Letters to the Editor
firefly82
Published Letters: 288 Editor's Choice: 30
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@ A Billion Angry Bees
[Read the article: Should biotech piggy go to market?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"So, long story short, these genetic pressures go on all the time. The difference being, what time scale do you want to be in fear of."
It's still not only a difference of time scale (although I don't dismiss the possibility that time scale could certainly account for some of the poorly articulated fear, and it could also be one of the very real dangers).
Yes, mutation happens in nature every day. But it's not just that it's slower than we're seeing in GM foods. In the evolutionary hypothesis called punctuated equilibrium, it is thought that very long periods of very slow and steady evolution--or accumulation of mutations--are broken by interludes of very high rates of mutation and evolution. Maybe because of environmental stress, maybe for no discernable reason at all. But very quick genomic change *does* happen in nature.
Incorporation of bacterial genomes into other organisms also *might* happen in nature. That is one hypothesis of how eukaryotes (anything whose cells have nuclear walls) got our mitochondria.
But what's being done in GM food engineering is something that...we just don't know that much about how it happens in nature, or how often, or what the consequences are--which is the transfer of entire genes into disparate species.
1. We might know a lot about one function of a gene, which is why we want to put it into another animal. But we don't know if it has other functions we haven't noticed and might not like.
2. We don't know how that gene interacts with other genes or other chromosomes in its species of origin. We don't know how its function is modified or controlled by the body or brain chemistry of that animal, or its natural diet, its native habitat, etc., etc. For instance, we're about to find out whether or not there's a very good reason that pigs can't digest certain phosphorous compounds in nature.
3. We don't know how that gene's function is regulated by the introns of the genome of the animal it came from. (For a long time geneticists thought that introns were sections of "junk" DNA and totally inactive, because they were not translated into proteins. Now they're thought to be contribute vitally to gene regulation and the diversity of gene function.) We don't know if the difference in how the gene is regulated in the new animal will make it do something different, or work more, or less, than it normally does.
4. We know hardly anything about how the altered animal fits into its ecological niche, how its altered function will affect everything else in its habitat.
All of these things have possible consequences for every aspect of an animal's functioning and health. And you're right--maybe it's all fine. Maybe. Do you want to trust a for-profit corporation with extensive control over your food supply to find out for sure? Do you think they know enough?
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He was probably a drug addict, but...
[Read the article: Understanding Heath Ledger's death]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In no way am I saying that Ledger's illegal drug use didn't probably contribute to his death, and I don't think Dr. Zaroff is, either.
But remember, nothing illegal was found in his body or his apartment at the time of death.
However, if his doctors prescribed the combination of medications he was taking without an understanding not only of their possible interactions, but of how they were likely to be misused by someone with depression, anxiety, pain, sleep problems, AND a history of addiction without imposing serious oversight and guidance--that's a big problem.
Certainly Ledger carries a good deal of the blame for what he did to his health with substance abuse in the first place.
But the medical establishment shouldn't be off the hook because he had abused illegal drugs or because he was an addict. A medical system that treats symptoms as divorced from their causes, that treats people as if they're a collection of unrelated problems fixable with pills--rather than allowing doctors the time to get to the bottom of an illness and its whole history and context--makes things worse for everyone. Not just drug addicts.
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@ carrrie
[Read the article: Understanding Heath Ledger's death]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]and everyone else under the misimpression that OxyContin (generic oxycodone) is only for the terminally ill...
"I'm pretty sure that stuff is only for terminal cancer patients, not for bad backs or insomnia. Healthy people aren't supposed to take it."
It is for severe pain of long duration. I was prescribed it, legitimately, as a generally healthy 18-year-old when I had my wisdom teeth out. It was already well-known, after 6 years of orthodontic work that would leave me totally unable to eat for weeks on end, that I was massively hypersensitive to dental pain. Codeine has no effect for me whatsoever, other than to give me a headache.
I was on oxycodone for about a month, and it wasn't even good enough, but at least I wasn't just crying continually. When the pain subsided, I had no problem whatsoever discontinuing use. Pain meds, even narcotics, are not addictive when they're actually being used correctly to treat pain. In fact, it's known that untreated pain is damaging to the nervous system's pain signalling mechanisms.
So no, it is not for minor pain--it's for serious and debilitating pain--and it has to be used carefully under stringent supervision. But that doesn't mean it's only for terminal patients.
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Pickle jar opening for men and women!
[Read the article: Single? Hand over your briny vegetables!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hasn't anyone else ever heard of whacking the edge of the lid with a knife handle to break the seal?
Learned that one from my mom.
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It's a little early to be indignant.
[Read the article: Why girls cut themselves]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Why were girls' relationships with their mothers, rather than their fathers, chosen?"
Because you can only study one independent variable at a time.
Of course they should study girls' relationships with their fathers as well. They probably will. Getting incomplete answers to one scientific question is supposed to generate more questions. But they might as well have started with mothers.