Herbicide 2,4-D found in 1/3 of Americans

Back in the early 1960s I spent three teenage summers in an intimate relationship with 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. more commonly known as 2,4-D.

Employed by the corporation own a system of irrigation canals in two Northern Colorado counties, my job consisted of sitting on the bumpers of tanker trucks traveling easement roads along canals, hose and spray nozzle in hand, dousing Canadian Thistles with chemical to prevent the plants from flowering and spreading their pesky airborne seeds into the waters of the canals and thence on to farmers’ fields, where they crowd out crops of wheat, maize, and sugar beets.

I and another teenager who held the other hose were assured the chemical was harmless to humans, often sprayed each other to cool off during the frequent hot days of July and August.

2,4D gradually faded from the picture after American agroindustrial giant Monsanto delivered a new weed-killer, Roundup, along with seeds genetically engineered to resist the herbicidal properties of glyphosate, the patented active ingredient in the concoction.

The one-two combination of a potent new weed killer and corporate-owned seeds designed to protect crops from the chemical’s otherwise lethal onslaught made Monsanto king on Big Ag globally [the company was sold to German chemical giant Bayer in 2018].

But resistance to Monsanto’s purported panacea, a combination of concerns over the company’s insistence on barring farmers from using seeds from their harvest to plant next years crops and a forced sale of crops only to dealers authorized by the company along with a growing numbers of research papers challenging the chemical’s safety [which we have covered extensively] has led to a resurgence of that old standby 2.4-D, along with new GMO crops designed to resist it.

But a new study just published raises serious questions about the safety of 2,4-D and the revelation that the bodies of a third of Americans now harbor significant amounts of the chemical, with the most troublesome levels found in the bodies of children and women and child-bearing age.

From George Washington University:

One out of three people in a large survey showed signs of exposure to a pesticide called 2,4-D, according to a study published today by researchers at the George Washington University. This novel research found that human exposure to this chemical has been rising as agricultural use of the chemical has increased, a finding that raises worries about possible health implications.

“Our study suggests human exposures to 2,4-D have gone up significantly and they are predicted to rise even more in the future,” Marlaina Freisthler, a PhD student and researcher at the George Washington University, said. “These findings raise concerns with regard to whether this heavily used weed-killer might cause health problems, especially for young children who are very sensitive to chemical exposures.”

Lead author Freisthler and her colleagues looked for biomarkers of the pesticide found in urine samples from participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They estimated agricultural use of 2,-D by studying public and private pesticide use data from 2001 until 2014.

Out of 14,395 participants in the survey nearly 33 percent had detectable levels of 2,4-D in their urine. The researchers found that participants with urine levels of this pesticide went from a low of 17 percent at the start of the study in 2001-2002 to a high of nearly 40 percent ten years later.

Other key findings of the new study:

▪ As the use of the herbicide increased during the study period so did human exposures.

▪ Children ages 6-11 had more than double the risk of increasing exposure to 2,4-D.

▪ In addition, women of childbearing age had nearly twice the risk of increased exposure compared to men in the same age group.

▪ Human exposures are likely to rise even more in the near future as this herbicide’s use continues to go up.

2,4-D was developed in the 1940s and soon became a popular weed-killer for farmers who wanted to increase crop yields. In addition, homeowners looking for a pristine, green lawn also turned to 2,4-D often in combination with other lawn chemicals.

Exposure to high levels of this chemical has been linked to cancer, reproductive problems, and other health issues. While scientists don’t know what the impact of exposure to lower levels of the herbicide might be, they do know that 2,4-D is an endocrine disruptor and this study shows children and women of childbearing age are at higher risk of exposure.

Children can be exposed if they play barefoot on a lawn treated with the weed-killer or if they put their hands in their mouths after playing outside, where the soil or grass might be contaminated with the chemical. People also can be exposed by eating soybean-based foods and through inhalation. The now widespread use of 2,4-D on GMO soybeans and cotton leads to more 2,4-D moving in the air, which can expose more people to this chemical, according to the researchers.

“Further study must determine how rising exposure to 2,4-D affects human health–especially when exposure occurs early in life,” Melissa Perry, a professor of environmental and occupational health and senior author of the paper, said. “In addition to exposure to this pesticide, children and other vulnerable groups are also increasingly exposed to other pesticides and these chemicals may act synergistically to produce health problems.”

Consumers who want to avoid exposures to pesticide can purchase organically grown food, which is less likely to be grown with weed killers. They can also avoid using 2,4-D or other pesticides on their lawn or garden, the researchers said.

The study, “Association between Increasing Agricultural Use of 2,4-D and Population Biomarkers of Exposure: Findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2001-2014,” was published online in Environmental Health.

Meanwhile, Roundup faces an uncertain fate in Europe, where its use is authorized only until 15 December, pending a further review of the compound’s safety.

And there are signs of troubles ahead, as the Guardian reported 26 November:

Only two out of a group of 11 industry studies given to European regulators in support of the re-approval of the main ingredient in Roundup herbicide are scientifically “reliable”, according to a new analysis of corporate-backed studies on the chemical glyphosate.

<snip>

In a report released on Friday, researchers from the Institute of Cancer Research at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria said their review of a set of safety studies submitted to EU regulators by Bayer AG and a coalition of other chemical companies showed that the vast majority do not meet current international standards for scientific validity.

While two of the corporate studies were considered reliable, six were considered partly reliable and three were not reliable, according to the report.

And as for 2,4-D, it was the one of two primary ingredients in Agent Orange, the notorious compound sprayed over much of South Vietnam to kill crops and the trees used by Viet Cong troops to hide from American air strikes during what folks there now call the American War.

From the Chicago Tribune.

One ailment conclusively linked to Agent Orange exposure is bladder cancer, a malady for which we underwent a surgical removal seven years ago, We can’t but wonder if that affliction stemmed from those cooling spays on hot summer days under the Colorado sun decades before.

Brain-damaging metals found in baby foods

A new Congressional report has found alarming levels of heavy metal contamination in the nation’s most popular baby foods, a fact known to by suppressed by the Trump administration.

From Reuters:

U.S. congressional investigators found “dangerous levels of toxic heavy metals” in certain baby foods that could cause neurological damage, a House Oversight subcommittee said in a report released on Thursday.

The panel examined baby foods made by Nurture Inc, Hain Celestial Group Inc, Beech-Nut Nutrition and Gerber, it said, adding that it was “greatly concerned” that Walmart Inc, Campbell Soup Co and Sprout Organic Foods refused to cooperate with the investigation.

The report said internal company standards “permit dangerously high levels of toxic heavy metals, and documents revealed that the manufacturers have often sold foods that exceeded those levels.”

Campbell said in a statement on its website that its products are safe and cited the lack of a current FDA standard for heavy metals in baby food. The company said it thought it had been “full partners” in the study with congressional researchers.

The Washington Post added more:

“Exposure to these toxic heavy metals affects babies’ brain development and nervous system, it affects their behavior, permanently decreases their IQ and, if you want to boil it down to dollars, their lifetime earnings potential,” says Tom Neltner, chemicals policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund, which has worked on lead in food for 25 years.

The committee launched the investigation after learning of high levels of arsenic in some baby foods in a study by Healthy Babies Bright Futures, an alliance of nonprofit organizations aimed at measurably reducing babies’ exposure to toxic chemicals.

“What they did was take food off store shelves and test it. We said we should go straight to the companies and ask for their materials,” [subcommittee Chair Raja Krishnamoorthi D-Illinois] Krishnamoorthi said. “For the companies that didn’t participate, it raises the concern that they might possess information that indicates the toxic metals in their foods might be even higher than their competitors.”

Some alarming words from the report

Here’s the conclusion of Baby Foods Are Tainted with Dangerous Levels of Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury, the report from the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform:

The Subcommittee’s investigation proves that commercial baby foods contain dangerous levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, and cadmium. These toxic heavy metals pose serious health risks to babies and toddlers. Manufacturers knowingly sell these products to unsuspecting parents, in spite of internal company standards and test results, and without any warning labeling whatsoever.

Last year, the Trump administration ignored new information contained in a secret industry presentation to federal regulators about toxic heavy metals in baby foods. On August 1, 2019, FDA received a secret slide presentation from Hain, the maker of Earth’s Best Organic baby food, which revealed that finished baby food products contain even higher levels of toxic heavy metals than estimates based on individual ingredient test results. One heavy metal in particular, inorganic arsenic, was repeatedly found to be present at 28-93% higher levels than estimated.

The time is now for FDA to determine whether there is any safe exposure level for babies to inorganic arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury, to require manufacturers to meet those levels, and to inform consumers through labels.

Teresa Murray, U.S. PIRG Education Fund Consumer Watchdog, issued the following statement:

“This is unconscionable on two levels: First, companies that manufacture baby food should adhere to the highest of high standards. Second, we expect the federal government to adopt stricter standards to protect babies and the rest of us from food-borne dangers, and do a better job of alerting the public when there is a possible problem.

“The Food and Drug Administration knows from its own research these toxic metals are harmful to everyone, but especially babies and children. It’s time for the FDA to step up and set meaningful standards for heavy metals in baby food, and also require manufacturers to disclose on food labels how much toxic, heavy metals are in their baby food. Of course, baby food producers should ban toxic ingredients even before they’re forced to do so.”

Rice presents the greatest threat

The New York Times noted that the highest levels of heavy metal were found in rice products and added some advice:

Parents can protect babies by not feeding them infant rice cereal or other products like snacks made with rice flour. Healthy-sounding snacks like Nurture Happy Baby’s apple and broccoli puffs, or its strawberry and beet puffs, contained high levels of arsenic, according to the report.

Though rice cereal is often one of a baby’s first foods, both white and brown rice contain levels of inorganic arsenic that are up to six times higher than some other cereals made from grains like barley, oatmeal, organic quinoa, wheat or buckwheat, according to the nonprofit group Healthy Babies Bright Futures.

The group issued a report in 2019 on heavy metals in baby foods. It also recommends that parents not use teething biscuits that can contain heavy metals and cause tooth decay.

Parents should not give babies juice to drink, the group says, and should provide a variety of fruits and vegetables, so as to minimize exposure to carrots and sweet potatoes, which may be high in lead and cadmium.

We can’t help but wonder if a lot of anti-regulatory Republicans will change what they’re feeding the babies?

We suspect that, despite their ceaseless demonization of regulations, a smidgen of ommon sense remains when it comes to those nearest and dearest to them.

Another Trump immigration scandal emerges

The Trumpsters knew going in that separating detained immigrants from their children would led to serious problems, including serous problem with united families broken apartment by callous indifference.

From BuzzFeed News:

Top Justice Department officials under President Donald Trump pushed to separate immigrant families at the border despite knowing how difficult it would be to reunite them, according to a government watchdog report released Thursday.

In spring 2018, the Trump administration announced the “zero tolerance” policy, which called for prosecuting everyone who was caught crossing the border illegally. In practice, from May 5 to June 20 that year, the policy resulted in the separation of more than 3,000 children from their parents, prompting widespread backlash and confusion.

Lawyers working to reunite immigrant families separated at the border said Wednesday that they still can’t find the parents of 611 children.

In its report, the Department of Justice’s inspector general found that Jeff Sessions, who was attorney general at the time, and other leaders at the department did not effectively coordinate with government agencies that would ultimately be involved in prosecuting the parents and caring for the children.

“We concluded that the Department’s single-minded focus on increasing immigration prosecutions came at the expense of careful and appropriate consideration of the impact of family unit prosecutions and child separations,” the report states.

Danish kid’s TV is something different

Really different.

From entertainment.ie:

‘John Dillermand’ – which is Danish for ‘John Penisman’ – is a new children’s TV show on Danish public broadcaster DR Ramasjang. The central character’s special ability. He has the world’s longest penis and can do just about anything with it. Whether it’s getting caught up in balloons, or bouncing upside down with it. Indeed, the theme song – as translated by RTL – explains that “there’s nothing he can’t do with it”.

Naturally, a TV show designed for kids with the main character having a giant penis is going to raise some issues. So far, the reaction to the show in Denmark has been decidedly mixed. While some believe it’s inappropriate for children, others believe that the context of the show is so asexual and that children wouldn’t view it in the same way as adults do.

A statement by the TV channel’s chief explained that the show was co-developed by Sex & Samfund, a Danish association for sex education, and that the show will continue to be aired as planned.

We’re at a loss for words, and this may explain why:

John Dillermand: Intro

If you’re curious about the other episodes, you’ll find them all here.

And just remember, Danes really are the happiest people one earth.

Ohio enacts brutal abortion laws

The funny thing about abortion is that Republicans want to stop them, but they don’t want to help the women who have the babies and their families once they’re born, and when abortions are legal, they find other ways to penalize the moms.

And now Ohio Republicans have enacted another draconian laws and contemplating yet another.

From BoingBoing:

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, signed into law a controversial bill “regarding the disposition of fetal remains from surgical abortion.” The 12-page bill outlines a number of Draconian requirements for people wishing to make personal decisions about their own health and bodily autonomy as it relates to the termination of a pregnancy. It repeatedly employs vague and unscientific language such as “unborn human individual” which has no standardly accepted legal, linguistic, or factual basis.

It also requires physicians to perform a ritualistic script of mortifying, embarrassing, and potentially psychologically damaging questions before providing a pregnant person with basic healthcare for their body; if a physician refuses to engage in this disgusting ritual, they are liable to suffer legal penalties.

And then there’s this: “The pregnant woman is responsible for the costs related to the final disposition of the fetal remains at the [abortion facility’s] chosen location.”

Failure to pay for adequate funeral services—or at least, “adequate” according to the arbitrary criteria set forth by the abortion provider—will result in a first-degree misdemeanor charge.

Maybe that doesn’t sound terrible, if you assume your abortion provider has basic human empathy. But here’s the trick: according to the Guttmacher Institute, 93% of Ohio counties have no clinics that provide abortions. Meaning your doctors—likely men—could very well be total strangers servicing areas some 3 hours away from where you live. Speaking of, the Ohio House recently passed a law banning telemedicine for reproductive health issues, although the governor hasn’t yet signed that into law.

Meanwhile, Ohio single moms are struggling during the pandemic, and many find they can’t get any help from the state

From WCPG News in Cincinnati:

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services told her that she could not apply for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) until she received a denial of state unemployment benefits because she quit her job.

“I asked her, why do I have to file for unemployment and you know that I’m going to get denied,” Perry-Jordan said. “You know I need this money to pay my bills and keep the gas and electric on. To feed my kids. To make sure they have what they need.”

According to ODJFS, 55,779 women applied for unemployment assistance from March to July of this year. During those same months in 2019, only 3,879 women filed unemployment claims.

Vanessa Freytag, president and CEO of the agency 4C For Children, also said a lack of child care options might be why some mothers are choosing unemployment.

So women who left their jobs to care for their kids at a time when kids in most places were stuck at home can get help.

That’s compassionate conservatism for you.

Abortion is traumatic enough, without state actions to make it even more so.

Approval of unwed parenthood is on the rise

Another American social stigma is fading away

A growing number of Americans say if folks want babies without wedlock, that’s just fine with them.

Back in the 1950’s when we were growing up in a small Kansas farm town, three things could render a woman a social parish. One was drinking alone in a bar, the second was smoking in public [smoking at home was fine], while the third, and most deplorable was having a child out of wedlock.

But now that old stigma is fading away.

From Gallup:

From their report:

Fewer U.S. adults now than in past years believe it is “very important” for couples who have children together to be married. Currently, 29% say it is very important that such a couple legally marry, down from 38% who held this view in 2013 and 49% in 2006.

Another 31% of U.S. adults currently say it is “somewhat important” for couples with children to be married, bringing the total to 60% who consider it important to some degree. Meanwhile, four in 10 say it is not too (18%) or not at all (22%) important.

In 2006, Americans were more than twice as likely to say it is very important (49%) for couples with children to wed as to say it is not important (23%).

The latest results are based on Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 1-13. The poll updated several trends on Americans’ views about marriage asked previously over the past two decades.

Tweet of the day: Happy 18th to a world hero

From here Tweetstream, with a hefty dash of humor:

London’s Sunday Times has fielded a compelling interview with the Swedish activist today,

Some excerpts:

She started thinking seriously about climate change after a lesson in which a teacher showed a documentary about the island of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean. Thunberg started to cry. Others in the class were distressed too but they moved on when the school bell rang. Thunberg could not. It has been pointed out that people with autism are overrepresented within the climate movement and I’m interested to know why she thinks this is. “Humans are social animals. We copy each other’s behaviour, so if no one else is acting as though there’s no crisis then it can’t be that bad. But we who have autism, for instance, we don’t follow social codes, we don’t copy each other’s behaviour, we have our own behaviour,” she says. “It’s like the tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes; the child who doesn’t care about his reputation or becoming unpopular or being ridiculed is the only one who dares to question this lie that everyone else just silently accepts.”

It is a different folk tale that springs to my mind as I talk to her; the Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke. She is not at all emotional when she discusses the environment; she reads, speaks to scientists regularly and is motivated by cold, hard facts. Fame was just a consequence of her conviction and is not something she enjoys. She gets stopped in the street everywhere she goes except at home in Sweden. It is a cultural phenomenon called Jantelagen, or Jante’s law, she has said: a term used by Scandinavians to describe their cultural inclination towards disapproval of individual achievement. “I know that people see me, I can see in their eyes that they recognise me, and sometimes they point, but they don’t stop and talk,” she says. “It’s nice because I’m being left alone, but it gets very socially awkward because I know they know and it becomes like a game they all pretend.”

She copes with it by spending most of her time at home with her family. Her younger sister, Beata, was diagnosed with ADHD, and the family is a tight-knit unit. Over the years there has been a lot of speculation about the influence her parents have over her profile and her campaigning, but it is very clear when you talk to her that Thunberg thinks for herself. Does it make her feel lonely? She shakes her head. “Of course it is hard to find someone who understands what my life is like, but that doesn’t mean I’m lonely because I have so many people supporting me,” she says. One of them is Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel prize-winning Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban and became a global champion of education for girls. They met when they were filming a series for the BBC and have stayed close. Yousafzai, 23, has advised her to “take care of yourself, to remember that you are probably in it for the long run, so you shouldn’t take on too much”, Thunberg says.

<snip>

She is decidedly laid-back about other people’s choices too. I ask what she makes of celebrities who talk about the environment while flying around the world. “I don’t care,” she says. “I’m not telling anyone else what to do, but there is a risk when you are vocal about these things and don’t practise as you preach, then you will become criticised for that and what you are saying won’t be taken seriously.” Nor does she agree that having children is bad for the planet. The whole issue is a distraction, she says, and one that scares people away. “I don’t think it’s selfish to have children. It is not the people who are the problem, it is our behaviour.”

Her own choices demonstrate what she believes is the right way to live. She stopped flying years ago — she famously sailed to America to speak at the 2019 UN climate summit, a voyage that took 15 days (footage shows her ashen-faced, disappearing out of shot with a bucket). She is a vegan and has stopped “consuming things”. What does that mean, I ask. Clothes? She nods. What if she needs something? “The worst-case scenario I guess I’ll buy second-hand, but I don’t need new clothes. I know people who have clothes, so I would ask them if I could borrow them or if they have something they don’t need any more,” she says. “I don’t need to fly to Thailand to be happy. I don’t need to buy clothes I don’t need, so I don’t see it as a sacrifice.”

UK pre-teen sues TikTok over data collection

A British teen has won the right to sue a social media firm over her allegations that the company is using her data in violation of the law.

And she has a government agency backing her action.

From BBC News:

A 12-year-old girl is hoping to take legal action against video-sharing app TikTok, claiming the company uses children’s data unlawfully. A court has ruled the girl can remain anonymous if the case goes ahead.

The action is being supported by Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner for England. She believes TikTok has broken UK and EU data protection laws.

TikTok said it had “robust policies” in place to protect children and did not allow under-13s to join.

Ms Longfield hopes the case will lead to greater protective measures for under-16s who use TikTok in England and possibly beyond. She believes the app collects and processes children’s data to power its video-recommendation algorithm, to capture viewers’ attention and generate advertising revenue.

And as far as we’re concerned, targeted ads are predatory ads.

And a mysterious departure from Facebook

And what’s really intriguing is his destination.

From Reuters:

Facebook Inc’s chief of advertising integrity, who handled the company’s ad products around sensitive subjects such as politics and coronavirus misinformation, departed this week, according to an internal company post viewed by Reuters on Friday.

Rob Leathern, director of product management, said earlier this month on Facebook’s internal network that he would be leaving the company on Dec. 30. His exit had not been previously reported.

Facebook could not immediately be reached for comment.

Leathern said in the post that he was “leaving Facebook to work on consumer privacy beyond just ads and social media,” without disclosing where he was headed.

We presume that the “beyond just ads and social media” refers to all those things he can’t do because of all the onerous non-disclosure agreements tech executives usually have to sign.

Map of the day: Latin American abortion laws

From The Economist, the legal status of abortion in Central and South American nations:

From the report:

Argentina has become the latest, and most populous, country in Latin America and the Caribbean to legalise abortion. On December 30th its Senate voted to legalise terminations in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy; previously abortions had been permitted only in cases of rape or when the mother’s health was in danger or the fetus malformed. As well as legalising many of the roughly 500,000 abortions that already take place each year in Argentina, according to campaigners, the change will increase the proportion of women in Latin America and the Caribbean with access to legal abortion from 3% to 10%.

Argentina is part of a small group in the predominantly Catholic region. Cuba, Guyana, Puerto Rico and Uruguay also allow abortions on request, and Belize allows terminations on social or economic grounds. Those six countries are home to just 29m of the region’s 326m women. Elsewhere, abortions take place mostly outside the law.

<snip>

Pro-choice campaigners point out that criminalising abortions does not stop them. Between 2010 and 2014, around 6.5m abortions were carried out each year in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a think-tank. That means that the average abortion rate is 44 per 1,000 women of reproductive age; in the United States it is 13.5. In countries where abortion is illegal, women who can afford to do so buy drugs online, turn to private doctors or travel to other countries—Argentina may now become a favoured destination. But the biggest problem for many comes after the procedure. If anything goes wrong, women who cannot afford private health care must seek treatment in public hospitals, where they risk being reported to the police.

Girl Scout cookie maker supplied by child labor

No, not the labor of those delightful young women who sell use their cookies every year, nut the labor of young Asian children on oil palm plantations supplying countless U.S. food and candy makers.

From a lengthy report by the Associated Press:

They are two young girls from two very different worlds, linked by a global industry that exploits an army of children.

Olivia Chaffin, a Girl Scout in rural Tennessee, was a top cookie seller in her troop when she first heard rainforests were being destroyed to make way for ever-expanding palm oil plantations. On one of those plantations a continent away, 10-year-old Ima helped harvest the fruit that makes its way into a dizzying array of products sold by leading Western food and cosmetics brands.

Ima is among the estimated tens of thousands of children working alongside their parents in Indonesia and Malaysia, which supply 85% of the world’s most consumed vegetable oil. An Associated Press investigation found most earn little or no pay and are routinely exposed to toxic chemicals and other dangerous conditions. Some never go to school or learn to read and write. Others are smuggled across borders and left vulnerable to trafficking or sexual abuse. Many live in limbo with no citizenship and fear being swept up in police raids and thrown into detention.

The AP used U.S. Customs records and the most recently published data from producers, traders and buyers to trace the fruits of their labor from the processing mills where palm kernels were crushed to the supply chains of many popular kids’ cereals, candies and ice creams sold by Nestle, Unilever, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo and many other leading food companies, including Ferrero – one of the two makers of Girl Scout cookies.

Curious Alice: When propaganda goes bad

Or not, depending on your perspective. . .

Considering our previous story, we thought we’d repost a favorite item from several years ago, a case of anti-drug propaganda that turned on its funders.

A still from the Curious Alice, via the National Archives.

Consider, for example, this 1971 piece of federally produced propaganda created to teach grade-schoolers about the evils of drugs by associating specific drugs with characters from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — a tale filled with hidden meanings familiar to its target audience in large part thanks to a version sanitized through the medium of a Walt Disney film.

Wonderfully restored by the U.S. National Archives, here is:

Curious Alice [1971]

Program notes:

This drug abuse educational film portrays an animated fantasy based upon the characters in “Alice in Wonderland.” The film shows Alice as she toured a strange land where everyone had chosen to use drugs, forcing Alice to ponder whether drugs were the right choice for her. The “Mad Hatter” character represents Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), the “Dormouse” represents sleeping pills, and the “King of Hearts” represents heroin. Ultimately, Alice concluded that drug abuse is senseless.

Audrey Amidon of the National Archives writes of the film:

When I first saw a beat-up, faded print of Curious Alice, it was clear that whatever anti-drug sentiment the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) was trying to convey, it just wasn’t working.

In Curious Alice (1971), a film intended for eight to ten year olds, our young Alice falls asleep while reading a book. She encounters cigarettes, liquor, and medicines, and realizes that they are all types of drugs. When she sees the “Drink Me” bottle, she understands that it contains something like a drug, yet after a half-second’s consideration, she drinks the entire bottle and enters a fantasy world. In Drug Wonderland, Alice learns about the hard stuff from her new friends the Mad Hatter (LSD), the March Hare (amphetamines), the Dormouse (barbiturates), and the King of Hearts (heroin). The events of Curious Alice play out as an expression of Alice’s drug trip. Unfortunately, the trip is kind of fun and effectively cancels out the film’s anti-drug message.

The psychedelic Monty Python-style animation in Wonderland is one of the best things about Curious Alice. It’s also one of the biggest reasons that the film is an overall misfire. If one listens closely, Alice is saying plenty about why drugs are bad, but the imagery is so mesmerizing that it’s hard to pay attention to the film’s message. Further, the drug users are cartoon characters with no connection to real people or real drug problems. Why take the March Hare’s drug problem seriously when you know that Wile E. Coyote falls off a cliff and is always back for the next gag?

Read the rest.

The film was directed by Dave Dixon for the U.S. Office of Education of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and stars Elizabeth Jones, a remarkably talented young woman in what appears to have been her only professional role, in what was apparently her first and only appearance on the silver screen.

As the Lewis Carroll Society of North America notes, “The animation and voice work are really quite good. . .almost too good! Looking back now at this clip, the girl’s bouffant hair, and (ahem) eye shadow, is pretty trippy, too.”

Indeed, esnl is reminded of a song. . .this song, played live at Woodstock:

White Rabbit – Jefferson Airplane

Native Americans mobilize for elders during COVID

“First they cut my hair, then they made me eat soap and then they beat me for speaking my language.”

— Joe Wheeler, a member of the Wichita Tribe from Oklahoma, describing his experience as a boy at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

When Europeans invaded the America’s their vision from the start was conquest, capturing the land, resources, and labor of the people who had lived there for thousands of years.

Native Americans were killed, captured, enslaved, or reduced to peonage.

Even Abraham Lincoln, who would give his life to end Black slavery, had little use for the nation’s aboriginal inhabitants, though he did act to end the some of the corruption caused by political hacks who controlled the distribution of resources to conquered tribes.

Retired Brig. Gen. Richard Henry Pratt, founder of the Carlisle School, spent much of his military career fighting tribes on the Great Plains, some of it as the White commander of a company of Black troops from the famed 10th Cavalry, the Buffalo Soldiers. He started the school after his retirement from the army.

It was there he coined the phrase “Kill the Indian, save the man” to describe his agenda: Turn Native Americans White by stripping them of their languages, customs, and religions to better facilitate their transformation. Hence the beating Joe Wheeler received for speaking the language of his people.

The boarding schools were run largely by Christians, with Quakers playing a dominant role. With government support, children were seized from reservations and shipped off to distant boarding schools for indoctrination, and by 1926, 83 percent of Native American children were being educated far from home and speaking only the language of their captors.

Back in my youth I got to know a Hopi artist who had grown up in a boarding school. “It was like I was no one,” he told me. “I wasn’t Indian. I wasn’t White. I was no one.”

The trauma haunted him, a scar he could never fully conceal.

The boarding schools proved even more damaging that the rifles of the Buffalo soldiers, leaving Indians stripped of their heritage and thrust into a world where White people still saw them as little more than savages.

The schools may be gone now, but deep wounds remain.

Native speakers are rare in many tribes, and it is the elders who are the true repositories of languages, cultural practices, traditional medicine and agriculture, and so much more.

Now throw in the coronavirus pandemic, which strikes particularly hard at elders and Native Americans, and tribal cultures are facing the perfect storm of cultural destruction.

But tribes are stepping up to meet the challenge.

From the Associated Press:

Tribes across the nation are working to protect elder members who serve as honored links to customs passed from one generation to the next. The efforts to deliver protective gear, meals and vaccines are about more than saving lives. Tribal elders often possess unique knowledge of language and history that is all the more valuable because tribes commonly pass down their traditions orally. That means losing elders to the virus could wipe out irreplaceable pieces of culture.

<snip>

In Oklahoma, the Cherokee Nation has increased food distributions to elders and offered financial aid to those who were struggling to pay rent or utilities. Concern for elders is also apparent in the tribe’s COVID-19 vaccine-distribution plans. Participants and workers in the tribe’s elder program are first in line for the shots, along with hospital workers and first responders. Next are those whose first language is Cherokee and others considered “tribal treasures,” an honor given to members who keep Cherokee art, language and other culture alive through their work.

An effort among the Blackfeet in Montana is helping the tribe’s 600-plus members connect with elders who need support. Connecticut’s Mashantucket Pequot Nation is providing its citizens with masks and telemedicine, delivering meals to their doors and organizing home visits to give flu vaccines.

<snip>

Mashantucket Pequot elders shifted to a virtual format for the intergenerational gatherings where they tell traditional stories. An elders council also helps to organize Pequot language bingo nights and Schemitzun, the annual Festival of the Green Corn.

Donald Trump has proven himself no friend of the Native American, opening up their sacred sites to mining and drilling, while ignoring and then mismanaging the pandemic crisis.

And now, with a Native American picked as the incoming Secretary of Interior, the agency charged with managing the government’s treatment of Native Americans, there is at lest one bright glimmer on the horizon.

To conclude, a video from Vox, recounting the tragic legacy of Washington’s attempts to destroy Native American culture:

How the US stole thousands of Native American children

Program notes:

The long and brutal history of the US trying to “kill the Indian and save the man.”

Toward the end of the 19th century, the US took thousands of Native American children and enrolled them in off-reservation boarding schools, stripping them of their cultures and languages. Yet decades later as the US phased out the schools, following years of indigenous activism, it found a new way to assimilate Native American children: promoting their adoption into white families. Watch the episode to find out how these two distinct eras in US history have had lasting impacts on Native American families.

Scouting sexual politics hits the courtroom

Help! cries the Girl Scouts, the Boy Scouts are beating us up! And they’re not playing fair.

Way back in the 1950’s we belonged to Cub Scouts, then Boy Scouts, organizations designed by a British imperialist and Freemason, who modeled the Boy Scouts as a means of preparing the young men of Britain for their proper roles in the imperial system.

He borrowed a bit from the Freemasons, including oaths, secret handshakes that told the recipient what degree you’d reached in scouting, as well as recognition signals.

Growing up in a Kansas from town, most boys joined either scouts or 4-H, sometimes both., while girls opted for the Girl Scouts, starting with the Bluebirds. their equivalent of the Cub Scouts for younger members.

And girls also joined 4-H.

Sciuting was fun because you got to make stuff and go camping, although I can still recall my mom warning to be on the lookout and an “funny business” on the part of my Scoutmasters. [Yeah, moms knew even then.]

Scouting’s not the big deal it was back in the 50’s, when school counselors also pushed scouts because it looked good on college applications and job resumes. And if you made the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest award, doors would open for you.

A combination of declining interest and the the rising tide of sexual politics and calls for an end to sexually exclusive organizations led the Boy Scouts to open up their ranks to girls, and now the lawsuits are flying.

The latest from the Associated Press:

The Girl Scouts are in a “highly damaging” recruitment war with the Boy Scouts after the latter opened its core services to girls, leading to marketplace confusion and some girls unwittingly joining the Boy Scouts, lawyers for the century-old Girl Scouts organization claim in court papers.

The competition, more conjecture than reality two years ago, has intensified as the Boy Scouts of America organization — which insists recruits pledge to be “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous and kind” — has unfairly recruited girls lately, according to claims in legal briefs filed on behalf of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America.

The lawyers filed papers in Manhattan federal court Thursday to repel an effort by the Boy Scouts to toss out before trial a trademark infringement lawsuit the Girl Scouts filed in 2018.

Last month, lawyers for the Boy Scouts asked a judge to reject claims that the Boy Scouts cannot use “scouts” and “scouting” in its recruitment of girls without infringing trademarks. They called the lawsuit “utterly meritless.”

The Boy Scouts on Saturday pointed to legal arguments in which it blames the Girl Scouts for reacting to its expansion plans with “anger and alarm” and said the Girl Scouts launched a “ground war” to spoil plans by the Boy Scouts to include more girls.

Chart of the day: COVID ed and parental angst

Most people with with children taking their school lessons over a screen rather than in a classroom, is finding life much changed, and feelings of anxiety, depression, and sleeplessness are rife.

But if the children are having trouble with “distance learning,” the parents are much more troubled, as a new study from the journal of the American Educational Research Association makes abundantly clear:

More from the AERA:

When the emerging COVID-19 pandemic caused most U.S. schools to close and transition to distance learning last spring, many parents were forced into new roles as proxy educators for their children. A study published today in Educational Researcher, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association, finds that roughly 51 percent of all parents surveyed in March and April had at least one child struggling with distance learning and were themselves experiencing significantly higher levels of stress. 

The study authors found that parents with at least one student struggling with distance learning were 19 percentage points more likely than other parents to report anxiety. These parents also were 22 percentage points more likely to experience depression, and were 20 percentage points more likely to have trouble sleeping. In addition, they were 20 percentage points more likely to feel worried and 23 percentage points more likely to have little interest or pleasure in doing things. The results of the analysis remain consistent even after accounting for other school and demographic characteristics. 

The study found that these levels of heightened mental distress were felt by parents across all socioeconomic categories, regardless of family income, the number of children struggling (above one), or the number of days that had passed since school closure. 

For this study, authors Cassandra R. Davis (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Jevay Grooms (Howard University), Alberto Ortega (Indiana University Bloomington), Joaquin Alfredo-Angel Rubalcaba (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and Edward Vargas (Arizona State University) analyzed data from the National Panel Study of COVID-19, a nationally representative survey of 3,338 U.S. households collected in March and April. The multi-wave survey was conducted by the authors in collaboration with researchers across multiple U.S. universities. 

“Students’ academic success ultimately relies on their parents’ emotional health during this fragile time, which sets the learning environment for their children,” said Ortega, an assistant professor at Indiana University Bloomington. “Without proper support, both parents and students will likely suffer.”

Prior research has shown that stressful learning environments tend to stifle students’ academic achievement.

The authors don’t support reopening schools until public health officers say it’s safe “Instead, schools and policymakers may want to create plans for providing mental health resources and virtual spaces to parents, in addition to helping them with questions about the schoolwork itself,” Ortega said. “And it is crucial for parents to be open about their needs and to communicate with their schools when they need additional help.”

COVID in L.A.: It’s ‘a viral tsunami’

It’s getting even worse in the City of Angeles, as Los Angeles moves rapidly toward being ground zero for the pandemic.

Suspicion is growing that one of the reasons for the rapid escalation of the crisis may be the arrival of a new super-contagious variant of the coronavirus that has forced large parts of Europe into new lockdowns and travel restrictions.

From the Guardian:

LA is now reporting an average of more than 14,700 cases each day, a 78% increase from two weeks ago, according to LA Times data. Seven hundred people are hospitalized daily; in October there were fewer than 150 daily hospitalizations. By January, officials say it could be 1,400 admissions each day. More than 9,000 people have died.

“We’ve moved from having waves to now having a viral tsunami occurring here in Los Angeles,” said Dr Robert Kim-Farley, a medical epidemiologist at UCLA, who said for the first time his family would not gather for the holidays.

LA’s crisis is close to resembling the catastrophe that New York endured in the spring. The situation inside some hospitals this week became untenable, and workers were bracing for it to get worse.

“We’re not only seeing the numbers of Covid patients increasing, we’re also seeing longer wait times for people,” said Yolanda Tominac, a critical care nurse at West Hills hospital, where workers recently threatened to strike over staffing concerns. “It’s physically draining, it’s mentally draining. Morale is so low.”

More from the San Jose Mercury News:

Los Angeles County public health officials reported 148 new Covid-19 deaths on Thursday, the second day in a row that the county reported its highest number of new deaths.

“A person now dies every 10 minutes in L.A. County from COVID-19,” Los Angeles County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said in a statement, “and since many of these deaths are preventable our collective focus should be on doing right to save lives.”

According to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s Thursday news release, there are about 6,500 people hospitalized with Covid-19 in the county, 20% of whom are in intensive care units — a pandemic high. In the last week alone, the department said, the number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals has increased by more than 1,600.

“I hope we can each find the strength and courage to take responsibility for each other’s well-being,” Ferrer said, urging Southern Californians to follow public health guidelines like staying home and wearing a mask while out in public. “These are the only tools that will work right now.”

Just how bad the outlook is for hospitals in Los Angeles County is made clear in these charts, from the latest update from the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services [click on the image to enlarge]:

Has super-spread COVID variant reach California?

While it’s not more deadly, the new variant of the coronavirus now ravaging the British Isles soreads much more efficiently, accounting for a sudden surge of cases in the U.K.

And now officials are worried that the strain may have arrived in the City of Angeles.

And now there’s a new worry, reports NBC News in Los Angeles:

Public health officials in Los Angeles County have begun testing patients for a new, more contagious strain of the coronavirus that’s being reported in Europe. 

Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said a local laboratory is doing gene sequencing to test virus samples collected in L.A. County, but it will take about a week to finish the process, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. 

The new variant was first reported in Great Britain, which has instituted tougher lockdown rules over the past week, but has also been reported in France. It is said to be far more contagious than the original strain of the virus, but has not been found to be more deadly. 

Local officials are concerned that if the new strain is already present in Southern California, it could be behind some of the explosive growth in COVID-19 cases seen since the Thanksgiving holiday period. 

Dreaded COVID-linked syndrome strikes L.A. children

And if that isn’t enough, Los Angeles is reporting more cases of a lethal condition spawned by a viral attack, reports ABC News in Los Angeles:

There is also new information coming out about a rare COVID-related syndrome that affects children.

Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors chair Hilda Solis says the county is seeing an increase in cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).

She says the county has seen 51 cases of MIS-C, including the death of one child. All of the cases were hospitalized and about half ended up in the ICU.

“It is heartbreaking that every day, more than 14,000 Los Angeles County residents are testing positive for COVID-19,” Solis said. “It is even more painful to see an increasing number of children being infected by MISC-C.”

More on the condition from the Centers for Disease Control:

Patients with MIS-C usually present with persistent fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, skin rash, mucocutaneous lesions and, in severe cases, with hypotension and shock. They have elevated laboratory markers of inflammation (e.g., CRP, ferritin), and in a majority of patients laboratory markers of damage to the heart (e.g., troponin; B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) or proBNP). Some patients develop myocarditis, cardiac dysfunction, and acute kidney injury. Not all children will have the same signs and symptoms, and some children may have symptoms not listed here. MIS-C may begin weeks after a child is infected with SARS-CoV-2. The child may have been infected from an asymptomatic contact and, in some cases, the child and their caregivers may not even know they had been infected.

Basically,the condition is spawned when the body’s immune system, its frontiline response to the viral infection, is tricked into attacking the body’s own organs, just as in the case of autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and Crohn’s disease.

The Yale School of Medicine describes the treatment for the disorder:

Many children with MIS-C will need to be cared for in the intensive care unit, where medical providers can treat and closely monitor their condition. Depending on the severity of the illness and the particular organs involved, the child may also need to be under the care of other specialists, such as a cardiologist, rheumatologist, infectious disease specialist, or critical care physician.

The hallmark of MIS-C is widespread inflammation across multiple organ systems. Left untreated, this inflammation can cause long-term organ damage. That’s why it is critical that children with MIS-C receive prompt medical treatment.

Treatment typically includes supportive care, which means that the focus is on relieving symptoms and preventing complications while the patient recovers. This usually involves the delivery of intravenous fluids and medications including antibiotics, with the goal of reducing fever, keeping blood pressure up, and eliminating any underlying bacterial infections.

Given that the symptoms of MIS-C are caused by the body’s own exaggerated immune response, doctors may also administer medications to temporarily suppress the body’s immune system. Immune suppression gives the patient’s body time to heal, helping to avert long-term organ damage.

The State of California: Condition critical

And its not just the coronavirus, as we’ve noted repeatedly.

Upcoming evictions, canceled unemployment payments, childcare, local and regional government services, schools, and more are on the brink of economic catastrophe.

The University of California, Berkeley, asked some of its leading scholars about the crisis confronting the Golden State, and here’s what they had to say:

California fears human, economic crisis as Washington relief talks continue

High-stakes negotiations underway in Washington, D.C., over a new round of pandemic relief funding could help California to achieve a relatively quick recovery — or, if they fail, contribute to an economic slump that lasts for years, UC Berkeley scholars say.

In a series of interviews, experts said a new COVID-19 relief package could provide critical aid to vulnerable groups as the pandemic renews its devastating surge. Millions of unemployed workers are slated to lose their benefits on the day after Christmas, and hundreds of thousands of renters could face eviction in the new year. Hard-hit small businesses, child care centers, local governments and universities also face historic financial threats.

Last March, Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed a $2.2 trillion measure — the CARES Act — to provide support to individuals, businesses and institutions hurt in the early months of the pandemic. A new round of federal aid could benefit tens of millions of Californians, the Berkeley experts said, if Republicans and Democrats can bridge deep differences to come up with a plan in the days ahead.

As earlier pandemic relief runs out, “we know poverty is increasing,” said Sylvia Allegretto, an economist at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) at UC Berkeley. “We know that hunger and the incidence of hunger are increasing, especially for children and people of color. We know that homelessness by the millions will increase if we do not have another moratorium on renter evictions.”

“Right now the economy is barely holding on,” added economist Jesse Rothstein, faculty director of the California Policy Lab at Berkeley. “If we don’t pass something more, we basically take away the legs that support a teetering economy. There’s a real risk that the economy will collapse into something like a traditional recession and … bankrupt millions of people.”

A bipartisan group of moderates in Congress has proposed a $748 billion aid bill, with a separate $160 billion measure that includes financial aid to state and local governments devastated by extra expenses and lost revenues resulting from the pandemic. That’s less than half the size of the CARES Act, and with the virus accelerating and U.S. deaths surpassing 300,000, it was unclear Wednesday whether congressional leaders are still using it as a basis for their negotiations.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy met until after midnight on Tuesday and indicated that they were making progress on a deal of roughly $900 billion. Sources involved in the coronavirus relief package told Politico that it would include a second round of direct payments, but would likely leave out state and local funding and a controversial liability shield to protect businesses from COVID-related lawsuits by workers and customers.

Allegretto, Rothstein and other Berkeley scholars said the congressional measure falls far short of the robust investments required to counter the pandemic’s economic shock. But, they said, funding in areas such as unemployment insurance, child care and renter protections could ripple throughout the economy, bringing important human benefits and helping to protect economic stability in California and nationwide.

A million workers could lose unemployment insurance within days

Since the start of the pandemic, nearly 45% of the California workforce has filed for unemployment insurance. When two key federal pandemic benefit programs expire beginning Dec. 26, 1 million workers will face the sudden loss of their benefits, said a report released Tuesday by the California Policy Lab.

The measure being developed by the bipartisan congressional group — the Emergency COVID Relief Act of 2020 — would extend the two federal programs for 16 weeks.

That could bring nearly $10 billion in unemployment benefits to Californians, enough to preserve or generate almost 45,000 jobs by April, the analysis found. The measure also proposes a supplemental federal payment of $300 per week in unemployment benefits. That’s down from $600 per week provided under the CARES Act, but still enough to drive $30 billion in economic activity in California before the end of April 2021.

Whether the federal government should supplement state unemployment payments or provide one-time checks to most Americans, as in the first round of pandemic relief, is the focus of intense debate.

“Unemployment benefits are targeted to the people who really need it: the people who lost their jobs,” said Rothstein. “It’s nice for everyone to get a check, but it’s not essential.”

Rothstein also noted a hidden threat: Even if a new measure is passed soon, pandemic unemployment payments will likely be interrupted because states will need time to adjust administrative systems for the program.

Evictions, childcare, and more, after the jump. . .

LA’s hidden pandemic: Hunger during contagion

As COVID continues its lethal rampage through California, Los Angeles is suffering.

From CBS News in Los Angeles:

Triage tents were set up outside strained hospitals across the Southland Friday to deal with the spike of COVID-19 patients which has created a historic crisis of unprecedented proportions.

According to the latest state numbers Friday, Los Angeles County had 5,100 coronavirus patients hospitalized, a record since the pandemic began. 20.2% of those were in intensive care units.

The Southern California region’s overall ICU capacity was down to zero Thursday, leaving healthcare workers stretched incredibly thin.

<snip>

Hospitals across the region Thursday night and early Friday morning were so full that many patients were being forced to wait in gurneys for hours while they waited for space.

From the Washington Post, a graphic take on the California pandemic:

While the cameras keep their lenses focused on the hospitals, there’s another and perhaps deeper crisis under way in sunny Southern California, one happening largely outside of the scenes capturing media attention: People are going hungry.

From Kayla de la Haye, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California, writing for the open source academic journal The Conversation:

Americans aren’t getting enough to eat during the coronavirus pandemic – here’s what’s happening in Los Angeles County

The number of Americans who can’t get enough food is rising from already troubling levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. About 1 in 10 Americans said in November 2020 that their household sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the previous week, the U.S. Census Bureau found.

Food insecurity – what happens when someone doesn’t have enough money for food – is just as bad in Los Angeles County, home to one-quarter of California residents. These roughly 10 million people live primarily in urban areas like the cities of Los Angeles, Malibu, Hollywood and Compton.

The Los Angeles crisis surged the most in April, when 26% of all households – and 39% of low-income households – experienced food insecurity that month. By October, the situation had improved somewhat, with 11% of the county’s households and 17% of low-income households remaining food-insecure. The majority of these people are women, Latino, low-income and parents.

Even the lower rate in October was more than triple the norm before the pandemic: Some 5% of low-income households were likely to have experienced food insecurity in any given month of 2018, the most recent comparable data available.

Tracking food insecurity in Los Angeles County

Food insecurity has long been a challenge for Angelenos, especially people with low incomes, people of color and those living in neighborhoods that don’t have enough affordable healthy food.

So when the coronavirus pandemic began, I teamed up with other experts formed by USC Dornsife’s Public Exchange to track how this emergency would affect food security in this region. Our team includes scholars of public health, psychology, health policy, geography and data science. We met every week with the local government representatives leading efforts to address this issue and coordinated with several nonprofits that connect people with food and financial assistance.

Since April, we have surveyed 1,800 adults, who are representative of households in the county, to track their experiences.

We also partnered with Yelp, the local search and review site, which shared information about restaurants and grocery stores across the county, including which ones have closed or stayed open or added delivery services. This data helps us understand how easy or hard it is for people to get food in their own neighborhoods.

The causes of food insecurity

Food insecurity is most often brought on by poverty, job loss or a health crisis. It’s no surprise that it would spike during a pandemic that’s caused so much unemployment and illness.

We’ve found that the biggest risk factors for food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic were having a low household income, being unemployed and being a young adult. People between the ages of 18 and 30 were most at risk, while those 65 or older were the least.

We also determined that being a single parent increased the risk of experiencing food insecurity.

On top of economic challenges, the pandemic is disrupting farming and the production and distribution of food. Grocery prices have gone up at least 3.4% since the start of 2020, far exceeding the 2% annual average growth of grocery prices over the past two decades.

At times, restaurants, supermarkets and smaller food stores have curtailed their hours. Our community partners are concerned that it will be hard for independent restaurants and groceries to keep their doors open.

Health consequences

Not having enough to eat is a major public health concern, not only because it causes hunger and distress, but also because it’s linked to poor nutrition and unstable diet patterns.

Read the rest, after the jump. . .

Chart of the day: COVID digital education divide

With the COVID pandemic rapidly spreading, in-home schooling has become the norm in many states, counties, and cities.

But the cost of connection can be high, factoring in the cost of computers, internet access, and cell phones, hitting hardest at the poor, many of who have been downsized or furloughed as their employers scale back or close.

The Pew Research Center surveyed Americans about about concerns, and the results show stark class divides:

From their report:

As schools around the country shut down due to the spread of the coronavirus, many parents were worried that the lack of a computer or high-speed internet connection at home would hinder their children’s ability to keep up with schoolwork. About six-in-ten lower-income parents with children whose K-12 schools closed in the spring (59%) said in an April survey it was at least somewhat likely that their child would face at least one digital obstacle while doing their schoolwork at home during the coronavirus outbreak. Three-in-ten parents who have middle incomes also thought it was at least somewhat likely this would be an issue, while 13% of those with a higher income said the same.

Across all parents whose child’s school was closed, roughly three-in-ten parents (29%) said it was very or somewhat likely their child would have to do their schoolwork on a cellphone. About one-in-five parents said it was at least somewhat likely their child would have to use public Wi-Fi to finish their schoolwork because they lacked a reliable home internet connection (22%) or would not be able to complete their schoolwork because they did not have access to a computer at home (21%) during the outbreak.

Let’s face it: We’re more alike than we think

As a parent, I’ve been known to catch one of my kids in a lie [well, all, really], and once they’ve finally fessed up, there’s often a question: “How did you know?” To which the response is, in variably, “Because your face gave you away.”

While Charles Darwin is best known for his 1859 magnum opus On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection and The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, published in 1872 , my favorite Darwin book is The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, a remarkable work that foreshadows new research facilitated by two things Darwin lacked, a massive collection of everyday videos posted online from everyday folks in every part of the world plus some massive computer power.

Darwin’s book also incorporated new tools, including perhaps the first extensive use of questionnaires as a tool for understanding human behavior, experiments, along with extensive use of photography, as well as naturalistic observations, setting a high bar for researchers to come.

Darwin successfully demonstrated that we all share feelings in common, and that whatever our size, shape, gender, and skin pigmentation, we’re much more alike than we differ from one another.

And now a team of researchers has taken Darwin’s work to a new level, thanks to those tools Darwin lacked.

From the University of California, Berkeley:

The 16 facial expressions most common to emotional situations worldwide

Whether at a birthday party in Brazil, a funeral in Kenya or protests in Hong Kong, humans all use variations of the same facial expressions in similar social contexts, such as smiles, frowns, grimaces and scowls, a new UC Berkeley study shows.

The findings, published today, Dec. 16, in the journal Nature [open access], confirm the universality of human emotional expression across geographic and cultural boundaries at a time when nativism and populism are on the rise around the world.

“This study reveals how remarkably similar people are in different corners of the world in how we express emotion in the face of the most meaningful contexts of our lives,” said study co-lead author Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychology professor and founding director of the Greater Good Science Center.

Researchers at UC Berkeley and Google used machine-learning technology known as a “deep neural network” to analyze facial expressions in some 6 million video clips uploaded to YouTube from people in 144 countries spanning North, Central and South America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

“This is the first worldwide analysis of how facial expressions are used in everyday life, and it shows us that universal human emotional expressions are a lot richer and more complex than many scientists previously assumed,” said study lead author Alan Cowen, a researcher at both UC Berkeley and Google who helped develop the deep neural network algorithm and led the study.

Cowen created an online interactive map that demonstrates how the algorithm tracks variations of facial expressions that are associated with 16 emotions.

Cowen’s online map shows variations of facial expressions associated with 16 emotions.

In addition to promoting cross-cultural empathy, potential applications include helping people who have trouble reading emotions, such as children and adults with autism, to recognize the faces humans commonly make to convey certain feelings.

The typical human face has 43 different muscles that can be activated around the eyes, nose, mouth, jaw, chin and brow to make thousands of different expressions.

How they conducted the study

First, researchers used Cowen’s machine-learning algorithm to log facial expressions shown in 6 million video clips of events and interactions worldwide, such as watching fireworks, dancing joyously or consoling a sobbing child.

They used the algorithm to track instances of 16 facial expressions one tends to associate with amusement, anger, awe, concentration, confusion, contempt, contentment, desire, disappointment, doubt, elation, interest, pain, sadness, surprise and triumph.

Next, they correlated the facial expressions with the contexts and scenarios in which they were made across different world regions and discovered remarkable similarities in how people across geographic and cultural boundaries use facial expressions in different social contexts.

“We found that rich nuances in facial behavior — including subtle expressions we associate with awe, pain, triumph, and 13 other feelings — are used in similar social situations around the world,” Cowen said.

For example, Cowen noted, in the video clips, people around the world tended to gaze in awe during fireworks displays, show contentment at weddings, furrow their brows in concentration when performing martial arts, show doubt at protests, pain when lifting weights and triumph at rock concerts and competitive sporting events.

From the study, four maps portray emotions captured on videos, with the left-hand capturing positive [top] and negative [bottom] emotions, while the video contexts are feature in the maps to the right. The authors note that India is unique in that folks there post far more music videos than other nations. Click onthe image to enlarge.

The results showed that people from different cultures share about 70% of the facial expressions used in response to different social and emotional situations.

“This supports Darwin’s theory that expressing emotion in our faces is universal among humans,” Keltner said. “The physical display of our emotions may define who we are as a species, enhancing our communication and cooperation skills and ensuring our survival.”

In addition to Keltner and Cowen, co-authors of the study are Florian Schroff, Brendan Jou, Hartwig Adam and Gautam Prasad, all at Google.

Endocrinologists agree: Plastics are killing us

Source.

Plastics [previously] is a dirty business, from the toxic chemicals used to make the stuff to the lingering effects of our daily exposure to the ubiquitous compounds that wrap out foods, encases our technical gear, line our cars, and make up those toys so beloved by teething infants.

We live in a plastic world [the hippies were right on that one], surrounded by the chemical creations of Koch Industries, DuPont, and countless Chinese companies.

And now some of the world’s leading physicians are sounding the alarm.

Endocrinologists have issued a scathing indictment of chemicals in plastics and their manufacture as powerful disruptors of the body’s critical chemical regulatory systems essential to life itself [previously].

From the Endocrine Society

And, they caution, there are no “safe” exposures to these chemicals and the effects, which can be subtle, evolving over time through our constant daily exposures, starting with exposures in the womb.

And now a new report from the Endocrine Society lays out the dangers and calls for immediate action, both for ourselves and for those to come.

The document, Plastics, EDCs & Health: a Guide for Public Interest Organizations and Policy-makers on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals & Plastics, notes:

Many plastic additives are known to interfere with hormone functioning and are, by definition, endocrine disrupting chemicals. This publication provides clear and extensive evidence of the human health impacts of many chemicals in common plastics. The health impacts of these widely used chemicals can be profound and life threatening. Cancers, diabetes, kidney, liver, and thyroid impacts, metabolic disorders, neurological impacts, inflammation, alterations to both male and female reproductive development, infertility, and impacts to future generations as a result of germ cell alterations are the consequence of many EDC exposures, EDCs that are integral to plastics.

This chart from their report lists some of the diseases linked to EDC exposure:

Again, there are no safe exposure levels to this omnipresent chemical malefactors.

Here’s the Endocrine Society’s summation of their ground-breaking document:

Plastics pose threat to human health

Plastics contain and leach hazardous chemicals, including endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that threaten human health. An authoritative new report, Plastics, EDCs, & Health, from the Endocrine Society and the IPEN (International Pollutants Elimination Network), presents a summary of international research on the health impacts of EDCs and describes the alarming health effects of widespread contamination from EDCs in plastics.

EDCs are chemicals that disturb the body’s hormone systems and can cause cancer, diabetes, reproductive disorders, and neurological impairments of developing fetuses and children. The report describes a wealth of evidence supporting direct cause-and-effect links between the toxic chemical additives in plastics and specific health impacts to the endocrine system.

Conservative estimates point to more than a thousand manufactured chemicals in use today that are EDCs. Known EDCs that leach from plastics and threaten health include bisphenol A and related chemicals, flame retardants, phthalates, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), dioxins, UV-stabilizers, and toxic metals such as lead and cadmium. Plastic containing EDCs is used extensively in packaging, construction, flooring, food production and packaging, cookware, health care, children’s toys, leisure goods, furniture, home electronics, textiles, automobiles and cosmetics.

Key findings in the report include:

• One hundred and forty four chemicals or chemical groups known to be hazardous to human health are actively used in plastics for functions varying from antimicrobial activity to colorants, flame retardants, solvents, UV-stabilizers, and plasticizers.

• Exposure can occur during the entire life span of plastic products, from the manufacturing process to consumer contact, recycling, to waste management and disposal.

• EDC exposure is a universal problem. Testing of human samples consistently shows nearly all people have EDCs in their bodies.

• Microplastics contain chemical additives, which can leach out of the microplastic and expose the population. They can also bind and accumulate toxic chemicals from the surrounding environment, such as seawater and sediment, functioning as carriers for toxic compounds.

• Bioplastics/biodegradable plastics, promoted as more ecological than plastics, contain similar chemical additives as conventional plastics and also have endocrine-disrupting effects.

“Many of the plastics we use every day at home and work are exposing us to a harmful cocktail of endocrine-disrupting chemicals,” said the report’s lead author, Jodi Flaws, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Urbana, Ill. “Definitive action is needed on a global level to protect human health and our environment from these threats.”

The Swiss Ambassador for the Environment, Franz Xavier Perrez, commented, “Plastics, EDCs, and Health, synthesizes the science on EDCs and plastics. It is our collective responsibility to enact public policies to address the clear evidence that EDC in plastics are hazards threatening public health and our future.”

In May, the Swiss Government submitted a proposal to the Stockholm Convention to list the first ultra-violet (UV) stabilizer, plastic additive UV-328, for listing under the Stockholm Convention. UV stabilizers are a common additive to plastics and are a subset of EDCs described in this report. The Stockholm Convention is the definitive global instrument for assessing, identifying, and controlling the most hazardous chemical substances on the planet.

The need for effective public policy to protect public health from EDCs in plastics is all the more urgent given the industry’s dramatic growth projections. Pamela Miller, IPEN Co-Chair, commented, “This report clarifies that the current acceleration of plastic production, projected to increase by 30-36% in the next six years, will greatly exacerbate EDC exposures and rising global rates of endocrine diseases. Global policies to reduce and eliminate EDCs from plastic and reduce exposures from plastic recycling, plastic waste, and incineration are imperative. EDCs in plastics are an international health issue that is felt acutely in the global south where toxic plastic waste shipments from wealthier countries inundate communities.”

“Endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure is not only a global problem today, but it poses a serious threat to future generations,” said co-author Pauliina Damdimopoulou, Ph.D., of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. “When a pregnant woman is exposed, EDCs can affect the health of her child and eventual grandchildren. Animal studies show EDCs can cause DNA modifications that have repercussions across multiple generations.”

The report by the Endocrine Society, the largest international group of scientists, physicians, and academicians working in the field of endocrinology, was produced in collaboration with chemical technical experts at the global environmental health network, (International Pollutants Elimination Network). The global group of authors includes top experts in the field: Jodi Flaws, Ph.D., (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.), Pauliina Damdimopoulou, Ph.D., (Karolinska Institutet, Sweden), Heather B. Patisaul, Ph.D., (North Carolina State University, U.S.), Andrea Gore, Ph.D., (University of Texas at Austin, U.S.), Lori Raetzman, Ph.D., (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US), and Laura N. Vandenberg, Ph.D., (University of Massachusetts Amherst, U.S.).

To fish, a short scene from a famous film from 1967, with Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate: