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dcollins117 blathered:

Acting in the best interests of their patients is what doctors get paid to do. They have extensive training, knowledge, and first-hand experience to rely on.

-1 Offtopic.

Antibiotics are indicated for viral infections because they prophylactically prevent secondary infections. It's not because doctors are conspiring to eradicate mankind.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

And don't put words in my mouth. I never said or implied the widespread (mal)practice of prescribing antibiotics for viral infections was a conspiracy. It's not. It is - or was, at any rate - extremely common, especially among GPs, however.

As to why the practice is/was so prevalent, the internists with whom I've discussed the issue (all of whom are bitterly critical of their fellow MDs for engaging in it) have fairly unanimously agreed that their GP cohorts basically give in to their patients' demands for antibiotics because those patients are largely ineducable on the subject - and because, for decades, there was a mistaken belief among them that prescribing useless antibiotics was merely a harmless concession to those imbecilic patients' conviction that penicillin was a universal panacea for diseases of all kinds. That's strictly anecdotal, of course, but it certainly rings true.

What the studies I cited and anecdotal evidence from MDs with whom I've discussed the problem both strongly indicate is that prophylaxis ("preventative prescription" for lay readers) is absolutely not the primary reason most doctors who engage in the practice of antibiotic prescription for viral infections do so.

Doctors are human. They cater to their patients' demands for medication that is of absolutely no value beyond placebo for those patients' actual medical issues simply to get them off their necks - and thereby preserve their positive regard. As long as MDs can persuade themselves that there's no harm in them doing so, it's simply easier to humor their patients than to say, "No," and risk alienating them ...

dcollins117 blathered:

Acting in the best interests of their patients is what doctors get paid to do. They have extensive training, knowledge, and first-hand experience to rely on.

-1 Offtopic.

Antibiotics are indicated for viral infections because they prophylactically prevent secondary infections. It's not because doctors are conspiring to eradicate mankind.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

And don't put words in my mouth. I never said or implied the widespread (mal)practice of prescribing antibiotics for viral infections was a conspiracy. It's not. It is - or was, at any rate - extremely common, especially among GPs, however.

As to why the practice is/was so prevalent, the internists with whom I've discussed the issue (all of whom are bitterly critical of their fellow MDs for engaging in it) have fairly unanimously agreed that their GP cohorts basically give in to their patients' demands for antibiotics because those patients are largely ineducable on the subject - and because, for decades, there was a mistaken belief among them that prescribing useless antibiotics was merely a harmless concession to those imbecilic patients' conviction that penicillin was a universal panacea for diseases of all kinds. That's strictly anecdotal, of course, but it certainly rings true.

What the studies I cited and anecdotal evidence from MDs with whom I've discussed the problem both strongly indicate is that prophylaxis ("preventative prescription" for lay readers) is absolutely not the primary reason most doctors who engage in the practice of antibiotic prescription for viral infections do so.

Doctors are human. They cater to their patients' demands for medication that is of absolutely no value beyond placebo for those patients' actual medical issues simply to get them off their necks - and thereby preserve their positive regard. As long as MDs can persuade themselves that there's no harm in them doing so, it's simply easier to humor their patients than to say, "No," and risk alienating them ...

"While writers and publishers deserve fair compensation, " But not their great grand-children.

Exactly.

Pray tell, what to do about the impending impending human/computer convergence - The Singularity, when you don't die, you're still around and you kinda ARE your own great grandchild?

Plant your brain in a new body? Clone yourself with DNA? How old fashioned, move on up to The Cloud and use CloneZilla, snapshots, or just start yourself up (!!) another Docker Personality Instance. Gives a who new meaning to schizophrenia or to Dissociative identity disorder.

At that point money will stop being the in-game comparison metric, it'll change to how big you are. (In bytes.) Hell, corporations will end up being People while People won't be.

No problem, and thanks for reading and replying.

I was confused on that, too, and neurobiology is pretty far from my regular work. Part of the problem is that there's a lot going on here: plasticity and differentiation (cell adaptations, transformations from one phenotype to another, differentiation, etc.), cell proliferation, tuning of connections, etc. It's a messy area with lots of new and sometimes contradictory data coming out.

From what I understand, there's a lot of plasticity in the brain as an adult: far more than was originally appreciated. I thought that we "knew" there were no new brain cells, and then we "knew" there were, and now we may "know" there aren't. That's the nature of evolving science, as others point out. And imprecise science communication--and imprecise English--doesn't help, either. Even biologists can get tripped up: we talk about tumor growth and cancer cell population growth, but we really primarily are talking about cell division there.

And there are all sorts of neat surprises. It was found that glial cells (a type of brain cell responsible for maintaining brain structure) can transdifferentiate into endothelial cells (which make blood vessels). See this PNAS paper and this one. This has all sorts of implications for gliomas and other brain cancers. And God only knows what other surprises are waiting to be found.

I suppose that's another reason they looked at the "new neuronal cell" marker: to see whether other cells could become new neuronal cells by transdifferentiation or other plastic processes. Biology is weird. :-)

There is more and more information coming out that Alzheimerâ(TM)s may be its own form of diabetes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

I'm sure someone will provide me with evidence if I'm wrong, but to date I am unaware of any actual peer reviewed reports documenting that "cell phone addition" is harmful or even exists.

Err not again... Well here you go with a list of studies. It is worse than you think or believe...

The Conceptual Model on Smart Phone Addiction among Early Childhood

Children with smart phone addiction show problems in mental and physical development. In other words, a child addicted to smart phone has higher possibility of having problems in mental development such as emotional instability, attention deficit, depression, anger, and lack of control. Also, physical problems such as impairments in visual and hearing senses, obesity, body imbalance, and lack of brain development are found.

Parenting approaches and digital technology use of preschool age children in a Chinese community

Preschool children are not cognitively mature enough to be responsible for self-determining the content of DTs. This is supported by the findings that parent-child DT use with content of aggressive behavior and antisocial behaviors are found to have a higher tendency to behavioral problems than those who did not

Psychological disorders and their correlates in an Australian community sample of preadolescent children (pay wall)

And the list can go on but you should try to do the search yourself.

HiThere pointed out:

The thing is, it's questionable how much of the change is already committed. There are a lot of lags in various feedback cycles, and if, say, the permafrost methane is already inevitable, then that may mean that a much greater temperature rise is already inevitable. Methane may have a half life of 50 years (?? not that long??) but it's a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, and when it degrades, it degrades to CO2. Nobody's quite sure how much methane is locked up in the permafrost...but it's already starting to melt, so it may well be too late to stabilize things. How much mitigation we can do is uncertain. And the sun is now hotter than it was the last time all that CO2 was in the atmosphere (see carboniferous period http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/c...), so nobody's quite certain what will happen. There are models, but anyone who believes them needs their head examined.

FWIW, methane's half-life as an atmospheric gas is about 12 years - but, to your point, its effects on atmospheric warming persist for as long as a century. C02 hangs around for up to 50,000 years, so its effects on warming are more critical in the longer term. Other gases and aerosols also contribute to global warming (and thus climate change) to various degrees, and with varying amounts of persistence. It's a complex set of interactions.

What nobody seems to be taking into account is the rapidly-mounting evidence that glaciers and icecaps are complex, unstable systems, the continued existence of which depends on relative stability in base climate conditions (aka "chaotic systems"). Every year for the past decade, glaciologists studying the Greenland icecap have observed that melting there is proceeding - and increasing - far faster than their models predict. It's an asymptotic trend that leads to what I think is the inevitable conclusion that Greenland's ice sheet (which is three miles thick in the center) is going to collapse within no more than a few hundred years.

That's way, WAY faster than even recently-revised models predict - but those models are predicated on the notion that miles-thick icecaps are essentially reservoirs of cold that will preserve their integrity for millenia. The problem is that all the current evidence is that those assumptions are unwarranted. They certainly don't account for the staggering rate of surface melt, or for the destablilzing effect of all that meltwater eroding the integrity of the ice sheet beneath the surface as it drains, via moulins, all the way to bedrock.

The instability of the icecap surface (its so-called "rottenness") has led the government of Greenland to altogether ban scientists from setting foot on it during the warm season, for safety reasons. They're now forced to deploy and recover automated weather stations and other instrument packages from helicopters hovering above the ice, in order to comply with that prohibition. In fact, it's getting harder for glaciologists and climatologists to collect reliable, long-term, automated data from Greenland in general, because their instrument packages and weather stations keep disappearing into the moulins that unpredictably open underneath them.

The current climate change situation reeks to me of the Permian/Triassic catastrophe. That event was produced by natural causes (although exactly what triggered it initially is still not definitively settled) whereas this one was unquestionably precipitated by global carbon emissions resulting from the age of industrialization, particularly in the developed world.

We, as a species, can be forgiven for not realizing the consequences of causing such enormous increases in CO2 emissions back in the 19th century and the first ... let's be generous and say "eight

Coming off these things is worse than coming off heroin. The best thing is to not start! Feel you somehow _need_ Prozac? Try a curry instead... the comedown is much easier and doesn't last months: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

While FDA approved, https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/newsroom/pressannouncements/ucm596531.htm, the UCH-L1 and GFAP markers may be of less diagnostic value in the presence of concomitant orthopedic injury, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27841729.

You don't know the difference between your opinion and evidence?

https://www.webmd.com/diet/fea...

Benzyl Alcohol, Benzoic Acid, and Sodium Benzoate are safe:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Azodicarbonamide is safe:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Aspartame is safe:
https://jamanetwork.com/journa...

No evidence that organic based foods are safer than regular foods (a review of 240 studies)
http://annals.org/aim/article-...

No evidence that GMOs pose health risks:
https://www.csicop.org/si/show...

What is actually going on here:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.o...

You don't know the difference between your opinion and evidence?

https://www.webmd.com/diet/fea...

Benzyl Alcohol, Benzoic Acid, and Sodium Benzoate are safe:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Azodicarbonamide is safe:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Aspartame is safe:
https://jamanetwork.com/journa...

No evidence that organic based foods are safer than regular foods (a review of 240 studies)
http://annals.org/aim/article-...

No evidence that GMOs pose health risks:
https://www.csicop.org/si/show...

What is actually going on here:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.o...

Well the "jury is out" but there is a lot more data around! Here is a 2013 peer reviewed paper, "Electromagnetic fields act via activation of voltage-gated calcium channels to produce beneficial or adverse effects" by Martin L Pall* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
You can see a list of his other papers here; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
2016 by same, "Microwave frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) produce widespread neuropsychiatric effects including depression." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... "Non-thermal microwave/lower frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) act via voltage-gated calcium channel (VGCC) activation. " So much for the 'thermal is everything' approach at least on this band.

Hourlong video with Pall https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And here is another one with that devious hippie Mercola; https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

A whole bunch of bills in Massachusetts https://sites.google.com/site/...

Maryland did a whole thing on wifi and kids https://phpa.health.maryland.g...

The site Undark went a ways into the topic https://undark.org/article/cel...

0.08 W/kg they say from FCC. Per here a lot of other health bodies demand or advise far far lower RF exposure. https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7...
Regulatory FCC/ANSI– USA– 900MHzrange 610,000 nW/cm2
Regulatory Italy,Poland,Hungary,Bulgaria,China,Russia 10,000nW/cm2
Regulatory Switzerland 4,500nW/cm2
Recommendation– EcologInstitute (2000) 300nW/cm2
Recommendation– SalzburgResolution(2000) 100nW/cm2
Recommendation– BioInitiativeReport(2008) https://www.newlook.dteenergy....

big texas report (everything bigger in texas) http://www.puc.texas.gov/indus...

Anyways I suggest you dig around, there is all sorts of interesting stuff coming up on this topic.

Well the "jury is out" but there is a lot more data around! Here is a 2013 peer reviewed paper, "Electromagnetic fields act via activation of voltage-gated calcium channels to produce beneficial or adverse effects" by Martin L Pall* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
You can see a list of his other papers here; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
2016 by same, "Microwave frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) produce widespread neuropsychiatric effects including depression." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... "Non-thermal microwave/lower frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) act via voltage-gated calcium channel (VGCC) activation. " So much for the 'thermal is everything' approach at least on this band.

Hourlong video with Pall https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And here is another one with that devious hippie Mercola; https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

A whole bunch of bills in Massachusetts https://sites.google.com/site/...

Maryland did a whole thing on wifi and kids https://phpa.health.maryland.g...

The site Undark went a ways into the topic https://undark.org/article/cel...

0.08 W/kg they say from FCC. Per here a lot of other health bodies demand or advise far far lower RF exposure. https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7...
Regulatory FCC/ANSI– USA– 900MHzrange 610,000 nW/cm2
Regulatory Italy,Poland,Hungary,Bulgaria,China,Russia 10,000nW/cm2
Regulatory Switzerland 4,500nW/cm2
Recommendation– EcologInstitute (2000) 300nW/cm2
Recommendation– SalzburgResolution(2000) 100nW/cm2
Recommendation– BioInitiativeReport(2008) https://www.newlook.dteenergy....

big texas report (everything bigger in texas) http://www.puc.texas.gov/indus...

Anyways I suggest you dig around, there is all sorts of interesting stuff coming up on this topic.

Well the "jury is out" but there is a lot more data around! Here is a 2013 peer reviewed paper, "Electromagnetic fields act via activation of voltage-gated calcium channels to produce beneficial or adverse effects" by Martin L Pall* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
You can see a list of his other papers here; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
2016 by same, "Microwave frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) produce widespread neuropsychiatric effects including depression." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... "Non-thermal microwave/lower frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) act via voltage-gated calcium channel (VGCC) activation. " So much for the 'thermal is everything' approach at least on this band.

Hourlong video with Pall https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And here is another one with that devious hippie Mercola; https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

A whole bunch of bills in Massachusetts https://sites.google.com/site/...

Maryland did a whole thing on wifi and kids https://phpa.health.maryland.g...

The site Undark went a ways into the topic https://undark.org/article/cel...

0.08 W/kg they say from FCC. Per here a lot of other health bodies demand or advise far far lower RF exposure. https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7...
Regulatory FCC/ANSI– USA– 900MHzrange 610,000 nW/cm2
Regulatory Italy,Poland,Hungary,Bulgaria,China,Russia 10,000nW/cm2
Regulatory Switzerland 4,500nW/cm2
Recommendation– EcologInstitute (2000) 300nW/cm2
Recommendation– SalzburgResolution(2000) 100nW/cm2
Recommendation– BioInitiativeReport(2008) https://www.newlook.dteenergy....

big texas report (everything bigger in texas) http://www.puc.texas.gov/indus...

Anyways I suggest you dig around, there is all sorts of interesting stuff coming up on this topic.

About 15 years ago, a technology came on the market called Provant, developed and managed by Regenesis Biomedical in Scottsdale, AZ. It was a radiofrequency generator that delivered energy to tissues via an external antenna applied to the skin. It was meant to augment or accelerate wound healing. Like the many other stimulatory or pro-proliferative wound healing technologies, it worked well for some patients, not at all for others, sometimes contrary effects, and everything in between. Overall, it was not sufficiently effective to generate much buzz, and the company eventually began to market it for post-operative pain and swelling. You can read about it at links such as:
https://www.regenesisbio.com/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

While I had no direct involvement with the company, I did have opportunity to use it, and to visit the company and look through the labs. The device uses RF at about 12MHz. I cannot recall power or power densities delivered to the tissues. The effects under the microscope were dramatic. Fibroblasts in cell culture had a profound increase in motility and mitosis, exactly what is needed, in principle, in healing wounds, and of course, what goes awry when cells transform to cancer.

Circa 1900, biological sciences become so deeply entrenched in biochemistry and the metabolic processes in the body that chemistry and pharmacology became the defining sciences and therapeutics of most medical research and care. Physical modalities and energy interactions in the body became bastard children. Other than the effects of ionizing higher energies (ultraviolet, x-ray, gamma), the roles of heat, light, radio, stress-strain, acoustics, and similar energies have never received the same legitimacy as the chemical studies. Thus, "physical modalities" and the study of anything along those lines often gets dismissed as trivial, irrelevant, illegitimate, or second class or non-professional.

Furthermore, when such subjects come up via large public grants or national studies or in the popular media, they are often in conjunction with pervasive popular technologies that people are not so ready to give up, like cell phones. Thus, these studies engender debate and resistance.

The point is that RF has effects in the body. Good, bad, or indifferent all depends on many things. The Provant system was used for therapeutic effects. The studies that are the basis for this Slashdot post hint at possible negative effects. It is worth looking at the actual study publications, They are voluminous, at:
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/abou...
https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/ce...

They show that tumor occurrence tended to increase with greater exposures, but for almost all tumors, incidence was very low. Even if hypothetically all tumor occurring subjects were to have died (which is nowhere near the case), the great majority of RF exposed subjects not only survived but had a distinct and significant increase in longevity. So, is it good or bad? Like many therapies, good things have their side effects, which if kept to low incidence are considered acceptable.

So, is this report good or bad? It depends on your point of view. If you see it as interesting science, good. If you see it as an insight to further studies about disease or longevity, good. If it you see it as a threat to your Second City Amendment rights to carry a cell phone, then you might get incensed about totalitarian conspiracies to take them away.

Studies such as this might or might not have applicability to human medicine and public safety, but they provide useful information to be considered in the overall analysis. Read the actual original source materials. They are rather mat

About 15 years ago, a technology came on the market called Provant, developed and managed by Regenesis Biomedical in Scottsdale, AZ. It was a radiofrequency generator that delivered energy to tissues via an external antenna applied to the skin. It was meant to augment or accelerate wound healing. Like the many other stimulatory or pro-proliferative wound healing technologies, it worked well for some patients, not at all for others, sometimes contrary effects, and everything in between. Overall, it was not sufficiently effective to generate much buzz, and the company eventually began to market it for post-operative pain and swelling. You can read about it at links such as:
https://www.regenesisbio.com/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

While I had no direct involvement with the company, I did have opportunity to use it, and to visit the company and look through the labs. The device uses RF at about 12MHz. I cannot recall power or power densities delivered to the tissues. The effects under the microscope were dramatic. Fibroblasts in cell culture had a profound increase in motility and mitosis, exactly what is needed, in principle, in healing wounds, and of course, what goes awry when cells transform to cancer.

Circa 1900, biological sciences become so deeply entrenched in biochemistry and the metabolic processes in the body that chemistry and pharmacology became the defining sciences and therapeutics of most medical research and care. Physical modalities and energy interactions in the body became bastard children. Other than the effects of ionizing higher energies (ultraviolet, x-ray, gamma), the roles of heat, light, radio, stress-strain, acoustics, and similar energies have never received the same legitimacy as the chemical studies. Thus, "physical modalities" and the study of anything along those lines often gets dismissed as trivial, irrelevant, illegitimate, or second class or non-professional.

Furthermore, when such subjects come up via large public grants or national studies or in the popular media, they are often in conjunction with pervasive popular technologies that people are not so ready to give up, like cell phones. Thus, these studies engender debate and resistance.

The point is that RF has effects in the body. Good, bad, or indifferent all depends on many things. The Provant system was used for therapeutic effects. The studies that are the basis for this Slashdot post hint at possible negative effects. It is worth looking at the actual study publications, They are voluminous, at:
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/abou...
https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/ce...

They show that tumor occurrence tended to increase with greater exposures, but for almost all tumors, incidence was very low. Even if hypothetically all tumor occurring subjects were to have died (which is nowhere near the case), the great majority of RF exposed subjects not only survived but had a distinct and significant increase in longevity. So, is it good or bad? Like many therapies, good things have their side effects, which if kept to low incidence are considered acceptable.

So, is this report good or bad? It depends on your point of view. If you see it as interesting science, good. If you see it as an insight to further studies about disease or longevity, good. If it you see it as a threat to your Second City Amendment rights to carry a cell phone, then you might get incensed about totalitarian conspiracies to take them away.

Studies such as this might or might not have applicability to human medicine and public safety, but they provide useful information to be considered in the overall analysis. Read the actual original source materials. They are rather mat

About 15 years ago, a technology came on the market called Provant, developed and managed by Regenesis Biomedical in Scottsdale, AZ. It was a radiofrequency generator that delivered energy to tissues via an external antenna applied to the skin. It was meant to augment or accelerate wound healing. Like the many other stimulatory or pro-proliferative wound healing technologies, it worked well for some patients, not at all for others, sometimes contrary effects, and everything in between. Overall, it was not sufficiently effective to generate much buzz, and the company eventually began to market it for post-operative pain and swelling. You can read about it at links such as:
https://www.regenesisbio.com/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

While I had no direct involvement with the company, I did have opportunity to use it, and to visit the company and look through the labs. The device uses RF at about 12MHz. I cannot recall power or power densities delivered to the tissues. The effects under the microscope were dramatic. Fibroblasts in cell culture had a profound increase in motility and mitosis, exactly what is needed, in principle, in healing wounds, and of course, what goes awry when cells transform to cancer.

Circa 1900, biological sciences become so deeply entrenched in biochemistry and the metabolic processes in the body that chemistry and pharmacology became the defining sciences and therapeutics of most medical research and care. Physical modalities and energy interactions in the body became bastard children. Other than the effects of ionizing higher energies (ultraviolet, x-ray, gamma), the roles of heat, light, radio, stress-strain, acoustics, and similar energies have never received the same legitimacy as the chemical studies. Thus, "physical modalities" and the study of anything along those lines often gets dismissed as trivial, irrelevant, illegitimate, or second class or non-professional.

Furthermore, when such subjects come up via large public grants or national studies or in the popular media, they are often in conjunction with pervasive popular technologies that people are not so ready to give up, like cell phones. Thus, these studies engender debate and resistance.

The point is that RF has effects in the body. Good, bad, or indifferent all depends on many things. The Provant system was used for therapeutic effects. The studies that are the basis for this Slashdot post hint at possible negative effects. It is worth looking at the actual study publications, They are voluminous, at:
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/abou...
https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/ce...

They show that tumor occurrence tended to increase with greater exposures, but for almost all tumors, incidence was very low. Even if hypothetically all tumor occurring subjects were to have died (which is nowhere near the case), the great majority of RF exposed subjects not only survived but had a distinct and significant increase in longevity. So, is it good or bad? Like many therapies, good things have their side effects, which if kept to low incidence are considered acceptable.

So, is this report good or bad? It depends on your point of view. If you see it as interesting science, good. If you see it as an insight to further studies about disease or longevity, good. If it you see it as a threat to your Second City Amendment rights to carry a cell phone, then you might get incensed about totalitarian conspiracies to take them away.

Studies such as this might or might not have applicability to human medicine and public safety, but they provide useful information to be considered in the overall analysis. Read the actual original source materials. They are rather mat

Try to provide evidence of your assertions, rather than taking a point-in-time correlation and trying to turn it into causation because it fits your preconceived notions.

Also, we were talking about spending levels, not about "costs". There is a difference between the two concepts.

Either way, looking at this chart, can you tell when Australia (to use your example) introduced single-payer? How about any of the other countries? Guess what, their spending per capita went up after introducing single-payer, not down. There's no reason, nor evidence, to suggest the experience in the U.S. would be different. The economic evidence is that costs would go up after switching to single-payer.

You are clearly not knowledgeable when it comes to this subject. Livestock animals are given antibiotics regularly.

Reference #1
Reference #2

It's not a myth.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

You mean, like this?

Whether a child is violent or not has one overwhelming factor: The parents, or lack thereof.

I'm not sure about that, according to actual research, it seems to be that the overwhelming factor is actually the number of different risk factors that a child is exposed to (for example being exposed to 6 different risk factors increases the likelihood of violent behaviour 10 times over exposure to any individual risk factor). Now, poor parenting can contribute several different factors so you're not entirely wrong. However, according to the risk factor chart (4-1) on that page, the largest individual factors seem to be previous criminal behaviour, weak social ties, substance use, antisocial peers and gang membership.

And although it would turn up a lot of false positives, it would also catch a lot of cancers very, very early, making survival rates higher and costs lower.

It's not something people like to talk about, but early detection doesn't correspond to improved survival (see, for example, Screening for prostate cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials ).

Forty years ago, prostate cancer was considered a fast-moving, highly lethal cancer. PSA screening was introduced, with a heavy push for annual screening of men over the age of 50. Large number of men tested positive, and a metric shitload of tumors were found and treated. And the death rate didn't go down.

For the past several decades, there's been a heavy push for frequent breast examinations and mammograms for women, the idea being that if breast cancer is detected in the early stages, it's easy to treat and many lives will be saved. The detection rate has certainly gone up, as has the number of tumors treated. The death rate? Hardly budged.

It's something of an article of faith among anti-cancer activists that screening and early treatment save lives. In practice, the vast majority of improvement in cancer survival has come from improved treatments, not improved detection. Most people with early-stage cancer either have something so slow-growing that it can be safely treated at a later date (or not at all), or something so fast-growing that they'll die despite treatment. The percent of cancers where early treatment will improve the outcome is believed to be in the low single digits.

High IQs are a disqualification for autism.

You sure about that?
Try googling "can autistic people have high IQ?" and reading a bunch of the links.
Here's one paper on the subject to get you started: it's nuanced, but it claims something different than what you do:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Perhaps you don't realize this but medical errors are big problem in healthcare and negative patient outcomes are more significant that you may think... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Well since he's the first president ever to be subjected to this test..

Here it is: https://pdbp.ninds.nih.gov/sit...

It's really hard. The hardest! And Trump aced it!

Scientists are starting to push back too. As are skeptics like Micheal Shermer.

I back Google on this one.

There are some non-drug alternatives for dealing with inflammation that have seen positive results from research, namely foods with high amounts of anthocyanins.

As an example: "Efficacy of tart cherry juice in reducing muscle pain during running: a randomized controlled trial":
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2874510/

...highlight the unintended consequences of introducing otherwise harmless additives to the food supply.

It seems like this 'highlights' one unique and unproven possibility, and nothing more. Getting ahead of ourselves....

Actually, reading the paper over in Nature (sorry, paywall) and good science reporting from the kinds of places that'll link you straight to Nature? They're very clear that they've not gotten to do human trials--which is understandable, you're not going to get to do them without the paper, and even then you might have a severe amount of trouble getting permission to do them given that C. diff can be fatal.

What it highlights, really, is that the current methods used to determine if a food additive is harmless are stupid. Animal models are only good at telling us if it's safe for that species--in this specific case, some of the weaknesses the researchers behind the paper note is that we don't know if trehalose makes it far enough in the human intestine to reach where C. diff gets found. (It totally does in mice.) The models they used, however, were a lot closer to human than is usual for safety testing: the mice were modified and set up to have human-like gut flora, which is what was required to catch this problem. That said, given that the enzyme required to break down trehalose is not abundant even in those people who have it? It's likely that the mouse models are close enough.

First and foremost, Alcoholics Anonymous works. Moos and Moos 2006 shows that, among alcoholics who take the AA program seriously, 67% were still sober 16 years later. In contrast, the members of the study who did not go to AA at all, only 33% were sober 16 years later.

The main reason people do not want to go to Alcoholics Anonymous is because people think they can control and enjoy their drinking again. This is not true; any study with a 10-year or longer followup shows that alcoholics do not successfully moderate their drinking. The 1982 followup to Sobell 1973 (a study which claimed alcoholics could moderate again) showed only one person (5%) moderating their drinking a decade later; my own crunching of the numbers from Moos and Moos 2006 shows only 17% (one in six) of alcoholics being able to moderate their drinking. In other words, trying to moderate drinking is like playing Russian Roulette -- but five out of the six chambers have bullets in them.

If one does not like what people say in one AA meeting, try another one. Or try Life Ring recovery. Or SMART recovery. The point being: Any support group of fellows who are also not drinking will help people stop drinking.

AA really works most of the time, but it's like taking a diet or going to the gym: The alcoholic has to work the program. Otherwise, the chance of recovery is low (33% as per Moos/Moos 2006). Step One is to realize that moderate drinking just does not work.

the vast majority of pharmaceutical research is done with public funds

I see this come up a lot but I've had a hard time verifying that this is actually the case. Although the public portion is significant, from what I can tell it's not even a majority:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/b...
"In 2004, federal agencies funded roughly one-third of all U.S. biomedical R and D (Moses et al. 2005). "
"Private sector drug, biotechnology, and medical device companies provide the majority of U.S. biomedical R and D funding (about 58 percent)."

Excess males without a mate are prone to antisocial behavior such as crime and violence. When they congregate in groups they tend to organize, form paramilitary groups or join the military or engage in revolution or terrorism. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... 94% of unmarried males in China are poor and uneducated because they are the least desirable partners. They are more likely to be susceptible to demagogues or nationalists. Sex ratio imbalance in the other direction is also a problem. A shortage of men results in fewer committed relationships, more single parent households headed by women. Men in these situations tend to be underemployed because they have less reason to work and are often supported by women... because they can. Even small imbalances can have these effects; a sex ratio imbalance of 110 in a population of 100 million will result in 10 million people without a mate.

For all test conditions, no abnormalities were noted in the pregnant rats and no significant signs of toxicity were observed in the pre- and postnatal development of the pups, even at the highest level of 4 W/kg. So fuck your crazy wifi radiation nonsense.

Here's a summary with evidence pointing in both directions.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3074428/

There are undoubtedly estrogenic chemicals in soy, but they cause problems only at high intake levels and the sorts of problems they cause aren't always in the direction implied by their nature as estrogens.

I am going to need a credible source for that and not any of that ecowatch bs.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
http://www.thelancet.com/journ...

Why are anti-nuclear people disappointed to learn that nuclear power hasn't killed more people? Given the realities of climate change it is immoral to oppose nuclear power.

Quit that binary thinking. Just quit it, Just because someone points out that there are problems related to nuclear reactors, especially when they fail, does not mean that they are opposed to nuclear power.

What I'm for is that not only adequate but reassuring safeguards are in place, both for production and post-production. Not from an economic standpoint with more insurance and lawyers, but from a worst case standpoint with actual physical safeguards, already existing evacuation and containment and remediation plans. Hopefully things won't go wrong, but with the numerous examples where reactors have gone wrong, more focus on what else to do when things do go wrong seems needed. Admit that there are problems, and don't let that stop us.

Because this is /., the obligatory car analogy is that hust because cars are very safe relative to horseback riding doesn't mean that we should rest on our laurels and say that seat belts and air bags and crumple zones is a waste of money, and that more research into car and road safety isn't useful.

For something like this you would be better off reading the peer reviewed papers

on the subject rather than rhetoric on an Internet forum.

Then again, it might be more important to some people to scare the public with scary factoids than to provide education. That's my observation at least.

TL;DR: Airline pilots have some higher risk of skin cancer but not other cancers. Also additional lifestyle factors are difficult to filter out from sample set.

For something like this you would be better off reading the peer reviewed papers

on the subject rather than rhetoric on an Internet forum.

Then again, it might be more important to some people to scare the public with scary factoids than to provide education. That's my observation at least.

TL;DR: Airline pilots have some higher risk of skin cancer but not other cancers. Also additional lifestyle factors are difficult to filter out from sample set.

Awesome. Why don't you publish a refutation of https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... and many of its citations ?

"two large randomized controlled trials of niacin, AIM-HIGH and HPS2-THRIVE, have shown that despite its effects on HDL-C, niacin does not decrease the incidence of cardiovascular events and may have significant adverse effects."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

The NIH actually did a study on this.

Objectives. We explored whether the United States, which does not regulate pharmaceutical prices, is responsible for the development of a disproportionate share of the new molecular entities (NMEs; a drug that does not contain an active moiety previously approved by the Food and Drug Administration) produced worldwide.

Sadly their methodology doesn't follow from their objective:

Because country-specific comparisons of new drug development without a measure to account for size and wealth are relatively meaningless, we collected data on gross domestic product (GDP) for 2000, midway between the dates drug collection began and ended for the 20 countries that developed at least 1 NME.

They don't state why they chose GDP, a variable which itself is dependent on drug discovery.

The mean area of the houses was 181.9 ± 85.4 m2, ranging from 50 to 550 m2. There were 166 (88.80%) families who had yard in their houses and 134 (80.70%) of the families reported that their children could play in the yard. The group differences on the basis of the number of hours of TV watching were statistically significant, favoring those who did have yards.

Table 4

Having a yard
Yes - 2.58 hr/day
No - 3.48 hr/day

So the idea that access to contraceptives and sex education prevent abortions is foolish

...except that the evidence disagree with you.

No, it doesn't.

Yes, it does. It's right there in copious links you not so mysteriously excised from your reply:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

https://rewire.news/article/20...

...and then there's this other side....

https://mic.com/articles/98886...

Abstinence education: There's almost no getting around it. States with abstinence-only education have the highest rates of teen pregnancies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

These data show clearly that abstinence-only education as a state policy is ineffective in preventing teenage pregnancy and may actually be contributing to the high teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S.

It's all there. You cut it out. That speaks volumes.

Obviously, sex education and contraception can help reduce unwanted pregnancies, but you attributed high US pregnancy and abortion rates to their lack of availability in the US, and that explanation doesn't work.

Except it does. Sorry, but the evidence already cited clearly shows that states with an adamant opposition to contraception and sex education are correlated with higher US pregnancy and abortion rates than the states that don't have such social policies.

I know it's bothersome to you, that the actual evidence-based research indicates otherwise, but really, you should control your reactions and accept the reality of being wrong. All your blustering protests do is demonstrate your paucity of character, they don't create a grounds for dispute.

Abortion in the US is widely available and has been legal for forty years, so that argument also doesn't make sense.

Like it or not, the evidence indicates that it's the case. I know you're desperately protesting, but the very vacuousness of your reply demonstrates how fundamentally false your position is.

You can't even have a rational argument with someone who is pro-choice without become abusive and hostile.

No, you're a troll, oolorie, and that's entirely your own fault. Is it really surprising that people recognize your fallacious style of argumentation even if they don't know of you admitting to your behavior?

Fundamentally, people are reacting to your deliberately obnoxiousness, and that's because your choice of method has a consequence.

I know it's going to be hard for you to admit, but people are going to be repulsed by your lack of integrity. It's too obvious. The evidence doesn't lie. Your pustulence is just too odious.

So the idea that access to contraceptives and sex education prevent abortions is foolish

...except that the evidence disagree with you.

No, it doesn't.

Yes, it does. It's right there in copious links you not so mysteriously excised from your reply:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

https://rewire.news/article/20...

...and then there's this other side....

https://mic.com/articles/98886...

Abstinence education: There's almost no getting around it. States with abstinence-only education have the highest rates of teen pregnancies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

These data show clearly that abstinence-only education as a state policy is ineffective in preventing teenage pregnancy and may actually be contributing to the high teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S.

It's all there. You cut it out. That speaks volumes.

Obviously, sex education and contraception can help reduce unwanted pregnancies, but you attributed high US pregnancy and abortion rates to their lack of availability in the US, and that explanation doesn't work.

Except it does. Sorry, but the evidence already cited clearly shows that states with an adamant opposition to contraception and sex education are correlated with higher US pregnancy and abortion rates than the states that don't have such social policies.

I know it's bothersome to you, that the actual evidence-based research indicates otherwise, but really, you should control your reactions and accept the reality of being wrong. All your blustering protests do is demonstrate your paucity of character, they don't create a grounds for dispute.

Abortion in the US is widely available and has been legal for forty years, so that argument also doesn't make sense.

Like it or not, the evidence indicates that it's the case. I know you're desperately protesting, but the very vacuousness of your reply demonstrates how fundamentally false your position is.

You can't even have a rational argument with someone who is pro-choice without become abusive and hostile.

No, you're a troll, oolorie, and that's entirely your own fault. Is it really surprising that people recognize your fallacious style of argumentation even if they don't know of you admitting to your behavior?

Fundamentally, people are reacting to your deliberately obnoxiousness, and that's because your choice of method has a consequence.

I know it's going to be hard for you to admit, but people are going to be repulsed by your lack of integrity. It's too obvious. The evidence doesn't lie. Your pustulence is just too odious.

Abortions rose rapidly in the US in the late 1960's, along with a massive ease of access to contraceptives and sex education.

You mean... about the time it became legal, and started to be reported.... yeh, that kinda makes sense, doesn't it?

So the idea that access to contraceptives and sex education prevent abortions is foolish

...except that the evidence disagree with you.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

https://rewire.news/article/20...

...and then there's this other side....

https://mic.com/articles/98886...

Abstinence education: There's almost no getting around it. States with abstinence-only education have the highest rates of teen pregnancies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

These data show clearly that abstinence-only education as a state policy is ineffective in preventing teenage pregnancy and may actually be contributing to the high teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S.

And let me fix this for you....

The real problem is that since the 1960's, the US has been massively subsidizing irresponsible sexual behavior and childbearing: families that can't afford to have children, single mothers, etc. And that's the fault of people WHO TRY TO FORCE WOMEN TO HAVE CHILDREN WHEN THEY GET PREGNANT.... you know, the stupid fucking pro-forced-birth conservatives.

And the amount of harm people like you have been causing to women and children is staggering.

You don't give a fuck about women or children, only fetus's. The first fucking thing out of your mouth is a lie, followed by complaining about how much money it costs. Hey dipshit, read the article from Colorado. Fewer unwanted pregnancies = less cost and fewer abortions. Anyone with a fucking brain can look at the data and see that where abstinence only is the only thing taught, unwanted teen pregnancy is the highest. Colorado solved that... how? By make contraceptives available; and that also reduces abortions.

You want to talk about harm done... stupid idiots like you, who can't live in reality and believe your bullshit fantasy... that's what's fucking up this country.

Abortions rose rapidly in the US in the late 1960's, along with a massive ease of access to contraceptives and sex education.

You mean... about the time it became legal, and started to be reported.... yeh, that kinda makes sense, doesn't it?

So the idea that access to contraceptives and sex education prevent abortions is foolish

...except that the evidence disagree with you.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

https://rewire.news/article/20...

...and then there's this other side....

https://mic.com/articles/98886...

Abstinence education: There's almost no getting around it. States with abstinence-only education have the highest rates of teen pregnancies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

These data show clearly that abstinence-only education as a state policy is ineffective in preventing teenage pregnancy and may actually be contributing to the high teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S.

And let me fix this for you....

The real problem is that since the 1960's, the US has been massively subsidizing irresponsible sexual behavior and childbearing: families that can't afford to have children, single mothers, etc. And that's the fault of people WHO TRY TO FORCE WOMEN TO HAVE CHILDREN WHEN THEY GET PREGNANT.... you know, the stupid fucking pro-forced-birth conservatives.

And the amount of harm people like you have been causing to women and children is staggering.

You don't give a fuck about women or children, only fetus's. The first fucking thing out of your mouth is a lie, followed by complaining about how much money it costs. Hey dipshit, read the article from Colorado. Fewer unwanted pregnancies = less cost and fewer abortions. Anyone with a fucking brain can look at the data and see that where abstinence only is the only thing taught, unwanted teen pregnancy is the highest. Colorado solved that... how? By make contraceptives available; and that also reduces abortions.

You want to talk about harm done... stupid idiots like you, who can't live in reality and believe your bullshit fantasy... that's what's fucking up this country.

Over the past 15 years, studies examining a potential relationship between RF transmitters and cancer have been published. These studies have not provided evidence that RF exposure from the transmitters increases the risk of cancer. Likewise, long-term animal studies have not established an increased risk of cancer from exposure to RF fields, even at levels that are much higher than produced by base stations and wireless networks.

http://www.who.int/peh-emf/pub...

How about something more recent? Is the NIH a good enough source?:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

After MW radiation of 3 mW/cm**2 for 0, 3 and 24 h, no significant changes in the COX I and COX IV mRNA expression levels in the rat cerebral cortex and hippocampus were found. [COX is cytochrome c oxidase.] However, after MW radiation of 30 mW/cm**2 for 0, 3 and 24 h, COX I mRNA expression in the rat cerebral cortex and hippocampus de-creased significantly, but no significant change in COX IV mRNA expression levels was found. In conclusion, MW radiation downregulates the COX I gene encoded by mitochondrial DNA in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus of rats in a dose-dependent manner. These results suggest that the changes in gene expression caused by MW radiation are important factors in mitochondrial dysfunction and brain energy failure. [cm**2 is square centimeters. Slashdot doesn't display superscripts.]

Like many scientific articles, that article is poorly written. What is the amount of radiation from a cell phone, for example, per square centimeter? By not providing context, the article can appear to be more important than it really is.

However, that article is showing interest in a VERY important direction. How does electromagnetic radiation affect biological processes? Which biochemical reactions could be affected by small amounts of radiation?

This article, RF Radiation Levels From Cellular Towers, says "A total of 25 percent of the power densities exceeds 1,000 microwatt/m**2 [1 milliwatt/m**2], which has been suggested to be the average threshold value for non-thermal biological effects." Notice that the power is in square meters. 1,000 microwatt/m**2 converted to square centimeters is 0.0001 mW/cm**2.

The first article says, "After MW radiation of 3 mW/ cm**2 for 0, 3 and 24 h, no significant changes in the COX I and COX IV mRNA expression levels in the rat cerebral cortex and hippocampus were found." That article also doesn't provide context. A power level of 3 mW/cm**2, said to have no effect, is 30,000 times what the 2nd article says is an amount of microwave energy that has no biological effect. So, cell phone towers are not emitting enough energy to have a biological effect.

Again, by not providing context, the article can appear to be more important than it really is. A far bigger problem is that the intention of the authors to mislead indicates that the authors are dishonest. That raises the question: Can anything the authors say be trusted?

What is a far more important question is how much energy does a cell phone radiate, per square centimeter, if it is next to your skin and emitting the greatest amount of energy because of having only one bar of signal strength? (One bar requires a cell ph

After MW radiation of 3 mW/cm**2 for 0, 3 and 24 h, no significant changes in the COX I and COX IV mRNA expression levels in the rat cerebral cortex and hippocampus were found. [COX is cytochrome c oxidase.] However, after MW radiation of 30 mW/cm**2 for 0, 3 and 24 h, COX I mRNA expression in the rat cerebral cortex and hippocampus de-creased significantly, but no significant change in COX IV mRNA expression levels was found. In conclusion, MW radiation downregulates the COX I gene encoded by mitochondrial DNA in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus of rats in a dose-dependent manner. These results suggest that the changes in gene expression caused by MW radiation are important factors in mitochondrial dysfunction and brain energy failure. [cm**2 is square centimeters. Slashdot doesn't display superscripts.]

Like many scientific articles, that article is poorly written. What is the amount of radiation from a cell phone, for example, per square centimeter? By not providing context, the article can appear to be more important than it really is.

However, that article is showing interest in a VERY important direction. How does electromagnetic radiation affect biological processes? Which biochemical reactions could be affected by small amounts of radiation?

This article, RF Radiation Levels From Cellular Towers, says "A total of 25 percent of the power densities exceeds 1,000 microwatt/m**2 [1 milliwatt/m**2], which has been suggested to be the average threshold value for non-thermal biological effects." Notice that the power is in square meters. 1,000 microwatt/m**2 converted to square centimeters is 0.0001 mW/cm**2.

The first article says, "After MW radiation of 3 mW/ cm**2 for 0, 3 and 24 h, no significant changes in the COX I and COX IV mRNA expression levels in the rat cerebral cortex and hippocampus were found." That article also doesn't provide context. A power level of 3 mW/cm**2, said to have no effect, is 30,000 times what the 2nd article says is an amount of microwave energy that has no biological effect. So, cell phone towers are not emitting enough energy to have a biological effect.

Again, by not providing context, the article can appear to be more important than it really is. A far bigger problem is that the intention of the authors to mislead indicates that the authors are dishonest. That raises the question: Can anything the authors say be trusted?

What is a far more important question is how much energy does a cell phone radiate, per square centimeter, if it is next to your skin and emitting the greatest amount of energy because of having only one bar of signal strength? (One bar requires a cell ph

>People had a really hard life back then. 40 years, if you made it that far, was REALLY old.

I was going to school you on life expectancy after early mortality was removed... but a bit of research shows 40 WAS damn old until a few hundred years into the common era, though late 50s had been not terribly uncommon for a maybe a thousand years by then - if you lived in the right place, of course.

Maybe you should look a bit harder...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Specifically this table...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

The change in life expectancy of mature men has not changed as dramatically over 3000 years as might be expected, although this data must of necessity refer to privileged members of society.

The observation being, it probably matters less where you lived than if you lived a hard life...

On the other hand, this observation doesn't appear to apply to women.

Life expectancy of women at the age of 15 years has however changed dramatically over the last 600 years and by a decade and a half since the mid-Victorian period.

One wonders what socio-economic forces might explain this

>People had a really hard life back then. 40 years, if you made it that far, was REALLY old.

I was going to school you on life expectancy after early mortality was removed... but a bit of research shows 40 WAS damn old until a few hundred years into the common era, though late 50s had been not terribly uncommon for a maybe a thousand years by then - if you lived in the right place, of course.

Maybe you should look a bit harder...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Specifically this table...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

The change in life expectancy of mature men has not changed as dramatically over 3000 years as might be expected, although this data must of necessity refer to privileged members of society.

The observation being, it probably matters less where you lived than if you lived a hard life...

On the other hand, this observation doesn't appear to apply to women.

Life expectancy of women at the age of 15 years has however changed dramatically over the last 600 years and by a decade and a half since the mid-Victorian period.

One wonders what socio-economic forces might explain this