Ted Kennedy apparently has a malignant glioma, otherwise known as a Stage 3 brain tumor. The prognosis does not sound good.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Is this just a generic lament that death exists, or is Ted Kennedy's impending demise (at age 76, after a long life full of influence and wealth) particularly unfortunate in some way I can't fathom?
Because I for one would trade a glioma in any finite number of Kennedies over age 75 for Terry Pratchett's Alzheimer's.
We'll see a lot more of this if people keep using cell phones. There's plenty of evidence to back up the notion that cell phone frequencies disturb the blood-brain barrier.
On the upside, it keeps him from driving.
Three thoughts, in rapid succession.
I don't like the guy very much, but I hope he gets better soon.
I wonder if that will be one less superdelegate for Obama.
I am most likely going to hell for that last thought.
I don't like the man's politics (and methods) either, but I hope he is treated effectively and fully recovers. I agree with McCain that Kennedy is (and has been for some time) the most effective Senator.
Since we aren't letting this sad news keep us from political thoughts, I'll add that this is bad news for McCain. The focus on Kennedy will invariably remind voters of McCain's last big attempted deal with Kennedy, on the big open borders/amnesty bill that was defeated by a grassroots revolt last year.
There's plenty of evidence to back up the notion that cell phone frequencies disturb the blood-brain barrier.
No, there's plenty of wild fantasy statements by people who don't know dick about how either the blood-brain barrier or radio waves work.
I think perhaps you do not understand the meaning of the word evidence. Hint: it's not the plural of anecdote, nor a short way of saying gee it sounds reasonable to me.
Actually Tel, my second thought was whether he’ll die before the convention and they’ll turn his funeral into a fiasco ala Paul Wellstone in order to try to get the superdelegates to rally behind Barack Obama.
And no I don’t think either of us in danger of going to hell for recognizing that thanks to the folks who declared that “the personal is political” and don’t think twice about turning funerals into a campaign rally that we shouldn’t expect their supporters to treat their deaths as anything other than an opportunity to exploit the sympathy vote for “the cause.”
As far as Kennedy’s brain tumor, he’ll be in my family’s prayers for either a successful operation or a quick, dignified, and painless release.
There's plenty of evidence to back up the notion that cell phone frequencies disturb the blood-brain barrier.
When we talk about radiation "causing" cancer, what's happening is that the waves are causing atoms within the DNA to split, causing them to replicate unnaturally. This it part of what makes nuclear radiation (nuclear as in the product of a bomb or reactor) so dangerous, as this is extremely high frequency (and thus short-waved) radiation. The radiation from a cell phone, the best evidence tells us, is too big to cause this kind of cell division.
they’ll turn his funeral into a fiasco ala Paul Wellstone in order to try to get the superdelegates to rally behind Barack Obama.
It was Republicans who made Paul Wellstone's funeral a fiasco, not Democrats, despite the outright lies from conservative radio.
It was Republicans who made Paul Wellstone's funeral a fiasco, not Democrats, despite the outright lies from conservative radio.
Well, sure -- the party of The Personal Is The Political probably saw nothing wrong with how that funeral turned out. Hence, it wasn't a fiasco, it was a martyr's eulogy. Those who still think that a funeral should have a minimum level of decorum might differ, but since only lying conservatives think such a thing, and his named replacement was swept into office on a bed of roses...oh, right. Those last two are merely you projecting and you hallucinating, respectively.
Maybe you've been using your cell phone too much?
I wish him and his family well. We've seldom agreed on any political question, but I've never wished him ill. I pray he'll recover completely -- even if that means his point of view will continue to be effectively represented in the Senate.
"As far as Kennedy’s brain tumor, he’ll be in my family’s prayers for either a successful operation or a quick, dignified, and painless release."
Cancer rarely offers such easy dichotomies, and there's nothing undignified about choosing a long, difficult fight if that is the patient's choice.
First of all, I get horrible brain fog from using cell phones to the point I've had to quit using them. So this isn't some second hand anecdote.
Second, there is some evidence that cell phones cause some problems at high energy when used extensively and long term, even though they're non-ionizing radiation. (Yes, I know the distinction when you cross the line from hard to soft UV. Yes, cell phones are non-ionizing.) I'm open to discussions of mechanism.
Acute exposure to pulsed 2450-MHz microwaves affects water-maze performance of rats.
During the probe trial, microwave-exposed animals spent significantly less time in the quadrant that had contained the platform, and their swim patterns were different from those of the sham-exposed and cage control animals. The latter observation indicates that microwave-exposed rats used a different strategy in learning the location of the platform. These results show that acute exposure to pulsed microwaves caused a deficit in spatial "reference" memory in the rat.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10615092?ordinalpos=20&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16209190?ordinalpos=4&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Changes in the overall pattern of protein phosphorylation suggest that mobile phone radiation activates a variety of cellular signal transduction pathways, among them the hsp27/p38MAPK stress response pathway. Based on the known functions of hsp27, we put forward the hypothesis that mobile phone radiation-induced activation of hsp27 may (i) facilitate the development of brain cancer by inhibiting the cytochrome c/caspase-3 apoptotic pathway and (ii) cause an increase in blood-brain barrier permeability through stabilization of endothelial cell stress fibers.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12076339?ordinalpos=12&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
... analysis restricted to regular users or to conditions that may yield higher levels of exposure (e.g., heavy use in rural areas) showed consistently elevated risks. For ipsilateral use, the odds ratios in the highest category of cumulative number of calls and call time without use of hands-free devices were 1.58 (95% confidence interval: 1.11, 2.24) and 1.49 (95% confidence interval: 1.05, 2.13), respectively. The risk for contralateral use was not significantly different from 1. A positive dose-response trend was found for these measurements. Based on the largest number of benign PGT patients reported to date, our results suggest an association between cellular phone use and PGTs.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18063591?ordinalpos=4&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
p.s. I realize that there's half a book of research purporting to disprove the cell-phones-hurt-the-blood-brain-barrier-in-rats theory.
This is why I say I'm open to some other mechanism. But as I've said, my personal experiences convince me that something is going on here. And it's hard to do a 15 year study in rats.
I wrote up a very long-winded reply to the whole "cell phones cause cancer" argument I read in Freddie's post, but then I re-read his post and realized that Freddie was trying to debunk that argument, not agree with it. Nonetheless, I spent enough time looking up physical constants and remembering my old chem/phys classes to just delete it, so I'll stick it here as a tribute to my own ability to waste time on things I really shouldn't be bothered with(and, of course, to mock the scientifically illiterate who continue to insist that cell phones cause cancer).
I'll assume that you meant molecules splitting, not atoms. This, at least, is within the realm of possibility for electromagnetic radiation - it can't split an atom, but it's why you wear a lead sheet for a dental X-ray. But let's look at the energies needed. Of the five elements composing DNA, phosphorus has the lowest first ionization energy, at 1012 kJ/mol, or about 1.68x10^-18 J per atom. E=hc/lambda, so lambda=hc/1.68x10^18 = (6.626x10^-34)(2.998x10^8)/(1.68x10^-18) = 1.18x10^-7 m, or 118 nm, making it about four times as energetic as blue light, or in other words well within the realm of ultraviolet.
For comparison, the highest-energy cell phone band in existence seems to be 2690 MHz, within the UHF band of radio frequencies. This translates into a wavelength of about 111 mm, or almost a million times larger than the wavelength of a photon that could ionize phosphorus, and consequently a million times lower in energy. And since ionization energy has to be contained within one photon in order to work under all but the most bizarre circumstances, this means that radio waves cannot possibly cause cancer the way X-rays can. Just to understand how irrelevant this is, the light bulb above your head as you read this produces photons over 150,000 times as energetic, and the infrared emissions from your body heat are about 12,000 times as energetic.
In short, cell phone radiation can't cause cancer, and anyone who says it can is either scientifically illiterate or simply hasn't done the most basic of research.
In short, cell phone radiation can't cause cancer, and anyone who says it can is either scientifically illiterate or simply hasn't done the most basic of research.
No, in short, you have shown that cell phone radiation is not a plausible first-order cause, i.e., cannot function as a direct mutagen. The possibility of a second-order physiological link between frequent exposure and a pathology is not excluded by anything you just wrote. You probably should have stopped here:
And since ionization energy has to be contained within one photon in order to work under all but the most bizarre circumstances, this means that radio waves cannot possibly cause cancer the way X-rays can.
...which is true enough.
Alsadius - You're completely missing the point. Noone here is arguing that non-ionising radiation is creating breaks in covalent bonds. If people can quit beating that strawman to death (pardon the mixed metaphore), we might be able to have an intelligent conversation.
There are many ways to cause cancer; allow a bloodborne pathogen access to an immunopriveledged area, for instance. Interfere with the immune system, which clears transformed cells on a daily basis. And so on and so on.
AMouseforallSeasons seems to be the only person here who grasps that concept.
Like I said, my post was directed at someone whose comments I misread. It's not directly applicable to this conversation, because of my error in that regard.
aMouse: What you say is true, that what I write does not strictly exclude the possibility of a second-order causal relationship. I can't think of how such a relationship could conceivably work - does atomic-level inopportune heating of molecules cause cancer? - but my knowledge of biology is nowhere near as good as my knowledge of chemistry and physics, and so I can't strictly exclude it.
Ryan: I'm glad to see you're not as stupid as the people who actually do make that argument - I've seen a few. Looking at what you've posted, it's stuff I'm not really knowledgeable enough to comment on intelligently. I can think of some alternate mechanisms for some of it, but my supposition is hardly going to be convincing.
Strictly speaking, my argument being included in this debate is a strawman - I'm attacking an argument nobody actually made. I stuck it here partially because it seemed a waste to delete it, partially because it's been way too long since I got to flaunt my science education, partially because I wanted it available for future debates, and partially to cover for the possibility that you actually were one of those idiots yourself. Feel free to ignore it in future, though, since I'll freely admit that it's totally irrelevant here.
Like I said, my post was directed at someone whose comments I misread. It's not directly applicable to this conversation, because of my error in that regard.
aMouse: What you say is true, that what I write does not strictly exclude the possibility of a second-order causal relationship. I can't think of how such a relationship could conceivably work - does atomic-level inopportune heating of molecules cause cancer? - but my knowledge of biology is nowhere near as good as my knowledge of chemistry and physics, and so I can't strictly exclude it.
Ryan: I'm glad to see you're not as stupid as the people who actually do make that argument - I've seen a few. Looking at what you've posted, it's stuff I'm not really knowledgeable enough to comment on intelligently. I can think of some alternate mechanisms for some of it, but my supposition is hardly going to be convincing.
Strictly speaking, my argument being included in this debate is a strawman - I'm attacking an argument nobody actually made. I stuck it here partially because it seemed a waste to delete it, partially because it's been way too long since I got to flaunt my science education, partially because I wanted it available for future debates, and partially to cover for the possibility that you actually were one of those idiots yourself. Feel free to ignore it in future, though, since I'll freely admit that it's totally irrelevant here.
Cell phones probably kill more people in traffic accidents due to those who drive while phoning which has been documented to make one as impaired as a few stiff ones.
Anyway, if it is Grade 3 astrocytoma rather than Grade IV (glioblastoma), that would be relatively good news. Prognosis with Grade IV is bleak maybe 1-1 1/2 years.
The possibility of a second-order physiological link between frequent exposure and a pathology is not excluded by anything you just wrote
What the heck is a "second order physiological link"? Boy you just won the buzzword bingo game, for sure. Now define your terms. At least the guy above you said stuff that is precise and definite, measureable. You're just making stuff up, more or less paraphrasing the ol' there are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio... pseudo-argument.
Sure, it's a logically frameable proposition that radio-frequency photons with an energy of less than a joule/mole could do something that, say, the bazillions of infrared photons in which your brain cells are swimming, with an energy about a thousand times higher, do not. Doesn't violate any laws of English syntax to state this proposition.
But from a pure physics and chemistry viewpoint it's unbelievably nuts. Quantum mechanics being what it is, energy is not the same whether it comes as zillions of low-energy photons or a few high-energy photons. No matter how many radio-frequency photons you aim at a chemical bond, it won't break. (You can make a direct analogy to the photoelectric effect.) And it's going to be tough to make an argument for how radio waves do bad things to your brain if they can't cause any chemical reactions whatsover (that's for you to ponder, Ryan. How do you get any of the physiological effects you mention without doing any chemistry at all?)
I forget who posted the links to studies showing a correlation between beaming microwaves at rats and some learning outcomes. But color me unimpressed. How pure was their microwave source? How much power did they use? Maybe a lot, and maybe it includes some rotational frequencies for biggish molecules, and you got some local heating, the way you do in a microwave oven. Stick your head in a microwave oven, so you heat up your brain tissue, and I bet you do get some abnormalities.
So? Your brain is not going to to work well with any large dose of energy, excepting stuff like neutrinos and gravitational waves, to which it is utterly transparent. The question is whether radio waves at power levels too low to cause measurable heating can, nevertheless, cause damage. The question would have been answered of course not before we knew about ionizing radiation. Now we seem to have gone absurdly to the other extreme, and treat every source of energy (or at least electromagnetic energy) as if it partakes of the same curious features ionizing radiation possesses. Yeesh.
Carl - Granted, it's possible that a microwave generator might be emitting some kind of ionising radiation as well as microwave frequencies.
Sure, it's a logically frameable proposition that radio-frequency photons with an energy of less than a joule/mole could do something ...But from a pure physics and chemistry viewpoint it's unbelievably nuts.
Except that this isn't chemistry, it's biology. Biological systems are built to carry out reactions at unusually low temperatures and energies, using low-energy stimuli.
You can make a direct analogy to the photoelectric effect.
Okay, I will. Photosynthesis does carbon fixation using light in the visible (non-ionising) spectrum.
No matter how many radio-frequency photons you aim at a chemical bond, it won't break
For the love of Christmas, how many times do I have to say that nobody here is confusing ionising and non-ionising radiation? Can we PLEASE move beyond high school chemistry and discuss the topic at hand?
Lets say that you disturb a calcium ion gate. You could do this pretty easily using non-ionising radiation and alter cell function in an unpredictable fashion.
Nonthermal effects of radiofrequency-field exposure on calcium dynamics in stem cell-derived neuronal cells: elucidation of calcium pathways.
Intracellular Ca(2+) spikes trigger cell proliferation, differentiation and cytoskeletal reorganization. In addition to Ca(2+) spiking that can be initiated by a ligand binding to its receptor, exposure to electromagnetic stimuli has also been shown to alter Ca(2+) dynamics. ... exposure of cells to an 800 MHz, 0.5 W/kg RF radiation, for example, significantly increased the number of Ca(2+) spikes to 15.7+/-0.8 (P
Is this proof that cell phones cause cancer? No.
Does it demonstrate that non-ionising radiation causing serious biological disruption is a viable hypothesis? I think so.
Ted Kennedy is a drunk and a murderer. Why would we laud him? He ought to be impugned. Couldn't have happened to a drunker guy.
Significant inhibition of DNA repair was found when X-irradiated cells were exposed to MWs within the frequency ranges of 51.62-51.84 GHz and 41.25-
41.50 GHz. The effects were observed within two “frequency windows” displaying a pronounced resonance character in each with the resonance frequencies of 51.755 GHz and 41.32 GHz, respectively [29, 36]. These MW effects could not be explained by heating.
mwr.medianis.net/pdf/Vol11No2-03-IBelyaev.pdf
Nonthermal GSM microwaves affect chromatin conformation in human lymphocytes similar to heat shock
ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/29557/01341526.pdf?temp=x
I think of all the people he's thrown to the curb during his lifetime, all the folks he's sat in judgment of, patronized, been willing ruin, and I just could care less if he suffers or not. He's an insect to me and the sooner he's gone, the better.
I will repeat what I've said elsewhere:
"If you can't say anything good about the man, say nothing at all."
...
My sympathies to his family.
Actually Tel, my second thought was whether he’ll die before the convention and they’ll turn his funeral into a fiasco ala Paul Wellstone
Talk about your manufactured controversies. Like most people who parrot this nonsense, I bet you didn't even watch the funeral.
But, hey, you tell me. Or rather, tell Ted Kennedy's estate in a year, because they may want to know: how, precisely, do you plan to hold the funeral of a life-long, influential, well-liked political figure without ever mentioning politics of any kind?
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12076339?ordinalpos=20&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Tel - I wonder if that will be one less superdelegate for Obama.
It's certainly one less news cycle for Hillary.
Actually, Chet, I did watch the funeral, along with my midwestern mother, aka The Swing Voter. Neither of us have ever voluntarily listened to conservative radio. I knew it was going to be trouble the minute I saw it, and she was disgusted. This was not a controversy dreamed up by some right wing media conspiracy, however much the left might wish 'twere so. If you were not a pretty partisan Democrat, it looked really, really bad to turn a funeral into an explicit political rally.
Wow, whether or not you agree with the man's politics, or even whether or not he was guilty after Chappaquiddick, his death will still leave a void in his family and friends. To wish death upon him is cruel, tasteless, and simply sickening.
If you were not a pretty partisan Democrat, it looked really, really bad to turn a funeral into an explicit political rally.
Paul Wellstone's funeral was held on Monday, Oct 21, 2002. The memorial in question was a public event celebrating the man's life and work, and, yes, his politics, held on Tuesday, Oct 22.
Charming. A thread that should have been about non-controversial discussions and been given a pass by people not interested in that, instead, features:
1) Discussions about cell phone radiation (not offensive, but a bit weird to latch on to this)
2) Pot-shots at Senator Kennedy's record, Chappaquiddick, etc. (really inappropriate and unnecessary, we know how people feel about Sen. Kennedy, but random anonymous people say offensive things on the Web all the time, c'est la vie)
3) People fantasizing about bad things Democrats might do on the event of Kennedy's funeral (note that his prognosis, although terminal, is uncertain) and then attacking them for their disgusting behavior, even though they haven't actually done them. This last one is surprising, but I guess people have to be creative.
By the way, 2) does NOT include the many people who said "I disagree with him and his views, but wish him the best," which is a fine response since no one should be expected to pretend they liked or agreed with someone they didn't.
Paul, you can argue the finer points with me all you want, but most people in America do not like honoring accidental deaths with stirring speeches about how you're going to get all his political opponents. The disgust was widespread, not limited to Republicans, and to me, perfectly understandable.
Brittain33, I don't think there's anything wrong with weird off-topic posts, but I agree with point two: the guy's dying. Extend him the same respect you'd hope to see used by others if he were a friend or relative. I disagree with him about, well, basically everything. But we don't have the death penalty for being a rock-ribbed liberal (thank God). No one deserves a brain tumor unless they are named Hitler or Stalin.
If you were not a pretty partisan Democrat, it looked really, really bad to turn a funeral into an explicit political rally.
By all means, Megan, why don't you explain how you would conduct the memorial of a man who'd spent his life in politics and was in the middle of a hotly contested senate race, without ever mentioning politics?
"Paul Wellstone was a good man who spent much of his life.... uh, doing things that I guess we're going to skip over. Rest in peace." I mean, by your prescription, the whole thing is ten-minutes-and-we're-out. Would the caterers even be done setting up, yet?
Actually, Chet, I did watch the funeral, along with my midwestern mother, aka The Swing Voter.
Mark F has a great point that, no, you actually weren't watching his funeral, you were watching a political rally that you and the rest of the right-wing noise machine conflated with his funeral.
As I said, it's a manufactured outrage. Wellstone's services weren't any different at all than how Reagan was treated, for instance.
"Brittain33, ... but I agree with point two: the guy's dying. Extend him the same respect you'd hope to see used by others if he were a friend or relative."
Remarkable. So your philosophy is that we should pretend that all politics is meaningless and somehow we should "make nice" and pretend everyone is your friend or relative? I suppose that's what passes as "civilized" these days; the importation of New Testament psycho-babble into real life.
I suppose I'm just too barbaric. The man was nothing but a threat to me and mine his whole life, and I can't just write it off as a "disagreement". Politicians need to accept that their choices have real world consequences, and it means they are going to be hated, as well as loved. And if their goal in life is to force one part of society to financially support another through government mandated theft and redistribution, (despite their own personal fortunes)... in essence federalizing charity, then they better expect some really hard feelings from the folks they rob. This isn't a game or a sporting event ... this is up close and personal real life. Politics is not a chess match, or a duel at 20 paces, it's a knife fight in a phone booth. The stuff he has foisted down our throats for the past 40 years has truly hurt people. It's just a shame that the wrong person drowned at Chappaquiddick.
The stuff he has foisted down our throats for the past 40 years has truly hurt people.
I know! What a shame that people in wheelchairs can enter and exit public buildings! How horrible it is that black people can vote with the same confidence and ease as white people! And don't even get me started on the fact that I have to see a poor child not die almost every single day!
It's just a shame that the wrong person drowned at Chappaquiddick.
Yes, "ruralcounsel," because had Mary Jo Koepechne survived the accident, she surely would have stopped all of that horrible legislation that she almost definitely opposed while working on Bobby Kennedy's 1968 campaign.
Ruralcounsel,
You're free to hate politicians if you like. No one says otherwise. The question is, what do you accomplish by choosing this moment to express that hatred, and what does that do to accomplish your policy goals? Is it therapeutic for you, or what?
I think there's something to be said for recognizing how violent our disputes in the political realm, we share at the very least a common humanity that applies to sickness, death, the loss of a loved one. Rick Santorum posed a greater threat my well-being and life than Ted Kennedy every posed to yours, but I empathize with the loss of his child, and do not see it as an opportunity to remind the world how I feel about him.
After all, the occasion you're choosing here to let us know you hate Ted Kennedy is the public diagnosis of his terminal cancer. You may well hate him, but what prompts you to think this is the ideal time to dance on his hospital bed?
Say you disagree with him, won't miss him in the Senate, that's fine, but respect his humanity at this very lowest level of recognizing the tragedy of cancer.
Brittain33:
I didn't start this thread, I merely made my views known, no different than you. The choice of timing was made by someone else. Kennedy will have plenty of sycophantic knee-jerk support and hypocritical well-wishers ... did I rain on your parade?
As to Santorum vs. Kennedy, I wouldn't celebrate bad things happening to Kennedy's kids ... this is an individual disdain, not a family feud. You're welcome to celebrate when Santorum gets sick ... won't bother me a bit. Celebrate his child's death ... I'll question your rationality, since I doubt his child did anything to you. I have great sympathy for the Kennedy family. But not for Teddy.
mark f:
I have nothing against the social results you listed. But it isn't the results that matter. It's how they were achieved and at who's cost. One can justify almost anything, but to some of us, the principle of how one achieves the goal is just as important. To paraphrase: Ted Kennedy was no Robin Hood. He wasn't even Jack Kennedy, or Bobby Kennedy. He was a rich guy who thought the middle class should finance his political payoffs.
Your Kopechne snark made no sense. It isn't a question of what the innocent victim would want. It's a matter of having the guilty party suffer the consequences of their actions.
Sorry, Chet, but using phrases like "right-wing noise machine" automatically signals the fact that you are a partisan hack, not a serious person. (I'm sure it's a big hit with your budies wearing the Che T-shirts, though...)