Hidden Facts And Secrets...

2008-12-23T08:07:00.000-08:00

Breast Cancer is not a problem for Women only!!

Men don't have breasts. How can they get breast cancer?
Even though men do not have breasts like women, they do have a small amount of breast tissue. In fact, the "breasts" of an adult man are similar to the breasts of a girl before puberty, and consist of a few ducts surrounded by breast and other tissue. In girls, this tissue grows and develops in response to female hormones, but in men -- who do not secrete the same amounts of these hormones -- this tissue does not develop.

However, because it is still breast tissue, men can develop breast cancer. In fact, men get the same types of breast cancers that women do, although cancers involving the milk-producing and storing regions of the breast are very rare.

Why do I not hear about breast cancer in men as much as I hear about breast cancer in women?
Breast cancer in men is a very rare disease. This is possibly due to their smaller amount of breast tissue and the fact that men produce smaller amounts of hormones like estrogen that are known to affect breast cancers in women.

There are 1,400 cases of male breast cancer per year. In fact, only about 1 in 100 breast cancers affect men and only about 10 men in a million will develop breast cancer.

Which men are more likely to get breast cancer?
It is very rare for a man under age 35 to get breast cancer, but the likelihood of developing the disease increases with age. Breast cancer is most commonly diagnosed in men between age 50 and 70. Beyond that, African-American men appear to be at greater risk than Caucasian men. In some places in Africa, breast cancer in men is much more common. Also, college-educated professionals appear to have a higher risk than the general male population.

The clearest risk for developing breast cancer seems to be in men who have had an abnormal enlargement of their breasts (called gynecomastia) in response to drug or hormone treatments, or even some infections and poisons. Individuals with a rare genetic disease called Klinefelter's syndrome, who often have gynecomastia as part of the syndrome, are especially prone to develop breast cancer.

How serious is breast cancer in men?
Doctors used to think that breast cancer in men was a more severe disease than it was in women, but it now seems that for comparably advanced breast cancers, men and women have similar outcomes.

The major problem is that breast cancer in men is often diagnosed later than breast cancer in women. This may be because men are less likely to be suspicious of an abnormality in that area.

What are the symptoms of breast cancer in men?
Symptoms are very similar to those in women. Most male breast cancers are diagnosed when a man discovers a lump on his chest. However, unlike women, men tend to go to the doctor with more severe symptoms that often include bleeding from the nipple and abnormalities in the skin above the cancer. The cancer has already spread to the lymph nodes in a large number of these men.

How is breast cancer diagnosed and treated in men?
The same techniques -- physical exams, mammograms and biopsies (examining small samples of the tissue under a microscope) -- that are used to diagnose breast cancer in women are also used in men.

The same four treatments that are used in treating breast cancer in women -- surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and hormones -- are also used to treat the disease in men. Mastectomy is the recommended surgery in men.

Many breast cancers in men have hormone receptors, that is, they have specific sites on the cancer cells where specific hormones like estrogen can act. Therefore, hormonal treatment in men is more likely to be effective.

2008-12-16T07:16:00.000-08:00

AN FBI EXPERT TESTIFIED THAT LIE DETECTORS ARE WORTHLESS FOR SECURITY SCREENING

Now let's turn our attention to the last member of our trifecta of defective tests — the polygraph, more commonly referred to as the lie detector. Invented by the same person who created Wonder Woman and her golden lasso that makes you tell the truth (I'm not kidding), the polygraph is said to detect deception based on subtle bodily signals, such as pulse rate and sweatiness. Its proponents like to claim that it has a success rate of 90 percent or more. This is pure hogwash.

While the evidence against lie detectors is way too voluminous to get into here, it will be very instructive to look at a statement from Dr. Drew Richardson. Richardson is a scientist who was an FBI agent for 25 years; in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he dealt with polygraphs. In fall 1997, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee held hearings regarding the FBI Crime Lab. Richardson gave scorching testimony about polygraphs. Referring specifically to the practice of

using lie detectors to question people in sensitive positions, he said under oath:

It is completely without any theoretical foundation and has absolutely no validity. Although there is disagreement amongst scientists about the use of polygraph testing in criminal matters, there is almost universal agreement that polygraph screening is completely invalid and should be stopped. As one of my colleagues frequently says, the diagnostic value of this type of testing is no more than that of astrology or tea-leaf reading. If this test had any validity (which it does not), both my own experience, and published scientific research has proven, that anyone can be taught to beat this type of polygraph exam in a few minutes. Because of the nature of this type of examination, it would normally be expected to produce large numbers of false positive results (falsely accusing an examinee of lying about some issue). As a result of the great consequences of doing this with large numbers of law enforcement and intelligence community officers, the test has now been manipulated to reduce false positive results, but consequently has no power to detect deception in espionage and other national security matters. Thus, I believe that there is virtually no probability of catching a spy with the use of polygraph screening techniques. I think a careful exam-ination of the Aldrich Ames case will reveal that any shortcomings in the use

of the polygraph were not simply errors on the part of the polygraph examiners involved, and would not have been eliminated if FBI instead of CIA polygraphers had conducted these examinations. Instead I believe this is largely a reflection of the complete lack of validity of this methodology. To the extent that we place any confidence in the results of polygraph screening, and as a consequence shortchange traditional security vetting techniques, I think our national security is severely jeopardized.

After he ripped polygraphs a new one, the FBI silenced Richardson, refusing to let him speak publicly about the subject again.

2008-12-16T07:11:00.000-08:00

DNA MATCHING IS NOT INFALLIBLE

Speaking of tests that aren't all they're cracked up to be, let's look at DNA testing. This is supposed to be the absolute silver bullet of criminal justice, an incontrovertible way to pin guilt on someone. After all, the chances of a mismatch are one in a billion, a quadrillion, a jillion!

Some experts have testified under oath that a false match is literally impossible. Not quite. As he did with HIV testing, risk scholar Gerd Gigerenzer of the Max Planck Institute punches a hole in the matching of genetic material:

In the first blind test reported in the literature, three major commercial laboratories were each sent 50 DNA samples. Two of the three declared one false match; in a second test one year later, one of the same three laboratories declared a false match. From external tests conducted by the California Association of I Crime Laboratory Directors, the Collaborative Testing Services, and other agencies, the psychologist Jonathan Koehler and his colleagues estimated the false positive rate of DNA fingerprinting to be on the order of 1

in 100. Cellmark Diagnostics, one of the laboratories that found matches between O.J. Simpson's DNA and DNA extracted from a recovered blood stain at the murder scene, reported its own false positive rate to the Simpson defense as roughly 1 in 200.

It gets even worse. In 1999, the College of American Pathologists performed its own secret tests of 135 labs. Each lab was sent a DNA sample from the "victim," some semen from the "suspect," and a fake vaginal swab containing DNA from both parties. They were also sent a strand of the "victim's" hair. The object was to see how many of the labs would make the matches (ie, match the two sperm samples of the man, and match the hair and DNA sample of the woman). But

something unexpected happened: Three of the labs reported that the DNA from the suspect matched the victim's DNA! Obviously, they had mixed up the samples. Only fourteen labs tested the hair, but out of those, one screwed it up by declaring a match to the "suspect." These kind of switches don't happen only during artificial situations designed to gauge a lab's accuracy (which are usually performed under ideal conditions). During a 1995 rape trial, a lab reversed the labels on the DNA samples from the victim and the defendant. Their testing then

revealed a match between the defendant's alleged DNA (which was actually the victim's) and the DNA on the vaginal swab, which didn't contain any semen from the rapist. Luckily, this boneheaded move was caught during the trial, but not everyone is so lucky. The Journal of Forensic Science has reported an error that was discovered only after an innocent man had been convicted of raping an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to prison, where lie was undoubtedly brutalized in ways that would give you nightmares for the rest of your life, were you to hear them described in detail. After four years, he was released because the lab hadn't

completely separated the real rapist's DNA (extracted from his semen) from the victim's DNA. When the two were swirled together, they somehow matched that of the poor bastard whose eleven alibi witnesses failed to sway the jury. But when the semen DNA was checked properly, it was beyond doubt that a match didn't exist. While most false matches are the result of human error, other factors do come into play. Some testing techniques are more definitive than others. In the case of one innocent man — Josiah Sutton, found guilty of rape based primarily on DNA evidence — criminology professor William C. Thompson said: "If police picked any two black men off the street, the chances that one of them would have a DNA profile that 'matched' the semen sample as well as Sutton's profile is better than one in eight." Also, we mustn't forget about corruption. In some known cases, DNA analysts have misrepresented (ie, lied about) their findings in order to obtain convictions.

2008-12-09T00:44:00.000-08:00

FOR LOW-RISK PEOPLE, A POSITIVE RESULT FROM AN HIV TEST IS WRONG HALF THE TIME

Although a lot of progress has been made in improving the length and quality of life for people with AIDS, getting a positive result from an HIV test must still rank as one of the worst pieces of news a person can get. It's not uncommon for people to kill themselves right after hearing the results, and those who don't commit suicide surely go through all kinds of mental anguish. But the accuracy of these tests is lower than generally believed. In fact, if you test positive but you're not a member of a high-risk group (such as non-monogamous gay men and intravenous drug users), the odds are 50-50 that you actually have the virus.

To be declared HIV-positive, your blood goes through three tests — two ELISA tests and one more sensitive and costly Western Blot test. Makers of the tests trumpet a 99.99 percent accuracy rate when all three are used. Many AIDS counselors even tell people that the tests never give a false positive (that is, the tests don't indicate that someone is HIV-positive when he or she really isn't). The test manufacturers' claim is misleading, and the counselors' claim is flat-out BS.

Cognitive scientist Gerd Gigerenzer — who specializes in risk and uncertainty — explains the reality in plain English:

Imagine 10,000 men who are not in any known risk category. One is infected (base rate) and will test positive with practical certainty (sensitivity). Of the 9,999 men who are not infected, another one will also test positive (false positive rate). So we can expect that two men will test positive.

Out of these two men, only one actually carries the virus. So, if you're a low-risk man who tests positive, the chances are even — the same as a coin flip — that the result is right. It's highly advisable that you take the tests again (and again). The results are even less reliable for women in low-risk groups, since they have a still lower rate of HIV. Of course, this doesn't apply to an HIV-negative result. If you test negative, the odds are overwhelmingly good (9,998 out of 9,999) that this is correct. It also doesn't hold for people in high-risk categories. For example, if we accept the estimate that 1.5 percent of gay men are HIVpositive, this means that out of every 10,000, an average of 150 are infected. An HIV test will almost surely pick up on all 150, and out of the remaining 9,850 uninfected men, one will incorrectly be labeled positive. This means that only one out of 151 gay men will be falsely diagnosed as having HIV. A false positive is thus still possible but much more unlikely.

2008-12-09T00:39:00.000-08:00

WORK KILLS MORE PEOPLE THAN WAR

The United Nations' International Labor Organization has revealed some horrifying stats:

The ILO estimates that approximately two million workers lose their lives annually due to occupational injuries and illnesses, with accidents causing at least 350,000 deaths a year. For every fatal accident, there are an estimated 1,000 non-fatal injuries, many of which result in lost earnings, permanent disability and poverty. The death toll at work, much of which is attributable to unsafe working practices, is the equivalent of 5,000 workers dying each day, three persons every minute. This is more than double the figure for deaths from warfare (650,000 death* per year). According to the ILO's SafeWork programme, work kills more people than alcohol and drugs together and the resulting loss in Gross Domestic Product is 20 times greater than all official development assistance to the developing countries.

Each year, 6,570 US workers die because of injuries at work, while 60,225 meet their maker due to occupational diseases. (Meanwhile, 13.2 million get hurt, and 1.1 million develop illnesses that don't kill them.) On an average day, two or three workers are fatally shot, two fall to their deaths, one is killed after being smashed by a vehicle, and one is electrocuted. Each year, around 30 workers die of heat stroke, and another 30 expire from carbon monoxide. Although blue collar workers face a lot of the most obvious dangers, those slaving in offices or stores must contend with toxic air, workplace violence, driving accidents, and (especially for the health-care workers) transmissible diseases. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration warns that poisonous indoor air in nonindustrial workplaces causes "[t]housands of heart disease deaths [and] hundreds of lung cancer deaths" each year. But hey, everybody has to go sometime, right? And since we spend so much of our lives in the workplace, it's only logical that a lot of deaths happen — or at least are set into motion — on the job. This explanation certainly is true to an extent, but it doesn't excuse all such deaths. The International Labor Organization says that half of workplace fatalities are avoidable. In A Job to

Die For, Lisa Cullen writes:

In the workplace, few real accidents occur because the surroundings and operations are known; therefore, hazards can be identified. When harm from those hazards can be foreseen, accidents can be prevented....

Most jobs have expected, known hazards. Working in and near excavations, for example, poses the obvious risks of death or injury from cave-in.... When trenches or excavations collapse because soil was piled right up to the edge, there is little room to claim it was an accident.

2008-11-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

Charas business in The “Land of The Gods” Himachal Pradesh, India

About Himachal

The Land of Himachal

Popularly known as the Devbhumi – "Land of the Gods", Himachal Pradesh is a beautiful hill state in northern India nestled in western Himalayas. The state is landlocked with the Tibetan plateau to the east, Jammu and Kashmir to the north, and the Punjab to the west. However the state stands apart from its neighbours in terms of its sheer topographic diversity and breathtaking pristine natural beauty. From vast tracts of high-altitude Trans-Himalayan desert to dense green deodar forests, from apple orchards to cultivated terraces, from snow capped high Himalayan mountain ranges to snow fed lakes and gushing rivers.

Brief Socio-Political History of the State

The earliest known inhabitants of the region were tribals called Dasas. Later, Aryans came and they assimilated in the tribes. In the later centuries, the hill chieftains accepted suzerainty of the Mauryan empire, the Kaushans, the Guptas and Kanuaj rulers. During the Mughal period, the Rajas of the hill states made some mutually agreed arrangements which governed their relations. In the 19th century, Ranjit Singh annexed/subjugated many of the states. When the British came, they defeated Gorkhas and entered into treaties with some Rajas and annexed the kingdoms of the others. The situation largely remained the same untill 1947. After Independence, 30 princely states of the area were united and Himachal Pradesh was formed on 15th April, 1948. On 1st November, 1966, certain areas belonging to Punjab were included in Himachal Pradesh. On 25th January, 1971, Himachal Pradesh was made a full-fledged State.

The State is bordered by Jammu & Kashmir on North, Punjab on West and South-West, Haryana on South, Uttar Pradesh on South-East and China on the East.

Himachal's illegal Charas farms

Kullu valley: CNN-IBN's Special Investigation Team brings you this first ever look at over 3,000 acres of Charas (Cannabis) fields that make Himachal Pradesh a key supplier of the drug to the world drug mafia.

Local drug dealers say that entire villages are employed in producing Charas - villages that don't even exist on the map!

These 'drug villages' are often given names that are the same as other villages so as to confuse the police.

CNN-IBN SIT: So you are saying where these fields are, there are villages as well?

Local drug dealer: Yes. Mallana has a village called Kutla. There is a new village called Kutla too.

The police on their part concede that these remote fields are hard to find. The fields are manned at a height where it's difficult for the enforcement agencies to operate and safe from the police, the local drug mafia is thriving.

And it's not just the locals who own fields. Even foreign drug dealers have their own illegal Charas fields. This was confirmed to the SIT by a local drug dealer.

CNN-IBN SIT: Do foreigners have fields up there?

Local drug dealer: Yes, they have their own fields and not one but tens of them. They have everything up there in their fields.

CNN-IBN SIT: Really? But how can foreigners buy land up there? They cannot buy land?

Local drug dealer: They come here every year, they pay a lot of money to the workers and so the owners of the field rent their fields out to foriegners.

CNN-IBN SIT: If I want to buy a field up there, how much should I pay?

Local drug dealer: For one acre that yields 40 kg, you pay Rs 10,000.

Filming undercover with drug tourists at a rave party, the SIT was even told that the police is hand in glove with them.

CNN-IBN SIT: Isn't there any police trouble?

Israeli tourist: No. The military police sometimes comes and burns one field. That doesn't matter for there are 20,000 fields out there. Malana produces 800 kg of Charas per season. Out of that, 80 kg comes to Israel.

Clearly the risk is worth the return. A gram of Charas worth Rs 25 in Kullu, fetches Rs 3,000 in Holland, which essentially means that the Hebrew and Italian signboards in Kullu are probably there to stay.

Sniffing danger on charas trail

Kullu valley: Over 3,000 acre of fertile land is being used to cultivate cannabis in the upper reaches of the Parvati Valley in Himachal Pradesh.

A CNN-IBN special investigation team went undercover to the valley and found that villages which don’t even exist on the map are controlled, to a large extent, by the foreign drug mafia.

It’s these cannabis – commonly known as charas - fields that make Himachal a key supplier of the drug to the world drug mafia.

Local drug dealers say that entire villages are employed in producing charas including villages that don't even exist on the map.

The villages in the drug are often given familiar names to confuse the police.

“Mallana has a village called Kutla, a lot of other villages are called Kutla,” says a middleman Sheru.

For people living in these unmapped villages on the fringes of the drug fields, rubbing charas for middlemen like Sheru is a way of life.

Apart from local villagers, the drug mafia also uses cheap Nepali labor to rub and process charas all day.

CNN-IBN: So you make it all day?

Nepali Labour: Yes.

CNN-IBN: How much do you get in a day?

Nepali Labour: Rs 120 per day.

CNN-IBN: So how much you make in a day.

Nepali Labour: Two tolas, 20 grams.

Posing as foreign drug dealers, the CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team filmed charas fields in the upper Parvati Valley, the police concede that these remote fields are hard to find.

These people are manning the fields at a height where it’s difficult for the enforcement agencies to operate. Safe from the police, the local drug mafia is thriving.

SIT: Charas trail in the Himachal

The Parvati Valley in Himachal Pradesh is called Lord Shiva's own country. It also may be called the charas smuggler’s paradise. CNN-IBN Correspondent Iram Mirza went on a trek through this beautiful valley and found charas farms, smugglers and a massive drugs racket.

Here is Mirza’s first person account.

My first step is to trace the charas hubs in the Parvati Valley. The first stop is a village called Tosh. I wire up a hidden camera and pose as an Australian tourist. I chat with fellow backpackers and soon one of them agrees to guide me to a village that supplies the best charas. Not a few posh restaurants or houses, but an entire village involved in the drug trade! Somewhere, up in the mountains.

We trek to our first destination, a remote village called Kutla, not far from Manikaran in the Parvati Valley. I am with an Israeli tourist who like many others is looking for quality charas. The police is rarely seen at Kutla, which makes it a favourite haunt for foreign drug tourists.

We soon make contact with Sheru, a local drug peddler, at a charas party. Sheru also arranges cheap labour for ‘rubbing’ charas leaves to get extract. We decided to tap Sheru for more critical information.

Mirza: So, there are no huge fields here?

Israeli: The fields are very far.

Sheru: Yeah, only mountain people go there

Mirza: Then how do they bring big quantities?

Israeli: Little, little (in small amounts).

The Village

Kutla looks like any other village. But inside, is a very different world. For those living in these unmapped villages, on the fringes of charas fields, rubbing charas is a way of life.

Sheru says foreign drug traffickers grow charas in Himachal. “Foreigners have fields up there. They have fields; they have tents, they have everything up there,” says Sheru.

Mirza: Really? But how can foreigners buy land up there? They cannot buy land.

Charas flowing freely in Himachal

Kullu Valley (Himachal Pradesh): Forest lands, which is known as wastelands, in Kullu Valley often used for Charas (Cannabis) cultivation. But on paper the land belongs to no one. So even the police find the fields, they don't have anyone to prosecute.

So who really grows Charas in Himachal’s Parvati Valley? According to intelligence report available with CNN-IBN’s Special Investigation Team, it's a foreign drug mafia, from Europe to Israel that now runs India's Charas trade by remote control.

Himachal Pradesh Narcotics Officer O P Sharma says, “Communication is so advanced, they are remote controlling it.”

They have taught the locals so their presence is not required on how to pack etc.

To find out how these deals are struck, CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team posed as foreign drug tourists and met one such local drug trafficker named Santosh.

Drug dealer Santosh: Tell her that she will not have any complaint about the maal (product).

Drug dealer Madan: You will not get any complaints about the maal.

The drug dealers showed the Charas samples to the Special Investigation Team and promised delivery anywhere in India or abroad.

Drug dealer Madan: Next time you want in Delhi, Goa or Mumbai, we will provide you there.

It was clear that local dealers had plenty of experience in striking deals.

Drug dealer Madan: Nobody will give you without advance here.

CNN-IBN SIT: I can show you the money if you want.

Drug dealer Sudesh: You want to pay some advance?

CNN-IBN SIT: I will pay the entire money after I see the entire stuff, that’s my only deal.

Finally, with the covert help of enforcement agencies, CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team showed the dealers Rs 18 lakh to strike a deal for 40 kilos of Charas.

Drug dealer Madan: Ok, we trust you and we will take the risk.

However, the drug dealers soon figured that they were dealing with journalists.

The Natural Gas is an Ancient Discovery

2008-10-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

The first discoveries of natural gas seeps were made in Iran between 6000 and 2000 bc. Many early writers described the natural petroleum seeps in the Middle East, especially in the Baku region of what is now Azerbaijan. The gas seeps, probably first ignited by lightning, provided the fuel for the “eternal fires” of the fire-worshiping religion of the ancient Persians.

However still the Natural gas is believed to have been first discovered and used by the Chinese, perhaps as early as 1000 B.C. Shallow stores of natural gas were released from just beneath the ground and piped short distances to be used as a fuel source. Natural gas provided a continuous source of energy for flames. These "eternal fires" were found in temples and also used as attractions for visitors.

Around 2300 years ago, when no one in Europe or the Middle East could melt even one ounce of iron the Chinese were casting multi-ton iron objects. It was not until the mid-1700's in Europe that such feats of metallurgy were achieved in Britain, the technically most advanced country of Europe. The early success in iron-casting in China was due to a superior form of bellows that delivered a continuous stream of air to a furnace instead of an interrupted stream as from the type of bellows used in the West. No one beforehand would have given much thought or attention to such a seemingly unimportant device as the Chinese bellows, but it turned out to be a crucial technological development.

In the search for salt wells the ancient Chinese developed a technology of driving bamboo poles deep into the earth. Depths up to a kilometer were achieved through this technique. In addition to brine this drilling also often tapped into reservoirs of natural gas. This natural gas was captured in barrels and used as fuel to evaporate the water from brine to produce salt.

The use of natural gas was mentioned in China about 900 bc. It was in China in 211 bc that the first known well was drilled for natural gas to reported depths of 150 metres (500 feet). The Chinese drilled their wells with bamboo poles and primitive percussion bits for the express purpose of searching for gas in Late Triassic limestones (more than 208,000,000 years old) in an anticline west of modern Chungking. The gas was burned to dry the rock salt found interbedded in the limestone. Eventually wells were drilled to depths approaching 1,000 metres, and more than 1,100 wells had been drilled into the anticline by 1900.

Natural gas was unknown in Europe until its discovery in England in 1659, and even then it did not come into wide use. Instead, gas obtained from carbonized coal (known as town gas) became the primary fuel for illuminating streets and houses throughout much of Europe from 1790 on.

One of the earliest attempts to harness it for economic use occurred in 1824 in Fredonia, New York and led to the formation of the first natural gas company in the United States, the Fredonia Gas Light Company, in 1859. Toward the latter part of the nineteenth century large industrial cities began to use natural gas. Pipelines were constructed to conduct the gas to these areas. Steady growth in the use of gas marked the early and mid-twentieth century. However, it was the shortages of crude oil in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s that forced major industrial nations to seek energy alternatives. Since those events, gas has become a central fossil fuel energy source

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS KILL OVER 100,000 ANNUALLY

2008-10-24T08:21:00.001-07:00

Even higher than the number of people who die from medication errors is the number of people who die from medication, period. Even when a prescription drug is dispensed properly, there's no guarantee it won't end up killing you. A remarkable study in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that

prescription drugs kill around 106,000 people in the US every year, which ranks prescription drugs as the fourth leading cause of death. Furthermore, each years sees 2,216,000 serious adverse drug reactions (defined as "those that required hospitalization, were permanently disabling, or resulted in death").

The authors of this 1998 study performed a meta-analysis on 39 previous studies covering 32 years. They factored out such things as medication errors, abuse of prescription drugs, and adverse reactions not considered serious. Plus, the study

involved only people who had either been hospitalized due to drug reactions or who experienced reactions while in the hospital. People who died immediately (and, thus, never went to the hospital) and those whose deaths weren't realized to be due to prescription drugs were not included, so the true figure is probably higher. Four years later, another study in the JAMA warned:

Patient exposure to new drugs with unknown toxic effects may be extensive. Nearly 20 million patients in the United States took at least 1 of the 5 drugs withdrawn from the market between September 1997 and September 1998. Three of these 5 drugs were new, having been on the market for less than 2 years. Seven drugs approved since 1993 and subsequently withdrawn from the market have been reported as possibly contributing to 1002 deaths.

Examining warnings added to drug labels through the years, the study's authors found that of the new chemical entities approved from 1975 to 1999, 10 percent "acquired a new black box warning or were withdrawn from the market" by 2000. Using some kind of high-falutin' statistical process, they estimate that the "probability of a new drug acquiring black box warnings or being withdrawn from the market over 25 years was 20%." A statement released by one of the study's coauthors — Sidney Wolfe, MD, Director of Public Citizen's Health Studies Group — warned:

In 1997, 39 new drugs were approved by the FDA. As of now [May 2002], five of them (Rezulin, Posicor, Duract, Raxar and Baycol) have been taken off the market and an additional two (Trovan, an antibiotic and Orgaran, an anticoagulant) have had new box warnings. Thus, seven drugs approved that year (18% of the 39 drugs approved) have already been withdrawn or had a black box warning in just four years after approval. Based on our study, 20% of drugs will be withdrawn or have a black box warning within 25 years of coming on the market. The drugs approved in 1997 have already almost "achieved" this in only four years — with 21 years to go.

How does this happen? Before the FDA approves a new drug, it must undergo clinical trials. These trials aren't performed by the FDA, though — they're done by the drug companies themselves. These trials often use relatively few patients, and they usually select patients most likely to react well to the drug. On top of that, the trials are often for a short period of time (weeks), even though real-world users may be on a drug for months or years at a time. Dr. Wolfe points out that even when adverse effects show up during clinical trials, the drugs are sometimes

released anyway, and they end up being taken off the market because of those same adverse effects. Postmarketing reporting of adverse effects isn't much better. The FDA runs a program to collect reports of problems with drugs, but compliance is voluntary. The generally accepted estimate in the medical community is that a scant 10 percent of individual instances of adverse effects are

reported to the FDA, which would mean that the problem is ten times worse than we currently believe. Drugs aren't released when they've been proven safe; they're released when enough FDA bureaucrats — many of whom have worked for the pharmaceutical companies or will work for them in the future — can be convinced that it's kinda safe. Basically, the use of prescription drugs by the general public can be seen as widespread, long-term clinical trials to determine their

true safety. We are all guinea pigs.

MEDICATION ERRORS KILL THOUSANDS EACH YEAR

2008-10-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

Next time you get a prescription filled, look at the label very carefully. Getting the wrong drug or the wrong dosage kills hundreds or thousands of people each year, with many times that number getting injured. Renegade health reporter Nicholas Regush — a self-imposed exile from ABC News — provides ii long list of specific problems:

Poor handwriting. Verbal orders. Ambiguous orders. Prescribing errors. Failure to write orders. Unapproved uses. When the order is not modified or cancelled. Look-alike and sound-alike drug names. Dangerous abbreviations. Faulty drug distribution systems in hospital. Failure to read the label or poor labeling. Lack of knowledge about drugs. Lack of knowledge concerning proper dose. Lack of knowledge concerning route of administration. Ad nauseam. After pouring over death certificates, sociology professor David Philips — an expert in mortality

statistics — determined that drug errors kill 7,000 people each year in the US. His study was published in The Lancet, probably the most prestigious medical journal in the world. The Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academies of Science, also estimated 7,000. Interestingly, the Food and Drug Administration published the lowball figure of 365 annually (one per day). But even the FDA admits that such bungling injures 1.3 million people each year. New York Newsday cited several specific cases, such as: "In 1995, a Texas doctor wrote an illegible prescription causing the patient to receive not only the wrong medication, but at eight times the drug's usually recommended strength. The patient, Ramon Vasquez, died. In 1999, a court ordered the doctor and pharmacy to pay the patient's family a total of $450,000, the largest amount ever awarded in an illegible prescription case." Besides doctors' indecipherable chicken scratch, similar-sounding drug names are another big culprit. Pharmaceutical companies have even started warning medical professionals to be careful with the cookie-cutter names of their products. In a typical example, Celebrex, Cerebyx, Celexa,

and Zyprexa sometimes get confused. (Respectively, they're used to treat arthritis, seizures, depression, and psychosis.) According to WebMD: "Bruce Lambert, an assistant professor of pharmacy administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says there are 100,000 potential pairings of drug names that could be confused."

MOST DOCTORS DON'T KNOW THE RADIATION LEVEL OF CAT SCANS

2008-10-24T07:05:00.000-07:00

Using extended doses of encircling X-rays, CAT scans give a detailed look inside your body, revealing not only bones but soft tissue and blood vessels, as well. According to the health site tumors, heart disease, osteoporosis, blood clots, spinal fractures, nerve damage, and lots of other problems. Because it can uncover so much, its use has become widespread and continues to rise. In fact, healthy people are getting scans just to see if anything might be wrong, kind of like a

routine check-up. The downside, and it's a doozy, is that a CAT scan jolts you with 100 to 250 times the dose of radiation that you get from a chest X-ray. What's even more alarming is that most doctors apparently don't know this. An emergency physician from the Yale School of Medicine surveyed 45 of his colleagues about the pros and cons of CAT scans. A mere nine of them said that they tell patients about the radiation. This might be just as well, in a weird way, since most of them had absolutely no clue about how much radiation CAT scans give off. When asked to compare the blast from a chest Xray to the blast from a CAT scan, only 22 percent of the docs got it right. As for the other threequarters,

The Medical Post relates:

Three of the doctors said the dose was either less than or equal to a chest X-ray.

Twenty (44%) of the doctors said the dose was greater than a chest X-ray, but less than 10 times the dose. Just over one-fifth of the doctors (22%) said the radiation dose from a CT was more than 10 times that of an X-ray but less than 100 times the dose.

Only ten of them knew that a single CAT scan equals 100 to 250 chest X-rays, while two thought that the scans were even worse than that. Feel free to give your doc a pop quiz during your next office visit.

HERDS OF MILK-PRODUCING COWS ARE RIFE WITH BOVINE LEUKEMIA

2008-10-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

Bovine leukemia virus is a cancer-causing microbe in cattle. Just how many cows have it? The US Department of Agriculture reports that nationwide, 89 percent of herds contain cows with BLV. The most infected region is the Southeast, where 99 percent of herds have the tumor-causing bug. In some herds across the country, almost every single animal is infected. A 1980 study across Canada uncovered a

lower but none-too-reassuring rate of 40 percent. BLV is transmitted through milk. Since the milk from all cows in a herd is mixed before processing, if even a single

cow is infected, all milk from that herd will have BLV swimming in it. Citing an article in Science, oncologist Robert Kradjian, MD, warns that 90 to 95 percent of milk starts out tainted. Of course, pasteurization — when done the right way — kills BLV, but the process isn't perfect. And if you drink raw milk, odds are you're gulping down bovine leukemia virus. Between dairy cows and their cousins that are used for meat (who tend to be infected at lower rates), it appears that a whole lot of BLV is getting inside us. A 2001 study in Breast Cancer Research detected antibodies to the bovine leukemia virus in blood samples from 77 out of 100

volunteers. Furthermore, BLV showed up more often in breast tissue from women with breast cancer than in the tissue from healthy women. Several medical studies have found positive correlations between higher intake of milk/beef and increased incidence of leukemia or lymphoma in humans, although other studies haven't found a correlation. No hard evidence has yet linked BLV to diseases in humans, but do you feel comfortable knowing that cow cancer cells are in your body?

SMOKING CAUSES PROBLEMS OTHER THAN LUNG CANCER AND HEART DISEASE

2008-10-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

The fact that smoking causes lung disease and oral cancer isn't exactly news, and only tobacco industry executives would express (feigned) shock at being told. But cigarettes can lead to a whole slew of problems involving every system of your tar-filled body, and most people aren'l aware of this. The American Council on Science and Health's book Cigarettes: What the Warning Label Doesn't Tell You is the first comprehensive look at the medical evidence of all types of harm triggered by smoking. Referencing over 450 articles from medical journals and reviewed by 45

experts — mainly medical doctors and PhDs — if this book doesn't convince you to quit, nothing will.

Among some of the things that cancer sticks do:

��Besides cancers of the head, neck, and lungs, ciggies are especially connected to cancers of the bladder, kidney, pancreas, and cervix. Newer evidence is adding leukemia and colorectal cancer to the list. Recent studies have also found at least a doubling of risk among smokers for cancers of the vulva and penis, as well as an eight-fold risk of anal cancer for men and a nine-fold risk for women.

��Smoking trashes the ability of blood to flow, which results in a sixteen-fold greater risk of peripheral vascular disease. This triggers pain in the legs and arms, which often leads to an inability to walk and, in some instances, gangrene and/or amputation. Seventy-six percent of all cases are caused by smoking, more than for any other factor, including diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure.

��Smokers are at least two to three times more likely to develop the heartbreak of psoriasis. Even if that doesn't happen, they'll look old before their time. The American Council tells us, "Smokers in their 40s have facial wrinkles similar to those of nonsmokers in their 60s."

��Smokers require more anesthesia for surgery, and they recover much more slowly. In fact, wounds of all kinds take longer to heal for smokers.

��Puffing helps to weaken bones, soft tissue, and spinal discs, causing all kinds of musculoskeletal pain, more broken bones and ruptured discs, and longer healing time. "A non-smoker's leg heals an average of 80 percent faster than a smoker's broken leg."

��Smoking is heavily related to osteoporosis, the loss of bone mass, which results in brittle bones and more breaks.

��Cigarettes interfere with your ability to have kids. "The fertility rates of women who smoke are about 30 percent lower than those of nonsmokers." If you're an idiot who continues to smoke while you're expecting — even in this day and age, some people, including stars Catherine Zeta Jones and Courtney Love, do this — you increase the risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth, low birth weight, underdevelopment, and cleft pallet. If your child is able to survive outside the womb, it will have a heavily elevated risk of crib death (SIDS), allergies, and

intellectual impairment.

��Smoking also does a serious number on sperm, resulting in more deformed cells, less ability of them to swim, smaller loads, and a drastic decrease in overall number of the little fellas. The larger population of misshapen sperm probably increases the risk of miscarriages and birth defects, so even if mommy doesn't smoke, daddy could still cause problems. What's more, because smoking hurts blood flow, male smokers are at least twice as likely to be unable to get it up.

��Besides shutting down blood flow to the little head, smoking interferes with the blood going to the big head in both sexes. This causes one quarter of all strokes. It also makes these strokes more likely to occur earlier in life and more likely to be fatal.

��"Depression — whether viewed as a trait, a symptom or a diagnosable disorder — is overrepresented among smokers." Unfortunately, it's unclear how the two are related. Does smoking cause depression, or does depression lead to smoking? Or, most likely, do the two feed on each other in a vicious cycle?

��"Smokers experience sudden hearing loss an average of 16 years earlier than do never smokers."

��Smokers and former smokers have an increased risk of developing cataracts, abnormal eye movements, inflammation of the optic nerve, permanent blindness from lack of blood flow, and the most severe form of macular degeneration.

��Lighting up increases plaque, gum disease, and tooth loss.

��It also makes it likelier that you'll develop diabetes, stomach ulcers, colon polyps, and Crohn's disease.

��Smoking trashes the immune system in myriad ways, with the overall result being that you're more susceptible to disease and allergies.

��And let's not forget that second-hand smoke has horrible effects on the estimated 42 percent of toddlers and infants who are forced to inhale it in their homes:

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), children's "passive smoking," as it is called, results in hundreds of thousands of cases of bronchitis, pneumonia, ear infections, and worsened asthma. Worse yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 702 children younger than one year die each year as a result of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), worsened asthma and serious respiratory infections.

IIt's very surprising to note that smoking can have a few health benefits. Because they zap women's estrogen levels, cigarettes can lead to less endometriosis and other conditions related to the hormone. Smoking also decreases the risk of developing osteoarthritis in the knees, perhaps because the pliability of thin bones takes some pressure off of the cartilage. And because it jacks up dopamine levels, it helps ward off Parkinson's disease. Of course, these benefits seem to be side effects of the hazards of smoking, so the trade-off hardly seems worth it.

GENETICALLY-ENGINEERED HUMANS HAVE ALREADY BEEN BORN

2008-10-19T07:25:00.000-07:00

The earthshaking news appeared in the medical journal Human Reproduction under the impenetrable headline: "Mitochondria in Human Offspring Derived From Ooplasmic Transplantation." The media put the story in heavy rotation for one day, then forgot about it. We all forgot about it. But the fact remains that the world is now populated by dozens of children who were genetically engineered. It still sounds like science fiction, yet it's true. In the first known application of germline gene therapy — in which an individual's genes are changed in a way that can be passed to offspring — doctors at a reproductive facility in New Jersey announced in March 2001 that nearly 30 healthy babies had been born with DNA from three people: dad, mom, and a second woman. Fifteen were the product of the fertility clinic, with the other fifteen or so coming from elsewhere. The doctors believe that one cause for failure of women to conceive is that their ova contain old mitochondria (if you don't remember your high school biology class, mitochondria are the part of cells that provides energy). These sluggish eggs fail to attach to the uterine wall when fertilized. In order to soup them up, scientists injected them with mitochondria from a younger woman. Since mitochondria contain DNA, the kids have the genetic material of all three parties. The DNA from the "other woman" can even be passed down along the female line. The big problem is that no one knows what effects this will have on the children or their

progeny. In fact, this substitution of mitochondria hasn't been studied extensively on animals, never mind homo sapiens. The doctors reported that the kids are healthy, but they neglected to mention something crucial. Although the fertility clinic's technique resulted in fifteen babies, a total of seventeen fetuses had been created. One of them had been aborted, and the other miscarried. Why? Both of them had a rare genetic disorder, Turner syndrome, which only strikes females. Ordinarily, just one in 2,500 females is born with this condition, in which one of the X chromo-somes is incomplete or totally missing. Yet two out of these seventeen fetuses had developed it. If we assume that nine of the fetuses were female (around 50 percent), then two of the nine female fetuses had this rare condition. Internal documents from the fertility clinic admit that this amazingly high rate might be due to the ooplasmic transfer. Even before the revelation about Turner syndrome became known, many experts were appalled that the technique had been used. A responding article in Human Reproduction said, in a dry understatement: "Neither the safety nor efficacy of this method has been adequately investigated." Ruth Deech, chair of Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, told the BBC: "There is a risk, not just to the baby, but to future generations which we really can't assess at the moment." The number of children who have been born as a result of this technique is unknown. The

original article gave the number as "nearly thirty," but this was in early 2001. At that time, at least two of the mutant children were already one year old.

Dr. Joseph Cummin, professor emeritus of biology at the University of Western Ontario, says that no further information about these 30 children has appeared in the medical literature or the media. As far as additional children born with two mommies and a daddy, Cummin says that a report out of Norway in 2003 indicated that ooplasmic transfer has been used to correct mitochondrial disease. He opines: "It seems likely that the transplants are going on, but very, very quietly in a regulatory vacuum, perhaps."

Charlie Chaplin had 4 wives, 11 children and he married 18 year old Oona when he was 54

2008-10-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

Mildred Harris Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin thought seriously of marrying Edna Purviance, but instead he ended up marrying his first wife with almost no thinking at all.

Chaplin was at a party early in 1918 when he met Mildred Harris. Mildred was a child star from the age of 10 and was 16 when she met Chaplin. The young, single and successful Chaplin was a fine catch for any rising starlet.

Mildred made herself noticed by Chaplin, and Charlie couldn't overlook her beauty. They dated for several months and rumors of a marriage hit the local press during that summer. Denials were issued, but they did marry quietly on October 23, 1918. Mildred told Chaplin she was pregnant, but she really wasn't. But Mildred still would have Charlie's first child.

Being Mrs. Chaplin did create new film contracts for Mildred. For Chaplin, it affected his work. During the filming of Sunnyside, he suffered the most delays ever in finishing a film. He had problems fitting in his new married life, and Mildred had problems with Chaplin's 'single-mindedness' with his work.

Charlie and Mildred had one son, Norman Spencer Chaplin. Norman was born July 7, 1919, but the child died three days later.

The marriage died soon afterwards.

It is written that Norman’s death was one of the seeds that started Chaplin’s interest in creating ‘The Kid’ with Jackie Coogan.

It was during the production of 'The Kid' that Mildred's and Charlie's marriage fell apart. The couple divorced on November 13, 1920, just before ‘The Kid’ was released in early February 1921.

Harris would continue in the entertainment business for several more years, but drinking affected her health and her life was not a good one in her later years. She died on July 20, 1944.

It was at a club one night Mildred would meet Charlie's second wife...

Lillita McMurray

Riesners and McMurrays were neighbors. In Lita's book, Chaplin took an interest in Miss Lita during the making of this film. He ordered an artist friend to paint a portrait of Lita.

In 1924, Lita caught Chaplin’s eye once again during the preparation of ‘The Gold Rush'. Lita invited her friend, Merna Kennedy, the future leading lady of the 'The Circus', to visit Chaplin's Studios. (Merna got 'The Circus' job through Lita suggesting her for the role.)

Chaplin was in the middle of a search for a new leading lady to replace Edna Purviance. Upon seeing Lita again, Lita's appearance fit perfectly Chaplin's vision for the dance hall girl in his new film. Lillita McMurray signed with Chaplin in March of 1924 and given her new stage name Lita Grey.

Lita filmed several scenes in ‘The Gold Rush’ and even traveled with the cast to Truckee, California for location shooting for the film. While only a few scenes were ever used in the film from that spring trip, Charlie's interest in Lita was sparked. A romance developed that summer, which led to marriage in Mexico on November 26, 1924. But this marriage was hastily arranged. Lita was pregnant. Once again, Chaplin trapped himself into a second marriage. The press was more invasive into his private life by 1924, and Charlie was getting older too. Lita was 16 and Charlie was 36.

Lita was dropped as the leading lady in ‘The Gold Rush', because she was pregnant. Georgia Hale got the role instead and gained the distinction of being the first leading lady to replace Edna Purviance.

Charlie and Lita had two children during the marriage, Charles Chaplin Jr. on May 5, 1925 and Sydney Chaplin on March 30, 1926. But the marriage was doomed to fail from the start.

In late November of 1926, the already rocky marriage foundered and turned into a long, nasty public divorce for both Lita and Charlie. The divorce left many scars on both sides that never healed. Chaplin was still so emotional about the whole matter, he couldn't even write about it in his own book in 1964, except for a very brief mention. The main reason for the silence was in respect to his sons.

After the divorce, the couple managed to successfully raise their sons separately.

Lita would have many tough years after the divorce. At her lowest ebb, Charlie helped her by talking to her and instilling a belief to carry on, as she noted in her first book.

She recovered and managed to start a successful talent agency in her later years. She wrote two books about her life with Chaplin. The first one was ‘My Life with Charlie Chaplin’ in 1966, and the second one ‘Wife of the Life of the Party’ published in 1998.

As for their children, Charlie Jr. played with his father in the film ‘Limelight’ as one of the clowns in the ballet scene. He wrote his own book on living with his father called ‘My Father, Charlie Chaplin' in 1960. Charlie Jr. died on March 20, 1968.

Named after his uncle, Charlie's son Sydney played a lead role in ‘Limelight’ as Neville the composer. Sydney would also play in the film ‘A Countess From Hong Kong’ as Harvey Crothers. Sydney Chaplin still lives in California. He attends special festival events in honor of his father and can be seen in documentaries like ‘The Unknown Chaplin - The Great Director'. Lita Grey Chaplin died in 1995 at the age of 87. She lived the longest of Chaplin's wives and can be seen in interviews like 'Unknown Chaplin' series and the new Chaplin DVD collection featuring 'The Gold Rush'.

Chaplin marriage to Lita was his second failed marriage, but Chaplin's next marriage would be to a girl even Lita Grey Chaplin approved of and was grateful Charlie had met...

Paulette Goddard (Chaplin)
Pauline Levy, better known as Paulette Goddard, met Charlie Chaplin soon after he returned from his World Tour in 1931-32. Paulette, a divorceé in her early 20's, would be the oldest of his wives and the only divorceé. Paulette was doing bit work in films when she met Charlie at a party given by a friend of Chaplin's.

A nearly instant friendship once again developed into a romance. Charlie bought a yacht during this period, and the couple would entertain friends on cruises often on weekends and holidays.

It was during this time Charlie started work on 'Modern Times'. His director's eye could see Paulette as his perfect gamine in his new film. 'Modern Times' would become her first major film role and made her a star.

After the release of 'Modern Times' the couple traveled to the Orient. It was during this trip the couple got married, at least that is what they said.

There has always been some question to whether Charlie and Paulette were ever really married. The couple reported being married during their Orient trip, but apparently official papers of the marriage have never been seen.

The fact is, this was a happy union during the early part of their relationship in the 1930's. It was even reported that Lita Grey Chaplin herself was very pleased to see Paulette in Charlie’s life. Paulette became stepmother to Sydney and Charlie Jr., and she was the perfect one for that time! (Lita and Paulette met once at a birthday party and reportly got along fine.) Charlie Jr. and Sydney adored their step-mother. She was around when Charlie was not, as he was working late at his studio.

During their marriage, Paulette's success in 'Modern Times' led to other film roles during the 1930's, including 'The Women' . She even was in the running for the role of Scarlet O'Hara, in 'Gone With the Wind', but the marriage question haunted her in getting the role. (Paulette's Scarlet film test can still be seen in programs about 'Gone With the Wind' ). Vivien Leigh won that role instead.

Paulette's last film with Charlie was ‘The Great Dictator’ in 1940. It was during the filming that friends around the couple could see the relationship was failing. While this marriage lasted longer than Chaplin’s first two marriages, it would not be a lasting one either.

There are reports of Chaplin trying to save the marriage, and he even introduced Paulette as his wife at a New York City speaking event. This was reportly the first time Chaplin publicly referred to Paulette as his wife. Shortly afterwards, Paulette answered questions in the press saying they were indeed Charlie Chaplin's wife. Not for much longer, however.

Paulette received her divorce from Chaplin on June 4, 1942 in Mexico. Paulette would continue in films well into the 60's. For a brief time, she even married Burgess Meredith.

Paulette and Charlie remained distant friends over the years, but rarely saw each other. She even married and ended up living in Switzerland, but never met Chaplin while living there. But like in all the other cases, each succeeding wife would meet the previous. She did meet Charlie and Oona by chance in Paris and they had a pleasant lunch together. The last time she would see Chaplin, apparently, was in New York in 1972. Charlie and Oona were in America for the last time, since 1952, for Chaplin to receive his special Oscar award. She manage to push her way through a crowd to talk to him for a few minute, but their time was short.

Paulette Goddard died on April 23, 1990, at the age of 75. Of all his wives, she had the most successful film career and was remembered for her work, and maybe more so than being Mrs. Charles Chaplin.

Paulette in the end, wanted a career, Chaplin wanted a wife. He would find that wife while looking for yet another leading lady to replace Paulette...

Oona (O’Neill) Chaplin
Oona O' Neill was looking for a change in her life. At about the age of 17, she made a trip from New York to Califorina in 1942 to see her father and to try her luck in Hollywood.

Oona's visit with her father who was the famous playwright Eugene O’Neill did not go well. The relationship was a poor one from the beginning. Her film career did not develop either. Instead, she would make headlines in becoming the fourth wife of Charlie Chaplin.

Many people had this marriage written off before it even started, but they did not know Oona O' Neill.

The couple met in the fall of 1942. Chaplin was looking for an new leading lady for his latest film 'Shadow and Substance'. A talent agent who knew Chaplin introduced the couple at a private dinner. Chaplin thinking Oona too young for the part didn't engage her at first, but Oona showed interest instead and even showed up at the studio one day asking for Mr. Chaplin.

Chaplin signed up Oona and for the next few months she was involved in acting lessons for the part. But instead of acting, a romance developed. Chaplin was reportedly shy about involving himself with yet another young girl, but it was Oona who really showed a deep feeling for him that made him at ease with the decision.

Chaplin placed the film project on the shelf and planned for a quiet wedding instead. On June 16, 1943, the couple married in Santa Barbara, California. And this time the age difference did turn heads. Oona was 18 and Charlie 54. Even with the age difference, the couple had a special bond that would last a lifetime.

The couple spent a great deal of time together. Even Charlie's sons were very taken by their new step-mother. She may have been 18, but she was very mature for her age and had a calmness about her that aided her in this new married life.

The couple would go through some of the most troubled times Chaplin experienced in the States. The Joan Berry lawsuit, the public's dislike for the new directions of his films, and Chaplin's left-leaning politics were all haunting him publicly. In contrast, his private life could not have been better.

'Limelight' in 1952 became a family affair for Charlie, as his oldest and youngest children were all in the film, including his half-brother, Wheeler Dryden as the doctor. It is even reported that Oona appeared briefly, doubling for Clarie Bloom in a scene that needed to be taken after the production had wrapped.

With the film done, Chaplin decided to premiere 'Limelight' in London and show 'his London' to his wife and young family for the first time. Chaplin got all the proper papers he needed to go on the trip and the government officials wished them a great journey!

In September, 1952, Charlie, Oona, and the three children left New York for London. But two days out to sea, the news arrived on ship that Chaplin was being denied re-entry to the United States.

Ready to fight the US government decision, according to 1952 New York Times reports, the family lived in hotels and stayed with friends for the rest of 1952. But Chaplin had enough with court battles and chose instead to buy a lake side home in Switerland in January 1953. Oona especially wanted to be settled for the birth of their fourth child.

For the next few months, life was very quiet at home for the Chaplin family. Charlie made have not been the perfect father at times, but he provided for all his children well. To be fair, it must have been hard to be a father during the 1950's, 60's and 70's, when you were born in 1889. And it must have been hard for the children as well.

During Chaplin's life he had 11 children born between 1919 to his youngest in 1962. Two died during his lifetime. Most of his children grew up during the 50's and 60's.

To his kids, he was Dad, but to the world he was still 'The Little Tramp'. This silent-era film figure was a bit too distant for the children, and Charlie did not talk much about his early film days to his children. Maybe it was losing that life, the way he did, was just too hurtful to relive.

Many famous people would visit their home over the years, a real who's who. But even in Switzerland, business still had to be settled with their Hollywood home and studio property. For this Oona was a great help, and we have her to thank for helping save Chaplin's lifetime of film work.

On her solo trip back to America, Oona closed up their Hollywood home and the Chaplin Studios. All his lifetime work at the studio was packed up and shipped to their Switzerland home, with the help of the Chaplin Studio employees, who were still working for him. Their Hollywood home was sold with their belongs either kept and shipped or disposed. Oona made it through the trip with no officials questioning her, even after finding out others were being questioned by the FBI, including former Chaplin's wife, Lita Grey Chaplin, who proudly had nothing to say to them. Chaplin was a nervous wreck throughout the whole ordeal and was very happy to see Oona's return and his work saved.

Charlie created a special film vault at their Switzerland home to store all his valuable film stock. This vault is the main source for all of Chaplin's copyrighted films we enjoy so much today.

Later, Oona even gave up her American citizenship. She had few ties to the States, but would return to help her family when needed. She had her mother and brother with whom she kept in contact.

As for Charlie, he would only return once to the States in 1972 to receive his special Academy Award Oscar with Oona at his side all the way. All the people who worked with Chaplin showed up in either New York or Los Angeles to see him, including his former co-stars Jackie Coogan, Clarie Bloom and Georgia Hale. Edna Purviance would have been there too, if she were alive. (She had died 24 years earlier in 1958.)

When he received the Oscar that night, he had Oona by his side, like she was from the start of their marriage. He pointed at her in gesture that it was Oona that made it possible for him to be there on that night. Oona gave him strenght, where his was failing.

The U.S. trip was a very emotional trip for both. So emotional for Chaplin, he couldn't bear to walk on his old Chaplin Film Studio grounds again. He went to the studio on a Sunday and stopped by the original gate entry. He looked in from the gates, but the menories must have been many. All his wives and his first close love, Edna, were all there in the 34 years he worked there, but that time was gone. All that was left was the building and menories he created on film.

That was the last time Chaplin saw his studio.

Chaplin gained new energy from this American travels and went back to Switzerland where he created his second book 'My Life in Pictures'. He was able to talk about his second marriage more in this book, but mainly in pictures.

Oona was there in London to see him receive his English knighthood in 1975. A great honor! But his old energy was gone. He asked not be photographed while struggling to enter his car. The man who once could move with great ease, was no more.

In 1976, he restored the last of his classics and one of his favorite films 'A Woman of Paris'. It was Edna Purviance's first starring role. Chaplin and Edna got great reviews, but in the end, it was the little fellow people wanted to see, not the great director. He created a music score for it too, like all his other classics. His health was failing a great deal by this time, and the music does show it, for it does not have the same voice as his earlier work.

As always, Oona was never far away. Sitting in a corner knitting she would be asked by Charlie about this scene or that. She became his personal advisor, and he always listened. Charlie would even look for her, even if she left the room for even a short while. She was his energy, his youth. She was everything he wanted in a wife, and more. It has been said, that Oona would laugh loudly at his jokes, whether she heard it before, or not. If he was looking to find his first love he lost with Hetty Ketty, he found her in Oona.

His last year with Oona was as quiet as the first months in Switzerland. He would watch films, take drives, do walks, see visitors and attend family outings. But by November 1977, Chaplin stayed home for good. Oona worked hard on caring for him, until her health was called into question by their own children.

But the end was nearing for 'the little fellow'.

It is rather irony that Chaplin would die in the early morning hours of the one holiday that was the saddest from his childhood. During the annual family holiday gathering in 1977, Charlie died on Christmas Day.

In Los Angeles, flowers were left at the gates of the former Chaplin Film Studios and even on Chaplin's mother's gravesite. (Charlie's mother lived her last years in the 1920's in a house Chaplin brought for her in the Los Angeles area.)

Oona never got over the death of Charlie. She tried to start a new life and even lived in New York City for a while. But her whole life centered around Charlie, and life without him just didn't seem possible for her. Living with Charlie was never easy for Oona, but living without him was agonizing. If there was one fault in the marriage, it maybe that Oona didn't develop more of her own personally outside of the marriage. If she had, maybe she would still be with us and her children today.

Oona died from cancer on September 27, 1991. It was just before the release of the film ‘Chaplin’ for which she gave permission to use Charlie's book as source material for the film.

The couple had eight children: Geraldine, Eugene, Victoria, Annette, Josephine, Michael, Jane and Christopher Chaplin. While all the children went on to lead successful lives of their own, to most people, Geraldine Chaplin is the best known in the acting world. Her first major role was in 'Dr. Zhivago'. She even got to play her own grandmother (Charlie's mother, Hannah) in 1991 movie 'Chaplin'.

The Chaplin family is currently creating a lasting tribute to their parents by turning the family home in Switzerland into the Chaplin Heritage Center . (The final name of the center is still being decided.) They plan to have it open to the public in the future.

After three marriages that didn't work out, Charlie's final marriage realized his ideal girl and love of his life in Oona O'Neill. While Edna was Chaplin's ideal girl on the silver screen, it was Oona who became his ideal girl in real life.

And it will always be Oona Chaplin who will always be remembered as Mrs. Charles Chaplin.

LOUIS PASTEUR SUPPRESSED EXPERIMENTS THAT DIDN'T SUPPORT HIS THEORIES

2008-10-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest scientific duels in history occurred between those who believed that microorganisms spontaneously generate in decaying organic matter and those who believed that the tiny creatures migrated there from the open air. From the late 1850s to the late 1870s, the eminent French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur was locked in a death-match with opponents of spontaneous generation, especially Felix Pouchet. The two camps performed experiments one after f the other, both to prove their pet theory and to prove the opponent's. As we know, Pasteur won the debate: The fact that microbes travel through the air is now accepted as a given, with s spontaneous generation relegated to the slagheap of quaint, discarded scientific ideas. But Pasteur didn't win fair and square. It turns out that some of Pasteur's experiments gave strong support to the notion that rotting organic matter produces life. Of course, years later those experiments were realized have been flawed, but at the time they buttressed the position of Pasteur's enemies. So he kept them secret. In his myth-busting book Einstein's Luck, medical and scientific historian John Waller writes:

"In fact, throughout his feud with Pouchet, Pasteur described in his notebooks as 'successful' any experiment that seemed to disprove spontaneous generation and 'unsuccessful' any that violated his own private beliefs and experimental expectations." When Pasteur's rivals performed experiments that supported their theory, Pasteur would not publicly replicate those studies. In one case, he simply refused to perform the experiment or even discuss it. In another, he hemmed and hawed so long that his rival gave up in exas-peration. Waller notes: "Revealingly, although Pasteur publicly ascribed Bastian's results to sloppy methodology, in private he and his team took them rather more seriously. As Gerald Geison's

study of Pasteur's notebooks has recently revealed, Pasteur's team spent several weeks secretly testing Bastian's findings and refining their own ideas on the distribution of germs in the environment." Pasteur would rail at his rivals and even his mentor when he thought they weren't scrupulously following the scientific method, yet he had no qualms about trashing it when doing so suited his aims. Luckily for him, he was on the right side of the debate. And just why was he so cocksure that spontaneous generation was wrong? It had nothing to do with science. "In his notes he repeatedly insisted that only the Creator-God had ever exercised the power to convert the inanimate into the living," writes Waller. "The possibility that life could be created anew without man first discovering the secrets of the Creator was rejected without any attempt at scientific justification."

MOST SCIENTISTS DON'T READ ALL OF THE ARTICLES THEY CITE

2008-10-19T03:54:00.000-07:00

Every scientific discovery builds on what came before. Because of this, research papers are chock-full of references to previous papers, leading you to believe that those older studies actually have been read and digested and are now being expanded upon. After noticing that a lot of citations with identical mistakes were showing up in various papers, two researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, set out to study the problem. They looked at the way well-known, heavily-cited papers had been referenced in subsequent papers. Regarding an influential paper on crystals published in 1973, New Scientist explains:

They found it had been cited in other papers 4300 times, with 196 citations containing misprints in the volume, page or year. But despite the fact that a billion different versions of erroneous reference are possible, they counted only 45. The most popular mistake appeared 78 times.

Obviously, these pursuers of scientific truths hadn't actually read the original paper, but had just clipped the reference from another paper, a trick they probably learned in college and never stopped using. Of course, some of the scientists who got the citation right hadn't read the paper, either. In the final analysis:

The model shows that the distribution of misprinted citations of the 1973 paper could only have arisen if 78 percent of all the citations, including the correct ones, were "cut and pasted" from a secondary source. Many of those who got it right were simply lucky.

THE AGE OF CONSENT IN MOST OF THE US IS NOT EIGHTEEN

2008-10-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

The accepted wisdom tells us that the age at which a person can legally consent to sex in the US is eighteen. Before this line of demarcation, a person is "jailbait" or "chicken." On their eighteenth birthday, they become "legal." But in the majority of states, this isn't the case. It's up to each state to determine its own age of consent. Only fifteen states have put theirs at eighteen, with the rest going lower. Eight have set the magic point at the seventeenth birthday. The most popular age is sixteen, with 27 states and Washington DC setting the ability to sexually

consent there. (Hawaii's age of consent had been fourteen until mid-2001, when it was bumped to sixteen.) Of course, as with anything regarding the law, there are considerable shades of gray. For one thing, these laws don't apply if the lovers are married. The age of consent for marriage, especially with parental permission, is usually lower than the age of sexual consent. The Constitution of the State of South Carolina says that females aged fourteen and up can consent to sex, but state law appears to set the age at sixteen. In a lot of states, the age of the older partner is a consideration. For example, Tennessee doesn't consider sex with someone aged thirteen to seventeen to be statutory rape if the elder partner in

less than four years older. So a nineteen-year-old could get it on with a sixteen-year-old without breaking the law. The most extreme example of this rule is in Delaware. If you're 30 or older, boffing a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old is a felony. But if you're 29 or younger, it's perfectly legal. And let's not even get into Georgia's Public Law 16-6-18, which outlaws sex between anyone who isn't married, no matter what their ages or genders. Then, of course, we have the laws regarding same-sex relations, which are completely illegal in fifteen or so states. In almost all of the others states, the age of consent for gay sex is the same as

that for het-sex. Two exceptions are Nevada and New Hampshire, which both allow sixteen year- olds to consent to a member of the opposite sex, but set the limit at eighteen for those who go the other way. Somewhat startlingly, even though New Mexico's age of consent for straights is seventeen, it's thirteen for gays and lesbians. The situation around the world varies even more than within the US. The age of consent in the UK is sixteen, except in Northern Ireland, where it's a year older. Various territories in Australia set the age at sixteen or seventeen, and in Canada it's universally fourteen. The lowest age — in a few countries, such as Chile and Mexico — is twelve. Only one country is known to have set the age above eighteen — Tunisia, which feels that twenty is the acceptable age.

ELECTRIC CARS HAVE BEEN AROUND SINCE THE 1880s

2008-10-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

The car of the future runs completely on electricity. No more dependence on gas. No more choking the atmosphere with fumes. Whenever the possibility of electric cars is raised, the media and other commentators ooh and ahh over the potential. But this technology isn't futuristic — it's positively retro. Cars powered by electricity have been on the scene since the 1800s and actually predate gas-powered cars. A blacksmith in Vermont — Thomas Davenport — built the first rotary electric motor in 1833 and it to power a model train the next year. In the late 1830s, Scottish inventor Robert Davidson rigged a carriage with an electric motor powered by batteries. In his Pulitzer-nominated book Taking Charge, archaeology professor and technology historian Michael Brian Schiffer writes

that this "was perhaps the first electric car." After this remarkable achievement, the idea of an electric car languished for decades. In 1881, a French experi-menter debuted a personal vehicle that ran on electricity, a tricycle (ie, three wheels

and a seat) for adults. In 1888, many inventors in the US, Britain, and Europe started creating threeand four-wheel vehicles — which could carry two

to six people — that ran on electricity. These vehicles remained principally curios-ities until May 1897, when the Pope Manufacturing Company — the country's most successful bicycle manufacturer — started selling the first commercial electric car: the Columbia Electric Phaeton, Mark III. It topped out at fifteen miles

per hour, and had to be recharged every 30 miles. Within two years, people could choose from an array of electrical carriages, buggies, wagons, trucks, bicycles, tricycles, even buses and ambulances made by numerous manufacturers.

New York City was home to a fleet of electric taxi cabs starting in 1897. The Electric Vehicle Company eventually had over 100 of them ferrying people around the Big Apple. Soon it was unleashing electric taxis in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington DC. By 1900, though, the company was in trouble, and seven years later it sputtered out. As for cars powered by dead dinosaurs, Austrian engineer Siegfried Marcus attached a one cylinder motor to a cart in 1864, driving it 500 feet and thus creating the first vehicle powered by gas (this was around 25 years after Davidson had created the first electro-car). It wasn't until 1895 that gas autos — converted carriages with a two-cylinder engine — were commercially

sold (and then only in microscopic numbers). Around the turn of the century, the average car buyer had a big choice to make: gas, electric, or steam? When the auto industry took form around 1895, nobody knew which type of vehicle was

going to become the standard. During the last few years of the nineteenth century and the first few of the twentieth, over 100 companies placed their bets on electricity. According to Schiffer, "Twenty-eight percent of the 4,192 American automobiles produced in 1900 were electric. In the New York automobile show of that year more electrics were on display than gasoline or steam vehicles."

In the middle of the first decade of the 1900s, electric cars were on the decline, and their gaseating cousins were surging ahead. With improvements in the cars and their batteries, though, electrics started a comeback in 1907, which continued through 1913. The downhill slide started the next year, and by the 1920s the market for electrics was "minuscule," to use Schiffer's word. Things never got better. Many companies tried to combine the best of both approaches, with cars that ran on a mix of electricity and gas. The Pope Manufacturing Company, once again in the vanguard, built a working prototype in 1898. A Belgian company and a French company each brought out commercial models the next year, beating the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight to the market by over a century. Even Ferdinand Porsche and the Mercedes Company got in on the act. Unfortunately, these hybrids never really caught on. Didik Design — which manufactures several vehicles which run on various combinations off electricity, solar power, and human power — maintains an extensive archive on the history of electric and electro-fuel cars. According to their research, around 200 companies and individuals have manufactured electric cars. Only a few familiar names are on the list (although some of them aren't familiar as car manufacturers): Studebaker (1952-1966), General Electric (1901- 1904), Braun (1977), Sears, Roebuck, and Company (1978), and Oldsmobile (1896 to the present). The vast majority have long been forgotten: Elecctra, Pfluger, Buffalo Automobile Company, Hercules, Red Bug, and Nu-Klea Starlite, to name a few. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison teamed up on an electric car, but, although some prototypes were built, it never was commercially produced. Though they have faded from mass cultural memory, electric cars have

never been completely out of production. The reasons why electrics faded into obscurity while gas cars and trucks became 99.999 percent dominant are complex and are still being debated. If only they hadn't been sidelined and had continued to develop apace, the world would be a very different place.