Slashdot Mirror

If your "fact" is actually true then some report somewhere should state the men who have had vasectomies have a (insert number here)% greater change of Prostate cancer.

Then, there is this pesky fact: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/vasectomy
"In 1997, the NCI convened the prostate cancer Progress Review Group (PRG), a committee that included members from the scientific, medical, industrial, and advocacy communities. This group was charged with developing a national plan to outline scientific efforts involving prostate cancer research. The PRG's final report, published in August 1998, concluded that the evidence supporting a role for vasectomy in the development of prostate cancer is weak.

Researchers continue to investigate the possible relationship between vasectomy and prostate cancer. The majority of studies conducted thus far have upheld the conclusions made at the 1993 NICHD conference. Although a few studies have reported a link between vasectomy and prostate cancer, it is possible that other factors, including chance, may be responsible for the association suggested in these studies."

Oops!

If your "fact" is actually true then some report somewhere should state the men who have had vasectomies have a (insert number here)% greater change of Prostate cancer.

Then, there is this pesky fact: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/vasectomy
"In 1997, the NCI convened the prostate cancer Progress Review Group (PRG), a committee that included members from the scientific, medical, industrial, and advocacy communities. This group was charged with developing a national plan to outline scientific efforts involving prostate cancer research. The PRG's final report, published in August 1998, concluded that the evidence supporting a role for vasectomy in the development of prostate cancer is weak.

Researchers continue to investigate the possible relationship between vasectomy and prostate cancer. The majority of studies conducted thus far have upheld the conclusions made at the 1993 NICHD conference. Although a few studies have reported a link between vasectomy and prostate cancer, it is possible that other factors, including chance, may be responsible for the association suggested in these studies."

Opps!

> if everyone jointly pays for healthcare and everybody gets treated health costs go down.

Only for those who already pay for insurance, and only assuming that the insurance companies will pass on the savings to you, which they won't. Except, they won't get any savings, because:

> This is because no one puts off going to the doctor because of expense.

When people don't have to pay for doctors, they go more often, raising the overall health care expenditures and cancelling any savings you may have incurred for increasing the insured pool. So, if anything, your rates will go up, and MUCH higher.

> Cancers are caught sooner, infections are treated before the victim starts coughing up blood.

Cancer screening is not
good for you. Yes, early detection can be helpful for some cancers, but false positives and
unnecessary treatments can cause a great deal of harm. Prostate cancer, which you mention, is an
excellent example. Very few men die from prostate cancer, treated or not, because it grows so slowly
that you are much more likely to die from other causes before it kills you. In most cases, treating
it will just cause you lots of misery that chemo and radiation create.

Even when you have some other cancer, you need to realize that with the exception of breast and
testicular cancer, nearly all of them are fatal. You might buy yourself a few years with treatment,
but you'll die anyway. It might be worth taking a hard look at your own life and see if you really
want to have an extra few years at the cost of pain and suffering that chemo will give you. (In
socialized health care, other
people may make this decision for you)

Other infections are also frequently overtreated. Your body really is very very good at fighting
diseases. Give it food and water, and it will kill the infection all by itself. For centuries,
people have got by just fine without ever seeing a doctor, and you would do well to try to do
the same. Doctors often cause more harm than not and avoiding them really is good for you.

> What selfish libertarians like yourself don't realise is that a persons health is mostly unrelated
> to their choices. No one chooses to get prostate cancer, no one chooses to get bitten by a rabid dog.

On the contrary, health is very much related to your choices. Smoking and obesity are both personal
choices and are the most damaging things you can do to yourself. Nearly all diseases, cancers, and
heart problems are manyfold more likely if you make these choices. Then there's the impact of
stress), which damages your
immune system and contributes to many disorders, possibly including cancer.

If they decided it would be worth more money for them to grind you up and feed you to pigs, they would.

Right now you are bringing in more money than they are paying you. Hence your employment. If that wasn't the case you wouldn't be there. And if the penalty for murder was less steep, the odds of getting caught smaller, and if there was a pig food shortage - you'd be screwed.

Read up on the tobacco industry for current examples of what I'm talking about. They kill about half a million people in the United States every year, and all for profit. Money.

It should come as no surprise when a company does something less evil than that for money. The bar is set pretty high. So allowing people to spoof caller ID for cash? Mere child's play.

OP was exactly right about corporations being sociopaths. It's probably one of the most insightful things I've ever seen on /.

The basic physics say you're more than okay.

      Very well. Expose yourself to direct sunlight 24/7 and let's see how long it takes for you to get skin cancer.

      Just because "the basic physics" you mention in your claim point to there being less energy involved than sunlight, this does not eliminate the possibility of risk - especially when sunlight is a KNOWN carcinogen.

The GQ article with a cell phone next to a pack of cigarettes couldn't be more misleading. We hear about "such and such % increased risk of this", "such and such % increased risk of that". But these numbers are meaningless in assessing behavior changes unless you know the baseline risk.

So here's some numbers. The article starts off with cigarettes, so what's the risk of lung cancer between smokers and non-smokers?

Well, according to wikipedia, For Men it's 1.3% for non-smokers, and 17% for smokers. Wow!

Let's compare that to Brain cancer (all types). According to the National Cancer institute it's .6% for everyone. The Swedish study from 2006 found a 240% increase. So that's 1.44% risk.

So it seems quite obvious to me that even the most alarming study only showed a small increased health risk from cell phone use, and others have shown none. Compare that to smoking, which has been consistent in showing risk over the years, and an ENORMOUS risk. Oh, and for smoking that's JUST the lung cancer risk. We all should know about the other increased health risks associated with it.

IF they can really achieve 90% detection rate (and that's a huge if), then that'd be hugely impressive.

FYI, Mammograms only have roughly an 80% chance of detecting breast cancer. http://breastscreening.cancer.gov/data/performance/diagnostic/rate_age_time.html

Rates of detection of other cancers are often much worse. And rates of early detection (as opposed to self-report) of mental illnesses are worse again.

there are a number of studies that do seem to show that cell phones are capable of causing, at the very least, changes in levels of certain proteins in cells, but potentially damaging neurons and causing cancer.

I don't want to be dismissive of this claim, but given the number of studies you mentioned, it would have been useful to reference some.

I'd particularly be interested in how a study measures cell phone effects on protein levels in the cells of the brain. Also, you mention that they damage neurons. However, over 85% of malignant brain tumors arise from glial cells or cancers of other non-neural cells in the brain.

I myself am aware of studies that show non-ionizing, non-thermal radiation can affect DNA replication. (Sorry can't find a reference.) But from what I've read, it had not been linked to any pathology and the studies were strictly limited to examining cell cultures, not entire organisms.

But the sheer number of studies that are coming out showing an apparent cause and effect between cell phones and a number of cellular mechanisms, is leading me to believe that there is something very real there.

The National Cancer institute links to several studies that at best are inconclusive on any link and for the most part seem to conclude that there is no link. Where are the sheer numbers of studies that you are refering to?

I'm not sure what the numerous cellular mechanism you are referring to is either. We are talking strictly cancer, right? So in general we are only concerned with replication and transcription of DNA, correct?

Report unequivocal about dangers of secondhand smoke

Secondhand Smoke: Questions and Answers

,

As I noted in my post .. the first link as all about studies showing smoking in the home. And that BS about asthma attacks applies to car fumes, carpet outgassing, and a host of other items. Asthma attacks are not caused solely by cigarette smoke, which is why they carry medication with them at all times.

The second talked about eliminating smoking indoors. NEITHER attempted any measure of the affects of a person walking through a cloud of cigarette smoke on their way into a building once or twice a day. Yep .. smoke has bad stuff in it. Check the air you breathe if you live in the city, and I'm sure you will find a host of nasty things also.

I have no problem with eliminating smoking indoors. But I'm tired of all the BS that is thrown about by people who are ignorant and don't bother to read what is really in the studies, what they actually studied, and how the statistics can be used and abused.

But NOT walking through a cloud of smoke for 5 seconds, or working on a computer.

You can be working on a computer - or computer repairs - 9 to 5. That is far more than your five seconds of casusal exposure.

Even a few minutes of exposure to tobacco smoke can be enough to trigger an asthma attack, heighten the chances of blood clotting, damage heart arteries and begin the kind of cell damage that can result in cancer.

Report unequivocal about dangers of secondhand smoke

Secondhand Smoke: Questions and Answers

,

The "sin" tax on those smokes must have been part of the new anti-smoking bill.

Quite correct. So smoke if ya' got em'. It's for the children...

The information you got is either wrong or very short sighted.

I smoke and I've researched this issue into the ground. Its pretty accurate.

You were asked to produce a citation and failed to do so; citing your own research doesn't count for squat.

Here's a citation I just pulled from the National Cancer Institute's website:

"Quitting smoking substantially reduces the risk of developing and dying from cancer, and this benefit increases the longer a person remains smoke free. However, even after many years of not smoking, the risk of lung cancer in former smokers remains higher than in people who have never smoked"

Emphasis placed there by me.

So, unless you can produce a contrary citation, I think it's pretty safe to say you're a pathetic troll spreading misinformation.

I used it only because the page includes links for sources that are impartial and well-informed. But, if you like, here's another one. If you Google it, I'm sure you can find tons more just like it. Which only further validates my statement. :)

While the points are relevant for women undergoing pap smear who don't have a cervix/uterus, the second part of the smear procedure is to collect cell samples from the vaginal wall to screen for vaginal cancer. There are still women at elevated risks of vaginal cancer, due to their mothers using DES, having a HPV (papilloma virus - aka "venereal warts"), and if the bimanual exam does not reveal any palpable mass, a microscopic vaginal wall smear (normal part of a pap smear collection) can be a worthwhile screening. Is it cost effective in the scenario of no cervix? Depends if you are one of the women with vaginal cancer detected or not. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/vaginal/patient/

The case of the British couple who had their daughter tested for the presence of mutant breast cancer genes is not representative of all genetic testing for breast cancer genes. This case involves pre-implantation diagnosis, and if the child was carrying the mutant alleles for the breast cancer genes, the only option to avoid having a child carrying the mutations would have been to abort the foetus (or carry it to term, but knowing that it carried the mutant alleles). But this isn't the usual way of testing for mutations in those genes - I could go and be tested tomorrow, and from what I understand it would involve a blood sample (see for details on testing for the breast cancer genes). Granted, a saliva test would be easier than a blood test, but all in all they're both far easier than the pre-implantation diagnosis carried out in the referenced articles (Slashdot article and the orignal article from the BBC).

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/risk/magnetic-fields There's a low probability of this giving you cancer.

If there are diseases you'd like to keep around to prevent overpopulation, may I suggest lobbying to return Smallpox to the wild instead?

Wooooaahhhh there buddy. I didn't say I wanted to keep any disease around. Just that we should have a plan that means our population (and consumption) are sustainable so we don't have wide spread famine.

Cancer, in general, happens to people well past the age of reproduction.

What are you talking about? There are whole classes of cancers commonly referred to as "childhood cancer".

Looking at the stats here, nearly 10% of cancers occur under the age of 45. Let's call that the reproductive cutoff for women....now men can have children into their 60s, and about 45% roughly occur by age 65
http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2005/results_merged/topic_age_dist.pdf

Now the earlier the cancer occurs the more likely it is to have an impact on reproduction. So yes age has a bearing, but your view of cancer as a disease for old people is just wrong.

Seriously, some of you people scare me....

Perhaps you should READ what the other person wrote before letting hysteria take over? To take what I wrote and suggest that I want cancer to hang around is just paranoid. (I said I hated losing people dear to me). It isn't wrong to want to have a plan to prevent the population from becoming unsustainable. My interest isn't in restricting freedoms, handing control to the government, or having people die at my whim. I'd like to see LESS suffering. Painting me as a monster is INSULTING.

The epidemic of cancer is certainly proof that something that we are doing to the planet it making it and us very ill, let alone the undeniable evidence, built up over the last fifty years, that wherever industrial developments are, vibrant ecosystems are not.

I don't think the basis of your argument deserves the kind of consideration that your point itself does.

The industrial junk we've been pumping out can't be good; I don't think you'll find many people that are pro-pollution... The problem with your argument is studies show cancer has been decreasing for decades -- not just mortality, but also the diagnosis and development of. Considering detection has certainly improved and pollution has certainly NOT improved, it should be on the rise in a big way. Why the discrepancy? It did increase during the 70s and 80s, but was that because of better detection rates? It is easy to write it off as such, but who knows... I don't -- and neither do you.

Unfortunately, that's the problem. We don't have much reliable data to follow because the data itself has been a work in progress for decades. For example, whether or not you believe they have an agenda, the National Cancer Institute shows this downward trend, and it continues. I'm sure if you went back to 1930 or something, cancer rates per capita were far, far lower though; however, you cannot get accurate numbers because many people would have not been treated or improperly diagnosed. It's pretty easy to fudge the numbers and statistics to indeed lie.

As I'm sure you know though, the problem with 'the evidence' is it is difficult to concretely prove... either way. There are just too many variables to take in account with living organisms to do meaningful, empirical tests that prove something without a shadow of a doubt. Sadly, not many people will listen until such links can be made unequivocally.

In short, I wouldn't use cancer as your 'undeniable evidence', but your point/intentions are good and I personally agree with you, although probably to a lesser degree.

If you prefer some slightly more credible sources:

http://www.mdanderson.org/departments/newsroom/display.cfm?id=40C16848-750C-4143-A7382A752ED6E734&method=displayFull&pn=9cd50d60-76be-11d4-aec300508bdcce3a

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18462866

http://www.cancer.gov/Templates/drugdictionary.aspx?CdrID=43115

It's a compound that MD Anderson has been doing a bunch with - and a whole stack of clinical trials.

It does have some issues - it seems to affect mitosis on healthy cells http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=13711465

I'll attribute your tone to the greater internet fuckwad theory. In your desire to antagonize you've misinterpreted what I was saying. Perhaps since you're saying that because you've given us a link to a paper about chemically induced cancers, we should all be extra paranoid about RF induced cancer? Because that would make sense?

Maybe you can point out a study or two that shows that cell phones have affected any of the things you mention besides temperature? Look, here's a list of recent research findings. I'll even take temperature effects if you can show something that's actually inside the brain, and not just skin surface - we all know that batteries get hot.

My claim was not that cell phones CANNOT pose a risk. I simply said that currently we do not see enough of a risk to consider them. I point out that this may change in 10 years, but since we don't understand any physical connection for a risk and we don't have people falling over dead, I think we can say that the danger from cell phones still lies in texting while driving and whatnot.

I maintain that technophobia is anti-science.

The tips include warnings not to use your phone on a bus, so as not to passively expose others. I'll take that as text book FUD. In the video footage that accompanies the news piece here, when asked why there's a lack of evidence to support such advice the answer is that "you [don't] want to have enough sick or dead people, before you take action, to prevent harm...". Apparently, there's not enough data about cell phones leading to death simply because we don't want people to die. The current evidence infers that we should have minimal concerns for this issue. Does that make this public health warning unethical, or just proactively cautious? A brief review of the clinical research is here. I personally think this is worth losing his position over. In my view panic-inducing pseudo-concern ends up with a backlash against science. We should trust our MDs to advise us for our health, and this is not currently a health issue. If the research changes that in a decade, we can talk about it then.

Last I read there was some supporting evidence for this position. In fact, IIRC, the official position is that while vaccinations may cause other health risks, any associated side effects effect a much small population than an unvaccinated population. Simple fact is, there isn't enough information to disprove such positions. And, like cell phones, some studies do indicate their use may have negative side effects.

Now then, I'm not saying he's right. What I am saying, your statement seems to imply he's crazy for taking such a position while in reality, you taking such a position seems to imply the same about you. It's probably best to simply accept, while unlikely, it's still possible. The jury is still out.

Just some food for thought.

The jury is not still out, and you must have last read about it in 1998, before that study was retracted and corrected. Larger studies since have found zero link between MMR vaccinations and autism. Here's what the CDC has to say on the matter.

Also, study after study has found no statistical link between cell phone use and cancer. Additionally, the output of a typical cell phone is about 100 milliwatts; this is so small as to be insignificant.

So yes, continuing to espouse such theories when they have been consistently shown to be false and relying on irrational fear instead of a discussion of facts can be considered crazy. By all means keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.

Actually even that's disputable...

Well no, not seriously. The increased risk of thyroid cancer is documented, and while thyroid cancer itself is rarely fatal, treatment for it is usually removal of part or all of the thyroid gland, which causes problems all of its own, but people don't talk about that when they flout that nobody died "from cancer" due to three mile island.

How about an actual health problem that only happens with the finely particlized version of an otherwise harmless product? here.

The ability of nanoparticles to pass the blood-brain barrier is documented and is even being exploited for novel medical treatments. Many products we use daily are generally considered safe only because they do not penetrate the lungs, skin, or blood-brain barrier. This doesn't mean nanomaterials are automatically dangerous but it does mean that they cannot be presumed to be safe simply because the non-nano particle version is safe. Even where a substance is generally considered safe if ingested, a version with nano-particle carriers cannot be assumed safe.

In the field of health and safety, no evidence for safety means it's NOT to be considered safe. Since we know that nanoparticles can interact with biological systems differently than larger particles of the same substance, we know that we cannot infer safety of a nanomaterial based on the safety of larger particles of the same substance.

It really stands to reason. If nanomaterials DIDN'T behave in novel ways compared to micro and larger materials, they wouldn't be interesting at all.

As others have pointed out, asbestos is a great analogy. When fired into stoneware, it's perfectly harmless. When pulled into fibers it causes a serious and often fatal medical condition over a period of years with few advance warning signs.

brac gene (breast cancer)

I believe you intended to refer to BRCA1 and BRCA2

you don't want this info getting to insurance companies

I could've sworn I saw a story here not too long ago about federal legislation banning insurance companies from discriminating against people on the basis of genetic testing. However, this factsheet from the National Cancer Institute indicates otherwise. If possible, it would seem testing yourself anonymously would indeed be prudent.

Cancer rates have DECREASED over the last several years. (http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2005/results_merged/sect_01_overview.pdf WARNING: PDF) What most fail to recognize is that the perceived increase is a combination of increased news access and increased numbers but the actual per capita numbers are trending down. So while living longer and preventing or surviving other diseases grant ample increased opportunity to get cancer, better living has also saved many from that fate. {Examining the other data at this site will probably indicate that some cancers are on the rise, as well as cancer incidents in some populations being on the rise. The PDF I linked to shows the overall trend.)

No, they said "rates" have increased, not "numbers".

Who is this "they" person? from the US National Cancer Institute:

Overall cancer incidence rates (the rates at which new cancers are diagnosed) for both sexes and all races combined declined slightly from 1992 through 2004. Incidence rates for female breast cancer dropped substantially from 2001 through 2004.

The press release goes on to talk about possible reasons for various cancers. It actually gets pretty complicated when you try to make sweeping generalizations. It likely means very little biologically (the sweeping generalization statement).

The thesis that EMF from cell phones increases brain cancers has been researched exhaustively. The fact that no clear trend has emerged from numerous, large studies indicates that any effect, if any effect indeed exists, is tiny and inconsequential.

These folks are loons.

Basically everyone I've known who has died, has died of cancer. It drives me crazy that we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars to avenge the deaths of 3,000 people, while under four billion is spent on fighting cancer, which kills half a million people each year. It reminds me again how terrible people are at estimating risk.

References:
NCI budget
Cost of Iraq war
cancer deaths

• Breast: $551.1
• Colorectal: $249.1
• Lung: $261.9
• Prostate: $305.6
• Total budget: $4,750
  I have a close family member going through breast cancer chemo now, but since SETI's $3 million/year budget is 0.54% of breast cancer's research total or 0.06% of total US cancer research, I can't see it making a meaningful difference in cancer research. Note too that this is just the US cancer budget, other countries also spend lots on cancer research, which can't be said of SETI or similar programs.

You're right, GP is WAY high... but the "less than one percent of smokers" number is way low according to government statistics.

According to the US Gov the "lifetime risk", any random person's chance of getting lung cancer before s/he dies, is about 7% max. Getting it is pretty much a death sentence though, as less than 1 in 5 will survive after five years.

The Dana Reeve case pointed out to pop culture that you can get lung cancer without smoking. Roughly 10 percent of men and 20 percent of women who develop lung cancer are non-smokers. Assuming a roughly even split between men and women, we'll say 15% of lung cancer cases are non-smokers. That means the other 85% of that original 7% have smoked at some point in their lives... Let's round that to 6% of lung cancer cases are smokers. Knowing that about 20% of the US population smokes... that gives us percentages of people who will develop lung cancer before death:

• Smokers = (0.06/0.2=0.3) 30%
• Non-Smokers = (0.01/0.8=0.0125) approximately 1.3%

You're right, GP is WAY high... but the "less than one percent of smokers" number is way low according to government statistics.

According to the US Gov the "lifetime risk", any random person's chance of getting lung cancer before s/he dies, is about 7% max. Getting it is pretty much a death sentence though, as less than 1 in 5 will survive after five years.

The Dana Reeve case pointed out to pop culture that you can get lung cancer without smoking. Roughly 10 percent of men and 20 percent of women who develop lung cancer are non-smokers. Assuming a roughly even split between men and women, we'll say 15% of lung cancer cases are non-smokers. That means the other 85% of that original 7% have smoked at some point in their lives... Let's round that to 6% of lung cancer cases are smokers. Knowing that about 20% of the US population smokes... that gives us percentages of people who will develop lung cancer before death:

• Smokers = (0.06/0.2=0.3) 30%
• Non-Smokers = (0.01/0.8=0.0125) approximately 1.3%

They've only seen reproduction in neural stem cells and glial cells. Neurons lack centrioles so they cannot reproduce. There is evidence of neural stem cells reproducing in the hippocampus and olfactory areas.

You speak as if any treatment that is less than 100% is worthless. Gardisil which immunizes against HPV strains 16 and 18 will act against strains which prevent 60 to 70 percent of cervical cancer. According to your logic, it's not worth immunizing people against polio, because it doesn't protect against 100% of causes of paralysis.

<fanboi mode on>

When you use the word "platform" I'm assuming we're talking about the OS itself, i.e. excluding the applications. I'm not very familiar with MS Windows but I think Linux is doing excellent qua performance and stability, witness that it can be used for embedded applications (thanks a lot to FSF's gcc and binutils, methinks), can be used for real-time (with modifications, but I thought they are going to be folded into the mainline kernel), is quite secure (selinux) and most of all is usable for serious computing: how many of the top-500 supercomputers run a kind of Linux (on at least some of the nodes)? At first glance I'd say about 70%. How many run *any* special edition of MS Windows, or other non-unix-like OS? At first glance I'd say 0%. Can you imagine what a boost this is for e.g. HIV and cancer research (paragraph 3 on the page)? Now imagine the real-life effects on society, if research centers were forced to use Microsoft software. To how many CPUs does that scale? Let's not even get started on "Windows for Warships" (for brits and maybe argentinos: listen to their sci-fi radio show -- but I digress).

<fanboi mode off/>

Of course that doesn't imply Linux is also a good desktop platform but I can't at the moment think of any OS feature that is specific for desktop use and that Linux can't provide. I may be a fanboi but yes, I'd say "Linux is better than MS Windows" (njaa njaa njaa etc.; penile length etc.).

Now how this translates to "has the best applications" is a completely different matter, for which technical excellence is much less important than inertia, portability of existing software, existing market share, and marketing (Microsoft marketing budget for Windows XP was $ 1 000 000 000 BTW; I'd say that compensates a lot).

You like having asbestos dust in the air produced from brake pads?

If the risk of my dying in a car accident due to using inferior brake pads is higher than the risk of dying from cancer due to breathing in asbestos dust, then yes. I would rather have asbestos dust in the air from brake pads.

As for the effect of dust from brake pads, in the fact sheet from the National Cancer Institute of the NIH (in question 4, second paragraph) it states that there was no detectable increase in lung cancers or mesothelioma among mechanics working on brake systems. Now, if people working close up with asbestos pads aren't getting sick from the dust, then I'm not too worried about the asbestos either...but I am worried about not being in an accident

In conclusion, while we'd all prefer brake pads without asbestos and great stopping capacity, we should prefer the more effective braking pads with asbestos over the poorer braking pads without.

Disclaimer: I'm not a car nut, so I'm going on the assumtion that the new non-asbestos organic brake pads are in fact inferior.

This is a relatively new vaccine. Based on the high incidence of side effects of the vaccine and its relative newness, there is a gamble.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is a national, non-profit educational organization founded in 1982. Located in Vienna, Virginia, NVIC is the oldest and largest parent-led organization advocating reformation of the mass vaccination system and is responsible for launching the vaccine safety movement in America in the early 1980's.

Wrong.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/understandingca ncer/angiogenesis/Slide5

I don't know if it is open but if it is not it should be.

Not all public research data is open or publicly available. For instance the NCI, National Cancer Institute, spent $183,000,000 developing Taxol, a drug used in the treatment of cancer. What did the NCI do with the research data it came up with? It sold the data to BMS, Bristol-Myers Squibb, for $43,000,000. Not only did BMS pay less than 1/4 the cost of developing Taxol but it also got exclusive rights to the research. It was estimated that in 2000 BMS was to make $1,000,000,000, one billion dollars, in sales of Taxol, and another billion per year thereafter.

Well, I disagree with the statement about the FDA, but that's an argument for another time. Other sources include: MHRA http://www.mhra.gov.uk/home/idcplg?IdcService=SS_G ET_PAGE&nodeId=433&within=Yes&keywords=laetrile/, Cancer Research UK: http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page =21859/ and the USA National Cancer Research Institute http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/laetril e/Patient/page2/.

The wikipedia article linked previously also has a good summary.

Actually, there is already quite a bit of public money invested in biomedical research. The NIH budget is about 28 billion dollars (one of the major reasons why the U.S. is a world research leader, by the way).

Well, if NIH funds:

• The research to identify the chemical or biological compounds which may produce the correct action in human bodies to affect a disease/condition.
• The research to determine the correct formulation to properly deliver the drug when used
• The 5,000-10,000 animal safety studies and analysis to prove the drug is likely to be safe in humans.
• The development of the optimized manufacturing process for both the bulk drug and the final formulated pill.
• The multi year, multi arm, 5,000-20,000 human patient efficacy and safety clinical trials and analysis to prove the drug actually works, works better than the current standard of care, and is acutally safe when taking by millions of humans.
• And works with the FDA, patient advocacy groups, other research institutions and medical associations to try to ensure that the results of all this work is scientifically sound, or at least as sounds as it can reasonably be made.

Then that NIH funded drug should be made open to all manufacturers.

What the NIH mostly does is fund basic research into diseases or conditions. They do a great job of that; look at the GAIN collaboration or the NCI's caBIG project. This is critical because that helps identify the biological targets and mechanisms required to treat the condition; or develops new ways to interpret the clinical data to better understand biology. But this only gets us to the first step of the list above.

It is NOW about NAFTA shipping jobs out of the country to the benefit of a few owners.

Are you sure it's only for the benefit of a few people? The people RECIEVING the jobs are certainly benefiting.

Actually Mexicans are seeing those jobs that were sent to Mexico after NAFTA was approved being sent to China. Meanwhile because US agribusinesses can send corn and other foodstuff to Mexico cheaper than Mexican farmer can grow it Mexican farmers are being driven off their farms thus we have all of those "illegal immigrants". And businesses aren't able to sale produce in Mexico cheaper just because they can grow and ship it cheaper but because of the billions of dollars agribusinesses get in subsidies.

I'd argue that a country with many higher-skilled and workers is better than one with many low skill production workers (the primary type of job outsourced). We should be trying to increase the skill levels of our workers,

I agree but what jobs are being created in the US? Flipping burgers? Even professional jobs are being outsourced such as accounting, programming, and radiology. Yes accounting jobs are being sent to India as are programming and radiology jobs wherein xrays and such are interpreted.

It is about hiring illegals to avoid taxes - again so owners can profit AND avoid paying taxes.

That's a problem, but it's a tax regulation problem, not a market problem.

Actually what many don't know in the US is that the IRS has issued dummy SSNs and about 8 million "illegal aliens" use them for work and pay income taxes on their earnings. They also pay into medicare and social security just as anyone else with an ssn that is legally employed, however because they are illegal they can't use medicare or ever collect social security, not unless they become legal. Illegal aliens pay about $50 billion into Social Security a year, if it weren't for them SS would go bankrupt much sooner than it will otherwise.

It is about academic researchers doing research with gov money and then personally patenting discoveries tax payers paid for in order to charge exhorbant "license" fees.

I am not familiar with this effect.

I don't know examples of this but I know of an example of government research being given to a corporation who then made a killing off the research. The NCI, the National Cancer Institute is part of the NHI or National Health Institute, spent $183 million developing Taxol for the Pacific Yew tree as a chemical treatment for different types of cancer such as breast cancer. The NCI then "sold" the right to the exclusive use of the clinical data used to have Taxol approved by the FDA to Bristol Myers Squibb for $43 million if I recall right. It was estimated that by 2000 BMS would make $1 billion a year in profits off of Taxol. BMS has gotten the cost of Taxol down to cents a dose yet it cost thousands of dollars for a patient to go through a treatment regime. I understand pharmaceutical companies need to be able to pay for all the research they do but BMS never did any research to have Taxol approved, instead taxpayers did and patients are getting ripped off. But you're right it's a government granted monopoly.

I lost a dear friend to breast cancer in 1998 but I think it's screwy to focus so much on it. Look at this PDF table from the National Cancer Institute. It shows that estimated deaths from digestive system cancers (136,180) will be more than triple the number of deaths from breast cancer (41,430) this year. Both figures are for both male and female deaths. Even when you look at just female deaths, digestive system cancers will kill half again as many women as breast cancer will (60,970 vs. 40,970).

Another example of misplaced public health priorities due to the publicity machine.

>the "secondhand-smoke" hysteria genuinely was shoddy pseudoscience

Reading carefully, it looks like this might have been speaking hypothetically. If not:

Are you referring to the peer-reviewed EPA report EPA/600/6-90/006F, or to the Surgeon General's report on second-hand smoke, or to the National Cancer Institute, or to the articles in this bibliography, or to the Journal of the American Medical Association, or to the American Heart Association, or to another article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, or to the British Medical Journal?

This is the interesting part, I thought: "The researchers also have isolated TCRs that recognize common cancers other than melanoma."

At least for research funded by the United States National Institute of Health (NIH), there are very stringent requirements designed to prevent abuse of subjects. There is a short free online course describing such here.

Prisoners, for example, are given special protections precisely since they are in a disadvantageous position. I think you will agree that the policies described are very well considered.

"And after it gets thru all the proper channels, approval stages, etc in the USA we're talking the year 2050 at the earliest."

Would you rather have another thalidomide baby?

Uh, no. HPV is a major cause of cervical cancer. So much so that a HPV vaccine is being hailed as a cure for cervical cancer.

You can read more about HPV and cancer here:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/ HPV

Since normally something like 1 in 4 persons will get some form of cancer during their life, this number cannot be true, unless you are only referring to certain rare types of cancer.

I googled for you and found:

• Childhood leukaemia around processing plants such as Sellafield was claimed to have increased by a factor 14. [ref]
• The normal incidence rate for above disease is about 50 per million children per year [PDF], i.e. a very small number. Ten times a small number is still a small number and the numbers are still debated for only having a marginal statistical significance (how many children live in the neighborhood of Sellafield?)
• Sellafield used to -deliberately- dump radioactive waste directly into the sea. (ref). I suppose this is not the case in modern reprocessing plants.

So why ignore the obvious? If American healthcare is so broken, why are cancer survival rates almost uniformly higher (and usually by a good %) than in Europe? Look it up, the data is there.

The references I see, don't obviosly say that: US mortality rate of 27 out of 135 ... vs. UK survival rate of 80% for breast cancer in the 1998-2001 period. Which is identical.

Not that I'd total trust the above stats. either way. For instance I'm not sure that the stats. are calculated in the same way ... it doesn't account for either country not diagnosing the cancer etc. What you really want is total number of people dying, or being sick, say (oh, wait ... that's what the article was about).