From the NEW YORK TIMES:

Alzheimer’s disease seems to spread like an infection from brain cell to brain cell, two new studies in mice have found. But instead of viruses or bacteria, what is being spread is a distorted protein known as tau.

The surprising finding answers a longstanding question and has immediate implications for developing treatments, researchers said. And they suspect that other degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson’s may spread in a similar way.

Alzheimer’s researchers have long known that dying, tau-filled cells first emerge in a small area of the brain where memories are made and stored. The disease then slowly moves outward to larger areas that involve remembering and reasoning…

Click here to read the full article.

From the HUFFINGTON POST:

On Tuesday’s deadline, the latest quarterly fundraising reports poured into the Federal Election Commission and out to the public from candidate campaigns and super PACs. Observers could finally compare money totals for the last quarter of 2011 and the full pre-election year.

The flood of cash advanced three story lines: President Barack Obama and the Democrats have broken another fundraising record, the Mitt Romney campaign is far outpacing its competitors, and the relatively new vehicles known as super PACs are a powerful new force in the campaign money race…

As 2008 was the year of the small donor contacted and engaged over the Internet, 2012 is set to be the year of the mega-donor. Millionaires, billionaires and their corporate entities are lining up to give $250,000 to $1 million, or more, to super PACs created to help their favored candidate or position. With the money that has already flooded into the Republican primary, super PACs have routinely outspent candidate campaigns on television advertising in the early-voting states…

Click here to read the full article

From HEALTH AFFAIRS:

FIFTY YEARS AGO the poor and uninsured were often charged the lowest prices for medical services. In a classic health economics article, Reuben Kessel explained in 1958 why it was rational for physicians to charge the wealthiest the most and to discount prices for the poor.¹ It included a quote from a “highly respected surgeon” that, according to Kessel, “presents the position of the medical profession”:

I don’t feel that I am robbing the rich because I charge them more when I know that they can well afford it; the sliding scale is just as democratic as the income tax. I operated today upon two people for the same surgical condition—one a widow whom I charged $50, the other a banker whom I charged $250. I let the widow set her own fee. I charged the banker an amount which he probably carries around in his wallet to entertain his business friends.²

Almost fifty years later, uninsured and other “self-pay” patients are often presented with bills by hospitals, doctors, and other health professionals with charges that are 2.5 times what most public and private health insurers actually pay…

Click here to read the full article.

During the “Public Comment” opportunity during the Lancaster County Commissioners weekly meeting, NewsLanc publisher Robert Field volunteered the following:

I would like to comment on the recent request by Kevin Molloy, Executive Director of the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority, that there be an increase in the hotel room sales tax to enable the center to remain solvent and the Tourist Bureau to continue to be funded.

A frequent assertion is that the hotel room sales tax is only at the cost of the visitor, not the hotel or the community.   This is incorrect.

Most business persons would hasten to raise prices by 5% if they felt they would not lose customers.  But they know that there will be a trade off and they do their best to find the optimal balance between price and generating revenue.

A room sales tax is de facto an increase in price to the customer.  To a tourist who came last year to stay for $100, the economic impact is the same whether the hotelier raises the price to $105 or the price remains the same and the county adds a 5% room sales tax.  To the extent the 5% increase is passed along to the guest, hotels are going to lose some customers.  To prevent this occurring, the hotelier absorbs much if not all of the tax by lowering his price to offset the tax.

This is explained in Economics 101 and known as Marshall’s law of the elasticity of demand.   More simply stated, there is no free lunch.

The results have been predictable:  Despite more hotel rooms being introduced to the market place, total county wide revenue from room sales has leveled off and some years actually dropped.  Hoteliers report their earnings are down and find it difficult to invest adequately in modernization and renovations.  We have created a vicious cycle.

Moreover, when less people come to visit, there are fewer customers for restaurants, entertainment venues and other businesses.

The Manor Group does not operate hotels in Lancaster County.  When a hotel room sales tax was enacted elsewhere, our profits actually dropped the full amount of the tax the following year.

From the HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS: As Penn State students clamor for more state aid in hopes of avoiding higher tuition bills, Gov. Tom Corbett has put the university on notice.

If Penn State wants taxpayer money, the university must accept the full-disclosure requirements of the state’s open-records law, Corbett says.

Sparked by the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal that has exposed the secrecy in which Penn State’s leaders have operated, Corbett said he plans to talk to state lawmakers about forcing Penn State to make a decision: Is it a public or private institution?

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR: It is time the state and the Lancaster Newspapers make the same demand of Lancaster General Health.   They are a 501 (c)3 ‘Public Charity’ but they act as though they are the Mafia.

From ALJAZEERA:

…Joblessness among the bloc’s 17 countries rose to 10.4 per cent in December 2011, the EU’s statistics office Eurostat said in a statement…

After two years of debt crisis and budget austerity cuts across in the region, the number of Europeans out of work has risen to 16.5 million people, with another 20,000 people without a job in December…

In the 27-nation European Union, the number of jobless has risen steadily from a recent low of 7.1 per cent of the working
population in 2008 to 9.9 per cent in December – some 23.6 million people…

Click here to read the full article.

DRUG WAR FACTS: Good news was reported with the December 2011 release of the “Prisoners in 2010″ report from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. “The combined U.S. prison population decreased 0.6% in 2010, the first decline since 1972.” [1] While we can somewhat celebrate this downward blip, these numbers need to be put in context.

A year and a half earlier, the Pew Center on the States announced the decline, but went further in its analysis stating, “Between 1925 (the first year national prison statistics were officially collected) and 1972, the number of state prisoners increased from 85,239 to 174,379.”[2] Placing these numbers in context, in 2010, state prisons housed 1,395,356 inmates, an increase of +1537% over 1925 and +700% over 1972.

It wasn’t population growth or a corresponding increase in the number of “bad guys” that caused the massive prison expansion. From 1925 to 2010, the U.S. population grew by +167%; from 1972 to 2010, the percentage increase equaled
+47%.[3]

According the Pew Center, “This change was fueled by stiffer sentencing and release laws and decisions by courts and parole boards, which sent more offenders to prison and kept them there for longer terms.”[2]

Many of these laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s were a reaction to drug war induced hysteria,[4] which in turn fueled prison growth. To illustrate, 25% of federal inmates had “drugs” as their most serious offense in 1980 – a total of 4,900 prisoners.[5] Just 10 years later in 1990, almost 57,000 (50%) federal inmates counted “drugs” as their most serious offense. Thirty years later in 2010, federal inmates with drug offenses numbered almost 100,000.[1] There were almost 20 times more “drug” prisoners in 2010 than in 1980 for a population that had only increased by about one third.

The explosive growth in the prison population has strained the prison system. In 2010, “Nineteen state systems were operating above their highest capacity, with seven states at least 25% over their highest capacity at yearend 2010, led
by Alabama at 196% and Illinois at 144%.”[1]

Enter the private prison industry. The “Prisoners in 1994″ report made scant reference to privately run prisons, with only North Carolina placing 1,000 inmates out of state because of overcrowding.[5] By 2010, “About 16% of federal prisoners (33,830) and nearly 7% of state prisoners (94,365) were housed in private facilities.”[1]

According the American Civil Liberties Union, “As incarceration rates skyrocket, the private prison industry expands at exponential rates, holding ever more people in its prisons and jails, and generating massive profits.”[6]

Former Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey foretold the growing prison industrial complex and its relationship to drugs in a 1996 keynote address for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “I believe that we have created an American gulag. We
have 1.6 million people behind bars, and probably two-thirds of those in the Federal system are there for drug-related crimes.”[7]

By today’s standards, he was a little off on his numbers. The “American gulag” now holds well over 2 million prisoners with more than 300,000 there on drug convictions.[1] In this context, the downward blip in prison growth is not much to celebrate.

===
[1] “Prisoners in 2010,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, December, 2011. – [ http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/p10.pdf ]
[2] “Prison Count 2010: State Population Declines for the First Time in 38
Years,” The Pew Center on the States, April 2010. – [ http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/Prison_Count_2010.pdf ]
[3] “U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2011,” U.S. Census, 2011.
- [ http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/11statab/pop.pdf ]
[4] Blanchard, Michael D., and Chin, Gabriel J., “Identifying the Enemy in the War on Drugs: A Critique of the Developing Rule Permitting Visual Identification of Indescript White Powder in Narcotics Prosecutions,” The American University Law Review, February 1998.
- [ http://www.wcl.american.edu/journal/lawrev/47/blanchard.pdf?rd=1 ]
[5] “Prisoners in 1994,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, August 1995. – [ http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/Pi94.pdf ]
[6] “Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration,” American
Civil Liberties Union, November 2011. – [ http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/bankingonbondage_20111102.pdf ]
[7] Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (USA, Ret.), Director, ONDCP, Keynote Address, Opening Plenary Session, National Conference on Drug Abuse Prevention Research, National Institute on Drug Abuse, September 19, 1996.
- [ http://archives.drugabuse.gov/meetings/CODA/Keynote2.html ] The above Facts can be found in the “Prisons & Jails” and “Prisons & Drug Offenders” chapters of Drug War Facts.
- [ http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Jails ]
- [ http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs ]

From USA TODAY:

Spending by the presidential contenders in this year’s wildly unpredictable Republican primary has fallen sharply from 2008 levels, but the money flowing from outside groups, including new super PACs, has soared dramatically, new figures show.

Last-minute spending by super PACs to influence the White House battle topped $44 million through Monday morning, eclipsing the $10.6 million that outside groups had spent at this point in the 2008 presidential campaign, according to federal data tallied by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics

The spending is leaving its mark on Florida, the site of today’s crucial GOP primary. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and his allies, especially the pro-Romney Restore Our Future, aired 12,768 television commercials in the state through Wednesday compared with 210 by former House speaker Newt Gingrich and his supporters, a study released Monday by the Wesleyan Media Project shows…

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR: According to Joe Scarborough and his guests on Morning Joe, $30 million has been spent on the Florida Republican primary alone.  Moreover, 92% of the ads were ads were negative.  This is primarily Super Pac money.

When affluent individuals contribute their $2500 to a candidate, it is a matter of conviction and perhaps ego.   But when corporations and individuals donate $100,000 on up, it is usually with the intent of later benefiting through government largess… perhaps at the rate of $10 gained for every dollar spent.

So what we have is the selling of our democracy to the highest bidders.

The concerned citizen must ask why bother to contribute $100, $200, a $1,000 or even $2,500 at all since it will have no impact whatsoever.

Our number one priority must be campaign financing reform which can only now be accomplished through a constitutional amendment.   Until then, the rich will grow richer and the middle class will continue to shrink.

Without a constitutional convention, our children and grandchildren will have a lower standard of living and few opportunities for advancement.

From the HUFF POST:

…There’s no question that prescriptions for opioid painkillers like Oxycontin and Percocet have soared in recent years. It’s also clear that there are some rogue doctors and “pill mills” who unscrupulously hand out prescriptions, sometimes to patients who shouldn’t get them, sometimes to drug addicts and drug dealers pretending to be pain patients. But it’s also far from certain that the painkiller abuse and overdoses are as dire as the government is making it out to be. And to the extent that there is a problem, it’s due more to a decade of aggressive policing, obstinate federal law enforcement agencies, and the encroachment of law enforcement into the practice of medicine than lax government oversight. The DEA in particular has been scaring reputable doctors away from pain management since the late 1990s. People who suffer from chronic pain simply can’t find doctors willing to treat them over the long term. The unscrupulous doctors and pill mills in the headlines have sprung up to fill the void…

Despite the recent headlines about the rise in sales of prescription painkillers, chronic pain is still significantly under-treated in America. There are a number of reasons why. For one, there’s no diagnostic test to diagnose pain, so doctors must rely on patient descriptions of what they’re feeling. That can be tricky, because tolerance for pain varies widely from person to person. Culturally, pain has also long been viewed as something we encounter and endure as part of the human condition. In many religions, noble suffering is considered pious. Pain treatment is also a relatively new medical specialty; it didn’t have its own medical society until the early 1980s.

But the biggest barrier to effective pain treatment continues to be bad public policy, much of it driven by the war on drugs. Opioids — morphine, oxycodone, methadone, and other drugs derived from the opium plant (or synthetically structured to mimic it) — are the most effective way to treat severe and chronic pain. Emerging (but still controversial) treatments like long-term, high-dose opioid therapy have shown particular promise with chronic pain. Just this month, an article in the journal Science described another promising new therapy, in which large doses of the drugs delivered over a short period of time, shortly after an injury, may help prevent chronic pain from developing at all…

Click here to read the full article.

From the PITTSURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW:

…More than 90,000 students are enrolled in 142 public charter schools, including 12 cyber charter schools, according to the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools. An estimated 30,000 students are on waiting lists….

A study of Pennsylvania charter school performance released in April by Stanford University shows that from 2007 to 2010, 60 percent of traditional charter schools performed similarly or better than traditional public schools in reading. Fifty-three percent did so in math.

Nearly all of the state’s cyber charter schools performed significantly worse than their traditional public school counterparts in reading and math…

Click here to read the full article.