Conrad Theodore Seitz

From a New York Times editorial posted August 31, 2014:

“In 2013, after-tax corporate profits as a share of the economy tied with their highest level on record (in 1965), while labor compensation as a share of the economy hit its lowest point since 1948. Wage growth since 1979 has not kept pace with productivity growth, resulting in falling or flat wages for most workers and big gains for corporate coffers, shareholders, executives and others at the top of the income ladder.”

These facts are an indictment of capitalism as it is practiced in the United States today.

Here’s a report about a small study, with about 40 patients in each arm, that shows a fifty percent response of major depression to injections of botulinum toxin A into the areas that control frowning: http://www.empr.com/turning-the-frown-upside-down-using-botulinum-toxin-to-treat-depression/article/329524/  The original study was e-published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research December 1, 2013.

The study, which is written up here on January 21, 2014, on the pharmaceutical website MPR, was done with the hypothesis that inhibiting corrugator and procerus muscle activity with botulinum toxin would ease depressive symptoms (where they got this cart before the horse idea, it doesn’t say) and got a 52 percent response from active injections with only 15 percent response to placebo injections.  A single injection, six weeks before evaluation, was effective with a p of less than 0.001.  Remission rates were also highly significant.  What’s more, when shown photographs of the subjects, observers were able to correctly infer whether the subject had received active treatment three-quarters of the time.  Those who responded also had durable responses if injections were given every three months.

The authors of the study described this effect as “emotional proprioception.”  They theorized that tension in the affected muscles forms part of a feedback system that affects mood.  It is also possible that one’s appearance of happiness to others (or even in the mirror) may have a positive effect on one’s mood.  Some studies even show that voluntarily contracting one’s face into a smile or a frown seems to stimulate the related mood in the subject.  Studies of depressed patient’s corrugator muscle activity showed that it was spontaneously higher than normal and did not respond normally (by relaxation) to viewing a happy picture.  Conversely, normal subjects had increases in corrugator contraction and dysphoric moods when shown unhappy pictures, which were reversed by viewing happy pictures.

Pharmacotherapy is known to have a failure rate of about 30%, even when multiple drugs are tried.  So a 50% response rate for such a relatively safe, single dose treatment is pretty good.  Why it would work is a matter of speculation, but it’s certainly very interesting.  Another unexpected beneficial effect of botulinum toxin is the relief of migraine headaches; why inhibition of muscle contractions would relieve migraines is another highly speculative area.

Here is a great post by Joseph Stiglitz (a very famous economist and Nobel prize winner) that explains what is wrong with inequality (we are the country with the highest income inequality of any advanced country) and what to do about it.  For example, “The inflation adjusted median income of a male worker with only a high school degree has fallen by 47% from 1969 to 2009. ”

Here is a link to the article: http://www.nextnewdeal.net/stiglitz-why-inequality-matters-and-what-can-be-done-about-it  (posted April 1, 2014)

I strongly recommend you read this article if you are in any doubt as to why inequality is bad for our economy as well as for individuals in our country.