Comment Central - Times Online - WBLG

Larry David announces that he suffers from cancer

What if you counted as excess baggage?

Pack less. Weigh less. Pay less.

That's the idea behind Derrie-Air, a spoof advertising campaign that has recently launched in Pennsylvania. The adverts aim to tackle global warming as follows:

But not only will we do our part to protect the environment, we will expect you, our passengers, to do your part as well. The magic comes from our one of a kind "Sliding Scale"—the more you weigh, the more you'll pay. After all, it takes more fuel—more energy—to get more weight from point A to point B. So we will charge passengers based on how much mass they add to the plane.

A joke yes. And maybe not even a funny one. But here are the brainiacs at Freakonomics on why this is something airlines might actually want to seriously consider.

Alice Fishburn

Imposing deafness on children deliberately - a scandal

Can this really be true? Can it be serious?

What an outrage. What a disgrace. What a weak minded, pathetic piece of petty politics. And what a tragedy.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill contains a clause forbidding couples from screening their embryos and then deliberately selecting ones with a serious medical condition.

Who would want to do such a thing, anyway? Well may you ask. But the answer is - certain deaf activists.

And now, according at least to the Sunday Telegraph, the Government has succumbed to pressure from deaf groups.

It has decided to exclude deafness from the list of medical conditions. That's right. The Government is accepting the bizarre argument that being deaf is not a disability.

The deaf groups argue that the Bill is discriminatory. Of course it is. It discriminates in favour of babies being able to hear. It discriminates against parents choosing to make their children deaf. Only in a world gone mad can such discrimination be regarded as a bad thing.

Apparently the Government has been taken aback by the ferocity of the campaign by deaf activists.

But this isn't about the rights of deaf people.

It is about the rights of their children. It is about the rights of newborn babies not to be deliberately handicapped by their parents.

I think this right should be protected against parents wanting to deafen their children in pursuit of a combination of their own selfish interests and extremist political dogma.

And I am certain that my position is that held by the vast majority of people, deaf and hearing, in this country.

It beggars belief that we are to be overidden because the Government is running scared of lobby groups.

A catchy title

I am not making this up, I promise.

The Government has established a surveillance scheme to assist in the investigation and prevention of hospital infection.

It's name? The MRSA Enhanced Surveillance Scheme. To save time it is referred to in official documents by its acronym.

MESS.

I'm not kidding.

Take heart, passive smokers

One of the things that has persuaded me to take a tough line on passive smoking is the evidence on heart disease, pressed on me by the British Medical Association, among others.

Now the New Scientist reports:

Washington DC-based Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) states in its promotional material that a single exposure to tobacco fumes lasting just 30 minutes can raise a "non-smoker's risk of suffering a fatal heart attack to that of a smoker".

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) makes similar claims.

Can the risks of such a brief exposure really be that high? Not according to tobacco researcher Mike Siegel of Boston University, who examined statements made by nearly 30 anti-tobacco groups including ASH (US) and the BHF, as well as clinical studies upon which the statements were based.

He believes the anti-tobacco groups distort the science to make their point (Epidemiologic Perspectives and Innovations, DOI: 10.1186/1742-5573-4-13).

Although a half-hour exposure does cause measurable changes in blood flow, the effects are only transitory and blood circulation returns to normal within hours, sometimes immediately, Siegel says.

There is no evidence that a single exposure causes any meaningful damage in the way that the groups claim. "It is certainly not correct to claim that a single 30-minute exposure to second-hand smoke causes hardening of the arteries, heart disease, heart attacks or strokes," he says.

How am I supposed to believe anything these people tell me in future?

Hat Tip: Mick Hume

How long is your wait to see the doctor?

Grumbling about the wait in the doctor's office? Well, in the UK, there are around 440 people per doctor. Compare that to parts of Africa where are around 50,000.

Look at this map to find out all the figures. To see the enlarged version, click here.

(Hat Tip: Rebecca's Pocket)

Would Giuliani have beaten cancer in the UK?

An interesting row has developed in the United States about Rudy Giuliani's prostate cancer.

Actually it's about his prostate cancer figures. Rudy argued that his chances of survival were much higher in the US than with the "socialized" medicine in the UK.

Not so, argue a range of critics.

His survival stats are meaningless. Five year survival is higher in the US because of early diagnosis. But the number of deaths from the disease per 100,000 head of population is broadly the same.

So Rudy gets four Pinocchios from the Washington Post.

But should he have? The FT's Clive Crook, whom I've always greatly admired, thinks not. His essential point about surviving cancer is correct argues Crook. If you look at your chances of beating all types of cancer, they are significantly greater in the United States.

What, really?

Tyler Cowen, master of the Marginal Revolution blog, has found this amazing story in the The Boston Globe about suicide help-lines:

In 723 of 1,431 calls, for example, the helper never got around to asking whether the caller was feeling suicidal.  And when suicidal thoughts were identified, the helpers asked about available means [like whether they owned a gun] less than half the time.  There were more egregious lapses, too: in 72 cases a caller was actually put on hold until he or she hung up. Seventy-six times the helper screamed at, or was rude to, the caller. Four were told they might as well kill themselves.

There were 33 evident on-line suicide attempts, yet only six rescue efforts, sometimes because the caller ended the communication.  In one case, a caller who'd overdosed passed out, yet the helper hung up.

Jaw-dropping.

Murad Ahmed

Cigarettes are good for you!

But only if smoked in their "normal amount", ten to forty a day...

Murad Ahmed

(Hat Tip: VideoSift)

The world sex chart

If you’re not already a regular reader of the Foreign Policy magazine website, you really should be. It’s particularly fascinating on international comparisons. So now it turns its attention on the pastime that unites the world: football sex.

The graph below (click on it to enlarge it) shows the national average of sexual partners for various countries. Bottom of the shag pile come India and China, with an average of 3 sexual partners each. The top bedpost knotchers are Turks, with over 14 sexual partners each on average. And we Brits are pretty virile, averaging around ten sexual partners each.

A few other things come out of the data. It comes as no surprise that the greater the level of unprotected sex, the greater the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases. Norway is the biggest culprit, with 70 per cent of Norwegians admitting to having unprotected sex without knowing the other persons sexual history. That explains why their rate of STDs is at a huge 21 per cent.

Fascinating stuff. But then it always is though, isn’t it?

Murad Ahmed