusable water bottles, baby bottles, food-can linings and water pipes, has been shown to affect reproduction and brain development in animal studies.

"You could see that there are times when you would be putting hot liquids in these or boiling these or putting polycarbonate to these kinds of temperatures," Belcher said Tuesday from Cincinnati, noting that parents heat up plastic baby bottles and some people use water bottles for hot drinks.

While its effects are far from well-studied in humans, primarily because the chemical is so ubiquitous in daily life, there are concerns that BPA could contribute to some breast and prostate cancers as well as infertility in people.

[snip]

Plastic bottle maker Nalgene says on its website that BPA has been used around the globe for more than 50 years, noting studies from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have shown the chemical doesn't pose a health risk.

Uh huh. Right. The FDA and the EPA really have proved they have the public's safety at heart recently. Here is an article referencing research done between 1996 and 1998 which tested 708 Danish men reporting for a military medical examination:

It found that 43% of them had sperm counts low enough to lead to decreased fertility - in other words, to make it difficult for them to reproduce.

They describe the sperm concentrations they found in the sample as "surprisingly low", and are at a loss to explain them.

"It remains to be seen whether these findings are generally applicable to populations of young men in the industrialised countries. Denmark seems to have relatively high rates of male reproductive abnormalities."

The World Wide Fund for Nature says it believes that a factor in the low sperm counts is exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

[snip]

These are chemicals which can interfere with the normal functioning of the body's hormonal control systems and seriously affect health.

Known disrupters include some phthalates (used in many plastic goods, including toys), Bisphenol A (used in plastic bottles, the plastic lining of food cans, and elsewhere), and TBT, an anti-fouling paint for boats.

Elizabeth Salter, the head of WWF's European toxics programme, said the Danish study "proves that reduced sperm production is real and common".

A 2004 study finds that a projected 95% of Americans have bisphenol A in their urine. Bisphenol is used to make baby and beverage bottles, to coat teeth, and line the inside of food cans.

Suggestions on how to lessen your exposure to BPA:

1. If you already own polycarbonate bottles, including the Nalgene bottles popular on college campuses, labeled #7 on the bottom, wash them by hand with mild dishwashing soap, not in the dishwasher, to avoid degrading the plastic and increasing leaching of BPA (see "Picnic Perfect Plastics").

Eight Ways to Avoid Harmful Chemicals from Cans and Plastic Bottles

2. Even plastic does not last forever. Look for cracks or cloudiness on your reusable clear plastic bottles. See The Green Guide's survey, "A Nalgene Bottle Poll."

3. Use glass baby bottles or plastic bag inserts, which are made of polyethyelene, or switch to polypropylene bottles that are labeled #5 and come in colors or are milky rather than clear.

4. Choose soups, milk and soy milk packaged in cardboard "brick" cartons, by Tetra Pak and SIG Combibloc, which are made of safer layers of aluminum and polyethylene (#2) and also recyclable.

5. Choose canned foods from makers who don't use BPA, such as Eden Foods (www.edenfoods.com), which sells certified organic canned beans and other foods.

6. Eat fresh foods in season and save the canned foods for convenience or emergencies. The exception is some canned fruit such as that found in smaller fruit-cocktail cans, which do not require a liner, according to the Can Manufacturers Institute.

7. Buy or can your own fruits and vegetables in safe glass jars. For more, see Amy's Green Kitchen "In a Summer Pickle".

8. Some wines have been found to contain up to six times the BPA of canned foods. While most wines probably don't, it's another good reason to drink in moderation.

Besides, the plastic bottles are filling up our oceans (really!) and our landfills.

If a corporation takes a shit in the forest

And no one is around to YouTube it, does it count?: (my bold)

“Our work in Ecuador is an example of the good things that can happen when thousands of people, most without money or power, can come together in a common effort to better themselves and the planet.”

Fajardo, 35, has been spearheading the legal team for the plaintiffs for several years, as they demand an environmental remediation from Chevron estimated to cost $6 billion. During nearly three decades of drilling in a vast, inhabited area of the Ecuadorian Amazon, Texaco dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater. Now, impoverished local communities are suffering a wave of cancers, stillbirths, birth defects and other severe health problems.

Born into extreme poverty, Fajardo only became a lawyer in 2004, after first working as a manual laborer, including in the oil fields of his hometown of Lago Agrio, while completing a correspondence law degree.

During that time, Fajardo became an increasingly outspoken community leader, opposed to the devastation wrought by Texaco on his people and their once pristine rainforest lands. Now, in his first trial, Fajardo, who travels around by bicycle, finds himself confronting a team of highly-paid, extremely experienced lawyers contracted by Chevron.

Down the years, Fajardo appears to have paid a high price for his pursuit of justice. One of the friends who helped to pay for him to go through law school was murdered as was one of Fajardo’s brothers, a Christian minister. Neither murder has been resolved by the Ecuadorian authorities.

© 2004 Lou Dematteis

An unlined waste pit filled with crude oil left by Texaco drilling operations years earlier lies in a forest clearing near the town of Sacha.

I'm so relieved I'm not the only one who thinks Couric is a massive twit.

Tailor Marsh: (Via Crooks and Liars)

Consider these notes on the '60 Minutes' interview, also known as "How many times can Katie Couric ask the same question over and over again a dozen different ways without ever getting tired of hearing herself ask the same frickin question yet again." Forget sympathy for Elizabeth Edwards, I feel sorry for them both that they had to sit through this horrendous excuse of an interview. Katie Couric just might have proved she's the worst political interviewer I've ever seen; she sure was on this one. I'm amazed this is the best CBS could do with the biggest interview opportunity of the week. Over and over and over and OVER again, Ms. Couric asked variations on the "you know you're dying so what's the point?" theme. How about a segue into health care? No. Talking about how the Edwards have opportunities for health care others don't have and just maybe that's what they're fighting for? No. How about talking about their faith, which anyone can see is at the core of their ability to be strong during this challenge. Nope, Couric only wanted to talk about how others might judge them, their ambition, how it's too stressful to take care of his wife and be president at the same time. As if while being president life can't throw you some challenges. Good Lord, it was a disgrace, as well as a missed opportunity. Couric made no effort whatsoever to broaden the subject, but instead decided to exhaust the "cancer is death" topic, alert the American people. I particularly appreciated the moment when Couric talked about their kids, saying if I had a "finite" time I don't think I'd choose not being with my kids. No judgment there at all, Katie. The Edwards then reminded Ms. Couric that we've all got a finite amount of time, with Elizabeth saying they learned that in 1996... then John finished the comment, when they lost their son, as Mrs. Edwards lowered her head a moment. By the time it was over I'm sure both of the Edwards wanted a stiff drink. I'd have asked for a water back to throw in Ms. Couric's face. Though I doubt even that would have awakened her from her hamster wheel questioning stupor. --end rant--

Yes. We are all going to die, Ms. Couric. What did you want, for them to throw themselves sobbing into your lap for hugs? What a stupid interview. It did not belong on 60 Minutes. It belonged in the trash.

Update: David Sirota:

In pursuing this line of repeated questioning, of course, Couric ignored the pretty well-known psychological value of work during health care crises. She also ignored the fact that this is an immensely personal decision that does not require some multimillion-dollar journalist to perform a televised, Gitmo-style interrogation in order for viewers at home to glean the "news value." And most incredibly, she ignored her own behavior when her spouse was diagnosed with cancer.

That's right, Katie Couric's husband was diagnosed with cancer in 1997. I did a quick check of the transcripts for that year - and it's pretty clear that she kept working as the anchor for NBC's Today Show, if not full time, then pretty close to it.

I want to be extremely clear: That Couric continued to work while her husband was sick was entirely her and her family's personal decision. I'm not going to comment on the merits of that decision not because I think it was a bad one or a good one, but because it's AN ENTIRELY PERSONAL DECISION. Really, who the hell am I - and who the hell is anyone else - to question someone's decision to keep working during a family health crisis?

It's not up to me, or you or anyone else to decide whether such a decision for Katie Couric and her husband or John and Elizabeth Edwards is a good or bad decision, because it is an entirely personal decision, whether you are a national television anchor, a presidential candidate or anything else. I don't care if you are running for Supreme Leader of the Galaxy, your choice about whether to continue working at a time of a family health crisis should be entirely your own, without fear of journalists trying to "get a good scoop."

Update: Bob Herbert does it best:

Elizabeth Edwards’s illness is a logical catalyst for a national discussion about health care in the U.S. But why stop there? Next year’s election will be one of the most important in history. Whatever you think of their politics, John and Elizabeth Edwards are giving the country a world-class lesson in courage and candor.

You want straight talk? “I was wrong.” That’s what John Edwards said about his vote to authorize the president to go to war in Iraq. “The world desperately needs moral leadership from America,” he said, as he acknowledged his contribution to the debacle, “and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth.”

The war goes on, and fate has dealt the Edwards family another devastating blow. The rest of us can help invest the absurdity of their tragedy with meaning by paying closer attention to the issues that are important to them. Whether one ends up agreeing with them or not, it’s a way of opening the door to a more thoughtful, rational way of selecting our presidents.

THAT'S how you make sense of an interview, Katie.

Update: Attaturk at Rising Hegemon reminds us of what capitalizing on tragedy and illness looks like.

Update: Hecate on using marriage as a qualifier for president:

The point is that there seems to be little correlation between the overall "success" or "failure" of any given presidential marriage and the job that the president did. Which, when you think about it, really isn't that surprising, or wouldn't be, if Americans (and Americans do seem to be worse about this than, say, Europeans or South Americans) didn't make such a ridiculous big deal out of "family" and "family values."

We'd do well to get over it.

John Edwards isn't my first choice for the Democratic nominee, but that's more because I'd like to see a woman or an African American in office, after two hundred plus years of rich white men, than anything else. I like his message of populism. But his wife's health is a matter between him, Ms. Edwards, and her doctors. It's irrelevant to whether or not he should be the nominee or the president. Or, it would be in any rational world.

Update 3/27:
An excellent cartoon illustrates it all.

New cancer drug?

Washington - Her carefully cultured cells were dead and Katherine Schaefer was annoyed, but just a few minutes later, the researcher realised she had stumbled onto a potential new cancer treatment.

Schaefer and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Centre in New York believe they have discovered a new way to attack tumours that have learned how to evade existing drugs.

Tests in mice suggest the compound helps break down the cell walls of tumours, almost like destroying a tumour cell's "skeleton".

The researchers will test the new compound for safety and hope they can develop it to treat cancers such as colon cancer, oesophageal cancer, liver and skin cancers.

"I was using these cancer cells as models of the normal intestine," Schaefer said.

Normal human cells are difficult to grow and study in the lab, because they tend to die. But cancer cells live much longer and are harder to kill, so scientists often use them.

Schaefer was looking for drugs to treat the inflammation seen in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, both of which cause pain and diarrhoea.

She was testing a compound called a PPAR-gamma modulator. It would never normally have been thought of as a cancer drug, or in fact a drug of any kind.

[snip]

The compound works in much the same way as the taxane drugs, including Taxol, which were originally derived from Pacific yew trees.

"It targets part of the cell cytoskeleton called tubulin," Schaefer said. Tubulin is used to build microtubules, which in turn make up the cell's structure.

Destroying it kills the cell, but cancer cells eventually evolve mechanisms to pump out the drugs that do this, a problem called resistance.

"Resistance to anti-tubulin therapies is a huge problem in many cancers. We see this as another way to get to the tubulin," Schaefer said.

The PPAR-gamma compound does this in a different way from the taxanes, which might mean it could overcome the resistance that tumour cells often develop to chemotherapy.

"Most of the drugs like Taxol affect the ability of tubulin to forms into microtubules. This doesn't do that - it causes the tubulin itself to disappear. We do not know why."

So...will the pharmaceutical companies let this drug exist? Or will they shut it down because it threatens their cancer medicines?

Cheap way to kill cancer cells.

"It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks."

Children born with disabilities

From the soldiers who were exposed to depleted uranium in the Bosnian war.

Via Rorschach of No Capital, BBC News:
"Troops who served during the wars in the 1990s believe they have contracted cancer and other serious illnesses from extended exposure to the munitions.

The US says it fired around 40,000 depleted uranium rounds during the Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts.

A pressure group says 50 veterans have died and another 200 are seriously ill.

Depleted uranium is used on the tips of bullets and shells. Because of its density it can pierce the armour plating on tanks.

But when it explodes it often leaves a footprint of chemically poisonous and radioactive dust."

This is what is coming home with our own soldiers. Are we ready?