She and her assistant Howard Glasgow discovered a primitive organism that could
She and her assistant Howard Glasgow discovered a primitive organism that could shape-shift into at least 19 forms, including alga, amoeba and the vile little flesh eater that was killing fish and infecting people.Then, in the course of their research, Burkholder and Glasgow fell ill with a mysterious Alzheimer's-like neurological disorder. When they stayed away from the lab, they started to get better. So doctors were eventually able to track the illness back to the pfiesteria. But how and why had this lethal alga appeared so quickly?A little contextualising on Burkholder's part offered a solution. Pfiesteria was discovered at the same time as North Carolina's industrial hog farms kicked into high gear in the early Nineties. In an area that is home to under a million people, these businesses have been dumping untreated waste equivalent to that produced by 15 million people into rivers that are already overloaded with nutrients such as farm fertiliser and human sewage. Pig waste has tipped the scales, stimulating the evolution of the previously unrecognised organism The official response has been depressingly familiar.
Not wanting to put a spanner in the works of the lucrative tourist industry, local officials downplay the dangers Local politics is in the pocket of the wealthy pig industry. And, even with evidence to hand, scientific experts shrink from making the obvious connections because their universities rely on pig farmers for generous endowments.Meanwhile, JoAnn Burkholder is worried that pfiesteria will spread to coastal waters and wipe out fishing grounds Maybe she needn't worry about the fish. Further research has established that nothing makes the little horrors friskier than human blood It will be another long hot summer in North Carolina. Needless to say, I won't be swimming.WITH the US Food and Drug Administration in mind, I have a new hero. On 19 May, Dr Stanislaw Burzynski will face charges in America on 42 criminal counts of transporting an illegal drug across state lines. The drug - antineoplaston - is Burzynski's own formula, which he has used in the successful treatment of hundreds of terminally ill cancer patients.
The "crime" with which he is charged is shipping antineoplaston to patients who live outside Texas, his home state.His accuser is the FDA whose chief enforcement officer, Robert Spillar, seems obsessed with prosecuting Dr Burzynski and his patients, to the bafflement of just about everyone who knows the case. It flies in the face of reason, especially since experts at the National Cancer Institute have confirmed that antineoplaston is effective even against the most aggressive malignancies. And yet it goes on, with Spillar displaying an extraordinary callousness in denying treatment to patients who have been responding well to antineoplaston. Their sole "crime" is that they don't happen to live in Texas, where the drug is sanctioned for legal usage.Why is this happening? The INI Free Press, an alternative media monitor that has been following Dr Burzynski's case, claims the cancer industry is America's second largest, and goes on to suggest that the FDA may be protecting the very vested interests of the pharmaceutical giants. One "multinational drug tycoon" is quoted as saying, "If you don't have $300m, you don't prove a new cancer drug to the FDA."So a distinct pattern emerges: as the FDA is giving immediate approval for clinical trials on a new drug from one of the big guys (using one of the same acids found in antineoplaston), it is also setting the court date for the little guy's criminal trial. Stanislaw Burzynski came of age fighting totalitarianism in Poland, dreaming of freedom in America The irony of his situation won't be lost on him.. It is difficult at first to absorb the sheer scale of what has happened Six weeks ago I put the Labour majority at 60.
As the campaign went on, and the opinion polls showed no real sign of moving in the Conservative direction, I increased my forecast to 80. On polling day itself I was prepared to say "over a hundred" but not to be more specific. I certainly did not expect Labour to win the majority it has done Nor did Mr Tony Blair or any of his entourage expect it. At 43 (44 on Tuesday) he has won a more spectacular victory than C R Attlee in 1945 or Harold Wilson in 1966 - the only two previous occasions when Labour has secured a large or even a comfortable majority.
Edgbaston for the first time, Wimbledon for goodness sake, Hove of all places: today Labour seats, every one. It is an astonishing achievement. Mr Paddy Ashdown's performance is, if anything, even more astounding. The Liberal Democrats have put up the best show since the Liberals in 1929, when they won 59 seats. They have done better than the Liberals in February 1974, who obtained 19 per cent of the vote but won only 14 seats, or the Liberals and Social Democrats (trading as the Alliance) in 1983, who obtained 25 per cent of the vote but won only 23 seats. Mr Ashdown has won 46 seats with a mere 17 per cent of the vote.This suggests that some of the credit should go not to Mr Ashdown or even Mr Blair but to the voters. They were determined to get rid of the Conservative government and behaved accordingly. Contrary to expectations, they embraced tactical voting on a scale never before seen in a general election.True, there was talk of arrangements made, deals done, in various parts of the country.