Don't Let The Talk About "Breakthrough Case" Fool You

There has been a lot of talk in the media lately about "breakthrough cases" of COVID-19 -- cases where a vaccinated person contracted the virus. Sadly, even the normally sane NBC and MSNBC have been guilty of this, and the right-wing sites have been crowing about it. The impression given is that even the people who have been vaccinated have a good chance of getting COVID-19.

That is pure bullshit! The number is cases where a vaccinated person contracted the disease is incredibly tiny. 

Note the chart above, which uses figures from the CDC and state dashboards. About 99.923% of vaccinated Americans have NOT gotten COVID-19. That means only 0.077% have gotten sick. That is less than one-tenth of one percent!

The vaccines (especially the Pfizer and Modern vaccines) are incredibly effective. And anyone who wants to be safe from the virus, even the Delta variant, should get vaccinated.

Don't let the media scare you into failing to be vaccinated!

Spending On Services/Activities Are Hurting The Economy

 

The chart above (found at Axios.com) shows the problem with our pandemic economy. It's not the sale of goods that's dragging down the economy. In fact, the sale of goods has actually increased. It's the sale of services and activities that are still suffering.

People have learned how to buy the goods they need in a pandemic economy. They go online or wear a mask on a short shopping trip.

Services and activities are different. They require exposure to large gatherings or prolonged exposure to other people -- things that are not safe to do in a pandemic.

This is why our economy will not recover until the pandemic is under control. People must feel safe before resuming the spending on services and activities.

Too Many Americans Are Still Not Sure Of Vaccine Safety

The chart above reflects the results of the latest Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between February 27th and March 2nd of a national sample of 1,500 adults, with a 2.6 point margin of error. 

Now that several vaccines are becoming available to the American public, there is hope that we can soon put this pandemic behind us and return to normal. But to do that, we need at least about 75% of the public to take the vaccine. That's the figure that would establish a herd immunity, and make it hard for the virus to spread.

But if this chart is right, it's going to be hard to get to that percentage. When questioned about four vaccines, only 42% to 57% of the public was sure the vaccines were safe -- and people are not going to take a vaccine they do not believe is safe.

Voters Trust Biden More - Even On Issues Trump Is Pushing

 

Donald Trump seems to be basing his campaign on two issues -- that the BLM protesters are violent and unruly, and that he is the person who can guarantee the public's safety. But he has a problem -- the voters don't believe him.

Voters prefer Biden on dealing with race relations by a 19 point margin, and think Biden is better for public safety by an 8 point margin. That's not good for Trump -- that the voters are not buying his campaign themes.

In fact, Biden is preferred over Trump on every campaign issue except one -- the economy (and Trump only leads that by a statically insignificant 1 point).

The chart above is from the Politico / Morning Consult Poll -- done between August 28th and 30th of a national sample of 1,988 registered voters, with a 2 point margin of error.

Public Doesn't Believe Soleimani Killing Made U.S. Safer

This chart is from the new USA Today / Ipsos Poll -- done on January 7th and 8th of a national sample of 1,005 adults, with a 3.5 point margin of error.

The Trump administration wants Americans to believe that the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani made this country safer. Americans aren't buying that ridiculous assertion.

Only 24% say they believe the assassination made the country at least somewhat safer. But 55% say it made the country less safe (and 21% don't know what to think).

Trump has lied to Americans too many times for them to take his word on this.

Nearly Half Of Voters Feel Less Safe With Trump In Office

This chart reflects the results of the new Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between August 21st and 26th of a national sample of 1,422 registered voters, with a margin of error of 3.1 points.

Having Donald Trump in charge of our government scares many Americans. Nearly half (46%) of registered voters say they feel less safe with Trump in the White House, while only 26% say they feel safer.

Do You Want The Meat Industry Regulating Itself?

The photo above (from io9gizmodo.com) shows pork cutting in a slaughter house in 1905 -- the year Upton Sinclair released his expose of the meat industry and exposed its danger to workers and consumers. The book caused the government to introduce rules and put government inspectors in that industry.

Now it seems that the Trump administration wants to take a step backward, and let the pork industry start regulating itself to a large extent. Is this something you want to see? Do you think industry inspectors will do as good a job as government inspectors? Or would this just create a more dangerous situation for both plant workers and consumers?

Here's just part of an article by Tom Philpott in Mother Jones about the Trump administration's plan:

Next time you tuck into a pork chop or a carnitas-filled burrito, spare a thought for the people who work the kill line at hog slaughterhouses. Meatpacking workers incur injury and illness at 2.5 times the national average; and repetitive-motion conditions at a rate nearly seven times as high as that of other private industries. Much has to do with the speed at which they work: Hog carcasses weighing as much as 270 pounds come at workers at an average rate of 977 per hour, or about 16 per minute. 

President Donald Trump’s US Department of Agriculture is close to finalizing a plan that would allow those lines to move even faster, reports the Washington Post’s Kimberly Kindy. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is currently responsible for overseeing the kill line, making sure that tainted meat doesn’t enter the food supply. The plan would partially privatize federal oversight of pork facilities, cutting the number of federal inspectors by about 40 percent and replacing them with plant employees, Kindy adds. In other words, the task of ensuring the safety of the meat supply will largely shift from people paid by the public to people being paid by the meat industry. . . .

The Trump administration appears to be bringing new zeal to the task of reshaping meat inspection. Once it finalizes the new pork inspection, the USDA plans to roll out a  similar scheme for the beef industry, Kindy reports. And last fall, the agency announced it would would let some chicken slaughterhouses speed up their kill lines from 140 birds per minute to 175 birds per minute.

The USDA has long insisted pulling inspectors off the kill line—while also speeding it up—is about “modernization.” “Advances in animal science, market hog production systems, biosecurity and veterinary medicine have eliminated the vast majority of diseases inspected for under traditional inspection,” the agency claimed in a 2018 explainer. 

What does this deregulation mean for the safety of our meat? We already have a sneak preview. For years, a USDA pilot program has allowed five large hog slaughterhouses to operate at higher line speeds with fewer inspectors. A 2013 audit by the USDA’s Office of Inspector General found that the USDA “did not provide adequate oversight” of the pilot facilities over its first 15 years, and as a result, the plants “may have a higher potential for food safety risks.”

An Important Safety Guide For Women (On & Off The Web)

I was asked by the ladies at vpnmentor.com to publish the following safety guide for women. I am happy to do so, because women in our society are attacked far too often (on the internet and elsewhere). It's rather lengthy, but well worth reading. I hope it helps.

Have you ever been harassed in the street? Received a crass message on a dating app? Had a coworker make a comment about your appearance that just didn’t sit right?

You’re not alone.

With the #MeToo movement, it’s easy to log onto Twitter or Facebook and see just how many women are victims of sexual harassment. Whether in person or online, women everywhere have experienced it in one way or another. And with all the new ways the internet has opened avenues of communication, online harassment is more prevalent than ever. 

According to a study by the Pew Research Center, most online abuse takes place on social media. Although men are also subject to online harassment – which includes name calling, derision, and physical threats – the study found that online, women are more than twice as likely as men to experience sexual harassment.  

In addition, more than half of women ages 18-29 report having been sent sexually explicit images without their consent. 

This number is only growing, and while 70% of women believe online harassment to be a major problem, not many know how to prevent it. 

Women are often targeted simply because they are women. Attacks are often sexualized or misogynistic, and rhetoric tends to focus on their bodies and sexual violence. This is both physically and emotionally damaging, and women are often intimidated into silence, preferring to disengage rather than put themselves at risk.

However, there are ways we can protect ourselves. 

This guide was written with the intention of empowering women to navigate the internet without fear. We discuss common occurrences in which women are subject to harassment in their daily lives – on social media, at work, while dating, and more – and give tips and advice on how women can take control. 

It is important for us to note that some of the advice given here encourages anonymity, rather than risking being targeted. While this may seem to run counter to the idea of encouraging self-expression, we believe that every woman should be empowered to make that choice for herself.

Our job is to give you the tools you need to do that. 

We hope this guide encourages women everywhere to defend and protect themselves, and to stand up to sexual harassment, both on and off the web.

Harassment on Social Media

The majority of online harassment takes place on social media, which makes sense given how much time most of us spend on these platforms. Broad social networks, often combined with anonymity, leads to a reality in which anything you post, tweet, or share opens you up to potential abuse. 

Below, we delve into the most popular social media platforms, and show you how to protect yourself from creeps, trolls, and stalkers.

Twitter

Due to its public nature, Twitter is one of the most notorious social media platforms when it comes to online harassment. And it’s not just celebrities and public figures who get abuse heaped on them. There are endless stories of regular people who have been attacked, often for simply speaking out about political or feminist issues.

In fact, Amnesty International released a report chastising Twitter for not appropriately addressing harassment of women. In the study, dozens of women are quoted about the abuse they experienced on Twitter, many citing unsatisfactory responses from the social media site after having reported the incidents. 

Often, the result is a silencing effect, in which women simply choose not to engage for fear of being harassed; many women end up censoring themselves or leaving the platform altogether.  And for some – particularly journalists and activists – this can be detrimental to their careers.  

Things came to a head in October 2017 when a series of high profile sexual assault allegations spawned the viral hashtag #MeToo. The hashtag – used by women to identify themselves as having experienced sexual harassment or assault – took over Twitter in a matter of hours, and made crystal clear just how prevalent these incidents are. 

Soon thereafter, actress Rose McGowen’s Twitter account was temporarily suspended after she tweeted a series of allegations against sexual predator Harvey Weinstein and several Hollywood bigwigs she claimed enabled him. The violation cited was that one of her tweets included a private phone number. 

But with so many abusive tweets against women not resulting in suspended accounts,  many women had had enough. The resulting anger spawned the hashtag #WomenBoycottTwitter, which called on women to boycott the platform for a day in solidarity. 

Twitter claims to have improved their system of addressing reports of harassment, but it’s still an issue, and there are still steps individual women can take to mitigate the chance of being targeted. 

The 50 States Are Ranked From Safest To Least Safe

Do you live in a safe state? Wallethub did a survey. They ranked each state in five areas:

1. Personal and Residential Safety (possible 40 points)
2. Financial Safety (possible 15 points)
3. Road Safety (possible 15 points)
4. Workplace Safety (possible 15 points)
5. Emergency Preparedness (possible 15 points)

They totaled the number of points in all categories for each state, and the total numbers are shown in the charts above. A higher number translates into a safer state.

Has Trump Made The U.S. More Safe From Terrorism ?

Donald Trump likes to brag that he is making the United States safer from terrorism. He supports fear-based anti-immigrant policies to accomplish that. Are they effective? Does the public think he has been effective in making this country safe from terrorism -- safer than past presidents have?

The answer is NO! Trump may brag, but the public is not buying it -- and they believe he has actually done a worse job than past presidents. Clinton and Bush both had pluralities saying they had no effect on terrorism. Obama had a tie between those saying he made us safer and those saying he made us less safe. Trump is the only president with a plurality (41%) saying he has made the country less safe from terrorism.

The chart above uses information from the latest Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between May 13th and 15th of a random national sample of 1,500 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

Americans Are Not Happy With Efforts To Protect Elections

Overall, how concerned are you about :

How confident are you that each of the following is doing enough to prevent foreign countries from influencing future U.S. elections:

The charts above are from a new CNN / SSRS Poll -- done between February 20th and 23rd of a random national sample of 1,016 adults, with a 3.7 point margin of error.

Public Says Trump Has NOT Made U.S. Safer From Terrorism

One of Donald Trump's campaign promises was to make the United States safe from terrorism. That has turned out to be just another of his many lies. Only 20% of the public believes we are safer than we were a year ago -- while 71% say we are not safer (including 34% who believe we are less safe and 37% saying the danger is equal to that of a year ago).

The chart reflects results of a new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between December 24th and 26th of a random national sample of 1,500 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

Americans Don't Think Trump Will Make Country Safer

One of Trump big campaign issues was that he would keep America safe -- by defeating terrorism. But it doesn't look like the public believes him. About 58% of the public says that the danger from terrorism will be the same as this year or even worse, while only 27% think Trump will make us safer -- a difference of 31 points.

And it gets worse. A majority of Americans (52%) believes Trump will get us into a new war, while only 32% don't think that will happen -- a difference of 20 points.

Trump is good at talking and making big promises, but most Americans don't believe he'll deliver on those promises.

The charts above use information contained in a new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between December 24th and 27th of a random national sample of 1,662 adults (including 1,419 registered voters) and has a margin of error of 2.9 points.

Republicans Poison Flint Citizens To Save Money

This is the level of lead in Detroit water -- the water Flint was buying before Michigan's governor intervened.

This is the level at which lead becomes a concern according to health officials.

This is the level of lead found in 90% of the homes in Flint now.

The other 10% of Flint homes have a much higher level, some as much as displayed above.


Flint (Michigan) used to be a booming city. But the city depended largely on the automotive industry -- and when the auto industry moved out (many times to plants in other countries), Flint began to suffer. Unemployment skyrocketed, and that affected many of the city's businesses. By 2011, the city was in deep financial trouble. The state of Michigan took over, and the Republican governor ordered cuts in city expenses.

But it soon became obvious that the Republicans doing the cutting didn't bother to take the safety of Flint citizens into account. They decided that the purchase of clean Lake Huron water from Detroit was too expensive -- and the city should start getting its water from the Flint River.

The problem was that the water in that river was filled with toxic waste (after years of industry dumping waste into it). And to make matters worse, some of those chemicals in the river water caused lead to be leached from the city pipes into the water going to citizen homes. That means the city's water consumers were being poisoned by the lead in their water -- receiving between five times the level considered dangerous to hundreds of times that amount.

This lead poisoning affects everyone, but is even more acute for children -- causing sickness, stunting intellectual growth, and causing behavioral problems. And there is no cure. This lead poisoning will affect the city of Flint far into the future.

It could and should have been prevented. The governor and his GOP cohorts are claiming they didn't know this would happen. But they should have known. The city's citizens knew the water wasn't fit to drink, which is why they were buying water from Detroit. And state officials could have known if they had just spent a few hundred dollars testing the water. But they didn't, and it took them months to realize it, even though city consumers complained very quickly after the change.

Making matters even worse, the citizens are being charged exorbitant prices for the tainted water (with water bills easily topping a hundred dollars a month).

Government is supposed to protect the people it serves, regardless of the cost of doing so. But Republicans want to run government like a business -- cutting costs even when it endangers the people they serve (like happened in Flint). This is common for Republicans, who consider money more important than people. It's inexcusable, and probably should be considered criminal.

Flint is just the most obvious example of this GOP indifference to the safety of citizens. Republicans are cutting costs across the nation (and in Washington) with no regard being given to the people they are hurting. It's just one more reason why they must be voted out of office in the next election.

Clinton Leads All Candidates In Making Americans Feel Safe And In Best Handling Foreign Policy In The Middle East

The Republicans have tried to pose themselves as the best to make this country safe, and the best to handle United States policy in the Middle East -- but the American public is not buying it. The top two Democratic candidates (Clinton and Sanders) would make Americans feel safer than the top two Republican candidates (Trump and Cruz) -- 42.2% to 33.3%.

And the same is true of who the public thinks could best handle foreign policy in the Middle East -- 43% to 33.3%. And the candidate that leads all the others in Hillary Clinton -- gathering 29.5% on making Americans feel safest, and 33.8% on being best to handle Middle East policy.

Republicans have tried to win the public by drumming up fear. But it seems the public prefers the calm and rational thinking of the Democrats -- especially Hillary Clinton.

The charts were made from information in a new Emerson College Poll -- done between December 17th and 20th of a random national sample of 754 registered voters, with a 3.5 point margin of error.

A Bit Of Praise For A Texas (And American) Hero

The man pictured at left is Kenneth Kendrick. He is a personal hero of mine, and I hope, also a friend. So I was very pleased to read the post below, praising him for his courage in exposing a dangerous situation in our food supply. It was written by Darin Detwiler at Food Safety News.

Kenneth Kendrick, missing Monday from the federal courthouse in Albany, GA, did not hear the praise that came from a witness during a pivotal day in the world of food safety.

Kendrick is a former assistant plant manager of the Plainview, Texas, peanut processing facility once owned by the now-defunct Peanut Corporation of America (PCA). On Sept. 21, 2015, his past bosses and supervisors — Stewart Parnell, former owner of PCA, Michael Parnell, former peanut broker, and Mary Wilkerson, former quality assurance manager — sat for sentencing in the same courthouse in which their federal trial was conducted a year earlier.

At the heart of this trial and sentencing sits the 2008-09 Salmonella outbreak, considered one of the most significant in U.S. history. The CDC report on this multistate outbreak identifies 714 clinically confirmed illnesses across 46 states and nine deaths. Later estimates from the CDC place the number of potential victims not reporting an illness at more than 22,000.

Their attempts to hide evidence and obstruct justice delayed investigators from finding the true source of the contamination and bringing an end to the outbreak sooner.

Unbeknownst to investigators, PCA also had a peanut processing plant in Plainview, Texas, where Kendrick worked for several months in 2006. Back then, Kendrick observed numerous problems in the Texas plant, including rat infestations, bird nests, and a roof leak — all of which triggered his concern for feces in the product. According to Kendrick, “particularly with water leaking off a roof, bird feces can wash in and drip onto the peanuts.”

After only a few months on the job, Kendrick chose to leave his position with PCA because, as he stated, “I knew it was a train wreck and something unethical and bad was about to happen.”

“When I was working there, [PCA had] nothing that resembled a quality assurance program,” Kendrick said. “I came from a lab testing background in the meat industry. I thought there would be regular testing, like in the meat industry… .”

Years later, when Kendrick learned that the widespread Salmonella outbreak in 2008-09 had been traced back to PCA’s Georgia plant, he spent “hundreds of hours” trying to contact the media and federal food or health agencies to alert them to the numerous violations he witnessed in PCA’s plant in Plainview. Attempt after attempt failed to result in a reply from anyone. Kendrick sent anonymous emails and letters to the Texas Department of Health and to companies that purchased products from his plant, but he never received a response from them.

The only response he received was from the Chicago office of STOP Foodborne Illness, the leading national non-profit organization dedicated to the prevention of illness and death from foodborne pathogens. STOP convinced FDA officials to meet with Kendrick in January 2009.

The staff at STOP Foodborne Illness also connected Kendrick with Gardiner Harris, a reporter at The New York Times. Harris’ article, “After Tests, Peanut Plant in Texas Is Closed,” appeared in the Feb. 11, 2009, Health and Policy section of the paper.

After that article appeared, STOP Foodborne Illness connected Kendrick with a producer from ABC’s “Good Morning America” show.

During a Feb. 16, 2009, exclusive interview with the show, Kendrick discussed how his granddaughter became ill with Salmonella-like symptoms for three weeks in December, a time when she only wanted to eat peanut butter crackers.

“So I kept giving her the crackers and she kept getting sicker,” Kendrick said. “I’ve had a lot of sleepless nights over that, a lot of crying over that issue.” He then went on to describe in shocking detail the conditions he observed at the PCA plant in Texas.

After his interviews, investigators shifted their focus to the plant where Kendrick once worked. Texas officials had no idea that the Plainview facility even existed. Stewart Parnell had not registered his Texas peanut facility as a food processing plant with the state.

As a result of Kendrick’s whistleblowing, federal authorities and the Texas Department of Health investigated the Plainview plant as another source of the outbreak. His information helped prove that peanut products were being shipped between PCA facilities in different states — contrary to what Parnell had told the public and investigators throughout the outbreak.

In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Parnell, his brother, and three other executives involved in the attempts to conceal problems at PCA on charges of fraud, wire fraud, obstruction of justice, and more than 70 other charges.

At the end of their 2014 trial, a 12-member jury found Stewart Parnell guilty on 67 federal felony counts, Michael Parnell guilty on 30 counts, and Wilkerson guilty on one of two counts of obstruction of justice.

The 2015 sentencing of the five convicted food industry executives included the testimonies of victims and families affected by PCA and the outbreak of Salmonella tied to the company. Jeff Almer, who lost his mother during the outbreak, named each guilty executive and had a word or two for them. He asked Wilkerson about her definition of quality assurance. He even stared at Stewart Parnell and said, “You killed my mom.”

Before ending his testimony, Almer stated before the court his appreciation for the efforts of Kenneth Kendrick in helping to make sure that the investigation, as well as the subsequent trial and sentencing, became possible.

On Monday, Sept. 21, 2015, the judge handed Stewart Parnell a sentence of 28 years in prison, Michael Parnell 20 years, and Mary Wilkerson 5 years. Former PCA managers Daniel Kilgore and Samuel Lightsey, who pleaded guilty under agreements with federal prosecutors, are scheduled to receive their sentences on Oct. 1, 2015.

A Real Democracy Will Always Have "Soft" Targets

(The photo above from Chattanooga is from the website of CNN.)

In the wake of the shooting deaths of five members of our military in Chattanooga by a terrorist, Governor Rick Scott of Florida is moving National Guard recruitment centers in that state to National Guard armories. He said they will remain there until the guardsmen can be armed -- and if it can't be done another way, he wants to give them concealed carry permits. Some other governors are considering doing the same thing in their states.

I can understand how these governors feel. It is a tragedy when citizens are killed, whether military members or not -- and they just want to try and prevent that from happening in the future. That's laudable, but I question whether the action they want to take will do much good. If those who were killed had been carrying a gun, it would have made no difference in the Chattanooga killings. The killer could still have pulled up outside, and filled the office with bullets before those inside could have reacted.

While recruitment centers could probably be turned into much harder targets by placing armed men outside with military rifles, would that really solve our problem? Wouldn't terrorists just choose another soft target -- a mall, church, nightclub, etc.? Is it even possible to protect all of the targets open to attack? I submit it is not. We couldn't protect everyone even if we turned this country into a police state (which many seem to want to do) -- and it certainly can't be done in a democracy.

One of the most protected individuals in our democracy is the president. And yet, the Secret Service will admit that a determined individual who is willing to die would have a credible chance to succeed in an assassination. What makes us think that everyone else could be protected from an equally determined individual?

I wish that wasn't true, but it is. Our police (from local to the federal level) do a very good job of protecting Americans, but they could never prevent all incidents of mindless terrorism. The question we need to be asking ourselves is just how much of our freedom are we willing to give up for the illusion of safety? Do we want to live in a police state? or a society where everyone is armed?

We also need to admit that we bring much of this on ourselves by refusing to act to keep guns out of the hands of as many dangerous people as possible. The fact is that any terrorist, criminal, or dangerously unstable person can legally buy any kind of firearm they want in this country. Why do we allow that?

No democracy can be made completely safe from the nuts in the world. There will always be soft targets in a democracy. But we could do better than we are doing -- not by arming more people, but by acting to close the loopholes in our background check law.

Are Gun Owners Really Safer? Researchers Say No!

(The image above is from the website genius.com.)

One of the biggest ideas proposed by the NRA is that gun ownership will make a person safer -- and they even go so far as to say that the more guns there are in our society, the safer all Americans will be (because a "good guy" with a gun can protect us from a "bad guy" with a gun). That may sound logical to those who want to believe that, but research doesn't bear it out. The truth is that owning a gun makes your life more dangerous, not less dangerous. Here is how Amber Hall (of The Takeaway on PRI) puts it in an article for msn.com:

Back in the early 1990s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control provided funding for studies on gun violence. The NRA was not pleased.

“[Our research] underwent peer review and was thought to be very solid and worthwhile research,” says Dr. Fred Rivara, who was part of the team that researched gun violence. “The CDC stood by our research — they had funded it and they stood by it. Unfortunately, it raised the attention of the National Rifle Association, who then worked with pro-gun members of Congress to essentially stop funding firearm research.”

Rivara, a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Washington at Seattle Children's Hospital, discovered that having a gun in the home is associated with a threefold increase in the risk of a homicide.

“The most common reason that people have a gun is because they have it for home protection,” he says. “Unfortunately, the data indicates that having a gun is associated with both an increased risk of homicide, but even more importantly, an increased risk of suicide. We know that, for example, if there’s a gun in the home, the risk of suicide among adolescents and young adults increases tenfold.”

Back in 1993, Rivara and his colleagues released this information in a series of articlesthat appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most highly respected medical journals in the world. The NRA quickly went after the research — as well as Rivara and his colleagues.

Rivara says 10 pro-gun senators worked to get the ear of Arlen Specter, then a senator from Pennsylvania and chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee.

“[Specter] approached the Centers for Disease and Control and discussed the idea that this research was biased,” says Rivara. Congress “ended up cutting the CDC budget by the exact amount of money that was used to fund the gun research. They had first threatened to cut all of the funding for injury research at the CDC. They didn’t do that, but they ended up cutting it by the exact amount that was spent on gun research.”

And that wasn't all. “More importantly, however, was that they put a clause for the appropriations of the CDC that essentially blocked all gun research for the next two decades," Rivara says.

The CDC budget cuts all but ended federal gun research. Dr. Arthur Kellerman, who also worked on the 1993 study, stated in a December 2012 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that “no federal employee was willing to risk his or her career or the agency's funding to find out” if any gun research could be done. "Support for firearm injury prevention research quickly dried up.”

The NRA also wrote to the National Institutes of Health to request that the Office of Scientific Integrity review the research published by Rivara, Kellerman and their colleagues.

“That’s a big deal,” says Rivara. “There’s only two or three of these that are done each year, and it’s basically questioning our credentials as scientists and saying that we had lied or falsified our research. Fortunately, the NIH did not find any basis for that and the CDC backed us up. But it was really chilling in terms of our ability to conduct research on this very important problem.”

But while Rivara calls that period "a frightening time," he does admit it had a silver lining: “It was also good because it told us that we were doing important work."

Colorado Citizens Still Support Marijuana Legalization

In the 2012 election, the voters in Colorado legalized the recreational use (and taxation) of marijuana by adults. The measure won by a pretty significant margin (55% to 45%). The tax benefits have been very good -- exceeding the expectations of the state government. But what do the Colorado citizens think about legalization now that it has been in effect for a while?

A new poll shows they like what they did. In fact, support for legalization may have even grown since the election. A new Quinnipiac University Poll surveyed 1,049 Colorado voters between February 5th and 15th (with a margin of error of 3 points). That poll showed that currently 58% of those surveyed still support marijuana legalization. Even if you subtract the margin of error, it shows that the support has not declined since the election (and may have increased). The opposition has declined though -- from 45% to 38% (a decline of 7 points).

Colorado citizens now know what people in other states are just learning -- that marijuana is NOT a dangerous drug. In fact, it is much safer than other legal drugs. This has now been verified by yet another scientific study -- a study recently published in the journal Scientific Reports. The study verified what many of us already knew -- that marijuana is the safest of all drugs, and far safer than alcohol (see the chart below).

It is time to stop demonizing this gentle herb, and legalize its recreational use in all 50 states.

Are Genetically-Modified Foods Bad ?

(The cartoon image above is by Peter Schrank, and appeared in The Economist on 2/25/2010.)

I'm probably going to make some of my liberal friends mad with this post. But my purpose in writing this blog is not to placate anyone, but to tell the truth as I see it.

There is a debate raging in this country (and the world) right now over genetically-modified foods (commonly called GMO's). Corporate entities like Monsanto say the GMO's are safe and want to rush them to the market, while many on the left say they are inherently unsafe and should be banned. I have always suspected that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

Humans have been genetically-modifying foods since the invention of farming many centuries ago. Almost all of the foods we eat today have been modified. For instance, the original wheat plant had a very tiny head of grain and the original tomato was about the size of a thumbnail. Both were modified through genetic cross-breeding of the plants to produce the vegetables we enjoy today.

The difference is that in the past this genetic-modification took a long time through the process of cross-breeding to achieve the desirable result, while today it is done much faster through gene-splicing in a laboratory. Does that mean the new way is unsafe? Not necessarily.

One of the best things I have read on this issue comes from the writer of a blog called Saul of Hearts. The writer identifies himself this way:

I'm a crazy hippie.  I go to Burning Man every year.  I teach yoga.  I live in a co-op.  For the past two years I've been delivering organic vegetables for a local delivery service.  I've been eating vegetarian for years, and vegan for the past four months.

I'm also fascinated by genetics.  I read every book that comes my way on evolutionary theory, population genetics, and mapping the genome.  I took several classes on the subject at the University of Pennsylvania.  All told, I have a pretty solid understanding of how genes work.

The writer has written an excellent post on this subject, and I urge you to go over and read the entire post. I am reprinting here only a part of that post that I consider especially important -- a discussion of 3 common myths being circulated about GMO's. Here is what was written about these myths:

1. GMOs create more "unnatural" mutations than traditional breeding methods.

    Genetic manipulation is nothing new.  Humans have been breeding plants and animals for thousands of years.  Many of our staple crops (wheat, corn, soy), would not exist without human intervention.  The same goes for domesticated farm species.

    Whether we're using genetic modification or selective breeding, we're playing God either way.  But some people seem to think that selective breeding is "safer" -- that it allows less opportunity for damaging mutations than genetic engineering does.  This couldn't be more wrong.

    The entire process of evolution is dependent upon mutation.  UV radiation changes the structure of the DNA code in each individual organism.  Most of these mutations aren't beneficial.  Some leave out necessary proteins.  Others add useless information.  And yet, a percentage of these "errors" are helpful enough that they're passed along to future generations and become the new normal.

    If there's any danger with genetic engineering, it's that we can be too precise in our manipulation.  We can ensure that each new generation of seeds contains the exact same DNA sequence, double-checked for errors and mutations eliminated.  The "unnatural" process actually produces less mutations, not more.

2. GMOs contain animal DNA that has been "spliced" into plants.

    One of the most enduring myths about genetic engineering concerns a GM tomato which, as legend would have it, contained flounder genes spliced into tomato DNA.  While it's true that Calgene experimented with a freeze-resistant tomato, they used a "synthesized ... antifreeze gene based on the winter flounder gene" -- not a cut-and-pasted copy of the gene itself.

    Those freeze-resistant tomatoes never made it to market, but a different version called the Flavr Savr did.  Tomatoes contain a protein called polygalacturonase (PG), which breaks down the pectin in the cell walls, causing the tomato to soften as it ripens.  To create a tomato that would ripen more slowly, Calgene took the gene that encodes for the PG protein and reversed it.  This backwards strand of DNA, known as an "antisense" gene, binds to the forward-running strand and cancels it out.  Without PG, the pectin (and therefore the tomato) breaks down more slowly.  The simplicity of the process is remarkable.  No toxic chemicals, no mysterious bits of DNA.  Just a simple tweak of the tomato's own genetic code.

    But hold on a minute.  What if they had used a gene from a fish in creating this tomato?  Would the tomato taste fishy?  Would you have to watch out for fish bones in your pasta sauce?  Not unless you've added anchovies.

    Genes are basically bits of computer code that are interchangeable from species to species.  When you isolate a tiny bit of gene, it doesn't retain the essence of whichever species it came from.  You might have a bit of DNA that says simply, "Grow appendage X on the abdomen," but doesn't specify what kind of appendage.  If you put that code into a fly, it activates the part of DNA that grows a wing.  Put that same code into a mouse and it grows a foreleg.  It doesn't make the mouse any more like a fly.

3. GMO's are radioactive, cause cancer, and are bad for the environment.

    This is a trickier question to answer, and I'll be the first to admit that we need more research into the health effects of GM products.  But I'm going to bet that the answer turns out to be something like this: some GMOs are safe, and others are not.  Lumping all GMOs into the same category is like lumping all fertilizers or all pesticides into the same category.  Genetic changes are only as dangerous as the proteins they encode for -- just as in any plant.  Consider how many "natural" plants have genes that produce poisons and toxins. 

    In the case of the Flavr Savr tomato, I wouldn't be too worried.  It simply blocks a protein that the tomato itself produces.  In the case of herbicide-resistant soybeans, I'd want to know more.  What kind of herbicide is being sprayed on the plants?  Are traces of the herbicide still found in the food when it reaches our plate?

    While I voted for the labeling act that was on the California ballot last year, a simple "contains GMOs" label would be of little use to me.  I want to know what specifically about the organism was modified so I can reach my own conclusions.

I agree with the author of this post. GMO's are not inherently bad -- especially in a world where the population is growing fast. Modifications that make foods more nutritious and more productive are needed. My only concern is that some of these foods may be rushed to the market too fast -- before they have been proven to be safe. We need to find some middle ground -- that will allow modifications that increase yield and nutrition, while insuring safety. 

The government should take a leading role in this effort, but this cannot be done until we get control of the government back. Corporations currently have too much control over our government, and because of that they will automatically come down on the side of corporations. This is just one more area where corporate control of government is not in the best interest of the citizens. The issue of GMO's is not unsolvable, but it cannot be solved until we wrest back control of our government from the corporations.