Obscenity of the Day

If there was any confusion about the state of politics in Europe at this time, this story brought to my attention by a friend of mine should put it to rest. Unfortunately European politicians are firmly on the side of appeasement and appear to have learned exactly zero from WWII.

Scientists & Altruist Confusions

LiveScience.com is today featuring the following story:

Altruistic Love Related to Happier Marriages

Altruism may breed better marriages, a new study suggests. Or, the data might mean that good marriages make people more altruistic.

Whatever, altruism and happiness seem to go together in the realm of love.

Sadly, scientists have mostly been profoundly ignorant of what altruism (or for that matter love) means. In this case they attempted to test for it through the following method:

Study participants were asked whether they agreed with statements that define altruism, such as, "I'd rather suffer myself than let the one I love suffer," and "I'm willing to sacrifice my own wishes to let the one I love achieve his or hers."

Sorry, incorrect! That question not only does not define altruism, it is the opposite of altruism it is acting in one's self-interest. Altruism as a word was originated by Auguste Comte and means in effect "otherism." It means that one's moral purpose in life ought to be the welfare of others. It was invented as an antonym for egoism. But if egoism means anything it means concern for one's interests or values. What could be a higher value than the spouse one loves? Is it selfless, to wish to die rather than see one's spouse suffer? No it isn't! Not if one selfishly wishes to live only a certain kind of life and anything else is worse than death. To show concern for one's top values even at the cost of some suffering is to choose a higher value (the spouse's life) over a lower value one's own (presumably temporary) suffering, is not selflessness but a sign of integrity and pride, thoroughly egoistic virtues.

Objectivist Conference in Denver Colorado Coming Up

I have not had a chance yet to go to a multi-day Objectivist conference (I have been to single day events) but I hear from people who have gone they are most enjoyable experiences. Colorado's Front Range Objectivism is holding an upcoming "Weekend Conference on Law, Individual Rights and the Judicial System." It will be held from March 4th-5th in Denver, Colorado. The speakers will include Tara Smith, Amy Peikoff, Eric Daniels, and Dana Berliner. With speakers like these it promises to be an event to remember. For all the details, plus online registration, visit:

http://www.frontrangeobjectivism.com/2006-law.html

The early registration deadline is this Saturday, February 11th. (Save $75!) so act now!

Healthcare vs. the FDA

It is often claimed by opponents of capitalism that without the mechanism of government regulation we would not be safe from the alleged greed of the pharmaceutical companies. Thus the products of pharmaceutical companies are regarded as guilty until proven innocent as if the companies were simply aching to sell fraudulent medications to innocent patients. The drug companies must subject their drugs, which took years to develop and test, to yet further testing by the FDA and only with FDA approval can their drugs be legally sold within the United States. What is less often understood is the role played by this kind of regulation in preventing information about important applications of drugs from reaching doctors and patients.

Leonard Flynn, an advisor to ACSH, writes:

The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently won a case against Eli Lilly & Co. when the company agreed to plead guilty and pay $36 million in connection with illegal promotion of its pharmaceutical drug Evista. What did the company do to earn such a penalty?

The company illegally promoted its pharmaceutical drug Evista because Lilly employees had advocated the product for "off-label" uses. Evista was approved for the treatment of osteoporosis, but the company was not allowed to breathe a word that Evista might be good for something else. The company did have evidence for the prevention of breast cancer and heart disease, but according to the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), as interpreted by FDA regulations, promotion of these other uses was forbidden.

What was the evidence for Evista's other potential uses? Was it on a limited number of test subjects for a short period of time? Far from it. Flynn continues:

Two research articles were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a prominent peer-reviewed scientific journal that presented scientific data supporting the use of raloxifene (the chemical name for Evista) for breast cancer prevention and heart protection. The first article was published in 1999, and it showed that raloxifene "reduced the risk of invasive breast cancer by 76% during three years of treatment." This was a substantial study that ran from 1994 through 1998 at 180 clinical centers in twenty-five countries, primarily the United States and countries in Europe, and included a total of 7,705 postmenopausal women with osteoporosis as the subject population. A "secondary analysis" of the same 7,705 women was published in 2002, and it demonstrated a "lower risk of cardiovascular events" for a subset of 1,035 women in the study who had an increased cardiovascular risk when the study began.

The FDA is after power, not health. Sadly, most of the time, evidence of regulation's destructive effects is hard to come by, since it involves what Henry Hazlitt referred to as the unseen results of government intervention, for example, the products that did not make it to the market, the businesses that were not started, the money that was not saved, etc. Neverthess Flynn is quite correct to wonder:

So, who cares if drug companies are prevented from informing doctors about additional uses of their products? The drug companies are obviously highly motivated to distribute favorable scientific information about their products because they can make more sales, it is argued, and FDA rules block the claims because the agency's regulatory power rests on this ability. What difference does this regulatory struggle make? It could make a big difference -- to patients.

In the late 1990s my mother, Inge Flynn, was dying of advanced breast cancer. In 1999, the Evista cancer study was published in JAMA. I wonder: if my mother's doctors had known of the raloxifene study, would they have prescribed it during her illness? Might the "off-label" drug Evista have benefitted her? She died on September 30, 2000.

Technological Achievement

Some good news on this blog for a change:

From asahi.com, the English edition of the Japanese Asahi Shimbun. The picture you can see above shows a little square to the left of the finger and a distinctive black dot to the right. The square on the left is an integrated circuit (IC) measuring 0.4 mm. The latest achievement however is the black dot on the right. Hitachi Ltd has created the world's smallest IC chip at 0.15 mm by 0.15 mm. Its thickness is 0.0075 mm! Asahi.com reports:

If an antenna is attached, the chip will still be thinner than paper for copy machines, and the information can be obtained without being touched by a reader, they added.
...

The newly developed chip can be used in a number of other ways, the officials said. Used with the Internet, for example, it can track the flow of products for home-delivery services.

The chip can also contain information about food, such as who raised the product and who distributed it.

In addition, it can be incorporated in bank notes, securities certificates and government documents to prevent forgeries.

On Immigrants (Legal or Otherwise)

A story in the San Diego Tribune discusses the plans of San Diego Minutemen to picket at an intersections " where day laborers wait for work." A counterprotest is expected by so-called "human rights activists." It is interesting to dissect the statements made representatives of both sides. First from the Minutemen side:

Organizers and Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, who will drive from his Aliso Viejo home to participate, say the goal is to educate employers of migrant workers that they are breaking U.S. tax and labor laws.

The whole intent is to bring national attention to this issue, said Gilchrist, whose organization has patrolled U.S. borders. We have this 21st-century slave labor trade, and we have the buyers or the users of those slaves, who are no different upstairs than those Southern Democrat slave traders from the pre-Civil War era.

There some truth but also quite a bit wrong with the above statements and that a leader in the Minutemen movement has said it does not bode well for the movement. First, let's agree with the legal claim -- employers who are hiring "migrant workers" are violating the law because they are providing employment to individuals they know have entered the country illegally and are thus accessories to a crime. Unfortunately, witpreponderanceerance of bad and immoral laws violations of the law become more common but it is a mistake to dismiss the legality of actions as unimportant. If we hope to be a "nation of laws" rather than a "nation of men" as our Founders hoped, it behooves us to enact moral laws that serve the proper function of government (protection of individual rights) and remove all other laws. When government and its laws serve their proper function, there should be no conflict between morality and law, because government then enforces those only the specifically social part of morality. I regard the immigration law with its various restrictions as profoundly immoral. Yet ultimately the proper response ought to be to change the law, not to find ever more elaborate means of circumventions.

Of course, the truly offensive part of the above statement by Gilchrist is the comparison of immigrants to slaves. The idea that people who willingly pay others to be transported across the border so that they can find employment in the United States can be compared to slaves is really quite absurd. The African slaves had no choice about their precarious voyages aboard the slave ships across the Atlantic. They certainly did not pay for it.

Here's a quote from one "migrant worker":

"We are here because of a huge necessity," said a man yesterday who gave his name as Alberto Rodriguez, 25, a Vista resident from the Mexican city of Puebla."We are not doing anything bad. "We are not robbing people. We want a better future."

This quote is clearly meant to generate sympathy for the workers and yet what possible moral argument could be given against it? Fundamentally, if an employer in the United States wants to hire a person to work for him on a mutually agreed to basis and that person happens to come from Mexico, why should any government interfere? Whose rights are being violated? If anything, to stop the person entering from Mexico would constitute a violation of the rights of trade and freedom of association of both the Mexican worker and the American employer. Clearly if what Rodriguez is doing is against the law then immigration laws ought to change.

Our only border restrictions ought to be security or public health related. We should have a list of terrorists that are not allowed into the country because they are known to be dangerous. We should watch out for obvious signs of dangerous, life-threatening infectious disease. Other than that, if people want to come here and work, they should be allowed. Of course, all welfare and so-called public services would have to be abolished so that people don't just come here for a free lunch but even today most immigrants do not come here for our welfare programs. However, citizenship, as opposed to mere residency, should continue with the present restrictions (a minimum of 5 year residency, various examinations and a swearing in ceremony). Through their vote citizens determine the make-up of governments and thus its policies. That kind of power must stay with people who actually intend to stay in the country in the long-term.

Denmark and Freedom of the Press



There is not much to add to what has already been said on the Danish cartoon controversy, for example at Cox & Forkum who have illustrated the basic point quite well.

I did buy some Havarti cheese this weekend.
Another amusing cartoon can be seen on the site of the German newspaper Die Welt.

The text in the bubble reads (my rough translation): "Please understand me doctor, I feel emotionally hurt." It's nice to see elements of Europe show a hint of a backbone for a change.

I've seen the supposedly offending cartoons in question. I can't say I find them offensive; for the most part they merely point out the obscenity of what is currently done in the name of Mohammed and Islam. But it is important to keep in mind that even if the cartoons were highly offensive to objective values, that the only moral response would be intellectual condemnation and boycott. The fact that violence has accompanied protests against the cartoons means that even if they were offensive, the moral high-ground has been lost, much as during the days of Salman Rushdie, any problem with Rushdie or his book, pales in comparison to the violent response he has had to face. The leaders of the civilized world ought to take a stand against any intimidation of its free press. Unfortunately, from both the previous Democratic President and the State Department of the current Republican one, the response has been morally sickening.