Monday, January 31, 2011

Muscles

Here is how science has most significantly impacted my life...

I am a very athletic person. I come from a family of athletes, my father a former football/baseball/basketball player, my mother a former gymnast, and my siblings all involved in some form of sports. I came out of the womb moving and continued to be a mover and a shaker as grew older. In the second grade, I came home with a very swollen arm and hand and two very tired eyes. My mother rushed me to the emergency room where we waited and waited and waited, just for them to tell us that they didn't know what was wrong. We were sent to another doctor, who sent us to another, and finally I ended up in the hands of a "specialist" Dr. Gorman. She told my parents and me that I was a one-in-a-million child with a special condition, dermatomyositis, meaning that I had a disease mimicking symptoms of juvenile arthritis.

How did this happen to me? What was it? Now that I am older and have moved on in my life, it is hard to remember all of the details and the specifics. From what I do remember being all of those years ago, dermatomyositis is an auto-immune condition where my body sees my muscles as a threat and attacks them. I continued to get weaker and weaker for the next year because of this disease; it was hard enough to participate in gym class and even recess, but it when it hurt to sit down and get up, that is when I needed special treatment. I was given drugs like prednisone and methotrexate daily and weekly, and was a very stationary child for about a year and a half.

I did get better continually until it finally "went away," or at least was not affecting me any more. For two years I was DM-free, and then it slowly crept back up on me in middle school. Dr. Gorman caught it right away, and by my sophomore year of high school I was back to being a healthy kid again. I continued my dancing as I had always somehow been a part of, and even joined track and cross country teams. Today I am still athletic and have kept dancing as a way to stay in shape.

Trying to fix me by putting me to sleep.

In class so far, we’ve discussed at length, at least within the small group discussions, the problems with the word “disorder,” and the way particular irregularities within an individual’s nature are defined. Looking past the difficulties of determining what exactly a disorder is, and how it manifests itself, this is a story of the way in which medication played a huge role within my life for a large chunk of my high school life.

Without potentially revealing too much of my personal background and thereby taking focus from the blog post question, this is a shortened version of the situation.

Although I am an English major, I was originally double majoring in English and Psychology, and have always been interested in psychology as both my parents graduated with psych degrees, and my father got his Ph.D. in psych here at the U of M.

It had never occurred to me as a young teen that medications may interact with each other in ways that take on manifestations that are quite arguably worse than the actual problems themselves. In my sophomore year in high school, I was diagnosed with insomnia. I wasn’t aware there was a problem; not sleeping did not seem that abnormal to me, and it was not physically harming me. I suppose this ties back with our discussions on ideological standards, which greatly affects how behavior differing from the norm is classified. The process of the diagnosis consisted of a double-sided survey, containing about twelve questions, and was weirdly objective. Even after taking dozens of psych classes now, and learning about the process of diagnosing a person with this or that disorder, determining compulsions and strange behavior, something always seems off. It shouldn’t be possible for someone who has never met me to know, by my answering “true” an ambiguous question such as “sometimes it is hard for me to fall asleep,” could possibly know about my psychological state. But through scientific processes, psychologists have been able to determine that there are objective ways to figure these things out.

But good news, the doctors told me, it could be cured by simply popping a pill at night and IMMEDIATELY laying down to fall asleep (I learned the reasons for the stress on “immediately” much later, as most medications prescribed to “cure” insomnia cause wild hallucinations if the user doesn’t fall asleep pretty much five minutes after taking the pill).

The problem was, however, that although the medication did indeed do its job of quite litereally knocking me out for hours on end, it came with a little side effect that not only was I not prepared for, but had no prior warning as I was handed the prescription. I began to have night terrors. I was immediately prescribed more pills to take to counteract the night terrors, which, strangely enough, had side effects including insomnia. This seemingly psychotic cycle of pills changed and then prescribed to counteract the other drugs went on for years before I finally decided that straight insomnia would be a blessing. The quick-fix drugs had, unfortunately, left me with permanent waves of night terrors, which I had later explained as a “lasting side effect” of the original medication I had been prescribed.

I am not dismissing the problem that was my insomnia, but it led me to question many things about the system that led me from insomnia to permanent night terrors as a lasting side effect. This particular instance is one way in which science has greatly affected my life, but by no means would I say in any negative way. As cool as I think it is that “science” – if I may for a second use such a blanket term – has allowed people to figure out ways to fix difficult problems on a health level (as well as every level of life), I feel as though the relationship between medical science and drug companies needs to be examined carefully, for lack of a better word, fixed.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Profitability of Prescription

My story is a little on the personal side but I decided I feel comfortable sharing it with you all. My most recent personal encounter with science and medicine began last year, as a sophomore in college. I was in with the doctor for a regular check-up and it went swimmingly. Perfect vision, reflexes, no alarming growths or tumors; all good. Throughout the appointment the "young adult" questions began making their way into the conversation. Any drug or alcohol use? Have I picked up smoking? Tanning? Do I understand the health risks involved with all of the above? The conversation then made it's natural progression of course, to birth control. Up until that point I had not been on the pill; although it seemed like all of my friends had been taking it since the early days of high school for everything from clear skin and regular periods to its intended use. I didn't have the need.

My doctor asked if it was something I was interested in. Until then I hadn't given it a second thought, but now that she was asking, sure, I guess I was interested. After all they were advertising "3 Periods a Year!" during every episode of Gilmore Girls I watched. Hell yeah. That was it, she gave me a 15 second run-down of the increased risk of clotting if you smoke (I don't), the importance of not missing a dose, and the fact that it won't prevent STD's. She handed me a prescription I could pick up later that day and boom, I was on the pill.

"Wow, that was easy" I thought. No...not quite. Three months later I was in the ER at Hennepin County Medical Center, in attack acardia as a result of a massive Bi-Pulmonary Embolism ( two large blood clots on either side of my lungs). Earlier that week I had begun having chest pain and shortness of breath, it reached it's worst one day at work. My boss insisted that I go to a Minute Clinic in the skyway instead of going home to rest. She saved my life. As soon as the nurse took my vitals I was being rushed to the hospital. The doctor told me that if I had gone home to rest as planned, I would've died. The I won't bore you with details of the aftermath but in a nutshell it included 3 days in the hospital, giving myself shots daily for a month, weekly visits to an anti-coagulation clinic, multiple CT Scans, prescription blood thinners, and a specific diet excluding vitamin K rich foods and alcohol.

Initially I was shocked and confused. I had to move home and my life had been completely re-arranged. I was under the impression that I was the unfortunate but exceedingly rare exception to an otherwise safe prescription. After further research I discovered that this is NOT AT ALL the case. I came across this blog (http://collegecandy.com/2009/06/09/birth-control-gave-me-blood-clots) and was shocked by the large number of young, healthy, non-smoking girls that had been through the exact same potentially fatal experience.

After looking thorough this blog and it's 8 pages of replies, as well as other similar forums, I am incredibly frustrated and angry that this problem is not being discussed. If there are this many girls who barely made it in time, how many did not? For those whose clots were fatal, were their loved ones told that the side effect was an incredibly rare outlying statistic? The profitability of these prescriptions has clearly overcome some of the very serious risks involved. Potentially fatal side effects are rushed into 3 seconds at the end of a commercial. I was under the impression that my risk was incredibly low, and had not been advised on the symptoms to watch for that would indicate a clot. I have found accounts from girls as young as 16 who almost died from blood clots because the pill was being used to clear up their acne. With so many other skin care products available should a pill that has such potentially serious side affects be "marketed" in that manner?! Should medications be "marketed" at all? It sure helps the drug company's bottom line, but what are the consequences? By that I mean the REAL consequences, not the lab reports contracted out by the company to ensure approval by the FDA. Every time I see a birth control commercial it makes me sick. Young healthy girls parade across the screen in sundresses, as if choosing what to put into your body to alter hormones should be as easy as choosing a lipstick color.

I also believe this relates to the over-medication of our society as a whole. It raises questions that relate to everything from Aderol to Prozac about the capitalization of prescriptions. Just because we CAN medicate something, does it mean we SHOULD? Is it worth the risk of a fatal clot if younger girl's sole use is to have fewer periods a year or less acne? Along the same lines as Nickolas' first post, it brings up issues about whether or not drug side-effects are causing more problems than the things they set out to "cure". In other contexts such as ADD the questions becomes something else. What are the potential capitalist benefits of defining a "disorder" and do they ever come into play? When we say that ADD needs to be "fixed" who decides that, and who has a financial profit to be gained?

As always, more questions than answers.

Electric Bong



I have always had an interest in science and math, but I don’t think I ever pictured myself as a scientist when I was younger.  In high school, I got decent grades in science and math classes. But, I wasn’t really sure why I kept taking them, math classes in particular. Once I took a calculus class, it clicked for me:  “Oh, that’s why we learned all that stuff.  Now I see where they were going with that quadratic equation and Pythagorean theorem crap. This is cool.” 
Once I graduated, I wasn’t particularly interested in going to college.  I had no idea what I wanted to do there.  Since I had to pay for it myself, it seemed too expensive for me to go and figure out what I wanted to do “on the fly”. (I still think it’s too expensive, but that’s neither here nor there.)  So I waited.

I’ve always had an interest in building things, too. Probably more so in taking them apart.  I sometimes still have to fight this urge.  Anyhow, my interest in figuring out how things work led me to hobbies that involve building things. But for the manual, I’d be lost, though much of figuring out how to make things is more or less intuitive to me.  I’ve built model rockets, guitar amplifiers and effects, furniture, mutant bicycles of various shades, and ventured into home repair and maintenance.  I’ve even come to be a decent auto mechanic. Currently, I run a custom furniture and cabinetry studio.  (I should have a website working for this in the next couple of weeks.)  I liked math, I was reasonably proficient design-wise; engineering seemed like a logical next-step.

I’m not sure that I would chalk my interest in science up to genetics or to environment. No one in my family is very mechanically inclined, nor are they all that interested in science.  I remember having to explain the difference between left- and right-hand threads to my dear father after he had stripped out the ones on his bike pedals.  At family gatherings, my relatives will ask what I’m studying in school and cringe when I tell them about it (What, you mean you don’t want to talk about differential equations and Laplace transforms?).  They usually ask where the beer is after they are done cringing.  After high school, I never found myself in an environment that I would say nurtured any sort of scientific growth, yet I managed, on my own, to use science to build a number of fun and reasonably useful things, like the 6-foot tall Tesla Coil, dubbed “The Electric Bong”.

This is where science gets fun. 

When I was about 24, I lived on one side of a duplex with a couple of friends.  On the other side of us lived some shady characters.  There were incidents of firearms discharged into the air during barbecues, drugs being dealt openly from the front stoop, weird dudes coming over at all hours looking for their cousins.  These weren’t kids acting like gangsters; they were kids who were actually gangsters.  There was always stuff happening over on their half of the house.

While I lived at this place, I built a 6-foot tall Tesla Coil, largely from recycled parts. (For the unfamiliar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_coil  Total non-stop science fair action!).  It could produce 5-6 foot long arcs and could light up most of the fluorescent lights in the house.  In retrospect, it probably could have really hurt someone.  And, yes, it looked like a pretty good candidate for a bong. 
One day, I came home to find that the neighbors were moving out in a really big hurry.  My roommates and I watched them stuff their station wagon with as much as it could hold, yelling at each other about hurrying and what to grab.  Then they were gone.  They left their front door wide open when they left.  It took a few days for it to sink in, but when it became clear that they weren’t coming back, we decided to look around in the other half.  There were clothes in the closets and food in the refrigerator.  It was just as they left it.  It was also both creepy and weird, so I didn’t stick around in there long.  We let the landlord know what had happened.

About a week and a half after the shady neighbors’ hasty departure, some friends and I were sitting around in our living room playing video games. There was a knock at the door and all of a sudden the door was being broken down and there were 5 or 6 cops with guns drawn coming into the living room.  My friends and I were being served with a search warrant.  The cops trashed the place, all the while rattling off names of the various drugs they expected to find.  There were also police trashing the other half, too. The warrant produced for us just listed the street address, but not the fact that there were two apartments.  I guess they just decided to search both. 

Eventually, I hear an officer frantically calling to his cronies, “ Guys! Guys! You hafta get in here and see the size of this water pipe!”  They found my Tesla coil.  As they were dragging it down the stairs, one of them quipped, “What is this, some kind of electric bong?  I’ve never seen a vaporizer this big before.”  We tried to explain that it was a Tesla coil that I built, but they confiscated it anyway.  I never saw it again.

My point with this story?  Science is neat.   

Down the Rabbit Hole

Science. Pretty crazy if you ask me. Developed through time, practiced over and over again, but never perfected. We use it everyday, though most instances go unnoticed. We see it in the media, in economics, in medicine, and all the other educated areas of society that one would expect to find it. But it doesn't stop there. It permeates video games, the weather channel, the food we eat, board games (does anybody still play those), and even religion . We depend on it. Technology has advanced as to make our lives impossible without it. Sure, the occasional person will pull a "Into the Wild" and wander off into the woods for the rest of their life, never to be seen again (though perhaps a simper life is a happier one), but there is only so much wilderness to be wandered off into before the wilderness just becomes a relocated society. We define science as a system of techniques used to prove something false. It can't prove anything to be true. And while this definition is great for those only concerned with semantics, I do not like it. I don't like the notion that we can never "know" anything, we can only say "it might be this." I think science needs to be reevaluated in society. It needs to be addressed in ways that don't limit it to things that end in "ology." Making something latin generally scares the bejesus out of those of us that don't think we like science, and its really a shame, because in reality, science isn't scary, its quite the opposite.

Short and Simple

I remember 90's. Knee-high shorts, arguably bad music (except N sync), and Jurassic Park. The movie premiered at the beginning of my functional cognition and it took it by storm. Observing animatonic and computer generated species chasing hominids was great. The characters were great; seeing Sam Neil's love for the Brachiasaur, his passive aggressiveness towards the kids, and his suspicion of Jurassic Park are just a few of many of qualities that make that character interesting (atleast that was how I felt at the time). But most intriguing to me as a child, was the idea that you could recreate these preavians with preserved DNA from a mosquito-ancestor stuck within fossilized tree sap. These thoughts would be the catalyst that ignited my interest in the sciences.

However, I was likely a black sheep of the family. My siblings carried no love of the sciences (or the arts). From a genetic stand point I could not see any semblance of interests or qualities that amounted to any relationship to my family, besides the looks. I suppose the argument would be that the "nurture" was the more important of the two dichotomies in my life, at least, this was my belief until fairly recently. As I grew into my 20's, I began experiencing events that I would normally deem boring and uninteresting, as quite fun and rewarding. Fishing, camping, and sports all became interesting to me. I guess the other determinism wins this round, because I actively find myself enjoying more and more things that my brothers have enjoyed for the past decade.

Go ahead, categorize me

How does science relate to my life… how doesn’t it relate to my life? From my laptop to refrigerator, television, cold medicine, aluminum, cars, electric heating, gasoline… our entire lives are run by technologies and inventions. I could go on for hours talking about how science influences my life, but how does it significantly relate to my life. How do I blog about this without revealing more than desired-- this in itself could be a blog topic, on how science has removed the boundaries of privacy from individuals’ lives, but I will continue on a different matter.

Undoubtedly, the most significant way that science impacts my life is through medical disciplinary. All of my major life memories have been marked by medical illnesses and the repercussions there afterwards.

One of my earliest memories is of when I was five years old being carried into a hospital by my father. I was here just a few days before for a fever and sore throat, but now I could not walk or move my arms. I remember knowing I felt very sick, but I did not understand the gravity of the situations as adults do. After multiple blood tests, X-rays, physical examinations and other excruciating assessment there was a loud argument between my parents and the doctors. The doctors insisted that it was simply an abnormal allergic reaction to red dye, and that some antihistamine would clear everything up in a matter of days. My mother demanded that they perform another Strep test or else she would withdraw me from their care. The doctors reluctantly agreed and performed the test. As my mother had deduced, I had undiagnosed Streptococcus that had entered my blood stream causing Rheumatic fever which explained the severe pain throughout my extremities. Their tests earlier had failed to detect the bacteria in my body. (Of course the medical field is always improving their tests, and today they have rapid Strep test and a throat culture for suspected Strep throat cases.)

I have always wondered why they didn’t just do the strep test again in the first place. Have we trusted the answers that science provides too much? So much so that we are willing to bet a child’s life on it? In this case our technologies failed, our seeing-devices failed to see truly what was going on. Yet we were adamant that these technologies were not wrong at all. This is because the seeing-devices we use are only going to give the correct answer or output if the situation is right and our inputs are correctly represented. The seeing-devices did not produce the correct answer because the bacteria were in too early of a stage in order to be diagnosed. In sum our seeing-devices are only as good as the way we apply them.

The mortality of doctors was one the first lessons I learned about science, learning it even before attending Kindergarten. However my life has always been plagued with medical “mysteries.” I was what many called a sickly child—always getting the worse of every cold and flu. Nonetheless, I had a happy and fairly healthy childhood, and it was not until my teenage years that science would return to take a shot at me again.

Hypothyroidism.

It’s some long Greek word which basically means a disorder in which one has a deficient thyroid that does not produce enough hormones. I can’t say I really remember the day I found out I had it all too well. I went in for tests because my mile times in cross country were much slower than my times I had the previous year and I was feeling abnormally tired. We got the call that my TSH levels were abnormal, and they wanted to perform some more tests in order to get the correct dosage for my medicine. I never really thought much about hypothyroidism after that; it did not affect my life much and besides being a little fatigued I did not have many symptoms. However as I continued my education I learned much more about this disorder than I ever wanted to.

I can remember my sophomore year of high school sitting in biology class. Our teacher was an eighty year old woman, who had never married but had taught her entire life. She was about 4’10” and was the shape of a chicken nugget. She hated me and I loathed her. In our class we learned about many disorders, but I was surprised when she started talking about hyper- and hypothyroidism. She discussed many of the symptoms, such as fatigue and increased sensitivity to cold. However as she continued she began to use words such as obese, heavy, lethargic, dull, and depressed. I have never felt more humiliated or bleak about my future. Was I really all of these things described? Would I really have difficult time learning because of this disorder? I never before gave the disorder much merit before or thought it had much influence on my life. It is hard to have that same positive attitude towards your disorder after biology teacher goes from learning about syphilis and the other horrifying disorder and diseases to something that you actually have.

To say that this event affected me is an understatement. However I grew older I realized that these definitions, symptoms, and Greek words were all in a sense made up. What words did they use to describe me before my diagnosis? How did they treat people with hypothyroidism before they “discovered” it? How does the way that they talk about Hypothyroidism affect those who have it? I am not obese, dull, depressed, or any of the terrible words that chicken nugget used to describe my disorder. In reality hypothyroidism is kind of like an itch—it is annoying, but doesn’t really interfere with your life.

I hated being categorized and defined. I was put into this box that science conveniently made for me, in which there was no room to individualize or grow. But that is what science does isn’t it? It is a categorical way of looking at the world; which is fine and dandy until you are the one who is categorized. In a way I was an example of science doing boundary work on hypothyroidism, what is and what isn’t hypothyroidism.

After reviewing my blog I guess my entry is basically the theme of this class. The way that science describes and categorizes the world affects society and individuals by the way people write and talk about.

Of course...

I have worked with a homeless population in an official capacity for almost five years and I was a volunteer for two years before I was officially hired. Part of my responsibility has been dispensing medications and I have literally seen a conversion from the treatment of depression to the treatment of social anxiety disorder (both of which are often treated with the same medications). This is interesting because it highlights the capital investments—that drugs are constantly morphing to cover new territories in order to increase their sales because medicine is also about capitalism. I think that the concept of “semantic contagion” that goes along with existence of interest in a subject is key here, especially because so many of the symptoms of things like depression and social anxiety disorder are shared.

Furthermore, I think that this touches on Lewontin’s notion that under concepts of genetic determinism, the solution to a disordered mind is to fix the mind. I say this because it is fascinating to me that someone would take people who are clearly very stressed out because of tangible, material conditions (like homelessness) and determine that this stress is a disorder (when this kind of stress would probably impact many people in the same way) and then dispense medications to treat the disorder. It is assumed that the cause lies in the brain and can be fixed—not that the cause lies in the situational conditions that people live with. I contend that almost anyone would be experiencing what is medically defined as "social anxiety" if they were mostly preoccupied with how they were going to house themselves and/or their family over the course of the upcoming week.


Intro and Abortions

I grew up in a family of scientists, with two Radiologists and a Physicist father, so discussing the intricacies of a young man's head injury by x-ray or arguing about string theory over dinner seems commonplace to me.  Although I've chosen English as my systematic groundwork, I still love science and medicine, especially when used in analysis of sociopolitical issues, which leads me to my argument.

I like to call myself a feminist, although I admit I am still exploring what feminism means in the context of my life.  To help in my search for understanding,  I recently started blogging for 'Feisty Femmes', a blog though The Women's Center (http://blog.lib.umn.edu/women/feistyfemmes/).  A new issue on my feminist radar is the legislation being proposed by the Republicans in the HoR to change abortion law.  To the best of my knowledge, the legislation currently allows for tax money to pay for abortions which result from rape or incest.  Now House Speaker John Boehner has proposed the "No Taxpayer Founding for Abortion Act", which even as a Catholic I am strongly opposed to.  This legislation would redefine rape so the only exception would be "forcible rape", so no money for abortions resulting from "non-forced" statutory rape.  I hate the idea of abortion as much as the next person, and feel it should be the very last option, but if my 12-year-old sister was impregnated by a 30-year-old man, I'd probably be more than a little upset if she didn't qualify for Medicaid.

Society, since when is "no" not enough? What do you think people?  I feel this new legislation is a huge, and sad, step back.

For more information, and to complicate my argument, here are some news articles-
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/republican-plan-redefine-rape-abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2010/jul/10073010

Captain Planet & technical writing

Hey fellow students let me first say that I've enjoyed reading all of your posts, as an english cscl major in this course, I feel slightly out of my element when it comes to technical elements of modern science. Be it practice or theory, the last intelligent meeting I've had with science was freshmen biology in Southern Illinois.
It's difficult to defend a liberal arts degree in our current economy. I'm from a fairly blue-collar background, that rejects the idea of an education for sake of well-being, or studying something that can't get you a comfy career. (This is my backbone on the subject if anyone has the time...http://publicnoises.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallace-kenyon.html)

So it's with this opposition that I begin a focus on stories, authors, narrative plot lines, completely immersed in the stuff, with little to no opinions on the evolving world around me. I know about forming characters, not processes like global warming. I believe it's happening, but I couldn't give an educated response as to why...something about greenhouse gasses...C02...Hummer's are bad...Al Gore is our real life Captain Planet...and when we all put our power rings in the circle, mine is ignorance. (for anyone who lost me this involves a cartoon from the 90's that I was very invested in--->http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpXM9bj-WPU)---anywho, the point I'm struggling to arrive at is that I've recently encounter this thing "science" (witchcraft?) in a peculiar way.

Last semester, I went to a University event where the author Richard Power's gave a lecture on the incorpaoration of fact into fiction. The guy had an engineering degree from the University of Illinois, and I think another degree from Massachusetts (witchcraft), was thoroughly educated to pursue a mechanical engineering career, but instead was a world renowned fiction author.

He described the incorporation between the two, as this kinetic romance of two very different things. Art vs Math. Paint vs Pi, (took me forever to come up with that)-just the general incorporation of technical language, usually in a descriptive manner, into a fictional piece of writing. I don't know why this had the impact on me that it did, I had always liked certain authors that that kind of thing, like Chuck Pahlniuk or David Foster Wallace, but I didn't really realize that it was that part of their work I was responding to.

I know this strays from the other responses, and I hope it's accepted warmly. I had a hard time thinking of something good, so instead I seemed to have articulated on something bad, but a lot of people make a great living that way.

Acronymophilia

Here’s a quick look at some of the privileges and regulatory approvals our group had to seek before we could begin the project that I am currently running. These all had to be met before we could start our first experiments.

The National Instututes of Health Center for Scientific Review Special Emphasis Panel on New Approaches to Non-Viral Systems for Gene Transfer Applications for Heart, Lung, and Blood Diseases (NIH ZRG BST-Z50): Our ‘Non-viral gene therapy for sickle cell anemia’ grant will receive funding for two years at $249,990 per year in direct costs and up to three additional years of funding at $495,920 per year in direct costs.

The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC): Our lab is allowed to use and create artificial DNA strands and to use chemical, electrical, or physical means to introduce them into organisms.

The Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC): We also allowed to culture living human, animal and bacterial cells and tissues and to genetically manipulate the same, provided we maintain BSL-2 and BSL-1 procedures and equipment.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC): We will retain and have access to 500 micro Curie quantities of radioactive phorphorus-32, sulfur-35, and chromium-51. I will also have access to a 320 kV x-ray irradiation unit and/or a 1.02 Gray per minute cesium-137 source.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA): We will retain for use in animals one-hundred gram bottles each of sodium pentobarbital, ketamine, and xylazine. For laboratory purposes, we are allowed to purchase reasonable quantities of the drug precursor chemicals methylamine, barbital and acetic anhydride.

The Institutional Review Board (IRB): We are allowed to receive and conduct experiments on deidentified human tissues including umbilical cords, cord blood, and peripheral blood collected from sickle cells patients. Approval is pending for waste units from exchange transfusion, the release of backup stem cell units in transplant patients and directed donation of umbilical cords from sickle cell children.

The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC): This year I will be allowed to house and use up to 512 mice for Pain Class B tissue harvest, in which I will anaesthetize them, drain their blood and cut out their bones for stem cells as outlined in the submitted protocol. A further 104 mice can be used for Pain Class C surgical procedures, where they will be dosed with radiation, transplanted with mouse or human stem cells, and implanted with dorsal skin fold vascular viewing windows. Subjects surviving the procedure in good health are authorized for the induction of sickle cell crisis and observation for up to four days at which time they must be euthanized.

That’s a pretty full summary of the various acronymically named bodies I and most other medical scientists need to get permissions from to conduct research. Without that approval most of the things I do each day could land me jail. I have to scientifically justify why we need those permissions, but it’s mostly rote because I’m already a scientist. I’m already official. The presumption is that I and the people I work for know what we’re doing. Without that official stamp of approval that list above would probably read: defrauding the government, bioterrorism, nuclear smuggling, drug trafficking, battery, theft, and animal cruelty.

Obviously a great deal of this course will be discussing who gets to do what and for what purpose and is allowed have that be accepted as legitimate or scientific. I get to speak from a position of privilege and legitimacy; one I don’t really have to worry about losing that anytime soon, but that I feel compelled to defend. There are good reasons why we grant scientists these things generally, but there are probably a range of reasons each scientist seeks it.

For me, science is very much about empowerment. After all of the drudgery with paperwork and approvals, a project like mine, a smaller grant where I am the principal person at work in the lab, takes on a thrill-of-the-hunt quality. There’s enjoyment in the pursuit of discoveries and new ideas. The end point of the project is to develop a potential cure for sickle cell anemia that is fit for human trials. It’s more or less up to me and my boss to figure out how to make that happen.

We are only a year into the grant and I’ve already departed significantly from the original plan in the grant. This happens to many so-called ‘high risk high reward’ projects and often the real skill seems to come in overcoming and improvising around obstacles rather than creating a perfect master plan. Projects are always breaking down because some assumption or technique fails in practice, but that first draft plan is based on the best information from other investigators in other circumstances.

The blackboxing process that Bruno Latour conceives of, for scientists, is really a labor saving device and a didactic tool. It makes it easier for ideas to be understood and learned by others. One of the traits of successful scientists is to understand the internal mechanisms and know when one can rely on them and when one must reject them. Scientists, almost like a craftsman or artisan, develop an intuitive understanding of their field and methods on which they rely. It’s often when scientists see that understanding in a novice that they begin to accept them as a peer.

It is that initial acceptance as a scientist, securing that initial NIH money, and getting approval from IRB that are the highest hurdles. On the other side of those barriers there are far easier institutional obstacles, but this is all to merely begin the physical, laboratory-driven side of the process that most scientists truly enjoy. I've worked for years to be able to have the privileges that scientists get in our society. Now that I have gotten there for the most part, I'm trying to challange my assumptions before I get too comfortable.

Phenylketonuria

As a baby I was diagnosed with Phenylketonuria or PKU, which restricts how much protein my body can process. Growing up with PKU was a difficult thing, I couldn't eat many of the foods my peers would enjoy like ice cream, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or any type of meat.  Whenever my friends had birthday parties I would have to eat at home before hand.  I was never able to have the pizza and cake that they seemed to enjoy so much.  In school I had to eat lunches that were measured and counted before hand, and if I didn't eat all of it I had to bring it home to recount it.

In high school things were better; my diet was more relaxed and being vegetarian wasn't looked down on.  In fact my school offered vegetarian and vegan lunches.  I graduated high school and began college, while that doesn't seem like much, it was a pretty big moment for me.  All my life I knew that if I had been born not even ten years before I wouldn't have made it to that point.

The technologies that were developed in those ten years before I was born allowed me to be a fully functioning, normal person.  The testings at birth to the medications that I have had to take all allow me to live my life, and will, in the future allow me to have normal healthy children.  I am also excited to see that in the last five years they have come closer and closer to developing enzyme therapy that could one day make the restricted diet a thing of the past.

Through the Eyes of Science

When I saw the topic assigned for the first of our weekly blog posts, I was slightly incredulous. "How has science affected your life"? The question itself seems almost ridiculous. How has science NOT affected our lives as humans? Science is what defines us, it's what defines our place in this world, it's why humans, these strange, bipedal, hairless apes that once numbered in the mere thousands, came to dominate this planet.

At first I started writing up a life-story about my ADHD and how science has influenced my life through its interaction with this disorder. Then halfway through, I realized that it would be boring, because ADHD stories are boring, and mine would be no different.

So instead, I want to talk about a topic I hope will be found slightly more interesting (if no less self-centric): How science has shaped my views of the world.

As is evident to anybody, you don't have to know a whole lot about science to be it's beneficiary. How many of us can explain exactly how a cellphone functions, or exactly how a computer works? Not many I'm guessing. However, the value of science, to me at least, extends far beyond the realm of the material. To me, science isn't merely a set of tools to be used for the purpose of further domination of the planet.

To me, science is a philosophy, a way of seeing the world, literally a way of life.

So now that we have that hilariously pretentious statement out of the way, I'll try to explain what I mean.

The easiest way to explain this is to simply say that my own philosophies about the world follow the scientific method. When I form opinions about something, it is not something that I arrive to internally after long periods of introspective deliberation; I look at the results, I look at the evidence. I always try to determine what sort of effect "insert topic here" is having on the world before arriving to any sort of opinion regarding said topic.

I just had a thought regarding the concept of the "Blank Slate" theory of human nature. Science, and likewise my own beliefs regarding the world, could be considered a sort of blank slate. Science starts with no preconceptions, no initial theories regarding any sort of phenomena. It gropes around in the dark, feeling for evidence, then uses said evidence to arrive at a logical and internally consistent conclusion. My worldviews act the same way.

Of course, this is not to say that I never have preconceptions, or misinformed opinions etc. To say so would be rather comically obtuse. However I feel that the number of such thoughts that I possess is much lower than the average person's, thanks to employing scientific methodology to my own beliefs and opinions.

One of the many (many, many) topics we have discussed in class is the idea that science is often integrated with the social and political spheres. I agree with this statement, but I do not believe that it is a drawback or a detriment to us a species. I believe that it is the political, social and cultural spheres that abuse and misrepresent science to fit their own needs, not the other way around.

This post is becoming more disorganized and unintelligible the longer it goes, so I'm gonna wrap this up here. In summary, science has guided the way that I look at the world. The philosophy behind the scientific method, that of observation and experimentation, with a lack of prior assumptions, is the fundamental pillar upon which I place my perception of all the myriad happenings around me.

Modern Dentistry.

Modern science has played a fairly large role in my life. When I was in the 7th grade I knocked out one of my front teeth after crashing on a motorized scooter. The entire thing came out, and didn't crack at all, so we were able to rush to the dentist and get it reinserted. During the next month and a half, I had to have my tooth glued to the ones surrounding it while I waited for it to take root again. Needless to say, the tooth died, and required a root canal in order to remove the dead tissue. An additional root canal was needed every 3 months for a year to fill and replace a calcium supplement meant to strengthen the tooth until finally a permanent hardening material was used. I still have the tooth to this day.

If not for modern dentistry, I would likely never have been able to recover and reattach my tooth. I'd look like a hockey player, or a pirate or something. Gross.

But in all seriousness, missing one of my front teeth would probably influence many people to have a much different impression of me. There's a social stigma that causes people with missing teeth to be viewed as poor, dirty, even unintelligent. However, this ideology is largely associated with the premise that only those without the means or desire to repair such damage would tolerate it. And if someone did something that resulted in their losing a tooth, it certainly wouldn't be unjustified to question their intelligence. Both of these concerns are fairly moot because if we were without access to modern dentistry, missing and/or crooked teeth would be much more common, and these cultural associations would be without precedent.

“Ah…. the sports analogy”

First let me explain my growing displeasure for explaining the happenings of life and the world via the sports analogy. I loathe it in the work setting and especially from those who clearly have never attempted to actually go any of the whole nine yards. Yet, as I think of how science has become a part of my life as well as the philosophies of human nature we have been discussing of what a “slam dunk” ;) my own personal experience and analytical notion of sports my former life as an athlete. So please bear with me if you share the same displeasure and I will try and never do it again it just seemed relevant this one time. I’ll brag a moment to state that I could run and run fast at an early age. By the age of 10 I was competing in national track meets and in the 7th grade was invited to run on the varsity track team. My talent was seemingly intertwined with my childhood and adolescents and would come to define me as the fast break girl in basketball, back row specialist in volleyball and base runner extraordinaire in softball. Others defined me through my capabilities. Moreover, it was how I described who I was.

However, during my sophomore year I tore my ACL in my right knee during a basketball game. Without this ligament your knee essentially hyperextends and looses it stability to stabilize your leg when performing extreme movements- like any sort of sport. I was left with a “career ending injury” at the age of 16, or so I thought. Here’s where science swooped in and preserved the life as I knew it in the form of Arthroscopic surgery via a skin graft created from a muscle ligament in my hamstring. This increasing common surgery for athletes was a relatively easy decision after looking at the “proof” of the damage from a MRI the day after my injury indicating definitively which area was to blame for my swollen knee and specialized orthopedic surgeons office a hallway away to add me onto there schedule the next week. Within four months I was back hurdling trying to obtain all the potential that others and I knew I had in me to be a standout track star.

Science and it’s seeing machines and advanced research to correct, rehab and following up on my healing process is one thing but reflecting back on the sheer act of competing in sports addresses more thoroughly the concepts that Pinker argued against in his article. Rosseau’s noble savage can easily describe opponents, the blank slate of my own ability to succeed with seemingly clumsy dorky parents, and the ghosts within machine explaining how many athletes craft their bodies and skill sets as well practiced and enhanced machines of doing things. If I would have been confronted with the Hobbesian critique that life is short nasty and brutish post my injury I might have truly lost my mind. Why should I have to accept that a freak cruel flagrant foul by an opposing team end my life as I new it? Advancement in science allowed for me to not have accept the possibility that Hobbes was right. Science was able to bring be back to a level evolutionary playing field as well according to Pinker’s argument that “fitness and health” are underlying determinants of increasing my possibilities of having my genes succeed. According to this theory the fact that I was able to regain my “healthy” activities and appear to be fit was solely due to sciences ability to fix me mentally and physically. However this theory still my hamper my genealogical success. I mean if this really is a deciding factor then my 4 inch scar is a tell tale genetic scarlet letter of inept fragile fitness. Should I even openly discuss my surgery or just secretly know that I was able to return to normalcy via scientific advancements in imaging and surgery and go about my evolutionary and philosophical rat race to succeed amongst human nature that is seemingly trying to out perform you in either realm.

The Guardian

I tend to get long-winded, and even I admit that I end up skimming longer blogs. I feel there certain things that need to be said, but I also hope that my peers will take the time to read my blogs and not be bored. So I'm posting a short version and a long version; I hope at least one of them will be worth the read.


(This is the full version)

I don’t know where it started.

----In general, I think I have always fallen into the role of “guardian.” I have always known this, but it took me until recently (32 years) to put a name to it. Any career I have contemplated, even from childhood, has had some guardian role. I don’t think it’s been a conscious effort (“I want to help and protect,”) but that’s what interests me.
----Safety in the workplace was a big deal during my Navy career. Dangers like hearing loss, lifting, riding support equipment, and aircraft hazards were everyday concerns. Still, the most significant hazards I endured were not involved in maintenance, but in clean-up instead. I inhaled (with no protection) clouds of dust from sweeping hangars, all of it was pigeon remains, including feathers and feces. (Through my studies in biology I have learned that, other than those who are immunocompromised, there's nothing really fatal you can get from inhaling bird feces. Still, when at the end of the day there's a film inside of your mouth and your nasal discharge is gray, it doesn't feel safe and is certainly unpleasant.)
----When my command was in the middle of mobilizing, I was on one of the last teams to move to the new base. Being low rank and stuck behind with no gear to work on myself and a few other unfortunate souls were given the busy work of cleaning up an old aircraft carrier. The USS Hornet had been in mothballs since before I was born. Some Veterans’ club had decided to clean it up and use it for tours and training of reservists. With the exception of pumping fresh air into compartments, there had been no preparation with our safety in mind. Asbestos snowed down on us as we broke the seal on abandoned compartments. Tape and signs marked PCB containing equipment but it still had to be moved. Swaths of lead paint curled off of bulkheads and ceilings like fruit rinds. Our "protective" equipment included only simple dust masks and latex gloves.
----None of us complained. It wasn't in our nature. We knew it was bad for us, but we been exposed all these things before. We were government property, risked as they saw fit. I'm sure we could have complained, gone up the chain, or contacted other branches of the government. But we did our jobs. It would all go and our records when we were discharged. If we had lasting effects we could hope that the government will deny them when it came time to seek disability.
----When I found out I was pregnant and insisted that I be given a lead test. My doctor said it was unlikely that I would have lead in my blood unless I had ingested or inhaled it. I had ingested it, inhaled lead dust, lead solder fumes, had lead paint splinters under my skin, lived in barracks constructed before lead regulations, and other sources one couldn't imagine. Thankfully, my lead levels were normal. But with everything else I know (and don't know) I was exposed to, I wouldn't be shocked if they led to some sort of birth defect.
----In retrospect, one of the most rewarding tasks in the military was being my command safety officer. I found a sense of purpose in everyday tasks like checking fire extinguishers, and keeping things to code. I took it personally when the command overlooked a danger or a regulation. It was rarely appreciated when I nagged my shipmates to wear their PPE, to not eat in the shop, or to follow hazmat regulations. Still, I felt I was doing it for them. There was no joy in calling people on their mistakes. I truly wanted them to understand that I was doing it with their safety in mind. It aggravated me when certain shops like support equipment saw neglecting safety regulations as some act of defiance. They were told to do so, but they were “rebels” - damn the man! They seemed ignorant and juvenile, like teenagers so when you're blind, paralyzed, and pissing into a bag - then you will have really taught the man a lesson! It was their eyes, their hearing, and their livelihoods; why didn't they care as much as I did?
----When I decided to return to school, there were careers that didn't just appeal to me but screamed at me, telling me with that desire that I thought was reserved for those few who are certain from early on what they want to do with their lives. The longest career appeal was working for OSHA. The opportunity to be not only the enforcer of corporations but the hero of the working man sounded like a starry eyed dream equivalent to those hopeful of becoming rock stars.
----My military experience and my subsequent civilian contracting jobs had been an eye-opener. How many others out there need their jobs so much that they do what they're told as opposed to risking their employment by demanding safer conditions? All workplaces have the OSHA posters, have the orientation for dues and don'ts and safety regulations, and give you human resources and whistleblower options for when things are neglected. The laws protect whistleblowers from losing their jobs. But the job and income aren't always safe. You're the guy at work who made things harder, who pissed off the boss, who made the government come in and change shit that was working just fine. Sadly enough, even in the most government regulated job sites, changes are only brought about when inspections are failed or someone gets hurt. To be that cop who protected and served and enforced regulations passionately appealed to me. Still, animals didn't have the option of speaking for themselves. And that was one group who needed a guardian even more.
----Why do I want to be a veterinarian? Why do I want to specialize in food animal medicine? These are questions that have been asked by a wide spectrum of people over the last four years. I've outlined them in personal statements. I’ve illustrated them in examples from my experience. I've weighed the pros and cons. I found analogies to which others could relate. But if I think back to the beginning, it was seeing animals who needed help, those who could not help themselves, and without a moment of contemplation, being filled with the impetus to help them. The rest was just details. When I heard of the opportunity to double major and receive a Masters of public health along with my DVM, I was giddy with the possibilities of guarding both the animals and the public.
----A current role as guardian and have taken upon myself is disability accommodations. Again, the reward isn't in the complaining that things aren't as they should be. But that doesn't change that things should be a certain way. When I transferred here from my small community college, the upgrade and size meant an upgrade and accommodations. Being a disabled veteran, and far within my rights to use disability access services. I never bothered at my old school, opting to address any issues with my professor directly. My old school was all one floor with no stairs to maneuver. Although I'm not in a wheelchair, my spinal injury prohibits me from lifting anything from the ground more than 10 pounds, and carrying anything more than 20. You don't have to be disabled to know that our textbooks and supplies with a far more than that. My rolling backpack (one of my favorite inventions) shares basic restrictions as a person with a wheelchair. I need to use ramps, elevators, avoid steps and curbs. Sure, it's one curb I can lug it up. Unlike a person in a wheelchair, I don't have to worry if I have the strength or if the physics make it possible for me to open heavy doors or reach things at certain levels. Yet these things are always on my mind. If it's an obsession, it's not a conscious one. I see icy sidewalks and I see the hazards they pose to less able-bodied people. I open heavy doors (you know the kind that you need to put your weight into opening) and wonder how the hell they expect someone to do that from a seated position below the level of the handle. I'm very pleased when accommodations are met and sidewalks are maintained. I understand how able-bodied people don't consider the extra effort that might be necessary for a person who's disabled. Why would they? If they've never been in that situation, if they've never known someone in that situation, why would it occur to them? Why does it occur to me? It's not my job. My extra needs are minimal, and I certainly have no hesitation when it comes to insisting on accommodations. But when the people who hold the jobs of taking those extra steps do those tasks half-assed, it pisses me off even when it doesn't directly affect me. When sidewalks slopes are over plowed with snow, or ice is on wheelchair ramps, or when I can't get into my 6 PM final because security locks handicapped entrance it at 4, I think of the people who don't have the opportunity to find someone to carry their bags for them, and I get all vigilante.
----I don't know where it started. Do I have some chemical predisposition, some inherited impetus to be a guardian? Is it that tired cliché of a mother's instinct (gag!) Or some experience where no one was there to help me that I want to save others from enduring? Is it obsessive compulsive disorder within actual purpose? Which part of my brain gets giddy with the idea of safety regulations and equal accommodations? Whether it's nurture or nature, there's some science in me that gives me this drive. I found a way to use my passion and skill with science to answer my calling to be a guardian. I have no doubt that even when I am settled in my career as a veterinarian, I will find things that could be and should be done safer, and I will take on extra tasks that placate the discomfort they cause me. I can easily see myself, after years in practice, taking a job with the government that uses both my DVM and my MPH to create and enforce regulations that ensure the safety of the animals, the environment, and the public.


(This is the nitty grtty)

I don’t know where it started.

----In general, I think I have always fallen into the role of “guardian.” I have always known this, but it took me until recently (32 years) to put a name to it. Any career I have contemplated, even from childhood, has had some guardian role. I don’t think it’s been a conscious effort (“I want to help and protect,”) but that’s what interests me.
----Safety in the workplace was a big deal during my Navy career. Dangers like hearing loss, lifting, riding support equipment, and aircraft hazards were everyday concerns. Still, the most significant hazards I endured were not involved in maintenance, but in clean-up instead.
----None of us complained. It wasn't in our nature. We knew it was bad for us, but we been exposed all these things before. We were government property, risked as they saw fit. I'm sure we could have complained, gone up the chain, or contacted other branches of the government. But we did our jobs. It would all go and our records when we were discharged. If we had lasting effects we could hope that the government will deny them when it came time to seek disability.
----In retrospect, one of the most rewarding tasks in the military was being my command safety officer. I found a sense of purpose in everyday tasks like checking fire extinguishers, and keeping things to code. I took it personally when the command overlooked a danger or a regulation. It was rarely appreciated when I nagged my shipmates to wear their PPE, to not eat in the shop, or to follow hazmat regulations. Still, I felt I was doing it for them. ! It was their eyes, their hearing, and their livelihoods; why didn't they care as much as I did?
----When I decided to return to school, there were careers that didn't just appeal to me but screamed at me, telling me with that desire that I thought was reserved for those few who are certain from early on what they want to do with their lives. The longest career appeal was working for OSHA. The opportunity to be not only the enforcer of corporations but the hero of the working man sounded like a starry eyed dream equivalent to those hopeful of becoming rock stars. To be that cop who protected and served and enforced regulations passionately appealed to me. Still, animals didn't have the option of speaking for themselves. And that was one group who needed a guardian even more.
----Why do I want to be a veterinarian? Why do I want to specialize in food animal medicine? These are questions that have been asked by a wide spectrum of people over the last four years. If I think back to the beginning, it was seeing animals who needed help, those who could not help themselves, and without a moment of contemplation, being filled with the impetus to help them. The rest was just details. When I heard of the opportunity to double major and receive a Masters of public health along with my DVM, I was giddy with the possibilities of guarding both the animals and the public.
----A current role as guardian and have taken upon myself is disability accommodations. Again, the reward isn't in the complaining that things aren't as they should be. But that doesn't change that things should be a certain way. Unlike a person in a wheelchair, I don't have to worry if I have the strength or if the physics make it possible for me to open heavy doors or reach things at certain levels. Yet these things are always on my mind. If it's an obsession, it's not a conscious one. I understand how able-bodied people don't consider the extra effort that might be necessary for a person who's disabled. Why would they? Why does it occur to me? It's not my job. My extra needs are minimal, and I certainly have no hesitation when it comes to insisting on accommodations. But when the people who hold the jobs of taking those extra steps do those tasks half-assed, it pisses me off even when it doesn't directly affect me.
----I don't know where it started. Do I have some chemical predisposition, some inherited impetus to be a guardian? Is it that tired cliché of a mother's instinct (gag!) Or some experience where no one was there to help me that I want to save others from enduring? Is it obsessive compulsive disorder within actual purpose? Which part of my brain gets giddy with the idea of safety regulations and equal accommodations? Whether it's nurture or nature, there's some science in me that gives me this drive. I found a way to use my passion and skill with science to answer my calling to be a guardian. I have no doubt that even when I am settled in my career as a veterinarian, I will find things that could be and should be done safer, and I will take on extra tasks that placate the discomfort they cause me. I can easily see myself, after years in practice, taking a job with the government that uses both my DVM and my MPH to create and enforce regulations that ensure the safety of the animals, the environment, and the public.