Don’t Tell Angry Mothers
The many-years-long debate over the causes of autism aren’t likely to end soon, but a recent court decision will certainly shift the direction of the conversation. From the WashPo:
Thousands of parents who claimed that childhood vaccines caused their children to develop autism are wrong and not entitled to federal compensation, a special court ruled Thursday in three decisions with far-reaching implications for a bitterly fought medical controversy.
The long-awaited decision on three test cases is a severe blow to a grass-roots movement that has argued — predominantly through books, magazines and the Internet — that children’s shots have been responsible for the surge in autism diagnoses in the United States in recent decades. The majority of the scientific establishment, backed by federal health agencies, has strenuously argued there is no link between vaccines and autism, and warned that scaring parents away from vaccinating their youngsters places children at risk for a host of serious childhood diseases.
The decision by three independent special masters is especially telling because the special court’s rules did not require plaintiffs to prove their cases with scientific certainty — all the parents needed to show was that a preponderance of the evidence, or “50 percent and a hair,” supported their claims. The vaccine court effectively said that the thousands of pending claims represented by the three test cases are on extremely shaky ground.
…
More research needs to be done, said Brad Trahan, founder and executive director of RT Autism Awareness Foundation, and father to an 8-year-old with severe autism.
“I do know this, that until Reece got his MMR shots, he would say Mama and Dada, he was looking at the camera,” said Trahan of Rochester. “After that, we lost him. Are Joanie and I going to come out and say that’s the cause? No. However, it certainly warrants a lot more research. It would not surprise us someday, when we learn what the cause is, that there might be multiple factors. There still needs to be a lot more done to find out the facts.”
…
“It’s a profound verdict, but I don’t know that it will hit the hearts of everyone,” said Wendy Murphy, director of therapeutic schools for Easter Seals Metropolitan Chicago. “I think there’s such a deep-rooted need to know what happened. And I would imagine that the families that really, wholeheartedly believe the vaccine is the reason will continue to believe that.”
liz | 1:41 PM | autism
Hey, You’re Broke, But At Least You’re Going to Have Hot Sex.
From the BBC:
Given the economic downturn, is passion too in recession? Or will couples fling themselves into each other’s arms to compensate for their inability to spend, spend, spend?
Professor Helen Fisher, of Rutgers University, holds this latter theory.
The sheer stress of money worries in general, and fear of redundancy in particular will, she argues, elevate levels of the chemical dopamine in the brain – and dopamine is associated with romantic love.
“Times of stress can trigger feelings of attraction – quite simply, you’re more susceptible,” she said. …
Dating websites eHarmony and Match.com both report major boosts in traffic of up to 20% over the past few months.
Surely when people need relief from their financial worries they reach for the natural medication created by body contact?
A YouGov survey of 20,144 British adults in November 2008 found sex was the most popular low-cost activity.
Sex toy shops as far apart as Amsterdam, New York and China are anecdotally reporting a boom in sales.
And, according to Ken Herron, chief of marketing at gay dating site Manhunt, the site had its biggest membership sign-up on 29 September, the day the Dow Jones Index crashed.
The other part of the article suggest your libido might go down, but screw that.
liz | 2:28 PM | random
Ponzicide
Susan sent me a link to a BBC story about a man who killed himself after losing everything because of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. It’s tragic.
How does this guy sleep at night?
liz | 11:51 AM | suicide
Something That Cheers Me, Though I Can’t Say Why
Dark Roasted Blend has a series on weird vehicles and a series on covered vehicles (a must-see), from cars covered in typewriter keys to a truck designed as a giant Zippo lighter, flames included. There’s something so remarkable about some of these art cars, it makes you realize how much creativity there is in the world. Why would someone festoon their car with magik markers?
liz | 1:35 PM | random
Should You Be Allowed to Take Comfort Animals With You?
Utah, always quirky, is having some trouble with its legislation regarding animals that serve therapeutic purposes. From the Salt Lake Tribune:
Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, and several supporters say they are not against the animals, which have a soothing affect on owners who may suffer from emotional or psychological difficulties.
But Dayton says the law needs to be rewritten to differentiate between those animals and service animals such as guide dogs, which have unique training and certification that therapeutic animals may not.
“If you have a note from a marriage counselor that says you need to have a cat with you because you’re so stressed not having a companion — that meets the [current] requirement,” Dayton said.
…
For Chyrisse Haydon of Clearfield, an 8-year-old Chihuahua-poodle mix named Gizzmo soothes her anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, which she suffers as a result of her experiences during the war in Rhodesia decades ago.“If I don’t have him with me, I don’t leave my house,” she said.
But critics complained Tuesday about the lack of specifics on shots and training and the vagueness of the law.
At Brigham Young University, the University Accessibility Center receives about one therapy animal request per month, and most are approved.
“So long as a mental health practitioner says it would be helpful, we’re pretty much bound by that,” said director Michael Brooks.
It’s an interesting debate with all kinds of serious implications, yet I found two passages very personally meaningful:
1. “Legislators had laughed on hearing that one college student asked to bring his sugar glider, an animal that looks like a flying squirrel, to campus.”
Okay, hello? They don’t look like flying squirrels! You’re talking about my Champ, Buster and Rosie, so watch it. Does this sweet face, peeking out from a robe, look like a menacing flying squirrel? Please.
2. “Most of the requests involve dogs and cats, although hamsters have joined the list.” And what’s wrong with that? Here’s a photo of my hamster, Popcorn, thinking: Can I come with you to work? Please?
liz | 11:37 AM | alternative treatments, cute fix
Angry About Amy Kern
It’s not that mentally ill people are more violent than other people. They’re not. It’s that every time a person with mental illness commits an act of violence, you can be damn sure it could’ve been prevented. I’ve never read a story about a mentally ill person doing an act of violence that didn’t ask the question: Did it need to happen? The answer is always no because the story always includes details like the details of Amy Kern’s story: So-and-so tried to get help from police/hospital/mental health services and was turned away/had their insurance denied/rejected due to not being harmful(crazy) enough. I’m tired of it. People who complain about stigma in the media should stop reading these newspaper articles and start becoming activists for community-based services, police training (CIT), affordable healthcare and sensible legislation that allows everyone to get help even if they “act” “sane.”
ENOUGH.
Police: Woman Accused Of Killing Grandmother, Aunt’s Boyfriend
Was accused killer Amy Kern a victim?
‘System failed’ double murder suspect from St. Marys
Troubling new information in Amy Kern case
Is the Mental Health System Broken?
Suspect in Double Homicide May Suffer From Mental Illness
Amy Kern’s father speaks out after killing spree
liz | 4:25 PM | violence
Fie on You, Copy Number Variants!
From U.S. News & World Report:
Copy Number Variants are common and usually appear as deletions or duplications of significant stretches of DNA. But the largest deletions — those over 2 million bases long — appear only in people with schizophrenia, Need said.
Si, claro. Y por que no hablamos mas en un idioma que no entiendo?
Genome Study Points to New Culprit for Schizophrenia
liz | 3:22 PM | Uncategorized
The Trouble With Spikol: Print Edition 2.11.09
By Steve Ansul
Narcotic Delusions
Nine years and counting
Every now and then I decide to clean out my bookshelves. Within about 10 minutes, I find a little gem I’ve forgotten about, and the cleaning is abandoned for a comfy seat on the couch. Other times, odd bits of detritus will fall out of a book like pressed leaves, only less rustic and literary; mostly they’re old CVS receipts.
The other day a card fell out of my Narcotics Anonymous “Blue Book.” It was from my grandmother, dated Feb. 14, 2000: “You are, and will always remain, my love, my heart, my Valentine. I understand everything and want you to know that I know that we will see each other when it’s right for you.”
That card made me sad—not just because my grandmother died four years later by starving herself—but because she wrote that when I’d just come out of rehab. How hard it must have been for her to “understand everything” that year. I hardly understood it myself.
I started my love affair with pills in 1998, when my then-psychiatrist erroneously prescribed methamphetamine. I asked him at the time if addiction was a risk. Yes, he said, but in all his years of prescribing, he’d only “lost” two people to the drug.
Make that three. I quickly (speedily!) ramped my daily consumption up to four times the recommended max, popping the pills like they were Tic-Tacs. My weight dropped to 89 pounds, and obsessive-compulsive rituals, like counting, started to clog up my day and make me late for appointments. Things would happen in my apartment that “I” hadn’t done—but then, who had? I was too scattered and dissociated to pay bills, to eat, to return calls. Life was all about maintaining the “right” amount of meth.
It was completely unsustainable, but much of the time I felt like a god.
I went into rehab, did hardcore detox and gained about 20 pounds in six days. Now I’ve been speed-free for nine years, but after my grandmother died, I had to conquer another addiction to a medication, Klonopin, which took yet another addictive substance—phenobarbital—to work through. And that was hell.
Yet in the same way people fantasize about a weekend on a Caribbean island, I occasionally dream about a substance-abuse weekend: speed during the day, Klonopin and pheno at night, cigarettes at all hours. The fact that it can’t happen makes me want to climb into bed and give up. At least St. John is out there. Drugs without repercussions? Just a fantasy.
liz | 11:19 AM | meds
Facebook, the Elderly and Disabilities
I’m interested in doing some research into the way that Facebook enables seniors and people with disabilities to reach out to/keep in touch with people they’d otherwise have a hard time maintaining friendships with. People really denigrate social networking, and for good reason: I don’t care if you think your own photo is “Hott!!” Please. But I’ve seen an increase in the number of older people joining, some of them in their 70s.
Thoughts?
liz | 10:45 AM | random
Breaking: Depressed Man Collaborates With Depressed Neighbor
liz | 11:49 AM | Funny or Offensive?
