For those uninclined to dig, the Bivings astroturf campaign was largely responsible, it seems, for Nature recanting its publication a few years back of work by Ignacio Chapela et al documenting transgenes having been found in Mexican maize land races in Oaxaca. (Growing GM maize is banned in Mexico, which is the global center of diversity for the species.)
The study, for those of you who didn't read below the fold back then, was disavowed over the objections of the study's peer-reviewers, and no party claimed the basic findings of the study were in error. Political pressure, pure and simple.
I beg to differ, Chris. It was not so simple as that. There were very real and serious problems with the Chapela paper, and that paper should never have passed peer review. Whether the conclusions were correct or incorrect, the evidence presented in the paper was insufficient to support those conclusions. I read that paper the week it came out, and as I had been using the same techniques in my own research (inverse PCR), I was amazed that the paper had made it into Nature. There was without doubt a huge political component to the brouhaha that ensued, but Chapela's critics were attacking a breathtakingly weak piece of research. And why not? If your goal is to make a scientist look bad in front of his peers, that's exactly what you'd want to do.
I hope that you are not confusing good research with research that supports your views. If that's your game... it's just PR.
I use an Endura Pro buckling spring keyboard on my Mac. It's a bit smaller than the Customizer, with the same clickety-good feel that gave the IBM Model M its its fanatical following. The only glitch for a Mac user is that Command and Option keys are reversed, a problem easily corrected by the Double Command key remapping utility.
Jules,
we used to keep liter quantities of picric acid around for fixation of biological samples prior to electron microscopy. It's not so bad, provided that you keep it hydrated. Osmium tetroxide and uranyl acetate, on the other hand... eeeeeew. Unavoidable if you do EM, but *yuck*. And my dad has some extraordinarily funny stories about nitrogen triiodide, metal-bodied liquid-fueled rockets, and other explodables. He quit playing around when a university lab instructor (at Purdue, home of the world BBQ-prep speed record referenced above) displayed a jar containing formalin and fingers that had once been attached to an adventurous but careless undergrad...
I'll bet you a dollar to a dime that the incidence of usage has risen.
I'll take that bet. Let's see your data.
Could you give us specifics on this one? I work for big pharma and the attitude I have seen could be described as, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING!?!?!?!"
Delighted to. Start here:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/99/9/5752
and here:
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/antibiotics_and_food/hogging-it-estimates-of-antimicrobial-abuse-in-livestock.html
Tragedy of the commons in a nutshell.
Kathryn, as repulsed as I am by creationists, the rise of MRSA has a great deal more to do with farmers who pour vast quantities of antibiotics into feed stocks and pharma companies that promote this practice, patients who demand antibiotics whether they are necessary or not, doctors who prescribe them when they know (or should know) better, and entire nations that allow people to purchase critical antibiotics over the counter without prescription or instruction.
This is an issue that *really* gets my underthings in a bunch.
There's also the not-insignificant fact that pseudoephedrine is not patent protected. A major factor here is that the pharma industry would not be bent out of shape if the only decent decongestants available all had another 5-8 years left under patent...
I will refrain from trying to apply the standards that we largely seem to agree upon in this thread over in the food-labeling thread...
;-).
"In fact, I have yet to see a drug approved by the FDA where the number of minor OD deaths is statistically significant. "
I'm guessing lithium might make that list. And no, I am not saying we should toss lithium off of the prescribable list.
"Once you get above four or five meds, the combinations and permutations are nearly impossible to accurately predict (which, Alexey, makes it REALLY difficult to report which effect goes with which drug)"
As a biochemist, I'm well aware of this. It can be difficult to reliably assess more than two variables in a well-controlled experiment, and sometimes two is pushing it.
Assuming, of course, that the reporting system is working correctly - a subject about which I know nothing. Anybody?
I did not say the odds were bad. In fact, whether odds are good or bad odds is subjective. I did say that the odds are a whole lot worse than Jim had implied, a statement that is objectively* true. If we're going to introduce numbers into the discussion, let's see to it that they are not misleading. Otherwise, let's leave the numbers out of it. 'Kay?
I agree that analgesics are good and meet important needs. Whether 1 in 100,000 is bad odds is open to debate.
I am certain that the chemical industry, and big agriculture, would *love* to see the risk threshold for their products set at that level. Everyone here okay with that?
(* Why yes, I am taking as axiomatic the notion that drug-induced death is "bad".)
Whoops, meant to write 1/500,000 lifetime, not per year.
With all due respect (and this is substantial), Jim, an average person in this country lives for close to 70 years. So really, it's roughly 1 person in 500,000 in the population per year. And, of course, risk is not evenly distributed. For example, those who didn't take the drug were not at risk. Let's say that 20% of the population (a number pulled out of my ass) took the drugs. That could mean a 1 in 100,000 chance of death due to these drugs. If more people were taking it the risk was lower. If fewer people were taking it, the risk was higher.
Doesn't look like such a good trade-off any more, does it? Maybe worth it for some people, but it is not negligible. And it sure looks a lot worse than the 1 in 35 million statistic that you cite.
Daniel Martin: "I'm very glad to see the meme that ID is theology being promulgated."
That may be a meme, but that ID is theology is also a fact.
Snark of the week:
[...]
Chertoff flashed impatience when a reporter tried to ask Brown if he would resign and if he would respond to a Time magazine report that he inflated his résumé. "Here are the ground rules: I'm going to answer the questions," Chertoff interrupted. "I've explained what we're doing. I thought I was about as clear as I possibly could be in English as to what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Next question."
Although Brown was not allowed to answer, he later told an Associated Press reporter in an interview that it was not his idea to go back to Washington. Asked if he was being made a scapegoat, he said: "By the press, yes. By the president, no."
[Emphasis added.]
Folks, there are many many things to be horrified about in the wake of Katrina. Fear for the welfare of these primates should be a concern. Fear of infection due to vermin (rats, etc.) should be. Fear of mosquito-borne disease should be. Fear of waterborne disease should be. Fear of pathogen escape from the primate center should NOT be.
Please do not let your imagination run wild. This situation, like a Michael Chrichton story, is awful. Unlike a Chrichton story, it is reality-based.
We are not dealing with fairy dust here but with pathogens that have KNOWN routes of transmission. None of what's printed above gives me *any* reason for concern on this count. The only concern is that a bite from an escaped monkey could infect a person with monkey herpes B virus, which in humans is poorly transmissible but without treatment invariably fatal. This is an unlikely event that even were it to occur would not cause large-scale disease.
FWIW, I do have a relatively recently-obtained doctorate in mechanisms of bacterial infection.
Two predictions.
One: if you have a missing relative FEMA will be willing to take a sample of your DNA for comparative identification purposes.
Two: there will be no twilight policy in place for the destruction of DNA samples so obtained, and in fact all such samples will be archived and made available to federal and state law enforcement in perpetuity.
What is it with you people? The words of Christ mean what Pat Robertson says they mean, no more and no less. Didn't you get the memo?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2006 | 14 |
| 2005 | 26 |
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