Conservatives’ HPV vaccine dilemma: are they anti-cancer, or just anti-sex?

October 19, 2012 — Suzan

From The Guardian UK:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/16/conservatives-hpv-vaccine-dilemma

Proof that vaccinating girls against the HPV virus does not cause promiscuity puts culture warriors in a spot


guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 October 2012

According to a recent study, giving children tetanus shots will not, in fact, encourage them to stab themselves with rusty nails or be less cautious when playing outdoors. Various political organizations have advocated against the tetanus vaccine, arguing that tetanus shots send the message that recreation is acceptable, and that if children know they’re protected from lockjaw, they will be less vigilant about avoiding the kinds of cuts and scrapes that can lead to deadly nervous system infections. Attempts to require tetanus vaccination have met extreme backlash from conservative groups who argue that mandating the vaccine is an assault on parental rights and family values.

Even bills that simply would have made the vaccine free for low-income children without mandating it were vetoed by Republican governors. Doctors hope that these study results, which show that tetanus-vaccinated children are no more likely to engage in unsafe recreational behavior than their unvaccinated peers, will increase the tetanus shot rate for children of parents who fear that tetanus shots encourage risk-taking.

At this point, you’re thinking, I hope:

“What in the world is this lady talking about? Everyone gives their kids tetanus shots! You’d be irresponsible not to inoculate your child against tetanus, and you’re nuts if you think that giving a kid a tetanus shot will make him be less careful about slicing his skin with filthy rusted metal. And there’s absolutely no political controversy around tetanus shots.”

You would be right. If only the same were true of the HPV vaccine.

According to a recent study, giving girls the HPV vaccine will not, in fact, encourage them to engage in sexual activity any earlier than their peers. Various political organizations have advocated against the HPV vaccine, arguing that the vaccine sends the message that sexual behavior is acceptable, and that if girls know they’re protected from HPV, they will be less vigilant about avoiding the kinds of risky sexual behaviors that can lead to pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

Continue reading at:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/16/conservatives-hpv-vaccine-dilemma

Posted in Choice, Christo-Fascism, Feminist, Gender, Health Care, Male Privilege, Medical Studies, Medicine, Misogyny, Sexism. Comments Off on Conservatives’ HPV vaccine dilemma: are they anti-cancer, or just anti-sex?

The Risky Business of Eating in America

October 18, 2012 — Suzan

From Other Words:  http://www.otherwords.org/articles/the_risky_business_of_eating_in_america

By Jill Richardson
October 17, 2012

Long before human beings decoded the human genome or split the atom, they discovered that arsenic is very good at killing things. The ancient Romans prized it as a murder weapon because it could be mixed into food or drink without altering its color, taste, or smell. Plus, a tiny dose kills without fail.

What the Romans didn’t know about arsenic, and what scientists didn’t discover until the 20th century, is that a form of it — inorganic arsenic — causes cancer. And in 1999, the National Academy of Sciences found that the amount of arsenic legally allowed in U.S. drinking water posed serious cancer risks.

Since then, the U.S. government slashed the amount allowed in drinking water from 50 micrograms per liter to just 10. The potent carcinogenicity of arsenic was what Donald Rumsfeld might call an “unknown unknown” for most of human history. So was the fact that Americans can consume dangerous amounts of inorganic arsenic in one of our most common foods: rice.

Consumer Reports dropped that bombshell on the nation in September, recommending that adults limit rice consumption to just two servings per week if they wish to reduce their cancer risk from inorganic arsenic. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration didn’t go so far as to recommend Americans limit their rice intake. But the agency did say that “consumers should continue to eat a balanced diet that includes a wide variety of grains.” They also published their own data on arsenic in rice. It was consistent with the findings of Consumer Reports.

How did such a healthy food — often one of the first solid foods parents spoon into their babies’ mouths — suddenly become a deadly, cancer-causing agent? For one thing, rice is the only major crop grown under water. That allows it to absorb arsenic more easily than other crops. And though some arsenic will always occur naturally in soil and water, humans have added a whole lot more.

Continue reading at:  http://www.otherwords.org/articles/the_risky_business_of_eating_in_america

Posted in Corporate Abuse, Environment, Food, Medical Studies, Uncategorized. Tags: , . Comments Off on The Risky Business of Eating in America

Ghostwriters in the sky

September 20, 2010 — Suzan

For all the pseudo-scientific psychiatric, sociological and psychological follow-up studies done by agenda driven anti-SRS doctors or by people doing push surveys that require us to identify as transgender there have been damned few studies regarding the medical impact of long term hormone usage upon us.

We tend to operate on a basis of almost folk lore and accepted wisdom that we require massive amounts of hormones.  But what about someone in their 60s who has been on hormones for 40 years and is nearly that long post-SRS?  Women of that age are post-menopause.  We haven’t had testes for many, many years.  Maybe we don’t need the same high level of hormones we needed when we were younger?  Maybe we should go to a lower level?

Maybe we should be demanding some long term studies?  And not ghost written self serving drug ads from drug manufacturing corporations.

From Bad Science:   http://www.badscience.net/2010/09/ghostwriters/

September 18th, 2010 by Ben Goldacre in bad science
Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 18 September 2010

If I tell you that Katie Price did not, necessarily, write her own book, this is not a revelation. From academics I have slightly higher expectations, but now the legal system has spat out another skip full of documents: this time, we get a new insight into the strange phenomenon of medical ghost-writing.

Attributed authorial assistance is one thing. This is different, and more cynical. A commercial medical writing company is employed by a drug company to produce a programme of academic papers that can be rolled out in academic journals to build a brand message. After copywriters produce the articles, in collaboration with the drug company, to their specifications, the ghostwriting company finds some academics who are willing to put their names to them, perhaps after a few modest changes.

The latest documents come from a court case brought against Wyeth by around 14,000 patients who developed breast cancer while taking their hormone replacement therapy, Prempro. The open access journal PLoS Medicine, acting with the New York Times, argued successfully in court that 1500 documents from the case which detailed the ghostwriting should be placed in the public domain, because they represent important information on a potential threat to public health. Now, PLoS has published the first academic analysis of these documents, which is free to access online.

HRT, we should remember, has had a rocky history. Initially the panacea to all ills, by 1998 the HERS trial showed it didn’t prevent cardiovascular events after all, and by 2002 the Womens Health Initiative trial showed it also increased the risk of breast cancer and stroke. We now know it increases the risk of dementia and incontinence. Survey data shows that even today, many gynaecologists continue to have beliefs about the efficacy of HRT that are in excess of the evidence. Reading how the literature was engineered, it’s not hard to see why.

Continue reading at:   http://www.badscience.net/2010/09/ghostwriters/

Posted in Medical Studies, Medicine. Comments Off on Ghostwriters in the sky