Conrad Theodore Seitz

The three studies that Wikipedia presents in support of the observation that T. gondii infection is associated with higher suicide rates:

J Clin Psychiatry 2012;73(8):1069-1076

This cross-sectional, observational study compared T gondii serointensity and seropositivity in plasma from 54 adult suicide attempters (inpatients at Lund University Hospital, Lund, Sweden) and 30 adult control subjects (randomly selected from the municipal population register in Lund, Sweden) recruited between 2006 and 2010.

Data were analyzed using multivariable logistic regression to investigate the association between T gondii serointensity or seropositivity and a history of nonfatal suicidal self-directed violence; multivariable linear regression was used to explore the relationship between T gondii serointensity or seropositivity and the SUAS-S. Both regression models included sex, age, and body mass index as covariates.

Seropositivity of T gondii (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 7.12; 95% CI, 1.66–30.6; P =.008) and serointensity of T gondii (adjusted OR = 2.01; 95% CI, 1.09–3.71; P = .03) were positively associated with a history of nonfatal suicidal self-directed violence.

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2012;69(11):1123-1130

Register-based prospective cohort study. Women were followed up from the date of delivery, 1992 to 1995 until 2006.

Setting Denmark.

Participants A cohort of 45 788 women born in Denmark whose level of Toxoplasma -specific IgG antibodies was measured in connection with child birth between 1992 and 1995.

Results T gondii– infected mothers had a relative risk of self-directed violence of 1.53 (95% CI, 1.27-1.85) compared with noninfected mothers, and the risk seemed to increase with increasing IgG antibody level. For violent suicide attempts, the relative risk was 1.81 (95% CI, 1.13-2.84) and for suicide, 2.05 (95% CI, 0.78-5.20). A similar association was found for repetition of self-directed violence, with a relative risk of 1.54 (95% CI, 0.98-2.39).

Federal investigators discovered that half of doctors listed as participating in the Medicaid health plan were unavailable; more than one third did not even practice at the address that was given and could not be found.  Another eight percent who were at the listed address said they did not participate in Medicaid at all.  Eight percent participated in Medicaid but were not taking new patients.

This revelation is not really news to the millions of Medicaid patients all over the country who cannot find a doctor to treat them.  It is, however, a confirmation that the Medicaid “system” of provider enrollment is broken.  The lists that have been created and sent out to prospective patients are riddled with errors and omissions.  The median wait time for an appointment with a doctor who was accepting Medicaid was two weeks.  The director of managed care plans for the federal Medicaid agency claimed to be “developing new rules and standards” but it is unclear what effect this will have on the dismal state of the official lists of medical providers.

Read the New York Times article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/us/politics/half-of-doctors-listed-as-serving-medicaid-patients-are-unavailable-investigation-finds.html

Genentech introduced Lucentis in 2006 at $2000 a dose to treat wet macular degeneration, a blinding eye disease that mostly affects the elderly.  Physicians quickly discovered that Avastin, which cost $50 a dose and was also made by Genentech, worked just as well as Lucentis.  Unfortunately, studies showed that Lucentis was no better than Avastin: a large federal study of 1,200 patients showed that they were equivalent.

As an aside, a third drug, Eylea, made by Regeneron, was approved in 2011.

Lucentis is more convenient to use than Avastin, being made up in single doses; Avastin bottles have to be broken up and repackaged into the correct dosage, usually by compounding pharmacies.  This can introduce contamination, and in fact a serious case occurred in 2011 in which more than a dozen patients developed serious eye infections and some were blinded.  This problem could have been avoided if Genentech had packaged the Avastin in appropriate doses.

To promote the use of the new drug, Genentech hired a number of doctors as consultants, paying them thousands apiece to push Lucentis.  Half of the 20 doctors who were paid the most in 2013 were among the highest users of the drug in 2012.  Payments of $8500 to $37000 were made in the first five months of 2013 for consulting, speaking, travel, and meals to these physicians.  The company also pays rebates to doctors who use large amounts of Lucentis.  As a result, Lucentis is costing the federal government about $1 billion a year and netting Genentech about $1.3 billion.  The Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services calculated that if all patients were given Avastin instead of Lucentis, the government would have saved about $1.4 billion in 2011.

Doctors deny that payments from pharmaceutical companies influence their prescribing practices.  Multiple studies have shown the opposite.  Even small blandishments, like a free lunch, will make a physician have a better attitude towards a drug and its manufacturer.  Genentech says that it caps physician payments at $50,000 a year, and of course many doctors who prescribe large amounts of Lucentis aren’t getting any payments at all.  Nonetheless, the company has identified “opinion leaders” who are popular and well-spoken to spread the word.

Here’s a quote from the New York Times article about the practice of paying physicians for consultation:

“Eric Campbell, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, said doctors frequently denied that relationships with drug companies could change their behavior, despite many studies to the contrary. “They are suggesting that the drug companies that are spending this money, that these companies are dumb enough to be wasting their money,” he said.”

And here’s the link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/business/paid-to-promote-eye-drug-and-prescribing-it-widely-.html

Here’s a short article that explains why cops kill black men: they’re afraid of them, pathologically afraid.  Why?  Have cops been threatened or abused by black men?  I don’t think so, a black man would be insane to threaten a policeman; and they’d never succeed at abusing a cop.  So why are they so afraid?  Someone must be telling them to be afraid.

Article is at: http://prospect.org/article/quote-day-when-cops-are-scared

An article in today’s New York Times online describes an investigation of state attorneys general which disclosed that the attorneys are frequently fighting on the side of large corporations in their states that are resisting anti-pollution regulations promulgated by the federal government.

This collusion is so extensive that in many cases, the attorneys are simply copying draft letters supplied to them by the corporations, making a few slight changes in wording, and sending them on to the feds as complaints about supposedly excessive regulation or mismeasurement of pollution emitted.  The vast majority of these attorneys are, of course, Republicans.  In return for their cooperation, the corporations supply the attorneys with huge quantities of money for their re-election campaigns.

For example, the attorney general of Oklahoma has gotten over $215,000 from energy companies in “campaign contributions” since 2010, even though he ran unopposed in the last election.  The attorney general of Texas, the top recipient of contributions, has had over $2.5 million in contributions since 2006.

In return for lavish contributions, the attorneys general have sided with regulated companies in aggressively opposing attempts by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to cut down on air pollution caused by such things as coal-burning power plants.

This team-up of energy-extracting corporations (oil, coal, and natural gas producers) and state attorneys general has impaired efforts to clean up the pollution produced by these corporations.  What is more, it is undermining the traditional role of attorneys general, which is to encourage corporations to comply with state and federal laws that attempt to limit pollution.

If this process of collaboration continues, there will be no distinction between law enforcement agencies and the large companies that they are supposed to regulate.  When these companies corrupt state attorneys general, the people lose and the ideal of republican government is subverted.

The article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-alliance-with-attorneys-general.html

A fascinating and horrifying story is told at this web address: http://truth-out.org/news/item/10943-the-death-of-sunny-sheu#startOfPageId10943  This story is far from unique, and has come to light only because of the persistence of the victim in the face of death threats and the legwork of a dedicated journalist.  There are many other evil actions taken by people in power in this country that never come to light.  How do I know?  There is a saying that if you see one cockroach in your kitchen, there are five hundred hiding in the walls; I think this applies equally to incidents of this nature.

The case involves the assassination of a Chinese-American man who made the mistake of fighting a corrupt judge in New York City, Queens.  When this wealthy, corrupt judge failed to redress this man’s justified grievances, he went public with his complaints, brought the judge’s corrupt activities to light, and was rubbed out.  Despite the inept nature of the cover-up for this assassination, nothing has been done to bring justice in this case.  It is already four years old, and it has never been mentioned in any mainstream media source.  I came across it by accident.

The judge involved lied on his disclosure forms (you know, the ones that are supposed to prevent conflicts of interest) and, when given any opportunity to correct his lies, failed to do so.  He has committed a felony under New York state law and retired without ever being brought to justice.  The man who told everyone, even the FBI, what was going on is dead.

Here’s an article about his retirement (from August 11, 2012) which is very flattering… until you read the comments: http://queenscourier.com/justice-joseph-golia-retires-after-a-life-and-love-of-law/ … a number of people simply commented: “Murderer!” and one wrote “How does a judge accumulate millions of dollars in real estate?”

It seems that ex-Justice Golia is now a consultant to the law firm of Finz and Finz, which appears to be involved in personal injury litigation (like auto crashes and liability cases.)  Ironically, Finz and Finz were partners in winning a $20 million judgement against Philip Morris for making addictive cigarettes.  A case like that, if seriously attacked by a lawyer that really wanted to punish a cigarette company, ought to be worth in the hundreds of billions of dollars and result in the forced closure of the company and the sale of its assets.  This is because ninety percent of people who have ever smoked cigarettes are still smoking and half of them are destined to die from smoking.  After all, addictive drugs are bad (and illegal), right? and people who push drugs to innocent consumers should be thrown in jail, right?  wrong.

The take home lesson from this story is that America is nearly as corrupt as certain third world countries.  It seems that the corruption has been hidden from view by a complaisant media.  The little guy always seems to get the shaft.