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DISPATCH: Environmentalists, Budget-Planners, and Candidates
Quote of the day:
Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, said, "But I later learned that the environmental movement is not always guided by science. As we celebrate Earth Day, this is a good lesson to keep in mind." --the _Wall Street Journal_, April 22, 2008.
Earth Day
Happy Earth Day! There are many stories in the news about the environment and what impact we have on it and vice versa.

Current conservation policies often clash with public health initiatives in the developing world but they get little attention. There are real harms in advocating water and energy conservation over people.

February 11, 2008: Artificial Jarvik, Troubled Ledger, Fat Twins, Menaced Babies
¢Quote to Note: "I'm confused. The way they do these studies shouldn't the rats have died from cancer or something before they could become obese?" -- Comment by "OceanLover" on Lucianne.com News Forum about a study linking saccharin consumption to obesity in rats.

You know, I've been feeling awfully tired lately. I haven't been sleeping well, and when I do sleep, I grind my teeth. Also, I'm feeling slightly nervous, forgetting minor details, and eating more than usual but not gaining weight. Should I be worried? According to the November 2002 issue of Secrets of Robust Health promoted as a "health newsletter for the thinking person," I should. Divulging information "you will probably never hear from your family doctor"(with good reason, as we'll see), the newsletter claims that all of my symptoms point to the same culprit: a parasite.

The "War on Drugs" has never been a carefully planned public health protection initiative. Government officials did not enact current drug prohibition laws and enforcement policies because of any dispassionate, comprehensive review of drug hazards. Rather, hysterical fear-mongering has always been the real basis for the "War on Drugs."

MORNING DISPATCH 9/5/08: McCain vs. Pharma, Science vs. Cancer Claim, plus Smoking, Shots, and Obesity

MORNING DISPATCH 11/19/08: Dour Docs, Cancer Causes, Dire Diabetes, Smoke Scams, and Dementia Dissension

January 7, 2008: A Long Way, Baby, Albeit While Coughing
- Quote to Note: "A man may take out a woman who smokes for a good time, but he won't marry her, and if he does, he won't stay married." --A 1914 Washington Post editorial.

The November 11, 2004 issue of New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) celebrated the fifth anniversary of the release by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the monograph To Err is Human.(1) The NEJM editorial by Drew Altman, Ph.D. (Kaiser Family Foundation), Carolyn Clancy, M.D. (U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), and Robert Blendon, Sc.D. (Harvard School of Public Health) repeated the old assertion of a patient safety crisis in which 44,000 to 98,000 patients died in American hospitals each year due to preventable medical errors.(2)

How much do we really know about the origin and spread of the 1918 flu pandemic? Comparisons with other pandemics reveal patterns and lingering mysteries.
Watching the Animals
"The horses growing better, a cough and sore throat seized mankind." This was the news from Dublin toward the end of 1727, reported in Charles Creighton's monumental History of Epidemics in Britain -- Volume II -- From the Extinction of the Plague to the Present Time, Creighton's "present time" being 1894.