Conrad Theodore Seitz

Hackers Have Stolen Background Data on All Security Clearances

2015-06-16

tags: civilian government employees, data breach, security clearances

The White House announced a further increase in the number of hacked personnel records discovered in the last few months: up to 14 million records have been exposed of people who applied for security clearances for civilian jobs with the government. These records include the background information that is requested from those who want security clearances: arrests, drug use, health information, birth dates, Social Security numbers, employment histories and pay data, military records, veteran status, addresses, health and life insurance, ages, genders, and race data, and so on. There are currently 2.5 million civilian government employees, so most of the data includes former employees and applicants. The Office of Personnel Management keeps these records, and based on briefings that employee unions have received, they say that information for all current federal employees, all retirees, and a million former employees has been exposed.

The White House has stated that the Chinese are responsible for this data breach, although the Chinese government has denied it. Whoever has the data, they are in possession of material that could be used for blackmail, for impersonation of individuals, or many other nefarious purposes.

The Associated Press story that revealed this information states that, since the defection of Edward Snowden and his revelations about American surveillance activities, it has become more difficult to recruit new government employees, especially in the security services. This new data breach will surely make it even less attractive to apply for a security-classified job with the US government.

The amount and sensitivity of the information that has been breached makes the security of government computer systems look poor indeed. There is no surprise that this embarrassing revelation has been quietly announced, in parts, over a period of weeks. Government officials do not wish to make a lot of fuss over the news and have minimized the size of the breach, only gradually admitting to its full extent with a series of partial announcements.

Now that the breach has been, apparently, fully announced, we are left with a dilemma: what, if anything, can be done about it? It appears that we have been left fully exposed to a potentially deadly weakness. From now on, security personnel must look carefully for potential uses of this information in operations that damage the country’s security in new and dangerous ways. Any improvements in information security now will be necessarily after the fact and really not very helpful, so to speak, after the horse has left the barn.

Lead Poisoning Increases Violent Crime In Young Men

2015-06-14

The Chicago Tribune has recently conducted an investigation into the problem of persistent lead poisoning in the city of Chicago. Some parts of the city– notably the poor, black south and west sides– have high levels of lead poisoning demonstrated by measurements in school children. In some neighborhoods, like Austin, Englewood, and Lawndale, more than 80% of children tested in 1995 had elevated lead levels. These same neighborhoods now are areas with the highest rates of aggravated assault. The Tribune states that there is more and more research evidence for a link between high lead levels and poor school performance due to interference with brain development, particularly in areas that control attention, emotions, and impulse control. At the same time, there are more links between lead poisoning and youth crime, especially violent crime, again due to impaired brain development, with poor decision-making and impulse control.

Despite the removal of lead from gasoline and new paint, there are still many older dwellings that have been painted with lead-containing paint; this paint is now drying up and peeling off, forming a dust that is high in lead and permeates the interiors of these houses. Houses like these are responsible for the high levels of lead poisoning in children seen in poor Chicago neighborhoods.

Funding for lead testing of children, property inspection, and amelioration of hazardous sites has been sharply cut back at both the federal and state level. This will make it harder to detect the problem of lead pollution at the same time that we are being told lead is more dangerous than previously assumed.

If the problem of violent crime in Chicago, so intractable and inexplicable, is actually due to high levels of lead poisoning in young men, we would be doing ourselves an awful disservice by cutting funding for testing and amelioration. We could save a bundle of money and possibly a lot of lives if we were to make a serious investment in ameliorating the problem of lead pollution and treating the young victims of lead poisoning in poor neighborhoods.

Poor People: Is it Their Fault? Or is Society, at least in Part, Responsible?

2015-06-14

Here’s another one of those surveys that confirms what you thought all along: Republicans and conservatives think people who are poor and/or unemployed have reached that state due to individual failings, while Democrats and liberals think the problem is due to lack of opportunity.

This particular poll was done by YouGov.com, a custom polling company that seems to do more polls than everyone else combined, even Pew and the old favorites (this is only an impression; I haven’t researched who’s the biggest.) According to their website, YouGov can do custom polls for your company to help you find out where to improve and where to break into business: the company will “leverage cutting-edge research and analytic techniques with an eye for assessing the economic impact of your actions. We deliver you the insights and tools that help you to plan and make strategic and tactical decisions while maintaining a focus on tangible outcomes.” The site shows outcomes for many recent polls on subjects from “Academic and Scientific” to “Travel and Leisure”; for example, they have tracked the decline in public perceptions of the TLC cable channel since they have become associated with the Duggan family (the one with nineteen children and sex abuse allegations), they have named BandAid the best-perceived brand for Mother’s Day among mothers with children under eighteen.

One of YouGov’s web pages states that they have a panel of 1.8 million US residents and over 3 million around the world, allowing them to provide a poll with a thousand respondents in 24 hours. The respondents are fully characterized by income levels and other demographic statistics; there are even special polls for children and LGBT respondents. This “infrastructure” allows for rapid response, specialized polls for reasonable prices on almost any subject.

At any rate, YouGov, with their panel of fully qualified opinion holders, provides an essential service and generates polls about a vast number of subjects on which people hold opinions.

The poll in question, conducted April 15-16 2014, analyzed answers to the questions “When people are poor, do you think that’s more likely to be because they had fewer opportunities or because of their individual failings?” and “When people are poor, do you think that’s more likely to be because good jobs aren’t available, or because they have a poor work ethic?”, and conversely, “When people are wealthy, do you think that’s more likely to be because they had more opportunities than other people or because they worked harder than other people? ” and “Which comes closer to your own view about people who are unemployed: most are trying hard to find jobs but can’t, or most could find jobs if they wanted to?” Finally, the question: “Which comes closer to your own view about people who have been unemployed for more than 6 months: most are trying hard to find jobs but can’t, or most could find jobs if they wanted to?”

When you look at people’s answers to these questions, you can see that they depend strongly on their attitudes about people’s individual responsibility and staying powers versus their attitudes about the role that society plays in giving people a chance to succeed or keeping them down on the farm. Clearly, conservatives are likely to feel that an individual has full responsibility for his or her position in life and that one’s success depends entirely on one’s native abilities and energies; whereas liberals are likely to feel that society plays a strong role in determining a person’s position in life by allowing one to show his/her ability or hindering him/her from having a chance to succeed. Further, a liberal is more likely to feel that society displays biases and prejudices that prevent some people of certain ethnic backgrounds, religions, colors, etc. from succeeding while giving other people of different backgrounds a guaranteed place higher on the ladder. Looking at the associated factors, one finds that being male, higher in income, and self-identifying as a Republican (even more so than self-identifying as a conservative) are more strongly associated with this attitude, with Republicans being the most strongly associated.

It is not hard for us to reason that biases operate on a person’s outcomes from birth; certain children picked at birth by random factors such as parent’s wealth, born to privilege, are treated better, fed better, sheltered better, clothed better, protected more from diseases and accidents, loved more, stimulated more, and in every way receive more of what studies have shown enhance a person’s IQ and motivation. On the other hand, other children, marked by chance with misfortune, are ill fed, ill clothed, ill housed, and ill treated regardless of their ability.

On the other hand, the opposing line of reasoning would say that one’s abilities are already inherited at birth and merely make their appearances at the appointed age regardless of the circumstances. It would be extremely difficult to put together experimental support for this hypothesis; virtually all the research shows that enhanced childhood experience reliably enhances abilities, while childhood sensory deprivation leaves one with severe handicaps.

While it is hard to find experimental justification for the “Republican” (this word is used specifically because of the strong association of self-identification as a Republican with this attitude) point of view, there is a significant proportion of the public that holds to this attitude.

I have nothing more that I can say at this moment about this divide in opinion; perhaps in the future, that will change.

Genetically Modified Organisms: A Deep Divide in Opinion Between Scientists and the Public

2015-06-13

A recent survey of scientists showed that 88% of them agreed with the statement, “genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) are generally safe.” By contrast, the poll shows that the majority of American laymen disagree and appear to feel that GMO’s are unsafe and/or unhealthy. This poll was conducted by the Pew Research Center in the fall of 2014 on a number of subjects, and used membership in the American Association for Advancement of Science as a marker for “scientist.” More ominously, and partially explaining the public attitude, 67% (two-thirds) of the public agreed that “scientists do not have a clear understanding about the health effects of GMO crops.”

An ABC news poll (conducted by random telephone calls) from 2013 found the following:

“Sixty-two percent of women think genetically modified foods are unsafe to eat, a view that’s shared by far fewer men, 40 percent. Indeed a plurality of men think these foods are safe, while women disagree by better than 2-1.

Similarly, while 49 percent of men say they’d be less likely to buy food labeled as genetically modified, that jumps to 65 percent of women. (Similar numbers of women and men say they’re more likely to buy organic foods.)”

In addition, some 93 percent of respondents think that GMO’s should be labeled, and many would use the labeling to avoid GMO’s, a possibility that has food companies really scared– if GMO labeling causes people to avoid certain foods (those not labeled “GMO free”) then those foods would die a slow death on the shelf.

Politics affects one’s opinion about GMO safety:

“There’s also a political difference. Republicans divide evenly on whether genetically modified foods are safe or unsafe. Independents rate them unsafe by a 20-point margin; Democrats, by a 26-point margin.”

The ABC news report ends with a “scientific” opinion, or at least endorsement:

“The FDA has said labeling isn’t necessary because there’s no evidence genetic engineering changes a food’s quality, safety, ‘or any other attribute.’ In a report late last year, the American Medical Association also said there was ‘no scientific justification for special labeling of genetically modified foods, as a class.'”

In other words, about half of people in the poll would avoid GMO’s if they knew they were in the food; women and Democrats are more likely to shun GMO’s. There appears to be a trend among liberal, radical, and avante-garde thinkers that disagrees with scientific peoples’ thoughts on the subject.

Numerous polls conducted over the last ten years agree that well over ninety percent of respondents favor mandatory labeling of GMO foods; for example, the “Center for Food Safety” has compiled lists, including seven polls conducted since 2001, all of which show the same response.

Rutgers conducted an online survey in 2013 that found:

“American consumers’ knowledge and awareness of GM foods are low. More than half (54%) say they know very little or nothing at all about genetically modified foods, and one in four (25%) say they have never heard of them.”

It seems that it is more likely that the public, rather than science, “does not have a clear understanding of the health effects of GMO crops.”

This is a serious disconnect, because, as the detailed Rutgers report tells us, we are already consuming and using many GMO products:

“According to USDA Crop Acreage reports, in 2013, 94% of the soy, 90% of the cotton, and 90% of the corn produced in the United States were GM varieties featuring the two principal traits of insect resistance and herbicide tolerance, or combinations of the two. Moreover, 95% of the sugar beets grown by farmers in the US (more than a million acres) were herbicide‐resistant GM varieties. In addition, American farmers grew millions of acres of GM herbicide‐resistant canola and alfalfa, and virus‐resistant squash and papaya. Corn, soy, canola, sugar beets, and cotton seed oil are the source of some of the most common ingredients used by American food processors. GM varieties are also often mixed with conventional varieties during shipping, processing and storage. As a result, experts say that the majority of processed foods in the United States likely contain an ingredient from a GM crop, such as corn starch, high‐fructose corn syrup, canola oil, soybean oil, soy flour, lecithin, or cotton‐seed oil.”

What really jars, though, is that most people have no idea what they are consuming:

“Despite the abundance of products with GM ingredients in the U.S., the survey results suggest most consumers are unaware of them. The study found that fewer than half of Americans (43%) are aware that such products are currently for sale in supermarkets, and only about one quarter (26%) believe that they have ever eaten any food containing GM ingredients. In fact, GM soy products were introduced to the market more than 15 years ago, and because most processed foods are likely to contain an ingredient derived from a GM crop, most Americans have consumed such products.”

Many people think there are GMO’s in crops that don’t have them:

“The survey found that even those who say they are aware of the presence of GM foods in American stores are unclear about which foods are available. While three‐quarters correctly recognized that GM corn products are on store shelves, and 59% realized that GM soybeans are available, more than half mistakenly believed that GM tomatoes, wheat, and chicken products are in supermarkets, more than 40% believe that GM apples and rice are on the market, and more than a third believe that GM salmon and GM oranges are currently on offer. These latter products are not on supermarket shelves in the U.S.”

Public impressions about tomatoes may be due to the fact that a GMO tomato, the “Flavr Savr”, was once introduced but was discontinued quickly; for the rest of the products, the reasons for these answers are unclear.

Actual awareness of GMO foods is so low that only 7% of respondents volunteered that GMO products should be labeled without being prompted that GMO’s are a subject of interest; only a quarter of respondents realize that current regulations do not require GMO foods to be labeled. When directly asked “Should GMO foods be labeled?”, then the Rutgers survey showed 73% agreed (lower than the other surveys, and somewhat higher than the percentage that thought food with hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides should be labeled.) About 45 % agreed that eating GMO foods was safe; the majority thought that they were unsafe or weren’t sure.

Clearly, the problem with GMO’s is partly due to a lack of knowledge. The general public simply does not know what GMO’s are, how they are created, how they are propagated, and how they affect foods. If they knew more precisely what GMO’s are, it is possible that the public would view them more favorably. It is also possible that people would have a negative reaction if they really knew what is being done to their food.

In Europe and the United Kingdom, there is very little GMO food available due to regulatory restrictions that have been in place since the late 1990’s. Public disapproval of GMO’s appeared earlier in Europe than in the US, although similar levels of concern have developed; actual public knowledge about the process by which GMO’s are created is as low in Europe as it is in the US. The public attitude towards GMO’s has been reflected, in Europe, in regulatory restrictions that have prevented the import of most GMO’s from the US. Likewise, since 1989, regulations have prevented the import of beef that has been treated with growth hormones to Europe, despite the disapproval of a World Trade Organization dispute panel.

This is a marked contrast to the situation in the US, where GMO’s have been widely available without restrictions. The reasons for this are complex and relate to differences in the way the issue was handled by the government; in the US, the economic advantages of GMO’s have trumped the concerns over health effects. These are issues in European government far beyond the scope of this post, that are nonetheless fascinating. Oddly, European regulations on such matters as environmental pollution, controls on new drugs, pesticides, hormones, etc. were more favorable to industry than those in the US in the 1960’s and 1970’s, while a reversal occurred in the 1980’s.

Further information on the situation in Europe is available at the following sites:

A 2001 report by the Council on Foreign Relations: CFR report 2001 that goes into detail on the regulatory process in Europe.

The European Commission has a site that goes into great detail on regulations, research, and so on: Euro Commission takes you to the index site that will give you more than you ever wanted to know about European regulations.

The opinion polls that we have discussed were found at the following sites:

The Rutgers report can be found at: http://humeco.rutgers.edu/documents_PDF/news/GMlabelingperceptions.pdf

Here’s a link to a Vox.com poll with more detail about scientific attitudes: http://www.vox.com/2015/1/29/7947695/gmos-safety-poll

The ABC news poll can be found here: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97567

Here’s another link: food safety center with a list of polls supporting mandatory labeling.

Anthropogenic Global Warming: the Basic Argument

2015-06-12

tags: AGW, CO2 concentrations, global warming, infrared light, trace gases

Rycke Browne said in a comment to an article in Science News:

“According to this video, global warming and cooling are real, and so is climate change. What is not real is trace gases causing such warming, rather than following it.

Warming definitely increases CO2 and methane, from increased decomposition. What is not proven and is contradicted by the graphs, is that these trace gases cause warming. Correlation is not causation, especially backward correlation.”

This part caught my eye: “What is not proven… is that these trace gases cause warming.” Since the basis of the whole Anthropogenic Global Warming argument is that “trace gases” (CO2) do indeed cause global warming, and that the increase in CO2 concentrations has caused increasing warming that will disrupt the climate, I felt that this assertion had to be contravened if AGW is to be supported.
My reply to this comment:

In fact, this was proven by Arrhenius back in the nineteenth century and can be confirmed by simple lab experiments: take a glass container and fill it with air, with concentrations of CO2 varying (the independent variable)… shine a “sunlight” beam through it and measure the transmission of infrared light. Keep the concentration of water vapor the same, as that greatly affects the results. You will find that air with low concentrations of CO2 will transmit more infrared light (the dependent variable) than air with high concentrations of CO2… and this is readily measurable when you take concentrations of 280 ppm versus 400. This simple experiment showed, and reproducibly will show, that CO2 in the air absorbs infrared light, even at “trace gas” concentrations.
As mentioned above, water vapor also absorbs infrared light, and this is a very important effect. Naturally, as temperature rises, the air can hold more water vapor, so this affects the results as well.
Bottom line: AGW has been proven to my satisfaction by simple, reproducible experiments, starting with the one above. A lot of people, careful scientists, agree with me. Not very many people disagree.
My question is: what part of this do you not understand?
In reference to the article that started this comment thread, a lot of observations, complex math and adjustments have been done to try to demonstrate that the effect predicted by these simple experiments is actually happening now.
Instead of doing these multiple observations, complex experiments, and mathematical adjustments, we could just wait 50 or 100 years and measure the temperatures, to see if it got warmer or not. By then, if the predictions are accurate, there will be some major problems. If predictions are wrong, then there won’t be. Wouldn’t you like to know now what the weather will be in 50 years, in case you should move away from the coast, increase the power of your air conditioner, retrofit your house with a tornado resistant roof, etc.?– or, if the predictions say things will be good in your area, you can relax.

In a later post I hope to extend the AGW argument with more simple experiments.

Irreproducible PreClinical Research Estimated to Cost $28 Billion/Year in US

2015-06-11

tags: academic research, pharmaceutical industry, preclinical research

A new paper in PLOS Biology discusses the topic of non-reproducible research. First, an estimate of the total cost of preclinical research in the United States:

“Extrapolating from 2012 data, an estimated US$114.8B in the United States [ref. 18] is spent annually on life sciences research, with the pharmaceutical industry being the largest funder at 61.8%, followed by the federal government (31.5%), nonprofits (3.8%), and academia (3.0%) [ref. 20]. Of this amount, an estimated US$56.4B (49%) is spent on preclinical research, with government sources providing the majority of funding (roughly US$38B) ”

Second, an estimate of irreproducible research is about 50%, based on a half-dozen studies with rates ranging from 51% to 88%, with 50-54% being the most likely:

” Using a conservative cumulative irreproducibility rate of 50% means that approximately US$28B/year is spent on research that cannot be replicated [see fig. 2]. Of course, uncertainty remains about the precise magnitude of the direct economic costs—the conservative probability bounds approach reported above suggest that these costs could plausibly be much smaller or much larger than US$28B.”

Third, academic research in drug development is typically repeated by the pharmaceutical industry before clinical research can begin:

” Academic research studies with potential clinical applications are typically replicated within the pharmaceutical industry before clinical studies are begun, with each study replication requiring between 3 and 24 months and between US$500,000 to US$2,000,000 investment [ref. 23]”

Improved reproducibility would improve the pharmaceutical industry’s return on investment by allowing clinical research to follow a larger percentage of preclinical studies, meaning more positive studies would result in eventual drug development.

The first aspect of improvement would involve adoption of standards for conduct of research and reporting of results:

” … one issue that has shown demonstrable impact on similar challenges in other settings is the expanded development and adoption of standards and best practices [ref. 13].”

The second improvement would be in training of scientists to include these best practices in their research. The PLOS paper gives a list which provides a framework for improvement in standards and training, including the allocation of funding for these practices.

Here is an example of a practice that is not followed that could save money by reducing false results in the use of cancer cell lines:

“An illustrative example is the use and misuse of cancer cell lines. The history of cell lines used in biomedical research is riddled with misidentification and cross-contamination events [ref. 29], which have been estimated to range from 15% to 36% [ref. 30]. Yet despite the availability of the short tandem repeat (STR) analysis as an accepted standard to authenticate cell lines, and its relatively low cost (approximately US$200 per assay), only one-third of labs typically test their cell lines for identity [ref. 31].”

The process of validating reagents to prevent misidentification and cross-contamination, and the identification of cell lines to likewise avoid contamination and wrong identification, would eliminate a large proportion of primary errors in the performance of research, but it will be necessary to train, fund, and regulate in order to establish these basic procedures among the entire research community. An outline of these procedures for training and so on is given as part of the conclusion of this paper.

This type of development is important for reducing errors and making research more reproducible. Whether this can be done depends on the motivation of the groups that have the most investments in making research accurate: the funding bodies and the administrations of the institutions that do research. Public awareness of the need for accuracy and reproducibility will improve the motivations of these groups. Everyone wants to save money by doing things in the most efficient manner possible; what is required is the motivation to do the right thing from the beginning.

Resistance to changes of this nature can be expected from some individuals, particularly those who have been short-cutting the process of doing good research and those who are used to the situation as it now stands. Those who want to read good research and those who want to do good research will be forced to put their livelihoods on the line to require improvements in research practices.

Here’s a link to the paper: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002165

Scientists Who Cheat and What to Do About It

2015-06-09

Cheating in scientific and academic papers is a longstanding problem, but it is hard to read recent headlines and not conclude that it has gotten worse.

from: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/opinion/scientists-who-cheat.html

The New York Times (NYT) has ~~today~~ recently (June 1, 2015) published an editorial “wringing its hands” at the seeming epidemic of cheating in scientific research that has come to light, partly thanks to the efforts of the writers of “Retraction Watch”, a blog that is only a few years old.

The editorial concludes that part of the answer to the problem of cheating in research is more research, that is studies to determine how common the problem is, “how much harm it causes, and how best to combat it.”

The editorial also recommends, as a starting point, the release of all underlying data of every research project that comes to publication– to peer reviewers, for a start. Underlying data should be available to interested parties, preferably in a central repository of data points for all relevant research.

The editorial recommends increased funding for the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to allow it to investigate “all major cases that come to its attention” and to give it “sufficient independence.” Other authors have cited the ORI for its lack of transparency and its delay in making investigations. Still others have objected to the ORI’s lack of stringent sanctions; typically the penalty for irregular research is a three-year suspension of research grants. Some suggest that offenders should be forced to pay back all or a portion of the money granted for the offending research, possibly a harsh penalty when the grant involves payments for multiple grantee’s salaries and equipment as well as fees for outside surveys and so on.

The proposal to perform more research into the prevalence of cheating, its causes (whether “publish or perish”, career promotion, or simple dishonesty) and the degree of harm that is done to real research, is a good way to determine what is really going on and how serious the problem is.

Finally, the proposal to “do more research” is a good one in any case. Our budgets for research of all kinds should be dramatically increased. There is little that cannot be improved by performing more research into all areas of science, and a great deal to be learned everywhere. The only caveat is that we need to have a clear idea of what we do not know in order to turn our questions towards what we can learn that will make our lives better and longer.

J. Dennis Hastert, a Bad Man Caught by a Bad Law

2015-06-09

Here’s a story that will warm the hearts of Democrats and left-wing ideologues: J. Dennis Hastert, now 73 years old, who was speaker of the House from 1999 to 2007, was indicted in Chicago on federal charges of “structuring” and lying to FBI agents. He is accused of making withdrawals from his bank accounts of less than $10,000 to avoid having to make specific reports about those withdrawals. In the case in which he is charged, he made 106 such withdrawals, all for the purpose of payments to one individual, and all apparently for the purpose of preventing that person from publicly making statements about their relationship when Mr. Hastert was a high school wrestling coach in central Illinois from 1965 to 1981. The relationship apparently involved “sexual abuse”, a crime because the individual was under eighteen years old at the time; the statute of limitations has long passed.

Mr. Hastert was the standard-bearer for the Republican Party and second in line, behind the vice president, in the succession to president in case of death or infirmity. Some Democrats found his positions and behavior to be unfriendly and unsportsmanlike, while others were able to work with him. In any case, there was no scandal surrounding him while he was Speaker. After leaving Congress, he naturally became a lobbyist and was expected to take home two or more times as much money as he did while in Congress.

Unfortunately, an indictment was released on May 28; he was not taken into custody because he was “not considered a flight risk.” However, the charges are potentially serious; he could be fined $250,000 and face five years in prison on each of the two counts. In the indictment, it is stated that Mr. Hastert has paid $1.7 million over the last four years to “Individual A” as part of an agreement in which he has promised to pay a total of $3.5 million.

Anonymous individuals who have been “briefed” about the FBI investigation have said that the agreement is the end result of a relationship in which Mr. Hastert “sexually abused” Individual A while Mr. Hastert was a wrestling coach and teacher in Yorkville, a suburb 50 miles from Chicago. The agreement stipulates that Mr. Hastert is to pay a total of $3.5 million in exchange for Individual A’s silence about the relationship, or more properly, repeated episodes of sexual abuse. This relationship must have been concluded at least 30 years ago.

The judge who is currently handling the case is Thomas M. Durkin of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Judge Durkin donated $1,500 to Mr. Hastert’s campaigns years ago before he became a judge. The judge’s brother is Republican leader of the House for the Illinois State Legislature. The judge has refused to comment on the case, in particular on whether he will recuse himself.

Mr. Hastert’s Washington lobbying outfit, Dickstein Shapiro, announced that he was resigning shortly after the indictment was announced. In addition, the CME Group of Chicago, a company which runs futures and derivatives exchanges, announced Mr. Hastert’s resignation from its board. Mr. Hastert also saw his name removed from his alma mater Wheaton College at their “J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy.”

One of Mr. Hastert’s former students took his sister into his confidence in about 1979 and told her that he was gay. He died of AIDS in 1995. At the same time he came out to his sister, he told her that, when he had been the wrestling team’s equipment manager, Mr. Hastert (his wrestling coach) had “sexually abused” him. The sister said she did not know Individual A, and he wasn’t her brother.

According to the bank, Mr. Hastert had started making withdrawals of $50,000 in cash every six weeks in 2010. After the bank, which is required to file “transaction reports” with the feds for every cash transaction over $10,000, questioned Mr. Hastert, he began making smaller withdrawals, and made a total of 106 such withdrawals. The law, which makes it a crime to “structure” withdrawals and deposits so as to evade the reporting requirements, has been used against completely innocent individuals who, for example, had saved large amounts of cash through tips and were depositing it in the bank, and who, being unable to physically carry a full $10,000 in small bills on their person, had made multiple smaller deposits. The law is written so that the prosecutor can confiscate the money without having to prove anything and the individual is forced to hire a lawyer to prove his/her innocence, a case of “guilty until proven innocent.” In their zeal to protect the public against criminals who want to launder their money, the prosecutors have dragged in many people who are completely blameless, and in typical prosecutor fashion, they refuse to believe perfectly reasonable explanations for the “structuring”; the way the law is written, it is a license for prosecutorial misconduct.

In addition to “structuring”, Mr. Hastert is accused of one count of lying to an FBI agent. When initially interviewed by the FBI, Mr. Hastert had made a statement to the effect that he didn’t trust banks and was withdrawing the money to keep at home. This turned out not to be true; in fact, he was making cash payments to Individual A.

J. Dennis Hastert is a bad guy; he pushed for laws that were retrogressive, Republican-inspired, and served the purposes of one of our nation’s less memorable presidents, George W. Bush. He also, it seems, was a homosexual abuser of minors in his care (whether that represented pedophilia is open to question.) Finally, he used his position as a leader in Congress to transition to a very highly paid job in which he could trade on his influence with his former colleagues. To see him be stripped of his powerful positions is a good thing.

However, the law which was used against him is a bad law which has entrapped many perfectly innocent people and forced them to pay (outrageously high, by definition) legal fees just to get their money back. So having him lose his money in this way is not a good thing, even if the end result is well deserved.

To read more details of this incident, read the story in today’s edition of the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/us/politics/dennis-hastert-chicago-court-appearance-for-arraignment.html

Epigenetic DNA tags Mostly, but not all, Removed in Embryos | Science News

2015-06-04

In the first weeks after conception, some of the cells in human embryos get their genetic blueprints scrubbed clean, conclude three new studies published June 4 in Cell. Those cells, the ones that become sperm or eggs, could beget the tiny embryos’ future offspring.

via DNA tags mostly deleted in human germ cells | Science News.

I previously wrote a post about epigenetic tags that are placed on DNA to alter the activity of genes– tags that record responses to environmental factors such as childhood abuse and differences in diet. These tags appear to be related to a number of human diseases and characteristic responses. For example, children raised in an extremely high stress environment grow up with an increased sensitivity to stress. These children, as adults, have greater hormonal responses to stressful events: higher levels of cortisol and norepinephrine in response to stress, for example.

One of the common epigenetic markers is methylation; methylated DNA at the right location will shut down or enhance the activity of the associated gene. Wikipedia describes methylation, occurring on cytosine or adenine nucleotides, as “suppressing the expression of endogenous retroviral genes and other harmful stretches of DNA…methylation is essential for normal development and is associated with…genomic imprinting, X-chromosome inactivation [in female cells], suppression of repetitive elements, and carcinogenesis.”

Now, as reported in these publications in Cell magazine, studies find that most, but not all, of these epigenetic tags are removed from germ cells (those that are destined to become sperm or egg cells) during embryo development. It had been previously found in mouse embryos that virtually all epigenetic tags are erased from germ cells. The new studies find that, in human germ cell embryonic precursors, about 4 percent of epigenetic tags are retained (as compared to 37 percent in another embryonic cell type.) Some of the tags that are retained (“escapees”) relate to tendencies to schizophrenia, obesity, and multiple sclerosis, conditions that are known to run in families. One of the Cell papers states: “Notably, many of the escapee-associated genes are expressed in brain, with potential links to neurological and metabolic disorders in humans.”

These studies show a significant difference between epigenetic inheritance in mice and humans. Some things are epigenetically inherited in humans that are not in mice. This opens the way for further study of epigenetics, a new area of research.

Drug-poisoning Deaths Involving Opioid Analgesics: United States, 1999-2011. – PubMed – NCBI

2015-06-04

Data from the National Vital Statistics System, Mortality File. The age-adjusted rate for opioid-analgesic poisoning deaths nearly quadrupled from 1.4 per 100,000 in 1999 to 5.4 per 100,000 in 2011. Although the opioid-analgesic poisoning death rates increased each year from 1999 through 2011, the rate of increase has slowed since 2006. Natural and semisynthetic opioid analgesics, such as hydrocodone, morphine, and oxycodone, were involved in 11,693 drug-poisoning deaths in 2011, up from 2,749 deaths in 1999. Benzodiazepines were involved in 31% of the opioid-analgesic poisoning deaths in 2011, up from 13% of the opioid-analgesic poisoning deaths in 1999. During the past decade, adults aged 55-64 and non-Hispanic white persons experienced the greatest increase in the rates of opioid-analgesic poisoning deaths. Poisoning is the leading cause of injury death in the United States (1). Drugs-both illicit and pharmaceutical-are the major cause of poisoning deaths, accounting for 90% of poisoning deaths in 2011. Misuse or abuse of prescription drugs, including opioid-analgesic pain relievers, is responsible for much of the recent increase in drug-poisoning deaths (2)

via Drug-poisoning Deaths Involving Opioid Analgesics: United States, 1999-2011. – PubMed – NCBI.

Yes, you read that correctly: the rate of opioid related poisoning deaths in the United States quadrupled from 1999 to 2011. What’s more, benzodiazepines were also used in 31% of deaths in 2011, up from 13% in 1999. So, while the rate of killing yourself with narcotic pain killers increased four times and the use of benzodiazepines in combination with narcotic pain killers also dramatically increased. An epidemic of pain killer and tranquilizer-induced deaths. Why?