CBS has fired Hayley Geftman-Gold, the network’s vice president and senior counsel, after a bizarre and disgraceful tweet saying that she is “not even sympathetic” to victims of the Las Vegas shooting because “country music fans often are Republican gun toters.” We have been discussing the free speech concerns over employees being disciplined for expressing their political or religious viewpoints on social media. However, this is a news network that contractually reserves the right to terminate employees for conduct deemed inimical to its journalistic image or mission.
Geftman-Gold fully vented in her tweeting, proclaiming “If they wouldn’t do anything when children were murdered I have no hope that Repugs [sic] will ever do the right thing.” She then added “I’m actually not even sympathetic bc [sic] country music fans often are Republican gun toters [sic].”
It was a shocking statement with dozens of families grieving this week over the senseless murder of their loved ones. As a mother of three children, one would have hoped that Getfman-Gold could muster some sympathy for the families who lost children and loved ones.
CBS emphasized that Geftman-Gold was a recent hire:
“This individual, who was with us for approximately one year, violated the standards of our company and is no longer an employee of CBS. Her views as expressed on social media are deeply unacceptable to all of us at CBS. Our hearts go out to the victims in Las Vegas and their families.”
Geftman-Gold earned her Bachelor’s degree at University of Pennsylvania AND then graduated from Columbia Law School in 2000. She was an associate at the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher as well as Heller Ehrman. She also worked as Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs for MTV Networks. Her husband is Ryan Geftman-Gold, President of Handoff Business Ventures. Geftman-Gold is referenced in a prior article as a Clinton supporter who helped organize a premature “victory party” on election night. (Ironically, Clinton herself was the focus of criticism after launching into an attack of the NRA after telling people to keep politics out of the tragedy). However, there is no prior controversy revealing this type of callous and hateful attitude.
While she was not part of the news division, her comments proved deeply embarrassing for the network, particularly at a time when the major networks have been accused of bias against Trump and Republicans. Obviously, as a lawyer, it is often the case that you must curtail your public comments in the interests of a client.
Andrew,
I haven’t kept up with the evaluation(s) of the impact of legalized recreational pot.
About 5-6 states have made it legal.
I think that the dangers of pot are dwarfed by the hazards of the “heavier” drugs, so trying to forecast the impact of legalizing ALL drugs by studying the results in those states seems to be of limited value.
enigma,
I am still curious:
““I do reject public policies that encourage single parent households”
I am not sure what policies these might be. What are you thinking of in particular?”
How about welfare policies that discourage the male part of that baby making from sticking around. To make the math easy, let’s say the cutoff for bennies is $30,000 per year of income. So the woman with the child can collect $27,000 which inclides bennies per year. If the man re-enters the picture and he’s earning $30,000 a year, that takes their per year up to $57,000. That’s far in excess of the $30,000 cutoff. So the woman then loses the $12,000 in bennies she was getting. Their income then drops to $45,000 a year. Divide that between the man and the woman: $22,500.
For the woman that’s a loss of $4,500 per year. If she can keep him out of the picture, she can clear that money fair and square.
For the man, it is a $7,500 loss per year. As long as he keeps his contact with her and the kids on the down low, he can keep that money and keep on keeping on.
That’s how this works. The sysyem itself is not designed to incentive keeping households together.
“I did find that 58% of people imprisoned are black”.
Do you have a source for that,Enigma? NAACP number is that 34% of prisoners are black.
I didn’t scroll through all c.550 comments on this thread, so maybe this question ( source for the 58% figure) has already been addressed.
I fail to see the relevance of applying demographic percentages to incarceration rates – what are such statistics supposed to be indicting? Are we honestly going to say that the prison population should be perfectly identical with demography? Sounds like a lunatic version of Balkanization to me.
Andrew,…
These numbers/percentages are used to argue that Blacks are disportionately and unfairly targeted by our judicial system.
Leaving that issue aside for the time being, I would at least expect accuracy from those who cite statistics to make that claim.
Finding it may be a challenge but I posted the link in the same post where I stated the 58% figure.
Enigma,
..I did read that link.
It mostly covered the increase in the total number of those incarcerated, but it didn’t state that 58% of prisoners were Black.
I misquoted the figure, it stated that 58% of the prison population in the year analyzed were black or Hispanic.
Effect on minorities and poor people
It is a well-established fact that minorities are overrepresented in the prison population. About 58 percent of all sentenced inmates in 2013 were black or hispanic, yet the two groups make up just about 30 percent of the total population.
God forbid anyone concludes 28% of Blacks and Hispanics are doing criminal activities outside their demographics.
I think robbery crosses the color bar a great deal. Homicide tends to be intra-racial.
Olly,..
If Blacks are 13% of the overall population and 35% of the prison population, that is a problem.
If Blacks are 13% of the population and commit 45% of the murders, that, too, is a problem.
The continuing debate here is whether, and to what extent, these numbers are a evidence of racial bias.
A 13% rate of incarceration for Blacks, matching their percentage of the population, may be the “acceptable” level of incarceration for some.
Relative to the levels of criminal activity, ot’s not surprising that “minorities are overrepresented in the prison population”.
By your logic Tom, the NFL is disproportionately black and thus racist toward all those Asian Americans that would otherwise be the next Tom Brady’s or whatever.
It makes no sense whatsoever that there should be a correlation between national demographics and incarceration percentages. It’s a strawman argument designed to advance an agenda while concealing core truths from people unwilling to do their own fact finding.
Andrew,
…
I wrote anout how those statistics were used to support the claim of rascism….I didn’t say that the claim is valid.
That’s why I referenced disporportionately high crime RATES
Tom,
“The continuing debate here is whether, and to what extent, these numbers are a evidence of racial bias.”
The discussion on the oldest page examines this.
By the same logic I’d say African Americans are over represented in the NFL. Their large numbers displace persons of other colors – in particular Asian Americans who are vastly under represented in professional football.
Does that make sense? Of course not. Because it’s stupid. Same goes for the weird idea that the prison population should identically match national demographics. Sometimes I wonder, were we all given the choice between the red pill and the blue pill and we’re only now learning both were cut with bad mojo 🙂
It is a well-established fact that minorities are overrepresented in the prison population.
They’re not ‘over-represented’. That’s how criminal perpetration is distributed among coarse demographic categories. You enforce the law without favor, that’s what your prison population is going to look like.
By the same logic, African Americans are over represented in the NFL.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/chapter/race_prison
Your point is what? Even if they weren’t conning their readers, those in prison on a bill where the top count is a drug charge encompass 21% of the total state and federal prison census. People are in prison because they’ve committed violent crimes or conventional property crimes like burglary and car theft.
I used to live in a non-metropolitan county which had a population of about 70,000. Robberies in that county averaged about 5 a year IIRC, for a rate more than 90% below national means. It was a perfectly ordinary non-metropolitan county in New York. That’s life in small town New York. I grew up in a region of the state which has a population of just north of 1.1 million urban, suburban, exurban, small town, and rural. Fully 2/3 of the homicides in the region (and nearly all of the unsolved homicides) occur in a portion of the core city where lives about 110,000 people.
Why do you think that is? Do you think dairy farmers from Ontario county are staging drive-by shootings in Rochester slums just for kicks? You can certainly improve the level of public order in those sections of the city. There is a great deal of slack in that regard. However, improving public order is going to mean ample police patrols, it’s going to mean stop-and-frisk of dubious characters, it’s going to mean arrests, it’s going to mean remanding people to state prisons. And the people arrested and imprisoned aren’t going to be middle-aged dairy farmers.
Your whole shtick is that social reality is some sort of illusion manufactured by honky prestidigitators or that it’s just unimportant contra such horrendous social problems as ‘voter suppression’. You’re not fooling anybody. What’s the point?
Conflation. There is no sane, rational reason incareration percentages should match societal demographics. It’s a strawman (like so many left-wing strawmen), designed to indict something.
Using the same logic, I could say that Chinese Americans are over-represented in the fast food industry since (at least where I live) you can’t drive ten miles without encountering dozens of Chinese joints owned and operated largely by first or second generation Chinese Americans.
Prairie Rose was good enough to provide some information to help you understand how we get to those numbers. The entire link is attached but if you bother to read this you’ll be enlightened.
19. Problems of Systemic Racial Biases Within Drug Courts
“Importantly, representation of African-Americans in jails and prisons was nearly twice that of both Drug Courts and probation, and was also substantially higher among all arrestees for drug-related offenses. On one hand, these discrepancies might be explained by relevant differences in the populations. For example, minority arrestees might be more likely to have the types of prior convictions that could exclude them from eligibility for Drug Courts or probation. On the other hand, systemic differences in plea-bargaining, charging or sentencing practices might be having the practical effect of denying Drug Court and other community-based dispositions to otherwise needy and eligible minority citizens. Further research is needed to determine whether racial or ethnic minority citizens are being denied the opportunity for Drug Court for reasons that may be unrelated to their legitimate clinical needs or legal eligibility.”
West Huddleston and Douglas B. Marlowe, “Painting the Current Picture: A National Report on Drug Courts and Other Problem Solving Court Programs in the United States” (Alexandria, VA: National Drug Court Institute, July 2011), NCJ 235776, p. 29.
http://www.ndci.org/sites/defa…
20. Racism and the War on Drugs
“The main obstacle to getting black America past the illusion that racism is still a defining factor in America is the strained relationship between young black men and police forces. The massive number of black men in prison stands as an ongoing and graphically resonant rebuke to all calls to ‘get past racism,’ exhibit initiative, or stress optimism. And the primary reason for this massive number of black men in jail is the War on Drugs. Therefore, if the War on Drugs were terminated, the main factor keeping race-based resentment a core element in the American social fabric would no longer exist. America would be a better place for all.”
McWhorter, John, “How the War on Drugs Is Destroying Black America,” Cato’s Letter (Washington, DC: The Cato Institute, Winter 2011), p. 1.
http://www.cato.org/sites/cato…
21. Racial Disparities in Enforcement and Incarceration
“The racial disparities in the rates of drug arrests culminate in dramatic racial disproportions among incarcerated drug offenders. At least two-thirds of drug arrests result in a criminal conviction.18 Many convicted drug offenders are sentenced to incarceration: an estimated 67 percent of convicted felony drug defendants are sentenced to jail or prison.19 The likelihood of incarceration increases if the defendant has a prior conviction.20 Since blacks are more likely to be arrested than whites on drug charges, they are more likely to acquire the convictions that ultimately lead to higher rates of incarceration. Although the data in this backgrounder indicate that blacks represent about one-third of drug arrests, they constitute 46 percent of persons convicted of drug felonies in state courts.21 Among black defendants convicted of drug offenses, 71 percent received sentences to incarceration in contrast to 63 percent of convicted white drug offenders.22 Human Rights Watch’s analysis of prison admission data for 2003 revealed that relative to population, blacks are 10.1 times more likely than whites to be sent to prison for drug offenses.23”
Fellner, Jamie, “Decades of Disparity: Drug Arrests and Race in the United States,” Human Rights Watch (New York, NY: March 2009), p. 16.
22. Racial and Gender Disparities
“Looking at the numbers through the lenses of race and gender reveals stark differences. Black adults are four times as likely as whites and nearly 2.5 times as likely as Hispanics to be under correctional control. One in 11 black adults—9.2 percent—was under correctional supervision at year end 2007. And although the number of female offenders continues to grow, men of all races are under correctional control at a rate five times that of women.”
Pew Center on the States, “One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections,” (Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts, March 2009), p. 5.
pewcenteronthestate
23. Chance of Imprisonment, 2001
“In 2001, the chances of going to prison were highest among black males (32.2%) and Hispanic males (17.2%) and lowest among white males (5.9%). The lifetime chances of going to prison among black females (5.6%) were nearly as high as for white males. Hispanic females (2.2%) and white females (0.9%) had much lower chances of going to prison.”
Bonczar, Thomas P., US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Prevalence of Imprisonment in the US Population, 1974-2001,” NCJ197976 (Washington DC: US Department of Justice, August 2003), p. 8.
bjs.gov/
24. Incarceration Rates Compared
“When incarceration rates by State (excluding Federal inmates) are estimated separately by gender, race, and Hispanic origin, male rates are found to be 10 times higher than female rates; black rates 5-1/2 times higher than white rates; and Hispanic rates nearly 2 times higher than white rates.”
Hopefully this is sane and rational enough for you?
drugwarfacts.org/chapter/race_prison
Enigma in Black.
You might not be aware, but the blog is configured to only permit two hyperlinks per comment. If you desire the readers to have more than two, than this can be accomplished through the use of multiple-comments with two or fewer each.
So that it would work, I dereferenced some of the extra hyperlinks so that it would post for you.
Thanks, Darren, I’ll conform to that in the future.
I caught the recommendation that if the war on,drugs were terminated,,it would lessen race-based resentments.
There could probably be a pilot program established whete a community/ jurisdiction does away with drug laws.
Then a follow-up program to see what those communities look like after abolishing the drug laws.
Communities are welcome to do that, hence the recent marijuana legalizations. What have the results been where that has happened specific to posession and related offenses? Moreover, have those state and municipal goverments done what all drug legalization advocates suggest and emerged with budget surpluses via taxation of marijunana? Or was legalization the 20-teens equivalent of all those state lotteries that were supposed to ensure education was always and forever fully funded? Interesting isn’t it that when local regimes talk budget cuts the first three professions they want to axe are teachers, cops, and firefighters?
Anyway, I’d be good with what you are suggesting AFTER we look at what the marijuana experiment has taught us.
Tom,
About fifteen years ago I participated in a discussion where we proposed the pilot program you mention. After much debate we arrived that such a proposal would be difficult to implement and study effectively because while there certainly would be a decrease in drug arrests, at the very least being an artifact of there being no prosecutions, having a drug sanctuary would attract unsavory, criminal elements into that town and the consequences of that would result in a rise in other crimes due to the propensity for those attracted to be malefactors. For study purposes it will reach a the wrong conclusion.
To mitigate that issue, the answer is to expand the scope of the testing where there are no islands of sanctuary and instead it is everywhere within an area that is removed from close borders to non-participating jurisdictions.
Another problem is who will supply the drugs? If the residents are left to their own devices the easiest source of the drugs will be the traditional illicit market since it is already established. Since the isolation and nearby availability of other prohibition jurisdictions the cartels and gangs who usually supply the narcotics will gain a safe haven. The best way to eliminate that problem is to have the state create a framework where legitimate agencies can provide quality (meaning drugs not cut with poisons and other unsavory elements) and most importantly a price that is lower than the cartels can economically survive. It would have to be perhaps an analog of what we did in Washington, but because the state was legitimately concerned about placating the consent decree with the DOJ by heavily regulating weed, and taxing it ridiculously high to appease greedy politicians the cartels will not be fully banished.
But in support of your argument, highly punishing drug offenses create in offenders a form of bondage that requires much to break free. Penalties are high, and the labeling of being a drug felon curtails most opportunities for the young person. I am talking mostly about otherwise decent individuals who become addicted to drugs and enter the criminal justice system. Then the sociological damage sets in with increases in single parenthood and absence of a male from the family, which is known along with general poverty to be one of the largest predictors of the percentage a male youth will become criminal.
On the other hand, and this is very controversial, the increase in drug arrests with high punishment rates had the effect in the short term of lowering crime in that it removed from society large numbers of those who are determined to commit present and future crimes that are likely to increase in severity with time. Incarceration results in incapacitation where the offender through aging emerges from prison and is now outside of the age group comparatively less likely to engage in crime. Unfortunately in doing so it deprives the offender of young adulthood during high productive years.
In short, we need to do this on at least a state level and preferably nationwide. Drugs I am in favor of legalizing, provided there are safeguards and quality assurance in production and reasonable taxation and monitoring, include marijuana, cocaine (which I am on the fence with) LSD, and magic mushrooms. But Heroin, methamphetamine, PCP (angel dust), and krokadil cause such harm to the body I cannot see any reasonable argument for legalization. If Americans continue to adore drugs and we recognize this, I believe we can go a long way to stopping the cycle of incarceration if we could create a situation where the drugs to be legally found are “good enough” for nearly all drug users to be satisfied and not want the bad stuff. Keep it away from kids, and do it only at home, we might as a society arrive at a détente in the drug cold war.
Gee I have an idea. If drug offenses carry such severe penalties, how about prospective offenders choose not to commit drug-related offenses. Radical concept I know personal responsibility and all in this day and age in which no one is supposed to be accountable for anything at all.
I agree with you, but we have to consider who we are dealing with. Criminals or potential criminals as a whole are not the best and brightest. Rationality doesn’t guide most of these. Personal responsibility is paramount but unfortunately many sub-cultures are more predisposed to value mores differently. You and I will value a good education as worthy of sacrifice, doofuses value the immediate and easy. It is like the monkey who sees an apple behind two closely placed bars. He can move his hand in to grasp the apple, but in order to retrieve the fruit he has to roll the apple through the bars. Unfortunately due to poor thinking ability, he grabs the apple and tries for hours to move both his paw and the apple through at the same time when of course will not fit concurrently.
So why is that the case? How come, in my neighborhood which is roughly 40% black, 40% white, and 20% Latino or Asian, virtually every kid graduates high school and goes to college or to work after high school? They don’t hang out on the corner looking for some mess to get into. They don’t drift or behave as shiftless. They excel in all that they do. Why do these kids, the majority are of color, not execute poor thinking?
Contrasted with their peers 20 minutes north in Baltimore that don’t do the things enumerated in the above?
andrewworkshop – what do your ethnic neighborhood’s front yards look like? Does it look like people are proud to live there? Are the lawns mowed, houses painted, windows repaired, etc.? Then those kids are going to college or into the workforce. Check out the neighborhood where you think they are having problems and although it will be spotty, you can see the difference.
Andrew,
“Why do these kids, the majority are of color, not execute poor thinking?”
What percentage of these kids in your neighborhood are poor and/or live in single parent families?
Thanks for asking. Virtually none. Since you’ve asked the question, that alone dissolves the conflated apples and oranges argument of a racist judicial system since you have – by virtue of your query – acknowledged that there are far more pieces to the puzzle that those merely labeled demography.
That said, why do single parent and impoverished households produce criminals? (Not sold yet on the idea that poverty and crime correlate by the way).
Thanks, Darren.
I can see that implementation and consequences of such a pilot program would present problems.
A somewhat related recommendation from some Black activists is to ban the police from their communities.
It would be “interesting” to see how that played out….relying on “community-based solution” and the honor system instead of LEOs.
What is the purpose of that statistic though?
I’d say it’s conflation – an apples and oranges thing designed to indict something. Or hide something. It makes no sense that incarceration demographics should perfectly match those of the national population. To me such a proposition sounds like a lunatic version of Balkanization or Lebanonization.
Andrew,..
The purpose of citing only a statistic that shows that Blacks are incarcerated at a much higher rate than Whites is to back the claim of rascism.
The purpose of looking beyond that statistic ..
.e.g., incarceration relative to crime rate within a demographic group…is to look at factors beyond the claim or rascism.
Fair enough. I’d charge that those that push the statistic prefer we focus on allegations of racism rather than looking at all those other factors.
Similarly, I’d like to see a statistic that compares, for example, the demographics of Washington DC as a whole and those incarcerated at Lorton. (DC lacks room in the district for a prison so theirs is in northern VA in Lorton). Same goes for other urban areas. What are the demographics of say, Chicago, versus the number of Chicagoans in prison?
andrewworkshop – Chicago is in Cook Co. I think, but I heard that Chicago is having black flight. Blacks who can afford it are leaving the city and county because it is too dangerous. They are more than welcome here. We are doing a lot of new building and so either new builds or old builds will be available.
I don’t know if what you say is true or not, but that brings up a fork in the road. Among other things, one choice is to remove the criminals from where our children are or for one to leave the criminals and move. The former requires intensive police action and families working together to create safe zones where there is no toleration of criminal activity. However, people have been trained to look at the police as pigs so they lose sight of what the goal is and then lose their children. The latter requires a lot of money and there is no guarantee that criminal activity won’t follow. Families must stand together and not be intimidated by the race-baiters. They need to be given power in the areas where they live.
Andrewworkshop,
The rest of the discussion can be found on the oldest page about halfway down or so. It is a long series of replies under Enigma’s Calhoun quote.
My use of the 58% of incarcerated blacks are in for violent offenses was to demonstrate that these were not eligible bachelors being taken out of circulation for women to consider as future marriage partners. Violent individuals are not really eligible for creating stable relationships.
The discussion was in part about the effects of single parent families for poor/low income people. For people of all colors, being disadvantaged and in a single parent family creates a very high likelihood that a child not only experiences violence themselves, but goes on to commit it against others, along with a long list of likely detrimental outcomes (dropping out of school, teen pregnancy, depression, suicide, etc).
Unfortunatlely, 66% of black kids live in disadvantaged single parent families. Their chances of being abused and having all those heart-wrenching outcomes is very high. The links are on the oldest page.
Lots of people live in single-parent families. It’s suboptimal and an indicator of cultural decay. A comfortable majority of such people get through life without dealing cocaine and knocking-over convenience stores. There are not much in the way of policy tools you can properly deploy to induce people to conduct their domestic life in a more orderly and respectable fashion. You can address street crime. Deal with the problem, please.
Steps,
“Lots of people live in single-parent families.” Yeah, I did. When the family is disadvantaged on top of it (mine was pretty close–welfare for a little while, then, low income), the statistics say the likelihood of getting oneself into trouble is very high.
You are right that there are few policy tools that can affect the home life. However, the book How Children Succeed by Paul Tough discusses some interesting mentoring and social programs to prevent the downhill slide many of these kids experience.
Some of these programs could be/are charitable organizations, while others could be reincarnations of what already exists.
Considering the high rate of mineral/vitamin/fatty acid deficiencies associated with violent inmates, and their supplementation leading to a marked decrease in violent behavior, perhaps the food stamps program could be changed to make sure families are eating real food, same with juvenile delinquent centers and prisons.
Here is some additional information on dealing with delinquent kids:
The effects of changing the diet of delinquent kids:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ2J3gQ9G34
TEDxTalk on “An insider’s plan for rehabilitating the juvenile justice system”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOxpjjzP6lM
Let’s try both.
Perhaps hospitals could provide new moms with a baby/parenting book like The Baby Book by Dr. William Sears? Some hospitals provide in-home new mother’s care during the first few weeks of a baby’s birth–a nurse will come to the mother’s home to check her and the baby following birth. Besides physical care and rudimentary baby-care lessons, could the appointment be extended to include optional follow-up phone calls at 3, 6, 9 and 12 month marks?
How about we stop using the welfare system to kick dads out of households.
Prairie Rose,
“Considering the high rate of mineral/vitamin/fatty acid deficiencies associated with violent inmates, and their supplementation leading to a marked decrease in violent behavior, perhaps the food stamps program could be changed to make sure families are eating real food, same with juvenile delinquent centers and prisons.”
I wouldn’t put too much faith in this working; the websites that tout the success of supplementation are basing those claims (to sell stuff, natch) on a 2010 Dutch study evaluating 200 male inmates ages 18-25. Very, very small sample size. Although the guards reported decreased incidences of violence post-supplementation, no other measure of aggression, violence, psychopathy was affected. The study authors stated in their paper not to make any significant claims from their findings, and no follow-up study or similar study in another country has been published that I can find. The vast majority (~90%) of violent crime diminished roughly 20 yrs after lead was removed from gasoline. I suspect that any other modifications one could make is just messing around in the statistical noise.
“Besides physical care and rudimentary baby-care lessons, could the appointment be extended to include optional follow-up phone calls at 3, 6, 9 and 12 month marks?” Now you’re describing “Call the Midwife.” Love that show, but we already have pediatric well-baby visits at those developmental milestones. Are you suggesting NHS-type PAs go round to people’s houses ensuring that single moms are feeding their children properly?
“However, the book How Children Succeed by Paul Tough discusses some interesting mentoring and social programs to prevent the downhill slide many of these kids experience.” I agree that these can be very successful. Many kids just need to be told they are not victims of the system, and they can improve their lot in life with hard work and determination.
Cape Cod,
Thank you for the thoughtful reply!
Prairie Rose: “Considering the high rate of mineral/vitamin/fatty acid deficiencies associated with violent inmates, and their supplementation leading to a marked decrease in violent behavior, perhaps the food stamps program could be changed to make sure families are eating real food, same with juvenile delinquent centers and prisons.”
Cape Cod: “I wouldn’t put too much faith in this working; the websites that tout the success of supplementation are basing those claims (to sell stuff, natch) on a 2010 Dutch study evaluating 200 male inmates ages 18-25.”
The efficacy of supplementation/eating real foods is not based solely on this small study.
“When Sinclair persuaded the wartime British government in 1942 to supplement the diet of all children with cod-liver oil and orange juice, he speculated that among other ills, poor diets could lead to antisocial behaviour. Since that time, evidence has grown to support this link (Moynahan, 1976; Virkkunen & Huttunen, 1982; Benton & Cook, 1991; Stevens et al, 1995, 1996; Hamazaki et al, 1996; Schoenthaler et al, 1997; Walsh et al, 1997; Hibbeln et al, 1998; Bjork et al, 1999; Golomb et al, 2000). If there is a causal relationship between micronutrient deficiencies and antisocial behaviour, then where such deficiencies exist supplementing the diet with appropriate nutrients should improve behaviour….
The experimental, placebo-controlled, double-blind methodology has demonstrated that supplementing prisoners’ diets with physiological dosages of vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids caused a reduction in antisocial behaviour to a remarkable degree.”
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/181/1/22.long
“There is some evidence to support the use of omega-3 fatty acids in the treatment of conditions characterized by a high level of impulsivity and aggression and borderline personality disorders. In patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, small-to-modest effects of omega-3 HUFAs have been found.”
J Clin Med. 2016 Jul 27;5(8). pii: E67. doi: 10.3390/jcm5080067.
Supplementation with Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Psychiatric Disorders: A Review of Literature Data. by Bozzatello P, et al.
Also:
J Child Adolesc Psychopharmacol. 2017 May 8. doi: 10.1089/cap.2016.0199. [Epub ahead of print]
Micronutrient Therapy for Violent and Aggressive Male Youth: An Open-Label Trial. by Hambly JL, et al.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2017 Oct 2. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12817. [Epub ahead of print]
Vitamin-mineral treatment improves aggression and emotional regulation in children with ADHD: a fully blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. by Rucklidge JJ, et al.
If cells are not functioning effectively due to marginal insufficiency or outright deficiency of micronutrients/fatty acids (typically compounded with other issues like high insulin, fouled up cortisol, bacterial dysbiosis, toxin load), then the rest of the organism will have trouble, too. For example, insufficient magnesium means cells will not produce biologically active ATP needed for muscle relaxation, calcium will not go to bones where it is supposed to as effectively; insulin regulation is affected, cell signaling is impaired, along with a whole host of other ills. Combine this single deficiency with a host of others, along with hormonal disruptions from stress, immune system involvement–allergies/intolerances, etc, and you’ve got an unwell person.
Cape Cod: “Besides physical care and rudimentary baby-care lessons, could the appointment be extended to include optional follow-up phone calls at 3, 6, 9 and 12 month marks?” Now you’re describing “Call the Midwife.” Love that show, but we already have pediatric well-baby visits at those developmental milestones. Are you suggesting NHS-type PAs go round to people’s houses ensuring that single moms are feeding their children properly?”
I have not seen “Call the Midwife”. Sounds intriguing. There are pediatric well-baby visits at those marks, but mothers are only asked at their 6-week post-partum check-up how they are doing. It took much longer for negative post-partum symptoms to set in for me and other mothers I know.
I do not advocate more government involvement at all. Supper inspectors would be creepy. When I had my first child, a nurse from the hospital came to our home about a week after the birth to check my post-partum physical recovery, conduct a check-up of my child (e.g., weight check), and to answer any questions I had. Could such a service by the hospital be extended to those month markers? Here is an example of such a program (while the mothers were randomly selected, they did choose to participate): http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/132/Supplement_2/S153
Something has to change, considering 43% of kids or so live in low income families.
Prairie Rose, it is possible that dramatic differences were found in the studies you cite, but those are controlled studies with very specific endpoints that are measured. Once those conditions are no longer maintained, it is impossible to sustain long-term changes in mood, behavior, etc. I would agree that eating good food is important to maintain proper mental and physical health, I just think that a lack of food in these populations is an overriding issue. Increasing numbers of children are on school breakfast and lunch programs (meaning they rely on the school to feed them a hot meal). In these populations, other factors are likely more important than whether or not they’re getting Omega 3s. Again, not a good idea to compare inmates and psych patients to the general pop; I’ll read the articles, but the first one you cite is a study in 231 inmates whose diet was recorded for 7 days during which they received supplements. I’ve never seen any study that actually noted statistically significant changes in such a short period of supplementation, so call me skeptical. Also, doctors are now saying vitamin supplements are unnecessary. Is the AMA unaware of these studies, or are they just unpersuaded? I’m not saying that to be snarky, I don’t have the answer, but that’s one of the first questions I would ask.
If you like British TV, you might want to check out Call the Midwife. It’s delightful.
CCS – I will second the motion on watching Call the Midwife. After several seasons of watching, I think I can birth a baby with no problems. 🙂
Paul, glad you’ve acquired that skill–even the actor who plays the doctor admits he couldn’t do it!!
I adore Judy Parfitt (Sister Monica Joan)–her lines are the best, particularly since Pam Ferris left.
Prairie Rose, my professional work generally focuses on the toxic aspects of what one might accidentally swallow (or inhale), so I’m far less knowledgeable about vitamins/minerals (lost all that education from college). However, whenever I see a supplementation study I immediately think Cui bono? Perhaps there’s not a lot of money to be made from Omega 3s that isn’t already being made, but micronutrients? Maybe there’s a market for just the right kind of mix. The Mayo Clinic believes the scientific evidence for benefits WRT ADD, mood, behavior, aggression, etc. from taking Omega 3 supplements is unclear. I’m not saying there’s no benefit, I’m just saying the evidence doesn’t strongly support taking them for those issues.
CCS – I have been watching a lot of true crime drama from England, New Zealand and Australia lately, so I have been off Call the Midwife. Is Sister Monica Joan the one who is a little batty?
Paul, yes, she is the eldest nun who sneaks sweets, and no longer practices midwifery.
CCS – yes, she is a delight. 🙂
Darren,
WordPress ate my reply to Cape Cod. I tried reposting and it ate that one, too. I do not think I am over the link limit and there are certainly no cusswords. Could you retrieve it?
No cuss words? Boring! 🙂
Cape Cod,
I agree, many issues are affecting these populations besides a poor diet. Some of these other factors were discussed previously on the oldest page and only somewhat on this page of threads.
Regarding the issue of food, 50% of kids in poverty are overweight or obese. That means they are getting the wrong foods in their systems. There is a difference between being fed and being nourished. Being nourished means, for one, the brain is not just getting enough glucose, it means it also has enough fatty acids to properly build the myelin sheaths of the brain, and, has what it needs to effectively send the signals.
“other factors are likely more important than whether or not they’re getting Omega 3s”
What factors are you thinking of?
“Once those conditions are no longer maintained, it is impossible to sustain long-term changes in mood, behavior, etc.”
That is why supplements and access/use of real food must be a prescription and/or a habit. It is possible. I am an anecdotal example. I got sick after the birth of all but my last child and was having mood swings, difficulty thinking and remembering, insomnia, and a whole host of other ills. Doctor (a Functional Medicine one) prescribed supplements and dietary changes have restored my health. You are right, 7 days really is too short to see much change; it took me about 6 weeks to notice anything. I am not sure which study you are referring to, though. The first article I cited in my last post was an article from the British Journal of Psychiatry which noted: “The average time spent on supplementation was 142 days for the placebo group and 142.62 for the active group.”
There is an excellent video by internal medicine physician Dr. Terry Wahls about the power of fresh food and supplements. She was in a tilt-recline wheelchair due to MS, but can now walk again. See the TEDx talk “Minding My Mitochondria” on youtube. I have tried valiantly to post, but it is not working.
Vitamin supplementation probably is not necessary for a completely healthy person who eats a diet rich in fresh, real food and who gets plenty of sunshine and exercise (they will need it as they get older and absorb the micronutrients less effectively, though). I am not sure whether the AMA is unaware of these studies or what. Their recommendations are changing slow as molasses, and, they have a LONG way to go.
The standard medical care for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (an autoimmune condition) is to put the patient on thyroid medication only. The Functional Medicine doctor I see had me change my diet and prescribed supplements. My antibody numbers and thyroid hormone numbers are almost normal and my symptoms are nearly gone or completely gone (like the sleep, skin, and memory issues). I may need a slight dose of replacement thyroid hormones, but the care I received from my FM doctor was far more effective than what my PCP was recommending.
I do like British TV. I will check it out–thank you for the recommendation!
Cape Cod, here is Part I of the reply I have attempted to post about 6 times. WordPress thinks it is delicious…
I agree, many issues are affecting these populations besides a poor diet. Some of these other factors were discussed previously on the oldest page and only somewhat on this page of threads.
Regarding the issue of food, 50% of kids in poverty are overweight or obese. That means they are getting the wrong foods in their systems. There is a difference between being fed and being nourished. Being nourished means, for one, the brain is not just getting enough glucose, it means it also has enough fatty acids to properly build the myelin sheaths of the brain, and, has what it needs to effectively send the signals.
“other factors are likely more important than whether or not they’re getting Omega 3s”
What factors are you thinking of?
PR, obesity also has to do with lack of exercise, not just excess kcal intake. And given the vitamin fortification of even the worst of cereals in the market, it is hard to believe that most urban kids aren’t getting adequate B vitamins. Omega 3s are a different matter, I’d have to look at some recent NHANES data to see if the scientists are measuring those types of intake numbers for different age and sex cohorts. I would also imagine you’re talking about most Midwest folk also, rich and poor, as most will not have adequate fish in their diet. I am aware of myelin sheath functionality, but adequate myelin isn’t the whole story. Excess myelin is also a problem with brain function. I will provide links in the next response. Sorry the blog has been eating your posts.
Cape Cod, here is Part II:
“Once those conditions are no longer maintained, it is impossible to sustain long-term changes in mood, behavior, etc.”
That is why supplements and access/use of real food must be a prescription and/or a habit. It is possible. I am an anecdotal example. I got sick after the birth of all but my last child and was having mood swings, difficulty thinking and remembering, insomnia, and a whole host of other ills. Doctor (a Functional Medicine one) prescribed supplements and dietary changes have restored my health. You are right, 7 days really is too short to see much change; it took me about 6 weeks to notice anything. I am not sure which study you are referring to, though. The first article I cited in my last post was an article from the British Journal of Psychiatry which noted: “The average time spent on supplementation was 142 days for the placebo group and 142.62 for the active group.”
Here is an excellent video by an internal medicine physician about the power of fresh food and supplements. She was in a tilt-recline wheelchair due to MS:
I restored your comment.
Cape Cod, here is Part III. For whatever reason, Part II will not post.
Vitamin supplementation probably is not necessary for a completely healthy person who eats a diet rich in fresh, real food and who gets plenty of sunshine and exercise (they will need it as they get older and absorb the micronutrients less effectively, though). I am not sure whether the AMA is unaware of these studies or what. Their recommendations are changing slow as molasses, and, they have a LONG way to go.
The standard medical care for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (an autoimmune condition) is to put the patient on thyroid medication only. The Functional Medicine doctor I see had me change my diet and prescribed supplements. My antibody numbers and thyroid hormone numbers are almost normal and my symptoms are nearly gone or completely gone (like the sleep, skin, and memory issues). I may need a slight dose of replacement thyroid hormones, but the care I received from my FM doctor was far more effective than what my PCP was recommending.
I do like British TV. I will check it out–thank you for the recommendation!
Hi Prairie Rose, thanks for your persistence in sticking with the dialogue, and for sharing your success in handling your personal medical conditions. I’m glad things worked out for you.
I have a close family member who was dx with Hashimoto’s but IMO, she self-induced the condition when she went paleo and cut table salt out of her diet. She doesn’t eat fish (doesn’t like it), so she starved her thyroid of all iodine. She’s been working over the course of several yrs with a doctor who allows her to test all her hormone levels, etc. and now everything is screwed up. She is also is monkeying around with mineral level intake based on levels of metals in her hair and woo-woo recommendations she’s getting from NaturalNews.com and similar sites. This is a dangerous thing to do, and when someone changes things in the diet to affect one parameter (say a hormone level), it often ends up adversely affecting levels of other biologically essential compounds. This is because the body is under tight homeostatic control, it only keeps what it needs to function, and feedback loops in biochemistry mean that excesses of something in the cells can result in disruptions in normal function in unanticipated ways. HRT therapy in post-menopausal women is a classic example of this. One of the many reasons why I don’t put too much faith in scientific claims of large differences in things like mood, behavior, attitude, etc. based on single changes in diet. There are too many potential issues going on neurologically that could be impacting the results (not to mention huge biases in self-reporting, errors in recall, and the inherently subjective nature of observations of study subjects by the researchers). This is what I mean by factors that are probably more important than micronutrients/Omega 3s. They are the following: STRESS, lack of sleep, whether or not the parent was a drug abuser during pregnancy (alcohol, pharmacotherapeutics, and street drugs), baseline neurological condition of either biological parent (ADD is strongly genetic, other neuropathies are as well), presence of parent at home after school and input of parent in homework, responsibilities of the child to parent younger siblings, presence of destabilizing influences around the home including drugs, violence, guns, etc. All of these can have an overriding effect on the psyche.
Here’s a study which indicates chronic stress early in life increases myelination in certain parts of the brain, resulting in adverse neurological effects.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201402/chronic-stress-can-damage-brain-structure-and-connectivity
I would imagine some of these kids you are talking about suffer from chronic stress even at an early age.
Cape Cod, here is Part II, reworked, again, so it will, hopefully, post:
“Once those conditions are no longer maintained, it is impossible to sustain long-term changes in mood, behavior, etc.”
That is why supplements and access/use of real food must be a prescription and/or a habit. It is possible. I would elaborate, but I have not yet figured out why this particular portion of my original post will not go through.
I am not sure which study you are referring to, though. The first article I cited in my last post was an article from the British Journal of Psychiatry which noted: “The average time spent on supplementation was 142 days for the placebo group and 142.62 for the active group.”
Cape Cod,
Apparently WordPress does not like personal anecdotes. That section is entirely excised.
Find on youtube “Minding My Mitochondria”.
Darren,
“I restored your comment.”
Thank you! My persistence has made me extremely redundant, though. Oh, well. All that talk about micronutrients made WordPress hungry. It must be craving something! 😉
I don’t know what exactly caused this to happen. Sometimes when repeatedly posting the same content it gets snagged, which of course starts with a post that doesn’t make it to start with whereupon the users tries again several times.
The comments sections have limitations to how deep a nested reply thread can continue. Such as seen in e-Mail subject lines as “Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hello Word” Which means an original message having recursively five replies. The purpose of such functionality is display. You will notice the left margin becomes so wide it crams the text of the reply into fewer columns and more lines. If unabated it could in theory become a column of single characters having hundreds of lines. This is why the limitation is enacted. I haven’t experimented as to what it appears like to the user if they exceed the nested thread count. It might just disappear after hitting [Reply] but I am unaware of the exact behavior
Cape Cod,
“PR, obesity also has to do with lack of exercise, not just excess kcal intake. And given the vitamin fortification of even the worst of cereals in the market, it is hard to believe that most urban kids aren’t getting adequate B vitamins.”
Obesity is more of a hormonal disturbance than a lack of exercise and excess kcal intake. Carbohydrates, insulin, leptin, ghrelin, cortisol and fructose are the prime contributors to weight gain. Gary Taubes discusses this in his book Good Calories, Bad Calories. Pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Robert Lustig discusses this in both Sugar: The Bitter Truth and in “The Skinny On Obesity” https://www.uctv.tv/skinny-on-obesity/
Fortification contributes enough micronutrients to prevent disease of outright deficiency like scurvy, beri beri, and pellagra. Also, intake does not equal absorption. Absorption can be blocked by insufficient stomach acid, gut dysbiosis, and phytates, especially by those found in grain-based foods. MTHFR SNPs can impair folate and B12 absorption. Deficiency in key nutrients can also impair the use of other nutrients. A person could be eating enough calcium, but if they do not get enough Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Vitamin K2, or magnesium, the calcium will not go to the bones as well as it should. The effects of inflammation can also increase the need for micronutrients. Obesity causes inflammation, along with other things that will be in urban kids’ environments (stress, pollution, etc).
There are interesting studies examining the sources of nutrients in American’s diets, as well as studies examining dietary choices based on socioeconomics.
“Nevertheless, even after accounting for the contributions of fortification and/or enrichment and dietary supplements, considerable percentages of individuals aged ≥2 y had intakes that were below the EAR for calcium and vitamin D and very few consumed the recommended amount of potassium (all nutrients that the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans singled out as being of public health concern). Intakes of magnesium and vitamins A, C, E, and K were also low for a considerable percentage of the population. ”
J Nutr. 2011 Oct; 141(10): 1847–1854.
Published online 2011 Aug 24. doi: 10.3945/jn.111.142257
PMCID: PMC3174857
Foods, Fortificants, and Supplements: Where Do Americans Get Their Nutrients?1,2,3
Victor L. Fulgoni, III, et al.
Prairie Rose, not all MDs buy into Gary Taubes’ theories, and criticisms abound regarding his research. Obese people want not to be held responsible for their obesity, so being told that their leptin resistance is the reason or “ghrelin is the culprit” is appealing. Almost 37% of US adults are obese (in 1962, it was 13%), and over 1/3 are overweight; lots of people are succumbing to their hunger hormone. US women have increased their total calorie intake 22% from 1977-2000; the increase for men over the same period was 7%. The average female weighs a whopping 169 lbs now, and men weigh 196. Currently, 50% of the meals people consume in a year are eaten outside of the home. Back when dinners out were rare, fewer people were overweight. Portion size makes a difference. Basically, people need to push back from the table.
WRT MTHFR SNPs, these are very complicated genetic changes that are poorly understood in the lay population. Furthermore, the science is not conclusive, not every study finds effects on folate or homocysteine status, and not all studies find effects on neurological symptoms. These studies are very dependent on the age of the study subjects, what tests they use to measure different endpoints, and they differ depending on the ethnic background of the subjects, as haplotypes are ancestry-dependent. People who are heterozygous or wild-type at a locus generally don’t have much of an issue; it’s the homozygous mutations that can be problematic, but again, those can generally be treated therapeutically. BTW, the at-risk population we were discussing when we began this conversation have no clue about SNPs and could not pony up the $200 required to get analyzed by 23 & Me (or their doctor). Our discussion is generally for the well-off.
“Fortification contributes enough micronutrients to prevent disease of outright deficiency like scurvy, beri beri, and pellagra. Also, intake does not equal absorption. Absorption can be blocked by insufficient stomach acid, gut dysbiosis,….”
How many people naturally have hypochlorhydria? This is typically seen only in patients chronically taking PPIs. The condition can also result due to lap-band surgery, but again, small percentage of the population, and typically not kids, which we were discussing when this conversation started. Gut dysbiosis–I hope you’re not referring to leaky gut, which is not medically recognized. How many people outside of Michael Pollan have had their intestinal flora evaluated by a lab? Again, a conversation for the well-off.
Darren and Cape Cod,
I am starting to feel like WordPress is out to get me. It ate another post! I must be too long-winded or something.
restored
Darren,
Thank you! You are awesome!
Cape Cod,
I am sorry to hear about your family member! Paleo can be very beneficial for certain conditions (e.g., MS), but it is challenging to implement without good guidance. Eating a gf and cow-dairy-free diet has been extremely beneficial for decreasing the autoimmune attack for me, as has adding in organ meats on occasion. So, we are not quite Paleo–more of a Weston Price/whole foods way of eating.
Why did she go Paleo? Was it because she was addressing a health issue or because it was popular? My Functional Medicine doctor did test my hormone levels (they were fouled up based on signs/symptoms) and my hair analysis did show I was tanked out on quite a few minerals (also indicated with signs/symptoms). However, I generally do not try to adjust single lab parameters for the most part and neither does my doc. Dr. Izabella Wentz and Dr. Amy Myers both have excellent books that give much better guidance than NaturalNews would. Both women specialize in treating thyroid conditions.
PR, I think she did it because it was a fad. It worked for her until it didn’t. LOL. Typical. Thanks for the recs, I’ll check them out. I found that daily meticulous recording of calorie count for everything I ate, and weightlifting 6x/week really helped me reach my fitness/health goals.
Cape Cod,
“This is what I mean by factors that are probably more important than micronutrients/Omega 3s. They are the following: STRESS, lack of sleep, whether or not the parent was a drug abuser during pregnancy (alcohol, pharmacotherapeutics, and street drugs), baseline neurological condition of either biological parent (ADD is strongly genetic, other neuropathies are as well), presence of parent at home after school and input of parent in homework, responsibilities of the child to parent younger siblings, presence of destabilizing influences around the home including drugs, violence, guns, etc. All of these can have an overriding effect on the psyche.”
We are in absolute agreement that these are HUGE compounding factors.
My emphasis on improving nutrition is to be considered in concert. Improving nutritional status can help ameliorate stress somewhat; it can help with neuropathies and other illnesses. While my life is really no less stressful than it was when I first got sick, I handle life’s stressors much more effectively. It is not a panacea, but it will help immensely. I thought I was suddenly ADD, but, no, I was deficient in a multitude of micronutrients/fatty acids. My vitamin D was in the teens, for instance (30 is low normal). No wonder I felt awful and couldn’t think clearly–my body did not have what it needed to function effectively.
“Here’s a study which indicates chronic stress early in life increases myelination in certain parts of the brain, resulting in adverse neurological effects. [I excised the link to try to keep WordPress from eating my reply]
I would imagine some of these kids you are talking about suffer from chronic stress even at an early age.”
Yes, I agree that the vast majority of poverty-stricken kids and many low-income kids absolutely do have chronic stress and that this affects their brain development. Does Head Start or schools in these areas actively teach the children stress-management techniques?
I thought this was an interesting quote from the article you shared:
“That said, the structure of your brain is constantly undergoing changes through plasticity. Mindset, behavior, and chronic stress are never fixed. The power of neuroplasticity makes it possible to change brain structure and function throughout your lifespan. You can consciously make daily choices of mindset and behavior that will improve the structure and connectivity of your brain.”
No argument here. Love that last quote. I find meditation to be particularly helpful. Hard to maintain my practice though.
Cape Cod,
“I find meditation to be particularly helpful. Hard to maintain my practice though.”
Sometimes the extent of my meditation is repeating in my head “This, too, shall pass.”
Regarding Good Calories, Bad Calories, if you have not yet read it, I highly recommend it. If MDs do not buy Taubes’ arguments, then they should consider watching Dr. Robert Lustig’s Sugar: The Bitter Truth on youtube, or this MD’s TEDx talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da1vvigy5tQ
I cited 50% overweight/obese kids who are at/below the poverty-line; their parents are struggling with the same issues. Kids are getting NAFLD, as are their parents. Kids are hypertensive. Improving their diets by steering them with what foods are allowed in the food stamps program would not only help with their health issues, but likely prevent the high cost of care associated with obesity and obesity-related illness.
“Obese people want not to be held responsible for their obesity, so being told that their leptin resistance is the reason or “ghrelin is the culprit” is appealing.”
I have never heard anyone blame ghrelin as the culprit. I have heard people blame “genetics”, which is also a lame excuse. Most folks are fat like their parents are fat is because they are eating the same way. And, most fat people do not want to be fat. They want to change; they’ve tried changing according to standard fat-loss advice of exercise more, eat more whole grains and low fat foods. We fatten cattle on grains; the same thing happens to people. Back when dinners out were rare, we also did not have HFCS and a host of other ills; heck, people used to eat liver more frequently back then.
Sugar: The Bitter Truth discusses the effect fructose (juice and pop, mainly) have had on expanding waistlines and poor health (e.g., NAFLD). Ghrelin levels can be changed; high leptin and insulin levels can be changed by reducing carb intake. I have a family member lose over 100 lbs and got off a cholesterol-lowering medication with a low-carb/high fat and fresh food dietary change. I have a friend who is no longer on metformin due to the same dietary change.
Darren,
It’s me again. WordPress is at it again. Could you free a comment?
It’s done.
Darren – why is it that WordPress picks a particular target and then annoys them for about a week? Several of us have been victims of the evil that lies within WordPress.
I don’t know what’s been going on. There are user level filters and global filters. User’s filters are what are configured by the administrator of the blog and global filters are WordPress’ domain, the latter none of us have access to the settings matrix so I am at a loss for why this happens.
Thank you, Darren!
To Paul–if anyone ever bellyaches about “being censored” when all that happened was WordPress ate their comment–they just need to be sent to this thread! 🙂
Cape Cod,
“the at-risk population we were discussing when we began this conversation have no clue about SNPs and could not pony up the $200 required to get analyzed by 23 & Me (or their doctor). Our discussion is generally for the well-off.”
My MTHFR test was standard bloodwork and covered by insurance. Maybe my insurance is better than I think it is. It could be debated whether or not Medicaid or Obamacare should cover it (maybe they do already???). Could it save on medications in the future if supplements will help ameliorate the issues? Methylcobalamin and folate probably costs less than anti-psychotics.
An article on MTHFR SNPs and health associations:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-integrationist/201409/genetic-mutation-can-affect-mental-physical-health
It doesn’t matter whether or not they understand it or have even heard of it. Newborns get tested for all kinds of unheard of things at birth; they are supposed to get bloodwork for lead when they are a bit older, so testing for something that, especially if homozygous, affects cognitive function, it ought to be done.
Yes, right now, our discussion topic is generally one the well-off are more likely to have. Why does it have to be that way? Make it a SOP at birth to not only get the kid’s bloodtype and whether or not they have maple-syrup urine disease or biotinidase deficiency, check out their MTHFR or GSH SNP-status.
Prairie Rose, there is a big difference between testing a kid for PKU or sickle cell and MTHFR SNPs, which are, for the majority of the population, still heterozygous and equivalent or intermediate to wild-type. We are not talking life-threatening DNA changes here. MY family member is now 50 pounds overweight on a diet that is essentially paleo with no carbs and high fat. This diet does not work for everyone, and it is not particularly sustainable in the long run for the world, which is something the Folks at Mark’s daily Apple and others who promote this method of eating won’t tell you. Gov Jerry Brown just regulated cow farts, so it’s going to be a lot more expensive to eat high protein/low carb in that state. And how do they explain away the lack of obesity in populations who are raised on high carb diets with infrequent protein, such as southeast Asians? The Chinese are only in the last 30 yrs having a rise in obesity and diabetes as more of their population has started to move to work and live a more leisurely life in the cities, and adopt a more Western diet with red meat. And the increase in mortality in both men and women on high animal protein and low carb diets followed for up to 26 years in the Nurse’s Study (Fung TT et al., 2010)?
I agree that sugar is not anybody’s friend, and eating whole fruit is better than juice. However, leptin and ghrelin existed long before they were identified and people were persuaded they were slaves to their hunger pangs. Obesity rates were much lower in the 1950/ 60s when Wonder bread and potatoes were the norm. Cattle get fat on grains (specifically corn or maize in the US) for a few months before slaughter because it is a high-energy food that shortens the fattening time and increases carcass weight. They get fat at this point because they are in holding pens and not allowed to roam. They are fed more calories than they need and they get no exercise. Same thing with wild turkeys and chickens vs, those raised in factory farms. Cats are obligate carnivores, yet there are loads of overweight cats in the US. Why? Their owners over feed them.
Cape Cod,
“How many people naturally have hypochlorhydria? This is typically seen only in patients chronically taking PPIs. The condition can also result due to lap-band surgery, but again, small percentage of the population, and typically not kids, which we were discussing when this conversation started.”
A Heliobacter pylori infection will decrease the acidity of the stomach. People with rosacea and Hashimoto’s often have it (I did). Low stomach acid is also associated with autoimmune conditions, particularly thyroid conditions since anti-parietal cell antibodies are prevalent in these conditions.
Pernicious anemia also causes hypochlohydria, but that is much more rare than the H. pylori.
You are right that hypochlorhydria is not common in kids. While the focus of this discussion has been kids, the effect of hypochlorhydria on the adults in their lives affects the family.
Important minerals like magnesium, zinc, B12, selenium, biotin, and iron all require sufficient stomach acid to be broken down, as do proteins. Don’t get those minerals broken down, then neither are they absorbed effectively. Without them you get all kinds of dysfunction. Also, insufficient stomach acid mean there isn’t a nice slurry headed to the small intestine; instead, it is a chunky slurry, that can lead to SIBO (Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth) and gut dysbiosis.
Cape Cod,
“Gut dysbiosis–I hope you’re not referring to leaky gut, which is not medically recognized.”
Gut dysbiosis means a bad mix of bacteria. People who eat a diet of processed foods generally have a greater percentage of E. coli in their guts, for example, as well as other bacteria that are not as good at breaking food down or helping to build neurotransmitters, etc.
Regarding “leaky gut”, also known as “increased intestinal permeability”, see Alessia Fasano and his research on gliadin. An example:
Nutrients. 2015 Mar; 7(3): 1565–1576. “Effect of Gliadin on Permeability of Intestinal Biopsy Explants from Celiac Disease Patients and Patients with Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity” by Justin Hollon, et al.
This is also worth a gander: BMC Gastroenterol. 2014; 14: 189. “Intestinal permeability – a new target for disease prevention and therapy” by Stephan C Bischoff, et al.
An excerpt:
“Many factors can alter intestinal permeability such as gut microbiota modifications, mucus layer alterations, and epithelial damage, resulting in translocation of luminal content to the inner layers of the intestinal wall. Moreover, lifestyle and dietetic factors like alcohol and energy-dense food can increase intestinal permeability such as alcohol and energy-dense Western style diet [8]-[10].”
“How many people outside of Michael Pollan have had their intestinal flora evaluated by a lab? Again, a conversation for the well-off.”
Fecal testing is not required to determine gut dysbiosis. Frequent gas and bloating are a sign. IBS is a sign. Rosacea is a sign. Bed-wetting is a sign. Depression is a sign. Part of the treatment for gut dysbiosis: a bottle of Saccromyces boulardii from the grocery store, at least that’s what we do (doctor recommended, btw).
PR, true celiacs (who are rare) have absorption problems when they eat gluten, others do not. Problem is too many people think they have gluten sensitivity. And before you go there, yes, I’m aware of the MDs who say sensitivity is more prevalent than originally thought. Just making sure you actually meant overgrowth of bad bacteria in the gut, because if you google gut dysbiosis, only woo sites show up on the first page.
Many of the symptoms of gut dysbiosis are symptoms of many other issues, including old age.
Too many people self-diagnosing by using WebMD.
You might check out the website Respectful Insolence for some quackery debunking….although he’s mainly focused on the anti-vax loons and the parents who think chelation-therapy for their autistic children is actually a positive.
Cape Cod,
“We are not talking life-threatening DNA changes here.”
I agree.
“MY family member is now 50 pounds overweight on a diet that is essentially paleo with no carbs and high fat. This diet does not work for everyone”
Your family member has hypothyroidism, for which weight gain is a standard symptom. This may be informative:
http://drcate.com/going-low-carb-too-fast-may-trigger-thyroid-troubles-and-hormone-imbalance/
I totally agree paleo is not for everyone. I have never advocated such. Poor people need to stop eating the nutrient-poor Standard American Diet filled with processed food that is driving many of their health troubles. I believe we agree that predominantly eating processed food is no good for one’s health. BTW, Paleo/Primal isn’t supposed to be high protein/low carb; it is supposed to be high fat/low carb. It is not for everyone. Weston Price documented the incredibly wide range of healthful traditional diets worldwide (from the Apache to remote Swiss villagers to the Masaii). All these people were healthy and had great teeth (he was a dentist, so healthy teeth was a primary focus of his). Their common ground? In eating their traditional diets they didn’t eat white flour or sugar (processed food).
In the end, emphasizing nutrient-dense plants with some real food starches and some real food proteins and some real food fats is going to be generally be the best route for most people.
Cape Cod,
“And how do they explain away the lack of obesity in populations who are raised on high carb diets with infrequent protein, such as southeast Asians?”
The Masaai in Africa primarily eat meat, milk, and blood and have low obesity rates, too. Fresh food, especially vegetables, are emphasized in SE Asian’s diets and they get more vitamin D. The Western diet does have red meat, but it is the refined carbohydrates and sugar that is its hallmark. Again, read Good Calories, Bad Calories.
“the increase in mortality in both men and women on high animal protein and low carb diets followed for up to 26 years in the Nurse’s Study” (Fung TT et al., 2010)?”
We were not discussing a high protein/low carb way of eating. I agree that in many cases it can be detrimental (it can be hard on the kidneys, can deplete calcium).
Cape Cod,
“people were persuaded they were slaves to their hunger pangs.”
I have not observed that people have been persuaded that they are slaves to their hunger pangs. How did you come to this conclusion?
“Obesity rates were much lower in the 1950/ 60s when Wonder bread and potatoes were the norm.”
No HFCS and fewer processed food graced tables (my mom remembers eating heart, tongue, and liver, too). The rise in obesity mirrors the rise in consumption of processed foods (especially low fat ones), pop as a drink to get anytime, the introduction of HFCS.
“They get fat at this point because they are in holding pens and not allowed to roam. They are fed more calories than they need and they get no exercise.”
It is the physiology, primarily–the hormones and micronutrients. Cows are not made to eat grain (or candy for heaven’s sake); they are made to eat grass. Eating grain disturbs their gut microbiota. And, they are given antibiotics and hormone therapy to speed weight gain even more.
“Cats are obligate carnivores, yet there are loads of overweight cats in the US. Why? Their owners over feed them.”
Overfeeding is a small part of the problem. Most dry cat food has a rather high carb load. My vet recommended wet cat food, saying that cats should be low carb.
Cape Cod,
Here is an example of what I mean by gut dysbiosis. Search on PubMed.
Hepatology. 2016 Mar;63(3):764-75. doi: 10.1002/hep.28356. Epub 2016 Jan 13.
The severity of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is associated with gut dysbiosis and shift in the metabolic function of the gut microbiota. by Boursier J, et al.
I agree that people can get taken in by tenuous information on websites. They are frustrated that they do not feel well and their doctors are not/cannot effectively address their health issues. I wish Functional Medicine was more widespread. This is a whole-body approach to treating illness. A person getting UTIs, conjunctivitis, and strep throat frequently doesn’t only have a problem with their urinary tract/bladder, eyes, and throat. I used to get those infections very frequently and all my PCPs did was prescribe medication. Infecting bacteria were not, really, the underlying problem in my frequent infections.
There is a lot of great information at our fingertips, but you have to be so careful about the quality of it that in most cases it makes more sense to see a Functional Medicine doctor or at least discuss the information with your PCP for guidance.
Cape Cod,
“It’s all pretty arcane, I can’t imagine many people would find it interesting. Most of the compounds I have worked on have been neurotoxicants or reproductive toxicants.”
I am an oddball. I think learning about neurotoxicants and reproductive toxicants sounds interesting. What books/videos/sites/articles would you recommend?
Cape Cod,
“You might check out the website Respectful Insolence for some quackery debunking”
Sorry to take so long in addressing your recommendation. This weekend has been hectic! I did go to this website and searched in particular for ‘functional medicine’ because after reading the top post there I suspect that is why you directed me there.
The posts I read about functional medicine did have some legitimate concerns, but overall it seems he is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I agree with some of his assessment of Dr. Hyman. A few points in brief: he comes across way too strong, almost like a used-car salesman sometimes. I do not like the conflict of interest some of them have, as Dr. Hyman does, with selling their own supplements (my doctor does not have a conflict of interest, though).
There are issues, for sure, with excessive testing by some practitioners. Dr. Michael Ruscio addresses this on his blog and in his podcasts. He also addresses the cost effectiveness and whether or not there is good science for some claims.
Cape Cod,
Orac says: “It’s just that FM doctors use them indiscriminately to test pretty much anyone with any symptom whatsoever, no matter how vague.”
Really? He sampled one site and made a claim for all? His claim has not been my experience at all. Nor do I think my functional medicine MD has been excessive in what labs are recommended. Most of what I have done is covered by my health insurance. Perhaps my experience is too narrow, but it seems he is taking the worst examples and treating them like the norm. For example, he chose a non-MD, Lauren Grace, to use as his example of a typical functional medicine practitioner. Most of the people in my area are MDs or DOs.
Orac says: “Here, it must be stated that are some things that FM gets right, although these things tend to be no different than the sorts of things every primary care doctor should be getting right anyway, such as emphasizing healthy lifestyles, good nutrition, enough exercise, adequate sleep, cessation of habits known to be deleterious to health (e.g., smoking).”
Considering the ballooning obesity epidemic (and every other disease on a hockey-stick trajectory), then most primary care doctors are not effectively communicating such things to their patients. In the last 17 years I have seen 5 different PCPs, 4 dermatologists, and 1 ophthalmologist for rosacea, hypothyroidism, and frequently recurring infections like UTIs and conjunctivitis and blepharitis. Not one discussed any of the above in any serious manner. Not one suggested I remove gluten or dairy from my diet. Heck, I struggled with serious rosacea for over 10 years and was told it had nothing to do with my diet. The ophthalmologist told me that I would have to wash my eyelid margins for the rest of my life to manage the blepharitis. Yet, now, after seeing a functional medicine doctor, my complexion is clear. I do not have any frequently recurring infections. The blepharitis is gone. My thyroid antibodies are nearly gone and I feel good.
Cape Cod,
From the website you recommended:
Orac says: “They emphasize prevention, which is a good thing but again something that good primary care doctors do anyway.”
In my experience, most PCPs do not emphasize prevention. And, looking at the obesity epidemic, my experience is not an anomaly. This, therefore, is something that Functional Medicine doctors are doing better at than regular PCPs.
“None of this is to say that it’s not important to individualize treatments, but such tailoring of treatment to patient must be based on evidence and science, coupled with what the patient values. It must be shown to produce superior outcomes. Functional medicine has failed that test.”
We may have to agree to disagree here. My doctor does judiciously tailor treatments (I gave you journal articles that are examples of the kind of science that underlies it). Also, I have experienced superior outcomes. I would still have rosacea. My thyroid antibodies would be the same or worse. And, I would probably still feel lousy had I not gone to a Functional Medicine doctor. Why did I start going to a Functional Medicine doctor? Because I felt like my chronic health conditions were not being effectively addressed by the standard docs. As far as I can tell, Functional Medicine has been successful where standard medical care has not, at least for my particular health concerns. I would like both areas to take the very best from each and meld them into something superior.
I have truly enjoyed this conversation, Cape Cod. I hope you have as well. I followed up because I wanted you to know that I did take your recommendation to go to the Respectful Insolence website. I hope your family member is able to get as good of care as I have, whether it is from a Functional Medicine or regular practitioner.
Prairie Rose, I didn’t send you to Oracs site because I want to dissuade you from your own journey, but to give you an example of how people can get lost in the weeds searching for answers to their medical complaints. No MD has all the answers, but some people can really mess their bodies up trying all sorts of therapies that are ineffective at best ( some herbal supplements), to really harmful and downright cruel (chelating metals out of the body). I would wager most people cannot find a doctor who can spend the amount of time and attention you have found with your MD. You are fortunate. Others, like my family member, work with MDs who have no expertise in endocrinology, etc. and manage to screw themselves up. In this day and age, if someone still smokes, with all the published info on the risks, then the outcomes are their fault. Same with overeating and obesity. Same with alcohol and drug abuse. I think doctors tell their patients constantly to stop smoking, eat better and get more exercise. The patients don’t listen, or they’re non compliant. There are too many doctors in my extended family and circle of friends telling me the same types of stories for me to believe otherwise. Humans just don’t do “moderation” very well. I truly have enjoyed this conversation PR, thank you for sharing your research, and I wish you the best of health!
Cape Cod,
I appreciate your thoughtful reply. I was a bit perplexed why you recommended the site. I agree that people can get lost in the weeds.
Also, regarding: “The patients don’t listen, or they’re non compliant.” I agree with this, too. I have friends and family members who fit this description, and then they complain they still have aches and pains or that whatever they “tried” didn’t work for them. Baloney! They didn’t even actually try it to begin with! LOL
“Humans just don’t do “moderation” very well.” This is too true and applicable to pretty much every problem we have today.
So glad you have enjoyed the conversation, too. I look forward to many more. I wish you the best, too, with not only your family member’s health concerns, but yours, as well.
Cape Cod,
“However, whenever I see a supplementation study I immediately think Cui bono? ”
What about “Who doesn’t benefit?” There isn’t a whole lot of money to be made from prescribing magnesium, selenium or cod liver oil, but there is from patented drugs. Perhaps I’m cynical.
You specialize in the “toxic aspects of what one might accidentally swallow (or inhale)”. That sounds very interestingI Do you specialize in any particular toxins? Did you learn in your training what micronutrients would be depleted or chelated due to said toxic ingestion, or what cellular processes would be impaired? For example, mercury blocks conversion of T4 to T3, and, it can block magnesium from being bound to ADP to form ATP.
I have not learned much about toxicology, so I would love to hear what you study.
Most of what I do involves setting exposure limits to occupational or environmental chemicals. Most of my work has been inhalation exposure, but I have done some work setting drinking water levels for some chemicals and tox reviews of others. It’s all pretty arcane, I can’t imagine many people would find it interesting. Most of the compounds I have worked on have been neurotoxicants or reproductive toxicants.
I’m glad to read you’ve gotten your health issues addressed and that you found a good doctor to work with you.
Cape Cod,
“Perhaps there’s not a lot of money to be made from Omega 3s that isn’t already being made, but micronutrients? Maybe there’s a market for just the right kind of mix.”
I do not think companies could pre-blend the “right kind of mix”. It is very individual. I do not think there is the ‘perfect’ “Hashimoto’s thyroiditis micronutrient blend”. How one person presents is different than how another person will present. One person may be tanked out on zinc, but another is tanked out on selenium, while another person also has type II diabetes in addition to the Hashimoto’s.
The “right blend” is individual-specific, requiring the doctor to use labwork and a person’s signs & symptoms to determine the best protocol.
I do not think companies could pre-blend the “right kind of mix”. They would try. Think Ocuvite.
http://www.strategyr.com/MarketResearch/Vitamins_Market_Trends.asp
The fact that individuals vary so dramatically is the reason why I think it is impossible to make pronouncements about population response. In general the human body requires minimal levels of vitamins and some minerals. The fact is, as you said above, that the medical community doesn’t know what an individual’s specific level of any of those “essentials” should be, nor does it know any specifics about a person’s metabolism. I have an iron issue, and I have to have infusions done on a regular basis. I could take all the Mg2+ and B-complex vitamins my body could tolerate safely and it would have no effect on my mood or energy level if my ferritin level is in the basement. No entry-level doctor is going to be able to tell me this, even with lab results.
Tom Nash,
When I cited the 58% figure, it was in regards to the total percentage of imprisoned blacks. Of all imprisoned blacks, 58% were in for violent offenses. It is found in #18 of the link Enigma posted. The rest of the discussion is found on the oldest page about halfway or so down.
No one yet has explained to me why we should expect that incarceration rates should identically match national demography.
andrewworkshop,
They might if the life experiences and demographic percentages were fairly similar (similar percentages of single parent families, similar percentages of educational attainment, similar percentages of income distribution, plus a fair legislative system that had laws, for example, demanding similar consequences for crack or cocaine use instead of harsher penalties for one but less harsh penalties for the other). Then, approximately the same percentage of people would be incarcerated for each group.
However, 66% of black kids live in single parent families and nearly the same percentage are low income or poverty-stricken (citations on the oldest page–one being my October 5, 2017 at 9:28 AM post). Only 25% of non-Hispanic whites live in single parent families.
Living in a single parent family, especially a poor or low income one, creates terrible hurdles for a child.
I still fail to see how under your theorem incarceration rates would match demographics (which demographics by the way? national, local, state. etc?). Do you honestly believe the same number of people across all demographics use cocaine whether as crack or cocaine? Are you aware it is 2017 and coke isn’t the drug of choice anymore – meth and opioids are the bigger problem. When I drive by my local fire station I see a sign out front that tells me in triple digits how many have died because of heroin this year alone – I don’t thnk coke is that big a deal anymore.
Thank you though Prairie Rose for beginning the unpacking of all the other factors that make these statistics what they are.
One might ask, why do black children – in predominately urban areas – face such circumstances? I’d note that most of urban America has existed under one party rule for more than a generation.
We can debate whether poverty correlates with crime. There are impoverished areas with low crime rates and impoverished areas with high crime rates. How by the way, did some of these areas become impoverished in the first place if poverty and crime correlate?
You are correct Rose to bring in other issues because this isn’t an apples and oranges topic. Conflation isn’t helping anyone. An holistic view is necessary. Equally necessary is questioning those that insist on avoidance of the holistic approach and prefer the conflated equations of justice = racism.
Andrew,
Check out the long discussion on the oldest page. If you “Find on Page” (Command F) the name Calhoun, you will get to, essentially, the beginning of the discussion.
“Do you honestly believe the same number of people across all demographics use cocaine whether as crack or cocaine?”
No. The issue of unequal sentencing came up in the discussion in regards to these drugs in particular.
Tom,
I think this is what Enigma is referring to, his post to me:
enigmainblackcom
October 7, 2017 at 11:37 AM
I’m having a hard time documenting your statement that “58% of blacks in prison for violent crimes,” can you help me with that? I did find that 58% of people imprisoned are black, at totally disproportionate percentages for similar crimes, many non-violent.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/10/cory-booker/how-war-drugs-affected-incarceration-rates/
The article discusses how the War on Drugs disproportionately affects the poor and minorities. Well, yes, the likelihood of getting on drugs when a person is poor/disadvantaged is higher than for a person who is not. Unfortunately, a high percentage of minorities are poor. It is not a bias, it is a terrible likelihood for people in desperate circumstances. Many terrible things are more likely if a person is poor: suicide, experiencing violence, depression, teen pregnancy, etc. If a male is poor and white and between the ages of ~15-30, he has a very high chance of being on heroin or some other opioid. This is changing some, but that is still a very large percentage.
“Rates remained highest among males, persons aged 18–25 years, persons with annual household incomes <$20,000, persons living in urban areas, and persons with no health insurance or with Medicaid." https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6426a3.htm
Prairie Rose,
..
I read the previous exchanges and links re drug sentencing, prison population, percentages on prison for various offenses, etc.
My initial question was about the statement that 58% of people in prison are black, not about the percentage imprisoned for violent offenses.
I agree with your views about disparity of outcomes; to a large degree it’s true that one can get “the best justice that money can buy”.
A defendant who can shell out a five or six figure sum for legal representation is apt to fare much better than an indigent offender represented by a public defender with an unmanagable caseload.
And still, no one can coherently explain why each demographic group’s incarceration stats should match those of the broader population, or what the definition of “broader population” is.
And still, no one can coherently explain why each demographic group’s incarceration stats should match those of the broader population, or what the definition of “broader population” is.
That would be because the root cause of that disparity is not something Enigma is willing to acknowledge. It’s far easier (read: intellectually lazy) to attribute it to an unfair justice system targeting Blacks and Hispanics rather than the underlying social problems that lure these individuals to a criminal lifestyle.
What? The broader population is the whole population. That’s not some esoteric demographer’s construct.
Enigma’s complaint is that is that the administration of justice produces the prison it does because of bias, which is facially false unless you fancy we live in a hall-of-mirrors world where social statistics are inventions. You don’t have a homicide rate of 37 per 100,000 in Baltimore City and a homicide rate of 2.8 per 100,000 in the three surrounding counties because of ‘bias’.
Behind the mask, his complaint seems to be that in a ‘fair’ society, standards of conduct would be configured in such a way that the probability of someone being incarcerated in a given year is about the same no matter what their racial classification. You only get from here to there with caste-delineated legal penalties, abolishing legal penalties, or withdrawing law enforcement from certain neighborhoods.
I agree with your views about disparity of outcomes; to a large degree it’s true that one can get “the best justice that money can buy”. A defendant who can shell out a five or six figure sum for legal representation is apt to fare much better than an indigent offender represented by a public defender with an unmanagable caseload.
Public defenders are experienced with the criminal law, more so than solo and small practice attorneys who take criminal cases (and who may be smarter lawyers). The bulk of the manpower in representing criminal defendants is to be found in the public defender’s office.
Lawyers in private practice who specialize in criminal defense are not numerous (IIRC, there are 4 in my home town) and are commonly tapped to defend white-collar defendants. The handsome mid-Law firm my family used to use had about two-dozen lawyers, of which 2 had criminal defense in their book of business (along with several other lines). Skeezy stockbrokers are not what’s keeping you from taking an evening constitutional, nor are they more than a small fraction of the parade of defendants passing through the intake pipes.
There is an easy way to avoid ever having to acquire an attorney – whether public defender or private.
Toads,..
A lot of public defenders are experienced.
And many have limited time and resources because of their caseloads.
If a defendant has the financial resources, he will be able to find a skilled, experienced criminal defense lawyer.
The most likely outcome with a public defender is a guilty plea with a plea bargain.
The sort of professional-managerial type who can mortgage his home to pay for a specialized criminal defense lawyer is not very numerous among those traipsing through the penal courts in this country. You’ve got some drunk drivers, people with lousy kids, some tax evaders.
Programs like Dateline and 20/20 commonly feature bourgeois types with cases ambiguous enough to go to trial. It’s a big country so you can find such people in numbers sufficient to produce 26 episodes a year. They’re not very numerous. The typical suburban homicide is some shizzy domestic argument between a guy and his live-in girlfriend. Not very telegenic.
Though the best attornies with a team of people have the best not guilty results, it is my impression that when taken to trial only a small number of defendants are actually found innocent.
The costs to defend against a serious crime with all the experts required, unless done pro bono, is massive.
The costs to defend against a serious crime with all the experts required, unless done pro bono, is massive.
Then DON’T do the crime! Falsely charged? Falsely convicted? Manufactured evidence? Local government corrupt, but they are acceptable as long as the freebies keep rolling in? Same with state and federal government. Yup, you get the government you deserve.
Right, but by the time a criminal case has gotten to court it has been evaluated so many times by so many different people that I believe the very vast number of those are guilty as charged.
The costs to defend against a serious crime with all the experts required, unless done pro bono, is massive.
It can be, which is why people should be indemnified per the proportion of the original bill that the prosecutor could not sustain.Gross output in the legal services sector per working attorney is currently about $530,000 per annum. You hear about these cases where a defendant is $400,000 in hock to his lawyers. He’s either got very high-priced lawyers or multiple lawyers or multiple high-priced lawyers. IIRC, a typical prosecutor in Monroe County, N.Y. processed to conviction about 160 cases a year on average, with the timeline for cases going to trial about 3.5x longer than that for the generic case. I don’t think you have many circumstances wherein a private defense attorney has only a couple of other pending cases, but it’s not my trade.
“It can be, which is why people should be indemnified per the proportion of the original bill that the prosecutor could not sustain”
I am not sure what you are trying to say.
IIRC. about 9% of superior court cases brought before a petit jury result in an acquittal. I’d have to check the state statistical yearbook.
Alan Dershowitz’s criminal practice has incorporated much more trial work given his time allotment than is commonly the case. He had this to say a generation ago, “Every once in a while you get an innocent client, but the vast majority of your clients are guilty as hell”. He also has suggested that the trial process does not reliably distinguish innocent clients from the remainder. If you’re in the intake pipe, you’re in grave danger.
Another attorney with whom I correspond (whose criminal practice consists of the ordinary run of small-town cases) described his clients thus: “Guilty Guilty Guilty!”.
The 9% refers the the Supreme and County Courts in the State of New York. (The “Supreme Court” is the highest court of original jurisdiction. It has hundreds of judges and is mostly consumed with civil cases. The ultimate court of appeal is called the “Court of Appeals”).
The 9% for criminal cases sounds high to me. Yes, Dershowitz recognizes the criminality of the majority of his cases. His autobiography (I forget the name) is quite revealing. Though he is from the left and was a supporter of Hillary, people on the left are becoming annoyed at him because he won’t bend the law to meet what the left wants.
Enigma, since you just called me a troll and didn’t add anything to safety and welfare of those in need I thought I would respond in more detail. I didn’t want to interfere further with your back and forth with Prairie Rose so I post my comments here rather than there.
Prairie Rose gave is a wonderful outline/ discussion of what should be taking place to improve our society for all people. I want to make things clear about what I believe in relation to what enigma feels those “on the right” don’t care about. I too have always felt that the difference in sentencing for crack vs cocaine was too artificial, but was under the impression that this was desired by black leadership in the hope it would reduce crack use. It seems every time we play a game of this nature we cause more harm than good.
I do think the community has to have greater involvement in the drug program. I seem to remember years ago, perhaps in Chicago, that a trial program permitted the residents to establish community rules and one of those rules was that anyone or their children who were involved in the use of drugs would be forced to leave the building. My understanding was that it was stopped because the ones forced out were losing their ‘civil liberties’. I think the complaints came from the left, but such community action could have a substantial positive impact on the drug crisis in low-income areas. Well off people have the ability to move, but poor people don’t, so I would favor such a right despite the ‘civil liberty’ complaint emanating likely from the left.
On a second drug issue, I am concerned if anyone is incarcerated for simply using drugs. However, we have to recognize that the crack habit costs a good deal of money so one has to consider where that money is coming from.
Regarding stop and frisk which is really stop-question-frisk where the frisk.I believe, only occurs under suspicious circumstances or if a bulge is noted on the person where that bulge could represent an imprint from a gun or a knife. Of course, it can be abused, but if it is an illegal gun then on the other side of the barrel can be another youth who is shot dead at a later date. I think disarming the public of illegal weapons and protecting the police while doing so is admirable. WE need more police in these dangerous areas and more support of the police on issues that protect the public. I believe BLM overall hampers needed police activity and thus causes death and harm within the community.
Prairie Rose hit the nail on the head as far as actually doing something for this and future generations. The three items that need to be attacked are single-parent homes, kids that do not graduate from high school, and kids having children before high school is completed. Most of enigma’s complaints don’t deal with these issues and therefore lead to ineffective solutions. …And the rest of his arguments are vacuous.
Allan,
“Prairie Rose hit the nail on the head as far as actually doing something for this and future generations. The three items that need to be attacked are single-parent homes, kids that do not graduate from high school, and kids having children before high school is completed.”
Thank you for your kind words, as well. I would add two more elements: educating new at-risk mothers/fathers in good parenting skills and the why and how of feeding kids nourishing food (improving access may have to be addressed, too). Without these elements, violence could very likely still be part of these families’ lives. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/oct/17/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime
50% of kids in poverty are overweight or obese, which has additional health ramifications for the individual, their families, and a cost to society as a whole.
Addressing these issues would help prevent so much suffering.
Prarie Rose, I agree with your additional elements and a whole host of other elements, but I think the triad by itself is the structure that all additional items need to be placed upon. The discussion of that triad leads some into false trails of disproportionality, slavery, voting rights etc. while pushing tribalism instead of unity. Why tribalism? Because that is the way to preserve victimhood and the livelihood of the race-baiters.
I would add two more elements: educating new at-risk mothers/fathers in good parenting skills and the why and how of feeding kids nourishing food (improving access may have to be addressed, too). Without these elements, violence could very likely still be part of these families’ lives.
The county welfare department is not anyone’s mother. Their proper function is to investigate near-criminal conduct in domestic circumstances and sequester the victims of that conduct, whether they be juveniles or mental defectives or addled and feeble geriatrics. Only a tiny minority of households hit that tripwire (The foster care census in New York is about 26,000, out of a juvenile population of more than 4 million). Sweden seizes children at the drop of a hat (laws criminalizing corporal punishment are a conduit for that); sensible people do not wish to emulate Sweden.
Can we just deal with the problems please? The problems are street crime and school disorder, problems which can be addressed through conventional means. A cloying social-service state is something from which we do not benefit.
Enigma is playing ‘look squirrel’ with you again. Even if the social research purporting to show ‘bias’ in the treatment of people brought up on drug charges were valid, it wouldn’t account for much of ‘disparity’ in the composition of the prison population, because 80% of the prison population either were not facing drug charges or were facing only ancillary charges. Last I checked, about 52% of the homicides in this country with an identified perpetrator were committed by blacks. The situation’s about the same for robbery and rape. For burglary and car theft, I think the share is more like 30%. That’s just the world we live in.
Thanks, DSS. I think ‘look squirrel’ is enigma’s choice of debate. Lawyers say when you can’t argue the facts argue the law and when you can’t argue the law argue the facts. Enigma says ‘look squirrel’.
The three items that need to be attacked are single-parent homes, kids that do not graduate from high school, and kids having children before high school is completed.
Rubbish. Adolescent fertility rates are about as low as they have been since reliable data has been available. As recently as 1928, the majority of youngsters in the relevant age group were not enrolled in high school. VoTech accounts for a modest share of the manpower devoted to secondary schooling. For the most part, a diploma is a labor market signal. We could likely contrive signals that give more bang for a buck than a four-year trudge through half-assed liberal education. You can reduce the drop out rate to nil by the simple expedient of abolishing graduation requirements. All aboard? As for ‘single-parent homes’, you cannot do one thing about that other than some amendments to divorce law and child-custody law which nibble at the edges of the problem (and will have their weakest effect on slum populations).
DSS, comparisons of today to 1928 are near meaningless when one is discussing society’s ills of today. You have a good handle on statistics, but your use of them sometimes leads one to wonder about where your otherwise commendable mind is.
Actually in the years preceding the 1960’s many more black households had both parents at home. Years ago a high school degree though good wasn’t necessary. Children learned from their families and lived in a more agrarian society. Today the problems are in the cities where the local jobs being offered don’t involve milking a cow. We have made that high school degree and even a college degree so important that jobs are hard to come by without one.
I don’t believe that the education requirements we see today match our needs or are necessarily helpful, but we are looking more into specific communities that have not thrived the way they should. These are metrics of a pathway to success. They don’t guarantee success, but I believe the statistics note that the children of two-parent families where the child doesn’t get pregnant before graduation of high school are better off.
DSS, comparisons of today to 1928 are near meaningless when one is discussing society’s ills of today. Y
Not meaningless at all. It demonstrates that there is nothing essential about having six years of secondary schooling. It has a signaling function in the labor market. People who are high school dropouts today are generally in the bottom 30% as regards their capacity to perform tasks which require intellection. If everyone or no one graduated from high school, you’d still have a bottom 30%.
Now, you could argue that the six years of secondary schooling (followed by four years of tertiary schooling) adds human capital. That it may. Keep in mind, though, that the bulk of this time is not devoted to vocational training. Vocational training does consume shy of half the manpower in tertiary schooling. The thing is, the sort of youth whose borderline for finishing high school is seldom college-material. They’ll get their tertiary schooling at community colleges if they get it anywhere.
Now, you could argue that the academic side of high school is preparatory for college-level work. The thing is, we’re talking about academically marginal people, so high school chemistry in preparation for college chemistry is not likely to be their personal trajectory if they do finish high school. Math and computer classes will likely help them in some settings. You could have that without padding their time with English literature and social studies.
Sad to say, the reason to ‘finish high school’ is to persuade employers you’re not from the most low-rent sector of the labor market. However society evolves, there will still be low-rent sectors and there will be people who are best adapted to that sort of work. If you cannot differentiate them by the presence or absence of a high-school diploma (and you could not in 1928 and you would not be able to in Barack Obama’s college-for-all eutopia), you’ll have to find some other signal.
“Not meaningless at all. It demonstrates that there is nothing essential about having six years of secondary schooling. “
In the previous life no, but today it has meaning even though the education system is poor.
Is vocational education a good substitute for academics? Absolutely and so would a lot of other things be a good substitute.
Schooling is a place where one should learn very basic things including getting somewhere on time, being dressed appropriately, learning how to deal with problems and other things.
It sounds like you are arguing for the sake of arguing. If we compared the triad, two-parents, HS degree and no baby earlier to the child with a single parent, baby at 14 and no HS degree we will find the former group better off no matter what race.
Barack Obama’s college-for-all eutopia is not a solution, but the triad is a large move in the right direction.
Actually in the years preceding the 1960’s many more black households had both parents at home.
So what? It was a better world in 1955 in certain respects. We do not live there now. There is no ready way to get from here to there.
There is a way to contain street crime and school disorder.
I think the demise of the two-parent family has had a tremendous negative effect on children, no all, just more of them.