Antibody 'F77' kills prostate cancer in mice

Interesting news on the cure for cancer front, here's to hoping it pans out for humans...

Data presentation

Ezra:

This is about the most effective presentation of data I've ever seen. I'm not even going to tell you the topic. It's just really, really good data presentation.

A dirty child is a healthy child

Guardian:

Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California found that being too clean could impair the skin's ability to heal. The San Diego-based team discovered that normal bacteria that live on the skin trigger a pathway that helps prevent inflammation when we get hurt.

These bugs dampen down overactive immune responses which can cause cuts and grazes to swell, or lead to rashes, according to research published in the online edition of Nature Medicine.

"These germs are actually good for us," said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research.

[..] The findings bear out the "hygiene hypothesis", first proposed in the 1980s, which suggests that early childhood exposure to bugs might "prime" the immune system to prevent allergies. It has been used to explain why increasing numbers of children in developed countries, where antibacterial sprays and wipes are common, suffer from allergies such as hay fever and eczema. "The exciting implication of the work is that it provides a molecular basis to understand the hygiene hypothesis," said Prof Gallo. "This may help us to devise new therapeutic approaches for inflammatory skin diseases".

According to Allergy UK, rates of allergy trebled in the UK in the last decade, with one in three suffering.

The pressure group Parents Outloud, which campaigns to stop children being "mollycoddled" and "oversanitised" by health and safety regulations, welcomed the research. "Hopefully research like this will help parents realise that it's natural and healthy for children to get outdoors and get mucky and that it doesn't do their health any harm," said a spokeswoman, Margaret Morrissey.

I wasn't aware of this technical term for it, but I've held to a version of the hygiene hypothesis from a young age.

For instance I've long refused to routinely wash my hands before meals, but I know people who do so obsessively. Yet now I never get sick, and they do. Seems to me my immune system has been better trained.

I think not oversanitizing is to most pathogens what being vaccinated is to viruses: it gets you some exposure and gives your immune system an opportunity to build up resistance. Like running drills.

Another winner: medical marijuana in Maine

Reason:

Yesterday Maine voters, by a margin of 59 percent to 41 percent, approved Question 5, a ballot initiative that expands the conditions covered by the state's medical marijuana law and establishes a system of state-licensed dispensaries. Maine has allowed medical use of marijuana since 1999. But as in California, the right to grow and possess marijuana was restricted to patients and their "caregivers." Under the new law, nonprofit organizations regulated by the state Department of Health and Human Services will be allowed to operate storefront dispensaries that sell marijuana to patients with doctor's recommendations. While California has many such pot shops, ostensibly operating as patient "collectives" or "cooperatives," their legal status is matter of dispute. Maine now becomes the third state, after Rhode Island and New Mexico, to explicitly authorize a distribution system for medical marijuana. Ten other states, including California, have laws that allow medical use of the plant but are silent or hazy on the question of where patients can get it. [..] this lack of clarity means DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries may continue despite the Justice Department's avowed intent to avoid prosecution of patients and suppliers who comply with state law.

“It’s great to see Maine leapfrog other states in adopting cutting-edge medical marijuana legislation,” says Jill Harris, managing director of Public Policy at the Drug Policy Alliance, which backed Question 5. “What’s especially nice is that the medical marijuana guidelines recently issued by the U.S. Department of Justice provide reassurance to Maine officials that they can implement the new law without fear of reprisal by federal authorities.”

Change finally comes—Feds lay off medical marijuana

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal drug agents won't pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.

The guidelines to be issued by the department do, however, make it clear that agents will go after people whose marijuana distribution goes beyond what is permitted under state law or use medical marijuana as a cover for other crimes, the officials said.

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.
Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

California is unique among those for the widespread presence of dispensaries - businesses that sell marijuana and even advertise their services. Colorado also has several dispensaries, and Rhode Island and New Mexico are in the process of licensing providers, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that promotes the decriminalization of marijuana use.
Attorney General Eric Holder said in March that he wanted federal law enforcement officials to pursue those who violate both federal and state law, but it has not been clear how that goal would be put into practice.

A three-page memo spelling out the policy is expected to be sent Monday to federal prosecutors in the 14 states, and also to top officials at the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration.

And the arc of the Universe curves a wee bit more towards justice.

New explanation for the plight of winter babies

Via Slashdot, WSJ reports on new research:

"Children born in the winter months already have a few strikes against them. Study after study has shown that they test poorly, don't get as far in school, earn less, are less healthy, and don't live as long as children born at other times of year. Researchers have spent years documenting the effect and trying to understand it... A key assumption of much of that research is that the backgrounds of children born in the winter are the same as the backgrounds of children born at other times of the year. ... [Economist] Mr. Hungerman was doing research on sibling behavior when he noticed that children in the same families tend to be born at the same time of year. Meanwhile, Ms. Buckles was examining the economic factors that lead to multiple births, and coming across what looked like a relationship between mothers' education levels and when children were born."

Here's the chart in which the effect—small but significant—jumps out unmistakably:

Placebos are getting more effective

...drug makers desperate to know why.

CDC promotes involuntary male genital mutilation

Hanna Rosin writing at the Dish:

The responses to the Center for Disease Control's proposal this week to require all American boys to be circumcized are predictably hysterical. Hundreds of commenters wrote into the New York Times today to complain about "child abuse" and "genital mutilation" and one "religious sect's agenda of control" (i.e. Jews). Subsequent news stories refer to the "controversial procedure" and quote CDC epidemiologists carefully measuring their words.

But the procedure is only "controversial" because people have emotional, psychological and religious reactions to it. Scientifically speaking, it's not remotely controversial [..] compelling studies emerged about the role circumcision plays in reducing the risk for transmission of HIV and other STD's

Scientifically speaking?! Well, it also removes sensitive nerve endings, muscle fibers, and blood vessels that are part of normal sexual sensation.

Be that as it may, why aren't we human rights speaking?

Mutilating babies before they've even learned to speak, much less reached an age of consent, is an outrageous violation of their rights.

You know what might be even more effective for reducing the risk for transmission of HIV and other STDs? Just cut the whole thing off and rely on artificial insemination later in life. Why don't we put infants through that too, huh?

I have zero problem with medical alterations once a person is sexually mature and can consent to the procedure. But these are helpless children we're talking about! Are we so barbaric?

If we must provide waivers for some parents in the name of religious freedom, I can tolerate that. At least it will be clear it's their religion condoning the barbarism.  But apart from such an exception, circumcising children should be a crime.

Mind your own damn foreskin, people.

(Cross posted)

Nanny state cometh

Politico:

President Barack Obama eats his vegetables and exercises every day — and he really wants you to do the same.

[..] The president is filling top posts at Health and Human Services with officials who, in their previous jobs, outlawed trans fats, banned public smoking or required restaurants to provide a calorie count with that slice of banana cream pie.

Even Congress is getting into the act, giving serious consideration to taxing sugary drinks and alcohol to help pay for the overhaul.

[..] The whole situation has libertarians craving a basket of onion rings and a beer.

“If you care about the sorts of things I do, then you are going to be losing big-time for the next four to eight years,” said David Harsanyi, a Denver Post columnist and author of the book “Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America Into a Nation of Children.”

Don’t get them wrong, critics such as Harsanyi say — they like broccoli and they lift barbells and they have no particular beef with a healthy president who was once described by his physician as having “no excess body fat.” They just don’t like it when government becomes the messenger and the enforcer.

The appointment last month of New York Public Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden as director of the CDC really made the libertarian-minded nervous.

Frieden is a big part of the reason New Yorkers no longer smoke in bars or eat trans fats at restaurants and find calorie counts on their menus. Frieden once said that when anyone in New York dies at an early age from a preventable disease, “it’s my fault.”

[..] libertarians like Michael D. Tanner, director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, aren’t looking forward to it.

“At the very least,” said Tanner, “we are going to get nagged a lot.”

Stem cell vision cure

Of the three patients, two were legally blind but can now read the big letters on an eye chart, while the third, who could previously read the top few rows of the chart, is now able to pass the vision test for a driver's license. The research team isn't getting over excited, still remaining unsure as to whether the correction will remain stable, but the fact that the three test patients have been enjoying restored sight for the last 18 months is definitely encouraging. The simplicity and low cost of the technique also means that it could be carried out in poorer countries.

As Gizmodo puts it: "We live in the future, and it's awesome."

I do declare, even the formerly-blind shall enjoy controller-free entertainment systems!

Link blag

Remember Michael Brown, of Katrina infame? He has a blog. Really. And he's been posting about FEMA...

The time has finally arrived for President Obama to make a decision about FEMA. Either announce it will stay in the Department of Homeland Security or pull it out. Too many conflicting signals are being sent and too many conflicting policies are being implemented. Again, FEMA is doomed to fail until the President settles the issue of FEMA's location within the vast and often conflicting bureaucracy of DHS.

Washington Post: Politics is driving the destruction of the District's school voucher program...

[Obama's Secretary of Education] Arne Duncan has decided not to admit any new students to the D.C. voucher program, which allows low-income children to attend private schools. The abrupt decision -- made a week after 200 families had been told that their children were being awarded scholarships for the coming fall -- comes despite a new study showing some initial good results for students in the program and before the Senate has had a chance to hold promised hearings. For all the talk about putting children first, it's clear that the special interests that have long opposed vouchers are getting their way.

Washington Post: Listen to the Dot-Commenters...

I am writing in defense of the anonymous, unmoderated, often appallingly inaccurate, sometimes profane, frequently off point and occasionally racist reader comments that washingtonpost.com allows to be published at the end of articles and blogs.

An Associate Deputy Attorney General* for Ronald Reagan, Bruce Fein, called for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. But he thinks the new president's incredibly imperialist wielding of executive power is even worse...

President Obama pledged to restore the rule of law. But the state-secrets-privilege wars with that promise. It encourages torture, kidnappings, inhumane treatment, and similar abuses, all carried out in the name of fighting international terrorism. That encouragement is compounded by the president's adamant opposition to criminal prosecution of former or current government officials for open and notorious abuses—for example, water-boarding or illegal surveillance. His stances on habeas corpus and state secrets flout twin verities of Justice Louis D. Brandeis: Sunshine is the best disinfectant; and, when the government becomes a lawbreaker, it invites every man to become a law unto himself.

(*The longer your title in US government, the less important you are)

Andrew reader: Deciphering the tea tantrums...history repeats itself?

Contra Yglesias, Conor Clarke explains why greed does not make you a bad person.

Obsidian Wings: publius wonders what the big deal is with American courts looking to foreign laws for guidance.

Washington Post: In California, Medical Marijuana Laws are Moving Pot Into the Mainstream

Dr. James Dobson admits his side lost the culture war. Yeah, It's kind of like that. Progress happens. Although Kyle at RightWingWatch thinks he hasn't quite thrown in the towel.

MIT is developing virus-powered batteries suitable for electric cars.

The US ambassador to the Holy See can't be pro-choice? What, would they refuse to have diplomatic relations with a nation where almost everyone is pro-choice? Hurray for theocratic fanaticism. TMV comments further.

Update: The Vatican denies this report

Lady can SING!

Why there's no easy hunger-satisfying drug

Via Megan, Derek Lowe:

I've long been wary of [weight loss drugs], since we've found (over and over) that human feeding behavior is protected by multiple, overlapping redundant pathways. We are the descendants of a long line of creatures that have made eating and reproducing their absolute priorities in life, and neither of those behaviors are going to be altered lightly. The animals that can be convinced to voluntarily eat so little that they actually lose weight, just through modifying a single biochemical pathway, are all dead. Our ancestors were the other guys.

Here's a video with some interesting background on why certain appetites evolved:



Meanwhile Reason has a piece on solving the problem of childhood obesity.

Watch HIV spread

The video will pause to let you see important frames. Those green-tinted particles are HIV inside a T-cell.

UK's Telegraph:

The US study has broken new ground by revealing that it is the synapse through which the viral proteins are gathered and moved into uninfected cells.

The team [...] believe that this knowledge could help create new treatments for HIV and AIDS.

"Our findings may explain why attempts to develop an HIV vaccine have so far been unsuccessful."

"The more we know about this mode of transfer, the better chance we have of figuring out how to block it and the spread of HIV and Aids."

For decades it was believed that HIV was mostly spread around the body through freely circulating particles, which attach themselves to a cell, take over its replication machinery and make multiple copies of themselves.

In 2004, scientists discovered that cell-to-cell transfer of HIV also occurred via virological synapses, but it was not understood why the process was so effective in spreading the virus.

Due to this, previous efforts to create an HIV vaccine have focused on priming the immune system to recognise and attack proteins of free-circulating virus. The new video footage indicates that HIV avoids recognition by being directly transferred between cells.

"We should be developing vaccines that help the immune system recognise proteins involved in virological synapse formation and antiviral drugs that target the factors required for synapse formation."

"Direct T-cell-to-T-cell transfer through a virological synapse is a highly efficient avenue of HIV infection, and it could be the predominant mode of dissemination."

Secularism works

Secular free choice works on this and a whole host of issues. For instance many Jehova Witness' kids have died in the past because their parent's religion was against blood transfusions. Tragic though it may seem, this outcome is consistent with a free society of personal & parental responsibility.

We know some people will always persist with tragically dumb beliefs. For instance the Pope stated that condoms make the AIDS problem in Africa worse, which flies in the face of all evidence.

But people making dumb choices and having the opportunity to independently take responsibility for and learn from their mistakes is a lot better than a government regimenting our choices for us. That is why the socially conservative politics of evangelical Christianists like Dr. James Dobson or the nanny statism of the Left are so misguided and harmful on balance.

Mother dies one mile from hospital while cop writes ticket for expired tags

Too fat to work

UK's Telegraph:

Philip Chawner, 53, and his 57-year-old wife Audrey weigh 336 pounds. Their daughter Emma, 19, weighs 238 pounds, while her older sister Samantha, 21, weighs 252 pounds.

The family from Blackburn claim £22,508 a year in benefits, equivalent to the take-home pay from a USD $43,698 salary.

The Chawners haven't worked in 11 years, claim their weight is a hereditary condition and the money they receive is insufficient to live on.

Mr Chawner said: "What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table.

It's not our fault we can't work. We deserve more."

Bollocks.

No federal embryonic stem cell research yet

Congress still needs to repeal the Dickey-Wicker amendment from 1995 that was re-signed as part of the omnibus spending bill last week.

Heroic outrage

(meme) Bob McCarthy is incensed:

Soon after President Barack Obama signed an executive order lifting the ban on the use federal funding of embryonic stem cells in medical research, the wizards behind the White House web site posted the photo above.  Though I find it less troubling than the president’s continuing assault on the unborn, the file name (hero_stemcell_main2.jpg) under which someone at the White House saved the photo of the signing ceremony this afternoon is disturbingly creepy.

[...] To imply that President Obama is somehow heroic by signing a measure that lifts a ban on the slaughter of human embryos for scientific purposes goes beyond the pale.  Such an amateurish action should not, however, surprise anyone familiar with Obama’s socialist agenda (a.k.a., “Obamalism”) and his follower’s blind allegiance to “Dear Leader.”

Doug Ross adds:

Not as creepy as the song Bruce Springsteen will sing at one of the White House's Wednesday night bashes. The song will be called He's a stem-cell hero, sung to the tune of He's a rhinestone cowboy.

Urbanik offers:

"Hero: When viewing a proof sheet or selection of images, the Hero image is the image selected for final use i.e. typically the best image from the selection." -Photographic terms glossary

You're welcome.

Meanwhile CNN & FOX personality Glenn Beck thinks that allowing federal dollars to be used for embryonic stem cell research means the progressive movement will lead us to a new "master race" that's "absolutely frightening".

Update: Undeterred, Our Lady of Perpetual Outrage marches on:

What’s amusing is not that the term “hero” was used — “hero shot” is a common photography term to describe the best images of a series of shots.

What’s amusing is that every damned shot that’s ever taken of Dear Leader is classified as a “hero shot.”

At least we've descended from "disturbingly creepy, beyond the pale" to amusement.

But is it actually amusing that every photo of Obama featured on whitehouse.gov is the "hero" of a set of ones that weren't featured? Michelle must be having a slow outrage day, for this is standard procedure in the photo publishing biz.

Wrap it in bacon and you've got a meal!

That's a peanut butter brownie deep fried in cookie dough.

(more at thisiswhyyourefat.com)

Worst food in the U.S.

River Front Times:

Men's Health magazine has released its annual "Worst Foods" list. Scoring the top spot as the absolute worst food in the country? A large Chocolate Oreo Shake from Baskin Robbins. This bad boy has 2,600 calories, 135 grams of fat (59 of which are saturated), 263 grams of sugar and 1,700 milligrams of sodium.

And now it sits on my desk, taunting me.

I'd hit it.