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I drew my numbers from memory, but they're backed up here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12930930 [nih.gov], and slightly worse: 31% to 16%. If I read this correctly, it does NOT include salaries for doctors, only for employees engaged in administrative roles:

That's an interesting report but I have a few problems with it.

1. It does not measure administrative costs for all health care dollars. It excludes major portions of the health care industry such as pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.

2. It does include doctor salaries as administrative overhead based on the proportion of time (self-reported) that doctors spend on billing and other administrative costs.

We determined the proportion of physicians' work hours devoted to billing and administration from a national survey and multiplied this proportion by physicians' net income before taxes.

The problem is doctors in America earn almost twice as much as doctors in Canada.

3. It counts ALL expenses on private insurance as overhead.

In 1999 U.S. private insurers retained $46.9 billion of the $401.2 billion they collected in premiums. Their average overhead (11.7 percent) exceeded that of Medicare (3.6 percent) and Medicaid (6.8 percent).

That implies that insurance serves absolutely no purpose when it does things like combat fraud (which is more severe in Medicare/Medicaid and does not get counted as overhead). Obviously this gives an advantage to Canada since much more money is spent on private insurers in the US. Of course "Our analysis also omits the costs of collecting taxes to fund health care."

I think you're somewhat overstating the report's finding. It definitely shows that the US spends too much on administrative overhead, and that the US spends more than Canada in certain segments of health care. So there's a lot of room for improvement. But I don't think it can be applied to ALL health care costs.

There are many areas of financial inefficiency in American health care.

I definitely agree with that. And to me it's the more important problems. If you want to address financial inefficiency in the US health care system, you have to start at doctor salaries. They're too high. It's massively inefficient. Doctor salaries are the largest component of health care costs (even in your efficiency report the first component they studied was the "value" of doctors' time spent on administrative duties) and controlling them is the key to controlling health care costs. Our doctors make 2 - 5 times the money doctors make in other countries with health care systems that are pretty much as good as our own (not getting into life expectancy vs life style again, I think it's close enough to call them all about the same).

http://wallstreetpit.com/5769-the-medical-cartel-why-are-md-salaries-so-high

Canada: $100,781
US: $199,000

There's the bulk of your 45% cost difference.

Who cares if you "like" the argument? It only matters whether it's true or not.

I very much "dislike" your argument. I'd rather stand next to a busy road than next to a smoker. Smoke is much more potent in terms of crap that is deposited in your lungs, clothes, gadgets, etc.

Interesting stats. For smoking I was sure it was the other way.

Also, claiming 28% of ALL health care dollars goes to administrative costs makes me really skeptical. Unless you're counting stuff like doctor salaries as administrative

I drew my numbers from memory, but they're backed up here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12930930, and slightly worse: 31% to 16%. If I read this correctly, it does NOT include salaries for doctors, only for employees engaged in administrative roles:

For the United States and Canada, we calculated the administrative costs of health insurers, employers' health benefit programs, hospitals, practitioners' offices, nursing homes, and home care agencies in 1999. We analyzed published data, surveys of physicians, employment data, and detailed cost reports filed by hospitals, nursing homes, and home care agencies. In calculating the administrative share of health care spending, we excluded retail pharmacy sales and a few other categories for which data on administrative costs were unavailable. We used census surveys to explore trends over time in administrative employment in health care settings. Costs are reported in U.S. dollars.

You're correct that closing that gap wouldn't close the larger gap in overall health care spending. There are many areas of financial inefficiency in American health care. However, even if I grant that the difference in average life span is due entirely to non-medical factors, and assume that equalizing the non-medical factors would yield comparable life expectancies, you still have the fact that basically equivalent overall health care is vastly cheaper under a government run system.

Really, this is what perplexes me about American health care. In Medicare/Medicaid and the Veterans Administration, you effectively have UHC for certain segments of the population. While health care costs are growing for Medicare, they're growing faster in the private health care sector.

The per enrollee cost growth in Medicaid (6.1 percent) is lower than the per enrollee cost growth in comparable coverage under Medicare (6.9), private health insurance (10.6), and monthly premiums for employer-sponsored insurance (12.6).(source)

You have your own working models that demonstrate that UHC style programs are at least as effective as your overall system, and they're much cheaper.

There's a lot of denial here in the thread, though. If cellphones were conclusively proven to cause cancer, one gets the feeling people would cling to them the way people keep smoking cigarettes.

They've already been shown to cause changes in gene expression, cognitive impairment, thyroid damage, and up to a 9% reduction in life expectancy in rat studies.

The evidence that at least GSM-style cell phones cause harm (low frequency pulsing) is actually pretty significant. It seems likely that the only reason we're not seeing consistent statistically elevated death rates in human studies is that we're bigger, and thus more meat and bone to absorb the radiation before it would affect our internal organs.

At the very least, having seen some of these recent studies, I'm very much looking forward to LTE and the move away from GSM.

There's a lot of denial here in the thread, though. If cellphones were conclusively proven to cause cancer, one gets the feeling people would cling to them the way people keep smoking cigarettes.

They've already been shown to cause changes in gene expression, cognitive impairment, thyroid damage, and up to a 9% reduction in life expectancy in rat studies.

The evidence that at least GSM-style cell phones cause harm (low frequency pulsing) is actually pretty significant. It seems likely that the only reason we're not seeing consistent statistically elevated death rates in human studies is that we're bigger, and thus more meat and bone to absorb the radiation before it would affect our internal organs.

At the very least, having seen some of these recent studies, I'm very much looking forward to LTE and the move away from GSM.

There's a lot of denial here in the thread, though. If cellphones were conclusively proven to cause cancer, one gets the feeling people would cling to them the way people keep smoking cigarettes.

They've already been shown to cause changes in gene expression, cognitive impairment, thyroid damage, and up to a 9% reduction in life expectancy in rat studies.

The evidence that at least GSM-style cell phones cause harm (low frequency pulsing) is actually pretty significant. It seems likely that the only reason we're not seeing consistent statistically elevated death rates in human studies is that we're bigger, and thus more meat and bone to absorb the radiation before it would affect our internal organs.

At the very least, having seen some of these recent studies, I'm very much looking forward to LTE and the move away from GSM.

There's a lot of denial here in the thread, though. If cellphones were conclusively proven to cause cancer, one gets the feeling people would cling to them the way people keep smoking cigarettes.

They've already been shown to cause changes in gene expression, cognitive impairment, thyroid damage, and up to a 9% reduction in life expectancy in rat studies.

The evidence that at least GSM-style cell phones cause harm (low frequency pulsing) is actually pretty significant. It seems likely that the only reason we're not seeing consistent statistically elevated death rates in human studies is that we're bigger, and thus more meat and bone to absorb the radiation before it would affect our internal organs.

At the very least, having seen some of these recent studies, I'm very much looking forward to LTE and the move away from GSM.

"The heavy users had double the rate of brain glioma compared to the non-users."

I'm curious about this.

I went to read the ones linked to from the articles in the OP and I think the summary is in fact wrong about it simply being a new interpretation of the study from last may since that was fairly far on the side of there being not much there.

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/05/16/1919224/10-Year-Cell-Phone--Cancer-Study-Is-Inconclusive

the actual paper from last may:
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/ije/press_releases/freepdf/dyq079.pdf

62% of glioma cases were regular mobile phone users and 64% of matched controls were regular mobile phone users.

the 40% claim seems to be based on a far smaller study of data collected before 2004.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21610117
I can't read it due to a paywall.

Evidence on the non-thermal influence of non-jonising radiation on living organisms predates cell phones by decades. It is no news.

Just a single example: Blood-brain barrier permeability and nerve cell damage in rat brain 14 and 28 days after exposure to microwaves from GSM mobile phones.

Of course, Slashdot's "radiation trolls" claim otherwise and still are modded +5 informative, so perhaps it is news here.

Selective breeding is not the same as modifying the genetics of a plant using a virus.

Selective breeds often means altering the genetics of a plant by a transposon insertion or gene deletion. These changes are just as drastic and unpredictable as those produced by genetic engineering, occur in nature all the time, and produce much of the variation that is selected for in traditional breeding. It's just that since traditional breeds selects based on the effect, rather than the gene itself, no one can tell you what strange and never before seen genetic alteration has just been introduced into the food you are eating.

A great example of this is a lab at Cornell that has actually tracked down the genetic alterations behind those delicious purple and orange cauliflowers that started showing up in organic grocery stores across the US about a decade ago. Both were caused by transposon insertions (genomic parasites often related to plant viruses) that changed or broke genes. But nobody protests or rips up the fields because no one, not even the breeders at the time, know what was responsible for the change.

Sources:
Purple: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2971621/ Orange: http://www.plantcell.org/content/18/12/3594.full

Why do you accuse me of peddling dodgy treatments? Just google for zinc and cold.

It works better than placebo.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12462910
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/for-cold-virus-zinc-may-edge-out-even-chicken-soup/
http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/

Stick to the pills/lozenges, take them at early onset of symptoms, don't overdose and definitely don't spray your nose with it (or you might damage/lose your sense of smell). May not be a cure, but most subjects would feel better and that's good enough for most people.

AFAIK doctors in some countries are still prescribing antibiotics to those with colds and flu. Despite being told year after year not to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/20/coughs-colds-cures-treatment-antibiotics
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6526575/GPs-told-to-stop-prescribing-antibiotics-for-coughs-and-colds.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1574995/Stop-giving-antibiotics-for-colds-doctors-told.html

My current guess (not enough proof yet :) ) that most people get antibiotic resistant bacteria from hospitals, not farms.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20524852

RESULTS:
Neither the preintervention rate of MRSA colonization or infection (0.56 cases per 1,000 patient-days [95% confidence interval {CI}, 0.49-0.62 cases per 1,000 patient-days]) nor the slope for the rate of MRSA colonization or infection changed significantly after the first intervention. The rate decreased significantly to 0.28 cases per 1,000 patient-days (95% CI, 0.17-0.40 cases per 1,000 patient-days) after the second intervention and to 0.07 cases per 1,000 patient-days (95% CI, 0.06-0.08 cases per 1,000 patient-days) after the third intervention, and the rate remained at a similar level for 8 years. The MRSA bacteremia rate decreased by 80%, whereas the rate of bacteremia due to methicillin-susceptible S. aureus did not change. Eighty-three percent of the MRSA isolates identified were clonally related. All MRSA isolates obtained from healthcare workers were clonally related to those recovered from patients who were in their care.
CONCLUSION:
Our data indicate that long-term control of endemic MRSA is feasible in tertiary care centers. The use of targeted active surveillance for MRSA in patients and healthcare workers in specific wards (identified by means of analysis of clinical epidemiology data) and the use of decolonization were key to the success of the program.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/718935

March 22, 2010 â" A multifaceted infection control program led to a significant decline in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) cases in Paris-area hospitals with high endemic MRSA rates, according to an article in the March 22 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

There are other superbugs too:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.02/enemy_pr.html

It's true that many species of acinetobacter flourish widely in the environment. Thriving colonies have been recovered from soil, cell phones, frozen chicken, wastewater treatment plants, Formica countertops, and even irradiated food

Why do you accuse me of peddling dodgy treatments? Just google for zinc and cold.

It works better than placebo.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12462910
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/for-cold-virus-zinc-may-edge-out-even-chicken-soup/
http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/

Stick to the pills/lozenges, take them at early onset of symptoms, don't overdose and definitely don't spray your nose with it (or you might damage/lose your sense of smell). May not be a cure, but most subjects would feel better and that's good enough for most people.

AFAIK doctors in some countries are still prescribing antibiotics to those with colds and flu. Despite being told year after year not to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/20/coughs-colds-cures-treatment-antibiotics
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6526575/GPs-told-to-stop-prescribing-antibiotics-for-coughs-and-colds.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1574995/Stop-giving-antibiotics-for-colds-doctors-told.html

My current guess (not enough proof yet :) ) that most people get antibiotic resistant bacteria from hospitals, not farms.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20524852

RESULTS:
Neither the preintervention rate of MRSA colonization or infection (0.56 cases per 1,000 patient-days [95% confidence interval {CI}, 0.49-0.62 cases per 1,000 patient-days]) nor the slope for the rate of MRSA colonization or infection changed significantly after the first intervention. The rate decreased significantly to 0.28 cases per 1,000 patient-days (95% CI, 0.17-0.40 cases per 1,000 patient-days) after the second intervention and to 0.07 cases per 1,000 patient-days (95% CI, 0.06-0.08 cases per 1,000 patient-days) after the third intervention, and the rate remained at a similar level for 8 years. The MRSA bacteremia rate decreased by 80%, whereas the rate of bacteremia due to methicillin-susceptible S. aureus did not change. Eighty-three percent of the MRSA isolates identified were clonally related. All MRSA isolates obtained from healthcare workers were clonally related to those recovered from patients who were in their care.
CONCLUSION:
Our data indicate that long-term control of endemic MRSA is feasible in tertiary care centers. The use of targeted active surveillance for MRSA in patients and healthcare workers in specific wards (identified by means of analysis of clinical epidemiology data) and the use of decolonization were key to the success of the program.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/718935

March 22, 2010 â" A multifaceted infection control program led to a significant decline in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) cases in Paris-area hospitals with high endemic MRSA rates, according to an article in the March 22 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

There are other superbugs too:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.02/enemy_pr.html

It's true that many species of acinetobacter flourish widely in the environment. Thriving colonies have been recovered from soil, cell phones, frozen chicken, wastewater treatment plants, Formica countertops, and even irradiated food

Nature. 2011 May 26. [Epub ahead of print]
Induction of human neuronal cells by defined transcription factors.
Pang ZP, Yang N, Vierbuchen T, Ostermeier A, Fuentes DR, Yang TQ, Citri A, Sebastiano V, Marro S, Südhof TC, Wernig M.
Source

1] Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, 265 Campus Drive, Stanford, California 94305, USA [2].
Abstract

Somatic cell nuclear transfer, cell fusion, or expression of lineage-specific factors have been shown to induce cell-fate changes in diverse somatic cell types. We recently observed that forced expression of a combination of three transcription factors, Brn2 (also known as Pou3f2), Ascl1 and Myt1l, can efficiently convert mouse fibroblasts into functional induced neuronal (iN) cells. Here we show that the same three factors can generate functional neurons from human pluripotent stem cells as early as 6days after transgene activation. When combined with the basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor NeuroD1, these factors could also convert fetal and postnatal human fibroblasts into iN cells showing typical neuronal morphologies and expressing multiple neuronal markers, even after downregulation of the exogenous transcription factors. Importantly, the vast majority of human iN cells were able to generate action potentials and many matured to receive synaptic contacts when co-cultured with primary mouse cortical neurons. Our data demonstrate that non-neural human somatic cells, as well as pluripotent stem cells, can be converted directly into neurons by lineage-determining transcription factors. These methods may facilitate robust generation of patient-specific human neurons for in vitro disease modelling or future applications in regenerative medicine.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21617644

Neuroscience will not be kind to all possible states of permissiveness.

The rhetorical trick is closing off the idea that "we know better than you." I have no doubt that 99% of the time it's hot air being blown up an asshole because of our animal dominance instincts. Note that when saying "by force," presumably you don't include the idea that someone might use it against you, because, hey, you're permitting stuff to happen.

Quantum theory has nothing relevant to say about the many questions of conciousness outlined in the Koch and Crick review. How do we bind components of a visual scene into a single object? etc, The only place where quantum theory might have some impact is on the illusion of free will. Why do you have the feeling that you could make one of many possible decisions? Why is human action not entirely predictable?

It really boils down to the question, does 1 electron make a difference? Maybe, but probably not.

Quantum mechanics tends to break down on the scale of single proteins, and I'm not sure that it is fair to call the thermal noise of opening and closing ion channels a true 'quantum' effect... But lets say that a 'quantum' thermal noise event or some electron wiggle drives a single voltage-gated ion channel to open or close at a given time. And the neuron that the channel resides is in, this single channel out of 10s or 100s of thousands in the neuron, is so close to firing threshold that the channel contributes enough current to drive the single neuron to add an action potential. What impact does that extra action potential have on the network and on the brain? Is it washed out in a sea of billions of spikes per second? Or does that perturbation magnify and drive the brain into a different state (thought). Is this where the unpredictability of human action, and our apparent free will comes from? Maybe... But more likely is that the precise variation of massive and specific sensory inputs into the brain overwhelm any of this quantum/thermal noise.

Quantum theory isn't needed to explain chaos, and I think brain dynamics most closely resemble a semi-chaotic system, with many possible attractor states (correlates of conscious and unconscious thoughts) that one can switch between. We don't yet really know how we can seem to volitionally switch between them, but neither I nor most professional neuroscientists I've met (including many many physicists) think the answer lies with quantum mechanics. Rather, its is something that will hopefully be uncovered with a combination of dense electrical and optical recordings of brain activity during awake behavior that are used to constrain mathematical models of network dynamics.

Here is an example of a cool paper on what a single spike can do... BUT, its just a small step towards understanding that issue http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20596024

"It fits on the CD-R allright. For whatever reason, contents of our DNA compresses into a plain old zip file no worst than executables. 50% reduction in size is a fair bet."

I was sad enough to actually try this! UCSC has the genome in a 2 bit per base format (778 MB) which zip or gzip can compress to 675 MB, and 7-Zip to 617 MB. That's just the reference sequence of course - an individual (diploid) human genome has double this information capacity, but since most bases don't change, you can conveniently represent the variants by some sort of diff in very little space ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18996942 ) so the CD should still be enough to hold the lot.

Hanging on to a microorganism that can kill millions is about as evil as evil gets. To the autoclave they should all go. Every last one of them. And anyone who defends the existence of smallpox as a weapon should have his head examined.

The problem is that the disease still exists outside of labs. Some victims were far enough north that they were buried in permafrost regions. Note that this fact has been the inspiration for numerous movies and tv shows. Also note that those concerned about global warming are also concerned about smallpox.

"The search for variola viruses surviving even longer was pursued in 1991 near Novosibirsk, Russia (9). "Bioweapons experts" searched for the variola virus in 19th-century smallpox victims mummified in the permafrost above the Arctic Circle. In the event of unusual thawing and flooding, the concern was that these corpses might become exposed and release infectious virus into the environment. In the 19th century, this region of Russia (Sakha Republic) was "ravaged by smallpox strains of extraordinary lethality" (9). Isolating and comparing them with preserved modern strains might identify genes contributing to virulence. To date, no live variola viruses have been isolated from Sakha. But the threat now is that "a sophisticated terrorist team might go smallpox hunting on the permafrost" (9)"
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol11no05/04-0616.htm

There has even been discussions regarding investigations of crypts in Europe:

"In the absence of reliable survival data some experts have advised the routine vaccination of archaeologists who might handle well preserved corpses"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1008009/pdf/brjindmed00145-0079.pdf

Your first citation (Malyapa et al.) is good science. It shows that the results of your second citation (Lai and Singh) could not be reproduced. So, thanks for citing a counterargument, to quote: Furthermore, we did not confirm the observation that DNA damage is produced in cells of the rat cerebral cortex or the hippocampus after a 2-h exposure to 2450 MHz CW microwaves or at 4 h after the exposure.

They irradiated with absorption of 1W per kg of body mass, and they show that this does not even cause the rats to warm up -- There was no associated rise in the core body temperature of the rats. I'd say it's nothing but expected that microwave irradiation that's not even enough to raise your core temp. up will cause no harm to DNA. To think otherwise would require to rip out and rewrite a whole lot of basic chemistry.

It's one thing to spew nonsense. The other thing is not to read TFA you bothered to cite. You win the intertubez today.

Canadian scientists contribute their share. Pick up any major medical journal and you'll see important articles by Canadian researchers.

Like this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21488765 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21470008 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21388310 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21345102

Oh, yeah. Insulin. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1923/

Interestingly, a lot of the Canadian research is not for developing a new drug, but for figuring out whether a treatment that is widely used but has never been tested before actually works.

Don't ever tell me that Canadians are taking advantage of U.S. research.

Canadian scientists contribute their share. Pick up any major medical journal and you'll see important articles by Canadian researchers.

Like this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21488765 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21470008 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21388310 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21345102

Oh, yeah. Insulin. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1923/

Interestingly, a lot of the Canadian research is not for developing a new drug, but for figuring out whether a treatment that is widely used but has never been tested before actually works.

Don't ever tell me that Canadians are taking advantage of U.S. research.

Canadian scientists contribute their share. Pick up any major medical journal and you'll see important articles by Canadian researchers.

Like this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21488765 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21470008 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21388310 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21345102

Oh, yeah. Insulin. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1923/

Interestingly, a lot of the Canadian research is not for developing a new drug, but for figuring out whether a treatment that is widely used but has never been tested before actually works.

Don't ever tell me that Canadians are taking advantage of U.S. research.

Canadian scientists contribute their share. Pick up any major medical journal and you'll see important articles by Canadian researchers.

Like this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21488765 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21470008 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21388310 or this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21345102

Oh, yeah. Insulin. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1923/

Interestingly, a lot of the Canadian research is not for developing a new drug, but for figuring out whether a treatment that is widely used but has never been tested before actually works.

Don't ever tell me that Canadians are taking advantage of U.S. research.

Here you go. Crestor will decrease your relative risk by 44-53% of an adverse cardiovascular event, depending on the study. Impressive (it cuts your risk in half!), until you find out that your absolute risk was around 1% to begin with. For this you are shelling out $200/month, every month. Is it better? Yes. Undoubtedly Crestor is better than Lipitor. Now let's talk a moment about actual disease prevention... does it make much more difference versus lipitor? Not really. 0.5% a year compared to 1% a year, hmm, I guess it only makes a difference if you are the rare person actually having a heart attack which could have been prevented by "upgrading" the drug. The other 99 people, however, are paying through the nose.

When I said "probably", I just wanted to emphasize the difference with ARS deaths, which are certainly caused by radiation. The reason they think the thyroid cancers where caused by the disaster is mostly statistical. You can be reasonably sure most of them were indeed caused by radiation, but you don't which ones, you don't even know precisely how many. It's less than certain in that respect. I shouldn't have used "probably" though, I agree it's way too weak. Note that I counted the dead from thyroid cancer as part of the 50 deaths directly caused by radiation, and that I don't mix the two 4,000 numbers (I actually thought you did.)

First of all, I don't think that the remaining 3,985 victims are enjoying the cancer in their thyroid (supposing that they still have a thyroid).

We were talking about the death toll. Of course, many more people have had their lives and/or health strongly affected by the disaster and thus, are victims.

That said, you're quoting only a part of the report; you're skipping others such as:

...the international expert group predicts that among the 600 000 persons receiving more significant exposures (liquidators working in 1986-1987, evacuees, and residents of the most 'contaminated' areas), the possible increase in cancer mortality due to this radiation exposure might be up to a few per cent. This might eventually represent up to four thousand fatal cancers...

I didn't skip this part, this is exactly what I was referring to when I wrote "There is mention of a possible increase of cancer mortality in a larger group of 600,000 people which might account for up to 4000 deaths."

Saying "Chernobyl only made 50 victims" instead of "Chernobyl made up to 4,000 victims" is still a misrepresentation.

Yes, I agree with you, it's almost certainly a lot more than 50 so saying "only 50" is strongly misleading. But I do think that saying "about 4000" is just as bad, it could very well be a lot less. We actually have very little data on the effect of low radiation exposure on mortality because it's below statistical noise. Most estimates are done by looking at the mortality effect of a rather high dose, and expect it to scale linearly to lighter doses. But maybe it doesn't, maybe radiation has no effect at all below some threshold (link). The truth is we really don't know, and we probably never will know how many people died because of the Chernobyl disaster. All we know is it's at least about 50, and there is little doubt it's less than 4,000.

Have you seen the pictures of what NYC looked like in the late 1800's when every telegraph company had competing lines strung up on every street? In some places you couldn't see the sky.

http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/09_18_2001/story03.htm

Is that what you're looking forward to?

it was probably a brown recluse spider not the Hobo Spider since the tissue necrosis cannot be reproduced in the lab using that spider venom. For more info read : An approach to spider bites. Erroneous attribution of dermonecrotic lesions to brown recluse or hobo spider bites in Canada. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15455808

Nah, that's schizophrenia.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7448474

Excuse me for interrupting, but I think the "too much brain" threads are just down the hall :)

It seems like most of the people have been kept pretty well out of the way of very high-dose radiation and short term effects. But there will be some with long term effects, developing breast or thyroid conditions, appearing in 10 or 20 years or more. Those hit will mostly be among those that are children now, females especially, that drank milk with Iodine 131 in it. The U.S. has had these things happen as a result of above-ground testing in Nevada long ago. It looks like the U.S. is now showing some impact from Chernobyl.

See the curves on pages 18 and 46 of report (listed as 25 and 53 of pdf) to follow increases in Breast and Thyroid cancer in the California central valley. Studies for other regions look much the same. Most other cancers except for melanoma are declining.

http://www.ccrcal.org/PDF/Regional_Registries/Reg2AnnualReport.pdf

A good paper on Chernobyl (pdf)
http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf

Here's a calculator that estimates the added risk Americans born before 1972 face from the testing in Nevada (does not include other more recent sources)
Try being a woman born in 1956 drinking lots of milk and living in South Dakota.

https://ntsi131.nci.nih.gov/default.asp

These links relate to the relatively brief Iodine 131 exposure that has already happened. The effects of the longer life isotopes are harder to see but will be with us for a very very long time, The alpha emitters from thing like CS 137 aren't even picked up by the common crowdsourced equipment, but are a problem when inside the body.

Hmmm, they're telling fishermen in Japan it is safe to fish 30 km out, but the exposure in an hour goes slightly beyond the normal limit for a whole year.
That seems a bit much.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/09_03.html

No problem. Here's a clinical trial of the paleo diet for treating type II diabetes:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17583796
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00435240
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19604407


Some practical advice (books/blogs) you can follow to get you started:
http://thehealthyskeptic.org/diabesity
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/diabetes
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/
http://thepaleodiet.com/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

I wish your wife luck. Definitely read as much as you can before trying this. The links above will just get you started.

No problem. Here's a clinical trial of the paleo diet for treating type II diabetes:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17583796
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00435240
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19604407


Some practical advice (books/blogs) you can follow to get you started:
http://thehealthyskeptic.org/diabesity
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/diabetes
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/
http://thepaleodiet.com/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

I wish your wife luck. Definitely read as much as you can before trying this. The links above will just get you started.

The "back to sleep" campaign for infants aims to prevent a terrible tragedy of two in a thousand infants dying suddenly in their sleep for reasons as not yet full understood (and this practice supposedly cuts that rate of sudden infant death syndrome - SIDS -- in about half).
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/sids/

Basically, the entire process involves making infants uncomfortable -- put them on their backs instead of their stomachs, don't cover them, keep the room cold, don't co-sleep with them, and other things. But it is accepted that this distorts the backs of children's heads to be flatter, and also delays crawling development by a month or two in many children. If this was side-effects from a drug prescribed, we might question it more.

To be clear, I think it is worth to think about preventing SIDS, but one needs to ask about the costs in flattened heads and delayed developmental milestones to the other 998 out of 1000 babies. As someone else told us, the road to genius starts on the belly. We followed this back to sleep advice for our child and I regret it, especially as our child had trouble sleeping a lot in the first place, and following this well-meant advice probably just made that all worse.

Other bad advice from the medical establishment has been to avoid the sun, which has led to widespread vitamin D deficiency probably leading to increased autism rates and other health issues.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201104/autism-and-vitamin-d/

Again, we made the mistake of following well-meant advice by medical practicioners to avoid the sun and had serious health consequences from that.

Ironically, the lack of sunlight seems also to have increased melanoma rates, since vitamin D helps in the immune system destroying cancer. Ways to avoid that:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

The four food groups was another scam that has lead to a lot of bad health. Better advice:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

But these sorts of bad advice by the medical establishment have been great boons to mattress manufactures, the processed foods and animal products industries, and the medical industry.

Iodine may be another similar issue:
http://www.lmreview.com/articles/view/iodine-the-next-vitamin-d-part-I/

Remember, doctors used to recommend smoking and push infant formula, too. Example:
http://www.old-time.com/commercials/1940's/More%20Doctors%20Smoke%20Camels.html

And they helped cretae institutions that persecuted those who suggested otherwise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/shelton.bio.bidwell.htm

Vaccinations are another problematical area where it is not always clear the risk is worth the rewards for specific vaccines, or that with all the conflicts of interest involved one can know who to really believe on all that. The story on the influenza vaccine's value keeps changing, for example. As I quote here:

Yes, it is. I don't think you know what Placebo means.
You have been completely hoodwinked by people who want your money, don't know what the term 'energy' means, and don't understand confirmation bias. AS well as a host of other issue.

Listen to this:
http://www.pusware.com/quackcast/quackcast10.mp3

Read this:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=6839

in fact, you should probably read everything here:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?cat=4

If you know how to read studies, seriously most eople don't, then do research here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

If you don't understand what makes a proper study, who to use the, how to properly understand p value and apply the results then freaking learn. As a bonus learn to apply the finding in a Bayesian way.

Oh, and be sure to read this. In fact, I HIGHLY recommend you read this first:
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx

There is no effect above a placebo effect for any Chiropractic 'treatment'.

Part of the placebo effect is the person doing the test, or treatment. So Yes, chiropractors would claim there was an effect because they are inferring an effect where there is none.

"What placebo effect? I've read this many times and have never seen documented evidence for it in relation to Chiropractic! "

Clearly you haven't looked. There are volumes of good* data showing it has no effect above Placebo.

The site I list usually, if not always, have citation you can follow up on, as well as asked questions.

*Good as in well done. Double blinded, proper controls, and so on. Which is all In care about in a study.

To claim that copyright is "killing" science is pure hyperbole, but his actual point is valid. I didn't watch TFV, but based on the mention of open access journals, I assume his point is the usual complaint that the millions of dollars universities give to Elsevier, Nature Publishing Group, et al. to buy access to journal articles their scientists write (based on research typically funded by the public), could be better spent on actual research. Here's an article about a recent spat between the University of California and NPG over these fees: http://chronicle.com/article/U-of-California-Tries-Just/65823/

Open access journals allow the same peer review process and attribution as the current model, the only trouble is the author is asked to shoulder the expense of the publication process (usually around $1000). Things are already moving in the right direction on this. Compare PlosOne (open-access) and Nature (paywall). See also the open access rules from the NIH: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm

On the topic of IP that translates into consumer goods and services, you have the Bayh-Dole act which allows universities to profit on developments made with publicly research funds. Unfortunately, because any research is built on other research, you have things like the patenting of a test for breast cancer gene BRAC by a single company, when most of the work that led to the test's development was publicly funded, and conducted at a range of different institutions. Now those instutions have to pony up to continue working on essentially the same research they were already doing. See http://www.americanbar.org/content/newsletter/publications/aba_health_esource_home/James.html

I recently heard that studies show exposure to LOW level radiation makes the body's immune system more resistant. i.e. Someone downwind of Chernobyl would be less likely to develop cancer. I wonder if there's any truth to this idea? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17867496

There was a time when people refused smallpox vaccinations, believing it to be stupid to inject a disease into the bloodstream, but it later proved to be beneficial.

In this article, we introduce brief self-report and informant-report versions of the Grit Scale, which measures trait-level perseverance and passion for long-term goals. The Short Grit Scale (Grit-S) retains the 2-factor structure of the original Grit Scale (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007) with 4 fewer items and improved psychometric properties. We present evidence for the Grit-S's internal consistency, test-retest stability, consensual validity with informant-report versions, and predictive validity. Among adults, the Grit-S was associated with educational attainment and fewer career changes. Among adolescents, the Grit-S longitudinally predicted GPA and, inversely, hours watching television. Among cadets at the United States Military Academy, West Point, the Grit-S predicted retention. Among Scripps National Spelling Bee competitors, the Grit-S predicted final round attained, a relationship mediated by lifetime spelling practice.

Note that it doesn't say anything about IQ tests. Grit-S tests "trait-level perseverance and passion for long-term goals." Not intelligence. This is just bad reporting.

A higher rate of obesity in America does not necessarily make most Americans fat. Where'd you learn logic, America?

Correct in the Spock sense, not in the Joe Friday sense:

Q: How many adults age 20 and older are overweight or obese (Body Mass Index, or BMI, > 25)?
A: Over two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight or obese.[4]

All adults: 68 percent
Women: 64.1 percent
Men: 72.3 percent

That's from an NIH page, and it references an AMA paper. I guess the fat vs. overweight distinction can be argued.

This study shows there is no health risk from passive smoking

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC155687/?tool=pmcentrez

It was initially financed by health authorities but they disowned it when they saw the provisional results. It then required Tobacco money to pay for the final publication, a fact which is then used to discredit it.

Passive smoking is a myth. This is the largest study undertaken

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC155687/?tool=pmcentrez

initially sponsored by health authorities which ditched it when they saw the results. the final funding was done by the tobacco industry.

Conclusion - no signifiant health risk due to passive smoking.

Asked and answered upthread - Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system came as a rude surprise to Taubes and the assorted carb-phobes who subscribe to the single-cause-of-all-disease fallacy common to all pre-scientific guesswork that ends up with a Dr. Atkins, Dr. Eades, or Dr. Lustig ascribing assorted problems with a myriad of complex explanations to a single explanation for everything.

As I said upthread: Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.

Beef stimulates as much insulin release as brown rice: http://www.ajcn.org/content/66/5/1264.abstract ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9356547 ) - The acute effects of four protein meals on insulin, glucose, appetite and energy intake in lean men: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20456814 - James Krieger did a write-up of this and a few other studies that excerpted the relevant graphs for anyone who doesn't have full-text access to clinical journals at http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319

As I said upthread: Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.

Beef stimulates as much insulin release as brown rice: http://www.ajcn.org/content/66/5/1264.abstract ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9356547 ) - The acute effects of four protein meals on insulin, glucose, appetite and energy intake in lean men: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20456814 - James Krieger did a write-up of this and a few other studies that excerpted the relevant graphs for anyone who doesn't have full-text access to clinical journals at http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319

As I said upthread: Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.

Beef stimulates as much insulin release as brown rice: http://www.ajcn.org/content/66/5/1264.abstract ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9356547 ) - The acute effects of four protein meals on insulin, glucose, appetite and energy intake in lean men: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20456814 - James Krieger did a write-up of this and a few other studies that excerpted the relevant graphs for anyone who doesn't have full-text access to clinical journals at http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319

His hypothesis is "Eating carbs stimulates insulin which drives fat storage which makes you fat, excess calories has nothing to do with it and eating carbs can cause fat gain in the absence of excess calories"

Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 [nih.gov] which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.

He's also claiming that obese individuals will add body mass in absence of excess calories based on self-reporting of calorie intake. Which would leave you with mass appearing from nothing, or you'd go with the alternate explanation which is that people will under-estimate and under-report their intake in proportion to their level of obesity:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9312790

Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.

Taubes claim is that obese individuals don't consume excess calories or more calories than lean individuals, but that the percentage of carb intake is higher and that the source of calories causes fat gain. His primary support for this is studies using self-reported calorie intakes, which is utterly useless since people will typically under-estimate their calorie intake by 20-60% http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7985624 , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10745278 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9312790 combined with vastly over-estimating their energy expenditure: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21178922 Taubes' theory requires that there are magic insulin fairies that come in the night and add fat mass to innocent overweight and obese individuals who accidentally had some carbs. The alternative hypothesis - that people lie to themselves and don't know how much food they actually need or what's in the stuff they're eating is much simpler, neh?

Taubes claim is that obese individuals don't consume excess calories or more calories than lean individuals, but that the percentage of carb intake is higher and that the source of calories causes fat gain. His primary support for this is studies using self-reported calorie intakes, which is utterly useless since people will typically under-estimate their calorie intake by 20-60% http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7985624 , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10745278 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9312790 combined with vastly over-estimating their energy expenditure: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21178922 Taubes' theory requires that there are magic insulin fairies that come in the night and add fat mass to innocent overweight and obese individuals who accidentally had some carbs. The alternative hypothesis - that people lie to themselves and don't know how much food they actually need or what's in the stuff they're eating is much simpler, neh?

Taubes claim is that obese individuals don't consume excess calories or more calories than lean individuals, but that the percentage of carb intake is higher and that the source of calories causes fat gain. His primary support for this is studies using self-reported calorie intakes, which is utterly useless since people will typically under-estimate their calorie intake by 20-60% http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7985624 , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10745278 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9312790 combined with vastly over-estimating their energy expenditure: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21178922 Taubes' theory requires that there are magic insulin fairies that come in the night and add fat mass to innocent overweight and obese individuals who accidentally had some carbs. The alternative hypothesis - that people lie to themselves and don't know how much food they actually need or what's in the stuff they're eating is much simpler, neh?

Taubes claim is that obese individuals don't consume excess calories or more calories than lean individuals, but that the percentage of carb intake is higher and that the source of calories causes fat gain. His primary support for this is studies using self-reported calorie intakes, which is utterly useless since people will typically under-estimate their calorie intake by 20-60% http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7985624 , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10745278 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9312790 combined with vastly over-estimating their energy expenditure: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21178922 Taubes' theory requires that there are magic insulin fairies that come in the night and add fat mass to innocent overweight and obese individuals who accidentally had some carbs. The alternative hypothesis - that people lie to themselves and don't know how much food they actually need or what's in the stuff they're eating is much simpler, neh?

Metabolism of apolipoproteins CII, CIII1, CIII2 and VLDL-B in human subjects consuming high carbohydrate diets.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6952065

etc.....

what about fallout toxicity?