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Growing Evidence Of Marijuana Smoke's Potential Dangers
In a finding that challenges the increasingly popular belief that smoking marijuana is less harmful to health than smoking tobacco, researchers in Canada are reporting that smoking marijuana, like smoking tobacco, has toxic effects on cells. Their study is scheduled for the Aug. 17 issue of ACS" Chemical Research in Toxicology, a monthly journal.
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Need For Studies On People With Weakened Immune Systems: Vulnerability To Flu And Response To Vaccination
An article published in the August edition of The Lancet Infectious Diseases reports that additional research is required on the vulnerability to the new H1N1 flu strain of different immunosuppressed populations. The possible effectiveness and side-effects of future vaccines also need to be evaluated. The review is the work of Dr Ken M Kunisaki, Minneapolis VA Medical Center, USA, and University of Minnesota, USA, and Dr Edward N Janoff, Univeristy of Colorado Denver School of Medicine and Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center, USA.
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Tiller Murder Prompts Abortion Providers To Re-Evaluate Protective Measures, Security
The recent murder of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller has prompted other providers nationwide to reassess their need for protective measures against violent actions from opponents of abortion rights, the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports. In the days following Tiller"s murder, many clinic officials nationwide said that they had contacted law enforcement and examined their existing security measures. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder also ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to provide security to several clinicians and facilities. According to the AP/Chronicle, violence against abortion providers in the 1980s and 1990s forced many to take various precautionary measures in and around their clinics, while some underwent training to protect themselves.Kate Michelman, former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said the election of former President George W. Bush, an abortion-rights opponent, helped alleviate some violence against abortion providers. However, she said that she believes Tiller"s murder might indicate the situation is changing during the first months of President Obama"s administration. Obama has rejected abortion-rights opponents" calls for restrictions on the procedure and also reversed the "global gag rule," or "Mexico City" policy.Michelman said, "Historically, when those who oppose a woman"s right to decide are frustrated politically, they get more violent," adding, "I have been thinking about this ever since the [Obama] election." She said that some providers will remain fearful even though she believes clinics are now safe. "In the end ... if someone is out to get you and they are determined and have a chorus encouraging them, ... there"s not much you can do to stop them," Michelman said. Provider LeRoy Carhart, who provided abortion services at Tiller"s clinic, said that people who commit violence against abortion providers should be charged with hate crimes (Hanna, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 6/3).
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Mathematical Model Shows Why Defeating Insurgent Groups Like Taliban Is So Difficult

Insurgent groups like the Taliban can only be effectively engaged with timely and accurate military intelligence, and even good intelligence may only succeed in containing the insurgency, not defeating it, according to a new study in the current issue of Operations Research, a flagship journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®). "Why Defeating Insurgencies is Hard: The Effect of Intelligence in Counterinsurgency Operations - A Best-Case Scenario" is by Moshe Kress and Roberto Szechtman of the Naval Postgraduate School. The study appears in the current issue of Operations Research. The study is the first of its kind to combine military intelligence, attrition and civilian population behavior in a unified model of counterinsurgency dynamics. The authors stress the role of obtaining intelligence about the insurgency. Absent intelligence, they write, not only can the insurgents escape unharmed and continue their violent attacks; but resultant poor government targeting causes innocent civilian deaths, which increases popular support for the insurgents and thus generates more recruits to the insurgency. Recent attacks on Taliban strongholds by U.S. drones have shown that deaths among civilians may end up hindering American lead efforts, Kress notes. Ill-targeted actions taken by Israel and Colombia, for example, also have shown that unintended deaths among civilians have led to increased support for insurgents. In their paper, the authors model the dynamic relations among intelligence, collateral casualties in the population, attrition, recruitment to the insurgency, and reinforcement to the government force. Even under best-case assumptions regarding the government actions, they show that the government cannot totally eradicate an insurgency by force. The best it can do is containing it at a certain fixed level. The containment or stalemate points may be either fragile or stable. If the violence level is low, the containment point is fragile, in which case the insurgents can "break away" and eventually win. If the government commits large forces and applies a heavy hand (for example, the "surge" of United States forces in Iraq) then the stalemate point is stable. The model and analysis, they write, represent a best case situation from the government perspective under the parameters put forward where (a) government force is steadily reinforced by new units, (b) it has unlimited endurance (it surrenders to the insurgents only when it is totally annihilated) and (c) the only recruitment to the insurgency is due to collateral casualties in the general population that generate resentment to the government, and therefore more recruits to the insurgency. "If a government does keep its intelligence gathering capabilities high," says Szechtman, "it can keep a hold on the insurgency, and after a while, when the insurgents realize they can"t win, a political compromise may be reached." That may be the most a government can expect, Kress and Szechtman warn. Barry List Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences


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