science in the news

So I was procrastinating working on my asthma presentation due Friday by reading the news on CNN and the New York Times (after I perused facebook of course). I came across two articles that I found really interesting. Maybe you will too...

1) CNN reports that The Lancet (a British medical journal) retracted a study published in 1998 that stated that vaccines cause autism. All I have to say is IT'S ABOUT TIME! One thing I have learned in all my science classes is that correlation doesn't equal causation. Just because more kids were getting vaccinated around the same time that the rates of autism diagnoses were increasing does NOT mean that the vaccines caused them. Also, I have learned that vaccines work. They have saved millions of lives and eradicated many deadly diseases from the population. One other thing to note is that in the past 12 years since the study was originally published, no other research has been able to duplicate the findings. Maybe because they weren't true? Maybe now Jenny McCarthy will shut her pie hole and soccer moms will start vaccinating their kids again.

2) The New York Times ran a story about a black woman in the 1950s named Henrietta Lacks that died of cervical cancer. Shortly before her death, a tumor was removed and used for scientific research without her consent. Turns out, these tumor cells were used to create an immortal cell line that is commonly used in research today. (These so-called "HeLa" cells...named for Henrietta Lacks...are so common that I have learned about them in multiple science classes, but never before knew their true origin.) Sad part of the story is that her family never knew that a part of their mother has survived for the past 50 years, saved millions of lives, and made some people that sell the cells to researchers cells very, very rich. It also brings up the issue about whether we have rights to claim tissues that have been removed from our bodies.

Obviously, if I go into the hospital to have a cancerous tumor removed, I'm not going to need it or want to keep it. But should Mr. Research Man be able to use my cells to make money? Should I have a claim to this money? What about the possible lives that can be saved? After all, HeLa cells were used to develop the polio vaccine. I just found it a terribly interesting and somewhat sad story. Definitely check it out.

Here is a link to the NY Times article.

Here is a link to an excerpt from a book written on the subject. (Interestingly enough, according to the book, in the 59 years since Henrietta's death, more of her cells have been produced than ever existed in her body while she was alive...literally TONS of them.)

On another note, I found out today why Midwestern waters the parking lot behind the school every morning. Apparently, in the southwest, there is a fungus called coccidioides immitus that lives in the soil. If dirt containing fungal spores is inhaled by people (and pets), it causes a disease called "valley fever" that can actually be pretty severe (it has the same symptoms as the flu and can produce even erythema nodosum...painful red welts from an allergic response) if the infection spreads past the lungs. One of the ways to prevent the spread of this fungus is to keep the dirt from blowing around. Midwestern accomplishes this by watering a gravel parking lot every day. Thanks for looking out for me MWU.

PS- Yes, I know I am a science nerd, but isn't this fascinating?