LewRockwell » Kathryn Muratore

Those Irradiating Machines at the Airport

Kathryn Muratore — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Recently by Kathryn Muratore: US Air, Stop the Lies

A brief background

In advance of the publicity of the installation of naked scanners at US airports, some activists and scientists were already making some noise. A group of UCSF scientists — John Sedat, David Agard, Marc Shuman, and Robert Stroud — sent a letter to the President's science advisor, John Holdren, in April 2010 expressing their concern about the scanners. I have written about this elsewhere.

The Republican wing of the mainstream media picked up on a peer-reviewed article published in between the holidays last December that ran some simulations of the x-ray backscatter scanners. Recall that this followed shortly on the heels of the protests of last fall — when the TSA was rolling out more and more scanners, and also stepping up the invasiveness of their so-called pat-downs (known as custody searches by law enforcement). The authors, Leon Kaufmann and Joseph Carlson (again of UCSF) concluded that the reported capabilities of the scanners and the reported safety of the scanners were not consistent with each other. That is, either they don't work as well as advertised, or they are more dangerous than advertised. There are also a number of other results in their paper that should be of interest to travelers, and I summarized them at that time on my blog.

I also wrote up a summary of Dr. Sedat's second letter earlier this summer, this time to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). But my purpose here is to discuss a couple of peer-reviewed articles addressing the safety of the backscatter scanners that were published recently.

Why does any of this matter? I am of the opinion that even if the naked scanners are 100% safe and effective, they are still an egregious violation of individual rights. I oppose the use of the scanners on this basis. However, it is instructive of how negligent government is, by its very nature, to look at the case of the lack of scientific evidence showing these scanners to be safe and effective. The use of these scanners has been implemented in an incredibly stealthy manner. If you are a student of economics, history, government, or common sense, then this is not a surprise, but it is easy to ignore. I want to make it harder to ignore how the TSA has acted and harder to excuse those actions.

Brenner's epidemiological estimates

David Brenner is another scientist whose name regularly appears in media coverage of the naked scanners. He is a researcher at Columbia, and has routinely said that exposing the public to radiation is not consistent with accepted standards of protecting the public health. He stands firm that there is no such thing as a safe level of radiation; just safer levels. The reason why can be boiled down to epidemiology. Something with a 1 in 1 million chance of happening is certain to happen if well over 1 million chances are taken.

Brenner published a scientific article outlining his argument in Radiology this past April. His general conclusion is that the backscatter scan is safe for the individual, infrequent traveler. But, there are a lot of caveats to that statement that he carefully clarifies. Now is a good time to note that there are two naked scanners in use: the x-ray backscatter and the millimeter wave. Most questions of safety have focused on the former as it releases ionizing radiation. The last century has seen a vast accumulation of data on ionizing radiation and its effect on health. Comparatively less knowledge about the effects of millimeter wave radiation on health has been gathered, but it is generally viewed a significantly safer than ionizing radiation. In any case, Dr. Brenner's article focuses exclusively on the x-ray scanners.

He begins by defining "safe." The definition that you and I care about is that the individual is unlikely to become ill due to the exposure. Policy makers consider this definition, but also take into account the population risk: how likely is it that someone in the entire population will become ill due to the exposure? Brenner cites international and national policies on radiation exposure that consider population risk to be an important measure of safety even when individual risk is small.

Safe for the individual?

Of course, Brenner must rely on what the TSA and Rapiscan have told us about radiation exposure of the naked scanner, as interpreted by some scientists in a theoretical paper from last fall (whose main conclusion is: "The effective doses for personnel screening systems are unlikely to be in compliance with the American National Standards Institute standard NS 43.17 unless the pixel sizes are >4 mm. Nevertheless, calculated effective doses are well below doses associated with health effects."). Each time someone goes through the scanner, they are irradiated (once from the front and once from behind). This corresponds to a 1 in 10 million risk for fatal cancer (note, that the only measure of safety being used by Brenner is fatal cancer, not other non-fatal health risks). This level of individual risk is deemed okie-dokie by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (on which Brenner himself sat). If one person were scanned once, it is extremely unlikely that that single person would die of cancer caused by the scan.

But this is the statistic for an average person. Children are rapidly growing, and, therefore, they are more susceptible to DNA damage. Embryos and fetuses are in a similar situation. Brenner estimates that for children, the risk may be 1 in 1 million. Considering how careful many mothers are about protecting their children — born and unborn — from hazards like second-hand smoke, caffeine, alcohol, and heavy metals (mercury and lead come to mind), it is within reason for them to be concerned about an avoidable radiation exposure. Frequent flyers, including airline personnel, are exposed to many more than one scan a year, which means their individual risk increases; Brenner estimates this risk at 1 in 100,000 — still small, but much larger than acceptable standards. (And, don't forget the ill. Cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment are already receiving a lot of radiation and no doctor would advise them to receive extra just for fun. And some people, for reasons we don't always know, are more likely to be afflicted with fatal cancer than others and may be more susceptible to the ill effects of radiation.)

Safe for the population?

Brenner is unequivocal here: No, the scanners — used as primary screening at all airports — are not safe for the population. There are approximately 750 million passenger boardings per year. If the TSA meets its goal of nearly 100% scanning, and half of all scanners are the x-ray type, there will be about 375 million x-ray scans per year. So, by all of the evidence, 37 people per year will get a fatal cancer due to the scans. (Again, this assumes that all travelers are infrequent travelers and healthy adults.)

So Brenner falls back on the "As low as reasonably achievable," or ALARA, principle. Are the x-ray scans avoidable? Do they present a non-zero risk to the population? Then there is no justification for using them!

Brenner does also give attention to a point brought up in the Sedat letters: the reliability of the mechanics of these heavily used machines is a serious issue that has not been adequately addressed. If the beam pauses for too long in one spot, then the assumptions being made her are best-case scenarios.

Smith-Bindman's callous disregard

The other article that has come out, by Mehta and Smith-Bindman in June, takes the opposite stance. (Interestingly, Smith-Bindman is also at UCSF.) They take the individual radiation exposure (using a lower number reported by TSA, not the higher Rez, et al value cited by Brenner) and compare it to other radiation exposures that a person experiences. This is the favorite argument of the TSA: "An airline passenger that has been screened receives an equivalent dose of radiation from less than two minutes of flight at altitude."

To get to individual risk, they claim that the exposure will be concentrated in the skin (a half-truth, according to Kaufmann and Carlson's earlier paper), but acknowledge that breast tissue will get a good dose, so they use a breast cancer model to get from exposure to individual risk. This model is also useful because they can consider the effects on children (5-year old girls) as well as separate out casual versus frequent flyers.

Here's what they find for infrequent flyers: 6 cancers per year, but "[t]hese 6 cancers need to be considered in the context of the 40 million cancers that would develop in these individuals…" ALARA, anyone? Glad to know there is a doctor who is so flippant about a handful of deaths here and there.

For frequent flyers, they find there will be 4 additional cancers per year, but "[t]hese 4 excess cancers need to be considered in the context of the 600 cancers that could occur from the radiation received from flying at high elevations." This is not the way it normally works for dangerous jobs. As someone who has formerly worked with radioactive materials, I can tell you that if I was close to reaching my maximum allowable dose for the quarter, my boss wouldn't assign all remaining radioactive experiments to me since I was already at such great risk! Of course, my boss would cut back on my radioactive work to keep me from being overexposed.

For girls, they find a single extra cancer per year. And (you guessed it): "This increase of 1 cancer per 2 million young girls needs to be put in the context of the 250,000 breast cancers that will occur in these girls over the course of their lifetimes…" I'm not sure that the extra flight to grandma's is worth my daughter having a bout of breast cancer. I think grandma might agree with me here! I know this may be seen as an "emotional plea" that has no place in science, but I disagree. Life is supposed to be highly valued by scientists, and, particularly, by doctors. I understand that I can't protect my daughter from everything (indeed, I don't want to). But neither should public policy be based on this principle. We are guaranteeing that more people will get cancer, just so we can maybe, possibly, kinda, sorta prevent a terrorist attack.

But what about the terrorists?

Dr. Brenner suggests that the sensible thing to do (from a health perspective) is to use millimeter wave scanners. Neocons like the so-called "Israeli model" (uhh… no thank you). Tea partiers like dogs. I say, let the market decide. The airlines have a heck of a lot to lose if they are hijacked and know that there is no federal safety net. Not only is their property in danger, and they fail to please their customer, but they may also be on the hook for a lot of damages due to negligence if they can't show that they have reasonable policies in place to prevent such a tragedy. It is the airlines who have a profit-loss incentive to protect their passengers' (and crews') safety. (I'm certain that causing multiple excess cancers per year would lead to the airlines being successfully sued.)

Is Smith-Bindman on solid ground?

Fortunately for the reputation of all scientists, the editor of Archives for Internal Medicine solicited the commentary of Peter Rez on the Mehta and Smith-Bindman paper. (Rez is not from UCSF — he is a physicist from Arizona State. And we all know that physicists are smarter than doctors, and pretty much everyone else!) He questions the breast cancer model, but, in a reply from Smith-Bindman, it seems that this may not suffer from the shortcoming that Rez suggests. More importantly, Rez points out that the exposure calculation is uncertain — primarily because the TSA has not actually allowed an independent scientist to have access to the machines, a point that Smith-Bindman concedes in her reply. So, he thinks that all of the numbers presented are on the low end.

More state-sponsored approval

However, just a couple of weeks ago, the Army presented research in which they used an actual Rapiscan machine and measured the radiation dose. The results are very similar to the values that have been reported by the TSA's NIST and Hopkins Applied Physics Lab reports. This is currently available as a Powerpoint presentation only — it has not been peer-reviewed and, furthermore:

To reassure travelers, the TSA asked the Army Public Health Command to conduct radiation surveys at airports around the country. The new study, paid for by the TSA and done at a TSA lab, was part of that work.

Dr. Rez is quoted in the article, pointing out that this is not really the independent review that scientists have been clamoring for (although, I can only imagine that federal funds will still be used in those studies, at least the scientists are not nominally federal employees). At least three important questions are not addressed by the Army presentation:

Why does the Johns Hopkins APL report (earlier solicited by the TSA) indicate such high radiation exposure in the area surrounding the scanner? This high reading in the surroundings is inconsistent with the low readings reported by the Army.
What happens if the beam gets stuck in one spot?
What is the resolution of the images produced at these exposure levels? The papers from last fall indicate that the machines would be ineffective at such low radiation levels. Either our understanding of the theory of backscattering is deficient, or these machines are useless (when they're not dangerous).

Conclusion

So, let's summarize what this tells us about the TSA's behavior. First, the TSA rolled out the scanners on the sly. The majority of the flying and non-flying public, including airline employees, had no clue what was going on. Many passengers went through the scanners without knowing what they were. Scientists at government-run (NIST) or government-contracted (JHU-APL) labs were given limited access to the technology and were also given a limited scope of research. This research did not include an assessment of safety. Nonetheless, the TSA repeatedly claimed these scientists had shown the scanners were safe, and, in the past year-and-a-half, they have not made the machines available to independent scientists or addressed the major concerns that have been brought up by "independent" (or at least, critical) scientists. The only additional data to come out has not been peer-reviewed and still does not address the primary questions that are necessary to assess the safety of these machines.

I have no reason to expect the collectivist mentality that leads to concerns about public security would even remotely consider individual rights. But, if the naked scanners are being used in the name of "public security," then why is the matter of "public safety" being treated so cavalierly? The answer is that these machines are not in place to protect you or me, or even all Americans. They are in place to protect the state and its bureaucrats.

Kathryn Muratore [send her mail] is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at American University. She holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley. Visit her blog protesting the TSA’s naked scanners.

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Orbitz, Thanks

Kathryn Muratore — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 06:00:00 +0000

November 12, 2010

Orbitz Worldwide, Inc.
500 W. Madison, Suite 1000
Chicago, Illinois 60661

Dear Sir or Madam:

I was pleased at the rapid response from your department regarding my letter dated Oct 25th. Lisa Diehl emailed to tell me that Orbitz will waive the $30 change fee for my tickets. I have been waiting to hear from US Air since they also charge a fee. Earlier this week, US Air stated that they would in fact waive the change ticket fee of $150. I was connected to US Air Reservations and I did change my ticket so that I will now be flying out of the nearest airport without a scanner.

For the privilege of not having my natural human right to protection of my own body violated, I am being charged by US Air an extra $90, paying to rent a car and child seat one-way, will be driving 4 hours, and will be flying an additional 3 hours including an additional layover. I hope you can see why I find Orbitz’s and US Air’s offers unsatisfactory.

The letter that Lisa Diehl wrote to me says that this issue will be brought up with the trade group and the TSA. I was happy to hear that Orbitz is willing to take some steps towards addressing this serious violation of their customer’s rights. Has there been any progress in the last two weeks on this front? Please keep us informed.

Despite this, I still think that Orbitz must be more proactive in protecting their customers. In my particular case, I had flown out of my local airport (BWI) only two months before buying my tickets. I did not even consider that I would encounter a scanner when I planned this trip. It was only on a whim that I thought I should be sure. You see, I knew that if I was confronted with the non-choice of a scanner or frisk, that I would opt to not fly at all and then it would be too late to get to California for Christmas. If Orbitz had a policy of providing their customers with the latest information on airports with scanners (as available on the TSA website and elsewhere on the web) at the time that the customer made their travel arrangements, then I could have avoided having to change my travel plans — I would have just planned accordingly at the time of purchase. I seriously doubt that most Orbitz customers are even aware of the possibility of these scanners, the types of images that the scanners produce, and the alternative pat-down procedure. Instead, they are caught by surprise (or go through the scanner having no idea what it is) on the day when they travel, when it is too late to make satisfactory alternative arrangements.

Lisa’s email says that Orbitz appreciates my concern for privacy. I would like to repeat here what I told the US Air representative who made a similar statement: I do not think that you fully understand my concern. If you did, I would not be offered a mere pittance of a waiver of the penalty fee for changing my ticket. I was in tears last weekend as I contemplated the corner that the airline industry has backed me into. I must either become a victim of voyeurism or become a victim of sexual assault in order to take my daughter to see her grandparents, great aunt, great uncle, and great grandmother for Christmas. Not only that, but I have to make the same choice for my child. I absolutely will not allow either of us to be victims of abuse.

At this time, it appears that there are three airports each about a four hour drive from my home which are unlikely to force this choice on me by virtue of not having scanners. I live near Washington, DC, so there are actually five airports that are significantly closer to my house that I now cannot patronize. Unless Orbitz steps up to the plate soon, I will not only stop making air travel arrangements with them but I will also not make any car rental, hotel, or any other vacation arrangements with them. I will do my own driving and call hotels directly. The extra time and money is not a factor when my human rights are at stake.

Lisa’s email also says: "In this post 9-11 world, we are also equally committed to helping the US government maintain a safe and secure air space." And that Orbitz wants to strike a "balance between customer privacy and our nation’s security." It is very important to me that everyone at Orbitz recognizes that there is no such thing as a balance when it comes to individual rights. Either our individual rights are protected or they’re not. We live in a society grounded in human rights with a Constitutional protection against warrantless searches of our persons and property. There is no exception for "national security."

Here is my proposal: your company and US Air (to whom I am sending a similar letter) can figure out a way to return the extra $90 that I have been charged for having dignity, and also figure out a way to cover my car rental and gas expenses for the four hour trek to a semi-civilized airport. I find it laughable that both your and US Air’s customer service departments claim that they unable to honor this request. You both have the ability to offer discounts, vouchers, and cash for such expenses, and I fully expect you to do so. I do not care which company does so and how.

As before, I will be making this letter and your response public. So far, thousands of people have been following my case, and I expect the number to continue to grow as public opinion about the airline industry continues to turn. Even pilots’ and flight attendants’ unions have come out against the latest TSA procedures! I am also CC’ing the CEO’s of both US Air and Orbitz on their respective letters in the unlikely event that they are unaware of the damage that has been self-inflicted on each of their company’s bottom lines by the decades of cronyism and complicity in violating passengers’ rights.

Sincerely,

Kathryn Muratore
cc: Barney Harford, CEO

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US Air, Stop the Lies

Kathryn Muratore — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 06:00:00 +0000

November 12, 2010

US Airways
ATTN: Customer Relations
4000 E Sky Harbor Blvd
Phoenix, AZ 85034

RE: Case # US-10MURATORE-L36P03

Dear Sir or Madam:

In a letter dated Nov 3rd, Jan Fitz stated that there were no concessions that US Air was willing to make regarding my trip to California in December. I received the letter on Nov 8th, and received a call from a representative named Cheryl on the afternoon of Nov 9th. Cheryl was very polite and stated that US Air would in fact waive the change ticket fee of $150. She also connected me to Reservations and I did change my ticket so that I will now be flying out of the nearest airport without a scanner.

For the privilege of not having my natural human right to protection of my own body violated, I am being charged by your company an extra $90, paying to rent a car and child seat one-way, will be driving 4 hours, and will be flying an additional 3 hours including an additional layover. I hope you can see why I find Cheryl’s new offer unsatisfactory, and I told her that when I spoke with her.

The letter that Jan Fitz wrote to me says: "US Airways likes to ensure the safest trip possible for all of our passengers." I don’t know whether Jan is lying or just very poorly informed, and it certainly does not seem like she read my initial letter. US Airways, and all of the other airlines, has ceded control of passenger safety slowly over the last 40 years, and at an accelerated pace in the last decade. You have ceded control to a government bureaucracy, which, by its very nature is inclined to be wasteful, incompetent, and corrupt. How is this at all consistent with ensuring passenger safety?

Cheryl started her conversation with me by saying that she understood my concern about the scanner. I would like to repeat here what I told her: I seriously doubt that she understands my concern. If she did, I would not be offered a mere pittance of a waiver of the penalty fee for changing my ticket. In a letter dated Nov 6th, I shared how deep my concern is rooted: I was in tears last weekend as I contemplated the corner that the airline industry has backed me into. I must either become a victim of voyeurism or become a victim of sexual assault in order to take my daughter to see her grandparents, great aunt, great uncle, and great grandmother for Christmas. Not only that, but I have to make the same choice for my child. I absolutely will not allow either of us to be victims of abuse.

At this time, it appears that there are three airports each about a four hour drive from my home which are unlikely to force this choice on me by virtue of not having scanners. I live near Washington, DC, so there are actually five airports that are significantly closer to my house that I now cannot patronize. Since the TSA plans to double the number of airport scanners next year, I expect that I will soon be unable to fly at all. I certainly will not fly US Air in the future if you do not make some swift changes in your actions regarding your customer’s rights.

Cheryl also tried to explain to me that we live in a society which makes such abuses necessary. It is very important to me that everyone at US Air recognizes that we actually live in a society grounded in human rights with a Constitutional protection against warrantless searches of our persons and property.

Here is my proposal: your company and Orbitz (to whom I am sending a similar letter) can figure out a way to return the extra $90 that I have been charged for having dignity, and also figure out a way to cover my car rental and gas expenses for the four hour trek to a semi-civilized airport. I find it laughable that both your and Orbitz’s customer service departments claim that they unable to honor this request. You both have the ability to offer discounts, vouchers, and cash for such expenses, and I fully expect you to do so. I do not care which company does so and how.

As before, I will be making this letter and your response public. So far, thousands of people have been following my case, and I expect the number to continue to grow as public opinion about the airline industry continues to turn. Your own pilots’ union has come out against the latest TSA procedures! I am also CC’ing the CEO’s of both US Air and Orbitz on their respective letters in the unlikely event that they are unaware of the damage that has been self-inflicted on each of their company’s bottom lines by the decades of cronyism and complicity in violating passengers’ rights.

Sincerely,

Kathryn Muratore
cc: William Douglas Parker, CEO

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Stop Stonewalling Me, US Air

Kathryn Muratore — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 06:00:00 +0000

November 6, 2010

US Airways
ATTN: Customer Relations
4000 E Sky Harbor Blvd
Phoenix, AZ 85034

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am surprised that I have not heard back from you regarding the letter dated Oct 25th that I sent to you and also posted on the internet. A similar letter that I sent to Orbitz has received a response even though Orbitz does not provide a mailing address specific for customer service and the letter was mailed to their headquarters in Chicago.

To re-cap, I am writing regarding my plans for Christmas travel with my family from Washington, DC to [a city in] CA. I purchased my tickets on your airline but recently learned that BWI has backscatter scanners as primary screening for all passengers. Since I was not alerted of this gross invasion of privacy when I purchased my tickets, I am hoping that you will address this in one of two ways:

Refund the entire amount of my ticket so that I can use the money to make alternative arrangements.
Or, cover my expenses to fly to BWI from another airport without the scanners installed so that I can make the flight that I’ve already paid for.

Orbitz has already agreed to waive their own fees to accommodate my situation.

Once again, I must reiterate that solving my holiday travel plans is only part of what I hope to accomplish by writing to you. This is a much bigger issue, and I was in tears earlier today as I contemplated the corner that the airline industry has backed me into. Since I wrote the previous letter, things have gotten worse, not better. Last Friday, the TSA announced that it will be using a much more aggressive "pat down" on passengers that "opt out" of the scanners. The scanners enable a complete stranger to see me and my child naked. This is a breach of my 4th Amendment right to security in my own person. As the TSA has pointed out, this is not mandatory, because I can choose to undergo a pat-down instead. However, a pat-down is still a violation of my 4th Amendment rights. But now, the new pat down is nothing short of sexual assault and molestation.

So my choices are:

to be a victim of voyeurism,
to be a victim of sexual assault, or
to not fly.

This is a really easy decision for me: I won’t be flying if I have to go through a scanner or be frisked in order to do so. Furthermore, no child of mine will fly if they must be either ogled or felt-up by a stranger. For now, it seems that I still have the option of flying out of airports that don’t have the scanners installed. However, since the TSA is planning on doubling the number of scanners at airports in 2011, I fear that I will no longer be able to fly. In other words, if you don’t act to reverse the course, you will lose me as a customer.

Don’t tell me that this is not your fault: you are, by definition, complicit in the TSA actions. The airline industry has not stood up for your customers in decades by allowing warrantless bag searches, the frisking of passengers with medical devices, as well as the more recent humiliations and inconveniences of airline travel in the last decade. This has already cut into your bottom line: I’m sure you’re aware that it used to be worthwhile to take a plane from Washington to New York, or similar short distances, but now many people choose to drive 4, 8, or 12 hours to avoid the hassle of flying. As the scanners were installed over the past year, the airline industry has sunk to a new low by failing to protect the basic human rights of your customers.

I am doing everything I can to make sure that as few people as possible submit to this egregious violation of their rights. One of the websites that I posted my letter to you on last week has had over 5000 hits since my letter went public. However, I expect that many more people have seen the letter since it was picked up by other high-traffic sites and I have made it available on Scribd. This letter will have already been online by the time you receive it (I waited a few days on the last letter so that you would have a chance to respond first), and I expect it will generate a lot of interest once again.

The tide of public opinion is already starting to turn. US Air can choose to acquire a backbone before it is too late. I expect that the airlines that are the first to protect their customers will be rewarded. Those who show themselves to have no concern for their customers will pay the price.

Sincerely,

Kathryn Muratore

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No Fascist Feel-Ups for Me or My Daughter

Kathryn Muratore — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 05:00:00 +0000

I sent these letters to US Air and Orbitz earlier this week. I will be posting updates on my communications with these companies regarding their complicity in abuse of the 4th Amendment on a regular basis on this blog.

Today’s update: no response from either company, but I expect that they have only just received the letters.

The Zombie of Eliot Ness

Kathryn Muratore — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0000

Three Philly bars were raided last week for the non-crime of selling beers that were not properly registered with the state. There was nothing unsafe about the beers. No patrons were harmed. The state either didn’t receive it’s mandatory bribe (aka, the registration fee), or had filed the bribe under a variation of the beer’s name, and so couldn’t be bothered to honor the bribe.

This is a senseless blow to an industry that took half a century to recover from Prohibition. The reputation of American beer, embodied by Budweiser, Coors, and their kin, is a consequence of that "experiment." That reputation finally started to grow, no doubt slowed by the myriad post-Prohibition regulations that were put on the books, such as registration of each and every beer sold in Pennsylvania. And it grew because entrepreneurs have relentlessly tried to deliver better-tasting beer as brewers, bar owners, and retailers.

Brewing and beer bars around the country

Philadelphia has become a Mecca of sorts for lovers of beer, especially the Flemish variety. As much of my family lives in Philly, I have firsthand experience with the delightful selection of bars and beers. In fact, our wedding rehearsal dinner was held at a popular Belgian beer bar and restaurant in Old City, while after a cousin’s downtown wedding, we all gathered at another spot only blocks away. Although I’ve never frequented the bars that were raided, judging by what was confiscated, it sounds like they specialize in Belgians. "Monk’s Cafe Sour Flemish Red Ale" refers to one of the original Belgian beer bars in Philly — Monk’s Café. Not my favorite spot, but their food and beer is impeccable, and they were around at the beginning of the current craft brew phenomenon. "Duvel Belgian Golden Ale" needs no introduction to anyone who is even passively aware of Belgian beer.

Finally, "Pliny the Younger" is mentioned as a confiscated brew. This is made by one of the most talented craft brewers in the world — Vinnie Cilurzo, owner/brewer of Russian River Brewing. Since it’s located about an hour north of San Francisco in Santa Rosa, CA, my husband and I tried to visit this spot whenever we could. As the Daily News article states, Russian River is a "a small mom and pop brewery" and this mom and pop simply failed to file the absurd paperwork required to sell their beer 3000 miles away. Indeed, my husband had a celebrity-sighting moment (as only an enthusiastic homebrewer could) when he saw the Vinnie Cilurzo milling about the Russian River bar, doing what a small businessman must do — running the day-to-day operations.

But Russian River is not all that unusual. California, especially northern California, is a beer paradise, overshadowed by the outstanding wine that is popular in the Russian River, Napa, and Sonoma valleys. Nearly all of these places are small operations. Last I heard, one of our favorites was literally just a two-man show (husband and wife). The brewer makes the beer and personally delivers kegs to Bay Area bars, while his wife balances the books. Amazingly, this beer is on tap with regularity at numerous San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland bars.

The Philly bars that were raided, all owned by the same couple, include one named "Resurrection." The police sergeant responsible for this crime states that the owners "had been warned last year when it served an unregistered beer from Maryland — Resurrection Ale, made by Brewer’s Art, in Baltimore." It had been a bar-warming gift from Brewer’s Art.

Imagine a city with a depressed economy (well, that’s not too hard these days), supported largely by a single employer — world famous for its provision of higher-education and medical services, over-run with crime and poverty, but with a small number of other businesses that have helped revitalize a few neighborhoods. The Brewer’s Art is a brewery-bar-restaurant in one of these rescued neighborhoods, and attracts local professionals for happy hour and professors for dinners with out-of-town guests. The beer is fantastic — done in the Belgian style — and can be found at many local bars scattered around the city as well. There are only a handful of other craft breweries in the area, but Brewer’s Art has achieved the improbable — success at providing a luxury good in a depressed area.

In comes the state (or rather, it never left when the 18th Amendment let it in)

California is fairly liberal with its alcohol laws, as states go, and it shows. It is home to some of the best craft brewers in the world, the Sierra Nevada success (and still producing good beers), brewpubs and specialty beer bars that suit every taste, and a great community for the aficionado. But, even a state like Pennsylvania, has some leniency in a place that really counts: homebrewing. (Yes — there are lots of local laws regarding whether you can boil some barley and how much.) In my estimation, the ability for a homebrewer to more-or-less brew when and where he wants is correlated with the quality of beer available in the state.

Presumably, this is a bottom-up, self-renewing cycle: An amateur home-brewer gets really good and starts a small craft brewery. People taste his beer and get interested in learning about it, making it, and tasting more. Thus, the supply of craft brewers and demand for craft brew increases. And craft brewers, and their followers, will pay a pretty penny to taste an exotic brew — locally made or from a distant land.

Regulations and their conspirators, loopholes, as always, have interesting effects. Pennsylvania has some of the most convoluted beer laws, and, as someone who lived in the state for most of my life (including those all-important college years), it’s hard to figure out what the alleged benefits to society are. But, a consequence of PA’s "you can only buy beer in small quantities off-sale at bars, restaurants, and delis" is an absolutely phenomenal selection of bottled beer in almost every bar. It’s a rip-off, which is why the selection is phenomenal — there is apparently much profit to be had. Consider the regular case of a Saturday night gathering and beer supplies are running low. You can’t go to a liquor store (they are state-run, most likely closed, and don’t sell beer). The beer distributors (warehouses where you can get cases and kegs only) are closed. But there’s a bar down the street. They’ll sell you the legal limit of 3 six-packs for the price of a case-and-a-half. If you’re ever in need of a rare beer, visit a Pennsylvania bar and ask to see their bottle list.

Most of Maryland operates under a 3-tier distribution system. Consequently, most bars in the state are served by 2 distribution companies. It seemed odd to me at first that Yeungling — a particular Pennsylvania brew that used to have very limited distribution and could not be found outside the Keystone state and its suburb, South Jersey — was on tap in every bar in Baltimore. Also, Allagash (Maine) and, more recently, Leinenkugel (Wisconsin) are ubiquitous. But, when the same distributor services all of the bars, then every bar will have identical line-ups on tap. From a practical, non-libertarian point of view, this is both good and bad for the beer aficionado; the selection includes a number of tasty, if safe, brews, but you will rarely get a chance to try something new or different: the small-time brewery has a hard time convincing the main distributors to pick up a new line. This has gotten more press locally in recent years because it has the same crushing effect on start-up and expanding wineries.

Another Maryland regulation limits the number of locations that microbreweries can operate, which effectively limits the growth of brew-pubs like Brewer’s Art. At first glance, this may seem like a win for the little guy — keeping out the likes of Rock Bottom and Gordon Biersch. But, just like in any industry, craft brewing thrives through the popularization of the product. The big chains get the masses interested in a wider beer palate. Beer aficionados don’t stick to one brew — we pride ourselves on having sampled as many different products as possible and seeking out the rare seasonals. So if a fraction of the customers of Rock Bottom start getting interested in craft brews, the market for craft brews increases, allowing growth in the industry. Not surprisingly, Maryland’s selection of brewpubs is anemic.

What a waste.

That is what is so tragic about these Philly raids. The anonymous tipster did more harm than they realized. If this tipster is part of the beer industry, they have indirectly hurt their own business. These three bars were a functioning part of the market — assisting in the popularization of Belgian beer and American craft beers, which can only serve to increase the demand for these products. The product that was confiscated is now purely wasted capital. The bullies with the guns — the state legislature, state employees union (who keep the state-stores status quo), and the police — ought to get out of the way and let this industry thrive as long as consumers demand it. And the anonymous tipster ought to be ashamed of himself.

Kathryn Muratore [send her mail] is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at American University. She holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley.

Kathryn Muratore Archives

Opting Out of the SS

Kathryn Muratore — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:00:00 +0000

I cannot praise Dr. Higgs enough for the fantastic appearance he made on C-SPAN last weekend. His message was delightfully radical, but presented in such an even manner that I really believe he made a positive impression on many regular BookTV viewers who were not previously familiar with the ideas of liberty.

However, I do have one criticism: When asked by a caller if he would not take Social Security, he missed an opportunity to illustrate the type of principles that many libertarians hold. Although the caller was insinuating that Dr. Higgs was a hypocrite for advocating against welfare while still (hypothetically) accepting a Social Security check, this is not what I mean to imply. There is no reason for a libertarian to be masochistic, so his comment (at 1 hour into the interview) was appropriate in this regard:

"I devoutly wish I had never been made eligible for it… [I]f you put people in a position 1) where they cannot opt out and 2) where they’re made reliant on government payments, then you’ve tilted the game. You’ve put them in a position where, now, they would be in real difficulty if they were simply to give up what they’ve relied on receiving for an entire lifetime. But that’s a very different matter from saying u2018Would the world have been better off if we had never had Social Security?’ It would have been vastly better off."

Many libertarians are willing to inflict financial hardship on themselves if they feel that there is a bigger cause that is served. I’m referring to the repeal of Social Security in the form of grandfathering-out or opting-out, and my (perhaps too harsh) criticism of Dr. Higgs’ response is that he did not elaborate on this point. Here I’ll present a couple of anecdotes to illustrate that libertarians as a group are not hypocritical on the issue of Social Security.

For years, my father has said to me that he would opt out of Social Security if given the chance. Imagine that Congress decided to let people stop paying the Social Security tax in exchange for foregoing any Social Security payments when they attained the eligible age. Anyone who opted out under such a system would not get a refund for past payments — they would simply not be stripped of future income. Furthermore, they would not receive future checks for any money that was already paid into the system. So, at age 55, my dad would have been willing to stop paying after decades of being taxed for Social Security. Why? Because he knew that this would mean slightly more freedom for everyone.

Well, what about at age 65? He has now paid in for a lifetime and can choose to be on the receiving end from now on. Would my dad still opt-out? He says, "Of course!"

The game is tilted, and so some of the income that my parents had planned to rely on in their retirement would be gone if they could and did opt out now. But, they could pare down and live on what they’ve managed to save. And, they have children who would not stand by and watch them starve on the streets. There are friends, family, neighbors, and strangers who would undoubtedly step in here and there in a desperate situation. What happened to elderly Americans in the centuries before Social Security? They could more reliably plan for their own futures and family, churches, and communities could be better prepared to assist the elderly. Opting out now is financially worse than never playing the game to begin with, yet my father would do it in a heartbeat.

Another person I know, Chris (who is not really libertarian), has demonstrated a similar set of principles. He is about 40 years old and has a mother and mother-in-law who are both widowed and retired. He voted for Ron Paul in the Republican Primary in part because of the Congressman’s proposals for Social Security. He said (paraphrasing), "If Ron Paul wins and Social Security is repealed overnight, I will give my mother and mother-in-law each a monthly check equal to what they would have received from the state."

(Note that Ron Paul’s proposals were for grandfathering out Social Security, not for overnight repeal and stopping payment on those already dependent. This statement is an illustration of the depth of the principles this person held.)

So again, after decades of having his income taken, he is willing to forego his own, his mother’s, and his mother-in-law’s entitlements if it only means that he never has to pay another dime to the state in the name of Social Security. If you ask people who are younger than Chris, you will find even more non-libertarians who are willing to opt out today. Most of us don’t believe that we will ever see a dime of Social Security (in fact, there is currently a deficit, so the collapse of entitlements seems more imminent than ever), so opting out is not a very bold statement. If you ask people closer to my father’s age, they will be more likely to take the view of an earlier caller during the Dr. Higgs interview: that they need Social Security. So the older voting bloc has been an easy target for politicians — right and left — to expand government and put off reform or repeal of the system for another election cycle at a time.

If you want to find evidence of hypocrites among libertarians, you will have to look elsewhere. As long as the money is there for the taking and there is not any promise of getting rid of this vote-buying system, we will take our checks like everyone else. But, old and young libertarians alike long for a day when they can refuse that check in the name of freedom for themselves, their families, or strangers that they will never meet.

Kathryn Muratore [send her mail] is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at American University. She holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley.

Kathryn Muratore Archives

Debtomania

Kathryn Muratore — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:00:00 +0000

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Anthony Gregory recently wrote an article lambasting the Republican Party, particularly the politics of debt in California. Schwarzenegger was one of the key players in getting the Wall Street Bailout passed; he wailed about the dire straits his state was in with respect to the credit market the morning of October 3rd, coincidentally the same day that the House did their do-over vote on the bailout. California did indeed get its loans. As Mr. Gregory points out, it would seem that bankrupt states should be un-creditworthy. But they always have the taxpayers to milk, so re-payment is u201Cguaranteed.u201D

NPR’s All Things Considered dedicated their show last Friday to how the so-called credit crisis is affecting municipal bonds. Of course, the politicians are not to blame for irresponsible spending based on debt: u201CThe problem [is]…a new way of issuing bonds… called variable-rate bonds.u201D

u201CThe kicker of this whole thing: the municipalities are only doing what they’ve always been doing. Issuing bonds and paying them back with interest…It’s the institutions that were supposed to guarantee them — the insurance companies and the banks — that have gotten in trouble.u201D

There are two obvious questions that are not asked or answered. First, why did investment in sub-prime mortgages and risky debt instruments become so popular? When I first started listening to Murray Rothbard lectures, I realized that economics is not complicated. It is not beyond the understanding of the average citizen. We do not need experts to shield us from the burden of observing everyday truths. Hungry for more, I picked up Rothbard’s u201CWhat Has Government Done to Our Money.u201D I’ve read this book twice, and, honestly, I still don’t fully understand how banking works. What I do understand is that the government has made money and banking so complicated that most people will not have the patience to try to figure out what government has done to our money. So we do need experts to explain this convoluted system to us. Most economists do not understand money and banking, but, thankfully, there are a few hundred at the Mises Institute that do. And these scholars have a beautiful answer to the question above: The banks and insurers were given false signals about the state of the economy in the form of state-controlled monetary policy. Money and banking is not inherently complex, but the government has made it so that people in the banking industry cannot make accurate entrepreneurial guesses about how to manage investments.

The second question is: why are municipalities so dependent on debt? When discussing Philadelphia’s debts, the journalist/narrator says, u201CCities issue bonds all the time. In fact, they wouldn’t exist without them.u201D This quote really struck me. I think it is this thinking that Schwarzenegger was counting on when he pushed for the bailout. If California can’t pay its bills, what happens? Will it disappear? Literally fall into the ocean never to be seen again? Of course not! It simply goes bankrupt and some major changes must happen within the government. Of course, Schwarzenegger’s job is put in jeopardy, but the people, geography, architecture and all of the other aspects of California — that is, everything that defines California — will remain.

So is it true that cities u201Cwouldn’t exist withoutu201D bonds? A city is simply a densely populated area. A city is defined by the people that inhabit it. The city government is only one aspect of a city. A more accurate statement is that city governments may not be bloated and powerful without bonds. (Besides, I’d guess that Caesar didn’t float bonds for Rome, but I’m not a historian…)

But even bonds can’t prop up the city government forever. Economics is not difficult. You can easily imagine the city government finances as those of a private individual. I know someone who spent years living on credit cards. He had figured out how to pay off one debt by borrowing and creating another debt. It worked for a while, and kept him and his family fed, but he knew it was unsustainable. As soon as he was able to get back on his feet, he paid down his debt through saving. As long as he continued to live on debt alone, any small unexpected event — a child’s injury, a storm causing damage to the car — could send his family into a state of starvation. Likewise, debt can boost up a city government for a time, even a long time, but it can also bring the government down. Such as when there’s a bust caused by Federal Reserve policies.

In another segment of the same All Things Considered broadcast, there is a great quote: The Irish government told Depfa that they were u201Ctoo big to save.u201D Although Ireland did bail out some banks, and Germany ultimately bailed out Depfa, I think we should try our best to replace the phrase u201Ctoo big to failu201D with u201Ctoo big to saveu201D whenever possible. Such as, u201CCalifornia is too big to save.u201D (Remember: it won’t sink under its own weight if we don’t save it.)

Kathryn Muratore [send her mail] is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at American University. She holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley.

Kathryn Muratore Archives

Traffic ‘Laws’

Kathryn Muratore — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 05:00:00 +0000

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My husband and I have noticed a disturbing pattern: we get traffic violation tickets within weeks whenever we move to a new place. I joked with him about the trend after receiving my third ticket since moving Inside the Beltway. But, as I considered the tickets we’ve racked up since we’ve been together, I realized that moving is a predictor of tickets about 80% of the time.

When you move to a new place, you are often more concerned with learning how to get to where you need to go than with what jurisdiction you are in, what traffic signs are posted, and where the traps are. You are probably also trying to pay more attention to potential accidents with pedestrians and other vehicles, since their behaviors are often specific to the local region. As an illustration, I’ll describe two regions below.

East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area)

In the East Bay — Berkeley, Oakland, and their suburbs — there are two particular peculiarities that I noted. 1) Almost all drivers will get into the far left lane as soon as possible after entering a freeway. 2) Pedestrians assume that cars will stop for them, so they tend to not even look to see if a car is approaching before stepping into the street. Freeways in this area are 6—10 lanes, so the first behavior requires slow traffic to cross multiple lanes in front of fast traffic. Both of these patterns of behavior clearly require drivers to adjust their priorities to avoid collisions.

Baltimore

The peculiar behaviors in Baltimore are 1) everyone one runs red lights and 2) drivers honk at each other almost instantaneously after a light turns green. Red light running in Baltimore is significantly more extreme than I have seen in other cities. No one stops for a yellow, rather, the first few cars to reach the intersection on a red will continue through. As an aside, while my husband was being pulled over in Baltimore for making a right turn on red, three cars in a row turned left on red. The defensive pedestrian or driver wisely waits after the change to a green light to make sure that all cross traffic has come to a stop. I always felt that the honking was more a friendly reminder, because no one in his right mind would go through the intersection on a green light without a serious delay. Regardless, these behaviors also require drivers to adjust their priorities to avoid collisions — they must pay attention to red-light running and not respond to honking by accelerating into an intersection.

Government safety measures

The counter-measures taken in Berkeley to address the problem of pedestrian accidents are rather amusing: fluorescent flags are attached to poles at crosswalks for pedestrians to wave as they cross the street. This back-fired since the flags were promptly stolen and had to be replaced by the city. The flags may have actually helped, but I don’t think it’s because the pedestrians are more visible. Pedestrians are usually visible — drivers just don’t expect them to walk in front of a much larger object moving at high speeds. I think the flags make the pedestrians more alert as they cross in front of deadly vehicles.

These flags are also in the affluent area of Washington, DC where I got my tickets. So far, my analysis is the same. If anything, pedestrians with flags cross the street more slowly than pedestrians without flags, so this may actually have more negative consequences.

In another town in northern California, a friend of ours sprained her ankle while crossing the street. At the time of the injury, she was part of a sting operation to ticket drivers who did not yield to pedestrians. She played the part of the pedestrian, crossing back and forth across the street all day, entrapping hapless motorists. So now I know that they are vengeful about pedestrian right-of-way in that town.

Whether intentional or not, traffic lights in Baltimore are more-or-less anti-timed. As you drive on any number of city streets, you will hit a red light about every 2 or 3 blocks. I also suspect that the red-light behavior is a reaction to this traffic engineering: if you don’t run a few reds, getting across town can take significantly longer.

My husband has hypothesized that the anti-timing is intentional, and not just to slow down traffic. He sees this as a boon in terms of gas tax revenue. Which brings me to a new device that Audi has designed to help you hit green lights. Of course, it requires that the traffic signals are outfitted with something to communicate with the cars. But, since that’s a public-private partnership that could stimulate the economy and help Main Street, that’s not where politicians will find fault. Rather, it is the very real decrease in fuel taxes that such a device will spur.

Now that I am comfortable with the driving behavior of my fellow motorists in DC, have learned the best route to take on my commute, know how to get to the grocery store, dry cleaner, gas station, etc…, I have been able to turn my focus over to knowing the various speed limits, speed camera locations, and traffic cop hangouts. I now know to expect sudden braking for no apparent reason about halfway between work and home: that’s where the speed cameras are. I am not driving safer, but, thanks to the perverse incentives, I don’t expect to get any more tickets. At least until the next time we move.

Kathryn Muratore [send her mail] is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at American University. She holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley.

Kathryn Muratore Archives

FBI Anthrax Tricks

Kathryn Muratore — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:00:00 +0000

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We are slowly
getting more information about the FBI’s lack of a case against
Bruce Ivins. When we first learned of his suicide, we were told
that he was the anthrax killer. Period. Then we got a statement
that there was some technology developed by the FBI for the purpose
of this case. Is this why nearly 7 years passed before an arrest
was made?

The full briefing
was still skimpy on the details, and not very convincing. But what
we were told is that the anthrax was traced to a single flask that
was in Bruce Ivins' possession at Ft. Detrick. Then, Science
Magazine reported
on a "close reading" of the four relevant paragraphs in
the 25-page written brief. We now had a better idea of what exactly
this new technology was, although the FBI refused press access to
its staff scientists.

The surviving
anthrax victims were recently
briefed with four hours of "circumstantial," but "compelling,"
evidence. Now the FBI scientists have given a briefing
of their own, and they have given more details about the scientific
evidence. We still haven't heard anything convincing about Ivins'
guilt, but the case is closed. So I guess that's it.

(As an aside,
we learn in this scientific briefing that the mailed anthrax was
not processed with silicon, as originally reported by the FBI.)

Two things
strike me about this forensic evidence. Rather than make you read
this whole column, I'll skip to the good part — these two things
combine to make it clear that the "single flask" evidence
was an exaggeration, to put it kindly.

First, some
background on the new technology. The Ames strain of anthrax is
a naturally-occurring strain of Anthrax that is being used in US
biodefense research. In order to identify a source of the mailed
anthrax and differentiate it from Ames strain anthrax that is found
in the wild or at any of the many labs that also conduct research
on Ames strain anthrax, sophisticated forensic techniques were needed.

Very similar
techniques have been used for things such as The Human Genome Project.
Indeed, the contractor used for the forensics is The Institute for
Genomic Research — a leader in the field of genome sequencing. Ultimately,
as Science Magazine pointed out, the main innovation was
combining the technologies to solve a crime. Science Magazine
also raised some technical questions about the data since they only
had four paragraphs of explanation to work with. I won't re-iterate
those questions here, and focus instead on the question of whether
the data, as they are reported, actually point to a single, unique
flask.

The scientists
compared the mailed anthrax to samples of anthrax that are used
in research, specifically, those identified as being the Ames strain.
Each sample of anthrax could be classified as biologically identical
or biologically non-identical to the mailed anthrax based on a sort
of DNA fingerprint. This is because the anthrax bacterium replicates
asexually: a single cell duplicates its DNA and splits into two
new cells which have identical DNA sequences to each other. Thus,
they are biologically identical.

We found out
in the original written brief that the scientists tested more than
1000 samples from labs around the world. This is presumably an exhaustive
sampling of all known samples of Ames strain anthrax.

Problem #1:
They could necessarily only test samples of Ames strain anthrax
that they already knew existed. What if there are samples
of Ames strain anthrax that the scientists did not test because
they did not know they existed? Aside from Saddam's non-existent
WMD anthrax research, I could easily imagine any number of other
governments (including our own) with highly secretive bioweapons
programs hiding this information from the FBI's anthrax investigators.

All the FBI
can say is that the flask in Ivins’ possession is one possible
source. They can’t prove that it is the only source.

Problem #2:
To allay these concerns, the FBI can claim that it is likely that
it is the source since, out of 1000 samples tested, all of the ones
that matched could be traced to Ivins’ flask.

What?! More
than one sample matched?! Yes — a total of 8 samples matched. "B-but,
b-but, they could all be traced to Ivins," stutters the FBI.
We already know that Ivins was not the only person with access to
"his" flask. But now we learn that, in addition to the
100 other people who had access to Ivins’ flask, there are at least
7 other people (and probably many, many more) who had access to
anthrax that is biologically identical to the mailed anthrax. These
7 other samples were not located at AMRIID.

So, although
we were initially told by the FBI-parroting
media
that sophisticated scientific techniques could uniquely identify
Ivins’ flask as the smoking gun, we learn that even this flimsy
piece of evidence isn’t true: there are 8 known smoking guns and
a theoretically infinite number of unknown smoking guns.

August
21, 2008

Kathryn
Muratore [send
her mail] is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at American
University. She holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from
UC Berkeley.

Stop the Science Funding

Kathryn Muratore — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 06:00:00 +0000

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Recently, the
CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
wrote an editorial titled “‘Global’
Science Advocacy.” He calls for scientists to be advocates not
only on Capitol Hill through their professional societies, but also
by recruiting friends, neighbors, city council members, etc., to
the cause of science advocacy. This is written in response to the
proposed FY2009 budget request Bush made to Congress in which some
agencies “such as the NIH, are slated for flat funding or worse.”
After reading this, I decided I must heed the call and do a little
science advocacy.

Before I go
on, there is an interesting aside. Mr. Leshner (the CEO of AAAS)
states that “US research will see its fifth consecutive year of
decreased support (in inflation-adjusted constant dollars).” Basically,
US research hasn’t received a cost-of-living raise in 4 years: it’s
feeling the inflation tax, and it hurts!

From 1998–2003,
the NIH budget was doubled. I started graduate school during this
time period, and things were booming. The way I heard it, Bill Clinton
doubled the budget, but Mr. Leshner writes that John Porter, Arlen
Specter, and Tom Harkin led the effort. Regardless, a lot of this
doubling actually went to Big
Science — large budget, long-term projects usually requiring
a lot of infrastructure. This is as opposed to individual scientists
(called Primary Investigators, or PI’s) at universities receiving
the money through research grants. In fact, the fraction of money
going to PI’s fell during this period.

Since 2003,
however, the funding has remained stagnant in terms of actual dollars,
and has decreased in terms of what those dollars can buy. But the
Big Science research centers haven’t been closed, of course, so
PI’s and universities have had their funding cut. Actually cut.
Not just “not increased at a fast enough rate.” Grants are not getting
renewed, or are getting renewed at a lower level than before.

It makes things
tough. Stress is high and scientists are pessimistic. To add to
the woes, this large influx of money between 1998–2003 had
to be spent. So universities built new buildings, hired new faculty,
and recruited more students. The buildings will require continuing
revenue to maintain and the new faculty are applying for their own
grants (in competition with the existing faculty). So it’s been
a typical Boom-and-Bust (the bust is still forthcoming…I’d say
we’re in a science-recession).

My incoming
class to the Berkeley biology program was the largest class to date.
And all of the ones that followed my class were even bigger. In
my view, this was incredibly irresponsible, although unavoidable
when grants are inflated. Thousands of biologists are graduating
with PhD’s every year and they need jobs. But, we’ve all just been
kicked out of the nest and told “Good luck. You’ll need it.”

Over the course
of the last 30 years, a PhD has become essential to climbing the
ladder at a pharmaceutical company. And now, one or two postdoctoral
fellowships (2–4 years each) are needed to land almost any
job in biology. This is inflation of education. Try getting a job
doing completely mindless work at your neighborhood biotech with
a high school diploma. Those jobs are reserved for people with Bachelor’s
degrees from good universities. Do you want to actually apply the
knowledge you learned in your senior-level lab course and develop
an experimental plan? You’ll need a Masters or PhD for that. From
Harvard.

At the AAAS
national meeting last week, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sent
representatives to address the scientists that had gathered. Not
surprisingly, they call for “big
boosts to research funding.” This sounds a lot like a stimulus
package, and it’s typical pandering to a special interest group
by promising more money and everything will be free. Of course,
this is welcomed by many scientists: the outgoing President of the
AAAS reportedly stated
that Congress has passed “a budget that does not meet the needs
of American Science.” An NIH budget that is 100% higher than the
one ten years ago does not meet our needs. Whoops! I mean: A budget
that is 0% higher than last year does not meet our needs.

If you watched
the MTV presidential candidate forum last month, you’ll recall that
students are all going to get a lot of federal money from Hill-bama
to pay for college (you’ll also recall that the entire studio audience
was college students, but I’m sure that was just a coincidence).
I think we already have too many college graduates in this country,
but soon there will be more. Then they, too, will get PhD’s when
they find out that their B.S. is just that. At some point, 15 years
as a postdoctoral fellow will be the norm, which means scientists
will start their first job at age 42 (as opposed to 30 currently:
diploma at 18 + 4 years for college + 5 years for grad school +
3 years for postdoc).

This is a terrible
system, and inflating it with evermore funding is not going to fix
it. Last year, the NIH funding was not increased (3.8% cut accounting
for official inflation). We need more of this, and by “this,” I
mean NIH budget cuts. That means universities will have to train
fewer PhD’s, and they will be hiring fewer research professors.
Private industry as well as academia will have to start giving people
with less education more responsibility. It will be painful, but
healthy. Who knows: maybe the next biotech innovation will be that
they will start promoting people with good college educations (but
no additional letters behind their name) to managerial positions,
allowing them to increase expenditures on capital (instead of letters)
and really take medicine into the future.

So call your
city council member and get them to resolve that this madness must
stop. Write your representative in DC and tell them that private
industry and charities will best be able to fund the future of medicine.
Advocate for the future of science in America!

(There will
be a science debate
in April in Philadelphia and Ron Paul has not been invited. Who
better to explain to scientists that they have become obese and
need to cut back on carbs than the doctor himself?)

February
23, 2008

Kathryn
Muratore [send her mail]
has a PhD in biology from UC Berkeley and is currently a postdoctoral
fellow at Johns Hopkins.

Ron Paul Can Win Iowa

Kathryn Muratore — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 06:00:00 +0000

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Stop the Name Calling

Kathryn Muratore — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 06:00:00 +0000

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Let’s do
a little thought experiment. Assume that you, dear reader, believe
in evolution. You are aware that only
13% of Americans have similar beliefs, but you still consider
yourself in the mainstream because you think of yourself as normal.
Yet, your stance on evolution is not mainstream from a numbers perspective.
You may justify this in one of two ways:

Scientists
have proved that evolution is true.
Among experts,
there is a consensus that evolution is true.

Proof

Proof is a
tricky thing. I usually avoid bizarre philosophical reasoning (because
it makes my head hurt), but you can reason anything. I bet there
is some brilliant mind out there who could make a solid argument
that the Earth is flat, despite proof that it is round.

In science,
proof means that all of the evidence supports the conclusion and
that evidence to the contrary has been examined and found to be
flawed. The examination of evidence always relies on some set of
assumptions, and, getting back to brilliant philosophers, a key
assumption is always that the scientist and the reality that he
perceives exist. Boy, is my head hurting.

Now, when it
comes to evolution, scientists can tell you what their assumptions
are. I am not speaking to the validity of the assumptions, just
that if you remove the validity of the assumption, the whole conclusion
necessarily collapses. In evolutionary studies, there are a lot
of assumptions and a lot of correlative evidence, but proof is especially
tricky since measuring small changes over time is technically difficult.

As a scientist,
I was trained to be skeptical of all evidence. You consider the
assumptions and must make a judgment as to whether they are reasonable.
Careful scientists produce very beautiful, convincing evidence allowing
other careful scientists to believe the conclusions.

In sum, at
best, proof is in the eye(s) of the beholder(s). I don’t see how
scientists could be absolutists — there is always a twinkle of doubt
that an error was made along the way, but we try very hard to keep
each other in check to minimize the errors and doubts so that we
can feel more confident in the proof. Maybe 99.9999% confident.

Consensus

Among white
supremacists, there is a consensus that whites are superior. Circular
reasoning, right? So, you say, among experts who study evolution,
who have been educated in institutions that promote evolution, and
who tend towards certain religious and philosophical beliefs, there
is a consensus that evolution is true. This is circular.

What’s the
point?

Just because
you are in the minority does not make you wrong.
Just because
a panel of experts agrees with you does not make you right.

And conversely:

If you are
in the majority, you are not necessarily right.
If a panel
of experts disagrees with you, you are not necessarily wrong.

We debate issues
such as evolution, global warming, abortion, and the gold standard
because people on each side believe that there is either proof (reason
to be confident in the conclusions) or lack of evidence (reason
to be skeptical of the conclusions). Get over yourself! You are
not intelligent and they are not nutty/crazy/kooky.

We are reasoning,
thinking individuals, so don’t resort to name-calling just because
someone is in the minority or doesn’t have a panel of experts behind
them. That door swings both ways.

Thanks to
my friend, Sanjay, for getting me so riled up over the gold standard
that I just had to write this article.

December
22, 2007

Kathryn
Muratore [send her mail]
has a PhD in biology from UC Berkeley and is currently a postdoctoral
fellow at Johns Hopkins.

How a ‘Third-Tier’ Candidate Can Win Primaries

Kathryn Muratore — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:00:00 +0000

DIGG THIS

Ron Paul’s
record fund-raising on Monday got me thinking about what the media
polls say about his chances of getting the GOP nomination. Clearly,
Ron Paul supporters are more motivated than any of the other candidates’
— this is a direct consequence of a successful grassroots campaign
since it relies on volunteers who choose to actively participate.
Historically, primaries are a non-starter for political action:
voter turnout rates are typically around 10% of registered voters
for the relevant party. So can the combination of a successful grassroots
campaign and general ambivalence at the polls make for a successful
nomination run? I crunched the numbers and I was surprised to learn
that the answer is: Yes.

A caveat

Before
I tell you how I arrived at that conclusion, I want to address one
of the many potential complications in my analysis. Paul supporters
are enthusiastic, but a subset of them, including regular readers
of this website, are philosophically opposed to taking part in the
political process in this country; i.e., they don’t vote,
not because they don’t care, but because they choose not to. There
are different motivations for this position, which are not the subject
of this analysis and have been written
about at length. I am uncertain about what fraction of registered
vs. unregistered voters the non-voting block makes up (based
on voter turnout for Presidential elections, it must be less than
50% of all registered voters) and, furthermore, I am uncertain about
what fraction of the donors on Monday are opposed to voting.

What is
relevant to this article is that Paul’s candidacy is not about Ron
Paul the person, but about the message of freedom, liberty, and
peace. Because Ron Paul is having a somewhat successful run for
President, this message is getting heard more than it ever has before.
(Disclaimer: I say “somewhat” because of the third-tier press, debate
and media poll attention; “successful” because of the positive attention
due to talk shows, internet blogs, text-messaging polls, and fundraising.)
How often do you hear someone on Jay Leno bring up Austrian Economics?
To my knowledge, this has happened precisely once in the history
of the Tonight Show.

To that
end, who cares if he wins the election: let’s keep him in the public
eye for as long as possible so that this message can get voiced
over and over. If he loses the nomination, this message will fade
quickly starting early next spring. So there may be a loophole for
those who are philosophically opposed to voting, but are believers
of freedom, liberty, and peace. If Ron Paul wins the nomination,
the message will be heard for at least another 362 days.

Data sources
and reasoning

I am using
the most
recent CNN poll as a starting point, and I argue that Ron Paul
(or any other candidate with strong grassroots support) does actually
have a very reasonable shot at getting nominated. It seems that
this is particularly possible because of 1) the large field of participants
(there are 8 now that Brownback dropped out) and 2) no clear front-runner
with a large base of support (Giuliani has 28% in the CNN poll).
This poll is the most optimistic media poll for Ron Paul (5%) so
far, but I don’t think it’s outrageously optimistic. Another recent
poll by USA Today is less optimistic for Paul (1%), which
does imply that it’s extremely unlikely for Paul to win the nomination.

Media polls
employ different methods, but they all report the responses of “likely
voters.” I am no expert, but there is a very
thorough analysis of polling methodology and it seems that the
likely voters in the CNN poll may just be those that voted in the
last primary (6.6%
of registered Republicans). That was a GOP re-election year,
so for this calculation, I’ll use a voter turnout based
on the 1996 election: 8.2%. (I couldn’t find an overall turnout
for ’98 or ’00.)

So, now
that I have the numbers, there are just a couple more assumptions,
which, I think, are conservative but are still somewhat arbitrary.

The CNN
poll is a real pulse of registered Republican sentiment. What
goes for the 6.6% “likely voters” goes for all registered Republicans.
Ron Paul’s
supporters are more motivated than the other candidates and will
vote in proportionately higher numbers. I assume that 50% of Ron
Paul supporters will vote in the Republican primary. That is,
8.2% of Giuliani’s supporters will vote. 8.2% of Romney’s supporters
will vote. Etc…, but 50% of Paul’s supporters will vote.

And the
winner is…

In this
calculation, the assumption that Paul supporters turn out in proportionally
greater numbers means that the total number of voters increases
slightly, from 8.2% to 10.7%, while Paul’s share of the votes increases
disproportionately, from 5% to 23%. Also, since the extra 2.1% turnout
will exclusively vote for Ron Paul, the other candidate’s take will
decrease, i.e. Giuliani goes from 28% in the media poll to
21% in my theoretical primary.

media poll

additional
Paul supporters

total

# voters

82,000

20,900

107,000

(per 1,000,000)

% turnout

8.2%

2.1%

10.7%

%
turnout for Paul: 50% % turnout
for others: 8.2%

media poll
%

poll votes
per million

# supporters
per million

est. votes
per million

est. final
vote %

Giuliani

28%

22,960

280,000

22,960

21%

Thompson

19%

15,580

190,000

15,580

15%

McCain

16%

13,120

160,000

13,120

12%

Romney

11%

9,020

110,000

9,020

Huckabee

10%

8,200

100,000

8,200

Paul

4,100

50,000

25,000

23%

Hunter

3,280

40,000

3,280

Tancredo

2,460

30,000

2,460

No opinion

4,100

50,000

4,100

Total

100%

82,000

1,000,000

107,000

100%

November
9, 2007

Kathryn
Muratore [send her mail]
has a PhD in biology from UC Berkeley and is currently a postdoctoral
fellow at Johns Hopkins.

Watson Creates Controversy Again

Kathryn Muratore — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 05:00:00 +0000

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“If
only closed minds came with closed mouths”
~
A bumper sticker seen on many cars in Berkeley, CA

I don’t
know Jim Watson, and I don’t have any scientific insight into genetic
factors of intelligence, but I am familiar with Watson’s tendency
to make controversial statements. He blends science and his personal
experiences to make statements that cross the politically correct
borders. In fact, he makes statements that cross all borders — offending
the left and the right, sometimes simultaneously. His position in
the scientific community (he’s a Nobel Laureate) gives his claims
apparent scientific justification. This leads to more attention
to his every word by the press and more nervousness on the part
of his colleagues that someone might take him seriously.

I attended
the infamous “lecture in 2000″ that is being referred to in numerous
news articles. It was held at UC Berkeley. I was 3 months into my
PhD studies and I got there early enough to get a seat in the lecture
hall; many others sat on the floor or stood in the back. As you
may imagine, scientific lectures are generally not sold-out, but
occasionally speakers such as Jim Watson draw a big crowd. I had
no idea what to expect, as I was fairly uninformed about science-community
gossip as a young student. Some students I knew did not attend because
they were aware of Watson’s tendency to make unseemly comments.
I suspect senior students, postdocs, and professors knew better,
but many of them attended anyway; and many of them left before the
hour was over, outraged by Watson’s comments.

I stayed
for the whole lecture and question and answer period. I was fascinated.
It was apparent to me that Watson’s statements about Latin lovers
and happy fat people were not definitively supported by the evidence
he presented. I knew better than to take what he said for fact and
to not question his conclusions. But this is what an analytical
scientist must do when faced with any research: challenge the methods,
data, and conclusions before declaring that a universal truth has
been identified.

The reason
I was fascinated, therefore, was not because I learned of some amazing
new discovery or was drinking any Kool-Aid he may have been passing
around. I realized that what he was doing was making people think
about topics that they ignore every chance they get. Are Latinos
better lovers? If so, is this genetic, cultural, or both? If not,
why is there a rumor that they are? Can the root of this rumor be
identified? A touchy subject, to be sure.

And then
there’s one other question, which I think is partly what motivated
Watson’s statements: Do I care? Everyone is susceptible to buying
into stereotypes, but most people dispose of those stereotypes during
one-on-one interactions: People in Berkeley are left-wing hippies
(oh yeah, except that guy that owns the hot dog stand. And the pro-Bush
grad student. And the Berkeley undergrad who writes for a libertarian
news site. And…). What if Latinos are better lovers insofar as
they remain virile into their 80′s due to a specific genetic predisposition?
Could this be applied to the booming erectile-dysfunction field?
By considering this question are you automatically affirming a stereotype?
Does it make you incapable of taking into account individual encounters?

I believe
that Watson makes these statements because he is curious and prefers
to understand the world from a scientific (i.e., genetic)
perspective. I think he also is dedicated to getting donations for
the research at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he is director
(he was suspended as director on Thursday evening).

I find
some of his other comments and the controversies surrounding them
even more provocative than what I heard him say in 2000. Again,
by provocative, I mean that I think they stimulate discussion of
taboo subjects, not that I think what he is saying is true or false.
One comment
I keep reading about in the news is:

If you could
find the gene which determines sexuality and a woman decides she
doesn’t want a homosexual child, well, let her.

What if “sexuality”
and “homosexual” were substituted with any number of other traits
or with a genetic disease? In that context, this is merely a pro-choice
statement. Currently, fetuses can be tested for Down Syndrome and
abortion is presented as an option to mothers of those who test
positive. This is socially acceptable. If I had to guess, Watson
chose the words “sexuality” and “homosexual” because the statement
no longer becomes socially acceptable: it is ripe with controversy.
It is well-known that Watson is a proponent of this type of eugenics
— where parents choose to terminate pregnancies based on genetic
testing. In this statement, he joins the leftist view of being pro-choice
with the right’s opposition to homosexuality. In the end, no one
is happy, but everyone is talking about the statement, him, the
human genome project, and the cutting-edge research of the Cold
Spring Harbor Lab.

So his
latest statement is on intelligence. Now, everyone is again
talking about Jim Watson, genome research, and the Cold Spring Harbor
Lab. But, and in my opinion this is the value of free speech, people
are also talking and learning about the validity of measures of
intelligence, and discussing the definition of “intelligent” and
whether this is determined by nature, nurture, or both.

The ban
on Jim Watson giving speeches at certain British venues, and his
suspension as director of the Cold Spring Harbor Lab are not going
to shut the man up. He seeks the spotlight and will always find
a way to get people to talk about something they don’t want to even
think about. You don’t have to agree with the man to recognize that
he gets people talking and thinking critically.

I’m sure
the irony of the bumper sticker I quoted at the beginning of this
article was immediately apparent to many of you. Whenever I saw
it, I could not decide whether I should be baffled or angry. I don’t
know if the action taken by those banning Watson is brave or cowardly.
It is certainly their right to ban whichever speakers they like.
If the thinking is that Jim Watson’s speeches are not scientific
in content, then it is reasonable to not invite him to give science
seminars. Or if it is found that there is no longer any interest
in attending his lectures, he should surely not be invited to speak
to an empty room. But if he is merely not politically correct, then
those that ban him can not claim to be advocates of free speech.

October
20, 2007

Kathryn
Muratore [send her mail]
has a PhD in biology from UC Berkeley and is currently a postdoctoral
fellow at Johns Hopkins.

Mad Scientists

Kathryn Muratore — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:00:00 +0000

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The UK and
US governments have (once again) taken up the controversial issue
of embryonic stem cell research. Last Wednesday, the British Human
Fertilisation and Embryology Authority put off making a decision
about chimeric stem cells, in which an animal’s egg is used as the
vessel for a human embryo. The following day, the US House of Representatives
passed a bill expanding federal funding for stem cell research.

As this was
all coming to a head, scientific journals published editorials on
the topic. Although not all of the editorials expressed identical
opinions, there was a common theme. This is not limited to the current
stem cell–related editorials, either. The majority of editorials
in scientific journals echo the same sentiment. Am I nave to expect
anything different? Perhaps. But at least some of the world’s scientists
are very, very intelligent, so I sometimes expect more from them
when it comes to economic reasoning.

The theme that
I am concerned about goes something like this:

This new
widget technology has great potential. Sure it can be misused,
but the potential for great things out-weighs the potential for
disaster. If everything is regulated properly, there will not
be a problem. We scientists should educate the community and politicians
to ensure that the proper safeguards are in place so that this
important research can move forward.

Many scientists
I know are good people. For the most part, they have good intentions.
Therefore, I believe that the scientists who want to pursue research
on embryonic or chimeric stem cells really do want to help the world.
They may also desire fame or at least a feeling of personal accomplishment
for having a role in a breakthrough medical advance. But the selfish
reasons do not negate the unselfish ones. Austrian economic theory
recognizes this, especially with respect to charity and volunteerism.
So it is likely that there is potential value of whatever research
an editorial is promoting.

But, like the
authors of the scientific editorials, I am not addressing the core
issue. The issue is money. Let me repeat that, because the scientific
editorials almost never make the connection: The issue is money.
That is to say government subsidies and grants. Congress and the
HRFA and other regulatory agencies can ban or allow certain types
of research because they are funding the research. US
law does not and has not prohibited stem cell research, but
rather sets limits on what research will be funded by federal agencies.
I am not sure that the American and British publics realize how
much taxpayer-funded research is going on. According to the American
Association for Advancement of Science, universities and colleges
received almost 29 billion dollars in federal funding for research
in 2004, accounting for 63.8%
of all research dollars at these institutions.

At the beginning
of this article, I posed a question, implying that the answer would
follow. So here it is: if the majority of scientific research were
conducted with private funding, 1) scientists would be free of restrictive
regulation of their research, 2) they would be held accountable
for their actions, and 3) the public would be more confident that
immoral or unethical research was not taking place. At this point,
most academic researchers will be tempted to dismiss anything else
I have to say, because the previous sentence runs counter to the
current dogma. An article
in The Scientist portrays the general sentiment among researchers
regarding funding sources:

[The trend
of increased industry funding of clinical trials], according to
some life science policy experts, threatens the independence of
basic research. Others, however, see a move towards an increase
in industry funding relative to public funding as a sign of the
health of scientific enterprise.

”If institutions
become too dependent on private funding sources, the academic
research focus could move too heavily toward development,” warns
Robert Gropp, director of public policy at the American Institute
of Biological Sciences in Washington. While this may be initially
attractive to industry, he predicts that in the long term a decreased
focus on basic science would strangle the free-thinking, creative
research historically found in academia.

But I think
it is clear from the current stem cell regulations that public funding
strangles “free-thinking, creative research.” Scientists need to
wake up and realize this fact. They also need to realize that the
opposite of public funding is not funding by a large pharmaceutical
company.

Private funding
currently comes from many sources, including smaller companies,
charitable groups, and individuals. There will necessarily be an
ulterior motive for the funders, just as scientists have ulterior
motives for doing the research they do. But these motives do not
automatically negate the freedom that can come with the funding.
For example, a smaller company may want to fund research at a nearby
university so that they can have access to the resources at that
university. They are too small to hire a staff of Nobel Laureates
and run facilities with very expensive equipment, but they may be
willing to forego day-to-day oversight of the research they are
funding in order to have access to these resources for a comparatively
small fee. Likewise, the history books are full of philanthropists
who give money away because of the do-gooder feeling and positive
public image they get.

There is one
more key part to the answer to the question I posed. There must
be accountability and oversight if research with potentially grave
consequences is pursued. If the government is not funding and regulating
the research, then how will the public know that mad scientists
won’t create a monster? How will they know that civil rights are
not being violated? First, the private funding sources themselves
will provide some sort of balance. Universities, companies, charities,
and philanthropists usually want to protect their image, and they
would undoubtedly audit the research they are funding to do so.
Also, consumer watchdog organizations and insurance companies would
play a role. My husband will only buy motorcycle helmets that meet
both DOT (federal) and Snell (non-profit) standards. Additionally,
his insurance company and some motorcycle stores give him a discount
because he took a two-day motorcycle safety course. Consumer organizations
and insurance companies currently provide these types of safeguards
in many fields, so it is reasonable to expect them to do a very
good job in a scientific research market free of government regulation.

All embryonic
stem cell research in the US, including the isolation of the first
human embryonic stem cells, was privately funded until the Bush
administration’s policy change in 2001. Apparently, there was a
market for stem cell research and considerable advances were made
within that market. The current debate clearly has nothing to do
with what scientists are allowed to study, but whether they can
get “free” money to do so.

Kathryn’s
father, Jim McElroy, edited and contributed to this article.

January
19, 2007

Kathryn
Muratore [send her mail]
has a PhD in biology from the University of California Berkeley
and is currently doing research at Johns Hopkins. She realizes that
if the above proposal were a present-day reality, she might not
have a PhD or be doing the research she is currently doing, and
she is perfectly OK with it.

Massacre in Iraq

Kathryn Muratore — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 05:00:00 +0000

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I suppose that
data on mortality rates is never uplifting, but some data made available
online last Thursday seems especially sober. Researchers at the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in collaboration
with a researcher at Al Mustansiriya University in Iraq, estimate
that 655,000 Iraqis have died as a consequence of our invasion (Burnham,
G, et al, Lancet (2006)). The research was published
in the well-regarded medical journal, Lancet. It was led
by Les Roberts, who also led a survey of deaths in Iraq published
in October 2004 (Roberts,
L, et al, Lancet (2004)) that was largely ignored.

The timeliness
of the publications is, in all likelihood, not a coincidence — both
the 2004 and last week’s articles came out weeks before a national
election. Dr. Roberts is a distinguished member of academia and,
therefore, is statistically expected to be a critic of the Bush
administration. Naturally, this timing is an easy and obvious weakness
in terms of the neutrality of the authors and the credibility of
the study. These are, after all, epidemiological studies — there
are many places for human bias to enter into the data collection
either intentionally or not. On the flip side, one can criticize
the authors (as Tom
Engelhardt and Judith Coburn did) for putting the data out at
a time when it can get overshadowed by trivial election distractions.
Why fabricate data if your strategy for timely publication can backfire
(twice)?

With all of
this potential bias on the part of the researchers, it is interesting
to note that this study was funded by MIT and Johns Hopkins, not
by the typical source of research funding in America: the US government.
If it were funded by the state, there would be no chance of bias,
right? Come to think of it, why isn’t the government funding
an accurate casualty count in Iraq?

There was some
scholarly discussion of the 2004 article, in the form of letters
to the editor of Lancet (Volume
365, page 1133–4). The authors were criticized for their
survey method, known as cluster sampling, and for various areas
where researcher bias could have been introduced as well as a specific
design flaw that could introduce false overestimates of death. As
the authors point out in their response, the cluster sampling method
they used is recommended by UN and US agencies. Since then, a team
of researchers has shown that the cluster sampling method, when
done properly, is as reliable as another leading survey technique
(Rose,
AMC, et al, Bulletin of the World Health Organization.
(2006)). In my opinion, the authors address the other potential
biases and design flaws specifically in the original article, although
they could be lying. I have no reason to believe that they are
lying, but the possibility must always be acknowledged.

These criticisms
centered around the validity of the statistics. Statistics says
that if you roll one die six times, you will roll each number once.
However, if you have played a board game, you know this is not what
really happens most of the time. What statistics really says is
that if you roll one die six hundred times, you will roll
each number close to 100 times. If you really wanted to do this,
the actual number of times that you got each number would in fact
be very close to 100. So the estimate that there are an extra 655,000
Iraqis dead because of the invasion is simply that: an estimate.
An error on this estimate can also be calculated, which can be used
as a guide of how accurate that original estimate is likely to be.
If the study is done properly, the errors will be small and the
estimate will be accurate.

While there
may be flaws with the study, the overarching conclusion will not
change: many more people have died in Iraq since its occupation
than would otherwise be expected. There is one set of raw numbers
that backs this up: 547 people died between March, 2003 and June,
2006 in areas where 82 people died between January, 2002 and March,
2003. The post-invasion period of 39 months is about two and three-quarters
times as long as the pre-invasion period of 14 months, but 547 is
over six and one-half times as many people as 82. If our invasion
had no effect in these areas, the number of people dead would be
directly proportional to the amount of time that passed, but it
is not even close to proportional.

The authors
estimate that 19.8 deaths per 1000 people occurred between June
2005 and June 2006. This is almost 2 deaths per 100 people. Since
this study was based on interviews of households, there was a standard
cross-section of ages and sex that you would find in any family.
Are you related to 100 people? Have 2 of your relatives died every
year? Between my husband and myself, I can say I know just about
100 of our relatives. Great Uncle Mike passed away last spring,
which is the only family death in five years. The annual rate of
death in our family is a little lower than what families in Iraq
were experiencing before March, 2003 (0.2% in our family versus
0.55% estimated in Iraq).

The post-invasion
mortality rate was 7.9 deaths annually per 1000 people in the 2004
study. If Dr. Roberts and his colleagues had somehow affected the
politicians of this nation with his last article, and inspired a
de-occupation of Iraq, would there be an extra 500,000 people dead?
If we do not leave Iraq in 2006, what will the Iraqi mortality rate
be in 2008? As you consider whether it is the moral obligation of
the US to leave Iraq soil, keep in mind that, of the 547 post-invasion
deaths recorded by the researchers, 13 were children under the age
of 15 killed by coalition air strikes.

October
18, 2006

Kathryn
Muratore [send her mail]
has a PhD in biology from UC Berkeley and is currently a postdoctoral
fellow at Johns Hopkins.

All Hail the Web

Kathryn Muratore — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 06:00:00 +0000

Recently, LRC
readers were directed to an
article about a controversial essay that was rejected by Science
Magazine. The essay, "Men,
Women, and Ghosts in Science" by Peter Lawrence, was ultimately
published by the Public Library of Science's (PLoS) Biology
journal. The subject of Dr. Lawrence's essay is the biological differences
between men and women, and why he believes this is related to their
relative presence in prestigious jobs, especially the low percentage
of female professors in science. The essay takes on two touchy subjects:
inherent differences between the sexes and the role of women in
the job market. It should not be surprising, therefore, that one
of the top scientific journals got nervous about printing such an
essay.

Avoidance

So why didn't
PLoS shy away from such controversy? It is unlikely that
the readers, reviewers or editors of PLoS agree with Dr.
Lawrence on many of the points he makes in his essay. In fact, Mike
Eisen, a co-founder of PLoS, disagrees with Dr. Lawrence on most.
Dr. Eisen says, "To argue that [the disparity at the top of
the academic hierarchy] is the result of some kind of innate/biological
difference, and to therefore accept a male-dominated scientific
community, is ridiculous." He is more inclined to attribute
this disparity to society.

According to
the Telegraph, Science decided not to publish the
essay because it was neither novel enough nor persuasive enough
considering the apparent saturation of essays on the topic. Additionally,
the editor-in-chief of Science said it did not "lead to a clear
strategy about how to deal with the gender issue.” Hemai Parthasarathy,
editor-in-chief of PLoS Biology, agrees that Dr. Lawrence
did not have a clear strategy towards a solution to the gender issue.
Dr. Parthasarathy adds that she thinks there is much more to say
on "this extremely complicated subject." Apparently the
editors disagree on whether the presence of previous opinionated
reviews on the topic of gender inequality means the debate is now
old hat, or just heating up.

Gary North
has written on this site about the role of new technology, especially
the internet, in business (click
here for a recent one). PLoS has taken advantage of the
very low cost of publishing on the internet in an attempt to compete
with the likes of Science. Instead of worrying about (Yikes!)
illegal photocopying and (Horrors!) multiplying electronic PDF files,
they put all content online free of charge to anyone, and look in
other places for money. It's too soon to tell if their model will
work, but it seems to appeal to many professors, especially in a
time of budget cuts for public university libraries (resulting in
fewer university subscriptions to journals). Whereas Science
may be more wary of controversy after the cloning scandal, PLoS
is presumably welcoming publicity to try to win this race. In this
context, Dr. Lawrence's theory that Science's official reasons for
rejection were lame may be hitting the nail on the head.

What controversy?

Earlier I stated
that "Men, Women, and Ghosts in Science" addresses two
touchy subjects. Discussions of these topics tend to be controlled
by political correctness and emotions, not reasoned argument. I
think this is a terrible mistake.

Is there a
gender disparity in prominent positions at companies and universities?
Of course. For example, the percentage of women professors in the
Molecular and Cell Biology Department at UC Berkeley is just under
22%. Keep in mind that biology has historically been the most women-friendly
of the hard sciences, and Berkeley has a reputation for social consciousness.
The disparity for other science and engineering disciplines is even
greater.

Is gender disparity
a problem? Science and PLoS agree that it is, but
problems are relative ideas. In order to have a problem, there must
be a goal that is not met. While the stated goal is an equal number
of men and women throughout the work force, what the academic community
(and others who profess concern) should ask is: Why is this goal
desirable?

Both Dr. Lawrence
and Dr. Eisen feel that the average feminine traits can be the foundation
for a great scientist and mentor. The average masculine traits are
easier to test for, so the disparity is propagated. This may or
may not be valid, but the point is that lip service to equality
is just that, while deciding whether equality is actually beneficial
is what should be discussed. It is accepted by many as a truth that
equality is desired. Dr. Lawrence doesn't disagree, he just cuts
deeper and hits some nerves along the way. This topic is the less
controversial of the two, yet it is surprisingly absent from discussions
of gender disparity.

The question
of why there is gender inequality is where feelings really start
to get hurt. It is difficult to differentiate between what effect
biology has on a person compared to environment. To address this
question, one must drift away from biology and dive into the social
sciences. We may never know the answer, but the overwhelming opinion
in academia is summed
up well by Steven Pinker of Harvard:

the under-representation
of women among tenure-track faculty in elite universities in physical
science, math, and engineering … As with many issues in psychology,
there are three broad ways explain this phenomenon. One can imagine
an extreme “nature” position: that males but not females have
the talents and temperaments necessary for science. Needless to
say, only a madman could take that view. The extreme nature position
has no serious proponents.

While Dr. Lawrence
speculates on this phenomenon, and comes close to being a "madman",
his essay is not a presentation of facts observed through scientific
research. Essays in scientific journals, although they may be peer-reviewed
as "Men, Women…" was, are simply a presentation of opinion.
Dr. Parthasarathy says this essay was published, in part, because
it was "opinionated" and that the goal of such a publication
is to discuss "issues that are important to the scientific
community" as well as the general public. To that end, PLoS
succeeded. Science has merely succeeded in promoting a sad
trend in public debate: dismiss inconvenient opinions by ignoring
them.

This author
declares that she has a conflict of interest. She is a graduate
student in biology, hopes to one day be a professor, and has published
an article in a PLoS journal, but not in Science.

February
18, 2006

Kathryn
Muratore [send her mail]
is working on her PhD in biology at the University of California
Berkeley.