Beware of side effects

The opposite of “death panels”

Legislation that Could End Unwanted Medical Treatment

By Daniel Wilson 

Roughly 25 million Americans have been subjected to unwanted medical treatment at some point in their lives, and that means we have a healthcare system that is not listening to patients. 

We all say we believe in patient-centered health care, and now we have a bill in the U.S. Congress that would put our money where our mouths are. Literally.

Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA) introduced legislation this month that would make sure Medicare recipients and their doctors know how much or how little treatment those patients would want as they approach the end of life. 

The Care Planning Act of 2015 would specifically create a Medicare benefit for people facing grave illness to work with their doctor to define, articulate and document their personal goals for treatment. 

And then we invented Cracker Jacks®

How Corn Became King

From: Kelly April Tyrrell, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Ten thousand years ago, a golden grain got naked, brought people together and grew to become one of the top agricultural commodities on the planet.

Now, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have found that just a single letter change in the genetic script of corn's ancestor, teosinte, helped make it all possible.

Publishing in the journal Genetics this month, UW-Madison genetics Professor John Doebley and a team of researchers describe how, during the domestication of corn, a single nucleotide change in the teosinte glume architectural gene (tga1) stripped away the hard, inedible casing of this wild grass, ultimately exposing the edible golden kernel.

"A huge proportion of the world is economically dependent on the crop and understanding how it was constructed 10,000 years ago is more than just intellectually satisfying," Doebley says. He has spent his long career studying the evolution of maize, the plant from which corn grows. "It tells us something about how important this genetic change was."

Rolling Up Some Common Sense with Willie Nelson

The legendary singer and activist is cooking up his own brand of sustainable legal pot.

By Jim Hightower

With marijuana prohibition finally ending in states and cities across the land — including full legalization in Alaska, Colorado, Washington State, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. — who could be better than my friend Willie Nelson to lead the way for weed quality and social responsibility?

The iconic musician and intrepid fighter for justice has announced that he’ll market his own marijuana brand, “Willie’s Reserve,” and open a group of stores selling top-quality pot and paraphernalia.

The only laws broken were those broken by the anti-choice activists

Group Behind Planned Parenthood Hoax Repeatedly Broke The Law, Under Investigation

By Shannon Barber

Right-wingers have been foaming at the mouth ever since a rabidly anti-choice group started posting deceptive and heavily edited videos of Planned Parenthood officials and suggesting that the women’s health organization is “selling baby parts” for profit. 

Obviously this is untrue, but of course the “stop abortion at all costs” crowd doesn’t care about that. Well, it turns out that what these people are doing is not only dangerous to women and, of course, downright crazy– it is also criminal.

The “Center for Medical Progress” is the nutty organization behind those now-infamous videos. 

Well, a suit has been filed against them, courtesy of the National Abortion Foundation, to keep them from making videos of meetings public. The restraining order prohibiting the release of the footage has been granted. From RH Reality Check:

The Republican Debate

Roots of poverty

A toast to good health!

Red grape chemical may help prevent bowel cancer but less is more

Cancer Research UK

Resveratrol, a chemical found in red grapes, is more effective in smaller doses at preventing bowel cancer in mice than high doses, according to new research* published today (Wednesday) in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Previous research looked at high doses of purified resveratrol to study its potential to prevent cancer. This is the first study to look at the effects of a lower daily dose -- equivalent to the amount of resveratrol found in one large (approx. 250ml) glass of red wine -- comparing it with a dose 200 times higher.

Results from bowel cancer-prone mice given the smaller dose showed a 50 per cent reduction in tumour size while the high dose showed a 25 per cent reduction. Lower doses of resveratrol were twice as effective as the higher dose in stopping tumours growing, although this effect was only seen in animals fed a high-fat diet.

Samples of tumours from bowel cancer patients given different doses of resveratrol showed that even lower doses can get into cancer cells and potentially affect processes involved in tumour growth.

Social Impact Bonds Can Help Solve Difficult Social Problems

Capital is one of the biggest hurdles
By Greg Keesling 

Addressing societal issues is both a moral and fiscal imperative for our country. High recidivism rates, low educational attainment, and high incidents of preventable diseases are just a few of the harmful and costly issues communities face nationwide. Though governments bear the brunt of these problems by having to allocate an ever-increasing share of taxpayer funds for remediation, businesses increasingly feel the effects.

Areas with high levels of crime or an undertrained or unhealthy workforce are unattractive places to conduct business. When public sector resources are stretched thinner and thinner, the fiscal burden is often passed along to business owners in the form of tax increases. 

It's worth noting that while governments are usually responsible for remedying the harmful effects of societal issues, it is the private sector that often has the dynamism and dexterity needed to address their root causes.

How RI found a new education commissioner

Searching for Dr. Wagner 
By Wendy Holmes in Rhode Island’s Future



Deborah Gist’s Ocean State Voyage has ended and her replacement Dr. Ken Wagner begins his tenure as Rhode Island’s Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education. The hiring process, with its “listening sessions” and its search for a gentler more accommodating commissioner, signals a departure from the Gist/Mancuso regime. 

It remains to be seen if this difference is substantive or merely cosmetic. Governor Raimondo promised an open and inclusive hiring process.

Students, teachers, parents, school committee representatives, board members, administrators, charter school advocates and union leaders known or recommended to the Governor were invited to attend so-called “listening sessions” and make their views known.   Nine listening sessions were held with the Governor and the new Board of Education Chairwoman Barbara Cottam, among the listeners. 

Discussions focused on the desirable characteristics of a prospective commissioner. Participation was by invitation only.

Raimondo took charge of the search for Gist’s replacement with the blessing of the BOE and its new chairwoman.  In May, Brad Inman, the governor’s Director of Constituent Services, wrote  in response to my queries: “The  Board of Education asked the Governor’s office to do the initial vetting and present the Board with a list of finalists for their consideration. It will then be the Board who selects the Commissioner.”

Three elephants

Arrowhead is doing it again this Saturday!

Charlestown's first "Hometown Hero" offers another day of totally free dental care to the community

And congratulations again to Drs. Gouin (father and son) and Dr. Nectara Stefano for being named among Rhode Island's top dentists by Rhode Island Monthly.

URI research professor, colleagues launch campaign to fight cervical cancer

HPV vaccine offered at Dr. Annie De Groot’s Clinica Esperanza, Aug. 14

Elizabeth Rau

KINGSTON, R.I. –When a University of Rhode Island research professor and her colleagues launch a campaign to fight cervical cancer in August volunteers will be wearing colorful handmade scrubs.

Look closely at the medical tops and you’ll see images of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that can cause the deadly cancer. The scrubs are African storytelling cloths, which are helping to wipe out the disease in Rhode Island.

The first of three shots of the HPV vaccine will be offered for free to uninsured men and women, ages 19 to 26, from 2 to 7 p.m., Aug. 14 at Clinica Esperanza/Hope Clinic, a free clinic at 60 Valley St., Providence. 

Dr. Annie De Groot, clinic founder and director and a URI vaccine researcher, has been working closely with health officials in the West African country of Mali to screen women for cervical cancer.

Charlestown whacked by fast and furious storm

Hurricane-strength for half an hour

By Will Collette

If you live in Charlestown and are reading this, it means you have a back-up generator (or getting it on your cell phone) since the whole town is pretty much powerless. 

According to National Grid's power outage map, will remain so until about 2:30 PM.

The storm raged through after 6 AM and lasted only about 20 minutes.

It downed trees and branches, killed the power and dumped a lot of rain.

The Providence Journal cites a DEM report that a "number of campers were injured" at Burlingame Park, but had no further details. 

The Westerly Sun says it was ten injured, with two transported to Westerly Hospital, five to South County and three treated on the scene.

The Boston Globe reported that "One observer reported a wind gust of 83 miles per hour in Charlestown, R.I." 

We don't make it into the Boston Globe very often.

Serve them with fava beans and a fine chianti

What Do You Do with Trolls?

By Diane Ravitch

Long-time readers of this blog know that we have had a more or less steady procession of trolls who have inhabited these precincts. They lurk. They come and go. Some are grumpy. Some argue; some take a thread and take it off point. 

Some are annoying. I leave them alone so long as they live within the rules of the blog (no insulting your host because you are in my living room, no cursing, no conspiracy-mongering, a basic level of civility—and no monopolizing the comments section).

I have never asked others who blog what they do with their trolls. I just play it by ear. On severe; occasions, I have banned them when they broke the rules. 

Sometimes I put them in a queue to moderate their comments before they are posted to make sure they don’t continue their bad behavior. I give them a warning before there are consequences. But I am generally very tolerant.

It turns out that there are people who actually study troll behavior and offer advice about how to deal with them. The New York Times recently published an article on “the epidemic of facelessness.” This is a phenomenon new to our age, in which people communicate without having face-to-face contact. 

Much online interaction is between complete strangers. Online interactions can sometimes allow people–in their anonymity–to unleash a level of rage and hostility that they would never express in a face-to-face encounter. Some people have received death threats or rape threats online from total strangers, which happens to be criminal activity.

Stephen Marche writes: