Friday, December 30, 2016

The Novelty and Absurdity of Security in America

We have seen the depraved lengths scared people will go to create an arbitrary and ineffective physical security system.  People see it doesn't work and get more scared so the path they follow to resolving that is to make more of it.

Ed:  yeah, yeah, that's the old Facebook soap opera and the reason they stay cloistered in that rat hole.  Surely you have something more interesting than that??

Have faith, ye with the brain of a South Carolina sand flea.  It will be revealed.


Stand back to watch them go berserk over security considerations regarding human genomic data and using that for study for the improvement of health.  (Science Daily:  Linking human genome sequences to health data will change clinical medicine, says expert)

Start the countdown until someone starts a Facebook support group for those who categorically reject the release of medical information in such a way.

Ed:  so what when Facebook support groups have never accomplished anything?

We just hope for better things on television and it doesn't happen because of their pointless protests.  Instead we get that idiot, Obama, castigating Russian hackers as he rehearses for his job in the circus.


Conversely ...

The value of intersecting the sequencing of individuals' exomes (all expressed genes) or full genomes to find rare genetic variants -- on a large scale -- with their detailed electronic health record (EHR) information has "myriad benefits, including the illumination of basic human biology, the early identification of preventable and treatable illnesses, and the identification and validation of new therapeutic targets," wrote Daniel J. Rader, MD, chair of the Department of Genetics, in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, in Science this week, with Scott M. Damrauer, MD, an assistant professor of Surgery at Penn and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia.

- Science Daily

Doctor Rader isn't exaggerating and we have seen many studies documented on Science Daily which were based on genomic research elsewhere in the animal kingdom and which revealed extraordinary things about the population as a whole.

Ed:  if you start out anything with 'there is no question that ...' then we will send the flying monkeys.

Give us some credit, Snarkman, as that one is strictly for amateurs.  There's always a question or science would be pointless.  It's only news commentators and Facebook mass debaters who ever claim there's no question.

Herewith, some substantive benefit:

Their commentary accompanies two linked studies on the topic in the same issue. One reports on whole-exome sequencing of more than 50,000 individuals from the Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania and the analyses of rare variants with data from longitudinal electronic health records. They identified hundreds of people with rare "loss-of-function" gene variants that were linked to observable physiological characteristics, or phenotypes. The second article reports on a study that identified individuals in the same database with familial hypercholesterolemia, many of whom had not been diagnosed or treated. "These results demonstrate the enormous potential of this approach for promoting scientific biomedical discovery and influencing the practice of clinical medicine," the authors wrote.

- Science Daily


From the above, you see what the scientists propose and you get an example of the benefits.

How long do you think it will take before some ne'er-do-well politician will propose the capability for study of the human genome must be banned because of the invasion of privacy.  It's important to listen to them because they constantly fight against homelessness and poverty.

Ed:  sure but they only fight against their own homelessness and poverty.  That never comes up in the speeches.

Of course the regulars on Ithaka are hip to this because you're smarter than the average bears but that also tells you they will try to pull that crap, doesn't it.

Ed:  the ones who want to secure medical information are the same ones who routinely treat the Fourth Amendment as if it's nothing but scrap for a cat's litter box and that's not just with cops.

You see the problem so what will you do about it.  We can easily see it coming since we know those political used car salesfolk will try to ban it.


Herewith, a comment from my ol' Dad:

"America has never successfully banned anything" - Alex Fraser

You know it's true as America hasn't even been able to ban drive-by shootings.  In fact, these days the military uses hardly any other strategy.  As a historical footnote we have on offer, that tendency to ban things is something we can tag to Boston.  American Puritanism which routinely makes the country a laughingstock with its nipple terror started in Boston and the vicinity when America was first founded.

Banning was extended when books were deemed obscene and being 'Banned in Boston' may have been a large part of why "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller became an international bestseller in the Fifties.  The same was true of Lady Chatterley and who knows how many others.  You laugh at the puerile stupidity of it now but that was big news at the time.

America has been trying to ban abortion for well over fifty years and has accomplished almost nothing.  We don't need the full sermon since all of us have heard it so many times our toes start itching after the first words.


Ed:  is there an actual point to this?  So far you have claimed they will try to ban it and then turn around to say banning probably won't work.  So WTF?

I'll assume we're all agreed there is positive science in this type of research and that some group of unschooled Dagwoods will try to ban it because that's how Dagwoods do when they only took degrees in Accounting.

The way it goes in America is an attempt toward the generic banning of genomic research will come from the Washington Dagwoods.  If that's achieved then the state-level Dagwoods will turn around to indicate their states will not honor it.  That works the same regardless of whether the Washington Dagwoods vote to endorse or suppress genomic research; the state-level Dagwoods will try to reverse it.

We don't see any need to defend the above when you can see multiple examples of the phenomenon taking place right now.


Ed:  same question.  What's the point?

The point didn't change.  We presented the medical benefits at the top, examples of the benefits followed, and a prediction of what will likely happen politically.  The same question goes back:  what will you do about it?


How about some pithy to wrap it.

Socrates said 'know thyself' and genomic research does exactly that, in a physical sense, and yet people are terrified of it.  If you think that's overstated, let's kick back to watch the reaction on the news, shall we.

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