The Lasso of Truth

The love that dare not speak its name

Memo to rainbow progressive types who insist on discussing AIDS like it's equivalent to the common cold -- that anybody can catch it...

The HIV pandemic has historically been thought of as either concentrated in specific populations—such as gay men, injection drug–users, sex workers—or generalized across the entire population in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. But as more and better epidemiological data has become available, the evidence is clear: men who have sex with men (MSM), regardless of whether or not they identify as gay, also are at the core of those generalized epidemics.

MSM in developing countries are 19 times more likely to be infected with HIV than the general population, according to a 2007 literature review.

Even in Africa, at the heart of the pandemic, in Malawi, 21 percent of MSM are infected with the virus compared with 11 percent of the general population, whereas Zambia's rates are 33 percent versus 15 percent, respectively, says Chris Beyrer, director of the Johns Hopkins Center of Public Health and Human Rights.

"The argument that gay and bisexual men are a trivial sideshow in the global fight against AIDS is wrong,"

And this whole time, we've been told it's bigotry and homophobia to even suggest such a thing!

A look into the Obamacare crystal ball

[The] healthcare system is unable to provide sterilized needles, clean water, food and medicine, and patients are forced to undergo agonizing surgery without anesthesia

Thankfully, not the socialized medicine offered in the US and Canada...yet...

"I was screaming so much from the pain, I thought I was going to die. They had tied my hands and legs to prevent me from moving," said a 56-year-old woman from Musan who had an appendectomy performed without anesthesia.

In keeping with its socialist ideology, North Korea once boasted of providing free, universal healthcare with a network of more than 44,000 general practitioners who would even make house calls. Although hospitalization remains free, the facilities are unsanitary and have no food, bandages or medicine.

We used to be closer to the precipice, up here on the north end of the border, but you Americans (ambitious as ever!) are careening past us at lightning speed.

Lesbianism

Apparently we have a pill for that...

A New York doctor named Maria New has been advising pregnant women to take a steroid called dexamethasone to prevent homosexuality and "masculine behavior" in their daughters. How did she get away with this form of anti-gay genetic engineering?

New is an endocrinologist who studies, among other things, a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). It's caused by overexposure to male hormones in the womb, and it can result in developmental abnormalities that often mean, as Time magazine puts it, "a lifetime of taking powerful steroid medications to compensate for faulty adrenal glands." It can also cause girls to be born with ambiguous genitalia. (They have large clitorises that appear penis-like, though they also have perfectly ordinary vaginal openings and wombs.)

 Working with several collaborators, including Columbia psychologist Heino F. L. Meyter-Bahlburg, New has written a series of scientific papers suggesting a strong connection between CAH and lesbianism. CAH, they write, is also associated with a disinterest in mothering, as well as "masculine behavior" in girls.

Enter dexamethasone, dex for short. It's a steroid that New and some of her colleagues believe can prevent some of the outward signs of CAH in girls - specifically, there is a small amount of evidence that it can prevent ambiguous genitals. But dex has never been approved by the FDA for treating CAH in utero.

It actually doesn't seem that radical to me.  At least not as compared to, say, gender reassignment surgery, or anything like that.

The other side of the coin

...the one that no one thinks about, when they talk about "universal health care"...

When Governments Choose To Pay For Medicine, They Also Choose What Medicine To Not Pay For

Inevitably, those budget troubles lead to government bodies making choices about what care to not pay for. And because public health care systems tend to have built-in advantages that allow them to dominate their markets, those otherwise reasonable-sounding budgeting decisions become decisions about what treatments are and aren't available to citizens—which frequently means that citizens get stuck with lower-quality treatments.

Or none at all.

Getting "in the way of abortion"???!?

Can it really be characterized that way when a government simply refuses to shovel out taxpayer dollars to pay for it?

Giving every little girl in the world ready and universal access to vacuum and forceps prior to birth is a novel approach to "women's rights", I'd say.  And placing it under the rubric of "maternal health" is just Orwellian.

Universal Health Care, The Loch Ness Monster, Sasquatch

And other myths...

Politicians and top bureaucrats from provinces across the country have better access to cancer drugs and treatment than their constituents, according to Cancer Advocacy Coalition Canada.

It is unclear if that is the case in Ontario, because legislatures wouldn’t give out the information.

“We had exceptional assistance from across the country, with the exception of Ontario, who did not chose to report their MPP drug benefit program,” Chris Bonnett, an insurance and health care consultant for the coalition, said Wednesday during the release of the organization’s 2009-2010 Report Card on Cancer in Canada.

“There is a big gap between what legislatures enjoy and what citizens enjoy. They get access to drugs, cancer medication much quicker than their constituents. They also get access to drugs that are not part of the public drug program.

“This gap of what they enjoy as decision makers, policy makers ... the gap is dangerous. It gives them an unfair and unrealistic view. They think their coverage is similar to what every one else gets, but the reality is quite different.”

Sadly, now we can't even count on America to offer the choices we lack.

My steak was a vegetarian

Last night I had a beef dip sandwich for dinner.  It wasn't gourmet but it met the basic standards I require from all meals:  sloppy salty meat, drippy fatty cheese and some manner of bread.  The silly vegetables on top (fried onions) were tolerated only because they were adequately saturated in fat.

Lettuce is for rabbits and broccoli is best in a dish smothered in mayo, sour cream and cheddar cheese and served bubbling and hot, with tortilla chips.

Don't get me wrong,I do know how to eat properly.  I took nutrition in school, in preparation for a career in culinary arts.  I do buy veggies for the kids and I will even eat some in their presence (good example, and all) but if I had my way, all meals would come with the requisite starch and 2 meat servings...and salt.  That's it.

And nothing -- I mean nothing -- could sway me from a certain fatal heart attack, with the lure of Chickpea Cutlets, and such...

We try not to play favorites, but this is one of our babies and a recipe that we are sure will take over food blogs worldwide. A combination of chickpeas and vital wheat gluten formed into savory cutlets, it’s perfect for when you want something “meaty” buy don’t want to go to the trouble of making seitan. We serve these cutlets in myriad ways, packed into sandwiches or smothered in mustard sauce, with a side of mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus. It’s vegan food that you can eat with a steak knife and, best of all, it is fast and easy. You’ll probably want to double the recipe if you’re serving it to guests.

I assume these would be guests you don't like.

I find it rather ironic that the people who decry the consumption of flesh so vehemently, spend so much time and energy trying to make their vegan dishes mimic realmeat.  I speculate it has less to do with healthy choices than it does with a pretentious longing to be part of the newest cool, and a cowardly squeamishness about eating cows.

A question of motivation

Among psychopaths and politicians, alike...

A Vanderbilt University study has new findings on how psychopaths weigh risk and reward. The study suggests that psychopaths may possess amped-up dopamine reward systems that compel them to pursue their goals regardless of personal cost.

And you thought they were just oblivious to the risks.

How many filthy jokes...

Can be made from a story about bananas, as a valuable tool in the war against HIV?

Hypocrisy, thy name is Liberal

Personally, I think Danny Williams should be entitled to do whatever he wants with his own money and his own health care.  What, that we should all be so fortunate as to have the choice.

But one thing's for sure...I certainly hope I don't ever again, have to hear the "Americanized Health Care" sneer that Liberals are so fond of using, like it's a dirty word.  After all, if it sucked so bad down there, he wouldn't be blowing wads of cash to use it when it's free at home...right?

The importance of face time

Although it's not the main crux of the article, I found this part interesting...

The research doesn’t bode well for the late-night booty text, one-night stand, or random fornication in the fraternity house as pathways to an orgasm. In the one-on-one interviews included in the study, one man explained that with his girlfriend, “definitely oral is really important [for her to orgasm],” but that with a casual hookup, “I don’t give a shit.”

For all the talk about the sexual revolution "empowering" women, the truth is, casual sex and casual attitudes about sex actually reduce a man's view of a woman from the status of potential life partner, to glory hole - with shoes.

h/t

Uh oh!

Mikey won't be happy to hear that his "daily physical" may actually be doing harm to his health...

According to a new research out of the UK, men who have frequent sex in their twenties and thirties were at a greater risk of developing prostate cancer later in life.

[..]

Since prostate cancer is known to be associated with male hormone levels, the researchers used frequency of sex as a proxy. They theorized that a man who had lots of sex when young would have had higher hormone levels driving the urge. Thus, highly sexed men — men who had sex more than 20 times a month, according to the study — should be more prone to prostate cancer.

But there is hope for the future...

One of the more puzzling aspects of Dimitropoulou's study is the fact that the trends she identified appear to reverse when men have frequent sex in their forties and fifties.

"A possible explanation for the protective effect that men in their fifties appear to receive from overall sexual activity, and particularly masturbation, is that the release of accumulated toxins during sexual activity reduces the risk of developing cancer in the prostate area,"

Just a few years of abstinence, and you'll be in the clear, my love!

In the meantime, maybe it's time to milk that sucker ;)

Decoding Darwin

Another step down the path of understanding evolution...

In his book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins argued that Darwinian evolution is driven by "selfish genes" that want to replicate themselves. Wrong! It turns out that evolution functions even among proteins that have no DNA.

Proving, once again, that science is never settled.

Pass the stuffing!

This article kind of reminds me of how I felt when I learned about dust mites and the "friendly bacteria" in cheese and yogurt...

Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and potatoes expose you to a myriad of Mother Nature’s finest carcinogens. They contain heterocyclic amines, acrylamide, ethyl alcohol, benzo(a)pyrene and ethyl carbamate. Add to that the furan derivatives, furfural, dihydrazines, d-limonene, psoralens, quercetin glycosides and safrole, not to mention caffeic acid. Umm, caffeic acid.

If you think you can escape exposure to these so called toxins by sticking to a simple tossed-green salad topped with a splash of basil-mustard vinaigrette, think again. You’ll then be dealing with allyl isothiocyanate, estragole, methyl eugenol and caffeic acid. A buttered roll will add acetaldehyde, benzene, ethyl alcohol, benzo(a)pyrene, ethyl carbamate, furan derivatives and furfural to the mix. Broccoli spears mean allyl isothiocyanate.  Carrot sticks equal aniline and that darn caffeic acid (again!). Cherry tomatoes offer benzaldehyde, caffeic acid, hydrogen peroxide and quercetin glycosides, just as God intended.

 

You know, what we really need to do is start jacking our food with drugs, to head off this kind of, uh, chemical interference. /SARC

 

Cavemen were eating charred rabbit since before there were product labels, and here we all are, in abundance now.

 

A proper meal isn't worth the trouble, if you don't risk full cardiac arrest with each bite and macrobiotic is for fairies.  Eat hearty this Christmas, before big nanny starts doling out the portions.

Ask the victims of Thalidomide...

...about the law of unintended consequences...

Health Canada is proposing an unorthodox way of combatting a food ingredient suspected in some cancers: It wants to let manufacturers put small amounts of a cancer-fighting drug into potato chips and similar foods to curb production of the harmful chemical.

[..]

As a partial answer, Health Canada is suggesting removing the requirement for a prescription to administer the enzyme asparaginase, except when it is injected into leukemia patients as a treatment.

That way, food companies could include small amounts of the drug in their products, the department says in a "notice of intent" document published on Saturday.

The health industry, that can't get me a hip replacement in less than 4 months, wants to start adding prescription medication to my food.

Outstanding.

Call me. beep me...

The hyper-geek in me thinks this is pretty cool.  The not-so-geeky girl in me just says ewww!

The lights are on

...but they're tied up and gagged, in the basement...

While one would hope Houben was the unlucky winner of a terrifying medical lottery, situations like his may not be rare. Neurologist Steven Laureys, who performed the revealing brain scan on Houben, says that in 40 percent of supposedly vegetative patients he examined, brain scans revealed some level of consciousness. Both Houben and Laureys are advocating that doctors lean less on the Glasgow Scale and look more toward brain scans.

In a healthcare bureaucracy that wants to use rationingto alleviate healthcare costs, and embraces the concept of euthanizing the disabled, does anyone believe doctors will be encouraged to engage in a procedure where people in "vegetative" states are identified and rescued more frequently?

Well, no...

It's not a "death panel" per se, but at the end of all that rationing the end result is really the same...

The ideas for savings to the health care system are endless! We know already, of course, about the great new idea of not looking so closely at those breasts. What we don't know won't cause us anxiety, and if cancer should come, the later we discover it the better, because there is nothing like death to stop us from running to the doctor for every little thing.

...Isn't it?

H/T

What could possibly go wrong?

I wonder if the "75% of medical specialists" who are in favor of being given legal sanction to perform euthanasia, are the same "medical specialists" who are responsible for the in-hospital body count from infections contracted because doctors don't wash their hands.

But let's trust these people with the final say on life or death. 

Just giving Americans more choice

Isn't that what he said..?

The plan from Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana would make health insurance mandatory, just like auto coverage. It would provide tax credits to help cover the cost for people making up to three times the federal poverty level. That's about $66,000 for a family of four, and $32,000 for an individual.

But those who still don't sign up would face hefty fines, starting at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families. The maximum penalty on individuals would be $950.

Change you'd better believe in!

h/t

Pilates and Fondue

Not my salacious dinner plans with the world's most fantastic lover.  (Though, if he plays his cards right...)

Rather, just a few of the marvelous things we are free to do, by the grace of cosmic forces beyond our comprehension.

"Vicious, or just plain stupid?"...I say both

An unqualified candidate, with some questionable associations, got elected to high office on a campaign that traded on his skin color so the Democrats could "make history", but Michael Steele who, arguably, has a not dissimilar resume, is nothing more than a "token black". 

Is it because he's Republican or because he disagrees with King Obama about pulling the plug on Grandma? (via)

And can somebody tell me why this article appears in Psychology Today?  Is this a demonstration of abnormal psychology?  Projection, perhaps..?

There is red in these roots

I hate the dentist.

No offense to dentists out there, but at least Josef Mengele didn't charge exorbitant prices for his sadistic tinkering.

I didn't used to hate the dentist.  I mean, I never enjoyed it...that would be crazy...but since the first time my very first tooth poked it's way through my gums, the dentist was always that one unpleasant thing that could not be avoided.  Until I hit puberty and the pap smear made it two.

I was lucky, though.  I had the same dentist, a wonderful lady, for my entire childhood.  It wasn't until my late teens that I was forced to change when the lovely lady succumbed to an unfortunate scuba diving accident in the Caribbean.  I swear I have an alibi.

At any rate, that was when it all changed from being a mildly unpleasant experience to an agonizing torture session.  It was probably just by pure chance because the lady that took over my old dentist's practice was perfectly nice and made adequate attempts at being gentle.  But within the first couple of visits, I was in need of a root canal that turned out to be anything but gentle.  Six freezing needles, two hours of drilling and digging, and countless buckets of painful tears later, and I was convinced of the pure, unadulterated sadistic evil festering in the cruel bitch's heart.

I have since changed dentists a number of times but ever since then, I have not been able to so much as sit in the waiting room of the dentist's office, without coming dangerously close to blacking out.  I routinely hyperventilate while sitting in the chair and I have, on a couple of occasions, vomited from anxiety during a simple cleaning.

The mind is a funny thing.  I was at a point where my dentist would prescribe me a Valium to take before coming in, just to keep me calm enough to muddle through my examination.  Until I discovered the gas, glorious gas.  Now, I insist on it for everything from cleanings to fillings.  It makes everything bearable as long as I don't spend too much time fidgeting in the waiting room first.

It makes me feel a little silly, to be so neurotic about something that is so routine for everyone else.  I hate that I turn into a simpering wimp at the sight of the perky blond in pink scrubs, who flosses my teeth for me.  Which is why it is so nice to find out that at least some of my fear and loathing is scientifically justified...

New research published in this month's Journal of American Dental Association found that painful experiences at the dentist might cause more anxiety for men and women with red hair, who were twice as likely to avoid dental care than people with dark hair.

"Redheads are sensitive to pain," said Dr. Daniel Sessler, an Outcomes Research Department chair at The Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio, who is one of the authors.

"They require more generalized anesthesia, localized anesthesia. The conventional doses fail. They have bad experiences at the dentist and because of the bad experiences, they could avoid dental care."  [..]

In 2004, research showed that people with red hair need 20 percent more general anesthesia than blonds and brunettes.

A 2005 study indicated that redheads are more sensitive to thermal pain and are more resistant to the effects of local anesthesia.

Because having freckles wasn't punishment enough.

Thanks to Skippy, who shares my unfortunate condition.

The newest murderously evil corporation

BIG SUGAR.

Public Service message of the day

Girls, listen carefully.  Boys, tell your wives/girlfriends...

The intrauterine device is a small—roughly 1 inch—plastic "T" inserted into the uterus that hampers the interaction and implantation of the sperm and egg. It has to be placed by a gynecologist, but once in, it's a practically foolproof method of birth control—99 percent effective—that can last up to 10 years. While daily or monthly forms of birth control can cost up to $60 a month, an IUD is a one-time cost between $300 and $500—though it's often covered by insurance. There's nothing to remember to take (unlike the pill), put in (unlike the NuvaRing), or take off (unlike the patch). And while efficacy studies suggest that the pill, patch, or ring are 99 percent effective in a clinical setting, real-life compliancy—like forgetting to take the pill at the same time every day—reduces its success rate. All that is a nonissue for the IUD: Once in, it requires no maintenance for the length of the device. Perhaps best of all, it can be hormone-free, which is better for the environment and ideal for women prone to some of the negative effects of hormonal birth control, like weight gain, mood swings, acne, or high blood pressure.

I had terrible experiences with the pill.  Frequently, I would have to go to the hospital for debilitating cramp pain and profuse bleeding.  And that was just during the 2 week period when I would get my monthly visitor.  The rest of the time, I had acne and ugly mood swings.

For these reasons, it should be no mystery that I was anxious to embrace any alternate option for birth control after the birth of my first child, and after each child that followed until the magic vasectomy made such measures unnecessary.

I was lucky that my mother had used an IUD for many years and never had any trouble.  If not for her advice and encouragement, I probably would have been scared off by the horror stories about toxic shock and IUD-embedded babies, that stigmatized the option.

After the birth of my second child a friend of mine, who had also just had a baby, ignored my advice about this trouble-free method that would not interfere with breast-feeding, and within 3 months, found herself pregnant again.

For a solution that you don't have to remember or carry with you, doesn't carry a risk of microscopic holes, and won't mess with your hormone levels, you couldn't ask for a safer and more hassle-free choice.  It doesn't protect you from disease but if you're participating in activities where you have to worry about this, your biggest problem is not the risk of pregnancy.

Between 2 rounds with an IUD and silicone breast implants, I am single-handedly tearing holes through the fearmongering of 1970's feminism.

h/t

Time to cut out the rot

Mark Steyn made me think about my son’s leg, today.  Worse yet, he made me think about my son’s leg and feel a little silly, almost ashamed at the lack of good sense I displayed just the other day, regarding what turned out to be a minor infection.

Two nights ago, as I was getting kids ready for bed my younger son came to me with a complaint about what appeared, at first blush, to be a bug bite on his leg.  As I was preparing to administer Calamine lotion and ferry him off to bed I noticed it wasn’t a bite at all, but was actually a very small scrape that had become very badly inflamed with infection. I once had a very bad infection in my hand and remember the flaming red line inching it’s way up my arm and the remark from the nurse that I was very lucky I came when I did, to get it lanced.  Looking at my son’s leg, I worried that the actual wound was far too small to offer an effective opening to let the infection out and I was unprepared to attempt lancing it myself.  I was also very conscious of the fact that if we left it be for the night and it turned out to be significantly worse by morning, Mikey would have to cart him and 5 other kids into the emergency room himself, at prime time.  Not a fate I would subject my worst enemy to.

So, off to the emergency room we went, at 10:00 that night.  The logic was sound (in a masticated socialized Canadiana kind of way) – The Georgetown hospital, so late on a Monday night, would likely not be busy and my paranoid mommy instincts would be assuaged under the capable scalpel of the on-call doctor.

It was not to be.  Upon arrival, I saw the line for triage in the waiting room was a half dozen souls deep and the chairs densely populated.  I imagined myself, along with my very tired 10-year-old and his older brother (who insisted on tagging along) still sucking up space in the waiting room at 3am, and me having to return to work the next day.

Ok Goober (that’s his nickname – ya, I know)…back to the car and a 20 minute drive to Brampton Civic, to see if we might fare a little better.

What foolishness.  Of course it was packed, too.

I was suddenly left with the dilemma of having to choose between an excruciating wait for a treatment that I wasn’t even sure was an emergency, or taking the chance with treating it myself and hoping for the best.

So, I made a stop at the drug store for bandages and antiseptic cream, and returned home with a profound sense of futility at the waste of time and parking fees spent trying to get my son treatment.

Now I feel stupid.  And worse yet, I feel stupid for some very good reasons.

I have always expounded on the virtues of self-reliance and castigated those who answer the clarion call to consign their fate to big nanny.  Yet here I was, wringing my hands over how to treat a simple infection that, after 2 days of soaking and careful ministrations, has cleared up quite nicely – without carrying the hefty price tag of an emergency room visit.

But how easily I was sucked in.  How quickly my instincts led me to assume the best course of action was to drag my boy out into the middle of the night, and spend hours languishing in a room full of sick strangers.

Mark Steyn says that socialized medicine "alters the relationship between the citizen and the state" and he's absolutely right.  And me -- the neocon hardass that I have always prided myself on being -- I am solid proof of how easily that alteration is affected.  I looked at this festering wound and doubted that I had the ability to handle it effectively.  I chickend out at first, because I thought a trip to emergency would be easier than trying to figure out how to clean it out and clear it up.

Stupid.  And lazy.

That is what socialized medicine makes you.

When I first looked at my son's leg, I was remembering an episode of Little House on the Prairie, where the mother, Caroline, got an infection on her leg that nearly killed her.  In the desperate blur of fevered infection, she heated up a kitchen knife and cut out the infected tissue until she collapsed and nearly died.  It was only tv, I know, but I was afraid of the truth behind the drama -- that it really could get that bad.  I was anxious to spare my little boy from similar suffering.

What I should have been remembering from this long lost piece of sentimental theatre, instead of the fear and suffering, was the self-reliance and strength of survival instinct that led this woman alone to take such a drastic measure to save her own life.

But nanny rocks the cradle so gently, the sleep creeps up on you so slowly, it takes a cold glass of Steyn to the face, to bring a simple soul like me to my senses.

I will have to be more diligent.  So should you.

In other words...

Asian men really do tend to be bad drivers and most news reports about drive-by shootings include the words "black male"...

What people call “stereotypes” are what scientists call “empirical generalizations,” and they are the foundation of scientific theory. That’s what scientists do; they make generalizations. Many stereotypes are empirical generalizations with a statistical basis and thus on average tend to be true. If they are not true, they wouldn’t be stereotypes.

Engineering Retardation

Kathy touched on this subject last week in a bit of an abstract exploration of far away places but suddenly, it takes on more practical implications, a little closer to home...

Suppose you wanted to test the effects of halving the amount of salt in people’s diets. If you were an academic researcher, you’d have to persuade your institutional review board that you had considered the risks and obtained informed consent from the participants.

You might, for instance, take note of a recent clinical trial in which heart patients put on a restricted-sodium diet fared worse than those on a normal diet. In light of new research suggesting that eating salt improves mood and combats depression, you might be alert for psychological effects of the new diet. You might worry that people would react to less-salty food by eating more of it, a trend you could monitor by comparing them with a control group.

But if you are the mayor of New York, no such constraints apply. You can simply announce, as Michael Bloomberg did, that the city is starting a “nationwide initiative” to pressure the food industry and restaurant chains to cut salt intake by half over the next decade. Why bother with consent forms when you can automatically enroll everyone in the experiment?

And why bother with a control group when you already know the experiment’s outcome? The city’s health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden, has enumerated the results. If the food industry follows the city’s wishes, the health department’s Web site announces, “that action will lower health care costs and prevent 150,000 premature deaths every year.”

But that prediction is based on an estimate based on extrapolations based on assumptions that have yet to be demonstrated despite a half-century of efforts. No one knows how people would react to less-salty food, much less what would happen to their health.

Considering the fact that iodized salt accounts for the bulk of the average person's dietary iodine intake, and cutting it out would significantly reduce that intake, we do at least know what some of the impact will be...

Based on the most recent evaluation, iodine deficiency currently represents a significant public health problem for 1575 million people (almost 30% of the world's population) in 110 countries. 655 million are affected by goitre, 20 million are believed to be significantly mentally handicapped as a result of iodine deficiency which is therefore the most prevalent preventable cause of impaired intellectual development in the world today.

Severe iodine deficiency may manifest itself by Cretinism i.e. children born with severe hypothyroidism. Neonates and young infants constitute the target population for the effects of iodine deficiency because, from a public health viewpoint, the most important complications of iodine deficiency are irreversible brain damage and mental retardation which result from iodine deficiency and thyroid failure during fetal and early postnatal life.

[..]

However, in Canada we have iodized the salt and thus have completely rid our population of iodine deficiency.

If this stupidity leeches across the border, we can kiss that little milestone goodbye.

h/t

What does it say about a culture...

when you need a national marketing campaign to convince people that it is a bad thing to poo where your drinking water comes from..?

More than 2.5 billion people worldwide reportedly don't have access to a clean, safe place to do their business. And in many cultures, toilet-related words and actions are taboo—adding to the challenges faced by development and sanitation workers, said Pete Kolsky, senior water and sanitation specialist at the World Bank.

Nearly five million people annually die of waterborne diseases, and more than 80 percent of the developing world's illnesses are caused by unsafe water and inadequate sanitation, according to the nonprofit group Water Advocates.

Traditional methods of building facilities and educating people about the connection between disease and exposure to fecal matter aren't enough to break through social stigmas, according to Kolsky.

Twenty-five billion dollars of foreign aid, folks.  Money well spent, I'd say.

Priorities please

To briefly revisit yesterday's post on the long standing tug of war over conservatism with or without God, I would just like to clarify -- on the originating subject of whether or not Gary Goodyear must profess a belief in evolution to be effective as Minister of Science and Technology ...

However you may feel about the "gotcha" nature of the question when it was asked, he had only to say that regardless of his personal beliefs, he understands evolution to be an important part of the discussion and should remain included.

Better late than never.

Call me when he mandates bibles in place of textbooks in science class.  Until then, let's move on, shall we?