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"Did the EPA drop bisphenol A from the list in eight days because of lobbyists? First of all, if the EPA or any government agency reversed a decision like this in eight days it would be a grand miracle on the scale of the Genesis seven day creation myth. Or at least worthy of an Olympic gold medal. Really..."

Post Updated 2/19/10 to include new references.

The EPA, Skewered For First TSCA Action in Decades:

On December 30th, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted action plans for four chemicals: phthalates, perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and short-chain chlorinated paraffins. (No really! It gets better :-) ) An action plan signals that the EPA intends possible regulation because the chemical poses a hazard. Chemical companies complained bitterly. The EPA also listed two more chemical action plans in the development process, for benzidine dyes/pigments, and bisphenol A. Scientific American commented at the time:

"This is a big deal because it is the first time since TSCA was passed in 1976 that the EPA has made such a move. To date, the agency has only successfully used TSCA to restrict or ban five of the 80,000-plus chemicals on its inventory"

However this week, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel criticized the EPA's December chemical action plans, questioning why bisphenol A wasn't on the top four list: The EPA's "move" was "drawing suspicion", explains the paper:

"the head of the Environmental Protection Agency had been talking tough in one speech after another last fall about the need to protect the public from such chemicals, particularly BPA...but when the agency's list came out Dec. 30, identifying four chemicals that would face stricter labeling and reporting requirements, BPA was not among them..."

Writes MSJ: "Critics say the Dec. 22 meeting might have been why BPA was dropped from the top of the agency's list".

BPA is on the agency's list. But to the Journal-Sentinel's question, why is it not first up in the most recent round of action plans? Did lobbyists pressure OMB/OIRA to change EPA's stance on Dec. 22?

Now, Suddenly, The EPA Turns on A Dime?

The paper cites as the deciding factor a meeting of plastic and chemical lobbyists with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA):

"Eight days after a meeting between chemical industry lobbyists and Obama administration officials, federal regulators put off including bisphenol A on a list of dangerous chemicals that would be subject to stricter regulation"

The Center For Progressive Reform also forwarded the idea that the EPA was influenced to remove BPA from its chemical action plans list in a blog posted January 22:

"on December 22, just before EPA was about to release its first four chemical action plans, activists from American Chemistry Council and representatives of a major BPA producer met with officials at OIRA to plead the case for BPA's safety."

Did the EPA drop bisphenol A from the list in eight days? First of all, if the EPA or any government agency reversed a decision like this in eight days it would be a grand miracle on the scale of the Genesis seven day creation myth. Or at least worthy of an Olympic gold medal. Really.

But, lets look back to last fall, to a much quoted speech given by Lisa Jackson to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. The MSJ quoted the speech in their article. At the time, we wrote in "The EPA Speaks To Me" that Jackson's speech, like the president's sweeping public orations, promised something for everyone:

"The more I read, the more Jackson's speech looked like a veritable public relations jambalaya. She spoke to those committed to wetlands, spotted owls, to asthma sufferers, climate change, to those concerned about coal and gas emissions, to the Clean Air Act, to trash incineration, dioxins, pesticides, green chemistry, research, unions, medical professionals, public health groups, industry, environmentalism, to those who want jobs, fast food packaging, to unborn children, African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos and postal workers, as well as everyone who emails public comments to the EPA or who's concerned about health care or health..."

I commented at the time that her speech was clearly a "marketing tool and conversation generator but not a public policy statement." We could get mad about a lot of things in her speech, I'm sure, if we took it as public policy commitment.

If Only Talking Made Policy

Of course, in that speech Jackson did mention bisphenol A, saying: "Every few weeks, we read about new potential threats: Bisphenol A, or BPA - a chemical that can affect brain development and has been linked to obesity and cancer..." Or, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel sees it: "The first chemical on her list: BPA." But, writes MSJ: "In the end, though, her agency settled on four other chemicals to target first for the action plans." (emphasis ours)

So as MSJ says, it's true, "first" Jackson did mention BPA. Then she said "pthalates", then "dioxins, then "lead" (each once). One of the Journal-Sentinel's sources labeled EPA's stance as "curious". I'm as cynical as anyone, but lets look at Jackson's rhetorical choices.

San Francisco was the first in the nation to attempt action on bisphenol A and phthalates. Jackson was at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club talking to (I guess) some commoners -- not chemists or policy wonks. "Bisphenol A" and "pthalates", "dioxin", and "lead" would be recognizable and appreciated by the crowd. True, she didn't explicitly mention "polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) including the commercial versions of pentabromodiphenyl ether (c-pentaBDE), octabromodiphenyl ether (c-octaBDE), and decabromodiphenyl ether (c-decaBDE)" -- the flame retardants in the first batch of four EPA action plans. But had she, the crowd, eyes glazing over, probably would have slumped into trance instead of thinking the EPA was their friend and ally. Whether you view this as PR or marketing or just common sense, its elementary communication. And as an aside -- why no concern about the EPA's omission of lead or dioxin in the first batch of action plans?

Sept. 29th: EPA Announces Four Chemical "Action Plans". Sept. 30th: Names Chemicals

As for the EPA's choice of which chemicals would be targeted first, on September 29, 2009 , the EPA issued a press release" right after Jackson's speech, announcing its intention to issue four action plans in December:

"The EPA has identified an initial list of chemicals for possible risk management action and anticipates completing and posting an initial set of four action plans in December. It will complete and post additional chemical action plans in four-month intervals thereafter."

On September 30, 2009, the EPA issued another press release, naming the four chemicals of top interest, the same ones that it produced action plans for in December:

"EPA today announced a series of actions on four chemicals raising serious health or environmental concerns...The agency's actions represent its determination to use its authority under the existing Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to the fullest extent possible...In addition to phthalates, the chemicals EPA is addressing today are short-chain chlorinated paraffins, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and perfluorinated chemicals, including PFOA.

So in a September 30th press release, the EPA named the same four chemicals that were in the December 30, 2009 action plan announcement. Then did the American Chemistry Council (ACC) really sway the EPA's BPA decision in a meeting December 22nd with OMB/OIRA, eight days before the EPA's action plan announcement?

The Chemical Lobby, BPA & The EPA: Economics Factors?

To me, aside from the overly conspiratorial premise of the article, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and CPR valuably point the public's attention to some enviable industry access. The ACC sent five representatives to meet with four OMB,OIRA staff; and SABIC, a Saudi BPA manufacturer, sent two. The ACC apparently sent a letter requesting the meeting dated November 3rd. This is news: If you're a chemical lobby group or a Saudi BPA manufacturer, you can get a meeting with OMB/OIRA in a month and a half.

ACC also submitted a slim bibliography(.pdf) of research sources. The ACC submissions show the industry's dedication to a relentlessly one-sided messaging on chemical safety.

Six of fifteen studies in the bibliography have ACC's Steve Hentges (meeting attendee and ACC lobby spokesperson, who has relentlessly messaged about BPA safety) listed as the senior author (not unbiased). Three industry related studies intend to prove that BPA degrades quickly, which is an important criteria for EPA action plans. At least four other studies with various aims are authored by groups sponsored by plastics, BPA or chemical foundations. It's true, as the MSJ writes, most of the studies authors have industry affiliations. There are hundreds of other studies to choose from which wouldn't bolster the ACC's arguments one tiny little bit. (Although to be fair, the ACC is a chemical lobby group -- not an unbiased journalist, a point I'd hope the EPA recognizes)

But the ACC included one study from Ryan et al published in Toxicological Sciences (Online October, 2009), that is an EPA study conducted by EPA employees. This study concludes that low-dose bisphenol A does not alter puberty, fertility, or anatomy and sexual behavior in rats, compared to the estrogen control. Several groups dispute this study because, for one, the strain of rat is not as sensitive to low-dose estrogen" (.PDF Update 02/19/10). However the study's sponsoring author has disputed their claims (which are longstanding) to Trevor Butterworth of Stats.org, which has been doing PR on behalf of the bisphenol A industry. We previously discussed Stats.org's role in several posts.

If anything might dissuade the EPA from acting on BPA it would be its own studies (which they didn't need the ACC to highlight.) The senior author on the study, L. Earl Gray Jr., also testified before the EPA in 2008, emphasizing that his level of "concern" (an agency measure of potential harm) about bisphenol A exposure was less that his level of concern for phthalates exposure. Industry groups have touted Ryan's and Gray's work. If the Ryan and Gray's study methodology is in question, no activist has been too public about it (Update 02/19/10: A letter in Toxicological Sciences published 02/17/10 explains the problem with rat strain.) Perhaps more media focus should be placed here, on the EPA's own study.

The ACC letter requesting the meeting asks for chemical industry participation in the EPA decision making process (a request that seems rather unnecessary given the easy access industry does have). The letter also asks EPA to "be sensitive to the potential and foreseeable negative effect on the marketplace...the market impact on bisphenol A demonstrates this is a serious and real concern." Of course this is the primary goal of ACC, to urge the EPA not to impact any one of 80,000 chemicals' markets.

The EPA, in contrast, has said that its priority is to "review all chemicals against safety standards that are based solely on considerations of risk - not economics or other factors." (emphasis ours). It will be interesting to see how the EPA decides on bisphenol A, and whether its considerations to "risk" will include industry consideration to economic factors - or not. However just the fact that OMB and EPA were willing to sit with the ACC lobby group shows a willingness to listen to their (always) economic arguments.

The EPA -- Total Pushover?

I don't think I'm particularly naive in these matters, we've been following industry influence on policy for a while, especially BPA, which we've been following since 2005. We've specifically written about EPA apparently backing off of regulation under pressure from OIRA/OMB several times before.

But I'd be surprised if the EPA turned their intentions for BPA around based on this meeting. First, it appears from their press releases that they had already concluded back in September which four chemicals were first up for action plans. The idea that they would be so swayed is practically absurd, given the transparently, almost lazily, self-interested documents submitted by industry. Somehow I have more confidence in this EPA then to think they changed action plans based on those almost disrespectful pleas. But they do, now, have their own scientists saying that BPA isn't as dangerous as phthalates.

Clearly the EPA is not quite committed to regulating BPA as activists want. But it has put $30 million towards EPA research. It's also conducting its own studies. Hundreds of science studies provide evidence that BPA is harmful, but there are enough impacts from EPA decisions on industry that the agency needs to continue its BPA investigation. However, consider dioxins, another chemical the EPA mentioned in its Commonwealth Club speech. Dioxins are proven to be carcinogenic, a far more damning research finding than has to date been applied to BPA, but the EPA is still struggling to contain their use. On BPA, I'd be the first to say that there's enough research, as would many states and communities. But federal policy-making is not science. So is it more than poppycock to suggest that the EPA was singularly pressured by one ACC meeting to change its mind on BPA?

Being that it's a slow day in the weekly cycle I should just kick back and peruse the glossy weekend magazine "How To Spend It", from the Financial Times' -- choose some baubles and get-ups to distract me, and lavish African safaris to amuse me. But a post is overdue. So some notes:

• Runaway Cars: Toyota's "Poppycock"

  Since 2003 the National Highway and Transportation Safety Authority has been investigating safety problems with Toyota vehicles. And apparently, in an effort to "ward off" too much investigation, Toyota hired two former NHTSA workers who helped forestall action government action and inquiry into the failures. Joan Claybrook, formerly of Public Citizen and the NHTSA, spoke about the company's duplicity in dealing with the issues:

  "Toyota came in on the floor mat issue and they said this is not a safety-related defect, but we're going to do it any way. And we're going to obey all of the rules and regulations that you have for carrying out a defect, but this is not a safety-related defect. This is poppycock and they should never have tried to get away with that."

  The company has apparently tried to frame a more serious problem as a floormat issue, but Claybrook recounts that the company is not only replacing the floormats but also installing a brake override:

  "in the recall dealing with the floor mats, this is the Lexus, the Camrys, some SUV's and the Prius, they're going to not only fix the floor mat, but they're going to install a brake override, as it's called, which is a software change which if there's a conflict between the accelerator, throttle and the brake, the brake wins out and you can stop the car. Right now a lot of cars have this, but the Toyota vehicles do not. So they need to have something electronic to stop these vehicles from being runaway vehicles."

  Admission of a widespread electronic problem would apparently be detrimental to the company. As for NHTSA, the agency has apparently been dealing with leadership turnover and budget woes. The growing outside perception is that the agency has grown altogether too close to the industry it's supposed to be regulating. We previously covered the NHTSA and industry coziness when writing about the EPA and the US government's efforts to reduce unhealthy automobile emissions.

  Columbia Journalism Review summarizes media coverage of NHTSA's dealings with Toyota, and reflexively criticizes the media in general for being lax.

• Gait

  There have been some interesting studies on gait lately. Barefoot running has become a fad and research has long indicated that running shoes increase ligament injuries, stress fractures and planter fasciitis. Now, a running shoe study by Lieberman et al in Nature "(subscription) shows that running shoes change human gait, from running toe-heel to running heel-toe. Actually, the authors distinguished three patterns, forefoot first, midfoot first, or rearfoot first. Running shoes encourage heel strike first, which differs from barefoot running. The researchers found heel strike running greatly increases resultant forces that can cause running injuries.

  In another recent study, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, Cunningham et al compared the amount of energy expended when humans walk heel-toe (plantigrade), vs. toe-heel (digitgrade). The study found that it takes 53% more energy to walk on the balls of your feet, and 83% more energy to walk on your toes, than to walk heel to toe. The authors conclude that humans conserve energy by walking heel-toe (plantigrade), but don't conserve energy when they run plantigrade. They suggest evolutionary reasons that made heel-toe walking more advantageous.

  Finally, slightly different, another study, also in the Journal of Experimental Biology looked at elephant gait. The authors built an elaborate structure to measure the forces of running elephants and found that elephants use less energy and manage to bounce less (which decreased forces) by adapting a half-walk, half-run stride. This stride decreases by almost one-half the forces exerted by a running elephant compared to a running human.

  Acronym Required previously looked at energetics in Nepalese Porters carrying loads, and in human walking obese and non-obese people

• Matchmaking for Cynics

  Acronym Required has jestingly suggested pairing people from perhaps opposing camps in the past, like an impertinent investigative reporter from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, with a journalist contracting for a bisphenolA-is-safe lobby, as we wrote in BPA Rhetoric and Reaction; or a chemical lobbyist, with an environmental agency scientist, as we wrote "New Strategies for Bisphenol A and Chemicals?". We did this to celebrate the Obama era, as a light-hearted ode to getting everyone at the same table.

  But now an offshoot of Greenpeace has developed a far more sinister and cynical matchmaking concept in "P-Harmony", Polluter Harmony, which proposes to match various legislators and decision-makers with lobbyists. Of course there's no end to such real-life power matches, as a Google search for any combination of "sex", "sleeping with", "lobbyists", "Congressmen", "regulators", "Senators", "in bed with", etc. will attest to. But if I were to rate the site, I'd say it's ripe with potential and has some amusing detail, but is spare on the sort of fleshed-out scurrilous information people find so delicious.

• And Speaking of Which, The EPA...

  No, not lobbyists in-bed with regulators, but websites. The new EPA website is much improved. The Obama Open Government initiative aims to "break[] down long-standing barriers between the federal government and you". To that end, you can "share your ideas" at the open government site or just peruse the evolving EPA site. It's not the first time the EPA has tried to improve public information, but this is a far more comprehensive approach than others, like this 2007 effort. I haven't delved too deep into the site, but the top pages seem also to advance the agency's control over its messaging.

• Obama Quandries

  No one quite knows what to make of Obama. We wrote about the collective disappointment last month, and pondered whether, if people been paying attention, they'd have realized he wasn't necessarily the person they'd fabricated in their heads. We suggested people look at close adviser Cass Sunstein's politics, although they're also highly disputed, but certainly aren't liberal. Of course even as we suggested it, we know it's ridiculous to judge a president on one adviser.

  So you could judge Obama on two advisers. In an article in the New York Review of Books a couple of weeks ago, Jerome Groopman looked at healthcare reform and tried to predict how it would go based on Obama's "closest advisers" on the subject, Cass Sunstein, head of OIRA, and Peter Orszag, head of OMB (OIRA is within OMB).

  Groopman distinguished Sunstein's "nudge" approach based on behavioral economics, from Orszag's "shove" approach, a different take on behavioral economics. Groopman characterized Orszag's approach as a more stringent incentive system that would not allow doctors and heathcare providers to "opt out", but would penalize them for not following government set "comparative effectiveness" mandates. But comparative effectiveness is no different than "cost effectiveness", wrote Groopman, and cost effectiveness doesn't work and won't sell. Interestingly, I've always viewed Sunstein's cost-benefit analysis to have the same shortcomings Groopman seems to loathe. But Groopman wants Sunstein's way to prevail in the healthcare debate because Sunstein offers an "opt-out".

  But perhaps healthcare won't be swayed by only two advisers but four. The Financial Times also judges the president's decisions on the views of his too small circle. FT names four key advisers, Valerie Jarrett, Robert Gibbs, Rahm Emmanuel, and David Axelrod and says that Obama needs to change up a bit to shake his governing woes. Is it realistic at all to judge the president on such small numbers of advisers? It's apparently a fun game, despite it's grounding in reality.

  As gripey as everyone is, I'm more optimistic on this President's day, thinking about the state of US governance and politics, than on the same holiday during the previous administration.

Haiti!

Help, donate: Partners in Health, or Medecins Sans Frontiers, or the Clinton Foundation, or the International Red Cross or text-to-give.

• PLoS and Elsevier: On the Same Page?

  One of our favorite things, in the Obama era, is to see would be foes band together. So we look fondly upon the unlikely albeit fragile "alliance" that PLoS and Elsevier ended up in at a recent open access publishing roundtable. The occasion was a report issued by the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable, convened by the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). There were 14 publishers, university leaders, librarians, and other experts at the round table, who drafted basic agreements about how public access to journal publications. They emphasized:

  "the need to preserve peer review, the necessity of adaptable publishing business models, the benefits of broader public access, the importance of archiving, and the interoperability of online content"

  However, the Elsevier and PLoS representatives refused to join the other 12 members in signing the consensus agreement, although both agreed that points of the agreement were "positive". PLoS and Elsevier apparently both have a lot a stake, since they each sent extra representatives to the panel. Elsevier sent their General Counsel/Senior Vice President, and PLoS sent their Managing Editor as well as their CEO.

  Predictably, YS Chi, speaking for Elsevier, stated that he couldn't sign the agreement because it "supports an overly expansive role of government and advocates approaches to the business of scholarly publishing that I believe are overly prescriptive." No question about where giant, monopolistic, Elsevier ever stands.

  PLoS representative Mark Patterson's statement was a little more difficult for me to unpack. He said that the agreement "stops far short of recognizing and endorsing the opportunities to unleash the full potential of online communication to transform access to and use of scholarly literature." His whole statement was a similar whirl of words. What does he mean? He didn't include "the need to preserve peer review" as one of his "positive" points of agreement....But does PLoS want a more players around it? Federal support for PLoS? Explicit endorsement of pay to publish? A more "expansive role for government"? Someone knows, not me.

  For more information on open access and this agreement in general, there's a great public access policy forum here at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the "ever-enthusiastic public access policy team" at OSTP has extended the comment period. So you can comment, and there's lots to read.

• H1N1

  The World Health Organization (WHO), hits back at accusers who say that the organization, along with pharma companies, created a "fake epidemic" in H1N1. The World Health Organization reiterated its role to balance urgency and expediency with uncertainty. In an editorial generally praising the response to the epidemic, Nature wrote this week:

  "The danger now is that last year's relatively mild pandemic will create a false sense of security and complacency. The reality is that next time we might not be so lucky -- especially given that this time most of the world's population, living as they do in developing countries, had no access to either vaccines or antiviral drugs."

  It's easy, it seems to us, for very smart people to be cynical about the H1N1 pandemic. It is truly a challenge to explain risks and uncertainty of pandemics and the fact that the scientists and public health organizations are actually doing a great job.

Judge Overrules FDA on Electronic Cigarettes, Whatever They Are

Some people believe that a president's most lasting legacy is in the judges he appoints; George W. Bush appointed judge Richard Leon of the Federal District Court in Washington. Leon recently moved to stop the FDA from regulating e-cigarettes, on grounds that they aren't tobacco. In fact, e-cigarettes are battery-powered tubes that vaporize nicotine with tobacco flavoring, that simulate cigarette smoking for the user. I can't make that sound good. Seems like the next best thing to sex robots. But anyway, these devices deliver addictive nicotine to the body, but the judge says the FDA can't regulate e-cigarettes as devices anymore.

In other tobacco regulation news, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) discusses opposition to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act on First Amendment grounds. Even the ACLU objects to the Act, which prohibits the use of certain words by cigarette advertisers, saying that

"regulating commercial speech for lawful products only because those products are widely disliked -- even for cause -- sets us on the path of regulating such speech for other products that may only be disfavored by a select few in a position to impose their personal preferences."

Instead advised the ACLU, "the antidote to harmful speech can be found in the wisdom of countervailing speech -- not in the outright ban of the speech perceived as harmful." But as the NEJM authors wrote:

"How did we come to believe that the exchange of commercial appeals in the marketplace of goods and services should be equated with free exchange in the marketplace of ideas? Are our freedoms really secured by a constitutional doctrine that would limit our capacity to inhibit the promotion of toxic goods? This is an opportune moment to reflect on these questions and their implications for the relationship between public health goals and the rules that should be foundational in a democracy."

• EPA's Updated Smog, Ozone Standard

  The EPA proposed new standards for smog last week, which would update the Bush Administration standards. The agency will set the "primary" standard, which protects public health, at a level between 0.060 and 0.070 parts per million (ppm), measured over eight hours, and will also propose a new secondary standard. These standards were recommended by scientists years ago to decrease deaths and smog levels dangerous to children, the elderly, and those with asthma and respiratory disease. As we wrote earlier, the Bush's EPA pushed the weaker standard of .075 ppm. We also wrote about the Obama EPA's stated intention to change the standard last fall.

• Airport Screening to Double as Healthcare?

  "We are headed toward the moment when screeners will watch watch-listers sashay through while we have to come to the airport in hospital gowns, flapping open in the back", wrote Maureen Dowd recently, commenting on holes in airport security processes. But I think she's seeing a cup half empty. We may well be headed for a moment when airport screening, reviled as a breach of privacy to some, is the closest thing to healthcare people can get.

  The public option has fallen "off the table" again, by now "fallen off the table" so many times that even when it intermittently appears back "on the table", it's obviously shopworn, if not smashed to bits.

  But the glass could still be half full. Think of the savings, if airport screening could double as healthcare screening : "You're cleared for flight sir, and don't worry about that lump..."

• What to Call It? Science Terminology

  For various reasons, political, scientific, logical (or not) or historical, people refer to the same thing using different terms. Here are two examples.

  Canada does not call the tar sands "tar sands", anymore, they're "oil sands". Of course "tar sands" is more descriptive of the energy-intensive process, of extracting oil, but "oil sands" sounds like something that you would naturally siphon some oil out of, it sounds better.

  In 2005, physicist Lisa Randall urged that "global climate change" was the appropriate phrase to use, because "global warming" would lead people to argue that their winter was actually very cold. Others argued that "climate change" sounded less dangerous, so therefore would be used to manipulate people who would be fearful enough about "global warming" to urge policy changes, whereas "climate change" seemed benign. But it gets even more complicated for some agencies. NASA differentiates between "global warming", which is surface climate change, and "climate change", and "global change", and "global climate change", which deems the most accurate term. I think everyone pretty much knows what everyone's talking about now, though I dare not make conclusions about that.

• Oh, and Happy Not-So-New Year

  Did you travel over your break? Have fun?

  In the US, marketing aimed at tourists is off the rails. Perhaps marketers have learned that people who travel in a heightened state of orange level stress will sooth themselves by buying absurd products. You may argue that it's a global trend, and indeed, the badminton set peddled to me by a man on the muddy backroad of a major city in Asia seemed ridiculous, until I flipped through Sky Mall Magazine and spied the "King Tut Life Sized Sarcophagus Cabinet" that can be "delivered curbside" (to impress your neighbors). Personally, I would rather pay to bat around a little white badminton birdie in a mud puddle, while talking baksheesh with kids who speak, at will, touristica French, German, English or Japanese. By comparison, traveler oriented products in the US seem conceived by desperate marketing departments who've lost their wits. Case in point -- the sarcophagus cabinet. Or:

  • If you were assigned to seating group 2 or above recently, on my least favorite airline I still fly on, you heard this announcement: "Board now. Enter via aisle closest to the wall, NOT THE RED CARPET." Because "the red carpet", actually a two foot doormat, is reserved for first class customers.

    Some people bemoan the lot of the economy passenger, the so-called "poverty parade", and the herd animal like treatment. But as a first class customer you pay an extra few thousand dollars to traipse across a red mat with bars on each side to keep you in bounds. Sure the legroom's nice, I won't argue, but you have to walk "the red carpet" to get there, and once there in that bigger, comfier seat, you're subjected to complimentary cheesefood snacks. Supposedly smart people actually buy this privilege.

  • At your hotel, you will be sold the usual-- rooms, room service, laundry services, shoe shines and upgrades, not to mention the mini-bar. But what if the five dollar peanuts in the mini-bar are too devilish a temptation for you and your New Year's resolutions? No worries, there's a market-based solution. Pay $50 to have the mini-bar hauled away at one hotel I was recently at.

  • Want to use the hotel refrigerator for your water? $50 fine at another hotel. And the same people who stay at these hotels complain that the EPA's bureaucracy confines their business style.

  • Maybe you actually love business travel and want to bring home a bit of the experience, like the "pulsating" showerhead that your can actually buy from one hotel's glossy catalogue. The catalogue carried other mundane household hardware and dog cushions stamped with the hotel's logo. Pretty special.

  Couldn't we just travel unsolicited sometimes? Definitely not in 2010. Happy New Year.

When "Effective EPA" is No Longer an Oxymoron?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the agency's finding last April that greenhouse gases "(GHGs) endanger public health and welfare. Jackson reminded viewers that the Bush administration EPA had found that greenhouse gases endangered health and welfare, action compelled by the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, but had "regrettably" stalled on moving forward with the agency's recommendation offering only "excuses" and "delay". Said Jackson: "this administration will not ignore science or the law any longer, nor will we avoid the responsibility we owe to our children and grandchildren."

Having finalized the Endangerment Finding, Jackson announced some first steps:

"Next month, large emitters in the U.S. will begin working with EPA to monitor their emissions. Beginning in 2011, large emitters will - for the first time - submit publicly available information that will allow us to meaningfully track greenhouse gas emissions over time....And starting next spring, large emitting facilities will be required to incorporate the best available methods for controlling greenhouse gas emissions when they plan to construct or expand."

The agency noted that it had no intention of putting burdens on small businesses.

The Indefensible Status Quo and Republicans Think They're Deep Throat(?)

Last weekend we wrote about a group of GOP Republicans who asked the EPA to withdraw the Endangerment Finding because of the CRU emails. We noted their tone of desperation, for instance that they tried to make their case by quoting an infamous, non-sensical UK climate denier. Jackson addressed the skeptics, and noted that the EPA's action was based on decades of research.

"We know that skeptics have and will continue to try to sow doubts about the science. It's no wonder that many people are confused. But raising doubts - even in the face of overwhelming evidence - is a tactic that has been used by defenders of the status quo for years. Those tactics have only served to delay and distract from the real work ahead, namely, growing our clean energy economy and freeing ourselves from foreign oil that endangers our security and our economy."

True to form, last week Representative James Sensenbrenner(R-WI) had said that CRU emails were "evidence of scientific facism". Today, having worn out facism, communism and nazism and Hitler references, EPA letter writer Representative Richard Issa (R-CA) summoned fellow Republican the deceased Richard Nixon for his incoherent campaign. Responding to Jonathan Pershing's (U.S. deputy special envoy for climate change) observation that the emails were inconsequential and the science on climate change was "incredibly robust", Issa declared: "Richard Nixon said that about what Deep Throat had outed about the break-in."

Green Jobs, Pragmatism and Details

Jackson noted that today's action would also assure the American people, scientists, and the world that the EPA is serious, after eight years of inaction, about acting on the challenge of climate change. She hoped that recent EPA action would restore the "credibility and the trust of the American people" by taking an "enduring" and "pragmatic"

"step[s] towards innovation, investment and implementation of technologies that reduce harmful emissions...green jobs, reduced dependence on foreign oil, and a better future for our children."

These are great steps for the EPA, although we recognize the devil is in the details. Just as the work wasn't over once Obama won the election, the work isn't over now that the waiver is finalized.

"We can only marvel at the disarray." - Jeffrey Sachs on climate policy.

The CRU Emails - Fool's Gold:

Like glittering treasure, the emails hacked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (CRU) beckon Republicans and climate change deniers who paw through the loot like pirates with fool's gold, pulling out one little nugget or another from the 1000+ email trove. I'm sure there's more than a lifetime's worth of out of context quotes to be mined.

(Graph: Instrumental Global Surface Temperature Measurements from >150 stations; image from Wikipedia Commons. More info)

It's a lesson some of us know and others are just learning, that given the slightest excuse, the deniers will get louder and louder by the day, despite 30 years of accumulated evidence showing anthropogenic climate change. And so post CRU email events and protagonists continue to gather momentum. This week the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and four members of Congress demanded that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) halt all rule-making to reduce man-made carbon emissions on account of the CRU emails. In their letter, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) requested that the EPA-

"conduct a thorough and transparent investigation" into the "questions raised by the emails". "Additionally, the EPA "should withdraw the Proposed Endangerment Finding, as well as the Light Duty Vehicle Rule, and the Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule....."

It was an over-the-top response to the CRU emails, but Sensenbrenner et al have been bombarding the EPA with this kind of stuff long before the CRU emails. Sensenbrenner is the former Chairman of the House Science Committee and ranking Republican on the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, a committee that he vehemently opposed before its formation, at which point he saw that he couldn't stop it so he got on board to undermine it anyway he could.

The EPA's Endangerment Finding, gives the agency the authority to regulate greenhouse gases affecting US citizens health and welfare. We wrote about endangerment in a number of posts ( here, here, here, here, here, and here), describing the protracted negotiations between the states, the Bush and Obama administrations, and the courts, including the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA.

The four legislators demand that the EPA withdraw the Endangerment Finding decision of last April and halt Light Duty Vehicle and the Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rules, just when the EPA, after eight years of Bush administration shenanigans, takes baby steps to try and slow down our human contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. The letter might as well request the agency drown itself in a bathtub. ¹

If A "Climate Change Bullshit" Prize Bears Your Name, It Makes Sense That Republicans Would Quote You In A Letter To The EPA...?

"The content of the emails raises serious questions that demand your attention", write the four congressmen. To emphasize the erroneous climate science potentially informing their request, they quote from three newspaper essays - an editorial from the Wall Street Journal, a column from the New York Times, and a column from the British newspaper the Telegraph.

It's the job of Representatives and Senators to get information for their constituents. But what's their line of reasoning and who does it benefit? To anchor their letter, they reference UK Telegraph columnist Christopher Booker, presumably to give EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson good reason to consider their demands. Booker wrote that the CRU emails' "importance cannot be overestimated". US readers may not be familiar with the conservative Telegraph papers and they may not know Christopher Booker, but here's a sampling of his ideas (HT Wikipedia):

• Asbestos "poses no risk to human health and is chemically identical to talcum powder" [2]
• "Scientific evidence to support the belief that inhaling other people's smoke causes cancer simply does not exist" [3]
• Intelligent Design is valid and evolutionary scientists "rest their case on nothing more than blind faith and unexamined a priori assumptions" [4]
• "2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved" and more, in columns, and a book "The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is The Obsession With 'Climate Change' Turning Out To Be The Most Costly Scientific Blunder In History" [5]

The UK Health and Safety Executive has rebuked Booker multiple times for his "misinformed" statements on asbestos. His false assertions on climate change are so well recognized in the UK that before George Monbiot wobbled uncertainly about the wisdom of casting his lot with climate scientists, he established the "Christopher Booker Prize for Climate Change Bullshit" with The Guardian.

The Christopher Booker Prize for Climate Change Bullshit awards the person who serves up the most climate falsehoods in a single article. That bullshitter gets a trophy made from what looks to me like a tin can and paper/styrofoam cup decorated with a magic marker - have a look for yourself. The "trophy" is made in "mid-Wales".⁶ You get a feel for Christopher Booker's authority.

The winner also gets an invitation from Monbiot to take a "one-way solo kayak trip to the North Pole" to "see for him or herself the full extent of the Arctic ice melt." (The Arctic video showing global warming here is actually in our last post.) The Guardian generously offers excursion support in the form of a little bit of mint chocolate.

The Gall (and Fatal Flaw?) of the GOP

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) don't offer the most countable untruths, so technically they're not even eligible for Monbiot's prize as defined, although Sensenbrenner has made such career out of hassling the EPA that he might be considered for a lifetime achievement award. Two styrofoam cups.

On the other hand, maybe we could redefine the award, given that everything is in "disarray", and all topsy-turvy anyway. Think about it. The EPA, after being thrown out to pasture for eight years, is now being served up demands by a foursome who cite as evidence the most egregious of science deniers, capable of provoking George Monbiot's most venomous contempt. But Monbiot himself fears that no sooner did he stake his reputation on climate science then the scientists left him standing on an ice floe.

Actually, there's too much evidence for global warming, no cache of CRU emails can undermine that, therefore the Republicans are reduced to sending a letter full of nothing. So perhaps Monbiot could redefine the prize and the four intrepid lawmakers could capture the "trophy" simply for offering the most nothing? The four would look very sporty upgraded from a kayak to a little round rowboat. But will Monbiot stand by his prize offer? Or will he throw the whole styrofoam cup and little bit of mint chocolate thing overboard...and throw back a pint with Booker?

The Myth of the Republican Rhetoric Machine?

Marvel that the Republicans cite Booker's opinion in a letter to the EPA. They do offer longer quotes from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times that would also be facile to refute; however, I was most impressed with the audacity of opening a letter to the EPA administrator with a quote from such a clown. Such is the sad state of Republican intellectual rigor in 2009. When scientists fret about their ability to counteract deniers, they sometimes overestimate the GOP as some well-oiled rhetorical wonderboat. It's not always so.

---------------------

1. Grover Norquist said said: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1381270/Christopher-Bookers-Notebook.html
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1556118/Christopher-Booker%27s-notebook.html
4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1495664/Christopher-Bookers-notebook.html
5.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3982101/2008-was-the-year-man-made-global-warming-was-disproved.html

6. I bet if these four won we could commission some Hackensack, NJ, USA made trophies, because I know that's important to some camps. Hackensack is nice now, like Brooklyn, they say.

Of Course Denial Is Not The River In Africa:

The upheaval over the climate e-mails is business as usual for the climate science deniers or denialists - not "skeptics", and just a word on that first. Scientists are by nature "skeptics" and consider skepticism a valid approach to analysis. Merriam Webster says "skeptic" derives from the Greek skeptikos thoughtful, or skeptesthai to look. However, unfortunately for all of us, the climate data needs to be denied to be disbelieved. There's too much of it over too many years from too many different fields -- too much evidence to be skeptical about. Meanwhile, while some deniers happily call themselves deniers, others deniers take extreme offense, saying calling them deniers is dismissive or denigrating. But that's not the goal here. I'm not saying deniers don't have feelings, they have valid feelings, and they may also have issues facing reality or other problems.

For instance, just as people who don't recycle may sincerely have difficulty separating cans from cardboard, climate deniers may be incapable of swimming. We can empathize. Swimming may become an even more vital skill in the future. Deniers may fear being seen driving an electric car, fear heatstroke, fear malaria, fear fire, fear tornadoes, fear heatstroke, or fear moving from Florida, which could be affected most by impending climate change with rising sea waters, temperatures and incidence of malaria. Fear may incapacitate deniers reasoning faculties or propel them to convince themselves and others that no change is necessary. We empathize some more.

But if we chance-it, do nothing because of deniers' fears, so we can talk about emails in the UK some more, then we're making a choice that has the potential for far scarier outcomes than facing the mounds of evidence and choosing to do something. And we can do something, we can change, we can support industries that solve climate problems. Or we can do business as usual, and suffer the economic consequences of that. There are all sorts of innocent reasons why deniers are in denial. Only some of them nefarious like fear of losing the vote. But denial for any reason thwarts problem solving.

Rearranging The Deck Chairs on The Titanic. Well..?

We don't necessarily understand their reasons, but we recognize the deniers' rhetoric. If decades of ice core data, Antarctica data, arctic data, temperatures, sea levels, temperatures and, corral bleaching, tree ring data, and more, all show global warming over decades, they'll say "but today is cold out - global warming? Hahaha". If there's noise in a 30 year graph showing an up or down trend, they focus on a one year time period that shows the opposite trend, and throw that out as "proof" that the graph is false.

Here's one video, just one piece of evidence in mountains of available data, showing the decrease in perennial sea ice (seconds ~25-50):

Deniers will ignore all the evidence, focus on a bunch of emails and call it ClimateGate, and get everyone to run over to the starboard side of the ship, when there's an iceberg forward (although, actually, eventually that won't be a problem anymore.) Or they'll say the problem is that the scientists weren't communicating and weren't being transparent with the data. Of course last year the Wall Street Journal was complaining about "too much" global warming evidence. We're not saying that scientists shouldn't have thought twice about pouring vents and frustration into emails, but this is the sideshow which keeps us all spinning, keeps us doing nothing.

Meanwhile, if the sea level of the Mediterranean Sea rose 1 meter, the Nile River Basin, home to millions and cultivated to feed more millions, would lose 6.1 million people to displacement. Where would they all go? 4,500 square kilometers of Nile River Basin cropland would be lost, and the World Bank estimates a 6% loss in GDP to Egypt, and direct GDP losses for about 10 other countries. 6% GDP impact would raise to 16% with a 5 meter rise of sea level. That's one area of the world and one river basin, there's many others. Louisiana and Florida will be lost to rising seas. California and Australia will have more forest fires.

And while many results of climate change are known, other possible changes could be even more catastrophic if they happened. This is the case with The Great Ocean Conveyor Belt or thermohaline circulation. Scientists don't know what the outcome of the collapse of the thermohaline circulation would be. They don't know how that would further change climate, which areas would be warmer, how it would effect ocean salinity. Would the ocean become a pond? Scientists can't predict, but there's a chance that it could be catastrophic. There's never absolute surety in science, but the outcomes can be different both ways, better, or a lot worse.

Deniers like Inhofe would be brandishing threats about emails if he were in hip-waders up to his waist in sea water, rather than accept the evidence. That's the way its always been and that's the way it will always be. Fighting against mult-million dollar "pro-industry" campaigns by oil companies and the people they corral with their ideas, like Inhofe, has occupied scientists as much as the science. So when some people, (including scientists) now turn around and say that scientists need to be more transparent, if doesn't ring true. The data has been there and still is. These 'scientists aren't talking right' distractions only derail scientists from looking for solutions.

Progress and Promises on AIDS:

Today, on World AIDS Day 2009, while looking for a statistic, I entered into Google the search: "HIV infections decrease". The sometimes precocious search engine offered an instantaneous correction: "did you mean HIV infections increase" [sic] No, I silently answered, frowning, before I caught myself attempting communication with a search engine. Then I flipped the search to Google News. Google insisted I must mean "increase". So I got the statistic I was looking for and relented to Google's know-it-all suggestion. Indeed although Google was wrong, I understand the reasoning, even if only algorithmic: The first search phrase, "decrease", yielded only 1,940,000 results in .22 seconds, whereas the second, "increase", gave 3,550,000 results in .18 seconds.

Just like the search engine, we brace ourselves for the worst with HIV/AIDS, we're habituated to hearing bad news. As the pandemic continues and effective methods for decreasing HIV infections, increasing treatment, and procuring funding seem at times as elusive as ten years ago, sometimes we need to look up once a year on AIDS day with some real intention just to see the inches gained in the sand we've been trying to get traction in.

Otherwise, even though the number of number of infections has decreased by 17% since 2001, all the World AIDS Days blur together and we're tempted to ask questions. Questions like -- has anything actually changed since the 20th World AIDS Day of 2007, when 61% of HIV infected population were women? Or from 2008 World AIDS Day? Or the first World AIDS Day 22 years ago?

Last year, on the the 21st World AIDS Day, we noted milestones like Bush's PEPFAR funding effort, and Barbara Hogan's appointment as South Africa's Health Minister. However, things change quickly in this area of public health, and this year brought both positive and negative news for PEPFAR and South Africa, two of our areas of interest.

The year started out promisingly, with Obama's inauguration and his pledge to pay even more attention to AIDS, especially for the recently increased national infections. He noted that his strategy would-

"...be based on the best available science and built on the foundation of a strong health care system"....however, he warned, "in the end, this epidemic can't be stopped by government alone, and money alone is not the answer either."

After being sworn in, Obama immediately got rid of the ban on international funding for groups that provided counseling on abortion. Condoms, an essential part of prevention, lost the evil connotation they had during the Bush administration. (The church took up the campaign when Pope Benedict XVI announced falsely in March that condoms would worsen the AIDS crisis). Obama was true to his campaigning words here. Science studies show that condoms are effective, and abstinence programs are not. Studies also show that attention to public health is central to preventing and treating infectious disease. Indeed, healthcare has been a theme of Obama's administration -- albeit to what end, we don't know. The president also recently lifted the HIV/AIDS travel ban, which has ostracized AIDS patients, something that's also been proven to undermine prevention and treatment programs.

Unfortunately, but again true to his word, Obama hasn't provided the leadership people hoped he would, even though government leadership has proven central to any successful HIV prevention and AIDS treatment program. Worse, although Obama the president-elect promised $1 billion per year in PEPFAR funding, the 2010 budget proposal contains only $366 million. The funding shortfalls have effected HIV and AIDS treatment programs, for instance eligible patients in Uganda are being turned away for lack of funds. The president's funding choices earned Obama a scathing D+ from AIDS NGOs.

Change in South Africa

In good news, South Africa's President Zuma has made several promises that show he's wised up from the time in court not long ago, when he defended himself on rape charges and said that a shower would prevent infection by HIV. Last month, Zuma promised that South Africa would vigorously address the national AIDS crisis.

Last May, when Zuma announced the reassignment of Barbara Hogan, whom he replaced with Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, there was some concern from South Africa's public health community about the assignment, concern the Dr. Motsoaledi was inexperienced, while Hogan's work was widely praised. However public health groups have since welcomed the new minister's straightforward acknowledgments of past mistakes.

We hope South Africa's new realizations -- like that the nation's deaths from AIDS increased more than 100 percent in 11 years -- are not just a rhetorical distancing of the ANC party from former President Thabo Mbeki's and his denialism, but a real commitment to an AIDS program. Optimistically, today Zuma announced the government's intention to treat all babies and pregnant women infected with AIDS.

In other major HIV/AIDS news this year, initial reports of a successful vaccine clinical trial in Thailand brought increased public attention and then consternation to later news of the same trial. The second news release informed the world that when researchers did further analysis of the results they doubted that the benefit was statistically significant. That's the way it goes though, steps forward, and steps back. The work continues tomorrow, and for the next 364 days we'll all work towards a more upbeat World AIDS Day 2010.

For most of history, people were bent on dominating and conquering nature, clearing land, killing predators, and domesticating the wild. Now humans are determined to prevent some species from going extinct, from trees to frogs to large cats. These campaigns sometimes seem fetishized and bizarre -- wildlife foundations who implore us to mourn the death of one fuzzy, photogenic animal -- who beg us to send money so that the death of any individual animal was not "in vain". We send our heartfelt support and then fight to keep other species out, those that heedlessly invade our ecosystem as we currently know it. Humans devise management systems and models, and write up elaborate plans that look organized to any audience. As much as I heartily approve and endorse all this work -- oh, dare I say this?-- from afar, in certain fleeting moments, the efforts can look excessively anthropomorphic, sporadic, desperate, pathetic, or even futile. Who do we (yes, the odious, collective we) think we are? If we conquered nature before do we think we can undo the damage? Or do we just instinctively try to mold our ecosystem to evolving ideas or fantasies we have about nature? Why do we undermine our best efforts? What ecosphere, exactly, are we aiming for, we humans?

• Headlining, With Great Fanfare, Some Crocodile Fossils: "Darwin's finches have nothing on these crocodiles", says Science. The open-access journal ZooKeys published a monograph describing crocodile fossil finds from the Cretaceous period, including what the scientists describe as three new species. "My African crocs appeared to have had both upright, agile legs for bounding overland and a versatile tail for paddling in water", said Paul Serono, the National Geographic explorer in residence (emphasis added). (via Science in "Slideshow: Ancient Crocs With a Dog-Like Walk")

• Darwin's Mockingbirds: Scientists are analyzing DNA they've extracted from the footpads of mockingbirds brought back by Darwin. They hope to use the information to select species of mockingbirds most like the original ones, and reintroduce these species to the island of Floreana.

• Amazon Deforestation Slows? Brazil reported a record low for Amazon deforestation, the lowest it has been in 21 years. Only 7,000 sq km was destroyed between July 2008 and August 2009. However some organizations tempered any enthusiasm over Brazil's claims. Greenpeace said in a press release that its would be happy when " in 11 years time, the Amazon was being destroyed at a rate of a little less than three cities the size of Sao Paulo a year". Some people suggest the recent reduction is related to the economic recession. We previously wrote about deforestation here, here, and here.

• Modeling Deforestation and Degradation -- REDD: The journal Nature describes a deforestation modeling project aimed at "reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation" (REDD). Emissions from deforestation and degradation account for about one-fifth of the world's total emissions, however deforestation goals weren't included in the Kyoto Protocol because there was no reliable system for estimating CO2 emissions reduction. Scientists think that REDD is one of the cheapest ways of reducing overall emissions. If models were robust, richer countries could use the forecasts to reduce CO2 emissions, and to compensate poorer countries for minimizing biomass loss, more economical than reducing industrial emissions.

  A REDD project by Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) uses three existing land-use models to predict future losses. Project scientists say this model is a better predictor of deforestation than estimates based on historical analysis. The model predicts higher rates of deforestation in Central African countries of the Congo Basin than historical based predictions do, because economic activity in Africa is accelerating. Therefore compensation would be relatively greater in Africa using REDD, whereas Brazil, where deforestation has been going on for years, would fare better using a historical model. However as with any model, REDD is naturally only as good as the data going in, and doesn't factor in illegal logging.

• Geo-Wiki: In order to improve deforestation models, another tool, Geo-wiki asks volunteers to help refine land cover maps by filling in knowledge about their local areas (via Nature).

• 17,000 Species, Leagues Under The Sea As the rainforests disappear, scientists involved with the Census of Marine Life released a preliminary report on a bounty of life in the sea below the reach of sunlight, including this copedpod, which I'm most enamored with.

• Scientists Make Mistakes about Skates: Species of skate may be fished to extinction because of species identification mistakes, according to research reported in Aquatic Conservation. Since the 1920's scientists thought two species of skates -- which are cartiligenous fish like rays and sharks -- were only one species. The two distinct species, the flapper skate, Dipturus intermedia and the blue skate, Dipturus flossada were grouped together and known as the common skate: Dipturus batis. The French researchers say that both species may be more endangered then previously assumed because of the taxonomic labeling mistake.

  The researchers also point out that official fisheries statistics done by French ports grouped five distinct species under only two species names. The ports survey used the counts to calculare skate decline, but more precipitous declines of some of the five species were masked in the survey. The scientists warn that similar fishing surveys may gloss over species loss in "Taxonomic Confusion and Market Mislabelling of Threatened Skates: Important Consequences for Their Conservation Status". Igle et al, Aquatic Conserv: Mar. Freshw. Ecosyst. (2009). DOI: 10.1002/aqc.1083

• Carp Invade Great Lakes: Some carp are endangered. Jullien's Golden Carp Probarbus jullieni, found in South East Asia, especially in the Mekong, is considered a threatened species. The so called naked, or scale-less carp, Gymnocypris przewalskii, is found between freshwater rivers and the saltwater Lake Qinghai in China and is also endangered. Others species of carp are not endangered, rather they endanger.

  Scientists now think that two species of "Asian Carp" have invaded the Great Lakes. The bighead carp Hypophthalmichthys nobilis and silver carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix threaten the $7 billion dollar fishing business of the Great Lakes. These fish grow up to up to 100 pounds and eat 20% of their body weight in plankton and will wipe out native fish. The silver carp not only endangers fish, it can apparently can endanger boaters who sometimes protect themselves from injury by wearing hockey helmets on carp infested waters.

  The bighead and silver carp were imported by catfish farmer's in the 1970's to remove algae. When the fish began to take over the ecosystem, federal and state governments spent ~$10 million on electrical barriers to keep the carp out of the lakes. Based on DNA samples recently collected by scientists in the water on the lake side of the fence, the carp have crossed the fence. The Army Corps of Engineers told the New York Times that "all options are on the table" to control the fish.

• Pelican Decimated by DDT Off the Endangered Species List: The brown pelican is one of four species to be removed from the endangered species list. The US Department of Fish and Wildlife has removed bird, Pelecanus occidentalis since populations have increased. DDT decimated the species in the 1970's, but since the chemical has been less in use, the bird has had the opportunity to breed and thrive. (Hat tip to Nature News and its alliteration addled "Big Billed Bird Bounces Back".)

• Climate Change Negotiations - Like Watching Clothes Dry? In last weekend's Financial Times, Matthew Engel compared the US reluctance to combat climate change with Americans' civic battles over punitive hanging and hanging clothes on clotheslines. Turns out that when Engel moved to the US from Australia he brought his Hills Hoist with him, which provided him unique cultural insight. (The internet explains that a Hills Hoist is a rotary clothesline developed in Australia which can be mechanically raised, lowered and spun. In addition to these features, the Australian government lists the contraption as a National Treasure, prized "because it could hold four nappies on each of the four outer wires.")

  Anyway, when Engel put up his Hills Hoist he realized that the US generally disparages clothes hanging. Although his neighbors were accommodating of his family's aired laundry, Engel tells the story of one Pennsylvania woman who's battling her community in defense of her right to hang clothes -- "if my husband has a right to have guns in the house, I have a right to hang laundry", she says. Engels observes the irony of US communities forbidding homeowners from hanging their clothes outside, given that clothes dryers account for six per cent of US consumer end-use electricity consumption.

  With similar cognitive dissonance, he says, the US claims that climate change action is an important priority but stodgily backs away from any Copenhagen commitment (of course now, while keeping hopes alive). Attempting to explain the apparent clash of values, he thinks (and I'm just reporting) that although Americans define themselves with property rights and piousness, these values clashe with puritan ethics and an "unshakeable faith in technology, lingering from the 1950s."

  Acronym Required previously wrote about cognitive dissonance in "Cars, Selling Cognitive Dissonance", "Sea Change or Littoral Disaster" and many others.

Maher Still Loco on Vaccinations:

As he has for years, Bill Maher continues to spread disinformation about vaccines. Over countless news cycles Maher has infuriated doctors, public health officials, and responsible citizens with bizarre warnings about letting governments "stick a disease into your arm".

Challenged to get a word in edgewise between his fusillades about "mercury" and "diet" and natural "immunity", doctors and scientists nevertheless patiently correct his errors. They explain that a vaccine is not "a disease" but a disabled virus that looks to the immune system like a live virus or bacteria and therefore prevents infection by the actual deadly virus or bacteria¹ like polio, measles, diphtheria, or influenza.

But the talk show host persists, as is his habit. Last month, Bill "I'm also not f-king my interns" Maher baffled panelists Alec Baldwin, Chris Matthews and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley by rehashing his concerns with vaccines. Yesterday, Maher continued with a rambling column at The Huffington Post titled "A Conversation Worth Having", saying he aimed to

"clear up a few things about my beliefs concerning the flu shot, vaccines, and health in general...I will admit, I have gone off half cocked on this issue sometimes, and often only had time on my show to explain a fraction of what needed to be explained, and for that I am sorry...I agree with my critics who say there are far more qualified people than me"

Mea culpa? Unfortunately, and spoiler alert for the 2800 word article: no. I didn't say "anyone who gets a flu shot is an idiot", Maher said, "it was twittered...my bad". Then, "vaccination is a nuanced subject, and I've never said all vaccines in all situations are bad..." Nuanced? "All vaccines"? Cagey creepy crapola -- bring it on, Maher.

Discerning Maher's Health Prescription -- When "Sometimes It's OK to Fuck with Nature"

Maher writes "I'm not a germ theory denier" and he claims "I do understand the theory of inoculation", exuding all the candor of a intelligent design proselytizer putting quotes around "the theory" of evolution. To the helpful doctor who corrects him, Maher retorts snidely "Thanks, Doc, I thought there might be a little man inside the needle. Yes, I read Microbe Hunters when I was eight." (Doesn't think the conversation is worth having?)

Cocksure and funny, Maher acts as though he's arguing about some scrutable line that any eight year old can see - you don't need to be a doctor or scientist. To the left of the line there are the OK vaccines, except, he hedges, vaccines are unproven. To the right, there are the not-OK vaccines that we should be debating, like flu vaccine. But actually, if you can't already tell, there is no line or margin, because Maher is arguing the same old run-of-the-mill anti-vaccine/medicine/science schtick you've (yawwwwnn) already heard. He allows that "sometimes it's OK to fuck with nature" and prescribe medicine, but listen to enough Maher and you realize he maligns all medicine, all vaccines.

Casting Aside Science

Sure, at first you may be confused because he mixes recognizable words into gobbledygook. Do doctors ever ask patients what they eat, he asks rhetorically? No, he answers, "and a lot can be cured with diet and a healthier lifestyle" -- then Maher adds in parentheses -- "And a lot can't [be cured]. I also understand the role of genetics and generations of artificial selection".

Despite his unassailable understanding, lets review. The risk of some diseases, like diabetes Type II, can be reduced with healthier lifestyle. Some conditions, like obesity can be prevented with diet, and losing weight concurrently reduces the risks of morbidity and mortality associated with conditions like heart disease. This isn't just semantics. Diet won't prevent crippling polio, or a flu pandemic or death of a pregnant woman, or stop a kid from succumbing to weeks of illness and a 105 degree influenza fever. And typical of Maher's machinations on science, medicine and disease, he jumps down the rabbit hole with "genetics and "generations of artificial selection". Scientists use artificial selection to breed products like corn by selecting for certain traits. Humans are not hothouse flowers, subjected to "generations of artificial selection".

How Does Maher Distinguish Himself From Dr. Beetroot?

In cajoling his audience to exercise skepticism and caution and arguing for "debate", a word that should tip anyone off to incoming falsehoods; Maher says:

"Someone needs to be representing the point of view that says the preferred way to handle flus is to have a strong immune system to begin with..."

Actually, we can think we recognize this "point of view". Take, for instance South Africa's former health minister, Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, (known derisively as Dr. Beetroot), who spent years telling South Africans to boost their immune systems against the AIDS virus with diet, beetroot and lemon.

In a familiar refrain, the South African Mbeki government insisted that Western drugs were too profit oriented and dangerous. As a result of this decision, hundreds of thousands of South Africans died from AIDS, and the dying isn't over, since infectious disease pandemics gather momentum over time. Newly elected President Zuma recently warned that the death rate from AIDS may overtake the birthrate in that country.

How is Maher's argument different than that of Tshabalala-Msimang's? Where does he draw his invisible line de-marking greedy Western medicine from essential life-saving medicine? How does this board member of the "Reason Project" (Wikipedia) dedicated to scientific and secular knowledge, identify good medicine?

How is Maher's Position Different Than A Mennonite's?

Instead of agreeing with scientists and doctors, Maher chooses to listen to Barbara Loe Fisher who he finds "extremely credible", because

"after devoting her life to studying this, she says that flu vaccines aren't proven and...points out that what we need, but do not yet have, are studies of vaccinated vs unvaccinated children."

Fisher is not a scientist or a doctor, and that's ok, anyone can educate themselves about vaccinations, eight or older. Based on her experience parenting and in public relations Fisher can certainly start a vaccination information center, appear on talk shows, testify at events like the "Vaccine Policy Analysis Collaborative: A U.S. Government Experiment in Public Engagement", and give lectures to naturopaths, chiropractors, and groups like "Body by God". Who's to say she can't?

But given that Maher says she's devoted her life to studying vaccinations, you'd think she'd understand that vaccinating some children against polio, but not others, would be medically unethical. You'd think that Maher would also see the moral quagmire.

Furthermore, unfortunately, there's lots of evidence to prove that what Fisher and Maher say is the untested theory of vaccination is flat out false. As the NYT reported in 2003:

"The last two American polio outbreaks were in Amish and Mennonite communities in 1979 and in a Christian Science school in Connecticut in 1972. Measles killed 3 students of 125 infected in a Christian Science school in 1985, and a similar-size outbreak among the Amish in 1987 and 1988 killed 2 people. In 1991, 890 cases of rubella, leading to more than a dozen deformed children, hit Amish areas."

Since then, Africans who believed rumors that vaccinations are an attempt by Westerners to spread the HIV virus or sterilize Nigerians, started a polio epidemic. The Amish also suffered polio outbreaks. Mennonites, who don't believe in vaccination but do believe in travel caused outbreaks of measles in Minnesota, then South America. Like the Amish, Mennonites don't believe in vaccinations or insurance, but do believe that hospitals should cure them for a discount, once they get sick.

How is Maher's position different then that of a Mennonite? Can we have this conversation? How does Maher square his position on vaccines with his libertarian views when people end up demanding hospital bailouts because they didn't take it upon themselves to prevent illness?

The Dredged Up "Under-reported Point of View" is Often Wrong, Concludes A Bright Person

The consequences of not vaccinating become graver and more frequent as more people refuse vaccinations. The value of vaccinations is not "debatable". Vaccinations have saved millions of lives, saved millions of dollars by keeping people out of hospitals, and boosted productivity of nations. But Maher ignores all this and calls for some cost benefit analysis, more familiar anti-science denialism.

Maher appeals to all of those who eschew facts and take solace in unpopular views.

"I'm just trying to represent an under-reported medical point of view in this country, I'm not telling a specific pregnant lady what to do...[I]t's just that mainstream media rarely interviews doctors and scientists who present an alternative point of view..."

Pregnant women and kids are most susceptible to dying from H1N1 virus. Pregnant women have decreased lung capacity that increases the threat of pneumonia, and they have decreased immunity due to their pregnancy. The reason the media doesn't interview doctors and scientists with "alternative points of view" on the subject, is because doctors and scientists agree that vaccines save lives, and that pregnant woman and parents of children shouldn't die because they've been convinced by talk show hosts to doubt the CDC, the doctors, and the scientists.

Maher's is not selling an "under-reported medical point of view", rather he's latched onto a non-medical, non-science point of view. Hmmm....why does he persist?

Bill Maher's Mainstream Media Profit Motives

Unbelievably, after flogging his point of view for years, Maher says he has no motive and expects no outcome: "[M]y audience is bright, they wouldn't refuse a flu shot because they heard me talk about it...." But his audience claps when he talks non-scientific hokum -- perhaps only because they're prompted? Either they're not thinking at all, or they're confused about science, or they're easily swayed by paranoid views, or they think they're at a gladiator show - in which case they will eventually be disappointed by the "debate." Can such folks be considered "bright" in the 21st century?

To the point, though, if Maher's especially non-bright, non-medical, non-scientific point of view weren't selling, weren't rewarded with clapping and viewers and advertising dollars, would he still be ranting on? Maher's anti-vaccination position has populist appeal that draws viewers and boosts ratings. His refutation of "mainstream media's profit motives" sells well. But lets be clear. HBO's Real Time, with millions of viewers each night, is mainstream media. What's not? Acronym Required, for instance, is not "mainstream media".

And why pick on science? Scientists are a remarkably easy target, as we noted before when John McCain chronically made fun of science research. When Maher chose to accost religion, at least 50% of Americans are quite religious, and that's a lot of potential audience members to insult. Plus, religious people can get dangerous. Other Maher campaigns have also backfired, like when Maher's remarks about military recruiting spurred one Congressman to demand that Real Time be canceled.

Considering his options then, and the groups he's already alienated, scientists make a good target. They're pretty tame, therefore easy to pick on safely, and a select target for a large potential audience, since everyone's thinking of getting the flu vaccine. Maher can perhaps equivocate about good vs. bad vaccines and fool a lot of people. So Bill Maher and his mainstream media show try to expand his audience by maligning science to become more mainstream? So they forsake scientists, but also pregnant moms and kids in the process? Is this the conversation? More or less? Bravo, talk show host!

---------------------

Photo from Wikipedia under a Creative Commons license.

¹ 11/19 Added "bacteria"

Acronym Required wrote on vaccinations previously, for instance in Vaccinations, Why the Worry? we wrote about the long history of rebellion against vaccinations. We also wrote about vaccinations here and in various posts and vaccines for specific illnesses.

Bill Maher's shenanigans have been will covered by scientists like Respectful Insolence here and here, by Pharyngula; by Aetiology here and here here and by many others.

Death Ascendency:

Scientists, pollsters and journalists like to complain that Americans can't be bothered to read or understand science. That distresses these pundits. I don't believe their contentions are altogether accurate or their hand-wringing justified, but true enough, Americans seem distracted or even obsessed with subjects other than science. Like what?

Death, for one. Remember, the hoopla over death panels, and fears about the death of a grandpa because of illegal immigrants? Maybe you've forgotten the multi-month media requiem for Michael Jackson, but can remember via Time Magazine's 100 page Special Commemorative Michael Jackson Issue, still on the news stands through October. And if you missed that, you can now watch the movie. If Jackson was reclusive in life, his death just won't die.

And it's not just Michael Jackson. This summer and fall, the string of newsworthy celebrity deaths led MSNBC, the New York Times and others to recount the "the endless funereal season". Trying to slip in a post on death over the last few months, if you didn't want to seem like you were milking the trend in an unseemly way, (because we're the unblog blog) was near impossible.

The preoccupation with death spanned news on politics, employment and entertainment. What did AP feature in a story on career advice? "Funeral science: One business that's still alive: Amid layoffs and a weak job market, interest in mortuary science surges." And after death it's not over, as the New York Times pointed out in: "After a Death, the Pain That Doesn't Go Away".

You can't escape death -- the theme I mean. It's what people are living, breathing and reading. Non-fiction? At least four new books focus on death. "Annililation: The Sense and Significance of Death", "The Philosophy of Death", "Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death and Free Will", and "Death". You get the gist, but for more, FT reviewed the books here. Not satisfied with new books? Someone along my route today poured over "Stiff: The Curious Life of Cadavers".

And in fiction? Mass-market fiction? Deaths by aliens, apparitions, and evil-doers, not to mention more than one bubble-gum romance featuring irresistible marble-chested vampires. In sunny, otherwise cheerful September, 12 of the 20 best selling titles from the NYT mass-market fiction list were: "Dead Until Dark", "Frankenstein: Dead or Alive", "From Dead To Worse", "Club Dead", "The Bodies Left Behind", "Dead To The World", "Living Dead In Dallas", "Dead As A Doornail", "Promises in Death" "Chosen To Die", "Definitely Dead", and "Altogether Dead".

The remaining 8 of the 20 best sellers didn't bother to include "Death" in the title, but don't despair, it's there. You could chose between "The Assassin" (subject obvious), a book on "scandalous deaths", or one each on death from lung cancer, a killer, a dead lover, a dead friend, the death of a child from acute promyelocytic leukemia, a string of dead medical tourists, and last but not least - a book that brings Elvis back from the dead to help investigate some mysterious deaths. Now at Halloween and moving into the darker, more appropriately morbid time of year, the media is naturally out of step so the mass market fiction list looks slightly more upbeat -- though Death still holds its own.

Until the Smell of Death Do Us Cart You Away

So what's a science writer do in The Demon Haunted World of deathly news and entertainment preoccupation? Science journalists struggling to work within this dreary paradigm last summer published versions of "The Smell of Death", a story about experiments on bugs by scientists at McMaster University.

Previous research had showed that noxious chemicals expelled by some animals upon death repel their live companions. It's true. Necrophoresis is the term for the behavior of ants and bees when they move their dead away from their nests. Scientists such as Henry Christopher McCook in 1879, E.O. Wilson, in 1958 first documented necrophoresis. Wilson showed that worker ants moved the dead bodies out of the living spaces, and the ants and were motivated by something other than the untidy look of their comrades carcasses strewn about the nest.

To investigate, Wilson's team sprayed what I'll call "eau de ground up dead ants" on live ants, and observed the ants move their perfumed but live fellow ants away from the nest as if they were dead. Following from that observation, researchers learned that the ants expelled a specific scent when they died that other ants of the same species could detect. Wilson determined that chemicals called oleic acids motivated movement of the dead bodies by their fellow worker ants. Scientists than discovered that while bees and ants remove their dead, termites merely avoid their dead -- they're necrophobic.

Building on a century of research on "necromones" then, the McMaster University scientists dispersed necromones among insects such as caterpillars, which aren't known to expel their own dispersants but do aggregate like social bees and ants as well as the semi-social termites. Their experiments showed that the fatty oleic acid compounds also repelled woodlice and pillbugs. Since necromones seem to effect multiple species, the scientists now suggest that the death chemical is common across many species.

Programmed Cell Death -- Upbeat, Hopeful, Vital

What else could scientists write about? Programmed Cell Death (PCD) springs to mind. Not only does it have "death" in the title, like all the best selling mass market titles, but it's actually vital to life and therefore a rather hopeful, non-dreary subject. PCD occurs in plants and animals, yeasts and bacteria. The human body creates more than a thousand billion of cells and just as many die through PCD, a carefully orchestrated event which allows some cells to be destroyed through a process that assures that healthy cells proliferate. PCD is different than necrosis, when cells die due to blood loss or insult. There's a bounty of research on PCD and it has it's own journals -- enough reading and writing that could see us well through the winter months and into spring.

Although the proliferation of cell death research and understanding is relatively recent, in the 19th century scientists noticed changes in the cells during insect metamorphosis and tadpole development which suggested cell death. Although early research focused on phagocytosis, in the mid-20th century evolving technology provided scientists with more sophisticated microscopes and histologic techniques which gave them a clearer view of cell processes. In their 2001 history of PCD in Nature Review Molecular Cell Biology¹, Richard A. Lockshin and Zahra Zakeri, describe how the 1960's at Harvard, afternoon teas attended by Carroll Williams' lab members served as humorous and informative exchanges for "ideas of the day", and in time coined the term "programmed cell death".

In 2002 the The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Sydney Brenner, H. Robert Horvitz and John E. Sulston for their discoveries concerning "genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death." The researchers used the model organism nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to study cell death and established for the first time that certain genes control cell death. That there were genes controlling death showed that cell death is an integral part of development, not an accident.

Apoptosis (from the Greek word "falling off") is the most commonly studied form of cell death, although there are others. The most common example of cell death is the development of hands and feet, which start off as spade-like clumps of cells, then through apoptosis of the cells in-between, the fingers and toes emerge. In the developing brain millions of nerve cells get "pruned" through apoptosis to assure that proper connections are made. For instance in the development of the retina in the eye, 90% of certain types of cells die. Rather than being limited by cell biology techniques to observing cell death, scientists can now also use molecular biology techniques to understand specific proteins and genetic processes involved in regulating cell death.

When cell death goes awry, the repercussions are serious. In cancer, the cell death pathways malfunction and too many cells are allowed to proliferate. In Parkinson and Alzheimer diseases, cell death pathways allow the destruction of too many cells. Now scientists are zeroing in on specific proteins or pathways that could be altered to prevent aberrations in cell death that result in disease. From not knowing that cell death was an important part to living organisms, scientists are realizing how much it dominates life - sort of like the paperback mass-market fiction list.

¹"Programmed cell death and apoptosis: origins of the theory" 545-550 (July 2001) | doi:10.1038/35080097

Superfreakonomics authors Levitt and Dubner make it out like solving global warming is no more complicated than cooling off on the patio on a hot summer day. First, someone else puts up the umbrella, then they unwind the hose and spray all the kids so they stay cool. This may sound good to you, but it's not logical, despite what the Superfreaks insist. They're appealing to your laziness, your ennui, your fear, and your cynicism, all in the name of books and businesses that you don't hold stock in. Do you but it?

Daily Show Economics

When Steven Levitt appeared on the Daily Show to talk about their new book and the giant umbrellas that could be used to ward off climate change, Jon Stewart apologized for the collective response by scientists to Levitt and Dubner's unscientific treatment of climate change. Not only unscientific, dismissive too: Levitt told the Guardian "We could end this debate and be done with it, and move on to problems that are harder to solve", (hat tip Curious Capitalist).

Stewart commiserated to the criticized Levitt: "I'm sorry you're taking so much shit for it". But Stewart let his Daily Show audience down. For one, "Superfreakonomics" disappointed Freakonomics fans, especially those devoted libertarians and contrarians, who, though often delusional, generally manage at least a modicum of realism about climate change. Daily Show fans were also surprised that Stewart was so sympathetic to Levitt.

But if people were dismayed with The Daily Show's dismissal of climate change, they haven't been paying attention. Stewart isn't always smarter 'than that', if smarter doesn't fit the particular formula-funny he runs. Note how Stewart barely batted an eye when Levitt offered his other offensive assertion, that prostitutes should retain pimps in order to earn more money. It's true, shrugged Levitt, as if nothing can to be done because the invisible hand has sealed womens' fates the world over -- as if he didn't just twist up that statistical interpretation to get people tittering and buying books.

"The heroes turn out to be the pimps", he said. Shrug. "Get rid of the moral part" he insisted, and you have pure unadulterated economics, that's what we're about. Jon jested. Hahaha, heeheehee. Levitt shrugged again. Then the two entertainers moved on to climate change and the irrationality of environmentalists.

When Your Advertisers Are Auto Companies?

And trashing "environmentalists" isn't new territory, either, for Levitt or for Stewart. The Freakonomics blog has argued repeatedly that recycling makes little sense. The Daily Show host has previously criticized actions to lower carbon emissions, for instance "Auto-Neurotic Gas Fixation", May 20, 2009. At the time, Obama had just announced his intention to set new, ambitious CAFE standards for gas mileage. Stewart chastised him for it: "Dude...Obama...don't blow your load on mileage baby, save it for when the Chinese invade."

Stewart said that gas efficient cars, being smaller, put people "in harm's way because they're in a lighter vehicle", that "safety" was a "valid", "reasonable concern". A nod to all the automobile companies that advertise with Comedy Central perhaps? Or ignorance? You decide. We thought that this ancient Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) argument died back in 2007, once people thought through their elementary math and physics and realized that yes, if you run your Prius into a Hummer, you may get hurt, but the more Priuses on the road, and the fewer Hummers, the less likely you will be to run into a Hummer, therefore less likely you'll get hurt. Alas, there we were in the spring of 2009 and Jon Stewart was giving us his schoolboy version of the old auto industry fueled CEI argument.

Coincidentally, at the time -- April/May 2009 -- car sales had recently dropped to their lowest point in thirty years. A flurry of editorials pronounced the danger of small vehicles and so Stewart fit right in with The Wall Street Journal which droned on about about the "lethal effects" of CAFE standards and light vehicles. Lesson? Comedy Central is not always all that "progressive" people - really.

Just When You Thought Superfreak was Finally Gone

So Jon Stewart's accommodation to Levitt's argument isn't a surprise, nor is Superfreakonomics' bid to attract attention by rousing populist appeal. As the sequel to Freakonomics (which admittedly never did it for me), SuperFreakonomics seems to run aground the way many movie sequels do -- Rocky V, Clerks II, Caddyshack II... While maintaining sufficient audiences to grind through talk-shows, stimulate blog chatter, and generate pay-out, the authors deeply disappoint fans.

Here's a collection of about 90 blog links that criticize Chapter 5 of the book. They call the authors on many points, for instance:

• Of distorting the science and misquoting scientists - From an atmospheric scientist (Ken Caldeira) in response to the book's quote - "Carbon dioxide is not the right villain": "I don't believe I said anything remotely like that...we should be outlawing the production of devices that emit carbon dioxide...I do see CO2 as the problem...it's like if you got shot by a bullet and you said, well, it wasn't really the bullet that was the problem, it was just that I happened to have this hole through my body..."

• Of distorting science consensus - From many economists: "it is terribly misleading that the two scientists you quote are BOTH skeptics. What are the odds of that? Probably a billion to one, so my unavoidable conclusion is that you are deliberately trying to cast doubt on the scientific consensus."

• Of presenting facile, improbable solutions to climate change like pumping SO2 into the atmosphere with a giant hose - From scientists: "'..thinking of geoengineering as a substitute for emissions reduction is analogous to saying, 'Now that I've got the seatbelts on, I can just take my hands off the wheel and turn around and talk to people in the back seat.' It's crazy.'"

• Of deceiving the American public - From a congressman: "We have seen a similar effort to hoodwink, defraud, and deceive the American public now to cover up the toxicity to the world environment...I want to note a book...that basically said or asserted we don't have to control CO2..They purported to quote a scientist named Ken Caldeira from Stanford...Which is an absolute deception."

Like the Daily Show, the Superfreakonomics authors have a history of distorting reality.

Stripping Away Moralism and Giving You Freedom: The Ruse

As I wrote above, what Levitt claims, is that he simply "strips away the moralism" - then, all you have is the economics and prostitution, or economics and climate change. Glib. This is not uncommon rhetoric in economics, politics and public policy -- the ultra-rational, just do the math approach. It's used, for instance, to justify radical cost-benefit-analysis, where people argue that you can put a monetary value on everything - the price of one member of an endangered species, the price of the life of an old person, the price of the life of an infant, the price of a chemical to an industry - and otherwise complicated policy decisions fraught with difficult ethical choices can be reduced to simple math. Voilà.

The problem is, when the authors decided to write that prostitutes are better off with pimps then dug up some statistics to support that assertion, they made a moral decision. First Levitt and Dubner had to decide that this particular slant on prostitution was what they wanted to focus on, then they had to cherry pick some "data" to support it. Similarly, as we wrote in an earlier post, deciding that a male mule deer is worth $525.50, whereas a female mule deer is worth $163, while a just plain deer is worth $1, is not a decision without "moralism".

Moral sentiments are part and parcel of human decisions. Numbers and words that appear in print on a piece of paper or screen in front of you came from a formula or process derived by a human, based on that human's views, perceptions, expectations and desired outcomes. It didn't come from some superior amoralistic all-knowing power, intent on providing answers and comfort to confused humans beings -- despite what people may try to convince you.

Ironically, by asking his audience to "strip away the moralism", Levitt is appealing to ethos or pathos, but certainly not logos. He's saying -- be logical like me, I'm being logical. Shrug. But he's dismissing tons and tons of scientific proof of climate change and the need to decrease emissions as pathetic "moral" arguments (ethos), when those scientific studies are actually the logical ones (logos). He's appealing to his audience's laissez-faire tendencies, their desire to do nothing, their habits not to change, their pathos.

The Ploy: Technology will Suffice in Lieu of Action

Then, offering the equivalent of the old, chintzy plastic prize at the bottom of the box of Crackerjacks, he gives the audience something to grasp on to in the impending and threatening flood of unpleasant scientific reality, although again, it's not logical. Levitt insists that there's a simple scientific solution to solve the problem. Of course, there is no technological solution. The authors offer untested pie-in-the-sky idea that many, many scientists find problematic.

But this is what we all want to hear, right? The irrational, busy, lazy or pathetic side of all of all of us wants to be assured that electronic records will solve healthcare failures, that tsunami warning systems will prevent catastrophic losses, that ankle bracelets will prevent recidivism, that massive fences along international borders will prevent terrorism and drug trafficking, and that electronic surveillance will prevent crime. But giant garden hoses suspended up in the sky, are not even in the realm of feasible technical solutions. Yet we're so happy to slough off responsibility that Jon Stewart, although he's a modern icon of cynicism, doesn't even bother to ask questions.

Levitt plays to the audience's sentiments perfectly, first by laughing off science and scientists who present scary ideas as flimsy moralistic hogwash, then by presenting his very own special version of "science". I'm the logical one, he says, but I'm not dorky like a scientist.

His flavor of rhetoric is commonly used by those who oppose scientific evidence because it presents the type of science society likes, that which solves our problems, but is seemingly stress-free, simpler to understand than Tivo, and doesn't require you to have liked high school science. Therefore Superfreakonomics presents magic "technology solutions" in terms your average barbecuing Joe (if there is such a thing) will know and like.

According to them, solving global warming is no more complicated than cooling down on a hot summer day on the patio. First someone else puts up the umbrella to shield you. Then a kindly neighbor unwinds the hose and sprays away, and all the kids stay cool. Sound good? But its not logical. It's doesn't strip away moralism. It doesn't give you freedom. You do have to worry about global warming, you may have to change your lightbulbs. Superfreakonomics appeals not to your logical side but to your laziness, your ennui, your fear, your cynicism, all in the name of books and businesses that you don't hold stock in.

The Solution

This isn't to say that we don't need technology, quite the opposite, technology is imperative to global warming attenuation. But it's not the only effort we need, we need to conserve and to decrease emissions also.

Underlying Superfreaks' argument is the contention that people won't change. And true, people tend to squirm and stall when pressed to adjust, as we noted in "Sea Change or Littoral Disaster", Cars: Buying Cognitive Dissonance", Science Communication, Communicating Climate Change, and Climate Change, Fueling the "Debate", "Curvilinear Thinking on Climate Change", and other posts. But Real Climate's good point is that - people will change with the right incentives. People can work collectively for the better, they don't need a solution to be imposed from nigh. They do have a long history of employing morals as well as logic to solve problems, both are good, both are necessary. And given all that, it may simply be immoral for Superfreak authors to distort the truth of climate change and insist on selling implausible solutions.

Frogs Die and the Silence Screams:

When talking about all the ways that science was great to a junior high school relative recently, he protested that pursuing science would mean he'd have to dissect frogs very soon. I don't remember dissecting anything until college myself, but the idea of formaldehyde infused frogs and scalpels is apparently quite off-putting to young people these days. However this isn't a post about education or the many misperceptions of teenagers, but the fate of the frogs that have garnered scientists a bad reputation in some circles.

Scientists and doctors are not (usually) sadistic, as suggested by youthful rumors of ritualistic frog dissections. Rather, the drastic decline in frogs as they die en masse across the globe has absolutely dismayed herpetologists and ecologists, who scurry up scarce funds to research the cause of the frogs' demise. "The subsequent silence left a long-lasting impression on me", Australian scientist Jamie Voyles told the journal Science recently, speaking of her experience watching frogs die in a Panama rainforest in 2004.

In 1999 researchers at the University of Maine identified a fungus responsible for 90 of the 120 frog extinctions since 1980. In this week's Science, Voyles and her colleagues describe how this fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, kills frogs. The resulting disease first upsets the electrolyte balance across the skin of the amphibians. The skin regulates respiration and osmotic balance inside the frog, and as the disease progresses it disrupts sodium and chloride ions and causes a drop in blood electrolytes causing systemic physiological failure and heart attacks for the frogs.

The optimistic news, if any could be so framed, is that other scientists recently discovered a bacteria species that releases the chemical violacein, which stops the lethal fungal infection. This bacteria is symbiotic to some frog species which manage to repel the fungal infections. This finding suggests that perhaps sometime the devastating fungus could be controlled by managing the bacterial ecology of amphibian skins.

Now, at PNAS Three Papers in Question:

The science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) offers special publication privileges to members of their Academy, a group of elite scientists chosen by other esteemed scientists based on their unique contributions to science research. Now the editorial board has retracted some of those privileges in light of papers that recently appeared in the journal.

Nature News reported on a "row" caused when PNAS published research that didn't meet the journals' standards for peer review. The dispute is now heating up. The controversy began in August when one article published on-line at PNAS forwarded a theory by author Donald Williamson, all about what he called "larval transfer hypothesis".¹

Williamson suggests that the process of metamorphosis, whereby larvae turn into butterflies, arose when butterfly Leptidorae larva "mistakenly fertilized their eggs with sperm from velvet worms", as Scientific American put it (funnily twisting agency). Velvet worms Onychophora look like larvae but have completely different life cycles -- they don't turn into butterflies. According to Williamson, evolutionary transfer of genetic material causes butterflies to have essentially two lives, one as a worm-like larva, and one as a butterfly.

But there are problems with the theory. First, he offers no proof, just a "testable" hypothesis. And while interspecies fertilization is not unheard of within the animal kingdom, velvet worms are too distinct from butterflies to make this feasible, say scientists. The sperm could not fertilize such a distantly related egg and produce a viable embryo, and even if it did, it wouldn't "explain the process of metamorphosis".

Less charitably, scientists said that the paper was better suited to a a tabloid than to a science journal, and called the paper "absolutely ridiculous". They also scoffed at his attempt to show the "superficial similarity between adult velvet worms and larval moths and butterflies" with "very poorly reproduced line drawings that really need to be seen to be believed".

In short, the August PNAS paper brought a torrent of harsh criticism for the octogenarian's ideas. Moreover, while some people tolerated Williamson's submission as an attempt to generate discussion, nobody thought that PNAS should have published such a speculative paper. Scientific publishing is very competitive and many scientists who produce worthy research with real results are summarily rejected from high profile journals like PNAS. So how did the research get published, they asked, incredulous? The tale gets even more interesting.

When Push Comes to Shove

Shortly after Williaimson's PNAS article saw daylight, Scientific American published an interview with evolutionary microbiologist Lynn Margulis, an editor at PNAS who shepherded Williamson's work through the peer-review and publishing process. In recounting her story of how the paper got published, Margulis mentioned that she had been trying to publish the work for twenty years. After convincing Williamson answer how the worms fertilize caterpillars -- rather than the more conceptually challenging idea that worms breed with butterflies, she told SA it took 6 or 7 peer reviews before she got 2 or 3 that were positive enough to push the paper through to publication. More eyebrows raised in the science community.

It turns out that Lynn Margulis "communicated" Williamson's paper to PNAS, a method of publishing offered to Academy members that differs from "submissions". Via this method, members can suggest for publication papers by non-members, along with reviewers selected by the member. PNAS recently announced it will eliminate this "Track I" publishing in 2010. In the meantime PNAS editors will not publish Williamson's paper in print edition pending further discussion with Margulis about the review process.

But now it's not just that paper. Another PNAS paper by Margulis and co-authors that's being questioned apparently proposes a treatment for Lyme disease that's "800" times more effective than doxycycline -- "it is very important to get this paper published", co-author Oystein Brorson told Nature.

A third paper in question is a computational biology paper by an adjunct professor of the Margulis lab. PNAS has asked Margulis to withdraw that paper because of problems with the methods. Margulis told Nature she would do no such thing, and when asked in turn for comment, PNAS told Nature: "We don't want to respond to any questions or complaints she [Margulis] has through the media." Sounds like more entertainment is forthcoming.

The three PNAS papers all circle themes that Margulis has been pursuing for decades -- Spirochetes, desiccation, spores, symbiosis and more symbiosis than you'd ever believe, and disease. Is the recent spate of publishing from the Margulis camp a final push for these ideas? And even more controversial ones?

Another 2009 paper has been published on-line in the (less well-known) journal Symbiosis (another journal that Margulis edits), by the same authors -- Hall, Brorson, Margulis and others. This "position paper" proposes that antibiotic treatment of Lyme and Syphilis, both caused by Spirochetes, induces the formation of cysts, or "round bodies", that then revert to their original Spirochete form in a favorable (antibiotic free) environment, causing secondary infections, long-term human symbioses, and compromised immunity.²

Although the abstract is pretty straight-forward, the paper quickly leaps out on a limb to suggest that AIDS is not caused by HIV but by Spirochete round bodies. Again, there's no evidence. The authors draw tenuous connections between quotes made by public health officials after a 2007 HIV vaccine trial, and their own round body theory of AIDS. They reason that HIV seems not to infect heterosexual partners as much as men who might be infected with syphilis but not fully treated with antibiotics even though medical professionals say they are. So the authors have an idea:

"Is the situation [AIDS] better described as an obligate and ancient symbiosis where the bionts (spirochetes and humans) are integrated at the behavioral, metabolic and genetic level rather than a new viral infection such that HIV equals AIDS? ...We urge that the possible direct causal involvement of spirochetes and their round bodies to symptoms of immune deficiency be carefully and vigorously investigated."

So then HIV might not be caused by a virus but by Spirochete round bodies. See? Someone test this right away.

Forget Crabs, Look Out For Round Bodies and Symbiosis

Margulis told Nature her attitude about the three PNAS papers in question: "If they definitively reject these papers I will make it very clear to the reading public (because they make it clear in their anonymous letters) that, as usual, they don't like my ideas." Two years ago, we posted on Margulis's controversial ideas and public relations skirmishes. Our post followed her debut on PZ Myers blog, where unchallenged, she forwarded her idea that HIV didn't cause AIDS. If HIV causes AIDS than why doesn't NIH write back to me, she asked? We wrote:

"Margulis relishes controversy and slings mud far better than most people, a well-honed and essential skill....[but] famously, despite her formidable offense skills, she forever portrays herself as someone who has been pushed in a mud puddle."

The PNAS controversy is interesting, although it wouldn't leap out at everyone so much if the papers in question weren't so blatantly ludicrous. PNAS's publication "favoritism" is far from unusual in the science world. And really, Margulis has been publishing these ideas for years, drawing connections based on thin research (often foreign, often Russian, somehow lost on Americans), and asking the science community to run some experiments to test her ideas. In our previous post we talked about her theory of Spirochete symbiosis forming nerves (remember "behavior" from the quote above?):

"Think of the nerve as coming from what had formerly been a bacterium, 'trying' but unable to rotate and swim. Thought involves motility and communication, the connection between remnant spirochetes. All I ask is that we compare human consciousness with spirochete ecology."

"All I ask". That was in 1991. But the gulf between what she "asks" and a warm reception from scientists has grown as science has advanced. Williamson is an 87 year old retired scientist, who himself is no stranger to forwarding controversial ideas. Sketched drawings weren't so ludicrous 60 years ago when he was starting. But now, the idea that a paper could simply describe what you see, like generations and generations of cell biology papers before us, seems ridiculous. As an educator at Princeton said recently, "The days of sort of naturalistic walking around and looking at flowers are long gone". (Look at the emphasis on clinical description in this excerpt from a ptomaine poisoning paper from the early 1900's. Williamson was a scientist not too long after that.)

Margulis has always published in PNAS. Some of the labs' older papers have similar themes and a little research. But it's a different world now. Margulis still has the prestige to gather a cast of characters around her in symbiotic relationships, to continue to push ideas out, and to entertain admirers like PZ Myers and his followers. But while her fame draws admirers and moths it also draws vipers, many of whom are now online.

PNAS claims they were going to change their Track I policy anyway. OK, sure, but no doubt the deluge of online criticism didn't tempt them to tarry with the announcement. Just as high tech science has redefined what a good science paper looks like, online science criticism has become blood sport. And that's a good thing, don't get me wrong. But imagine what would we'd learn if all papers and journal publication policies got such a thorough raking over?

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¹ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Caterpillars evolved from onychophorans by hybridogenesis Donald I. Williamson, Communicated by Lynn Margulis, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, July 24, 2009 (received for review May 19, 2009)

²SYMBIOSIS Vol. 47, No. 1 (2009) Position paper. Spirochete round bodies. Syphilis, Lyme disease & AIDS: Resurgence of "the great imitator"? L. Margulis, A. Maniotis, J. MacAllister, J. Scythes, O. Brorson, J. Hall, W.E. Krumbein, and M.J. Chapman

Monarchs? Where Do They Go? How Do They Get There?

Monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus, migrate from the Northern US and Southern Canada to Central Mexico beginning in late August, then migrate north once the weather gets warm. It's a journey of up to 2000 miles, and an individual monarch butterfly doesn't live long enough to make the full journey. ¹ Monarch butterflies only live two to six weeks once they metamorphose into butterflies.

Interestingly, however, while most generations of monarchs born in the spring and summer live two to six weeks, the last generation of monarchs that emerge in late summer undergo arrested development called diapause, brought on by less daylight. Missing a reproductive chemical called juvenile hormone, these monarchs can live seven months or more. During this time they migrate to Mexico, hibernate, then begin the flight back north, all before reproducing. But even this longer living generation of butterflies will not finish the trip, nor, most likely, will their shorter lived progeny. It will usually take one or two more generations of monarchs to complete the trip to North America from Mexico.

Scientists have long investigated how it is that these monarchs in successive generations can travel thousands of miles and manage to navigate the route so precisely that they often overwinter in the same tree year after year. Previous scientific research revealed that, like other insects, monarchs use the sun for navigation. More research showed that as the sun moves across the sky, the butterflies also use circadian clocks to adjust their route and maintain a southerly course. Then, as years passed scientists identified genes which control various circadian clock functions, and evidence from their research suggested that these genes could reside in the brain.

Public domain photo from US Fish and Wildlife, via Wikimedia Commons.

Where The Clock Lies

However new science last week brought an unexpected turn in the path of monarch circadian clock research. Science published a paper by monarch butterfly researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who have long been studying monarch circadian clocks. Steven Reppert's lab showed that circadian clocks which control the monarchs ability to navigate the long migration reside not in the brain but in the antennae.

Following up on research done in the 1960's the scientists studied the influence of butterfly antennas on navigation. They found that butterflies without their antennas were unable to navigate a southerly course, nor could butterflies navigate whose antennae researchers blocked from light. They found that neither eyesight nor smell influenced navigational ability which was solely determined by light interacting with the antennae.

The current research, building on all the previous research, shows that circadian clock in the antennae are necessary for navigation, whereas the brain circadian clock may have different or complementary purposes. The paper, "Antennal Circadian Clocks Coordinate Sun Compass Orientation in Migratory Monarch Butterflies," was published in Science last week.^{2 3}

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¹ Monarchs hatch from eggs after four days to become caterpillars for about two weeks. They then enter the pupa or chrysalis stage which lasts about two weeks before molting and undergoing metamophorsis to mature butterflies. They can then flit around as butterflies for two to eight weeks before dying.

² Christine Merlin, Robert J. Gegear, Steven M. Reppert*, "Antennal Circadian Clocks Coordinate Sun Compass Orientation in Migratory Monarch Butterflies" Science 25 September 2009: Vol. 325. no. 5948, pp. 1700 - 1704 DOI: 10.1126/science.1176221

³ Send Acronym Required your suggestions, questions or comments.

• In the Beginning...Mini-T: Before Homo sapiens, before meteors annihilated Tyrannosaurus rex, before that massive dinosaur bounded over the earth, a smaller, similar looking dinosaur existed. Raptorex kriegsteini had 1/90th the body mass of the ~2.5 ton T.rex and lived about 65 million years earlier. A raptorex fossil found in China had the same body features as T. rex and scientists think that the specialized predatory morphology -- large jaw, small front legs, powerful back legs -- grew larger in future generations, evolving to become T. rex. The photo is of a T. rex is from Wikipedia Commons.

New Science Journalism: Futurity formally launched September 15. Futurity, not to be confused with "Singularity", is a collective on-line publication effort by leading research universities. The universities will promote their science accomplishments and fill the gaps of dwindling newspaper science coverage. Articles will be submitted by members of the Association of American Universities (AAU), with Stanford, University of Rochester, and Duke leading the effort. Critics point out that aggregating news generated by University PR departments (20% fact, 80% big story?) won't provide readers the same unbiased perspective as proper journalism coverage. True, but we can't ignore the fact that a significant amount of science coverage consists of press releases anyway.

• Swine Flu Fallout: The H1N1 pandemic not only causes havoc for humans who fall ill, college campuses trying to manage the illnesses, and health workers. The pandemic effects society and economy in ways you don't necessarily think of. Consider, for instance:

  1.) Egypt can't keep up with its street garbage. As we wrote earlier this year, Egypt set out to kill all the pigs in the country, an unwarranted action. Many belonged to Christian herders whose pigs cleaned the streets of millions of tons of organic waste per year. Now parts of Cairo are knee deep in garbage.

  2.) Pork belly futures, which fell from 89 in April 2009 to 40 in August 2009, have now rebounded to their previous high.

• A Chance To Recalculate the Bush Ozone Ruling?: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced last week that it would reexamine the standard set by the Bush administration for ozone which had motivated states to sue the EPA. Ozone is a health hazard at certain levels, and in 2008, the agency set a new standard at 75 parts per billion (ppb), down from 84 ppm. The EPA heralded this as a life-saving improvement, but according to science advisors of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), only 60-70 ppm will prevent deaths.

  Susan Dudley headed the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in 2008 when the Bush administration decision was made. OIRA influenced the outcome of Bush's ozone ruling by sending a series of memos to the EPA impeding the ozone ruling and killing a secondary standard which would have triggered certain safety measures in some weather conditions. We wrote last year how Susan Dudley had argued on behalf of industry prior to her tenure at OIRA, that "smog was beneficial because it protected individuals from ultraviolet radiation, and that since asthma rates were associated with poverty, a smog ruling would have the 'perverse effect' of costing communities money, which would in turn increase poverty and asthma." Her's was a twisted cost-benefit analysis.

  Now Cass Sunstein heads OIRA. According to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the EPA has calculated the benefits to society from the now thriving environmental industry and determined that those monetary benefits outweigh the costs of the standard. So is cost-benefit ok when the outcome favors the politics you prefer?

• Team Players: Researchers at Oxford University published a paper in Biology Letters reporting that more elevated endorphin levels associated with team sports like rowing than single player activities.

• Justice Department On Proposed Google Books Settlement The Justice Department said Friday that the settlement needed changes to address copyright, class-action and antitrust issues, and urged the Federal Court to reject the settlement. However, the government added that current discussions between the parties were productive and should continue.

• EPA and NHTSA, Together At Last, Overlapping: The EPA also proposed new carbon dioxide emissions this week, in concert with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The new rule would lower fleet standards to 35.5 mpg by 2016. As well, cars would be allowed to emit 250 grams of CO2/mile by 2012, as opposed to the current rule of 265 grams of CO2/mile. The Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, Inc. (AIAM), and Senator Markey praised the agencies for their collective effort.

  A coordinated effort from the two agencies that oversee automobile emissions and mileage efficiency has long been a goal of industry and policy makers, though a goal sometimes cynically pursued. We also wrote about EPA/NHTSA overlap here and here. The standards will cover model years 2012 through 2016, and as the Obama administration bills it: "the automobile manufacturers would be able to build a single, light-duty national fleet that satisfies all federal requirements as well as the standards of California and other states."

• Migraines: McCain's Bane: Cindy McCain is heading to Congress, reports the New Yorker, to lobby for money to study migraine headaches. And you thought perhaps you'd heard the last of McCain science research jokes? She told the American Headache Society (AHS):

  "For the first time in my life, I'm going to go to Congress, and I'm going to be tenacious and be forceful and be honest and tell them that it's time. If you can give five million dollars to study flatulence in cows and its effects on the ozone layer, you can give me some money for migraine research."

  Migraines are, of course, a debilitating problem -- that's no joke. As McCain details in her talks, migraine headaches are sometimes set off by "triggers" -- foods like chocolate, or particular odors or chemicals. McCain reports that her company's beer, Stella Artois, contains sulfites "out the wazoo" that trigger her headaches. Travel is full of trouble. Sometimes a perfume bottle breaks and the debilitating noxious fumes cause her to repack her bags and fly home. Foreign food smells prove treacherous too, she says: "...like...forgive me, but the scent of cooking dog"

  She didn't say which countries serve the offensive "dog", often a subject of nasty rumors, or how one can tell that it's not chicken, water buffalo, or frog. But fortunate she is then, that her role is the ambassador of headaches not the ambassador of smoothing international relations with her would-have-been President husband.

REACH in the EU: Model for TSCA?

Governments regulate chemicals to help keep citizens safe from toxins that would otherwise pollute their food, drink, and air. But such regulations are difficult to pass because of course some parties will always claim that the regulation will cost taxpayers, will cost jobs, and will inflict mortal wounds to the economy. In this challenging environment, EU and US agencies are now working to strengthen historically weak chemical oversight. Press recently covered a Nature article that projected much higher costs for the EU's oversight plan and predicted the necessity of extraordinary numbers of lab animals for toxicity tests. Nature is a respected science journal, not predictably partisan venue like, say, the Wall Street Journal editorial page or the Socialist Worker. But critics including an EU agency and the Environmental Defense Fund point out flawed reasoning and familiar marks of bias in this Nature paper, flaws not highlighted in the popular press. ¹

As we wrote in our last post, efforts to regulate bisphenol A may be in process, but a larger issue persists in the number of chemicals with unknown safety profiles that we're subjected to. In the US, some chemicals can enter the market with minimal government testing and 60,000 chemicals were grandfathered in under the US Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976. To be clear, not all of these grandfathered chemicals are on the market, and many are safe -- but some aren't -- which ones?

Toxicologists have long argued for an overhaul of TSCA, known in some circles as the "Toxic Substances Conversation Act" by those who think it serves the needs of the chemical industry all too well. Asbestos, for instance, remains on the market because the EPA can not use TSCA (.doc download) to ban most asbestos products, regardless of documented health risks.

On the European front, a newer regime for testing chemicals called REACH (registration, evaluation,authorization and restriction of chemical substances) promises more complete oversight of chemicals in the EU than TSCA in the US. But REACH has its own complex goals and challenges, as we described here and here. And like TSCA in the US, the European program has its foes.

REACH: Smelling A Rat in the EU?

REACH underwent significant changes in the face of the chemical industry pressure before its implementation. Companies continue to agitate about the costs of REACH and the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) and the European Commission continue to reassure the public by reiterating their cost estimates.

Recently, toxicologists introduced a new wrinkle. Thomas Hartung, from John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and chemisty consultant Costanza Rovida caused a stir by estimating not only huge unpredicted costs for REACH, but for predicting that REACH regulations would require millions more lab animals than the EU had calculated. Their Nature article referred to their analysis in the less well known journal ALTEX. They claim most REACH overruns would stem from reproductive testing, and said the program would use:

"54 million vertebrate animals and cost 9.5 billion... This is 20 times more animals and 6 times the costs of the official estimates. By comparison, some 90,000 animals are currently used every year for testing new chemicals in Europe, costing the industry some 60 million per year."

You don't need to be an animal activist to recoil at costly regulations that might waste every last vertebrate lab animal in Europe and more -- a reaction that their study could provoke. But suppose the authors didn't calculate correctly?

The Environmental Defense Fund's Richard Denison et al. comb through the Nature and ALTEX calculations and dispute pretty much every the calculation Hartung and Rovida make, starting with the estimates of the number of chemicals in use, moving on to the numbers for chemicals pre-registered, likely to be registered, the numbers of rats needed, and the associated costs. Denison concludes:

"As noted at the start, this study has used numerous demonstrably false or highly questionable assumptions, one piled on another, to grossly inflate the number of chemicals requiring testing under REACH, and the number of animals involved."

ECHA comes to basically the same conclusion, and notes that "the real figures are more likely to be the ones assessed and published when the new chemicals legislation (REACH) was prepared and negotiated."

The Opportunities of Lax Oversight?

Given that Denison's estimates and the numbers originally estimated by ECHA were a fraction of Hartung's estimates, the reader may ask -- "Which is it? Are there hundreds of thousands of unknown chemicals that need to be tested? Tens of thousands? Thousands? Why don't scientists know?" And that's the point. As REACH progresses EU citizens will get better grip on which chemicals they're being exposed to and in what quantities. The current level of public ambiguity indicates the extent to which the risks to citizens are now unknown. But ECHA estimates that about 16,000 chemicals will be be registered by the first two deadlines, and that less than 6,000 of these will need full testing. The picture will get clearer as the chemical registrations are assessed through REACH.

In the meantime, the years of lax oversight provide the authors the opportunity to shock everyone. 54 million animals, some might ask (gasping)? The Nature article prompts that loaded question -- to which organizations like ECHA and EDF, dedicated to protecting people from say, being blinded by eyelash dyes, must reply with the uncomfortable answer: "No, actually it's only 9 million animals, not 54 million".

In truth, REACH is already committed to alternative testing like cell-based assays, and cheaper toxicology testing methods such as high-throughput screening. Decreasing the number of animals used in testing is a goal shared by all -- by the EU, by EDF, the EPA, etc.

When Chemical Companies Ally with The Humane Society, It Means?

Based on their estimates, Hartung and Rovida conclude that REACH is unfeasible and recommend halting aspects of it. They also recommend increased funding, especially in the US, for non-animal testing methods. While it's impossible to discern any motive for their study other than science progress and animal welfare, it's nevertheless interesting to look at some background.

Hartung runs John Hopkin's Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), which aims to develop methods to replace animals testing. He left his position at the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) saying, among other things, that chemical companies weren't involved enough (via Alttox.com). He moved to John's Hopkins in 2008.

Chemical companies are involved now. EDF's Denison points out that although the ALTEX study claims to have been peer reviewed, 5 of the 6 "peers" were actually industry representatives. Also of note, ALTEX is a publication of John's Hopkins'. Co-author Hartung sits on the journal's board and was assigned the position of North American editor in February. ALTEX is not exactly a neutral publication venue for Hartung.³

Chemical companies have historically argued that chemicals are safe without testing, that REACH is unnecessary, and that TSCA is good as is. But their cooperation is important to the success of toxicology programs, so in this case we'd hope that they've come around, that their concern for animals is genuine, and that their commitment to REACH steadfast.

But Denison thinks otherwise. He points out that the chemicals targeted by REACH effect animals in the wild too. So why the huge concern for lab rats, but not for eagles? Denison also notes "a strongly shared interest between the chemical industry and animal welfare advocates in undercutting chemical testing programs".

EDF has a long history of working with companies to achieve market friendly environmental compromises. Denison himself has substantial history with chemical companies who have been less than cooperative (.pdf) in collaborations with the EPA. There may well be a need for increased funding of alternative toxicology testing methods. But given the background of EDF and Denison it's hard to ignore their criticism, despite Hartung's excellent credentials and expressed support for REACH.

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¹Nature 460, 1080-1081 (27 August 2009) | doi:10.1038/4601080a; Published online 26 August 2009, Chemical regulators have overreached, Thomas Hartung & Costanza Rovida

² Even the chemical, pharmaceutical and personal products industries are dedicated to reducing animal testing.Alttox, an on-line forum for alternatives to animal testing, is cosponsored by the Humane Society, Proctor and Gamble, and the American Chemical Council.

³ We previously criticized the journal "Risk Analysis" which we called vanity press for Sciences International Inc..

Plague

Earlier today Xinhuanet.com reported that a fourth pneumonic plague patient is near death and one more is in serious condition in the town of Ziketan, a remote northwestern village in Qinghai Province in the Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. 12 people have been hospitalized and three or four have died. Chinese officials have quarantined the town of about 10,000 and are killing rats and fleas to prevent further spread of the disease. Later today Xinhaunet.com reported that officials have now effectively controlled the plague.

Pneumonic plague infects the lungs and is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis (Y. pestis). This bacteria also causes septicemic plague and bubonic plague -- the form of plague depends on the the route of transmission. Pneumonic plague is transmitted by aerosolized bacteria, which cause pneumonia, progressive organ failure, and often swift death if left untreated.

Because these bacteria are carried through the air in droplets, the disease can spread from humans to humans or animals to humans, and is considered highly contagious. If the infection is diagnosed quickly and antibiotics given promptly, patients will make a full recovery. The World Health Organization is working with Chinese officials and monitoring the plague outbreak.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC), has an interesting page on the history of the plague. Until Alexandre Yersin and Shibasaburo Kitasato determined the cause of the disease in 1894, many people died and many more attributed the massive deaths to the wrath of gods.

After the scientists identified the cause bacteria Yersinia pestis, people adapted to the fact that the disease spread between animals, often rats, via fleas. The mere sight of a dead rat sometimes causes people to flee their homes and towns. Plague can cycle for years between rats and fleas without infecting human populations, but inevitably, every few years an outbreak occurs. The CDC article notes that the catastrophic loss of life associated with historic plagues -- even today -- gives people a heightened fear of "the plague".

Zoonotic Disease Update

Plague is in the large group of zoonotic diseases that pass from animals to humans, or from humans to animals -- also called reverse zoonosis. In other zoonotic disease news, French scientists isolated a new group of HIV-1 from a Cameroon woman, which they're calling group P. The scientists found that this strain originated in gorillas rather than chimpanzees. The woman had recently moved to Paris from Cameroon and had tested seropositive for HIV-1 but didn't have signs of acquired autoimmune deficiency (AIDS). The researchers are tracking different strains of HIV virus, and they generally identify an unusual strain when AIDS symptoms are present in someone who tests negative for the virus. In this case the opposite situation occurred.

Although various viral load tests were positive, the researchers tested the woman's viral DNA against the known groups of HIV-1, referred to as M, N, and O, and found that whatever virus she was testing positive for didn't match these groups. The researchers then sequenced the viral genome and performed evolutionary analysis, which showed that the virus sequence was closer to a known simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) found in gorillas, called SIVgor, than to the chimpanzee SIV from which HIV-1 groups M, N, and O derived.

Scientists who had analyzed the SIVgor virus recently found that it had the capacity to infect humans, however this is the first identified case. Scientists here knew the results of both viral testing and acquired immunodeficiency status which gave them the opportunity to identify the new strain, however; there may be other people infected with the same or similar gorilla derived viruses. Nature published the report.

Also this week, the scientists proposed in Proceedings for the National Association of Sciences (PNAS) that malaria may have originated in chimpanzees.

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Acronym Required writes frequently on infectious diseases such as malaria, H5N1, H1N1 and AIDS, and once on bats and Hanta virus.

Doctors Fret On Behalf Pharma: Pro Bono For What? No Free Lunch?

Vermont and Massachusetts recently passed strict conflict of interest laws that require certain drug and medical-device manufacturers to inform state health officials of gifts made to doctors. At least half a dozen states have similar laws. Pharmaceutical companies spent $2.93 million on marketing in Vermont in 12 months. Payments and gifts to some Vermont psychiatrists totaled more than $100 thousand dollars a year. Nationwide, pharmaceutical companies spend between $20 billion and "$57 billion per year" on marketing per year.

The majority of Americans approve of the measures. In a survey of the public opinion, 64% of Americans think it's important to know their physician's financial ties to pharmaceutical companies and 68% support legislation requiring pharmaceutical companies to disclose gifts to doctors according to the results of a Prescription Project survey.

The regulations aim to bar some gifts from industry to doctors and researchers and more closely monitor which doctors and researchers pharma pays. The Vermont Medical Society supported the new regulations, noting that trust is necessary to build doctor patient relationships. The president of the physicians group commented: "Gifts from the pharmaceutical industry can create at least the appearance of conflict of interest, so in our minds that has a negative impact on our relationship with patients."

Just Don't Say "Corrupt"

However, opposing the conflict of interest regulation is the Association of Clinical Researchers and Educators (ACRE), a group of 100 physicians led by Harvard hematologist Thomas Stossel.¹ ACRE acknowledges that some physicians or researchers may take too much money from industry but argues that regulation of conflict of interest is not the answer. ACRE says that regulation will encroach on the free give and take between industry, physicians, and researchers that has yielded great research and medical progress. Nature reported frustration on the part of physicians who attended ACRE's July 23rd meeting:

"One attendee complained that he couldn't buy a $12 hamburger for a consultant who had agreed to speak for free. 'They're giving us a pro bono service and we're going to ask them to pay for their own lunch?' he lamented." ²

Really? Should free consulting from a pharma representative or consultant raise feelings of obligatory angst in attendees? If a pro-bono talk motivates such laments, what guilt do free samples provoke? What about a vacation trip? Will a $12 dollar hamburger fulfill the obligation? Or perhaps just a few prescriptions orders for patients?

ACRE's Stossel objects to the gift ban because it suggests that physicians have "'have a corruption problem'". In Marcia Angell's January, 2009 NY Review of Books article, "Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption", the author reviewed three books on pharmaceutical corruption.^3,4 The books were published after the congressional inquiry into drug company payments that uncovered quantities of drug money flowing into psychiatry doctors' pockets.

A Senate investigation led by Chuck Grassley (R-IA) (pdf!), uncovered payments to three Harvard psychiatrists who received over a million dollars each over a several year period. One psychiatrist at Stanford and one at Emory also received payments of over a million dollars.

A study in 2007 by Columbia University researchers showed that doctors don't feel that their personal integrity is compromised by taking gifts or money from pharmaceutical companies. But they do feel that other doctors would be compromised by such gifts. Chimonas et al concluded: "Our findings suggest that voluntary guidelines, like those proposed by most major medical societies, are inadequate. It may be that only the prohibition of physician-detailer interactions will be effective."

Marcia Angell points out that although the cases highlighted by the media tend to be more extreme, most physicians (94%) do have some relationship with drug companies. And certainly many of these payments are inconsequential and/or don't sway research or influence prescribing patterns. But clearly many do, or else pharmaceutical companies wouldn't be spending tens of billions of dollars on doctors and research.

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¹ The group is now supported by membership fees, according to Nature and the organization website. However in 2008, according to a note accompanying a British Medical Journal article, Stossel was on the boards of several pharmaceuticals, and received fees for speaking to corporations and other organizations about conflict of interest.

² Willard, Cassandra, "Physicians fight back against disclosure rules" Nature 460, 556-557 (2009) | doi:10.1038/460556b. Also published in Nature Medicine.

³ The NY Review of Books received a letter from the legal representative of one of the doctors covered in her article, complaining about the use of the word "corruption" in the headline and text of Angell's review, because it inferred the doctor had been engaged in "bribery" or "similar dishonest dealings". The weekly disagreed.

⁴ The three books are: Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial by Alison Bass (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill); Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs by Melody Petersen (Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus and Giroux); and Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness by Christopher Lane, (Yale University Press).

Bisphenol A Rhetoric, Reporting, and Courting Etiquette

Her: Energetic, sparkly eyes, feisty, dedicated to good causes, tenacious, award-winning reporter, not afraid to color outside the lines, plastic interest for the past two years...Him: erudite with a charming accent, young at heart, versatile reporter, enjoys evening sunsets, long walks on the beach, gourmet food, lingering over cappuccino in the morning, handwritten notes...recent plastic interest. Both dedicated to a cause and a mutual interest -- plastic -- bisphenol A (BPA) to be precise. Could Acronym Required be matchmaker? Will amiable dialogue ensue between the two? Or are they doomed by circumstance to animosity?

I got home one day and was kicking back after work, reading mail, when I saw one a message from sender: xxxxxx@journalsentinel.com. It read in total:

"what do you guys know about trevor butterworth?"

a puzzle. a short puzzle.

A message that posed as direct, but was actually vague. Did they want Acronym Required to share some unpublished motherlode of information? Is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's research department strapped for time? Did the newspaper disable all the shift-keys in the computers to conserve resources, forcing people to write in all lower case?

We've been incidentally covering Butterworth's employer Statistical Assessment Service and Center (Stats.org's)** campaigns since 2000-2001. We couldn't have been writing about BPA industry astroturfing here at AR since 2005 without reading their stuff. We also read Butterworth's non-chemical industry journalism all the time -- he's good writer, prolific. But he's not a exactly a mystery, nor are industry tactics concerning BPA and other chemicals, there's A LOT written on these subjects. So why their question?¹

Reaction and Rhetoric

Later that week, perplexing missive forgotten, I was enjoying a sunset, sipping a glass of Carnivale of Love Shiraz, when, perusing my newsfeed, I noticed that I'm not the only recipient of the Journal Sentinel's messages. In response to Stats.org's big report about bisphenol A toxicity being a media conceit, MJS sent Trevor Butterworth at Stats.org a whole series of pointed questions.

Acchhhh...I was hoping for a BPA summer vacation. You can read Stats.org 27,000 word defense of BPA, which we assume they got paid for -- perhaps by the word, or you can read this post, which is about 2,700 words and mentions their large document. (We're not paid per word.)

Here's the journalists' question #1 to Stats and Butterworth:

1. "According to IRS 990 forms, Stats.org received $100,000 in donations in 2007. That same year, the Sarah Scaife Foundation donated $100,000 to Stats.org. Is Stats.org's funding solely from the Sarah Scaife Foundation?"

We know what the paper wants. Like many before them, they think someone paid Butterworth/Stats.org to write the 27,000 word bisphenol A (BPA) article that criticized reporters in general, and Journal Sentinel's journalism in particular, since the Journal Sentinel did the award-winning BPA series.

In their first question, the JS reporters chose to focus on Stats.org funding rather than refute the article's BPA content (the chemical is safe, journalism is biased, etc). They're questioning financial information that probably comes from Stats.org or CMPA's 2007 IRS 990 disclosures, probably the latest year they had access to. Like their note to Acronym Required, the Journal Sentinel's questions were stunningly direct and a little unclear. The reporters' first question is in 3 parts. They ask about Stats.org's 2007 funding in parts 1 and 2, then skip to the present tense in part 3. This type of questioning works well for Stats.org, because they use such gaps to their rhetorical advantage, and rhetoric, not science, is their game.

Stats answered part 3 first: "Stats is not solely funded by the Sarah Scaife Foundation". Then, probably to show how "transparent" they are, Stats shared some 2008 funding sources that the newspaper didn't ask about: ...$100,000 from the Stuart Family Foundation, $40,000 from Mr. Paul Mongerson, and $70,000 from the Endocrine Society's Hormone Foundation." Is that all of Stats 2008 sources? Who knows? But Stats.org got to write "Endocrine Society" while handily omitting any mention of 2009 funding, which I assume the paper is most interested in since they focus on it later.

In question 3 the Journal Sentinel asks:

3. "Did you receive funding from any other source while working on this story? In other words, were you contracted to do this? Or did the Scaife funds provide the monetary support you needed to complete your report?"

Here the ambiguity is in the "you". Acronym Required assumes MJS's "you" is the same "you" as in question 1 -- the 'you guys' of Stats and/or Butterworth -- whoever is producing the report saying BPA is safe. But the MJS reporters leave it ambiguous enough for Trevor Butterworth to respond with his own interpretation: "I received no funding from any other source other than Stats." The implied question from the Journal Sentinel was: Who paid Stats.org/Butterworth for the report? Butterworth answers with "I", as in I'm just a contract employee for Stats.org therefore don't really know anything about anything. Slick answer.

State of Play

Butterworth answers all the Journal's questions the same way, wordily, repeatably, with careful rhetorical choices, obfuscation, and utter cordiality.

Is there something to be learned here? Sure. Perhaps that one can storm at organizations like Stats with punches and kicks flying, as many people have, again and again. But verbal aikido is the game, Stats.org's raison d'etre, and the direct assault method has routinely landed others in a heap on the floor.

Mr. Butterworth says he wants to "promote dialogue". Does he mean he wants to continue to pretend there's no science showing BPA toxicity? I don't know. But to note, it's a little strange to say you're just out to "promote dialogue", after you've accused a good portion of the news media (Discover, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, USA Today, etc.), journalists in general, and the public who reads the news -- of sloppy, uninformed, biased thinking.

But Stats.org insists it's all in the name of non-partisan, neutral analysis. To prove it, they point out that they've written for "progressive outlets such as the Huffington Post, Salon, and Mother Jones."

Butterworth didn't mention it, but Wonkette, a blog that's not exactly a mule for the chemical industry, met Butterworth and called him charming. So should future would-be hostile reporters at outlets like the Milwaukee JS cozy up to their quarry a little before firing off such blunt questions? Would a friendlier approach help the public relations involved with getting toxic chemicals out of our babies mouths? (So to speak?) This is what the current administration advocates, more or less.

I'm not criticizing the Journal Sentinel's methods, per se -- it's not like they're wide-eyed naifs writing a blog. That said, Trevor Butterworth's not the huge enemy they'd like to make him...some major BPA kingpin. Yes, he criticized the paper's reports and misrepresents BPA science -- but he's doing a job. His wordy response comes after the danger of BPA and the significant lobbying efforts to obscure that danger for over 20 years have been widely revealed. So Butterworth's basically keeping himself off the troublesome unemployment reports at the behest of someone as a last ditch effort to persuade someone that BPA isn't a problem after consumers aware of the problem? I'm not sure he needs to be "revealed."

Acronym Required previously wrote about Stats in "Yotta-Yotta-Yottabytes: Content Makes Kings, Print Dies", and various other posts on BPA, like here and here. Stats, as we've described before, and as reported here by Sourcewatch, claims to be a "non-partisan" think tank, but they are funded by conservative sources and consistently produce reports that fly in the face of science.

So, of course partly tongue in cheek -- why not try to promote dialogue? Journalists say you're supposed to empathize with your subjects -- (Or is that just long-form journalism?) Anyway, we can gain empathy by scanning Trevor Butterworth's site. You can tell he's a nice guy. Look, at pictures. Really, you think I'm getting paid for this? GO LOOK. Read his stuff while your there. First picture (July 13) -- a sunset over an East Coast port. See, he likes sunsets. Bunny rabbits too, I'm sure. How can you not have empathy for someone who likes sunsets and bunny rabbits? Another picture -- an intimate table, a fancy coffee beverage. There's a book and some notes -- written in long hand! It's like the setting for a romantic, General Foods International Coffee commercial. Awwhhhh....

Third picture -- he stands on a beautiful beach, smiling at the camera. Now I'm actually not sure if he likes long walks on beaches or not, because although he is on the beach, the footprints seem to go around in circles. Potentially useful information though isn't it? Note the glasses tucked into the front of his shirt and the hoodie -- says sophisticated, young at heart. Do you think he likes being addressed in letters from the Milwaukee JS that paint him as a petty thief?

This may be an economic match made in heaven too. If the Journal reporters had gotten the Pulitzer, it would be worth $10,000/2 -- 5K. But Butterworth advertises that he has access to a giant sandy beach, with that view, the terrace, the ambiance, a boat maybe? Everyone needs to earn a living.

Butterworth and Stats.org thrive in a specific political, legal and historical milieu, seemingly untouchable with ordinary reporterly methods of inquiry, but operating in a free market. So friendly dialogue can now ensue....He says his site that his email is butterworthy@...

A Gentleman or a Scoundrel?

The tone of the Journal Sentinel's questions -- reproachful, chiding, incriminating - is outwardly unfriendly -- though perhaps not unexpected, given Stats.org's assault. But moreover -- did it work? If the journalists got what they wanted from their pointed questions, Stats.org is so far the only one talking about it. The paper hasn't said a word, while Stats.org posted the whole exchange on their site. Butterworth wrote a pleasant introductory explanation to readers:

"Given the extent of Stats criticism of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's "Chemical Fallout" series on the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), and that the authors of the series have now contacted Stats to inquire about our motivation and funding for taking on this issue, we have decided that transparency and dialogue are best served by posting our responses to the paper's inquiries. Below is the full text of the responses sent to both reporters."

Not defensive mind you, just explaining their noble mission. Of course readers are left contemplating more than a few ironies, not only Butterworth's proposed quest for "dialogue", but also the illusion that "full text" of the responses means "full truth", or "honest answers".

In the 27,000-word article that Stats.org contracted to Butterworth, industry research takes a prominent place. Acronym Required has previously talked about BPA research and the stark differences between the results of industry research (BPA is safe) versus all the other research which shows risks. The writer criticizes journalists "who instinctively see a conflict of interest in industry-funded anything -- and who become even more suspicious when an industry funded study confirms that something is safe..." Butterworth says that it's easy for "journalism to fall into a formulaic response to a scientific controversy: independent research good; industry-funded research bad".

Acronym Required previously cautioned on reflexively vilifying industry research, but in this case, industry research in BPA has methodology problems that make its results very questionable.

Furthermore, if people have suspicions about industry vis a vis BPA, they are warranted. Acronym Required and others have long documented that chemical, plastics, and toy industries have for years funded misleading consumer advertising on bisphenol A, something that states are now also investigating. But Butterworth tells readers that, the "independent vs industry theme", is the "kind of rhetoric" that "has a distinct appeal for journalists".

Of course despite our opening in this post, we truly can see how such Butterworth rhetoric might reduce hardened Stats.org critics to blurting out non-sequiturs in all lower case.

When Size Doesn't Matter and other Truths

In addition to questions and answers, perhaps some results could gleaned from simple research into Stats.org's ample body of pre-existing work. The Journal Sentinel focused its uber-direct approach on Stats.org's funding, as many others do, but there are plenty of questions waiting to be asked of the decade-old canon.

For instance, look more closely at the statistics and science as presented by Stats.org. Just as they interpret questions for a predetermined rhetorical end, they redefine statistics methodology, and science methodology to suit their ends. In this case they insist that BPA data -- decades of it -- is flawed, and those who see safety concerns are misguided.

For example, Stats.org perverts the meaning of "statistics", using it to describe things like their own recent survey of selected toxicologists, which "found that only nine percent of toxicologists rated BPA as a high risk to health, compared to 26 percent who rated sunlight as a high risk and 29 percent who saw a high health risk in aflatoxin..." This reminds us of Trident Gum's "four out of five dentists" survey 30 years ago -- now familiar fodder for children's lessons.

For one more example, Butterworth asserts that only large size studies which can be funded by industry are valid. Not true. This idea was overturned by the National Toxicology Program in their 2008 report.

These are just two examples. Some of Stats.org's other parries could be easily averted, should the BPA "controversy" turn out not be in its final death throes -- quite likely. For instance Stats.org questions the credentials of frequently quoted Frederick Vom Saal, and in turn, the Journal Sentinel attacks the scientists Stats.org chooses to quote as possibly on someone's payroll. However reporters in the future could reach out to scientists beyond Vom Saal, to primary researchers on hundreds of studies that Stats.org criticizes or dismisses.

The "Rhetorical Advantage"

In indicting BPA journalism by the JS, Butterworth writes, "journalism is all about choosing what to report and who to talk to, and selective sourcing can make the innocent seem guilty and the guilty innocent." And that's something he does know about!

When Butterworth responds to the Journal Sentinel's flinty question about how long he has been interested in BPA, and "why" -- he sounds so innocent that angel halos practically hover over the sentences as he thoughtfully traces his survey back to 2006 of "peer-reviewed", "award-winning" reports, and "toxicologists surveyed" who rate BPA safer than some other things.

And we don't doubt Butterworth's account. But he also has spoken about his long-standing interest in how chemical companies defend their markets, a circumstance that adds texture and interest to his story. He told the publication Chemical Week in 2006 that 'the chemical industry has not been effective in promoting its side of the story', when it comes to "alleged health threats" and "educating the public", because "'the rhetorical advantage is always with the groups claiming to work in defense of the public'". As Chemical Week quoted Butterworth:

'"Companies need to develop a public information policy that is proactive in educating the public and tackling the claims of activist groups in real time. Most of the companies are like a deer in the headlights, and traditional PR is useless in dealing with these problems."'

So then we can't help but wonder for whom he speaks when Butterworth asserts now that the public holds an irrational mistrust of chemical company research, which he paints as ignorant superstition. Is he really speaking the name of science and statistics as he claims? Or are his recent reports simply a 'non-traditional PR' on behalf of chemical companies who are otherwise "deer in the headlights" faced with inconvenient science piling up in disturbing ways on BPA?

If people want to ingest plastic I've no qualms with that, free world and all that. If scientists consider the risks irrelevant, well than that's fine, plastic is handy. But if lobby groups are using rhetoric to keep safer products out of the competition, not only is that not good for our health, it's not good for business.

But by all means keep up the friendly dialogue. When Butterworth retires from this calling there are hundreds of others like him eager to take his place at the table overlooking a view of the sea for some non-traditional PR.

--------------

**There's actually a company called STATS which is a sports reporting company at stats.com. To avoid confusion, we'll therefore refer to the organization Butterworth contracts for as Stats.org.

¹ A central theme at Acronym Required is to explore problems in science or policy or medicine that are not necessarily best solved by that forceful economic driver, efficiency. We also don't believe that investigative journalism is well served by cutting corners. Given those conditions, we could have easily ignored the question. (As well, we appreciate journalistic etiquette, and think that if simple etiquette is really that challenging one could easily get help -- Microsoft Word's letter template, for starters, has greeting examples.)

In our experience, people on and off-line; in corporate, government and non-profit sectors; students, retirees, and professionals alike -- respond to gentler information gathering. See see paragraph 6.

Nicholas Kristof wrote about endocrine disruptors in his column this weekend. He cites some of the evidence for disturbances in sexual development -- "bizarre deformities in water animals" -- and accumulating evidence of the same disturbances occurring in humans.

Acronym Required first wrote about endocrine disruptors back in 2005, with Plastic Bottles- Protecting Your Baby, by the ACC". Hundreds of studies in the past 20 years have documented disturbing effects of endocrine disruptors, which are widely used in industry and agriculture to make the food you eat, the containers you eat out of, and the products that surround you as you sit and read this post. Endocrine disruptors act like hormones to effect physiological actions in species from fishes to humans. Here's some of the evidence Kristof cites from the research literature on different chemicals:

• "Frogs, salamanders and other amphibians began to sprout extra legs."

• "In heavily polluted Lake Apopka, one of the largest lakes in Florida, male alligators developed stunted genitals."

• Researchers found in 2003 that "in the Potomac watershed near Washington, male smallmouth bass have rapidly transformed into "intersex fish" that display female characteristics." Today 80% of these male fish lay eggs.

• Scientists are concerned with "large increases in numbers of genital deformities among newborn boys."

• "7 percent of boys are now born with undescended testicles, although this often self-corrects over time."

• "And up to 1 percent of boys in the United States are now born with hypospadias, in which the urethra exits the penis improperly, such as at the base rather than the tip."

• "DES, a synthetic estrogen given to many pregnant women from the 1930s to the 1970s to prevent miscarriages, caused abnormalities in the children."

• "evidence from both humans and monkeys [suggests] that endometriosis, a gynecological disorder, is linked to exposure to endocrine disruptors."

• "Researchers also suspect that the disruptors can cause early puberty in girls."

"research has also tied endocrine disruptors to obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes, in both animals and humans."

• "mice exposed in utero even to low doses of endocrine disruptors appear normal at first but develop excess abdominal body fat as adults."

• Kristof notes a recent statement from the Endocrine Society. The group of scientists says: "In this first Scientific Statement of The Endocrine Society, we present the evidence that endocrine disruptors have effects on male and female reproduction, breast development and cancer, prostate cancer, neuroendocrinology, thyroid, metabolism and obesity, and cardiovascular endocrinology."

• Kristof quoted Dr. Ted Schettler of the Science and Environmental Health Network, who said, "'this can influence brain development, sperm counts or susceptibility to cancer, even where the animal at birth seems perfectly normal."'

There's a lot more evidence showing that chemical disruptors produce widespread harm over the environment to produce abnormal reactions. As one John Hopkins scientist told Kristoff: "It's scary, very scary."

But in a completely curious turn, halfway through the article, Kristof capitulates to the winds of "50-50 science journalism". Here's how "50-50 science journalism" works.

1. Accumulate your evidence.
2. Make a strong case for your point, citing the evidence.
3. Then abruptly cripple your whole point, smash it across the knees, by writing a one or two statements for the "other side", thus appeasing some readers and advertisers.

Kristof writes: "The scientific case is still far from proven, as chemical companies emphasize, and the uncertainties for humans are vast." To be fair, Kristof's reference to the "other side" could be considered merely a polite and politic mention. "Vast uncertainty" for humans could mean anything. But even at best this doesn't line up with the rest of his article and all the evidence he cites. What about his lists of studies?

Scientists are "connecting the dots" he writes. I know this may sound trifling but scientists are well into the data. It's only recently that the public is realizing that this problem is real -- a realization that's more substantial, quite un-dot-like. Some journalists are farther behind, but again, the evidence is accumulating at a brisk pace.

My small reservations with his article aside, Kristof often takes on controversial issues, especially in international development, that are easy for the mainstream press to ignore. While coverage of bisphenol A is surprisingly robust, now that states and cities have initiated legislation restricting its use, the larger questions of pervasive chemical use without regulation remain largely ignored. Importantly, this topic has been very easy for federal agencies to ignore. Therefore, it's great to see coverage of endocrine receptors by an influential New York Times journalist who will help inform the public, who will in turn demand that government act more aggressively on chemical oversight.

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Acronym Required writes frequently on journalism that remains faithful to all sides of science policy issues despite the evidence, for instance Climate Change: Fueling the "Debate", "Science Editors Sell You Short", and Phthalates and Bisphenol A: Media and Politics

"As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues." Ralph Waldo Emerson

• The New York Times Calls Out the Rogues

  A couple of weeks ago the New York Times seemed obsessed with Star Trek, focusing on Obama and Star Trek in no less than three articles in the Sunday "Week in Review". This week the Times seem to have something for "rogues". No not their own rogues or their economic journalists whose expertise leads to to personal bankruptcy and cringeworthy public confessionals. The Times is taking on rogues of another sort.

  Charles Blow calls conservatives on their hypocrisy in "Rogues,Robes and Racists", a great take-down of conservative lies about Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

  Then in "A Rogue Industry", an editor writes about the Senate's upcoming vote to regulate tobacco through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Tobacco, an industry that the court found guilty of racketeering, false statements, and deliberate public deception, has proved itself incapable of regulating itself, says the editor.

• Refuting the Scoundrels

  Speaking of rogues running awry, the right-wing is loud lately. If I could ask a question of Sonia Sotomayor, I'd ask her what it was like to go to sleep one night as a moderate, highly accomplished Latina and respected Federal judge, and wake up the next morning morphed into a "racist" whose a "bad for business" Supreme Court nominee.

  Thus, some conservatives seem intent on shooting themselves in the feet over the Obama administration's astute nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. First they claimed she was a racist, and to prove so, they parsed statements she made at the University of California years ago and presented them radically out of context. In addition to the response by Charles Blow in the NYT above, Brad Delong's excellent rebuttal of their attempts is here.

  Dancing back from that precipice, conservatives then moonwalked into the less treacherous but equally rocky territory -- her lack of business qualifications. Why can't Obama nominate someone to the court who knows "what it means to explain to a client that what was a secured debt yesterday is not a secure debt today. A little empathy for the people who make America's economy go." There's the American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) argument, complete with all that fake indignation we'd expect, but with no merit.

  There's only one person with "business experience" in the current court line-up, but despite the lack of "business credentials", the Robert's court is the most pro-business court in 30 years. This according not only to Jeffrey Rosen's 8000 word New York Times article on the subject, "Supreme Court Inc.", but also the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and business leaders throughout the world.

  Of 30 business cases decided in the 2007 term, 22 were decided close to unanimously for business, in what the Times called an "ideological sea change". This was the result of a sustained effort by business since the 1970's to change the court action on issues like punitive damages and ability to sue for product liability. Still, some columnists insist on making a spectacle of themselves over the Sotomayor nomination with statements like: "business should shudder in its boots".

  Not only do pro-business venues like the Wall Street Journal think Sotomayor, who was a corporate attorney for years, is mainstream, it's not entirely clear that a judge needs to have run a plumbing business to be a pro-business judge. Pro-business is a philosophy, not a craft -- a philosophy that dominates the American character. We're all pro-business now, as conservatives well know, especially Obama. It's what makes the world economy tick, it's what makes us tick.

• Link This

  Using a technique that we routinely, wholeheartedly criticize here at Acronym Required, authors recently submitted an article on the fossil find "Ida" to the journal PloS One with such a preemptive froth of advertising hoopla you'd think the researchers were instead a global beverage company unveiling of a new "secret recipe" flavor of soda.

  By all accounts, Ida, who the researchers precociously named Darwinius masillae, is an great fossil find. Nevertheless paleontologists don't agree with the hyperbolic descriptions of Ida as "the link" -- for starters. Scientists are also disturbed by the zany marketing campaign that skips over the peer evaluation and contextualization by the community of scientists. Seed writes that the Ida fossil find, is:

  "...an astonishingly slick, multi-component media package--certainly the first of its kind. In addition to the press conference itself, Little, Brown, and Company released The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor, by Colin Tudge on Tuesday; a multimedia-rich website, RevealingTheLink.com, was launched; and a two-hour documentary will air on the History Channel, the BBC, and various stations in Germany and Norway next week..."

  Yikes. PLoSOne out-Seeds Seed. And when Nature questioned the media blitz last week the blog world didn't even launch its usual knee jerk defense of PLoS. Something must be amiss.

  We were away, so missed some of the excitement, but is this the future (demise) of science? Aside from Ida, fossils are usually interesting to us Homo sapiens, and fossil finds always manage to attract public attention, which is a good thing.

  Fossil finds are also notoriously contentious. We previously wrote about Homo floresiensis, the fascinating fossils unearthed in a Flores, Indonesia cave a few years ago. In The "Hobbit" Species in Indonesia -- New?", and ""Homo floresiensis: To Have Been or Not To Have Been", we discussed the high profile scientific dispute over the origin of the cave dwelling fossil's remains.

  For years, Homo floresiensis researchers have been excavating, analyzing and presenting new evidence, in Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and other journals, evidence that supports or disputes the theory that the Flores hominin represents a new species. One of the most recent papers in Nature, authored by William Jungers et al, describes the very unique feet of Homo floresiensis that make it quite unlike em>Homo sapiens, more evidence supporting the idea that the Flores cave dwellers were a new species.

  But the Ida spectacle bests what we thought was the overwrought media coverage of the Homo floresiensis research. Clearly, all the media players could benefit from greater exposure via Ida, but how will science fare? Science research is not, after all, a melodious singer from Scotland who you can pretty up to boost your ratings when needed, before demoting to second place. Research is the backbone of technology which drives capitalist economies. So please, a little respect -- as they would say?

-------------------------------------

Acronym Required wrote about tobacco in "Tobacco's Coups", and "UC Senate Smokes RE-89", and "My Lab Thanks You For Smoking", as well as other posts. We've criticized media hype of dubious research frequently in posts like "Autism, TV, Precipitation: Dismal Science", and "News of Lightweight Study: 'Obese Should Walk Slowly"', and "Britain's Science Path: Brilliant Lights?"

Most people acknowledge global warming and understand that the research is correct and the scientists' aren't running some elaborate conspiracy. Sure there are naysayers, those pugnacious commentators and columnists we don't even bother naming anymore, who we wrote about two, and three years ago. Now that public opinion seems mostly to support the solid scientific evidence for global warming, fewer and fewer denialists seem willing to forsake their reputations or souls by refuting climate change. So don't you wonder what drives those who still insist climate change is a hoax? Do they get paid very handsomely, either by lies per column inch, by special honorariums for dishonest speakers, or perhaps by the sheer number angry blog referrals they receive in any given week. What else makes sense?

This week the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory issued a report in Geophysical Research Letters, suggesting that the arctic is melting so fast that it could be gone in 30 years. Meanwhile, as the science rolls in, the politicians weigh in, and petroleum dependent companies finagle mostly secret deals to keep the profits rolling in.

• Wagoner Walks: A year ago we wrote about the auto industry pressuring the EPA to stall and obfuscate rather than act on the Supreme Court order to regulate emissions. When we wrote The EPA: Mulish Days, Staring out to Pasture" the auto industry had just posted 18% losses. All it had to offer customers was large, gas-guzzling, air-polluting vehicles at a a time when the economy was sinking, gas was expensive, and some families already owned four new cars bought with cheap credit.

  As the poles melted, we watched industry lobbies instruct the EPA to "abstain from attempting" to regulate emissions and limit its actions to identifying "technical feasibility". One lobbying document warned that the sector's innovation to improve emissions couldn't require "extra costs", and that if "additional technology" were needed, then the EPA could "properly decide to not adopt standards under the Clean Air Act".

  As it had for 30 years, the auto industry assumed it could hold innovation, emissions control and government at bay while continuing to build vehicles that benefited not the environment, not oil independence, not customers long-term needs, not future business, and certainly not autoworkers working for an ever failing sector. Rather its strategy benefited a few well-placed individuals and executives holding the majority of "shareholder value". In the end the strategy did little but assure US auto manufacturing expiration. Long ago the auto companies had become no more than magical slot machines for select executives, who quarter by quarter, hook or by crook, extracted huge windfalls.

  We concluded facetiously that "if 'the health of the industry' is truly still a goal", as one briefing paper aimed to stall EPA regulation stated, than "maybe the government's kindest move would be to shoot it, or drown it in the bathtub, or whatever libertarian types do these days with ponderous, surly sectors."

  This week, Rick Wagoner, the General Motors CEO who most flagrantly flouted common sense and economic sensibilities, abruptly stepped down from GM, under pressure from Barack Obama.

  Maybe there's more to this story. What sort of deal made Wagoner step down? What about the banks? Certainly a solution where Wagoner gets his $20 million, but workers and their pensions and healthcare are left dangling is not the ideal deal. It would have been better if the manufacturers had innovated smaller more efficient cars sometime during their multi-decade slide into the abyss, or been righted years ago with a few swift legislative kicks -- before major shareholders squeezed their companies to death. But if that hadn't happened for 30 years would/will it ever happen?

• Waxman and Markey Unveil ACES, An Energy Bill: On a positive note, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) released a 648 page draft global warming and energy bill (PDF), the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). The legislation proposes a cap and trade system to reduce US emissions 20% below 2005 levels by 2020, a more aggressive goal than the cap and trade recently cut from Obama's 2009 budget.

  The Waxman-Markey bill would require every region of the country to produce a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal by 2025, would modernize the electrical grid, and would encourage the production of more electric vehicles and energy efficient buildings. Out of the gate, the congressmen refute Republican criticism of the bill. Ed Markey's office released their own forceful rebuttal to GOP criticism and called opponents on four "distortions" being forwarded by the GOP (more details on the site):

• "Distortion #1-Clean energy and climate legislation will cost $1,300 per family.
  
  FACT: The Republican "experts" who did this math should get an F for 'False.'"

• Distortion #2: Democratic proposals would cost families up to $3,100 per year.
  
  FACT: More fuzzy math from Republicans, this time by distorting a study by MIT. Republican leaders like Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are attacking clean energy and climate legislation, claiming that it would "cost every American family up to $3,100 per year in higher energy prices"....The author of the MIT study [the authors reference] has said this figure is "wrong in so many ways, it's hard to begin," and today sent a sharply-worded letter to Rep. Boehner pointing out the inaccuracies in his statements about the report. The letter can be found by clicking here."

• "Distortion #3-There are great costs to transitioning to a low-carbon economy, but no benefits.
  
  FACT: Oscar Wilde once said that cynics "know the cost of everything and the value of nothing." In a real cost-benefit analysis, you look at both sides of the equation. Industry-friendly analysis like that done by Charles River Associates, commissioned by the Edison Electric Institute, grossly overstate the cost of climate protection..."

• "Distortion #4-The technology isn't ready for us to move to a clean energy economy.
  
  FACT: This is Republican pessimism that runs directly counter to American optimism, ingenuity and our proven ability to meet great challenges. History has demonstrated over and over again that if policy creates the right ground rules, entrepreneurs and American businesses find solutions that were previously unimaginable."

Serving up the necessary messaging with your energy legislation. But how will the bill fare?

• On Behalf of Wildlife and Forests: Last year we wrote in When To Chop A Tree" that the Bush administration was turning 500,000 acres of California forest into roads and thoroughfares for oil drilling. This was just the tip of the iceberg (so to speak) for the Republican administration, which had spent eight long years decimating protections not only for clean air and water, but endangered species and the environment.

  Even in the last moments of Bush's administration, we wrote in "The 43rd President's Grand Finale of Rulemaking" that Bush proposed to allow mining companies to lop of mountains to allow the refuse clog rivers and streams, and was permitting companies to pollute streams with factory farm run-off, lifting regulations on placing power plants near national parks, exempting factory farms from reporting air pollution, loosening ocean fishing management regulations, and doing nothing about oil refinery toxic emission control which Congress mandated.

  In some encouraging moves, President Obama has now stepped in on behalf of some endangered species like the flying squirrel. This week Obama signed the 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act which included 160 separate proposals covering public lands in nine states. The bill adds and expands wilderness areas and national forests.

• Meanwhile, Making Mountains into Molehills: But we never forget that politics is politics and not everything turns out just as you like it. The House of Representatives failed to reverse the mountaintop removal mining bill.

• BP's Solar Energy Burn-Out: British Petroleum (BP) -- motto: "Beyond Petroleum" -- recently cut 620 jobs from its solar business, which employed 2,200 people worldwide. Two years ago, we wrote about BP's econ-marketing push in "Green Spirit". Green spirit lives on.

  In other BP news, the Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation brought a civil suit against the company for two 2006 spills from the Alaska pipeline. The plaintiffs request maximum civil penalties and charge that the company did not adequately prevent or clean up the spill. In a separate suit, Alaska charged the company with environmental damage and lost state revenues due to BP cost-cutting and business practices.

This post was divided into separate posts 10-07-09. Those posts are linked below.

• "Pecking the Red Dot: Herring Gull Myth or Fiction?"
• "Dinofuzz: More Dinosaurs Flew"
• "Galbraith on John Law and the Mississippi Bubble"
• "Exxon Valdez Species Fall-Out in Prince William Sound"
• "Online Media and Copyright"

10-07 reposted as single post from Notes 03-26

Slick

Although it's been twenty years since images of oil-drenched birds (~250,000 initially killed) filled our newspapers after the huge Prince William Sound spill, the damage remains.

The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council recently reported on the status of some species in the Sound. Ten species are "recovering, ten are considered "recovered", and two, the Pacific Herring and Pigeon Guillemots, are "not recovering". The fate of many more species is unknown. We last wrote about the Exxon Valdez spill when we looked at the stated reasons the Supreme Court decided to lower the damages in the case to $500 million.

16,000 gallons of oil continues to seep out into the ecosystem bit by bit during rains. To address the ongoing pollution, the US Government and the State of Alaska sent Exxon-Mobil a demand for $92 million dollars to fund the joint-federal restoration plan in 2006, but then President George Bush and Governor Sarah Palin didn't press the company to pay up. The Public Employees for Environmental Safety (PEER) and Professor Rick Steiner from the University of Alaska have written the Obama administration and the Attorney General of Alaska asking them to act to collect Exxon-Mobil's debt.

Ancestor Confusion?

A fossil find in China reported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences adds a new twist to scientists' understanding of dinosaurs. Scientists discovered a 28 inch fossil of a young dinosaur in a rock slab in Liaoning Province in China. Tianyulong confuciusi lived about 125 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period. The fossil has long filamentous structures that some scientists speculate may be progenitors to avian feathers or "dino-fuzz".

Scientists long ago designated two orders of dinosaurs, Ornithischia("bird-hipped) and Saurischia(lizard-hipped), based on the confusing 19th century classifications of differences in the two order's pelvic structures. Modern day birds actually descended from the Saurischia dinosaurs, which includes Tyrannosaurus rex and Archeopteryx, and scientists discovered protofeathers in the order Saurischia about ten years ago. At that time scientists were surprised to learn that dinosaurs, as well as birds, had feather-like structures. Now with the Ornithischia find, scientists wonder whether both orders evolved feathers separately, or whether all dinosaurs, even the most primitive ones, had feathers.

But that question won't be answered quite yet, since scientists don't know whether the filament structures in Tianyulong originated in the epidermal or dermal layer. If they originated in the epidermis then they could be protofeathers with implications for behavior, flight and physiology, according to Ohio University professor Lawrence M. Witmer, whereas if they originated in the dermis they would be structural and interesting, but without the same implications for evolution.

In the meantime, artist Li-da Xing has rendered Tianyulong confuciusi with what looks like a decorative boa pasted to its back. No not that boa or that one, but the other one.

Reposted as a separate entry 10-06 from an earlier "Notes" post.

Gulled?

Once upon a time, kids had very little to play with. Video games were not yet invented and children no longer had to herd farm animals, so they amused themselves by playing jacks, and red-light/green-light, and games like "telephone", also known as "Gossip", or "Chinese Whispers" and other ethnocentric names. Have you heard of this game? Children sit around a circle and whisper a message one to another and then at the end marvel and laugh at how distorted the message turns out when the last child announces what he heard. You probably don't remember, I don't, but that's what they say. The point is, this happens in science too.

An essay by Carel ten Cate in the journal Animal Behavior criticizes a foundational study of animal behavior, ethology, one that scores of biology textbooks feature. In ten Cate's "Niko Tinbergen and the red patch on the herring gull's beak", she closely reads Nikolaas Tinbergen's Nobel Prize winning research, which describes how herring gull chicks beg to be fed by pecking on the red dot on the adult gull's beak. Tinenberg found that the baby gulls will peck at a red spot, rather than black or other colors, and called the red dot phenomena "signal stimuli". In response to the chick peck the adult bird regurgitates half-eaten food for the chick to eat. You can read the essay in Animal Behavior Volume 77, Issue 4, April 2009, Pages 785-794 (via Nature, and see the experiments graphically summarized in this textbook here.

(Photo: Herring Gull Chick, by John Haslam, via Wikipedia licensed under Creative Commons 2.0.)

When ten Cate looked over the research she found that Tinbergen never did the definitive experiment to prove his theory, rather he extrapolated from data collected in various of his experiments, then in a series of retellings, came to an abridged tale of his actual research experiments which he printed in own books and which has been subsequently retold incompletely in many textbooks.

The latter version makes his experiments look much more clear cut then they actually were. Ten Cate's assessment of Tinbergen's research contradicts what the Nobel Prize Committee wrote in 1973:

"One of Nikolaas Tinbergen's most important contributions is that he has found ways to test his own and other's hypothesis by means of comprehensive, careful and quite often ingenious experiments."

Of course all the history books have it that Tinbergen did the research, but ten Cate not only vigorously questions her subject's methods, but then helpfully points out that "mostly undergraduate students" did the work.

But wait. Ten Cate's lab actually repeated Tinbergen's experiments and found that his theories did hold true, that is herring gull chicks do peck at red more than other colors. Bottom line, he took some shortcuts that make modern scientists blanche? Or blush? Or nothing?

Why the ta-do? The experiments have been proved, behavioral psychology and ethology are solidly established as branches of science -- decades of pigeons pecking at red and green lights, mice running through their paces. Before ten Cate's analysis of Tinbergen's post-experiment data analysis, other scientists had also pointed to various experimental flaws in Tinbergen's research. But many scientists say that criticism of experiments from 50 years ago is unfair and unwarranted. What then should we make of the results? Can scientists use ten Cate's sort of analysis, or will such revelation just languish about until some creationist tries to use it as the next peppered moth experiment?

Should we examine more closely the work of priests and their peas, or experiments done by neurobiologists in their lonely labs? Should we comb through all the textbooks with all those way too neat, way too definitive descriptions of historically worthy experiments? Would that benefit the science endeavor? Or should ten Cate's findings be incorporated into science learning for how not to follow-up with data?

US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) talked to Rachel Maddow Tuesday, and she asked him about the bonus cap provision that disappeared from the spending bill.

"When something gets through the United States Senate, it doesn't happen by osmosis. It got done because Senator Snowe and I spent a lot of time. We got a legal opinion. We knew Wall Street was going to come out and fight this aggressively. Now, I think, we'll finally get it done, but unfortunately, it's a little late."

Here's osmosis:

The Huffington Post also wrote about Wyden's¹ statements, but HuffPo quoted him as saying about the missing language: "it didn't die by osmosis." [Emphasis mine]. This is more difficult to demonstrate on video, but YouTube does have a video on reviving wilted lettuce. It's not death by osmosis, rather, in the time lapse video the sad dying lettuce is put in water for a second life -- sort of. The end result is speeded up 720x.

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¹ Senator Wyden maybe has osmosis on his mind. His office has proposed a forward osmosis water purification to be developed in Oregon. Wyden's office posted a list of 2010 Defense appropriations bill projects. The water purification system would allow soldiers to hike farther in the dessert.

Aspiring to be FOX News

We often take to task those who would begrudge science research money. Politicians like to use science projects to make points about "pork", but often the projects they begrudge involve piddly dollar amounts, especially considering the pay-offs science yields. Science research has both long term and short term benefits -- more efficient food production for example, as well as employment and livelihoods for scientists, farmers, workers in start-ups, marketing professionals, accountants, and maybe even bankers. None of these positives are trivial or laughable. But politicians like John McCain won't readily point out the benefits. McCain ranted recently about about a "honey bee factory", because as always, the ha-ha-ha value of these rants is apparently priceless. ¹

In ¹ In Science as Political Joke Fodder we looked at John McCain's multiple attacks on science and asked why science? In "Fruit Flies, Astronomy, DNA...There Goes The Economy", we analyzed Sarah Palin's attack on olive fruit fly research in France and the source of her information, the lobby group Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW).

Yesterday we came across a Harper's blogpost that pulled information straight from CAGW talking points.² The author criticized the $410 billion omnibus spending bill for earmarks in his "Weekly Review", focusing on two projects that have been circulating in the news:

"more than 8,000 congressional earmarks, among them provisions for improving blueberry products in Georgia and controlling the spread of Mormon crickets in Utah."

Was Harper's jumping on the whole earmarks bandwagon? We hadn't been following the earmark protests, but where did the Harper's information come from? John McCain talked about both science projects the Georgia blueberries and the Mormon Crickets in his speech to the Senate on the Bill. CAGW called out the Mormon cricket research this year and mentioned listed the blueberry research last year in its 2008 budget pork database.

Viral FOX

A few weeks about FOX News composed a video called "$209, 000 for Blueberries? From there blueberry research story went viral, to the New York Times, blogs, and sites that aggregate press releases. For politicians and media flexing against "pork", science spending is a favorite target, because face it, the organic dried blueberry lobby hardly buys a lot of advertising on FOX News.

People criticize earmarks as a way of securing funding and say that these no bid grants should go through the appropriate venues and compete for money. (I'm sure scientists might do this, if science were funded to adequate levels. Or maybe scientists wouldn't -- since this must be easier than writing a grants?) But, confusingly, some of the people who make these points about the harmful, not transparent nature of earmarks, like the group Americans For Prosperity, take distinctly anti-science positions. Americans For Prosperity for instance ran a "Hot Air Tour campaign" in 2008, where they completed a hot air balloon cross-country tour under the slogan, "Global Warming Alarmism: Lost Jobs, Higher Taxes, Less Freedom." According to the group: "Climate alarmists have bombarded citizens with apocalyptic scenarios and pressured them into environmental political correctness. It's time to tell the other side of the story." CAGW attacks particular research based on who funds their lobby efforts.

Taxpayers for Common Sense calls earmarks a "petri dish of corruption". Perhaps they make a valid point that calls for a more thorough exploration of alternative means of funding. But simply calling out research that sounds silly, as Harper's did seems less productive.³

209,000, How Much is That?

Why focus on $209,000 worth of blueberry research anyway? Why such a relatively tiny number? Is it because most people make less than that in a year and can actually fathom the number? To get perspective, consider this:

• $209,000 is the amount FOX News and Harper's are up in arms about. 209,000 seconds is 2.42 days, 1/137th of a year.
• 165 million was paid in AIG executive bonuses this week (because of "the contracts" -- pardon me while I die laughing). 165 million seconds is 1,910 days, or 5.23 years.
• In the past 6 monthes, AIG has taken out $170 billion in loans from the US government, which in seconds, is 5,387 years.
• The Service Employees International Union criticizes Geithner's trillion dollar Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) because the taxpayers absorb significant risk and there's no guarantee that the money will be used to make new loans. 2 trillion seconds is 63,377 years.

Buy a Scientist a Petri Dish, He's Corrupt for a Lifetime

It's all relative. And as we've pointed out before, scientists work for much less than your average banker. Today with AIG's multi-million dollar "retention" bonuses, 20K-40K for a scientist is small change. But every person who is kept off the unemployment rolls keeps money in the taxpayer's pocket -- so to speak -- momentarily anyway, oops, now AIG has it.

New York State Attorney General Cuomo released details today of his AIG investigation and reporting that 73 employees received bonuses of $1 million or more in 2008. Say the average scientist make 50K per year, and no bonus was over 1 million, two generous assumptions. What would taxpayers rather do with that money? Employ 1460 scientists? Or keep 73 bankers on the dole?

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¹Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) is an organization started by the late J. Peter Grace, who was CEO of W.R. Grace & Co. for 45 years and Jack Anderson, a syndicated columnist. CAGW was an extension of the Grace Commission formed when President Ronald Reagan, who appointed J. Peter Grace to aim at decreasing the role of government. CAGW extended from the Grace Commission.

W.R. Grace is a chemical company whose pollutants contaminated Woburn, Massachusetts well water, causing cancers and resulting in a drawn out court case chronicled by Jonathan Harr in "A Civil Action". CAGW is a lobby favorite of conservatives and lobbies. We previously noted that attacks on science from Sarah Palin and John McCain originated with CAGW. CAGW works with a wide range of industries tobacco, software, pharmaceutical, to avocado growers in Mexico, targeting specific actions based on the desires of groups who pay CAGW.

² In my opinion, Harper's is sort of a mixed bag on science and sciencey subjects. They've published some great pieces on the environment like Tom Bisell's excellent "Eternal winter: Lessons of the Aral Sea disaster", in 2002, or Erik Reece's "Death of a Mountain: Radical strip mining and the leveling of Appalachia."(April, 2005) On the other hand they've published some infuriating articles from a scientist's perspective, like Celia Farber's ridiculous "AIDS and the corruption of medical science", a misleading and factually false view on HIV and the treatment of AIDS, that was criticized by top doctors, virologists, researchers, microbiologists, immunologists, and the Treatment Action Campaign, a South African NGO. (Here's the 37 page PDF that documents the errors)

³Harper's has published some great pieces about lobbyists. See for instance Ken Silverstein's "Invisible hands: The secret world of the oil fixer", in the March issue maybe still on the newstand, or Silverstein's Their men in Washington: Undercover with D.C.'s lobbyists for hire, or his piece on John McCain and the Reform Institute.

Outrage. Yawn.

59% of Americans who answered a Gallup Poll said they were "Outraged", by the AIG bonuses. This compared to 26% who were "Bothered" and 11% who were "Not Particularly Bothered". What? No "No opinion" choice? In this case, had my executive bonus ennui ebbed to the point where I actually picked up the phone when Gallup called, I could only have rallied if "No Opinion" had been presented as an option.

Outrage: Are you as fatigued from outrage as I am? If you look for "outrage" on Google Trends, which tracks keywords across the newspapers like PerthNow, the Rhinelander Daily News, and the North Wales Chronicle, you'll find that the steady state "news reference volume" of "outrage" has increased gradually since 2004. This means nothing, but despite the lack of any empirical data, my opinion is that outrage has been overdone lately. Bailout outrage, and Madoff outrage, and TARP outrage, and crooked mortgage lender outrage, now Obama's "outrage" at the bonuses. Phheww. Sell outrage someplace else, we're all stocked up here.

In September Barack Obama accused John McCain of using "lies" and "phony outrage" in reference to Obama's ill-received "lipstick on a pig comment." Now Obama's being accused of his own phony outrage.

Being that I'm bored to death of the outrage, I thought I'd return the favor and highlight some of the details of the blueberry research that we talked about in our last post. Conservatives and liberals alike zeroed in on the pork in the Omnibus Spending Bill, like the 209,000 dollar blueberry grant to Georgia.

Blueberries! Research! History! Yay!

Blueberry farming is important to Georgia, since it has a "farm gate value of $59.4 million in 2005" and production with an "economic impact of $97.4 million". The history of blueberry cultivation is told by two University of Georgia scientists in a paper posted at the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS). We'll highlight some of the content here.

The early history of cultivated blueberries is most well known in Florida. In the 20th century a logger in Florida who had been transplanting plants from the wild and cultivating blueberries on his farm, met up with a marketing guy, "a Yankee", and together they sold blueberry plants to other communities in Florida. "Most plants sold were transplanted from the wild without regard to fruit quality. Some of the plants sold were not even [the prized] rabbiteye blueberries but species that don't produce commercial quality fruit." However enough higher quality plants were sold to qualify as a "blueberry boom". According to a history of blueberries told by the Georgia scientists, the boom then collapsed for multiple reasons:

"due to variable fruit quality, competition from new plantings of northern highbush in northern states, poor horticultural practices, and the depression (Mowry and Camp, 1928; Horan, 1965).

A statement in a 1926 Florida bulletin summed up the nursery stock situation: 'A great deal of promiscuous experimenting will doubtless be done before the business of handling stock for this fruit will be standardized as has been done for the great stable fruits of the day' (Coville, 1926).'"

Despite the collapse of the early industry Florida scientists managed to establish some strains that worked well for the region. From the early 1900's, when there were no viable options for commercial berries, you just gathered what you could in the woods, science and research made commercial blueberry farming not only possible, but a thriving industry and livelihood for many.

Tobacco's Out. Blueberries are In

"The position was filled by Dr. Tom Brightwell, who received his initial blueberry training under the famous Mr.Stanley Johnston of Michigan State University. In the fall of 1945, the Alapaha Blueberry Research Farm was established in a section of the flatwoods district just 25 miles east of Tifton. This has proven to be one of the great decisions made by Dr. Brightwell...."

"It is of great compliment to the character of Dr. Brightwell that he stayed focused on breeding blueberries in a state where no industry existed at the time. Numerous attempts were made to entice him to switch to some 'important' crop."

"Starting in 1950 the cultivar releases began with 'Callaway' and 'Coastal', which were a large improvement over the wild types, but did not have commercial shipping quality."

Around 1970, citizens in Bacon Co. Georgia sought help from the Rural Development Center of the University of Georgia to grow blueberries as a cash crop. The US Surgeon General had targeted cigarette smoking as a risk to health, and tobacco farmers saw the future demise of their livelihoods. Science continued to improved blueberry farming in Georgia and the authors conclude"

"It appears that Georgia has a bright future in blueberry production. The foundation of the industry laid down by so many scientists and growers over the past 60 years has opened this door."

Blueberries don't grow on trees, I guess you could cornily say, it's research and science success that puts them in your energy bar.

Trendy Science?

Often, science seems under attack. On one hand, we know there will always be politicians who attack science like volcano monitoring, simply because they can. But don't you just wish politicians would change? How? Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, a biology student who applied to medical school, doesn't get the bulk of his campaign funding from individual geologists from the Northwest. And given the opportunity to run for president on a right leaning platform, how much influence will Rocks for Jocks really have?

The most alarming outcome of these political ploys, these self-serving displays of idiocy, is how the 'freaky science meme' courses through the population, gathering speed and strength. True, many people simply believe what they believe. But politicians who are derogatory towards science foster an atmosphere that's indulgent of general distrust for scientists. Creationists start crawling out of the woodwork. Then before you know it pedigree dog owners on the Upper West Side are openly discussing the *evil dognappers* who want to steal their precious pooches to supply "the burgeoning industry that is--collecting dogs and giving them to laboratories for experiments.".

We always wish the reporters would ask the "Marilyn Pasekoff[s] (Hogan, German shepherd)" who they find "walking in Riverside Park", just one more question, that is: "Describe an experiment you imagine occurring in these 'laboratories' with these pedigree dogs." Right? Blankets thrown over Pomeranians and Great Danes when researchers sneak them through the back doors of Columbia University and New York University before hoisting them up on the lab bench in the dark of night?

The good news, perhaps a mild antidote to such nonsense, is how the Obama administration continues to follow through with campaign promises -- to fund science, to end the ban on embryonic stem cell research, to address global warming and healthcare. Nothing like eight years of GW Bush administration anti-logic, anti-science leadership to give scientists a very heightened appreciation for an administration that seems to understand how important it is to make science and technology just slightly more relevant again.

Test Tube Confidence

And in a global economy this is a global endeavor. Following in President Obama's footsteps, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced last week that he wanted to properly fund science and technology and assure a future where the financial sector is the servant of industry, and never its master. Bold.

(But what will replace manufacturing?) Students protested Brown's speech at Oxford, referencing the global meltdown and job losses at local car plants.

One women in his audience commented on the new focus on science -- '"don't mention the Economics-word, let's talk about mixing chemicals in a test tube - at least that works."' Cynical as she was, to scientists coming out of the great drought of political support, even this is a refreshing change in populist rhetoric. Science "works"? You think? I'll put that in my back pocket!

Border Envy

However not all is well, naturally. Canadian scientists are concerned about their flat or decreasing national science budgets. The Ottawa Citizen reports that the three granting councils which fund most academic research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, have been asked to cut $148 million from their budgets over the next three years.

The government cuts occur despite protest by industry and academic scientists who worry about the nation's science and technology standing (as well as their own careers). Funding levels have remained flat or decreased under the conservative government and Canadian scientists now worry that talent will move across the border to the US and better funding. Ironically, the Canadians now cite US wisdom in prioritizing science.

Science, Now Rich Enough to Be Taken Hostage

Finally, one last change that illustrates a certain new-found importance for science. Admittedly, this is again, a case of squeezing lemonade out of lemons. Obama administration science advisory nominations, John Holdren for the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Jane Lubchenco for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are are seen by certain politicians as appropriate targets for political blackmail. That's pathetic. That's rich. Scientists sigh. Oh, the danger of being important.

So with the focus on science, not only in the US but in the UK too, are we dreaming to imagine a time when science attains greater respect and citizens reject anti-science stances? As the New York Times reported in February, The Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SIBC) announced that it would hold its 2011 meeting in Salt Lake City, instead of New Orleans, because of the law Governor Jindal signed last summer allowing teachers to use "supplemental textbooks" to "help students critique and review scientific theories".

The laws framer's insisted they had no subversive religious agenda, but the forthright group "Catholic Exchange" announced when the bill passed: "Bobby Jindal Signs Law Allowing Intelligent Design in Louisiana Schools". Louisiana was one of several states to pass legislation during the Bush administration allowing schools to teach of alternative (creationist) views. Framed as "the controversy", these new curriculum changes pander to right wing voters. Will these voters and politicians continue their anti-science fervor as Obama government recognizes science and science regains its footing? We can hope not.

Lavished, So to Speak

The stimulus package worked out better than it seemed it might when we last wrote about the bill. In the somewhat histrionically titled, "Science Funding Gouged From Stimulus Package", we talked about proposed cuts to the package, including all the intended NSF money. In the end $21 billion dollars of the $787 billion dollar economic stimulus package were allotted to science research and infrastructure. In an article this week, the journal Science called scientists "surprised" to be "lavished" with new funding for beleaguered science institutions, including

• $10 billion to the National Institute of Health (NIH)
• $3 billion to the National Science Foundation (NSF)
• $1.6 billion to the Office of Science in the Department of Energy (DOE)

But lest there be any confusion, "scientist lavished" is quite different from "lavished" as in banking, insurance, and auto industry lavished. We're not talking corporate jets, or $86,000 partridge hunts, Ritz-Carlton junkets, or hundred thousand dollar ads to complain about crack-downs on perks, "lavished". "Scientist lavished" means, wow, we can buy a new beaker? Or -- really? I don't have to mouth pipette anymore?

Surprised scientists may be, as they were habituated to dark downward spirals or plateaus in science and science education funding. Most of the money will be spent, carefully, with what's promised to be diligent oversight, on "shovel-ready" projects -- infrastructure. And it isn't as much money as it seems. As the American Association of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) (publisher of Science) pointed out in an earlier analysis, R&D facilities funding for 2008 was $4.4 billion. Half of that went to the International Space Station. Expenses add up fast. But think of the mileage the US got by **putting a man on the moon**.

The new, use it or lose it funding fulfills intentions Congress laid out in the in the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science (COMPETES) Act -- H.R. 2272, which wasn't funded. The COMPETES Act was co-sponsored by many legislators, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden and reflected years of rhetoric about making the US more competitive in science and technology.

But The Labor is Cheap

Science is a good investment. Research is expensive, true. But think of all the technology born in academic labs. Very low paid graduate students at schools and universities all over the US execute experiments towards diverse inventions like computers, life-saving drugs, space exploration, and medical technology.

Taxpayers get a good deal with scientists. $500,000 salary limits would be no problem, since the majority of scientists working in the US don't make a 20th of that. Grads in labs are paid a fraction of what a newly minted banker earns to enter your deposit onto their balance sheets. Another nice think about scientists is that they don't amass fortunes of $billions of dollars absconded from investors. Rather, shunning office Armani for denim and sneakers, the science corps work away, sometimes cheerfully, hoping for the best from every plate pulled from the incubator, until one day, somewhere down the line, a company announces a drug that prolongs the life of your loved one, and you think, wow, where did that come from? Or not -- but it most likely started as some inkling idea then was developed in a government funded lab, before being passed on to the private sector.

Some scientists have expressed concern that the mass dollar infusion won't be sustained with consistent budgets in future years. We'll hope for the best.

PCA Maneuvers

The Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), responsible for over 630 illnesses and nine deaths from reactions to Salmonella infected peanuts, filed for bankruptcy liquidation. Culpability? The Consumer's Union (CU) reports that the bankruptcy will protect the company from lawsuits. The company listed one to ten million dollars in liabilities and coincidentally, one to ten million dollars in assets.¹ The Washington Post elaborates that lawyers will move to have the stay preventing new lawsuits lifted. CU called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to "oversee food processors so that unscrupulous behavior can be detected, prevented, and deterred".

But in order for that oversight to happen, the journal Nature writes, the FDA needs at least a new commissioner and more staff to replace those lost in the past 5 years. Said Michael Taylor, a former deputy commissioner for policy at the FDA: "Members on both sides of the aisle are getting that there is a system-wide problem here, that there has to be institutional change." Nature reports that even food corporations represented by 10 organizations have appealed to congress for food safety reforms enacted through the FDA. (Wadman, M. "Obama puts focus on FDA after peanut poisonings" Nature 457, 770-771 (2009) | doi:10.1038/457770a)

The agency has been significantly weakened in a worldwide spiderweb of pharma and food production companies that generate increasing threats to consumers and that need more oversight. The FDA however is failing to keep up, and has for years been routinely paraded across the news with systemic problems. The problem is cyclical. Nature's story about the weakened agency has strong similarities to the one told in 1989 by the New York Times.

In 1989 the FDA was "ailing", reported the NYT. Reagan had eviscerated the agency in his deregulatory zeal, and Dr. Samuel Thier, president of the Institute of Medicine in the National Academy of Sciences, told the newspaper: "the Food and Drug Administration is a demoralized group, being asked to do too much with too few resources.'' As was reported this week about the state of the FDA, 20 years ago the NYT reported with an air of dropped-jaw breathlessness: "the situation has gotten bad enough that the industry regulated by the agency has begun to press for a stronger agency".

In 1992 David Thessler was nominated to run the agency, which he did for six years, revitalizing the agency's regulatory authority and working to bring tobacco under FDA control, but drew ire from some businesses.

Privatizing Product Inspection: When It Doesn't Work

Reagan accelerated 'kill the FDA' policy trend, and organizations like Cato and politicians like Newt Gingrich pushed to make shrinking the FDA a public priority. Among their goals, they aimed to privatize inspections. The agency was a "monopoly", they said, responsible for millions of job losses in the US. Articles like Cato's 2001 "How FDA Regulation and Injury Litigation: Cripple the Medical Device Industry", helped convince legislators to loosen regulation and contract out important functions.

But an earlier NYT article reported that when the State Agriculture Department inspected the plant in 2007 and 2008, it found multiple problems, especially of food processing services "not cleaned or sanitized". Why was AIB's inspection lax?

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¹ There's the movie "The Corporation". Seen it? It's been around for a few years and is available for download on Google.

Acronym Required has been writing about problems at the FDA since 2005, including posts on BPA and the FDA; Commisioner von Eschenbach's confirmation hearings in "The FDA'S 'Medical Ideology'"; on the beleaguered organization in general -- "Resuscitating The FDA"; the FDA in the wake of various fiascoes and staff turnover, at "FDA -- Calling Off The Dogs"; and about general issues recruiting scientists in "Ethics- The NIH and FDA".

• Penguins in Peril

  More penguins are in peril from global warming. Scientists from the University of Washington report that members of the Magellanic penguin colony from Punta Tombo now have to swim 50 miles farther round-trip, to successfully forage for food -- while their mates sit on the eggs. Last month Proceedings for the National Advancement of Sciences reported on the endangered fate of the Emperor penguins. Remember the trials and tribulations in March of the Penguins that we wrote about in March On Penguins? Now it's even harder.

• Interspecies Love

  Scientists know that various forms of gene transfer occur between species, especially in prokaryotes like bacteria and certain eukaryotes like species in the plant genus Senecio. Native to Sicily, Senecio squalidus for instance, was introduced to the UK about 300 years ago. As the flower spread it, it pollinated with an indigenous flower and formed a second form of that British weed Senecio vulgaris (common groundsel). The alternate morphology of the groundsel had petals, making it look perhaps less "vulgaris" and more like a daisy drawn by a child.

  Building previous research, scientists published a paper in Science last fall, which identified a cluster of genes transferred between Senecio species by introgressive hybridization. The cluster seemed to cause the petals in the second form of Senecio vulgaris, which gave plant a genetic leg-up because it could pollinate more easily. The weed could also then be used by humans in "Loves me, Loves me not" trials -- unclear whether that's an evolutionary advantage, to any species.

  Other eukaryote species don't undergo such capricious genetic exchange although evolution seems always unpredictable. In a paper this week in Nature scientists from the University of Washington compared the genomes of macaques, orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees. Macaques split from the other three species about 25 million years ago. Building on previous work, scientists looking at the genome found "bursts of activity" that duplicated whole pieces of the genomes, 20,000 base sequences or more, at the same time that single gene changes were slowing down. The bursts of activity happened at key times, like before the chimps and humans diverged about ten million years ago. The duplications occurred where areas of previous duplications occurred, indicating that these areas rapidly evolve.

• Autism Ruling

  A court ruled that three patients whose children were autistic did not present enough evidence to convince the court that vaccines caused the illnesses. (Could you imagine the havoc is they had ruled the other way?) Despite the decision, parents will still be convinced that their children's autism was caused by vaccines. Or rain?.

• Bisphenol A Updates and Ultimatums

  Health Canada's Health Products and Food Branch and the FDA hosted a meeting of manufacturers and users of packaging materials to discuss strategies for understanding bisphenol A and reducing use of the chemical in consumer products. The FDA is scheduled to issue another round of BPA information on the safety of the chemical on February 24th. In the meantime, the city council of Chicago, in the US, is acting to restrict the chemical and has warned that if the FDA doesn't act by April 30th, it will. I'm sure certain chemical and toy associations are bearing down on Chicago as we speak.

Judd Gregg withdrew his name from consideration as Secretary of the US Department of Commerce yesterday. Early in his career, when CATO was pushing the idea and it was trendy, Gregg suggested that the department should be eliminated. This fact got some progressives apoplectic when Obama nominated him, although Gregg had been very supportive of certain parts of Commerce, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Gregg's NOAA sponsorship paid off for New Hampshire, but many Republicans, would abolish NOAA, along with the parts of Commerce that oversee trade, the census, and programs to benefit minority businesses. ¹ The Financial Times noted today:

"The New Hampshire Republicans would have spared himself and Barack Obama...had the measure succeeded. Instead, the commerce department survived and, with it, the job of commerce secretary"¹

Paradoxically, if Commerce had been eliminated, Barack Obama would have been spared Gregg's waffling, but CATO, would-be killer of the Department of Commerce, would be in a pickle. Where would it turn to the get evidence it uses in arguments before Congress for unregulated free trade?

Even considering that Obama has said he is open to doing away with ineffective parts of government, and some arguments that the Department of Commerce is mostly heavy on http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18836.html">partisan perks, it's clear that the appointment was never a good fit. Really, if you need to take the centennial census away from the guy you nominated to the department that oversees the census? Not exactly ISO 9000 level of trust.

But does Gregg's sudden realization that he doesn't want what he asked for, that he's not willing to endure a spot on the team of rivals, bode ill for Obama's "bipartisanship"? Well, the team of rivals is perhaps overrated, apparently "Chase and Seward and Cameron and Stanton were in fact a crew of venomous enemies, all of whom underestimated their leader." Who needs "rivals" when you have bloggers, anyway?

Gregg was apparently pressured by his party. Obama will not cease working across the aisle, said his administration. But Congress? Republicans? GOP strategists eat bipartisanship rhetoric up like the monsters on Rampage World Tour.

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¹ The photo was taken by NOAA. It shows Judd Gregg's wife signing the keel of a newly built NOAA ship in 2004. The ship was named by high school students as part of a program to engage students with scientific studies. The ship was named after Henry Bryant Bigelow, an oceanographer who worked as a researcher, instructor and professor of zoology at Harvard from 1906 to 1962, and who founded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1931. The former Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), and Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) were thanked at the "traditional keel laying ceremony".

• Globalization 3.0 -- Sneakers, Call Centers, Banking?

  When the Obama administration suggested a cap executive salaries for banks on national dole, news quickly bubbled up about all the loopholes behind the announcement. Bankers bristled at the mere idea of caps. It occurred to Bank of America that they really didn't need any federal money after all. Deutsche Bank cheekily predicted that US bankers would defect to Europe. But according to this news report, bankers don't earn as much in Europe or anywhere else as they do in the US. Not only that, excessive banker salaries are being criticized in Europe, Japan, and China, although in Japan and China bankers reportedly make about $400K per year. So far China's not recruiting US bankers, although they are recruiting scientists. Maybe someday soon, when bankers think the rules are too tough to grapple with in the US, they'll be able to seize the day in China.

• California Floods of the Future

  Rain may be causing consternation about flash floods in California, but scientists are thinking about even more intense flooding when global warming causes the seas to rise. A study by the U. of Oregon and University of Toronto published last week in Science, found that the melting Antarctic and resultant collapse of the ice sheet would cause sea levels to increase differently in different parts of the world.

  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the Western Antarctic ice sheet would melt and cause the sea level to rise 5 meters. However this uniform rise of sea levels may not happen. Instead the seas will rise more in some places, like North America and the Indian Ocean, than others, like Antarctica.

  The paper's authors discuss with the NSF three effects that will contribute to the uneven rise in sea levels. Now, because of the ice-water gravitational attraction, the Antarctic ice sheet draws water to it. But as the ice sheet melts, less water will be drawn to it and more will flow to North America. Second, the Antarctic ice sheet now sits in a hole, caused partly by the weight of the ice mass. As that mass melts, the depression will become smaller -- so more water will flow to North America. Finally, the melting ice sheet would alter the rotational force of the Earth, so the South Pole will move, shifting water away from the pole to other places, like the west coast of the United States.

  In California, $2.5 trillion in real estate assets is endangered by climate change.

• Dams for Water -- And Quakes?

  Speaking of water damage, was the earthquake in China hastened by the dam? Scientists are suggesting that the weight of water in the Zipingpu reservoir, created by the massive Zipngdu dam in the Minjiang river affected the seismicity of the Beichaun fault a mile away and perhaps contributed to the timing and dynamics of the 7.9 Sichuan earthquake. The excellent movie "Up The Yangtze" followed the dam building on the lives of one family.

• Worst Job -- Marine Biologist?

  Rising seas, more marine biology? It was my dream job as a child, but apparently it doesn't suit everyone. Unable the get a job for three years as a graduating economist from UC Davis, Daniel Seddiqui set out to try 50 jobs in 50 states. His best job so far, he says, was border patrol, tracking immigrants on the border. His worst? Working as a marine biologist in Seattle. "Boring", he said. At the moment you can't find out the details of his ennui on account of the 404, but a couple other scientific-ish careers seemed to please him more. See him on Fox News or wait for the book.

• A World of Cheaters and Crooks?

  Some of Obama's recent picks for leadership positions have stepped aside with tax payment problems. Tom Daschle will not head Health and Human services. Nancy Killefer withdrew her name as chief performance officer. And Friday the Senate committee reviewing Rep. Hilda Solis's nomination for Labor Secretary canceled their meeting because of outstanding liens -- some 16 years old -- on Solis's husband's business. Timothy Geithner managed to get through with his much larger unpaid tax obligations, that's before we understood how trendy tax evasion was.

  While Republicans rally for some populist rage around these tax missteps, one "senior Democratic official" told the Financial Times (Feb. 3, 2009): "In practice, you have to make exceptions for individuals. Very few people can withstand such scrutiny." Really?? I will never apply then. How embarrassing would it be to admit to some wealth-conscious senatorial committee that my only perk is an annual Medecin Sans Frontieres map of the world's trouble spots?

• The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act: Senators Sing, Dance, and Beg for Phthalates and Lead

  The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act that goes into effect Tuesday will make it illegal for stores to sell products for children under twelve that contain dangerous levels of lead, and products for kids under three that contain dangerous levels of phthalates that cause deleterious effects on development in babies. Consumer groups were denied their request to delay the law by federal Consumer Product Safety Commission last week.

  But some US senators chafe at the idea of losing toys like the Valentine's Day mechanical singing-and-dancing plush animals with red plastic guitars -- the toxic lead containing "Wild Thing Gorilla", "Ain't Too Proud to Beg Dog", the "Sing & Dance Puppy". The LA Times reported last week that Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) "introduced a bill Thursday that would postpone the law, and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) introduced a stimulus package amendment that would block the law.

The Emperor

Obama is making infrastructure and energy a central goal of his administration. Therefore people were heartened when they heard that Obama will nominate Steven Chu, Nobel Laureate in Physics and Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (not to be confused with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) to head of the Department of Energy. Chu has led LBL since 2004. He's a Nobel Laureate who has formed collaborations in the LBL, the Joint BioEnergy Institute, the Energy Biosciences Institute with Heliosgovernment, industry and universities to forward technological solutions to alternative and renewable energies.

Environmentalists like how Chu sounds because he says things like: "If I were emperor of the world, I would put the pedal to the floor on energy efficiency and conservation for the next decade", as he told Reuters last year. Business likes him because they know that the Energy Biosciences Institute was funded by British Petroleum -- Chu works with industry, of course.

Almost everyone is thrilled that Obama will nominate Chu for this position, and he gets fantastic ratings for his accomplishments to date. Of course there are always naysayers, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, representing business. Said William Kovacs, vice president of the organization:

"What you've got are people who are committed to moving forward with regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, which we believe is a huge mistake"...If we're embarking on a new infrastructure program that's going to involve building a lot of roads and bridges, the last thing we want to do is hold it up with CO2 regulations."

There's more than some gobbledygook here, but at least one aspect of his argument, that the economy is too fragile for "green initiatives" is a common kneejerk fallacy of "pro-business" camps. In today's Financial Times, for instance, Phillip Stevens wrote:

"The EU leaders have set a target of cutting greenhouse emissions in the EU by 20 per cent by 2020. They have pledged to increase energy efficiency by 20 per cent and to draw 20 per cent of energy from renewable sources...All this seemed challenging, but possible at a time of prosperity. The voters would surely accept a degree of pain to safeguard the future for their children and grandchildren. Industry had the cash (or cheap credit lines from the banks) to adjust...[but] no longer."

This is course a myth, a common one. People like Joseph Romm have long dispelled these assertions, but business persists. Mr. Chu addressed this himself in an interview last September, when he said: "if you went to an energy-efficient economy, you will kill the economy. That is just demonstrably not true." In fact it's the opposite. Businesses can become more cost efficient by becoming more energy efficient. Changing light bulbs in schools is just a start.

Mr. Chu will not be emperor, but part of Obama's climate team. The Department of Energy focuses on nuclear weapons disposal of nuclear waste and basic science. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) carries tremendous influence on emissions and health through its administration of the Clean Air Act, for instance -- or as we're accustomed with the Bush administration, by eviscerating the Clean Air Act.

The Chief Administrator

Not everyone is applauding Obama's choice for EPA head , Lisa P. Jackson. She has won accolades for diplomacy and her handling of various New Jersey environmental problems. However Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) wrote a scathing review (some say unfair and uninformed) of her tenure as the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

PEER even went so far as to say she was worse than former New Jersey governor Christie Whitman. Ms. "your air is safe" Whitman not only launched New Jersey's path to fiscal insolvency, her state environmental policies weren't necessarily "environmental". Interesting how the "Garden State", known affectionately as the "Armpit of the Nation", or "What exit?", holds such a reservoir of EPA administrators.

Jackson has opposed the EPA's recent handling of California's bid to waive Clean Air to act its own program. She also said, "When it comes to the auto industry, the E.P.A. apparently is the Emissions Permissions Agency."

The Czar

Obama picked Carol Browner, Clinton's former EPA head, to be Climate Czar, to coordinate all the agencies involved with climate policy, such as the the EPA, DOE, the DOT, the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

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Acronym Required writes frequently on the EPA. We've also written on effective, versus ineffective government agencies in articles like

• Outsiders in a Networked World: In Bangkok, protesters brought airport traffic brought to a halt. In Mumbai terrorists attack. Indian newspapers have jumped to blame the attacks on Pakistan, India's nuclear armed neighbor, while the Prime Minister has said it was the work of "outsiders". Outsiders -- the universal troublemaker.

  Whoever it was, sought out people with British and American passports. [update 11/29/08, this is now disputed] The majority of people killed were Indians.

• Actions Have Consequences: South African president Thabo Mbeki spent his entire administration denying the link between the HIV virus and AIDS. Even when drugs were available, he encouraged people to fortify their immune systems with beetroot and garlic. A group of Harvard researchers reports (PDF) that Mbeki's failure to invest in antiretroviral drugs cost the country 365,000 lives, and 35,000 babies lives, a total of 3.8 million human years from 2000 to 2005. Says the soft-pedaling New York Times:

  : "the report has reignited questions about why Mr. Mbeki, a man of great acumen, was so influenced by AIDS denialists."

  Mbeki was so influenced by AIDS denialists, because he was so influenced by economists of a certain philosophy. Public health is almost always a casualty of a neoconservative-like agenda. Mbeki clearly rationalized how some lives were worth saving, while others weren't. A philosophy that can be born out by people of fine acumen.

  Barbara Hogan who is now the Minister of Health stated that the age of denialism is over.

• Living in Financial Times: We previously wrote about the plight of the underpaid, overqualified science-post doc. A recent Science feature explores financial careers for scientists. Scientists are still being hired in "droves" as quants and advisors for technology and science investments, notes the introductory article. Go forth to Wall Street armed with a Ph.D. How's that for optimism and opportunity? Also try film making, a low paying career with very few opportunities that we profiled last year.

• Turtles -- Swimming Out of Their Shell: Nature reports on an interesting paleontology find in Southeast China. The turtle fossil dates a new species of basal turtle, Odontochelys semitestacea, to 220 million years ago. This turtle is 14 million years older than than the oldest turtle fossils found in Germany. Analysis of previous fossils suggested that turtles had a land based evolution. These new fossils provide a different hypothesis for turtle evolution, that they were water creatures first. The researchers deduced this from evidence of a fully developed plastron (the lower belly shell), but no carapace (the upper flat part of the shell). The turtle of this fossile also had teeth. Scientists will chew over these new findings for a while.

• Crackberry Presidency: Obama's trying to convince various agencies to allow him to keep his Blackberrry, according to various news reports, and as he told Barbara Walters last night. He said he doesn't want to become isolated, surrounded only by a few advisers.

Autism's Dubious Research

They're back with an updated theory!! In "Autism, TV, Precipitation: Dismal Science", we wrote a farcical post about a study by economists Waldman et al. at Cornell, who posited that television watching and rainfall caused autism. The lead author attempted to stoke interest in a theory he developed while raising his autistic son by publishing a study. The team collected sketchy data sets and resolved the gaps with statistics, achieving tenuous results and conclusions.

Mark Waldman's paper caused the stir he probably wanted, eliciting ample coverage from the press, lay audiences, and patient families. But some scientists and economists felt the study was not properly rigorous or peer-reviewed. ¹ Joseph Piven, director of Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center at the University of North Carolina, said of the study and underlying data, "It is just too much of a stretch to tie this to television-watching...[W]hy not tie it to carrying umbrellas?"

So a year later, Waldman did exactly that. Instead of linking autism to television and rain, the authors linked autism only to rain, using data presented in their original report. This version is called "Autism prevalence and precipitation rates in California, Oregon, and Washington counties". It was published it in the medical journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine -- a nice coup for the authors.

Stay Tuned

Noel Weiss, MD, wrote the accompanying editorial in, titled "Precipitation and Autism: Do These Results Warrant Publication?". Yes, said Weiss, even though in "my opinion that this observation may well not lead to any insights into the etiologies of autism". He added: "the authors' analysis and the editor's decision to publish it are to be lauded, despite the uncertain ultimate contribution of this work and the possibility (likelihood?) that nonprofessionals are going to misinterpret and misuse it." The research isn't for parents, he indicated, who only need to "stay tuned" -- it's for researchers. Apparently over 100 news media who published the findings to the public didn't get the message.

Someone on the Huffington Post recently embellished Waldman's thesis by adding the discounted mercury theory of autism to the dubious rainfall theory, then proposing that the rain pulls the mercury out of the atmosphere, causing higher rates of autism.

Adjust your antennae for updates.

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¹ We also wrote "Autism Research Revisted", commenting on a a Wall Street Journal article that asked if economists were qualified to study autism. We suggested this was the wrong question.

YAY!

It's a new day.

"...His triumph was decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He offered a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world..." (NYT)¹

Yes, there's work to do. Yes, it will be difficult. But today we recognize how much America's just accomplished.

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¹Obama won despite warnings about possible GOP ballot fraud stemming from information dribbling out of the Ohio trial concerning 2004 Ohio ballot fraud. In the latest episode, Michael Connell, a consultant whose firm has been accused of computer manipulation, denied knowing anything about GOP rigging the 2004 Ohio election results. Connell works for Randy Cole. Cole owns 15 companies that work simultaneously on GOP election campaigns (Bush/Cheney 2000/2004, McCain 2008, many others), anti-Abortion groups and churches, GOP mass mailings, government contracts, etc. Stephen Spoonamore, a key witness in the trial brings the allegations, explains in a multi-part series starting here.

When Sarah Palin took a rhetorical whack at a research grant worth $211,000 last week scientists angrily reacted to her characterization of research as "pork". Palin's tip came from CAGW, who in 1997 raised funds to rid the taxpayer of science research expense and "target agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Environmental Protection Agency". The group enjoys a collaborative relationship with John McCain and was also the source of McCain's comments on grizzly ecology research and planetarium equipment. Why does olive fly research rate special attention from CAGW? Who is CAGW? Does any of this matter if McCain isn't elected?

Science Jokes for Dummies

As Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin put it: "Sometimes these dollars they go to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not!" The audience snickered. Palin's fruit fly joke continued the comedic run that McCain began with his "grizzly bear DNA" comment and his "overhead projector" joke. They could author a book.

It's theater, some say, arguing that McCain always talks like this but doesn't vote against the measures. Case in point, Adler Planetarium's equipment grant got rejected, but McCain keeps it as a talking point. But the fact is, the GOP campaign team relegates science to political joke fodder used to misinform the masses, which doesn't endear them to Acronym Required as we previously commented. Will electing Obama put an end to this silliness?

Entomology Etymology

The "fruit fly", as every science blogger pointed out -- (and, on a positive note, so did tons of non-science bloggers, writers, and reporters) -- refers to the Drosophila melanogaster, an important model organism that scientists have employed to further research in such things as human development, disease and genetics. Scientists reacted ferociously to Palin's fruit fly research talk.

However Palin was actually referring to the olive fruit fly. The olive fruit fly which is indigenous to the Mediterranean and an invasive species of California arrived on California soil in the late 1990's. The fly poses an economic threat to California's olive crops. Olive trees are usually protected from olive fruit fly with insecticides, but from their research, scientists now know of at least six natural predators to the olive fruit fly.

The research station in France gives US based researchers a chance to study the fly in its native territory, where scientists have been dealing with the pest for years. Their research is beneficial because it will explore ways that these predators could be used as an alternative or extension of insecticides. Insecticides are a thriving part of the chemical industry however, so not all lobbyists will appreciate this new research.

Confusingly, some scientists interrupted the anger about Palin's attack to explain that Drosophila melanogaster, wasn't really a "fruit fly". The labeling confusion probably occurred sometime in the early 20th century or maybe with Aristotle, and "fruit fly" is the part of scientists' and lay persons' vernacular. Even the staid Entomological Society of America calls them "fruit flies". The real point was that Palin was referring to the olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae) -- a tephritid -- not THE "fruit fly".

Of course Palin supporters swarmed all over the fruit fly labeling mix-up and went on about how scientists didn't do their research, totally missing the fact that scientists really do call the ubiquitous Drosophila melanogaster "fruit fly". Acronym Required doesn't want to diminish the importance of accuracy, but in this case the label is superfluous to the larger crime of denigrating science for fun. ¹

Plus de hits, Plus de fun

Does the story just contain certain poll-tested key words -- "fruit fly", "French", "California" that Palin can throw out to elicit an audience reaction? Or shall we go out on a limb and try to guess who's is behind it the attack? Unfortunately scientists don't have comedy prank team at a radio station like CKOI ("Plus de hits, Plus de fun") at our disposal. ².

Clearly the French olive industry isn't behind the lobbying. Despite the fact that Palin said we "loved" the French, CAGW and McCain campaign aren't enamoured. The bottom line is we don't know who is behind the attack.

The olive fruit fly funding story originated with Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), an organization that started by J. Peter Grace, heir to founder of the W.R. Grace & Co, the chemical company. W.R. Grace & Co. is famous for polluting and environmental damage (as well as not paying taxes). Jonathan Harr chronicled one of W.R. Grace's pollution debacles in the memorable book "A Civil Action". President Reagan initially appointed Peter Grace to an internal government agency aimed at decreasing the role of government. This government agency which morped into CAGW. CAGW has in the past attacked teenage alcohol education, science education programs and lots and lots of science research. The goal of the organization was initially to target "meritless" science research by government agencies.

So if you're trying to figure out why CAGW opposes $200,000K for olive fly research, you'd probably be on the wrong track. CAGW and their catchy anti-government hotline --1-800-BE ANGRY -- receives corporate donations in turn for their targeted lobbying efforts. CAGW funding comes from many companies, including Merrill Lynch & Company Foundation, Exxon Corporation (now ExxonMobil), Ingersoll-Rand Company, Johnson & Johnson F.M. Kirby Foundation, Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco (now part of the Altria Group) Sears Roebuck & Company, John Deere Foundation, Eaton Charitable Fund, Columbia/HCA Foundation.

Shooting Down Science, Contract by Contract

Among the thousands of campaigns CAGW runs, only occasionally does the media uncover or even pay attention to the source of funding. CAGW was behind a Northrup Grumman case and Microsoft's funded lobbying and astroturfing in the anti-open source.

Bill Adair of the St. Petersburg Times's did a great investigative stories on CAGW in April, 2006. In "For Price, Watchdog Will be an Advocate", Adler described how $100,000 from the Mexican avocado growers motivated a public relations effort against the California Avocado Commission's resistance against the import of Mexican avocados.

In another case, Public Citizen revealed that CAGW worked with PhRMA, a lobbying group for the pharmaceutical industry, to scuttle efforts for a government health care plan. However thousands of CAGW campaigns, and their donors remain unknown. A St. Petersburg Times article in December, 2006 described how the group's tax exempt status hides their defacto corporate lobbying role. The IRS code allows them to keep from the public records of who funds them (which is tax deductible) and other important details.

But you can get the gist of the game reading Adair's account. In "When Tobacco Needed a Voice, CAGW Spoke up and Profited" the St. Petersburg Times described how the tobacco industry donated at least $245,000 to CAGW to target movement put the FDA in charge of regulating tobacco.

CAGW and Tobacco

For years, CAGW worked with the tobacco industry. In 1997, the group lobbied the Tobacco Institute for $25,000 for the production of a publication called "Weird Science." The goal of CAGW, according to internal Tobacco Institute documents was to:

"...'expose federally "taxpayer-funded research projects that have little or no scientific merit.' The group will target agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition to researching agency spending, the publication will look at the issue of risk-assessment."

The Tobacco Institute memo recommended giving CAGW $5,000, instead of $25,000, because in the "wide array" of subjects CAGW proposed, "our story could get lost in the mix." You can find anti-regulatory rhetoric about tobacco and alcohol on CAGW's website.

McCain, Swindle, CAGW....

Earlier this year, Democrats, labor unions and concerned Americans criticized McCain for snubbing Boeing (headquartered in Chicago) by awarding a $40 billion contract to Northrup Grumman and European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company EADS. McCain struck back at his Democratic critics through CAGW.

CAGW has worked very closely with John McCain since at least 1990, when they collaborated to initiate a presidential line item veto. From all accounts its been a fruitful collaboration. Orson Swindle, a fellow Vietnam veteran, works for both CAGW and the McCain campaign.

Defining Cynicism.

In their annual 1995 "Pig Book Summary", the CAGW nominated Senator Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, as one of the 14 worst offenders their so-called "Oinkers", for securing a $400,000 grant through the EPA to study algal blooms in Hawaii. Senator Byrd, also called out that year by CAGW, commented on the report: "It is old propaganda. It is a yawn and a boar." (an intentional mispelling) It may be a bore, but it's a persistent one. CAGW has only increased it's influence in the last 13 years, working hand in hand with John McCain, as well as some illustrious lobbyists.

A senate report by Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), condemned Citizens Against Government Waste. Grassley singled out 5 tax exempt groups who

"who violated their tax exempt status 'by laundering payments and then disbursing funds at Mr. Abramoff's direction; taking payments in exchange for writing newspaper columns or press releases that put Mr. Abramoff's clients in a favorable light.."

The Washington Post wrote about the incident: "The e-mails show a pattern of CAGW producing public relations materials favorable to Mr. Abramoff's clients."

CAGW denied the charges and left the room when things got hot. Then when Senator Steven's (R-AK) was found guilty of accepting $250,000 in bribes last week, Citizens Against Government Waste sent out a press release that read: "The Stevens trial will go down in history alongside the trials of lobbyists Jack Abramoff...as just another sad, but not surprising spectacle of corruption and cynicism in the nation's capital."

Does It Matter?

John McCain mentioned "Citizens Against Government Waste" in each of the three presidential debates. In return, the group's political action committee called McCain a "taxpayer hero" in TV ads airing in Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. CCAGW, a PAC associated with CAGW ran TV ads for a presidential candidate.

But if John McCain isn't elected does it matter? Clearly I'm not going to say no. In our last post we quoted Studs Terkel, who once said, "given the facts and an opportunity to act, the body politic generally does the right thing." But as Winston Churchill once said: "Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives." If Congress doesn't ensure that the people can get the facts, then we have no chance of ever doing "the right thing".

Acronym Required agrees that not all science research is beneficial -- for the economy, for science, or for education. Furthermore, who could malign CAGW's ostensible mission? As people have said before us, who does support government waste? And while earmarks may be an expeditious route to funding, should we all pay for that? But if CAGW's projects are motivated by donors, who's to say which of the group's targets is fair game and which are solely contract political targets?

On its face, why is $200,000 fruit fly research so outrageous? You know that Goldman Sachs set aside $6.85 billion for this year's employee bonuses right? According to CAGW, the downside of the bank bailout was that it would "draw socialist vampires to Washington for decades to come."

CAGW has been around since the 1980's and their work will continue unless we change the laws and demand greater transparency. There's been only occasional chatter about discontinuing the veiled lobbying, despite the wisdom of Senator Byrd and others that "it is old propaganda." At the root of the McCain campaign's choice to play enfant terrible to scientists and science, there's a very popular ideology at work that will not die with an incoming Obama administration.

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¹ Palin's naivete about the latter bit her later when she didn't recognize the Canadian comedy team's faux President Sarkozy, with his faux Fraauunch accent -- even when he asked Palin to take him up hunting by helicopter: "I just love killing those animals. Hmm-hmm. Take away a life, that is so fun." "Kill two birds with one stone", she responded gamely. Palin exclaimed to "Sarkovy" "we love [the French]!".

Happy Halloween. Over 23 million people have voted in early elections across the United States. People are now driven to distraction by the election, even Acronym Required at times. But we're also distracted by science topics.

• Decidin'

  For instance take the cartoon that accompanied an article in last week's New Yorker. It was a drawing of a TinTin looking character, eyes wide, eyebrows arched, finger to his pursed lips, puzzling over two choices on a wall chart. On the left I saw a rooster. On the right I saw a Drosophila.

  The accompanying article "Undecided", by David Sedaris, discussed the baffling group of supposedly undecided voters:

  "I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?"

  He placed the dilemma in terms of airline food (he probably flies in the class where the still have that):

  "The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?"

  It still took me a while to figure out that the cartoon character was standing in a voting booth. The choice was not a silly Rooster or Drosophila but "chicken" or "shit with bits of broken glass" in it. The Drosophila wasn't that at all, just a giant red-eyed other type of more fuzzy fly, standing on a small brown mound that represented Sedaris' subject, "shit". In an effort to explain my confusion, I'll just say I was writing about C. elegans at the time, another model organism, so perhaps that's why I saw Drosophila melanogaster.

• Buggin'

  It was a Drosophila kind of week. Scientists and many knowledgeable Americans (and French) were angry that V.P. candidate Sarah Palin dissed fruit fly research as waste. Of course she wasn't talking about Drosophila melanogaster, but olive fruit flies in a completely different taxonomic family. But the outrage over her perfunctory dismissal of California agricultural research is warranted.

• Poisonin'

  Updating our melamine coverage from previous posts, this week brought China and Hong Kong melamine contaminated eggs, thus widening the scandal. The culprit may be melamine laced grain which has spread the toxic chemical throughout the food chain. China is now culling chickens. The past year has seen the demise -- through culling and dumping -- of some major protein sources, pigs, milk, eggs, chicken -- hopefully there's some unadulterated beans and soy and rice around.

• Labelin'

  India passed the Prevention of Food Adulteration (Fifth Amendment) Rules, 2008, which will require food product labels starting in March, 2009. Fruit products cannot be labeled as such unless they contain fruit, etc. Cardiac conscious customers will now be able to identify transfats such as "vansapati", hydrogenated vegetable cooking oil which is commonly found in packaged food.

• Trick-or-Treatin'
  The cost of drugs to treat type 2 diabetes doubled between 2001 and 2007, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, from $6.7 billion dollars in 2001, to $12.5 billion dollars in 2007. The higher cost is due to new drugs, which can be 10 times higher than old drugs, as well as increased numbers of patients. The number of patient visits increased from 25 million in 1994, to 36 million in 2007.

  But today's Halloween. So here's a carbohydrate chart (PDF!) from "DLife" (For Your Diabetes Life!") For example:
  - 3 Musketeers 16 gram fun-sized bar: 12 grams
  - Gummy Bears 11 pieces: 30 grams
  - M&M's "Halloween" mini box: 10 grams
  - Tootsie Roll midgets 12: 30 grams
  - Heath Bar 1.4 oz. bar: 20 grams
  

• Cravin' Palin

  One of this year's most popular costumes is a Sarah Palin costume. This would be a challenging one to pull off for three reasons. One, it's just gonna' be an icky couple of hours sitting in that particular suit. Two, do you really have her style down? Sarah Palin is hot, according to, well, everyone, which may be hard to live up to. I recently got an explanation of this relative hotness -- it's "niche hot". Therefore if she doesn't win the vice presidency maybe she'll vamp through Playboy, with a "hot" politician theme, and if not that, then she actually already has her Palin calendar awaiting your purchase.

  But she's a tricky act to follow, which brings us to your third challenge. You might be able to cackle "you betcha!" with the best of them, you might be able to wink wildly, you might be able bend the elite right wing news staff of the Weekly Standard, the National Review, The Hill, and the New York Times to your side by leading them around by the front of their pants, as a recent New Yorker article describes¹.

  But do you really have her diction down? Can you remember to drop the "g" on pallin', and lyin' -- like Palin'? Maybe, but can you remember to leave the "g" on the word when necessary? Can you remember to say "cravING", as she does? As in, American's are craving that straight talk"? And Americans are craving something new and different..." You're not hearing "I'm Sarah and I'm cravin'". Americans are cravinG.

  Sure "it's genuine, not affectation", just like she's genuine in every other way, an outsider, didn't hire lobbyists to buff her image as Alaskan governor. I think it's a tough Halloween costume to pull off.

• Swoopin' & Spookin'
  Merriam Webster's Word of the Day is Chiropteran:

  "Chiroptera" is the name of the order of the only mammal capable of true flight, the bat. The name is influenced by the hand-like wings of bats, which are formed from four elongated "fingers" covered by a cutaneous membrane. It is based on the Greek words for "hand," "cheir," and "wing," "pteron." "Cheir" also had a hand in the formation of the word "surgery," which is ultimately derived from the ancient word "cheirourgos," meaning "doing by hand."

  Acronym Required wrote a little about bats in "Bats, Riddles, and Viruses."

• Mappin' not Spyin'

  The town of Molfsee, Germany, is rebelling against Google's "Street View". Google would dispatch vehicles with camera's to map the town's streets, but the 5,000 citizens have laid down the law. The company would need a special permit to photograph the city's streets, which the town politicians refuse to grant. The town's concerns about privacy are shared by state and federal privacy experts, according to Spiegel.

• Votin'

  As for the election, some, like Larry David, are pacing and suspicious. There's been a steady stream of alarming reports about voting machines, it's no wonder that everyone's a bit on edge.

  There's apparently a trend now, everyone's droppin' their g's. On the positive side, voting turn-out so far is great. Pray; no Hope; no Work for the most honest, cleanest result.

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¹ This article also contends that this one young Republican started a blog advocating Sarah Palin for Vice President, and that blog precipitated a lot of conservative enthusiasm: "In the month before Palin was picked by McCain, Brickley said, his Web site was receiving about three thousand hits a day". To put this in perspective Daily Kos gets about 2,604,779 page views a day, so if there's about 3-4 hits per page view, DKos gets about 6 million hits a day. Brickley was getting about 1000 pages a day -- not too much.

A UCLA study published in the Neurobiology of Aging found that age related decreases in myelin correlate to decreased motor function after the age of 39. The researchers suggest that sensory and cognitive processing speeds are also effected by the loss of myelin.

That would be problematic for scientists. The age at which U.S. researchers get their first NIH grant increased from 34.3 in 1970 to 41.7 in 2004, according to a recent paper on arxiv.org by Yves Gingras et al. The authors studied 13,680 university science professors and showed that productivity rises between 28-40, rises more slowly between 41-50 and decreases until 50-55 years old. Although it's a measure with limited value, the authors counted "productivity" as published papers. For multi-author papers the study credited one paper per listed author. In short, the study found that scientists still produce papers up through retirement, publish in well respected journals, and are cited more frequently.

Neither study is earth shattering, but there's value to aging. Motor processing does slow down, but other studies have shown that with some motor function, movement accuracy improves, compensating for decreased speed. For many reasons, lab dynamics, prestige, networking, etc., older scientists may not publish more, but their quality of production (by measures by which people judge, anyway) may increase.

Subcommittee to FDA: Room For Improvement

The FDA subcommittee reviewing the FDA's August 2008 draft report has released its first recommendations(PDF) on the draft BPA report. The subcommittee brought lots of suggestions for improvement.

They wrote that the draft did not adequately provide scientific support for their method of choosing which studies to include: "Specifically, the Subcommittee does not agree that the large number of non-GLP studies should be excluded from use in the safety assessment."

The subcommittee also questioned the use of "no observed adverse effect level" (NOAEL) standard the FDA employed to determine the safety of exposure. The panel pointed out that so many studies show effects in neurobehavioral development, prostate gland, mammary gland and puberty in females, that it seems BPA must bind to gonadal hormone receptors during development. The panel said this suggests safe exposures "at least an order of magnitude below the 5 mg/kg/bw/day NOAEL identified in the draft assessment." The panel authors suggest several alternative ways to measure dose response that would model findings across the many studies that the FDA excluded in its draft.

The subcommittee offered additional point by point criticism and noted that the studies cleared by the NTP's Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) indicate that the FDA standard should be "substantially below (i.e., at least one or more orders of magnitude lower than) the 5 mg/kg bw/day level selected in the draft FDA assessment."

Living Through Chemistry -- U. Michigan and Dow

The FDA panel released their draft at an opportune time. Philbert was under increasing pressure about his role on the panel given appearances of conflict of interest. Acronym Required wrote a couple of weeks ago on Philbert's directorship of the University of Michigan SPH Risk Science and Analysis program, founded and heavily contributed to by Charles Gelman, a retired manufacturer and tireless critic of chemical regulation. Had the subcommittee's report dared reach the opposite conclusion than the pressure would have increased.

Following our post Martin Philbert wrote a letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel protesting the paper's allegations that his work would be influenced by the donations he accepted from Gelman: "This simply is not true", he said.

To illustrate his point he described in his letter the $15 million dollar grant the Risk Science Center took from Dow Chemical for a dioxin study. Philbert told how, given the grant, his colleagues "still found that people living near the Dow plant had higher levels of dioxins in their bodies."

However, nobody should find Philbert's assurance about his work for Dow Chemical comforting since Dow manufactures bisphenol A and takes political action to protect its market when necessary. For instance at (http://dowaction.com/grassroots/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=30665022), you can read Dow's letter thanking their employees for their "Best in Class", 31.5% "grassroots" effort in defeating California SB 1713 Bisphenol-A Ban.

The University of Michigan task in the Dow study was to measure blood dioxin levels of home-owners in different geographic areas -- not to investigate health affects. In that sense the dioxin study is not an analogous situation to the BPA panel. But even if were comparable, the University of Michigan results got Dow off the hook in a way, by finding that the variation in dioxin levels was due to things like age and body mass index (BMI), not levels of dioxins in the air or soil.

Media, politicians, citizens and scientists criticized the study because Dow had long been under pressure from the EPA to clean up dioxin contamination ¹ and the study was seen as a stalling technique. The EPA had this to say in one memo: "the study was initiated at the request of Dow in order to downplay the risks of exposure to dioxin contaminated soils." The EPA went on to say:

"public presentations of the preliminary results have emphasized how little effect living on contaminated soils has one an individual's dioxin blood level. This emphasis has resulted in numerous media stories, an understanding by some members of the public, that remediation of dioxin contamination is unnecessary."

The BPA memo on the FDA draft will no doubt assure the doubters in the public that Philbert's panel has their best interests in mind. ² If not, Philbert warns that he will "think long and hard" before taking time to "perform this kind of public service".

Stay on your toes...

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¹ Burnham, D. "1965. Memo Show Dow's Anxiety on Dioxin.", NYT 1983)

² Perhaps Dow's BPA economy is not at stake in Michigan? John Dingell (D-MI), bulldog for the auto-industry, has also taken on BPA.

Methods Suspect. Evidence of BPA Harm Swept Under the Rug?

In their August 2008 draft evaluation (PDF) on the safety of bisphenol A (BPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used industry studies to confirm an older, no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) for humans. There's two problems with the FDA's assessment. One, industry studies come to different (and safer) conclusions about BPA than do non-industry sponsored studies. Two this NOAEL standard is widely judged to be outdated for BPA.

The FDA evaluation that BPA was safe flew in the face of hundreds of peer-reviewed studies showing damaging affects of low doses of BPA on human development. In our last post we described how congress is closing in on the FDA, criticizing their methods for evaluating the safety of BPA and questioning FDA conflicts of interest.

Last week, 36 bisphenol A researchers also called into question the FDA's procedure for evaluating BPA science. In their published paper, Myers et al analyzed an industry study authored by Tyl et al, (including authors from Bayer, Dow, ACC, TRI, and SABIC Innovative Plastics) paper ¹, used by the FDA in their draft assessment, earned ten pages of criticism from Myers et al.

Neurobehavioral Affects Swept Under the Rug?

Two recent NIH reports, the 2008 NTP report, and Chapel Hill Consensus Statement indicate that in the bulk of studies, "greatest level of concern [for BPA] was directed towards possible neural and behavioral effects caused by BPA exposure in utero." Low dose bisphenol A is implicated in "changes in brain structure, brain chemistry and behavior represent the largest portion of the published low-dose BPA literature."

The NTP is supposed to advise the FDA on regulatory matters, but the FDA's draft report didn't reflect NTP conclusion that there was "some concern" about neurobehavioral effects. Instead, the FDA draft said that there was no evidence to support such a warning. Included in " documents on the FDA site is a research review of neurobehavioral studies contracted by The American Chemistry Council's (ACC) to Exponent ¹, a consulting company in San Francisco, California. Exponent unsurprisingly found "no consistent adverse effects of perinatal exposures to low doses of BPA on neurobehavioral endpoints based on the 18 studies," a decision echoed by the FDA in their draft.

Good Laboratory Practice: "FDA's Misguided 'Gold Standard'"

The many, many low dose studies should convince anyone that BPA is not safe. Yet the chemistry industry keeps coming up with its own studies, one after another, which show the opposite results of non-industry scientists. This 2008 FDA draft gave the most weight to two industry studies that followed Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) standard. The history of this standard is interesting, because it was introduced by the FDA to decrease fraud in laboratories, instead the standard had been used by industry to validate their studies, the conclusions of which contradict hundreds of smaller very valid studies.

Myers et al explain that the FDA designed the GLP standard to stop widespread private lab fraud in the 1970's, following a federal investigation of private lab practices. Scientists in the 1970's investigation needed to re-run 4000 tests by 235 companies and re-examine safety profiles of 15% of all U.S. pesticides on the market. Several men from one company were sent to prison for doctoring data. The Myers et al authors note:

"...fraudulent results were possible because contract lab studies used in the regulatory process are rarely subject to the checks and balances that peer-reviewed, replicated scientific findings undergoes."

The FDA's resultant industry GLP standards require extensive record-keeping to halt the type of fraud that Myers et al say is largely prevented in peer-reviewed research conducted under NIH grants. Another impediment of using GLP in academia is that GLP standards require large sample numbers of rats. 8000 rats were killed in a 2002 industry BPS study. Such a large number of sacrificed animals would violate the animal care guidelines under the NIH grants.

GLP Trumps Good Methodology?

Among the supporting documents for the FDA draft here on the FDA site, you can find the ICF consulting product that Acronym Required mentioned in our last post, the neurobehavioural review contracted by ACC to the consulting company Exponent², and various other reviews and communications.

There's obviously industry involvement in the FDA review. However, it is the government agency's job to consider the arguments of all constituents. I challenge anyone who doesn't know BPA research very well to make too much out of the content of the FDA's assessment. However, given the FDA's conclusion you can's help infer that some of the industry sponsored research on the site influenced their decision. Then once you suspect that the FDA is influenced by industry, every document could look suspect.

For instance in one document ("Bisphenol A - Review of studies conducted by Vom Saal et al, Nagel et al, and MPI Research"), an FDA scientist, Dr. Sprando, compared low-dose studies on prostate development from Frederick Vom Saal's lab to an industry study where the scientists tried (and failed, with much public ado) to repeat Vom Saal's results.

The MPI study used more animals in its experiments, which Sprando says makes the industry study "more powerful", an assertion that's not necessarily true, but Vom Saal's research was then thrown into doubt. But importantly, MPI's positive control failed. The FDA noted the lack of positive result, but then dismissed it. They included the MPI study despite the control show-stopper and concluded that since the results in different studies conflicted about the neurobehavioral affects of BPA, no FDA decision on the neurobehavioral affects of BPA was warranted.

Who To Trust?

Take the question of BPA and prostrate development. On one hand you have several studies from Vom Saal's labs, as well as a later study from another academic lab showing negative affects of BPA on prostate development. On the other hand you have the MPI study sponsored by The Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. which finds nothing. As with every other endpoint, the FDA compares NIH studies to an industry study, a "GLP" study, and favors or heavily weighs the industry result.

Myer's et al have concluded that the industry studies used by the FDA are "invalid":

"The fact that the U.S. regulatory community is willing to accept these industry-funded, antiquated and flawed studies as proof of the safety of BPA, while rejecting as invalid for regulatory purposes the findings from a very large number of academic and government investigators using 21st century scientific approaches, is of great concern."

"Industry research" shouldn't be code for "fraudulent", but it's difficult to read through these documents and not be suspicious. The GLP standard intended to lend credence to industry research which is not peer-reviewed, research that is subject to conflict of interest and historically littered with fraud. Now GLP is ironically being used for an important health decision on BPA to exclude over a hundred peer-reviewed studies.

Not only does this blemish industry research, it makes you wonder about academic research. Taxpayers invest heavily in unbiased, peer-reviewed research on issues like whether BPA is safe for human consumption. The far wealthier chemical industry can fund a study showing some opposite result every time it sees something that might impede business. The FDA appears as if at times to be in cahoots with industry -- no? But what about the people, the citizens that fund the FDA? There's got to be a better way.

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¹ Tyl et al: Two-Generation Reproductive Toxicity Study of Dietary Bisphenol A (BPA) in Mice. April, 2008: Toxicol Sci 104: 362 - 384.

² Exponent is chemical consulting company located in San Francisco. Elizabeth Anderson, who is on the management team, was previously the president of Sciences International, the company fired for conflict of interest from the NIEHS bisphenol A contract, which we wrote about here and here, founded the journal Risk Analysis.

BPA: Trade Globally, Regulate Slowly

Today there are hundreds bisphenol A studies, with a growing body of evidence showing connections between low-dose exposure to the chemical and harm, especially during perinatal development. Some of the reported effects of BPA are so commonly known that recent headlines for Asian, Indian and UK papers reported on Canada's new ban: "Canada to Ban 'Gender-Bend' Baby Bottles".

But chemistry and plastics companies keep up the relentless marketing. They've been aggressive for years, for instance here's the American Plastics Council in 1999, (APC, now part of the American Chemical Council (ACC)) ordering:

"Consumer Reports has committed a serious error alleging dangers from the use of polycarbonate plastic baby bottles, based on an apparent lack of understanding of toxicology or safety and risk assessment. Because of the misleading and needlessly frightening statements made in the Consumer Reports article, the American Plastics Council has requested that the publication issue an immediate retraction."

In addition to orders, press releases, letters to editors, and scientific studies, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) owned a corral of internet domains where they posted reassuring consumer information on topics like the safety of plastic baby bottles. Sites such as the ACC's www.babybottle.org assured parents via scripted Q&A's like "Ask the Doctor", that plastic bottles were the absolutely safe. Explicit notice about the site's ACC affiliation was missing, as such, the messages were pretty convincing.

Just last week the Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group issued a press release saying they'd just reviewed the weight of the BPA evidence. The research, from Gradient Corporation in Massachusetts, and a convened panel on the matter, found BPA harmless. The same scientists sat on this panel that sat on preceding panels -- in 2004 at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, and in 2006 by the Gradient Corporation. They reached the same conclusion every year, despite the flood of recent research on BPA. Two more studies indicating derogatory effects on fetal neural development were included in the October issue of Environmental Research in its feature "A Plastic World".

The lead panel member and author of the Gradient paper is Dr. Lorenz Rhomberg. Acronym Required last caught up with Rhomberg when he was working for the American Plastics Council (APC) writing letters to editors of California papers. Our 2006 post covered the failure of California legislators to get AB 319 through appropriations. AB 319 would have banned phthalates and bisphenol A in the state, but got killed following the intense lobbying by the ACC and American Plastics Council (APC). California came back with a different version later, and Rhomberg now works for a private research lab in Boston.

Does the ACC own the FDA on BPA?

Recently the public has increased their response and even outrage over the extent of the deceptions by chemical companies and their lobbies. Congress has beefed up its scrutiny of the BPA regulation, and scientists continue to spend time and money responding to the flood of industry research. The current focus is how much the chemical industry seems to influence the FDA. The FDA issued a decision in August, 2008 saying basically that BPA was safe, weighing its decision on two industry studies. The FDA's decision conflicted with statements of concern from other agencies and scientists.

We previously wrote about the investigation of the FDA's actions by the U.S. House of Representatives and Committee on Energy and Commerce, chaired by John D. Dingell (D-MI), and its Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. On October 15th, the Committee wrote to a letter to FDA Commissioner von Eschenbach, questioning the appointment of the FDA BPA advisory panel chair Martin Philbert and concerning his possible conflicts of interest. Philbert's panel was to review the April, 2008 decision of the FDA which deemed BPA safe.

In that same letter the Representative Dingell requested "all records of communication between the FDA and ICF Consulting relating to their BPA work for the agency." As Dingell and Bart Stupak (D - MI) wrote:

"summary assessments of BPA were created for FDA's BPA panel by ICF Consulting, a private contractor that has done prior work for BPA manufacturers, and whose board members have ties to BPA manufacturers."

Acronym Required found supporting documents for the FDA draft here on the FDA site. Among them you can find the ICF consulting product as well as the neurobehavioural review contracted by ACC to the company Exponent¹, along with various other reviews and communications about BPA research.

Markey To FDA: Are Americans Not Worthy Of Canada's Standards?

In other action from the legislature, Congressman Ed Markey wrote a letter to the FDA Thursday asking if the FDA analyzed the same studies that the Canadian government's did, and if so why it hadn't decided differently on BPA than its North American neighbor?²

"Does the FDA consider a different level of risk acceptable for American consumers including infants, than the Canadian government is willing to accept for its consumers? If so what is the difference in risk assumption and why is the difference appropriate?"

Markey wrote that he was concerned that Americans, "including our most vulnerable infant populations", were being exposed to unsafe doses of bisphenol A. Senator Grassley (R-IA) also asked the BPA to answer questions about the criteria it used for its decision.

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² Acronym Required wrote on the different economic and political climates of the two countries and their BPA policies in "The Politics of Everyday Bisphenol A".

Hundreds of Men

The background story of almost every Nobel Prize awarded includes the biographies of one or more people who did lots of research but didn't get the prize. The New York Times published an article today about Douglas Prasher, who first cloned and sequenced Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP).

Prasher didn't share the Nobel Prize awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, Roger Y. Tsien, who all worked to make GFP into the versatile tag that scientists use to visualize the inner workings of live cells and organisms. The GFP Chemistry Nobel Prize is like some but not all of the Nobel Prize awards, in that hundreds of people from many science disciplines developed GFP to its current state of usefulness. The committee could only choose three winners.

The history of GFP research in the past 50 years traces the history of biology itself over the last half a century. In 1961, Osamu Shimomura discovered the protein while purifying and characterizing aequorin. Shimomura came to the US from Japan, when as a teenager, he was only 12 kilometers from the Nagasaki bomb explosion. After piecing together his education and life, he worked in a lab in Japan isolating and characterizing another protein, thereby earning his Ph.D. Shimomura was recruited to Princeton by Frank Johnson, co-author of the 1962 paper that first mentioned GFP. ¹ Their paper gave a nod to the history of bioluminescence research to that point:

"In experiments that have become classic in bioluminescence, Dubois (1885, 1887), first prepared from a luminous elaterid, Pyrophorus, and a luminous clam, Pholas, respectively, crude extracts containing a substrate, luciferin, and an enzyme, luciferase, which luminesced on mixing in aqueous solution containing dissolved oxygen."

The 1962 paper gives the reader a view into some of the techniques used by cell biologists and biochemists at that time as well as insight into the fortitude of the researchers. It's perspective that's useful to understanding how science works, on many levels.

Thousands and Thousands of Jellyfish

People like to recount how Shimomura collected tens or hundreds of thousands (the accounts vary) of the Aequoria jellyfish used to conduct his GFP and aequorin experiments. Non-scientists might be able to imagine collecting tens of thousands of jellyfish. But that's only the start. Most people probably can't fathom what its like to try and figure out how to extract of luminescent parts of the jellyfish "squeezate" without destroying them, how to determine a method for purifying a protein via repeated chromatography, or how to deduce under what chemical conditions a protein glows and at what wavelength, information that makes a protein useful, etc.

In 1962, the GFP protein, not the focus of Shimomura's study, was a bit of a mystery. Scientists didn't know exactly how it accomplished its glowing or interacted with aequorin that was the focus of his study. Here it is mentioned in by the authors in footnote number three:

"A protein giving solutions that look slightly greenish in sunlight though only yellowish under tungsten lights, and exhibiting a very bright,. greenish fluorescence in the ultraviolet of a a Mineralite, has also been isolated from squeezates. No indications of a luminescent reaction of this substance could be detected."

In later work Shimomura et al went on to determine the emission spectrum of GFP and figured out that the protein absorbs light in the blue spectrum emitted in Aequorea victoria by the calcium activated aequorin, then emits its fluorescent green light. Over the next few decades others advanced the work as Tsien wrote in review paper of the GFP in 1999:²

"Morin & Hastings found the same color shift in the related coelenterates...and were the first to suggest radiationless energy transfer as the mechanism for exciting coelenterate GFPs in vivo. Morise et al purified and crystallized GFP, measured its absorbance spectrum and fluorescence quantum yield, and showed that aequorin could efficiently transfer its luminescence energy to GFP when the two were coadsorbed onto a cationic support. Prendergast & Mann obtained the first clear estimate for the monomer molecular weight. Shimomura proteolyzed denatured GFP, analyzed the peptide that retained visible absorbance, and correctly proposed that the chromophore is a 4-(p-hydroxybenzylidene)imidazolidin-5-one attached to the peptide backbone through the 1- and 2-positions of the ring...The crucial breakthroughs came with the cloning of the gene by Prasher et al and the demonstrations by Chalfie et al and Inouye & Tsuji that expression of the gene in other organisms creates fluorescence."

Traditions of credit-giving vary widely across labs, but in general the inclination to list co-authors runs the opposite of the instinct of the Academy Award winners to give thanks to their extended families. Behind each of these papers was a team of scientists, advisors, and support who went unmentioned.

Rainbows of Fluorescent Proteins

Prasher's contribution defined GFP research. Sequencing in the late 1980's was laborious, much more so than it is today. Prasher spent years accomplishing his research, but then didn't get the funding to take the work forward from there. As Tsien and Chalkie acknowledged, their work depended on his. Prasher passed his results on to Chalfie and Tsien and moved to another lab. In the light of the Nobel prize, Prasher's seems like a stark tale when written up by the New York Times or by relayed NPR. An incredible amount of time, years, decades in some cases, could be spent doing one thing, than poof, it doesn't work out or research moves on.

Like all progress, science moves in fits and starts -- fits and starts of research progress, of funding, and of luck, layered with varying dispositions of the people who read the grants, support the researchers, and whose labs the funding ends up in. It has its share of unrewarded contributors. Prasher generously told the New York Times"They worked their butts off over their entire lives for science, and I haven't."

The Chalfie lab constructed GFP to be used as a reporter protein in C. elegans, a transparent roundworm used as a model organism for research. C. elegans were put to use as a model organism in 1974, long after the discovery of GFP. Because the worms are transparent, Chalfie saw the potential to use GFP, and to use it in place of other reporters like beta-lactamase which was used extensively at the time. Chalfie first noted his positive result in the October 1993 edition of the Worm Breeder's Gazette and went on to publish the research in Science.

In his 1998 review of GFP protein Tsien wrote:

"Unfortunately, Aequorea GFP genes are the only GFP genes that have been cloned... Painstaking research like that undertaken by the pioneers of Aequorea and Renilla GFP would be needed before cloning efforts could begin. It is unclear whether any investigators or granting agencies are still patient enough to undertake and fund such long-term groundwork."

Rewarding, But Only One Award

Many of the early scientists who worked on GFP could have never foreseen its current utility. GFP was became important as technology changed the nature of science research, as the questions that scientists asked changed over time, and as successive bench developments proved the protein's potential.

Tsien's lab wrote another review of the protein in 2002, and by that time at least 30 other fluorescent proteins had been cloned and sequenced. High throughput methods of sequencing and cloning accelerated work and allowed faster identification than in Prasher's day, or that anyone could have fathomed 40 years ago. Early researchers couldn't have imagined what an impact GFP would have on developmental and cellular biology. In 2005 Tsien wrote another review advising researchers how to choose the most appropriate fluorescent proteins among all that were available. Uses for the protein are now only limited, as Martin Chalfie put it, by scientists imaginations of what they want to do.

----------------------------------------------------

¹Osamu Shimomura, Frank Johnson, and Yo Saiga."Extraction, Purification and Properties of Aequorin, a Bioluminescent Protein from the Luminous Hydromedusan, Aequorea'", Journal of Cellular and Comparative Physiology October, 1962

² Tsien, R. "Green Fluorescent Protein" Annual Review of Biochemistry Vol. 67: 509-544 July 1998.

³ Tsien, R. "A guide to choosing fluorescent proteins Nature Methods" 906 Vol. 2 No. 12, 905 - 909 (2005)

Charles Gelman, retired from Gelman Sciences, now donates his wealth through the Gelman Educational Foundation. Gelman is a vocal critic of chemical regulation and supporter of free-market organizations that fight regulation. The foundation gave a 5 million dollar gift to the University of Michigan School of Public Health Risk Science and Communication Center, which Gelman has called his "legacy". That center is directed by the head of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) panel which will review the safety of bisphenol A (BPA). Will the decision of the FDA committee be compromised?

Canada just announced its plan to place BPA on its toxic or hazardous chemical list, which will give the government unprecedented authority to ban the sale of bisphenol A containing polycarbonate baby bottles and to demand bisphenol-A-free packaging from baby formula makers.

The US lags behind Canada in the regulation of bisphenol A for a number of reasons, like the different politics and economics of BPA in each country; therefore the US moves ahead on regulating BPA more slowly, in a sort of two step forward, one step back pattern.

Last week, the Attorneys General from Connecticut, Delaware, and New Jersey asked 11 manufacturers of baby bottles and infant formula to stop using bisphenol A. Yet the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) steadfastly maintains that Bisphenol A poses little risk for humans. The agency contends that the estrogen related chemical is not dangerous in the doses the FDA predicts people will ingest, despite research showing otherwise.

In the FDA's last review, issued last April, the agency used industry sponsored studies to make its decision. People tend to jump to conclusions about the validity of industry data, using a study's funding source as a proxy for trustworthiness rather than examining the data. But their correct to be concerned about industry research in the case of BPA because hundreds of government and university studies show very different, more alarming results.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee plans to interview FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach to question him about the agency's procedure for rating the safety of BPA. While the first FDA results are under congressional investigation, a second committee chaired by Martin Philbert was also set up to review the first FDA decision.

Last week, in the continuing saga of bisphenol A policy, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that the University of Michigan center that Martin Philbert heads received a $5 million dollar gift coincident to his appointment to the FDA BPA review committee. (The FDA would not be the first government agency to have a conflict of interest on BPA, recently an NIH subcommittee studying BPA was also found to have controversial links to industry.)

The donation was given to the University of Michigan's School of Public Health (SPH) Center for Risk Science and Communication by Charles Gelman, a retired manufacturer with strong views on regulation and chemical safety. The Sentinel reports that Gelman told them in an interview that bisphenol A was perfectly safe, despite the opinions of - in his words - "mothers' groups and others who don't know the science." According to the Sentinel's report, Gelman passed his opinions about bisphenol A on to Philbert, who claims to have refused to discuss the issue with his benefactor. Philbert's conflict of interest statement for the FDA did not list the donation.

Industry Secret: Can't Beat the Law? Make The Law.

Acronym Required dug around a little more. Charles Gelman is a well known figure in Michigan. He made his fortune founding and running Gelman Sciences, a maker of plastic filtration devices. For several decades the company polluted groundwater and aquifers in Michigan with 1,4-dioxane, (PDF!) listed in California as a known cancer causing chemical. The pollution was discovered in wells near the plant in the mid-eighties and the state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) rated the Gelman Sciences site the second worst industrial waste site in the state. The DNR then took regulatory steps to ensure that the company cleaned up the waste. In response, Charles Gelman launched an offensive that included everything from suing one of its main customers, Dow Chemical for 'falsely advertising' that it stewarded its chemicals "cradle to grave" (dismissed in court); to staging a boisterous parade through town with local business leaders when the DNR was scheduled to meet.

While settling homeowners lawsuits against the company, Gelman Sciences staged an epic fight with the state documented extensively by the local media. The company commissioned its own $50,000 study from the University of Michigan to show that other commercial products also contained the chemical. Gelman Sciences installed their own copier at the DNR while it tried to dredge up evidence against the state. The company also ran smear campaigns against people and non-profits involved with any actions against the company. Several years into the battle, the company had spent more on lawsuits against the state than it would if it had cleaned up its pollution, according to a September, 1991 article in Corporate Detroit (Waldsmith, L.,The revenge of Charles Gelman.; Gelman Sciences' legal battle with the Department of Natural Resources).

Then Gelman began pouring efforts into public policy, as he told the Corporate Detroit reporter:

"One thing I've learned is that business has some responsibility to participate in drafting legislation and being active in the legislative process, rather than paying no attention to it at all. That's the way bad laws are written."

Charles Gelman has stuck to his belief that he was wrongly accused, in his experience with the state set a course for his future actions. In 1994 while criticizing the state's lack of science knowledge, Charles Gelman told a state hearing on natural resources that 1,4-dioxane is not harmful, and no scientific evidence proved it was. When Charles Gelman's Foundation gave the $5 million dollar gift to the university last summer, Gelman noted that his gift was driven by his experience with the state on 1,4-dioxane.

I have Five Million Dollars. Would you Like some Job Security?

In gifting his millions to the university center, according to announcements the University published, Gelman noted that chemicals are complicated, and "our vision is to help inform industry, government and the public about how to properly assess the benefits and hazards posed by technology (and chemicals in particular) in our society." His wife Rita added that they were particularly interested in assessing the risks versus benefits of chemicals.

The gift establishes an endowed professorship for the UMRSC Director (Philbert is now the acting director), and will pay for two new faculty, scholarship support for students, and the Risk Science Master's in Public Health curriculum.

The gift from Gelman Education Foundation to the Risk Center certainly wasn't an out of the blue. The U. Michigan risk center was originally established with a $2.9 million dollar grant from the Gelmans, which David Garabrant, the director at the time called, "the foundation upon which the center will be built". The Gelmans also make frequent smaller (hundred thousand dollar) donations. According to Gelman, the center is his "important legacy", something that "will make a difference" as the Gelmans noted when they gave the initial 2.9 million dollar grant.

It would be a quandary. If you were a professor, in times when grants are tight, and someone offered to give you that amount of money what would you do? Perhaps you'd open the center too, while promising as they do on your home page that your work "adheres to the highest standards of academic and professional integrity", and secure your employment security. Would the money change your politics? Even a little? One can suspect that a five million dollar donation might sway a recipient, but there's no real proof. Furthermore, it's not clear what sort of FDA opinion the $5 million dollars to the center could buy. But wary caution or distrust seems warranted in this case.

Spreading the Wealth Around

Gelman's education foundation gives hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly to various religious, education, medical and political organizations. Aside from the Risk Center, his science and political donations are a nominal slice of the pie, a thousand dollars here or there which amounts to a nod to a cause or ideology. But do these donations portend an agenda that belies a neutral mission for the Risk Center? Gelman's only political donations are predictable neoconservative organizations dedicated to free-market proliferation and opposed to regulation. These are the organizations listed on the Gelman Foundation's 2007 990:¹

• The CATO institute
• The Competitive Enterprise Institute
• CFACT
• The Heartland Institute
• George Mason's Tyler Cowen, who runs the Mercatus Foundation, the Center for Public Choice, and the James Buchanon Center for Political Economy.
• The Mackinaw Center for Public Policy
• The Manhattan Institute for Public Policy
• Reason Foundation
• American Counsel on Science and Health
• The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) (Fred Singer's Global Warming Skeptism organization)
• Capital Research Center
• The Independent Institute

Incidentally, FDAreview.org is also a project of the Independent Institute. FDAreview.org advocates that "FDA control over drugs and devices has large and overlooked cost that almost certainly exceed the benefits." FDAreview.org "favors adult freedom and hence the repeal of all forms of premarket approval."

Gelman is clear about his mission to fund the Risk Science and Communication and as he says, to provide the Risk Center with contacts that will help its mission. When Gelman gave the originating grant to the center he referred to Gelman Science's protracted fight with the state's Department of Natural Resources "a case in public confusion", which would have benefited from the center's 'neutral' science.

But is an organization really "neutral" towards public policy if one person with a very clear agenda establishes it, funds the director, the professors, the students and the post-docs, and provides the contacts to help define the mission? If you're a professor doing science and didn't share Gelman's strong ideological stance, could you endure the pressure? Would Gelman endow with his legacy an organization that didn't share his views? What say does the founding funder have in the backgrounds of the professors whom he funds?

Congress is asking whether this donation will sway the the FDA's bisphenol A committee chair. Members of the Energy and Commerce committee plan to investigate the donation, and House Appropriations agriculture subcommittee members are calling on Philbert to recuse himself from the committee. If Philbert remains on the FDA committee, and then goes on to OK BPA, can that decision be trusted by US citizens? Can the University of Michigan's School of Public Health Risk Science and Communication be trusted?

¹ Acronym Required has previously written about a number of these organizations and you can find more information at Sourcewatch, ExxonSecrets.org and other websites.

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Acronym Required has written numerous articles on BPA, starting with the 2005 article "Plastic Bottles: Protecting Your Baby, by the ACC"

The The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. Montagnier is the director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention in Paris. Barre-Sinoussi works in the virology department at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. The two scientists split the prize with Dr. Harald zur Hausen of the University of Dusseldorf who discovered the viruses that cause genital warts and cervical cancer.

The Nobel Prize committee commended the French scientists for their work identifying the virus that caused AIDS, work that established the foundation for further scientific characterization of HIV. In the 1980's Montangier and Barre-Sinoussi isolated and cultured cells from the lymph nodes of patients suspected to be infected with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). In lab experiments they found the enzyme retroviral enzyme reverse transcriptase, which indicated the presence of a retrovirus in the lymph nodes. They then infected lymphocytes from donors with their retrovirus and found that the virus killed healthy lymphocytes which helped show that this virus was the infectious agent responsible for changing the immune response in the body and causing AIDS.

The discovery of the HIV virus was contentious, with US scientist Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier each saying that they were first to discover the virus. Some early news media reports on the discovery in the 1980's said that the French team discovered the virus, while others indicated it was Gallo who first identified the virus. The French and US teams published papers in 1983 and 1984, and each filed patent claims for their discovery. It got a little heated with both teams vying not only for recognition but for the profits associated with the development of the test for HIV. New Scientist called the long running dispute "the tackiest sagas in the history of medicine..." (albeit with a lot at stake)

The two governments led by President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Jacques Chirac finally agreed to let both teams share recognition for the discovery. You can get a sense of how sharing worked for them in an article published in Scientific American in 1988 (when the magazine actually published full length articles). Gallo and Montagnier wrote the article, describing the scientific unraveling of the AIDS mystery at length and punctuating the interesting account with "clarifiers": "one of us ([Gallo or Montagnier])" or "the other of us [(insert name)]. Gallo later acknowledged that the strain of the HIV virus the French isolated had contaminated his lab's work. On yesterday's announcement of the Nobel Prize both teams cordially commended the other for the work each did.

The Nobel Foundation will announce more prizes this week and next. The physics prize was awarded today to three physicists from Japan and the US for their discovery of nature's broken symmetry. The announcement for the prize in Chemistry will be tomorrow. Literature and Peace will follow this week, with the Economics prize awarded next Monday.

It's Not a Fish Story

Once at social event I was introduced to a couple sitting nearby, and after a brief exchange of greetings, one began to pepper me with questions. His first question was about fish, simply: "Why do scientists study fish?" Followed without pause by: "What could you possibly learn?" Nothing I've ever done has anything to do with fish, and everything I've done is only even remotely related to his subject, so it all seemed a bit out of the blue at the time -- even weirder now -- "Hello, nice to meet you why do they study fish?" Who's "they"? What fish? Where and how do you start with that? Gently.

Was it a specific fish study? As you the reader know, there's a lot of "fish" research; for aquaculture for instance- a growing industry that produces farmed fish for consumer products and agriculture. Scientists also study reproduction and development in wild salmon or sharks or trout or striped bass, they do migration studies, studies of predators, studies on the impact of non-native fish, the impacts of fishing, recreation, pollution, and global warming on inventories. Scientists study nutritional values of fish and fish oil for human and animal consumption. Researchers study mercury levels in fish. They study shellfish and crustaceans. Did my acquaintance mean fish in oceans, or in rivers, estuaries, or lakes? Perhaps he meant zebrafish used as a model to study neurobiology, physiology, the cellular and molecular basis of disease?

But it turns out his question wasn't about fish, per se, more just research in general, which he'd recently taken special interest in...something to do with investigating wasteful research spending for the government. After a cocktail or so, he thought I might be the source of a little information to help him with his new project.

Although he was clearly predisposed to a certain answer -- research having to do with fish is wasteful -- he wasn't hostile, just baffled. He had no way of connecting "fish research" to anything meaningful in his life and was bent on doing his patriotic best to route out fraud.

With further conversation it became clear that he was repeating a line that was told to him as an example of government excess. He had clearly absorbed someone's mission and its easy target, wasteful spending in science. If you blank out of your mind everything you know about science and research, you too could be convinced to think this way. ¹

It's Not About the Fish

The food we eat is supported by research, as is the water we drink, the air we breath, our medicine, the materials we build are houses with, the lawns we grow, and the toys we buy our children. Our lives are supported by science research. But while research is applauded when the result is a new iPod, people for some reason get skittish about other science research and its results, from genetically modified anything to global warming science.

In the past decade there's been great attention paid to science as a political target, especially during the last Bush administration. Analyzing the reason why this is so, some people even blamed the scientists themselves for their communication styles, their personalities, or the size of the words they use. While these things may contribute to lack of understanding, as I've written here before, I think there are more essential problems, for instance the paltry attention paid to science education.

The lack of understanding and interest isn't unique to science, it permeates our culture and influences conversations about economics, math, finance, history, and medicine. The ignorance is reflected in the priorities of our politics. So perhaps more fundamental to even-handed science policy than communication and education, is reconsideration of legislator's motivators and campaign finance.

But even small changes would improve things. Congress certainly doesn't need a greater percentage of scientists to balance science interests, as some have suggested, nor do more voters need to be scientists to think analytically. Not everyone needs to know the nitty-gritty details of polar ice research. But you'd hope they'd recognize the importance of the research in order to recognize talking points from balancing the pros and cons of an issue.

If they did, some could shut down politicians who talked science nonsense, Or at least tell them their jokes aren't so funny. Because as it turns out science is sometimes a target not because of lack of education or understanding, or communication, or scientists have a penchant for four syllable words. It just because it makes a good joke.

Furthermore, Don't Call Me Four Eyes..."Friend"

Take John McCain's repetitive joke about "pork spending", where he uses the example of the study on endangered grizzly bears in Montana. Since at least 2003 McCain has been using this one study to make a point about of excessive spending. He guffaws that he doesn't know whether it's a "paternal" issue or a "criminal" one. "Gotta get their DNA", he chuckles, riling up the crowd. Ad he gets a good response -- part indignant, part laughter, all approval. "Corrupt, my friends", he yells. "Corruption, my friends!" he yells louder.

In the past, so many people have pointed out the flaws of his joke that it immediately shows up on all those post-debate "fact-check" blogs. The "Religionblog" at the Dallas News, for instance, griped "the loser was the truth." Introducing their own assumptions and bias along with "the facts", they wrote:

"In fact, that study is part of a push by Montana ranchers and farmers (most of them Republicans) to have the grizzly bear removed from the endangered species list. If successful, that effort could lead to increased logging and oil and gas drilling in Montana, which would cover the government's costs for the DNA study many hundreds of times over."

So the good news is, that as grating it may be to hear McCain distorting science information one more time, wide swaths of the population do get the facts right. So then why is McCain still grinding away with the same joke? Despite how many times reporters tell him, over and over that it's both flawed and not funny, I guess McCain still gets a ha-ha from the audience -- so he continues.

It's akin to offering up your wife at the Buffalo Chip "beauty contest" during the biker convention. If it gets a laugh and is a crowd-pleaser, who cares? If women take offense or call you sexist, just scoff that they just don't know how to have a little fun...Vroom, Vroom!

Deoxyribonucleic Acid Tactics

There are several components to the bear DNA joke that apparently make it funny and effective for McCain. There's his insertion of a paternity or crime part, which confuses (on purpose?) the research with forensic science as seen on TV. If you think about it, his distortion of the this particular research also connects the research on bear populations with images of crime scenes and children of unknown fathers that are favorite Republican campaign devices.

There's also his utter denial of the value of the research, no mention of the Endangered Species act, and the sort of down home, "don't know much about bi-ol-o-gy" slap-on-the-back camaraderie in his joke. The actual Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project succeeded. The goal was to obtain an accurate count of the bears in one of the Endangered Species grizzly areas, which the scientists achieved. The results were widely publicized, and will be published more formally as a research study in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management.

Oceans of Pork? Maybe it is About Fish

Congress waxes on about earmarks because people like to hear about "cutting out the pork". The real issue says McCain, is that these appropriations use resources from the central bill and shouldn't be tacked on. Despite his angry fist thumping however, McCain voted in favor of the bill that included the bear population study appropriation. The bill's sponsor, former Sen. Conrad Burn, chairs McCain's campaign in Montana.

The White House Bulletin wrote August 11, 1997, "Mr. McCain has waged a lonely, battle against pork before. And in almost every case, he loses". But actually in every case he wins. He doesn't need to vote against anything, he just needs to sound tough. Basic research scientists generally don't make large campaign contributions, so its not surprising that individual research projects might be picked out by our representatives for public pillory. Basic science is not the farm lobby, the auto industry, the oil industry. It doesn't cost much political capital to score some points with voters on the back of a scientist or two. ³

And so the politicians continue to use science projects as examples of pork.² Tom Coburn M.D. (R-OK) recently complained about a Homeland Security bill. Citing the Citizens Against Government, he said there were "11,620 earmarks worth $17.2 billion for all 12 appropriations bills in 2008." But out of thousands of earmarks Coburn spoke of, he pointed out just a few for special focus, and those were disproportionately science studies.

He cited (in his words) a "Hibernation Genomics" study, and a "space technology" education center. He plucked quotes from the grants to amuse the readers and added short explanations. With no elaboration whatsoever, I guess because its so funny without explanation, he wrote these words in his list of studies "Pseudofoliculitis Barbae (PFB) Topical Treatment". Frankly, I don't know whether these are good projects or not, but they apparently have great political value for Senator Coburn.

The media piles on too. In countering McCain's grizzly bear DNA routine a few months ago, Politico wrote that "Palin requested millions of federal dollars" for the State of Alaska everything from improving recreational halibut fishing to studying the mating habits of crabs and the DNA of harbor seals." Politico chose a few egregious Palin examples from the Alaska's 30 item summary of appropriation requests, and the three they listed as absurd expenditures were all (coincidentally?) marine biology projects.

After perusing the state of Alaska's appropriations, Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish was also offended by GOP contender's hypocrisy -- indicating that all McCain's ranting about pork and bragging about Palin's record was a sham. Sullivan called John McCain's bear DNA joke an "endlessly repeated, grandpa-at-Thanksgiving, punchline provided, anecdote". But while he could apparently see the purpose of bear DNA, he commented derisively on one of Alaska's appropriations: "The DNA of seals?"

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¹ I never found out exactly what he was doing for whom or what the overall intent was, though I asked.

² Similarly his talk about "ethics and transparency" despite what many have pointed out to be dubious dealing and practices through the Reform Institute that he founded.

³ I'm know some research is pork.

It's the Economy and the Election...

When US citizens wake up each morning wondering what they might have lost from their retirement accounts overnight, and what they inadvertently gained: i.e., one morning you learn you're part owner of a gargantuan mortgage business, the next you find yourself lassoed into a giant insurance collective -- no one knows what's next. Will there be a knock on your door tomorrow AM and someone waiting to press a hoe into your hand?

When congress says they're reeling, they're "stunned" from the news delivered by the Fed at their big powwow last night, and when the press is overwhelmed with the ups and downs of an off-the-charts financial crisis and the back and forth poll numbers for McCain and Obama, we completely understand that you can't give science your usual riveted attention. With the Fed sucking up all these great liabilities and throwing the whole the "government needs to get out of the way of business" idea out the window -- or did we just all misunderstand what that really meant -- we agree that reading up on monetary policy and investigating your own sense of what "full-scale panic" means might be your highest concern.

Sure the future of permafrost is interesting, cell culture research and science curriculum really important, and yes, these things should definitely claim our attention and that of all four candidates. But I'm distracted wondering why GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin canceled more appearances in the last few days than the number of heavyweights the Republicans have pulled in to play defense in Troopergate. Palin's appearances have been canceled in Seattle & the Eastside, Virginia Beach, Dayton, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Tampa and Central Florida, Virginia Beach, Cincinatti, Jackson Hole, and all of California, as well as other places. Did McCain shoo her off-stage with Fiorina to be seldom seen and not heard? Is she cramming for a American Politics 101 final? Dental work? Did she she see a Russian tanker trawling the water out her dining room window? Nervous breakdown? Sure the also "hot" Cindy McCain will replace Palin at some events, but there's got to be some disappointed Palin admirers.

Anyway, we tear ourselves away from those massive shim-sham distractions (for the moment), in order to glance at some recent science-ish news.

Some Science Headlines

• Thousands Tens of thousands of babies are sick and several have died from Chinese baby formula contaminated with melamine that compromises kidney function. This is the same chemical that was found in pet food imported from China to the U.S. last year. Officials in Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangladesh Yemen, Gabon, Burundi and Myanmar express concern that the tainted products might be available to consumers their countries also.

  Melamine has also be found in milk, yogurt and ice cream in China and Hong Kong. In 2007 the FDA found that US manufacturers of animal feed had also adulterated their product with melamine.

  Earlier this year, contamination of US supplies of heparin led the FDA to investigate and find myriad problems in the oversight process of the imported product. The agency discovered quality control issues, ranging from agency confusion about the real name of a Chinese plant that went un-inspected; to the crude processing methods of the pigs intestine in family-style workshops". Experts admonished drug makers (after the fact) that the shortage of pigs in China due to blue-ear disease should have served as a red flag to the possibility of spiked heparin.

  Heads will certainly roll (figuratively if not literally) in China over the milk scandal, but an overall plan about how to prevent the next batch of fatalities has yet to emerge. In this instance, neither US and Canadian health agencies have found melamine contamination in their milk products.

• In other news, the FDA has banned 31 drugs manufactured for export to the US by the Indian company Ranbaxy, based on an inspection of the company's Dewas plant that revealed cracked equipment, unsterilized and unclean preparation areas, inadequate procedure specification, and sporadic documentation of testing and cleaning.

  Yesterday, in response, Ranbaxy announced that it had hired Rudy Giuliani, last seen speaking on behalf of McCain at the GOP convention, to help lobby the US agency.

• Also: Environmentalists cheered last year when Florida penned an agreement to buy land in the Everglades from the sugar industry. Interestingly, some of those who pressed hardest for the move were free-market conservatives and groups such as the Cato Institute. Sugar subsidies were instituted back in the 1930's, but the industry has since shrunk, and been monopolized by a few firms whose prices were kept artificially high with the subsidies, crowding out foreign competitors. The Fanjuls, an entrepreneuring family originally from Cuba, own one of two Florida companies that control most of the sugar consumed in the US. Last Sunday the New York Times ran a great article about the buyout, digging deeper into some of the issues complicating the deal, and questioning whether the company actually arranged for their land to be lucratively bought out by the state when its business began to suffer in the downturn.

• In infectious disease news: The CDC estimates that 90,000 people die in the US each year from institution acquired infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Science reports this week that the "perfect storm" of antibiotic resistance and diminished reserves of medicines portends trouble The situation not only demands new drugs, according to Science, it requires new drug targets.

  The journal summarizes two recent studies that work in this direction. In the first, a group of scientists created a class of synthetic antibacterials effective against staphylococci including methicillin and multi-drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus.(D. J. Haydon et al., Science 321, 1673 (2008)) The chemicals target specific proteins responsible for cell division. The August 22nd issue of Sciencecontained a report from another group who found a molecule that inhibits the gene which causes virulence and is turned on when certain conditions occur as the host responds to the infection. (D. A. Rasko et al., Science 321, 1078 (2008))

  On the prevention side of things, researchers at the University of Illinois found that tetracycline resistance genes can most likely be transferred from animal to animal in large hog containment areas into groundwater that feeds the public water supply. This could be one way that antibiotics used in feed to prevent infection and promote growth are adding to the overall problem of antibiotic resistance.

  And to get a sense of how far our understanding about microbes and mechanisms of infection, read up on Stanley Falkow from Stanford University, who was one of five scientists honored with a Lasker prize for his work on microbes and aspects of antibiotic resistance.

• Iran has detained AIDS doctors Dr Kamiar Alaei and his brother Dr Arash Alaei since late June. (via Nature News) The two were known world-wide for working to prevent and treat the disease, and for tackling issues around HIV/AIDS in model ways, for a country which long denied that HIV/AIDS was anything but a "Western Disease". Their disappearance in late June has drawn global concern and calls from various physician groups for the Iranian President to answer questions about the whereabouts of the AIDS doctors. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled appearance at a UN meeting next week.

• In other news: Both McCain and Obama have now submitted answers to questions about their science policy gathered by ScienceDebate2008. Some of their statements have been published here at the LA Times also. Several other science groups have submitted a document for both campaigns that lays out strategy for the incoming president on science and technology policy. Obama has named five science advisers who would serve his administration.

• Now for some old news: Last May the Anchorage Daily News (ADN), Sarah Palin tried to obfuscate the contents of report written by state scientists that supported the federal scientists' decision of list polar bear as an endangered species. Palin wrote in an editorial in the New York Times January 5, 2008: "I strongly believe that adding them to the list is the wrong move at this time. My decision is based on a comprehensive review by state wildlife officials of scientific information from a broad range of climate, ice and polar bear experts." But the state's biologists agreed with the federal assessment. Palin is has also been criticized for her positions on global warming, oil and gas drilling, Exxon Valdez oil spill damages, and the Endangered Species Act. Why does this sound so familiar to me?

Oops, we've inadvertently gone full circle, escaping politics with science then allowing ourselves to get whooshed back into the politics. But why not wonder about Palin? There's no outro to this post. We wonder what science policy would really be like in a McCain government, or in an Obama government? More like China? More like India? More of the same? Same, same but "different"? Science and technology depends on politics and government. We may think we know what science and technology looks like in an "extreme" market economy, we've seen its penultimate apex during the Bush administration. ¹ But lets not forget that we didn't anticipate Bush's actions. Now's the time to think beyond the rhetoric. I'm not sure I buy what many people insist -- that the candidates will be very alike on science issues. Now's the time wonder why McCain chose Palin if their philosophy is so different. Now's the time to learn more about Obama's science advisers.²

Perhaps we can have some government involved before the next giant catastrophe...? Before the energy investment bubble, the imminent infectious disease outbreak, the next bunch products consumed by citizens because manufacturers successfully slipped drugs cut with toxic proteins past the FTC or the FDA, the next species goes endangered, the growing storm of global warming, or the EPA....does whatever they do? There aren't too many science problems that won't be directly influenced by the new administration's policies.

¹ The book Supercapitalism by Robert Reich was interesting.

²Though it's certainly nice to see he has any now.

Have you ever tried to read original research on the web only to be barred from access once you clicked beyond abstract to full text? Or been offered a chance to read the article, special patient privilege, for $40-$50 -- only it's not clear that the article would be useful anyway?

The NIH reasoned that their new policy allowed better communication of science research. The guidelines took into account the recent proliferation of data made possible by high throughput sequencing and drug development, as well as increased data storage capabilities. The NIH simply adapted its policies to the glut of information in the electronic age and the need for better public access to tax funded research.

Now, pressed by opponents to the NIH measure including the Association of American Publishers and the Association of American University Presses Congressman Conyers (D-MI) has introduced the "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act" (HR 6845), which would stop the NIH from requiring PubMed posting.

In defense of NIH policy, yesterday Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director of the NIH testified before Congress that the mandate increased access to research and encouraged increased impact of publicly funded scientific research without cannibalizing publishers profits. He noted that hundreds of thousands of users access papers every day, and that since Congress made the policy mandatory over 50% of NIH funded published papers are uploaded.

In turn, the American Physiological Society's (APS) Martin Frank, an opponent of open access who has tirelessly voiced his opposition to the NIH PubMed initiative, attacked the recently implemented NIH model. Frank said that his publishing company paid for peer review, publishing, and the "heavy lifting", and that PubMed access would "lead to subscription cancellations". As a result, he said that researchers of NIH policies, have "less freedom to choose where to publish". Without HR 6845, he said, researchers will need to resort to publishing in second choice journals, then in spiraling into hyperbolic rhetoric, he noted that researchers will be decimated by "authors fees" of these journals and will not be able to fund "treatments and cures for diseases".

Journal articles receive the highest readership immediately upon publication, after that readership drops-off significantly. Zerhouni and others testified that no library could cancel subscriptions since scientists depend on timely research which is not effected by the NIH's 12 month policy. The APS was arguing for control, Zerhouni said, by downplaying taxpayer investment and exaggerating their own contribution. He said that the publishers' appeals were not substantiated by arguments about economics or researcher well-being, rather the publishers wanted control.

APS head Frank managed to sidestep claims that scientists or NIH underwriters might have on their significant input to research while emphasizing only the publishers' contribution. He also noted that APP had already contracted with HighWire Press of Stanford which published many free articles. This too is a bit mysterious. If HighWire has that same 12 month policy, as it appears, than what about the NIH policy is really at issue? What does HighWire have to do with this?

The NIH narrowed an AIDS vaccine trial planned for U.S. testing. The trial, called Partnership for AIDS Vaccine Evaluation (PAVE 100) will be pared down to focus on the question of whether the vaccine lowers amount of HIV virus in the blood of those who are subsequently infected after vaccination. Scientists questioned the sense of moving forward with this larger trial last year in light of the failure of the multi-country Merck vaccine trials, as we commented in "New Directions for AIDS Research Funding".

In other AIDS research news,Weijing He and a team of colleagues in the US and UK found that a protein called DARC (Duffy antigen receptor for chemokines), that makes some African people resistant to malaria may influence HIV infections and AIDS outcomes. The small study published by Cell Host & Microbes shows that the existence of certain DARC mutations enables resistance to some malaria parasites -- though not Plasmodium falciparum, the most prevalent and deadly parasite.

The DARC mutation that prevents infection by some malaria parasites also seems to influence how successfully HIV invades and attacks the immune system. DARC codes a receptor on the surface of red blood cells that binds or tethers the HIV virus. The researchers found that a particular mutation of DARC increases the odds of acquiring HIV-1.

However the mutation also seems to increase the DARC protein's interactions with chemokines. Chemokines are proteins in the immune system that trigger inflammation, and they interact with HIV virus. Researchers have shown that the DARC protein acts by scavenging, retention, or transporting chemokines, and mutated DARC protein seems to lower levels of chemokines. In this study, once infected, people with the mutated DARC lived 2 years longer than those with the normal copy of the protein. While the study helps pave an outline of these interactions the authors predict (with understatement) that future research will show "the net effect of the relationship between DARC and chemokines on HIV disease in vivo is likely to be much more complex."

A Face that Sticks in Your Mind

Why is the crust of Mars up to 30 kilometers thinner on one half of the planet than the other, one side of the planet rugged terrain, the other plains? Twenty-five years ago a couple US scientists theorized that a collision had impacted the planet in a way that caused the dichotomy between the two hemispheres. However geological tools couldn't validate the theory, which also wasn't the only possible explanation.

Mars' mantle, like Earth's, shifts over time, and an alternate theory was that the 30km difference was due to upwards shift of the mantle. Overturn from magma ocean melting could have also produced the differences. Then some scientists thought that an impact of great magnitude would create different features from those found, or would simply obliterate all evidence.

Last week Nature (subscription) published studies by three research groups who used new modeling techniques to provide evidence for the collision theory. Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna, Maria T. Zuber, and Bruce Banerdt's team from MIT estimated that >4 billion years had passed since the Mars dichotomy formed, and that in the intervening time geological activity had obscured evidence from the original event. They programmed specific assumptions about gravity and terrain into their model to account for changes such as activity from Mars' Tharsis volcanic range.

The group then determined the original boundaries of the dichotomy, which happened to match their measurements of the elliptical area formed by the theorized impact. The huge elliptical area formed in the event is 10,600 by 8,500 kilometers (6,586 X 5,281 miles) covers about 20% of the planet and is bigger than than largest country on Earth -- Russia's width is ~5,000 miles. At about the same time as the Mars collision a similar event occurred on Earth which threw off the moon and lots of debris. It was a violent time in the solar system.

Margarita M. Marinova et al., from California Institute of Technology and University of California (UC), Santa Cruz, used modeling to determine the type of impact that would create the unique geology, The team calculated that an object 1,600-2,700 km wide hit the planet with about 3 X 10²⁹ Joules of energy. Scientists believe that the collision not only created a giant crater and changed the planet's crust, but that it was responsible for some of the other features of Mars. F. Nimmo and team, also from UC Santa Cruz, produced a third study to round out current understanding of the possible impact.

What's The Problem on the Water Front?

In other exciting Mars news, robots earlier in the month discovered what looked like it could be ice. Scientist programmed robots had taunted us for years, foraying around the planet then duly reporting back no signs of water. Last weekend the "NASA Phoenix Mars Lander" scooped up some of the icy soil for analysis. By vaporizing it in an oven analyzing the gases emitted, and by determining the minerals in the clumps of icy soil retrieved by the robot, scientists will try to ascertain what the substance is, whether it was at some time liquid, and how it formed. The lab tried to run this experiment a few weeks ago, but it went awry when the robot deposited the soil into the oven but the oven reported back that the soil wasn't there. Scientists were planning to process the soil sample differently or use a different oven in order to complete the analysis.

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For many years, the defense ministries in allied states like the US, Canada and the UK have denied that exposure to depleted uranium (DU) could produce negative health effects. Depleted uranium is a byproduct of uranium 238 (U238) enrichment, and contains a higher percentage of U235, a more fissile isotope that makes DU useful in the production of nuclear weapons and energy. This depleted byproduct is 1.7 times the density of lead, and because of its durability, has been used extensively by militaries for things like armor piercing projectiles and anti-tank weapons. During the Iraq and Balkans wars, when vehicles and weapons clashed together, dust from depleted uranium was released. Bullets made with the depleted uranium were scattered in battle, and shrapnel was strewn about and embedded in wounds. Depleted uranium ordnance now lays scattered throughout previous war zones where children play and civilians attempt to carry on their lives.

Civilians and other species are exposed to depleted uranium not only during war, but via dust in the air around weapons factories and in groundwater near firing test ranges like in Solway, Scotland, where scientists find worms that carry uranium isotopes. All of this exposure could prove toxic to animals and humans.

Depleted uranium is not as radioactive as U235 but it is suspected of causing various illnesses, from cancer, immune disorders like Gulf War Syndrome and even birth defects in offspring born of soldiers who inhale or ingest it. Research shows that in lab animals, depleted uranium is an immunotoxin, neurotoxin, and teratogen and carcinogen. Although the deteriorations in the health of some soldiers seems to show the the dangers of DU, there's limited government recognition of these dangers, from military, medical, and science establishments. Even in the face of accumulating evidence and significant public outcry about depleted uranium, militaries give mixed messages about DU safety. The US Department of Defense says:

• "The health effects of uranium have been studied extensively for over 50 years."
• "The Department of Defense has comprehensively studied the environmental fate of depleted uranium both before and after the Gulf War."
• "Fortunately, DU is only mildly radioactive emitting alpha and beta particles, and gamma rays.....The risk of chemical toxicity is also minimal because there is little likelihood that sufficient quantities of DU could be inhaled or ingested to cause a heavy metal concern."
• "Since the Gulf War, the DoD has dramatically stepped up its emphasis on increasing soldier and leader awareness of the hazards associated with the battlefield use of depleted uranium..." through training, handbooks and "support materials".
• "...there is no reason to believe that other exposed Service members have any elevated risk to their health due to their DU exposures."

Similarly, the Ministry of Defense (MOD) for the UK has repeatedly asserted minimal health effects from exposure to depleted uranium, but the MOD also gave warning cards to all UK servicemen deployed to Iraq stating possible health effects of DU. The Ministry of Defense suggests that it's reducing use of DU, noting cryptically of all the accounting of the depleted uranium used by the military: "In 2003, during the recent Iraq conflict, UK tanks expended 1.9 tonnes of DU ammunition and none has been fired since the official ending of the conflict." The MOD urged soldiers to get monitored for depleted uranium, but after testing the urine of returning servicemen the Ministry of Defense told papers in 2006 that "no evidence of DU was found in their urine". Critics question the sensitivity of their tests.

Clearly, the effects of depleted uranium are still disputed and perhaps not a problem, but new research suggests a potential solution. Scientists have discovered a fungus that will break down depleted uranium to a less toxic mineral, research sponsored in part by the Ministry of Defense, produced by scientists at the University of Dundee in Scotland and published in the recent issue of Current Biology. They describe how a plant symbiotic fungus can be grown on the surface of depleted uranium, where it will transform the depleted uranium into uranyl phosphate minerals, a more stable form of the metal that is less likely to be absorbed into plants, animals and water. The mycorrhizal fungi usually lives in the roots of plants, where it transforms carbon into nutrients that plants use. When colonizing uranium, moisture in the air helps the fungi cover the surface of the metal, where the fungi helps accelerate the corrosion process of the uranium into products that can be take up by the fungi or broken down to less toxic uranium holding minerals. The fungi could be used for various bioremediation projects in uranium polluted soils.

Charlie Rose concluded a thirteen part series on science earlier this week, with another interesting episode, "The Imperative of Science". Sharing his table were Paul Nurse, who shared the Nobel Prize of Physiology or Medicine in 2001 and is currently President of Rockefeller University; Bruce Alberts, a biochemist, author of texts like the definitive Molecular Biology of the Cell, former two time president of the National Academy of Sciences and Editor-in-chief of the journal Science; Lisa Randall, Harvard particle physicist and author; physicist Shirley Ann Jackson who is the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and Harold Varmus, who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, headed the NIH through a heady science period and is now the president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The focus was the importance of science and it naturally was an interesting, convivial, and lively, if general, discussion.

The group said that the US has become complacent about its long time position as a world leader in science. Increased global competition in science demands decisive action if the country is to maintain its status. The participants emphasized the need for better science education. Alberts brought up primary and secondary education, and they all discussed the importance of improving college curricula. They stressed that learning about the scientific process and experimentation should be made a central part of liberal arts education, and that all students, not just those who show great promise to be scientists, should learn and experiment at science.

Thinking scientifically is not only important to understanding science, these leaders pointed out, but to processing any complex problem. The goal is to resist "the dogma of talk radio" and to be an active participant in democracy. (They ran with the 'science is democracy' idea)

They all agreed when one scientist compared science to a frog sitting in the pot of water as the heat gets turned up. According to the allegory a frog that sits in cold water will stay and perish when the temperature is raised (by some demented frog torturer). When I heard this I applied the critical thinking and research skills that only scientific training can hone, and learned that the frog tale is an urban myth. The good news is that apparently frogs save themselves rather than fatally habituating to hot water -- though to be honest, mine is second hand information. Apart from urban myths, the urgency for science in America is real, as is the human tendency to disastrously ignore problems like global that creep up on us. It's not all about science.

The group discussed various ways to reinvigorate American science as was done with focus and enterprise after Sputnik. Perhaps a problem like global warming could rouse national science spirit, they said. (Coincidentally, Al Gore applied the same frog allegory to global warming in he movie "An Inconvenient Truth")

The scientists expressed nervous concern that our leaders be able to "connect the dots". A president needs to lead the nation to an understanding of science's central place in society and needs to focus attention on fundamentals like education and funding in order to assure both the nation's preeminence in science and increased public understanding of science. Politicians need to support science in a broad cross-disciplinary way, they said. The goal should not be to tackle a series of individual problems but to recognize the commonalities across disciplines and build a foundation upon which science progress thrives with long-term bipartisan support.

Rose asked whether there was enough interest in science among voters to warrant a presidential science debate, adding ""voters are there if you can get on the right side of it". The scientists expressed incredulity that there weren't already strong public science platforms, and supported a debate to reassure Democrat and Republican voters of candidates' commitments to national competitiveness via science.

Here's the link to watch/listen to the video its entirety.

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When Merck's AIDS vaccine candidate failed in clinical trials, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) called a summit. The drug candidate did not reduce HIV infections, in fact the adenovirus based vaccine seemed to increase the risk of infections.

The meeting of scientists on March 25th in Washington focussed on the future of HIV/AIDS research in light of the fallout of Merck vaccine trials. Scientists including Anthony Fauci, who heads the NIAID, agree that funding needs to be redirected towards a broader research agenda and ideas beyond drug development and vaccines. Science last week noted that the decision about whether to proceed with the large NIH clinical trial planned for its HIV vaccine is still pending. ("Review of Vaccine Failure Prompts a Return to Basics" DOI: 10.1126/science.320.5872.30)

Nature also reported on the summit last week, pointing out that these clinical AIDS trials went forward not necessarily based on the strength of the science -- one of the vaccine candidates had a unimpressive track record -- but because programs needed to "show the public that progress is being made, thereby justifying the millions of dollars from philanthropists and taxpayers". ("Broken Promises" doi:10.1038/452503a).

The Nature editorial offers analysis of this HIV-AIDS vaccine experience, noting that ambitious commitments made in a flush funding environment in the early part of this decade short-changed basic research. These choices to heavily fund drug development are regarded less forgivingly in light of the trial failures and the budget shortfalls of recent years, according to the journal. Nature warns other fields, for instance stem-cell research, autism, and Parkinson's disease, are repeating these same mistakes.

The business approach comes with a high stakes mentality and ample, vigorous marketing that can ratchet up expectations both within the organization, the field and the public arena. The business-oriented nature of many philanthropic organizations influences the focus on development and can distort public expectations. But investors can and do influence the direction of an entire field. When a field becomes dominated by a few foundations it can gather tremendous productive momentum, but it can also stampede so hard down a particular path with such strong momentum in a particular direction. If that direction proves to be less fruitful than hoped research cannot turn around on a dime.

Each high-funded disease has its own idiosyncratic pitfalls, but behind the good works and fine intentions of charities, but the science research rarely responds to pressure, unlike many entrepreneurial ventures. When scientists request research funding, the results don't always yield answers as quickly as businesses might hope -- research is the mythical man myth on steroids. Some people investing in biotech and international public health come from businesses very unlike public health with its vagaries of not only politics and human behavior, but biology.

In today's fast paced communications and computing climate, intense focus on "results" is inherent to our culture. Expectations carry over from the successful and extraordinarily speedy progress of the genome sequencing. Scientists and politicians built hopes during that time that drug development and an accelerated understanding of human disease would follow. It has, but did we expect more? TV drug advertising gives the impression that scientists are developing a pill for every insignificant hangnail, when many of these drugs aren't new, just the subjects of new marketing campaigns. Meanwhile tougher diseases and conditions remain elusive.

High profile funding can influence the research environment and lead to a very public dead end. In the larger picture, despite the wisdom that should be accruing from these experiences, politicians, technology leaders, and pundits sometimes wax-on about technology's potential to produce solutions not only for specific diseases but for extremely complicated social problems such as global warming and healthcare. But while science research may yield pharmaceuticals and oil extraction techniques but one cannot look to science or technology to solve the healthcare crisis in the United States. Science and technology contextualize these problems and are integral in our lives but despite heady declarations, they are not central to the solutions.

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Acronym Required has written previously about these subjects, AIDS and research directions, and vaccines. Here are a couple of our vaccine articles:

Vaccinations -- Why Worry?
Polio Vaccinations - The end of a scourge?
Group B Strep Vaccine Development
Vaccine Development For Infectious Diseases

Before scientists went snorkeling in Borneo and plucked a frog, the charming looking Barboroula kalimantanensis, out from under a large rock in a fast moving body of water, the elusive species had been found only twice before. In 1978 Djoko Iskandar described the new species of frog in the journal Copeia (Dec. 28, 564-566), cataloging its webbed toes, rugose skin, flattened head, and the myriad anatomical features that distinguished it as a unique species. The second find was sighting was almost 20 years later, 1995, by the same scientist, Iskandar, who also collaborated on the current research.

As an endangered species, the frog is perhaps lucky that it's so difficult to locate, although it's still subjected to environmental pollutants and habitat encroachment from logging and mining. Not so fortuitous for these primitive frogs, the scientists decided to dissect the specimens for the first time and found that the species has no lungs. David Bickford, an evolutionary biologist at the National University of Singapore, explained that "because these specimens were so rare, they had never been dissected. If you have just one...in your museum, you don't want to rip it open!" (a different approach then some scientists take with their newly found marine species, Acronym Required has found). If unlucky for these frogs, the discovery was lucky for the researchers, as they got their name splashed across headlines around the world. ¹

The biologists hypothesize that the frog adapted to the highly oxygenated fast moving water by losing lung capacity. Since the frog lost its lungs, its body became more flattened and less buoyant, which researchers deduce helps it stay under rocks. As well, with its increased surface area respiratory capacity through its increased skin surface area.

Tetrapods without lungs are rare. There are lung-less salamanders and one species of caecilian, an earthworm-like amphibian, that don't have lungs, and some frogs with very diminished lungs, but this is the first species to have only cartilage in the place of lungs.

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¹ This news was in an advance press release supposedly ahead of a April 8th Current Biology article which we could not locate. Acronym Required usually doesn't publish research without reading the original source, but will update this post if needed. Update 05/06 - The article was published May 06, 2008 in Current Biology: Bickford, D.; Iskandar D.; Barlian, A; "Lungless frog discovered on Borneo": Current Biology, Vol 18, R374-R375, 06 May 2008.

A couple of years ago in "The Microbes Win", Acronym Required wrote about research done by Wright et al at McMaster University, who found that many species of microbes isolated from soil samples had significant antibiotic resistance to clinically useful antibiotics. Last week researchers at Harvard published a study in the journal Science (Dantas et al, "Bacteria Subsisting on Antibiotics":Vol. 320. no. 5872, pp. 100 - 103), advancing research in this area a step further.

The scientists managed to culture a significant number of soil isolates using antibiotics as the sole source of carbon. The bacteria that proliferated most proficiently on a diet of antibiotics were from the Pseudomoniale and Burholderiale orders. Bacteria in the genuses Pseudomonas or Burkholderia, like Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkoholderia cepacia are responsible for infections involved in meningitis, skin, lung and bone infections, swimmer's ear, and opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients and those afflicted with cystic fibrosis.

The Harvard group suggest that the large genomes of Pseudomonas and Burkholderia species give them many diverse mechanisms of resisting bacteria and adaptive versatility, and that catabolism of antibiotics is just one tool in their arsenal of antibiotic resistance mechanisms.

These bacteria are very relevant clinically but scientists haven't observed utilization of this antibiotic catabolism, probably because there are many sources of carbon at infection site therefore catabolism of antibiotics isn't the most useful method of resistance. Since soil residing bacteria are exposed to natural sources of antibiotics, the research isn't extremely surprising, but may lead to further understanding of shared and unique antibiotic resistance mechanisms.

Conflict of Interest?

Would you believe a nutrition researcher working for Coca-Cola who said that restricting foods might backfire in preventing obesity because 'birds put on weight when food is scarce'? Would you choose him to be president of "The Obesity Society", if your club's mission was to "be the leader in understanding, preventing and treating obesity and in improving the lives of those affected"?

A recent New York Times article, "Conflict on the Menu", threw light on the "food fight among the nation's obesity experts". The New York State Restaurant Association hired the president-elect of the Obesity Society, Dr. David Allison, to support their suit against New York City's regulation requiring chain restaurants to list the kilocalorie values on menu items.

Allison submitted an affidavit warning that listing calories on menus might encourage overeating. According to the NYT he suggested the regulation would either tempt patrons with "the forbidden-fruit allure of high-calorie foods", or leave them so hungry they'd "later gorge themselves".

Somewhat less creatively, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, the American Public Health Association, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, the Medical Society of the State of New York, the Trust for America's Health, and many other organizations back the city's regulation.

Obesity & Personal Freedom

While the New York Times keeps the focus of the story on the skirmish within the Obesity Society, many stakeholders have a foot in this game. Public interest groups of all stripes, including "consumer freedom and choice" advocates, fight tooth and nail against the city's plan.

The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is a group that lobbies against government regulation. They wrote histrionically about New York City's labeling plan in "Menu Labeling Meltdown", warning that "the food cop campaign will plaster our nation's menus with warning labels." They said that Dr. Allison provided "damning evidence" that labeling "might be harmful". CCF belabored their point that Allison's affidavit dealt a "major blow" to the city's plan and that Burger King might not have to label their Whopper with its energy value: 670 kilocalories.

CCF claims to fight for Americans' right to "guilt free eating". Their stated mission is "promoting personal responsibility and protecting consumer choice" and they're especially belligerent towards individuals or groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) -- "the food cops". Sourcewatch offers a more blunt profile of CCF, calling them "a front group for the restaurant, alcohol and tobacco industries". Indeed, Phillip Morris started the organization under the name "Guest Choice Network" years ago for the purpose of organizing restaurants against government smoking bans.

CCF wields the same arguments that tobacco lobbyists used to oppose government smoking bans by supporting the claim that the city's rules violate the First Amendment. However Sandra Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), says: "The restaurant industry isn't concerned about defending the First Amendment, as its lawsuit laughably claims. It just wants to keep its customers in the dark. People need nutrition information to exercise personal responsibility and to feed their children healthy diets."

So does "personal freedom" stand for "corporate freedom" in this context? Of course, personal freedom is important, but governments are also obliged to work on behalf of the community, for instance by mandating vaccinations, sanitary conditions in restaurants, anti-smoking laws, etc. New York city's regulation basically requires chain restaurants which post caloric information elsewhere, like on websites, to post the same information in their restaurant. This is hardly the cumbersome requirement that CCF makes it out to be, since the restaurants already have the information, and it's not too difficult to post a sign above a pastry that says "350 kcal" or "950 kcal".

Science & Policy

Despite the Center for Consumer Freedom's approval of Allison's recent position they haven't always been so friendly to Dr. Allison. And interestingly, Mr. Allison hasn't always been so friendly to industry dietary positions. For instance, in 2001, CCF contested Dr. Allison's 1999 finding that obesity caused 300,000 deaths a year, calling the research "bogus". The organization accused him of "voicing support for an onerous and unnecessary 'Twinkie Tax'", and having "ties to the weight-loss industry". In 2004 and 2005 the group decried Dr. Allison's research conclusions in articles like "Hypocritical Food Cops Preach 'Integrity'", accusing him of conflict of interest and citing Allison's many industry affiliations to discredit his research.

In 2005 Allison was one of ten authors on a New England Journal of Medicine paper showing that the average lifespan in the US would decrease because of the obesity epidemic. (Olshansky et al, "A Potential Decline in Life Expectancy in the United States in the 21st Century", March 17, 2005 Vol. 352:1138-1145.) The accompanying editorial said the group's assumptions were "excessively gloomy".

Although this was a science research paper, the authors pointed out policy implications. There were possible up-sides to the research, they wrote, for instance: "the U.S. population may be inadvertently saving Social Security by becoming more obese". The findings were grim, but policy interventions might reverse the death trends: "Unless effective population-level interventions to reduce obesity are developed, the steady rise in life expectancy observed in the modern era may soon come to an end and the youth of today may, on average, live less healthy and possibly even shorter lives than their parents."

An accompanying editorial gave more detail. "Deadweight? --The Influence of Obesity on Longevity", by Samuel Preston, Ph.D., mentioned other research showing that only "30 excess calories a day during an eight-year period for Americans 20 to 40 years of age" produced the obesity epidemic. (NEJM Volume 352:1135-1137). Given the morbidity and mortality implications of small increases in daily calories, Dr. Preston said: "reversing the increase in body mass might be accomplished through small behavioral changes...food and restaurant industries would be valuable allies in this effort..."

The authors recommended that government interventions were critical to maintaining current longevity, although calorie reduction might help reduce obesity if restaurants cooperated. Which makes it particularly ironic that co-author Allison, now chooses the role of a hired gun fighting calorie labeling on behalf of restaurants.

In contrast to their favorable opinion of Allison a few years ago, CCF's coverage of the current NYC regulation does an about face. Now his "facts show" and his "evidence was damning". They decided not to fill their story about his affidavit for the Restaurant Association with long lists of "conflicts of interest", which served as the meat and potatoes of their previous irate stories about his research.

News of Allison's affidavit supposedly caused a fracas among members of the Obesity Society, who got ''completely mad that a president-elect of [an] organization that cares about obesity and cares about healthy eating, wants to hold back information from people that helps them make healthy choices'', according to the NYT. The current president of The Obesity Society to put out a separate statement opposing Dr. Allison's and supporting the city's labeling rules.

When The "Truth" Pays in Gold

A professor at the University of Alabama, Dr. Allison is an obesity statistician with a background in psychology. He's more than just a statistician with an affidavit that appears to be a conflict of interest. He's has published over 300 papers and 5 books.

For his efforts and accomplishments Dr. Allison was honored by George Bush last year in a White House ceremony for recipients of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering". The award recognizes mentoring of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities.

Dr. Allison noted that the award was not just about mentoring but also about making sure the students "understand the ethical foundation on which science is based." It's a mission he apparently takes seriously, as The Birmingham News reported: ''In science, we are not just doing a job,'' he said. ''I was chosen. I think of it like a calling. It is a special and sacred profession. Our sacred duty is truth.''

When questioned by the New York Times about his support of the restaurant industry Allison said, "I'm happy to be involved in the pursuit for truth....Sometimes, when I'm involved in the pursuit for truth, I'm hired by the Federal Trade Commission. Sometimes I help them. Sometimes I help a group like the restaurant industry."

Speaking his truth, Allison remains agnostic in his choice of client. He has been consulted by government, industry and the media for his expertise in obesity, science and integrity. When University of Vermont obesity professor Eric Poehlman was accused of falsifying data on metabolism and aging in research papers and federal grant applications, Dr. Allison interviewed the media in his defense: "I believe he's innocent, and I believe that he is being broken financially to the point where he's ready to give up the fight because he has no more money to fight with, and that's the way the game works", (Boston Globe, March, 2005). Poehlman served a year in jail, paid fines and recieved penalties.

Dough Boy

The Center for Consumer Freedom historically discredited any research Allison was involved in except when it ran in their favor. They accused Allison repeatedly of conflict of interest especially with companies selling "weight control product and services". CCF's leader may be a "real bottom feeder" as CSPI puts it, but the organization doesn't exaggerate Allison's impressive industry ties. In the 2005 NEJM paper about obesity longevity, nine authors each disclosed zero financial interests or affiliations. Dr. Allison, however, listed 150 organizational affiliations in a three page single spaced PDF, attached to the paper.

Dr. Allison's list of grants, monetary donations, donations of product, payments for consultation, contracts, honoria and commitments include consulting assignments for numerous parties, like lawyers engaged in litigation, pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Eli Lily, Wyeth Ayerst, Glaxo, as well as Corning, Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, the Wheat Council, Kraft Foods, Nabisco, the FDA and ILSI. He has impressive experience doing everything from serving on the United Soybean Panel's Nutrition Advisory Board, to being an expert witness for defendant Lockheed Martin at $350 an hour in a groundwater contamination lawsuit.

Much of this was listed in Allison's resume, which I assume the Obesity Society recieved prior to selecting him to their leadership council. If not it was summarized at the Integrity in Science project at CSPI, or in disclosure documents in his publications. His insouciant transparency, extensive network (I assume), precocious achievement. and ethically unencumbered attitudes to choosing clients no doubt secured him a Obesity Society leadership position.

In this sense, doesn't the indignation from The Obesity Society is fine make you wonder? If Allison's position is so disagreeable, why did the nominating committee and 2,000 members in the society select him to be their future president? His consulting positions were a significant piece of his resume. He has been a paid industry consultant for at least 15 years.

Hungry Scientists, Money

Pharmaceutical companies, lawyers, labs, product companies, insurance companies, NGO's, and governments all have an interest in obesity, which means there's a lot of funding at stake in research. Yet by accident or design, research can be wrong, with resulting policy implications.

Allison co-authored a study published in NEJM, and endorsed policies that are the opposite of the "expertise" he now sells..

Poehlman's false data of age related metabolic depreciation affected policy. Doctors and researchers based study and clinical practice on his results. Grants for Poehlman meant that other scientists were denied funding.

In 2004, the CDC released a study which overestimated the annual deaths from obesity. This created false public perceptions and had policy implications, as various stakeholders eyed the competitive pie of public health money and got nervous that the CDC's results would deprive other public health goal like anti-tobacco funding for the cause of obesity.

Some people think that science should remain separate from policy -- like an old TV dinner, the cut vegetables separate from meat product and the syrupy peaches, each one in its own plastic mold -- compartmentalized, never mixed. Combining "science and policy" confuses the public they say. Others say that science and policy are already mixed up, a big stew.

The news often blends everything together, the science, the policy, the personalities, the business, the lobbyists, but yet affects neutrality. The news is too often drained of color and interesting nutrients and doled out as an equally portioned product of pro and con, like symmetrical gray-brown freeze-dried blocks of frozen vegetable puree. We're fed an easily digested story with the predictable arch of a food fight and a neat two part conflict: "Scientists found this...but others found that".

Unfortunately, one of the largest problems resulting from this information processing by media and various lobbies, politicians, and interest groups, is that many of us -- citizens, reporters, politicians, scientists out of their field... have no clue who's the lobbyist, the "unbiased researcher", the expert, or the apostate. But our confusion not only a conflict of interest problem, or a media problem, scientists' fault, or some government agency's fault. It's a larger more thorny economic conundrum.

Update: The New York Times reported that David Allison resigned as the incomin.g president of the Obesity Society. (Oct. 26, 2009, corrected middle initial) He said in his email statement that "I stand behind the scientific statements I made, my right to make them, and the manner in which I made them", however he apologized for the "distress" he might have caused the Obesity Society. The economic tensions that interfere with frank science presentation and reporting remain.

Long ago, as our ancestors hopped up and started getting around on two feet, their musculoskeletal systems evolved to accommodate the new bipedal locomotion. The size of the vertebrae increased, the lumbar region of the spine elongated, and the number of vertebrae in the lumbar region of the lower back eventually decreased from six to five.

In the female, further adaptations helped her endure pregnancy and carry up to 30% more of her body weight. Scientists wrote in Nature¹ last week about sexually dimorphic features in the lumbar spines of women, such as larger joints and greater curvature of the spine that appear to ease the biomechanical strain of pregnancy. The lumbar lordosis (curvature) in women's spines extends over three vertebrae rather than two, as it does in men.

The authors proposed an evolutionary benefit to this increased flexibility in women's spines. During pregnancy, they said, the greater lordosis probably reduces the pain and stress on the spine caused by spinal shearing forces which intensify with the increased load bearing. The scientists also compared modern human spines to chimpanzees and early hominins such as Australopithecus africanus. From their measurements of the different lumbar regions and fossil vertebrae the scientists concluded that these adaptations were present in some of the earliest hominins, but not in chimpanzees. Male and female spines both evolved to accommodate bipedal locomotion (fortunately), but then women's spines became distinguishable from men's, which helps them through childbearing.

Many evolutionary adaptations aid gestation and birthing. But some of these changes seem to simultaneously compromise other activities, like locomotion. The female pelvis is wider then males', to accommodate the birth of a baby, however scientists debate whether this adaptation increases the Q-(quadriceps) angle in women, which may in turn cause injury (mostly knee tracking issues) during running or walking. Hormones during pregnancy make the ligaments temporarily lax, which doesn't help overall stability. But the authors suggest that this newest finding about the sexual dimorphism in lumbar lordosis probably benefited women by decreasing pain during pregnancy. It therefore may have helped females "forage effectively or escape predators", as they put it.

Foraging, ok. But I was trying to visualize how the new and improved physique would help our ancestors escape predators as I flipped through the meretricious "Fine Times" section of the Financial Times last weekend. In "The Game Generations", the author's safari group tracked a female cheetah as she unsuccessfully hunted with her cubs. After days of failed forays, the hungry female cheetah chose to attack two rutting impala. The female interrupted the two fighting males, brought one down, left it to her cubs to the kill, but they bungled it -- so she stepped in and finished the job.

Granted our ancestors were a heartier bunch, not yet reduced to reading about "wild Africa" in the glossy pages of an insert subtitled "How to Spend It". Still, I have trouble visualizing the flexible but ponderously gravid Australopithecus effectively escaping a cheetah or tiger or leopard. An impala is about 75kg, with horns, and can make 30 feet long jumps as high as 8 feet off the ground -- but is still prey to every other beast. Women may leap tall buildings but they're no match for the impala, never mind a wildcat in the bush.

The "Fine Times" author may indeed have experienced an "awesome lesson in the savage ways of nature", but her tour removed her from the action to a distance sufficiently safe for hominins. Which made me realize that despite the superb-ness of this newly discovered evolutionary feature, our pregnant female ancestors might not have chosen to run with the wolves at all. Instead, while four or five months pregnant, perhaps they recognized their inferior speed, smaller teeth and duller claws, and chose to forage around for some berries, sticks and stones, before retiring to a cave to fashion some proper weapons.

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¹Whitcome et al., "Fetal load and the evolution of lumbar lordosis in bipedal hominins" Nature 450, 1075-1078 (13 December 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature06342.

²The Q angle is an acute angle found at the knee. It's formed by at the the intersection of one line drawn from the patellar midpoint to a point on the anterior lateral (outside front) of the pelvis called superialic spine (ASIS), and another line drawn through the tibial tuberosity (on the front part of the top of the leg bone called the tibia) (See Fig. 2 here)

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Acronym Required has written previous articles on biomechanics, such as "The Stalwartness of Nepalese Porters", and hominins, such as "The Hobbit Species of Indonesia"

Summary:

Just a thought: If bisphenol A were a therapeutic drug going to market, instead of a chemical with an established global market, and there were "700 studies" according to LA Times showing hormone effector effects in animals, but also "two dozen" human studies showing the same responses in humans -- therefore if bisphenol A, the hypothetical drug, had passed through the equivalent of Phase I safety, Phase II efficacy and was well into Phase III trials -- the stock of a certain pharmaceutical company would be skyrocketing based on the evidence. Financial analysts would be jumping up and down in their Aeron chairs predicting sales of the next blockbuster drug... But bisphenol-A is not a drug. It's a chemical used in mostly polycarbonate products such as baby bottles and sport's drink bottles, but ubiquitously in toys, dental epoxies, food cans... 2.8 million tons of bisphenol A were produced globally (PDF) in 2002. Manufacturers, politicians and organizations like the American Dental Association deny that the animal studies mean anything. They insist that bisphenol A is safe. Is it? If not why did city legislators in San Francisco decide not to restrict its use in products?

Plastic People

Chemical & Engineering News published an article August 6, 2007, titled "More Concerns Over Bisphenol A: Human Exposures are Usually as High as Those Causing Profound Effects in Rodents". The article presented evidence from four toxicology studies that "bolstered" the link between "bisphenol A (BPA) and adverse health affects". Bisphenol A is used extensively in producing certain hard plastics made into many products. It is an endocrine disruptor that in mice causes a myriad of deleterious physiological effects, and when scientists do corresponding studies in humans, those experiments produce the same results as in mice.

Makers of bisphenol A and the chemical industry label anyone who questions the safety of chemicals a "green activist" with "anti-chemical agenda". But the American Chemical Society hardly fits into this category. When the American Chemical Society notes the "profound effect" of bisphenol A, won't industry lobbyists and Fox news temper their caustic comments? Will they realize how out of date and trenchant they sound? Doubtful. As the American Chemical Society also notes, "despite growing evidence of toxic effects in lab animals, manufacturers of BPA insist that their product is safe."

It's curious that the chemical industry has manage to conceive and manufacture hundreds of thousands of chemicals for millions of "better living through chemistry" applications, but seems hamstrung when challenged to create less toxic options. Instead, they vehemently oppose the idea of taking a toxic product like bisphenol A off the market.

Once production is in place and market share is established, removing a product from the market is as much an anathema to industry as it is to the politicians and media who represent (in part) that industry. Of course there would be "economic repercussions" to any change in production. But industries remove consumers favorite products all the time when it benefits their bottom line. In fact isn't "planned obsolescence" part and parcel of capitalism? But rather than focusing on the potential profit that would come from a new, less toxic product, these industries cling to their old product like a child whose parent tries to remove a toy from their grasp.

Chemical & Engineering News doesn't need to tell us that the Chemical, Plastics and Toy Manufacturing industries might not be the most reliable source of information for toxicity of chemicals.This is not strange or unprecedented business practice, rather a predictable one. The car industry bucked the notion of seatbelts for years, the tobacco industry denied that dragging on cigarettes caused cancer, and the oil industry launches vigorous attacks against all science and scientists who observed and predicted climate change and global warming.

We've come to expect this of industries. They bombard the market with new and exciting products on their own terms. They find infinite new uses for chemicals; for phthalates and bisphenol A that make plastic products pliable or rigid or just plastic-y so. They create and manufacture plastic products en force, to strong demand, with impressive budgets that buy marketing, press releases, opinion pieces, disclaimers, liability notices, and a bevy of braying lobbyists and complicit politicians.

When it comes to our health, consumers are learning not to depend on industry information. Since Acronym Required first started reporting on bisphenol A and phthalates a couple of years ago, public awareness of the potential dangers and the lack of industry transparency about them has grown tremendously. Despite consumer self-determination, however, the public remains dependent on the media to inform us and the legislature to protect us.

Consumers are the largest constituency of politicians, and the largest consumer group of newspapers, and TV networks, however we don't necessarily have the clout to match the sheer number of us. To the media and politicians, citizens are just one of many constituencies -- not necessarily the loudest, the most consistent, or the most financially generous. Politicians and the media are also indebted to their own bottom line; to donors, partner businesses, trade groups, and advertisers, not only readers and voters. Health and environmentally conscious citizens sometimes discover that their influence is relatively small, just one line on a whole balance sheet of competing interests.

The Press and Poison, The Press and Pills

Media coverage on potential toxins can be good, as in a USA Today article on October 30th about bisphenol A, but it can also be confusing if not downright bad. Consider the editorial decisions that Los Angeles Times made last month, in publishing an article lengthily titled: "Some Chemicals May Affect the Reproductive System, Growing Research Suggests. But as Consumers seek Alternatives, Scientists Point out that Human Studies are Few."

Discussing the bisphenol A, the article relayed the warning of a panel of 38 scientists working for a EPA and NIH panel on bisphenol A, who surveyed "700 studies of bisphenol A". The scientists concluded:

"human exposure to BPA is within the range that is predicted to be biologically active in over 95% of people sampled. The wide range of adverse effects of low doses of BPA in laboratory animals exposed both during development and in adulthood is a great cause for concern with regard to the potential for similar adverse effects in humans."¹ [emphasis ours]

Said the Los Angeles Times "the vast majority of studies" looked at BPA effects in animals, but "only two dozen studies measured levels of the chemical in people, and three have examined the health effects of everyday exposure to the chemical" "Hundreds of studies" in lab animals, the article notes, found that "bisphenol A damages the reproductive system by interfering with the effects of reproductive hormones. Male rats have reduced sperm counts and enlarged reproductive glands; female rodents have altered mammary glands, hit puberty faster than normal and have trouble getting pregnant."

If bisphenol A were a therapeutic drug going to market, and there were 700 studies, many in animals, but "two dozen" human studies showing the same responses in humans as mice, and if therefore the hypothetical drug had passed through the equivalent of Phase I safety, Phase II efficacy and was well into Phase III trials, the stock of pharmaceutical company would be skyrocketing. Financial analysts would be jumping up and down in their Aeron chairs predicting the company's astronomical growth based on the "exciting" news. They would be exclaiming about "surpassed expectations" of a "new blockbuster drug", and headlines would be shouting about the "cure" for diabetes, cancer, heart disease, or arthritis in very very large font.

For an extreme example of this the media's enthusiasm with a new barely proven drug, see the Times Online article this week titled "'Magic Bullet' Devised to Beat Cancer". The piece waxes optimistic about a strategy to cure cancer based on an experiment that "eliminated ovarian cancers in five out of six mice, and greatly reduced the tumour's size in the sixth mouse." A sample size of Six Mice Is Not a Study!. Yet when it comes to evidence that points to the deleterious effects of bisphenol A based on hundreds of studies in many, many mice, the Los Angeles Times chooses a presentation that intermingles hair-raising evidence with non-convincing asides about how meaningless the evidence is; the studies are "small and few", "few", "nonexistent", "paltry", "little", and "we mostly don't know". LA Times's list of belittling adjectives is impressive.

"Paltry" Proof of Phthalates

There is even stronger data on phthalates than there is on bisphenol A. In this case the LA Times acknowledges that "phthalates and other chemicals" are toxic to animals, but emphasizes that "in humans, the data are still inconclusive". Combining a couple of different ideas the writer says:

...In fact, when it comes to humans, the data are nearly nonexistent. Very little research has examined the health risks associated with consumer use of plastics. And because of suggestive evidence from studies of lab animals, much of that research has focused largely on chemicals in two types of plastics: those marked with recycling No. 3 and No. 7.

No. 3 is polyvinyls that contain phthalates. Despite the LA Times assurances, here is what the same article actually says about phthalates in animals:

"...high doses of phthalates cause a conglomeration of health effects that suggest the chemical may either block the activity of male sex hormones (such as testosterone) or hamper their synthesis in the developing embryo...[and]...lowered testosterone levels; a shortened distance between the anus and scrotum; testes that fail to descend; reduced sperm counts; and defects in the urethra, prostate and seminal vesicles."

As for humans, the author notes that the National Toxicology Program issued a report about DEHP (a particularly worrying phthalate)¹ expressing "'serious concern' that critically ill male infants exposed to the plasticizer could suffer damage to their developing reproductive systems". In 2002 the FDA notified healthcare providers that they shouldn't use tubes, bags or equipment containing DEHP "when treating premature babies, adults undergoing dialysis, heart transplant recipients and women pregnant with male fetuses", because the DEHP leaches out. (Many hospitals are currently phasing out DEHP.) You can actually read the LA Times article for yourself and see if you would rather risk having these research results happen to you, or rather replace your plastic bottles (and other things). Here's the paper's list of effects for phthalates in humans:

• A study showing elevated mono-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate in men corresponded with "50% more sperm DNA damage ."
• A study showing that men with elevated monobutyl phthalate "were more than three times as likely to have a low sperm count than men with the lowest levels of the phthalate"
• A study of "85 mother-and-son pairs, showing that, as in rats", higher levels of phthalates were associated with "shorter ano-genital" distance in infants, as well as "undescended testes, smaller scrota and smaller penises". The level of phthalates associated with these reproductive effects was lower than what was considered acceptable by the EPA.
• Another study showing that the longer newborns spent in intensive care the higher their levels of phthalates.
• A study showed that high levels of phthalates correspond to "decreased levels of thyroid hormones".
• Studies showing increased levels of phthalates in dust corresponded to "decreased lung function" in men and asthma in children.
• A study showing that increased levels of phthalates was also linked to "insulin resistance" and larger waist size in men.

None of this seems particularly healthful. The European Union, Mexico, Japan, Fiji and Argentina have banned phthalates. But the LA Times, either in a desperate attempt to balance competing interests or because they have phthalate syndrome, has a higher bar of proof than Fiji. The paper reminds us once again that phthalates data is in its "infancy", and bisphenol A data "in the womb".

In light of what scientists tend to consider proof, if this were a drug going to market, wouldn't such evidence be trumpeted, as proof of efficacy? Indeed, drugs for breast cancer, leukemia, Huntington's Disease, brain tumors, Down's Syndrome, MS, various tumors, Alzheimer's, Gleevec resistance, diabetes, H5N1 infection, lupus, and hundreds more -- are touted as showing "promise" based on far less "data in mice". If this were a potential drug wouldn't the money be pouring into determining the proper dosage? Instead, any testing of these hazardous chemicals is incumbent largely on government and occurs, slowly, slowly, and only as "time and resources allow", as San Francisco recently put it in legislation on phthalates.

Precautionary Principle

When public concern is high enough, as it is for bisphenol A and phthalates, a toxin might catch the attention of politicians. But even then, when push comes to shove, politics can water down the most well intended legislation. Take, for example the short sequence of events in San Francisco's recent legislation effort on bisphenol A and phthalates.

• On June 6, 2006, the San Francisco supervisors passed a ban on phthalates and bisphenol A .
• On October 25, 2006, bisphenol A manufacturers, the American Chemistry Council, California Retailers Association, California Grocers Association and Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association and a local store called CitiKids sued the city.
• On November 16, 2006 manufacturers of phthalates, the California Chamber of Commerce, the Toy Industry Association and Ambassador Toys, a local store, filed another lawsuit against the city (notice, always a local merchant as a plaintiff?).
• November 19, 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle published an article showing that the chemicals showed up in plastic toys, despite the fact that they were labeled free from chemicals. The story alarmed parents. It also gave support for the supervisors' subsequent changes to their ban based on the fact that plastic products lacked any labeling and enforcement of the ban would be too difficult.
• November- January, 2006: The Chronicle published a couple of opinion pieces that opposed the ban, including ones from the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH - an industries lobby group), and the American Plastics Council. The Chronicle also ran its own editorial, writing that however "well-intended", the ban lacked the "appropriate planning and consultation with public health authorities, retailers and toy manufacturers."
• On December 1, 2006, the ban was slated to go into effect, but it was postponed by city officials, who told businesses the city would wait until after the holidays to begin enforcement.
• On January 23, 2007, Supervisor Angela Aliota-Pier proposed changes to the ban which were approved by the Board of Supervisors in April, 2007. All bisphenol A legislation was removed. Instead of banning certain phthalates, under the changed legislation labs would be hired to test specific products over the next couple of years (as resources permitted, the legislation noted). The products were only those that were specifically meant to be put in the mouths of children under three. If these products had certain levels of phthalates sale of those specific toys could be punishable. The fine for the first offense would be $100.
• In response to the amended legislation Bisphenol A manufacturers and parties of that lawsuit dropped their case against the city.

The ordinance that was eventually passed seemed to take in mind "retailers and toy manufacturers", as the of the San Francisco Chronicle had suggested. The city understandably pushed some of the work up to the state and federal levels. The supervisors say they intend to remain abreast of developments in bisphenol A research. But if San Francisco's citizens were looking for guidance from the city on which plastic toys they should allow their children to teethe on, at what age, or whether using bisphenol A containing Nalgene bottles for water might cause breast cancer, they are still left to their own devices.

The state has also passed a phthalates bill (not bisphenol A) sponsored by Fiona Ma. Governer Schwarzenegger commented upon signing, "I do not believe that addressing this type of concern in the legislature on a chemical by chemical, product by product basis is the best or most effective way to make chemical policy in California". It remains to be seen how California will enforce the legislation.

The San Francisco supervisors invoked the "precautionary principle" when they proposed their first ban in June of 2006. There is a huge body of literature and argumentation about the precautionary principle which we're going to skip over here, but basically it says "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically".

Specific to the examples of phthalates and bisphenol A, what really does it really mean to say that "cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically"? What about the standards we use for drug development? Wouldn't all these results in BPA and pthalates "establish" the science if this were a drug? If this were drug development with a potential market similar to the size of the population effected by BPA and phthalates use, the pharmaceutical company would be pouring money into further testing. Despite this reasonable sounding premise, then, the precautionary principle consistently fails to gain traction with city, state and federal politicians, who are realistic to all interests.

If the city is "precautionary", it's NOT on the side of health or the environment, but (if inadvertently), on the side of industry. While San Francisco has made a admirable public statement about these chemicals its hard to see how this is going to diminish the threats to kids. Since plastic toys aren't labeled, is the city going to go into the plastics product testing business? What city can afford to regulate products? I'm not criticizing politicians -- this is the system we have -- but let's be realistic about implementing the "precautionary principle". Does it even make sense for politicians to invoke the phrase? Perhaps at the federal level or state levels we could be precautionary. But on the local level, so far it looks more like the "pragmatic principle": all interests considered.

Perhaps the precautionary principle is only personal ideal for individuals to follow. Fortunately, to be optimistic, individual families can decide to make product choices (basically by finding plastic alternatives like glass and wood) despite inevitably slow legislative efforts and still conflicting -- though on the whole increasingly good -- coverage in the media.

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¹ A second study released by the National Toxicology Program concluded that bisphenol A raised "some concern" about "neurological and behavioral effects in developing fetuses, infants and young children." This study was controversial, as it was conducted after the original contractor, Sciences International, was fired by NIH under a cloud of conflict of interest concerns. Acronym Required documented the conflict of interest issues.

Acronym Required also wrote about bisphenol A in the following articles:

Plastic Bottles- Protecting Your Baby, by the ACC (July, 2005)

Bisphenol-A and Phthalates Bill in California (January, 2006)

San Francisco Bans Bisphenol A, Phthalates (July, 2006)

San Francisco phthalates & Bisphenol A Ban (November, 2006)

Summary: As children we accept stories of history, science, and politics that are doled out to us as simple little lessons. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is a children's story about a mongoose, which the National Endowment for the Arts uses to teach about anthropomorphism and the differences between "truth" and "fiction". Yet, despite our childhood training, many grown adults are smitten with syrupy accounts of reality -- simplifications, whitewashes or even outright lies. What about accounts of science? What happens in real life when another mongoose species, the meerkat, meets a puff adder? Does National Geographic's account ring true? Or does research that uses the result to bolster theories about learning in meerkats seem more plausible?

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi: Truth or Fiction?

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is Rudyard Kipling's mongoose in The Jungle Book famous for saving a human family in India from predatory snakes. First the young mongoose takes on a venomous krait ("Karait") when the snake threatens the young boy Teddy: "Rikki-tikki's eyes grew red again, and danced up to Karait with the peculiar rocking, swaying motion that he had inherited from his family". Next the mongoose engages in an epic fight with a family of cobras. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi takes on "Nagaina", of "Nag" and "Nagaina", when the snakes attempt to kill off the humans in order to inhabit their home and raise their own expanding brood:

"Rikki-tikki was bounding all round Nagaina, keeping just out of reach of her stroke, his little eyes like hot coals. Nagaina gathered herself together and flung out at him. Rikki-tikki jumped up and backward. Again and again and again she struck, and each time her head came with a whack on the matting of the veranda and she gathered herself together like a watch spring. Then Rikki-tikki danced in a circle to get behind her..."

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi may be agile, however the animal is naive at first, taking cavalier risks like following after Nagaina when she plunges down into a rat hole during battle. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi reckons with his youthful inexperience:

"...just under him whizzed by the head of Nagaina, Nag's wicked wife. She had crept up behind him as he was talking, to make an end of him. He heard her savage hiss as the stroke missed. He came down almost across her back, and if he had been an old mongoose he would have known that then was the time to break her back with one bite."

Rikki-tikki-tavi is fiction of course. Mongooses and snakes don't converse or plot to kill each other. But although it may be fiction, the story holds many lessons, some of which the National Endowment of The Arts (NEA) -- funded by the U.S. government -- sees fit to teach. The NEA created a learning website for teachers that uses the tale of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi for lesson plan called "'Rudyard Kipling's "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi": Mixing Fact and Fiction'". The site cues teachers about appropriate background information to impart to the students. "You may also wish to tell your students that, like the United States of America, India is no longer a British colony....". Of course one could also say, "like Britain once, the United States of America sometimes attempts at empire-building", but no, that account of history wouldn't win favor.

The NEA links to maps, and suggests lesson questions and answers. Lesson number 3, "Fact, Fiction, and Personification", notes that it's a "fact", that Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, like many mongooses:

"....[l]ives in India, has a pink nose and eyes, has a fluffy tail, hunts snakes, lives in a burrow, eats meat, has a rocking gait when about to attack, makes a ticking sound when aggressive."

But NEA notes that it's "fiction", that Rikki-Tikki-Tavi or mongooses, "have conversations like humans do". And when Kipling has the female cobra Nagaina say to resident bird and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi ally, Darze:

'"You warned Rikki-tikki when I would have killed him. Indeed and truly, you've chosen a bad place to be lame in." And she moved toward Darzee's wife, slipping along over the dust."'

The NEA website says that students should be taught:

"Animals do not try to have their revenge on other animals; vengeance is a human invention. A snake would hunt a bird for food, but it would not seek to kill the bird for revenge. To assess students' understanding, you may wish to have your students find one or more other passages in which an animal thinks or acts like a human being."

If only it were so simple. Indeed, snakes don't seek revenge, "a human invention", nor do mongooses express scorn or pride, as Kipling's hero does. But scientists are finding that some animal behaviors, like learning and teaching young, do look like human behaviors.

Oh Meerkcat, You're No Rikki-Tikki Tavi

Mongooses comprise the taxonomic family Herpestidae, of which there are about 35 species. Various mongoose species can differ in appearance and behavior. Meerkats, Suricata suricattais, are a smaller mongoose, with a thin tail that they use for balance. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, by comparison, "...could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle brush, and his war cry as he scuttled through the long grass was: "Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk".

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi washed up on his hosts' doorstep after a storm and took it upon himself to protect his host's home single-handedly. Meerkats, by comparison are always described as "gregarious", spending much of their time in social groups where they together face down foes and handle prey, and perhaps assess dangers. Meerkat groups of several families band together to form "mobs". The word conjures images of roving gangs of thugs with dubious purposes, sneers and leather jackets, but meerkat mobs on the lookout for predators stand-up in sentinel position looking more like a gaggle of girls or chattering tweens. They're so fetching that they undoubtedly need to gang up together to get any traction whatsoever on the rough and tumble Kalahari.

The meerkat social structure and the ease with which they can be habituated to humans makes them attractive research subjects, and more science could help us all understand just what meerkats do and don't and can and can't do. However in the course of studying meerkats, scientists have captured hours and hours and hours of meerkat interactions on film. What to do with that? Enterprising producers make television shows, one of which is the well-known Meerkat Manor on Animal Kingdom.

Apparently the show offers audiences what might well be the zenith of anthropomorphism, or "personification" as NEA would have it, as it follows the life and times of a mob of meerkats that centers around a family called "The Whiskers". Now in its third season, the show keeps viewers as engaged as any soap-opera. This is probably a win-win situation, since researchers at the Cambridge University Kalahari Meerkat Project might well benefit from having their hundreds of hours of observation tapes turned into a hit television series -- and audiences are smitten. But does the creation of soap operas starring characters like family encourage further anthropomorphism of the carnivores?

Many people fell for a recent hoax reported by the Telegraph, when wardens at the Longleat Safari Park released photos that were described as meerkats taking family snapshots. People thought it was so cute, and apparently believed that a meerkat would be motivated to take portraits of its mob. The scam was only exposed once an Amateur Photographer's magazine threw doubts on the tale, forcing folks to face the fact that it's "fiction" that meerkats take snapshots of their families with Canon cameras.

Meerkat Mobbing, A Purpose Driven Life

Animal learning has always fascinated scientists, and on a smaller scale anyone can play at it. For instance, when dogs hear the mailbox clatter open on the front porch, do they bark so ferociously because they forgot the lesson from the day before -- that the mailman is not a threat? Or does the dog think its barking makes the mailman going away, which therefore reinforces the ritualized barking frenzy in its little dog brain? Or is it something entirely different? Does one's human brain limit ones ability to interpret a dog's behavior? I don't know. But how do animals learn? Cooperate? Evolve to learn? These are all interesting questions.

Last year Science (summary) published research by Alex Thornton and Katherine McAuliffe, who observed that meerkats were learning survival skills from their older kin. Adult meerkats would respond to unique age dependent calls of meerkats by preparing scorpions for the young meerkats according to the youngster's developmental ability to deal with the scorpion and its poisonous parts. The older meerkat would then present the age-appropriate, dead/non-poisonous, half-dead or live-ish scorpions to the young meerkats. The research is briefly described in this blurb from NPR.

Meerkats don't engage in the single-handed acrobatic mortal duels that made Rikki-Tikki-Tavi famous, and they seek out prey smaller than cobras -- insects or lizards or venomous scorpions perhaps. But that doesn't mean that the meerkats don't have run-ins with large snakes. The Meerkat Manor clan has quite a few encounters with snakes, and they don't always end well. The show left viewers hanging at the end of one season after a meerkat called Shakespeare (a viewer favorite) had a run in with a puff adder. It was a life and death situation for Shakespeare, who remained unaccounted for when the show resumed the next season.

Similarly, researchers record encounters that meerkats have with snakes all the time. A study in Animal Behavior last month, called "The function of mobbing in cooperative meerkats", sought to learn whether mobbing behavior is used simply to deter predators or for other purposes. Animal Behavior doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.11.021, online August 17th. Also available via this direct link at ZORA (Zurich Open Repository and Archive) The authors first established previous thinking on meerkat mobbing:

The three main functional hypotheses for mobbing, namely predator deterrence, predator risk assessment and transfer of information, as well as the self-advertisement hypothesis, all predict that mobbing intensity will be correlated with threat level and the recruitment of others.

Then the authors frame their research question. Here's an excerpt:

"If meerkats mainly mob to deter predators, they should show a strong response to predators but not to nondangerous animals, and continue this behaviour until the predator leaves the vicinity. Additionally, meerkats should only mob in situations where a predator is likely to leave, and avoid mobbing in situations where this is unlikely, such as on encountering predators hiding in boltholes or hollow trees...."

The authors looked at 564 natural mobbing encounters that recorded over six years. In these instances, did the meerkat lose interest in the subject? Or did the snake or hawk or other animal retreat? These two options were observed in only about 72 of the 564 cases. In all other cases, however, the outcome of the encounter is unknown. The researchers also rounded up various snakes, a pet cat, a pet squirrel, a dead squirrel and other miscellaneous animal subjects and presented them to the meerkats in a cage that the meerkats had been habituated to. The authors concluded that mobbing behavior in meerkats differs according to variables like the age and sex of the animal as well as the threat of the animal being mobbed. They wrote:

"The observations from natural encounters and the experiments showing that meerkats not only mobbed potential predators, but also frequently herbivores, suggest that this behavior is not only to deter predators. They also spent regularly a considerable amount of time mobbing predators that were unlikely to leave the area, such as predators sheltered in burrows (Kalahari Meerkat Project, unpublished data) and puff adders, which were never observed to move in response to meerkat mobbing. This supports that the purpose of mobbing in meerkats, besides deterring predators, is likely to be assessing the risk of the encountered animal and recruiting other group members to the stimuli, which may also serve to transfer information to the others."[emphasis mine]

The authors concluded that the adaptive behavior of the meerkats is used to "chase away predators", and to "gather information about the threat and/or motivation of a predator", which allows the meerkats to "coordinate group movement and group vigilance accordingly". In addition, they concluded "young meerkats learn to recognize predators and to respond to the varying degrees of threat". The final conclusion is arguably the most exciting because it supports the idea that (like humans), meerkats teach their young.

Puff Adders Retreat For National Geographic But Not for Researchers?

The author's puff adder data consisted of 106 observations, and in 94% of those the mongooses mobbed the puff adders. In 12 encounters the meerkats lost interest, and in 0 encounters the puff adder retreated. But in all of the other puff adder mobbing instances, which is as far as I can tell around 88/100 instances of mobbing, the outcomes were unknown. What happened?

The researchers use their evidence that the puff adders never respond to meerkat mobbing to help build their theory that mobbing behavior must be for a purpose other than meerkat saber rattling....so to speak. But here in this video, National Geographic films a puff adder retreating as a mob of meerkats kick dirt at it. How does National Geographic manage to capture such privileged puff adder and meerkat shows when the researchers had been at it for years? How many takes did it take National Geographic? Perhaps meerkats were having some off days for the researchers? What's real? Did National Geographic stage the story? Puff piece? (Did they even use a real sportscaster to narrate the snake-meerkat stand-off?) Maybe the puff adder slinks away every 13th encounter with a meerkat? Would this new evidence be a chink in the meerkat learning story?

We scoured the National Endowment of the Arts site for lessons that might help us understand this, but to no avail. Unfortunately we may never know why the puff adders caught on National Geographic cameras readily slink off when dust is kicked on them by the vigilant meerkats, whereas for the researchers puff adders "never" retreat.

There are other things we don't understand about the meerkat study in Animal Behavior. The meerkats continue to mob herbivores despite the fact that the animals are no threat. The authors say indicates information transfer -- a teaching moment. But couldn't it just be a senior moment? Perhaps meerkats just perpetually forget about which threats are which? Or, on the other hand, if young meerkats mobbed innocuous squirrels more than older ones do, which the author says means they're naive, maybe young squirrels are just confident about their squirrel mobbing abilities-- like the fierce dog marauds the mailman safely behind the front door. Could meerkats be teaching themselves with and without the adults? Clearly I haven't been out there on the Kalihari with my notebook so you'll have to read the study yourself -- it has far more information of course, we've only skimmed the surface.

In concluding that mobbing serves as a classroom for young meerkats the authors build on previous animal behavior research, as well as their own. Perhaps it seems intuitive (wait--that's not science) that young meerkats would learn from their elders and indeed previous studies have shown that. But how does the puff adder data support their hypothesis? Given that meerkats do learn in these tight social interactions as has been shown, when did mongoose species evolve as independent self learners? How is that meerkats seem to need so much special tutoring? Do mongooses like Rikki-Tikki-Tavi engage in fewer interactions, that are just as relevant to learning in their unique species or are they truly independent learners? We await future research.

In "March On Penguins", March, 2005, we wrote about anthropomorphism in penguin movies.

Today, Craig Venter published his genome sequence in the journal PLoS Biology, along with a self-portrait so large, in the journal's 'Synopsis' version, that this startled reader recoiled with fright.

Sheesh. Science should be soothing...first you have your abstract, your introduction, the methods, results, discussion...No unassuming reader seeking to understand science's newest frontiers, for the greater good, should ever be confronted with SO MANY individual facial hairs, in such...lewd...detail. Shotgun sequencing indeed, he's a bit in the reader's face, as they say.

The published sequence is diploid, both his mother's and father's contributions. Much of the sequence may seem familiar, due to the fact that Venter contributed his DNA to the first composite sequencing human genome effort made by Celera (his company, which is also behind the current effort), the results of which were published in 2001. His genetic contribution to that effort was 60%. According to today's Financial Times unique scoop, Venter is predisposed to "novelty-seeking behaviour and a preference for evening rather than morning activity". News you can use.

However both the journal and the author stress that individual human traits are each influenced by many genes. The PLoS paper concludes that human-to-human sequence variation is five- to seven-fold greater than earlier estimates, which Venter says, proves that we are in fact more unique at the individual genetic level than we thought.

Yawn. Good enough. Nevertheless, maybe next time, a composite photo? Perhaps? To display your essential humanity?

Newsweek Now Decides Climate Change is Real

The title of Newsweek's current article, "The Global Warming Hoax", makes me wonder if Newsweek is still trying to appease all audiences, despite overwhelming evidence of climate change. The provocative title and cover photo with a giant burning sun gives the impression of a magazine intent on feeding the fire of debate. Inside, Sharon Begley coolly focuses on the deception of climate change by its deniers, who she says are running amok:

"....outside Hollywood, Manhattan and other habitats of the chattering classes, the denial machine is running at full throttle -- and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion."

In the 4000+ word article, Begley profiles a cabal of naysayers', who say that global warming is false, unproven or unimportant. The article features the usual suspects, ExxonMobil, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, James Inhofe, Fred Singer, and Richard S. Lindzen. Its well worth reading if you haven't heard the denier's tall tales or want to read them again. Perhaps you went out and bought a Hummer after reading Richard S. Lindzen's 1000 word opinion featured just last April in Newsweek, fatefully titled: "Learning to Live With Global Warming, Why So Gloomy?":

"There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we've seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe. What most commentators -- and many scientists -- seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes...Many of the most alarming studies rely on long-range predictions using inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now..."

Earlier this year, to be fair, Newsweek published an article from "the other side", about the the Union of Concerned Scientist's report on ExxonMobil's lobbying campaign.

The 50% Solution

It's not clear whether Newsweek's "balanced" coverage is in deference to its readers or its advertisers or both. This newest article comes at a time when ExxonMobil itself acknowledges climate change. "With its change of heart, ExxonMobil is more likely to win a place at the negotiating table as Congress debates climate legislation"

To Begley's point, the deniers still thrive in their slowly closing circle of lies. In fact they have now have been invited to the negotiating table. Those media outlets which broadcast the deniers articles also thrive. The Financial Times featured an editorial last week titled, "The Steamrollers of Climate Science", by Clive Crook, arguing that the IPCC and its reports were tainted by "pervasive bias"..

He acknowledged that it was written by numerous scientists, but wrote as if the IPCC was actually just a few scientists, four maybe -- Ian, Paul, Chuck and Cliff (IPCC). He recommended that "if governments are to get the best advice, they need information and analysis from an open and disinterested source". Who did Clive Crook have in mind? He quoted the opinions of David Henderson, affiliated with the Marshall Institute, Fraser Institute, and Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) (all funded by ExxonMobil).

Today, the Financial Times published two letters to the editor, one in complete agreement with, one disagreeing with his editorial. The rote, 50-50 solution that heedlessly denies the evidence.

Oil in The Melting (Shhhh!) Arctic

The climate change deniers ought to be experiencing cognitive dissonance that would compete with the "wind-induced" mechanical resonance that brought down the Tacoma-Narrows bridge in 1940.

While the denier editorial business thrives, last week Russia planted a flag in the Arctic, staking out future Gazprom profits, accessible with the melting waterway and the capital of foreign oil companies. The Financial Times itself reported on the opportunities in the Arctic and on various companies and countries chances of competing for oil in the article: "Arctic Ice":

"in a dreadful circularity, global warming, helped along by the burning of fossil fuels, is causing the Arctic's ice sheet to recede -- making any oil and gas there easier to access.

Spiegel, the German newspaper, wrote, "How much truth is there to the dire warnings of melting polar ice caps"?, asks the German newspaper Spiegel, in an article on the French Oil Company Total, a sponsoring explorer to the artic. The French company's stated purpose is to "measure the arctic melt" (and perhaps to send back pristine images for public relations efforts). Total is also working with Gazprom on Russian gas reserves in the arctic. Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States currently claim parts of the North Pole.

The Heritage Foundation noted that "a quarter of the world's oil", may be under the caps, and "if the ice caps melt and shrink", the newly available resources will fuel foreign "tension".

Is global warming real? No it's not, say deniers, but then they add that whoever gets to the Arctic and its oil as the ice melts wins. If you're dizzy from snapping your head around to follow first the one side of their argument, than the other, simply follow the money for the truth.

Or do we know the truth and just want to drive around in our SUV's a while longer?

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Acronym Required previously posted about climate change with:
"Cars, Buying Cognitive Dissonance"
"Green Spirit"
Communicating Climate Change
"Sea Change or Littoral Disaster"

UC and Tobacco

Wednesday was perhaps a typical University of California (UC) day. En route to their commencement celebrations, UC Berkeley students passed custodians who were picketing for raises. In support of the protesters, their scheduled speaker, Danny Glover, canceled his talk. A few dozen UC students on several campuses started a solid food hunger strike to protest nuclear research, in what U.S. News and World Report suggested might be "a boon for the pudding industry". Meanwhile, the UC Academic Senate, defeated RE-89, a measure aimed at barring tobacco industry funding of academic research.

The senate voted 43-4 against RE-89, with 3 abstentions. RE-89 represents the most recent push by some UC faculty to ban tobacco industry sponsorship. It follows last year's D.C. District Court decision, which confirmed in 1,742-pages that, among other transgressions, five tobacco companies lied about the hazards of tobacco and smoking for 50 years, enticed children to smoke, and used university researchers to help undermine anti-tobacco litigation efforts.

In trying to ban tobacco funding across the UC system, faculty were responding to a recent UC policy limiting individual schools from setting policies to ban tobacco money. That measure, enacted in 2005, overturned the tobacco funding policies set by the nursing, medical, public and family health schools, on the Berkeley, UCSF, UCLA, and San Diego campuses. By setting policy, University leadership forbid those schools, with their public health missions and first hand experience with the devastating tobacco related morbidity and mortality, from declining tobacco money. Other universities, such as Ohio State University, Harvard, and John Hopkins, have no such limits on individual schools whose academic missions clash with the goals of tobacco companies.

Why Tobacco?

Stanford University is also considering a campus-wide ban on tobacco funding, and professors there argue divisively along the same lines as the UC faculty. Some contend that professors should be free to pursue whatever research they choose, including tobacco. Others say that if any business ever earned the label "evil", it's the tobacco industry, and that continuing to welcome tobacco's dollars on campuses undermines university goals.

Faculty who disapprove of tobacco funding are often associated with public health or medical schools, in some cases they've devoted their scholarship to studying the tobacco industry. The UCSF contingent of the Academic Senate voted for the UC ban, and the UCSF campus is dedicated solely to medicine and graduate science research. Stanford tobacco industry historian Robert Proctor noted, "We really don't want to be collaborating with an industry that is producing the world's largest preventable cause of death."

University presidents, on the other hand, generally argue for what they call academic freedom. They maintain that academic integrity and conflict of interest guidelines for research cover any touchy issues that might arise in sponsored research. Evidence doesn't always support this claim. A 2003 study by a UCLA professor was one of four examples of academic research tainted by tobacco funding cited by Judge Kessler in her court decision. (In response to various ethical breaches, all UC staff and faculty are required to take a 30 on-line minute ethics class this year.)

Stanford President John Hennessy said "This is a political message, and I am very concerned that we are changing our academic policy to send a political message." His statement no doubt meant that the university doesn't need to send a political message to tobacco companies, condemning their toxic products. But it could be taken another way too. Since the primary charge of University presidents is to raise money for campus, they wouldn't necessarily be too eager to muddy the waters of fund raising goals by implying that their university might be choosy about where it gets its money. That would be the wrong political message to send to tobacco companies.

University administrations across the United States are sensitive to the issue of tobacco funding. Although universities often post conflict of interest policies and publicly list their funding sources, when we called universities with questions about their tobacco research funding policies, we received a wide variety of interesting responses from administrators. Some talked very openly about their decision making processes, but others were especially guarded. Coincidentally, those who were guarded were generally the same universities who posted affiliations with the tobacco industry.

It's a tricky balancing act for universities. Although many have divested their tobacco interests, these universities often continue to accept tobacco money for research. Since university communities are increasingly hostile to the tobacco industry and its smoke, these universities seem reluctant to discuss their nuanced policies. Tobacco industry money doesn't generally amount to a large percentage of research money but universities are quietly vigilant about protecting their rights to it.

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Acronym Required wrote more about the UC tobacco policy decision process a few months ago in "My Lab Thanks You For Smoking".

A number of books have been written on the relationships between corporations and universities.

Economist Researches Child's Disease

The Wall Street Journal posed a challenge to scientists in yesterday's paper: "Is an Economist Qualified To Solve Puzzle of Autism?" WSJ author Mark Whitehouse looked at the controversy stirred up by Cornell economist Michael Waldman's study¹ last October that linked TV viewing to autism. In "Does Television Cause Autism?" Waldman used precipitation records and cable subscriptions as proxies for TV viewing, then performed statistical analysis to correlate television watching with incidence of autism.

Waldman was motivated to study autism by his family's experience with his young son, who was affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder. In response to his son's diagnosis, and in addition to doctor recommended therapies, he curtailed his son's television watching. To his surprise the child recovered completely. However he was unable to engage doctors to study whether TV caused autism, so he studied the connection himself. He found a causal effect in his study and recommended that parents not allow young children to watch TV. As the WSJ article recounts, many researchers don't agree with his conclusion.

Scientists, autism researchers especially, were most critical, but economists also questioned his methods. Although his methods weren't unheard of, some economists said the "instrumental-variables technique" was imperfect and others said it tempted economists to study topics they're "not particularly well-trained" to study. Acronym Required wrote a satirical post on the Waldman's study last October².

Starting Your own Autism Foundation

Despite the impression given by the Wall Street Journal, Waldman's self-reliant approach to setting a science research agenda is not unprecedented. Other people whose kids are afflicted by autism have also poured personal resources into autism research.

A 2005 Wall Street Journal article, "A Hedge-fund Titan Stirs up Research into Autism", tells the story of mathematician James Simons, who, motivated by his daughter's autism, founded an organization that plans to spend over 100 million dollars on autism research. The 2005 WSJ article noted the controversy over Simons' funding:

"When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology asked him for money for brain research, he demanded that the project focus on autism and include scientists he liked. He has provided his family's DNA for study, pitched in to help solve research problems and is pushing scientists to probe a genetically based explanation for the disease."

"Many are cheering this influx of cash, hoping Mr. Simons' riches can buy a breakthrough. Others complain that Mr. Simons isn't working with existing autism groups and that his focus on finding a genetic explanation could miss the disease's true cause."

Scientists have discovered genes that could account for one or more aspects of Autism Spectral Disorder. The Yale Child Study Center is partially funded by the Simon's Foundation.

Genetic vs. Environment? Touchy Subject

Yesterday, two years after their coverage of Simon's initiative, the current WSJ article draws back the curtain of controversy:

"by suggesting that something within parents' control could be triggering autism, Prof. Waldman has reopened old wounds in the realm of autism research, which is littered with debunked theories linking the disorder to the family environment."

The WSJ quoted senior vice president of Autism Speaks and mother of an autistic child, who said: "Autism is a genetic disorder. The only thing the parents do wrong is they have bad genes." Autism Speaks was founded by two years ago by Bob Wright, Vice Chairman and Executive Officer and GE Chairman of NBC Universal, whose grandson is autistic.

The WSJ quoted "Ami Klin, director of the autism program at the Yale Child Study Center, [who] says Prof. Waldman needlessly wounded families by advertising an unpublished paper that lacks support from clinical studies of actual children." Aside from the contention that Waldman somehow harmed the patients, Klin says Waldman's conclusions conflicted with results of previous clinical trials.

The possessiveness of hypotheses for fear of hurting patients' feelings doesn't seem like a sane approach the patient care. If Waldman does solid research, why shouldn't economists study autism? Wouldn't parents appreciate a solution today, as opposed to one that entails decades of research and development? How does Walman's research hold up to scrutiny? That's the question.

Genetic vs. Environment? Touchy Subject

The WSJ also quoted Klin sayng: "The moment you start to use economics to study the cause of autism, I think you've crossed a boundary." Yet is the question really about whether economists can study science problems? Economists contribute significantly to fields including psychology, ecology, and international development. Their contributions to science could be substantial -- as are science's to economics.

Scientists distort the issue by focusing on parental blame, or whether an economist can contribute to research. Shouldn't we just look at whether a specific paper more approximates rigorous research or Swiss cheese?

The connection between autism and TV would best be studied in controlled experiments between groups of children, but according to the WSJ, economists don't have the "money or the access to children" to perform this kind of research . Waldman's paper was criticized because it drew speculative conclusions and was advertised in a what amounted to a sensationalist press release as opposed to being published in a peer reviewed academic journal.

While Waldman et al may have been swayed by conviction, their resulting study didn't meet the standards of the autism community, psychologists or neurobiologists. As WSJ reported, Joseph Piven, director of Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center at the University of North Carolina, said of the confounding variables, "It is just too much of a stretch to tie this to television-watching...[W]hy not tie it to carrying umbrellas?"

Did the paper meet economist's standards, a skeptical reader's standards, or for that matter the own researcher's standards? Scientists ideally start from a neutral position then work to disprove their theories, in order to prove them to themselves, their peers, and the world. Social scientists approach problem solving similarly. If the paper was representative of the field of economics, we might look at economics and its influence with renewed skepticism.

Why not just conclude that this particular exploration, however well intended, wasn't that rigorous, and/or didn't seem to support the author's conclusions and final recommendations. Waldman perhaps used his reputation in another field to build media interest around this hypothesis. He's not the first researcher to flip the scientific process on its ear. Other scientists have announced "results" prior to publication, with various motives. Perhaps his move was strategic, but it remains to be seen whether this economist can circumvent the research process to successfully demand that the science community study his hypothesis.

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¹ The original paper "Does Television Cause Autism?", is posted online at NBER working papers and from the Cornell website. Read it for yourself. What do you think?

²Last October, Acronym Required wrote "Autism, TV, Precipitation: Dismal Science", a satirical 10 step research how-to for repeating the results of Waldman's original paper.

Last year, as avian bird flu H5N1 skipped around the world decimating bird populations and fatally infecting clusters of humans, governments near and far felt increasingly threatened by the possibility of a influenza pandemic. Tension and mistrust increased among countries at a time when full cooperation among them was essential to public health.

Countries promised $1.9 billion to a United Nations avian flu program but had yet to fulfill their pledges. The World Health Organization (WHO) established a repository for virus information from member countries at the Influenza Sequence Database (ISD) at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in 2004, but the agency had a spotty history trying to deal effectively with infectious disease and was accused of beholden to the "gang of fifteen" labs given access to the data. The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also committed to sharing data, but like the WHO, answered to their member states and could do little to compel countries to share resources. Private labs, the CDC, and individual countries like Russia, and China, had all been withholding data and biological samples, sometimes because of poor international relations, concern about intellectual property rights, or concern about credit for their contributions.

In response to the fragmentation in the research community, scientists, politicians and public health officials fulminated, concerned that hording virus and sequence samples would hobble effective responses to outbreaks. In February of 2006, Italian influenza scientist Ilaria Capua called on fellow scientists to promptly deposit their sequence data into gene banks."'Most of us are paid to protect human and animal health,' she said, 'If publishing one more paper becomes more important, we have our priorities messed up.'" ( Science 3 March 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5765, p. 1224)

By August she and about 70 influenza research allies, along with international consultant Peter Bogner, announced the establishment of a new, more open and collaborative system. Capua, Bogner, David Lipman, Nancy Cox and the others submitted a letter to the journal Nature announcing the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID), a more collaborative and egalitarian effort to collect and share data in the scientific community.

The project is now set up and expected to begin accepting sequence data. Last week Science wrote that the database will live at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) in Geneva. According to the article, access to the database will be free to people who register and accept the terms of use. Those who submit data have 6 months to take submit patents and scientific publications before their data becomes publicly available.

Last summer, people welcomed the initial announcement of GISAID and had high hopes for the collaborative approach. Yet some scientists are reserving their opinions until they know the exact terms of the agreement, still undisclosed. Others are openly skeptical of Bogner's motives, and wonder out loud why a media privatization mogel who is better known in skiing and sailing circles would pursue such a venture. For his part, he says he understands the issues scientists have with data rights from working with musicians. According to collaborators he has infused energy and financial backing to the project, and according to Science, might help bring future corporate funding .

Will sharing data help the frayed international relations? Emily Fitri of the Jakarta Post wrote her perception of the country's untenable situation in an article this week. Its unclear how well this represents the government's position in the wake of its agreement with Baxter. In summary she thought Indonesia and poor countries should be incensed for being used as "petri-dishes". While Indonesia struggled with geographical and informational challenges to containing bird flu she said, wealthier countries take cultures to study and make vaccines without offering assurance that whatever resulting remedy will shared with the country for an affordable cost. Indonesia has a right to be angry she says:

"There is a local saying cacing pun marah ketika diinjak, literally translated as even a worm gets upset when stepped upon. This must seriously be pondered upon by those with greater power to review their initial righteous intentions of creating a better world."

Indonesia said earlier this week that it would share data as soon as it is promised affordable vaccines. Perhaps GISAID will help promote the cooperation that is needed but it seems like a daunting challenge. Whatever relations are in place before a pandemic will be further tested in a crisis. Russia is in the midst of trying to control recent H5N1 outbreaks among birds in 8 villages around Moscow. The Moscow Times reported on the situation this week:

"A sign reading "Quarantine" welcomed a steady stream of vehicles passing through the checkpoint. The vehicles slowed down to drive over disinfectant-soaked sawdust intended to clean their tires. The traffic policemen took turns standing out in the icy wind and stopping drivers, ordering some to open the trunks of their cars and show their documents in a temporary cabin nearby."

The country is trying to vaccinate all birds and control the outbreak. One could imagine this scenario anywhere in the world. Some Russians interviewed for the Moscow Times article said that the control methods were arbitrary and that drivers circumvented the blockades by driving through surrounding villages. Others said it was a lot of hoopla for nothing. One veterinary worker who the Moscow Times interviewed commented: "Two chickens die and all this blows up. It's ridiculous."

Scientists agree that international cooperation is necessary to prevent infection and develop vaccines, and in the case of contagious human infection, to contain the disease and distribute medicines. Hopefully GISAID's accomplishment in meeting its six on-line month goal will reinforce the hope it engendered last August and help promote cooperation that citizens of the world are dependent on -- granted, a tall order.

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We also wrote about Avian Flu in these articles: Avian Flu v. Everyday Plagues, "Hopes For Avian Flu Vaccine"; "Modeling Epidemics", and "Avian Flu in China- Increasing Resistance", "Avian Flu Updates", and Avian Flu Pandemic -- Officials Save The Date"

Academic Freedom?

Today the University of California Faculty Senate meets again to debate the pros and cons of the University continuing to accept research money from tobacco companies. It remains to be seen whether they will act on this agenda item or not, as they have been debating banning tobacco money for many years.

The current round of debates at UC is fueled in part by a recent federal court ruling. On August 17, 2006, the court ruled against Phillip Morris in United States v. Philip Morris USA, Inc for violating Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) act, and for "fraudulent corporate actions" and "disingenuous relationship with academic research institutions". The decision is being appealed, but is convincing enough to be used as fodder in this latest round of debates by those at the University who are lobbying to ban tobacco funding.

Responsibility for making the decision about tobacco funding has become a bit of a political hot potato; the Faculty Senate recently passed the issue to the Board of Regents, who in turn passed the issue back to the Senate. The regents have the final say but are advised by the Faculty Senate. Since 1995, the University has received about 108 grants totaling $37 million dollars from tobacco companies. The University will point out that the tobacco money is only a small amount of the total grant money. It received $15.8 million dollars in ongoing tobacco grants from Phillip Morris in 2006, out of $4 billion of contracts and grants awarded that year.

For those who favor banning tobacco, the court ruling provided more credence to evidence that the tobacco industry thwarted and influenced research. According to information at UCSF,the schools of public health at Harvard, John Hopkins, Columbia; Emory, Harvard and John Hopkins medical schools, as well as some international universities ban tobacco money. [Edited 04/21/07, 05/07/07]

In fact anti-tobacco money advocates point out that the University of California is now the only university that forbids individual departments or schools from declining tobacco money, a rule the Faculty Senate passed in 2005 after several University entities independently ruled against accepting tobacco funding.

Blanket Ban?

People argue that researchers should be solely responsible for the soundness of their own potentially controversial science research programs. But there is evidence that not all researchers at the University of California were frank about their connections to tobacco, and that not all scientists who received tobacco grants published research that was sound or honest.

Some faculty object to the ban, saying that barring money from tobacco would create a slippery slope and open the doors to more funding source curtailments based on arbitrary ethics or morals. But slippery slope scenarios don't seem to be a problem at other schools that bar tobacco money.

Drawing an analogy from (controversial) history about the American Indians and their demise from smallpox infected blankets, one faculty member likened the banning tobacco funding to accepting pox infected blankets. They quipped; "we like to stay warm, we like blankets, just not from Jeffrey Amherst guy and his cronies".

UC is reluctant to ban tobacco money for many reasons, but the academic freedom argument seems to gain the most traction. The idea of a blanket ban repels many UC faculty, who cringe at the thought of imposing rules on what faculty members can or can't study. To counter this, other faculty argue with equal vehemence that accepting tobacco money impedes academic freedom by biasing research outcomes.

Interestingly, the individual freedoms argument, in the form of libertarian rationale, is commonly used to support tobacco sale and use. The movie "Thank-You For Smoking" is based (humorously) on this argument. Amartya Sen criticized the use of libertarian arguments against public smoking bans in a Financial Times editorial Monday titled, "Unrestrained Smoking is a Libertarian Half-way House".

Second-hand smoke causes health consequences to non-smoking victims as well as smokers. If people should be free to smoke despite the known health risks, than society is left with uncomfortable choices. We can systematically deny smokers and their smoke related illnesses the myriad public resources that come to their aid in disease. This is an unconscionable decision of "a monstrously unforgiving society", says Sen. Or all the smokers must be treated and everyone else bears the cost, despite our massive body of knowledge about the inevitable disease burden caused by smoking. Notes Sen: "We should not readily agree to be held captive in a half-way house erected by an inadequate assessment of the demands of liberty".

Based on the August 17th conclusions of the court, the continued acceptance of Tobacco's investment in research only abets the tobacco industry's substantiation of false claims about the benign affects of smoking. While tobacco companies profit, systemic health problems of smokers burden the health care system and raise insurance costs. These costs ponderously burden the UC system, its insured, and the state of California. Whose sense of liberty is this?

No doubt the Senate will argue all of these points vigorously. It remains to be seen how or if they will act.

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♥♥♥The movie "Thank-You For Smoking" humorously, but in all seriousness, presents libertarian arguments for smoking.

NOTE: The Academic Senate postponed the vote until May.

CORRECTION (May 7, 2007): This article previously compared information in an article in the journal Science, to several documents listed at the library on the UCSF site. Here's one. (Link opens Acrobat!) We wrote the following: "Science wrote in, "UC Balks at Campus-Wide Ban on Tobacco Money for Research" (January 29, 2007); "...the University of California (UC) has delayed voting on a plan to impose a blanket ban on research funding from tobacco companies. If approved, the ban would make UC the only U.S. university to forbid tobacco dollars campus-wide."..." Acronym Required's original article cited the UCSF website information indicating that 21 U.S. Universities and Centers "decline tobacco funding". We have since contacted most of the universities listed on the UCSF site and couldn't duplicate UCSF's site information that 7 universities had campus wide bans, although many schools have units that disallow tobacco funding. All of the schools we contacted from the UCSF list allowed researchers to accept tobacco money, but most also allowed schools to institute bans, which UC does not. Some universities we contacted were under other constraints such as state guidelines around accepting tobacco settlement money while accepting tobacco industry grants. A more recent list of campus-wide policies (A.R. has not verified) is here.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Congress put forth a spending bill for 2007 that increases spending for physical-sciences and biomedical research. (Democratic Leaders in Congress Propose Increases for Scientific Research and Pell Grants in 2007 Budget, January 30, 2007). The Chronicle listed the proposed increases:

"The bill, which totals $463.5-billion, would be especially generous to scientific research. The research budget of the National Science Foundation would rise by nearly 8 percent, to $4.7-billion. Spending for the Energy Department's Office of Science would increase by about 6 percent, to $3.8-billion. Spending for the National Institutes of Health, the largest source of funds for university research, would rise by 2.1 percent, or $620-million, to $28.9-billion."

The bill also increases the maximum Pell grant award by 6% per year. The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the bill on Wednesday. The bill also specifically bars the addition of any earmark funding.

National Aeronautic and Space Association (NASA) scientists fear that the suddenly silent Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) is lost forever. MGS orbited Mars for over 9 years transmitting information and over 240,000 images to Earth from Mars, before failing a few weeks ago because of a solar panel malfunction. NASA launched the craft 10 years ago and it was only expected to last 2 years -- or 1 Martian year -- but the orbiter remained active until now, so scientists emphasize that MGS has had a productive existence.

Over the past two weeks NASA valiantly attempted to revive the floundering craft, at times employing the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and a rover called Opportunity to locate MGS, but all attempts were to no avail. Ground controllers who tried to communicate with MGS "were met with a silent response from the misbehaving probe", according to a report by a Senior Space Writer at space.com.

The Mars Global Surveyor was the oldest of five NASA spacecraft currently in use on Mars, which also include the 2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), Mars Express, and two Mars Exploration Rovers called Opportunity and Spirit. Spirit was the subject an October profile by the satirical news journal The Onion "Mars Rover Beginning to Hate Mars".

The Onion wrote of an increasingly hostile rover sending belligerent messages ("STILL NO WATER") and the occasional obscene gesture back to the Earth. The paper said that an irate Spirit was jealous of the orbiting spacecrafts because they got to fly and suspected that the other rover, Opportunity, "has found water and isn't telling anyone". The fictional report quoted an ever optimistic Spirit management team: "Hopefully these malfunctions will straighten themselves out," one of the lead scientists commented about the robot and its spiteful messages..."In the meantime, we'll simply have to try to glean what usable data we can from 'OVERPRICED SPACE-ROOMBA AWAITING MORE BULLSHIT ORDERS.'"

Even scientists become a little sentimental about these robots it seems, anthropomorphizing the robots not only in fiction but real life. "We may have lost a dear old friend and teacher," said Michael Meyer, chief scientist for Mars exploration at NASA, according to non-fictional news reports. No doubt it will be a sad final farewell, but along with "ashes to ashes and dust to dust", I'm sure scientists and long time friends will say that the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) died doing what (s)he loved best.

The Iraqi War Dead

John Hopkins, MIT and Al Mustansiriya University researchers' study (PDF) in The Lancet conflict epidemiology ignited controversy that won't fade away by calculating that 392,979 - 942,636 Iraqis died between March 2003 and June 2006, since the US and UK led coalition invasion. Adding to the confusion, last week two science journals each published their own take on the Lancet study. Science's analysis was called, "Iraqi Death Estimates Called Too High, Methods Faulted", while Nature titled their report "Iraqi Death Toll Withstands Scrutiny". "Toll" or "Estimate", and why such universal disagreement?

Researchers collected data from 1849 households containing 12,801 individuals in 47 cluster points, talking to representative households then extrapolating this information to the whole population. The cluster sampling methodology is well known in epidemiology. Yet critics of the study questioned how the scientists conducted the surveys, whether they conducted them as they said they did, and if the baseline death rate was accurate. They questioned the sampling methodology and perceived biases.

Tthe researchers said that had they gathered 10 times the number of cluster points, the range of the death toll would be three times smaller, however pursuing such precision would have been even more dangerous. Science notes that neighborhood survey methods were "destroyed to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands", which the journal said "infuriated" critics. The John Hopkins team points out that many deaths were verified with death certificates. Obviously, counting deaths in a war zone is difficult, but Science quoted one economist who charged, "It is almost a crime to let it go unchallenged".

The highly emotional response to the study was almost universal. President George Bush vehemently dismissed the report in a press conference. His denial could have been taken for a maladroit blunder. Republican allies shuddered last week when he said that the current Iraq situation is tantamount to the Tet offensive¹ -- it was a mistake to conjure up the "V" word. But his dismissal of the study as "not credible" was deliberate. Predictably then, the National Review called the study "cooked up" and 'motivated by the upcoming election'.

Other criticism seems less about national politics. The site Iraq Body Count (IBC) produced a point by point evaluation of the study. According to their count, deaths to date were between 41,000 and 49,000 -- similar but less than what the Iraqi Ministry of Health counted. Many Iraqi bloggers weighed in of course, some with interesting insight about the methodology and their own estimates.

Naturally, the study stimulated commentary from residents of the country who live with death everyday, as well as from epidemiologists, journalists, statisticians who have professional opinions to share. But thousands of random citizens also weighed in. Responding to a Wall Street Journal article ("655,000 War Dead?"), readers from Germantown, Maryland ("I'm not a fan of..the Iraq war...or President Bush"), and Bedford, New Hampshire wrote letters authoritatively describing their own estimates, based on "plain old common sense" and "simple arithmetic".

Conflict Epidemiology Conflict

All of this arguing makes little sense. No one knows for sure how many died during the Peloponnesian Wars, or as a result of the World Wars, the Asian wars or the current wars. In the Vietnam War, counts for the number of deaths throughout the war and after the war were wildly incorrect. You can pick any number, and it's represented in the pool of statistics. In 1988 Encyclopedia Britannica said that "thousands" of Vietnamese were killed. Today people generally agree that as many as 4 million South Vietnamese and 4 million North Vietnamese deaths can be attributed to the war. However, some say that only 1-2 million were killed.

Why the fuss over the research in Iraq - were the numbers in the media that much more comforting? Do people believe that whomever is left of the media in Iraq -- the bedraggled, kidnapped, shot at, embedded or cloistered in the Green Zone denizens -- have a more accurate bead on the death toll than epidemiologists interviewing residents? And why all the concern with this epidemiology, when people readily accept other research that has a much more immediate effect on their lives? They eat and drink and take medicine; sometimes capriciously; because they at least by default accept the epidemiology and clinical trial results behind their choices.

Obviously, this isn't only about how to tally casualties. Nature, quoting Jana Asher of the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, said that such disputes over the numbers were unusual for the field of conflict epidemiology and were fueled by political questions about US reasons for entering Iraq. There is no doubt that politics plays a role in many reactions to the numbers . Governments manipulate perception about deaths during wars according to what it calculates the public will bear.

Casualties in countries that were invaded used to be offhandedly labeled "enemy" deaths. During the war South Vietnamese and American officials exaggerated "enemy counts", while North Vietnamese underestimated their own losses. The strategy of U.S. military commanders was to bomb to the enemy's "breaking point". Many in the US accepted the propaganda -- if the US could inflict the maximum deaths on the enemy, the North Vietnamese would forfeit the war. In one TV appearance in the protracted public relations imbroglio, Secretary of State Dean Rusk marveled at the "resistance and determination"¹ of the North Vietnamese.

During the first Iraq war General H. Norm Schwarzkopf famously made US policy about death counts clear: "I have absolutely no idea what the Iraqi casualties are", he said, "and I tell you, if I have anything to say about it, we're never going to get into the body-count business" (NYT Feb 3, 1991). This was a blunt new tactic to combat more accurate (and grisly reporting) --convince people that a few "collateral" deaths were an acceptable part of the precise, technology driven military tactics.

Certainly, some citizens might choose to believe government figures although they would also need to accept inconvenient inconsistencies, for instance that the US government prohibits caskets from being shown, promotes torture for information gathering, but is not motivated to lie about the death toll. But are people apoplectic about Lancet's new report because they were habituated to previous reports of 30,000 to 150,000 deaths? Is 600,000 deaths a political crisis, but not 150,000 deaths? I think it's cynical to think the only reason for all the public strife is politics.

Conflict Epidemiology: Promising New Field

While politicians try block access to grim and grisly details of war, accurate casualty reports could help keep us more informed. If the governments' public policies wrack havoc, we should be accurately informed on the extent of that havoc -- it's not only our right and our politics, it's our reputation and our conscience. It's not just about the methodology or the politics. The discrepancies rattle us. There are people who simply care whether 100,000 or 300,000 or 600,000 people died -- that's a lot of people, a lot of lives. The world is a closer place. Perhaps globalization influences people's perceptions of war fatalities as much as it does business, making wars and their dead not so far away, so removed. As Margaret Drabble wrote:

"Between" "12 and 32 million killed" is a phrase that cannot exist [...] What kind of history what kind of mathematics is this, what has happened to those spare tens of millions? Unnumbered, unburied, will they haunt the earth for ever, will they ever find a resting place? Do they not jostle us, do they not stifle us, are we not kept awake at nights by their...cries? Margaret Drabble (1991³).

The ongoing debate is about many things such as the politics surrounding the invasion, concern on all sides that public opinion will turn one way or another, growing realization that the government blatantly obfuscates the facts, the troubling reality that peoples deaths, in fact their lives, go miscounted, uncounted and discounted, as well as questions about whose to blame for it all. This raises the stakes for official death counts, and the demand for epidemiologists. Nature predicts that "the study will be a key publication in the growing field of conflict epidemiology."

As such, scientists can attribute some optimistic news -- "a growing field" -- to the burgeoning military-industrial complex⁴;. Nature reports that the field has expanded in the past 15 years because of better methodology [and more conflict?]. Apparently there's no end in sight. Quoting Jana Asher the journal notes that the numbers could be used be truth and reconciliation councils who could add quantitative data to personal accounts to help them punish war criminals and help countries come to terms with history.

In addition to reconciliation councils, there are immediate needs for the studies. People make up all kinds of reasons why the US needs to stay in the Iraq. Bush may want to get rid of the "insurgents", but Democrats and Republicans both think they're being reasonable when they argue "humanitarian" reasons for staying in the war. The US should stay in Iraq, because if US left, the country would break into civil war, they often say. David Brooks said it again last Friday on the PBS NewsHour. We can't leave, Iraq, he said:

"...the fundamental debate that we've had for the past year, that we all want to get out, but if you get out and there are 200,000 people killed in a genocidal civil war, what does that leave you? And so that's always been the series of bad choices we have.."

It sounds so reasonable. Truly, most experts will admit that there doesn't appear to be and "good", option, and that any option might have a "bad" outcome. But the US won't *prevent* 200,000 deaths by staying -- especially without a better strategy. No matter what you think of the decisions to invade Iraq, whether you believe that the US caused all the casualties, how many casualties you believe there are, or what you understand about the real situation in Iraq⁵, too many people have already died. We may not know whether 100,000 or 900,000 people have died, but we don't believe it was only 30,000. Would the study have been more useful if it were more precise? Probably, but then there might have been more dead too.

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1. Perhaps he thought the host, George Stephanopoulous, was asking about his change of strategy...from the gut, to the tête?

2. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, NBC-TV interview, July 2,1971, in John E. Mueller,"The Search for the "Breaking Point" in Vietnam, The Statistics of a Deadly Quarrel" International Studies Quarterly, Vol 24 No. 4. Dec. 1980

3. Drabble, M. 1991 The Gates of Ivory. London: Penguin Books. Quoted from in 'Between one and three million': Towards the demographic reconstruction of a decade of Cambodian history (1970-79), Patrick Heuveline Population Studies, 52 (1998), 49-65.

4. The new field offers excitement, world travel, the opportunity to meet new people in foreign lands. Timid scientists marching around their labs might shudder, but the danger can be tempered. For the Lancet study, US based researchers met their Iraqi colleagues only twice during the study, in Jordan. It's vital work with invigorating peer interaction. You will be assailed, dismissed, challenged refuted, and attacked (in more ways than you think). So maybe it's not for those who want to be **rockstars**, but it is critical work.

5. Rory Stewart wrote an interesting perspective on the coalition challenges in The Prince of Marshes.

Researchers report in Naturwissenschaften (via Science) that women who test positive for antibodies to the Toxoplasma gondii virus bear more boys than girls. The virus infects over 20% of the world's population. Transmitted through raw meat or cat feces, it causes "flu symptoms" like muscle aches and pains in humans it infects, but is not considered dangerous unless the person's immune system is compromised or if they are pregnant. However, for women who have antibodies to the virus (from being infected previously) the sex ratio is increased from 51, meaning there 104 boys born for every 100 girls, to 60, which translates to 150 boys born for every 100 girls. Women with the highest levels of antibodies, about 72, have 260 boy babies per 100 girl babies.

South Africa's Wealth/Health Paradox

South Africa, where approximately 1 in 9 people are afflicted with AIDS, has a paradoxical economic development profile. It is considered an upper middle income country based on its healthy Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The World Bank ranked South Africa's GDP 27th of 177 countries in 2005, putting it in about the 85th percentile for GDP. The International Marketing Council of South Africa, with the slogan "South Africa, Alive With Possibility", describes the country as the "economic powerhouse of Africa".

Yet about 800 people a day die from AIDS in this country. Life expectancy in South Africa has decreased by four years and deaths from AIDS continue to decimate populations of young women under age 35 and men in their 30's and 40's, people who are in their prime and who -- from an economic perspective -- are in the most productive years of their life.

Now more bad news. An alarming study from Statistics South Africa's shows yet another dramatic increase in deaths from AIDS in South Africa. The report analyzed death rates from unnatural and natural causes and found that the death rate from communicable diseases of South African women aged 30-45 had increased by about three times, from 500 per 100,000, to 1500 per 100,000 between 1997 and 2004. Male deaths from communicable diseases had also increased and had even doubled in some areas. Some of this bad news was predicted. Since there is a lag between infection and full blown AIDS, it was assumed that the death rates would not decrease until 2008. However the figures are still stunning - as they were last year, and the year before...

The expectations of economists and politicians was that post-apartheid Africa would rebound and that the health of South Africans would improve. Indeed according to economic measures Africa is doing better and foreign investment has skyrocketed. But even compared to Russia, where life expectancy decreased as a result of political upheaval and economic downturn, the current patterns in South Africa indicate a dire state of affairs. For scientists and doctors, the increases in deaths are distressing since there are few signs that action is being taken to stem the epidemic.

South Africa AIDS Policies

With full knowledge of the toll of South Africa's AIDS policies, international public health officials, scientists and doctors are taking South Africa to task and rightly so. Historically, the government has denied that the HIV virus caused AIDS, and it has been slow to implement treatment programs for AIDS afflicted patients. Despite pleading from world leaders, South Africa's AIDS policy remains one of obfuscation and denial. Health minister Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang often insists that nutrition will beat AIDS, and regularly pushes garlic, beets and lemon, and African potatoes as effective cures. Since patient treatment via antiretrovirals now costs less that $130 dollars a year. South Africa's health policies are out of step with the modernity and prosperity that it claims.

The country was condemned at the AIDS conference in Montreal this year for displaying a basket of this produce in its booth, initially without antiretroviral drugs. Earlier this year the country banned two non-governmental organizations (NGO's) from a UN AIDS conference because they were particularly critical of Mbeki's policies.

In the most recent international public plea for policy change, a group of 81 doctors wrote a letter to President Mbeki asking the president to replace the ineffectual health minister, Dr Tshabalala-Msimang. In response to the recent letter, the health minister complained that the international community was undermining the country's efforts. She has long defended her nutrition advice as "the truth", and allegedly doesn't mind her moniker- Dr. Beetroot".

In response to the outcry against him, the president has assigned a new committee to oversee the AIDS program, according to an associated press article (South Africa Scales Back Health Minister's AIDS Role). But the health minister denies that she has been demoted, and in typical sidestepping form, a government spokesperson, Themba Maseko, said: we need to shift the focus from saying the problem is the Minister of Health".

Effective AIDS Policies

AIDS programs succeed in countries because of many deliberate actions by leaders. It is imperative that there is strong leadership to combat AIDS at the very, very top levels of a government. So in South Africa's case, if the problem is not with the minister of health then it is with the president.

People have said that effective AIDS policies will be pushed to the fore by governments who realize that deaths impede economic progress. It's hard to imagine that South Africa, where 1 in 9 people on average are affected by the deadly disease and only a small fraction receive drugs, has not come to terms with this economic reality. Any government which claims that beetroot is as effective as antiretrovirals is, as Stephen Lewis put it: "obtuse, dilatory and negligent."

Once it seemed intuitive that a higher GDP could be linked to greater general welfare of a country's citizens. Economists now recognize that GDP doesn't always correlate with overall broader measures of prosperity. South Africa is a telling example of this phenomenon. The United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI) rates quality of life factors such as education, the status of women, morbidity, and mortality. South Africa's comes in at 121sh out of 178 countries. This puts it in about the 33rd percentile of all countries, in the company of many countries who have far fewer resources. Therefore in terms of HDI, as opposed to GDP, South Africa's is in the same band of countries that its pro-business groups lord over with their "economic powerhouse" status.

In this "post-apartheid" era, we would not expect this chasm between the HDI (where it lies in the 33rd percentile) and GDP (where it is the 85th percentile). We would not expect the travesty of preventable AIDS deaths. We only wish that such a sorry state of affairs would convince those at the top levels of the government that only an active AIDS program will assure that South Africa truly is, as its marketing campaign says: "alive with possibility".

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Acronym Required previously wrote about AIDS in Not in Paradise Anymore - AIDS in Africa - Reason for Optimism?" - in response to a David Brooks column and optimistic prognosis for the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. We also wrote about AIDS in Zimbawe, in Burma, as well as in other articles.

New Species?

In 2004, Peter Brown, Mike Morwood et al. published research in the journal Nature describing a hominin that they had discovered in a cave on Flores island in Indonesia (LB1), that they proposed to be a member of a new species. The work was exciting for a number of reasons. It showed evolutionary pressures on humans not unlike other species and stimulated new ideas and insights about how we evolved. The group published their second article a year after the first. In that 2005 Nature article, Morwood et al.analyzed the excavated bones from nine more individuals from the cave. They measured the skeletal remains and proportions, and their findings seemed to bolster the discovery of the new species. Acronym Required wrote about their discovery briefly here.

Morwood et al concluded that the smaller stature of LB1 was due to island dwarfism and that the species most likely split from Homo erectus. Morwood has now refined his original thesis that LB1's small stature was a result of island dwarfism and believes that the species arrived on Flores with its small stature.

Last spring, Science published an article by Falk et. al, about the derivation of the ancient bones of a small individual (LB1) found in a cave in Flores, Indonesia. They had analyzed the brain of LBI and determined that the convoluted brain showed that LB1 was a new species, Homo floresiensis. However, their findings were quickly disputed by paleontologists from the U. of Chicago and Indonesia, who claimed that these individuals were simply Homo sapiens afflicted with microcephaly.

Individual Aberration?

Martin et al. published their opinions in comment in the May 2006 issue of Science. That group concluded that the brain was disproportionally large for a proposed species, but was comparable to other microcephalophic brain fossils. They dismissed the fossil find as merely the skull of 10 year old H. sapiens afflicted with microcephaly. The tools found in the cave they said, were not evidence of the higher cognitive skills of a new species, they could have only have been used by Homo sapiens. Falk wrote a letter in response to the comment that Science published at the same time.

Martin et al, the group that has been dismissing the new species, fleshed out their long-standing contentions in a new paper that stoked last week's attentive excitement. Titled, "Pygmoid Australomelanesian Homo sapiens skeletal remains from Liang Bua, Flores: Population affinities and pathological abnormalities", the paper is posted for all to read freely, online at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Jacob et al. published online August 23, 2006, accessed Aug. 25th) As reflected in the title, the paper heartily disputes the evidence for a new species, H. floresiensis.

Martin et al. present a laundry list of data based on the their own investigation of the remains. They describe geological circumstances as proof against the isolation of H. florensiesis, and assert that the island of Flores is too small to support 40,000 generations of a hunter gatherer population. They list "94 descriptive features of the LB1 cranium or the 46 features observed on both mandibles", that they claim are not unique to the 'hobbit'. They categorize all this and more, with a trace of alacrity common to the pre-dawn hawker of kitchen utensils in a TV commercial.

Of course they do discuss utensils - microblades. Martin et. al question whether an individual with a brain less than the size of a chimpanzee could manufacture and use tools that seem more compatible with the abilities of Homo sapiens. If they did use these tools, the researchers think that these 'H. sapiens-like' faculties might actually be evidence of species commingling. This theory, disconcerting to some, has also been forwarded to explain other pieces of the evolution puzzle and runs counter to Morwood et al. claim that LB1 is a unique species that evolved in parallel but distinct from H. sapiens.

Martin et al present a mountain of evidence against the argument for a new species, but his paper (naturally) draws criticism. Some scientists claim that the new evidence was "cherry-picked", and that the method of computer generated skull analysis that portrayed abnormal asymmetry in the paper is prone to manipulation. Critics say that the comparison between the LB1 chin and the chin of modern pygmies was spurious. They assert that so-called signs of disease in the leg bones were "a house of cards". (Culotta, E.,"Skeptics Seek to Slay the 'Hobbit,' Calling Flores Skeleton a Modern Human" Science 25 August 2006: Vol. 313. no. 5790, pp. 1028 - 1029).

The two groups each claimed that their evidence was the final word on the issue. But the most definitive "comment" was by an anthropologist not involved with the research at all, Ian Tattesall, who said, "this argument is going to run and run". It is "running", and perhaps because the research is about evolution, it's fitting that the media latched on to it. Indeed it seemed inevitable that Time magazine began calling the controversy the "Hobbit Wars". Time characterizes the participants as "intellectual gladiators", and "grownups with PhDs" who behave like "fifth-graders". Apparently all hell's breaking loose in this niche of academia, therefore we must have the makings of a minor media fest.

In academic style, the critics also launch assaults not specific to the data. They don't flinch from asking how the paper got published in the first place (a routine slight for PNAS publications), and they also question the political motives of the authors. Teuku Jacob of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, the first author of the PNAS paper, has attracted suspicion by moving the skull of the LB1 to his own facility in Indonesia in 2004. Jacob has always refuted the findings supporting the existence of a new species.

Clearly the PNAS paper is not the final word.

The Dispute that Keeps on Giving

In the meantime, scientists agree that DNA analysis would provide information, but finding workable DNA at the site is unlikely. They also say that other individuals could be unearthed and morphological studies could be done to show common traits among more individuals.

While the research is exciting, the natural controversies have all the makings of those aggrandized science disputes, where the media sits on the sidelines and urges paying readers to cluck dissapprovingly at the bellicosity of the Ph.Ds. Is the "hobbit wars", just another tiff that falls somewhere on the continuum between a *real* war, like the Iraq War, and the Lilliputian Wars of Jonathan Swift's crafting? You decide which end of the continuum is a more compelling place for the hobbit "wars".

But even as the scientists goad each other and argue passionately over the interpretation of the results, they provide deeper analysis that contributes to current understanding of evolution and our origins. It will be exciting to learn more about what LB1 was doing, with or without Homo sapiens, among the Komodo dragons and pygmy elephants and microblades and other tools. Did they come to Flores once, or several times over the thousands of years they inhabited the island? Did they perish in a volcano? Exhaust their resources? While the disagreements may be distracting, there are lots of interesting details that we have yet to learn that will be revealed in spite of, and/or at least partially motivated by, the debates.

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Acronym Required wrote about the discoveries last year in "The "Hobbit" Species of Indonesia"

The Veto: Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

For weeks, media headlines have reflected speculation in science and policy circles about what Bush would do with the stem cell bill. Lobbyists for both sides have publicly advised on what he should and shouldn't consider in his vote. Today he answered the conservatives' pleas by vetoing the most controversial of three bills voted on in the Senate yesterday. The bill, H.R. 810, would have expanded the number of cell lines used in federally funded research.

Bush also signed S. 3504, a bill that would prohibits "fetal farming". The House voted against funding for adult stem cell research that would have funded the Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act (S.2754) which proposed funding research to derive and study embryonic stem cells without "destroying babies". Although these bills were less controversial in the legislative and executive branches, none of the bills were entirely without controversy. S. 3504 aims to prevent the growth of human embryos specifically for research practices. Conservatives point to New Jersey's stem cell bill and say that it endorses "fetal farming". However New Jersey also passed a bill the bans human cloning, which directly prevents such a practice. The New Jersey legislature strived to avoid these issues, nevertheless stem cell opponents insist that the law would create the dangerous slippery slope down which all of humanity will slip in the wake of human cloning.

The Specter of the "Garden State"

S.3504 may have been written with ethical concerns in mind, but in this political climate, it doesn't seem far fetched to speculate that another purpose of the bill might be to conflate medical research with science fiction by raising an unsavory specter of "fetal farming" for voters. Similiarly, politicians brought attention to the abortion question with "partial birth" legislation, complete with all the grotesque visuals. They have managed to distort the stem cell research question to one of whether to "destroy lives", as opposed to it's real purpose, to "save lives".

The implication that New Jersey "encourages fetal farming" is contrived. In vitro fertilization clinics already do research with or destroy unwanted or unclaimed 2-8 cell embryos and blastocysts. Bush's proposal that these embryos be adopted ignores the fact that more than 50% of the embryos won't be viable. There are other ethical quandry embryo adoption advocates blithely ignore. Following their logic a couple of cells constitutes a "life". The Snowflake organization (hence, we suppose, the term "snowflake" babies), is a Christian organization that is supported by federal funding. The organization sells the "lives", about 50% of these embryos will actually implant, with fertility procedures at a clinic, after the parents have been screened and have paid the "agency fees". It's only one sentence but it's chocked full of ethical 'if', 'ands', 'buts', as well as dollars. The agency is also supported by federal funding.

Some of the alternative ways of obtaining embryonic stem cell lines still involve working with existing embryos. The conservative attempts to draw moral lines around available technology will leave the decisions to the private sector, who will assuredly aim to profit fully on all technology. When Korea's stem cell research was at its height, San Francisco IVF clinic Pacific Fertility Center was part of a consortium of institutions collaborating on the research. The fertility center's contribution to the consortium would have been providing donated eggs for the creation of cell lines used in the research. Women would have been recruited to give eggs via clinically administered hormone therapy. Clearly these types of business alignments around stem cell research presents some ethical quandries. But while the issues abound, it seems like conservative politicians tend to focus on the most morally repugnant and divisive facets of complicated issues, and tend to skew issues in order to evoke outrage rather than invite discourse that will enable citizens grapple reasonably with the issues.

Pardon Us, We're Busy Destroying the World

While this will affect funding for research, as well as the nation's ability to compete in this important international research arena with cohesive federal and private resources, Bush's vote is unlikely to change the brisk pace of stem cell research in the private sector. Already, many researchers don't use the lines that Bush approved in 2001, as they have not aged well, are contaminated, and can be more costly than those available through private institutions like Harvard. However, while cloning and stem cell research may thrive in the private sector, at some point shouldn't the government wake up to the paradigm shift that the technology brings and offer realistic policy options?

White House spokesperson Dana Perino's comments after Bush's veto were especially noteworthy in how they contorted the image of scientists and ignored the fact that stem cell research is supported by Democrats, Republicans and 70% of the American population, from all religious backgrounds and walks of life. She said:

"There is a strong difference of opinion and the president recognizes that....He also understands that there is a difference between when you are a scientist and when you are a policy-maker, when you are weighing the profound and unique responsibilities that you have as a policy-maker."

In light of world events, it's comical, almost, to frame scientists this way, as aliens, bereft of the sage wisdom of a policy-maker (like Bush), willing to destroy life, even the world, when tickled by the slightest inkling of curiosity. Then that's the reason they are summarily removed from places like bioethics committees -- because they are incapable of such hefty, profound, thoughts? Or more honestly is it because the reality that they present is out of step with the desired policy? Not to mention the irony of Congress and Bush contemplating the brave new evil world of stem cell research for the last two days, while explosive world aggession escaped comment. Except accidentally, of course, when the mic was on, and in between bites of buttered roll, when we were treated to insightful political analysis à la Bush. We've heard little about the lives being lost in the evolving war between Lebanon and Israel (with Syria and Iran hovering nearby), the self destruction of Iraq aided by U.S. activation energy, India's saber rattling with Pakistan, North Korea's irrascible nuclear threats. Perhaps we can restrict all our ethical conundrums to science research. Brave president, vetoing the bad bill.

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Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that S 2754 was also signed by Bush. That bill was not passed by the House of Representatives.

Humans are sometimes challenged by the tiniest things. We continue to fail to control the spread of malaria carried by Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite responsible for the most deadly malaria disease in humans. Although malaria morbidity and mortality is difficult to establish, there are up to 515 million cases yearly, and one to two millions deaths. Disease, death, and significant economic repercussions because mosquitoes that weigh a measly 2.5 mg carry the protist in its sporozoite form until it reaches blood via a bite from the female insect. The parasite completes its lifecycle, invading the hepatocytes of the liver and the red blood cells and causing disease and/or death in its human host.

Acronym Required previously wrote about the challenge of malaria prevention and treatment in Malaria Prevention, Progress in Fits and Spurts. As that 2005 article discussed, Novartis had just revealed that it was again unable to produce the quantities of the drug that it had agreed to in its "private-public partnership" with the World Health Organization. Novartis is the sole manufacturer of the drug Coartem, an artemisin based combination therapy which has proven to be one of the most effective treatments for malaria. In 2004 the company had also fallen short of its production goals, but it had *promised* that 2005 would be different; that it was capable of meeting demand. Both years the company blamed their production failure on few initial orders and shortages of the plant quingtao, indigenous to China, from which arteminsin is derived.

Recently a group of scientists at University of California, Berkeley bioengineered yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, to produce a precursor to arteminisin. The process involves the enzyme amorphadiene synthase that catalyzes the production of amorphadiene from farnesyl diphosphate (FPP). Cytochrome P450 then facilitates the next step of producing artemisinic acid. From artemisinic acid; the final step to the arteminisin compound is arguably cheaper than full synthesis of arteminisin would be. The research team says that this represents significant progress towards producing a more affordable treatment for malaria, although subsequent optimization of the process in order to produce a drug is likely 5 or 10 years away.

The researchers previously engineered E.coli to produce amorphadiene, an isoprenoid precursor to artemisinic acid, in research that was published in 2003 in the journal Nature Biotechnology; "Engineering a mevalonate pathway in Escherichia coli for production of terpenoids" (published online June 1, 2003), described here on the Berkeley press release site. At the time, the principal investigator Jay Keasling noted: "By inserting these genes into bacteria, we've given them the ability to make artemisinin quickly, efficiently and cheaply, and in an environmentally friendly way. Although E.coli replicates faster than yeast and can churn out more of the desired compounds, this next step, transformation of amorphadiene to artemisinic acid, turned out to be accomplished by cytochrome P450, a cellular membrane enzyme that functions in yeast but not E.coli. Keasling commented on the fortuitous research environment that led to the latest research:

"We reached our goal early, thanks to a number of miracles: The first gene Dae-Kyun isolated was the right one, the gene was functional in yeast, the gene's enzyme did in one step what we thought took three enzymes, and the artemisinic acid it produced didn't interfere much with the cell".

The research advances progress towards lower cost arteminisin production, which would potentially lower the cost of arteminisin combination therapy. Hopefully, this method, and/or vaccine development, or the judicious use of existing technologies, will eventually help abate malaria. As much as the spread of malaria is a scientific challenge, it is also a political and economic challenge, although arguably a more sure-fire scientific solution would ease the politics.The research is supported by multiple organizations, and UC Berkeley has issued a royalty-free license to both OneWorld Health and Amyris to develop the technology to treat malaria. Africa Malaria Day is April 25, 2006

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In addition to the article on malaria treatment progress listed above, Acronym Required also wrote about malaria vaccination development via private-public funding schemes for malaria vaccine development in Vaccine Development for Infectious Diseases. One World Health and Jay Keasling were also mentioned in a short post on Codon Devices.

Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, senior author of a now retracted stem cell paper in the journal Science, has cited for "scientific misbehavior" by an ethics panel at the University according to media reports today.

At issue was his endorsement of the paper as senior author, without fulfilling the duties of that honor by verifying the accuracy of the research. The panel also took issue with his shifting accounts of his responsibilities. According to the New York Times:

"He told the Pittsburgh panel that he had written most of the text of the 2005 paper. Three weeks later, he told Seoul National University that he had not written the paper, the panel said."

In other news of the investigation in Korea, Science reported that about 2,221 eggs were used from 119 women, not 427, as the paper initially reported. Science covered more issues with the research this week in "Investigations Document Still More Problems for Stem Cell Researchers."(311: 5762 p. 754). Korean researchers have requested that Schatten travel to Korea according to the article. Schatten remains silent.

Our last commentary touched on lying, a familiar topic. Today the New York Times magazine publishes a general overview of the science of detecting lies. Author Robin Marantz Henig, reviews the research of catchily coined "credibility assessment" - including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalography (EEG). As we would surmise in this epoch of top-secret government, reliable lie detection technology is coveted but elusive. Since many areas of the brain are involved with different types of lying and the recruitment of different areas is often unique between individuals, no technology so far - however sophisticated - is quite trustworthy enough. In fact they often have the same downfalls as the polygraph, for instance they give results that are sensitive to a variety of emotions or states of mind that aren't always indicative of lying.

There are several agencies in the U.S. government developing lie detection technology including the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute and the Department of Homeland Security. The author discusses some of the implications of using the available technology and quotes the DOD Polygraph Institute research head who notes that they only "develop the science", while "other people" decide how it's used. Cliche and familiar, but also a controversial stance in the evolving theme of science, society and responsibility.

According to the article some regard lying as an evolutionary step to intelligence -- maybe those who can outwit those inside and outside of their clan are more clever. It's an extensive article apropos (naturally) to current events.

We're quite accustomed to lying. Some may feign shock - as they did when a slump-faced, shifty-eyed, quivery-lipped Frey confessed to Oprah, the arbiter of truth, that his book was a pack of lies. It seemed like more genuine disbelief when the stem-cell myth slowly unraveled and the legacy of Hwang did a landslide shift from "supreme scientist" to he who would have had a street named after him, could have had a museum named after him, or would have been forever revered by his countrymen. Really, all this shock can't be more than an act. Maybe all jurors should be chosen from Oprah audiences; but lets be honest about the pretend "surprise" of it all. The routine deceptions are no more surprising than Groundhog Day (the movie). With all the Enrons and WorldComs and Katrinas and Iraqs, isn't it just the same day all over again?

Cut to Bush's State of the Union address. People recoiled at his proclamation about banning any sort of cloning research, "human cloning in all its forms; creating or implanting embryos for experiments; creating human-animal hybrids; and buying, selling or patenting human embryos". It has been widely pointed out that animal-human chimeras are a not so very scary part of health research. What Bush proposes also pertains to infertility treatments used by thousands of couples today to have families. People speculate about what he really means.

On energy, Bush said we were "addicted to oil" and that we would reduce our dependence on mid-east oil by 75% -- "through technology". There were arguments about this out of the gate -- the reductions weren't realistic or feasible and only 20% percent of our oil comes from the mid-east anyway. Indeed, say Bush's aides according to the Philadelphia Inquirer today, the President did not mean any of this literally. "This was purely an example", Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.

So is the cloning rhetoric also just an "example"? If the administration knows what they say, perhaps they don't really mean it? Outside of the most obvious (and at the moment unfeasible) human cloning and therapeutic cloning "examples" that Bush wants banned, there are some technologies that are essential for the scientifically advanced, humane, non-isolationist nation he promotes. Unfortunately, since the administration has already gone to great lengths to curtail stem cell-like researh, indications are that they will be invigorated by their new court appointees and will continue down this path.

While the intention is certainly there, it seems ideologically distorted. The stated impetus of "a hopeful society...that recognizes the matchless value of every life", rings false. As a small example, why say "no cloning", then merrily "clone" these troops for speech props in this Photoshop picture. Isn't that disrespectful?

The good thing about Groundhog Day (the date) is that one way or another you know that the season or term or trend or silliness will eventually end.

Zoologists published research this week describing the smallest vertebrate, which is a new genus of minature fish found in a peat bog in Indonesia. The fish, Paedocypris progenetic, is one of two new species of the new genus described by the scientists in the article. One female of the species measured one millimeter smaller then the next smallest vertebrate (at 7.9 millimeters). The fish are transparent (like the zebrafish embryos, or glassfish), live in peat bogs that have a pH of 3.0 (very acidic), and have unique fins ("bizarre grasping fins"). The smallest fish has been found (again) by scientists who said they first discovered the fish in 1996. Zoologists at the the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research in Singapore worked with Indonesian scientists, and also collaborated with scientists at the the Natural History Museum and the Max Planck Institute.

Evolutionary minaturization is especially common in fishes and generally includes a more simpfied nervous system, skeletal system and body features. The species characterized in this study are unusual in several ways. In particular they have more complex pelvic girdle and indications of unique reproductive features. The fish are in the carp family (Cyprinidae), and of the ray-finned fish order (Cypriniformes). Transparent fish evade predators because they don't cast shadows or reflect light, especially if they stay still. These species of fish don't swim very much.

The peat bogs used to be considered too acidic to support life but scientists have found that - to the contrary - there is a wide variety of fauna in peat bogs, including many species of minature fishes. Unfortunately these peat bogs are dwindling ecosystems due to development and recent forest fires. The authors note:

"Many of the peat swamps we surveyed throughout Southeast Asia no longer exist and their fauna is eradicated. Populations of all the highly endemic and stenotopic miniature fishes of peat swamps have decreased or collapsed or are extirpated."

The peat bog that these minature fish were found in was on Sumatra. Acronym Required previously wrote about a small hominin, Homo florensis, that once inhabited the island of Flores in Indonesia.

One way scientists look for potential therapeutic drugs is to isolate microbial strains from soils, plants, barks, marine plants and other environmental sources. Researchers isolate bacteria from the mediums then grow the individual strains in special media, ferment then extract the chemicals from the bacteria and test them for biochemical activity. Assays developed for this purpose detect whether the strain produces compounds that could be useful for drug development. Many antibiotics have been developed from screening bacteria and fungi this way and actinomycetes in particular have proven fruitful for drug development. Dozens of different antibiotics, have been developed from actinomycetes especially Streptomyces.

Now scientists at McMaster Universtiy in Ontario have turned these screening experiments around to ask: How many bacterial strains isolated from soil that look like actinomycetes show antibiotic resistance? Many, they found in a study published in Science last week. The scientists isolated 480 morphologically unique spore-forming bacteria, primarily Streptomyces, and tested them for antibiotic resistance against 21 natural and synthetic antibiotics. Every strain was resistant to seven or eight antibiotics - even the newest drugs - and two strains were resistant to 15 types of antibiotics. They found about 200 different antibiotic resistant profiles.

In some ways this is not surprising. Bacteria adapt to prodigiously unfavorable environments and over millions of years have devised a myriad of mechanisms to perfect this adaptation. They disable antibiotics with enzymes, block them from entering their outer membranes, pump them out via efflux mechanisms in their membranes, change the structure of potentially lethal drugs, and muddle the antibiotic target via point mutations. Bacteria like some gram-positive Clostridium and Bacillus species resort to their endospore form in order to survive boiling, complete dessication, high pressure, radiation, acceleration, acidity, and other harsh, abhorrent and seemingly unsurvivable conditions. Gram-negative bacteria often acquire resistance through plasmids that carry antibiotic genes and can be transferred within and across species, as well as perhaps swapped with other plasmids hosted in other bacteria. Actinomycetes are gram-positive, do not form endospores and seem to acquire antibiotic resistance via genomic adaptation, but that hardly limits their antibiotic resistance options.

In the 1970's, scientists did previous work in this area achieved similar results -- if for different ends. Researchers suspected that increased use of antibiotics for disease and agriculture might alter the environment. P Van Dijck and H van de Voorde, for example, tested 29 strains from multiple species across various concentrations of 21 antimicrobial compounds and found that only a small subset of bacteria were sensitive to antibiotics, whereas most showed resistance. Their conclusion? "Spilled antimicrobial agents have little chance of causing an alteration in the microbial ecology. (Applied Environmental Microbiology; March, 1976). While they correctly surmised that microbes had adapted a tremendous capacity to survive, they predicted incorrectly that further antibiotic use would not increase the resistance of populations.

In 1978 researchers tested sludge samples from the notoriously polluted New York Bight. The bacteria populations in the sewage and effluent contaminated water were far more resistant to mercury and certain antibiotics like ampicillin than the control microbial populations.

Bacteria have the advantage of millions of years, so humans have yet to discover many adaptations that bacteria are capable of. We often only notice what scrappy adaptors bacteria are with the demise of something we value, a recreational lake or when they compromise our health. Since only a small percentage of bacteria are pathogenic or wind-up crossing our paths in man-altered ecosystems our knowledge will expand.

All in all, it seems intuitive that soil bacteria which thrive in the company of organisms from which we produce most of our antibiotics, are would be resistant to many antibiotics. The Science authors show the scope of antibiotic resistance in this species and demonstrate the amount of work involved with acquiring this type of information. They confirm that antibiotic resistance mechanisms in natural environments are the same as in clinics. They don't speculate about the overall rate of resistance and interactions between species. Their study suggests that researchers should look more to organisms in the environment for predictions about how antibiotic resistance will evolve in medical settings.

We gain appreciation for natural antibiotic resistance, and can speculate that natural products screening and antibiotic synthesis will yield antibiotics of only limited therapeutic longevity. At the same time, the protection our antibiotics have offered to us so far remains impressive. The Sisyphean challenge of antibiotic resistance is ominous. But while antibiotic resistance may not bode well for humans who spend time in hospitals, the bacteria will continue to thrive on Earth. Despite widespread fretting about the dire straits of the 'planet's' ecosystem, we can be assured that some life will continue to thrive in whatever conditions we leave the planet.

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Update: A reader points out that a short overview of this study was aired on NPR. Gerry Wright, the chair of the Department of Biochemistry (and other positions) at McMaster University talked about the study for 7 minutes and 4 seconds on NPR January 20th. Wright says that the study might be useful for scientists developing drugs who could screen new candidates against potential soil resistance. Although this is interesting, some of the drugs trounced by the resistant microbes of the study have actually been highly effective in clinics despite the existence of microbes that resist them. What if they had decided not to develop them based on their suspected susceptibility to resistance?

The Seoul National University (SNU) team investigating the results of a recent cloning paper just released their initial findings in Seoul. The group will continue to investigate Professor Hwang Woo-suk's imaginary stem cell lines, but has made an initial judgement. The nine person panel determined that the results for 9 of the 11 stem cell lines described in the landmark paper of Hwang, Schatten et. al. in the journal Science were fabricated.

Before the news release some people speculated that perhaps it wasn't deliberate fraud but sloppy science and a string of of unfortunate lab events that led to bad results. At best, this seems like a tenuous distinction. That level of research sloppiness is inexcusable. Neverthless, careless technique perhaps seemed more palatable to these apologists, because it seems incongruous that any scientist would make such a monumental effort to deceive. Yet the SNU panel has made it clear that fraud was the root of the problem. The investigating group will finish the DNA testing on the two remaining lines to verify them.

Sad, really, a lot of people are affected by this news -- patients, scientists, collaborators, research in general and stem cell research in particular.

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Acronym Required previously wrote about the problems with the Hwang et al. research in Peer Grilling: Stem Cell Research", and "Stem Cell Ethics Glitch". We have also written about scientists self-reported transgressions and science reporting in medical journals.

Dr. Schatten, one of the investigators who collaborated with Hwang Woo Suk on a the stem cell paper published in Science earlier this year, has requested that the journal remove his name from the paper. The journal declined the request. (Normile et al. "Korean University Will Investigate Cloning Paper. December 13th). The editors responded:

"No single author, having declared at the time of submission his full and complete confidence in the contents of the paper, can retract his name unilaterally, after publication, and while inquiries are still under way."

Hwang, Schatten and their colleagues wrote a landmark paper published in Science in May, 2005, claiming that they had produced 11 stem cell lines from patients afflicted with various diseases. The therapeutic clones were produced via somatic cell nuclear transfer, where scientists transfer the nuclear material from the somatic cells - in this case of patients - to egg cells, which divide and develop via the transferred DNA. The research purportedly improved on a method the lab used the previous year to produce a single stem cell line by decreasing the number of eggs used to produce one line from 246 to an average of 17.

Scientists and the media questioned the lab earlier this year on ethical grounds because the researchers reportedly procured egg cells from junior lab members. Next, questions arose about several photos published in the Science paper that appeared identical, and the journal and researchers claimed there was a copying error. An anonymous poster on a Korean site - bric.postech.ac.kr - (where you can read articles via Googles amazing but "BETA" - translation software) has been opining on the validity of the research. DNA fingerprinting photos were submitted to Science to clear up questions about the clones. The poster then observed that the peaks and noise in the fingerprinting photos of the cloned cell lines and the somatic cells looked too similar to be authentic. Teams in Korea, Europe and the U.S. are now examining the results more closely.

Gerald Schatten was previously involved with another research scandal and in that one he emerged unscathed. At the University of Wisconsin in the 1990's, he collaborated with Dr. Ricardo H. Asch. Schatten used eggs from Asch's infertility clinic for research("Researchers 'Duped' Over Use of Embryos Without Consent"; Nature 379, p. 756, Feb. 1996). The article notes that an audit of lab records indicated that Schatten was misled by Asch, who provided several hundred eggs or embryos to the Wisconsin research lab. Asch and two colleagues at the University of California ran fertility clinics at UC Davis and Irvine, and were accused of multiple medical and ethical indiscretions in 1995, including harvesting women's eggs for the purpose of selling them to other couples and for research.

Asch vehemently denied the allegations for many months before fleeing to Mexico. His colleague, Dr. Jose Balmaceda fled to Chile. A third researcher, Dr. Sergio Stone, was put on administrative leave with pay for five years by UC while the investigation and trial proceeded, until being fired in 2000. Schatten moved to Oregon Health and Sciences University where he continued his cloning quest, with budgetary, if not scientific success, while again working at the fertility center, before moving on to Pittsburgh.

Scientists have long presented evidence that the current period of global warming is unpredicted - an anomaly - and that human activity since the industrial revolution spurred unprecedented climate change. Of course some argue that the climate change we're seeing in this Holocene period isn't anthropogenically generated, we're either in a natural cycle climatic cycle or the warming started thousands of years ago with deforestation by early human activity. As the two sides present their evidence, environmental policy evolves after the scientific research is established when hopefully the chinks are uncovered.

Research on climate and atmospheric gases during several glacial periods helps predict future climate patterns and discern via historical data whether earth's current climate is cyclical or unique. The European Project for Ice Coring in Antartica (EPICA) collects data and analysis from international teams of scientists who embark on bone-chilling expeditions to gather historical information about the atmosphere from deep ice cores they drill in Antarctica. Analysis of air bubbles trapped in the ancient ice pack gives information about greenhouse gases and climate changes hundreds of thousands of years ago. The previous core at the Vostok, Antarctica site provided data through 440,000 years ago. The recent drill provides atmospheric and climate data from 650,000 years ago.

The Antarctic information can be compared to similiar investigations in Greenland to determine what triggers climate changes in the two hemispheres. The scientists also study the historical pace of climate change and the transitions between glacial to interglacial periods.

This week's Science published studies by two research groups. Taken together, the results show that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere vary with climate in Antarctica. Temperature changes are periodic, however the periods were historically stable. The most recent periods were 10,000 years, a relatively short temperature change. The previous period (before 400,000 years ago) lasted for 30,000 and looked more like the current Holocene period.

Edward J. Brook, the author of the perspective, ("Tiny Bubbles For All"), in Science writes that the current levels of "carbon dioxide and methane levels just before the Industrial revolution" are higher then in the previous 650,000 years. Since CO2 levels are higher now then it ever, scientists predict that temperatures will continue to rise. The evidence bolsters previous research and concurs with predictions made in response to the "EPICA Challenge", which asked scientists to predict the results of the ice core analysis before the data was presented. The scientists were successful at predicting the data outcomes prior to the completion of the studies, which is important because we need to build public confidence in scientists' ability to predict future patterns based on evidence at hand.

At Real Climate climatologists and their readers discuss the research in depth. A previous Acronym Required article discussed some of the challenging aspects of Science Communication.

In last August's journal Stem Cells, scientists report that fetal cells enter the maternal brain in experiments with mice. In "Fetal microchimerism in the maternal mouse brain: A novel population of fetal progenitor or stem cells able to cross the blood-brain barrier?", Xiao-Wei Tan et al., found that fetal cell were especially abundant 4 weeks post-partum, and that the cells apparently differentiated. They also found that when a lesion was introduced, more fetal cells were present at that site. The authors did not investigate the physiological affects of the fetal cells. Via Scientific American's report: "Baby to Brain".

In the latest issue of Nature (437), Morwood et al describe their continuing research on the skeletal remains of the "Hobbit" species of hominins on the island on Flores, Indonesia. In 2003 the researchers excavated the remains from caves in Liang Bua and defined a new, one meter tall species, that they dubbed Homo floresiensis. In 2004 they returned to the site and found more remains that they analyzed for the current Nature report. They use this latest research to bolster their theory about the identity of a representative specimen they call "LB1". The authors propose that LB1 was one of population of individuals that inhabited the island of Flores. This was an isolated species they say, not an unhealthy or compromised individual of a more common species, which is the theory preferred by competing scientists.

The authors measured the limbs and skeletal remains of the hominin and used this to determine the probable features of the species. They found that the species has unique morphological traits such as the ulna and humeral torsion. They estimate that Homo floresiensis inhabited the island as recently as 12,000 years ago and perhaps came out of Homo erectus which was known to populate the island over 800,000 years ago.

The authors theorize that the small stature is representative of "island dwarfism", a condition where the species is evolutionarily constrained, compared to off-island species. However its also possible that such an isolated species also benefits and protected from threats.

The findings are exciting, but the archaeologist and lead author Michael Morwood suggests that the researchers will be barred from returning to the caves to conduct more research. The Indonesian government has held back progress at the site by refusing to grant permits. As well, the authors report of the Nature study report; valuable specimens were destroyed by the Indonesian researchers.

Apparently Indonesia's senior palaeonanthropologist and "national icon" disagrees with the conclusions of the group and holds that the found bones are of a single individual affected by microcephaly. But another group, Falk et al, presented data in Science(Vol. 308. no. 5719, pp. 242 - 245) in April that also showed that LBI was healthy, not afflicted with microcephaly. Falk et al analyzed the brain of LB1 and concluded that the hominin had no evidence of higher cognitive processing centers but might be phylogenetically related to Homo erectus.

Note: If your looking to use this story about H. pylori to bolster your arguments that scientists are sometimes wrong therefore they're wrong about global warming, and/or wrong about the HIV virus causing AIDS, your argument is a fallacy. Acronym Required has written extensively on both topics. Global warming is anthropogenic and real, and the HIV virus causes AIDS. Here are some of our articles on global warming and denialists: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Look to the site Real Climate, dedicated to climate change, for great analysis and refutation of misconceptions about global warming .

Bon Voyage!

UPDATE (October 23, 2007): The site http://www.babybottle.org, which used to be sponsored by the The American Chemical Council, as described below, is now sponsored by the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, a collection of manufactures who lobby extensively along the same lines as the ACC.

The site is no longer "garish pink and blue", as I wrote a couple of years ago, it's light green, pink and blue. In lieu of "Ask the Pediatrician", they have "Ask the Expert", and give the name and photo of an Ob/Gyn (not a pediatrician -- nevertheless you'd hope a doctor who's taken the Hippocratic Oath wouldn't be lobbying on behalf of manufacturers of plastic products, given 150 studies about the dangers of bisphenol A. (BPA). She does not warn that your baby may "drop or throw" a glass bottle and endanger itself as the previous "pediatrician" did. Instead she says that "as a mother...[she] believe[s] mothers have more important things to worry about." She posts the same message ('parents have other things to worry about') on numerous blogs. So from JPMA, the same message --buy plastic, it's safe, and the same affiliates; bisphenol A (BPA)and phthalate manufacturers, the American Chemical Council, stats.org-- but wrapped in a more subtle, tasteful marketing package.

Endocrine Disruptors, Potent in Tiny Doses

The Wall Street Journal published an article Monday about low dose toxins and their potential health effects. The article, "Common Industrial Chemicals In Tiny Doses Raise Health Issue", by Peter Waldman, highlights important and often overlooked research by scientists investigating health risks associated with the use of certain chemicals at levels that are currently approved by the federal government.

Generally, scientists determine the human toxicity of chemicals by assaying levels of a certain chemical and pinpointing the level that causes observable health effects. That way, a level of chemical exposure that causes death, acute reaction, birth defects or directly associated health problems is identified. The "no observable adverse effect level" (NOAEL) is then divided by what is known as statistically known as an "uncertainty factor" to derive an estimate of the level of exposure that is reported to be safe.

From blood tests, we know that most of us have been exposed to at least 500 chemicals, but we assume that these chemicals are harmless to us in the small doses we assume we've been exposed to, and that the government regulates them closely and would ban them if they were harmful. However research increasingly shows that some chemicals known as endocrine disruptors effect health at very very low levels, much lower then what the EPA approves.

The testing process that toxicologists use to test chemicals doesn't necessarily detect the dangers of these low-dose chemicals. When the chemicals are tested at the highest levels to determine the effect of possible exposure, the scientists will see health effects. At slightly lower levels the receptors to which the chemicals bind may not respond because they are overwhelmed, the chemicals may look like their safe. But then at extremely low levels, the chemicals may also trigger a string of reactions in the endocrine receptors that also, like at the high levels, cause health problems.

Estrogen is a potent hormone that can cause effects throughout the body, so if people are being inadvertently exposed to levels of estrogen-like BPA everyday then that's a health problem that we should try to reduce. The concern now is that these low, low exposure levels haven't been tested. The Wall Street Journal piece talks about many toxins, including phthalates (toys, cosmetics, perfumes), perchlorate (munitions and drinking water, fruits, vegetables), and atrazine (weed killer) that all cause endocrine level damage at low levels.

Bisphenol A in Tiny Babies

This post will focus on one of the chemicals mentioned in the WSJ article, bisphenol A - known by its acronym BPA. The WSJ author Peter Waldman reports:

"Tiny doses of bisphenol A, which is used in polycarbonate plastic baby bottles and in resins that line food cans, have been found to alter brain structure neurochemistry, behavior, reproduction and immune response in animals."

Along with baby bottles and cans, bisphenol A, BPA is found in plastic utensils, plastic water bottles (Nalgenes), some dental resins, CDs, and many other products. Naturally, not everyone is concerned about this, for instance the American Dental Association ADA isn't. Neither is the American Chemistry Council (ACC).

The ACC runs the cheerfully garish pink and blue www.babybottle.org site. [10/23/07: This information is historical, see "Update", above.] The organization is cagey about this - the ACC name doesn't appear on the site, though at the time this was written, on the first page there is some small print hinting at the websites marketing purpose. The site advises parents on the safety of plastic bottles vs. glass bottles in a helpful information page titled- "Ask The Pediatrician". Here, the American Chemistry Council poses the rhetorical question: Which bottles are better for my baby, glass or plastic? And then the ACC answers their own question:

"once your baby gets older, he or she may tip, drop or throw the bottle - so plastic may be a better choice. Additionally, you may hear stories that...plastic bottles leak dangerous amounts of harmful chemicals into the formula.Rest assured, there are no facts to support these claims."[emphasis added]

"Rest assured", the American Chemistry Council advises parents. Other sites also tout the safety of bisphenol A. The top search item in a typical Google search for bisphenol A is always www.bisphenol-a.org, a site that offers a wealth of biased information. Again, nowhere on the site does the owner of the site, The American Chemistry Council, mention its ownership. The site downplays cautionary research on BPA, and instead heartily dismisses research showing the harmful effects of the chemical. The site rejects policy actions which attempt to limit human exposure to the hormone disruptor.

The Industrial Strength Denial Machine

One of the reasons the BPA in plastic is accepted as safe by the mothers is because of the intense, sustained, and deceptive marketing of industry lobby groups. Not only do they provide misleading information on websites, without revealing the true source of the information, they also commission scientific studies to give evidence that supports their positions. But industry sponsored research can be biased, or planned to give a certain result.

The Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council commissioned a study via Harvard to review 19 studies on bisphenol-A a few years ago. The study, presented after 2.5 years of negotations, concluded that research showed no bisphenol A hazards. However when the report was issued last fall, the WSJ writes that three of the original ten panelists refused to sign it. A fourth one signed it, but criticized the study, then authored his own study that reviewed 115 research reports and concluded the opposite result of the Harvard study: that bisphenol A (BPA) does cause health effects in low doses.

The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a pro-industry group that claims to be on the side of "sound science", called the Wall Street Journal article alarmist by Peter Waldman. It charges that the article preys on the fears of readers who the ACSH who the ACSH doesn't think are that smart. Readers, it writes, are

"ill-equipped to understand the underlying scientific controversy, all the more so because there are no specific citations to support the author's frightening claims; a consumer who is interested in pursuing further information is left without the tools to do so"

Are their readers really too "ill-equipped"? Perhaps the WSJ readership differs from the ACSH audience. "No specific citations", is a defense often used by politicians to avoid accountability. The ACSH portrays the Wall Street Journal readers in less than believable way, since the business paper is not known for its "alarmist" stances about the environment, nor are its readers reputed to be intellectually at sea.

Contrary to the claim that the Wall Street Journal gives no evidence, the article specifically cites lots of evidence, including a CDC research report that "found traces of bisphenol A in 95% of human urine samples tested", and recent research done in Japan, where "researchers have detected BPA in the fetal amniotic fluid and the umbilical cords of newborns".

Consumers -- Not Able to Sort out the Facts?

The ACSH states that the reader will be stranded - "left without the tools" - to sort out the facts after reading the WSJ article. However, to the contrary, there's a slew of peer reviewed journal articles at Google-Scholar. Typing "bisphenol A" in a regular Google search also yields many resources. At the time this article was written, we found plenty of references to research on the effects of the chemical on neurochemistry (pdf) (such as dopamine neurogenic affects), behavior, reproduction (miscarriages), and immune response.

Not only is the research easy to find, it's consistently worrisome. Research published last month on on BPA shows that perinatal exposure to bisphenol A changes mammary gland development in subsequent puberty and increases the risk of breast cancer. Notably, the researchers used BPA levels of 25 parts per trillion, which is two million times lower than the "lowest observed adverse effect level", of 50mg/kg which the EPA established as the reference level back in the 1980's.

ACSH claims that Peter Waldman doesn't provide facts- he does. ACSH claims the research isn't there- it is. ACSH says:

"Waldman repeatedly implies that many of those who object to increased regulation at the drop of a rat [sic] do so because they are funded or employed by industry. Such charges are what happens when ideology becomes more important than sound science, when suddenly academia and industry-funded science are portrayed as competing forces with opposite goals."

In reality the real data is generated by hundreds of scientists in labs in Canada, Japan, Europe and the US. Both the American Plastics Council, as well as the American Chemistry Council vociferously deny the growing evidence in hundreds of studies showing the health hazards of this chemical. The ACC goes so far as to anonymously build internet sites that pose as benevolent places for new parents to get their questions answered. But the ACC cynically poses their own questions, then answers their questions with pure marketing.

The ACSH chooses to deny all of this and its own industry affiliations. Furthermore, no one is attacking "industry" research. Waldman focuses on particular studies on BPA funded by industry that come to the opposite conclusions of virtually hundreds of academic studies. If your trying to make the point that industry research isn't biased, bisphenol A research has to be one of the worst examples you could give.

The sheer volume of current data supporting concerns about toxins is attracting attention, but the research is not new. Theo Colburn has been doing research on endocrine disruptors since the 1980's . Although alarms were periodically raised in popular science articles such as this one in Science News in 1999, the persistent denial by chemical corporations has helped keep the research out of the public eye. Theo Colburn talks about the strategy:

"They are spending more money on telling you about the wonders of their product. And they are basically building up within the American public or the television viewing public, and those who read the press, basically that "We are good companies. We would do nothing to harm you. We will take care of you." So it is basically a matter of establishing complacency, I think, within the population."

Colburn is has been joined in her research by many scientists whose collective work is increasingly difficult to discount. There is a clearly expanding body of research that should signal to consumers and to the EPA and FDA that there is a need for an attitude change towards regulating biphenol A and many other chemicals.

Legislation?

The state of California has moved to adopt legislation initiated by Assemblywoman Wilma Chan, D-Oakland, that will ban the use of bisphenol A, which is currently so prevalent in our products. It will be interesting to watch the progress of this legislative attempt to control use of this chemical.

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Acronym Required previously discussed environmental toxins in the media and in an article about environmental skeptics- not phased despite evidence such as germline mutations from perinatal exposure to fertilizers.

Anyone who's traveled to Nepal or Africa has probably been amazed at the loads that porters and villagers carry on their heads. Not only is the balance precarious, but I cringe at the loads carried with ease and grace on the head neck and spine. But it's not as hard as it looks. Really! Researchers studying the biomechanics of locomotion under load bearing find that people who routinely carry very heavy loads do so more efficiently by supporting the weight on their the head. In fact, only in the Europe and the U.S. do people predominantly carry the weight on their back.

A recent report studied women in Africa, and found that they can carry 20% of their body weight without increasing metabolic output, and up to 70% of their body weight while expending far less energy than Western European or Americans, for instance military personnel, would use to carry the same load on their back.

How? The researchers studying the African women found that they adjust their gait to accommodate the increased load without commensurate energy expenditure. Norman Heglund et al., explains the energetics of gait:

"When a person (or animal) walks, their body goes up and down, and goes faster and slower, within each step. The energy changes associated with these fluctuations in height and speed are out of phase and therefore tend to cancel each other, minimizing the energy required to keep the movements going, much like in a pendulum. But in walking the energy fluctuations are not completely cancelled (as would occur in a perfect pendulum); at most about 65% of the energy fluctuations are cancelled, leaving at least 35% of the energy fluctuations which must be supported by the muscles each step, requiring metabolic energy input."

As the loads increased, the African women in the study managed to cancel more of the energy fluctuations, therefore requiring relatively less muscular energy for each step with the heavier load, then would have been predicted if there was a linear relationship between increased load and effort to carry the load.

The same research group recently studied porters in Nepal, and found that these porters are even more biomechanically efficient then the African women. Scientists conducted the study by hanging out on the outskirts of Namche Bazaar, the small town which sits at about 3500 meters (~11,500) feet in Nepal, known as the gateway to Mount Everest.

The researchers counted 545 male and 97 female porters who trekked by them during the daylight hours one day before the weekly bazaar. The researchers averaged the distances the porters had walked and estimated that each porter had traveled on average 9 days to reach the market, over 100 horizontal kilometers (~62 miles), had ascended about 8000m (~26,250 feet) and descended about 6300m (~20,669 feet) en route. The authors estimate that more than 30 tons of products were carried by porters to the market that day.

Eight participants were randomly chosen to be in the study. These porters walked around a track carrying various loads at different speeds. The researchers measured the amount of energy they used by calculating the differential between oxygen intake and CO2 output.

They found that the Nepalese porters aged 11 to 67 can carry loads of up to 187% of their weight - 20% carried loads more then 125% of their body weight. For heavier loads, their metabolic efficiency increased, but at the "optimal" load weight they used less energy then either western backpackers or the African women. Which explains in part the guy able to carry tanks of fuel over the 18,000 foot pass.

Part of the efficiency in carrying these extreme weights over difficult terrain (11,000-18,000 feet) -- in bare feet -- is explained by the gait energetics. However the particular gait that the African women use, theorized to economize energy use is absent with the Nepalese porters, so part of the efficiency has yet to be explained. Perhaps it comes from cardiovascular strength, training, the mechanics of load placement during locomotion - or patience. With very very heavy loads porters walk very slowly and rest frequently.

Health Partners Research Foundation published a study on ethical research conduct with the University of Minnesota in this months journal Nature (subscription) (435, p737). The researchers surveyed 3,247 scientists who received support from National Institute of Health (NIH) grants. Gross scientific conduct is considered plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of results. The studied confirmed previous data that showed that this type of misconduct is infrequent, however the study found that there are other behaviors that are considered 'less problematic' that nevertheless seriously compromise the integrity of science:

"Thirty-three percent of our survey respondents admit[ted] to one or more of the top-10 behaviors. [T]he scientific community can no longer remain complacent about such behaviors..."

The "top ten behaviors" included changing data, failing to present oposing data, and unethical use of ones own data. Other behaviors in the 'top 16' included inappropriate research design and inappropriate assignment of authorship as well as inadequate record keeping. 27% of study respondants said they kept inadequate research records.

The study has been criticized by several scientists for asking questions where the responses were difficult to interpret, for instance the San Francisco Chronicle quoted David Magnus, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford who was critical of two questions, as were other scientists.

His point is well taken. Since the respondants were limited to "yes" or "no", its hard to evaluate certain answers. For instance about fifteen percent of the total cohort (about half of those surveyed returned usable surveys) said they had changed "the design methodology, or results of a study in response to pressure from a funding source." But what exactly does this mean? Science research is a collaborative process. Since research is peer reviewed, it is rare that a study is published without revision since often additional experiments are required to further test or validate a result. Editors and peer researchers review studies according to variable critera, but the process is generally rigorous. As well, grants come under tremendous scrutiny before approval. Again, this *can be* political, however the intense competition makes well thought out grant writing essential. Sometimes grants need to be scaled back to accomodate funding restrictions, or sometimes researchers will decide to come at a problem slightly differently due to feedback or if they get a particular preliminary result. However this is part of the process. It shouldn't be looked at askance.

On the other hand, all the behaviors in the survey potentially skew the presentation and interpretation of research, so while scientists may understandably defend their discipline, the results are problematic. One interesting trend in addition to the fact that 33% of the scientists admitted to at least one of the behaviors is that there wer significant differences between the younger and older cohorts, in the number of scientists who admitted to each behavior. 38% of the mid-career scientists admitted at least one of the behaviors, compared to 28% of the early career scientists.

Slashdot brings our attention to this article in The Register: "Dutch Academics Declare Research Free-for-All".

The Dutch website Darenet, available in English as well (though not working when I checked), serves as a repository for all research and will be accessible to the public via the Internet. Dutch academics will publish to the repository but be free to publish as well in journals or wherever else.

The Register article suggests that this would challenge the proprietary edge that science journals have on publishing research. It will also avail studies to a potentially wider audience, since academic journal publishing is competitive so not everyone gets published. As well, many journals dictate the terms of publication, in effect controlling how and when a researcher's work reaches what audience. Practices imposed by journals include charging per page to publish, coordinating press releases with journal publication dates, and dictating that research be kept confidential until it is published. These practices curtail the researchers ability to propagate their work and impose biases on what gets published. Since so much of research is publically funded, these restrictions bring to mind questions about how publically funded research can be restricted by the private interests of publishers. The Dutch government spends generously on research therefore wider exposer should be beneficial.

Whether this will be a more prevalent trend remains to be seen. Although published medical research is available via Pubmed, a lot is still difficult to access without a subscription. And while some academics disseminate their research freely, there is a certain cache- if you are a scientist- to getting published in Nature, Science or Cell and other top journals. The stature of these journals will no doubt continue to drive demand to be published in them.

One of the vexing public health challenges today is antibiotic resistance. Replicating bacteria are constantly subjected to environmental stimuli which cause them to mutate to resist antibiotics. Among other factors, the promiscuous use of antibiotics, and more rapid and frequent migration of humans who enter foreign countries hosting bacteria native to their home countries speeds the spread and evolution of new strains of bacteria. Meanwhile, the relatively slow pace of antibiotic development is outpaced. Spurred by drug resistant bacteria as well as patent expiration, new antibiotic development research struggles to catch-up with new strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Development is an incredibly time-consuming process that often involves the production of the antibiotic (for instance via fermentation or synthesis), then research trial and error to alter the chemical pathways to produce new structures and drug candidates.

The journal Science (subscription) published research developments by authors Charest MG. et al; "A Convergent Enantioselective Route to Structurally Diverse 6-Deoxytetracycline Antibiotics", in its April 15, 2005 issue. The article describes experimental processes to produce multiple analogs of tetracycline that can then be tested against various bacterial strains for antibiotic effectiveness. A simpler description of the results can be found here at Chemical and Engineering News. The method for synthesizing tetracycline is noteworthy. The yields from the Myers Lab research are very small, but the analogs produced are ones that cannot be made via typical semi-syntheses. Some of these analogs show promise against resistant strains of bacteria, however the preliminary results will need to be explored more painstakenly before scientists find drug worthy candidates.