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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Huge rise in brain diseases |
| 2004-08-15 |
| Pollutants cause huge rise in brain diseases Sunday August 15, 2004 Scientists alarmed as number of cases triples in 20 years Juliette Jowit, environment editor The Observer The numbers of sufferers of brain diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease, have soared across the West in less than 20 years, scientists have discovered. The alarming rise, which includes figures showing rates of dementia have trebled in men, has been linked to rises in levels of pesticides, industrial effluents, domestic waste, car exhausts and other pollutants, says a report in the journal Public Health. In the late 1970s, there were around 3,000 deaths a year from these conditions in England and Wales. By the late 1990s, there were 10,000. 'This has really scared me,' said Professor Colin Pritchard of Bournemouth University, one of the report's authors. 'These are nasty diseases: people are getting more of them and they are starting earlier. We have to look at the environment and ask ourselves what we are doing.' The report, which Pritchard wrote with colleagues at Southampton University, covered the incidence of brain diseases in the UK, US, Japan, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain in 1979-1997. The researchers then compared death rates for the first three years of the study period with the last three, and discovered that dementias - mainly Alzheimer's, but including other forms of senility - more than trebled for men and rose nearly 90 per cent among women in England and Wales. All the other countries were also affected. For other ailments, such as Parkinson's and motor neurone disease, the group found there had been a rise of about 50 per cent in cases for both men and women in every country except Japan. The increases in neurological deaths mirror rises in cancer rates in the West. |
| Posted by:Zenster |
| #4 More agenda peddling courtesy of The Guardian. From the article: The report, which Pritchard wrote with colleagues at Southampton University, covered the incidence of brain diseases in the UK, US, Japan, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain in 1979-1997. The researchers then compared death rates for the first three years of the study period with the last three, and discovered that dementias - mainly Alzheimer's, but including other forms of senility - more than trebled for men and rose nearly 90 per cent among women in England and Wales. All the other countries were also affected In other words, this is a statistical study only. They took numbers, did zero actual emprical research, and said it is all linked. The Guardian saw the report and regurgitated it just the way the writers wanted it to, without any serious questions into the study. Do not publications ever check these things once a leftist publication like the Guardian publishes them? I can prove statistically that the very same rise in incidents of cancer/demenia/disease du jour in the UK can be tied to increasing numbers of blow jobs given by young British female journalists. It may not be true but I can damn sure prove it. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-08-15 3:05:19 PM |
| #3 Do you suppose there might be some connection between an increase in diseases of the aged with the fact that across the planet more people are living long enough to enjoy them? A more likely explanation is that as better tests are devised and symptomologies are more clearly distinguished, the accuracy of reporting has increased. Many diagnoses of these individual diseases were lumped together previously. None of this diminishes the threat of environmental toxins. The food issue is one of my pet peeves. All the whining about preservatives that you hear of these days is actually quite ironic. If you examine a recipe for corned beef from 100 years ago, it will contain somewhere from 10-100 times the amount of saltpeter used for curing that a modern preparation might use. As progress has been made in hygenic food processing, far less preservatives are now required to assure product quality. While environmentalists have too often resorted to scare tactics and alarmist publicity, there are still a lot of valid concerns about hormone mimics and endocrine disruptors. I really want to see more detaied information about the Japanese brain disease rate and its link to diet, that one is a truly significant anomaly. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-15 2:52:08 PM |
| #2 Might account for the apparent increase in BMB (Barking Moonbat) Syndrome..... |
| Posted by: Mercutio 2004-08-15 12:38:34 PM |
| #1 Do you suppose there might be some connection between an increase in diseases of the aged with the fact that across the planet more people are living long enough to enjoy them? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2004-08-15 6:56:04 AM |