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On the 'Frontier,' a New Approach to Public Health
By BEN DAITZ, The New York Times, November 15, 2005
LORDSBURG, N.M. - Southwestern New Mexico's boot heel scuffs a low desert landscape at the end of the Rocky Mountain chain. Here, the Butterfield Stagecoach line once ran passengers and mail through starkly beautiful stands of ocotillo and cholla cactus to California, followed soon by the Southern Pacific Railroad and, ultimately, Interstate 10.
Lordsburg, with a population of 3,300, is a railroad town, the largest town in Hidalgo County, classified by federal health standards as a "frontier county" because of the paucity of population and health services.
For years, the nearest doctors and dentists were in Tucson, 152 miles west, Las Cruces, 60 miles east, or Silver City, 45 miles north. Then Charlie Alfero came to town.
A 52-year-old mandolin-picker with a laid-back style, Mr. Alfero had directed the state's Community Health Services Division and the University of New Mexico School of Medicine's rural outreach program, where he helped communities resurrect failing hospitals and develop clinics.
( Read More )
Philosophers Notwithstanding, Kansas School Board Redefines Science
By DENNIS OVERBYE, The New York Times, November 15, 2005
Once it was the left who wanted to redefine science.
In the early 1990's, writers like the Czech playwright and former president Vaclav Havel and the French philosopher Bruno Latour proclaimed "the end of objectivity." The laws of science were constructed rather than discovered, some academics said; science was just another way of looking at the world, a servant of corporate and military interests. Everybody had a claim on truth.
The right defended the traditional notion of science back then. Now it is the right that is trying to change it.
On Tuesday, fueled by the popular opposition to the Darwinian theory of evolution, the Kansas State Board of Education stepped into this fraught philosophical territory. In the course of revising the state's science standards to include criticism of evolution, the board promulgated a new definition of science itself.
The changes in the official state definition are subtle and lawyerly, and involve mainly the removal of two words: "natural explanations." But they are a red flag to scientists, who say the changes obliterate the distinction between the natural and the supernatural that goes back to Galileo and the foundations of science.
( Read More )
Q & A: How Helpful Is Garlic?
By C. CLAIBORNE RAY, The New York Times, November 15, 2005
Q. Has eating fresh garlic or ingesting garlic supplements been documented in reputable clinical trials to increase levels of H.D.L., the so-called good cholesterol?
A. "Unfortunately, no," said Dr. Sheldon S. Hendler, co-editor of the PDR for Nutritional Supplements, the standard reference in the field.
Dr. Hendler pointed out, however, that some studies have suggested that garlic and garlic supplements may be useful in lowering levels of L.D.L., the so-called bad cholesterol.
( Read More )
(This story reminds me of the article![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
notmarcie pointed me to last week)
Vital Signs: Prevention: A Bacterium That Improves Your Work Habits
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR, The New York Times, November 15, 2005
When workers take daily doses of a bacterium found in breast milk and in the digestive systems of healthy humans, they are less likely to call in sick with gastrointestinal or respiratory symptoms, a new study has found.
( Read More )
Study: Heart Attacks Drop With Smoking Ban
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, The New York Times, November 14, 2005
DALLAS (AP) -- Heart attack rates in Pueblo, Colo., dropped by 27 percent in the 18 months after a smoking ban was imposed in bars, restaurants and other public places, according to a new study.
Researchers found that 399 heart attack patients were admitted to hospitals in the 18 months before the July 2003 ban and 291 after.
In a nearby county without a smoking ban, the number of heart attacks held steady during the same period, according to the research presented Monday at an American Heart Association meeting.
''I was probably skeptical that such an ordinance would have such a rapid effect,'' said the study's leader, Dr. Mori Krantz, a cardiologist and director of prevention programs at the Colorado Prevention Center.
But he noted that other research has shown that exposure to secondhand smoke can cause adverse cardiovascular effects within minutes -- and that the latest survey seems to bear that out.
( Read More )
By BEN DAITZ, The New York Times, November 15, 2005
LORDSBURG, N.M. - Southwestern New Mexico's boot heel scuffs a low desert landscape at the end of the Rocky Mountain chain. Here, the Butterfield Stagecoach line once ran passengers and mail through starkly beautiful stands of ocotillo and cholla cactus to California, followed soon by the Southern Pacific Railroad and, ultimately, Interstate 10.
Lordsburg, with a population of 3,300, is a railroad town, the largest town in Hidalgo County, classified by federal health standards as a "frontier county" because of the paucity of population and health services.
For years, the nearest doctors and dentists were in Tucson, 152 miles west, Las Cruces, 60 miles east, or Silver City, 45 miles north. Then Charlie Alfero came to town.
A 52-year-old mandolin-picker with a laid-back style, Mr. Alfero had directed the state's Community Health Services Division and the University of New Mexico School of Medicine's rural outreach program, where he helped communities resurrect failing hospitals and develop clinics.
( Read More )Philosophers Notwithstanding, Kansas School Board Redefines Science
By DENNIS OVERBYE, The New York Times, November 15, 2005
Once it was the left who wanted to redefine science.
In the early 1990's, writers like the Czech playwright and former president Vaclav Havel and the French philosopher Bruno Latour proclaimed "the end of objectivity." The laws of science were constructed rather than discovered, some academics said; science was just another way of looking at the world, a servant of corporate and military interests. Everybody had a claim on truth.
The right defended the traditional notion of science back then. Now it is the right that is trying to change it.
On Tuesday, fueled by the popular opposition to the Darwinian theory of evolution, the Kansas State Board of Education stepped into this fraught philosophical territory. In the course of revising the state's science standards to include criticism of evolution, the board promulgated a new definition of science itself.
The changes in the official state definition are subtle and lawyerly, and involve mainly the removal of two words: "natural explanations." But they are a red flag to scientists, who say the changes obliterate the distinction between the natural and the supernatural that goes back to Galileo and the foundations of science.
( Read More )Q & A: How Helpful Is Garlic?
By C. CLAIBORNE RAY, The New York Times, November 15, 2005
Q. Has eating fresh garlic or ingesting garlic supplements been documented in reputable clinical trials to increase levels of H.D.L., the so-called good cholesterol?
A. "Unfortunately, no," said Dr. Sheldon S. Hendler, co-editor of the PDR for Nutritional Supplements, the standard reference in the field.
Dr. Hendler pointed out, however, that some studies have suggested that garlic and garlic supplements may be useful in lowering levels of L.D.L., the so-called bad cholesterol.
( Read More )(This story reminds me of the article
notmarcie pointed me to last week)Vital Signs: Prevention: A Bacterium That Improves Your Work Habits
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR, The New York Times, November 15, 2005
When workers take daily doses of a bacterium found in breast milk and in the digestive systems of healthy humans, they are less likely to call in sick with gastrointestinal or respiratory symptoms, a new study has found.
( Read More )Study: Heart Attacks Drop With Smoking Ban
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, The New York Times, November 14, 2005
DALLAS (AP) -- Heart attack rates in Pueblo, Colo., dropped by 27 percent in the 18 months after a smoking ban was imposed in bars, restaurants and other public places, according to a new study.
Researchers found that 399 heart attack patients were admitted to hospitals in the 18 months before the July 2003 ban and 291 after.
In a nearby county without a smoking ban, the number of heart attacks held steady during the same period, according to the research presented Monday at an American Heart Association meeting.
''I was probably skeptical that such an ordinance would have such a rapid effect,'' said the study's leader, Dr. Mori Krantz, a cardiologist and director of prevention programs at the Colorado Prevention Center.
But he noted that other research has shown that exposure to secondhand smoke can cause adverse cardiovascular effects within minutes -- and that the latest survey seems to bear that out.
( Read More )
