Friday, November 30, 2018

Life Expectancy Declines Again for Certain Populations but Its All Their Fault Anyway



You've probably already seen the headlines - US life expectancy continues to decline for white Americans:
McKay, Betsy (2018, November 29). US Life Expectancy Declines Further. The Wall Street Journal, A1, A6.
The explanatory frame is suicides and accidental overdoses. In other words, the explanatory frame is self-inflicted "lifestyle."

Its interesting to note that the WSJ article states that cancer deaths have reportedly reportedly stabilized. But perhaps better treatment, as opposed to fewer diagnoses, explains that result given the high incidence of cancer diagnoses in the US:
(US)NIH: Statistics at a Glance: The Burden of Cancer in the United States. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/statistics

The number of new cases of cancer (cancer incidence) is 439.2 per 100,000 men and women per year (based on 2011–2015 cases).
The number of cancer deaths (cancer mortality) is 163.5 per 100,000 men and women per year (based on 2011–2015 deaths)....
Worldwide:
Cancer is among the leading causes of death worldwide. In 2012, there were 14.1 million new cases and 8.2 million cancer-related deaths worldwide.

I have extensively posted on this subject of declining longevity for certain US populations. Please see the articles linked below.

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Majia's Blog: "Life Expectancy Declines for White Americans": But its ...

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Majia's Blog: Who Decides Level of Risk?


17 comments:

  1. Late Baby Boomers look around you. See the large increases in the deaths and serious chronic disease  of peoople in your age group age 60-65. It is lookin like 65 maybe the life expectancy for most of you.

    The previous, hippy generation, is living into its 70s , though there is substantial unexplained, chronic illness, premature dementia, and cancer incideence, in their cohort.
    That is because from 1959 to 1963, the world powers nuked the heck, out of with earth with nuclear bomb testing.
    People born in that period, had their stem cells compromised by the massive fallout that was a result of the nuclear detonations.
    Generation Xers will probably have a similar effect, from the exponential increase in high level and low level nuclear waste in the environment. The fallout started in the 50s grew exponentially from 1963 on, from uranium mining, bomb making, building and running more and more navy reactors, military reactors, nuclear reactors (that do leak in spite of what they say), medical radionuclide production and waste, plutonium satellites, reactor meltdowns, and god knows what elseLate Baby Boomers look around you. See the large increases in the deaths and serious chronic disease  of peoople in your age group age 60-65. It is lookin like 65 maybe the life expectancy for most of you.

    The previous hippy generation is living into its 70s , though there is substantial unexplained chronic illness and cancers in their cohort.
    That is because from 1959 to 1963, the world powers nuked the heck, out of with earth with nuclear bomb testing.
    People born in that period had their stem cells compromised by the massive fallout that was a result of the nuclear detonations.
    Generation Xers will probably have a similar effect from the exponential increase in high level and low level nuclear waste in the environment from uranium mining, bomb making, building and running more and more navy reactors, military reactors, nuclear reactors (that do leak in spite of what they say), medical radionuclide production and waste, plutonium satellites, reactor meltdowns, and god knows what else.

    Cancer, George Monbiot and Nuclear Weapons Test Fallout
    Dr. Chris Busby
    George Monbiot, who has now been diagnosed with prostate cancer at the young age of 55, was therefore born in 1963, at the peak of the atmospheric test fallout. He is thus a peak exposed (at risk) member of a cohort of those exposed in the womb to the fallout (1959-63) and currently suffering the consequences of exposure to Strontium-90 in the milk, and (measured) in the childrens’ bones.

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    1. In his article in the Guardian, he says that he has always done all the healthy things, done lots of exercise, eaten vegetables, didn’t smoke or drink, all that stuff. He is clearly puzzled about being singled out by the three ladies. But the cause was something that he had no control over, and neither had anyone else who was born in the fallout period. George writes that he is happy. This insane response to his predicament, (which I personally am not happy about despite his intemperate attacks on me in his Guardian column and blogs) must go alongside his equally insane response about the Fukushima events where he publicised his road-to-Damascus conversion to nuclear power.

      The effect of the genetic damage of the fallout on babies can be seen in the graph below, Fig 1, taken from a recent paper I published (Busby C (2017) Radiochemical Genotoxicity Risk and Absorbed Dose. Res Rep Toxi. Vol.1 No.1:1.). The babies that did not die were just those with insufficient genetic damage to kill, but this damage would have affected them in later life in various ways. The most measurable effect (apart from genetic defects and congenital diseases) is higher cancer risk which is presented as early cancer onset. The issue of the 1959-63 cancer cohort was discussed in my 1995 book Wings of Death, and a letter I published in 1994 in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The issue is one of Absorbed Dose. If internal exposure to radionuclides like Strontium-90 and Uranium-238 and Uranium-235 bind to DNA, which is the target for genetic damage, then Dose, which is an average quantity over kilograms of tissue, is an unsafe way of quantifying genetic damage. The issue of genetic damage from radioactive pollution was first raised in 1950 by Herman Muller, the Nobel Prize winning geneticist who discovered the effects of radiation, but his warnings were ignored, though they are now found to be accurate.


      https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/20/cancer-george-monbiot-and-nuclear-weapons-test-fallout/

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    2. Late Baby Boomers look around you. See the large increases in the deaths and serious chronic disease of peoople in your age group age 60-65. It is lookin like 65 maybe the life expectancy for most of you.

      The previous, hippy generation, is living into its 70s , though there is substantial unexplained, chronic illness, premature dementia, and cancer incideence, in their cohort.
      That is because from 1959 to 1963, the world powers nuked the heck, out of with earth with nuclear bomb testing.
      People born in that period, had their stem cells compromised by the massive fallout that was a result of the nuclear detonations.
      Generation Xers will probably have a similar effect, from the exponential increase in high level and low level nuclear waste in the environment. The fallout started in the 50s grew exponentially from 1963 on, from uranium mining, bomb making, building and running more and more navy reactors, military reactors, nuclear reactors (that do leak in spite of what they say), medical radionuclide production and waste, plutonium satellites, reactor meltdowns, and god knows what elseLate Baby Boomers look around you. See the large increases in the deaths and serious chronic disease of peoople in your age group age 60-65. It is lookin like 65 maybe the life expectancy OF LATE BABY BOOMERS. DR. Busby has strong epidemiological graphs to support the new data
      CANCER, George Monbiot and Nuclear Weapons Test Fallout
      by CHRIS BUSBY

      Photo by Blake Burkhart | CC BY 2.0
      George Monbiot, who has now been diagnosed with prostate cancer at the young age of 55, was therefore born in 1963, at the peak of the atmospheric test fallout. He is thus a peak exposed (at risk) member of a cohort of those exposed in the womb to the fallout (1959-63) and currently suffering the consequences of exposure to Strontium-90 in the milk, and (measured) in the childrens’ bones.

      In his article in the Guardian, he says that he has always done all the healthy things, done lots of exercise, eaten vegetables, didn’t smoke or drink, all that stuff. He is clearly puzzled about being singled out by the three ladies. But the cause was something that he had no control over, and neither had anyone else who was born in the fallout period. George writes that he is happy. This insane response to his predicament, (which I personally am not happy about despite his intemperate attacks on me in his Guardian column and blogs) must go alongside his equally insane response about the Fukushima events where he publicised his road-to-Damascus conversion to nuclear power.

      The effect of the genetic damage of the fallout on babies can be seen in the graph below, Fig 1, taken from a recent paper I published (Busby C (2017) Radiochemical Genotoxicity Risk and Absorbed Dose. Res Rep Toxi. Vol.1 No.1:1.). The babies that did not die were just those with insufficient genetic damage to kill, but this damage would have affected them in later life in various ways. The most measurable effect (apart from genetic defects and congenital diseases) is higher cancer risk which is presented as early cancer onset. The issue of the 1959-63 cancer cohort was discussed in my 1995 book Wings of Death, and a letter I published in 1994 in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The issue is one of Absorbed Dose. If internal exposure to radionuclides like Strontium-90 and Uranium-238 and Uranium-235 bind to DNA, which is the target for genetic damage, then Dose, which is an average quantity over kilograms of tissue, is an unsafe way of quantifying genetic damage. The issue of genetic damage from radioactive pollution was first raised in 1950 by Herman Muller, the Nobel Prize winning geneticist who discovered the effects of radiation, but his warnings were ignored, though they are now found to be accurate.

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    3. The serious effects of internal radionuclide exposures on Prostate Cancer were revealed in a study of UK Atomic Energy Agency workers also published in 1993 in the BMJ (Fraser P, Carpenter L, Maconochie N, Higgins C, Booth M and Beral V (1993) Cancer mortality and morbidity in employees of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority 1946-86. Brit. J. Cancer 67 615-624.) This paper showed a 2-fold excess cancer risk in workers who had been monitored for internal radionuclides versus those who had not been.  Prostate cancer mortality was significantly high. Although later cover-up studies by the nuclear industry, using a larger cohort reduced this effect for prostate cancer, the internal/ external exposure result for all cancers has not been satisfactorily followed up.



      Fig 1. First day neonatal mortality USA shows the effects of the fallout. Because of advances in medicine and better social conditions, infant mortality was falling everywhere. But as soon as the atmospheric tests began, rates went up in time with the fallout. 1st day neonatal mortality is a measure of congenital damage: the baby survives in the mother by using the mothers’ oxygenation and other support but because the babies own organs are damaged and it cannot survive after birth. Strontium-90 was measured in bone where it built up to a peak in 1964. It will also have attached to chromosomes due to its affinity for DNA.

      The fallout cohort is now entering the cancer bracket and these people are driving up the cancer rates in the Northern hemisphere, especially for breast cancer and prostate cancer. I have been studying this group since 1995, but now my predictions are appearing in the data.

      But the true picture of the fallout effects is even more scary. Not only are the babies born over the peak fallout period, like George, at higher risk of more and earlier cancer, but it is now emerging that their children, born around 1980- 1990 are carrying the same genetic (or rather genomic) curse. I am in the process of putting together a scientific paper on this. There is a sudden increase in cancer rates in young people aged 25-35 which began after 2008. This is an extraordinary development. The finding was confirmed for colon cancer in the USA in a paper published recently in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (Rebecca L. Siegel, Stacey A. Fedewa, William F. Anderson, Kimberly D. Miller, Jiemin Ma, Philip S. Rosenberg, Ahmedin Jemal Colorectal Cancer Incidence Patterns in the United States, 1974–2013 JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst (2017) 109(8): djw322). The authors were unable to explain their findings of increases in colon cancer in young people but decreasing colon cancer rates in older people. They were “puzzled”. The explanation is simple. These were children born to those who were themselves born during the fallout and genomically damaged at birth. The damage is passed to the children (and will be in turn passed to theirs and so on). The effect is clear also in the England and Wales data.

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    4. So, for the logical positivists, let’s have a look at the prostate cancer data in England and Wales.

      In Table 1 below I show some data from the official ONS government annual reports on prostate cancer incidence in some selected years from 1974 to 2015.



      No argument there then. The amazing thing is that there are huge amounts of money received and spent on cancer research: but no-one looks at the cause. Or rather that those who do look at the cause are attacked and marginalised and their work is not reported.

      For example, and relevant here, are the serious genetic effects of small dose internal exposures in Europe after Chernobyl reviewed by Prof Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, Dr Sebastian Pflugbeil and myself in a peer review publication in 2016 (Schmitz-Feuerhake, Busby C, Pflugbeil P  Genetic Radiation Risks-A Neglected Topic in the Low Dose Debate. Environmental Health and Toxicology.  2016. 31Article ID e2016001. .) You would think that this evidence, which was reported in the peer review literature from 20 studies from countries all over Europe, might make it into one of the newspapers. But nothing.

      My attempts to draw attention to these internal genetic damage issues have also been ignored or dismissed by the British establishment. This year, in September, I was to have presented this evidence to British Government Minister Richard Harrington at a meeting of the NGOs and the government at Church House Westminster. My flight from Sweden was sabotaged but I made it to the meeting nevertheless, to find that the Minister had made some excuse, and had not come. )

      At the meeting, the government radiation expert committee members (COMARE) refused to consider anything I said.

      This behaviour by the British can be compared with the Swedish Environmental Court in Stockholm to which I had been presenting the same findings the previous week. In January 2018, the 8 judges of the Swedish Court told the Swedish government that they must not permit the development of the nuclear waste facility at Forsmark. This landmark decision was also omitted from any newspapers in the UK, which itself is currently busy trying to find a local council they can bribe to allow them to bury nuclear waste somewhere in England and (more probably) Wales.

      When I presented the same genetic damage evidence in the nuclear test veteran case in the Royal Courts of Justice in 2016, I submitted reports by 4 eminent radiation experts, including Prof Schmitz-Feuerhake/ All gave evidence under cross examination.  We filed the evidence of genetic damage in the Test Veteran children: a 10-fold excess risk for congenital malformations and in the grandchildren 8-fold. The British Judge, Sir Nicholas Blake, refused to listen to any of this evidence and dismissed our experts. Blake found for the Ministry of Defence. I am taking a new Test Veteran case this summer. We shall see what happens.

      But no surprise about judge Blake. In a recent survey of judges in Europe, it was found that Britain was only exceeded by Albania in the percentage of judges (45%) who reported that their decisions had been made at the direction of the establishment. The lowest rates of interference with judges was found (1%)  in—guess where—Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

      It seems that we live in a corrupt society here in Britain and I am ashamed to be part of this State which has poisoned its citizens consistently since 1945 and continues to do so, and to cover it all up, aided by dishonest scientists and celebrity reporters like George Monbiot. Those who have a magical view of events might delight in thinking that George has received his just due; for myself I just hope that this may make him look into the issue more deeply and change his mind about the effects of radioactive contamination.






















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  2. I think the medical Leviathan is playing a large role in the shrinking of longevity. The medical world is subject to the pharmaceutical world. Almost all prescription drugs have side effects as do vaccinations. Eating well and doing some physical labor is a good foundation for a lengthy life. Better perhaps is to have a meaningful life even if it is short.

    Suicides occur when the mind becomes the captive of despair. People without a genuine culture and some kind of religion or spiritual life are vulnerable to despair. A neighbor of mine in good physical health recently committed suicide while on a new psychiatric medication. When you are feeling hopeless turn to a drug? It used to be said by psychiatrists that people who read the Bible each day rarely had mental illness. They expected life to bring troubles and harship.

    Presently America is going through a period of madness. There is an enormous amount of hatred and anger about. The "worst are filled with passionate intensity and the best lack all conviction". Well, not all conviction really. But the worst have better access to the media.

    The Black Death did not slay all who came within its compass. We do not know what game nature is playing, or should I say supernature. Some say the earth is overpopulated while simultaneously seeking more cures and ways to extend life. We could say that science is the real culprit in all of this by constantly shuffling the deck so that the House will usually win.

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  3. That is what Jordan Pederson, fox news, cambridge analytica say so William goes with that. Nevermind that Doctor Busby is a PhD with piles of scientific evidence and, cuurent epidemiological studies to prove it. That it is common knowledge in medical communities many other communities.

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    1. You have a reading comprehension problem. Your response is a non sequitor. I am not arguing with Dr B. Why would anyone do that? We can do something to improve and protect our health. We can not apparently do anything about radiation.

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  4. Your disingenuous reply betrays you,  "Presently America is going through a period of madness. There is an enormous amount of hatred and anger about. The "worst are filled with passionate intensity and the best lack all conviction". Well, not all conviction really. But the worst have better access to the media."
    What could be more mad than slipping into the love of the violent miasma of Fascism that William and Jordan Peterson share and hatred of truth and rationality.
    Jordan Peterson's shocking remarks remind us how Nazi apologism has crept back into our political debate
    There are many instances in which Holocaust comparisons are inappropriate, but using the Holocaust to minimise the moral repugnance of a government’s policy is an act far more offensive to the memory of its victims

    Matt Green


    In life it’s wise to be wary of those who tell you they’re free-thinkers; like fame, free-thinking is something better displayed than proclaimed.

    To the casual observer, Jordan Peterson bears all the hallmarks an intellectual powerhouse: bestselling books, a professorship in clinical psychology at the University of Toronto and, in a currency that’s increasingly relevant, more than a million YouTube subscribers. A closer look, however, reveals that he’s been providing pseudo-science bullets for the alt-right’s online infantry for some time (including such gems as howserotonin levels in lobstersmight justify the gender pay gap).

    How China's crackdown on Marxists shows flaws in its state ideology
    Footage emerged this week, from a podcast recorded last year, of the professor discussing the conditions that led to the Holocaust. There was the normal equating of fascist and Antifa, on account of the latter’s "proclivity to violence" (as if violence were a moral constant); there was discussion of Hitler’s bravery during the First World War, as well as the revelation that "[he] was very sensitive to disgust". According to Peterson (and I’ve no reason to doubt him), Hitler used Zyklon, an easy version of the gas used in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, to clean rats from German factories – and this, along with the economic instability in post-Versailles Germany, to Peterson’s mind, is evidence that the Holocaust was a logical progression

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    1. That the Holocaust followed a series of logical progressions is, in a sense, true: if one were to reverse-engineer the Final Solution, each step would appear to follow rationally from the one before.

      But this – as if it even needs saying – is not proof that the Holocaust was logical (and so unavoidable, an objective response to some natural phenomenon, an earthquake or a weather front for example) but that it was the endpoint of a deliberate process that had started many years before; a process that was constantly testing its contributors by moving the conversation further and further towards what would once have been unthinkable

      A process that began with words and ended with bodies. 
      Footage also emerged this week from the US-Mexico border of US border agents firing tear gas at beleaguered asylum seekers. This too was not the first stage in a process.

      In response to images of toddlers in nappies fleeing smoking canisters, newly-elected Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted of her shame: "Asking to be considered a refugee isn’t a crime… It wasn’t for Jewish families fleeing Germany… And it isn’t for those fleeing violence in Central America." The tweet was quickly picked up on by Senator Lindsey Graham who suggested Ocasio-Cortez visit the Holocaust museum in Washington to "better understand the differences". 


      Modern Holocaust denial is real and visible
      There are many instances in which Holocaust comparisons are inappropriate, but using the Holocaust to minimise the moral repugnance of a government’s policy is an act far more offensive to the memory of its victims.

      What Graham’s comments display is a mirror image of Peterson’s: while one seeks to contemporise the past as a way of making its horrors seem logical and therefore justified, the other cultivates a historical blind spot which places us outside of history, and so frees us to ignore its lessons and repeat its mistakes. Both are apologia that work at once retrospectively and pre-emptively.

      Peterson appears to excuse the Nazis by drawing comparisons to our own current economic concerns, while Graham excuses Trump (and his own complicity) by treating each of his choices as the response to an objective condition, and not the response to a previous choice in a campaign of his own making (one of dehumanisation) that makes firing tear gas at toddlers appear to be a logical step.


      But, of course, what both fail – or, more likely, refuse – to do is examine the premise on which such logical steps are taken. For Peterson, Hitler’s "othering" of the Jews and the other people he "went after" was more than a useful political tool; it was a response to some visceral, microbial disgust that operates beneath the level of reasoned thought and so, ironically, can also be forgiven. Once you accept this premise, that a group of people can be considered ‘less than’, what happens next is inevitable.

      Just hours after Graham’s tweet, the Auschwitz Museum weighed in: "When we look at Auschwitz we see the end of the process." But the next day, The Onion, a satirical site that is fast becoming our time’s paper of record, had the final word. The headline says it all: "Holocaust Survivors Recall Exact Day Holocaust Started Right Out Of The Blue

      https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jordan-peterson-nazi-apologism-lindsey-graham-holocaust-migrant-caravan-mexican-border-tear-gas-a8659001.html?amp


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    2. I am used to reading difficult writing but the above is too convoluted and confusing and is perhaps several years of classes and books that are still half digested and a long way from assimilation . . . thus like vomit. I have no idea what your beef with Peterson is except that he has probably hit some of your sacred cows. And the Holocaust is beyond doubt too shrouded in whispers to ever come clear as an event. It will always be a shadowy area. In fact all of WWII shall remain behind a wall of occultion. Any way you are at that stage of intellectualism where nothing is simple and only you can sort it out . . .

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    3. He is a fascist asshole and you are his suckass. U have no original thoughts or critical thinking capabilities.

      Delete
    4. Sorry. I am not accustomed to speaking with savages and barbarians. You may want to look those words up on the net, So I don't really know the lingo. Maybe you are familiar with the expression rabble rousers. In any case you need to hang out in deep forest areas and eat raw meat and work on your spears and hunt something for the women folk and avoid the centers of culture. If you can't speak Latin or Greek you will not be understood. Vitam Impendere Vero

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    5. I wonder how much longer sites like this will be up. They are calling for pure state-run media's now. That would mean the centralized group in-power can start broadcasting pure propaganda, like in 1984.
      There would be indoctination camps run by people like Jordan Peterson.

      Sinclair required 200 of their stations to run a horrific segment supporting the use of tear gas against refugee women and children on the border.

      The newly empowered strong centralized governemt would justify internment of lesser value humans. They will start inyernment of threats to the state in the forms of journalists and intellectuals other outspoken crotics.
      They would eventually decide that elimnating those in concentration camps, would be better. That is because of their significantly low value and cost to the state.
      Good or bad Obama did not call 1500 troops to the border, to gas and blister toddlers applying for refugee status, and yet, several media got away with implying that he did.

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    6. Look here is a State Press Realease kinda like one of George Ws press releases about WMDs in Iraq, after 911Skip to Main Content
      U.S. Department of State
      DIPLOMACY IN ACTION

      Secretary of State

      Share
      Press Statement
      Michael R. Pompeo
      Secretary of State
      Washington, DC
      December 1, 2018

      The Iranian regime has just test-fired a medium range ballistic missile that is capable of carrying multiple warheads. The missile has a range that allows it to strike parts of Europe and anywhere in the Middle East. This test violates UN Security Council resolution 2231 that bans Iran from undertaking “any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology . . .”

      As we have been warning for some time, Iran’s missile testing and missile proliferation is growing. We are accumulating risk of escalation in the region if we fail to restore deterrence. We condemn these activities, and call upon Iran to cease immediately all activities related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

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      https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2018/12/287722.htm

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  5. When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the losers. Socrates

    ReplyDelete
  6. “What might have been is an abstraction
    Remaining a perpetual possibility
    Only in a world of speculation.”--T. S. Eliot

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