Agent Orange the shameful legacy

Between Washington and Hanoi the issue of lingering impacts of dioxin contained in the Agent Orange has been a thorn in otherwise friendly ties in recent years.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

In 1994 USA lifts its embargo on Vietnam; in 1995 the two countries normalize political relations; in 2001 they sign a Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA); in January 11th, 2007, Vietnam formally become the 150th member of the World Trade Organization (WTO); in June 2007 another USA-Vietnam bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) is signed as an initial step toward developing a full-scale bilateral free trade agreement; also in 2007 president Triết and President Bush meet and agree that they would try to work together on environmental remediation; the same year the American congress vote a budget line to help Vietnam on this issue; in December 30th, 2010, at Da Nang Airport site, the governments of Vietnam and the United States sign a memorandum of intent (MOI) paving the way for cleanup of dioxin at Danang Airport.

So the two countries have been able to move closer to each other and improve their relations leading at the end of the day Vietnam and USA to tighten their partnership in part because Vietnam did not ask at the time and to date for any direct financial compensation for the Orange Agent issue nor intended any lawsuit in national or international court. As a result the economical improvements consisted in “US investments in the country and lowering of the average tariff on U.S. imports from Vietnam from an average of 40 percent to 4 percent, essentially opening the vast U.S. market to Vietnamese exporters literally overnight”. Consequently “the United States has become Vietnam’s largest market for exports and one of Vietnam’s largest suppliers of investment, while Vietnam has become one of the fastest-growing markets for U.S. exports” end of quotation. Beside, and on another level, Hanoi and Washington have also cooperated in fighting HIV/AIDS and avian flu. And finally as argue the US ambassador Michael Michalak: “The United States and Vietnam have achieved a level of cooperation that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago” and he notes that the dioxin cleanup in Danang is “an excellent example of our ability to work together constructively to resolve war legacy issues and to build a partnership that continues to grow stronger.” The US Ambassador says also in December 2010 that “the U.S. Government since 2007 has provided $23.3 million for environmental, health, and disabilities activities in Danang in addition to other programs throughout Vietnam and in 2010 has appropriated $16.9 million to commence a $34 million project to remove dioxin from the soil in Danang” (end of quotation).

But as an impartial observer I can say that, in fact, in one hand, to date the US government has always denied his direct legal responsibility for the birth defects of three generations of Vietnamese and in an other hand, indeed, notwithstanding the moral responsibility of the USA, Vietnamese government has never to date sought a compensation or a reimbursement by the USA of its allowance to its citizens suffering from Agent Orange consequences. In fact it has been a pragmatic politic between the two nations of non direct individual compensation of Agent Orange pollution pledged on bilateral trade agreements and assistance in environmental remediation.

But the reality is that this is the third Vietnamese generation that has been victim of the defoliant’s dioxin, the agent being held for responsible for the country high level of genetic defects.

Laura Kyle, an Alljazeera presenter had interviewed in 2009 various personalities on the topic (video of the 2009 interviews are here enclosed). I try to resume these interviews below.

Nguyen Trong Nhan from the Vietnam Association for victims of Agent Orange claims for reparation. A Japanese study showed that Vietnam’s areas spread with the chemical defoliant undergo three fold more mental disabilities prevalence than those where no spraying took place. US government pledged only 6 Million Dollars so far (in 2009) for the victims of Agent Orange which seems like a drop in the sea with regard to the needs attached to three generations of disabled. The United State department’s money along with the New York-based Ford Foundation philanthropy aids helped to purify the polluted soils in Da Nang which was the former location of the big US military base where the Agent Orange was stored by the Americans and whose airport was the busiest airport in the world during the Vietnam War (reaching an average of 2,595 air traffic operations daily). But nothing was done to address the issue of the Vietnamese government’s spending to give monthly compensation allowances to the disabled, for a lack of scientific proof of causality between the polluted soil and the diseases striking the population. USA recognize the lethal potential of dioxin pollution (and so agree to clean it up) but do not recognize the direct and exclusive causality link with the deaths or the disabled (and so denies to their family the legitimacy to a lawsuit)! Charles Bailey from the Ford Foundation says that these six million dollars are only a start and will be followed by more money. But Thao Griffiths of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation feels that it is a small amount of money compared to what is needed to be done in Vietnam for people affected by Agent Orange. Twenty eight hot spots have been identified as highly contaminated. USA left them behind and now should be in the moral obligation to clean up with regard of the presumed responsibility in Vietnamese children brain deficiency. Every year the government of Vietnam spends 115 million dollars in monthly allowances to the victims as disabled citizens which is a lot of money for a developing country. Researches on the link between Agent Orange and children disabilities still observed nowadays in Vietnam have been implemented by Canadians, Germans, Vietnamese, and American scientists. They resulted in widely published articles. Michael Michalak, US ambassador to Vietnam in 2009 explains how the 6 Million Dollars from US government were spent after President Triết and President Bush met and agreed that they would try to work together on some environmental remediation in 2007. The government of America as accepted to remove and clean up the remains of Agent Orange in ancient USA bases areas notably in Da Nangh but still wait further scientific demonstration of the causality link between Agent Orange and health effect like heart disease or severe deformities because to date there are only presumption according to the ambassador. Beside he said he is working very well with the government of Vietnam for addressing the environmental remediation issue.

But finally my conclusion will be to note the absence of amenity between the two ex belligerent countries which calmly are searching a way to solve the humanitarian problem in a sound dialogue trying to move closer to each other with a scientific basement and leaving any ideological consideration apart (an attitude sufficiently rare in other ex belligerent countries to be noted). And indeed we must recognise that it is not a problem of the past but a problem of today and tomorrow as Dioxin is not degradable and its impact, at the opposite of war memory, is not influenced by the passage of time.

Documents consulted:

Aljazzira: Agent Orange still haunts Vietnam

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2009/09/20099107249452110.html#.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2007/02/2008525124440531332.html

http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2005/03/200849134359555104.html

Vietnam US embassy

http://vietnam.usembassy.gov/pr123010.html

http://vietnam.usembassy.gov/ambspeech123010.html
Assessment of the Five-Year Impact of the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement on Vietnam’s Trade, Investment, and Economic Structure
http://www.dai.com/pdf/Parker_Report_FiveYearImpact_Vietnam.pdf
Agent Orange cleanup to start at former US base in Vietnam

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/01/01/agent-orange-cleanup-to-start-at-former-us-base-in-vietnam/

Related articles

• Monsanto settles ‘Agent Orange’ case with US victims (guardian.co.uk)
• Monsanto close to ‘Agent Orange’ settlement with US victims (guardian.co.uk)
• VVA to VA: Make Agent Orange Aircraft Crews Eligible for Care and Disability Compensation (prnewswire.com)

Tags: united-state, Agent Orange, Vietnam, Vietnam War, World Trade Organization, Danang, environmental remediation

Sugar: the sweet killer

The cause of obesity has not been discovered yet because if it had, obesity would be no more a problem (nobody want to become nor to stay overweight).

More: if it had the last twenty-five years pandemic would have stopped its world-wide expansion from developed countries to emerging countries. And that is absolutely not the case.

Which of the following factors could be the ultimate candidate as obesity causal factor? Increased intakes?; Lack of physical exercise?; Sugar excess? And the winner is…
Sugar! At least it is according Dr Robert Lustig a paediatric who speaks in the video here enclosed. And an intermediate cause would be in one hand the increase of ghrelin, a hormone which provokes the craving for food intake and in the other hand the decrease of or the resistance to leptin which induces the opposite reaction (i.e. says to the brain you had enough).

Indeed in this post I will try to resume for you a one hour and twenty minutes long talk pronounced by Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology and Director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Program at UCSF, on the topic of the pandemic of obesity.
All the slides stem from his course held before the Santa Cruz County Office of Education on March 24, 2011.

Due to the refinery process which is necessary to produce it, sugar (like wheat or alcohol) is not an aliment that is naturally available in a wild environment. Thus its abundance in our modern world is far to be natural and is solely the result of the food industry engineering. However the cost of sugar is very cheap. In the map here below we can see that the three factors cited here above appears to be geographically linked in the USA. But association doesn’t mean causation. Indeed a fourth confounding factor could play: perhaps a biochemical factor.

Thermodynamic would not be sufficient to solve the obesity issue. The true question should be where the calorie comes from? Eat less exercise more (it is all in the balance) is a dogma Dr Lustig struggle against in his stalk. Because since thirty years this dogma solved nothing with regard to obesity he says. Behavioural intervention all along the life time don’t work (no evidence has been brought that it work). Child obesity has doubled in every country that adopted western diet. The poor are disproportionately affected because they don’t have access to healthy choice. They don’t have a choice. Leptin is a hormone which tells your brain you have enough. This hormone could solve obesity. The concept of behaviour works best than the concept of thermodynamic to explain the epidemic of obesity. Behaviour understood as “a stereotyped motor response to a physiological stimulus”. Eating is a behaviour and physical exercise too. There is a biochemistry basis behind each behaviour. What is the biochemical underpinning of gluttony and sloth is the real question. Here comes the leptin hormonal theory. No one can exert a cognitive inhibition on a biochemistry process that’s why obesity relapses each time.
The cause of obesity could be the lack of leptin action. Because the leptin deficit lead to a starved brain which in turn provoke gluttony and sloth. Something in our diet could block the effects of leptin. During the last three decades calories intakes from fat reduced while calories from carbon hydrates increased due to the anti fat campaign undertaken for a cardiovascular risk concern. Nature-made fructose is hard to get, man-made fructose is easy to get. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is cheap and thus is found everywhere in western alimentation and trend to replace sugar. All the more fructose brings a good taste to the food and it results in an increase of sales for food industry.
Carbo-hydrates encompass glucose, ethanol (alcohol) sucrose and fructose. Glucose is good (contained in potatoes for example and transformed in useful glycogen), alcohol is bad (well-known) but what is the statute for sucrose and fructose in the field of health? Like alcohol Fructose doesn’t metabolise in glycogen and does overload mitochondria leading to adverse events in chronic exposure. More: fructose triggers a leptin resistance.
In natural non refined aliments fructose is proportional with fibre.
Sugar is making us sick. Glucose is good but fructose is bad and sucrose contains half and half. Thus, AHA recommends a tremendous reduction in added sugar consumption in order to prevent cardiovascular disease. But fructose is good for the food industry because it makes food cheaper. And politicians know that across the world high price for food causes unrests and revolutions. That is the reason why they always support the food industry even when it’s against the public health interest. It’s useless to eat less of everything; instead it’s useful to reduce our fructose intake.
To reduce sugar consumption needs a policy because there is no medicine for that and it is beyond personal responsibility due to the biochemistry basement developed here above.
Obesity is thus a public health problem that is not on the way to be solved by a personal responsibility rationale such as “eat less, exercise more”.
Soda taxation could work to balance the sugar addiction now at work in western countries.
But conservative parties would say: “no for an additional governmental tax”!

A few slides excerpted from the talk:

Related papers

1) Brief communication: Sleep curtailment in healthy young men is associated with decreased leptin levels, elevated ghrelin levels, and increased hunger and appetite.Annals of internal medicine, Vol. 141, No. 11. (7 Dec 2004)Spiegel, Karine; Tasali, Esra; Penev, Plamen; Van Cauter, Eve

http://annals.ba0.biz/content/141/11/846.short

2) Teff KL, Elliott SS, Tschöp M, Kieffer TJ, Rader D, Heiman M, et al. Dietary Fructose Reduces Circulating Insulin and Leptin, Attenuates Postprandial Suppression of Ghrelin, and Increases Triglycerides in Women. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. 2004 Jun;89(6):2963-2972. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1210/jc.2003-031855.

3) Elliott SS, Keim NL, Stern JS, Teff K, Havel PJ. Fructose, weight gain, and the insulin resistance syndrome. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2002 Nov;76(5):911-922. Available from:http://www.ajcn.org/content/76/5/911.abstract.

4) Shapiro A, Mu W, Roncal C, Cheng KY, Johnson RJ, Scarpace PJ. Fructose-induced leptin resistance exacerbates weight gain in response to subsequent high-fat feeding. American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. 2008 Nov;295(5):R1370-R1375. Available from:http://dx.doi.org/10.1152/ajpregu.00195.2008.

Tags: cause of obesity, Fructose, Ghrelin, High-fructose corn syrup, Hunger, Leptin, leptine, obesity, overweigt, Robert H. Lustig, Robert Lustig, santa cruz county office of education, sucrose, weight assessment

The Squeaky Wheel

Reblogged from godlessnurse:

As last night unfolded, I knew I would eventually blog about it. After a long holiday weekend, James and I were doing a bit of leisurely shore line fishing. While we were packing up, James exited his truck and BAM! He immediately felt a sharp pain in his back. This isn’t the first time, but it had been a little while since such a severe flare-up. With this, we promptly went home and applied all the home remedies we knew. Heat, rest, ibuprofen. James’ back was no better in the morning. After dealing with it …

Never say “pain meds” on the phone in an Emergency Call for a on call Physician in California.

It's a Emergency Call Device Sign (Photo credit: Rantz)

I underwent the same back pain emergency in Marseille, France I related here.

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Tags: California, Emergency Call, Los Angeles

A prayer said by an overweight person

The pitfall of warning against obesity is to stigmatize the overweight individuals.

It made me laugh a lot. Transmitted by my cousin who held it from a Facebook friend so I didn’t resist to share.

You can find a lot more of such humorous or inspirational sentences on the face book page of Fatima Parker who is an Author, a regular guest speaker on self-esteem, healthy living and size acceptance, on Radio,Television & print Media, in the Middle East, Africa,the UK, the USA & on-line Media. She has dedicated her life to helping women and children with issues of self-confidence and self-esteem that are fundamental to friendships, work, love relationships, ambitions, goals, and good health. She struggle against the discrimination undergone by the persons who are stricken by obesity or are suffering from a problem of size. She is the president of the International size acceptance association in the UK.

Here is the link to the association’s website:

http://www.size-acceptance.org/uk/

http://www.size-acceptance.org/

Image via Wikipedia

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• British women are the most overweight in Europe (mirror.co.uk)
• Never Complain About Being Overweight if You Permit It! (brianeraines.wordpress.com)
• 75 Percent of Americans Will Be Overweight by 2020 (thinkprogress.org)
• Weight Stigmatization in Youth (education.com)
• Childhood Overweight and Obesity (education.com)
• Being overweight not such a stigma for African American women (eurekalert.org)
• British women ‘fattest in Europe’ (mirror.co.uk)
• British Women Top European Obesity Table – Sky News (news.sky.com)

Tags: Body Image, Body mass index, health, obesity, overweight, overweight and obesity, Self-esteem, size acceptance, size discrimination

The overtreaters

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Patient Recognition Month Poster (Photo credit: Army Medicine)

President of the Conseil National de l’Ordre des Médecins, the French national board for private practice physicians, has said in a recent interview on the topic of breath cancer screening: “one would better have too much chemotherapy than not enough”. This statement from a French health policy stake holder could hint that France is not enough mobilized against the issue of over treatment, unnecessary treatment and non pertinent treatment (although other stake holders are aware of the problem as shown in the document, issued by the former National Physician Adviser of one of the greatest health insurance scheme of France, entitled “Pertinence des actes par delà la polémique” cited in the work consulted list below).

Yet the pertinence of a treatment is a very relevant issue that health insurance companies have to deal with, be they private or public. A great amount of literature has already been released treating of the subject and health insurance policy makers are more and more concerned in the hope to cut some spending and improve the quality of care all in a same move by addressing the issue of overuse of medical care.

Unfortunately, to distinguish which procedure is really needed from which is non relevant requires, when it comes to a single patient, a high level of medical expertise and skill all along associated with a very high responsibility in case of misjudgment . That’s the reason why the better way for the health care benefits manager to solve the problem is to ask for a second medical opinion. And that’s how an almost patient is transformed in a non patient at all. Using such a procedure a benefit manager glorifies himself having avoided to a dozen of his insured the bistoury of their surgeon.

If a surgeon appears to show a high trend to operate although there is no particular need, the benefit manager enlist him in a “do not use” list. Four procedures are now under high scrutiny in the US: Stents for Stable Angina, Complex spinal fusion for stenosis, Hysterectomy for uterine fibroids, and Knee arthroscopy for osteoarthritis.

Surgeons are not automatically guilty of a willing of harm their patient but the bias can be resumed as follows: “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.

But surgeons are not alone exposed the trend of over treating. Pharmaceutical firms try systematically to open new market shares either by widening the indication of an old molecule with large and expansive multicenter studies or by widening the field of extension of a common disease which was not very known by the public and the health care providers until the drug maker undertakes a nation wide disease mongering campaign. And as Richard Lehman notes in his Blog post of February 20^th2012, pharmaceutical companies are ready to put a lot of money to do that: “It took 60 centres in 11 countries to recruit 227 subjects for that PRIMO trial of paracalcitol (“Zemplar,” Abbott). This is not at all unusual in trials run by pharmaceutical companies on products still under patent, when the prize might be a large extension of indication.” Unfortunately for the company, the results of this large multicenter study were negative while a more modest less funded study showed that amoxicillin shorten by only three days the course of  acute rhino sinusitis versus placebo.

And my conclusion will be: in medicine “the more the better” is a maxim that has to be pronounced cautiously.

Works consulted:

1) Keep your docs off ‘do not use’ lists

http://www.hospitalimpact.org/index.php/2012/02/20/keep_your_docs_off_a_do_not_usea_lists

2) Four surgeries to think about avoiding.

http://www.oldstuff4saleshop.com/?p=6050

http://www.oldstuff4saleshop.com/?p=6054

http://www.oldstuff4saleshop.com/?p=6056

http://www.oldstuff4saleshop.com/?p=6058

3) White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine.

http://www.malaprops.com/book/9780807061428

4) Take patients away from the overtreaters.

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/02/patients-overtreaters.html

5) Quant aux chimiothérapies, il vaut mieux en faire un peu trop que pas assez ! affirme le docteur Legmann, Président du CNOM.

http://docteurdu16.blogspot.com/2012/02/quant-aux-chimiotherapies-il-vaut-mieux.html

6) The Treatment Trap: How the Overuse of Medical Care Is Wrecking Your Health and What You Can Do to Prevent It.

http://www.treatmenttrap.org/

http://www.amazon.com/Treatment-Trap-Overuse-Medical-Wrecking/dp/1566638429

7) Amoxicillin for Acute Rhinosinusitis; a Randomized Controlled Trial

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/307/7/685.abstract

8) Vitamin D Therapy and Cardiac Structure and Function in Patients With Chronic Kidney Disease; the PRIMO Randomized Controlled Trial

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/307/7/674.abstract

9) Richard Lehman’s journal review – 20 February 2012 by BMJ Group

JAMA  15 Feb 2012  Vol 306

http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2012/02/20/richard-lehmans-journal-review-20-february-2012/

10) Fait-on trop de dépistage du cancer du sein ?

http://www.conseil-national.medecin.fr/sites/default/files/cn_bulletin/medecin21_web.pdf

11) Pertinence des actes par delà la polémique; le regard de l’assurance maladie.

http://www.fhp.3cfr.com/fhp_circulaires/invitforumissions.pdf

www.fhp.3cfr.com/fhp_circulaires/APERRIN.ppt

Related articles

• Stemming the tide of overtreatment in U.S. healthcare (theneteconomy.wordpress.com)
• The Cost of Satisfaction: A National Study of Patient Satisfaction, Health Care Utilization, Expenditures, and Mortality (nursetopia.net)
• New Study Supports Claim That Breast Screening May Be Causing More Harm Than Good (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Doctors’ money ties may lead to needless MRIs (cbsnews.com)
• U.S. physicians’ financial ties may lead to needless MRI scans (ctv.ca)
• Doctors’ financial ties may lead to needless MRIs (boston.com)

Tags: health insurance companies, health insurance scheme, non pertinent treatment, over treatment, overuse of medical care, private practice physicians, Richard Lehman, unnecessary treatment

McDonalds Ad Campaign

Reblogged from cometscorners:

• 
• 

Have just seen this and thought we would make you aware also – I am disgusted!! And here is this mornings response to it as seen in my Facebook newsfeed: I believe the ad has now been pulled after much outrage and complaint!! Please visit our online pet accessories store Comets Corners for more details on how we – and you – can help! For every sale we make, at least 10% of our proceeds goes to our chosen animal welfare charity or organisation of the month!

The pit bull puppy and the McDonald’s Ad Campaign

Fortunately, in France, thank to the action of the cometscorners blogger, we have not assisted to the broadcast of such a shameful advertising campaign. To distrust a breed with regard to dogs or a race with regard to humans proceeds from the same misjudgment. Individual characteristics should always prevail on breed or race characteristics.

Tags: Advertising campaign, Breeds, dogs, McDonalds, McDonalds Ad Campaign, Pets, pit bull, pitt bull

Dogs are crazy when they are playing with a ball

That’s why I love them!  But as you know I’m a crazy  dog person…

“Images represented by TandemStock.com“

via “Ruff Water” – Los Angeles, CA – Seth Casteel – Featured Photographer.

Such a commitment for a simple piece of plastic will always astonish me. They live their life fully with no half measure, especially when it comes to toys and swimming pools.

Credit for these amazing pictures:

http://photobotos.com/

see more at their post here:

http://photobotos.com/2012/02/17/ruff-water-los-angeles-ca-seth-casteel-featured-photographer/

More pictures available here:

http://www.facebook.com/LittleFriendsPhoto

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=as_li_qf_sp_sr_il_tl?ie=UTF8&keywords=seth%20casteel&tag=photo01ba-20&index=aps&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325

Tags: California, dog, dogs, Los Angeles, Photograph, Seth Casteel

when a man rescues his dog

It shows how the bonds between dogs and their owners are!

How certain men can risk their life to rescue a dog while others don’t even understand how one can think even to adopt one?

In fact adopting and rescuing belong not at all to the same context.
From my point of view, a man decides in a few minutes if he can rescue a living being be it member of his family or not, a pet or a human.

Genetically, from the cavern ages we, men, are programmed to protect the clan from dangers from outside when men lived in the wilderness. And I think, at least in some of us, those old reflex are still present.

As far as I am concerned, the same situation occurred one year in winter (month of February) when one of my cockers crossed a river chasing his ball and trapped his ears (which cockers have very very long as it is well known) in the brambles of the other bank of the river. Evaluating rapidly the situation (he would rapidly drown) I put my self  in the same dress code like the man in the picture (only in under-wears) and I dived  for a quick rescue.

I must have keep the gene of the protector of the clan.

But you should know it can be very dangerous; each year men die doing those sort of things for rescuing an animal (on average seven death per year  in the UK).

Bentley the rescued and Malcom his master who saved him.

Congrats Malcom!

Source of documentation:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17013243

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101257/Dog-owner-inched-ice-save-pet-explains-reckless-act.html

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Tags: Animal Welfare, Bentley, dog, Pets, Rescue

Plagiarism is a bad action, self-plagiarism is even worst

Redundant publication is dishonest.

The ethical code of journalism as well as literature code of honor banish heavily plagiarism as it is an important, wide-spread, well known malpractice. Journalists and writers are not alone; Scientists also put plagiarism in the top list of deadly sins. A great amount of texts has been written up today on how to handle this matter. But beside we have to keep in mind that scientists love to meticulously write a multitude of sophisticated rules (i.e.guidelines). Then they write papers on how to respect these rules (check lists of items). Then even more papers are published on who didn’t respect these rules and the various pattern of disrespect (retraction notices). Then back again to the beginning for adding some precisions or extensions to the initial rules and then the virtuous circle start again. One of those numerous written rules, which scientists affectionate, is the rule regulating the plagiarism. In scientific publication plagiarism is one of the highest sin in the scale of misconduct and dishonesty. Specific soft wares are run by editors on the pre-publication materials in order to reduce the risk of plagiarism before editing an article. Plagiarism includes a sub-category: self-plagiarism. What do scientific researchers mean when putting next one to another such apparently contradictory and opposed two terms? That’s what I will try to explicit below, if possible with simple words. Self-plagiarism occurs when a scientist publishes two or more different articles based on the same set of data (even if he added a few new units in one of the paper, the principal core of the data is the same in the two papers) and the same research question (or a very light difference between the research questions in the two papers). Why is self-plagiarism dangerous for the community (and hence considered as a sin)? There are four main reasons: First, scientific publication stem from the unpaid work of volunteers (i.e. the scientific readers of the submitted paper intended to issue an approved version) and consequently self-plagiarism lead to unnecessary overload of work for this readers; Second, meta analysis now uses sophisticated statistical tools which will be biased if two different articles based on the same set of data for the same outcome are included (thus giving twice more weight to the results than they deserve in term of evidence); Third, academic evaluation based on the number of publication will be deceived when counting two-time the same work; And four there will be automatically a moral infringement with regard to the reader because each article is assumed to be original. Another scientific misconduct very near from self-plagiarism is the salami-slice publication. A searcher is culprit of salami-slice publication when he publishes in two episodes a work that would have been published in one (analyses and results are simple enough for one single paper) without warning the reader in none of the two publications. Now you have no excuse if you are caught in self-plagiarism misconduct or if you salami-slice your papers.

Image via Wikipedia

Works consulted (but not plagiarized) to write this post:

Kassirer JP, Angell M. Redundant Publication: A Reminder. N Engl J Med. 1995 Aug;333(7):449-450. Available from:http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199508173330709.

http://ori.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/plagiarism.pdf

http://ori.hhs.gov/plagiarism-15

http://ori.hhs.gov/plagiarism-13

http://ori.hhs.gov/avoiding-plagiarism-self-plagiarism-and-other-questionable-writing-practices-guide-ethical-writing

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• Free Plagiarism Scan (mono-live.com)
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• The plague of Plagiarism: A university’s reality check (zdnet.com)
• Why Plagiarism is on the Rise (plagiarismtoday.com)
• Plagiarism (slideshare.net)

Tags: Academic dishonesty, Copyright, Plagiarism, publication materials, redundant publication, scientific dishonesty, self-plagiarism

Mickael Jackson, Whitney Houston : are Hollywood doctors to blame?

Should rogue docs in Hollywood be accountable for the death of the two pop superstar singers from prescribed benzodiazepine mixed to alcohol for the latter or anaesthetic medicine like propofol for the former?

Image via Wikipedia

Whitney Houston - Concert in Central Park / Good Morning America 2009 - Manhattan NYC (Photo credit: asterix611)

That the question each and every medical doctors in the world should ask themselves.

The least that it can be said is that the two artists were not helped by their medical entourage nor friendship circle.

Certainly they were deeply unhappy and isolated in the middle of celebrity and superficial relationship or greedy managers.

It remembers me a maxim my cousin shared few days ago on Facebook: “there is no way to happiness, happiness is the way”. And definitely the worst way to happiness is to take medicine mixed with alcohol, even worst anaesthetic drug, all the more when they are prescribed or administered by a Hollywood rogue Doc.

Doctor Alon Steinberg, a cardiology expert, gives us his opinion on the CNN channel.
But I understand that it would be very difficult, in private practice in Hollywood to say “no” at an international pop or movie super star! And in another hand superstars know to use their fame to get their pills!
Pharmacies and prescription records are investigated “Doctor shopping” being suspected in the Whitney Houston case.

Videos consulted on CNN:

ac-whitney-houston-death-investigation.cnn

ac-marquez-celebrity-drug-investigations.cnn

Related articles

• Whitney Houston Cause of Death: Doctors Investigated over Pills (celebs.gather.com)
• Whitney Houston’s Doctors Interviewed Over Prescriptions (perezhilton.com)
• Whitney Houston – No One Tried Stopping Her Dangerous Cravings (celebs.gather.com)

Tags: Doctor shopping, Happiness, health, Hollywood, houston case, Michael Jackson, music industry, Prescription medication, super star, way to happiness, Whitney Houston