No alternative medicine ever disappears when shown to be ineffective: The case of laetrile [Respectful Insolence]

Everything old is new again, or so it always seems with alternative medicine.

Before I explain what I’m talking about a bit more, let me just preface my remarks with an explanation for why there was no post tomorrow. I realize that most people probably don’t care that much if I miss a day or two, but I care. Basically, I was in Chicago from Thursday through Sunday taking a rather grueling review course in general surgery offered by the American College of Surgeons. The reason is that I have to take my board recertification examination in general surgery in December. It was an amazing course, and I was stunned at how much outside of my specialty had changed in the decade since I last had to recertify, just as, I’m sure, those who don’t specialize in breast surgery were shocked at how much has changed in how the surgical care of breast cancer has changed in the last decade. (I might have more to say about this in a later post.) The primary reason I’m mentioning now (other than because it explains why I didn’t manage to get a new post for this blog) is because this change in the standard of care in response to new scientific evidence is one of the greatest features of science-based medicine. It’s also one of the biggest contrasts between science-based medicine and alternative medicine; i.e., what I like to call quackery, mainly because it is.

I was reminded of this contrast by an article I came across on Buzzfeed yesterday, These People Are Making Money Off A Bogus Cancer Cure That Doctors Say Could Poison You. Of course, I knew right away what the article was about just from the title, without even having to note that the blurb for the article mentioned apricot seeds. Yes, we’re talking laetrile here, and apparently there are still quacks who are partying like it’s 1979, which was laetrile’s heyday as an alternative cancer cure:

The San Francisco Bay Area doctor had been giving patients a therapy that is essentially a chemical compound found in apricot kernels and known by several names — laetrile, amygdalin, vitamin B17. Richardson had been told it could attack tumors, naturally and precisely. It can also convert into potentially poisonous amounts of cyanide when eaten. But Richardson was a true believer.

“Yes, the evidence that Vitamin B17 is nature’s control for cancer is quite overwhelming,” he wrote in his book. “So the next time you hear an official spokesman for orthodox medicine proclaim that there is none, you might tell him that such a statement is a ‘self-evident absurdity’ and suggest that he do his homework before posing as an expert.”

Less convinced were the police who, on June 2, 1972, barged into Richardson’s clinic and jailed him on charges of medical quackery. He eventually lost his medical license and was charged with smuggling laetrile, an illegal drug, into the country.

It turns out that Richardson’s son is continuing the family business, so to speak:

Now, three decades after Richardson’s death, his son, John Richardson Jr., is no stranger to apricot seeds. Through Apricot Power, his thriving e-commerce store, he sells bitter seeds ($32.99 for 1,500), seed extract-based tablets (up to $97.99 a bottle), and B17-infused anti-aging cream ($49.99). Recipes for apricot-seed pesto, egg nog, and marzipan offer a “delicious and easy” way to work the supposed superfood into your diet, and videos explain why the site’s mission is to “get B17 into every body!” Though Richardson Jr. won’t reveal revenue numbers, he says his family operation of around 10 employees has served “thousands” of customers all over the world since it launched in 1999.

See what I mean? In the early 1980s, clinical trials showed that laetrile had no appreciable anticancer effect in humans and that it was also toxic. (The reason, of course, is the cyanide.) In science-based medicine, that would have been that. The treatment would have abandoned. But that’s not how alternative medicine works. True, laetrile did fade in popularity for a couple of decades after that, but of late it appears to be undergoing somewhat of a resurgence and “renaissance” (if you can call the revival of dangerous quackery a “renaissance”). I first noticed it three years ago when Eric Merola, the man behind two propaganda films promoting Stanislaw Burzynski’s cancer quackery, decided to shift topics to—you guessed it—laetrile. He directed a documentary entitled Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering, which, like his films on Burzynski were full of misinformation, obvious bias and spin, and just plain quackery and pseudoscience. Basically, as I discussed in my deconstruction of his film, the central idea being that Ralph Moss, who was a science writer of some sort at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and is now laetrile’s foremost popularizer, along with other MSKCC employees, “leaked” documents “proving” that laetrile/amygdalin had incredible anticancer activity. It was the same old thing. According to Merola, the negative clinical trials were “rigged not to work.” According to Merola, Laetrile “tested positively” in preclinical studies but that those results were “covered up” (of course). Other works supposedly showing the efficacy of laetrile was “suppressed.”\

You get the idea.

It turns out that Richardson is a bit more canny in that he states very,.”We don’t mention the C-word in our company,” the “C-word” being cancer. The Buzzfeed article also notes:

If a customer review on Apricot Power’s website even mentions the term, the company leaves a comment pointing out that it doesn’t make any disease or illness-related claims about its products. Legally, it can’t: The FDA prohibits companies from selling laetrile, under any name, as a cancer treatment, because studies have found it to be at best ineffective, and at worst toxic.

Holy quack Miranda warning, Batman! I’ve never seen a company actually respond to any mention of cancer on its social media pages with a pre-emptive quack Miranda before!

And, thanks to that same social media, everything old is new yet again:

In laetrile’s heyday in 1981, a doctor called it “the slickest, most sophisticated, and certainly the most remunerative cancer quack promotion in medical history.” Three decades later, the internet has only spread the gospel, creating an unstoppable, hydra-headed ecosystem of buyers and sellers.

I’ve discussed this before, of course, but I’ll briefly cover it again, mainly because there are likely to be newbies reading this. Basically, according to this article, the idea behind laetrile is that the body is lacking in a nutrient that proponents call “vitamin B17.” That’s sort of true, but only the latest iteration in the ever-morphing scientific “explanations” for how laetrile/amygdalin/vitamin B17 “works.” Basically, “Laetrile” is the trade name for laevo-mandelonitrile-beta-glucuronoside, a substance allegedly synthesized by Ernst T. Krebs, Jr. in the 1920s. It’s chemically related to amygdalin, a substance found naturally in the pits of apricots and some other fruits. Again, most proponents of Laetrile for the treatment of cancer use the terms “Laetrile” and amygdalin interchangeably, and I generally do as well. Historically, amygdalin was tried as an anticancer agent as early as 1892, but was abandoned because it was ineffective and toxic, its toxicity deriving from how it can break down in the body into glucose, benzaldehyde, and hydrogen cyanide.

Like the rationale for many forms of quackery, the rationale for Laetrile has shifted over the decades. In the 1950s, Ernst T. Krebs, Jr. claimed that cancer tissues are rich in an enzyme that causes amygdalin to release cyanide, which would destroy the cancer cells. Supposedly noncancerous tissues are protected by another enzyme. Later, Krebs claimed that Laetrile/amygdalin is a vitamin (B17) and, of course, cancer is due to a deficiency in that particular vitamin. Other claims have shifted, from Laetrile being a cancer cure to being able to “control” cancer to being a cancer “preventative.” Then, like so many alternative medicines, the indications for its use went what the military might call “mission creep” in that it was advocated for more and more conditions. These days, amygdalin/vitamin B17/laetrile is advocated for almost anything that ails you, just like the snake oil peddled by wandering salesmen 150 years ago.

So how did Richardson’s father get involved with selling amygdalin? He met up with Krebs, of course:

A successful salesperson must buy into what they’re selling, and Richardson Jr. is all in. Growing up in the Bay Area suburb of Orinda, he and his seven siblings weren’t fed sugar or processed wheat, an abstention he keeps up to this day. He says he started eating apricot seeds for his health at age 5. Now 52, he’s up to 40 a day.

The seeds contain amygdalin, a compound also found in apple seeds and almonds. In the 1950s, Ernst T. Krebs Jr., a self-described doctor and biochemist with no medical degree, patented a purified form of amygdalin that he called “laetrile.” He also promoted it as “vitamin B17,” although it’s not an officially recognized vitamin.

In 1971, Krebs Jr. shared with the elder Richardson his theory of how this nutrient could stop cancer growth. As Richardson later summarized: “[N]ature’s mechanism will not work if one fails to eat the foods that contain this necessary vitamin, which is exactly what has happened to modern man, whose food supply has become further and further removed from the natural state.”

Also, presaging how the antivaccine movement and other supporters of quackery have become more associated with anti-government conservative/libertarian movements, here’s what happened when the elder Richardson was arrested in 1972 for selling laetrile:

When the elder Richardson was arrested in 1972 (on charges that were dropped), it prompted his fellow members of the John Birch Society, the far-right conspiracist group of the era, to start a lobbying group to legalize laetrile. Later, Richardson was fined $20,000 and placed on probation on charges of conspiracy to smuggle laetrile from Mexico to the US. Indictments against him and 18 other accused promoters noted that he had deposited $2.5 million in his bank account over two years.

Laetrile isn’t being called laetrile much any more, but rather vitamin B17 or amygdalin, or it’s being sold in the form of apricot seeds. It’s a rather obvious “rebranding” to avoid the FDA and FTC’s ban on advertising laetrile for cancer. Avoid the “C-word,” throw in the liberal use of the quack Miranda warning, and start marketing laetrile as a dietary supplement, the better to avoid having to demonstrate efficacy and safety.

Another feature of this sort of marketing is that the companies selling supplements like amygdalin don’t actually have to make health claims. They can outsource it to the internet communities of believers who trade alternative cancer cure testimonials, to believers who have written books, made videos and movies, and write blogs. Of course, as I’ve said so many times before, dead patients don’t give testimonials; so of course only the patients who are still alive and doing relatively well are the ones promoting amygdalin with their stories. People you don’t hear about are cancer patients like this:

Campbell had a daughter who, not long after she was born, developed a rare, aggressive brain cancer and died. More than five years later, Campbell developed cancer, too, in her breast. Having watched her daughter undergo chemotherapy and radiation, she was determined to avoid them herself. So she started juicing, eating an all-vegetarian diet, and ordering cannabis oil and apricot seeds online. “She said, ‘This is my journey, it’s my body, I have to do it on my own,’” recalled Beggs, who lives in Northern Ireland. “‘You’re either with me or against me.’”

Beggs understood why Campbell distrusted conventional therapies, but “at the same time, we were so fearful,” she said. Campbell’s tumor kept growing until she finally agreed to have a mastectomy. Then new tumors sprouted in her liver and spine.

Campbell died in October 2015, soon after her 33rd birthday. By the end, she was up to 40 apricot kernels a day, her aunt said.

In quackery, be it cancer quackery or quackery used for other diseases, no treatment, no matter how ineffective and even toxic, ever disappears. No treatment ever disappears after being shown by science to be ineffective. The story of laetrile shows us that. The difference between quackery and science-based medicine could not be clearer.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2uTk8ch

Everything old is new again, or so it always seems with alternative medicine.

Before I explain what I’m talking about a bit more, let me just preface my remarks with an explanation for why there was no post tomorrow. I realize that most people probably don’t care that much if I miss a day or two, but I care. Basically, I was in Chicago from Thursday through Sunday taking a rather grueling review course in general surgery offered by the American College of Surgeons. The reason is that I have to take my board recertification examination in general surgery in December. It was an amazing course, and I was stunned at how much outside of my specialty had changed in the decade since I last had to recertify, just as, I’m sure, those who don’t specialize in breast surgery were shocked at how much has changed in how the surgical care of breast cancer has changed in the last decade. (I might have more to say about this in a later post.) The primary reason I’m mentioning now (other than because it explains why I didn’t manage to get a new post for this blog) is because this change in the standard of care in response to new scientific evidence is one of the greatest features of science-based medicine. It’s also one of the biggest contrasts between science-based medicine and alternative medicine; i.e., what I like to call quackery, mainly because it is.

I was reminded of this contrast by an article I came across on Buzzfeed yesterday, These People Are Making Money Off A Bogus Cancer Cure That Doctors Say Could Poison You. Of course, I knew right away what the article was about just from the title, without even having to note that the blurb for the article mentioned apricot seeds. Yes, we’re talking laetrile here, and apparently there are still quacks who are partying like it’s 1979, which was laetrile’s heyday as an alternative cancer cure:

The San Francisco Bay Area doctor had been giving patients a therapy that is essentially a chemical compound found in apricot kernels and known by several names — laetrile, amygdalin, vitamin B17. Richardson had been told it could attack tumors, naturally and precisely. It can also convert into potentially poisonous amounts of cyanide when eaten. But Richardson was a true believer.

“Yes, the evidence that Vitamin B17 is nature’s control for cancer is quite overwhelming,” he wrote in his book. “So the next time you hear an official spokesman for orthodox medicine proclaim that there is none, you might tell him that such a statement is a ‘self-evident absurdity’ and suggest that he do his homework before posing as an expert.”

Less convinced were the police who, on June 2, 1972, barged into Richardson’s clinic and jailed him on charges of medical quackery. He eventually lost his medical license and was charged with smuggling laetrile, an illegal drug, into the country.

It turns out that Richardson’s son is continuing the family business, so to speak:

Now, three decades after Richardson’s death, his son, John Richardson Jr., is no stranger to apricot seeds. Through Apricot Power, his thriving e-commerce store, he sells bitter seeds ($32.99 for 1,500), seed extract-based tablets (up to $97.99 a bottle), and B17-infused anti-aging cream ($49.99). Recipes for apricot-seed pesto, egg nog, and marzipan offer a “delicious and easy” way to work the supposed superfood into your diet, and videos explain why the site’s mission is to “get B17 into every body!” Though Richardson Jr. won’t reveal revenue numbers, he says his family operation of around 10 employees has served “thousands” of customers all over the world since it launched in 1999.

See what I mean? In the early 1980s, clinical trials showed that laetrile had no appreciable anticancer effect in humans and that it was also toxic. (The reason, of course, is the cyanide.) In science-based medicine, that would have been that. The treatment would have abandoned. But that’s not how alternative medicine works. True, laetrile did fade in popularity for a couple of decades after that, but of late it appears to be undergoing somewhat of a resurgence and “renaissance” (if you can call the revival of dangerous quackery a “renaissance”). I first noticed it three years ago when Eric Merola, the man behind two propaganda films promoting Stanislaw Burzynski’s cancer quackery, decided to shift topics to—you guessed it—laetrile. He directed a documentary entitled Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering, which, like his films on Burzynski were full of misinformation, obvious bias and spin, and just plain quackery and pseudoscience. Basically, as I discussed in my deconstruction of his film, the central idea being that Ralph Moss, who was a science writer of some sort at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and is now laetrile’s foremost popularizer, along with other MSKCC employees, “leaked” documents “proving” that laetrile/amygdalin had incredible anticancer activity. It was the same old thing. According to Merola, the negative clinical trials were “rigged not to work.” According to Merola, Laetrile “tested positively” in preclinical studies but that those results were “covered up” (of course). Other works supposedly showing the efficacy of laetrile was “suppressed.”\

You get the idea.

It turns out that Richardson is a bit more canny in that he states very,.”We don’t mention the C-word in our company,” the “C-word” being cancer. The Buzzfeed article also notes:

If a customer review on Apricot Power’s website even mentions the term, the company leaves a comment pointing out that it doesn’t make any disease or illness-related claims about its products. Legally, it can’t: The FDA prohibits companies from selling laetrile, under any name, as a cancer treatment, because studies have found it to be at best ineffective, and at worst toxic.

Holy quack Miranda warning, Batman! I’ve never seen a company actually respond to any mention of cancer on its social media pages with a pre-emptive quack Miranda before!

And, thanks to that same social media, everything old is new yet again:

In laetrile’s heyday in 1981, a doctor called it “the slickest, most sophisticated, and certainly the most remunerative cancer quack promotion in medical history.” Three decades later, the internet has only spread the gospel, creating an unstoppable, hydra-headed ecosystem of buyers and sellers.

I’ve discussed this before, of course, but I’ll briefly cover it again, mainly because there are likely to be newbies reading this. Basically, according to this article, the idea behind laetrile is that the body is lacking in a nutrient that proponents call “vitamin B17.” That’s sort of true, but only the latest iteration in the ever-morphing scientific “explanations” for how laetrile/amygdalin/vitamin B17 “works.” Basically, “Laetrile” is the trade name for laevo-mandelonitrile-beta-glucuronoside, a substance allegedly synthesized by Ernst T. Krebs, Jr. in the 1920s. It’s chemically related to amygdalin, a substance found naturally in the pits of apricots and some other fruits. Again, most proponents of Laetrile for the treatment of cancer use the terms “Laetrile” and amygdalin interchangeably, and I generally do as well. Historically, amygdalin was tried as an anticancer agent as early as 1892, but was abandoned because it was ineffective and toxic, its toxicity deriving from how it can break down in the body into glucose, benzaldehyde, and hydrogen cyanide.

Like the rationale for many forms of quackery, the rationale for Laetrile has shifted over the decades. In the 1950s, Ernst T. Krebs, Jr. claimed that cancer tissues are rich in an enzyme that causes amygdalin to release cyanide, which would destroy the cancer cells. Supposedly noncancerous tissues are protected by another enzyme. Later, Krebs claimed that Laetrile/amygdalin is a vitamin (B17) and, of course, cancer is due to a deficiency in that particular vitamin. Other claims have shifted, from Laetrile being a cancer cure to being able to “control” cancer to being a cancer “preventative.” Then, like so many alternative medicines, the indications for its use went what the military might call “mission creep” in that it was advocated for more and more conditions. These days, amygdalin/vitamin B17/laetrile is advocated for almost anything that ails you, just like the snake oil peddled by wandering salesmen 150 years ago.

So how did Richardson’s father get involved with selling amygdalin? He met up with Krebs, of course:

A successful salesperson must buy into what they’re selling, and Richardson Jr. is all in. Growing up in the Bay Area suburb of Orinda, he and his seven siblings weren’t fed sugar or processed wheat, an abstention he keeps up to this day. He says he started eating apricot seeds for his health at age 5. Now 52, he’s up to 40 a day.

The seeds contain amygdalin, a compound also found in apple seeds and almonds. In the 1950s, Ernst T. Krebs Jr., a self-described doctor and biochemist with no medical degree, patented a purified form of amygdalin that he called “laetrile.” He also promoted it as “vitamin B17,” although it’s not an officially recognized vitamin.

In 1971, Krebs Jr. shared with the elder Richardson his theory of how this nutrient could stop cancer growth. As Richardson later summarized: “[N]ature’s mechanism will not work if one fails to eat the foods that contain this necessary vitamin, which is exactly what has happened to modern man, whose food supply has become further and further removed from the natural state.”

Also, presaging how the antivaccine movement and other supporters of quackery have become more associated with anti-government conservative/libertarian movements, here’s what happened when the elder Richardson was arrested in 1972 for selling laetrile:

When the elder Richardson was arrested in 1972 (on charges that were dropped), it prompted his fellow members of the John Birch Society, the far-right conspiracist group of the era, to start a lobbying group to legalize laetrile. Later, Richardson was fined $20,000 and placed on probation on charges of conspiracy to smuggle laetrile from Mexico to the US. Indictments against him and 18 other accused promoters noted that he had deposited $2.5 million in his bank account over two years.

Laetrile isn’t being called laetrile much any more, but rather vitamin B17 or amygdalin, or it’s being sold in the form of apricot seeds. It’s a rather obvious “rebranding” to avoid the FDA and FTC’s ban on advertising laetrile for cancer. Avoid the “C-word,” throw in the liberal use of the quack Miranda warning, and start marketing laetrile as a dietary supplement, the better to avoid having to demonstrate efficacy and safety.

Another feature of this sort of marketing is that the companies selling supplements like amygdalin don’t actually have to make health claims. They can outsource it to the internet communities of believers who trade alternative cancer cure testimonials, to believers who have written books, made videos and movies, and write blogs. Of course, as I’ve said so many times before, dead patients don’t give testimonials; so of course only the patients who are still alive and doing relatively well are the ones promoting amygdalin with their stories. People you don’t hear about are cancer patients like this:

Campbell had a daughter who, not long after she was born, developed a rare, aggressive brain cancer and died. More than five years later, Campbell developed cancer, too, in her breast. Having watched her daughter undergo chemotherapy and radiation, she was determined to avoid them herself. So she started juicing, eating an all-vegetarian diet, and ordering cannabis oil and apricot seeds online. “She said, ‘This is my journey, it’s my body, I have to do it on my own,’” recalled Beggs, who lives in Northern Ireland. “‘You’re either with me or against me.’”

Beggs understood why Campbell distrusted conventional therapies, but “at the same time, we were so fearful,” she said. Campbell’s tumor kept growing until she finally agreed to have a mastectomy. Then new tumors sprouted in her liver and spine.

Campbell died in October 2015, soon after her 33rd birthday. By the end, she was up to 40 apricot kernels a day, her aunt said.

In quackery, be it cancer quackery or quackery used for other diseases, no treatment, no matter how ineffective and even toxic, ever disappears. No treatment ever disappears after being shown by science to be ineffective. The story of laetrile shows us that. The difference between quackery and science-based medicine could not be clearer.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2uTk8ch

Did 13 Reasons Spark A Spike In Suicides? [Greg Laden's Blog]

We do not know if the airing of “13 Reasons Why” caused an increase in suicide or not, and that in and of itself is astonishing. In the world of very advanced techniques for collecting and monitoring data, and in a world that we are led to believe is on the edge of the next epidemic, you would think the suicide rate could be estimated on the fly, with minor corrections later. Climate scientists are able to assimilate tens of thousands of data readings taken multiple times a day around the world into estimates of global surface temperatures. There is a daily ongoing estimate that I assume uses only part of the data, and at the end of every month, the data are crunched and the estimate spilled out, and only rarely is there a correction needed.

Anyway, we don’t have that information but there are two pieces of information we do have. One is from an older study.

There is evidence to suggest that some of the variation in suicide rates is accounted for by some of the variation in internet search rate. (This is not a causal statement, but a statistical statement.) From the abstract of the study:

… a set of suicide-related search terms, the trends of which either temporally coincided or preceded trends of suicide data, were associated with suicide death. These search factors varied among different suicide samples. Searches for “major depression” and “divorce” accounted for, at most, 30.2% of the variance in suicide data. When considering only leading suicide trends, searches for “divorce” and the pro-suicide term “complete guide of suicide,” accounted for 22.7% of variance in suicide data.

A recent piece by Madhumita Murgia in the Washington Post reported the connection between that older work and a current study showing that Internet search activity in relation to suicide spiked at the time that the Netflix series “13 Reasons” (based on this book) was released.

The 13-episode series, which was released all at once, chronicles 13 tapes that Hannah sends to those she blames for her actions. The series has captured the imagination of kids across the country. In April, it set a record for the most-tweeted-about show in 2017, when it was mentioned more than 11 million times within three weeks of its March 31 launch.

The jump is documented in a study published in JAMA by John Ayers, and others, called “Internet Searches for Suicide Following the Release of 13 Reasons Why.: The study results:

All suicide queries were cumulatively 19% (95% CI, 14%-24%) higher for the 19 days following the release of 13 Reasons Why, reflecting 900 000 to 1.5 million more searches than expected (Figure). For 12 of the 19 days studied, suicide queries were significantly greater than expected, ranging from 15% (95% CI, 3%-32%) higher on April 15, 2017, to 44% (95% CI, 28%-65%) higher on April 18, 2017.

Seventeen of the top 20 related queries were higher than expected, with most rising queries focused on suicidal ideation. For instance, “how to commit suicide” (26%; 95% CI, 12%-42%), “commit suicide” (18%; 95% CI, 11%-26%), and “how to kill yourself” (9%; 95% CI, 4%-14%) were all significantly higher. Queries for suicide hotlines were also elevated, including “suicide hotline number” (21%; 95% CI, 1%-44%) and “suicide hotline” (12%; 95% CI, 5%-19%). Last, public awareness indicative searches, such as “suicide prevention” (23%; 95% CI, 6%-40%) or “teen suicide” (34%; 95% CI, 17%-52%), were elevated.

…

Additional surveillance will clarify our findings, including estimating changes in suicide attempts or calls to national suicide hotlines. Nonetheless, our analyses suggest 13 Reasons Why, in its present form, has both increased suicide awareness while unintentionally increasing suicidal ideation.

So, yes, “13 Reasons” may have had the effect in spiking suicide rates for a short term, but until we know we should not make too much of it. But generally I would like to see mortality and morbidity data more frequently updated.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2vmUK1r

We do not know if the airing of “13 Reasons Why” caused an increase in suicide or not, and that in and of itself is astonishing. In the world of very advanced techniques for collecting and monitoring data, and in a world that we are led to believe is on the edge of the next epidemic, you would think the suicide rate could be estimated on the fly, with minor corrections later. Climate scientists are able to assimilate tens of thousands of data readings taken multiple times a day around the world into estimates of global surface temperatures. There is a daily ongoing estimate that I assume uses only part of the data, and at the end of every month, the data are crunched and the estimate spilled out, and only rarely is there a correction needed.

Anyway, we don’t have that information but there are two pieces of information we do have. One is from an older study.

There is evidence to suggest that some of the variation in suicide rates is accounted for by some of the variation in internet search rate. (This is not a causal statement, but a statistical statement.) From the abstract of the study:

… a set of suicide-related search terms, the trends of which either temporally coincided or preceded trends of suicide data, were associated with suicide death. These search factors varied among different suicide samples. Searches for “major depression” and “divorce” accounted for, at most, 30.2% of the variance in suicide data. When considering only leading suicide trends, searches for “divorce” and the pro-suicide term “complete guide of suicide,” accounted for 22.7% of variance in suicide data.

A recent piece by Madhumita Murgia in the Washington Post reported the connection between that older work and a current study showing that Internet search activity in relation to suicide spiked at the time that the Netflix series “13 Reasons” (based on this book) was released.

The 13-episode series, which was released all at once, chronicles 13 tapes that Hannah sends to those she blames for her actions. The series has captured the imagination of kids across the country. In April, it set a record for the most-tweeted-about show in 2017, when it was mentioned more than 11 million times within three weeks of its March 31 launch.

The jump is documented in a study published in JAMA by John Ayers, and others, called “Internet Searches for Suicide Following the Release of 13 Reasons Why.: The study results:

All suicide queries were cumulatively 19% (95% CI, 14%-24%) higher for the 19 days following the release of 13 Reasons Why, reflecting 900 000 to 1.5 million more searches than expected (Figure). For 12 of the 19 days studied, suicide queries were significantly greater than expected, ranging from 15% (95% CI, 3%-32%) higher on April 15, 2017, to 44% (95% CI, 28%-65%) higher on April 18, 2017.

Seventeen of the top 20 related queries were higher than expected, with most rising queries focused on suicidal ideation. For instance, “how to commit suicide” (26%; 95% CI, 12%-42%), “commit suicide” (18%; 95% CI, 11%-26%), and “how to kill yourself” (9%; 95% CI, 4%-14%) were all significantly higher. Queries for suicide hotlines were also elevated, including “suicide hotline number” (21%; 95% CI, 1%-44%) and “suicide hotline” (12%; 95% CI, 5%-19%). Last, public awareness indicative searches, such as “suicide prevention” (23%; 95% CI, 6%-40%) or “teen suicide” (34%; 95% CI, 17%-52%), were elevated.

…

Additional surveillance will clarify our findings, including estimating changes in suicide attempts or calls to national suicide hotlines. Nonetheless, our analyses suggest 13 Reasons Why, in its present form, has both increased suicide awareness while unintentionally increasing suicidal ideation.

So, yes, “13 Reasons” may have had the effect in spiking suicide rates for a short term, but until we know we should not make too much of it. But generally I would like to see mortality and morbidity data more frequently updated.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2vmUK1r

Focus on one thing, do not be distracted by anything else. Oh look tacos! [Greg Laden's Blog]

I don’t use clickbait titles very often, but this was one, because I want to talk to people who think that nine out of ten things that the collective known as Donald Trump, his white house staff, and the Republicans in Congress do is a distraction from … whatever.

Yes, distractions can happen, but most of what happens is not a distraction. The Trump administration is incapable of that much forethought and planning. When Trump throws trans people under the bus, telling that is a distraction is YOU throwing trans people under the bus. Here are some examples of the distraction meme playing out on Twitter:

New distraction tactic for @realDonaldTrump = banning Trans people from military service
As a #Veteran, this is a DISGRACE#VeteransResist 👇 http://pic.twitter.com/XgB6lFdjhp

— Obi-Wan Kenobi 🇺🇸 (@gbmnyc) July 26, 2017

The firing of #Mooch is just a distraction from the fact that @realDonaldTrump, on the advice of #Kushner, hired him in the first place. https://t.co/4cOyOhOp0A

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) July 31, 2017

Was the shiny mooch just one big distraction? http://pic.twitter.com/UoreLGgdJI

— BE (@ThatBarb) July 31, 2017

He was nothing but a distraction. #Scaramucchi

— liz 🍋lemon (@real_marna) July 31, 2017

Trans Rights are Human Rights

Trans Rights are Not a Distraction

Trans Lives are Under Attack

— Mel Stone (@melstonemusic) July 26, 2017

He was nothing but a distraction. #Scaramucchi

— liz 🍋lemon (@real_marna) July 31, 2017

Trans Rights are Human Rights

Trans Rights are Not a Distraction

Trans Lives are Under Attack

— Mel Stone (@melstonemusic) July 26, 2017

Here is a text book definition of distraction with the Department Of Education. Trump donates his salary but slashes their budget $9 billion

— ♻️ Christopher Zullo (@ChrisJZullo) July 26, 2017

There's a 13.8% hike in school property tax collections coming. Everything else is a distraction from that. #txlege https://t.co/pjSj1BAx8O

— Texas Counties (@TexasCounties) July 22, 2017

Chomsky: Trump is a Distraction, Used by the Deep State to ‘Systematically Destroy’ America https://t.co/RhrKug5wer

— DEPLORABLE JACKPHAT (@jackphatz) July 22, 2017

Sorry to intrude on Sat morning toons but all the Trump Drama was a Distraction. The GOP is doing their dirty work NOW! CALL 202-224-3121 https://t.co/pA6rLwmz9n

— gmp_01 (@gmp_01) July 22, 2017

Distraction

— Jon Marcus (@ThusSpokeJon) July 22, 2017

This theme plays out in other ways as well. I recently wrote a Facebook post bout the 2020 election. Something like 9 out of 10 commenters told me to stop talking bout 2020, and to focus on 2018. Some told me to focus on other things.

I’ve got news for you. Every week I carry out a number of focused acts related to the climate change crisis. Everything else is a distraction.

I also carry out an act or two to work towards replacing my Republican representative in Congress because he is vulnerable, we can switch this seat, and that may be part of changing Congress from Red to Blue. Everything else is a distraction.

I frequently expend effort helping in the campaign for who I think should be the next Governor of my state. My fellow staters tend to switch parties every two terms, and we’ve had a Democrat in office for what will be 8 years. I am focused like a laser beam on making sure my bone-headed compatriots don’t blindly put a Republican in office in 2018, and I’ve got my candidate. Everything else is a distraction.

My state house representative is a seriously red tea-bagger. I’ve not done much about that yet, I just moved to her district. But I’ve done a couple of things and I’ll do more. I’ll do what I can to make sure she is replaced by someone excellent, a Democrat, and I already know who it is. Everything else is a distraction.

Today, I started to process of encouraging someone in my school district to run for the board. I want to see more good people run for more offices. Everything else is a distraction.

Oh, and today, for dinner, I’m going to make tacos. Except they really aren’t tacos, they are more like burritos. We must defend the burrito, which is not a taco and not a wrap. Everything else is a …

Anyway, I’m not the only person who cringes when I see “No, that really important example of Trump and his Republican Minions taking away our rights and ruining the planet and garnering more and more wealth is just a distraction,” or who hates it when an attempt at a conversation about politics gets shut down by well meaning and smart people because it wasn’t what they were thinking about that day.

I an prove that with Twitter:

Oh my god: Not everything in the Trump Administration is a "distraction." They don't have that skill level. They're just pure chaos.

— Bill Humphrey in MA (@BillHumphreyMA) July 31, 2017

A lot is going on today. A reminder: Nothing is a distraction when everything is on fire. http://pic.twitter.com/JTlMZfcKij

— Jeanette (@planethalia) July 26, 2017

Trans Rights are Human Rights

Trans Rights are Not a Distraction

Trans Lives are Under Attack

— Mel Stone (@melstonemusic) July 26, 2017

I urge you to walk. And I urge you to chew gum. Beyond that, I urge you to walk and chew gum at the same time. I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT!!!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2uNZXOm

I don’t use clickbait titles very often, but this was one, because I want to talk to people who think that nine out of ten things that the collective known as Donald Trump, his white house staff, and the Republicans in Congress do is a distraction from … whatever.

Yes, distractions can happen, but most of what happens is not a distraction. The Trump administration is incapable of that much forethought and planning. When Trump throws trans people under the bus, telling that is a distraction is YOU throwing trans people under the bus. Here are some examples of the distraction meme playing out on Twitter:

New distraction tactic for @realDonaldTrump = banning Trans people from military service
As a #Veteran, this is a DISGRACE#VeteransResist 👇 http://pic.twitter.com/XgB6lFdjhp

— Obi-Wan Kenobi 🇺🇸 (@gbmnyc) July 26, 2017

The firing of #Mooch is just a distraction from the fact that @realDonaldTrump, on the advice of #Kushner, hired him in the first place. https://t.co/4cOyOhOp0A

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) July 31, 2017

Was the shiny mooch just one big distraction? http://pic.twitter.com/UoreLGgdJI

— BE (@ThatBarb) July 31, 2017

He was nothing but a distraction. #Scaramucchi

— liz 🍋lemon (@real_marna) July 31, 2017

Trans Rights are Human Rights

Trans Rights are Not a Distraction

Trans Lives are Under Attack

— Mel Stone (@melstonemusic) July 26, 2017

He was nothing but a distraction. #Scaramucchi

— liz 🍋lemon (@real_marna) July 31, 2017

Trans Rights are Human Rights

Trans Rights are Not a Distraction

Trans Lives are Under Attack

— Mel Stone (@melstonemusic) July 26, 2017

Here is a text book definition of distraction with the Department Of Education. Trump donates his salary but slashes their budget $9 billion

— ♻️ Christopher Zullo (@ChrisJZullo) July 26, 2017

There's a 13.8% hike in school property tax collections coming. Everything else is a distraction from that. #txlege https://t.co/pjSj1BAx8O

— Texas Counties (@TexasCounties) July 22, 2017

Chomsky: Trump is a Distraction, Used by the Deep State to ‘Systematically Destroy’ America https://t.co/RhrKug5wer

— DEPLORABLE JACKPHAT (@jackphatz) July 22, 2017

Sorry to intrude on Sat morning toons but all the Trump Drama was a Distraction. The GOP is doing their dirty work NOW! CALL 202-224-3121 https://t.co/pA6rLwmz9n

— gmp_01 (@gmp_01) July 22, 2017

Distraction

— Jon Marcus (@ThusSpokeJon) July 22, 2017

This theme plays out in other ways as well. I recently wrote a Facebook post bout the 2020 election. Something like 9 out of 10 commenters told me to stop talking bout 2020, and to focus on 2018. Some told me to focus on other things.

I’ve got news for you. Every week I carry out a number of focused acts related to the climate change crisis. Everything else is a distraction.

I also carry out an act or two to work towards replacing my Republican representative in Congress because he is vulnerable, we can switch this seat, and that may be part of changing Congress from Red to Blue. Everything else is a distraction.

I frequently expend effort helping in the campaign for who I think should be the next Governor of my state. My fellow staters tend to switch parties every two terms, and we’ve had a Democrat in office for what will be 8 years. I am focused like a laser beam on making sure my bone-headed compatriots don’t blindly put a Republican in office in 2018, and I’ve got my candidate. Everything else is a distraction.

My state house representative is a seriously red tea-bagger. I’ve not done much about that yet, I just moved to her district. But I’ve done a couple of things and I’ll do more. I’ll do what I can to make sure she is replaced by someone excellent, a Democrat, and I already know who it is. Everything else is a distraction.

Today, I started to process of encouraging someone in my school district to run for the board. I want to see more good people run for more offices. Everything else is a distraction.

Oh, and today, for dinner, I’m going to make tacos. Except they really aren’t tacos, they are more like burritos. We must defend the burrito, which is not a taco and not a wrap. Everything else is a …

Anyway, I’m not the only person who cringes when I see “No, that really important example of Trump and his Republican Minions taking away our rights and ruining the planet and garnering more and more wealth is just a distraction,” or who hates it when an attempt at a conversation about politics gets shut down by well meaning and smart people because it wasn’t what they were thinking about that day.

I an prove that with Twitter:

Oh my god: Not everything in the Trump Administration is a "distraction." They don't have that skill level. They're just pure chaos.

— Bill Humphrey in MA (@BillHumphreyMA) July 31, 2017

A lot is going on today. A reminder: Nothing is a distraction when everything is on fire. http://pic.twitter.com/JTlMZfcKij

— Jeanette (@planethalia) July 26, 2017

Trans Rights are Human Rights

Trans Rights are Not a Distraction

Trans Lives are Under Attack

— Mel Stone (@melstonemusic) July 26, 2017

I urge you to walk. And I urge you to chew gum. Beyond that, I urge you to walk and chew gum at the same time. I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT!!!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2uNZXOm

Relief and trepidation on healthcare [The Pump Handle]

Like millions of others, I was hugely relieved to get the news early Friday morning that three Republican Senators had joined 48 of their Democratic and Independent colleagues to vote down the third Republican proposal to take healthcare away from millions of people. Now’s a good time to think about how we got here and what comes next.

 

The Affordable Care Act

For much of 2009, Democratic members of Congress spent months negotiating with Republican colleagues and one another on the legislation that would eventually become the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act. Over many hours of debate, hearings, and bipartisan roundtables, Democrats worked to craft something that Republicans could live with. I suspect that if Mitch McConnell hadn’t been so committed to obstructionism, at least a couple of Republicans would have voted for it.

The ACA ended up looking a lot like the Massachusetts model that then-Governor Mitt Romney successfully enacted: a combination of existing employer-sponsored insurance, government-supported coverage for low-income residents, and a regulated and subsidized private market for those who didn’t have employer-sponsored insurance or Medicaid. The much-derided individual mandate, a mechanism also supported by the conservative Heritage Foundation, was the necessary evil to avoid a death spiral in the private market – because if you don’t require people to have insurance, they’ll only get it when they’re sick or injured, and costs will quickly soar and discourage healthier people from joining the risk pool.

The ACA had flaws, and was hobbled by the Supreme Court’s decision that the Medicaid expansion should be optional. Many of the problems Republicans have pointed to over the past seven years are real: Premiums and deductibles for individual marketplace plans still strain many families’ budgets, and insurers find some markets too volatile, unpredictable, or costly, leaving some areas with few – or no – insurers offering individual plans. These are things that could be fixed, but the plans Congressional Republicans have offered would make them worse for all but the healthiest insurance purchasers. Meanwhile, the ACA success that’s arguably most important – the Medicaid expansion – is something the Republican bills would undo and exacerbate with deep cuts and fundamental alterations to Medicaid.

 

Republicans’ approach and the backlash

Faced with a law that already represented a compromise, and given seven years to come up with alternatives, what did Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and their colleagues do? They tried to mislead the public about the ACA and about their own hastily cobbled-together bills, which primarily consisted of huge cuts to Medicaid and taxes with some ACA destruction thrown in. The Senate process represented a shocking departure from the norms that have governed that chamber: no hearings, bills crafted in secret, and text revealed mere hours before Senators were expected to vote on it. It wasn’t a process designed to legislate thoughtfully on something that accounts for one-sixth of the economy and profoundly affects all our lives – it was a process designed to get a political win before Senators could think too much about a bill’s contents.

They almost succeeded. Forty-eight Democratic and Independent Senators – including Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, who is fighting Stage 4 kidney cancer – held firm against the appalling process and bills. Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against each of the destructive proposals that McConnell brought to the chamber last week in quick succession. The third proposal, the so-called “skinny” repeal, came up for a vote in the early hours of Thursday morning. Senator John McCain, who flew back to Washington after surgery for what turned out to be brain cancer, cast the third Republican vote against it.

The three Republican Senators who voted down the last Senate bill faced pressure from their colleagues, including suggestions of violence against Collins and Murkowski and implied threats that a “no” from Murkowski would results in Trump administration retaliation against Alaska. But they, along with the other Senators, also heard from many constituents whose calls, letters, office visits, marches, and rallies clearly communicated their disapproval of the Republican approach. The Capitol switchboard logged its busiest day, while regular rallies outside the Capitol featured speakers from AFSCME, Center for American Progress, Indivisible, MoveOn, Planned Parenthood, SEIU, and UltraViolet, as well as several members of Congress. Office visits from Little Lobbyists and sit-ins by ADAPT drew attention to the devastation Medicaid cuts would spell for children with complex medical needs and people with disabilities. We might never know which, if any, of those actions influenced the three Republican “no” votes in the end, but there was no way any Senator could’ve claimed to be unaware of the substantial public opposition to their destructive process and proposals.

Rashelle Hibbard and her son Leo, who has cerebral palsy and benefits from Medicaid. “In the America I believe in, we take care of each other” Rashelle said.

What’s next

I wrote back in March about ways Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration have been sabotaging the ACA-created private market, including by cutting open enrollment outreach and continuing to withhold payments to insurers to offset the cost-sharing reductions the ACA mandated for lower-income enrollees. The Trump administration has been making these payments on a month-to-month basis, and the absence of a firm assurance that they’ll continue is worrying to insurers (and could lead to an average 19% rise in premiums). The administration’s decision to shorten the open enrollment window, its lack of commitment to enforcing the individual mandate, and its ending of contracts for “navigator” enrollment assistance are all likely to reduce the number of people – especially young, healthy people – who buy individual plans through state marketplaces.

(And, of course, ACA repeal isn’t completely dead yet; President Trump, despite displaying no understanding of how US health coverage works, is still pushing Republican Senators to pass something.)

If Congressional Republicans are really interested in fixing the premiums and deductibles they claim to worry about so much, they have the ability to do so. They could start with holding some bipartisan meetings and really listening to the healthcare providers, patient groups, hospitals, insurers, governors, and other experts who’ve been explaining why their recent bills are recipes for public-health disaster. Once they have some proposed legislative text, they could hold hearings on it and make improvements in response to concerns people raise. In other words, they could act like thoughtful legislators who care about their constituents’ health more than about undoing a signature achievement of the previous president. There’s a glimmer of hope here: In the House, the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus has released a proposal to stabilize the ACA marketplaces without torpedoing the law itself.

The ACA allowed 20 million people to gain insurance and freed millions more from the fear that they could be denied health insurance or coverage of needed care based on their gender or health history. I’m more hopeful than I was a week ago that those gains will remain, but I’m still worried about what else will happen over the next several months.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2uP5PXT

Like millions of others, I was hugely relieved to get the news early Friday morning that three Republican Senators had joined 48 of their Democratic and Independent colleagues to vote down the third Republican proposal to take healthcare away from millions of people. Now’s a good time to think about how we got here and what comes next.

 

The Affordable Care Act

For much of 2009, Democratic members of Congress spent months negotiating with Republican colleagues and one another on the legislation that would eventually become the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act. Over many hours of debate, hearings, and bipartisan roundtables, Democrats worked to craft something that Republicans could live with. I suspect that if Mitch McConnell hadn’t been so committed to obstructionism, at least a couple of Republicans would have voted for it.

The ACA ended up looking a lot like the Massachusetts model that then-Governor Mitt Romney successfully enacted: a combination of existing employer-sponsored insurance, government-supported coverage for low-income residents, and a regulated and subsidized private market for those who didn’t have employer-sponsored insurance or Medicaid. The much-derided individual mandate, a mechanism also supported by the conservative Heritage Foundation, was the necessary evil to avoid a death spiral in the private market – because if you don’t require people to have insurance, they’ll only get it when they’re sick or injured, and costs will quickly soar and discourage healthier people from joining the risk pool.

The ACA had flaws, and was hobbled by the Supreme Court’s decision that the Medicaid expansion should be optional. Many of the problems Republicans have pointed to over the past seven years are real: Premiums and deductibles for individual marketplace plans still strain many families’ budgets, and insurers find some markets too volatile, unpredictable, or costly, leaving some areas with few – or no – insurers offering individual plans. These are things that could be fixed, but the plans Congressional Republicans have offered would make them worse for all but the healthiest insurance purchasers. Meanwhile, the ACA success that’s arguably most important – the Medicaid expansion – is something the Republican bills would undo and exacerbate with deep cuts and fundamental alterations to Medicaid.

 

Republicans’ approach and the backlash

Faced with a law that already represented a compromise, and given seven years to come up with alternatives, what did Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and their colleagues do? They tried to mislead the public about the ACA and about their own hastily cobbled-together bills, which primarily consisted of huge cuts to Medicaid and taxes with some ACA destruction thrown in. The Senate process represented a shocking departure from the norms that have governed that chamber: no hearings, bills crafted in secret, and text revealed mere hours before Senators were expected to vote on it. It wasn’t a process designed to legislate thoughtfully on something that accounts for one-sixth of the economy and profoundly affects all our lives – it was a process designed to get a political win before Senators could think too much about a bill’s contents.

They almost succeeded. Forty-eight Democratic and Independent Senators – including Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, who is fighting Stage 4 kidney cancer – held firm against the appalling process and bills. Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against each of the destructive proposals that McConnell brought to the chamber last week in quick succession. The third proposal, the so-called “skinny” repeal, came up for a vote in the early hours of Thursday morning. Senator John McCain, who flew back to Washington after surgery for what turned out to be brain cancer, cast the third Republican vote against it.

The three Republican Senators who voted down the last Senate bill faced pressure from their colleagues, including suggestions of violence against Collins and Murkowski and implied threats that a “no” from Murkowski would results in Trump administration retaliation against Alaska. But they, along with the other Senators, also heard from many constituents whose calls, letters, office visits, marches, and rallies clearly communicated their disapproval of the Republican approach. The Capitol switchboard logged its busiest day, while regular rallies outside the Capitol featured speakers from AFSCME, Center for American Progress, Indivisible, MoveOn, Planned Parenthood, SEIU, and UltraViolet, as well as several members of Congress. Office visits from Little Lobbyists and sit-ins by ADAPT drew attention to the devastation Medicaid cuts would spell for children with complex medical needs and people with disabilities. We might never know which, if any, of those actions influenced the three Republican “no” votes in the end, but there was no way any Senator could’ve claimed to be unaware of the substantial public opposition to their destructive process and proposals.

Rashelle Hibbard and her son Leo, who has cerebral palsy and benefits from Medicaid. “In the America I believe in, we take care of each other” Rashelle said.

What’s next

I wrote back in March about ways Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration have been sabotaging the ACA-created private market, including by cutting open enrollment outreach and continuing to withhold payments to insurers to offset the cost-sharing reductions the ACA mandated for lower-income enrollees. The Trump administration has been making these payments on a month-to-month basis, and the absence of a firm assurance that they’ll continue is worrying to insurers (and could lead to an average 19% rise in premiums). The administration’s decision to shorten the open enrollment window, its lack of commitment to enforcing the individual mandate, and its ending of contracts for “navigator” enrollment assistance are all likely to reduce the number of people – especially young, healthy people – who buy individual plans through state marketplaces.

(And, of course, ACA repeal isn’t completely dead yet; President Trump, despite displaying no understanding of how US health coverage works, is still pushing Republican Senators to pass something.)

If Congressional Republicans are really interested in fixing the premiums and deductibles they claim to worry about so much, they have the ability to do so. They could start with holding some bipartisan meetings and really listening to the healthcare providers, patient groups, hospitals, insurers, governors, and other experts who’ve been explaining why their recent bills are recipes for public-health disaster. Once they have some proposed legislative text, they could hold hearings on it and make improvements in response to concerns people raise. In other words, they could act like thoughtful legislators who care about their constituents’ health more than about undoing a signature achievement of the previous president. There’s a glimmer of hope here: In the House, the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus has released a proposal to stabilize the ACA marketplaces without torpedoing the law itself.

The ACA allowed 20 million people to gain insurance and freed millions more from the fear that they could be denied health insurance or coverage of needed care based on their gender or health history. I’m more hopeful than I was a week ago that those gains will remain, but I’m still worried about what else will happen over the next several months.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/2uP5PXT

What’s the August birthstone?

Peridot. Photo via Boykung/Shutterstock

Peridot

Peridot is a gem-quality transparent variety of olivine, a mineral composed of magnesium-iron silicates. The color of olivine ranges from olive to lime green, sometimes with a brownish tinge. The green color is due to the presence of iron, while the brownish tinge indicates a higher iron content.

Peridot

Some of the finest peridot stones are called “evening emeralds” because they appear greener under artificial light.

An island in the Red Sea – named Zabargad, which means olivine in Arabic-has been mined for peridot since ancient times. It is a small desolate island – nothing grows, there is no fresh water, and it is scorchingly hot all year round except the middle of winter. In some locations on the island, fissures are lined with gem crystals ranging from millimeters to several centimeters. Beaches near the deposits have a greenish hue due to tiny green peridot crystals.

Peridot crystals are also found in the Mogok district of Burma, Norway, Brazil, China, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Australia, and Mexico. In the United States, small stones can be found in the San Carlos Indian Reservation in Arizona. Peridot has also been found in some meteorites.

Peridot is among the oldest known gemstones. The “topaz” on the breastplate of Aaron, High Priest of the Hebrews in the Old Testament, was believed to actually be peridot. Ancient Egyptians, around 1580 B.C. to 1350 B.C., created beads from peridot. For Greeks and Romans, peridot was in popular use as intaglios, rings, inlays, and pendants.

The peridot was regarded since ancient times as the symbol of the sun. The Greeks believed that it brought royal dignity upon its wearer. During the Middle Ages, peridot was pierced, then strung on the hair of an ass and attached to the left arm to ward off evil spirits. The Crusaders thought that peridots were emeralds, and brought them back to Europe where they were featured as ornaments in churches.

Peridots were a prized gem late in the Ottoman empire (1300-1918). Turkish Sultans collected what is believed to be the world’s largest collection. The gold throne in Istanbul’s Topkapi museum is decorated with 955 peridot cabochons (gems or beads cut in convex form and highly polished) up to 1 inch across, and there are also peridots used as turban ornaments and on jeweled boxes. The largest stone is believed to be a 310 carat gem that belongs to the Smithsonian. A 192 carat stone of fine clear olive-green is part of the Russian crown jewels, in the Kremlin.

Sardonyx

Sardonyx is a variety of the silica mineral called chalcedony. This sort of mineral contains layers of tiny quartz fibers, which are stacked on top of each other to give a banded appearance. The layers in these stones range from translucent to opaque. The stones vary in color, too. They may be white or gray, ranging to many colorful varieties.

Sardonyx. Image via Arpingstone.

Sardonyx stones usually contain flat-banded, white and brownish-red bands. The word Sardonyx is derived from the Greek, sard meaning “reddish brown,” and onyx meaning “veined gem.” The best stones are found in India. They are also found in Germany, Czechoslovakia, Brazil, and Uruguay. In the United States, sardonyx can be found in the Lake Superior region and in Oregon.

Cameos and intaglios are often carved from sardonyx. Cameos are figures carved on a stone, where the white layer appears as relief, and the colored layer is the background. Intaglios are the reverse of cameos. They are incised figures on the stone, where the stone is carved through the dark layer to reveal the light layer.

Sardonyx is a relatively common and inexpensive gemstone. It was a favorite gemstone in ancient times, popular not only because it was attractive, but also because it was widely available. Unlike most rare gemstones that could only be bought with the wealth of royalty and nobility, sardonyx could be obtained by many less-wealthy people.

Roman soldiers wore sardonyx talismans (objects bearing a sign of astrological influence to guard from evil and bring good fortune) engraved with heroes such as Hercules or Mars, god of war. They believed that the stone would make the wearer as brave and daring as the figured carved on it. During the Renaissance, sardonyx was believed to bring eloquence upon the wearer and was regarded with great value by public speakers and orators.

Perhaps the most famous sardonyx stone was set in a gold ring, carved with the portrait of Queen Elizabeth I of England. It was given to the Earl of Essex by the Queen as a token of friendship, and she assured him that she would always come to his aid if he ever requested it. The Earl, imprisoned for treason, was condemned to be beheaded. He tried to send the ring to his Queen but it fell into the hands of Lady Nottingham, whose husband was an enemy of the Earl of Essex. Thinking that the Earl was too proud to ask for her mercy, the Queen allowed his execution. It wasn’t until the deathbed confession of Lady Nottingham that the Queen learned the truth, which left her heart-broken.

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Find out about the birthstones for the other months of the year.
January birthstone
February birthstone
March birthstone
April birthstone
May birthstone
July birthstone
August birthstone
September birthstone
October birthstone
November birthstone
December birthstone

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2tUyjMZ

Peridot. Photo via Boykung/Shutterstock

Peridot

Peridot is a gem-quality transparent variety of olivine, a mineral composed of magnesium-iron silicates. The color of olivine ranges from olive to lime green, sometimes with a brownish tinge. The green color is due to the presence of iron, while the brownish tinge indicates a higher iron content.

Peridot

Some of the finest peridot stones are called “evening emeralds” because they appear greener under artificial light.

An island in the Red Sea – named Zabargad, which means olivine in Arabic-has been mined for peridot since ancient times. It is a small desolate island – nothing grows, there is no fresh water, and it is scorchingly hot all year round except the middle of winter. In some locations on the island, fissures are lined with gem crystals ranging from millimeters to several centimeters. Beaches near the deposits have a greenish hue due to tiny green peridot crystals.

Peridot crystals are also found in the Mogok district of Burma, Norway, Brazil, China, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Australia, and Mexico. In the United States, small stones can be found in the San Carlos Indian Reservation in Arizona. Peridot has also been found in some meteorites.

Peridot is among the oldest known gemstones. The “topaz” on the breastplate of Aaron, High Priest of the Hebrews in the Old Testament, was believed to actually be peridot. Ancient Egyptians, around 1580 B.C. to 1350 B.C., created beads from peridot. For Greeks and Romans, peridot was in popular use as intaglios, rings, inlays, and pendants.

The peridot was regarded since ancient times as the symbol of the sun. The Greeks believed that it brought royal dignity upon its wearer. During the Middle Ages, peridot was pierced, then strung on the hair of an ass and attached to the left arm to ward off evil spirits. The Crusaders thought that peridots were emeralds, and brought them back to Europe where they were featured as ornaments in churches.

Peridots were a prized gem late in the Ottoman empire (1300-1918). Turkish Sultans collected what is believed to be the world’s largest collection. The gold throne in Istanbul’s Topkapi museum is decorated with 955 peridot cabochons (gems or beads cut in convex form and highly polished) up to 1 inch across, and there are also peridots used as turban ornaments and on jeweled boxes. The largest stone is believed to be a 310 carat gem that belongs to the Smithsonian. A 192 carat stone of fine clear olive-green is part of the Russian crown jewels, in the Kremlin.

Sardonyx

Sardonyx is a variety of the silica mineral called chalcedony. This sort of mineral contains layers of tiny quartz fibers, which are stacked on top of each other to give a banded appearance. The layers in these stones range from translucent to opaque. The stones vary in color, too. They may be white or gray, ranging to many colorful varieties.

Sardonyx. Image via Arpingstone.

Sardonyx stones usually contain flat-banded, white and brownish-red bands. The word Sardonyx is derived from the Greek, sard meaning “reddish brown,” and onyx meaning “veined gem.” The best stones are found in India. They are also found in Germany, Czechoslovakia, Brazil, and Uruguay. In the United States, sardonyx can be found in the Lake Superior region and in Oregon.

Cameos and intaglios are often carved from sardonyx. Cameos are figures carved on a stone, where the white layer appears as relief, and the colored layer is the background. Intaglios are the reverse of cameos. They are incised figures on the stone, where the stone is carved through the dark layer to reveal the light layer.

Sardonyx is a relatively common and inexpensive gemstone. It was a favorite gemstone in ancient times, popular not only because it was attractive, but also because it was widely available. Unlike most rare gemstones that could only be bought with the wealth of royalty and nobility, sardonyx could be obtained by many less-wealthy people.

Roman soldiers wore sardonyx talismans (objects bearing a sign of astrological influence to guard from evil and bring good fortune) engraved with heroes such as Hercules or Mars, god of war. They believed that the stone would make the wearer as brave and daring as the figured carved on it. During the Renaissance, sardonyx was believed to bring eloquence upon the wearer and was regarded with great value by public speakers and orators.

Perhaps the most famous sardonyx stone was set in a gold ring, carved with the portrait of Queen Elizabeth I of England. It was given to the Earl of Essex by the Queen as a token of friendship, and she assured him that she would always come to his aid if he ever requested it. The Earl, imprisoned for treason, was condemned to be beheaded. He tried to send the ring to his Queen but it fell into the hands of Lady Nottingham, whose husband was an enemy of the Earl of Essex. Thinking that the Earl was too proud to ask for her mercy, the Queen allowed his execution. It wasn’t until the deathbed confession of Lady Nottingham that the Queen learned the truth, which left her heart-broken.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Find out about the birthstones for the other months of the year.
January birthstone
February birthstone
March birthstone
April birthstone
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Finding PEACE and remembering my brother Mark – Dave’s story

At just 28 years old Dave Sims lost his twin brother Mark, a doctor from Bristol, to skin cancer. By raising awareness of the disease, Mark wanted to make sure that fewer people have to go through what he did. Though he may not be here today, by joining our PEACE study Mark continues to be part of a research journey that could improve the outlook for people like him in the future.

Dave tells us the inspiring story of his brother, which is just one of those featured in our Annual Review, highlighting the progress we’re making and our aims for the future.

When Mark was 15, his hairdresser noticed a dark patch of skin on his head that was getting bigger between haircuts. His doctor diagnosed it as melanoma, a type of skin cancer. He had the dark patch removed to treat the disease and we hoped it wouldn’t come back, but it had already grown quite large by that point.

He didn’t spend his whole life worrying about what might happen, but the situation definitely made Mark more interested in health and motivated him to help people like himself. That’s part of the reason he chose to become a doctor. When he later learned about melanoma during one of his lectures, Mark realised that the risk of his cancer returning was higher than he’d thought.

He didn’t spend his whole life worrying about what might happen

In 2015, 12 years after Mark’s first diagnosis, his cancer returned. But by the time the cancer was discovered for the second time it had already spread to several parts of his body.

Mark accepted his diagnosis and was resilient, staying optimistic but realistic. He understood that his cancer was serious, so he wanted to be proactive and do the best he could in the time that he had. Immediately after his diagnosis he got involved with Cancer Research UK and became an ambassador.

He knew it was important to raise both money for research and awareness about melanoma. As a doctor and being diagnosed so young, Mark realised his story would resonate with people. He started writing a blog to tell people about his journey and set up a fundraising page. Within hours of posting the fundraising page on Facebook he raised £5,000; over the next few days that went up to £25,000.

‘Mark always thought about others more than himself’

End of life conversations between doctors and patients are difficult, but when doctors approached Mark about the PEACE study there was no question of whether he’d join; we all knew it was something he would want to do. The tissue he donated will let scientists really see how the cancer drugs Mark took interacted with his body.

“We want to know why some patients don’t respond or stop responding to certain cancer drugs, and understand how and why some cancers spread,” says Dr Mariam Jamal-Hanjani from University College London, one of the lead researchers behind the PEACE study, who had the opportunity to meet Dave.

“Because if we can understand how they develop and get worse, then we might be able to come up with new treatments and ways to stop that from happening.

“What makes the study so powerful is that as well as looking at samples from patients that are collected while they’re alive, we’re also collecting tissue from shortly after they die from their disease. Those patients won’t directly benefit from the study, but future patients will benefit from what we’ve learned through gathering information that we’ve never had before.

“It’s incredibly humbling that these selfless people are going through the most difficult time of their lives, yet they want to be part of pioneering research, knowing they won’t benefit from it.”

‘It’s never going to be easy, but he’s making a difference’

By the end of May this year Mark had raised over £183,000, but in some ways his contribution to the PEACE study is more valuable than the money he’s raised. He always thought about others more than himself and wanted to contribute as much as he possibly could so that in 20 years’ time, another Mark Sims doesn’t go through the same thing that he did. The PEACE study gave him another opportunity to do that.

Mark knew that research takes a long time and that we won’t know the benefit of the study for many years, but by raising awareness about it hopefully more people will get involved too – the more, the better.

On top of raising money for research like this, one of my main motivations for sharing Mark’s story is helping to make people more aware about melanoma itself and encouraging them to take care of their skin. It’s a cancer where you can do things to lower your risk, like not going on sunbeds and covering up your skin when you’re out in the sun. And by looking out for signs of the disease on the skin, so hopefully doctors can catch it early.

We are all really proud of Mark. Although it’s never going to be easy without him, the situation has inspired us to know that he’s making a difference. That’s made things a little easier.

from Cancer Research UK – Science blog http://ift.tt/2vhU8td

At just 28 years old Dave Sims lost his twin brother Mark, a doctor from Bristol, to skin cancer. By raising awareness of the disease, Mark wanted to make sure that fewer people have to go through what he did. Though he may not be here today, by joining our PEACE study Mark continues to be part of a research journey that could improve the outlook for people like him in the future.

Dave tells us the inspiring story of his brother, which is just one of those featured in our Annual Review, highlighting the progress we’re making and our aims for the future.

When Mark was 15, his hairdresser noticed a dark patch of skin on his head that was getting bigger between haircuts. His doctor diagnosed it as melanoma, a type of skin cancer. He had the dark patch removed to treat the disease and we hoped it wouldn’t come back, but it had already grown quite large by that point.

He didn’t spend his whole life worrying about what might happen, but the situation definitely made Mark more interested in health and motivated him to help people like himself. That’s part of the reason he chose to become a doctor. When he later learned about melanoma during one of his lectures, Mark realised that the risk of his cancer returning was higher than he’d thought.

He didn’t spend his whole life worrying about what might happen

In 2015, 12 years after Mark’s first diagnosis, his cancer returned. But by the time the cancer was discovered for the second time it had already spread to several parts of his body.

Mark accepted his diagnosis and was resilient, staying optimistic but realistic. He understood that his cancer was serious, so he wanted to be proactive and do the best he could in the time that he had. Immediately after his diagnosis he got involved with Cancer Research UK and became an ambassador.

He knew it was important to raise both money for research and awareness about melanoma. As a doctor and being diagnosed so young, Mark realised his story would resonate with people. He started writing a blog to tell people about his journey and set up a fundraising page. Within hours of posting the fundraising page on Facebook he raised £5,000; over the next few days that went up to £25,000.

‘Mark always thought about others more than himself’

End of life conversations between doctors and patients are difficult, but when doctors approached Mark about the PEACE study there was no question of whether he’d join; we all knew it was something he would want to do. The tissue he donated will let scientists really see how the cancer drugs Mark took interacted with his body.

“We want to know why some patients don’t respond or stop responding to certain cancer drugs, and understand how and why some cancers spread,” says Dr Mariam Jamal-Hanjani from University College London, one of the lead researchers behind the PEACE study, who had the opportunity to meet Dave.

“Because if we can understand how they develop and get worse, then we might be able to come up with new treatments and ways to stop that from happening.

“What makes the study so powerful is that as well as looking at samples from patients that are collected while they’re alive, we’re also collecting tissue from shortly after they die from their disease. Those patients won’t directly benefit from the study, but future patients will benefit from what we’ve learned through gathering information that we’ve never had before.

“It’s incredibly humbling that these selfless people are going through the most difficult time of their lives, yet they want to be part of pioneering research, knowing they won’t benefit from it.”

‘It’s never going to be easy, but he’s making a difference’

By the end of May this year Mark had raised over £183,000, but in some ways his contribution to the PEACE study is more valuable than the money he’s raised. He always thought about others more than himself and wanted to contribute as much as he possibly could so that in 20 years’ time, another Mark Sims doesn’t go through the same thing that he did. The PEACE study gave him another opportunity to do that.

Mark knew that research takes a long time and that we won’t know the benefit of the study for many years, but by raising awareness about it hopefully more people will get involved too – the more, the better.

On top of raising money for research like this, one of my main motivations for sharing Mark’s story is helping to make people more aware about melanoma itself and encouraging them to take care of their skin. It’s a cancer where you can do things to lower your risk, like not going on sunbeds and covering up your skin when you’re out in the sun. And by looking out for signs of the disease on the skin, so hopefully doctors can catch it early.

We are all really proud of Mark. Although it’s never going to be easy without him, the situation has inspired us to know that he’s making a difference. That’s made things a little easier.

from Cancer Research UK – Science blog http://ift.tt/2vhU8td

Moon near star Antares on August 1

Tonight – August 1, 2017 – the bright star near the moon is Antares in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. You’ve got about another month or two to see this uniquely summer star for us in the Northern Hemisphere, during the evening hours. Antares is the brightest star near the moon tonight, while the other nearby bright beauty is the planet Saturn.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, Antares and Saturn are visible in the southern to southwest sky as night begins. If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, they’re more overhead for you.

The moon has now passed the first quarter phase and now exhibits a curvature to its terminator line – the line between dark and light on the moon. This moon phase is called waxing gibbous. The waxing gibbous moon, Antares and Saturn will drift westward throughout the night, to set after midnight at mid-northern latitudes.

Like all stars, Antares sets some 4 minutes earlier with each passing night, or 2 hours earlier with each passing month. By October, this star will be tough to spot in the southwestern twilight after sunset.

In ancient Chinese thought, the summer season was associated with the direction south, with the element fire, and with the color red. No wonder, then, that this reddish star in the south each summer – beautiful Antares – was considered the Fire Star of the ancient Chinese.

Antares appears as a bright reddish star that rides relatively low in the south throughout our northern summer. We know it as a great ball of gases, a thermonuclear cauldron radiating unimaginable amounts of energy into the blackness and vastness of space.

Yet to us – as to the ancient Chinese – Antares appears so near the southern horizon that we must view it through a great thickness of air. The air through which we view Antares causes this star to twinkle rapidly! On any summer evening, if you see a bright red star low in the south that’s twinkling fiercely … it’s probably Antares.

Want to know more about Antares? History, lore, science here.

View larger. | Beautiful shot of the constellations Sagittarius (l) and Scorpius as you’ll see them every August, in the south as viewed from Earth’s Northern Hemisphere. Antares is the brightest star in Scorpius. EarthSky Facebook friend Duke Marsh took this photo in August 2013. Thank you, Duke.

Bottom line: The bright star near the moon on August 1, 2017 is Antares, brightest star in the constellation Scorpius. This star can be seen near the moon tonight from around the world.

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from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2uPOfms

Tonight – August 1, 2017 – the bright star near the moon is Antares in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. You’ve got about another month or two to see this uniquely summer star for us in the Northern Hemisphere, during the evening hours. Antares is the brightest star near the moon tonight, while the other nearby bright beauty is the planet Saturn.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, Antares and Saturn are visible in the southern to southwest sky as night begins. If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, they’re more overhead for you.

The moon has now passed the first quarter phase and now exhibits a curvature to its terminator line – the line between dark and light on the moon. This moon phase is called waxing gibbous. The waxing gibbous moon, Antares and Saturn will drift westward throughout the night, to set after midnight at mid-northern latitudes.

Like all stars, Antares sets some 4 minutes earlier with each passing night, or 2 hours earlier with each passing month. By October, this star will be tough to spot in the southwestern twilight after sunset.

In ancient Chinese thought, the summer season was associated with the direction south, with the element fire, and with the color red. No wonder, then, that this reddish star in the south each summer – beautiful Antares – was considered the Fire Star of the ancient Chinese.

Antares appears as a bright reddish star that rides relatively low in the south throughout our northern summer. We know it as a great ball of gases, a thermonuclear cauldron radiating unimaginable amounts of energy into the blackness and vastness of space.

Yet to us – as to the ancient Chinese – Antares appears so near the southern horizon that we must view it through a great thickness of air. The air through which we view Antares causes this star to twinkle rapidly! On any summer evening, if you see a bright red star low in the south that’s twinkling fiercely … it’s probably Antares.

Want to know more about Antares? History, lore, science here.

View larger. | Beautiful shot of the constellations Sagittarius (l) and Scorpius as you’ll see them every August, in the south as viewed from Earth’s Northern Hemisphere. Antares is the brightest star in Scorpius. EarthSky Facebook friend Duke Marsh took this photo in August 2013. Thank you, Duke.

Bottom line: The bright star near the moon on August 1, 2017 is Antares, brightest star in the constellation Scorpius. This star can be seen near the moon tonight from around the world.

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store

Donate: Your support means the world to us

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2uPOfms