Posts by Stewart
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It is my opinion that from the end of the 1970's there was a concentration and focussing of capitalism (for want of a better way of phrasing it) that has turned most western capitalist societies into the money- and consumption-focussed that made them such easy victims for the recent financial failures.
All that "greed is good" ethos develped through the 80's and through the expansion of means of rapid communication (ubiquity of tv, development of the internet, profusion of niche marketing). And this was necessary to the economies of those societies in order to promote the endless growth on which the capitalist commercial model is based.
With this changing focus we all, by virtue of our places within these societies, have had to take on the primacy of a fiscal value of jobs and enterprises and lose the emphasis that was previously placed on the societal benefit.
Short story - we have been sold-out to the money-meisters.
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So you enjoyed it did you? I suppose you must be the TVNZ base, in both meanings of the word?
Tom, you're being an arse now.
I am capable of turning off my tv or changing the channel if there is something on that I don't want to watch.
What I don't do is throw up my hands in horror when there is such an easy avenue to avoid footage that disgusts me.
And you can stick your petty insults in the usual place.
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Because you are squealing about the horror of it and you have it within your power to turn it off.
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Tom, use the 'Off' button (on your tv...)
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If numbers aren't well recorded how can a cost/benefit be compelling?
I expected fortification to be more effective because they are expecting everyone who eats bread to be happy with extra folate, when it positively affects a tiny minority. Why not just identify "at-risk" women and ensure they get plenty of folate? And see if there is something else that can be done to effect a positive outcome for the NTDs that are caused by something other than low folate levels.
Don't get me wrong, I am happy to think that the incidence of NTDs can be reduced but the proposed method seems like the old sledgehammer to crack a nut analogy.
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A couple of great posts by Kyle & steven crawford above.
I agree with steven that a defence of provocation would be tenable and even necessary in the circumstances he outlined (provoked by on-going domestic abuse, for instance).
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While I disagree with a lot of the more emotive and grandstanding comments here, believing that the accused has a very tenuous grasp on what the rest of us think of as 'reality' and is borderline insane, he went there with the knife and used it. So guilty is the only acceptable outcome.
His world-view is so skewed that he clearly doesn't see the world and his place in it the same way that the rest of us do. And for that reason he felt that if he explained it all to us (his intellectual inferiors) we might get a glimpse of why what he did was right.
I think he takes something of a Nietzschean(?) view of the world - Clayton Weatherstone as superman; the rest of us as lower forms of life.
He is one sick puppy and guilty, that's for sure -
fortification of bread will deliver a mean increase in folic acid intake in the target
population of 101 μg and 140 μg in Australia and New Zealand respectively, resulting
in an estimated reduction of between 14-49 out of 300-350 pregnancies in Australia and
4-14 out of 70-75 pregnancies in New Zealand affected by an NTD each year;So, if I am reading this correctly, folic acid supplementation of our bread will result in (approx) 9 fewer NTD births/year in Aotearoa out of a total of (approx) 72 NTD births.
That's preventing 1 in 8, or a decline in NTD births of approx 12%.Shit, I was expecting it to be more in the order of 90%.
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@ B Jones - the link you provided (for which, thanks) doesn't give any statistics on incidence or the reduction of incidence where folic acid has been supplemented in bread.
Nor did I see any figures for a compelling financial cost/benefit.As an aside, from the info in the link it sounds like the only way to get a suitable amount of folic acid in the diet (a kilo of spinach or broccoli / day) has been beyond the dietary intake of our forebears. If it is so unlikely to achieve it by dietary means why has such a high level of folic acid been deemed appropriate? Aside from the argument that it reduces the incidence of NTDs which I feel is looking at the subject from the other side.
I guess I am struggling with the reasoning behind such an elevated level that cannot be realistically achieved through dietary means. It all smacks of having been influenced by the producers & suppliers of folic acid supplements.
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So the target demographic are some of the least likely to be eating the folic-enhanced bread?
Has anyone seen any statistics regarding the incidence of the neural-tube defects we are hoping to prevent? Is it a sizeable enough incidence to warrant wholesale management of the population's diet?
(I can understand some people saying that any incidence would warrant it, but is that realistic?)