MedWorm Tags: code

Bayer Healthcare UK "Discredited UK Pharma Industry"

ePharma Summit — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:20:00 +0100

The continuing saga of Bayer Healthcare's tweets continues to be a news story in the UK drug industry. Last year, Bayer copied two press release headlines, then released them to the public as tweets. In coordination with the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), Bayer Healthcare UK has violated their Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry Code of Conduct (ABPI Code). This has resulted in discrediting the Pharma industry in the UK according to the governing board. According to The Register, they have discreded the industry by violating these rules: - Companies are prohibits to release information about prescription-only medicines that would encourage the public to ask their doctor for the product- Bayer Healthcare Failed to maintain high...

Surgeons Must Overcome A Bad Reputation

Better Health — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:00:00 +0100

This article is meant to raise the awareness of the costs—both in dollars and in human misery—of incivility in the practice of medicine by looking in particular at the case of surgeons. Uncivil behavior brings misery wherever it occurs. If the individual tends to behave in an uncivil fashion prior to medical school and prior to residency, (more…) *This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living* (Source: Better Health)

Bayer Is Scolded For Tweeting Medicines

Pharmalot — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:55:19 +0100

To Tweet or not to Tweet? That is a question that Bayer Healthcare will be pondering for some time. The drugmaker was upbraided by the UK’s Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority for recently Tweeting about two medicines, which was deemed to be a cause for concern since the information went directly to the public. What were the Tweets about? In April, the @BayerUKIreland Twitter account wrote this concerning Levitra: “First & only melt-in-the-mouth erectile dysfunction treatment launched by Bayer today http://tinyurl.com/6hfxymf.” And last year, Bayer tweeted: “Sativex® launched in UK for the treatment of spasticity due to Multiple Sclerosis http://tiny.cc/kiz2y,” according to InPharm. The voluntary PMCPA industry code that allows a drugmaker to Tweet abo...

Chained CPI: A Stealth Tax Increase

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:35:34 +0100

By Chris EdwardsAs we close in on congressional votes to increase the federal debt limit, negotiators are coming up with all kinds of ideas to hike taxes. (Suspiciously, they haven’t revealed very many spending cut ideas so far). One idea being discussed is to raise revenue by reducing the indexing of parameters in the income tax code. Currently, tax brackets and other features of the tax code are indexed to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). It is widely recognized that the CPI overestimates inflation for various reasons, as discussed here. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has developed a more accurate (and lower) measure of inflation, called chained CPI. If the tax code was indexed to chained CPI instead of CPI, the government would receive an automatic tax increase relative to cu...

Sanofi Invited Patients To Speak At Promo Meeting

Pharmalot — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:27:39 +0100

For all the chatter and concern about employing doctors to speak to other doctors, what about having patients do some of the talking? Yes, this really happened. A Sanofi sales rep engaged a cardiologist, who was moonlighting as a consultant to help promote the Multaq drug for treating atrial fibrillation. And he hit on the brilliant idea of inviting patients to attend a dinner to discuss their experiences. Why? Patient perspective may be useful. So two patients briefly recounted their interactions with Multaq and one patient - and his wife - even stayed for dinner, which cost about $35 a head, plus nearly $300 in drinks. That worked out to about $1,900 for the evening for a group that numbered slightly more than 40 people. Naturally, the Sanofi rep picked up the tab for the patients and th...

New York State Wants To Dictate What Doctors Can Wear

Better Health — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 18:00:00 +0100

From AMA Medical News: New York physicians may have to take off their neckties, jewelry, wristwatches and long-sleeved white coats when caring for patients if a bill under consideration in the state legislature becomes law. The bill, proposed in April in the state Senate, calls for a “hygienic dress code council” within the New York Health Dept. to consider advancing a ban on neckties and requiring physicians and other health professionals to adopt a “bare below the elbow” dress code in an effort to slash hospital-acquired infections. Even though there’s no data that this does anything to reduce hospital acquired infections. But that doesn’t matter. So why stop there? I say, doctors should do the ultimate for their patients: the Full Monty. *Th...

Bayer Tries To Have It Both Ways In Yasmin Ad

Pharmalot — Fri, 27 May 2011 17:32:33 +0100

So how is this for subtlety? A journal ad for the Yasmin contraceptive pill sold by Bayer noted that the med had a beneficial effect on acne, fluid retention, hirsutism and premenstrual symptoms. At the same time, much smaller type mentioned that acne and fluid retention may be uncommon side effects and that Yasmin is not licensed as a treatment for any of the four afflictions. And so a general practitioner in the UK filed a complaint with the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, which is responsible for administering the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s practice code. The anonymous doc believed it was “highly unethical” to put misleading info into an ad and that patents could be placed at an unnecessary risk. The upshot? A review panel found...

Display Custom Fields In & Out of The Loop

LBnuke — Wed, 25 May 2011 14:24:56 +0100

INSIDE THE LOOP: <?php if ( get_post_meta($post->ID, 'custom-field-name', true) ) : echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'custom-field-name', true); endif; ?> OUTSIDE THE LOOP: <?php global $wp_query; $postid = $wp_query->post->ID; echo get_post_meta($postid, 'custom-field-name', true); wp_reset_query(); ?> No related posts. (Source: LBnuke)

What Do Clinical Guidelines And The US Tax Code Have In Common?

Better Health — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:00:00 +0100

The above graph from the Cato Institute demonstrates the growing complexity of the U.S. tax code over the years. After doing my taxes recently and trying to track the ins and outs of the law for my wife’s private practice, I can attest to the graph’s accuracy. But then I was reading an interesting editorial in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology by N.A. Mark Estes III, MD and Jonathan Weinstock, MD that reviewed an article by Roos, et al in the same journal that found only 27 of 698 guideline recommendations from the European Society of Cardiology (median 1.2% per guideline [IQR 0.95% to 3.7%]) were correctly referenced as Class I or III Level of Evidence A recommendations, calling into question the accuracy of guideline recommendations. In their editorial, Estes and ...

Tuesday Links

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:29:37 +0100

By George Scoville Please join us this Thursday, April 21 at 4:00 p.m. Eastern for a book forum and debate on “green energy” policy, following the recent release of the Cato book The False Promise of Green Energy. On Thursday, University of Alabama Professor of Law and Business Andrew P. Morriss (one of the book’s authors) and Center for American Progress Vice President for Energy Policy Kate Gordon will debate the merits of the “green” economic agenda, moderated by Cato Institute Senior Fellow Jerry Taylor. Complimentary registration is required of all attendees by noon TOMORROW, Wednesday, April 20. We hope you can join us in person and for the reception following the event–if you cannot attend in person, we hope you’ll tune in online or on Faceb...

Google Summer of Code

Fungal Genomes and Comparative Genomics — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 18:14:12 +0100

OPEN BIOINFORMATICS FOUNDATION SUMMER OF CODE 2011 Applications due 19:00 UTC, April 8, 2010. www.open-bio.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code The Open Bioinformatics Foundation Summer of Code program provides a unique opportunity for undergraduate, masters, and PhD students to obtain hands-on experience writing and extending open-source software for bioinformatics under the mentorship of experienced developers from around the world. The program is the participation of the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) as a mentoring organization in the Google Summer of Code™ (code.google.com/soc/). Students successfully completing the 3 month program receive a $5,000 USD stipend, and may work entirely from their home or home institution. Participation is open to students from any country in the ...

Choose Your Own Resus Adventure!

Life in the Fast Lane — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 23:00:16 +0100

Get ready for an insanely edutaining roller-coaster ride through the perils of ruling the resus... Oh, and try to stay out of the courtroom if you can. (Source: Life in the Fast Lane)

Emergency Medical Interlude XXV

Life in the Fast Lane — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 02:00:33 +0100

What's like to be team leader at a code? It's kinda hard to explain. Perhaps this Emergency MEdical Interlude will help explain? (Source: Life in the Fast Lane)

Will There Be More Chronically Ill and Developmentally-challenged Children in Pennsylvania?

vactruth.com — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 14:34:50 +0100

Back on May 28, 2010 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania made changes to its immunization code to be effective August 1, 2011. What children in Pennsylvania will be required to have in vaccinations in order to attend school is taken directly from the code: (http://www.pacode.com/secure…) 23.83. Immunization requirements. (a) Duties of a school director, superintendent, principal or other person in charge of a public, private, parochial or nonpublic school. Each school director, superintendent, principal, or other person in charge of a public, private, parochial or nonpublic school in this Commonwealth, including vocational schools, intermediate units, and special education and home education programs, cyber and charter schools, shall ascertain that a child has been immunized in ac...

Defibrillators: On The “Top 10 Health Technology Hazards” List

Better Health — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:00:00 +0100

In a desperate attempt to reach an even number it seems, hospital defibrillators were added to ECRI.org’s “Top 10 Health Technology Hazards” list of devices that threaten to kill or maim patients: The Top 10 Health Technology Hazards list is updated each year based upon the prevalence and severity of incidents reported to ECRI Institute by healthcare facilities nationwide; information found in the Institute’s medical device problem reporting databases; and the judgment, analysis, and expertise of the organization’s multidisciplinary staff. Many of the items on this year’s list are well-recognized hazards with numerous reported incidents over the years. If one honestly looks at the number of lives saved versus the number of deaths from defibrillators, I wonder how m...

A Brain Game to Tease your Frontal Skills

SharpBrains — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:48:25 +0100

The frontal lobes of the brain (in gray here) have been compared to an orchestra conductor, influencing, directing, and moderating many other brain functions. Indeed, the frontal lobes support the so-called executive functions: decision-making, problem-solving, planning, inhibiting, as well as other high-level functions (social behavior, emotional control, working memory, etc.). Ready for an executive workout? The functions of the frontal lobes are crucial for work and life in general. How can we preserve and enhance these functions? Research tells us that cognitive or brain reserve (i.e., the brain’s resilience to pathology) can be increased by mental exercise. Mental exercise has to be challenging (to trigger the formation of new synapses and neurons) and repeated (a single teaser wi...

Fail2ban Problems and Solutions

Surgical Diversions — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:13:34 +0100

If you use Fail2ban then you are probably aware of the fact that you must add a rule number to the ipfw deny rule for actionban in ipfw.conf. If you don’t add a rule number then there is no way for fail2ban to delete the rule after it expires. The problem lies in that you can easily set a different rule number for each filter but if the filter adds many rules within it’s ban time then when that first actionunban gets triggered all rules with the same number are removed, even if there full ban time has not transpired. I was looking for an elegant solution to this and finally figured out how to do it myself. What I’ve done is in the ipfw.conf file I’ve added a variable that will create a random number between 10000 and 12000 to use as the rule number. The code is pr...

Checking Fail2ban regex

Surgical Diversions — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:14:54 +0100

I’ve just stumbled across a great command in Fail2ban to check whether or not your filter will actually score a hit from your log file. From the command line. fail2ban-regex /path/to/logfile /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/myfilter.conf As an example. fail2ban-regex /var/log/secure.log /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/sshd.conf This seems like a great way to test whether changes to your filters are correct, rather than just waiting to see if anything shows up in fail2ban.log. Related posts:Fail2ban on Leopard Server So here I am running my own server — for... Fail2ban and OS X Server, part deux As some of you might know I run my own... Server-Side Email Filtering with Sieve Another post for the peripheral brain. When I first set... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related...

There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Tax Expenditure

Cato-at-liberty — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:39:01 +0100

By Michael F. CannonThe co-chairs of President Obama’s Fiscal Commission propose to eliminate several tax loopholes while reducing marginal rates. Hear, hear. But they describe those loopholes as “backdoor spending in the tax code.” It is incorrect and dangerous to equate tax loopholes with government spending. The tax code’s countless credits, deductions, and exclusions let people keep a portion of their earnings, provided they use the money how the government wants them to use it. Tax loopholes therefore have a lot in common with government spending: they give power to politicians, inhibit freedom, reduce economic output, unjustly enrich special-interest groups, et cetera. But to call them “tax expenditures” or “tax subsidies” or ...

Fail2ban and OS X Server, part deux

Surgical Diversions — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 22:10:39 +0100

As some of you might know I run my own installation of OS X Server. I’ve since updated it to Snow Leopard Server and I think I’ve got most of it running well. As I check my server logs frequently I find that there are all sorts of script kiddies attempting to log in to my server in various ways. The traditional method was to simply try an ssh session with a username and password combination. Unfortunately now I see more attempts to log in via VNC or in attempts to check or send email. It’s amazing to see 10 - 15 login attempts in a second. There’s a real motivating force to stop that kind of attention my poor little server is getting. As I’ve written before, I’ve found the Fail2ban scripts to to be a perfect solution. I have had to make a number of add...

Distribution of fungal ITS sequences in GenBank

Fungal Genomes and Comparative Genomics — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 06:10:20 +0100

As part of background in preparing a grant I ended up writing a few scripts to see the distribution of fungal species with ITS data in GenBank. The whole spreadsheet of the data is public and available here and I walk you through the data generation and summary below. ITS (Internal Transcribed Spacer) is the typically used barcode for identifying fungi at the species level as it works for most (but not all) groups of Fungi. It falls between highly conserved nuclear rDNA genes (18S, 5.8S, 28S) but tends to be hypervariable making it a reasonable locus for identification of species since it tends to be unique between species but fairly unchanged among individuals from the same species. You can see a Map of the amplified region from Tom Brun’s site or info at Rytas Vilgalys’s ...

A mobile interface to the Registry of Standard Biological Parts

Your bones got a little machine. — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 08:37:47 +0100

Recently I developed a simple mobile interface to the Registry of Standard Biological Parts – the database that is currently the focal point for parts-based synthetic biology. I’ve called this mobile interface mPartsRegistry and I thought it would be worth outlining it’s features and sharing some notes about the project, in case someone else finds it useful. mPartsRegistry is a simple interface to the Registry of Standard Biological Parts aimed at mobile smartphone browsers. It’s powered by the Parts Registry API, which provides a simple RESTful interface to key metadata about parts in the database. It features: . A simple interface tailored for mobile WebKit browsers (Android browser, mobile Safari, probably others). Web-based, zero-installation required. . Basic...

Nurses And Policemen, Rapid Response Teams, Useful Apps, And Photography

Better Health — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:00:57 +0100

So who hasn’t heard about The Policeman vs. Nurse? A nurse was pulled over for speeding, told the policeman that she hoped he would never end up as her patient, and was subsequently fired when the policeman complained to the hospital she worked at. Really? I have the utmost respect for the police of course, but put on some big boy undies and get over it. Should the nurse have made that comment? No. Not in front of him, at least. That was pretty dumb. But being fired for saying it is ridiculous in my opinion. Does that cop go complain to the pimp when the hooker he’s arresting makes a sassy comment? Nurse and Lawyer had a pretty good discussion about the whole situation. Next up: Rapid Response Teams Sign of Poor Bed Management. Really? I think GruntDoc summed it up best in h...

Avoid APA’s InPsych Social Networking App

World of Psychology — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:05:47 +0100

I’m off to attend the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA) in San Diego today, but before I go, I do have two APA-related news items to post. The first is about the APA’s social networking application it deployed for this year’s convention, called InPsych. It’s a great idea with one fatal flaw that makes it not only something I suggest you avoid, but something I recommend the APA disable access to immediately. The idea behind the social networking app is a good one — help people plan their convention schedule and meet up with other psychologists or psychology students while in San Diego. It’s a big convention with over 10,000 attendees every year, so it’s nice to have some way of keeping the information organized and at yo...

10 Things We Want to Do This Weekend

Breastfeeding 1-2-3 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:10:37 +0100

We’ve been waiting all week for these upcoming two glorious days of fun and laziness — and they’re almost here. We want to get all this stuff done this weekend, but we’ve got to be honest: We might end up trashing all our plans and taking a two-day nap instead. Save some money. An easy way to save some dough would be to bring our lunches to work. This weekend we’ll be stocking up on everything we need to brown bag it while still being kind to the environment. Change our sheets. Even though we do it as often as we should (we’re not that gross), we may as well do it during our free time this weekend. Maybe we’ll even take this opportunity to buy some organic sheets. Wear our favorite jeans. We may not get to wear our worn-out, patched-up jeans to wor...

My Office Sucks Worse Than Yours! (Dress Code Rant)

Breastfeeding 1-2-3 — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:57:14 +0100

Recently, a colleague handed me an article entitled, “10 Signs You Work In a Fear-Based Workplace.” I chuckled as I started reading, then gasped. My office fit eight of the ten signs listed. I knew my office was kooky. But isn’t everyone’s? I’d been working there for about three months, and my first hint that things were a little odd was when my boss led me into a conference room and, in hushed tones, asked me about an e-mail our vice president had sent. “What do you think Paul meant in his email?” she asked. This must be some sort of trick question, I decided. I answered, “Um, what he wrote in the email?” Silly me. Turns out, the V.P. meant exactly the opposite of what he had written. “You have to read between the lines,” said my boss, as if this explaine...

Server-Side Email Filtering with Sieve

Surgical Diversions — Fri, 14 May 2010 23:55:31 +0100

Discussion Forum had a nice start and pointed me on to sources I used to set it up. Here are the salient points. From the terminal… Add the following lines to /etc/services sudo pico /etc/services Insert the following lines. callbook 2000/udp # callbook callbook 2000/tcp # callbook + sieve 2000/udp # sieve mail filtering + sieve 2000/tcp # sieve mail filtering You can check to see if it’s running by running netstat -an | grep 2000 with results tcp4 0 0 *.2000 *.* LISTEN tcp6 0 0 *.2000 *.* LISTEN 2. Create /usr/sieve sudo mkdir /usr/sieve sudo chown _cyrus:mail /usr/sieve 3. Restart mail services sudo serveradmin stop mail [ some stuff ] sudo serveradmin start mail [ some stuff ] 4. Since I’m using OS X Server and SquirrelMail is al...

Device Trade Groups Urge Ethics Cooperation

Pharmalot — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:59:41 +0100

Transparency is the new religion in the health care world and two trade groups - AdvaMed and Eucomed, which represent medical device makers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean - released a statement today in which they have agreed to urge their members to adhere their respective ethics codes for guiding interactions with doctors and other health care professionals [UPDATE: We wrote earlier that the two groups are adopting the same code]. The effort to adhere to an ethics code has been a work in progress. Both groups had previously adopted guidelines. Eucomed, for instance, approved rules two years ago and issued a framework earlier this year before releasing a final version today. And AdvaMed issued its own code last summer. The codes cover the usual gamut of issues - continuing medical ed...

Poof it’s Gone

Surgical Diversions — Sat, 01 May 2010 02:37:09 +0100

OK, I’m only really posting this cause I need it and I just want to put it somewhere to remember it. To make a file or folder invisible issue the following from the CLI. SetFile -a V path/to/fileOrFolder To make it visible again… SetFile -a v path/to/fileOrFolder That’s it. This can be especially useful on shared drives to keep others out of specific folders, etc. BTW, the file or folder still shows up in ls, it’s just not visible in Finder. Related posts:VoodooPad Pro Blogging It’s time to package up all my VoodooPad Pro blogging... VoodooPad Web Export Goodness As laziness is the mother of invention, or something like... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. (Source: Surgical Diversions)

Costly IRS Mandate Slipped into Health Bill

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:57:54 +0100

By Chris EdwardsMost people know about the individual mandate in the new health care bill, but the bill contained another mandate that could be far more costly. A few wording changes to the tax code’s section 6041 regarding 1099 reporting were slipped into the 2000-page health legislation. The changes will force millions of businesses to issue hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of additional IRS Form 1099s and related W-2s every year. It appears to be a costly, anti-business nightmare. Under current law, businesses are required to issue 1099s in a limited set of situations, such as when paying outside consultants. The health care bill includes a vast expansion in this information reporting requirement in an attempt to raise revenue for an increasingly rapacious Congress. In a recent...

Awful Tax System Causing a Growing Number of Americans to “Go Galt”

Cato-at-liberty — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 12:04:57 +0100

By Daniel J. MitchellBeing an American citizen is an honor in many ways, but it is a huge millstone around the neck for highly successful investors and entrepreneurs because of an oppressive and complex tax system. This is particularly true for those based in and/or competing in global markets. Indeed, because the tax system (and regulatory system) is so onerous and because it is expected to get far worse in the future, a growing number of Americans are actually giving up citizenship and “voting with their feet.” The politicians view these people as “tax traitors” and are trying to erect higher barriers to hinder economic migration, particularly in the form of confiscatory “exit taxes” that are disturbingly reminiscent of the totalitarian practices of s...

(Un)Happy Tax Day

Cato-at-liberty — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:21:04 +0100

By Tad DeHavenToday is that unofficial American holiday where we mourn the loss of a year’s worth of productive private resources to our bloated federal government. And it’s not just the actual dollars paid to Uncle Sam – it’s also the economic loss due to all the time and money wasted trying to comply with an increasingly complex tax code: For an increasing number of Americans, approximately 47 percent, it might be cause for celebration as they don’t effectively pay income taxes. In fact, for a lot of Americans April 15th has turned into a pay day. Thus, the burden of paying for a lot of the federal government’s activities is being foisted upon a shrinking base: And those federal activities are growing: But on this Tax Day we shouldn’t just mourn what we lost to Uncle Sa...

Don’t Send iCal Replies

Surgical Diversions — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:18:12 +0100

I came across a great hint in Mac OS X Hints today. It seems that there’s an easy way to interrupt the process of sending an email reply when accepting iCal invites. As I tend to play around with iCal invites a lot (adding and deleting the same event ad nauseum) — I love this. I wrote up a modified script like in the example and bundled it with at shell script it install and uninstall the modification. You have to run this script using sudo from the CLI (Command Line Interface aka Terminal.app). The zip file contains the shell script, the modified Mail.scpt AppleScript, and the original Mail.scpt AppleScript. To install run “sudo /path/to/iCal_Reply_Send.sh install” To uninstall run “sudo /path/to/iCal_Reply_Send.sh revert” To check usage and status, ...

New Video Exposes Nightmare of IRS Complexity

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:16:47 +0100

By Daniel J. MitchellMy former intern, Hiwa Alaghebandian, has just narrated a new Economics 101 video about the cost of the tax code. I won’t spoil the surprise by giving the details, but you if you’re not angry now, you will be after watching. In the video, Ms. Alaghebandian notes that a study from 1996 (back when the tax code was not nearly as complex) estimated that a flat tax would reduce the compliance burden of the income tax by 94 percent. In my video on the flat tax, I mostly focused on how a single-rate, consumption-base system would boost growth and competitiveness, but simplicity also would be a remarkable achievement. Not only would real tax reform reduce compliance costs by hundreds of billions of dollars, it would also put a big dent in the corrupt practice ...

Poll of the Day: Should Parents Show Kids Porn?

Breastfeeding 1-2-3 — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:41:30 +0100

Kids of divorced parents are often caught in the crossfire of bad arguments and legal disputes. But Jack and Crystal Buckner’s daughters are in the middle of a uniquely controversial case in northern Texas. NPR reports that when the couple’s eight-year-old started having behavioral problems, she went to a therapist, and eventually told the therapist that her Dad had been showing both of his daughters adult porn on the computer – and Daddy told the girls it was to teach them about sex. The therapist called Family and Protective Services (we’d do the same), but Texas law isn’t so straightforward. Though the Texas penal code makes it possible to prosecute anyone who sells or shows harmful material to a minor (and defines pornography as harmful), it doesn’t appl...

The Flat Tax: Good for America, Bad for Washington

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:58:39 +0100

By Daniel J. MitchellAmerica’s biggest fiscal challenge is excessive government spending. The public sector is far too large today and it is projected to get much bigger in coming decades. But the corrupt and punitive internal revenue code is second on the list of fiscal problems. This new video, narrated by yours truly, explains how a flat tax would work and why it would promote growth and fairness. Something to keep in mind with tax day in just a couple of weeks. There are two big hurdles that must be overcome to achieve tax reform. The first obstacle is that the class-warfare crowd wants the tax code to penalize success with high tax rates. That issue is addressed in the video in a couple of ways. I explain that fairness should be defined as treating all people equally, and I als...

AstraZeneca Made False Claims In Seroquel Ads

Pharmalot — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:36:54 +0100

The drugmaker failed to accurately reflect side effects of its Seroquel antipsychotic in an ad aimed at doctors, according to the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority. To be specific, AstraZeneca breached three points of the code by claiming its drug had “a favourable weight profile across the full dose range” compared with rival drugs, The Financial Times writes. The decision by the authority, which is the self-regulatory arm of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, will be a blow to AstraZeneca as it defends itself against numerous lawsuits brought by patients in the US, the FT pointedly notes (background here). The drugmaker recently agreed to pay $520 million to settle two federal investigations (see here). In the US, AstraZeneca claimed in ads t...

How To Crack The Code To Your Life

PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:14:58 +0100

You own the code. This code is not a secret and it doesn’t have to be broken or translated in order to understand its meaning. All you have to do is to make the choice to enter the code into any aspect of your life to begin receiving what you want. Whether it’s improving relationships, losing weight, finding success at work, or making more money, the code is applicable to all areas of life and uses the exact same logic. The code isn’t hidden in a secret vault; it can be found in clear sight when we choose to look for it and then use it. Getting Past Go Perhaps the biggest obstacle to getting what you want is to just get going. Sometimes after you make the decision that “I will [fill in the blank with your goal]” you begin to hear “I can’t do it because…” These self-limiti...

The Phyla of Prokaryotes

Microbiology Blog: The weblog for microbiologists. — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:35:00 +0100

There is no official classification of prokaryotes. For the higher taxa there even is no official nomenclature: the rules of the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes do not cover taxa above the rank of class. The most commonly accepted division of the prokaryotes in two "subkingdoms" or "domains" (Bacteria and Archaea) and the classification of their species with validly published names in respectively 27 and 2 "phyla" or "divisions" (as of November 2009) is primarily based on 16S rRNA sequence comparisons. This type of classification was adopted in the latest edition of Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology. Alternative classifications have been proposed as well, based e.g. on the structure of the cell wall. Some 16S rRNA sequence-based phyla unite prokaryotes of similar...

How to Reform Health Care? ‘Let Them Have Choice’

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:14:16 +0100

By Michael F. CannonThis is big. The federal tax code creates a large tax preference for employer-sponsored health insurance. As a result, 61 percent of non-elderly Americans obtain health insurance through an employer. That tax preference creates all sorts of problems. It encourages more comprehensive health insurance and wasteful health care spending. It deprives many workers of their health coverage at the moment they need it most: when they get sick and can no longer work. And it denies workers the benefits of being able to choose their health plan. Eighty percent of those who work for an employer that offers health benefits have at most two health-plan choices, which are typically both run by the same insurer. To date, no one had really quantified the damage done by denyin...

Monday Links

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:19:11 +0100

By Chris Moody Another day, another IPCC-gate. Why remaining in Afghanistan and creating a stable government there is not a precondition to keeping America safe. For more, watch the debate on Bloggingheads. Jeffrey Miron: “Leave Mideast, end terrorism.” Could Iran’s nuclear program be a sacrificial pawn? Globalization: A curse or a cure? Podcast: “Liberate Bone Marrow Donors” featuring Jeff Rowes of the Institute for Justice. (Source: Cato-at-liberty)

A 10-Point, Libertarian, SOTU Address

Cato-at-liberty — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:03:17 +0100

By Jeffrey A. Miron1. Abandon Obamacare 2. Forget Cap and Trade 3. Reject the Card Check Bill 4. Withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan 5. Legalize Drugs 6. Scrap the tax code and replace with a flat tax 7. Expand free trade and immigration 8. Stop the bailouts 9. Cut spending 10. Cut spending BONUS - Cut spending (Source: Cato-at-liberty)

The Great Australian Internet Blackout Wordpress Plugin

Your bones got a little machine. — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:28:49 +0100

Normally I stick to posts about science and technology on this blog. Like most Australians, I vote in elections, try to remain informed, but otherwise stay away from getting involved in politics. However, occasionally certain things become important enough issues that they need to be advertised more widely. As you may know, the Australian Federal Government is attempting to censor the Internet within Australia by forcing ISPs to block a list of websites. This proposed internet filter will not be optional; it will effect all Australians, and the blocklist will compiled by a small group of people. The list of blocked sites will remain secret, so the Australian public will find it difficult to determine if this power is being abused. It will not prevent the spread of illegal material, which i...

Homebuyer Tax Credit Complications

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:14:45 +0100

By Tad DeHavenMost people would agree with Chris Edwards that the federal tax code is insanely complicated. The IRS Commissioner doesn’t do his own taxes, the Treasury secretary and other Washington policy experts haven’t paid what is owed, and the already overwhelmed IRS would be given an expanded role under the Democrat’s health care legislation. A key problem is that the social engineers on Capitol Hill have run amok. Recently, they have been enamored with home-buying tax credits, and CNN.com notes how it is further overwhelming the IRS bureaucracy: On Thursday, CNNMoney revealed that buyers who purchased their properties after Nov. 6 were unable to claim the refund because the Internal Revenue Service had yet to release a new form and instructions. But on Friday, the IRS finally ...

Reforming the Insane Tax Code

Cato-at-liberty — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:21:59 +0100

By Chris EdwardsWe’ve got an IRS Commissioner who doesn’t even do his own taxes, and is not embarrassed about it. We’ve got complex deductions that nobody understands, including the government, as the Maryland nurse with the MBA found out. We’ve got a Treasury Secretary and other high appointees who apparently cheated on their taxes. And we’ve got the Democrats hell-bent on greatly increasing the power and responsibilities of the overwhelmed IRS with their health care bill. Now, more than ever, it’s time to scrap the current income tax and put in a flat tax. Or at least we could take a big jump in that direction with a “Simplified Tax,” as discussed in a new National Academies report. Get rid of all almost all deductions, exemptions, and cr...

Alcohol report of the House of Commons Health Committee

Fade Library — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:34:28 +0100

Title: Alcohol: First Report of Session 2009–10: Volume I: Report, together with formal minutes The Skinny: Report from the House of Commons Health Committee on Alcohol, finds and concludes: History – despite a slight fall in consumption since 2004 the general trend is a rise in alcohol use and abuse The impact of alcohol on health, the NHS and Society – 10% – 27% deaths men result of alcohol, 6%-15% in women, almost 50% of violent offences are alcohol related, 1.3 million cases of child neglect are alcohol related, costs to the NHS are high but social costs higher. The Government’s strategy – good on research particularly in terms of the £20 billion cost of alcohol but the focus on health information and health education is misplaced more emphasis needs to be...

Regarding The Duty To Act

The EMT Spot — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:00:17 +0100

A while back, when I wrote about the duty to act, I emphasized the idea that the duty to act only extends to “on-duty” medical personnel. In fact, my exact words were, “If you are a trained medical professional and you are acting with an expectation of compensation you have a duty to act appropriately and within the scope of your training when called to assist with an emergency situation.” I figured I should emphasize the idea that trained EMTs don’t have a duty to act when they aren’t being compensated for their services. This seemed to be the point of greatest confusion. I never thought much about making it clear that while you are on duty, working as an EMT, you are required to act. I know … it seems painfully obvious. I thought so too. But over...

Supreme Court Seeks Pfizer Trovan Comment

Pharmalot — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:53:31 +0100

The US Supreme Court has asked the Justice Department’s Office of the Solicitor General to file a brief in a controversial case in which Nigerians are suing the drugmaker over 11 deaths and dozens of other injuries among children who participated in a 1996 clinical trial of the Trovan antibiotic. The study was conducted on about 200 children altogether and took place during a meningitis epidemic that killed 12,000 children, but Nigerians claim Pfizer didn’t obtain proper regulatory approval for the trial and misled parents. Pfizer denied the charges and settled the bulk of litigation this summer by agreeing to pay $75 million to settle civil and criminal charges brought by the Kano State government in Nigeria, far less than the $9 billion sought by Nigerian officials. The Supreme C...

An Open Letter to Future Bioethicists

Women's Bioethics Blog — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:23:35 +0100

I couldn't attend the ASBH meeting in DC this year, but apparently, Ezekiel "Zeke" Emanuel gave quite a controversial speech. While I don't have the text of the original speech, my guess is that it will be posted on the ASBH website at some point. But what I do have is Art Caplan's response, from which you can glean certain aspects of Zeke's speech -- I'll be interested to see/hear what kind of reaction this gets: Facts alone won’t suffice for the field of bioethics When you get old enough as a practitioner in any field young people seek your advice about what they should do if they want to do what you do. Given that my age seems to be increasing exponentially this has been happening to me with increasing frequency. Undergraduates, high school students, medical students, those pursui...

Wednesday Links

Cato-at-liberty — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:33:42 +0100

More policymakers coming around to the idea that it is wrong to jail drug users as criminals. How Obama’s protectionist policies are hurting the poor. More stifling of political speech. “Checks and balances” be damned: “In a democratic country, you’d think that before the executive branch could regulate CO2–a ubiquitous substance essential to life–the legislature would have to vote on the issue. But you’d be wrong.” Somewhere, Thomas Friedman is smiling. Podcast: Next week marks eight years since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. It’s time to get out. Read the exit strategy. (Source: Cato-at-liberty)

Fail2ban on Leopard Server

Surgical Diversions — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:52:25 +0100

So here I am running my own server — for almost 2 years now. It’s been a real learning experience and I’ve tried to share. My latest add-on has been fail2ban. I got tired of looking into my logs and seeing where script kiddies or bots were trying to take control of my server. Fortunately, none have. After a bit of googling, I found fail2ban. It’s a collection of python scripts. > Fail2ban scans log files like /var/log/pwdfail or /var/log/apache/error_log and bans IP that makes too many password failures. It updates firewall rules to reject the IP address. There are a few tricks I’ve discovered along the way to make it work on my installation and likely on Mac OS X Server in general. First is that fail2ban creates a PID and socket file in a directory tha...

Trust

The EMT Spot — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:00:44 +0100

For the most part, people trust us. When they hand over their confidential medical information, they trust us. When they hand over the keys to their houses, their cars and their posessions, they trust us. When they surrender their limbs to our IV’s and their bodies to our medications, they trust us. When they open the front door and point toward the back bedroom where their loved one lays in bed and say, “She’s back here.” they trust us. When they hold their baby in outstreached arms they trust us. They trust that we know the right thing to do. They trust that we have their best intentions at heart. They trust that we care about them. They trust that we will speak only the truth. They trust that we are well educated in these matters. They trust t...

Picture Don Draper Stamping on a Human Face, Forever

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:58:31 +0100

Last week, a coalition of 10 privacy and consumer groups sent letters to Congress advocating legislation to regulate behavioral tracking and advertising, a phrase that actually describes a broad range of practices used by online marketers to monitor and profile Web users for the purpose of delivering targeted ads. While several friends at the Tech Liberation Front have already weighed in on the proposal in broad terms — in a nutshell: they don’t like it — I think it’s worth taking a look at some of the specific concerns raised and remedies proposed. Some of the former strike me as being more serious than the TLF folks allow, but many of the latter seem conspicuously ill-tailored to their ends. First, while it’s certainly true that there are privacy advocates w...

Deep Pocket Series: Stroke Scale

The Palmdoc Chronicles — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Harvey wrote in to say that Deep Pocket Series has recently released a new app Stroke Scale. The software helps you evaluate patients with stroke using systems like the Cincinnati Stroke Scale, Los Angeles Prehospital Stroke Screen, ABCD Score, NIH Stroke Scale (NIHSS), Glasgow Coma Scale. It even lets you save the scores and helps you track your patient’s progress over time. Click here for a demo video A free Coupon Code is available to the first iPhone/iPod Touch user who agrees to write a review of the application for the Palmdoc Chronicles. The coupon code can be used from the US only. If you are interested please email me, and put Stroke Scale in the subject. from the Palmdoc Chronicles Deep Pocket Series: Stroke Scale (Source: The Palmdoc Chronicles)

‘Tax Cuts’ and Welfare Spending

Cato-at-liberty — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:43:50 +0100

A story in the Washington Post today is headlined: “Obama Would Keep $85 Billion in Tax Breaks for Working Poor.” The “tax breaks” in question are expansions in the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. The Post story repeatedly calls the expansions “tax breaks” and “tax cuts.” The budget expert quoted in the story calls them “tax cuts,” and so does a House staffer and a spokesperson for the president. But these are not tax cuts. They are expansions in the refundability of provisions in the tax code. That means that households that pay no federal income tax will receive larger welfare checks from the government under these Obama proposals. Obama has proposed a slew of “tax cuts” that are partly welfare p...

A Bitter Pill to Swallow: Drugs for people not for profit

Fade Library — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:56:50 +0100

Title: A Bitter Pill to Swallow: Drugs for people not for profit The Skinny: Reported in the press as indicating that the cost of drugs will cripple the NHS and identifying the questionable ethics of big pharma in relation to the NHS this report from the think tank Compass discusses the current state of the pharmaceutical industry – particularly in relation to the UK. It draws on a large body of evidence to highlight the key issues in the pharmaceutical industry – looking specifically at rates of innovation, clinical trials, and its relationship with the medical profession. It goes on to call for an improved regulatory structure to ensure that the industry delivers the drugs we need at prices which we can afford. Publisher: Compass Size of Publication: 46p Published: 29/08/2009...

The Medela Breast Milk Commercial

Breastfeeding 1-2-3 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 04:36:30 +0100

After I posted about the Advertising of Infant Milk, two commenters mentioned how much they liked the Medela commercial that has been running on the Discovery Health Channel. Curious to see the “breast milk commercial” myself, I found the 31-second ad on Medela’s website. (Go on, watch it. I’ll wait. Then come back and let me know what you think please!) What do you think of the ad? My first thought was, “Way to go Medela! You actually showed actual breastfeeding, on television!” (Yes, actually, that is how I actually thought it LOL). Apparently though this version of the ad is a revision from a previous version that received complaints from the lactation community, and still the ad has received criticism for implying that a pump and bottles are necessa...

A Brief Introduction to WebOS Application Development

The Palmdoc Chronicles — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100

I am still very much a noob in WebOS development but I can tell you it’s probably much easier than learning C++ or some other complex programming language. With some help from experienced programmers, I’ve got PreMedi, the WebOS medical calculator, now up to v 0.61 with 6 modules. What I sorely lack is time otherwise it is not difficult to plug in more modules though eventually I don’t think I can match MedCalc - I would like at least the most commonly used ones in the final product. The purpose of this post is to share with you a nice video on WebOS Application Development. I hope this will encourage more physician WebOS coders and developers: The WebOS Homebrew scene is really exploding. While the official Palm Catalog stands at 32, I believe the Homebrew apps now exce...

For Financial Stability, Fix the Tax Code

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:53:32 +0100

There seems to be near universal agreement that the excessive use of debt among both corporations, particularly banks, and households contributed to the severity of the financial crisis. However, other than the occasional refrain that banks should hold more capital, there has been little discussion over why corporations choose to be so highly leveraged in the first place. But then such a discussion might lead us to the all too obvious answer — the federal government, via the tax code, encourages, even heavily subsidizes corporate leverage. Cato scholar and banking analyst Bert Ely has estimated that the subsides for debt have historically resulted in an after tax cost of debt of 3 to 5 percent, compared to an after tax cost of equity of 12 to 15 percent. With differences of th...

Bachus Plan a Good Start toward Ending Bailouts

Cato-at-liberty — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:41:03 +0100

Today Congressman Spencer Bachus, along with several of the Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee, offered a plan for reforming our financial system and ending future government bailouts of the financial sector At the heart of the financial crisis has been the Federal Reserve’s willingness to invoke its powers under Paragraph 13-3 of the Federal Reserve Act to bail out firms like Bear Stearns and AIG — all without a single vote from Congress or any form of public debate. Almost 10 months after the initial AIG bailout by the Fed, there is still no plan for resolving that firm, and no strategy for recovering the taxpayers investment. While some might pretend that the Fed puts no taxpayer funds at risk under the use its 13-3 powers, it is the American taxpayer who u...

Revenge of the Laffer Curve

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:27:17 +0100

Steve Moore and Art Laffer have an excellent column in today’s Wall Street Journal. They explain that high-tax states drive repel entrepreneurs and investors, leading to a pronounced Laffer Curve effect. Productive people either leave the state or choose to earn and report less taxable income. And because growth is weaker than in low-tax states, there also is a negative impact on lower-income and middle-class people: Here’s the problem for states that want to pry more money out of the wallets of rich people. It never works because people, investment capital and businesses are mobile: They can leave tax-unfriendly states and move to tax-friendly states. …Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people ...

AEI Tax Forum

Cato-at-liberty — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:16:34 +0100

Photo by Peter Holden Photography for AEI I was a panelist at an American Enterprise Institute forum today discussing the proliferation of federal tax credits, particularly for low-income families. AEI scholars Kevin Hassett, Larry Lindsey, and Aparna Mathur have a draft paper that looks at the idea of consolidating current individual credits into one supercredit. The idea would be to simplify the system and reduce the economic distortions created by these credits, which are valued at about $170 billion in 2009. My observations included: Obama’s Make Work Pay credit is valued at about $60 billion per year, much of which is ”refundable.” (That means it is partly a spending increase not a tax cut). Coincidentally, Obama’s proposed tax hikes for higher-...

VoodooPad Pro Blogging

Surgical Diversions — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:54:59 +0100

It’s time to package up all my VoodooPad Pro blogging scripts and assorted web export plugins so that I can Remember what the heck I was thinking. Remember what all these pieces were supposed to accomplish as a whole. Provide some sort of reference to others interested in this stuff. Concept: To use VoodooPad Pro as a CMS for a web site, allowing for static sites and inclusion of blog-style concatenated page. The blog-style page was originally intended as a “News” page of a static business site. SEO optimization necessitating the addition of a page with re-newing content. Google likes it more. Disclaimer: I like Markdown and built these scripts around the fact that the VPP document is essentially always formatted in plain text. Images need to be added using links. I...

New at Cato Unbound: Ten Years of Code

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:21:03 +0100

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lawrence Lessig’s seminal work on Internet law, turns ten this year. To mark the occasion, Cato Unbound has invited a distinguished panel of Internet law experts to discuss the book’s enduring significance: What did it get right? What did it get wrong? And where do we go from here? Joining us will be Adam Thierer, Jonathan Zittrain, and Lawrence Lessig himself. The lead essay, up this morning, is by Declan McCullagh. Readers of Code will recall that McCullagh was called out by name in the book’s final chapter, and his “do-nothing” cyberlibertarian views were criticized at length. Ten years later, is it time to reconsider? Join us and find out. (Source: Cato-at-liberty)

Obama Taking on ‘Tax Havens’

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:01:58 +0100

Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times Caucus Blog reports, “President Obama will present a set of proposals on Monday aimed at changing international tax policy, calling for the elimination of benefits for companies and wealthy individuals that harbor their cash in offshore accounts.” Cato scholars have long made arguments in defense of tax havens. In The Wall Street Journal, Senior Fellow Richard Rahn outlined the policy the federal government should be taking instead: The correct policy for the United States to follow is to reduce its corporate tax rate to make it internationally competitive, and to move toward a tax system that does not punish savings and productive investment so severely. We know from the experiences of many countries that reducing tax rates and simplifying th...

With ‘Cramdown’ Rejection, Is Senate Ready to Respect Marketplace Contracts Again?

Cato-at-liberty — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:13:29 +0100

After rejecting the proposed ‘cramdown’ changes to the bankruptcy code, the Senate may be slowly waking up to the need to respect contracts. One cannot rebuild trust and confidence in our markets, while at the same type trying to destroy the trust that underlies contractual relations. Were the cramdown legislation approved, the message to investors, or any market participants, would be that the enforceability and terms of your private agreements will be subject to the direction of the political winds. Proponents of cramdown claimed that the bankruptcy code favored one’s vacation home or yacht over one’s primary residence, as the mortgages on these assets could be reduced to reflect their current value. Such a claim is at best misleading, if not outright false. One&#...

Panayiotis Zavos: I've Cloned a Human!

Women's Bioethics Blog — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:38:54 +0100

Whether the news stories on Panayiotis Zavos’ latest efforts to clone a human embryo are a hoax or not, there is no doubt that a tremendous amount of scientific progress has been made since the 1997 announcement that a sheep had been successfully cloned; cloned primates and pets and the creation of induced pluripotent stem cells and human-nonhuman chimeras are just a few of the scientific discoveries that get us closer everyday to the prospect of a cloned human being. The ability to radically alter human reproduction raises fundamental questions regarding the nature of our humanity and the character of our society.Thousands of scientists, scholars, journalists, religious leaders, and policy makers have debated and discussed the ethical implications of a wide range of reproductive technol...

Week in Review: Tax Day, Pirates and Cuba

Cato-at-liberty — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:49:19 +0100

Tax Day: The Nightmare from Which There’s No Waking Up Cato scholars were busy exposing the burden of the American tax system on Wednesday, the deadline to file 2008 tax returns. At CNSNews.com, tax analyst Chris Edwards argued that policymakers should give Americans the simple and low-rate tax code they deserve: The outlook for American taxpayers is pretty grim. The federal tax code is getting more complex, the president is proposing tax hikes on high-earners, businesses, and energy consumers; and huge deficits may create pressure for further increases down the road… The solution to all these problems is to rip out the income tax and replace it with a low-rate flat tax, as two dozen other nations have done. At Townhall, Dan Mitchell excoriated the complexity of the current tax...

Phyloinformatics gets some love from Google (get your students to apply ...)

The Tree of Life — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:42:00 +0100

Just got this from the good folks at Nescent ...PHYLOINFORMATICS SUMMER OF CODE 2009http://hackathon.nescent.org/Phyloinformatics_Summer_of_Code_2009The Phyloinformatics Summer of Code program provides a unique opportunity for undergraduate, masters, and PhD students to obtain hands-on experience writing and extending open-source software for evolutionary informatics under the mentorship of experienced developers from around the world. The program is the participation ofthe US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) as a mentoring organization in the Google Summer of Code(tm) (http://code.google.com/soc/).Students in the program will receive a stipend from Google (and possibly more importantly, a T-shirt solely available to successful participants), and may work from their home, ...

Occyd : tagging for locations

Your bones got a little machine. — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:25:31 +0100

Those who have been watching may have noticed I quietly started developing an Android application in the last month or so. It’s still super-buggy and far from feature complete, but I thought it was time to announce it here (”release early, release often”). It’s not ready for real users yet, but developers may like to take a little look. Occyd (-k d .. sounds like rockied or oggied) is an application for tagging geolocations, aimed at GPS-enabled network-connected devices. It currently consists of an Android client, and a server backend running on Google App Engine. The (evolving) API is simple enough that it should be easy to write clients (or servers) for various platforms. The idea is to enable people to tag locations on the surface of the planet with a list of k...

New "New Media" Trick for Pharma Marketers

Pharma Marketing Blog — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:33:00 +0100

(Source: Pharma Marketing Blog)

Occyd : tagging for locations

Your bones got a little machine. — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:13:02 +0100

No Code Meter May Provide Better Glucose Control

Diabetes Notes — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 03:36:46 +0100

var iamInit = function() {try{initIamServingHandler(320,480,605558,"http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/Resources/Css/css2.css")}catch(ex){}}() The new rage with diabetic metering is no-code meters. I can’t tell you how many times I forgot to reprogram my meter. I never understood why coding was necessary with digital meters. Now there is a new meter from Diabetic Care Services and Diabetic Express called the WaveSense Jazz™. “In addition to featuring one of the largest backlit digits for easy reading, WaveSense Jazz is one of the first meters to provide a score for a user’s glycemic variability.” Glycemic variability is used to show intense fluctuations in blood sugar, and could help with overall control. No coding and better control? Sounds pretty good to me! Tags: ...

Moral Distress

Women's Bioethics Blog — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:15:43 +0100

When Doctors and Nurses Can’t Do the Right ThingThe writer, a physician, Pauline W. Chen, M.D, describes her experiences of witnessing what an ethics consultant she knew called “moral distress.” The ethics consultant, also a medical doctor, stated that this was a growing concern at her hospital. Moral distress is the feeling of being trapped by competing demands from bureaucracy, family, and professional peers that forces doctors and nurses to compromise their commitment to what is best for patients.Dr. Chen described a scenario that involved a very talented nurse who possessed tremendous perspicacity regarding clinical situations. She noticed over the years, however, that this nurse’s communication style devolved from sharp insight to vague non-commitment when communicating with d...

It’s true: you can’t believe everything that you read on the Web

What You're Doing Is Rather Desperate — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:39:08 +0100

An oft-repeated cliché is that “you can’t believe what you read on the Web.” Of course, you can’t believe what you read anywhere: it’s up to individuals to assess the quality and reliability of information, regardless of the source. That said, it can be alarming to sit back and watch the speed with which errors propagate in cyberspace. Yesterday, I watched this unfold in a few short hours: I (and others) bookmark a link to a project called gpeerreview, hosted at Google Code A blog post (since corrected) states that the search giant has been working on a peer review tool My bookmark appears at FriendFeed, where we discuss the incorrect attribution of the project to Google Another blog post on Google Peer Review appears Links and comments about gpeerreview sta...

Zazzle - The FINAL Word

The Angriest Pharmacist — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:55:52 +0100

You guys know me — I always get the final word: http://www.tinyurl.com/ZazzleShirt If you don’t understand the shirt, read the entire story here: http://tinyurl.com/ZazzleGate And for my final trick — I scored all my readers a discount. For free shipping on my shirts, add the following Promocode to your order: 09SHIPTHANKS My ProductGallery (Featuring T-Shirts, Mousepads, and an awesome tie): http://tinyurl.com/ZazzleStore (Source: The Angriest Pharmacist)

Don’t Compromise Your Dental License with Marketing Mistakes

dental blog for dentists about dentistry — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:12:58 +0100

You read it in advertisements, hear it at seminars, see it used by dental product manufacturers: “Predictable Results.” These two words are buzzing around the industry and have been for some time. “Predictable dentistry” is better for patient and doctor, right? In theory, yes. However, some agencies may consider “predictable dentistry” false and misleading. If your practice’s website or print marketing states that a product or service can offer predictable results, you could get in big trouble! What does “big trouble” mean? In most cases, the agency with the issue will contact you by mail requesting that you change your marketing. Compliance is mandatory. “Predictable dentistry” is just one example of a problematic phrase. WhatYou Need to Know about Dental Ma...

QR-code bookmarklets

Your bones got a little machine. — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 01:13:17 +0100

A quick post to share some bookmarklets I made. I’ve found QR-code “2D barcodes” really handy when playing with my Android phone. Sometimes, I have a web page open on my desktop PC, and I want to quickly load it in the Android Chrome browser to see what it looks like. Rather than re-typing it with my thumbs, the Barcode Scanner application allows me to scan a QR-code from the screen of my computer, and if the decoded text contains a URL, open it in the Android browser. These two bookmarklets turn the URL of the current page that is open in your browser into a scannable QR-code: Google Charts API based bookmarklet: Drag this link –>Current URL to QR-code to your bookmarks toolbar. The code is: javascript:location.href="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&am...

iCal - Exchange Time Zone Fix - Chapter 3

Surgical Diversions — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 23:42:25 +0100

I’ve updated the iCal-Invite-Fix script again. This time to allow for adding multiple Exchange servers to the script so that you should only need a single script. The set-up is slightly more complex. As the image above shows there are now only 2 properties, both of which are lists. These lists work together as an array; which means the order of the list items is crucial. exchange_fragment contains unique fragments of the TZID that the Exchange server sends. ical_tzid contains the tzid info that iCal expects to see. If you have any problems setting it up let me know. This post has all the info for the script. Download the iCal-Invite-Fix script. Related posts:iCal - Exchange Time Zone Fix - Chapter 2 It was a fiCal - Exchange Time Zone Fix As any MaciCal - Exchange Time Zon...

Code Black

AEQUANIMITAS — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:18:06 +0100

“Code Black” in Cubicle 23. I was called to see a wildly agitated “speeding” patient. She was ranting and gesticulating aggressively, with eyes wide and teeth flashing. Unsurprisingly, words alone did nothing to calm her down. I told her matter-of-factly that if she didn’t cooperate she would be sedated against her will - for her safety, the safety of the staff, and the safety of the other patients in the Emergency Department. This ultimatum escalated her amphetamine-fueled malbehaviour. Instantly, six security guards magically materialised and swiftly swept her onto her bed. I quickly gained IV access and administered a soothing dose of midazolam… As she drifted off to sleep she said: “…you wouldn’t treat me like this if I was John How...

Why Open Science/Research won’t work, at least for now, a story from Google Reader

Blind.Scientist — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:24:03 +0100

In this second (maybe third) post on why I think Open Science/Research won’t work, at least for now, I’ll try to tell a story of something that happened in the (argh!) blogosphere. This is a real story but I will leave the real names out of it. It all started in on prominent blog of a prominent Open Scientist/Researcher. S/he used to write about papers, data, grants and small problems s/he would encounter along the way. People would pitch in, give some advice, and life and research would go on its natural path. Open Science/Research was working great!! and everyone was benefiting from it. And the sky was blue and birds were singing. One day he or she comes with a software problem. Someone in the lab was writing a piece of code in some prominent computer language and there was a...

A Refreshing Change: A Code of Ethics in a Presidential transition...

Women's Bioethics Blog — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:48:16 +0100

[Hat tip to Dr. Matt Wynia, director of the American Medical Association Institute for Ethics for bringing our attention to this one]Any who has attended an ASBH meeting knows that one of the issues that has been hotly debated among members in the last few years is whether or not bioethicists should have a code of ethics to which they agree to adhere to retain membership -- it is just one step towards setting standards, obtaining public trust, and promoting transparency. Well, it looks like the Obama transition team beat us to punch:"At an afternoon press briefing in the Transition Team offices for President-elect Barack Obama, transition team co-chairman John Podesta said this would be “the most open and transparent transition in history” and released a set of rules that lobbyists wor...

Count the number of sequences in a FASTA format file: a Unix shell snippet

Your bones got a little machine. — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:49:38 +0100

Sometimes it’s nice to quickly check how many sequences are in a FASTA format sequence file. It barely warrants it’s own blog post, but here we go anyhow: my one-liner shell script for counting the number of sequences in a FASTA “flat-file database”, based on the presence of the “>” header symbol. #!/bin/sh # ~/bin/countseqs # Counts the number of sequences in a FASTA format file grep ">" $1 | wc -l Dead easy huh ? I put this in ~/bin/countseqs, make it executable (chmod +x ~/bin/countseqs) and use it in lots of situations, as a quick sanity check. (oh, btw, this is not public domain and u can’t use it for commercial gain without paying me a license fee. academic users can fax me something for a free license. k thx bye). Couldn̵...

Save 10% on StarSmilez Products

Dental Heroes — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:24:49 +0100

Just wanted to pass this on to all of you. Shawna over at Paragon International has authorized me to offer you 10% off StarSmilez products with the coupon code: “Heroes” (without quotes). If you’ll remember, I recently reviewed a StarSmilez product by the name of Lil’ Ollie Z Mutt. If you haven’t read the review, I’d recommend doing so, because this is really a great learning tool for children and a solid product all-around. Enjoy your 10% off, and thanks goes out to Shawna for providing us with the coupon code. (Source: Dental Heroes)

Psychologists Won’t Let Go of Torture Debate

World of Psychology — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:30:13 +0100

A year ago, we reported that the American Psychological Association (otherwise known as the APA, the professional association for half of the nation’s psychologists) banned psychologists from torture interrogations. But since that ban, psychologists against the APA’s stance on torture have not let the matter rest. Why has the debate raged on, despite APA’s insistence it is 100% against torture and psychologists being involved in torture interrogations? A July 1 article in Psychiatric Times helps shed some light on the issue: The American Psychological Association ethics code that was in effect before and through the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks set forth the following enforceable standard regarding conflicts between ethical responsibilities and various forms...

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Mental Nurse — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:30:21 +0100

Or: “Who will guard the guards?” The DoH has a current consultation: The Nursing and Midwifery (Amendment) Order 2008 was made on 11 June. It makes a number of changes to the constitutional arrangements for the Nursing and Midwifery Council. Instead of the constitutional details of the NMC being set out the in the Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001, these details must now be set out in a separate Constitution Order made by the Privy Council. You see, there’s been some shenanigans down at the Old Bailey for Nurses & Midwives and now parliament is taking the NMC’s ball away until they learn to play nicely. It’s not new news - the NMC has been under this review by the CHRE since March 2008 so I doubt much of this is a surprise. The review was released last mon...

Not Able to Play In Your Own Back Yard

Autism Vox — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:03:17 +0100

We bought our house (the house which we no longer live in, due to Charlie’s school placement situation) because it had a modest but decent-sized front yard set in from the street, and also a big back yard with a deck, visible from the kitchen. Charlie loves to be outside and to be able to go in and out as he will and we, of course, need to keep track of where he is. If your living space can’t be livable for your family—and in our family, a peaceful easy-feeling boy means peaceful easy-feeling parents. The Foote family of Paynesville, Minnesota, has been told by Stearns County officials that the deck where their 5-year-old son Alex, loves to play, must be taken down because it was built without a permit. WCCO reports: “You hear him out here like with his little squir...

Perl Boredom, Domain Hunting

Mexico Medical Student — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:21:46 +0100

The other day, registrars began opening up domain registrations to .me TLDs. I became aware of this because Beth at PixelRN had a quandary about a domain she was trying to register and the TLD .me obviously caught my eye. From what I can gather, tons of .me domains are being snagged by the hour at premium prices. GoDaddy and other registrars are reportedly screwing the pooch either because of higher-than-expected demand or because there has been too much bullshit with front-running where searches basically ‘tip off’ a registrar (and, in my conspiracy-theory-addled brain, an elite group of insider clients who will snag it in the precious waiting period while one decides if they want it or not). I probably won’t get one, but in complete boredom I wondered what kind of...

A Greasemonkey script: Library Ezproxy Forwarder

Your bones got a little machine. — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:08:15 +0100

Many University libraries use some server software called Ezproxy to do authentication and arbitrate access to full-text online journal subscriptions. Essentially, Ezproxy uses some URL mangling, rewriting all hyperlinks, to pass traffic via the proxy (rather than using a conventional browser proxy setting). For example, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/313/5785/314 is changed to http://www.sciencemag.org.ezproxy.lib.unimelb.edu.au/cgi/content/full/313/5785/314 . If the user is not logged in to the proxy (ie has no fresh & valid cookie), a login screen is given before being forwarded to the journal site. This plugin helps mangle URLs to add the proxy domain to outgoing links from various journal sites as well as NCBI PubMed (eg, like .ezproxy.lib.unimelb.edu.au), meaning that...

Roche Is Suspended By UK Pharma Group

Pharmalot — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:48:50 +0100

The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, the industry’s UK regulatory body, gives the drugmaker a six-month suspension after concluding an investigation into charges Roche sold large quantities of its Xenical diet pill to the operator of a chain of private UK diet clinics, despite suspicions the pills were being sold illegally. The action follows a formal complaint from Ryta Kuzel, former head of Roche’s UK regulatory affairs, who was fired by the drugmaker shortly after the start of investigations into Xenical supplies in 2005. However, internal Roche documents shown as part of Kuzel’s case indicated Roche execs raised concerns that Robin Huxley, the operator of a chain of private slimming clinics, might be selling Xenical not only to his own clients, but also on to th...

What's Your Opinion of PhRMA's New Code?

Pharma Marketing Blog — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:41:00 +0100

Today, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Board of Directors adopted measures to enhance the PhRMA Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals.Among its changes, the revised Code (learn more here):Prohibits distribution of non-educational items (such as pens, mugs and other "reminder" objects typically adorned with a company or product logo) to healthcare providers and their staff. The Code acknowledges that such items, even though of minimal value, "may foster misperceptions that company interactions with healthcare professionals are not based on informing them about medical and scientific issues."Regarding CME, the new code specifically states that a pharmaceutical company should separate its CME grant-making functions from its sales and marketing dep...

New Pharma Code: No Pens, But Lunch Is Free

Pharmalot — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:30:20 +0100

All those cheap pens and mugs, along with other gifts, given to doctors will no longer be allowed under new voluntary guidelines being issued by PhRMA, the US trade group. But there are no limits on speaking and consulting fees for docs, and routine free meals in physician offices - plus dinner invites to educational events - will still be permitted. Drugmakers are supposed to certify in writing that “they have policies and procedures in place to foster compliance with the code,” which will go into effect in January. The code, by the way, doesn’t cover biotechs or device makers, which have their own trade groups, but these haven’t taken such steps. The code requires annual limits on amounts to be paid docs to deliver educational talks, although limits aren’t specifie...

Software review: producing two dimensional diagrams of membrane proteins

Your bones got a little machine. — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:28:50 +0100

I recently needed to make a simple, two dimensional figure of a beta-barrel membrane protein. I went hunting for programs that might take a sequence and/or structure and produce a pretty looking diagram to save me constructing everything by hand. Here are two I found and tried. TMRPres2D Ioannis C. Spyropoulos, Theodore D. Liakopoulos, Pantelis G. Bagos and Stavros J. Hamodrakas TMRPres2D: high quality visual representation of transmembrane protein models Bioinformatics. 2004; 20: 3258-3260. (link) Pros: Cross-platform (Java) Simple interface, GUI (zero learning curve) Lots of input options (defines transmembrane regions directly from SwissProt or PIR annotations online, takes input from several transmembrane region predictors) Lots of output formats and options (Postscript, gif, jp...

Mako templates in Google App Engine: seems to work for me

Your bones got a little machine. — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:31:33 +0100

For some reason which I can’t really articulate, I’m not a huge fan of Django templating. I’d actually prefer to use Genshi with Google App Engine, but I need to wait until all the kinks are ironed out, since as far as I can tell it’s not quite working painlessly yet. Another templating option is Mako, which I’ve barely used, but I still prefer to Django templates. One nice thing about Mako: it’s faster than most Python templating engines out there. So, here’s a quickie on how I got Mako working with Google App Engine. It wasn’t tricky at all, but I thought I’d document it anyway. Checkout Mako from SVN and copy the directory mako/lib/mako to the path of your application, eg, on Linux: $ cp -r mako/lib/mako myapp (where myapp is the dir...

ResolveRef updated : now with auto-suggest and source code

Your bones got a little machine. — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:28:59 +0100

I updated ResolveRef last night and checked in the most current sourcecode to svn at Google Code. New features include: Suggest/autocomplete for journal title field, using the journal title lists provided by PubMed. A “Verify” button. Allows a ResolveRef URL to be constructed with the web form and verified as working and valid without actually forwarding the user to the article. Some bugfixes (handled the case where there is no DOI in the PubMed record, handled network timeouts to PubMed) Refreshed visuals Disqus comments box for feedback In the interest of just getting something working quickly, I implemented the suggest feature in the laziest, possibly most RAM and CPU hungry way possible (the “JQuery Suggest” code queries the web app with substrings as you typ...

Implementing the White Paper Trust, Assurance and Safety: enhancing confidence in healthcare professional regulators - final report and DH response to recommendations

Fade Library — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:34:53 +0100

considers the White Paper Trust, assurance and safety: the regulation of health professionals which was concerned with enhancing public confidence in the regulators of healthcare professionals. This document contains the working group’s report on the implementation of the white paper and the Department’s response to its recommendations. (Source: Fade Library)

ResolveRef : looking at the logs

Your bones got a little machine. — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 09:25:10 +0100

One of the nice features of Google App Engine is you can easily view logs for your application to quickly see requests generating errors. Browsing the logs of ResolveRef, I’ve been able to identify an few classes of query which for one reason or another, weren’t working. Firstly, there is the “just testing and don’t actually have a citation on hand to key-in” class of users, that tried requests something like: /ref/xx/2007// Not much sympathy here … it’s pretty much like dialing a random phone number and hoping it someone will pick up. Then there is a class of users who appear to have sensible intentions, but provide incomplete ResolveRef URLs, eg: /ref/Organic%20Letters/2000// Maybe I poorly described ResolveRef in the initial announcement, maybe...

Indianna Jones – liberator from the white slave trade

Whitterer on Autism — Sat, 31 May 2008 23:52:00 +0100

We endure an existence of high anxiety, a peak in the bell curve as we await the trough that follows. It’s always like that around here, crashing waves before a period of calm. I’d like to blame those people, but it’s not really their fault. How were they to know? It was a perfectly harmless sign stuck to the back of their car. They didn’t know that he reads everything and particularly favours orange signs. It was innocent enough ‘family sale here,’ and an arrow pointing towards their home. It just came at a bad moment, an anxious moment when he’s more vulnerable to triggers and spin off.So far the social stories are a failure but it’s a work in progress.It’s a little embarrassing right now, but my Rhino hide serves me well. It’s only been the last few days. I go to sch...

Framework for Managing Choice Cooperation and Competition

Fade Library — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:31:56 +0100

The Framework for Managing Choice Cooperation and Competition supports SHAs and PCTs in understanding the roles, responsibilities, values and behaviours required for the effective management of choice and competition within the NHS. The Framework is the outcome of a series of workshops and seminars with senior SHA and PCT leaders. The Framework should be read in conjunction with the Principles and rules for Cooperation and Competition (Annex D of the 2008/9 Operating Framework) and the PCT Procurement Guide (published 16 May 2008). Additionally, the Framework signals a further series of tools and guidance for system managers to be released throughout the year. (Source: Fade Library)

How to improve scientific software?

Blind.Scientist — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:45:15 +0100

Do you know the answer to the above question? No? Me neither, but I can offer some suggestions. On a daily basis, a bioinformatician is exposed to hundreds of applications, computer languages, websites, you name it. Some of them are commercial, some of them free and open source. Some of the academia-developed software are open-source, some of them are not. A good portion of the academia-developed software are published in scientific journals, as an 2-page application note in Bioinformatics , or on a longer paper on BMC Bioinformatics, just to name two of the journals of the field. I cannot complain of non-published applications. Usually they are free, open, and were developed during someone’s spare time. I have the option of not using them, or modify them or helping the developer t...

Announcing ResolveRef on Google App Engine

Your bones got a little machine. — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:29:21 +0100

About two weeks ago, tipped off by Neil, I heard about Google App Engine. I managed to get a beta account, and I’ve finally had a chance to do something (hopefully) useful with it. In the absence of any quickly achievable ideas for a bioinformatics app, I ported over the OpenRef application I wrote on top of TurboGears a few months back. Just like the original, the new app, ResolveRef, is essentially a RESTful way of doing PubMed queries. A query like: http://resolveref.appspot.com/ref/journal/year/volume/page or when there is no volume number, like: http://resolveref.appspot.com/ref/journal/year/page will query PubMed and forward you to the DOI. Usually this means you will be forwarded to the electronic version of the article at the publishers site. The nice thing about these OpenR...

git, github, and bioinformatics software development

Bioinformatics Zen — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:48:46 +0100

Github, a source code management (SCM) repository based on git has exited beta and is ready for people to sign up. Git and github offer interesting opportunities for bioinformatics software development, and I think it’s worth taking a few minutes to explore them. There’s a free option too, so it doesn’t cost anything to sign up and play around. Source code management Github is based on git, and if you’re familiar with a source code management tool like subversion, git uses a similar command syntax, and would only take about 20 minutes to familiarise with. Git does many things to improve upon SCM, and one of the first things I noticed is how much faster it is than subversion. Also if you’ve ever used subversion, you’ll know that it creates a .svn directo...

A New Hope

Gene Sherpas: Personalized Medicine and You — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:12:00 +0100

I just got out of a meeting with a Very Nice Angel Investor. He had some really interesting ideas that I am dying to tell you about....but I just can't.....for now.But what I can do is now tell you about how sad I am that I missed "Navigenics 2008 Opening Day" I don't know who was pitching...but from what I heard it was a success. Speaking of success, I just had another patient come to me with the magic 84 page printout. It will be interesting to see how the Mayo study comes out regarding all of these lab reports and patient comprehension. A few days ago a patient was seen by us for Pharmacogenomic analysis and he was puzzled by the laboratory reports and data. He actually thought that the boiler plate information on the bottom of the report was actually personalized. He asked "If I only h...

I lost my Train....

Gene Sherpas: Personalized Medicine and You — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:07:00 +0100

So last week I asked the question. "Where would we be if we had a 1000 USD genome by next year?"....But more importantly I asked "Who would lose if we had a 1000 USD genome by next year?"So who would lose?I am having a hard time coming up with these. I think they tend to breakdown into several groups 1) The group who benefits from not being able to target medicines and diagnoses.2) The group who would is scared to know what the secret of the genome holds3) The group not nimble enough to change their practices and adopt new technologies4) The group whose genomes hold some horrible secrets and disadvantages that have previously gone undetected5) Those who I have left out, the unknown unknownsSo let's address one at a timeFirst up.....Who benefits from trial and error medicine? Who benefits f...

500 Hospitals want to know....

Gene Sherpas: Personalized Medicine and You — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:11:00 +0100

Lots of stuff happening online today. I just left a conference call where I was the invited guest panelist along with Robert Resta CGC. The Advisory Board Company and The Innovations Center presented an Issue Brief entitled-The Genetic Testing Frontier: Impact on Clinical Care, Market Opportunities. Hundreds of hospitals were online wondering how they too can get a piece of the action.....Also....did anyone read the Washington Post today? Genetic Testing Gets Personal again another article on this "revolution" non subscription link here"We call it consumer-enabled research," said Linda Avey, co-founder of 23andMe, based in Mountain View, Calif. "It's about changing the paradigm of how research is done."Well Said.......You could also call it uninformed cohort analysis...."Free Kits?" Come-O...

Code of practice for promotion of NHS services

Fade Library — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:34:12 +0100

sets out rules around promotional material issued by providers of NHS services to ensure that: the information patients receive is not misleading, inaccurate, unfair or offensive, that the brand and reputation of the NHS is protected, and that expenditure on promotional activity is not excessive. (Source: Fade Library)

Using helper scripts to make bioinformatics analysis easier to maintain

Bioinformatics Zen — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:00:41 +0100

One of the differences between researching a scientific problem using a computer, and developing software, is the approach to writing code. If you’re producing a bioinformatics application there is more emphasis on generating high quality, flexible code, as this makes future maintenance easier. On the other hand if you’re trying to find the answer to a biological question using a series of scripts, then the focus is on the results, rather than the standard of code. During my work, the number of scripts I have tends to grow quickly, and this leads to problems with maintaining dependencies across scripts. Examples of this can be database connection parameters, or the file system location of a library I’m calling. This is because the fastest way to get this information into a script, is...

An OpenRef implementation

Your bones got a little machine. — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 06:33:00 +0100

Recently, Noel O'Boyle of Noel O'Blog proposed a new RESTful scheme for resolving publications, as an alternative to using DOI or PubMed ID (PMID) identifiers. Essentially, this would allow resolution of a publication like:EL Willighagen, NM O'Boyle, H Gopalakrishnan, D Jiao, R Guha, C Steinbeck and D J Wild Userscripts for the Life Sciences BMC Bioinformatics 2007, 8, 487.Using something like this:openref://BMC Bioinformatics/2007/8/487 orhttp://dx.openref.org/BMC Bioinformatics/2007/8/487 Simply using the journal title, publication year, volume and first page number. Read his post for a more detailed explanation.While I think the scheme needs a little fleshing out, the idea is nice, since as Noel highlights - the "OpenRef" URL can be derived from the typical citation style used by academ...

Safer To Cardiac Arrest In A Mall Bathroon Than A Hospital…

A Hearty Life — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 01:47:15 +0100

Suffering from cardiac arrest while staying in a hospital might be more deadly than receiving such a fit at a crowded airport, according to a new study. Being a nurse, I find this hard to believe. I would think that we would respond quicker and get CPR and an ET tube in place quicker than an innocent bystander looking for the AED on the wall. I can not remember more than a 3-4 minute lag or down time for any code situation that I have ever personally been involved in. And what if the person needs to be trached or a balloon pump inserted for concractility of a mushy heart? I don’t see that happening on a mall floor. The study published by the New England Journal of Medicine stated that in 1/3 of all hospital cardiac arrests, nurses and doctors did not move quickly enough resulting in ...

Britney Spears Hospitalized, Involuntarily Held for Mental Evaluation

World of Psychology — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:03:40 +0100

We feel badly for Britney Spears. Watching her self-destruct in the public eye over the past year has just been beyond words. Most people find such self-destruction good fodder for entertainment, but I’m disturbed by the seeming lack of anyone able to get through to her and get her into real treatment. Maybe last night’s events will get through to her. Whether she likes it or not, she appears to have been hospitalized overnight in California on a 5150 hold, which refers to the legal code that allows a California hospital to hold a person involuntarily due to psychiatric concerns. Specifically, because the clinicians or who initially evaluated her were concerned that she was a danger to herself or to others. These are not just used if a person is drunk — they have to hav...

Why data testing is important in computational research

Bioinformatics Zen — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:33:08 +0100

I wrote in a previous post about the importance of testing in computational research. If you’re developing a piece of software, functional testing is essential. However, we bioinformaticians don’t just develop software, we also have to develop conclusions and hypothesis, based on data, as well as code we’ve written. Here is an example of why I think data testing is as equally important as functional testing in research. (more…) (Source: Bioinformatics Zen)

Open (notebook) science gathers momentum

What You're Doing Is Rather Desperate — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:34:09 +0100

Pedro has started an open science project to study domain family expansion. He’s trialling Google Code as his project repository. I think this is a great idea and a very exciting approach. If you have anything to contribute, go and check it out. While you’re there, click the bioinformatics tag to see another 54 projects at Google Code. Quite a resource, although a few are not very active. And in open science synchronicity, David Ng publicises Rosie Redfield’s lab on BoingBoing and links to his blog post where she discusses the benefits of open science and blogging. The few comments so far focus on the old “but won’t we get scooped” argument, so head over there and say something positive. We must keep pushing the agenda - open research will be the norm on...

Cracking The Code On Gestational Diabetes

Diabetes Notes — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 02:16:12 +0100

We are getting closer to cracking the code on gestational diabetes and thus providing more treatment options for all diabetics. Researchers out of Stanford University School of Medicine have been closely examining the protein called menin in the pancreas. It is already known to help prevent cancer in the pancreas as well as other organs but now… we have a more specific gestational diabetes implication. According to Kim’s work in mice, the pancreas accomplishes that adaptive growth by producing less menin during pregnancy. With less of the brake present, the pancreatic islet cells can divide, and this growth provides the additional insulin. Within a week after delivery the menin levels in the mice were back up to normal and the pancreatic islets began shrinking to their original...

Bayer Diabetes Care Introduces New Contour TS Glucometer

Diabetes Notes — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:52:57 +0100

Bayer Diabetes Care introduced the new Contour TS blood glucose monitoring system. Well hot dog. This handy little glucometer is expected to provide more accurate blood sugar results. And just what makes the Contour TS so special? Unlike most meters that need to be manually coded to ensure accurate results, Bayer’s new Contour TS blood glucose meter automatically sets to the correct code any time a Bayer test strip is inserted. Manual coding may lead to miscoding. In fact, a recent study found that approximately 16 per cent—or one out of six—persons failed to properly manually code their blood glucose meters to the lot of test strips being used. Over 40% of glucometers that are miscoded offer very “off” results that provide inaccurate treatments and therapies. T...

Exploring CUG codon evolution in Candida

Fungal Genomes and Comparative Genomics — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 05:42:32 +0100

A recent PLoS One article "A Genetic Code Alteration Is a Phenotype Diversity Generator in the Human Pathogen Candida albicans" finds some pretty dramatic changes in gene expression and phenotypes by replacing the tRNAs for CUG back to Leucine (Leu; in the standard genetic code) from their meaning of Serine (Ser) in these Candida species. The CUG codon transition in some Candida spp has been of interest since it is an example of a recent change in the genetic code and provides a comparative system to study the mechanism and genome changes of how a genetic code shift is manifested. Cite this... (more...) tags: genetic code, genome evolution, candida © Jason Stajich for Fungal Genomes and Comparative Genomics, 2007. | Permalink | No comment Add to del.icio.us Search blogs lin...

Breaking Codes to Explain Decisions We Make

BrainBasedBusiness — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:47:57 +0100

One worker joins Rotary as a way to give back to the community … but struggles to limit his drinks at company functions. Another worker’s caught stealing from the company coffers … but heads up a college fund for disadvantaged employees. A third worker loses his job because he lashes out at others.How do you make daily decisions and why do some people where you work, act against their own best interests? Thanks to a recent study, reported today, we now have a vital clue to help decode the complex communication signals between your brain cells. What does it mean to you? Interestingly, researchers have begun to listen in on specific cell talk that enables the complex systems of the brain’s decision making operations. Check out the...

AstraZeneca ‘Brought Industry Into Disrepute’

Pharmalot — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:24:19 +0100

The drugmaker accomplished this feat by engineering a special supplement that was published along with an issue last January of The Pharmaceutical Journal, which is read by UK pharmacists. The supplement was purportedly about guidelines for statin use but was later tagged as a mere disguise for Crestor, AstraZeneca’s cholesterol fighter. Following publication, complaints were lodged with the Medicines and Health Regulatory Agency, which decided there was no foul. But the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, which enforces the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s code, determined otherwise - AstraZeneca brought the industry into disrepute, according to a new essay in the same journal. Why? The case yielded 27 complaints, one of the highest number ever ...

Histone Code Cracked?

Bayblab — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:52:00 +0100

This report in Nature presents genome-wide CHIP maps of a variety of histone modifications in a few types of embryonic and stem cell lineages. Seems like they found some very interesting signatures that correlated well with gene expression status. For example, trimethylation at lysines 4 and 27 could discriminate expressed versus inducible versus repressed genes, whereas the same modification at lysines 4 and 9 marks imprinted regions. Very cool. Of course we'll have to see what the AC has to say for the expert opinion.I once proposed a similar project in a mock post-doc grant proposal for a systems biology grad class I took (except with the added minor step of cloning mice by somatic cell nuclear transfer). It got pretty bad reviews. Apparently some people thought it was too ambitious. Go...

Healthcare Code of Ethics Update

Musings of a Distractible Mind — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:00:38 +0100

The Healthcare blogger code of ethics is going quite strong, with nearly 40 blogs having agreed to adhere to the code and display the logo. Here are a few new developments: The website for the Code of Ethics blog has moved to http://medbloggercode.com. There now is a form you can fill in and submit your request to display the logo on your blog. Since this includes both patients and healthcare bloggers, it pretty much includes any normal blogger. The only websites that are being rejected are ones that are basically commercial sites. We are also starting the Healthcare Blog Gallery. In the upcoming months (and hopefully beyond that), reviews of healthcare and patient blogs will regularly appear there, making it a good reference to find out about other healthcare related blogs. The goal will...

Gene flaws may increase kids' risk for type 1 diabetes

The Diabetes Blog — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 04:00:00 +0100

Filed under: Type 1, Childhood, Research, Daily NewsA new study, a report of which has been published in Nature, has identified gene flaws that increase the risk for type 1 diabetes in children. By examining the genetic codes of thousands of children, some with and some without diabetes, as well as those of parents of diabetics, the researchers identified three changes on one specific gene present in those with diabetes. They then looked at 1600 additional diabetes patients' genetic codes and again found the very same marks, sometimes called "flavors" or "flaws." Two of these variations increase a person's odds of developing diabetes by fifty percent, say the researchers. However, the third seems to decrease risk for the disease.Type 1, says lead author Hakon Hakonarson, is a complex genet...

Code of Ethics

Musings of a Distractible Mind — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:08:09 +0100

The Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics was made so that medical bloggers could give a clear statement of their blog’s ethic. It was brought up that there are people who are not healthcare workers who wanted to stand behind the code but did not want to portray themselves as medical bloggers, so the Patient Blogger logo was created. The code for Patients is the same as the Healthcare blogger code. If you would like to display either logo on your blog and be listed on the Code’s Website, send an e-mail to healthcare.bloggers@gmail.com. Clear representation of perspective - readers must understand the training and overall perspective of the author of a blog. Certainly bloggers can have opinions on subjects outside of their training, and these opinions may be true, but readers must ...

Podcast: HIT consultant Denise Silber on European initiatives

Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:00:00 +0100

Last month, I blogged about the "personal" nature of electronic health records in France, based on a blog post by American-born, Paris-based health IT consultant Denise Silber. Well, Denise read my post and e-mailed me, or maybe it was I who sent the link to her. I've been in Vegas the last three days and the memory is a bit fuzzy at this stage. A few e-mails later, I had her on the phone for this podcast. Enjoy.Podcast details: HIT consultant Denise Silber on European initiatives. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 10.3 MB, running time 22:36.1:00 Background on her e-health consulting and marketing work2:40 France’s “personal medical record”3:40 Fears of Big Brother on both sides of the Atlantic and French data privacy laws4:25 Patient control of records in France5:15 HIPAA confusion in the U.S.6:...

Changes

Musings of a Distractible Mind — Fri, 25 May 2007 14:03:54 +0100

If you have not gone over to the website for the code of ethics, please do so. I have made recent changes and would like as much input as possible. If you have a blog, please raise the subject on a post and garner as many opinions as possible. Again, this thing won’t fly if we don’t have consensus and widespread adoption. (Source: Musings of a Distractible Mind)

Slow version serial killer

American Center for Surreal and Paranoid Life — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:59:00 +0100

humpf="hell://www. climb.organs/#"> over="My_slapped(' life="< href="http://www.">help//will. climb. on/directly/" out="My_swappedIwife Restore()" a > over=""> ('dumped','','images/pop up_fur.girl',''','images/roll_dir_ectable. gift',1)"outsource="MMmmm_swapImyRestored(wife)" dump','','images/pop up_ circular.cut','cried','','images/roll_circular_blue.gifts',10 onmouse=" her="hips://will. clamp.over/and/about/sub_merged_form." MMmmmmmm_swapImy wife in myhouse dump?,??,?images Rest()?her="hips://will.clamp.organs/about/jui_ce_database_and_form.reality"helping://with clumping.organs/in/the/toolkit/next/2/the/garage.help" a.s>a>p. (Source: American Center for Surreal and Paranoid Life)

A Reality-Based Republican

Graphictruth — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 04:00:00 +0100

This article is illustrated with a beautiful Gays in the Military design kindly provided by The Last Straw, an extremely gay shop featuring a variety of patriotic and flag designs.You can syndicate this site using our atom feed. (Source: Graphictruth)

Plugin Update

LBnuke — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 20:38:39 +0100

I have given up on the Share This plugin for now. No time to mess with it anymore. I am back to using the social bookmarks plugin, but I like the way Share This works and looks much better. When I have more time, I will try again. Yesterday, I added the WP-chgFontSize plugin, which is pretty cool. I wish it used ems or percentages instead of pixels for the font-sizes, but can see how that might get tricky with the javascript. I added some code to include a link to return to the default font size. It was bugging me that the only way I could return to the default size was to delete the cookie from my computer. I like to have an ‘undo’ option whenever possible. If anyone else is interested in having this option, here is the code: In the wp-chgfontsize.js file, right after this el...