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Norman Borlaug has saved more lives than almost any human who has ever lived. He saved more lives than Captain Sullenburger did by successfully landing his airplane on the Hudson River. He saved more lives than Jonas Salk. And Norman Borlaug died Sunday at 95.

Not many of us know about Norman. I ran across him the first time when I was looking into the apocalyptic claims of the environmentalists in the 1960s who said we cannot possibly stem the advance of famine, and that population growth will quickly outstrip our food supplies. Today, many still use the same faulty arguments the environmentalists used then. The environmentalists didn’t know about Norman Borlaug, but he knew about them. He didn’t accept their predictions. And he made sure they didn’t come true.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich wrote in his highly rated book “The Population Bomb” that “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” Ehrlich also said, “I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971.” And also that “India couldn’t possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980.”

Ehrlich should have known about Norman, because Norman had already solved that problem. No, not by birth control, abortion or shooting every other person, but by cross-breeding wheat so that it was resistant to bugs and diseases. By 1965, Norman had convinced US authorities to ship the hybrid wheat to Pakistan and India. By the time Ehrlich wrote his book Norman had already been hailed as starting the “Green Revolution” that, except for political interference, ended famine on planet earth.

I had to look up these details again, and found many of them at an obituary at the Reason.com Blog. It is worth reading, just to see how a common American scientist did more than any pop star, movie star or politician.

Norman Borlaug saved more lives than any other human in human history, and most of us have never heard of him. It would be wonderful if the mass media would recognize him this coming week.

Culture, Politics, Science

One of the most prominent arguments today is that health care costs have risen faster than the rate of inflation. That statistic alone is cited as an indicator that costs are out of control. But the other half of the equation is missing.

Cost and value should both be considered. In nearly every other endeavor, we consider both. When we buy anything, we consider the cost of the item and the value it brings us. A larger TV may provide a better viewing experience, an intangible value. A hybrid car brings better gas mileage, and may be a better value depending on the cost differential between it and a standard car (adding in your assumptions about the future price of gasoline, resell value, etc.)

When adjusted for inflation, healthcare costs have increased from $1,851 per person in 1970 to $7,026 in 2006, a substantial increase, as noted by Cato.org, in an article comparing the value received from increases in education spending and healthcare spending. The author, who is mostly concerned about education spending, ticks off several areas where we have received more value from our health care dollar increase:

• Neonatal mortality was cut by 2/3 between 1970 and 2005, from 20 to 6.87 per 1,000 births
• Fetal mortality rate (miscarriage) was cut by more than half: from 14 in 1970 down to 6.2 in 2003 (per 1,000 live births plus fetal deaths)
• Life expectancy at birth was raised by 7 years
• Limitation of activity caused by chronic conditions: 13.3 % in 1997, 11.6% in 2006
• There’s now a nearly 90% cure rate for a childhood leukemia
• Depression is far more treatable
• Fertility treatments are greatly advanced
• Prosthetics are dramatically better
• Lasik eye surgery was invented
• Gastric bypass surgery is now available for the morbidly obese
• Joint replacements are far more common and effective
• Reconstructive surgery is greatly advanced
• We now have vaccines for rubella, pneumonia, hepatitis A and B, chicken pox, lyme disease, and meningitis
• Smallpox was eradicated
• Numerous technological advances have made diagnostic and surgical procedures less painful and easier to recover from, including: arthroscopy, laparoscopy, MRIs, CTs, SPECT and PET scans

I’m sure there are more benefits derived from increased spending on health care. Suggestions can be added to the comments.

Business, Politics, Science

AutoBlog Green reports on a real world test for the Prius with an after-market modification to make it a plug-in hybrid:

The lab drove two groups of Prius test vehicles (one 40-car fleet and another 75-car fleet) from early 2008 until March 2009 for almost 500,000 miles and found that the average fuel economy tallied 46 and 49 mpg, respectively. As you might expect, driving style and the battery mode (charge sustaining vs. charge depeleting) had a big impact on the figures.

Hymotion’s retrofit of the Prius was evaluated by Consumer Reports as AutoBlog Green reported ealier.

As a reference, I get real-world mileage of 54.1 MPG over the last 10 tankfuls by driving the speed limit … most of the time … in my daily 90 mile round trip commute up the California coast. I do not “hypermile” or invoke other tricks; I drive the Prius just like I do my Ford Sporttrac truck.

Hymotion’s kit is reported to cost $11,000, a sum indicating the high cost of electric storage for cars. The added cost of extra batteries, as well as the extra weight the batteries impose, make it a poor choice for an alternative to fossil fuels.

In the meantime, existing hybrid technology for small cars, where weight of the battery pack can be kept in line, is the only reasonable interim solution to squeezing out every mile you can from a gallon of gas.

Climate, Science, Tech

More Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act lunacy:

The impact of the CPSIA on the educational market is getting more and more worrisome. Two recent events shocked me for their implications. First, Michael Warring of American Educational Products reports that a school opted to stop using AmEP’s rocks to teach Earth Science and will instead rely on a POSTER. Not quite the same educational experience . . . . In this case, rocks take on the “toxic” tag because they contain uncontrollable amounts of base elements found in nature. If only we could create laws to restrain Mother Nature!

From Learning Resources Blog

The unintended consequences of this new law, broadly written in 2008 to include anything produced for children 12 and under, greatly impacted the child recreational vehicle market, bicycles, apparel, and books. All because anything small enough to fit into the mouth of a child … no matter how unlikely it is to end up there … must meet stringent lead and phalate standards. Bicycles are dangerous because the tire valve stems can be sucked on and expose the children to lead.

Hand’s on science is dead for children 12 and under. Learning Resources relates another prohibited product: the Potato Clock. A Potato Clock is a small, digital clock that uses a potato as a type of battery, inducing current between two wires stabbed into the potato. It seems the kit, consisting of the small clock and wires, fails the lead content test because the wires have trace amounts of lead that are over the limit.

First, the company decided that since it now knew of the test failure, it had an immediate reporting obligation under CPSIA Section 15(b). In addition, they concluded they had an obligation to immediately stop sale, since continuing to sell would be another “knowing” violation – yes, kids, that’s a felony with possible penalties of jail time and asset forfeiture (goodbye house and car!).

Presumably, the executives at this company could not imagine going to jail for selling Potato Clocks as they had for years, but heck, Congress writes the rules. The CPSC, apparently, upon receiving this (unwanted) 15(b) report concurred – yep, the wire insulation exceeds the standard, and yep, you have to stop sale. No recall was required by the CPSC BUT the company appears to have decided almost immediately that an informal recall was mandated. Why might they have decided such a thing? Well, perhaps they had a generalized fear of liability from dealers who might be sued for selling this “dangerous” device if it ever came to light that the product had impermissible lead in the wire insulation.

From Learning Resources Blog

The CPSIA not only enables individual liability suits, but also specifically enables states Attorneys Generals to sue on behalf of all children in their state. Companies have to take measures to protect against financially strapped states looking for a tobacco-suit style payday.

Congress has ensured that the world’s children are safe from potato clocks. Next up, healthcare reform!

Politics, Science

President Obama and his Democratic allies are promising rationed health care for Americans, with the oft-stated position that health care costs are out of control. One statistic they cite is that “80% of a person’s total health care costs comes in the last year of their life”.

THE PRESIDENT: So that’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that’s also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

The NY Times: So how do you — how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

From The New York Times

Hasting’s Center co-founder Daniel Callaghan speaks for many Democrats when he states:

Age-based rationing, even of the relatively soft kind I propose, will have an uphill struggle but, combined with other considerations, might slip by. Health care economists have devised the idea of quality-adjusted-life years, or QALYS, as one way to measure economically sensible treatment. Its aim is to determine how many years of added life, and with what quality, a particular treatment would bring. That standard can be used with any age group and would by no means automatically rule out aggressive high-tech treatment of the old, though it could set the bar very high. QALYS is used in many European countries to influence decisions about which procedures are covered for whom.

From The New York Times (emphasis mine)

The problem with all of this is that we cannot possibly know when the last year of life begins. Health care statistics, like baseball stats, are a look back in time, a retrospective view of what has already happened. Doctors and patients deciding on a care plan are not prescient; they have to decide what is best for that patient in the moment. Unlike the ivory towers of academia or the lobbyist-filled halls of Congress, the doctor and patient are faced with some measure of uncertainty and an urgency borne of a “deadline” in the most literal sense.

We can never know the last year of a person’s life until they die. That is what the health care statistics really tell us. President Obama proposes that a blue ribbon committee or two can resolve this issue and come up with a formula we can all live die with.

It took 358 years to solve Fermet’s Last Theorem, but Obama’s Last Theorem could prove even more complex.

Culture, Politics, Science