Research and Caveats

There are always caveats when it comes to medical research. New research published in WebMD suggests that word games may predict gains for kids with autism.  Study co-author Geraldine Dawson says,

"Essentially, children who showed a different brain response from the left hemisphere to a known versus unknown word made better progress by age 6," Dawson said. "This measure may help us identify early on which children could benefit from extra help, such as an alternative communication device, so that they can have the best possible long-term outcome."

Dawson is the chief science officer for Autism Speaks.

The study's lead author, Patricia Kuhl, of the University of Washington in Seattle, said in a university news release: "We think this measure signals that the 2-year-old's brain has reorganized itself to process words.

There's a caveat: 

"The authors describe their findings as having only 'theoretical implications' at this time," said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, in New Hyde Park. "Although this study may be of some interest to parents and clinicians who care for children with an autism spectrum disorder, there is no clinical justification for parents to pursue any specialized [brain] testing at this time," he said.

Caveats are important and should have a place of prominence in reporting. Recall the research link between childhood vaccines and autism. The research was faulty. Medical officials in Great Britain are reporting increases in cases of the Measles about a decade after the link was implied. ABC News is reporting a large increase more than a decade after false research caused parent to refuse a vaccine that would have prevented the disease.

The caveat in this article well placed well below the fold. So many parents with children on the spectrum are looking for hope. We need to make sure the balance of the reporting goes beyond. It can be a matter of placement.

A setback for an autism treatment drug

Key trial of Seaside autism drug fails to show benefit

Reuters is reporting that Arbaclofen, a drug that would treat symptoms of social withdrawal, failed to show a benefit in a mid-stage trial.  Based on the results Roche Holding AG, has decided to pass on a partnership to develop Arbaclofen.  The maker of the drug, Seaside Therapeutics, says it will seek new partners to test the drug further.

People With Guns

The NRA and other gun advocates like to say, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
They are partially right. More accurately people with guns kill people.

I read an article this morning about an accidental shooting in Virginia.

Va. 3-sport star shot dead after drunkenly sneaking into neighbor’s house thinking it was his own

A teenager was dropped off at a home by his friends after a night of partying. He was drunk and impaired. He entered the wrong house. The owner of the home mistook the boy for an intruder and after a warning, shot the boy killing him. A tragic accident, right?

Consider these three questions. What if the home owner had called and waited for the police? What of the homeowner had been better trained in the use of his weapon? What if the home owner did not have a gun? Instead of a tragic and senseless death, the boy would still be alive.

I pulled this off The Children's Defense Fund website.

Between 2000 and 2010, a total of 332,014 people of all ages died from guns, more than the population of St. Louis, MO (318,069), Pittsburgh, PA (307,484), Cincinnati, OH (296,223), Newark, NJ (277,540), Orlando, FL (243,195), or Richmond, VA (205,533).

 31,328 people of all ages died from guns in 2010.
 1 person died every 17 minutes 
 85 people died every day
 602 people died every week
Join us to #ProtectChildrenNotGuns, sign our petition to the President and members of
Congress bit.ly/R9mNas

In a section on the childrendefense.org website titled The Truth About Guns...

1. A gun in the home increases the risk of homicide, suicide, and accidental death.
2. Many children live in homes with loaded and unlocked guns. 
3. Guns make violence more deadly.
4. Virtually anyone can buy a gun without a background check.
5. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is forbidden from regulating the sale and manufacture of guns.
6. Common sense gun safety laws help reduce gun violence while protecting the legal use of guns.
7. Loopholes in prior gun safety laws prevented them from being as effective as necessary.
8. Common sense gun safety regulations protect lawful ownership and use of guns.
9. The majority of Americans, including gun owners and NRA members, support common sense gun safety regulation.
10. Armed school guards and teachers will not necessarily make children safer but will jeopardize the futures of some children. 

To find the sources for this information, please go to the Children's Defense Fund site.
http://www.childrensdefense.org/
Click on Programs and Campaigns. The go to Protect Children, not Guns.

Bowl Games For Everybody

Why are there so many bowls? Today's big match-up includes Rutgers at 9-3 and Virginia Tech at 6-6. Six and Six? Are we rewarding mediocrity? Aren't there enough teams with winning records to fill out the roster for all these bowls. There are three bowls on TV today and five more tomorrow.

I'm thinking of promoting a bowl for winless teams. That way one of those two teams will get a victory. The loser would still get a participant certificate. Better yet, if they tie, we could leave it that way. That way nobody loses (or wins). We could call it the Kissing Your Sister Bowl.

Rutgers and VT are competing in the Russell Athletic Bowl .

Autism and Sandy Hook

I landed in front to of the TV just as Access Hollywood promised to reveal the mysterious disease that gripped Adam Lanza and by implication cause him to shoot 27 people.

I thought to myself...this is outrageous. How is Access Hollywood qualified to report on Aspergers and Autism? Their lurid headline is spreading misconceptions about people with autism. Then I realized a lot people believe this stuff.

The careless reporting is an extension what others from more reputable news organizations have reported. Curtis Brainard has a thoughtful piece in the Columbia Journalism Review about the damage being done by careless reporting and, how some reporters are trying to counter the misperceptions being spread by some news organizations.

Lanza, autism, and violence

Critics try to stem media conjecture after Newtown shooting

The link between autism and becoming a mass murderer is far-fetched. As Brainard points out:

New York’s Poughkeepsie Journal, whose offices are an hour’s drive from Newtown, contacted experts at the Anderson Center for Autism in neighboring Staatsburg, who threw cold water on hype surrounding the shooting.
“That’s such a far-fetched connection,” Sudi Kash, Anderson’s director of clinical studies,told reporter Nina Schutzman. “With Asperger’s, there might be social interaction or communication difficulties, to varying degrees of severity. But this?”

If you remember Columbine, the press speculated about all sorts of things about the shooters. They were loners. They were bullied. They hated jocks. All false. I found this in Daily Beast.

"Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold—who, of course, took their own lives before anyone could interrogate them—were not outcasts, loners or Goths. They were not targeting jocks or blacks, or seeking revenge for a long-running feud with the “Trenchcoat Mafia.” They did not plan their attack for Hitler’s birthday (a last-minute ammunition problem delayed them for a day)."

Investigators say it will be months before we know the reasons behind the shootings, if at all. Like Columbine, we may never really know. All this speculation driven by the 24 hour news cycle will not change that and, the speculation will do more harm than good.

Pew Survey on Gun Ownership

Maybe it's just me. I think that horrific incidents like the mass killings at Virginia Tech, in Aurora, Colorado and in Newtown, Connecticut would change public attitudes concerning gun ownership. It's too soon to know what effect the killing of 20 young school children will have on this debate. Pew's research, Public Attitudes toward Gun Control, says the trend since 1993 suggests that Americans think it is more important to protect the right to own guns than it is to control gun ownership.

• In 1993 57% thought there should be more control over ownership. 34% thought it was ,more important to protect the right of Americans to own arms.

• At the end of July, 2012 47% thought there should be more control over ownership. 46% thought it was more important to protect the right of Americans to own arms.

Pew also points out that the public became more divided on this issue after Barack Obama was first elected President in 2008. The issue may be influenced by partisanship.  According to the the survey:

"The partisan gap in attitudes about gun control has widened considerably in recent years. In July, following the shootings in Colorado, 71% of Republicans said it was more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns while just 26% said it was more important to control gun ownership. Among Democrats, opinion was roughly the reverse: 72% said it was more important to control gun ownership while 21% prioritized gun rights. Independents were divided:50% said it was more important to protect gun rights; 43% said gun control was more important."

Partisanship should not jeopardize the safety of our children.

Maine public radio cuts back its music.

Maine public radio cuts back its music for more talk | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

This is never easy for public radio stations. After all, we invite listeners to invest in the programs.

Major changes always result in heat and some defections in the short run. Having 4,000 members threaten defection made a lot of staff members sit up and notice when we changed formats.

My past experience with change has yielded surprises. Replacing the opera with coverage of the shuttle disaster resulted in dozens of heated complaints. Coverage of the Pope's death in place of the opera resulted in even more complaints. We temporarily changed programming to offer coverage of the 9/11 disaster. One listener was so incensed by the change he threatened to blow up the station. (We called the police.)

In one case statistics suggested almost no audience and poor loyalty for a stand-alone weekend program. It was easy to understand why. The program had nothing to do with the rest of the schedule. I took the program off the air. The response was really light. There were literally a handful of negative comments. In fact, there was hardly a ripple. Within a few weeks after leaving the station, the program was back on the air. One of the members of that small ripple was able to dangle a check from a foundation in front of senior management. They went for it.