Monthly Archives: December 2009

Date-Rape Drug Myth

A study of more than 200 students revealed many wrongly blamed the effects of a “bad night out” on date-rape drugs, when they had just drunk excessively. …  The study … found three-quarters of students identified drink spiking as an important risk – more than alcohol or drugs.  More than half said they knew someone whose drink had been spiked.  But despite popular beliefs, police have found no evidence that rape victims are commonly drugged with such substances, the researchers said. …

“During thousands of blood and alcohol tests lots of judgement-impairing compounds were discovered, but they were mostly street drugs or prescription pharmaceuticals taken by the victims themselves, and above all alcohol was the common theme. …  Earlier this year, Australian researchers found that not one of 97 young men and women admitted to hospital over 19 months to two Perth hospital claiming to have had their drinks spiked, had in fact been drugged.

More here.  Apparently women prefer to blame a mythical drug over own drinking, etc. Like parents would rather worry about mythical kidnappers at the mall than ordinary kid-parent conflict.  And so on.  Really folks, look first for simple ordinary explanations before looking to unusual ones.

HT to Patri Friedman.

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Wasted Cancer Hope

In a Post oped, a cancer doc admits to impotence:

My patients seek state-of-the-art therapy. … Almost all of them have insurance, … their access to care is virtually limitless. We employ the latest [everything] … Yet, despite the many recent advances in detection and treatment, of the 50 patients, 40 of them are likely to lose the fight. … When it comes to cancer care, we’re not getting what we pay for. … Few cancer clinical trials are designed to “cure” patients. They are commonly aimed at … an extension of average survival from 5 months to 6 months. ..

Globally, cancer care is a medical luxury. With some diseases such as colon cancer, the treatments alone cost more than $15,000 a month, yet on average add only a few months to survival. Most poor countries do not support any cancer care; most developed countries highly restrict it because of its cost and limited effectiveness. The United States is the only place on Earth with relatively unfettered access to cancer care, including the latest medicines, sophisticated scans and high-tech radiation, all of which are very expensive. But despite their more limited access, cancer patients in other high-income nations may live longer and with a higher quality of life than patients in this country. …

I frequently ask my students and peers if there is a cancer drug today that they would pay for out of pocket if they had to. … After a long pause, someone invariably will say “Gleevec,” … a true magic bullet. Very few cancer drugs can be described as having this kind of value.

Amazingly, he concludes:

Oncologists are optimists, and I am proud to be among them. I truly believe we can cure cancer. I care greatly for my patients and am doing everything in my power to improve and lengthen their lives. When I offer a clinical trial to a patient, I am hopeful that it will be better than the standard treatment. I am optimistic that health-care reform will not simply provide everyone with insurance that will cover the “standard of care” but will also force us to determine the true value of treatments.

This gives “optimism” a bad name.  He admits his profession wastes vast resources selling false hope, but we are supposed to let that slide because he is proud to be “hopeful”?

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OB Ads?

I have not accepted any compensation for anything I’ve done on this blog.  But folks keep offering to pay me to put their ads on this blog.  I wonder: am I being too prudish?  Presumably the more money I make blogging, the more I’ll blog.

So let me ask you all:  how many readers would think less of me or my writings if had a special Ads sidebar, but promised that ads would not influence what I blogged?  How selective should I be; am I implicitly “endorsing” the advertised products?  And how much should I charge?

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Cosmic Clump Coincidence?

Now this is just weird: the Zodiac, an apparent ring of distinct extra bright stars centered on us, is not an illusion – it really exists out there.  Called Gould’s belt, it is ~1000pc (parsec) in diameter, we are within about 100pc of its center, and it formed together 30-60 million years ago:

GouldsBelt

Some think it formed when a clump of dark matter, massing about ten million suns, passed through a molecular cloud, an event they say should happen every ~300 million years.  (Clumps pass elsewhere more often – Smith’s cloud, massing a hundred million suns, is passing right now. There should be about a thousand  such clumps near our galaxy.)

Since our galaxy’s diameter is about 40,000pc , the chance that the most recent clump would hit that close to us was roughly one in (40,000/200)2, or one in 40,000.  Since about a tenth of galaxy area has molecular clouds, the chance the most recent clump to hit a cloud would hit that close to us is one in 4000.  Coincidence?  Consider this plot from Jerison:

brainsizehist

This dark matter clump hit us just about when the last big burst of max brain size growth began on Earth, with primates ~50 million years ago.  Yes, it is hard to see how a rare dark matter clump passing near could induce a primate brain growth spurt, so it is probably coincidence.  But big apparent coincidences should at least make us pause and ponder.

More details: Continue reading "Cosmic Clump Coincidence?" »

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Open Thread

This is our monthly place to discuss relevant topics that haven’t appeared in recent posts.

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