Interesting Data from Pew Forum Study on American Beliefs
December 16th, 2009
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The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Policy recently came out with the results of a series of public opinion studies on religion and paranormal beliefs in American society. There were some interesting trends observed, some of which might not have been expected. Unfortunately, there’s no sign of any general reduction in mystical or religious beliefs. (I’m sure some readers will disagree on whether that’s unfortunate or not.) There has been a slight decline in the attendance of traditional religious services in recent years, but general beliefs, including beliefs in less traditional religious and spiritual concepts remain strong, and in some cases are growing. Indeed, since the 1960’s, there has been an upward trend in those who claim to have personally had a religious or mystical experience.
One of the biggest trends that has appeared is the inclusion of more new-age, mystical and Eastern beliefs in American religion. While Christianity (in one form or another) remains the largest religious sect in the US, many also indicate that they believe in things like astrology, fortune telling or the idea of spiritual energy or karma. More surprisingly, a significant number of Americans (16%) believe that people can cast a negative influence by giving the “evil eye” or casting spells or curses. Even those who identify themselves with traditional western religions are now more receptive than ever to other forms of bullshit.
Political and Social Differences:
In general, the Republican Party and the political Right is seen as being more friendly to religion than the Democratic Party, although both do show strong numbers for religious support within the party. Republicans are more likely to regularly attend church and Evangelicals and strong mainline protestant groups overwhelmingly tend to be politically Republican. Creationism and other attempts to impose traditional, mainstream, religion on public policy are more associated with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party.
However, before anyone starts proclaiming the Democratic Party as the party of reason and logic, data indicates that those who identify themselves as Democrats are far more likely to have mystical, paranormal or new-age beliefs. 22% of Democrats reported believing in or consulting a psychic or fortune teller, while only 9% of Republicans reported the same. Indeed, Democrats tend to outrank Republicans in most non-traditional areas of belief.
In another interesting trend, those over 65 years of age appear to have a much lower tendency to believe in things like ghosts or psychics than younger persons, with the highest level of belief in psychics, ghosts and paranormal experiences generally occurring in those in their mid 30’s, with only a slight drop in those younger than 30. There is also some coloration to education level, with those who have graduated college generally being less likely to believe in reincarnation or astrology, but surprisingly, college graduates are more likely to believe in fortune tellers than the less educated.
Historic Trends:
As mentioned, the biggest single trend that can be noted is that there is an increase in beliefs that normally would not be considered traditional in American society. There is no evidence of a net reduction in spiritual or paranormal beliefs, even if there is a greater shift to alternative belief systems. The reasons for this may include a greater emphasis on multiculturalism or more influences from the increasing visibility of groups promoting new-age beliefs. For many, the first exposure to these beliefs came in the 1970’s, and has since become intertwined with things like alternative medicine and movements generally associated social activism, environmentalism and other such concepts.
Previous generations certainly had their religion, but were less likely to see it as something that was experienced directly, such as through psychics or ghostly experiences. More traditional religious beliefs have generally tended to stress faith and worship but not direct confirmation or interaction, such as one might expect with psychics or astrologers. Believers have been encouraged to believe in the unseen hand of providence without the need for direct confirmation. More recently, culture and media has begun to promote more direct encounters with the paranormal.
The perception of science and medicine may have also changed, in part due to greater anti-establishment mentalities that have permeated the culture. It should be noted that there has been a very strong movement toward “alternative” medicine on the political left, with very left-leaning media outlets like the Huffington Post openly Endorsing Homeopathy. This may be related to the relationship that quackery has established with the “green” movement, which is generally stronger on the left. Homeopaths and “naturopaths” have found solace with enviornmental groups in their belief that all things manmade are evil.
The fact that more conservative types tend to be less prone to belief in things like psychics or astrology does not necessarily imply that they’re less gullible, of course. For one thing, while the numbers may be higher in liberals, they’re not exactly *low* in conservative. Christianity carries strong messages against belief in other gods or “false prophets” and often portrays those who do not hold the mainline as being evil. This could be one reason for resistance to non-Christian beliefs. With both Catholics and Protestants, belief in things like astrology was less common in regular church-goers than those who attend services less often.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any real signs of improvement overall. One thing I’ve become very aware of through my involvement in skepticism and studies of beliefs and superstition is that what constitutes the “paranormal” versus “religion” is not cut and dry and more often than not, they’re the same thing.
You can view the full report here [PDF]
Note for non-US readers: In the United States, political standing and party affiliation are not as strongly associated as other parts of the world, however, of the two main parties, the Republican party is associated with being conservative and the democratic party is more associated with being liberal. Major issues often seen as being generally more Republican include: Economic freedom, lower taxes, strong national defense, traditional social values and pro-buisiness policies. Major issues often seen as being generally more Democratic include government-subsidized or administered social programs and healthcare, social equality and anti-discrimination legislation, wealth re-distribution, environmentalism, labor relations and pro-union policies, equal opertunity and education.
Some of the graphics used on this page are taken directly from the Pew Forum site and are not intended to imply ownership or explicit rights to use, but are considered to fall within fair use standards and are intended as a reference to the original publisher.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, History, Paranormal, Politics, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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December 16th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
It makes sense that these kind of new-age or alternative beliefs would be growing, especially on the political left. Not necessarily just in the US, mind you, although that is what this survey looks at.
You have to look at the connections between groups that have gained popularity. The whole environmental thing has a grip on the political left and increasingly the political mainstream and their message is very much in tune and allied with alternative medicine, witness the “green our vaccines” and the “organic food is good for you” thing.
The same ones who hawk naturopathy and colon detox and that kind of thing are also part of the acupuncture thing, which claims your health is controlled by energy flow and with the “live food” crap about how food needs to have some kind of spiritual vitality. The whole concept of ‘Living in tune with earth’ and that kind of thing.
When you look at it, it’s not a huge step between this stuff and worshiping tree spirits and qi and karma and all that new age bull****.
Then this crap is also linked to the anti-establishment thing, the whole view that the church is full of corruption (which it very well may be) and therefore because other spiritual stuff is not the mainstream, it must be good, right? Some of us are old enough to know that it’s every bit as bad. Televangelists and faith healers and bishops and priests may be corrupt, but I remember many yogis and gurus who claimed to be all about generosity and honesty and living in harmony. They drove Mercadies Benzes and formed communities of hippies and cleaned out all their accounts. The luckier ones took a few rich rock and rollers to the cleaners and then ran back to India or Sri Lanka before they could be prosecuted for their fraud. It’s all the same.
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December 16th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Gordon said:
But why does corruption of mainstream religion mean there’s a draw to alternative religions? Why not a draw to no religion? It’s not like you need to substitute one for the other. You don’t need either, really.
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December 16th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Why do you describe this as if it’s a bad thing? Everyone has their own beliefs as far as what works for them and how they see things. If people are now more broad and willing to look at other ideas and cultures then isn’t that a good thing? It gives them more to believe in. If people can learn to believe in other things without ending their prior religion and meld them together, then that’s a move toward more harmony and a better way to see the world.
We know that we are all spiritual beings and have purpose in the world just as the world has purpose and everyone is just trying to figure out what it means to them and how it goes.
Denying your spirit and replacing religion with no religion makes you an atheist and that’s not a very good kind of existence. You’d have nothing to believe in and nothing to live for and no sense of good or bad and reason for being.
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December 16th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Ziggy said:
I don’t feel that I need a god or spiritual being to make my life worthwhile. I don’t believe that my life has any preordained purpose or significance to the universe or to any big entity. I don’t believe that I was made to exist for a reason or as part of any great plan or destiny.
That doesn’t bother me. I make my own purpose and I have my own reason for living. I don’t need someone else to tell me that my life has significance. It has significance to me and to those around me. If I felt my life did not have enough meaning, I would remedy that situation by going out and doing something meaningful.
I can see how someone who had always leaned on religion for a sense of purpose or significance might find the concept of its absence difficult or empty, but you learn to be stronger than that and look at the world in a different way that does not depend on someone else assigning importance.
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December 17th, 2009 at 1:42 am
Ziggy said:
I assure you that it is a very good kind of existence, I assure you. You mystics should try the real truth about the Universe sometime, it makes your imaginary stories look small and pathetic in comparison. But then I see spirituality as a form of intellectual laziness; us seek an understand without doing the hard work. “It’s a miracle!” absolves you of having to make the effort to really understand what is happening.
Frankly you could all be left to stew in your own ignorance for all I care, but when protecting your fantasies drives you to pass laws that effect me, I have to draw the line. I am impacted by religion when it tries to undermine the teaching of evolution, when it is behind laws inhibit stem-cell research, when it arrogates to itself the mandate to dictate to those outside its fold what sort of medical procedures can and cannot be done, when its members think they are justified in denying basic legal rights to those who do not fit their narrow definition of sexual norms. And this is by no means an exhaustive list, I could double it without even trying.
Stay out of my life, and I couldn’t give a damn what you think or do to yourselves, but stay out of my life.
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December 17th, 2009 at 1:44 am
I would say this is progress, what is so bad about alternative medicine? Of course monied interests do not want to have their monopoly on things challenged. Or have to reforumulate vaccines, as in the case of mercury in vaccines. But some very respectable people such as Ted Kennedy have come out and questioned the safety of medicine as it was done and called for more research and a more skeptical view.
I would prefer atheism become more popular, but at least the intolerant chrisitian right is being marginalized and people are opening to a wider range of beliefs. In the end, the best thing would be teaching atheism in schools, as was done in Russia – which would just serve to counteract the propagandizing influence parents can have on children. For the time being that is not possible in the US.
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December 17th, 2009 at 4:57 am
Magic Donuts said:
Until one knows everything, one is forced to fill this lack of knowledge with belief, whether that belief is religious an areligious in nature. Religious belief’s message [on the whole] is “there may or may not be answers but we will let you stop asking” whereas the areligious message is “there are answers but we (that is, you) need to work them out”.
Guess which one people prefer. (Hint: people are lazy).
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December 17th, 2009 at 9:43 am
[Other] Matthew said:
Personally, I prefer intellectual honesty over complete, but false, answers. When it comes to something like how life came to be on earth, science can’t offer all the answers (yet). It can offer many of them and it is always getting more. We don’t know exactly how the first complex organics ended up on earth. There’s the “primordial soup” hypothesis and the hypothesis that they were delivered by comets or other bodies. Both are plausible and both may turn out to be true, in the end.
I’m fine with this. We continue to learn more, if we knew everything we would have no motivation to continue research. We know much, we know more and more every day.
Like I said, it’s intellectual honesty and that’s more respectable to me. As far as I am concerned, a false answer is a non-answer and worse than worthless. Therefore, while science offers only some of the answers, religion offers none. It may pretend to offer some, but they’re not answers, they’re lies.
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December 17th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Bruce said:
Well, the bit where it doesn’t actually work would strike me as a bad thing.
Ted Kennedy… respectable…
-snicker-snort-ROFL-
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December 17th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
drbuzz0 said:
It’s amazing how many people don’t understand that “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer (this isn’t remotely confined to religion, mind you)
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December 17th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Bruce said:
The very word “alternative medicine” is a problem, because it’s a category of medicine that doesn’t need to prove it works; people just trust it. Sorta like religion, actually. It’s the kind of medicine we had in this country a century ago, and it cost a lot of lives.
You are right that monied interests do not want to have their monopolies threatened, but there is no monopoly on medicine. In fact, it’s an intensely competitive market. In the mid-90s, under the Clinton administration, some of these companies successfully lobbied to open up a new avenue for profit: alternative medicine. Oh, alt med had been around for a long time, in particular highly successful ones like chiropractic and homeopathy, both of which had managed to work in exemptions from medical regulations decades previously. But there was still room to be exploited, if the FDA could be made to back off. The Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act was passed, supposedly in the name of patient choice and education, but it didn’t really improve patient’s choices and it certainly didn’t help educate them. But it did exactly what the lobbyists wanted it to do: it gave them a way of marketing products without having to first prove that they were safe and effective, or conduct any kind of surveillance on the products to make sure they were still safe, or even formulate them consistently. All a manufacturer would have to do is specifically say it didn’t treat diseases, make only vague claims on the wording, and use ingredients already generally recognized as safe. Thus, the dietary supplement industry had the chance to explode into the multi-billion dollar business that is today. People buy Airborne thinking it will help them not get the flu or colds, or at least relieve the severity of them, but there’s no evidence whatsoever that it will actually help. Airborne’s maximum recommended dose will actually produce an overdose of Vitamin A; not enough to cause immediate health problems, but it can be expected to increase the risk of osteoporosis in women, particularly if they are in their childbearing years when they take it. There are no warnings about not taking it in conjunction with other vitamin A supplements. Lastly, it’s hideously overpriced, an order-of-magnitude markup over what it would cost if you just bought vitamin C and vitamin A supplements to an equivalent dose.
It’s all about money. And the alt med types are the ones who have deliberately chosen to avoid oversight. Does that not concern you at all? I think that we indeed cannot trust corporations to have our best health interests at heart. This is why regulation is so important, and why I am particularly suspicious of those who will not submit their claims to scientific scrutiny.
As far as mercury in vaccines, it was a tragedy that it was removed. There was no evidence whatsoever that ethylmercury caused any harm at all in the amounts used in vaccines. Manufacturers pulled it mostly for business reasons; they correctly reasoned that because of all the stupid fearmongering, being able to tout their products as “mercury free!” would be beneficial. And government epidemiologists, afraid that too many people would avoid vaccination otherwise, arranged for the required vaccines to not contain it or at least be available in thimerosal-free formulations.
Why was this tragic? Because it greatly increased the per-vaccine cost. Thimerosal was being used as a preservative. It’s very effective as an antimicrobial. So with it gone, manufacturers had to either switch to other preservatives (which would be costly, as they’d have to get FDA approval for that) or switch to single-dose preparations, which could be kept sterile and thus wouldn’t need preservatives. Most opted for the latter. A few just kept using thimerosal; you can find it in most injected flu vaccines.
And it was utterly pointless. Thimerosal is harmless in vaccines. There was no good reason to remove it.
BTW, be careful when claiming there is mercury in vaccines. It makes you look ignorant. Ethylmercury is a compound, mercury is an element. The element is far more dangerous than compounds of it. Methylmercury is the most common mercury-containing compound which you’ll encounter in the environment, and is particularly common in fish. The EPA guidelines concern methylmercury. It is difficult for the body to excrete methylmercury, so it will tend to accumulate over time, increasing harm. But ethylmercury is relatively easy for the body to clear; within two weeks, the ethylmercury from a vaccine will be gone from your body, which means it cannot produce the sort of accumulating harm that methylmercury can.
It’s not uncommon for compounds to have different properties than their contituent elements. My favorite example is table salt. It’s not only safe, it’s essential for life. (Though note that in American society, people tend to get an overdose of it and could stand to cut way back.) The elements that make it up are sodium and chlorine, both extremely dangerous chemicals. Sodium and water react vigorously together, which is chemistry-speak for “really seriously don’t do this at home”. One of the major byproducts is sodium hydroxide — lye or caustic soda, which is quite dangerous itself. Chlorine is pretty damn reactive too (will even react with noble gases such as xenon), and lethal to most forms of life, which is why it is used so heavily as a fumigating and disinfecting agent. But put the two together and you have the world’s most popular seasoning.
Now, thimerosal isn’t totally harmless. It’s there *because* it can kill. But the concentrations are far too low to harm a human. The same is true of silver compounds often used in medicine as antimicrobials. High doses would be a problem, but low doses can control bacterial growth in specific applications without causing harm to the patient. Humans do tend to be quite a bit more robust than bacteria.
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December 17th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Calli Arcale said:
As I’ve put it, there are some basic varieties of medical treatment:
Experimental – Not proven to meet standards to be safe and effective in humans and therefore not deployed to any large extent. This is not the fault of the treatment, however, because generally they’re just too new to have amassed enough evidence to conclusively prove anything. Hence, they’re still being tested.
Mainstream – Stuff that works, we know it works, it’s proven and it meets reasonable standards for safety and consistency. When an experimental treatment is proven it moves to this category.
Depreciated or Former Mainstream – Generally works to some degree, but no longer in use because it has been surpassed by vastly better treatments or further investigation has found risks that are unacceptably high.
For example, before antibiotics, mercury was used as a treatment for syphilis. It was known at the time that it was harmful and had some very bad side effects, eventually it would basically kill you. However, syphilis was not curable and mercury salts did at least suppress it to some degree and stop it from advancing as quickly. But now that we have antibiotics, using mercury-based treatments would be insanity.
Alternative – No evidence exists for effectiveness. Usually this is not for lack of trying. Alternative medicine may include depreciated medicine as well. Either way, it’s never supported by evidence, because if it were, it would not be “alternative” anymore.
The fact that drug companies exist to make money (like all companies) does not preclude treatments from existing which are not patentable or not especially profitable. I can give some big examples:
- The gold standard for treatment of bipolar disorder is lithium (actually lithium bicarbonate) a naturally-occurring, fairly abundant chemical that no drug company could pattent. You could buy the stuff in its raw form from any chemical supplier for pennies.
- One of the most important cardiac drugs is nitroglycerin. A fairly simple chemical that has been around since the mid 1800’s. You can’t buy it from your local chemical supplier because it’s highly explosive, but producing a dose of the stuff is still pretty cheap. They generally mix it in a low ratio with inert filler material to make pills or patches (so it doesn’t go BOOM). Millions of people take it daily for angina and it’s given in emergency rooms where it saves lives during heart attacks.
- Asprin is often the classic example. A synthetic of a natural compound, it’s easy to make generically and although the synthesis was proprietary, it has been out of patent and public domain for nearly a century. It’s still one of the most important drugs used in cardiac medicine and one of the most popular otc pain killers and fever reducers.
- Morphine is known for it’s addictive qualities, but it’s also one of the most potent pain killer in existence and still the standard that is used for trauma medicine when someone is in severe pain and as a drip for things like post-surgical pain and other acute pain. It’s natural (an extract of the opium poppy) and has been around since the mid 1800’s
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December 17th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Calli Arcale said:
Don’t try this at home? Uh… too late for that one. It’s hella fun! The possibility of a chemical burn from the byproducts has generally been more of a concern to me than the primary reaction, since most people know enough to stand back from that. Afterward, I just hose down the area with the garden hose, in order to assure no unreacted sodium is left and that any sodium hydroxide is diluted and washed away.
Unless, of course, it’s being done in the bathtub, in which case, I turn on the shower. The sodium hydroxide is good as a drain cleaner anyway. Another way to deal with it, if it’s on a smaller scale or you don’t have a lot of water to flush it away would be to hit the area with an acid of some kind. Vinegar is probably the easiest to find in the average house, but you could use any number of acids to deal with it.
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December 17th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Well, “don’t try this at home” is nerd-speak for “AWESOME! wanna go try it now?”
My high school chemistry teacher recounted a fun prank he and some buddies did when they were in high school. One of them had obtained a fairly large chunk of pure sodium by means which were not disclosed. (Chem lab theft would be my guess.) They decided to toss it in the local pond to see what happens. The results were not disappointing, but rather more energetic than they’d expected! Fortunately, nobody was hurt.
I had a fun childhood. Though I never got to play with sodium, I did get to play with elemental mercury. It’s fun to roll it around; it has astonishing surface tension. (Obligatory note to any younguns reading this: do not do this.) My dad also occasionally brought home liquid nitrogen to play with. Dangerous — it’s pretty much instant frostbite. But lots of fun.
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December 17th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Calli Arcale said:
*THAT* is actually something that I would not do. Like… really not do. I mean, I’m not kidding, I’m not saying this to protect myself from liability, I seriously really would not do that. It’s too easy to make a serious toxic mess and too difficult to dispose of.
Maybe if I broke a thermometer I’d push it around a bit, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to seek out a mercury spill or create one.
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December 17th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Wasn’t it just a few posts ago you guys were claiming that renewable energy couldn’t switch us off coal, and coal is bad in part, because of mercury emissions? Now mercury is safe when it is in vaccines, or when DrBuzz0 is playing with it?
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December 17th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Oh wait, now I see I misread your post about mercury Buzz0. I was frustrated with Calli Arcale and just assumed you were agreeing with him about mercury being safe, and I didn’t look at your post closely enough. I read that you would really like to do it, got mixed up. Woops.
It seems to me, that to be on the safe side one should not be using mercury, since over time things breaks down and a safe form could become a more dangerous one.
And back to the original point of this post, do you not think its possible, that corporate interests would not do research on these free or cheap alternative medicines, because there is NO profit to be made? Hence, there are no studies done since there are no money from companies for these studies?
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December 17th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Bruce said:
Drug companies don’t generally do studies or research on simple, non-patentable compounds, or for that matter, on non-drug treatments for illness. You won’t find them doing studies on things like cognitive behavioral therapy or physical therapy or even surgery.
That’s fine though. That’s not their thing. They’re not the only game in town. There are private foundations, universities, government-sponsored research, various independent associations and such.
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December 18th, 2009 at 11:49 am
drbuzz0 said:
It was only about 1 ml or so, but still, it was a pretty stupid thing to do. Worse, it was my physician father’s idea.
I’m pretty sure I lucked out and didn’t get any neurological damage from it, but really, elemental mercury isn’t something to mess around with.
Meanwhile, my brother was melting lead for fun, and we were all helping my dad to make our own (illegal) fireworks. It’s kind of amazing, sometimes, that we all made it to adulthood!
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December 18th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Bruce said:
I’m very sorry — I didn’t mean to imply that mercury is safe by mentioning that I once played with it as a kid. It’s not, and though a kid can be excused for thinking it’s just harmless fun, my dad really should’ve known better.
But it is important to understand that thimerosal is not the same thing as elemental mercury, and you don’t have to just be on the safe side because you don’t know. That’s because scientists actually have researched it in considerable detail. There is data on its safety, so you can make an informed decision about whether or not to use it, rather than just going “oh, I don’t know if it’s safe, so let’s keep it out”. It doesn’t break down to a different form in the body; ethylmercury is actually quite stable.
For instance, here’s a recent study on the rate at which ethylmercury is excreted from the body. It was specifically looking at Thimerosal as used in vaccines in infants. I encourage you to read it. It’s very interesting. Worth noting is that it revealed Thimerosal to be even safer than previously believed.
Mercury Levels in Newborns and Infants After Receipt of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines
I did misremember the figures, though. The half-life of intramuscularly injected ethylmercury was found to be 3.7 days, with levels returning to pre-vaccination levels within 30 days. Here’s their conclusion:
CONCLUSIONS. The blood half-life of intramuscular ethyl mercury from thimerosal in vaccines in infants is substantially shorter than that of oral methyl mercury in adults. Increased mercury levels were detected in stools after vaccination, suggesting that the gastrointestinal tract is involved in ethyl mercury elimination. Because of the differing pharmacokinetics of ethyl and methyl mercury, exposure guidelines based on oral methyl mercury in adults may not be accurate for risk assessments in children who receive thimerosal-containing vaccines.
That’s the money statement there. The FDA and CDC had based all of their recommendations about multidose vial vaccines (which require the use of a preservative such as thimerosal) on known data about oral methyl mercury, because there was a lot more data on that, and, since methyl mercury was already known to be more dangerous, this would result in a more conservative guideline. (Erring on the side of caution, in other words.) Now this additional data shows that they were erring even further on the side of caution than they realized. Ethylmercury is rapidly excreted, unlike methylmercury, so has much less potential to cause harm.
I’m a “her”, BTW.
It doesn’t really matter on the Internet, but in case you want the right pronoun, there it is.
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December 18th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
One interesting addendum: though methyl mercury and ethyl mercury don’t change much in the body, methyl mercury is known to change in the gut; bacteria break it down to produce inorganic mercury. This is the most dangerous form of mercury, the mesmerizing liquid metal form which causes neurologic damage and is very hard for the body to excrete. Though the study didn’t look at this, I wonder if this might explain why ethylmercury, by contrast, is eliminated so quickly — maybe the gut bacteria can’t break it down that way, leaving it in a form which the liver can excrete. (The liver can also excrete methyl mercury, but that all happens upstream from the gut bacteria, who will still get a crack at breaking it down to inorganic mercury.)
Historically, methyl mercury has been used as a sort of proxy for ethyl mercury, since animal models showed the two to be similar, though ethyl mercury is excreted faster. Basically, everybody concentrated on studying the more dangerous one, figuring that if they followed those guidelines, they’d be safe. A reasonable strategy, really. Turns out, we’re even safer than we thought.
However, Thimerosal has become a bad chemical in many people’s minds. Lots of products have invested money in calling themselves “thimerosal-free!” This will likely reduce the motivation to study ethyl mercury any more closely, leaving concentration on methyl mercury, which is far more common in the environment and thus a more pressing concern.
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December 18th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
From what I understand, the total concentration of elemental mercury in a dose of vaccines is at most a few micrograms, and maybe as high as 25 micrograms or so if it’s a vaccine that is not in individual doses and has the highest approved thimerosal concentration in it. Most vaccines would only have about one or two.
Info here
http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/ucm096228.htm
Even if you use the worst case, that’s not a HUGE burden on the body in terms of raw mercury, and even less so when you realize it’s ethyl mercury and that the real concern with mercury or mercury compounds is that it would get into the tissues and kill cells, as opposed to being suspended in the blood in an aqueous state and get flushed out pretty quick.
Anyway, with ethyl-mercury being an organic compound and therefore, it should have a reasonably tight covalent bond, then it’s not accurate at all to call it “mercury poisoning” or to compare it to “mercury” because it’s not. Sure, some mercury compounds are very toxic and some give up their mercury atom easily in the body, but not all of them and even closely related organic compounds can be very different. (ethanol can make you feel happy and an equal amount of methanol will kill you).
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December 20th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I’ve always considered myself a Democrat and I would say most of my views are more left of center than right. I’m not straight to the party line, but I could never really see myself a Republican. I don’t mind being called a liberal.
So when I see this alternative medicine and woo-woo mystical bull**** becoming more in vogue on the political left, it worries me. I’ve read plenty of very left-leaning publications like Huffington and those kind of things and it seems they’re more and more on the homeopathy bandwagon and many others. Of course, I recognize some of the modern left has roots in the hippies and the newage stuff from the 60s and 70s.
It still bothers me. If the party wants to set itself apart as being rational, this does not help one bit. It’s almost as bad as the intelligent design stuff on the right, if it gets to that point. It sometimes seems like some of these things run in cycles. They were really considered on the decline in the 80’s and 90’s but now it’s reemerging.
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December 25th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Mister Fisk said:
How do you feel about Obama ending the nuclear reprocessing review and shutting down Yucca mountain? A lot of people here, seem to believe that these were not rational decisions, but I think they are safe decisions and taking the safest route is the only rational thing to do.
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December 25th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Bruce said:
See, that’s what we call assuming your result. How exactly do those decisions increase public safety?
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December 26th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Bruce said:
Well, nuclear reprocessing has been a no-go in the US since Carter. That does not excuse Obama for being entirely against it, but I think realistically at this point, the fact that uranium is probably going to be cheap enough to make the once-through cycle just as economical for the next 30 years is the big issue.
Still, advanced fuel cycles are something the government should support and I was very hopeful when he appointed Steve Chu to run the DOE. That seemed to indicate to me he was willing to actually go with someone who had answers. I know Dr. Chu has been pro fast reactors and pro reprocessing, but he has to bow to the administration on some things.
So honestly, I’m disipointed on that.
Bruce said:
Yeah, again, big disappointment, but not really an unexpected one. I know why he did it – politics. Plain old dirty politics. A lot of money went to convince people it was the devil so he promised to shut it for political reasons. It was clearly the wrong policy decision because of what it has done to the whole issue of the DOE’s commitment to handle spent fuel.
My major objection to Yucca Mountain is the same as most others who have looked at it. It’s, stronger, deeper, more secure and more expensive than it needs to be. It’s overkill. We spent more money on it than we need to.
It should be used now that we have it, but it is an unnecessarily expensive. I favored a plan which would have stored most of the spent fuel in a hallowed-out area less deep as Yucca Mountain and in a system of concrete vaults and casks that pretty much assumed that it would be reprocessed eventually. It would have been a lot cheaper. Really, we’re just warehousing the stuff.
Anyway, still a big disappointment and totally unjustified scientifically.
Bruce said:
That’s because they’re smart and well informed.
Bruce said:
That’s because you’re an idiot.
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December 26th, 2009 at 3:00 am
*sigh*
Mister Fisk, do you also oppose things like the $30 Billion for renewable development in the Stimulus package? It’s kind of amazing how many of the people here seem to basically be against everything.
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December 26th, 2009 at 3:19 am
Bruce said:
*sigh*
Bruce, why do you advocate wasting taxpayer dollars on projects that provide no benefit but serve only to move money around and make you feel all tingly?
$30B on things that provide nothing of use? Yeah, I’d call that a waste.
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December 26th, 2009 at 3:28 am
Bruce said:
I think we can safely say that people here are against things that don’t work, are based on blatant ignoring of basic physical reality, and are huge wastes of time and money. What does your objection to that stance say about your own philosophy, Bruce?
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December 26th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Matthew said:
Bruce doesn’t have his own philosophy per se, he just mindlessly swallows everything he reads on the front page of DailyKos (unless of course it was written by David Walters or Nnadir).
Bruce,
I notice you failed to respond to my challenge in the “Shame On Slashdot” thread. Since you chose to bring the safety of spent nuclear fuel up in this thread, the question is still relevant:
Chuck P. said:
You’ve had more than two weeks to find a reference for something that would back you ideological opposition to nuclear energy. Any luck yet?
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December 26th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Bruce said:
A terrible waste. $30 billion, or to put it in perspective $30,000,000,000.00 is a hell of a lot of money to be wasted on projects that are basically useless and don’t actually help our energy system or energy independence in any meaningful way. It’s a big missed opportunity.
If it were used straight out to build nuclear power plants, it could build a good 15 Ap-1000’s, which would mean a very large amount of coal would not be burned. If it were used to promote nuclear energy and to provide stimulus to build by industry, who knows how many could be built? 40? 50?
But even if it were not used for energy. Okay, given you’re against nuclear energy and there are enough supporters of anti-nuclear policy to stand in its way, it should have been used for something meaningful and beneficial. $30B could provide for a lot of educational improvements or better infrastructure or to beef up NASA’s budget. It could provide better care to veterans or better small buisiness opportunities.
It’s a tragedy to have so much money go to something that does nothing for the country when it could have done so much.
Bruce said:
Not at all! I’m all for better primary education, for more opportunities for students to go to college, for more community-level healthcare clinics and centers, for safer and better highways, for better communications systems and more broadband internet and for better preparations for disasters and relief.
I believe that the government must make decisions that benefit the nation as a whole and as many citizens as possible and that it is wrong for the government to spend large amounts of money on projects that are of no use to anyone. I think it’s doubly-wrong that so much money is only going to benefit a few companies that make this “renewable” crap, and that is because they have been very effective politically in getting support, eventhough it only lines their own pockets at everyone else’s expense.
I also think it’s wrong that this legislation spends our federal money on something that will benefit sectors that have caused us a lot of problems and have made a lot of money off of everyone’s back. This crap is a hand-out to coal, and especially gas. Natural gas companies are now heavily invested in this sector because they know it’s their ticket to more gas burning.
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February 19th, 2010 at 5:46 am
Why can’t people just believe in mother nature and science. It could solve a lot of global problems like war and environmental issues. But i’m European and like my american niece used to say. “In Europe you can smell unbelieve”
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