Lung disease including deaths among Chinese paint workers
Reuters is reporting on an outbreak of lung disease among workers at a Chinese paint factory potentially due to exposure to nanoparticles.
Choose Your Words Carefully
Do people listen to an argument and then decide what they think of it or are there mechanisms in the brain which, when triggered by the use of value-laden language, prevent further consideration?
In "Right or Wrong? The Brain's Fast Response to Morally Objectionable Statements" the authors found that words that are inconsistent with the reader's values almost immediately caused the reader to make a judgment about the statement being made. In fact, the readers often made sense of, or in other words judged, the statement before the sentence containing the value-laden word(s) was even completed.
The take away is that one misplaced word can destroy the best argument if it triggers a moral objection.
Cancer Causation: An Emerging Narrative
One contemporary narrative goes like this: most cancers are preventable because most cancers are the result of man’s disregard for “nature”; whether due to pollution or ad campaign-induced bad habits like eating too much. But what if it turns out that a group of microbes that set up shop in our bodies are the real cause of many if not most cancers?
Lung cancer has been the injury at issue in a number of mass tort cases. A host of recently published papers indicates that human papillomavirus may trail only cigarette smoking as the leading cause of lung cancer. See "Incidence of Human Papilloma Virus in Lung Cancer" and "The Role of Human Papilloma Virus in Lung Cancer: A Review of the Evidence"
Human papillomavirus has been associated with lung cancer in numerous studies though there is considerable debate as to whether the correlation is coincidental or causative. The first article reviews the literature and argues for a causative role for HPV in lung cancer. The second article suggests a biologically plausible mechanism for the production of lung cancer by human papillomavirus.
Industrial Hygiene Survey, Navy Yard, New York, NY 1943
Dr. Leonard J. Goldwater, whom I was fortunate to get to know and with whom I corresponded for several years after finding him alive and well after an expert witness in one of my cases testified that "Dr. Goldwater, if he were alive today, would tell you that by 1939 it was known that benzene caused leukemia", gave me this document out of his trove of articles and letters that he'd collected over a long and especially distinguished career.
In subsequent posts I'll relate some of his stories ranging from his testimony at the 1936 Gauley Bridge Disaster hearings before the U.S. Congress, to his work on benzene and blood dyscrasias in the late 1930's and early 1940's, through his extensive work on mercury and to his deposition testimony in the 1980's about the history of the knowledge of asbestos all gleaned from his work with the New York Department of Health, as Industrial Health Officer responsible for Navy shipyards during World War II and as a researcher and academic.
Will Empathize For Food
Men don't read emotions as well as women, right? Maybe not. In a study being discussed at Overcoming Bias it appears that men indeed can read emotions - they just don't - unless there's something in it for them. Hmmmmm. Here's a link to the article.
More Evidence That Benzene Is Not a Cause of CML
A meta-analysis of six case-control studies of occupationally exposed workers shows that chronic myelogenous leukemia risk is not associated with benzene exposure.
An Epidemic of Depression?
Antidepressants are now the most commonly prescribed class of medications in the U.S. The use of antidepressants has doubled in the last decade. And the rate of use by women is double that for men. What's going on here? What's behind the increase? Who's to blame? Is anyone to blame? Discuss.
Hat tip: http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/
