According to a survey from the University of Michigan that polled therapists on college campuses around the country, "over 90 percent" of college counseling services are "seeing an increase in the number and severity of students with mental health problems." With all of the bad performance art, binge drinking, and meaningless political "activism" that goes on at colleges these days, it wouldn't be surprising if students were going nuts, but the experts say they don't actually think today's collegians are crazier than previous generations.

Daniel Eisenberg, who directs the Healthy Minds Study, says the spike in mental health issues on college campuses may be due to "better screening and earlier diagnosis of mental illness in high school." All of this extra counseling might not be such a good thing though. Mental health professionals have a lot to do with the college ADD drug epidemic. Maybe so many students are rushing to the shrink and claiming to have serious mental health conditions because they all want to score Adderall.

Colleges See Rise In Mental Health Issues [NPR]

Yes, that Joel Stein, Time columnist, blowjob expert, and sworn enemy of Doree Shafrirs near and far, has had a disagreement with his wife over how best to medicate their child. See, there are people out there that think vaccinations are bad. Like Joel's wife:

Unlike Cassandra, I feel it's important to overload our child with toxic levels of chemicals, risking permanent damage to his nervous system. At least that's how she saw it.

Note the past-tense saw. Because, of course, over the course of this after-school special, Joel convinced Cassandra otherwise. Before then, unfunny Jew joke regarding trayf:

And I know almost no one who is willing to get the swine-flu shot, and not because everyone here is Jewish.

Zing! And The New Yorker!

It's freaked people out for more than a century, often for religious reasons, causing riots in England in the 1850s, a huge uprising in Brazil in 1904 and a polio-vaccine boycott in Nigeria in 2001. Such rebellions against vaccination typically lead to disease outbreaks that put unimmunized kids at elevated risk, and, unless someone does something to stop it, endless New Yorker stories.

...and then, tossing all of Cassandra's new-age-y friends under the bus, too, when Joel, the pragmatic, straight-man in this story, goes to deal with this, uh, long-haired hippie bullshit face to face:

I went to a seminar about inoculation at Cassandra's yoga center. Along with about 50 other people, we paid $30 each to listen to Dr. Lauren Feder. I was doing a pretty good job of distracting myself until Feder told us that a good case of whooping cough can protect your child from asthma, that measles cure eczema and that only 1% of the mere 15% of prevaccine kids who got polio became paralyzed. Feder really sees the good side of life-threatening diseases. I bet she believes Ebola cures wrinkles.

But Joel does get to one wonderful thing:

I asked...whether putting off the vaccine for hepatitis B until puberty was completely safe, or if a child could get the disease from being bitten by another kid. "You go with what feels right," Feder told me.

Yes: there's a doctor in L.A. telling patients—or rather, customers—to go with "what feels right" when vaccinating their kids. Not being a medical expert, I'm not entirely sure how safe or unsafe vaccinations are. But I do know: I was born, and my parents had me needled until I was everything but sterile, and I'm pretty sure I turned out fine (and probably: sterile).

Stein managed to talk his wife out of not getting the kid his shots—as long as they're low on aluminum?—so I guess we can thank him for throwing his wife under the vaccination tank and helping the Public Cause one day further. But this mostly just reminds me of what all parents say when their kids take the car out: it's not you we're worried about, it's the other drivers. Now normal parents in L.A. have legitimate reasons to be scared of the parents of non-normal, bougie parents in L.A.: not only because their children are possibly disease-carrying/spreading germ vessels that are simply mechanisms of their parents' well-intentioned destructive impulses in the name of being progressive, but because the sequel to Outbreak's been waiting to be made forever, and if there's anything more frightening than a disease-carrying monkey that could destroy civilization, it's a brat sprung from the loins of West Hollywood.

Crain is rolling the quarterly Creativity magazine into Ad Age. The Great Magazine Die-Off continues.


A high school newspaper scandal! That is always MONEY. A high school paper in the OC was totally censored by school administrators because it got a front-page scoop that the company the school hired to run its cafeteria is "a Christian company whose "mission" is to "serve God."" Outrageous! And the school was so skeered they pulled the paper! Good job young reporters. Expose these unscientific cockroaches wherever they may hide, especially within your cafeteria. We mean that.


A new study reports that America's best medical journals are plagued by "ghostwriting" from unaccredited contributors to medical studies. Yea, well. As long as they're not plagued by "making up science things."


Charles Pelton, the Washington Post marketing guy who came up with those brilliant paid advertiser-editorial "salons" that made the paper weep with embarrassment, has resigned from the WP because of some lie about his family and business or whatever.

That means it should be possible to vaccinate - well before the flu's expected midwinter peak - all the 159 million people that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate are in the high-risk groups: pregnant women, people under 24 years old or caring for infants, people with high-risk medical conditions and health-care workers.

Whoa whoa whoa—I could have sworn that there are 300 million people in the USA. The socialist government is once again telling the Middle-Aged White Man to suck it! Fend for yourselves! Give the life-saving medicine to welfare people! NObama's not a pregnant woman but how much do you want to bet he gets some vaccine, hmm?

Even hogs are treated better than the Grown White Man these days. Outrageous.
[Pic: AP]

In tomorrow's Health section will be an article by one Ms. Lesley Alderman, whose wide, circumspect research deeply penetrates one of the key mysteries of the universe: how to further solve the problem of a limp dick. Those Viagra pills are too expensive! At $15 a pop, we learn, science has been forced to come up with alternatives. Like a so-called "penis pump", or a "vacuum erection device," Alderman writes. Behold the future:

It works like this: you place a tube on the penis and then pump the air out of the tube, which pulls blood into the penis. When the penis is erect, you then put a snug ring around the base to maintain the erection, which lasts long enough to have sex. The cost for the device, which requires a prescription, can run from $300 to $600, but most insurers and Medicare will cover part of the cost and the device should last for years. Even if you spend $300 out of pocket and use the device once a week, you'll be spending much less per year than on pills or injections. You can also buy a nonprescription pump online (even Amazon carries some) for as little as $30, Dr. McCullough said.

A non-prescription penis pump, you say? Available for your average consumer? Science is incredible.

When you're not inflating your penis with a Medicare-purchased vacuum erection device - which, it should be noted, is different than an average house vacuum, sans attachment - you can give "self-administered injections of alprostadil" a shot. Literally. It's a drug that helps blood vessels expand, and you mainline it straight into your procreation device with a hypodermic needle. Let's face it: there's no greater turn-on than a penis shot right before some good, sweet loving. Especially if you're high on Meth. The New York Times neglects to inform you that this innovation was preceded by AC/DC almost 20 years ago in the 1990 classic, "Shot of Love."

But the best way to regard upkeep of penises (or the keeping up of) is, as always, living a healthy lifestyle:

"Erectile problems may show up about three years before a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack or stroke," says Dr. Ira Sharlip, clinical professor of urology at the University of California, San Francisco..."There is increasing evidence that we can reverse erectile dysfunction with lifestyle changes," says Dr. Drogo K. Montague, director of the Center for Genitourinary Reconstruction in the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute at Cleveland Clinic.

Great news for everyone but AC/DC, whose engorged testicles could get in the way of hopping on the treadmill. Otherwise, you, too, can begin your firm commitment to your penis, today. As with everything, exercise is tragically, sadly the final answer.

Paul Root Wolp, an adviser to NASA's chief medical officer, told the Times that some astronauts refuse to participate in experiments during missions because they're scared their medical information will become public, and that insurance companies will use the information against them:

Q. You mentioned earlier that NASA does biomedical research in space. How do the astronauts feel about being research subjects?

A. For the most part, they want to help. There have been some who, in some situations, have refused.... [Some] opted out because they were concerned that medical information collected on them couldn't really be private and might interfere with their getting health insurance after retirement. But on a flight with seven people, if one opts out, you've cut your research population significantly.

If astronauts can't get healthcare, then you, dear reader, are screwed.

In a statement, Coburn, who is a doctor, said any conversations he may or may not have had with his pal Ensign about how to best keep his adulterous affair a secret are strictly confidential:

I was counseling him as a physician and as an ordained deacon. ... That is privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody. Not to the Ethics Committee, not to a court of law, not to anybody

Except as Josh Marshall points out, Coburn is an OB/GYN. So any treatments he was giving to Ensign were highly unorthodox.

Via Web Of Deception, the documents show Conrad Murray owing a state tax lien of $2,544 to Arizona, $1,578 to California, and defaulting on housing loans worth a few million dollars, including one in the tax-sheltered, foreclosure-plagued city of Las Vegas, Nevada at the Red Rock Country Club, where reporters attempting to see Dr. Murray's house were turned away by the guard gate. The associated press filed a great report on the guy who's about to be under some intense scrutiny by the LAPD and medical boards in the three states where he's licensed to practice medicine (Texas, Nevada, California). His practice was in Vegas. What to know:

- Murray was supposed to accompany Jackson on his upcoming comeback tour, per Jackson's very specific request.

- Murray was with Jackson when he passed a physical that showed no evidence of drug use.

- Murray's practice was hit with $400K in court judgments for defaulting on payments. He also owes $940 for driving with expired plates and no proof of insurance in 2000. [Don't you just have to show up to court to get those erased? Eh?]

- Murray's still dealing with two other pending cases regarding his lack of fiscal solvency.

The portrait of this guy that's about to emerge is guaranteed to be pretty interesting. How did he end up in Jackson's life? Why was Jackson so attached to him? It won't be as notable as the picture of Jackson that's surely going to start showing up in weeks to come, but as far as the end of his life went, Murray's own story is definitely going to be key to understanding Jackson's.

Michael Jackson: His Doctor [Web of Deception]

LA police want to talk to Jackson's cardiologist [AP]

If the doctors made a plan, it would involve paying them even more money to not bother keeping up with advances in their fields and not ever letting you sue them when they hurt or kill you. Despite this, American trust the doctors more than anyone else—even Barack Obama, America's boyfriend!


Anyway, also, the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein has illustrated his column about how much doctors suck with a picture of tv's Dr. House, who is addicted to painkillers and hates his patients but HE GETS RESULTS DAMMIT, and that is basically how doctors see themselves. But they are all secretly hallucinating the ghostly apparition of their best friends' dead girlfriends! (SPOILER ALERT.)

Often, yes, it is about heartwarming stories of one woman's triumph over adversity, but sometimes that "adversity" is a medical condition and the "triumph" involves disproved, insane, and potentially harmful treatments. Like when Oprah had the thyroid problem, and her spiritual holistic OB-GYN recommended soy milk and iodine, both of which will just make it worse, if you for real have a thyroid problem, and aren't just fat and sad.

What causes thyroid conditions, again? Oh, right, nonsense.

Thyroid dysfunction, which affects millions of Americans (mostly women), occurs when the thyroid gland located in the neck produces too much or too little thyroid hormone. Too much (hyperthyroidism) and the metabolism races, sometimes causing anxiety and weight loss. Too little (hypothyroidism) and it slows, which, if severe, can lead to depression and weight gain. Many things can trigger the disease, especially autoimmune disorders.

But Northrup believes thyroid problems can also be the result of something else. As she explains in her book, "in many women, thyroid dysfunction develops because of an energy blockage in the throat region, the result of a lifetime of 'swallowing' words one is aching to say."

This lengthy article is actually far too kind (and brief) to baby-killing nut Jenny McCarthy and her anti-vaccine crusade, and yet it still manages to be a very damning indictment of how Oprah is trying to kill your poor mother. "At some point, it would seem, people will stop looking to Oprah for this kind of guidance. This will never happen."

For the last fucking time, celebrities, vaccines do not cause autism.

It is fine and noble to say "we should look into what (beyond better, earlier detection and diagnoses) is causing all this autism!" and even "we should make sure we are testing these vaccines extensively!" but to just go around shouting, without evidence, and in spite of evidence to the contrary, "VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM" is 9/11 Truther hysterical idiocy at its dumbest.

But hey, all you non-doctors with absolutely no understanding of the scientific method or medical research can just go ahead and keep using your massive platforms to convince parents not to vaccinate their kids, because what is the worst that could happen?

Last week official figures showed that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared with 56 in 1998. Two children have died of the disease.

Good work, Arianna, letting this famous person promote his little pet cause on your website, thus is the vast potential of the citizen-driven new media landscape realized.

I'm fairly sure that just a slightly better diet and more exercise could have saved Tim Russert. And I'm absolutely positive that this guy is a quack, and his PR firm (Jaime Alyn PR) is desperate and none too skilled:

COULD HOLISTIC MEDICINE HAVE SAVED TIM RUSSERT? Raphael Kellman, MD, Holistic Medicine Pioneer Says YES!

(New York, NY) With Tim Russert's sudden death from a heart attack we are left wondering, who is at risk of heart attack and sudden death, how can we prevent this from happening to ourselves and loved ones and can we reverse heart disease?

Tim Russert had so much information at his fingertips, the best cardiologists and the best of what conventional medicine could offer, yet he still could not be saved. Because we are flooded with information from the pharmaceutical industry and the media about new drugs we have come to believe that only drugs can heal disease. According to Raphael Kellman, MD, Internist and Holistic Medicine Pioneer, "Scientific information about the benefits of nutraceuticals (natural compounds) and how deeply they can improve biochemistry function unfortunately gets blotted out of view. From Tim Russert's tragic death it becomes clear that merely controlling one's blood pressure and cholesterol with medications is not sufficient."

Apparently, we need to look deeper; we need to look beneath the tip of the iceberg for the deeper causes of heart disease. In fact, studies show that close to 50% of relatively younger patients who develop heart disease do not have any of the more well-known risk factors, such as high blood pressure and cholesterol. More and more studies are showing that the deeper we look for causes, the more we see that disease stems from cellular dysfunction (characterized by a decreased ability to produce energy, anti-oxidant deficiencies, toxic build up, cell membrane damage and a decreased ability of the cell and organ to do its work in the body) which is not amenable to drug interventions.

One does not have hypertension because one is deficient in blood pressure medications. One develops hypertension because the arteries are not functioning properly, which is frequently due to inflammation, insulin resistance and a relative deficiency of vitamin B12, vitamin C, and other nutrients. Similarly, one does not have high cholesterol because one is deficient in a statin drug. One has high cholesterol because of a poor diet and metabolic abnormalities which are missed by routine blood tests.

Clearly the deeper we look, the more we see that heart disease is due to cellular dysfunction, stemming from poor diet, inflammation, abnormalities in insulin function, liver dysfunction and a host of other forms of dysfunction. Dysfunction is not amenable to drug therapies, yet it is the true cause of disease. Cellular dysfunction, however, is amenable to dietary changes and a myriad of natural compounds. Studies have shown that vitamin B12, folate, vitamin C, L-arginine, resveratrol, anti-oxidant therapy and fish oil improves endothelial function. Fish oil also reduces inflammation and lowers blood pressure. More importantly because it improves the electrical conductivity of the heart it can prevent arrhythmias and sudden death from a heart attack. A major clinical study of more than 11,000 adults showed that those who consumed 1,000mg of fish oil daily had a 30% reduced rate of cardiovascular disease and a 20% lower rate of sudden death.

Additionally, new research reveals that vitamin D can prevent heart disease and reduce risks of having a heart attack. Numerous studies indicate that vitamin D deficiency contributes to high blood pressure, insulin resistance and inflammation. In a recent study reported in the archives of internal medicine in June 2008, men classified as deficient in vitamin D, where 2.5 times more likely to have a fatal heart attack than those with higher levels of the vitamin.

Along with these deeper causes and treatments for heart disease we now have blood tests that can help prevent sudden death. This include blood tests for Lipo-A, VLDL, size of cholesterol particles (frequently not done because there are no drugs to treat it), fasting insulin, glucose levels, TRH stimulation test for a deeper evaluation of the thyroid and other tests that are still not widely done although studies show they should be.

Heart disease and heart attacks cannot be sufficiently prevented just by taking medications. If people want to know what else one can do to prevent a heart attack, one need to understand health and disease from a holistic perspective.

Start

• Superpowers fighting to claim the melting, oil-rich Arctic will want the moon next; we need the rule of law.
• New unsticky "Clean Gum" won't mar sidewalks.
• Satellite photos caught an empty Burma during a communications blackout.
• Faceslam: Facebook snub. Crowd farming: Stadium foot traffic as power plant.
• Forty rocketeers made an X-Wing, but it exploded.
• Chipuya Town is a Japanese mobile MMORPG.
• Matter/antimatter mix powers superlaser.
• Athlete's foot medicine contains no surprises.
• Mr. Know-it-all: Surgical masks do little against Chinese pollution. eBay bidding just for good feedback violates TOS. Shark cartilage doesn't fight cancer.
• Russia's covering Chernobyl with a steel shelter.
• Fire hoses spray mist on ignitable gases.
• Lace running shoes more comfortably: One normal cross, then up to the next eyelet, then cross again.
• Memorize numbers by giving each digit a mnemonic, then think of those mnemonics appearing along a walk around your block.
• Google buys companies that dominate, are first to a space, or could be a threat if Microsoft buys them.
• Self-absorbed geeks = "microcelebrities."
• Preteens are the best competitive texters.
• If The Golden Compass makes bank we'll see two sequels.
• Scotsmen have reinvented ancient Scottish ale.
• Infoporn: Silly Santa math.

Play (highlights)

• Stripper-blogger Diablo Cody wrote the sweet new comedy Juno.
• Comic book Persepolis became a 9-out-of-10 film.
• F4CC motorcycle could go over 200 mph but the tires would melt.

The Angry Mogul

• CD sales fell 10 percent in 2006. The future is digital.
• Universal Music CEO Doug Morris made Yahoo and YouTube pay to run music videos. He made Microsoft pay UMG a dollar per Zune. He's pissed at piracy. But he's letting Amazon sell DRM-free MP3s.
• Why DRM-free? To break Apple's monopoly. iTunes represents 20 percent of all U.S. music sales.
• UMG's digital revenue comes from iTunes and cell companies (ringtones).
• UMG will sell a subscription service (with DRM) called Total Music, urging Microsoft to add it to Zunes.

The Ultrabuilder

• The secret behind future "supertall" buildings is the buttressed core, a Y-shaped floor plan with a strong central support.
• Structural engineer Bill Baker is the go-to man for supertalls.
• Baker designed the butressed core to maximize window access and usable space in skyscrapers like the over-2600-foot Burj Dubai; it makes buildings taller, faster to build, and potentially more profitable.

Ode to Joystick

• Video Games Live directs live orchestra and choir videogame music performances.
• Creator Tommy Tallarico and conductor Jack Wall arrange the score and direct local musicians at symphony halls.
• VGL and competitor Play! are barely profitable, but they bring a new 20s/30s crowd to symphony halls.

Getting a Grip

• Making robots interact with a human environment, even finding and picking up a stapler, is tough.
• Solution: Make them learn. AI, for real this time, honest!
• RoboCub is a humanoid bot being taught to mimic and learn from human motions it sees.

Features
What Went Wrong

• Iraq went wrong because we concentrated on the hardware, not the social landscape.
• Since the '90s, everyone (including Wired) got excited about war in the information age.
• Under Bush, Rumsfeld made an Office of Force Transformation to give the armed forces a $230-billion networked makeover.
• That hasn't helped against our tech-primitive enemies in Iraq.
• Oh, our technology worked great for invasion, but it's rubbish at securing peace. For that, we actually need troops.
• For example, 150 troops are in charge of security for the 50,000-person Iraqi city of Tarmiyah.
• Their leading officer recruits local watchmen to help.
• US forces have sophisticated command centers on a network (CPOF), but the system was designed for "short, decisive battles" against armies, not extended missions against insurgents.
• Many forces can't get online enough to make CPOF useful.
• Meanwhile, insurgents just use the Internet and TV, and they already know the local culture.
• Psyops agent Joe Colabuno wins over informants by knowing the culture, name-dropping sheikhs and debating using the Koran. He makes posters spoofing insurgents to sway public perception.
• General Patraeus still believes in network-centric warfare, but as the man behind the surge, he believes in adequate troops too.
• The co-conceiver of networked warfare says: Combat operations are like football; stability operations are like soccer. The network model needs to adapt.
• The Army is adapting, spending $41 million on "Human Terrain Teams" of "150 social scientists, software geeks, and experts on local culture." They're credited for more local support and less combat in certain areas.
• HTTs will become more integral, but we don't know if they'll be armed or given command authority.

Back to the Futurama

• Five years after Fox canceled it, David Cohen and Matt Groening's Futurama returns on Comedy Central.
• The new shows — four features split into 16 22-minute episodes — are also being released on four DVDs starting November 27.
• Fox shuffled the show during its four seasons, and ratings dropped.
• Added to those four years, reruns and DVD sales earned over $100 million, estimates a writer.
• Creators are David X. Cohen and Matt Groening.
• Groening, Simpsons creator, still draws a weekly comic strip called Life in Hell. He has never seen any Star Trek.
• Cohen is a Trekkie, invented "Worst. Episode. Ever," and loves sci-fi.
• Futurama is about pandering to the elite audience. Cohen checks the web to see fans discover hidden jokes; then he makes the jokes harder.

Your DNA Decoded

• A thousand-dollar test tells you what diseases your genes predispose you to, as well as other factors.
• In the future, we'll use genetic information to plan our lives, and we could live an extra ten years.
• 23andMe, founded by Anne Wojcicki, wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin, will give people their genetic info and build a database for research. Google invested $3.9 million.
• FedEx 23andMe a ten-minute wad of spit, and view your results online in under a month.
• There's still much to learn about which combinations of genes cause what conditions.
• It cost the Human Genome Project $3 billion to map an entire genome in 2003; it's about $250,000 now.
• Disease isn't solved yet; half of heart disease cases aren't explained by known risk factors.

Chat: Rich Barton, Zillow

• The housing crunch makes Zillow's algorithmic house appraisal more useful.
• Selling houses is no longer binary: homeowners can name a "make me move" price.

The Bone Factory

• Many medical skeletons are illegally shipped overseas. India has long been the biggest exporter.
• The country banned exporting human remains in 1985, but the black market thrives.
• India banned exports after a bone trader with 1500 child skeletons was suspected of kidnapping and killing the children.
• Skeletons are vital for medical schools.
• Example process: Corpses are taken from funeral pyres or graves, anchored in a river where they're eaten to mush and bone, scrubbed, sunbleached, and sanitized.

The Secrets of Silicon Valley

• "Ted," founder of TheFunded.com (where startuppers rate venture capital firms), is Adeo Ressi.
• Ressi, a self-promoter, made millions with 90s dot-coms, then started an online gaming platform Game Trust, which was taken over by investors.
• Ressi started TheFunded in response, getting friends like Weblogs Inc. founder Jason Calacanis to tell stories.
• When firms started invading TheFunded, Ressi banned shills to keep ratings real.
• Angel investments are surpassing VC money; hedge funds offer a low-maintenance alternative. VCs have to emphasize "customer service."

Nick Douglas writes at Valleywag, Too Much Nick, and Look Shiny. He would, in fact, read that magazine if you paid him to.

• Anna Methadone Doc — That's Entertainment [TMZ.com]
• Previously: Anna Nicole's Doctor Is Here! He'll Refill Your Methadone Prescription Two Weeks Prior To Your Due Date! Get Used To It! [Defamer]

Right now, there are two methods of adding girth to a penis: injecting fat, or wrapping the penis in layers of cadaver skin.

Both have drawbacks, in that the body would like to absorb both fat and skin. Even corpse skin.

Priapus Shrugged [Observer]