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The US officially raises the tobacco buying age to 21
A new law in the United States that prohibits the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21 is now in effect, according to the US Food and Drug Administration.
Last week, President Donald Trump signed the new minimum age into law as part of a sweeping spending bill. On Friday, the FDA noted on its website that "it is now illegal for a retailer to sell any tobacco product -- including cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes -- to anyone under 21. FDA will provide additional details on this issue as they become available."
The increased age restriction for tobacco purchases is one of several provisions outside of the spending measures themselves attached to the broader $1.4 trillion spending agreement.
Also at ABC.
Previously: California to Permit Assisted Suicide Starting June 9th, Could Raise Smoking Age to 21
California's Legal Smoking Age Set to Rise to 21
Tobacco Roundup
U.S. Surgeon General Decries Teenage Vaping
Oregon Becomes the Fifth State to Raise the Tobacco Age Limit to 21
San Francisco Bans E-Cigarette Sales
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:34AM (75 children)
Until he is an adult, what am I supposed to do about my 16-year-old son? He sets a bad example for younger siblings, with lots of sloth and disrespect, but I have no effective way to punish him. I can't kick him out and he knows it. I probably wouldn't even have to kick him out if I could do so, because then he'd fear it enough to shape up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:45AM
Drug him, ADD drugs are easy to get prescribed to lazy slothful kids.
Start with one adderall then ask him to do housework for more ;)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:45AM (35 children)
Personally, I'd say sixteen at the latest with anyone wanting to take on the responsibilities of an adult at any time in their teens able to make that decision and live with it.
I worked after school and weekends and bought my own car at sixteen. Got my GED, dropped out of school, got a decent paying job moving pianos, and got my own place at barely seventeen. Joined the Army at eighteen. My dad worked full time and had his own apartment at thirteen. We're infantilizing the shit out of people who should be capable of taking responsibility for their own choices. Fuck, we're even calling college students "kids" now. There's some motherfuckers out there that desperately need to learn the meanings of the words "child", "adolescent", and "adult".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Sunday December 29 2019, @04:04AM (3 children)
Conversely if they aren't mature enough to hold their beer, they're not mature enough to hold a ballot deciding over the fate of others either.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @11:27AM (2 children)
Holding your beer is a function of experience and not wanting to be a dumbass in public not age. Better to get the stupid out of the way all at once if you really must.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday December 29 2019, @11:49AM (1 child)
Yes, age is getting used as a surrogate for experience and maturity. These days it does not necessarily mean either. I can't think of any work-arounds for that which can't get gamed worse than the current situation though.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:13PM
The workaround is what we started with, letting those doing moronic things reap the consequences.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Sunday December 29 2019, @04:39AM (7 children)
I graduated school, learned to play music by ear, made a few recordings, ran into a bit of trouble with crowds at some of my performances going a bit wild, joined the army at 23 and served in Germany, came back to the US to continue my music career with some roles in movies, got Colonel Parker to be my manager, and have never looked back. Thangyouverymuuuch!
(Score: 4, Informative) by RS3 on Sunday December 29 2019, @04:47AM (3 children)
For anyone who didn't get it, that's Elvis Presley's story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @06:37AM
driverless --> elvis derrs
seems legit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Sunday December 29 2019, @07:09AM
Left out the 14yo..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @05:34PM
I thought he left the building?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @04:26AM (2 children)
Then died in a Las Vegas toilet stall with a stomach full of pills.... epic.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday December 30 2019, @04:33AM
'mmm not dead baby, jus' restin'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @05:02AM
The can in question was in his home in Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29 2019, @05:59PM (21 children)
Should be is quite different from is be.
Good for you and your dad - my grandfather dropped out of school in the 6th grade, worked his way into the TVA and worked as a mechanic in the Army Air Corps in WWII. On the other hand, my younger brother has been a fucking train wreck and still struggles to manage his own affairs at age 45, and there is a fairly strong drug culture component of the train wreck years story.
Common theme: the young success stories tend to make "good choices" for themselves, while the train wrecks don't. The nanny state wants to reduce the number of train wrecks, so they attempt to legislate "good choices" onto the youth of the nation hoping to improve overall outcomes. Mix in corporate greed, political reality, etc. and you've got the mess we live in today.
I do firmly believe that the arbitrary age limits set out in laws are inadequate approximations - many younger people are already capable of X while many older people aren't, but anything like a competency exam is usually met with cries of discrimination (often well founded...)
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:29PM (3 children)
Much of our audience can't imagine those days. It needs to be said that 100 years ago, an 8th grade education was the norm. Most communities offered 8 years of schooling for everyone, and only serious students stayed longer. The best student of a generation might be sent off to college, to become the next generation's teacher. And, a 2-year bachelor degree actually meant something, as opposed to PhD's today who can't find a job.
On the other hand, an 8th grade final exam was something of an accomplishment. Maybe I can find one to share . . .
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/1912-eighth-grade-exam_n_3744163 [huffpost.com]
I said what I said. - Sophie Cunningham
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @09:10PM (2 children)
I think I could have answered most of those when I had an eighth grade education (don't know what a cord is though). At least in the 80s if you paid attention, public schools could disseminate a decent education.
Problem was that failure to keep up wasn't punished. Whether you learned because you wanted to be a functioning adult ASAP, or just didn't give a fuck, everyone was dragged along in the system until ejected at the end of 12th grade. Because that is the purpose of public school, to babysit the kids so parents could work.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday December 31 2019, @05:48PM
With the advent of electricity and electric heating, your average person doesn't need to know how much wood is in a cord of wood.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cord_(unit) [wikipedia.org]
It's a lot bigger than I would have figured, but I was never curious enough to look it up.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @08:05AM
It was still a lousy top-down, authoritarian, prussia-based abomination. Mindless rote memorization - as opposed to a high-level understanding of the material - was almost all that was required. There were no good old days for the US school system.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:34PM (16 children)
Still missing the point. If someone is willing to accept the consequences of making adult choices for themselves, it's nobody else's obligation or right to stop them. People have an absolute right to be wrong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @02:44AM (15 children)
Yep. If someone is capable of making adult choices for themselves without turning themselves into a basket case requiring high levels of taxpayer funded support, either in prison, court ordered rehab, welfare, foodstamps, etc. THEN they have an absolute right to be wrong.
You want to ride a motorcycle with no helmet? Fine, I'm all for that, as long as your hospital bill from the crash isn't coming out of my insurance payments. I still don't wear bicycle helmets myself because I think that particular nanny-state law is mostly counter-productive: how about riding the bike responsibly enough to not head-plant yourself instead? 40,000+ miles and probably 100 crashes to-date in my personal experience, never once lost control in a way that sent my head to the pavement. Maybe I've just been lucky, maybe it will happen some day and I can retire on everybody else's dime instead of working until I'm 74, certainly happened to my train-wreck of a brother when he was 9, but we're pretty sure that had little or nothing to do with his ongoing challenges.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday December 30 2019, @04:31AM (7 children)
I am not using helmet because it sends a wrong message, namely that bicycling is dangerous. It is dangerous all right, but, I believe, not bicycling is more so (diabetes, overweight, lack of crash training and so on). Ideally, a kid should have bike as the first choice of transportation always. Asking to always have a helmet with her is unrealistic.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @04:48AM (6 children)
In sentiment and principle I agree, but as for unrealistic? Around here, they give bike helmets away in public school, you could easily just leave it hanging on the handlebars and who's going to steal a crappy free bike helmet?
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday December 30 2019, @06:55AM (5 children)
Bike share is easy; helmet share is not. One has to carry helmet all the time for bikes to be really convenient.
Besides, "crappy free bike helmet" does not work. Helmets that do work actually have an expiration dates of 3-5 years.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @12:21PM (4 children)
The ones they give away around here are indistinguishable from the ones you buy in the fancy bike shops, except for a recognizable color scheme and a little "school free bike helmet program" logo on them. Through elementary school you can get a couple of them, I'm not sure about middle school. Point being: they're not really expensive to provide when you provide them like that. Sure, a specialty bike shop might charge $30 for a helmet you can buy in WalMart for $9.99, but if they are being mass produced and delivered to school children for free the actual cost drops well below $5 each, and if they really do prevent injury, $1 per year per kid is damn cheap insurance.
Now, if you're fortunate enough to live in bike-share country... that's foreign territory to me. Around here we just buy 'em cheap at yard sales, like less than $20 for a decent condition kid's bike. Even going concern for-profit outlets like pawn shops and thrift stores charge less than $50 for a decent 12-speed suspension bike with disc brakes. Bike theft of bottom-end bikes just isn't the concern here and now the way it was in the 1970s.
Meanwhile, specialty bike shops selling shiny new stuff that's otherwise not much better start around $700 and go up from there for "real quality" bicycles. It's one of the painfully clear illustrations of the modern wealth-gap.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday December 30 2019, @09:09PM (3 children)
What I was trying to say is that a helmet have to be good, tightly tied, and fresh to be able to stop serious head injury. An old cheap helmet just handing on the head does not protect the head. In fact it offers false safety - provokes risky behavior while providing very little protection benefit.
I realize that bike helmet manufactures screw their customers. However, one still can find out some truth by researching motorcycle helmets. They are DOT certified and that certification has a helmet age limit. The reason is that light helmet' filling loses it's protective properties with time.
I believe that bad helmet is worse than no helmet and since almost nobody has good helmet, no helmet is always a better option; plus the "danger" message part which makes children fat and sick.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @09:55PM (2 children)
Well, like I said, the schools are giving out brand new ones, indistinguishable from the best available, for free.
Now, you're talking about all helmets, which I actually agree with.
There's a real difference between hitting the pavement at 12 mph and 60 mph, and you wouldn't want your neck to try to support a motorcycle helmet while riding a bicycle.
And, when I say "crappy school helmet" I'm not talking about one that has been crash-used multiple times. This is America, we throw away brand new shit just because it's out of style. Out of style doesn't mean non-functional.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday December 31 2019, @12:08AM (1 child)
Just so we are on the same page, any modern helmet - and let me use ski helmet as another example - that was dropped on the floor should be replaced or it is useless in a crash.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 31 2019, @02:51AM
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @04:53PM (6 children)
You're the one saying the taxpayers should support fools, not I.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @06:56PM (5 children)
I'm the one observing that taxpayers do support fools, as long as that's the case let's not enable the fools to put themselves on disability.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @09:43PM (4 children)
That's doubling down on idiocy. If you want less of something (foolishness in this case) you stop subsidizing it, you don't throw good money after bad.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @10:25PM (3 children)
The law in question (the one in the real world) isn't throwing money anywhere - it's restricting youth access to addictive chemicals and their delivery systems. Kind of like government bans on theft and murder, I'm behind this one for the tiny cost that it will incur - age limits already existed, this is moving the number.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:38AM (2 children)
You're confusing what you're talking about. I said let people make mistakes and learn from them, you said but it'd cost money, I said not if you don't subsidize stupid, you lost track and started over.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 31 2019, @05:47AM (1 child)
I've always held the belief that insurance is subsidizing stupid (and willfully reckless / destructive). Social insurance is no different, but all kinds of insurance are - in their best forms - spreading risk and reducing overall cost burden by not throwing those in need of making a claim under the bus from which it is much more expensive to extract oneself.
Letting people "learn" by trying nicotine for a few months, then spending decades trying to kick the habit doesn't seem like a great strategy.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:37AM
That's all fine and good when it's a voluntary system. When it's done at gunpoint (And don't say that's hyperbole. It's not. Not even a little bit. Fail to pay your taxes and see if men with guns don't show up.) that's another matter entirely.
Of parenting? Probably not. The government has no business saying what its citizens can put in their bodies though. Doesn't matter if they're five or seventy-five, that's way overstepping their authority.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:13PM
Yeah you did absolutely none of that.
(Score: 0, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:54AM (37 children)
Sorry, didn't answer your question. Beat his ass. If you're physically incapable, dump him on the state; they're outstanding at making lazy assholes the best lazy assholes they can be.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by https on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:24PM (10 children)
So you're openly advocating child abuse now, using your staff account.
You need to take a long look in the mirror and understand that you are a) seriously fucked in the head, and b) a hazard to society. I don't know how you got there, but you ain't moving and that decision is on you.
martyb, i've mentioned previously the obstacle to making me a paying subscriber...
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday December 29 2019, @03:38PM
Some people aren't fit to be parents. Luckily this one at least recognizes that and refrains from procreation.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @06:03PM (5 children)
Get your sanctimonious ass off of your high pony. "Staff account"? Everybody volunteers their spare time here. As a commenter, he is as free as all of us to give his opinion.
Do feel free to become a paying subscriber at your own site, where everybody shares your value system.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @07:11PM (4 children)
It is not sanctimonious, society has pretty universally condemned child abuse. You don't need physical abuse to set boundaries and provide discipline.
One of the bigger problems our society has is the commitment to tolerance and acceptance of people. This has led to the racists and bigots getting outraged that people don't want them around.
Volunteer or not doesn't matter, buzzy is still in a leadership position on the site and is frequently very vocal about his opinions. I think the idea that he have separate accounts for personal and leadership uses is not asking too much. Having him removed from volunteering? I can see that given his deliberate trolling and advocating child abuse. Not something I'd want my organization associated with.
So now the most depraved among us are lauded, told they have a safe space. I'm fine with the free speech dedication of this site, but a good chunk of the user base have moved from "free speech advocate" to "advocate of terrible things." Terrible people are being encouraged instead of tolerated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @07:24PM (1 child)
Does that make your fingers just *itch* to have them silenced? Are you disappointed that they can't be threatened with the sack when you tell on them? Dismayed that we are still so small that deplatforming would not yield enough of a virtue signalling gain to our providers?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @12:45AM
Thanks for highlighting the problem. You're so anxious to be a victim you can't see reality. Must be all that projection, YOU want to silence your critics and other people you deem subhuman so you naturally expect that is what others want for you.
Get lost little bigot.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @04:33AM
Depends on your society - white upper middle class US society? Yes. Asian, Latin, Black, poor immigrants? Not so much.
Ronnie Chieng: Asian Comedian Destroys America - now streaming on Netflix, recommended as not a total waste of your time.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @08:09AM
Spanking has not been banned in many places, so no. Also, psychological child abuse is still very much allowed.
Society doesn't actually care about children as much as some seem to think. It gives the appearance of caring, sure, but its actions say the opposite.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:35PM
You think corporal punishment is child abuse? You are why we have thirty year old children living at home.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @09:38AM (1 child)
Often enough, an ass whipping is EXACTLY what a kid needs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @08:11AM
An ass whooping is exactly what you need. Oh, wait, that would be assault. But, if use physical violence against someone under 18 years of age, then it's okay.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 29 2019, @06:09PM (25 children)
I've got a "special" case with autism - they can't test him so he comes out below 70IQ, but in certain (limited) ways he's manipulating PhD behaviorists to get what he wants... Got into a situation with him one night aged ~5, in a B&B where he wanted to get out of bed and go roam around the 100 acre farm and surrounding woods in the dark. Wrestled him back into bed 10 times, verbally instructed him to stay, etc. Always within 3-5 minutes he'd be up again running for the stairs. Gave him his first proper paddling and he immediately tucked in and stayed in bed until morning. Next night, he starts up again, but this time he's grabbing my hand spanking his own butt with it - spankings weren't really effective on him ever again.
The state employs too many people who care too little to do most "hardcase care" jobs. Some of them still use beatings, etc. to get their point across. My point to you is: if you're still using physical beatings to communicate with your kids when they are getting big and strong enough that you're becoming physically incapable of beating them... you have effectively trained your child, for life, to use physical violence to communicate. Congratulations: that makes you an official part of the problem, potentially extending for generations beyond your death.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday December 29 2019, @07:37PM (7 children)
Bless you for your effort and attitude and for trying to learn and do your best. I don't know if I could deal with it, nor what I would do in your situation.
Too lazy to look it up, but I'm pretty sure I remember some research coming out of Sweden or somewhere in Europe concluding that watching TV ages 0-2 caused autism and other disorders. I was eating dirt at that age. Or playing with wires or pretty much anything but TV.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @02:28AM (6 children)
There's published research from all over, with all kinds of wild speculation about what "causes autism" ranging from refrigerator mothers through industrial pollution, organophosphate fertilizer/pesticides, multifactor genetics, mercury, etc. and none of it seems to be able to explain the recent surge in prevalence and severity. Awareness does explain a part of the surge, but not anywhere near all of it.
I was raised on TV (babysitter from 2 months of age through kindergarten - TV 8 hours+ per day) and "look how great I turned out..."
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @03:23AM (5 children)
Yeah, all good points, except maybe that last one. Just kidding! Yeah, I think that TV study went away because it wasn't definitive nor causative.
And don't forget the anti-vaxers- vaccines cause autism, right?
Something's causing it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @04:21AM (4 children)
Well, in our house we have 2, one severe, one hyper-extreme-severe. The hyper-extreme one had a serious developmental regression around 23 months old, and I might blame that one on pesticides used in our rental house, or general (Houston) environmental toxin loads, or just a genetic "failure to prune" - his headsize to body size ratio was literally off the charts, well beyond 99%. However, he also had a really bad reaction to a Hep-A vaccine around 30 months of age - unbelievable fever spike 8 hours post vaccination, no seizures, but treatment in the ER with ice bath, tylenol and ibuprofen managed to bring it down to ~102 after a couple of hours. This was around 2004, so mom dove in on the anti-vax thing at that point and I wasn't going to object. He eats plenty of dirt and has been (other than the occasional bout of Rotavirus) super healthy since. Our less extreme case was about a year old when we went off the vaccination schedule, still do tetanus but otherwise we have laid off. Less vaccines, less severe autism? The correlation holds for our N of 2. Do I believe the vaccines "caused" our kids autism? No - but, I do believe that they weren't helping reduce the severity of it and from our perspective, that's a very important consideration.
The short answer is: modern life. And, if you like, less severe autism might be considered a contributing factor to the modern life that's causing more severe autism. Our earliest conversation about the kids' autism was with a pediatrician in Nassau Bay, literally across from the front gate of Space Center Houston. She was Indian and had two observations: 1) oh, don't worry, just get him a good wife and he'll be fine, and 2) pointing out the window at NASA, most of the guys over there have autism (true enough, though not severe like our kids), they do fine. We didn't feel comforted at all by her platitudes, shortly thereafter mom discovered Gluten Free (pretty obscure in 2004) and it did make a big positive difference in our day to day lives with the kids - not a cure at all, but a major improvement, and a major setback when the diet would get broken. Couple the clear observable results of Gluten Free in our lives with the swirl of doubt and controversy around 2004 and the vaccines were just a no-go for our kids.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @05:12AM (3 children)
This is fascinating, thanks.
I know people who are into a wide variety of nutrition, natural foods, holistic, read up on "leaky gut syndrome", on and on. I know I eat a bit too much sugar and sometimes develop symptoms of candida overgrowth. Bacteria can create all kinds of nasty stuff- some of which is obviously poison, but some are subtle. I think some people are more sensitive to the effects of some things, especially some allergens. But there may be many subtle sensitivities we really don't understand yet. Just to be clear, I'm not pro-vax nor anti-vax. No question some people have horrible reactions to vaccines. Imagine someday they might test for allergic reaction before full dose. But even then a person could develop severe non-allergic reactions. Makes me want to look 100 years into the future- will mankind fully understand all of our chemistry?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @12:02PM (2 children)
This is what I think most people fail to grasp about diet and health - your gut is a dynamic environment, what "works" in one state can be totally bad for you in another. It's not "one simple trick" that works for all people all the time, it's an ongoing and usually dynamic relationship between your body, your colony of microbes, and the food you eat.
Our older son used to be VERY sensitive to even the smallest amounts of gluten, today we can get away with small "infractions" as mom calls them and he doesn't seem to suffer, but just ignoring it and eating "normal" will still bring him down. The other one doesn't seem affected one way or the other by gluten or gluten free. Mom and I are old enough that we feel inflammation in the joints and similar things if we eat too much gluten bearing foods, I have a knee that literally starts making noise while descending stairs when my inflammation is up - cut the gluten completely for a couple of weeks and it stops doing that, this has been true for the past 15+ years now.
Yeah, the thing I hate most about it is the so-called vaccine injury fund which (from my perspective) is a sham of a justification for how safe they are. I think one autism case has managed to successfully sue for damages, but you have to have such unreasonable levels of resources to successfully pursue a case and proof of injury by the vaccine which you personally collect, because the establishment sure as hell won't collect it for you, that it really heavily skews the results in the fund's favor. Do vaccines give everybody Autism? clearly not. Are vaccines 100% responsible for the recent (last 30 years) upturn in Autism cases? I think also, clearly not. However, are vaccines partly responsible for the severity of symptoms in some significant fraction of the 175 new Autism cases diagnosed in the US every day? I don't know, but my gut says yes, and being personally responsible for 2 of those cases the apparent cost/benefit ratio was too high for us to continue taking chances of another fever of 108.
Maybe, but the cynic in me says that they need to keep up this unified front of "vaccines cause no harm" so any research into things like allergy prediction are going to have serious funding problems. If they have even partial success with that kind of research it could trigger massive liabilities in the vaccine injury fund by providing supporting evidence for potentially millions of cases (roughly 20 years per million ASD diagnoses in the US).
I think it's possible, but I'm not sure I'd consider that an improvement in quality of life, at least not in the early years, having to run constant chemical analyses on your body to tailor your diet/medication regime just to stay reasonably healthy. Again, if the conspiracy theorist nutjobs are right (and once in a while even a totally random nutjob is correct) and "big agriculture" has genetically/chemically engineered our wheat supply into something that's harmful to 2+% of the population, that's going to be a brouhaha that will make the lead in gasoline fiasco look tame.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @02:26PM (1 child)
You're quite sage and rational.
Two of my cynically favorite phrases, which are quite interrelated: "sweeping generalization" (seems to be proliferating with the increased usage of the 'net) and "popular misconception".
Not a doctor (regrettably) nor expert, but AFAIK an allergic reaction test is a fairly simple inexpensive thing, generally done by putting a tiny sample of the substance on the skin, covering it, and checking for reaction for a day or so. Again, not expert, I just know people who have had it done.
Absolutely agree re: food / gut biology. It's absolute science. Trouble is, someone gets wind of some of it and advertises in those absurd printings like "national inquirer" and then many people glom onto it, and others overly shun it. And as you mentioned, what works well for one person may not at all for another.
I've often thought about cravings- it's possible your body knows what you need. Occasionally real medical diagnosis involves learning the patient's cravings- some of which can be harmful of course- depends on the substance.
My thinking in terms of future medicine, it should be fairly simple to do chemical element testing, coupled with gene understanding, and figure out who is particularly sensitive to what. I envision a pill, similar to a "pillcam" that would do chemical analysis. I have much more to write but no time... Generally I think there's not anywhere near enough diagnostic testing done. And it all needs to become much less expensive. Right now there's no incentive to reduce costs and increase efficiency of diagnostic testing, but again, no time...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @03:54PM
I believe in Darwin, and I believe that _most_ cravings are beneficial to the craver, or at least their net capacity to procreate... however, I also believe in parasitic control of hosts, and that many cravings are more beneficial to the gut microbes than they are to the host.
Generally, I agree, but after three decades in the medical device industry I can somewhat authoritatively inform you: these things are driven by market forces. Lower cost anything is difficult to develop because that lower cost has to couple with enough market expansion to make the net change a positive impact to overall profits, otherwise: there are higher priority projects out there that will make a bigger net positive impact to overall profits and in a world of limited resources: CAGR is king.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 29 2019, @08:41PM (16 children)
Damn, sorry to hear that. And you're absolutely right that uncommon cases can require uncommon treatment.
As for corporal punishment in general cases, it's meant to be used as punctuation to the ass chewing that precedes it. By itself it's not anywhere near as effective but combined it indisputably sticks the lesson home more effectively. Yes, even on teenagers.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @02:33AM (15 children)
It's like the damn Dr. Phil show where he told moms how to deal with difficult eaters: "you're the adult, you're in control, just wait - they'll get hungry enough they'll eventually eat what you give them." Yeah, great advice Dr. Phil, for 98% of your viewing audience. For the other SEVENTY SIX THOUSAND mothers out there watching your show and dealing with actual hard-case eating problems, you're telling them to malnourish their kids into severe health problems and possibly death.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @03:40AM (7 children)
Wait, you mean there are people who take Dr. Phil seriously?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @04:23AM (6 children)
Yeah, unfortunately the proportion of his viewing audience that takes him seriously is really high as compared to the general population and higher still as compared to relatively educated, informed people.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @05:16AM (5 children)
Sadly it's one of the things in life that naturally follow- people dumb enough to watch stuff like that are dumb enough to follow the advice. The few minutes I've seen of Dr. Phil show were purely for entertainment spectacle. Hard to understand that anyone takes it seriously. Hey Dr. Phil, how's that working for you?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @12:09PM (4 children)
There's the problem. He's folksy, he spouts easy to remember simple to understand crap that does work for most people, but he's got a viewing audience of millions. Most of those millions go around echoing his simple advice that "worked great for them," not understanding that tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of people are hurt, instead of helped, by that same simple advice.
It's not even a problem of national scale, in his studio audience of a couple hundred there will be some people who fall outside the simple folksy box, and generally speaking, they're the ones who "need" real help the most. But serving everyone in the room doesn't fit the mold of a simple folksy high viewership high revenue advice show.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @02:11PM (3 children)
And remember, he was endorsed and set up by the big "O". You get a car! And you get a car! And you get horrible advice that you'll take as you crash and burn!
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @03:44PM (2 children)
The Oprah effect is a social-economic phenomenon that you can invest on and make excellent returns - so many lemmings following her lead, ready to be fleeced as they fall off the cliff.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday December 30 2019, @06:25PM (1 child)
They knew "fleece" was involved; they confused it with the Golden Fleece.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @07:12PM
The thing about Oprah, she may give away cars, her viewers may have cars, but what they don't realize is that Oprah can afford helicopters, so when they drive their cars off the cliff following her, they're not in for the same soft landing she's getting.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @04:56PM (6 children)
Good advice does not become bad advice just because there is an extreme minority for whom it is not the way to go.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @07:01PM (5 children)
If that extreme minority numbers in the hundreds, or even tens of thousands, they deserve consideration.
No matter how normal you think you are, you're in an extreme minority in lots of dimensions - everybody is.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @09:45PM (4 children)
If you're actually in that minority by all means use different advice. Most people aren't.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 30 2019, @10:29PM (3 children)
Start with the street you live on, in your town a very small minority of people live on your street.
Now, how about the company you work for? No matter how big, it's a small minority of employees in the jurisdiction it operates in.
Got any diseases that need treating? Most of those are "tiny minority" affairs too.
When we stop caring about minorities, we stop caring about everybody - if you're too obtuse to see how that includes you, oh well - enjoy it when you get singled out for a kick in the 'nads and nobody steps up for your "tiny minority."
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:44AM (2 children)
That you're in some kind of minority is not in question. That you're in a particular one is what matters for specific issues.
And, yeah, I'm fine with not taking care of minorities. I don't want the government taking care of anyone, aside from national defense, providing courts of law, keeping Georgia from putting tariffs on Florida, and other legitimate functions of government. Making sure you're comfortable and happy from cradle to grave is not one of those functions. That's entirely your own responsibility.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 31 2019, @05:55AM (1 child)
It's not about comfortable and happy, it's about reasonably healthy and low cost to maintain regardless of who's footing the bill.
Let people hit rock bottom and (in today's society) you'll be paying for their rehab until they're on their feet again, which in some (not insignificant) number of cases is until they die. If you're o.k. with letting people die from bad choices like having parents who worked for an industry that lays them off after 20 years in the mill and renders them unemployable with the other 10,000 people they cut loose at the same time... that's a different society than the one I live in.
Preventing people from hitting rock bottom in the first place is far cheaper overall.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:48AM
You keep claiming this. I keep saying we shouldn't be paying for their rehab either.
Have you seen Idiocracy? Is that something you actually want to see in real life? Because we're headed for exactly that. If you subsidize something you get more of it, the "why" is completely irrelevant. We've been subsidizing stupidity, profligacy, and laziness for a longass time now. And we've got epic shitloads more of it to show for doing so. That's going to continue getting worse and worse until we stop paying people for making idiotic life choices. There is no other way to correct the problem because we're actively causing it every day.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.