Prosecutors in the US are notorious for trying to obtain convictions at the expense of justice. In doing so, they will resort to all manner of dubious methods and what has come to be known as ‘junk science’, evidence that seems scientific but has not been shown to be reliable or consistent, is one such technique, using such methods to persuade judges and juries to convict. These junk science theories are advanced by people who pose as expert witnesses in cases, usually on the side of the prosecutors, while judges and juries are not made aware that these methods are unreliable. These so-called experts make a living by being ‘expert witnesses’ in cases and providing ‘training’ to police and police officers.
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Back in the 60s and 70s, psychedelic drugs, notably LSD, had a mixed reputation. There were those who took them who claimed that it brought them vivid experiences and enlightenment and increased their creativity, and there were also horror stories of people doing all manner of crazy things, even killing themselves after taking them. The net image that remained from that era (in my mind at least) was that these drugs were too dangerous and one should avoid them at all costs.

But it turns out that because of the war-on-drugs mentality that tried to scare people off all drugs, some of the frightening stories about psychedelics were exaggerated or outright falsehoods and thus suppressed research into those drugs that might have given us a more balanced picture as well as possible positive uses of them.

On his latest episode of his show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver looks at what we know now about the use of these drugs as therapies in treating patients.

This is not to say that those drugs should be taken recreationally. He points out that these drugs should only be taken as part of a carefully monitored therapeutic programs under controlled conditions.

A few years ago, the serious brain injury condition known as chronic trauma encephalopathy (CTE) that was found after autopsies of former American football players made news and there were calls for reform. (I wrote several posts about this back then.) But it seems like those concerns have been forgotten and we have just seen yet another Super Bowl extravaganza with scarcely a mention of the fact that the players out on the field were likely destroying their brains, with each hard concussive hit cheered on by the millions watching the event

In an article in the New Yorker, Ingfei Chen highlights the research of medical historian Stephen Casper who has found that the revelations of brain injuries in football players that were treated as surprising new findings have been known for a long time in football, hockey, soccer, and rugby and each time the sports business complex has managed to suppress those concerns by arguing that the causal relationship of repeated collisions in sports to brain damage were not conclusively proven. The sports industry is adopting the same tactics as the tobacco industry did when the dangers of smoking were first raised. They bring forward their own paid ‘researchers’ to cast doubt and claim that the science is not yet resolved and demand standards of rigor in making causal connections that would take decades to obtain, all so that the people making money from the violence can ignore the problem.
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The media has been agog with the sudden flurry of objects in the sky that have been shot down by the US military. There have been four so far in the space of eight days. The objects have been nothing if not varied. So far, we have had the large white balloon that started the process, followed by what was described as. a small car-like object, then a cylindrical object, and then an octogonal one. The Chinese government has acknowledged that the balloon was theirs but say that it was a meteorological balloon and not a spy device. No one has claimed ownership of the other three objects.

What is peculiar is that all four objects were essentially propelled by the ambient wind currents and thus drifted at very low speeds. Of course, this has spurred all manner of claims (seriously by UFOlogists and facetiously by skeptics) that these are probes sent by extra-terrestrials to gain data before they invade.
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There is a new tactic being exploited by the anti-vax conspiracy theorists. They seize upon any news item about the ‘sudden death’ of someone (whether that person is a celebrity or not) to pump into action and spread rumors that the death was caused by the covid vaccines.

Results from 6-year-old Anastasia Weaver’s autopsy may take weeks. But online anti-vaccine activists needed only hours after her funeral this week to baselessly blame the COVID-19 vaccine.

A prolific Twitter account posted Anastasia’s name and smiling dance portrait in a tweet with a syringe emoji. A Facebook user messaged her mother, Jessica Day-Weaver, to call her a “murderer” for having her child vaccinated.

In reality, the Ohio kindergartner had experienced lifelong health problems since her premature birth, including epilepsy, asthma and frequent hospitalizations with respiratory viruses. “The doctors haven’t given us any information other than it was due to all of her chronic conditions. … There was never a thought that it could be from the vaccine,” Day-Weaver said of her daughter’s death.

But those facts didn’t matter online, where Anastasia was swiftly added to a growing list of hundreds of children, teens, athletes and celebrities whose unexpected deaths and injuries have been incorrectly blamed on COVID-19 shots. Using the hashtag #diedsuddenly, online conspiracy theorists have flooded social media with news reports, obituaries and GoFundMe pages in recent months, leaving grieving families to wrestle with the lies.
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The use of “died suddenly” — or a misspelled version of it — has surged more than 740% in tweets about vaccines over the past two months compared with the two previous months, the media intelligence firm Zignal Labs found in an analysis conducted for The Associated Press. The phrase’s explosion began with the late November debut of an online “documentary” by the same name, giving power to what experts say is a new and damaging shorthand.
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The “Died Suddenly” film features a montage of headlines found on Google to falsely suggest they prove that sudden deaths have “never happened like this until now.” The film has amassed more than 20 million views on an alternative video sharing website, and its companion Twitter account posts about more deaths and injuries daily.

This is despicable. The death of a loved one is already hard for people to deal with, especially when it is sudden and the person is young. To add to their grief by spreading falsehoods about them is unconscionable.

The US government has proposed new standards for school meals that seek to reduce the amount of sugar (and salt) in them.

U.S. agriculture officials on Friday proposed new nutrition standards for school meals, including the first limits on added sugars, with a focus on sweetened foods such as cereals, yogurt, flavored milk and breakfast pastries.

The plan announced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also seeks to significantly decrease sodium in the meals served to the nation’s schoolkids by 2029, while making the rules for foods made with whole grains more flexible.

The goal is to improve nutrition and align with U.S. dietary guidelines in the program that serves breakfast to more than 15 million children and lunch to nearly 30 million children every day, Vilsack said.

“School meals happen to be the meals with the highest nutritional value of any meal that children can get outside the home,” Vilsack said in an interview.

I am bracing myself for the right wing freakout along the lines “OMG! The government is coming to take candy away from our children!” although that is not at all what is being proposed. I am surprised that it has not happened already.
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