Dangerous delusions . . .

SOMETIMES, IT'S NOT WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW THAT'S DANGEROUS, it's what you believe true that isn't so.

This is a failing in all of us, but it seems to be most pernicious with the socially and politically conservative in societies, wherever they may be.

— HIV —

AlterNet is a fine site, with a thoughtful article by Cliff Weathers, “How Denial Caused One Major Health Catastrophe, and How It May Trigger More Crises”, which describes the costs of this mind-set with the HIV crisis in South Africa — and more important, perhaps, if you live in North America, the increasing vulnerability of all of us on this continent because of cutbacks to vaccination and other public health programs in states with GOP governments.

So, instead of administering the cocktail of HIV medications known to be effective, Mbeki had his health minister contrive alternative remedies for AIDS, including beetroot and garlic.

The results were devastating for South Africa. More than 330,000 people died prematurely from the disease between 2000 and 2005 due to Mbeki’s AIDS denialism, and at least 35,000 babies were born with HIV, infections that could have been prevented using conventional medicine, according to a study by the Harvard School of Public Health.

— Whooping Cough —

In the US, the challenge is a whole host of critters:

While there is no direct institutional denialism of conventional medicine here in the U.S., the denialist movement is active and spreading nonetheless. Vaccine denialism—especially in states with lax public-health laws—has already shown to have a negative effect on public health in some regional pockets, and it’s leaving those communities open to outbreaks of diseases that had been all but eradicated, including measles, polio, whooping cough (pertussis), and even smallpox.

In 2013, researchers confirmed that a 2010 whooping cough outbreak in California—the worst in the U.S. in more than 50 years—was spread primarily by the children of parents who received non-medical exemptions for school vaccinations from the state. The study showed that the outbreak was found exclusively in clusters where children were not vaccinated. There were more than 9,000 cases of the disease in California in 2010 and 10 deaths. In San Diego County, where there were about 5,000 immunization exemptions, there were 980 cases of whooping cough.

Meanwhile, some states were slashing programs for children's vaccinations. In 2011, the year after the whooping cough outbreak in California, Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott cut a state program that provided whooping cough vaccines for poor mothers of babies too young to get their first whooping cough vaccines. There has since been a whooping cough outbreak in Florida with a six-week-old boy dying from the disease. 

These whooping cough outbreaks have been followed by a measles outbreak that began in Texas this year, which is now spreading throughout the U.S.

Smallpox? Yikes!! They just don't get it, so now we're going to get it . . . and thanks to Stevie and his orcs and their anti-science attitudes, voting CON could be really, really dangerous to your health.

Get yours . . .

GET A FLU SHOT. Besides helping to fight the flu, there are strong indications that it is an effective way of lowering the incidence of major cardio problems. That's what a report from the American Council on Science and Health proclaims in a post, "Flu vaccine’s unexpected heart benefits":

Flu shots can stop you from getting the flu. Can they also stop you from having a heart attack?

That’s the intriguing suggestion by Dr. Jacob Udell of the University of Toronto and colleagues, who gave a recent presentation at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, demonstrating a surprising 48 percent reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events (heart attack or sudden death, or stroke) among over 3000 patients culled from 4 separate trials, conducted from 1994 to 2008.

Kinky chemistry . . .

TRANS FATS ARE A NO-NO and kinks in the chemistry are good.  Keith Veronese, at io9, has a great explanation why trans fats are so dangerous with his article, "Trans fats and the chemistry of evil". If you care about what kind of chow you digest, do check it out as it shows how very, very small differences in molecules can have consequences.

Caveat emptor . . .

— 5-chloro-2-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy)phenol —

CHECK THE LABELS on your household cleaning stuff, as well as toiletries like toothpaste, for Triclosan, because evidence is showing that it's nasty, dangerous stuff — and it's everywhere, it seems. According to Disinformation, new reports from front-line outfits like University of California-Davis and Johns Hopkins, among others show cause for concern:

“Triclosan is found in virtually everyone’s home and is pervasive in the environment,” said Isaac Pessah, professor and chair of the Department of Molecular Biosciences in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and principal investigator of the study. “These findings provide strong evidence that the chemical is of concern to both human and environmental health.”

Triclosan is commonly found in antibacterial personal-care products such as hand soaps as well as deodorants, mouthwashes, toothpaste, bedding, clothes, carpets, toys and trash bags. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1998 estimated that more than 1 million pounds of triclosan are produced annually in the United States, and that the chemical is detectable in waterways and aquatic organisms ranging from algae to fish to dolphins, as well as in human urine, blood and breast milk.

And according to the LA Times, Triclosan may not do that great a job:

Concerns about triclosan aren't new. According to a statement released by UC Davis, Pessah's team has previously linked the chemical to problems with reproductive hormones and brain activity. In a 2010 article from the Los Angeles Times, writer Jill U Adams reviewed the case against the chemical.  One big problem, she wrote, is that antibacterial soaps that contain triclosan don't do any better killing germs on your hands than plain old soap and water. 

To me, the scariest part is that it is an ingredient in toothpaste . . .

The UC Davis research team has previously linked triclosan to other potentially harmful health effects, including disruption of reproductive hormone activity and of cell signaling in the brain.
The team also found that triclosan impairs heart and skeletal muscle contractility in living animals. Anesthetized mice had up to a 25-percent reduction in heart function measures within 20 minutes of exposure to the chemical.

“The effects of triclosan on cardiac function were really dramatic,” said Nipavan Chiamvimonvat, professor of cardiovascular medicine at UC Davis and a study co-author. “Although triclosan is not regulated as a drug, this compound acts like a potent cardiac depressant in our models.”

Historical problem . . .

MALARIA IN CANADA used to be a problem. Malaria? Ottawa? Go figure. Paul McManus has a site, Mysteries of Canada, check it out.

Dow Agrosciences' NAFTA Chapter 11 agro

Dow Chemical - excuse me, Dow Agrosciences - doesn't much care for Ontario and Quebec's ban on cosmetic use of their weed-killer 2,4-D on lawns and they'd like $2-million compensation, plus legal costs and yet-to-be specified damages under NAFTA's Chapter 11, to help them feel better about it.
Dow filed their lawsuit against Canada in August but it only just appeared on the Dept of Foreign Affairs website yesterday. Do you think maybe someone in the PMO didn't want a contentious NAFTA sovereignty issue muddying up their nice election?

The company points to a "2007 risk assessment by Canada's own Pest Management Regulatory Agency which said the product could continue to be used safely on lawns".
Oh gosh, Dow, don't bring them up.

When it was explained to us in 2006 that the SPP meant Canada would have to "harmonize" its pesticide regulations with those in the U.S so as not to prove "a trade irritant" to U.S. corps, there was a huge fuss up here about it.

Kathleen Cooper, researcher with the Canadian Environmental Law Association, is "troubled that chemical producers can invoke NAFTA in an effort to "undermine the decisions of democratically-elected governments."
But that's the whole point of it, my dear. Chapter 11 allows U.S. investors to legally ensure we don't pass laws for public health or the environment that might interfere with their profits.

Besides, $2-million is chump change compared to the $1oo-million lawsuit that U.S.-based Chemtura Corp. has already filed against us for banning their carcinogenic neurotoxin pesticide, lindane.
Which is a bit mean of them, really, as lindane is due to be phased out in the U.S. soon anyway.

Putin Problems

WITH ALL THE FINANCIAL HOO-HA recently, plus Stevie and the Goppers, it's easy to lose sight of other people's problems.

According to Murray Feshbach in the Washington Post, Mr. Putin has a whole panoply, especially health-related. Why should you care? A country with this kind of health problem has no future, and a country with no future can become unstable.

According to U.N. figures, the average life expectancy for a Russian man is 59 years -- putting the country at about 166th place in the world longevity sweepstakes, one notch above Gambia. For women, the picture is somewhat rosier: They can expect to live, on average, 73 years, barely beating out the Moldovans. But there are still some 126 countries where they could expect to live longer. And the gap between expected longevity for men and for women -- 14 years -- is the largest in the developed world.

And then there's tuberculosis -- remember tuberculosis? In the United States, with a population of 303 million, 650 people died of the disease in 2007. In Russia, which has a total of 142 million people, an astonishing 24,000 of them died of tuberculosis in 2007