Thanks to all of you who have sent birthday wishes along to FmH. I am enjoying the “experiment in participatory weblogging” and consider it a success, both in terms of generating lively discussion and illuminating the issue of why there had not been much here. I consider your efforts in commenting on some of my posts a birthday present to me but hope, unlike a birthday present, that they will continue.

The article details the staggering extent to which a cocktail of “drugs, hormones, steroids and personal care products such as soaps and perfumes” is found in almost all ponds, creeks and streams sampled. (CNN) The effects of traces of antidepressants on aquatic and amphibious species, in particular, must be assessed both because of the enormous volume of prescriptions issued for this class of drugs and the wide range of their biological effects on body systems. Laboratory studies of amphibians exposed to fluoxetine (Prozac) confirm cause for concern, although what relationship the experimental conditions bear to either extent of exposure in the wild or what implications it has for unanticipated human effects is unclear.

Some, commenting on this article, have suggested that expectant mothers be careful about taking the drugs for fear of birth defects etc. This is not really the most important thing to worry about, though, since rates of birth defects after in utero exposure to various classes of drugs are well-studied and publicly available — if you are concerned with the obvious, gross defects such as spina bifida, cleft lip and palate, cardiac defects etc. What is more worrisome and more difficult to assess, however, are the longterm, more subtle effects of either in utero or childhood exposure. In my own field of psychiatry, for example, we are beginning to appreciate how subtle, poorly-characterizable early abnormalities in the organization of brain regions and the rates of migration, growth and die-off of neurons are implicated in devastating cognitive-behavioral disturbances such as schizophrenia. In my opinion, also, we need to be concerned not only with in utero exposure but the growing use of psychotherapeutic drugs to treat children and adolescents, often on dubious grounds.

Addendum: Garret Vreeland‘s comment to this post deserves to be brought up front here. He has been concerned about antidepressant use in children for a long time; here is a Google search of links.

‘What’s Going to Happen with Feith?’ “If the administration is looking for a scapegoat for the situation it faces in Iraq, Feith is the most likely candidate both because of his relative obscurity compared to other administration hawks and the fact that, of virtually all of them, his ideas—particularly on the Middle East—may be the most radical.” — Jim Lobe (who writes for Inter Press Service, an international newswire, and for Foreign Policy in Focus), tompaine.com

No Exit:

While President George W. Bush insists that “America will never run,” a fierce debate is raging just below the surface of his administration over when and how America should exit from Iraq. The debate pits those who favor a massive effort to turn Iraq into a beacon of democracy for the Middle East against those who want to concentrate the U.S. mission on defeating insurgents so American troops can return home. The wisdom of a war against Iraq had few doubters within the Bush administration. Yet this consensus obscured a deep division over the war’s purpose. We could characterize this as a split between “democratic imperialists” and “assertive nationalists.” — Ivo H. Daalder (Special Adviser on National Security at the Center for American Progress and co-author of America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (Brookings Press, 2003), tompaine.com.

“It is time to set the record straight – Keanu Reeves is more intelligent than he lets on. While most of us were (or still are) scratching our heads over The Architect’s speech at the end of The Matrix Reloaded, Reeves thought it a challenging concept. Ergo, he knew then, it was a crucial scene in the trilogy.

During a 15-minute interview with Reeves in Sydney he tells how he found the three books – Simulcra and Simulation, Out of Control and Evolutionary Psychology (which he was asked to read by the Wachowski brothers before playing Thomas Anderson a.k.a. Neo a.k.a. The One in The Matrix trilogy) to be helpful in different ways.” —The Star (Malaysia)

Studs Terkel: “Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up. That’s what Jessie de la Cruz meant when she said, ‘I feel there’s gonna be a change, but we’re the ones gonna do it, not the government. With us, there’s a saying, ‘La esperanza muere última. Hope dies last.’ You can’t lose hope. If you lose hope, you lose everything…”

As we enter the new millennium, hope appears to be an American attribute that has vanished for many, no matter what their class or condition in life. The official word has never been more arrogantly imposed. Passivity, in the face of such a bold, unabashed show of power from above, appears to be the order of the day. But it ain’t necessarily so.

Letters to the editors of even our more conservative papers indicate something else, something that does not make the six o’clock news: a stirring show of discontent in the fields, a growing disbelief in the official word. ” —tompaine.com

… being sad? “From Adam Ant to Nick Hornby, everyone seems to be opening up about depression. But is the therapy culture actually making us ill? ” A thoughtful essay drawing on a number of critics of ‘therapy culture’, ‘treating angst as if it were anxiety’, and the expectation that we have a right to feel ‘better than good’.

We have gone from being a society that expects life to be a set of struggles and challenges to which we must respond and over which we have a personal sort of challenge to achieve some good, and evolved in to a world where we are born with an entitlement to an unfettered, uncomplicated life, free of angst and anxiety.’ There is, he says, an expectation now ‘that we ought to be able to fix everything’. Gist is particularly well-placed to know how impossible that expectation is to meet. ‘If there’s one thing that the incredible calamities in my work have taught me,’ he says, ‘it’s that we have to start out with a simple understanding in life – not everything can be fixed.’ —Guardian.UK

“On November 24, the FCC is mandating that consumers be allowed the option to retain their phone numbers when switching service providers. For anybody who’s stuck with one carrier solely because they wanted to hang on to their number, this is a big deal–the chains have come off. But unfortunately, you can’t simply take your number and run. There are a lot of unanswered questions and potential pitfalls ahead. So before making the switch, arm yourself with the facts, and be wary of hidden costs.” —CNET

“These days, merely talking on a phone seems almost quaint, kind of like using a party line. No, today’s phones are about having a cyborglike connection to every aspect of your network. It’s like having an extra limb. Your phone collects your e-mail from work; it zaps tiny text messages to friends far or near. It captures exquisitely embarrassing pictures from drunken office parties. It feeds your cat. The mobile phone has become, in essence, a remote control for life. ”We call it ‘the device formerly known as the cellphone,”’ says Geoffrey Frost, the chief brand officer for Motorola, which makes cellphones. ”Now it’s like having E.S.P.” And along the way, the phone is changing the way we relate to one another — in often surprising and subtle ways.” —New York Times Magazine

“Six weeks ago, a courageous hometown paper in rustbelt Ohio – the Toledo Blade – tore the wraps off an officially suppressed story of Vietnam-era exterminism that recapitulates Blood Meridian in the most ghastly and unbearable detail. The reincarnation of Glanton’s scalping party was an elite 45-man unit of the 101 Airborne Division known as “Tiger Force.” The Blade‘s intricate reconstruction of its murderous march through the Central Highlands of Vietnam in summer and fall 1967 needs to be read in full, horrifying detail. Blade reporters interviewed more than 100 American veterans and Vietnamese survivors.

Tiger Force atrocities began with the torture and execution of prisoners in the field, then escalated to the routine slaughter of unarmed farmers, elderly people, and even small children. As one former sergeant told the Blade, “It didn’t matter if they were civilians. If they weren’t supposed to be in an area, we shot them. If they didn’t understand fear, I taught it to them.” “

Scientists create a virus that reproduces: “…(G)enomics pioneer Craig Venter announced that his research group created an artificial virus based on a real one in just two weeks’ time.

When researchers created a synthetic genome (genetic map) of the virus and implanted it into a cell, the virus became ‘biologically active,’ meaning it went to work reproducing itself.” —USA Today

“Labour MPs are planning to tack an amendment onto the Child Protection Bill which would outlaw parental smacking, following warnings that too many abusive parents cover up ill-treatment by insisting that bruises are the result of ‘normal’ discipline. They are optimistic that Ministers will allow a free vote on the issue.” —BBC. Laudable sentiment, but how exactly would this be enforced?

“North Korea has said it is ready to abandon its nuclear programme if the United States drops its ‘hostile policy’ towards the communist state.” —BBC

“George Bush’s meeting with families of British soldiers killed in Iraq was dismissed as a selfish stunt by two angry fathers.

The United States President wants to meet relatives during his visit to the UK to tell them their loved ones died in a ‘noble cause’… Mr Bush said he will offer the families the sympathy ‘of the American people and the prayers of the president’.

…But grieving fathers Robert Kelly and Reg Keys said the meeting would only benefit Mr Bush.

…Mr Keys, 51, said he opposed Mr Bush’s visit, but wanted to meet him to tell him he was responsible for his son’s death.”

Related: US seeks ‘shoot-to-kill’ authorization for snipers in Bush entourage during next week’s visit to the UK: British Home Office demurs.

The issue of immunity is one of a series of extraordinary US demands turned down by Ministers and Downing Street during preparations for the Bush visit.

These included the closure of the Tube network, the use of US air force planes and helicopters and the shipping in of battlefield weaponry to use against rioters. —Guardian.UK

US War Dead in Iraq Exceeds Early Vietnam Years: “A Reuters analysis of Defense Department statistics showed on Thursday that the Vietnam War, which the Army says officially began on Dec. 11, 1961, produced a combined 392 fatal casualties from 1962 through 1964, when American troop levels in Indochina stood at just over 17,000.in Baghdad on Wednesday brought to 397 the tally of American dead in Iraq, where U.S. forces number about 130,000 troops — the same number reached in Vietnam by October 1965.” —Reuters

“When you first fall in love, you are not experiencing an emotion, but a motivation or drive, new brain scanning studies have shown.

The early stages of a romantic relationship spark activity in dopamine-rich brain regions associated with motivation and reward. The more intense the relationship is, the greater the activity.

The regions associated with emotion, such as the insular cortex and parts of the anterior cingulate cortex, are not activated until the more mature phases of a relationship, says Helen Fisher, an anthropologist from Rutgers University in New Jersey.” —New Scientist This is an absurd finding, only meaningful to those who believe there is a hard-and-fast distinction between ‘motivation and reward’ and ’emotion’ and that these global aspects of experience are localized to small specific brain regions.

“As many as 1,200 students at Wheaton College will gather in the gym Friday night for the first real dance in the Christian school’s 143-year history.

Which explains why students in recent days have been seeking out classmates who know this stuff and looking for places where they can practice. And it explains why on Monday night and Tuesday night, dozens of students packed a room on campus for a quick dance lesson.” —Yahoo! News The college’s most famous graduate is Billy Graham. Many who have matriculated at the school thought they were safe from such secular embarrassments. Now, although they may dance, whether they can is another matter, as one puts it. Now, what about the kissing lessons?

Tragic end for smuggling donkeys: “Smugglers in Algeria have reportedly come up with a novel way to get their contraband into Morocco – donkeys, with tape recorders on their backs.

A taped message is repeated, saying ‘Err’, Arabic for ‘walk’, so that the donkeys do not stop as they follow the smugglers’ tracks unaccompanied.

However, the customs service learnt of the ruse and has killed 200 of the donkeys, says the El Khabar newspaper.” —BBC

“Elaine Davidson of Brazil, who holds the Guinness world record for being the woman with the greatest number of body piercings, 1903 altogether, sticks her tongue out at the Tate Modern art gallery in London, November 11, 2003.”

“In his new book, ‘Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights,’ (executive diroeector of Amnesty International USA William) Schulz argues that rising global terrorism requires the left ‘to rethink some of our most sacred assumptions.’ A vigorous defense of human and civil liberties, while essential to spreading democracy worldwide, is not enough to stop terrorists from blowing up airplanes or shopping malls, he says. And that presents the left with a problem, because some of the tools needed to fight terror, such as stricter border controls or beefed up intelligence work — and, perhaps, war against states that support terrorists — chafe against traditional leftist values.” —Salon

“The British P.M. thought he had a deal: He’d support the war and Bush would stand up to Ariel Sharon. But administration neoconservatives, led by Elliott Abrams, killed the deal.” — Sidney Blumenthal, —Salon

The article details the staggering extent to which a cocktail of “drugs, hormones, steroids and personal care products such as soaps and perfumes” is found in almost all ponds, creeks and streams sampled. (CNN) The effects of traces of antidepressants on aquatic and amphibious species, in particular, must be assessed both because of the enormous volume of prescriptions issued for this class of drugs and the wide range of their biological effects on body systems. Laboratory studies of amphibians exposed to fluoxetine (Prozac) confirm cause for concern, although what relationship the experimental conditions bear to either extent of exposure in the wild or what implications it has for unanticipated human effects is unclear.

Some, commenting on this article, have suggested that expectant mothers be careful about taking the drugs for fear of birth defects etc. This is not really the most important thing to worry about, though, since rates of birth defects after in utero exposure to various classes of drugs are well-studied and publicly available — if you are concerned with the obvious, gross defects such as spina bifida, cleft lip and palate, cardiac defects etc. What is more worrisome and more difficult to assess, however, are the longterm, more subtle effects of either in utero or childhood exposure. In my own field of psychiatry, for example, we are beginning to appreciate how subtle, poorly-characterizable early abnormalities in the organization of brain regions and the rates of migration, growth and die-off of neurons are implicated in devastating cognitive-behavioral disturbances such as schizophrenia. In my opinion, also, we need to be concerned not only with in utero exposure but the growing use of psychotherapeutic drugs to treat children and adolescents, often on dubious grounds.

Addendum: Garret Vreeland‘s comment to this post deserves to be brought up front here. He has been concerned about antidepressant use in children for a long time; here is a Google search of links.