Wow!! Circumcision can reduce spread of HIV?

I also have some observations that I'd like to share.

Cocaine makes fat people less obese.

Money makes poor people less poor.

Education makes the ignorant more informed...

I can't believe observations can be used to support decision for spend $$ for Aids prevention...

What about mass manufacturing condoms, making it very available and affordable, and educating the masses about safe sex??

Nuff Said.

-- Iron Bowl

	THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

Studies: Circumcision could dramatically slow HIV spread in Africa By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff | December 13, 2006 Two medical studies released today confirm that widespread circumcision of adult men is a powerful weapon against HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa, a finding that appears destined to reshape AIDS prevention strategies. The US Global AIDS coordinator, Dr. Mark Dybul, indicated in a statement that the Bush administration, which has committed $15 billion to treating and preventing AIDS in the developing world, will now consider supporting circumcision as a prevention tool. In the two studies, researchers in Kenya and Uganda enrolled thousands of uncircumcised men to determine if the procedure could reduce HIV transmission among heterosexuals, with some men having their foreskin removed and others remaining intact. Preliminary results so overwhelmingly favored circumcision that US health authorities overseeing the project said they were ethically obligated to stop the trials and offer circumcision to all the men. The trial in Kenya, involving nearly 2,800 participants, found that the circumcised men were 53 percent less likely to contract HIV. The Ugandan study, with nearly 5,000 men, showed a 48 percent reduction. The research results emerge a year after a South African study reached a similar conclusion. Africa shoulders 63 percent of the global burden of HIV, with 25 million adults and children infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Global health authorities, long wary of the social and cultural implications of recommending routine circumcision, moved closer than ever today to embracing the procedure as an important method for reducing infections. "It does have the potential to prevent many tens of thousands, many hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of infections over coming years," said Dr. Kevin DeCock, chief of the AIDS branch at the World Health Organization. "But this is not just like taking a pill. It's more difficult than that in the reality of African health systems, and this also has huge cultural implications." DeCock said he expects health ministers from Africa to meet with global health officials early next year to translate the findings into policy. Already, other authorities said, extensive consultations have unfolded with health agencies in five African nations -- Kenya, Lesotho, Swaziland, Tanzania, and Zambia -- about the possibility of introducing circumcision programs. And a Ugandan researcher involved in the circumcision study, Dr. David Serwadda, predicted there would be "very strong demand" for the procedure in his country. "The government will really have to come up with some plan on how to be able to scale up this very safely," said Serwadda, of Makerere University. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the federal government's global AIDS office was already reviewing the study results and considering how circumcision could be incorporated into US-sponsored prevention campaigns in Africa. HIV research specialists not involved with the studies said any decision to broadly recommend male circumcision in Africa must be accompanied by expanded training for physicians in how to safely perform the procedure, which costs from $25 to $500. They also reiterated the need for education campaigns stressing that other prevention approaches cannot be abandoned. "This does not mean throwing out your condoms, this does not mean increasing your number of sex partners, and this also does not mean going to the local healer to have a ritual circumcision performed," said Rowena Johnston, vice president of research at amfAR, a leading AIDS research organization. "Adult circumcision is a serious surgery, and it has to be done under serious circumstances." Ronald Goldman, a Boston psychologist who opposes circumcision, decried the research, saying it failed to take into account any psychological damage from the surgery. For more than a decade, African physicians had observed that circumcised men seemed less susceptible to HIV. There are biological explanations for that: The skin of the penis of circumcised men is thicker and less prone to penetration by HIV. Conversely, cells in the foreskin of uncircumcised men are especially welcoming to the virus. Researchers involved in the Kenyan and Ugandan studies said there were few complications reported, with none resulting in permanent injuries. They said the rate of complications was comparable to what is found among infant males in the United States, where about 70 percent of adult men are circumcised. They also found no evidence that men in the study who underwent circumcision were more likely to adopt risky sexual practices, such as having unprotected sex or increasing the number of sexual partners. Researchers said it was too soon to know whether the findings in Africa are relevant elsewhere, in part because while the African epidemic is linked primarily to heterosexual intercourse, it is fueled by different behaviors elsewhere. Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.

Got upgraded to Business class...

Flight was delayed though, so I did not sleep at all.

I returned to the office and one of two things are shipped.

Half successful or half failed I guess... (But the important socks to Polygel is shipped..)

This is the brightest day in Taiwan so far. Though I see no sun.

I see farmers burning the land everywhere, and I believe it would be dark again, not due to rain clouds unfortunately.

The grey smog is very depressing, not in a goth way. In Taiwan, some minority seemed to have pushed recycling, and mandated the "sale" of plastic bags. (When you shop for groceries, you pay for plastic bags.) All these seemed like a direction towards "Green Taiwan" but the littering and dumping on undeveloped land, under highways, and burning of trash practice... (Expensive to throw away trash, so they burn it.) Makes all the efforts of making Taiwan - "Green", seem not worthy.


I think mandating some "cleaner and greener laws" does not work if the public finds it "Smart" if they can get around the laws in a more polluting way.

On the mountain top, I can smell burnt tires, burnt plastic and other foul smells.

Even in an industralized Taiwan, profits seemed more important than the environment. Even when the farmers depend on the sun and the environment, they do not seem informed enough to bother to prevent others from harming it.

I can see foul liquids flowing into the drains and soapy discharge from restaurants into the canals...

I could see Taiwan might be a nice place 20 years back, but they have not improved on their operational processes, but just better ways to beat the environmental laws.

-- Iron Bowl.

Though Shanghai is a big city, it looks thriving compared to Boston in some ways, but it feels wrong. Here are some of my observations:

1) There are lots of bicycles, and scooters. - Though I used to think that it was good for people to cycle, too many bicycles on the road seemed very chaotic and annoying as they slow traffic down. The cyclists are similar to those in Boston, cycling in the middle of the road, blocking traffic, cycling against traffic, and not checking blind spots... I disliked many cyclists in Boston, and since there are more cyclists here, there are more of them to hate...

2) Traffic lights are not to be followed. - The light turns red and people do not really care and will just ignore the traffic lights. Many near accidents are caused and it is pretty nerve wrecking to drive or be a passenger in a car on these deadly roads. There seemed to be a general disrespect for -- life.

3) BAD AIR + NO SKY. - Phew... The air is very bad and this is the first time in many years my nose never stopped running, and my throat is dry. I just feel bad looking at the gray smog in the air and I KNOW breathing that in is bad.

4) So much NEONs that it is warm. - The city is very well lited, so much that it feels warm under the neons and lights, though it is cold when you are in the dark and the wind blows at you. The city really uses lots of energy, and you know it.

5) Unhygienic people and life. - Everything fells dirty though the city feels new. Spitting is common and the floor is dirty. Littering is a big problem, and you can see in the shadows, vermin moving through the piles of litter. The stench is overpowering, and public transportation really smells as people on public transport do not shower in the winter... (Similar to Boston, but smells more than Sox fans...)

6) Wierd (local) flavors. - There is chinese sausage and rice on pizza!! And a rice pizza. I don't even know why I wanted to try out these wierd flavored food, but it is quite mind blowing. I was having dinner alone in an exotic food place. I ordered a Snake stake... (In Unagi sauce) Braised Bats, Bear's Paw. I ordered fried grasshoppers as appetizer.

7) No internet? - I wondered in the city at night, searching for an internet cafe as I could get any wifi signal in the hotel. I asked around and found several "internet cafe" but they turned out to be "intranet cafe" with no capability to check emails or surfing outside China. Did not really look hard, as I gave up after my 4th internet cafe place.

8) Cheap base necessities, expensive other crap. - Guess jeans that cost US$120?? And Guess rip offs for $10?? Holy shit, this place is bizarre. I'm so afraid to buying Chinese brand toothpaste and other products as they may contain industrial waste. Normal branded stuff are considered luxuries.... Feels like you are in a CVS with mostly CVS brand stuff and the non-CVS brand stuff are few and overpriced... (Like double or triple..)

9) Population density is good for business, but sometimes I feel that there are too many people here.
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I like it better in Boston, but the US does not seem inviting at all, to live or to do business..

-- Iron bowl.

Heh! Trans Fat Banned!

New York City Bans Science

Thursday, December 07, 2006

By Steven Milloy

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• PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION

The New York City Board of Health this week banned the use of trans fats by restaurants. The decision is directly traceable back to the "research" of Harvard University's Alberto Ascherio and Walter Willett, the promoters-in-chief of trans fats hysteria.

Now that the Board has deemed their dubious trans fats research suitable for dictating public policy, New Yorkers ought to hope that Ascherio and Willett don't press the Board to implement some of their other published research that is similar in "quality" to their trans fats work.

New Yorkers could, for example, see restaurants banned from serving potatoes, peas, peanuts, beans, lentils, orange juice and grapefruit juice. Ascherio-Willett reported an increase in the risk of heart disease among consumers of these foods in the Annals of Internal Medicine (June 2001). Although none of those slight correlations were statistically meaningful -- and, in all probability, were simply meaningless chance occurrences -- a similar shortcoming didn't seem to matter to the Board when it came to their trans fats research.

Indian restaurants could be banned from cooking with sunflower oil. Ascherio-Willett once found that consumers of Indian food cooked in sunflower oil were up to 3 times more likely to suffer heart attacks than consumers of Indian food cooked in mustard oil (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, April 2004).

(Story continues below)

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Sure it was only one study and even they acknowledged the need for more research -- but that didn't stop Ascherio-Willett from recommending the switch in cooking oils.

Red meat might disappear, too.

Ascherio-Willett reported a 63 percent increase in the risk of type 2 diabetes associated with iron intake from red meat (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Jan. 2004). They didn't bother to verify how much iron from red meat any of the study subjects consumed and, therefore, don't actually have a firm basis for linking red meat consumption with the disease – but what the heck, they don't really know the quantity of trans fats consumed by any of those study subjects either.

It's not looking good for dairy products either. Ascherio-Willett reported in the Annals of Neurology (Dec. 2002) that consumption of dairy products was associated with an 80 percent increase in the risk of Parkinson's Disease among men. Although they concluded at the time that the finding needed further evaluation, why should the Board wait for more research? That could take forever. If the inconsistent and contradictory trans fats research doesn't require further evaluation, I can't imagine why it would be necessary for dairy products.

Regular (sugar-sweetened) soft drinks ought to be history as well. Willett linked them with weight gain and diabetes in women (Journal of the American Medical Association, Aug. 25, 2004). It didn't even matter that the same study also inexplicably linked diet soft drinks with a similar risk of diabetes.

It's really odd that when their research inadvertently debunks itself and other food myths, almost no one learns of it. And that's true for their trans fats research, as well.

The Board's notice of its decision to ban trans fats tries to bolster its case by playing on popular misconceptions about saturated fat. The notice states that, "trans fat appears even worse than saturated fat." The Board apparently isn't familiar with the several Ascherio-Willett studies that fail to link saturated fat with heart disease and stroke.

The public's 30-year long fear of saturated fat and the Board's statement is, in fact, without a scientific basis. It's simply astounding that the Board can get away with exploiting one debunked myth to help propagate another.

Just to show that not all the Ascherio-Willett research is about simply banning foods – after all, it is possible that at some point the public will tire of being nannied – the Board may want to consider requiring restaurant patrons to order caffeinated coffee with every meal. One Ascherio-Willett study reported that the risk of type 2 diabetes was reduced by a statistically significant 54 percent among men who consumed 6 or more cups of coffee per day ( Annals of Internal Medicine, Jan. 6, 2004).

The Board might also want to mandate the daily consumption of pizza by men. Ascherio-Willett reported that men who consume more than 10 servings of pizza per week reduce their risk of prostate cancer by one-third ( Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Dec. 1995).

It's not that either coffee or pizza is a proven "health" food – far from it – but the Board should consider their great distraction potential. Just as the ancient Roman emperors distracted citizens with bread and circuses while taking away their freedoms, the Board could easily distract New Yorkers with coffee and pizza as it dismantles consumer choice in restaurants bit by bit.

Come to think of it, why is the Board's trans fats ban limited to restaurants? What about grocery stores and convenience shops? If trans fats are so bad, why should you be able to purchase food in a store that is too dangerous to be served in a restaurant?

The Board's trans fats ban has dramatically lowered the bar for scientific proof. It's such a sad spectacle that the Board of Health ought to be renamed the Bored of Science.

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert , an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute .

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Why can they get trans fat banned so easily?

Is it going to be heavily enforced?

Can we still find "black market" trans fat restaurants in New York?

How much would a "Black Market" twinkie go for?