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Once again, this is one of those science fiction articles based on someone with a minimum of knowledge in the field and a vivid imagination. Pipe dream doesn't even begin to describe what is proposed in the article. Having a genome != knowing biological effects, relevance or disruptability. If DNA codons are the letters of life, the genome is simply a list of all the words used. Because I have a copy of webster's on my desk does not mean I have a copy of every book published. Ugh.

People do become immune to flu; it didn't help
Sure it did. The epidemic ended and we are still here.

-Ted

Some problems -

It will probably be possible to make a virus which would require the presence of certain specific DNA elements in order to replicate i.e. to infect a host.

What will be distinctly trickier is to make such a virus and prevent it from mutating, perhaps so as to no longer require such specific DNA elements before replicating. Unlike humans (and complex organisms) which have elaborate machineries for detecting and fixing errors in DNA replication, viruses have none.

The first moral - analogies from computer science only apply to DNA up to a point. After that point they break down badly. Organisms are not Turing machines.

The second moral - the genetically engineered anti-[insert your pet hate group here]-virus is quite likely to turn around and exterminate you.

Before building your bio-weapon read something like Paul Ewald's book on 'The Evolution of Infectious Disease' or this article. Better yet, don't.

Please back up statements like "most teenagers are depressed" with some references to studies that bear this out. I don't think the rate of teenage depression is any different than the rate of adult depression-- and I certainly don't think this rate exceeds 50% at any given point in time (almost everyone is depressed at some point). According to the CDC, persons 19 and under commit suicide at a lower rate than adults in the U.S. I think we are being fed a lot of misinformation about self-esteem and the mental state of teenagers-- the time has come to be more skeptical of strong claims from the psychiatric field, especially as they gain more credibility and influence over policy-making.

As to the incident in the story, I don't think you leave your son at home alone after an incident like this. You sit with him, you find him a lawyer, you discuss it for a bit, you take away his computer, you yell at him, you get him to yell at you, you go out for ice cream and a walk around a lake or in a park, you go home and watch TV, have dinner, make sure that the boy can deal with 10 days of unsupervised life, or figure out what he's going to do when he's not in school and on his own, something, anything but go back to work. But that's easy for me to say, I wasn't there.

That's funny, I thought the CDC was more interested in wiping out Ebola and AIDS...

Of course, it could always be (successfully) argued that governments ARE, in fact, a disease...

Hmm...

You might be sleeping comfortably one night when suddenly your sleep is disturbed by a mosquito biting you. If you have strong worldly concern, strong desire for comfort, you will be very annoyed at being bitten by the mosquito. Just being bitten, by just one mosquito. It is nothing dangerous, nothing that can cause any serious disease.

Actually, this is totally incorrect in some parts of the world. The Anopheles mosquito carries Malaria, and transmits it to humans when it bites them. Also, mosquitoes are known to carry other diseases such as West Nile Virus. While I do agree with many of the tenets of Buddhism, this statement is ironic in light of the fact that many of the world's large Buddhist populations live in areas where malaria is prevalent (e.g. India, Indonesia, and SE Asia.

This fact has found its way up here before, but every year over 2000 American kids under 19 years old are killed - by suicide.

Strangely, that doesn't seem to make the evening news. So they sensationalize the killings, but then they COMPLETELY IGNORE the fact that for each of these killers, there are a THOUSAND or so who give in to the same real pressures (which are not video games) but quietly take only their own lives?

Look, you don't want to kill yourself after playing a video game. Anyone who can't tell the difference between a video game and real life probably also should never have been promoted to high school in the first place. The point is - the real problem is systemic, and it's not entertainment or whatever passes for it. It's the fact that the high schools that I and my friends remember were damn inhumane places to be for four years.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here. But this is something that I wish would get noticed - these few killings almost make a red herring to the fact that a huge number of deaths occur in this country, and actually only a small number of these kids take action against anyone but themselves.

Facts about suicide: More people die from suicide than from homicide in the U.S. Every day approximately 86 Americans commit suicide, and 1500 people attempt it. Nationwide in 1997, 21 percent of high school students had seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, and 8 percent had attempted suicide. Females are more likely than males to attempt suicide; males are more likely to die in their first attempt.

Quotes from the Center for Disease Control: http://www.cdc.gov/safeusa/suicide.htm

America has slowly become more aware of school violence in the past decade. This is perhaps a poor assessment of the reality: "less that 1% of all homicides among school-aged children (5-19 years of age) occur in or around school grounds or on the way to and from school." In addition, about 2% of all serious disciplinary offenses occurring in schools, during school hours were violent altercations involving a firearm or other weapon; approximately 105 violent deaths (1994 to 1996) (85 of which considered murder) occurred on campuses in a two year period, not all of them necessarily deliberate or with a gun. Perhaps a crusade against heart disease would save more lives than against school shootings, but the vivid imagery of "the media" presents school violence as a serious problem. While school violence is a problem, it is not the problem; the value placed upon school violence is absurd. Despite any irrationality behind its hubbub, school violence illuminates a more complex problem than bloodshed in schools. School violence demonstrates an utter depravity and lack of humanitarianism in the current generation; the carnage in schools represents a more acute difficulty than the deaths of 105 students. The carnage in schools represents the cruelty of an idle humanity.

America has, in a sense, become too luxurious for its own good. It has stagnated. Up until the end of World War II, America was occupied. The American Revolution, westerly expansion, the Civil War, industrialization, the Spanish-American War, World War I, a quick bout of depression, and World War II all kept America's hands full for almost 200 years. America is similar, in many ways, to the Roman Empire: it grew and grew, always occupied with an invasion (three Punic Wars kept Rome busy for almost 200 years, for instance) or further expansion. Rome's breaking point was reached, however, and its modus operandi failed it. An idle Senate and great class-battles weakened Rome, allowing northern barbarians to take over. The U.S. grew and was constantly occupied, mainly with fighting, but has reached the limit of the capitalist mode; like Rome, the classes have massive contrast, and, like Rome, there is no overriding societal goal. In short, America has ADHD and nothing to do.

The only solution for so great a problem - the dawdling of a society - is collapse. Society is a phoenix, and it hastily approaches its nadir. America has two choices: either attempt a societal, cultural, and political revolution and suffer the fate of Bolshevik Russia; or accept its own demise gracefully and come out that much the better for it.

Sources:
CDC Media: Facts About Violence Among Youth and Violence in Schools
U.S. Department of Education: Principal/School Disciplinarian Survey on School Violence (see second table)

You can find the CDC's data on "Youth Risk Behavior Trends" Here. Though, you'll notice that it doesn't suggest a rise in suicide.

Another document, which is here(pdf) also doesn't support the trend suggested. It should be noted that this does not include data from 1999 or 2000, but from the information in the prior link, it doesn't seem that the rate jumped as dramatically as was speculated.

You can find the CDC's data on "Youth Risk Behavior Trends" Here. Though, you'll notice that it doesn't suggest a rise in suicide.

Another document, which is here(pdf) also doesn't support the trend suggested. It should be noted that this does not include data from 1999 or 2000, but from the information in the prior link, it doesn't seem that the rate jumped as dramatically as was speculated.

Here (warning, it is a big, 4 MB, file) are some homicide rate statistics that suggest that you could safely live in many places in the US, although there are a few scary places also.

Some results are expected -- like men are more likely to be involved. Others are unexpected -- suicide makes up for more than half of the deaths rather than murder.

Seriously, humans can't even share diseases with most other mammals.

Yeah - except for a few exceptions. Example:

Creutzfeld-Jakob variants
AIDS

Get it ?

Thomas Miconi

That's not to say it couldn't spread at all, on a more limited basis, but just that statistically, you're incredibly unlikely to become infected by it. You're far more likely to get AIDS from your dentist... ;)

Here's what the page has to say about airborne transmission:

The Ebola-Reston virus subtype, which was first recognized in a primate research facility in Virginia, may have been transmitted from monkey to monkey through the air in the facility. While all Ebola virus subtypes have displayed the ability to be spread through airborne particles (aerosols) under research conditions, this type of spread has not been documented among humans in a real-world setting, such as a hospital or household.

We can produce an environment almost completely without bacteria/parasites/disease: (space, for instance)

Wow, I didn't know we produced space! :-)

In essence, the point is just that while other animals may exploit humans, we choose to let them exploit us, whereas they have no choice as to whether or not we exploit them.

Check out the Center for Disease Control. Depending on what you mean by "exploited", one could easily argue that we choose not to be exploited by bacteria or viruses, but are slowly losing that fight, despite all our efforts.

Think of it this way: if we founded a colony on Mars, and that colony brought no bacteria/domesticated animals, well, they wouldn't be able to exploit us then, would they?

The trouble is that we humans are so infested with all sorts of bacteria that we can't go anywhere without bringing them along. And as for domesticated animals... you'll probably get pretty hungry that way, since we would have nothing to eat (in your arguement, there's really no reason why you shouldn't lump plants into the same category as animals). We are dependant upon other life forms for food, just as a lot of other species are.

Simply put: 'dominion' is actually somewhat the correct word for it. Humans are now capable of doing whatever we want to any living species on the planet.

Last I heard, there was still no cure for the HIV virus, and the mosquito has been doing quite well even though it's in our best interest to get rid of it.

Plus, if we ever do migrate off-planet, then we have the potential to become the longest-lived animal species, which definitely qualifies as the most successful by Nature's definition.

Uhh, longest-lived how? Blue-green algae has been pretty much unchanged for billions of years. Sharks (a complex and intelligent animal) have had the same general biology for millions. Homo Sapiens have existed for a tens of thousands; we've had civilization (the first stage of environmental control) for a few thousand, and any real impact on the world as a whole for a few hundred. We've got a lot of catching up to do in order to become the longest-lived species.

Just so that I'm not making a colossal mistake here, were you trying to get a +1 Funny for your post?

--

For example, lets say that you're with an opponent, and they foolishly ask you to get them a drink. You bring back a can that has a PostIt® note on the bottom that says "Cyanide". If they drink the can without noticing the note, you get a point and they lose one. Or you can plant an alarm clock somewhere, with a PostIt® note reading "Bomb". Anyone in the room when it goes off loses a point apiece, and you get them all.

P.S. This was back in 1976, before the term "LARP" was invented. Ah, the good old days, before all those new-fangled computers showed up.

It cannot be stressed enough that the American Red Cross and the FDA consistently agree that the current blood supply is safe and no patients have been harmed.

Here are a few facts I dug up:

• Something like 150 computers become obsolete every minute.
• A typical 60-pound computer contains 35 pounds of currently unrecyclable substances of varying toxicity.
• More than a tenth of those 35 pounds are typically of lead.
• Lead attacks the nervous system, blood system and kidneys in humans. It has a well-documented and deleterious effect on children's brain development.

I've collected some information on computer recycling (the link to documentation of lead's effect on children's brains is bad; here is a better one).

On another topic, chromium causes cancer yet most vitamin manufactures insist on putting it into their formulas. Why I do not know.

Chromium is essential to your body's management of fat and blood sugar, IIRC, but only needed in doses of 20-40 microgrammes. Almost everything we need is toxic in quantity. Refined sugar is extremely toxic, that is why it is used to preserve food (eg fruit as jam/marmalade/jelly).
- Derwen

In the event of a tank rupture (I'm assuming a car would be carrying a good quantity of liquid nitrogen, but perhaps I'm wrong) the hazards from liquid nitrogen are twofold: Freezing and suffocation.

If you are really close to the tank when it ruptures, you have a good chance of getting frozen. If the nitrogen has to fly through air as a thin stream for several feet, it won't likely hurt you. I've had liquid nitrogen poured (purposefully) onto my hand in a pencil thick stream from about 4 feet above it. By the time it had reached my hand it was very close to boiling and vaporized quite rapidly in my hand. It "danced" in my hand like water on a hot skillet (CMA disclaimer: I do not recommend repeating this without a trained cryogenic gas safety expert present, you could be seriously injured if you mess this up). However, having 20 gallons of liquid N dumped in your lap from 1' away would be quite lethal. It is all a matter of range and quantity.

However being in a nice enclosed space like a car presents another hazard from liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen expands a LOT, and strangely does not contain any oxygen. If your nitrogen tank bursts and vents into the cabin of your car, it will drive all the air out of it. If you are unconscious or too dazed to get out of the car quickly you could suffocate very quickly. (it does not take more than 2 or 3 breaths of pure nitrogen before your blood O2 drops enough to make you pass out anyway). The resulting gas is also cold, thus denser than air and will not "float away" on it's own.

Admittedly CO2 presents a much bigger suffocation hazard, but that too is generally not used in enclosed spaces. I guess I am also ignoring the forceful explosion hazzard caused by the rapid expansion of liquid nitrogen insided an enclosed space, but this post is getting too long :) A fuller outlook may be had by consulting the international chemical safety card for nitrogen (courtesy of the CDC).

However, as I pointed out, all new technologies have associated risks. Would you support xenotransplant experiments if you felt that sufficient precautions were taken, and if the benefits outweighed the risks? If so, under what conditions? For example, if the pigs were raised in a sterile enclosure, would that satisfy you that the risk of disease transmission was low enough to proceed with the experiments? What if transplant recipients were monitored weekly for 5 years post transplant for signs of infection?

As you point out, we are already subject to substantial risk of disease transmission from pigs. Yet is it appropriate to discriminate against potential xenotransplant recipients, who, after all, depend upon transplants for their lives? Why not shut down all pig farms as well? The existence of pig farms,if we accept the argument above, led to the existence of a virulent strain of swine flu that killed 27-50 million people, after all. If we're willing to tolerate pig farms in order to have bacon for breakfast, can we not tolerate a somewhat higher risk of disease in order to save people's lives?

What benefits do xenotransplants offer? Xenotransplants offer benefits to everyone, not just those currently on transplant waiting lists. No doubt you would regard it as a terrible tragedy if everyone on the face of the earth died instantly in a nuclear holocaust. Would it be any less of a tragedy if they all died in a day? A week? A year? A hundred years? Yet all of us face physical decline and eventual death unless we figure out how to stop/reverse aging. For example, heart disease is the number one cause of death in the U.S. In 1997, according to the National Center for Health Statisitics, 730,000 people died from heart disease. If healthy, young hearts were inexpensive and readily available, we could replace everyone's heart when they turned 50, prevent most of those deaths, and buy those people many more years of life. Likewise, all of the other organs could be similarly replaced. But this is not an option if organs remain rare, expensive, and difficult to obtain. Xenotransplants can change that.

yes, you're right, it seems i was. i'm glad you responded anyway; you asked some good questions.

i got my data from Helen Caldicott, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, regarded by some as an extremist (read: aggressively radical), regarded by others as aggressively logical, regarded by many as an irritant. I could not re-find the original citation, & so was forced to make do with information from the Agency for Toxic Substances and disease Registry. This site does paint a much less grim picture: it states that 1400 pCi/kg body weight causes bone cancer in 4 years. A pCi is equivalent to one-billionth of an mCi; one mCi of plutonium 239 weighs .016 grams. I'm assuming NASA used Pu -239, not Pu -238, which has a much higher toxicity (one mCi weighs .00006 gm). So the upshot is 2.24-8 g/kg body weight is enough to give a person bone cancer in 4 years & therefore .00000152 grams would be carcinogenic to a 150 lb (68kg) person.

nonetheless, that same site lists the Annual Limit on Intake of Pu-239 as 20,000 pCi, which is equivalent to 3.2-7 g, or three millionths of a gram. It does not, however, say what the result of exceeding this limit would be.

Yet NASA's Final Environmental Impact Statement warns of the dangers of "inadvertent reentry," stating that if the Cassini disintegrates, dispersing the plutonium, "5 billion of the estimated 7 to 8 billion world population at the time ... could receive 99 percent or more of the radiation exposure." This condition would necessitate the banning of future agricultural land use and the permanent relocation of the population in any affected urban area.

Originally I had thought that solar power was a viable alternative. Visiting the European Space Research and Technology Centre shows that it is not.

I suppose that now is the time to hang the tie-dyed dancing teddy bears, but it seems to me that if the best safe option is not feasible, perhaps the mission should not be flown at all. The risk of a necessary "permanent relocation" of entire urban areas seems unacceptable to me, especially if we are still theoretically practicing democracy.

As far as the media goes, I think media outlets--especially the conglomerates, or the ones owned by conglomerates--generally hesitate to dig into little-known government scandals, since the government is one of its main sources of information. For instance, a reporter can simply report verbatim what a government agent has said, and feel secure in not verifying it. (I have done the same thing above, perhaps naively).

Civilian reports, on the other hand, require research and verification, which is time-consuming and expensive. Therefore reporters lean towards government sources since it is more expedient and generally puts them in a better light with their bosses, since they don't have to authorize unusual expenditures. Smaller for-profit venues don't have the funds for extensive investigations; not-for-profits are anomalies to be commended.

I do not think this is a conspiracy theory; i think it is simply the result of businesses doing what businesses do, which is attempt to make money. I'm probably safe in saying that media corporations are still corporations, which have as their explicit goal the accumulation of capital.

Theres a distinct parallel with this and an OS choice. exists primarily to empower the user.

Well, one notable difference is that when Windows crashes, you don't die. I hope you realize that your favorite toy is the leading non-disease cause of death for Americans. (check out the really cool & flexible database search I got that link from, btw)

I'm kinda OT here--you were complaining about George Jetson cars, not car alternatives, but the attitude that a personal four-seat internal combustion vehicle is a fundamental human right is beginning to get to me. Have you been downtown in a major city lately? I live near Boston, and Car Culture is killing the pleasure of being outdoors in my city. The noise, the stink, the endless loops of oppressive asphalt are choking any sort of pleasure in walking around in public places. And it's not like the motorists are happy either--they're stuck in frustrating jams because a car is not a good tool for getting around a city

Some other tangential points:

The Times bit about the personal-bubble rails is telling (see, I did have something to say about the actual article!). God forbid that you should actually have to associate with your fellow human beings on your way to work! Perhaps we can refine the technology further and have the rails run inside of buildings as well. Then you'd never have to leave your cube at all--what bliss!

It's fascinating when people get outraged over the price of gas--after all, everyone knows what it should cost, right? Gas should cost what it did when I first got my driver's license. If the price rises much above that, someone must be cheating.

You think wrong. Unless the surgeon is having unprotected sex with the patient, the risk of transmission is small.

Take a look at the CDC's recommendations for preventing the transmission of HIV by health care workers. They recommend a review by a panel of experts and informed consent from the patient, not a blanket ban.

I would rather be operated on by a HIV positive, expert surgeon than a HIV negative, mediocre surgeon.

The "bunny suits" really are just to protect the electronics from the workers, not the other way around. They are typically made of very light material, like Tyveck, a cheap platicised paper product, or a bi-layer plastic film. Tri-cloroethylene, acetone, HF, HNO3 will all go through most of these materials in less than a second. Cloth suits offer no protection at all. A full facemask filter, a "gasmask", only offers a 50 to 100 times safety margin (if it fits and the person knows how to use it). For chemical exposure, that's nothing. A facemask might allow you a couple of minutes of exposure, rather than a second or two. Gasmasks are for escape, not for long-term use.

Level A spill response for a fab, the first-in people, calls for a full-body, sealed butyl-rubber suit (~1/4" thick) with a self-contained, overpressure air supply. The full suits with air give you a couple of hours in most environments. If there's radionuclear sources present, as there are in some fabs, all bets are off. In that case, you send in a robot. Alternatively, you cover the place with concrete and cross you fingers....

Workers generally vastly over-rate their protective equipment. Most employers provide the bare minimums (or less) and then these are usually only to be used for escape during an emergency, not (usually) for chronic exposure. Anybody in an environment that hasn't been trained and isn't properly paranoid about the chemicals they are using is a nutbar. Avoid them if you can. On the bright side, you usually don't have to plan retirement parties for these people either.

Some reference sites:
The US Govt. Hazmat site
and what should be every spill responder's bible:
The NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards

Kind Regards,

However, US iodine deficiency has quadrupled to 12%. Are people who are "eating healthy" by avoiding salt causing a problem?

For that matter, this New Scientist article caught my eye. This research shows that sperm count decrease may be simply due to iodized salt. What really caught my attention was the mention that iodine deficiency causes smaller brains. We may be smarter than our ancestors 80 years ago.

I knew that iodine is added to salt to prevent goiter, but had missed the medical knowledge that it also prevents cretinism. Iodine is needed for proper brain development. The high incidence (17-60%) of goiter in affected areas indicates the level of the problem (still 43 million people).

So until the 1920s, perhaps half of the world population was less intelligent than now. Is it a coincidence that as the first iodized generation suffused society we had many fields boom in the 1960s?

Here's a link if you want it, concerning the use of the BCG in the US: http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00041 047.htm

Tom.

There are at least three other books out there that cover similar concepts. Cobweb by Stephen Bury (aka Neal Stephenson) talks about anthrax biowar, Cobra Event by Richard Preston (yes, same guy as wrote Hot Zone (aka Outbreak)) deals with a home-made biowar agent, and Third Pandemic by Pierre Ouelette describes the situation of a naturally occurring mutation/blending of psittacosis, syphilis and salmonella.

There are at least three other books out there that cover similar concepts. Cobweb by Stephen Bury (aka Neal Stephenson) talks about anthrax biowar, Cobra Event by Richard Preston (yes, same guy as wrote Hot Zone (aka Outbreak)) deals with a home-made biowar agent, and Third Pandemic by Pierre Ouelette describes the situation of a naturally occurring mutation/blending of psittacosis, syphilis and salmonella.

They're out there, but their numbers are not large. Not large at all. They make up a tiny fraction of AIDS cases. The two main ways to acquire your very own HIV infection are: get buttfucked by a diseased male and have him tear the lining of your anus with his penis thrusts, and when he spurts his sperm into your anus, the virus is transmitted through the ruptured wall. The second is to share a needle with a diseased person. I don't know about you, but I won't use another person's toothbrush or even utensil utnil it's been washed in hot water...I certainly won't be injecting my veins with anything that's been soiled. The body's skin is terrific at repelling disease, and it takes some very specific behavior to pass HIV onto another person.

You don't believe me, do you? What's the opposite of a high-risk group? A low-risk group, is what. I realize it's terribly inconvenient to inject cold hard facts into an emotional subject such as acquiring HIV, but here are some numbers from the American Center for Disease Control, which is a highly-respected government agency which, if anything, has a left-leaning bias to its data rather than right-wing. Here's all the causes of AIDS from 1981 to the present.

Exposure Count

Male homosexual/bisexual contact 287576 (VALID)

IV drug use: female/hetero male 146359 (VALID)

Male homo/bisex cont + IV drug 37152 (VALID)

Hemophilia/coagulation disorder 4443 (VALID)

Hetero cont HIV+/indiv at risk 49764 (VALID)

Born in Pattern II country 0 (VALID)

Receipt blood/component/tissue 7888 (VALID)

Adult/adol other/undetermined 40618 (VALID)

Pediatric Hemophilia/coag dis 231 (VALID)

Mother HIV+ or at risk 6891 (VALID)

Ped receipt blood/component/tiss 373 (VALID)

Pediatric undetermined 134 (VALID)

Count of AIDS Cases as of December 1996, By EXPOSURE, Ages 0- 65+ (N=581,429)

As we can see, pediatric (little kid's) AIDS cases of all causes combined are at a grand total of 1.3% (7629 out of 581,429). Men fucking each other in the poop chute make up 49.4%, and drug users who injected themselves with filthy needles make up 25.2% of all AIDS patients. None of the other causes is above 8.6%. I realize it's terribly rude to point these things out, but nonetheless anyone can point their web browser at wonder.cdc.gov and roll their own statistics. These statistics look even worse if you limit them to a certain area instead of the whole USA, such as San Francisco or New York City, and limit your search to males aged 20-39.

I'm sorry for injecting facts into an emotional discussion, but oh well, this is slashdot, after all...I'll probably get moderated to -5 seconds after I hit "Submit" by someone whose world view doesn't co-incide with The Truth.

Actually, the single largest group of poor people in this country (US) are white

I said *more likely*. Learn to read.It's useful. (Ok, might be different where you're from.)

I've been playing along with you so far because many people actually think the way you're talking, but this last is just too much of a stretch. Very few people are so ignorant that they will make that jump. Especially since statistically speaking (and this is where your fun lies, right?) most American Indians don't drink

Here's what the Center for Disease Control says:

Native Americans have the highest rate of YPLL due to each of these alcohol-associated causes of mortality, followed by blacks. In general, males of all races have a higher rate for each mortality cause than females. Native American females, however, have a higher rate of deaths attributable to alcoholic cirrhosis than either black or white males.

(Note: YPLL in the above quote refers to "years of potential life lost" See the link for more details.)

So there you go. Even the squaws are drunk. You stand corrected.

People: marijuana kills you.

Please back this statement up with facts. Cigarette smoking kills about half a million people annually, while according to this PBS "FrontLine" report there were "...too few deaths to meaningfully study the other main hypothesis, that marijuana use would be associated with increased respiratory disease mortality." and "...relatively few adverse clinical health effects from the chronic use of marijuana have been documented in humans."[references available at PBS site] In fact, Marijuana has no known LD 50, that is lethal dose in 50% of cases, not because data on health affects is lacking, but because no report has ever been filed of a death from Marijuana overdose. In fact, the only animal safety studies on Marijuana use ever completed killed vervet monkeys by asphyxiation from carbon dioxide poisoning, not from a drug overdose; showing that THC, while showing high efficacy, is one of the safest drugs known to man. It's safer than aspirin, buddy.

At best, you're slowly turning your brain into mush.

The psychological and brain physiological effects of Marijuana use simply aren't well known in the United States because the FDA has repeatedly refused to allow human studies. They won't even allow studies which purport to give marijuana to test subjects, when they are really only giving a placebo. However, anecdotal evidence from the lack of emergency room visits due to marijuana intoxication, compared to alcohol, cocaine, and heroin overdoses are telling. As the second most popular recreational drug in America, it causes fewer emergency room visits than all other drugs combined. Stick that in your pipe and smoke.

Marijuana use is at least as old as alcohol consumption, going back many thousands of years. And it's noted that today a large segment of society smokes pot without anywhere near the same level of ill health affects as alcohol. This is not to say that smoking pot is good for you in general, just that in comparison to alcohol, it's far safer.

I've seen people die because of marijuana. Either indirectly, because they were dumb enough to operate heavy machinery (namely cars and motorcycles) under the influence.

No doubt, anyone operating heavy machinery under the influence of any drug (even many prescribed medications) run risks associated with cognitive impairment. No one should drive a car while taking oxycodone, alcohol, or marijuana. Period.

Or directly, because they had really low blood preassure, and the first joint they tried made their blood preassure drop really low. There were a few people there, all of which, except for me, were stoned. I go "Hey, where's Tracy?" and they all start giggling. "She fell asleep!". Well, she didn't, she fainted and would have died if I haden't made her eat a whole bunch of cofee and salt.

This anecdote doesn't back your statement up. Sorry.

I don't see many folks bringing up hemp as an industrial resource, nor do I see many folks pointing to it's use as a medicine for the terminally ill. I've seen Marijuana work wonders for people dying of AIDS and know one person who swears it's what got him through Chemo-therapy alive. Yet our government continues it's war on citizens as though we can't manage our own bodies and personal lives without government interference. I have no problem with obeying traffic laws which state I must drive sober, but when our government puts good people away for long prison sentences simply because they were trying to live through a terminal illness, we have a serious problem with a political institution way out of touch with it's citizenry.

I support legalizing drugs, and believe that it ought to be up to the individual how he/she decides to live his/her life. Laws and the police should protect citizens from violent crime and fraud, not self abuse and self destruction; that's a job for psychiatrists and clergy.

I agree, modern ECT can be a useful treatment for many people. However, THE PATIENT (and/or their guardian) and the doctor make the call to use ECT. Turing had NO say in his "treatment." The British government ordered it or prison. I cannot agree that "... what Turing and others endured ... was needed to clarify what ECT has evolved into." A statement such as this would also support the syphilis "research" that the US government performed on uninformed African Americans as "needed to clarify" our modern treatment regime. Without informed consent, any treatment or research is a violation of a patient's rights.

You are quite right, homosexuality is no longer classified by the DSM as a mental illness. However, there are quite a few psychologists and psychiatrists who will commit someone because they identify as gay or because the family wants them committed. The diagnosis will not be homosexuality; instead it might be Depression, Obsessive / Compulsive behavior, or Sexual Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Simply removing homosexuality from the DSM is only another step on the long road to learning about and accepting the diversity that is human sexuality.

Related Links

Treatments - ECT

Tuskegee Syphilis Study and Aftershocks

Increasing the vigor of infectious diseases is not a sensible goal for biotechnology.

As you say, penecillin resistance is increasing. This

a) isn't a good thing
b) is avoidable; it's largely due to overuse, not use, of antibiotics, and can be slowed or even reversed if people are more sensible (see the CDC's discussion)
c) is EXACTLY analagous to what genegeneering pesticides into crops is likely to make happen.

Using Bt twice a season, when the bugs it attacks are multiplying, and leaving untouched reservoirs, allows nonresistant bugs to outcompete resistant ones - just not on our crops. Constant exposure to Bt, in monoculture fields, breeds for resistant bugs alone. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The biotech companies want to create these problems so they can sell the solutions, but there's no reason for the rest of us to let them.

Coyote survival is another warning sign - yes, coyotes can survive ecological attacks, as can cockroaches, rats, loosestrife, and bindweed. I have higher ambitions than living in an environment of weeds and scavengers - you can't eat bindweed, and I sure don't want to eat cockroaches.