Friday, September 22, 2011

1.VACCINE: THERE IS NO INOCULATION AGAINST IGNORANCE.

Here we go again. Last week during a debate of Republican presidential candidates, Representative Michele Bachmann characterized human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine as "a potentially dangerous drug," and linked its effect to "mental retardation." There is no medical support for her wildly irresponsible remarks; the HPV vaccine prevents cervical cancer, and an editorial in Nature calls on Bachmann to retract her words, but I don't think she reads Nature. The 1998 claim of British researcher Andrew Wakefield that the common MMR vaccine causes autism set off a revival of the anti-vaccination movement, and a corresponding rise in measles cases. In 2009, however, Wakefield was found to have altered patients records to support his claim http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN11/wn010711.html . Barred from the practice medicine in the UK, Wakefield now operates an autism clinic in Austin, Texas. He doesn't have a US medical license, but such formalities don't much matter in Texas. Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas, differs with Bachmann on HPV, having attempted to mandate the use of the HPV vaccine for 11 and 12-year-old schoolgirls as the Center for Disease Control recommends, which may have something to do with the fact that Merck, the only maker of HPV vaccine, is a major contributor to Perry's campaign.

2. WIRELESS: WHERE SHOULD I PUT MY CELL PHONE, DOCTOR?

The hot new place for young women to tuck their cell phones is inside their bra. They set the ring on "vibrate," creating an erogenous tingle when a call comes in. Devra Davis, author of "Disconnect," a book about the alleged dangers of cell-phone radiation, worries that the women are being set up for breast cancer. Microwave radiation, Davis says, "seeps directly into the soft fatty tissue of the breast." What does it do there? As Albert Einstein explained in 1905, the photon energy is given by the frequency times Planck's constant. That's plenty of energy to excite molecular vibrations, which heats tissue, but it's only one millionth of the ionization threshold energy, so radiation is not a cancer threat. Meanwhile in Washington, DC, a Wireless Safety Summit in a couple of weeks will focus on legislation to block smart meters, which is a totally dumb idea.

3. EINSTEIN: EARLY ARRIVAL OF CERN NEUTRINOS CAUSES CONFUSION.

It was a page-one science story in major papers around the world: neutrinos beamedd from Geneva were detected 454 miles away in Italy in less time than light would take to make the same trip. Everyone was excited, except the physicists. Interviewed by the Washington Post, Drew Baden, chair of the U. Maryland Physics Department, called the result, "a flying carpet," not to be taken very seriously without strong independent confirmation, and maybe not then. The goal of physics is to identify natural laws that govern the universe. Einstein's 1905 explanation of the photoelectric effect, for example, casts strong (overwhelming?) doubt on epidemiological evidence that purports to show that cell phone radiation is linked to cancer.

Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.