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1) Threat Not All That It is Cracked Up to Be
2) Congress and Clones: Do Not Mix
3) The Seeds of Discontent
4) Straddling the Balkans
5) Paul O'Neill, Safety Maven
6) Quick Hits

It has taken nearly a decade, but common sense finally entered the crack baby debate last week. A new study noted that--surprise--mothers who use cocaine during pregnancy tend to also have a lot of other pathologies.

Further, what troubles infants and toddlers born to pipe fiends and cokeheads do have do not seem to be particularly traceable to coke itself.

"There is no need to assume that [cocaine-exposed babies] are a doomed generation or a biologic underclass, which is what was said about them initially," said Deborah A. Frank, a pediatrician at the Boston University School of Public Health. "The idea that these children are uniquely 'unteachable' or somehow out of control is simply not supported by the data."

The study in the Journal of the American Medical Association notes that developmental problems "can be explained in whole or in part by other factors, including prenatal exposure to tobacco, marijuana, or alcohol, and the quality of the child's environment."

That last bit is the kicker. Gee, do you think that moms on crack are always looking out for Junior? That the choices they make might be a little skewed?

Score another for the field of public health, still home to the most obtuse pointyheads around..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1700-2001Mar27.html

- - Cloning Around - -

When House committees start holding hearings on cloning, things can get weird. When they invite a representative of the Raelians, who believe Terrans are the clones of extraterrestrials, things are guaranteed to go off the rails.

Brigitte Boisselier, scientific director for the Raelians, claimed that her group has begun research on cloning humans at an undisclosed site in the U.S. The unverifiable claim will likely increase the rush to pass a legislative ban on human cloning. Which, of course, will have the precise effect of driving researchers to the fringe.

"What we heard today is that these people are serious enough and scary enough to get our attention," committee spokesman Ken Johnson said.

Washington went down this path in 1998 only to find that coming up with snapshot language in an era of rapid fire technological advances could wind up banning research that has nothing whatsoever to do with cloning.

President Bush evidently missed that memo.

The president believes that no research--no research--to create a human being should take place in the United States," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

And if not on the fringe, then maybe in the Caribbean.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7514-2001Mar28.html

The law and technology continue their cautious courtship with a Canadian judge's ruling that a farmer must pay Monsanto thousands of dollars because the firm's patented canola plants were found growing in his fields.

No one seems to dispute that many of the plants on Percy Schmeiser, 70, Saskatchewan farm came from patented pollen blown onto his land from nearby farms. The dispute is over what Schmeiser should have done once it was clear that was happening.

Monsanto wants farmers like Schmeiser to renounce ever using the seeds from his crop to plant the next year's crop. That would be like getting the patented seed for free, the company argues.

"Basically, the right to use our own seed has been taken away," Schmeiser said.

Monsanto also wants any farmer who finds his fields contaminated with patented seed to call for help--immediately. The offending plants would then be removed.

Schmeiser acknowledged he was aware that the so-called Roundup Ready canola had gotten into his crops in 1997. He said he used seeds from that crop for his next year's planting but not with the intention of liberally using the weed-killer Roundup on his fields.

Two common-sense observations stand out. You cannot innocently make use of another property for several years. The finder might be a keeper, but he also has an obligation to let the rightful owners--if they can be discerned--know what is going on.

As for Monsanto, it seems incumbent on the seller of thing to be able to control what it is he sells. It sounds awfully close to a cute marketing gimmick to turn a viral product loose and then come running up afterward, waving a patent and an empty money sack.

In fact, Monsanto's stance sounds like the old joke about the promoter who hires a blimp as a stage for a rock band. He deduces he should be able to charge any ground-pounder the airship buzzes over for a concert ticket.

But this is not to say that biotech is an illegitimate industry. Just a very, very young one has yet to develop clear contracts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12927-2001Mar29.html

American involvement in the Balkans has entered one of those Twilight Zone phases where nothing is as seems. Last week mortars rained down on a village in Kosovo, whilst U.S. peacekeepers were ambling around. Two villagers and a British journalist were killed. The presumed source was Macedonian forces.

At the same time $13.5 million in U.S. military aid--including Humvees and howitzers--is making its way to the region. The intended recipients are the same Macedonian forces.

The military haul is in addition to $33 million in "economic aid" to the tiny country of two million. The clear intent is to convince Macedonia that the coinage will stop if the war against Albanian guerillas gets out of hand.

An added twist is that the 5,500 American peacekeepers in Kosovo are performing a mission so politicized that routine tasks are being palmed off on others. Despite supposed U.S. control of the area, it is 350 British and Norwegian soldiers who patrol the contested border.

U.S. officials do not want any increased chance of casualties.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12941-2001Mar29.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13128-2001Mar29.html

What is with Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill? Does he hate public sector life so much that he intends to keep saying inane things until he gets sacked?

That's at least a logical explanation for O'Neill's declaration that Washington should be able to shutter businesses that do not meet a certain level of workplace safety.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety rules could be replaced by "an agreement that said within two years every organization in the United States--public, private, nonprofits--will have a lost-workday rate under 2.0 or we're going to take away your license."

In other words, a company could not lose more than two days to injury or illness for each 100 people on the payroll, or it would be shut down.

"We don't care who you are or where you are or how big you are or how important you think your economic consequence is. It is possible by demonstration to get to a lost-workday rate of two or under. And if you don't do it, you're not going to operate in the United States of America." O'Neill added.

Odd stuff coming from a cabinet member whose president recently repealed ergonomic workplace rules, which were rammed through the Clinton administration by organized labor using language similar to O'Neill's.

Yet the National Safety Council notes that workers are eight times safer on the job than off. And serious scientists caution that injuries often attributed to work aren't caused by the job and, further, that it is almost impossible to predict, plan for, and eliminate--contrary to O'Neill's axiom--many workplace ailments.

The best possible incentive for businesses to keep workers safe is a bottom line one. Injuries already cost businesses big time, an opportunity cost that continued prosperity will only compound. In short, if employees help make you rich, why on earth would you endanger them?

Evidently, O'Neill doesn't understand this, or that as Treasury secretary economic growth is his portfolio. Boom times ensure there are plenty of jobs--with varying degrees of risk and compensation--to match with the widest possible field of workers. Whether they all subscribe to Paul O'Neill's definition of safety should be beside the point.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19692-2001Mar30.html

"Just to be blunt, these guys have no clue about how e-commerce works, how e-gold works or what I was doing," Parker Bradley on his recent eight-hour interrogation at the hands of Secret Service agents who raided his e-gold service's New York offices. Bradley exchanged dollars for grams of the digital currency called e-gold, which is backed by gold deposits in offshore banks.

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,42745,00.html

The Electronic Frontier Foundation plans a nationwide protest on April 20 in opposition to congressionally mandated Internet blocking in schools and libraries. EFF notes that the filtering software to be employed to comply with the mandate is notorious for blocking harmless sites while allowing hard-core smut to shine through.

http://www.eff.org

http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/163945.html

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said that the anti-abortion Web site "The Nuremberg Files," couldn't be banned or sued for damages even though it publishes the names, addresses and photos of some abortion-performing physicians. The docs are accused of crimes against humanity. The decision overturns a $107 million settlement that abortion doctors from a jury in Portland, Ore., in 1999 after they sued the creators of the Web site.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7688-2001Mar28.html

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