Tuesday, July 08, 2003

Advance in treating Muscular Dystrophy BBC Health -- Scientists are encouraged by the early success of treatment which may eventually help patients with a form of muscular dystrophy. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a wasting disease caused by mutations on a particular gene. It is the most common muscular dystrophy, affecting one in 3,500 children - most of whom die early in life as a result. The mutations on the gene stop it producing the chemical needed to protect muscle cells and prevent wasting. Some experts believe that it may be possible to alleviate the disease by replacing the gene entirely.  However, a slightly different strategy has paid dividends for researchers at the Medical Research Council's Clinical Sciences Centre. Instead of trying to insert an entirely new version of the gene - called the dystrophin gene - which is problematic simply because of its large size, scientists are trying to issue the body instructions to ignore the faulty bits. While this, if successful, does not completely correct the problem, it does mean that a body chemical is produced that is almost as effective as the normal version. The technique, called "anti-sense" therapy, might also be easier to get working in a drug than full-blown gene therapy. Drugs are injected which carry small fragments of genetic code instead of an entire gene. It is these fragments which direct the machinery of the cell to ignore the mutated sections of the gene. (07/08/03) What is Wealth? Timothy Wilken, MD writes: The collective term we humans use to describe what we value is "wealth".  Jared Diamond makes the point, that for 99.9% of the seven-million-years that our species has existed, we have been hunter-gatherers. And, for that same period, our species has been dominated by the adversary way, and all human values have been adversarial values. Physical force is what adversarial humans value most. The force to physically control other humans. Adversarial wealth is weapons, fighting men, horses, fortresses, that which gives me the adversarial advantage. In our modern world, adversarial wealth is B2 bombers, F15 fighter aircraft, aircraft carriers, tanks, military satellites, explosives of all types from hand grenades to nuclear weapons, trained soldiers and last but not least guns. ... Money is what neutral humans most value. The money to purchase help. Neutral wealth is any negotiable security – cash, stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit, that which can be exchanged in the fair market. Neutral humanity uses money to purchase their wants and needs. By purchasing the actions of others with money, they seek to protect their own lives and well being. They seek to insure their individual survival and make their individual lives meaningful by ignoring others. ...  In a synergic culture wealth is defined very differently. Synergic wealth is that which supports life for both self and other. It is mutual life support. Synergic wealth by definition excludes adversary wealth – physical force that hurts other human beings, and neutral wealth – money that ignores other human beings. Synergic humans recognize that interdependence is the human condition. They recognize that all humans need help unless they wish to live at the level of animal subsistence. They choose to help others and trust that others will choose to help them. They know that adversarial humans use coercion to force others help them. They know that help obtained with force or fraud is the lowest quality help because the helper is hurt. They know that neutral humans use money to buy help from others in the fair market. They know that help purchased in the market place is of average quality because the helper is ignored. They understand that synergic humans use co-Operation to attract help from others. They help others and trust others to help them. They know that help attracted by helping others is of highest quality because the helper is helped. (07/08/03) Far East Facing AIDS Crisis BBC Health -- A leading American expert on infectious diseases says China and India - the world's two most populous countries - are facing a potential Aids disaster. Speaking at a conference in Singapore, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Julie Gerberding, said the Aids situation there was akin to what Africa experienced a decade ago.  She also named Cambodia as another Asian country facing an Aids crisis. She said the Aids virus was spreading deeper into these parts of Asia because they had a weak healthcare system. China says it has at least a million people with Aids, but the UN estimates this could reach 10 million by the end of the decade. Shared use of intravenous needles by drug users and infection through contaminated blood donations account for about three-quarters of current cases in China. Some estimates suggest India already has 4 million people infected with HIV - and experts predict this could rise to 25 million by 2010. And in Cambodia, an estimated 158,000 people - or 2.6% of the adult population - are HIV positive. Dr Gerberding said: "In some countries, for example, Cambodia, or from what we believe in China and India, the public health measures have yet to take hold and the epidemic really is in that phase of scaling up very, very quickly. "If we don't intervene in those environments we will have a catastrophe of a very, very profound increase in the number of cases. We are truly globalised and if one person in a country is vulnerable, every one is vulnerable. If one country is vulnerable then the world is vulnerable." (07/08/03) The Kidnap of Mass Mind Howard Bloom writes: Nations and their leaders battle for control over the common sense. But other contestants struggle behind the scenes - subcultures, clusters of like-minded folk who live within and ooze between societies. In the subcultural clashes of the 21st century, Sparta and Athens are vigorously alive.  Today's cyber-era Spartans are bone-crushers of conformity. They are the Fundamentalists of both the left and right.  Some are godly, some are secular. Religious extremists, ultra-nationalists, ethnic liberationists, eco-terrorists, and fascists fall on the fundamentalist side of the line. Brooking no tolerance of those who disagree, they invoke a golden past and a higher power, both of which demand submission to authority. The worst shoot, burn, and bomb to get their way. Their opposites are Athenian, Socratic, Aristotelian, diversity-generating, pluralistic, and democratic. They pay lip-service, and often a good deal more, to such slogans as "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." The groups which follow this pattern are more diffuse than their rivals; in fact, the right to be loose-knit is part of their philosophy. They include liberals, democratic socialists, libertarians, and free-market capitalists. These champions of human rights use the word "freedom" to liberate the individual, not to hammer home the triumph of a Chosen Collectivity. (07/08/03) Curbing Carbon Emissions New York Times: Environment -- An array of industrialized and developing countries agreed today on the outline of a cooperative research program aimed at capturing and storing carbon dioxide, the main smokestack emission linked to global warming. The agreement came halfway through a three-day conference in McLean, Va., organized by the Bush administration, which has argued for more than a year that a technological breakthrough will be needed to stabilize levels of so-called greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. A buildup of those gases has been blamed by many scientists for most of a 50-year warming trend that could raise sea levels and disrupt climate patterns if emissions are not reduced. Most industrialized countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, a binding treaty that would require reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases. It awaits ratification by Russia to take effect. The Bush administration has rejected that approach, saying climate science remains too uncertain to justify mandatory measures. It favors voluntary programs for curbing growth in the gases and long-term research on new nonpolluting energy sources or ways to sop up emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal. "Regardless of what target you choose," Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said, "no goal is going to be achieved unless we develop the new technologies to get there." One justification for pursuing that approach, administration officials and independent experts at the meeting said, is a projection that 90 percent of the increased demand for electricity worldwide in the next half-century will be met by burning fossil fuels. The administration wants to find ways to continue using coal, which remains plentiful and cheap, without adding to the atmosphere's burden of greenhouse gases. (07/07/03) 5:33:32 AM

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