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The Butcher's Bill for Texting while DrivingBy Michael FumentoIn my LA Times piece "Texters, You'd Be Better off Driving Drunk," Oct. 3, I stated "There are no reliable studies regarding deaths associated with driving and texting." Well, there is now. Texting behind the wheel accounted for 16,141 deaths between 2002 and 2007, according to Researchers from the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Ft. Worth. One way of putting that in context is that in the last 10 years NHTSA has attributed five (5) deaths to sudden unintended acceleration in Toyotas, four in one car. So where are all the newspaper articles and congressional hearings on text messaging?
To arrive at their number, Fernando A. Wilson and Jim P. Stimpson, writing in the Nov. issue of the American Journal of Public Health, analyzed nationwide data from the Fatality Accident Reporting System and texting records from the Federal Communications Commission and CTIA, a wireless telecom industry group. They compared the number of deaths there have been versus those that would have occurred if there were no text messaging. And it's only going to get worse. The average monthly number of text messages was 1 million in 2002, but by 2008 it was 110 million. Panic over five deaths and complacency over 16,000? Not untypical. Since my first AIDS article in 1987 it's been a common theme of mine that the media, the government, and people in general aren't just irrational about reducing risks but actually tend to view them butt-backwards. The more rare something is, the more attention it gets along with more regulations. The more common something is, the more used to it we are and are willing to accept it. Cassandra is not just the stuff of Greek legends. October 28, 2010 11:43 PM · Permalink ·
Automobile Safety
Supreme Court Case May Wipe Out Vaccine IndustryBy Michael FumentoBack when Congress knew how to pass good legislation, in this case in the mid-1980s, it took most cases involving vaccine liability out of the normal court system and put them in a special vaccine court where science and medicine would rule instead of the whims of scientifically and medically ignorant juries. That's because vaccine companies were going the way of the woolly mammoth, in part because it's just not a very profitable business and in great part because they were awash in over $3.5 billion of lawsuits claiming little more than the post hoc fallacy of "Before the person was vaccinated her or she was fine and since the vaccination he or she became sick." Seriously.
Even as it dramatically cut spurious claims, it helped persons who really had suffered from adverse reactions both by cutting litigation costs and by taking them outside of "roulette wheel" justice wherein a case might net a reward of millions while a virtually identical one would be rejected entirely. But as I write at Forbes.com, this system itself is now endangered by a Supreme Court case in which the plaintiffs are claiming that having lost their case in Vaccine Court that rather than appeal within that system they should be able to try the case in state or federal court. And Congress did allow for some such exceptions. But no, not this one. It's very clear from the history of what led up to the statute that Congress did not want cases such as these to bypass the system. Why? In part as one court found, it could to a great extent destroy that very system. I provide other arguments. If we lose this system many, many children will not get their vaccines until something else is instituted. And many will die. October 27, 2010 10:53 AM · Permalink ·
Legal
~ Pharmaceuticals
~ Regulation
~ Trial Lawyers
~ Vaccines
Of mice and men and Christine O'DonnellBy Michael FumentoA recent exchange between Christine O'Donnell and Bill O'Reilly, with a lack of scientific information on both sides.
O'REILLY: Everybody knows that scientists have enough knowledge to clone a human being if they wanted to. Regarding O'Reilly, as per usual when you see the term "everyone knows" it's a hint of something untrue. It is possible that scientists now have the capability of cloning a human being. But cloning mice proved fairly easy, sheep much harder, and monkeys much harder yet. Until somebody actually does clone a human being, we won't know whether scientists have enough knowledge. But of course at some point they will have the knowledge and the will clone humans. And it won't be the end of the world. We already have human clones. They're called identical twins. WashPost article on Stephen Colbert's CatholicismBy Michael FumentoThere's an interesting article in the Washington Post about Stephen Colbert's Catholicism, although one does note that he was taught by Jesuits, whose idea of Catholicism is not mainstream. But neither is it atheism. One thing I say for both Colbert and John Stewart is that agree or disagree with them, they are truly funny. I can't say that for some of the TV and radio show hosts on the right, nor former radio show host Al Franken.
In fact, Franken wasn't even funny on SNL. I was on his show once and he was far from funny there, hardly justifying his $3 million a year contract that helped bring his entire network down. In fact, he said something about my colleague Capt. Joe ("Crazy Joe") in quoting from my article "The New Band of Brothers," that horrified me at the time. I was writing about my first fight, video of which you can see here though I intentionally blurred it for the sake of protecting the identity of the SEALs, in which Claburn was the only soldier. The others were SEALs. As you can see and hear, it was intense. I wrote, "As we take fire, Claburn yells: 'Hear them cracking over your head? That’ll get your peter hard, huh?'" To be clear on this, if you hear rounds whistling by it means they're fairly close. But a crackling sound means they're REALLY close. It's only luck that a chunk of lead isn't slamming you in the face. A few weeks later, one of those SEALs was shot right through the mouth and became the first to die in Iraq. Franken read those words and sneared. But those are the things soldiers say to keep themselves and their buddies sane in what's actually an insane position to voluntarily be in. Well, now the disparaged Crazy Joe is paralyzed from the waist down. And Al Franken is a senator. And that's how it works. Top scientist calls "scam" Geron human ESC experimentBy Michael FumentoTo much celebration and media play, the first human trial of embryonic stem cells has begun. With a grand total so far of one patient. "I don't understand [having] human trials because the animal studies aren't very convincing," David Bennett, a University of Alberta neuroscientist renowned for his experimentation with spinal-cord injuries, told me for my AOL News piece today. "My gut feeling is that it's a scam," he said.
My article explains why the company behind it, Geron, felt compelled to proceed. It comes down to one word: money. In part, they've been spending on this work for 15 years with no human experimentation. Stockholders don't like that. But there's much more to the Geron "scam." For example, Geron says it will only treat patients injured in the preceding two weeks. Yet that's when injured spinal cords are spontaneously generating new cells in an effort to heal. Studies in cats with completely severed spines show that with mere treadmill exercise, as one found, all of them could walk again without assistance, though sadly their mouse-chasing days were behind them. Even if none of Geron's patients shows any improvement in sensation or mobility, sensitive tests like electromyography or one mercifully abbreviated to SEP can detect increases in cell growth or something called plasticity. That would give Geron a chance to claim success when there was none. Meanwhile, there has already been success using adult stem cells to treat human paralysis. But money for these trials has steadily been diverted to, yes, ESC work. Incidentally, Bennett has 106 citations in MedLine, but nobody else in the media quotes the real experts. Instead, they go to the "old reliables" who just happen to have millions of dollars invested in embryonic stem cell research. Which is why, unfortunately, you read stuff like this here first. October 14, 2010 06:31 PM · Permalink ·
Stem Cells
My piece on texting while driving in LA TimesBy Michael Fumento"Border collie jill surveying the view from atop the sand dune." Those were the last words of Malibu plastic surgeon Frank Ryan, best known for "reconstructing" reality TV star Heidi Montag. It's not quite up there with "Et tu, Brute?" Yet it seemed important enough for him to text it just before driving off a cliff in August. Jill survived.
We don't know what the message was in a 2007 accident involving the sender and her four fellow New York high school cheerleaders. But it probably wasn't worth slamming head-on into a truck, killing them all. And the 2008 Chatsworth train collision, in which 25 people died and more than 100 were injured, was officially attributed to the engineer of the Metrolink commuter train being distracted by text messaging. As I write in my LA Times piece, "Texters, You'd Be Better off Driving Drunk, we don't know what the annual death toll is from texting but all the evidence is that it's a growing killer: At the same time I show that ALL the state bans on driving and cell phone usage are essentially worthless because they target the wrong cause of accidents. It's not taking your EYES off the road, but your BRAIN. Finally, laws against texting ARE enforceable. This is a real myth-buster piece. October 3, 2010 08:04 PM · Permalink ·
Automobile Safety
Science credibility flu away - at least in EuropeBy Michael FumentoThroughout the phony flu pandemic I warned that health officials would lose credibility because basically everything they were telling us was false and, unlike with some phony predictions which are safely years away, these quickly be shown false. Turns out I was right - depending on what part of the world you live in.
A combined Scientific American/Nature magazine poll shows that of the 15 issues people were asked about, they trusted scientists the least regarding flu pandemics. Ah, but there's a big asterisk. It was a poll of both Europeans and Americans. And only 31 percent of the Americans expressed serious distrust, compared to 69 percent of the Europeans. Why the difference? The very media I was constantly criticizing. While a number of journalists and publications in Europe were critical of the WHO and their own governments, the American media acted as a mouthpiece for anybody - official or otherwise - willing to say something scary about swine flu. More to the point, they've continued to do so. Nobody in this country has issued a mea culpa and nobody ever will, anymore than they did with heterosexual AIDS, SARS, avian flu and so many other hysterias they either perpetuated or outright fomented. Most recently it's been Toyota. The motto of the American media, originally uttered in a John Wayne movie, is: "Never apologize. It's a sign of weakness." Pack journalism is so pervasive in America we've practically got the equivalent of a state run media. And because of that, eventually it WILL BE a state run media. California's insane global warming initiative, my new Forbes.com articleBy Michael FumentoWhat state ranks third in unemployment, second in foreclosures, has the nation's worst credit rating, is running a $19 billion deficit - yet insists on spending billions on a greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan that can't possibly impact global warming?
Yes, it's California, land of the Governator, who four years ago signed a bill that will shortly begin saying "Hasta la vista, baby!" to perhaps a million jobs. Yet there's hope the prosperity terminator can be stopped, with Prop 23 to be voted on in November. Read about how incredibly bad the legislation is and how the state foisted it on an ignorant (not stupid) public in my new article, "California's Jobs Terminator" at Forbes.com. September 16, 2010 08:55 AM · Permalink ·
Global Warming
Medicare Proposal Could be a Real Killer, my Forbes.com pieceBy Michael FumentoMedicare is speeding toward insolvency , and only major fundamental changes can save it. But beware the "tweakers" - those who say that little things can add up to a lot. Usually what they're pushing is of little benefit to Medicare, but of much benefit to them.
As I write at Forbes. com, we that in a new study, paid for by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists and seemingly applauded without dissent in the media - maybe because most of the articles are clearly rehashes of the accompanying press release. The report in the August issue of Health Affairs says complications and deaths during surgery are equally low regardless of whether certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) or physician anesthesiologists are used. It also says there was no difference whether or not the nurse anesthesiologist was supervised by a surgeon. Therefore we can safely drop the Medicare rule requiring either an anesthesiologist or physician supervision of a CRNA when anesthesia is administered, it concluded. And though CRNAs are among the best-paid nurses, their time is still cheaper than a doctor's. So while Medicare currently reimburses at the same rate regardless of who's doing the administering, we could change that and save money. But as the study's own data show - sans spin - we could also lose lives. August 26, 2010 11:27 AM · Permalink ·
Health Care
WHO "ends" pandemic that never was, my Philly Inquirer pieceBy Michael FumentoHallelujah, the disaster has been averted! The World Health Organization last week declared the H1N1 swine flu pandemic over. Except for one little thing: It never happened. That is, as I write in today's Philly Inquirer, the WHO had no business labeling it a "pandemic." It did so purely for its own interests, wreaking worldwide havoc. Meanwhile, the world has wasted billions of dollars that could have been spent on diseases like tuberculosis, which each year kills 70 times as many people as swine flu did, according to the WHO. Now add in the "crying wolf" factor, which means many people will ignore public-health warnings when a truly nasty disease comes along, and you'll see how much damage was done by the swine flu disinformation campaign. "A license to kill," my NYPost piece on "Toyota Defense"By Michael FumentoThe "Toyota defense" just sprung a killer from prison. Ironically, it did so just days after a whistleblower revealed that the government is sitting on powerful evidence undercutting the whole "the throttle made me do it" excuse.
As I write in the New York Post, four years ago, Koua Fong Lee sped down a St. Paul, Minn., freeway off-ramp at between 70 and 90 mph in his 1996 Camry. He hit two vehicles waiting at a stop light, instantly killing Javis Adams, 33, and his son Javis Jr, 10. Another passenger, Devyn Bolton, age 6, was paralyzed and later died from her injuries. Lee claimed he was "stepping on the brakes as hard as possible," but mechanical engineers examined the car on behalf of both the state and the defense -- and, according to the prosecutor, both found the brakes were operating and there were no problems with the accelerator. Plus, there were no skid marks. Lee was convicted of criminal vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison. But ultimately he served only 2-and-a-half. Get ready for your blood to boil. And start thinking about the ramifications if everybody is simply allowed - with evidence as scant as this - to simply blame their car for the accidents that kill almost 40,000 Americans on our roads each year. Mike on Neil Cavuto on Toyota tonightBy Michael FumentoI'm scheduled to be the lead guest on Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business Channel at 6pm tonight.
Subject: The news that NHTSA is withholding exculpatory evidence regarding "alleged death" Toyota sudden acceleration accidents. And perhaps the guy in Michigan convicted of manslaughter who is the first to use "The Toyota Defense," that he hit the brakes and therefore the car accelerated. I've written about the "I'm sure I hit the brakes!" issue previously, in my piece "Why Do Toyotas Hate the Elderly? A tort reform advocate's dream, my article in Forbes.comBy Michael FumentoIt's a tort reform advocate's dream - meaning a defendant's worst nightmare. As I write in my Forbes.com article "California Trial Lawyers Find A Geezer Goldmine," the class action suit was based entirely on wording so tortuous that the nine members of the Supreme Court would have 10 different interpretations. An earlier case in the same state was tossed out because of that wording. Yet this defendant was slammed with a massive $671 million penalty, vastly beyond its ability to pay. And punitive damages are still pending. And the decision caused the defendant's stock value to plummet 75%.
Oh, and just one other thing. The very size of the verdict effectively prevents an appeal. But besides all that . . . This is the inner layer of hell in which Skilled Healthcare California LLC finds itself. The nation's 10th largest nursing care provider, it has 14,000 workers in California alone, making it one of the largest employers in a state with the third-worst jobless rate in America. They won't be better off because of this decision, and may well be much worse off. What horrors did the company inflict on those poor seniors to deserve the highly penalty awarded by any court this year? Convert them to Soylent Green? Actually no showing of harm was required - a blessing for the plaintiffs' attorneys because the California Nursing Home Directory has received over a thousand complaints but none regarding Skilled Healthcare. This is the most amazingly awful court decision I have ever written about - which is saying a lot. July 29, 2010 09:33 AM · Permalink ·
Regulation
The phony "Toyota deaths database." My article in Forbes magazineBy Michael FumentoIn the Toyota witch hunt, nothing has been more damning than those deaths we're told Toyota sudden acceleration "allegedly caused" or, depending on whom you read, DID cause. As I note in my just-published Forbes magazine article, "93 and Counting," the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration insists on the term "allegedly." But U.S. News & World Report blog-post headline proclaimed: "NHTSA: 89 Deaths Caused by Unintended Acceleration in Toyota Vehicles." The Los Angeles Times stated in a headline that sudden acceleration "led to" the deaths. A New York Post headline earlier declared that faulty Toyotas "have killed" 52 people. A CBS News Web headline (over an Associated Press story) similarly said the acceleration car fault "has killed" 89.
In any case, the NHTSA "complaint database," available on its website to anyone (yes, including the mainstream media), is hooey. So I found when I actually looked at the complaints. (Now there's a novel idea!) Anybody can enter anything. An entry filed by someone named "Damnable Liar" from Holy Toledo! Ohio claimed his car accelerated to the moon because of a child seat problem. That was mine. But the ones citing 99 deaths in one vehicle? Not mine. Three of the alleged fatal accidents never took place, which DID take sleuthing on my part. So did finding that, after the frenzy began, seven entries comprising ten deaths originally blamed on other aspects of the cars were refiled as unintended acceleration. But at a glance you can see many simply deduce that since investigators found no cause other than driver error, then the accelerator must be responsible. Or they make the illogical deduction that since the brakes weren't applied, it was sudden acceleration. And so on. And then there was the lady whose son, while sloshed and after smoking dope, killed his best friend in a Toyota Scion. After entering a NHTSA complaint blaming her boy's accident on sudden acceleration she entered seven more Scion complaints comprising 12 deaths that she'd merely pulled out of news reports and labeled as sudden acceleration. She's covering for her son. Yes, THESE are the "alleged" or "Toyota-caused" deaths we keep hearing about! No, NHTSA didn't blame all Toyota's troubles on driver errorBy Michael FumentoI can't count how many people sent me items about how NHTSA says the whole Toyota Tempest has now been determined by the government to have been driver error. Hallelujah! Case closed! Wrong. The ruckus began with a Wall Street Journal pieces with the unfortunately ambiguous titles: "Crash Data Suggest Driver Error in Toyota Accidents" and "Early Tests Pin Toyota Accidents on Drivers."
The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren't engaged at the time of the crash, people familiar with the findings said. The early results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyotas and Lexuses surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes. Of course they found that. I wrote about the mistaken pedal issue months ago. It's been know about since the 1980s and especially plagues the elderly. More important was the Journal's quote from scientist with the National Academy of Sciences, which has been studying the problem. "'In spite of our investigations, we have not actually been able yet to find a defect' in electronic throttle-control systems." And they never will. Even though that's the pet theory of the media and trial lawyers, there's nothing wrong with Toyota's electronic throttles. But consider this statistic: In the first half of last year, about 100 people reported sudden unintended acceleration in Toyotas. In the first half of this year, it was about 5,000. Do you think that's all "driver error," much less all those people stomping the wrong pedal all of the sudden? Stay tuned! |
