#International Agency of Research on Cancer

[indizombie]

Alcohol, according to the World Health Organisation, is a causal factor in more than 200 disease and injury conditions, and its harmful use is associated with 5 percent of deaths worldwide each year. As well as heart disease, drinking alcohol is associated with a risk of developing mental and behavioural disorders, including alcohol dependence, and major noncommunicable diseases such as liver cirrhosis and some cancers (at least six different kinds, including breast and colon cancer). Alcoholic drinks are classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a Group 1 carcinogen - the same as asbestos and tobacco. Alcohol is also a big contributor to injuries, including road crashes, violence and suicide. The burden from these tends to fall on younger age groups. Speaking of which, around 1800 babies are born with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in Aotearoa each year, a totally preventable lifelong condition encompassing a range of physical, cognitive, behavioural and neurodevelopmental disabilities. If the big stuff doesn't have you convinced, there are the many ways alcohol wreaks havoc in our everyday lives. It destroys our sleep, preventing the deep restful sleep we need. It's bad for our mood - contributing negatively to mood issues and mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression. And it's terrible for our nutrition, contributing to nutrient deficiencies, physical and mental performance and, because it's so energy-dense, weight gain.

Niki Bezzant, ‘Why now's the time to break up with alcohol (not just for July)’, RNZ

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Academic economists get big payouts when they help monopolists beat antitrust

After 40 years of rampant corporate crime, there's a new sheriff in town: Jonathan Kanter was appointed by Biden to run the DOJ Antitrust Divisoon, and he's overseen 170 "significant antitrust actions" in the past 2.5 years, culminating in a court case where Google was ruled to be an illegal monopolist:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

Kanter's work is both extraordinary and par for the course. As Kanter said in a recent keynote for the Fordham Law Competition Law Institute’s 51st Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy, we're witnessing an epochal, global resurgence of antitrust:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/assistant-attorney-general-jonathan-kanter-delivers-remarks-fordham-competition-law-0

Kanter's incredible enforcement track record isn't just part of a national trend – his colleagues in the FTC, CFPB and other agencies have also been pursuing an antitrust agenda not seen in generations – but also a worldwide trend. Antitrust enforcers in Canada, the UK, the EU, South Korea, Australia, Japan and even China are all taking aim at smashing corporate monopolies. Not only are they racking up impressive victories against these giant corporations, they're stealing the companies' swagger. After all, the point of enforcement isn't just to punish wrongdoing, but also to deter wrongdoing by others.

Until recently, companies hurled themselves into illegal schemes (mergers, predatory pricing, tying, refusals to deal, etc) without fear or hesitation. Now, many of these habitual offenders are breaking the habit, giving up before they've even tried. Take Wiz, a startup that turned down Google's record-shattering $23b buyout offer, understanding that the attempt would draw more antitrust scrutiny than it was worth:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wiz-turns-down-23-billion-022926296.html

As welcome as this antitrust renaissance is, it prompts an important question: why didn't we enforce antitrust law for the 40 years between Reagan and Biden?

That's what Kanter addresses the majority of his remarks to. The short answer is: crooked academic economists took bribes from monopolists and would-be monopolists to falsify their research on the impacts of monopolists, and made millions (literally – one guy made over $100m at this) testifying that monopolies were good and efficient.

After all, governments aren't just there to enforce rules – they have to make the rules first, and do to that, they need to understand how the world works, so they can understand how to fix the places where it's broken. That's where experts come in, filling regulators' dockets and juries' ears with truthful, factual testimony about their research. Experts can still be wrong, of course, but when the system works well, they're only wrong by accident.

The system doesn't work well. Back in the 1950s, the tobacco industry was threatened by the growing scientific consensus that smoking caused cancer. Industry scientists confirmed this finding. In response, the industry paid statisticians, doctors and scientists to produce deceptive research reports and testimony about the tobacco/cancer link.

The point of this work wasn't necessarily to convince people that tobacco was safe – rather, it was to create the sense that the safety of tobacco was a fundamentally unanswerable question. "Experts disagree," and you're not qualified to figure out who's right and who's wrong, so just stop trying to figure it out and light up.

In other words, Big Tobacco's cancer denial playbook wasn't so much an attack on "the truth" as it was an attack on epistemology – the system by which we figure out what is true and what isn't. The tactic was devastatingly effective. Not only did it allow the tobacco giants to kill millions of people with impunity, it allowed them to reap billions of dollars by doing so.

Since then, epistemology has been under sustained assault. By the 1970s, Big Oil knew that its products would render the Earth unfit for human habitation, and they hired the same companies that had abetted Big Tobacco's mass murder to provide cover for their own slow-motion, planetary scale killing spree.

Time and again, big business has used assaults on epistemology to provide cover for unthinkable crimes. This has given rise to today's epistemological crisis, in which we don't merely disagree about what is true, but (far more importantly) disagree about how the truth can be known:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/25/black-boxes/#when-you-know-you-know

Ask a conspiratorialist why they believe in Qanon or Hatians in Springfield eating pets, and you'll get an extremely vibes-based answer – fundamentally, they believe it because it feels true. As the old saying goes, you can't reason someone out of a belief they didn't reason their way into.

This assault on reason itself is at the core of Kanter's critique. He starts off by listing three cases in which academic economists allowed themselves to be corrupted by the monopolies they studied:

George Mason University tricked an international antitrust enforcer into attending a training seminar that they believed to be affiliated with the US government. It was actually sponsored by the very companies that enforcer was scrutnizing, and featured a parade of "experts" who asserted that these companies were great, actually.

An academic from GMU – which receives substantial tech industry funding – signed an amicus brief opposing an enforcement action against their funders. The academic also presented a defense of these funders to the OECD, all while posing as a neutral academic and not disclosing their funding sources.

An ex-GMU economist, Joshua Wright, submitted a study defending Qualcomm against the FTC, without disclosing that he'd been paid to do so. Wright has elevated undisclosed conflicts of interest to an art form:

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/google-lawyer-secret-weapon-joshua-wright-c98d5a31

Kanter is at pains to point out that these three examples aren't exceptional. The economics profession – whose core tenet is "incentive matter" – has made it standard practice for individual researchers and their academic institutions to take massive sums from giant corporations. Incredibly, they insist that this has nothing to do with their support of monopolies as "efficient."

Academic centers often serve as money-laundries for monopolist funders; researchers can evade disclosure requirements when they publish in journals or testify in court, saying only that they work for some esteemed university, without noting that the university is utterly dependent on money from the companies they're defending.

Now, Kanter is a lawyer, not an academic, and that means that his job is to advocate for positions, and he's at pains to say that he's got nothing but respect for ideological advocacy. What he's objecting to is partisan advocacy dressed up as impartial expertise.

For Kanter, mixing advocacy with expertise doesn't create expert advocacy – it obliterates expertise, as least when it comes to making good policy. This mixing has created a "crisis of expertise…a pervasive breakdown in the distinction between expertise and advocacy in competition policy."

The point of an independent academia, enshrined in the American Association of University Professors' charter, is to "advance knowledge by the unrestricted research and unfettered discussion of impartial investigators." We need an independent academy, because "to be of use to the legislator or the administrator, [an academic] must enjoy their complete confidence in the disinterestedness of [his or her] conclusions."

It's hard to overstate just how much money economists can make by defending monopolies. Writing for The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner gives the rate at $1,000/hour. Monopoly's top defenders make unimaginable sums, like U Chicago's Dennis Carlton, who's brought in over $100m in consulting fees:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-09-24-economists-as-apologists/

The hidden cost of all of this is epistemological consensus. As Tim Harford writes in his 2021 book The Data Detective, the truth can be known through research and peer-review:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#harford

But when experts deliberately seek to undermine the idea of expertise, they cast laypeople into an epistemological void. We know these questions are important, but we can't trust our corrupted expert institutions. That leaves us with urgent questions – and no answers. That's a terrifying state to be in, and it makes you easy pickings for authoritarian grifters and conspiratorial swindlers.

Seen in this light, Kanter's antitrust work is even more important. In attacking corporate power itself, he is going after the machine that funds this nihilism-inducing corruption machine.

This week, Tor Books published SPILL, a new, free LITTLE BROTHER novella about oil pipelines and indigenous landback!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/25/epistemological-chaos/#incentives-matter

Image: Ron Cogswell (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George.Mason.University.Arlington.Campus.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[odinsblog]

Veterans’ health care


A 1996 law set eligibility requirements for military veterans to receive hospital, medical and nursing home care and authorized spending for those services and patient enrollment. That law has not been renewed, but Congress regularly allocates additional Department of Veterans Affairs funding and allows benefits to increase automatically based on inflation. VA provides medical care to more than 9.1 million enrolled veterans, according to the agency.
​

Drug development and opioid addiction treatment

Most of this spending relates to the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act of 2016. That law provided money to the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration to modernize pharmaceutical research and medical trials. It funded research for cancer cures and state-level grants for opioid addiction and other substance abuse treatment.


​State Department

In 2003, Congress passed the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which set policy priorities and created spending authority for the State Department. That law has not been renewed, but Congress every year since has passed annual funding bills for the department, which Trump has announced he’ll nominate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) to run.


​Housing assistance

President Bill Clinton in 1998 signed the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act, which overhauled federal housing assistance policies, including voucher programs and other antipoverty assistance. The Department of Housing and Urban Development and other agencies continue using this law to implement federal housing programs.


​Justice Department

In 1994, Congress passed the landmark Violence Against Women Act and has renewed it multiple times since. In 2006, lawmakers packaged a VAWA renewal with authorizing legislation for the Justice Department. As with the State Department, Congress has not approved new authorizing legislation for the Justice Department since, but it has funded the agency — and even authorized hundreds of millions of dollars more for a new FBI headquarters — every year.


​Education spending

The 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act delegated power to state and local education officials to set primary and secondary education achievement standards. It gives billions of dollars in federal grant money to state and local education officials to fund schools and school districts. Those standards are still used by the Education Department, even though the legislation has not been reauthorized. Trump has suggested he’d like to eliminate the entire department.

NASA

Stripping funding for NASA, which was last reauthorized in 2017, could spell doom for Musk’s commercial spaceflight firm, SpaceX. The company has contracts worth more than $4 billion — including for return trips to the moon and retiring the International Space Station — linked to programs approved in the 2017 law.


​Health-care and student loan programs

What’s known as the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was actually passed in two separate bills in 2010. The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act represents the second bill, which included some tax revisions and technical changes to the ACA. The law has not been reauthorized since, but the Department of Health and Human Services reported in March that more than 45 million people have health insurance coverage backed by the Affordable Care Act.

The law that made those final tweaks to the ACA also overhauled the Education Department’s student loan program. Where some schools relied on private lenders to issue federally backed loans, with this law, the government itself became the lender. That change has since enabled President Joe Biden to offer student loan debt relief, though many of his most ambitious policies have been blocked by the courts. Student loans are generally funded through mandatory spending — similar to social safety net programs such as Medicare and Social Security — and not subject to annual spending laws.


​International security programs

The 1985 International Security and Development Cooperation Act bundled together authorizations for a number of international security programs, including funding and regulations for arms sales to allies, economic aid for developing countries, airport security, anti-narcotics-trafficking policies, the Peace Corps and more. This Reagan-era law continues to be foundational to congressional funding and federal policy.


​Head Start

Head Start provides preschool education for children from low-income families. In the 2023 fiscal year, more than 800,000 children enrolled in Head Start programs, according to the National Head Start Association. The program also helped place more than 530,000 parents in jobs, school or job-training programs. It was last authorized in 2007.

(continue reading)

[mindblowingscience]

The World Health Organization's cancer agency on Friday classified talc as "probably carcinogenic" for humans, however an outside expert warned against misinterpreting the announcement as a "smoking gun". The decision was based on "limited evidence" talc could cause ovarian cancer in humans, "sufficient evidence" it was linked to cancer in rats and "strong mechanistic evidence" that it shows carcinogenic signs in human cells, the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said. Talc is a naturally occurring mineral which is mined in many parts of the world and is often used to make talcum baby powder.

Continue Reading.

[rjzimmerman]

EPA bans two cancer-causing chemicals used in everyday products. (Washington Post)

Excerpt from this Washington Post story:

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday banned two known carcinogens used in a variety of consumer products and industrial settings that can seep into the environment through the soil and waterways.

The new rules, which underscore President Joe Biden’s efforts to enact key protections against harmful chemicals before leaving office, include the complete ban of trichloroethylene — also known as TCE — a substance found in degreasing agents, furniture care and auto repair products. The agency also banned all consumer uses and many commercial uses of perc — also known as perchloroethylene and PCE — an industrial solvent long used in applications such as dry cleaning and auto repair.

“Both of these chemicals have caused too much harm for too long, despite the existence of safer alternatives,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney at Earthjustice.

The EPA conducted risk analyses last year and found that both substances present unreasonable risk of injury to human health or the environment.

According to the EPA, perc is toxic to the nervous system and the reproductive system and is a persistent environmental pollutant. Multiple organizations — including the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the International Agency for Research on Cancer — have classified the chemical as a probable human carcinogen. Perc can also biodegrade into TCE.

Meanwhile, TCE is associated with numerous cancers, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, leukemia, and kidney and liver cancer, and is toxic to the nervous, immune and reproductive systems, even at low levels of exposure.

[foreverlogical]

Expanded overtime guarantees for millions

First over-the-counter birth control pill to hit U.S. stores in 2024

Gun violence prevention and gun safety get a boost

Renewable power is the No. 2 source of electricity in the U.S. — and climbing

Preventing discriminatory mortgage lending

A sweeping crackdown on “junk fees” and overdraft charges

Forcing Chinese companies to open their books

Preventing another Jan. 6

Building armies of drones to counter China

The nation’s farms get big bucks to go “climate-smart”

The Biden administration helps broker a deal to save the Colorado River

Giving smaller food producers a boost

Biden recommends loosening federal restrictions on marijuana

A penalty for college programs that trap students in debt

Biden moves to bring microchip production home

Tech firms face new international restrictions on data and privacy

Cracking down on cyberattacks

Countering China with a new alliance between Japan and South Korea

Reinvigorating cancer research to lower death rates

Making medication more accessible through telemedicine

Union-busting gets riskier

Biden inks blueprint to fix 5G chaos

Biden empowers federal agencies to monitor AI

Fixing bridges, building tunnels and expanding broadband

The U.S. is producing more oil than anytime in history

Strengthening military ties to Asian allies

A new agency to investigate cyberattacks

Making airlines pay up when flights are delayed or canceled

READ THE DETAILS HERE

I'm going to add one more here

[darkmaga-returns]

It has been discovered, not surprisingly, that radiation from cell phones has led to changes in the brain tissue of lab rats.

According to a team of scientists from Tomsk State University (TSU) in Russia, controlled exposure to the 5G radiation spectrum has resulted in changes to the brain tissue of laboratory rats.

The study was part of the International Electromagnetic Field Project, initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) to obtain science-based answers to questions of public concern about the possible health risks from 5G electromagnetic fields.

It is apparantly still unclear whether the changes in their brain tissue will lead to positive or negative changes in the rats’ cognitive abilities….

RT rpeorts: Ever since the introduction of 5G cellphone infrastructure, there have been concerns about its potential health effects. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified the 5G radio frequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) as a “possible” human carcinogen, but no conclusive research has emerged either way.

“We decided to find out what the effect of non-ionizing radiation is on rodents of different ages,” Natalia Krivova, lead researcher at the TSU’s Biology and Biophysics Research Institute, said in a statement this week.

TSU scientists experimented on male Wistar rats, preferred by scientists for having similar reactions to external stimuli as humans. They tested three different age groups: 5-6 week old rats (corresponding to human adolescents), 10-11 week old (human adults age 40 and up) and rats aged 17-18 weeks (humans 65 and older). All were exposed to RF-EMF frequencies for five weeks, which is equivalent to about four years of human lifespan.

[yourreddancer]

SOME of President Joe Biden's accomplishments :

Insulin capped at $35

Prices capped on Inhalers

Expanded overtime guarantees for millions

Over the counter birth control pill

Boosted gun violence prevention and gun safety laws

Forcing Chinese companies to open their books

Renewable power is the No. 2 source of electricity in the U.S. — and climbing

Automatic Refunds from airline companies when flights are canceled

Updated Electoral laws to prevent another Jan 6

The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act

A sweeping crackdown of Junk Fees and overdraft charges

Preventing discriminatory mortgage lending practices

Farms get $$ to implement "climate smart" technologies

The Biden administration helps broker a deal to save the Colorado River

Gave smaller food producers the ability to compete more effectively against Big Agriculture

Biden recommends loosening federal restrictions on marijuana

Biden implemented a penalty for college programs that trap students in debt

Biden moved to bring microchip production home

Forced Tech firms to face new international restrictions on data and privacy

Helped to Prevent a cobalt crisis in Congo

Cracked down on cyberattacks

Countering China with a new alliance between Japan and South Korea

Reinvigorating cancer research to lower death rates

Making medication more accessible through telemedicine

Makes Union-busting riskier

Biden inks blueprint to fix 5G chaos

Biden empowers federal agencies to monitor AI

Fixing bridges, building tunnels and expanding broadband

The U.S. is producing more oil than anytime in history

Strengthening military ties to Asian allies

A new agency to investigate cyberattack

[trukker94gurl]

[PREMIERING NOW] WHO Projects 77% Rise in Cancer; Unvaxxed Tracked by New CDC Medical Codes | Facts Matter

[PREMIERING NOW] WHO Projects 77% Rise in Cancer; Unvaxxed Tracked by New CDC Medical Codes | Facts Matter https://link.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/epochtv/who-projects-77-rise-in-cancer-unvaxxed-tracked-by-new-cdc-medical-codes-facts-matter-5587913?utm_source=andshare

[justforbooks]

It did not seem like a good thing when a precious consignment of human tumour samples on its way from Kampala, Uganda, to Heathrow was diverted to Manchester. When the samples finally arrived at the Middlesex hospital in London, they were swimming in murky fluid in their vials as though they had been infected with bacteria.

But when the pathologist Anthony Epstein looked at the fluid under the microscope he saw no bacteria, just individual cells that had been shaken loose from the tumours. And that was just what he needed in order to search for elusive virus particles and test his hunch that they were causing cancer.

In the early 1960s Epstein, who has died aged 102, had heard a lecture by Denis Burkitt, an Irish surgeon working in Kampala, that described strange tumours (now known as Burkitt lymphoma) growing around the jaws of children in equatorial Africa.

Intriguingly, the geographical distribution of the condition seemed to depend on temperature and rainfall, suggesting a biological cause. Epstein, who had been working with viruses that cause cancer in chickens, immediately suspected a virus might be involved, perhaps in association with another tropical disease such as malaria.

Epstein began to collaborate with Burkitt, who supplied him with tumours from children he had treated. But Epstein’s efforts to grow pieces of tumour in the laboratory and isolate a virus had all been unsuccessful until the dissociated cells arrived.

With his graduate student Yvonne Barr, he then decided to look at cultures of these cells in an electron microscope, a powerful instrument that had only recently become available in his lab.

The very first image showed a tell-tale outline that looked like one of the family of herpes viruses. It turned out to be a previously undescribed member of that family, and was given the name Epstein-Barr virus. In 1964, Epstein, Barr and Epstein’s research assistant, Bert Achong, published the first evidence that cancer in humans could be caused by a virus – to be greeted by widespread scepticism even though they went on to demonstrate that EB virus caused tumours in monkeys.

Thanks to samples supplied by Epstein, in 1970 Werner and Gertrude Henle at the Children’s hospital in Philadelphia discovered that EB virus also caused glandular fever. That made it possible to design a test for antibodies to the virus in order to confirm a diagnosis. EB virus turned out to be very common, infecting most children in early life, though it usually causes glandular fever only in older teenagers and young adults. As well as causing Burkitt lymphoma in endemic areas in Africa and Papua New Guinea, it is also associated with a cancer of the nose and throat that is the most common cancer of men in south China, as well as cancers in people whose immune systems have been compromised, such as those infected with HIV.

More recent research suggests that EB virus might also be involved in some cases of multiple sclerosis, and that people who have previously had glandular fever are more susceptible to severe Covid-19.

After the discovery, Epstein and others devoted time and effort to trying to find out under what circumstances EB virus causes cancer. The relationship between the virus, other diseases, human genetics and cancer is complex, and it took decades before the medical community could accept the EB virus as a cause with confidence.

Not until 1997 did the International Agency for Research on Cancer class it as a Group 1 carcinogen, formally acknowledging its role in a variety of cancers.

The discovery of EB virus opened up a whole new field of research into cancer-causing viruses. It also raised the exciting possibility of preventing cancers through vaccination, an advance that has now been achieved in the case of human papilloma virus, which causes cervical cancer, and hepatitis B virus, which causes liver cancer.

By the time of his retirement in 1985, Epstein’s research group at the University of Bristol had developed a candidate vaccine that protected monkeys infected with EB virus against tumours, but neither it nor any other candidate has yet been successfully developed for human use.

Epstein was born in London, one of three children of Olga (nee Oppenheimer) and Mortimer Epstein. Mortimer was a writer and translator who edited The Statesman’s Yearbook for Macmillan from 1924 until his death in 1946. Olga was involved with charitable work in the Jewish community. Anthony attended St Paul’s school in west London, where the biology teacher Sidney Pask encouraged boys to go far beyond the syllabus and whose pupils also included Robert Winston and Jonathan Miller.

Epstein won a place to study medicine at Trinity College, Cambridge. He moved to Middlesex hospital medical school in wartime London to complete his training, before doing his national service in India with the Royal Army Medical Corps. He returned to work at the Middlesex hospital as assistant pathologist, conducting his own research. Thinking electron microscopy might be useful in his studies of cancer-causing viruses in chickens, he spent some time learning the new technique at the Rockefeller Institute in New York (now Rockefeller University). Not long afterwards he attended Burkitt’s lecture and began the serendipitous route to his discovery.

In 1968 he was appointed professor and head of the department of pathology at the University of Bristol, where he remained until his retirement. He moved to Oxford as a fellow of Wolfson College in 1986, becoming an honorary fellow in 2001.

An exemplary scientific good citizen, he served as foreign secretary and vice-president of the Royal Society, and sat on boards and councils for numerous national and international research organisations, including as a special representative of the director general of Unesco; he was also a patron of Humanists UK. Among his many prizes and honorary degrees, he received the international Gairdner award for biomedical research in 1988. He was appointed CBE in 1985 and knighted in 1991.

“It was a series of accidents, really,” he said of his discovery in a conversation with Burkitt they recorded for Oxford Brookes University’s oral history archive in 1991. “Lucky quirks.” Burkitt immediately responded with Louis Pasteur’s aphorism: “Chance favours the prepared mind.”

Epstein was a deeply cultured man who retained a lively interest in many subjects – particularly oriental rugs, Tibet and amphibians – until the end of his life.

He is survived by his partner, Kate Ward, by his children Susan, Simon and Michael, from his marriage to Lisbeth Knight, from whom he was separated in 1965, and who died in 2015, and by two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

🔔Michael Anthony Epstein, pathologist, born 18 May 1921; died 6 February 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Cecilia Nowell at The Guardian:

Many transgender people in the US are scrambling to shore up their treatments out of fear the incoming Trump administration will follow through on threats to restrict their healthcare. “My goodness this subreddit has exploded ever since Emperor Trump’s ascendency. Literally overnight almost a thousand newcomers,” read a post just after the 5 November election in one Reddit forum dedicated to sharing advice on gender-affirming hormone therapy. A popular underground hormone manufacturer stopped taking new orders in order to get through a backlog. “[We] didn’t expect to be hit as hard as we did after the election,” the manufacturer wrote on Reddit. The provider, Plume Health, which focuses on gender-affirming care, also noticed “a bump” in inquiries after the election, said Jerrica Kirkley, the co-founder and chief medical officer of the virtual clinic.

Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump promised to cut federal funding from healthcare providers offering gender-affirming care, and said he would “sign an executive order instructing every federal agency to cease the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age” on his first day in office. Trans youth may be the hardest hit – a case that the supreme court will hear this week could cement proliferating bans against trans healthcare for minors. In response to his win, online forums show that some people are stockpiling prescriptions in case they have to manage their care on their own in the future, researching online and international pharmacies, and in rare cases even synthesizing their own hormones. (The National Harm Reduction Coalition warns that home-brewed hormones may not contain the same levels as prescribed of hormones patients are used to taking, and could work differently and therefore cause different effects, and side effects.)

“No matter the freedoms lost, no matter the hardships that await, no matter the strength of our enemies, DIY [hormone replacement therapy] will always be an option,” the Reddit note read. While self-managed abortion has attracted a lot of attention since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, less has been paid to self-managing gender-affirming care, despite a rich history. Studies indicate that 31% of transgender individuals in London, 49% in San Francisco and 79% in Rio de Janeiro have managed their own hormones without a prescriber at some point.

[...]

Self-managing safely

Ahead of the election, the National Harm Reduction Coalition authored a 60-page report on best practices for self-managing hormones – including using new supplies, vetting online pharmacies, and tapping into local and online communities. It notes that people trying to care for themselves should be cautious of allergic reactions when using medications from nontraditional sources, be careful to use clean syringes and test their hormones for other drugs, and watch out for side effects that can come from hormone usage, such as dizziness and blood clots. “Talk with others in your community who are taking similar hormones to help figure out which sources are safer for your DIY GAHT,” the guide suggests, using the acronym for do-it-yourself gender-affirming hormone therapy. “If you start to feel unwell when taking DIY GAHT, stop taking it and seek medical attention.” To self-manage safely, transgender people – like many patients managing other aspects of their health – rely on community networks, in person and online. One Reddit community for transgender individuals looking to manage their own care has more than 82,000 members.

“There are a near infinite number of cancer patient communication networks” where people can share information about medication, said Braine. “The sharing of community-based knowledge occurs in a huge number of different contexts. And this is one of them.” According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the world will face a shortage of an estimated 18 million healthcare workers by 2030. Because 400 million people already lack access to essential health services, the organization has developed guidelines for self-care interventions that people can take to promote their own health. Since 2019, those guidelines have included recommendations for self-managing abortion. In 2022, the WHO acknowledged the guidelines should be expanded further to include recommendations on self-managing gender-affirming healthcare.

“Ideally, gender-affirming hormone therapy would take place in the context of a supportive health system. However, many transgender and gender-diverse individuals do not have access to such a supportive system. Instead, they may seek to access such therapy through friends, peers and the internet, without consulting a health worker,” the guidelines read.

Trans people in the USA are scrambling to stockpile medically necessary medication ahead of Donald Trump’s return to office in which he seeks to seriously threaten a ban on gender-affirming care by barring health insurance companies from covering it.

[sarkariresultdude]

Stanford University A Pillar of Excellence

 Stanford University, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, California, is synonymous with instructional excellence, groundbreaking studies, and international impact. As one of the world’s leading establishments, its "outcomes" span various dimensions—instructional achievements, research breakthroughs, societal contributions, and pupil effects. This article delves into the multifaceted outcomes that outline Stanford's unprecedented popularity.

Stanford University Result 

Academic Achievements

Stanford continually ranks among the pinnacle universities globally. In the latest rankings with the aid of institutions like QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education (THE), Stanford has secured pinnacle positions for its academic excellence, innovation, and studies contributions. Notably, Stanford excels in fields such as pc technological know-how, engineering, commercial enterprise, law, and remedy. These results testify to the university’s dedication to fostering highbrow growth and pushing the boundaries of understanding.

Notable Programs

Graduate School of Business: Stanford GSB is renowned for generating leaders in international industries. MBA graduates constantly file for excessive starting salaries and professional delight, reflecting the college’s rigorous curriculum and strong alumni community.

School of Engineering: Often taken into consideration as the backbone of Silicon Valley, Stanford’s engineering programs make contributions notably to technological advancements. Fields like artificial intelligence, bioengineering, and sustainable electricity are key focus areas.

School of Medicine: Stanford Medicine is diagnosed for its modern studies and healthcare innovations, such as contributions to cancer remedies, genomics, and vaccine development.

Results in Rankings

QS Rankings 2024: Stanford is ranked #three globally, highlighting its studies output, educational effect, and agency popularity.

THE Impact Rankings: Stanford ranks the various pinnacle 10 universities for its contributions to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including great schooling, climate movement, and enterprise innovation.

 Research Breakthroughs

Stanford’s reputation as a studies powerhouse is unrivaled. Every 12 months, the university secures billions in study funding from government agencies, private corporations, and philanthropic donors. The effects of this investment take place in improvements that shape industries and enhance lives.

Key Areas of Impact

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning: Stanford researchers have pioneered AI technologies that affect sectors like healthcare, finance, and self-sufficient systems.

Biotechnology: Discoveries in gene modifying, CRISPR generation, and customized remedy underscore Stanford’s role in advancing lifestyles sciences.

Climate and Sustainability: The college’s Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability drives studies in renewable electricity, climate alternate mitigation, and conservation efforts.

Metrics of Success

Research Funding: In 2023, Stanford acquired over $1.Ninety-three billion in subsidized studies investment.

Publications and Citations: Stanford scholars post drastically in high-impact journals, with research mentioned hundreds of thousands of times globally.

Nobel Laureates: Over 20 faculty individuals and alumni have been awarded Nobel Prizes, reflecting the groundbreaking nature of their work.

 Entrepreneurial Success

Stanford's entrepreneurial atmosphere is considered one of its maximum amazing outcomes. As the birthplace of companies like Google, Apple, and Tesla, the university fosters a spirit of innovation that extends a long way beyond its campus. Programs just like the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network and access to resources in Silicon Valley offer students and schools unheard-of opportunities to release ventures.

Entrepreneurial Metrics

Startups Founded by Way of Alumni: Over 39,000 agencies had been started out by using Stanford alumni, generating trillions in annual revenue.

Venture Capital Funding: Stanford-affiliated startups entice sizable assignment capital investments, with the college constantly rating as a pinnacle manufacturer of funded marketers.

Economic Impact: Companies founded by Stanford graduates collectively hire hundreds of thousands of human beings internationally, making widespread contributions to the global economy.

Student Success and Satisfaction

The results of Stanford’s educational philosophy are glaring within the achievements of its students and alumni. The college offers a rigorous yet supportive environment that encourages creativity, critical questioning, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Key Outcomes

Graduation Rates: Stanford boasts a 94% graduation rate, one of the maximum amongst U.S. Universities.

Post-Graduation Employment: A marvelous 91% of graduates steady employment or pursue advanced studies within six months of commencement.

Alumni Impact: Stanford alumni encompass Fortune 500 CEOs, influential policymakers, award-triumphing artists, and leaders in nonprofit sectors.

Enhancing Student Experience

Diversity and Inclusion: Stanford is devoted to constructing a various scholar body, with over 45% of college students figuring out as minorities.

Scholarships and Financial Aid: The college offers a need-primarily based resource to over 70% of students, ensuring get right of entry schooling for talented individuals no matter their economic historical past.

Global Opportunities: Programs just like the Bing Overseas Studies Program permit students to gain global exposure, getting ready them for international careers.

Contributions to Society

Stanford’s impact extends beyond academia and enterprise; its results resonate globally via tasks aimed at addressing societal challenges.

Social and Environmental Impact

Sustainability Efforts: Stanford’s campus is a model of sustainable layout, presenting initiatives to reduce carbon emissions, conserve water, and sell green power.

Public Policy Influence: Stanford’s Hoover Institution and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies produce studies that shape public policy on problems like cybersecurity, global health, and governance.

Community Engagement: Through carrier-learning programs and volunteer tasks, Stanford college students contribute lots of hours annually to local and worldwide groups.

Measuring Broader Impact

SDG Contributions: Stanford ranks exceedingly in metrics related to health, training, and innovation, reflecting its alignment with global desires.

Partnerships and Collaborations: The university collaborates with companies like the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (UN), and main nonprofits to cope with urgent international demands.

 Challenges and Areas for Growth

While Stanford’s results are overwhelmingly wonderful, the university acknowledges demanding situations and areas for improvement. These include:

Affordability and Accessibility: Despite its beneficent economic aid packages, Stanford faces complaints for its excessive training charges.

Mental Health Resources: As with many elite establishments, the pressures of educational existence can affect scholar well-being, prompting calls for more desirable support offerings.

Sustainability Goals: While Stanford leads in sustainability, reaching carbon neutrality via 2050 stays a protracted-time period venture.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Leads on cancer drugs, satellite sustainability, glass from magnesium silicates

Space-grown crystals could lead to targeted cancer drugs

Researchers used space-grown protein crystals to determine the structure of a helix-loop-helix (HLH) peptide (one with a double helix and connecting loop) in a complex with vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF). VEGF prompts the formation of new blood vessels and inhibiting it can stop tumor growth. This finding suggests that HLH peptides could be used to create drugs to target disease-related proteins like VEGF.

JAXA PCG, an investigation from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), grew protein crystals in microgravity and returned them to Earth for detailed analysis of their structures. Microgravity enables production of high-quality crystals, and examining their structures supports the design of new drugs and other types of research.

Wood could make satellites more sustainable

Wood exposed to space for approximately 10 months showed no change in weight and no erosion due to atomic oxygen. This finding could inform selection of the appropriate species and thickness of wood for use in building satellites.

Metal satellites reentering Earth's atmosphere can generate particles and aerosols that may harm the ozone layer. Wood becomes water and carbon dioxide on reentry, does not contribute to atmospheric pollution, and could provide a more sustainable option for future space exploration. JAXA's Exposure of Wood to Outer Space evaluated how atomic oxygen, galactic cosmic rays, and solar energetic particles in space affect the mechanical properties of wood.

Analyzing glass-forming ability of magnesium silicates

Researchers report detailed structural and atomic information for glassy and liquid magnesium silicates, which are important in glass science and geoscience. The results suggest that electronic structure does not play an important role in determining glass-forming ability, but atomic structure does.

JAXA's Fragility measured thermophysical properties such as density and viscosity of oxidized molten metals using the International Space Station's Electrostatic Levitation Furnace (ELF) to gain insight into glass formation and the design of novel materials. The ELF makes it possible to observe the behavior of materials without the use of a container, providing information crucial for examining glass formation.

TOP IMAGE: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi works on the PCG experiment aboard the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

CENTRE IMAGE: Different types of wood to be tested in space as a building material for satellites. Credit: Kyoto University

LOWER IMAGE: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly works on the Electrostatic Levitation Furnace aboard the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

[someone-will-remember-us]

Women are dying of cancer because of sexism in healthcare, a report in The Lancet has suggested. The analysis says that “unconscious gender bias” and discrimination means that women are too often receiving “sub-optimal care”, with major cancers being missed. Researchers said that a focus on reproductive and maternal health, and on “women’s cancers” – such as breast and cervical cancer – too often meant prevention and treatment of other types of cancer was neglected. Two thirds of deaths from cancer in patients below the age of 50 are those of women, researchers said, with many dying “in the prime of their life”. The Lancet commission, called Women, Power and Cancer, calls for a “feminist” approach to medicine, saying that 1.5 million lives a year could be saved by better detection, diagnosis and elimination of risk factors. A study published alongside the piece found that 24,000 women between 30 and 69 die every year from cancers that could be avoided. Six in 10 could be prevented by earlier diagnosis or improved lifestyles, while four in 10 could be avoided by better access to good treatment. The commission brought together scholars of gender studies, human rights, law, economics, social sciences, cancer epidemiology, prevention and treatment, as well as patient advocates. Too little focus on risk factors Dr Isabelle Soerjomataram, from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, said: “Discussion about cancer in women often focus on ‘women’s cancers’, such as breast and cervical cancer, but about 300,000 women under 70 die each year from lung cancer, and 160,000 from colorectal cancer – two of the top three causes of cancer death among women, globally. Furthermore, for the past few decades in many high-income countries, deaths from lung cancer in women have been higher than deaths from breast cancer.” She added that there was a need for policies to increase awareness of such risks. The report said that too little focus was given to alerting women to the risk factors for cancer. It cited a study that found only 19 per cent of women who attended a breast cancer screening knew that alcohol was a major risk factor. Researchers also said that women were often served worse than men, even after diagnosis. The authors said: “Sexism within healthcare systems in the form of unconscious gender biases and discrimination can lead to women receiving sub-optimal care. For example, multiple studies have found women with cancer are more likely to report inadequate pain relief and be at greater risk for undertreatment of pain compared to men.” Dr Ophira Ginsburg, the senior adviser for clinical research at the National Cancer Institute’s Centre for Global Health and co-chair of the commission, said: “The impact of a patriarchal society on women’s experiences of cancer has gone largely unrecognised. Globally, women’s health is often focused on reproductive and maternal health, aligned with narrow anti-feminist definitions of women’s value and roles in society, while cancer remains wholly under-represented.” She added: “Our commission highlights that gender inequalities significantly impact women’s experiences with cancer. “To address this, we need cancer to be seen as a priority issue in women’s health, and call for the immediate introduction of a feminist approach to cancer.”

(archive)

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

In recent decades the Inland Empire — comprised of San Bernardino and Riverside counties — has been the primary victim of America’s warehouse boom. As demand for online shopping has surged — e-commerce sales grew 50% to $870 billion during the pandemic alone — this region has served as a billionaire’s dumping ground. Those are the words of Tom Dolan, executive director of Inland Congregations United for Change. “Now it’s no longer just Warren Buffet, it’s Jeff Bezos and Amazon,” Dolan told The Guardian in 2021. “And we’re paying the cost of doing their business.”

That business is only made possible by taking out a nonconsensual loan from the residents of surrounding communities. It’s a coercive trade: the health and safety of citizens for the profits they’ll never share. And no worthwhile efforts have been made to pay off that debt.

In order to fulfill the glamorous promises of expedited, overnight and same-day deliveries, diesel trucks conduct over 600,000 daily trips through the Inland Empire alone, carrying roughly 40% of the nation’s goods. These vehicles emit 1,000 pounds of diesel particulate matter every day (alongside 100,000 pounds of nitric oxide and 50,000,000 pounds of carbon dioxide).

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified diesel particulate matter as a Group 1 carcinogen — the most severe category — due to sufficient evidence linking diesel exposure to lung cancer. (Other studies have suggested a relationship to cancers of the bladder, larynx, esophagus, stomach, pancreas and blood, alongside asthma, other respiratory disease, heart attacks and premature mortality.) The region bordering the warehouse hub in one Inland Empire city, Ontario, ranks in the 95th percentile of cancer. A 2015 study estimated that 70% of the total cancer risk from air pollution in California is caused by diesel exhaust alone.

The people who suffer the consequences of our online shopping are not typically over-consumers themselves. The South Coast Air Quality Management District found that the 2.4 million people living within half a mile of a warehouse are also disproportionately Black and Latino communities below the poverty line. In 2012 San Bernardino ranked as the second poorest city in America with over 34.6% of people living in poverty. And of all the residents living within a mile of the average Amazon warehouse, 80% are people of color.

[shivasdarknight]

the state of food rn is genuinely really harrowing, and just as like. a small example that exist in this larger problem

i was looking for an alternative to the energy drinks i usually get at my local coffee place, so obvs i go looking at the Big Name Ones

everything had sucralose and/or aspartame in it with the exception of the very basic rockstar and all forms of redbull. this "no real sugar" thing has gone to ridiculous lengths where i can't find anything that doesn't have it in it

as for why this is: sucralose was recently found to be a genotoxin! as in it literally destroys your dna! and it's the most used and most popular artificial sweetener and it's next to impossible to avoid it! on the other hand, there's aspartame which is currently being reevaluated by organizations like the WHO and several cancer advocacy groups as there have been connections discovered that would make it a carcinogen. important to note that the FDA has pushed back against this, but they're also notoriously profit driven and not always to be trusted.

a lot of the food that's on the market is carrying a carcinogen or a genotoxin. theres added sweeteners and other sugars to get you addicted to it. something as simple as buying food is either shelling out a lot of money for somewhat healthier stuff, or it's buying what you can afford and it's slowly killing you in ways you did not account for due to the prevalence of chemicals that they assured were Totally Safe.

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