How many times will it take for the consumer to wake up? Back in May, I wrote a post about the generally dismal state of regulation in matters of food safety, which allows large producers all the slack in the world at the expense of the consumer. I wish I could say that the state of affairs had changed dramatically in the meantime, but the current recall of over half a billion eggs reveals that nothing has changed.
Today would be the anniversary of my mother's birthday, but she's been dead for some time now. Alzheimer's killed her. She lost the ability to swallow, so she couldn't eat or drink. Since she had left an advance health care directive that no feeding tubes would be used, essentially she starved to death. She was only 66. Mom was diagnosed with the disease when she was 52. She'd been having troubles for a good while before that, so hers was a very early onset. You lose people twice when they have Alzheimer's: once when their mind goes and they are no longer themselves, and then when the body finally dies. Early onset Alzheimer's may be genetic, and even dominant, according to a number of studies, such as this one. There are lots more studies, but many are very technical and not worthwhile to link here. Essentially, some forms of early Alzheimer's are inherited about 25% of the time. So my siblings and I have a big shadow lurking: which one of the four of us will be the one that develops the disease?
It's all in how you present a subject. A recent study currently making its way through reportage shows a slight negative correlation between number of sex partners and GPA in high school. The headlines depend on who you read. Some headlines (linked to the articles) for example: Survey: Sex affects grades and Teen sex doesn't cause bad grades and Teen Sex Not Always Bad for Grades all cite the same study presented to the American Sociological Association in Atlanta yesterday. The American Family Council declared that the study confirms the negative link between teenage sexuality and academic performance. It really doesn't. There was no academic difference between abstinent kids and those who have committed relationships including sex. But girls in the promiscuous hook-up crowd earned GPA's of 0.16 points less than virgins. That's about 1/3 of the way between an A and an A-. Horrors. But everyone knows that the adolescent emotional problems that lead to promiscuity also tend to lead to bad grades. But that's just folk wisdom; common sense. Now there is an Actual Study to confirm the correlation. It's a pity that none of the coverage I've found links to the study itself.
A new study available from the journal Pediatrics (subscription required) shows that girls are entering puberty at steadily younger ages. WebMD explains:
The researchers assessed the onset of puberty by a standard measurement of breast development. They compared the findings to a 1997 study of age of puberty. They found the following in a study of girls aged 6-8:The early onset of puberty is found to be correlated with both race and body-mass index (BMI). But what's causing girls to enter puberty sooner?
- 10.4% of white girls in the current study had breast development, compared to 5% in the 1997 study.
- 23.4% of African-American girls had breast development, compared to 15.4% in the 1997 study.
The researchers also collected urine and blood specimens from the girls to look at levels of compounds called endocrine-disrupting chemicals, Biro says, to see what role these environmental exposures might play in early puberty. ''It appears that some of the endocrine-disrupting chemicals are interacting with body composition and this may be the reason some girls are going into puberty earlier and others later," Biro tells WebMD. "That would have to be speculation," he says of the interaction idea. "But we do know BMI is doing it."
Much hoopla and political punditry has been given over to the recent passage of “Proposition C” in Missouri. Proposition C, in effect, says Missouri law will not permit any tax to be levied by the federal government upon its citizens for failure to purchase health insurance. The issue was framed as a direct challenge to the health insurance mandate of the recently passed healthcare reforms. Many Republicans and their leadership laud the passage of Proposition C as a death knell for healthcare reform in America. Nothing could be further from the truth. Proposition C received 71.1 % of the votes cast statewide but, reports show that little opposition was mounted to oppose the ballot measure and that only 16.27% of eligible voters turned out and supported Proposition C (667,780 of the state’s 4,104,834 million registered voters). Voter turnout in normally large vote areas of Kansas City and St. Louis City were 12.78% and 13.56%, respectively. Clay County had 18.27%. Jackson County had 22.34 %. St. Louis County had 20.93%. These counties have 1,605,083 voters and make up 39.1% of Missouri’s eligible voters. Historically, the above counties have supported Democratic candidates and issues. The voter turnout in these counties has frequently provided the differences between victory and defeat in hotly contested state wide elections such as are expected in November 2010. It is simply not the case that the Proposition C vote indicates anything other than a well organized effort to get out the vote by its supporters in traditionally conservative areas of Missouri.