Month: March 2002

Transplant Method Pioneered in Beagles Ready for Human Trials

Back in 1999, I wrote about medical research on beagles designed to understand the problems with creating and transplanting artificial organs. Last month the researchers involved in that work announced they are now seeking regulatory approval to try out their methods in human beings.

Researchers at the Laboratory for Tissue Engineering at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School took bladder cells from six beagles. They then grew the bladder cells around a plastic form that mimicked the shape of the dogs’ bladders. Once the organs were fully formed, they transplanted the bladders into the dogs. After about three months, these newly grown bladders were fully functional. The dogs were monitored for more than a year with no problems emerging.

Now, Dr. Anthony Atala of Boston Children’s Hospital says he has applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval to try this technique in human beings. Atala believes he will obtain such approval before the end of the year.

Atala will reproduce the experiment with the beagles, only this time growing a human bladder and transplanting it into a human whose bladder has been destroyed due to disease.

If that succeeds, Atala believes the sky is the limit as far as the applications for tissue engineering. “I think over time there will be no limit,” Dr. Atala told the BBC. “I think it is just a question of figuring out all the different tissue types and cell types and how they work best, but eventually I think that following the same strategies just about every organ in the body will be repairable at the very least.”

Longer term this could reduce the number of people who are on waiting lists for organ transplants, though Atala says he doesn’t believe that his technique will ever be able to completely replace organ donations. Instead it will be yet another tool that doctors will have to treat human disease.

Source:

Lab-built bladders on the way. Pallab Ghosh, The BBC, February 15, 2002.

Protesters Use Extreme Tactics Against Princeton Deer Hunt

The New York Times this week published an article documenting the extreme tactics taken by protesters opposed to Princeton, New Jersey’s controversial deer cull. The situation there has deteriorated to the point that animal control officer Mark Johnson has taken to wearing a bullet proof vest after an altercation with a protester.

Princeton has a major deer problem and several years ago hired a company, White Buffalo, to reduce the deer population. The year before White Buffalo was hired to thin the herd, there more than 300 deer died in automobile collisions.

White Buffalo originally used sharpshooters to kill the deer. It quickly switched to a net-and-bolt method, however. The deer are lured into a trap and a net is then thrown over the animal. A shot to the head from a bolt gun is used to kill the animal.

The protesters claim that this method is cruel, but White Buffalo argues that most deer die within 30 seconds and all deer killed this way die in less than 90 seconds. The company kills 200-300 deer this way. The charge that this is a cruel method of killing is a bit odd given that the alternative is large numbers of deer dying in automobile collisions which does not exactly sound like a humane death (especially since it can frequently take a very long time for injured deer to die this way, especially if they are able to leave the scene of the accident).

And, of course, animal rights protesters have resorted to the extreme tactics that their opponents have become so familiar with. For example, somebody spread deer entrails over a car owned by the husband of Princeton mayor Phyllis Marchand. This was accompanied by a note protesting White Buffalo.

Another protester is accused of hitting animal control officer Mike Johnson in the chest. Johnson was trying got arrest the protester for contaminating one of the deer traps when the alleged assault occurred. For good measure, somebody also poisoned Johnson’s dog, which later died. Fearing for his safety from animal rights fanatics, Johnson has taken to wearing a bullet proof vest while discharging his duties as an animal control officer.

Source:

Protesters against Princeton’s deer hunt turn increasingly nasty. Maria Newman, The New York Times, March 5, 2002.

It’s All Tolkein’s Fault

The New York Times this week ran a bizarre column by MIT sociology professor Sherry Turkle which decried the male-dominated computer culture and blamed JRR Tolkien, of all people, for its limitations.

The major criticism that Sturkle offers of both the computer culture and Tolkein is that, according to her, they both entail worlds bounded by extreme absolutes. Sturkle writes that, “In many ways, Middle Earth, the universe of “The Lord of the Rings,” is like a computer program, rule driven and bounded.” Of course, one of the reasons for this is that the ethics of Middle Earth are largely Christian, although this is nowhere near as explicit as it is in something like C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles.

Turkle may be uncomfortable with moral absolutes, but in a world where people feel justified in hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings, young readers could do a lot worse than Tolkien’s vision of right and wrong (and especially, Tolkien’s warnings about the corrupting nature of power).

Turkle connects this obsession with rules in Tolkein, computers and role playing games, writing,

Like the rings, the inhabitants of Middle Earth behave according to a set of rules. This is part of what makes it so easy to translate Tolkien’s work into game worlds. In “Dungeons and Dragons,” for instance, character attributes like charisma or strength are assigned according to a point system. There is little room for psychological ambivalence or complex motivations in such a personality.

Frodo, the hero of “The Lord of the Rings,” is part of a fellowship, although it is more properly called a fraternity: in Tolkien’s world, the men bond. The few females are loved and feared as icons or charms.

And the computer culture, by and large, is a world built by engineers for engineers, by men for men. (This is a culture that found it natural to have “abort, terminate, and fail” as three choices on a screen prompt.) Like Tolkien’s world, most computer games are about mastery through violence; they serve as a socialization into the computer culture for adolescent boys.

Before proceeding to dissect this nonsense, note that not only does Turkle object to a lack of moral ambiguity, but she also has an ambiguous relationship with truth and accuracy. There was never a screen prompt with the three options, “abort, terminate, fail.” The actual prompt, given by MSDOS when a file could not be located on a disk, was “abort, retry, fail.”

In addition, it is absurd for Turkle to claim there are 856,000 web sites devoted to Tolkien. She seems to have arrived at this number by simply typing in “Tolkien” into Google’s search engine. That indeed returns 856,000 search results, but that in no way represents 856,000 distinct web sites devoted to Tolkien.

Most of her other claims suffer from similar problems — it is not that they do not contain a grain of truth, but rather that they are nothing more than one person’s biased observations not backed up by any data.

For example, she complains that since characters in role playing games like “Dungeons and Dragons” are assigned numerical attributes that this leaves “little room for psychological ambivalence or complex motivations in such a personality.” But, in fact, such numerical abstracts allow a lot of room for psychological ambivalence and complex motivations. In fact, such numerical ratings are rarely seen as the end-all be-all of a character’s motivations (and, of course, one could also point out that this is meant to be a game, which by definition must be simplified in order to be playable. Monopoly does not incorporate many of the complexities of real-life real estate markets, but it is nonetheless an enjoyable way to spend an evening).

Similarly Turkle complains that “most computer games are about mastery through violence.” You have to wonder exactly what she means by “most computer games.” Here is a list of the 20 top-selling computer games of 2001:

1. The Sims (EA)
2. RollerCoaster Tycoon (Infogrames)
3. Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone (EA)
4. Diablo 2 Expansion: Lord of Destruction (Vivendi)
5. The Sims: House Party Expansion (EA)
6. The Sims: Livin’ Large Expansion (EA)
7. The Sims: Hot Date Expansion (EA)
8. Diablo 2 (Vivendi)
9. Sim Theme Park (EA)
10. Age Of Empires 2: Age of Kings (Microsoft)
11. Black & White (EA)
12. Frogger (Infogrames)
13. Roller Coaster Tycoon Loopy Landscapes Expansion (Infogrames)
14. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (EA)
15. Backyard Basketball (Infogrames)
16. SimCity 3000 Unlimited (EA)
17. Backyard Baseball 2001 (Infogrames)
18. Age Of Empires 2: Conquerors Expansion (Microsoft)
19. Max Payne (GodGames/Take 2)
20. SimCity 3000 (EA)

Of those 20 games, only 6 (Diablo 2 Expansion, Diablo 2, Age of Empires, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires and Max Payne) involve “mastery through violence.” The really odd thing is that Turkle complains that computer games and players are excessively rule bound with no ambiguity, and yet half of these games are so-called “god games” in which a major feature is that there is usually not set winning/losing condition.

There is, for example, no way to “win” playing The Sims. There are no victory or loss conditions and the game can be played pretty much however the player wants. Some people, for example, play it by imposing such conditions — i.e. they try to have their characters accumulate the most money possible, etc. Others focus on extensive social relationships. Still others don’t play the game so much as use it a backdrop for telling stories about the characters. The game has some constraints, obviously, but contains a tremendous amount of ambiguity as far as what the goals (if any) of the game are.

Turkle’s claim that the computer culture, computer gamers and role playing gamers are rule bound binary thinkers is nothing more than an inaccurate prejudice of Turkle’s. In fact you could say that it is a rigid oversimplification that does not allow for any ambiguity. It is Turkle who apparently insists on seeing her world in black-and-white with no shades of grey.

Just as Turkle claims that “Tolkien’s work says more about us than it does about Tolkien,” so Turkle’s comments on computer culture seem to say more about her than they do about the computer culture.

Source:

Lord of the Hackers. Sherry Turkle, The New York Times, March 7, 2002.

Bush Raises Taxes on Steel Consumers

Just like his father, George W. Bush claims to be against higher taxes, but has no problem imposing additional taxes if he believes it is politically advantageous to do so. In the latest round of Bush tax hikes, the president this week announced an 8 to 30 percent tax increase on steel imports.

The U.S. steel industry is in a world of trouble. The last decade has seen a veritable shakeout with many firs going bankrupt. The basic problem is that U.S. steel companies are inefficient, begin unable to compete with foreign producers on either quality, quantity or price.

So on March 5, Bush announced a series of tariffs and quotas on steel imports that will go into effect on March 20. Here’s a look at the various tariffs on steel products:

Product
Tariff
Tin mill steel
30%
Flat steel products
30%
Hot-rolled and cold-finished bar
30%
Carbon and alloy fittings and flanges
13%
Circular welded tubular products
15%
Stainless steel bar
15%
Stainless rod
15%
Stainless steel wire
8%
Rebar
15%
Slab steel

30%*
* On all slab steel imports after the first 5.4
million tons

The tariffs will hurt steel producers in Russia, Japan and Europe the most, as well as American consumers since the tariff is simply an extra tax on people who buy products made out of steel (such as automobiles). MSNBC cited a study estimating that the tariffs will cost the average family of four almost $300 per year. The tariffs are also likely to trigger a trade war between the United States and other steel producing nations.

Why did Bush impose the tariffs? For political reasons, of course. Bush pulled an upset victory in the 2000 election by beating Al Gore in West Virginia. Bush campaigned in West Virginia on promises to “protect” the steel industry. One of West Virginia’s largest employers is Weirton Steel. Weirton produces tin mill steel, so it is hardly surprising to see tin mill steel hit with a 30 percent tariff.

But will tariffs do much to save the steel industry? As the Detroit Free Press’s Tom Walsh pointed out back in December, tariffs don’t have a good track record. Walsh sites the example of Michigan company Optical Imaging Systems. OIS manufactured LCD screens for laptops, and in 1991 won an anti-dumping decisions that resulted in 62 percent tariffs being imposed on LCD screens imported from Japan.

OSI said this would let them compete on equal footing, but the actual result ended up putting OSI out of business. Faced with the prospect of paying such high prices for LCD screens, computer manufacturers simply moved their laptop assembly facilities outside of the United States. Thousands of people employed at assembling laptops lost their jobs, and OSI was out of business in 1998.

How much of this sort of “protection” can the U.S. economy stand?

Source:

Beware what steel tariffs may do to car makers. Tom Walsh, Detroit Free Press, December 18, 2001.

Bush warned off steel tariffs. The BBC, March 5, 2002.

Bush approves steel import tariffs. Associated Press, March 5, 2002.

Bush steel tariffs anger allies. The BBC, March 5, 2002.

Is Virginia’s Proposed Marital Rape Statute a Good Idea?

A lot of folks are up in arms over Virginia’s proposal to criminalize marital rape, but the proposal seems like simple common sense.

Virginia’s legislature is considering altering its laws to make it easier for married women to file rape charges against their husband. Some critics of feminism are up in arms over this proposed change, but, in fact, passing the law would be the right thing to do.

The issue here is pretty straightforward. Under current Virginia law, a woman who wants to accuse her husband of rape must first meet two criteria — she must no longer be living with her husband or she must provide some evidence of a serious bodily injury. If she is still living with her husband or did not sustain a serious bodily injury, she cannot accuse her husband of rape.

The proposed law would eliminate those two requirements, giving married women the same rights under the law that single women have.

This seems like a pretty obvious change that probably should have been done a long time ago, but critics both in the Virginia House and on the Internet have criticized the bill on a number of grounds. Stuart Miller wrote a critique of the law, Martial Rape — What a “Can of Worms”! that presents two arguments against the marital rape statute. Lets look at those.

First Miller opens his critique with the bizarre view that a marital rape statute might discourage men from getting married. Since data show that married women suffer less violence from their partners than do non-married women, the law might actually increase violence against women by lowering marriage rates. It is also true that children living in married households are less likely to be abused by their parents than are children living in unmarried households. Does it follow, then, that we should decriminalize child abuse among married couples? Besides, I thought it was the radical feminists who were obsessed with groups rather than with protecting the rights of individual. Presumably women who are raped by their husbands would prefer to be treated like individuals rather than figuring in some grand collective calculus by Miller and others.

The second argument Miller offers is also an argument that was made in opposition to the law on the floor of the Virginia House — some unscrupulous women might use this law to file false rape charges against their husbands to gain leverage during divorce proceedings.

Certainly, if this law passes, some women will in fact do this. So what? The fact that some women might twist and abuse the law is hardly much of a justification for jettisoning the rights of women who do not abuse the system in that way. The solution to that problem is not saying that married women must jump through all sorts of extra hoops to charge their husbands with rape, but rather demand that more be done about the problem of false allegations.

Virginia’s current law is absurdly antiquated. That a woman in Virginia cannot file a rape charge against her husband if she is currently living with him and did not sustain a serious bodily injury boggles the mind. The Virginia legislature should pass this change to its statute on marital rape, and it should also pass legislation toughening treatment of men or women who file false allegations.

Source:

Marital Rape — What a “Can of Worms”!. Stuart A. Miller, Strike-The-Root.Com, March 3, 2002.

Domestic violence a priority. Pamela Stallsmith, Virginia Times-Dispatch, February 24, 2002.

Do Rape Shield Laws Forbid Questions about False Allegations?

In February 2001 the United States District Court for the Eastern District issued a ruling in an odd rape case that boiled down to this: do rape shield laws protect accusers from being questioned about previous false allegations of rape that the accuser may have filed?

The case involved Wisconsin resident Jessie L. Redmond who was convicted in 1993 of raping and providing cocaine to a 15-year-old girl. Redmond worked as a counselor at a group home for alcohol- and drug-abusing youths. In December 1992 he was arrested and later convicted after one of these youths claimed that Redmond had supplied her with cocaine and had sex with her.

Redmond’s case took a very odd turn which involved the eventual suspension of his attorney. His original lawyer, Mike Sandy, showed up at the court and passed himself off as the girl’s attorney in order to illegally obtain the girl’s juvenile court file. Among the things that file contained was detailed information about another allegation of rape that the girl had made in early 1992. Police investigated that allegation and determined that it was a false allegation and the girl was charged with contempt of court.

Sandy would eventually have his law license suspended because of that and other incidents. At Redmond’s trial, however, Sandy wanted to ask the girl about the previous false allegation of rape that she had made. The judge in the case, Dennis Flynn, refused to permit that. Although Wisconsin’s rape shield law includes a specific exemption for false allegations, Flynn ruled that the line of questioning about the previous allegation would be prejudicial while having little value for determining the truth of the case against Redmond.

Redmond’s case was then taken up by Howard Eisenberg, the dean of Marquette University Law School. The case ended up in the U.S. District Court which eventually overturned Redmond’s conviction. It noted that since the only evidence against Redmond was the testimony of the girl, the girl’s previous false allegation indeed had probative value. The opinion of that court reads, in part,

But the fact that the girl had led her mother, a nurse, and the police on a wild goose chase for a rapist merely to get her mother’s attention supplied a powerful reason for disbelieving her testimony eleven months later about having sex with another man, by showing that she had a motive for what would otherwise be an unusual fabrication.

…

And thus the court’s ruling, though ostensibly based on the rape-shield statute, derives no support from that statute. The statute protects complaining witnesses in rape cases (including statutory-rape cases) from being questioned about their sexual conduct, but a false charge of rape is not sexual conduct

Redmond was ordered released by the court. He was somewhat vindicated by the decision, but in the process lost 8 years of his life due to an incredibly bizarre interpretation of a rape shield law — an interpretation that the U.S. District Court dismissed out of hand.

As Attorney Mark Richards, who represented Redmond in his first round of appeals, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “A lot of people will point to this and say it is proof the system works. But it’s not proof that the system works, because this guy has been sitting there (in prison) for 7 1/2 years.”

Sources:

Redmond v. United States. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 99-2333, February 14, 2001.

Court reverses rape case conviction. Tom Kertscher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 21, 2001.