including this one. There was a time when there were efforts made to convince women of the superiority of formula and bottle-feeding, and there are still places in the world where breast-feeding is viewed as something done by lower-status, uneducated women.

We in public health have reversed course on other educational interventions as well. For instance, only a small proportion of people react badly to dietary cholesterol or salt. But preventive cardiology thought it best to tell everyone to avoid salt and eggs. As could have been predicted, that bit of education really has had very little effect, and the original group that promulgated that have realized that - although perhaps not admitted it - and quietly backed away from it. Eggs are really pretty good food. And they're pretty good with a little salt, too.

Aren't there national guard or reserve soldiers in Iraq who are older than 39?

they're almost certainly a part of the reason that the proportion of American men who smoke cigarettes has dropped from a post WWII high of, what, 70% or so (GIs were given free ciggies during the war) to around 25% nowadays. There have been numerous other smoking interventions developed over the years, some educational, some structural - such as limiting cigarettes in media, or making purchasing more difficult for teenagers.

But when all is said and done, cigarettes are a terrific drug delivery system for some chemicals that have very salutory effects for some people, and it seems that once we in public health get that smoking rate down to 25% or so, the people who are left are not responsive to any tricks that we tried previously - scare, yell, ban, whatever, they're impervious. So should we try Prohibition? Well, in all honesty, that likely will drop smoking prevalence a few more percentage points - but at what cost?

I think it might be useful to do some cross-country and historic comparisons. What happens in countries that have much looser drug laws? WHat happened in the US when narcotics and other stuff were legal? And finally, with regards to marijuana in particular, it's always had a freight of being associated with Mexicans, so there's a tinge of racism to its strong condemnation in the US.

there was a revealing article in wired.com a few weeks back contrasting Gates, Jobs, and their respective public images. What was most interesting was the contrast between how each of the two men are viewed and their actions.

of proxy castration here? I don't think this is just about the kid's foreskin.

and the reactions to this venture are another example. An interesting article in Wired a few months back brought heaps of vituperation upon the writer's head. If I can extract just a bit here:

"Until recently, Bill Gates has been viewed as the villain of the tech world, while his archrival, Steve Jobs, enjoys an almost saintly reputation." .... "But these perceptions are wrong. In fact, the reality is reversed. It's Gates who's making a dent in the universe, and Jobs who's taking on the role of single-minded capitalist, seemingly oblivious to the broader needs of society."

The rest is at http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,70072-0.html

and deserves wide-spread reads.

And, yes, as a public health practitioner I am very glad to see this effort.

you vaccinate them to keep them from spreading the wart virus to girls and giving them cancer. I just came back from my professional society, Society for Epidemiologic Research, and as you might imagine this was a hot topic. While we weren't in complete consensus, most of the epidemiologists felt vaccine campaigns should vaccinate those who spread the disease as much or more than those at risk.

A good exmaple is the current and miserably ineffective CDC policy on flu vaccination, ie, you protect those most at risk of serious health problems if they catch flu. Sounds good, but doesn't work - those people often don't have good immune response, and even if they do, can get overwhelmed by a large dose of virus during peak flu outbreaks. Many at the meeting espoused vaccinating the spreaders first and most - and those are little kids, preschool and elementary age youngsters. Where it's been tried, it's worked much better than the CDC policy at keeping oldsters and infants healthy.

a good friend of mine, Galen Buckwalter, was involved in an indie doc film on life in a wheelchair - he helped direct and was in the film as one of the "wheelies". The film is called "Rolling" and won a couple of awards. I recommend it highly. Pertinent to this discussion, one of the wheelies, who has a slowly progressive incapacitating but not fatal illness (IIRC it's MS), deliberately split with her partner at the onset of her illness because she knew he couldn't handle it. Some of the most pathetic, saddest parts of the film are her determined and often futile attempts to remain self-sufficient and independent.

Guess what the absolute maximum abount of weight one can gain from a candy bar (or any other food) is? It's the weight of the candy bar! (insert Homer Simpson Doh! comment). Now, I don't know how much these particular bars weigh, but I would bet anyone would succumb to nausea long before packing on "a couple of extra pounds".