A Short Iodine Story...

(Reprinted from a personal blog post 8/9/2011):

Mrs. Wolf told me an interesting iodine story the other day.

Six months ago her friend, Miss C, had confided that she had recently had a mammogram that revealed a small lump in her breast.  The doctor, while concerned, suggested she come back in six months to have a follow up.

They had been previously discussing iodine and its affects so Miss C decided that she would purchase some over-the-counter skin-use-only iodine from the local drug store and apply it to her skin.

After doing applying this to herself regularly for six months it came time to visit the doctor again.

The doctor was shocked to discover that the lump in Miss C. breast could not be found.  So shocked, in fact, that she sent Miss C for additional tests - none of which could locate the lump.

Miss C received a clean bill of health with an admonishment to periodically checking in with the doctor.

Did this simple at-home iodine treatments alter Miss C's outcome?

You'll have to decide that for yourself.

However, there are many sites around the internet (such as this, this and this) claiming links between breast cancer and iodine deficiency.

A few months ago Mrs. Wolf was talking to a woman who was in graduate school (I forget the exact discipline - microbiology or something like that) studying the genetic aspects of cancer.  Mrs. Wolf asked if the woman thought that cancer was in any way related to diet.

"Oh no," said the woman, "its a genetic disease."

So Mrs. Wolf asked "don't some cancer's come from the environment?"

"Well, yes," replied the woman, "certain forms..."

"Isn't your diet part of your environment?" asked Mrs. Wolf.

A lengthy discussion ensued.

The woman conceded that indeed it would be possible that cancer and malnutrition could be related.

More interesting, though, was that until her discussion with Mrs. Wolf it would have never occurred to the woman to think that diet and/or environmental changes could improve a cancer outcome.  Her education was such that looking at cancer beyond the standard dogma was simply out of the question.

(Kind of like "Of course the world is flat.")

While its nice the FDA is so very worried about all the evils of things like cigarettes and child safety you have to wonder why there is so much less interest in something as simple as proper nutrition.

Then there is lung cancer and smoking.


I have always been fascinated by the fact that 1/3 of all smokers don't get lung cancer.  Why one third - what's so special about them.  The relationship of smoking to cancer is a statistical one.  Not every one who smokes gets cancer and not everyone with lung cancer smokes.


I am starting to wonder if its in fact the case that things like diet play a significant roll in lung cancer.  Could it be that those with certain dietary elements, for example, high iodine, could react to smoking differently.  The Japanese, for example, smoke quite a bit and yet their lung cancer rates are much lower (though rates for other cancer are equivalent to the US and some types are higher.)


Could it be their high-iodine diet?

See this for some interesting results:  "The risk of lung cancer in the United States study population was at least 10 times higher than in Japanese despite the higher percentage of smokers among the Japanese."

Geology "Trumps" Climate Change

While the left weeps about the "end of civilization" and "flooding in the streets" after Trump's recent rejection of the Paris climate accord the rest of humanity has been busy studying geology.

And, as it turns out, geology is providing evidence that "climate change" is driven in part by forces external to the planet.  

In the case of this article in Nature "Theory of chaotic orbital variations confirmed by Cretaceous geological evidence" by Stephen Meyers.

It would also appear that Meyers is a "denier" as he links to "Analysis of “Scientists: Here’s What Really Causes Climate Change (And It Has Nothing To Do With Human Beings)" from his University of Wisconsin web page. (Poor guy living in Putin's "Kremlin East" - probably has his effigy burned at least once a week by his colleagues and students...)

There is also plenty of diverse commentary on the above link here.

But what is really interesting to me is that, like "global dimming" which I wrote about a decade ago (recent link here), chaotic planetary orbits is yet another significant element missing entirely from the "climate change" models.

More interesting still is that Meyers puts his research out in the open with AstroChron: "... [a] computational platform for conducting, and learning about: (1) paleoclimate time series analysis, (2) astronomical time scale construction, and (3) the statistical integration of astrochronologies with other geochronologic/chronostratigraphic data (e.g., radioisotopic geochronology)."

This means, of course, that hackers can simply download is code rather than steal it as they did from the East Anglia climate research center.

So as science uncovers more and more factors that make climate science an "undecided" science, er, rather, just a "science" (remember boys and girls that climate science is "decided science" because all the details are fully and completely understood) it would seem that "decided" is growing less and less "decided" by the day

"Climate scientists" are, after all, not geologists, nor are they astrophysicists.

So why would these so called "climate scientists" even bother to look into other fields?

As it turns out, based on a growing body of evidence, they don't, nor do they care to.

Nor should they - they know everything there is to know about "climate change..."

(Except what they don't know apparently...)

Meaning, of course, that nothing is decided as of yet about how our climate actually works.

In any case the damage is done.

Climate science is a religion, not a science.  You must believe or you're a "denier."

Don't believe me?

Speaking in California, former Obama EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy admits, “climate change has become a religion — a politically induced religion”.

GINA MCCARTHY: “I don’t know why climate change got to be a religion instead of a simple fact based science exercise but I do know that the actions that California is taking and others will make the difference between whether we stand still or fall back or move forward. […] I do see that states are actually making these investments. The challenge I think we have is for some reason climate change has become a religion — a politically induced religion instead of science fact that now we have to embrace and move forward on.”

Conversation with former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy
California Senate Democrats
February 8, 2017