Money and Finance
- Oliver Sacks On Learning He Has Terminal Cancer
Link to: My Own Life A MONTH ago, I felt that I was in good health, even robust health. At 81, I still swim a mile a day. But my luck has run out — a few weeks ago I learned that I have multiple metastases in the liver. Nine years ago it was discovered...
- Warnings From A Flabby Mouse – By Nicholas Kristof
ONE of the puzzles of the modern world is why we humans are growing so tubby. Maybe these two mice offer a clue. They’re genetically the same, raised in the same lab and given the same food and chance to exercise. Yet the bottom one is svelte, while...
- Can A Biologist Fix A Radio? Or, What I Learned While Studying Apoptosis – By Y. Lazebnik
A quote from this article that I think relates to investing: “It becomes slowly apparent that even if the anticipated gold deposits exist, finding them is not guaranteed. At this stage, the Chinese saying that it is difficult to find a black cat in...
- Warren Buffett Diagnosed With Diagnosed With (non Life-threatening) Stage I Prostate Cancer
To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway: This is to let you know that I have been diagnosed with stage I prostate cancer. The good news is that I’ve been told by my doctors that my condition is not remotely life-threatening or even debilitating in...
- Naked Mole Rat Genome May Point Way To Long, Healthy Life
Since Charlie Munger has talked about the naked mole rat, I figured this was fitting. Found via the Naked Capitalism blog. This comment from Yves Smith after she linked to this article was interesting: “Yes, but I saw Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control....
Money and Finance
The Cancer Lobby – by Nicholas Kristof
WHO knew that carcinogens had their own lobby in Washington?
Don’t believe me? Just consider formaldehyde, which is found in everything from nail polish to kitchen countertops, fabric softeners to carpets. Largely because of its use in building materials, we breathe formaldehyde fumes when we’re inside our homes.
Just one other fact you should know: According to government scientists, it causes cancer.
The chemical industry is working frantically to suppress that scientific consensus — because it fears “public confusion.” Big Chem apparently worries that you might be confused if you learned that formaldehyde caused cancer of the nose and throat, and perhaps leukemia as well.
The industry’s strategy is to lobby Congress to cut off money for the Report on Carcinogens, a 500-page consensus document published every two years by the National Institutes of Health, containing the best information about what agents cause cancer. If that sounds like shooting the messenger, well, it is.
“The way the free market is supposed to work is that you have information,” said Lynn Goldman, dean of the school of public health at George Washington University. “They’re trying to squelch that information.”
...
Let’s be clear. There is uncertainty about toxic chemicals, and it is perfectly legitimate to criticize the Report on Carcinogens. But this effort to defund the report is an insult to science and democracy alike.
…
The basic strategy is an old one. As David Michaels notes in his book “Doubt Is Their Product,” the first evidence that asbestos causes cancer emerged in the 1930s. But three decades later, industry executives were still railing about “ill-informed and exaggerated” press reports, still covering up staggering cancer rates, and still denouncing regulation of asbestos as “premature.” Huge numbers of Americans today are dying as a result.
Do we really want to go through that again?
- Oliver Sacks On Learning He Has Terminal Cancer
Link to: My Own Life A MONTH ago, I felt that I was in good health, even robust health. At 81, I still swim a mile a day. But my luck has run out — a few weeks ago I learned that I have multiple metastases in the liver. Nine years ago it was discovered...
- Warnings From A Flabby Mouse – By Nicholas Kristof
ONE of the puzzles of the modern world is why we humans are growing so tubby. Maybe these two mice offer a clue. They’re genetically the same, raised in the same lab and given the same food and chance to exercise. Yet the bottom one is svelte, while...
- Can A Biologist Fix A Radio? Or, What I Learned While Studying Apoptosis – By Y. Lazebnik
A quote from this article that I think relates to investing: “It becomes slowly apparent that even if the anticipated gold deposits exist, finding them is not guaranteed. At this stage, the Chinese saying that it is difficult to find a black cat in...
- Warren Buffett Diagnosed With Diagnosed With (non Life-threatening) Stage I Prostate Cancer
To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway: This is to let you know that I have been diagnosed with stage I prostate cancer. The good news is that I’ve been told by my doctors that my condition is not remotely life-threatening or even debilitating in...
- Naked Mole Rat Genome May Point Way To Long, Healthy Life
Since Charlie Munger has talked about the naked mole rat, I figured this was fitting. Found via the Naked Capitalism blog. This comment from Yves Smith after she linked to this article was interesting: “Yes, but I saw Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control....