Hasta La Gadget!

CROSBY, N.D. — An empty strip of gravel – lined with streetlights and unused utility hookups – runs next to the highway, south of a once-booming oil town.

One very encouraging proposal in President Obama’s recent State of the Union is the commitment to greater federal investment in biomedical research, including precision medicine and genomics research.

Although specific details of the president’s plan have yet to be released, additional funding in biomedical research holds significant promise for new and effective treatments and prevention approaches for cancer and a host of chronic conditions.

It also is a welcome change from the recent declines – in real, spendable dollars – in federal research budgets, which, of course, includes cancer science.

Federal cancer research funding, which grew significantly after our national “War on Cancer,” initiated by President Nixon in the 1970s, has remained relatively flat in recent years, leading to reductions of about 25 percent for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the past decade. This reduction has translated into $10 billion fewer dollars for cancer research since 2003. (See NCI’s budget analysis here.)

This reduction, if allowed to continue, has troubling implications from both a scientific and public health perspective. Some question whether research investments have yielded results in our war on cancer. The realities are that cancer death rates have declined by 22 percent between 1990 and 2011, according to NCI, with the American Cancer Society reporting that 1.5 million cancer deaths have been avoided in the past two decades.

These declines are attributable in large part to almost exponential progress in molecular biology and genomics that have enhanced our understanding of how cancer develops and spreads. This has led to more-effective (and often less-toxic) cancer treatments, and ushered in the era of precision medicine – where we’ve moved away from a “one-size-fits-all” approach to cancer treatment and instead are developing approaches tailored to individuals.

The pace of this research has led to striking changes in breast cancer treatment. In just one generation, we have moved from approaching breast cancer as one disease with one standard set of treatments, to a time when we know that breast cancer is a family of diseases, each with different characteristics – and each requiring tailored and often individualized approaches. Better treatments and more treatment options have followed, as has science-based knowledge of risk reduction and the role of early detection and early treatment.

As a result, breast cancer death rates have declined by 35 percent since 1990.

As our population gets older – many more cancers occur in later life – there is an even greater need to build on the progress of cancer research, which is best achieved with leadership and investment from the federal government, and continued investment by philanthropic organizations and industry.

The return on this investment, economically and socially, is significant. In a Jan. 13 article in JAMA, NIH Director Francis Collins notes that the U.S. government’s $3.8 billion initial investment in the Human Genome Project “has resulted in nearly $1 trillion in economic growth–a 178-fold return on investment.” He also noted a 140-fold return on investment on NIH’s $250 million investment in the Women’s Health Initiative’s estrogen plus progestin clinical trials.

Investment today ensures continuity in cancer research for tomorrow. Early-career researchers have been especially disadvantaged by tightened federal budgets. With fewer dollars available to new scientists, many have been forced to leave biomedical research all together, in search of greater financial and career stability.

Nonprofit funders like Susan G. Komen and others work hard to fill the gaps left by these declines. Komen, as the largest nonprofit funder of breast cancer research outside of the U.S. government, invested half of its research portfolio in 2014 to early-career researchers and we hope to do more this coming year. But philanthropic organizations alone cannot fill the gap left by declining federal dollars: only a renewed federal commitment of significant proportions can assure the promise of the next generation of cancer researchers and, indeed, of cancer research itself.

President Obama said he wants “the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new era of medicine – one that delivers the right treatment at the right time.” We agree, and will work with others toward a renewed federal commitment to biomedical research to achieve this goal.

If you’re one of the 29 million people under a blizzard warning right now, your thoughts might have turned to what you’ll be doing the day after the winter storm. Namely, how you’ll dig yourself out of the snow. Luckily, The Weather Channel covers the best way to shovel snow in the video above.

The main thing to remember is this: It’s a lever system. You’re the fulcrum, the shovel is the lever and the snow is the load. At the length of a shovel, it takes about 16 pounds of force to lift 6 pounds of snow. The denser the snow, the more effort it takes. Still, you can ease the difficulty by following a few tips: 1. Move closer to the snow instead of reaching to move it and 2. Stay upright to reduce back strain and utilize your thigh muscles.

Check out the video for the specifics, along with helpful diagrams. Or, just plan on hibernating through the rest of the winter. Your call.

Warning: Snow removal can be serious business. Every winter, around 100 people die from shoveling snow. Remember what your parents said about everything else they had to warn you about: It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Suicide is an earthquake. Sudden, jolting and catastrophic, it ruptures the lives of those it leaves behind. The aftershocks ripple into subsequent generations. We spend years navigating our emotional landscapes, seismically realigned by chasms of guilt, confusion and regret. We build bridges when we share our grief, seek individual or group therapy, and work toward healing and growth.

Maybe the most ominous ravine is the one filled by stigma. It often seems impossible to cross.

Stigma is defined as “a mark of disgrace or infamy; a stain or reproach, as on one’s reputation.” Our society does a good job of saddling suicide with stigma. In an effort to make sense of it, perhaps, we label the person who ended his or her life. He was selfish. She was crazy. They took the easy way out. These sorts of things couldn’t happen to us.

Statistics say otherwise. In the United States, someone dies by suicide every 13 minutes, and each death intimately affects at least six others, according to the American Association of Suicidology. Between 1989 and 2013, there were 825,832 suicides, leaving an estimated 4.95 million survivors behind, the AAS says.

Until Jim’s death, I assumed suicide was reserved for people afflicted by excessive fame, addictions or crimes. Our culture drives these assumptions.

Before my brother ended his life, one of the few times suicide came to mind was when I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, in 2008. I was struck by the prominent signs urging suicidal people to seek help. Last year San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge Board of Directors unanimously approved funding for a 20-foot-wide steel net — a so-called suicide barrier, according to CNN.

Author Amy Simpson backs this up in her book, Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission:

Have you ever paid attention to the way people with mental illness are portrayed in popular media? While some works, especially more recent ones, treat mental illness with honesty and sensitivity, most of popular media treats the mentally ill as either frightening or funny or both. Most people don’t seem to give it a second thought, but for people whose loved ones suffer from ongoing serious mental illness, such portrayals are hard to ignore.

The last 16 months have revealed flaws in my thinking. I’m bent on raising awareness about suicide and helping others prevent it. A major hurdle I’m seeing is related to stigma. It chases those who’ve attempted suicide, those who lose loved ones and even psychiatrists who treat suicidal patients.

In a recent conversation with my dad, I was reminded how pervasive stigma is. Jim was from my mom’s first marriage, so we have different fathers. My dad was Jim’s stepfather, raising him from the age of 4. Their relationship was strained from the start. My dad is the son of Greek immigrants. I never knew my paternal grandparents, but it seems they trained him not to acknowledge his feelings. My dad had a troubled relationship with my grandfather, and he repeated some of it with my brother. Once Jim was an adult, he distanced himself from my dad, but they remained civil.

In the early days after Jim died, my dad presented a stoic front. He’s suggested that we shouldn’t dwell on his death; we must “move on.” I was surprised when he admitted to struggling emotionally, grappling with guilt over not being a better father to Jim. His medical doctor has referred him to a therapist. Yet my dad hasn’t acknowledged the source of his angst, afraid of what the M.D. might think. Stigma.

It plagues those mired by suicidal thoughts and attempts, as Kevin Caruso, founder of Suicide.org, explains on the site:

Because of the stigma (the ignorant stigma, mind you) that still exists concerning mental illness, many people who need help do not seek it. Even though there is clear scientific data that indicates irrefutably that a physical connection exists with most mental disorders, many people still stigmatize others because they stupidly hold on to the misguided beliefs of yesteryear that people with mental disorders are weak or just lack will power.

Some suicide-attempt survivors are pushing back against stigma they’ve faced, according to a Chicago Tribune story: “They are speaking up in an effort to educate, raise awareness and reduce stigma about suicide, which advocates say is a public health issue, not a private shame.”

Psychiatrists who treat suicidal patients face an especially sharp stigma. A story in The Atlantic says:

… the stigma of suicide is so strong that it’s often an issue left unspoken, even by doctors. Many psychiatrists refuse to treat chronically suicidal patients, not only because of the stigma that surrounds it even in their profession, but because suicide is the number-one cause of lawsuits brought against mental-health treatment providers.

My dad’s hunch is right, sadly. Even the medical field is beset by stigma. That’s hard to grasp, because mental health practitioners are supposed to be a place of refuge for those battling suicidal thoughts. It sometimes infects another safe haven, too — churches. In her book, Simpson explains in a chapter on stigma:

Although 80 percent of church leaders said they believe mental illness is ‘a real, treatable and manageable illness caused by genetic, biological or environmental factors,’ only 12. 5 percent of them said mental illness is openly discussed in a healthy way in their church.

Exploring drivers of the stigma, she writes:

Some churches stigmatize mental illness because they simply don’t want ‘the wrong kind of people’ interfering with their vision for their churches … Let’s face it: a thriving ministry to people with mental illness is not the easiest or most ego-polishing kind of ministry.

No one, no institution or part of our society, is free from stigma associated with suicide and mental illness. Changing this will be an enormous endeavor. What will it require? Raising our voices individually and collectively, as some attempt survivors have. Working with our mental-health providers and places of worship, to quell fears of lawsuits and unfavorable public opinion. Examining our own misconceptions, and striving for greater sensitivity. And that’s just a short list.

We must press on, in honor of those we’ve lost, for attempt survivors, for grieving families, and for our friends and family of the future, who one day will face atrocious battles against mental illness and suicidal thoughts.

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Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

The Raw Story published a post with the deliciously satisfying title, “These are the 12 worst ideas religion has unleashed on the world.” On the list are a lot of quite terrible ideas, including holy war, genital mutilation, and male ownership of female fertility. Other ideas such as karma, heresy, or “chosen people” may not necessarily be quite as terrible, but certainly do have their long histories of abuses.

Like any good religious studies professor, my first question to such an assertion is, “What is your definition of ‘religion’ and where did you get it?” For example, the author of this post also refers to “some of humanity’s best moral and spiritual concepts,” which apparently include creativity, forgiveness, self-discipline, and even ahimsa (made most famous by Gandhi). One would be hard-pressed to find even one religious tradition in human history that didn’t celebrate such virtues in some way, but without any justification these qualities are named “moral and spiritual” rather than religious.

Some people like to think that the “essence” of religion is all sweetness and light, while the violence and bigotry for which religious people are famous are unfortunate cultural add-ons. The flip side is the idea expressed in the aforementioned post, that the essence of religion is tribalism and violence, while all the good stuff is “our shared moral core.” Both are highly attractive oversimplifications with real-world import. It is not hard to understand, for example, why so many Muslims wish to disown jihadist terrorism as not truly Islamic, or why so many anti-theists wish to unconditionally condemn all of Islam.

But the lovely dream of a tidy line between “religion” and everything else is itself a historical condition, a product of Enlightenment theory and culture, still alive and well despite decades of loud and diverse critiques. Its persistence comes from being so beautifully simple, appealing particularly to the desire to put confusing things in binary categories: reason vs. emotion, mind vs. body, good vs. evil.

Many of us are willing to ignore the overwhelming evidence that human nature and history are irreducibly complex, in favor of bedtime stories that let us sleep better at night. We blame the worst stuff on religion and dream of a better world without it, as if other factors like land, nationalism, gender, wealth, power, or the desire to be right are unique outgrowths of religiosity. As if heresy, blood sacrifice, glorified suffering, or the desire for eternal life are not equally insidious in their secular incarnations.

Religious fundamentalists and anti-theist fundamentalists will both continue to do their part to keep the fires of debate burning (and the click-bait flowing). The rest of us should do our part to question and complicate ideas that may on the surface seem obvious, but which are in fact just lazy.