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Swine flu: working sick and shared responsibilities

One of the things we are told is not the responsibility of government but an "individual responsibility" is not working sick or sending our kids to school when they are sick. I pointed out that the ability to do this may depend on others, particularly employers. Employers also have a responsibility, not just employees. The US has some of the worst sick leave and child care policies among industrialized nations. It is nothing short of a scandal. And now these non-policies have the potential to have major public health consequences. The US labor movement is querying its workers about this. Here…

What else did you expect from horny teenagers?

Promises, promises. Since the New Years is a time for resolutions, we bring you news you already know about resolutions. News like this. Evolution has hard wired a drive to reproduce in young, healthy humans. That's how the species survives. Maybe you don't want them to have sex and maybe they even promise they won't, but biology is more powerful than parents or governments. A study published in the journal Pediatrics followed 289 teenagers who said in 1996 they took a virginity pledge and compared them with 645 non-pledgers, taking into account religious beliefs and attitudes to sex and…

Annals of McCain - Palin, XII: monkey business

There's been a lot of talk about McCain's failure to look at Obama during Friday night's debate. Here's Chris Matthews (who is a total bonehead as far as I am concerned) speculating: In fairness to Matthews, his view was mirrored by many others. The dominant views were either it was an expression of contempt or anger. However since this is also a science blog I thought I'd share this interesting take by one of Josh Marshall's readers over at Talking Points Memo (TPM): And here's another note from TPM Reader TB. I guess I'm really not sure quite how to characterize it ... I think people…

Grandchildren and fake coffee

If you read the comments you know that in the last day or so Mrs. R. and I have had the excitement and anxiety of expecting a new grandchild. He is number three but the only thing that gets old about being a grand parent is the grand parent. The little guy is cute as a button, the mom (our daughter) is resting comfortably after her C-section, dad is happy and snapping pics and wondering how he is going to cope on his own with the 14 month old sib until his spouse returns home and Mrs. R. and I are relieved and pleased as punch. While we, too, cope with events we bring you this: Product…

Net neutrality: the internet's Declaration of Independence

Maybe you already know about net neutrality or have heard of it. If you haven't, American Independence Day seems a particularly apt time to bring you the message, since it's all about the independence of the internet. If you read this and other blogs, you probably already value the freedom of the internet. I don't like a lot of the stuff but I do appreciate that whatever my interests or concerns or politics I can find a place on the internet that caters to it. I certainly don't want my ISP, the much and justly hated Comcast Company, or Verizon or Time Warner or any of the other corporate…

Art and Visual Representation at ScienceOnline2010

Last year we had a session on Art And Science and a workshop How To Paint Your Own Blog Pictures. At this year's conference we have more sessions that explore the visual aspects of science. Click on links to see what discussions have already started on these pages and add your questions and thoughts: Paint your blog images using a digital tablet led by Glendon Mellow Description: Get a chance to test out a digital tablet, and see why it's like having an entire art supply store on your computer. Beginning with tutorials on Glendon's blog before the conference, we'll try using Gimp, ArtRage…

World AIDS Day and Techie Tuesday in RTP

TECHIE TUESDAY "Celebration of Life" Research Triangle Global Health Excellence & World AIDS Day Date: December 1, 2009 Time: 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm Location: RTP Headquarters - 12 Davis Drive Catering By: Nantucket Café & Neomonde Did you know the Triangle region is a center of excellence in global health? Help celebrate World AIDS Day and find out how RTP companies and stakeholders are making an impact on HIV/AIDS and other important global health concerns. Global health organizations in the Park are helping people live longer, more productive lives by working to address HIV/AIDS and…

Science Cafe Raleigh: Dog Genome: Teaching Scientists New Tricks

Dog Genome: Teaching Scientists New Tricks November 17th; 6:30-8:30 pm with discussion beginning at 7:00 followed by Q&A The Irregardless Café, 901 W. Morgan Street, Raleigh 919.833.8898 This year, roughly 66,000 people will be diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, while another 22,000 will be diagnosed with cancers of the brain. In parallel, our pet dogs also suffer from a range of similar spontaneous cancers. For thousands of years, humans and dogs have shared a unique bond--breathing the same air, drinking the same water, and living in the same environment. During the 21st century…

Tweetlinks, 10-06-09

Follow me on Twitter to get these, and more, in something closer to Real Time: Genes, Categories and Species, by Jody Hey, a book review. Some wicked multimedia tools... In the past, when a country switches from dollar to euro we invent a reason to bomb it. Too late now: The demise of the dollar Immersion In Nature Makes Us Nicer These are @justarikia's Top 5 Favorite Music Videos Involving Robots - what are yours? 'We are the robot'? Our screwed-up malpractice system. Whose fault is that? Let's try 'nobody'. How to sell news on the web: A checklist Why Blog? A study Darwin, 'Ardi', and the…

The climate change disease train

We can argue about the cause, but climate is changing. It may be called global warming but the effect most people will see is an increased variability of weather events, with more frequent extreme weather. Little things. Like Hurricane Katrina. WHO is among many warning that it is not only the physical effects that will affect people, but changes in disease patterns as well, with the brunt of climate change linked disease deaths coming from the Asia-Pacific region: Shigeru Omi, WHO director for the Western Pacific region based in Manila, said "the impact of climate change will be felt more in…

Attorney General Mukasey intent on sending his reputation down the toilet

The Global War on Terror is claiming yet another victim: the reputation of Attorney General Michael Mukasey as a principled guardian of the Rule of Law. Even before joining the Bush administration Mukasey was forgetting the meaning of the word "torture," and since being confirmed is equally benighted regarding privacy. Now he is peddling shoddy goods linking terrorism and software piracy. Does this former judge have no shame? Via Preston Gralla at Computer World Blogs: In a talk last week before at the Tech Museum of Innovation, Mukasey used his best fearmongering tactics to link software…

The Indian peoples' lying eyes

The number of deaths in Indonesia from bird flu just shot past the 100 mark without even pausing -- 101 was recorded right afterward. Tibet announced an outbreak and the disease continued to march through the Indian subcontinent, although the UN flu czar, Dr. David Nabarro said he thought the Indian/West Bengal outbreak was "coming under control." The use of the progressive tense here ("coming under control") suggests this is a mix of hope and belief and in any case indicates the outbreak is still not under control. Which won't come as a surprise to the residents of Kolkata (neé Calcutta):…

Emergency evacuation

This Reveres lives in a major northeastern city. That's not a secret. The northeast gets snowstorms. Not a secret. Living in a major northeastern city when it has a snowstorm is an experience, and not a good one. No secret. I'm not telling you anything new. So it's no big surprise that I left the medical center at 1:45 pm yesterday, just as it was starting to snow, and didn't arrive home until 6:05 pm. I feel compelled to do the numbers. How long is my usual commute ? 15 minutes. How many times did my 95 Volvo get stuck? Six. Each time it had to be pushed by kind strangers or my daughter (or…

Prepping for a pandemic: fight or flight?

Time to return to a theme we have sounded on numerous occasions in the past three years. In a recent post we called for a renewed investment in our public health and social service infrastructure as the best strategy. The object is to harden local communities and make them more resilient to all kinds of shocks, not just a pandemic. We should have added, however, that this means local preparation can't be too local: only looking after ourselves and our families. Of course families should prepare, to the best of their ability, and having some reasonable stockpile will stand them in good stead…

America up close and from a distance

On Monday President Bush asked for another $46 billion dollars to send down the rat hole of his Iraq and Afghanistan debacles. That makes just about $200 billion dollars for this fiscal year. Two hundred billion dollars. Congress has already ponied up almost half a trillion dollars. Half a trillion. Trillion. A dollar bill is a bit more than 0.1 mm thick. This year's 200 billion is 2 times 107 meters, or a stack of dollar bills about 200,000 football fields in height, or about a 120 mile stack. That's just this fiscal year. The estimated total is two and half times this. For what. Oil. If…

It can't happen here

I suppose this falls in the "It Can't Happen Here!" department. The "here" is the United States. "There" is Ireland, where the government has access to a wide range of personal financial information. Just for good purposes, you understand. Maybe as part of the Global War on Terror? Whatever. Good purposes: The security of everyone's personal and financial details is in serious doubt after a civil servant mole leaked highly sensitive information to his criminal brother. The Irish Independent can reveal the brother used the key information, which is held by the Government, to burgle one man and…

School days and the flu

The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is the major source of information about the health of noninstitutionalized Americans -- you and me and our neighbors. Data collection started in 1956 and consists of ongoing data collection and special studies on illness and disability and their trends. Data is done using a questionnaire given to a representative household probability sample of the US population. If you want the gory details you can find them here. A recent report, presented in the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR) QuickStats format, gives the estimated percentage…

If you want to know why our public schools are screwed up, here's one reason

Cynthia Dunbar has written a book. It's typical wingnut nonsense: it "refers to public education as 'a subtly deceptive tool of perversion' and calls the establishment of public schools unconstitutional and 'tyrannical.'" It goes further and says that… …she believes public schools are unconstitutional because they undermine the scriptural authority of families to direct their children's education. Her own children have been privately educated and home-schooled. Typical and unsurprising so far. It's a shame that she's abusing the intellectual development of her own children, but unfortunately…

Animal Migration

Animal Migration: New Technologies, Global Warming Add Impetus To Research: The February 2007 issue of BioScience, the monthly journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), includes a special section on animal migration that features six articles exploring biologists' understanding of this pervasive and vital syndrome. Animal migration fascinated the ancients and continues to fascinate researchers today. An often highly complex, synchronized suite of changes in behavior, morphology, and physiology enables journeys that may be epic in scale. These feats of endurance and…

Edwards Does The Right Thing, as Expected

John Edwards: Statement about Campaign Bloggers: The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwan's posts personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign…

Cheerful news of the day

Doesn't it just make you feel so darned good when you hear stories of megachurches and televangelists in decline? Once one of the nation's most popular televangelists, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller is watching his life's work crumble.   His son and recent successor, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller, has abruptly resigned as senior pastor of the Crystal Cathedral. The shimmering, glass-walled megachurch is home to the "Hour of Power" broadcast, an evangelism staple that's been on the air for more than three decades.   The church is in financial turmoil: It plans to sell more than $65 million…

Why have a book if you never read it?

I know you know this, but it is worth repeating every now and then (May 18, 2005): --------------------------------- Some interesting statistics, via Jane: Some statistics: * About 92 percent of American own at least one copy of the Bible. * The average household has 3 copies. * About 67 percent of Americans say that the Bible holds the answers to the basic questions of life. * The Bible is the world's all-time best seller. * At least 20 million copies are sold each year. * Gideon International annually distributes more than 45 million copies. Biblical knowledge (Biblical…

Quotes of the Day - the Nobel Prize edition

From QOTD: The Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel died at San Remo, Italy on this day in 1896. Under the terms of his will, his estate was arranged so as to grant prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Medicine or Physiology, Literature, and Peace, these five prizes were first awarded on the fifth anniversary of his death. In 1969 the Bank of Sweden joined the festivities and established a prize for Economics that is awarded at the same ceremony, erroneously called the Nobel Prize for Economics. The prize for Peace is awarded at the Oslo City Hall in the capital of Norway, the others are awarded at the…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Cities Change The Songs Of Birds: By studying the songs of a bird species that has succeeded in adapting to urban life, researchers have gained insight into the kinds of environmental pressures that influence where particular songbirds thrive, and the specific attributes of city birds that allow them to adjust to noisy urban environments. New Clues To How Sex Evolves: Sex is a boon to evolution; it allows genetic material from parents to recombine, giving rise to a unique new genome. But how did sex itself evolve" Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory…

On republishing my old posts

According to Blogger Dashboard (which cannot be trusted, but there is no other source), I have written a total of 2420 posts (Science And Politics - 2124; Circadiana - 220; The Magic School Bus - 76). Many of those posts are too irrelevant to move to the Archives here - things like carnival announcements, linkfests with lots of dead links, outdated news, etc. But, there are perhaps somewhere between 100 and 200 posts that are, in my opinion, good, timeless and thoughtful. [more under the fold] Starting on Monday I will start moving them over here, one at a time. I'll use the 'scheduled…

The zombie anthrax case

It's been a couple of months since we posted on the anthrax story, the story that refuses to die despite the fact the FBI has done its best to close the case out. But here we are again, our 11th post on the subject, this time because a colleague of the conveniently deceased alleged anthrax terrorist, Dr. Bruce Ivins, has defended him publicly while testifying before a panel of the National Academies tasked with reviewing the case: Henry “Hank” Heine, who left the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in February 2010 after testing antibiotics there for 11…

Jaws meets the grant writer

I'm coming up for air during my grant writing (so far this weekend I've spent in excess of ten hours yesterday and today just writing; all the rest of the time I spent obsessing about what I wrote and what I still needed to write), but you know I'm desperate when I start posting stuff like this: UF [University of Florida] researchers reviewed 96 cases that had complete medical records from more than 4,000 entries in the International Shark Attack File, a record maintained by UF's Florida Museum of Natural History. Assigning scores to clinical findings such as blood pressure, location and…

Poor Casey

Casey Luskin once again complains about the fact that the propagators of intelligent design creationism are not regarded kindly, and in fact, are frequently disparaged. He takes it very personally, even. On a personal note, I am familiar with these kinds of attacks. In one single forum at Antievolution.org, created and owned by a former National Center for Science Education staff member, I have been called no less than "Bizarre ignoramus," "retarded," "suck-up," "Pathetic Loser," "attack mouse, gerbil, rat, or clockwork powered plush toy," "an orc," "Annoying," "a miserable loser with no life…

Books, Belated and Forthcoming

So I know that some contributors and book giveaway winners are still waiting for their copy of _Making Home_ and I offer you profuse apologies.  When I was out of town and a friend really wanted to sell copies at an event, Eric gave her some books.  Actually, all the books.  He didn't realize there weren't more.  In the meantime, she didn't sell all of them but for reasons involving complicated personal things hasn't been able to get them back to me.  They will re-arrive this weekend, and go out in the mail early next week.  Again, apologies for keeping you waiting.   As a form of contrition…

PANRC Updates - Circulating Copies of Prelude and Scheduling

Two updates for the Post-Apocalyptic Novel Reading Club. First, I realized that I have scheduled two things for the first of the upcoming month - my "Anyway Project" updates and the first discussion of _The Witch of Hebron_. This is far more than I am likely to accomplish, so I've decided my PANRC will start on the 7th - so you all have an extra reading week. In both cases, the dates are slightly fungible given that your blogiste is a bit of a slacker - if they fall on a Shabbos, holiday or something else important, it will simply be the nearest possible date. But for this month, Anyway…

Barbarian Horde Invasion Theory? Hogwash!

The always-brilliant "Peak Oil Hausfrau" Christine Patton has a wonderful piece addressing the calm and reasoned Roman response to the recent "Foreign Barbarian Invasions: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management" report. Proponents of the so-called "barbarian invasion" theory today warned of the "potentially disastrous" effects of hundreds of thousands of Visigoths, Huns, and Vandals plundering the imperial capital, including death, despoilment and dismemberment of the populace, and destruction of the city's ancient architecture and temples. Senator Titus Claudius scoffed at the authors of…

Science illuminated by music

Let's make it a musical Sunday morning for the godless! Tristero, occasional commenter here and regular writer at Hullabaloo, is actually a professional composer in real life, and he has been busy. I had wanted to do a piece with a scientific subject for a very long time. Many years ago, someone in the New Yorker- very likely Richard Dawkins - noted that while religion had its masterpieces like Bach's St Matthew Passion, science had no comparable works. That struck me as an amusing, and exciting, challenge. I knew I could never write anything remotely approaching the St. Matthew, but the…

Friday Fun: Five more songs I love

My last Friday Fun post at the old home was a list of five hard rock songs that I really love. I enjoyed doing that list so much, I thought I'd do it again this time, but with a focus on the blues. I'm a Criminal by Paul Reddick + The Sidemen. This song totally blew me away the first time I heard it and it will totally blow you away too. How Blue Can You Get by BB King. BB King was the very first blues artist I got into. My father was a huge Johnny Carson fan when I was growing up and I often used to stay up with him and watch The Tonight Show. And Carson loved blues and jazz music and…

Planck Result Perspective

Simon White Director of Max Planck Institut für Astrophysik giving today's Physics Colloquium at ACP on the Planck Results Likely to be interesting, hence the semi-liveblog. Starts with description of the collaboration and historical perspective; Penzias and Wilson, COBE and WMAP Cute ESA video showing Planck science Even better ESA video explaining stuff Very good description of baryon acoustic oscillations and polarization. Quick glimpse of stacked and normalized Planck measurements of tangential/radial polarization of cold/hot spots at ~ 1 degree scales. Nice animation blinking weak…

you read it here first

prescience Neutrinos to Give High-Frequency Traders the Millisecond Edge Bruce Dorminey writes about the real edge the big boys have... 30 millisec trading advantage on the NY/Tokyo spread is nothing to sneeze about, just get some pulsed collimated neutrino burst generators, swap your low bit unbreakable one time pads and go wild on the arbitrage as you trade your Ningi for Cold Pressed Latinum Bars! but we knew this... "...The most interesting applications of this would of course be for signaling; however there private enterprise is way ahead of us, and clearly some very clever hedge fund…

OSHA puts employers on notice about "inherently dangerous" gas blows

In early August OSHA proposed citations and penalties to 17 employers involved in the explosion at the Kleen Energy plant that killed six workers. (See previous post here.) The deadly blast was caused by ignition of natural gas being used to clean out debris from pipes, a process called a "gas blow." OSHA Assistant Secretary David Michaels said the practice of using highly flammable methane gas for "gas blows" is inherently dangerous. He stopped short of saying that OSHA would (or could) ban it, a recommendation made earlier this summer to OSHA by the Chemical Safety Board. Instead, Dr…

Time to Retire the "Rationing" Talking Point

President Obama has nominated Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and he sounds like a great guy for the job. Julie Rovner reported for Morning Edition earlier today that Republicans are stalling his nomination, which isn't out of the ordinary these days. But the part of her story that really pissed me off was this snippet from Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), who said, "Dr. Berwick is the perfect nominee for a president whose aim has always been to save money by rationing health care." I would really, really like it if everyone who gets involved in the…

USDA Pesticide Info Disappearing

Over the past few years, itâs become harder to access several sources of useful, up-to-date information about the substances weâre exposed to. There were the EPA library closures; the changes in Toxics Release Inventory reporting requirements; and a dramatic slowdown in the pace of Integrated Risk Information System assessments. Now, the USDAâs National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) has announced it will not be collecting agricultural chemical usage data on 2008 field crops. Today, 45 prominent public interest groups â including NRDC, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Consumers…

Occupational Health News Roundup

Last month, five fishermen died when their boat, the Alaska Ranger, went down off Unalaska Island. They joined the more than 400 killed since 1999, when a Coast Guard panel warned Congress that weak regulations allow unseaworthy boats to continue fishing. Congress has failed to solve the problem, the Seattle PIâs Daniel Lathrop and Levi Pulkkinen report: Records show that on at least 10 occasions since 1971, the Coast Guard has told Congress and the public that fishermen are dying because of unseaworthy boats, and that a legislative fix is needed to improve safety. But Congress instead opted…

Friday Blog Roundup

Itâs been a while since I highlighted some of the great blogging on healthcare topics: Anna Wilde Matthews at the WSJâs Health Blog reports on a new analysis that finds the U.S. wastes more than half of our health spending. Merrill Goozner at GoozNews explains why comparative effectiveness agencies are important and considers the hurdles to setting one up in the U.S.  Maggie Mahar at Health Beat investigates whatâs behind the large and growing amount we spend on hospital bills ($648 billion in 2006). Rob Cunningham at the Health Affairs Blog considers the reasons why mental health treatment…

Swine Flu: Officially a Pandemic

The World Health Organization has officially declared that weâre at the start of an influenza pandemic. Nearly 30,000 cases of swine flu/H1N1 have been confirmed in 74 countries, and the virus is spreading easily among people in multiple regions of the world. North America has had the highest number of cases so far â 13,217 in the US, 6,241 in Mexico, and 2,978 in Canada â and new cases are still being reported. (In fact, CDCâs count for the US, which tends to run ahead of WHOâs, is now at 17,855.) Countries in the Southern Hemisphere are just entering flu season, and large numbers of cases…

Inequality kills

by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure One of the nastiest things about the years after the Republicans took control of the Congress in 1994 and Bush the White House in 2001 was the increase in inequality in the US. The rich not only got richer and the poor, poorer, but rich got more comfortable and led better lives. The idea that they got rich because all they did was work is nonsense. They had plenty of time to spend their money and relax. Moreover the prosperity in the economy didn't accrue to everyone. It was the folks at the top that benefitted. We all know that the rising tide only…

What Does Climate Disruption Mean for Your Water?

By Ruth Long We, in the United States, generally feel safe when it comes to our water.  Most people turn on their faucets at home without so much as a thought to where the water comes from or whether it is safe to use (consume).  It would baffle us to no end if, for whatever reason, the water simply did not come out of the faucet when it was turned on.  Yesterday, in the Washington Post, Kari Lydersen brought the topic of our water to the forefront.  It is a good article expressing concerns that we, even here in the United States, need to consider with the changes in our environment and…

Another blithering apologist

I read these lame exercises in making excuses by theologians, and I don't understand how anyone can be foolish enough to fall for them. The latest example is by Edward Tingley, who babbles on painfully about how believers are the true skeptics, the true scientists, while claiming that the believers have a deeper, stronger knowledge than mere atheists. Yet nowhere in his ramble does Tingley ever give any evidence or rational reason to believe in his god or any god — in fact, he triumphantly declares that there is no evidence — god exists, but (I can scarcely believe he makes this argument…

Friday Blog Roundup

Bloggers give us the dirt on the VP picks announced this week. Thereâs already info on McCainâs running mate, Sarah Palin: Gristmill gives us a snapshot of Palinâs record on energy and environmental issues, and compiles statements from and about her on these topics. Keith Johnson at Environmental Capital focuses on her position on expanding oil drilling. Jacob Goldstein at WSJâs Health Blog brings us her views on regulation and competition for hospitals and clinics. And even more on Obamaâs VP choice, Joe Biden: Scientists and Engineers for America Action Fund highlights Bidenâs views on…

Chao Flips Us the Bird. Happy Labor Day

Will someone just go and put up a sign "Proudly Screwing Workers: 2,827 Straight Days" on the Labor Department building?  Late yesterday I learned that Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Asst. Secretary Leon Sequeira and her other political minions sent a proposed rule to the Federal Register which will change the process by which OSHA and MSHA assess workers' risk to health-harming contaminants.  The proposed rule confirms Chao's desire to make it more cumbersome and time-consuming for OSHA and MSHA to issue health-protective standards.  It mandates, for example, that the agencies issue…

Friday Blog Roundup

Those hoping to fix the U.S.âs current healthcare system have plenty to chew on this week. Sara Robinson at Campaign for Americaâs Future debunks several myths about U.S. vs. Canadian healthcare (Part I here). Keep this handy for the next time someone whines that single-payer healthcare will mean rationed care. Jacob Goldstein at Health Blog reports on CVS Caremarkâs payment to end a probe into whether the company was keeping for itself the rebates that accrued from switching patients to generic drugs, and on Blue Cross of Californiaâs decision to stop asking doctors to report patients whoâd…

As If Taking Down Your Christmas Tree Wasnât Depressing Enough ⦠Now You Can Worry About Lead!

In all the rigmarole of the holiday season, you might not have heard about the consumer safety hazard associated with Christmas lights (or noticed the fine print warnings on their boxes). Itâs no secret that lead is used in light stringsâ polyvinyl chloride insulation to prevent deterioration and to guard against fire. But what is a new development this year is the revelation that handling the wiring while you âdeck the hallsâ may result in significant lead exposure. According to CNN, laboratory tests using the Consumer Product Safety Commissionâs wipe test for lead in polyvinyl chloride…

Friday Blog Roundup

Bloggers are bringing us lots of drug news this week: Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata explains why a decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is devastating news for lymphoma patients â and possibly for all cancer patients (here, too). Ed Silverman at Pharmalot considers the drop in new drug approvals by the FDA. Maggie Mahar at Health Beat reports on the lavish inducements drug companies offer to doctors in developing countries. Revere at Effect Measure discusses the pharmaceutical-company maneuverings that threaten to keep doctors from prescribing effective, low cost…

Friday Blog Roundup

Before this weekâs climate conference began, Climate Progress predicted, âThe Bush Administration will use every opportunity to create the illusion of action without agreeing to meaningful, binding pollution reductions.â Today, that blog reports that Bush followed âthe Frank Luntz playbook on how to seem like you care about the climate when you donât,â while Bill Miller of DeSmogBlog describes it as âanother opportunity lost to histrionics and political posturing.â David Roberts at Gristmill focuses his attention on the media coverage of the event, giving kudos to Washington Post reporters…