This is an awesome documentary about people living in old subway tunnels under NY.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Dangerous Knowledge
Well this isn't a headline, it a documentary. But it's MUST see; so to re-kickoff this blog (again!) here is Dangerous Knowledge
In this one-off documentary, David Malone looks at four brilliant mathematicians - Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing - whose genius has profoundly affected us, but which tragically drove them insane and eventually led to them all committing suicide.
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Sunday, January 30, 2011
AlJazeera is sweet.
They're doing such positive, good, and needed things on the cultural landscape of the Arab world.
Check it out!
Check it out!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Autism-vaccine study was 'fraud,' journal says
PARIS - A 1998 study that unleashed a major health scare by linking childhood autism to a triple vaccine was "an elaborate fraud," the British Medical Journal (BMJ) charged Thursday.
Blamed for a disastrous boycott of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in Britain, the study was retracted by The Lancet last year and its senior author disgraced, after the country's longest-running hearing, for conflict of interest and unethical treatment of patients.
But the BMJ, taking the affair further, on Thursday branded the paper a crafted attempt to deceive, among the gravest of charges in medical research.
"The paper was in fact an elaborate fraud," the BMJ said in an editorial, adding: "There are hard lessons for many in this highly damaging saga."
It pointed the finger at lead author Andrew Wakefield, then a consultant in experimental gastro-enterology at London's Royal Free Hospital.
Wakefield and his team suggested they had found a "new syndrome" of autism and bowel disease among 12 children.
They linked it to the MMR vaccine, which they said had been administered to eight of the youngsters shortly before the symptoms emerged.
Other scientists swiftly cautioned the study was only among a tiny group, without a comparative "control" sample, and the dating of when symptoms surfaced was based on parental recall, which is notoriously unreliable. Its results have never been replicated.
But the controversy unleashed a widespread parental boycott of the jab in Britain, and unease reverberated also in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Hundreds of thousands of children in Britain are now unshielded against these three diseases, said the BMJ. In 2008, measles was declared endemic, or present in the wider population much like chicken pox, in England and Wales.
Wakefield was barred from medical practice last year on grounds of conflict of financial interest and unethical treatment of some children involved in the research.
The BMJ, delving into the accuracy of the study as opposed to its ethics, said Sunday Times investigative journalist Brian Deer had "unearthed clear evidence of falsification."
Not one of the 12 cases, as reported in the study, tallied fully with the children's official medical records, it charged.
Some diagnoses had been misrepresented and dates faked in order to draw a convenient link with the MMR jab, it said.
Of nine children described by Wakefield as having "regressive autism," only one clearly had this condition and three were not even diagnosed with autism at all, it said.
The findings had been skewed in advance, as the patients had been recruited via campaigners opposed to the MMR vaccine, the journal added.
And, said the BMJ, Wakefield had been confidentially paid hundreds of thousands of pounds (dollars, euros) through a law firm under plans to launch "class action" litigation against the vaccine.
Deer, in a separate piece published by the BMJ, compared the scandal with the "Piltdown Man" hoax of 1953, when a supposed fossil of a creature half-man, half-ape turned out to be a fake.
The Wakefield study "was a fraud, moreover, of more than academic vanity. It unleashed fear, parental guilt, costly government intervention and outbreaks of infectious disease," he said.
Wakefield, who still retains a vocal band of supporters, has reportedly left Britain to work in the United States.
Wakefield and his publishing agent did not respond to calls and emails from AFP requesting comment.
Wakefield has previously accused Britain's General Medical Council (GMC) of seeking to "discredit and silence" him and shield the British government from responsibility in what he calls a "scandal."
The Lancet told AFP it would not comment on the BMJ accusations.
Autism is the term for an array of conditions ranging from poor social interaction to repetitive behaviours and entrenched silence. The condition is rare, predominantly affecting boys, although its causes are fiercely debated.
© Copyright (c) CW Media Inc.
Blamed for a disastrous boycott of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in Britain, the study was retracted by The Lancet last year and its senior author disgraced, after the country's longest-running hearing, for conflict of interest and unethical treatment of patients.
But the BMJ, taking the affair further, on Thursday branded the paper a crafted attempt to deceive, among the gravest of charges in medical research.
"The paper was in fact an elaborate fraud," the BMJ said in an editorial, adding: "There are hard lessons for many in this highly damaging saga."
It pointed the finger at lead author Andrew Wakefield, then a consultant in experimental gastro-enterology at London's Royal Free Hospital.
Wakefield and his team suggested they had found a "new syndrome" of autism and bowel disease among 12 children.
They linked it to the MMR vaccine, which they said had been administered to eight of the youngsters shortly before the symptoms emerged.
Other scientists swiftly cautioned the study was only among a tiny group, without a comparative "control" sample, and the dating of when symptoms surfaced was based on parental recall, which is notoriously unreliable. Its results have never been replicated.
But the controversy unleashed a widespread parental boycott of the jab in Britain, and unease reverberated also in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Hundreds of thousands of children in Britain are now unshielded against these three diseases, said the BMJ. In 2008, measles was declared endemic, or present in the wider population much like chicken pox, in England and Wales.
Wakefield was barred from medical practice last year on grounds of conflict of financial interest and unethical treatment of some children involved in the research.
The BMJ, delving into the accuracy of the study as opposed to its ethics, said Sunday Times investigative journalist Brian Deer had "unearthed clear evidence of falsification."
Not one of the 12 cases, as reported in the study, tallied fully with the children's official medical records, it charged.
Some diagnoses had been misrepresented and dates faked in order to draw a convenient link with the MMR jab, it said.
Of nine children described by Wakefield as having "regressive autism," only one clearly had this condition and three were not even diagnosed with autism at all, it said.
The findings had been skewed in advance, as the patients had been recruited via campaigners opposed to the MMR vaccine, the journal added.
And, said the BMJ, Wakefield had been confidentially paid hundreds of thousands of pounds (dollars, euros) through a law firm under plans to launch "class action" litigation against the vaccine.
Deer, in a separate piece published by the BMJ, compared the scandal with the "Piltdown Man" hoax of 1953, when a supposed fossil of a creature half-man, half-ape turned out to be a fake.
The Wakefield study "was a fraud, moreover, of more than academic vanity. It unleashed fear, parental guilt, costly government intervention and outbreaks of infectious disease," he said.
Wakefield, who still retains a vocal band of supporters, has reportedly left Britain to work in the United States.
Wakefield and his publishing agent did not respond to calls and emails from AFP requesting comment.
Wakefield has previously accused Britain's General Medical Council (GMC) of seeking to "discredit and silence" him and shield the British government from responsibility in what he calls a "scandal."
The Lancet told AFP it would not comment on the BMJ accusations.
Autism is the term for an array of conditions ranging from poor social interaction to repetitive behaviours and entrenched silence. The condition is rare, predominantly affecting boys, although its causes are fiercely debated.
© Copyright (c) CW Media Inc.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Pope’s child porn 'normal' claim sparks outrage among victims
Link
Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict's claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn't considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s.
In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.
“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said.
“It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than' and a ‘worse than'. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”
The Pope said abuse revelations in 2010 reached “an unimaginable dimension” which brought “humiliation” on the Church.
Asking how abuse exploded within the Church, the Pontiff called on senior clerics “to repair as much as possible the injustices that occurred” and to help victims heal through a better presentation of the Christian message.
“We cannot remain silent about the context of these times in which these events have come to light,” he said, citing the growth of child pornography “that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society” he said.
But outraged Dublin victim Andrew Madden last night insisted that child abuse was not considered normal in the company he kept.
Mr Madden accused the Pope of not knowing that child pornography was the viewing of images of children being sexually abused, and should be named as such.
He said: “That is not normal. I don't know what company the Pope has been keeping for the past 50 years.”
Pope Benedict also said sex tourism in the Third World was “threatening an entire generation”.
Angry abuse victims in America last night said that while some Church officials have blamed the liberalism of the 1960s for the Church's sex abuse scandals and cover-up catastrophes, Pope Benedict had come up with a new theory of blaming the 1970s.
“Catholics should be embarrassed to hear their Pope talk again and again about abuse while doing little or nothing to stop it and to mischaracterise this heinous crisis,” said Barbara Blaine, the head of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,
“It is fundamentally disturbing to watch a brilliant man so conveniently misdiagnose a horrific scandal,” she added.
“The Pope insists on talking about a vague ‘broader context' he can't control, while ignoring the clear ‘broader context' he can influence — the long-standing and unhealthy culture of a rigid, secretive, all-male Church hierarchy fixated on self-preservation at all costs. This is the ‘context’ that matters.”
The latest controversy comes as the German magazine Der Spiegel continues to investigate the Pope's role in allowing a known paedophile priest to work with children in the early 1980s.
Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict's claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn't considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s.
In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.
“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said.
“It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than' and a ‘worse than'. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”
The Pope said abuse revelations in 2010 reached “an unimaginable dimension” which brought “humiliation” on the Church.
Asking how abuse exploded within the Church, the Pontiff called on senior clerics “to repair as much as possible the injustices that occurred” and to help victims heal through a better presentation of the Christian message.
“We cannot remain silent about the context of these times in which these events have come to light,” he said, citing the growth of child pornography “that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society” he said.
But outraged Dublin victim Andrew Madden last night insisted that child abuse was not considered normal in the company he kept.
Mr Madden accused the Pope of not knowing that child pornography was the viewing of images of children being sexually abused, and should be named as such.
He said: “That is not normal. I don't know what company the Pope has been keeping for the past 50 years.”
Pope Benedict also said sex tourism in the Third World was “threatening an entire generation”.
Angry abuse victims in America last night said that while some Church officials have blamed the liberalism of the 1960s for the Church's sex abuse scandals and cover-up catastrophes, Pope Benedict had come up with a new theory of blaming the 1970s.
“Catholics should be embarrassed to hear their Pope talk again and again about abuse while doing little or nothing to stop it and to mischaracterise this heinous crisis,” said Barbara Blaine, the head of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,
“It is fundamentally disturbing to watch a brilliant man so conveniently misdiagnose a horrific scandal,” she added.
“The Pope insists on talking about a vague ‘broader context' he can't control, while ignoring the clear ‘broader context' he can influence — the long-standing and unhealthy culture of a rigid, secretive, all-male Church hierarchy fixated on self-preservation at all costs. This is the ‘context’ that matters.”
The latest controversy comes as the German magazine Der Spiegel continues to investigate the Pope's role in allowing a known paedophile priest to work with children in the early 1980s.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Drug ‘Ecstasy’ May Help Individuals with Schizophrenia, Autism
By TRACI PEDERSEN
Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on December 17, 2010
Some scientists believe that the drug MDMA (ecstasy), which is known to increase feelings of social connection and empathy, may have psychotherapeutic benefits for those with disorders often associated with a lack of feeling connected to others, such as in schizophrenia, autism, or antisocial personality disorder.
Up until now, scientists have had a hard time objectively measuring the effects of this drug, and there has been very little research in humans. Researchers from the University of Chicago, who conducted research on healthy volunteers, have reported their new findings in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry.
“We found that MDMA produced friendliness, playfulness, and loving feelings, even when it was administered to people in a laboratory with little social contact. We also found that MDMA reduced volunteers’ capacity to recognize facial expressions of fear in other people, an effect that may be involved in the increased sociability said to be produced by MDMA,” said author Dr. Gillinder Bedi.
These findings suggest that MDMA makes others appear more attractive and friendly, and this may be the reason for its popularity as a recreational drug. Furthermore, it makes others appear less intimidating, which may allow an individual to feel more confident in social risk-taking.
“Within the context of treatment, these effects may promote intimacy among people who have difficulty feeling close to others,” said Dr. John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry.
“However, MDMA distorts one’s perception of others rather than producing true empathy. Thus, MDMA may cause problems if it leads people to misinterpret the emotional state and perhaps intentions of others.”
Further studies in controlled settings will be necessary before MDMA can be considered for use as a psychotherapeutic drug. However, these findings also emphasize the importance of understanding how different drugs affect social experiences, since abused drugs are often used in social situations.
This study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Source: Elsevier
Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on December 17, 2010
Some scientists believe that the drug MDMA (ecstasy), which is known to increase feelings of social connection and empathy, may have psychotherapeutic benefits for those with disorders often associated with a lack of feeling connected to others, such as in schizophrenia, autism, or antisocial personality disorder.
Up until now, scientists have had a hard time objectively measuring the effects of this drug, and there has been very little research in humans. Researchers from the University of Chicago, who conducted research on healthy volunteers, have reported their new findings in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry.
“We found that MDMA produced friendliness, playfulness, and loving feelings, even when it was administered to people in a laboratory with little social contact. We also found that MDMA reduced volunteers’ capacity to recognize facial expressions of fear in other people, an effect that may be involved in the increased sociability said to be produced by MDMA,” said author Dr. Gillinder Bedi.
These findings suggest that MDMA makes others appear more attractive and friendly, and this may be the reason for its popularity as a recreational drug. Furthermore, it makes others appear less intimidating, which may allow an individual to feel more confident in social risk-taking.
“Within the context of treatment, these effects may promote intimacy among people who have difficulty feeling close to others,” said Dr. John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry.
“However, MDMA distorts one’s perception of others rather than producing true empathy. Thus, MDMA may cause problems if it leads people to misinterpret the emotional state and perhaps intentions of others.”
Further studies in controlled settings will be necessary before MDMA can be considered for use as a psychotherapeutic drug. However, these findings also emphasize the importance of understanding how different drugs affect social experiences, since abused drugs are often used in social situations.
This study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Source: Elsevier
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