COVID-19, shootings: Is mass death now tolerated in America?

YES! 

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — As the nation marked 1 million deaths from COVID-19 last week, the milestone was bookended by mass shootings that killed people simply living their lives: grocery shopping, going to church, or attending the fourth grade. The number, once unthinkable, is now an irreversible reality in the United States — just like the persistent reality of gun violence that kills tens of thousands of people every year.

Americans have always tolerated high rates of death and suffering — among certain segments of society. But the sheer numbers of deaths from preventable causes, and the apparent acceptance that no policy change is on the horizon, raises the question: Has mass death become accepted in America?

“I think the evidence is unmistakable and quite clear. We will tolerate an enormous amount of carnage, suffering and death in the U.S., because we have over the past two years. We have over our history,” says Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist and professor at Yale who, before that, was a leading member of the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP. He made his comments in an interview last week, before the latest massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 21 people were killed on Tuesday, including 19 children.

“If I thought the AIDS epidemic was bad, the American response to COVID-19 has sort of ... it’s a form of the American grotesque, right?” Gonsalves says. “Really — a million people are dead? And you’re going to talk to me about your need to get back to normal, when for the most part most of us have been living pretty reasonable lives for the past six months?”

Certain communities have always borne the brunt of higher death rates in the United States. There are profound racial and class inequalities in the United States, and our tolerance of death is partly based on who is at risk, said Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota who studies mortality.

“Some people’s deaths matter a lot more than others,” she lamented in an interview last week. “And I think that’s what we’re seeing in this really brutal way with this coincidence of timing.”

In the shooting in Buffalo, New York, on May 14, the alleged shooter was a racist bent on killing as many Black people as he could, according to authorities. The family of 86-year-old Ruth Whitfield, one of 10 people killed there in an attack on a grocery store that served the African American community, channeled the grief and frustration of millions as they demanded action, including passage of a hate crime bill and accountability for those who spread hateful rhetoric.

“You expect us to keep doing this over and over and over again — over again, forgive and forget,” her son, former Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield, Jr., told reporters. “While people we elect and trust in offices around this country do their best not to protect us, not to consider us equal.”

In the handful of days after the shooting in Buffalo, a man 1,700 miles away in Texas legally purchased one AR-style rifle, then another, along with 375 rounds of ammunition, according to state senators briefed by law enforcement. He then carried out the attack on Robb Elementary. Just 10 days had passed.

The sense that politicians have done little even as the violence repeats itself is shared by many Americans. It’s a dynamic that’s encapsulated by the “thoughts and prayers” offered to victims of gun violence by politicians unwilling to make meaningful commitments to ensure there really is no more “never again,” according to Martha Lincoln, an anthropology professor at San Francisco State University who studies the cultural politics of public health.

“I don’t think that most Americans feel good about it. I think most Americans would like to see real action from their leaders in the culture about these pervasive issues,” said Lincoln, who spoke before the attack on the school in Texas, and who adds that there is a similar “political vacuum” around COVID-19.

The high numbers of deaths from COVID-19, guns and other causes are difficult to fathom and can start to feel like background noise, disconnected from the individuals whose lives were lost and the families whose lives were forever altered.

American society has even come to accept the deaths of children from preventable causes.

In a recent guest column published in The Advocate newspaper, pediatrician Dr. Mark W. Kline pointed out that more than 1,500 children have died from COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, despite the “myth” that it is harmless for children. Kline wrote that there was a time in pediatrics when “children were not supposed to die.”

“There was no acceptable pediatric body count,” he wrote. “At least, not before the first pandemic of the social media age, COVID-19, changed everything.”

There are many parallels between the U.S. response to COVID-19 and its response to the gun violence epidemic, according to Sonali Rajan, a professor at Columbia University who researches school violence.

“We have long normalized mass death in this country. Gun violence has persisted as a public health crisis for decades,” she said last week, noting that an estimated 100,000 people are shot every year and some 40,000 will die.

Gun violence is such a part of life in America now that we organize our lives around its inevitability. Children do lockdown drills at school. And in about half the states, Rajan said, teachers are allowed to carry firearms.

When she looks at the current response to COVID-19, she sees similar dynamics. Americans, she said, “deserve to be able to commute to work without getting sick, or work somewhere without getting sick, or send their kids to school without them getting sick.”

“What will happen down the line if more and more people get sick and are disabled?” she asked. “What happens? Do we just kind of live like this for the foreseeable future?”

It’s important, she said, to ask what policies are being put forth by elected officials who have the power to “attend to the health and the well-being of their constituents.”

“It’s remarkable how that responsibility has been sort of abdicated, is how I would describe it,” Rajan said.

The level of concern about deaths often depends on context, says Rajiv Sethi, an economics professor at Barnard College who has written about both gun violence and COVID-19. He points to a rare but dramatic event such as an airplane crash or an accident at a nuclear power plant, which do seem to matter to people.

By contrast, something like traffic deaths gets less attention. The government last week said that nearly 43,000 people had died on the nation’s roads last year, the highest level in 16 years. The federal government unveiled a national strategy earlier this year to combat the problem.

Even when talking about gun violence, mass shootings get a lot of attention but represent a small number of the gun deaths that happen in the United States every year, Sethi said in an interview last week. For example, there are more suicides from guns in America than there are homicides, an estimated 24,000 gun suicides compared with 19,000 homicides. But even though there are policy proposals that could help within the bounds of the Second Amendment, he says, the debate on guns is politically entrenched.

“The result is that nothing is done,” Sethi said. “The result is paralysis.”

Dr. Megan Ranney of Brown University’s School of Public Health calls it a frustrating “learned helplessness.”

“There’s been almost a sustained narrative created by some that tells people that these things are inevitable,” said Ranney, an ER doctor who did gun violence research before COVID-19 hit, speaking before Tuesday’s Texas school shooting ended 21 lives. “It divides us when people think that there’s nothing they can do.”

She wonders if people really understand the sheer numbers of people dying from guns, from COVID-19 and from opioids. The CDC said this month that more than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, setting a record.

Ranney also points to false narratives spread by bad actors, such as denying that the deaths were preventable, or suggesting those who die deserved it. There is an emphasis in the United States on individual responsibility for one’s health, Ranney said — and a tension between the individual and the community.

“It’s not that we put less value on an individual life, but rather we’re coming up against the limits of that approach,” she said. “Because the truth is, is that any individual’s life, any individual’s death or disability, actually affects the larger community.”

Similar debates happened in the last century about child labor laws, worker protections and reproductive rights, Ranney said.

An understanding of history is important, said Wrigley-Field, who teaches the history of ACT UP in one of her classes. During the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, the White House press secretary made anti-gay jokes when asked about AIDS, and everyone in the room laughed. Activists were able to mobilize a mass movement that forced people to change the way they thought and forced politicians to change the way they operated, she said.

“I don’t think that those things are off the table now. It’s just that it’s not really clear if they’re going to emerge,” Wrigley-Field said. “I don’t think giving up is a permanent state of affairs. But I do think that’s where we’re at, right at this moment.”

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Michelle R. Smith is an Associated Press reporter, based in Providence. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/mrsmithap

BACKGROUNDER
FDA chief struggles to explain slow response on baby formula

By MATTHEW PERRONE

May 25, 2022

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Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf testifies via video during a House Commerce Oversight and Investigations subcommittee hybrid hearing on the nationwide baby formula shortage on Wednesday, May 25, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Food and Drug Administration faced bipartisan fury from House lawmakers Wednesday over months of delays investigating problems at the nation’s largest baby formula plant that prompted an ongoing shortage.

FDA Commissioner Robert Califf laid out a series of setbacks in congressional testimony that slowed his agency’s response, including a COVID-19 outbreak at the plant and a whistleblower complaint that didn’t reach FDA leadership because it was apparently lost in the mail.

Califf testified before a House subcommittee investigating the shortage, which has snowballed into a national political controversy and forced the U.S. military to begin airlifting supplies from Europe.

The shortage largely stems from Abbott’s Michigan plant, which the FDA shut down in February due to contamination issues. Under fire from Congress, parents and the media, Califf gave the first detailed account Wednesday of why his agency took months to inspect and shutter the plant despite learning of potential problems as early as September.

The FDA’s response was: “Too slow and there were decisions that were suboptimal along the way,” Califf told lawmakers.

The FDA and President Joe Biden face mounting political pressure to explain why they didn’t intervene sooner to head off the supply crisis.

“Why did it take an onslaught of national media attention for the Biden administration to act with a sense of urgency required to address an infant formula shortage?” asked Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Virginia, the committee’s ranking Republican.

Califf said the agency had been trying to monitor formula supplies since 2020 when COVID-related disruptions first emerged, but regulators have limited visibility into company supply chains.

The House panel also heard from three formula manufacturers, including a top Abbott Nutrition executive who apologized to parents for the shortage.

“We let you down,” said Abbott vice president Christopher Calamari. “We are deeply sorry.”

Calamari repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether any employees were disciplined or fired over the problems at the plant, which included standing water, a leaky roof and damaged equipment.

FDA staff began honing in on Abbott’s plant last fall while tracking several bacterial infections in infants who had consumed formula from the facility. The four cases occurred between September and January, causing hospitalizations and two deaths.

The FDA planned to begin inspecting the Sturgis, Michigan, plant on Dec. 30, according to Califf’s testimony. But Abbott warned that about a dozen plant employees had tested positive for COVID-19 and requested a delay. As a result, the FDA didn’t begin its inspection until Jan. 31.

After detecting positive samples of a rare-but-dangerous bacteria in multiple parts of the plant, the FDA closed the facility and Abbott announced a massive recall of its formula on Feb. 17.

“We knew that ceasing plant operations would create supply problems but we had no choice given the insanitary conditions,” said Califf, calling the problems “shocking” and “unacceptable.”

Abbott and the FDA have reached an agreement to reopen the plant next week, under which the company must regularly undergo outside safety audits.

Califf also struggled to explain delays in following up on a whistleblower complaint alleging numerous safety violations at Abbott’s plant, including employees falsifying records and failing to test formula before shipment.

Several FDA staffers reviewed the complaint in late October when it was sent to a regional FDA office, but an interview didn’t take place until two months later, in part due to the whistleblower’s scheduling conflicts.

Senior FDA officials eventually received the complaint via email, but not until February due to “an isolated failure in FDA’s mailroom, likely due to COVID-19 staffing issues,” according to the FDA testimony. A mailed copy addressed to then-acting commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock has still not been located.

Political outrage over the shortage has landed squarely on the FDA and Califf, who was confirmed to the FDA role for a second time in February. The problems have escalated into a political firestorm for the White House, which has invoked the Defense Production Act and emergency import measures.

The FDA contacted the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Feb. 11. about a potential shortage, just days before Abbott’s recall, according to FDA’s timeline.

Califf said the FDA requested new authorities, funding and staff to track supply chain data that could have helped get ahead of the problem, but noted Congress has not provided them.

Several lawmakers raised longstanding concerns that the FDA’s food program — which oversees most U.S. foods except meat, poultry and eggs — is underfunded and needs restructuring.

The program has a convoluted leadership structure in which there is a director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and a separate deputy commissioner for “food policy and response.” The deputy commissioner has more of a safety focus, but has no direct authority over food center staff nor field staff who inspect company plants.

Both officials testified Wednesday, along with Califf.

When Rep. Nanette Diaz-Barragan, D-Calif., asked who is in charge of food safety, Califf and food center director Susan Mayne gave extended answers, describing different roles and responsibilities.

“I don’t think there’s one person that is responsible,” Diaz-Barragan responded. “I just think it goes to show there needs to be restructuring and it needs to be more clear who’s ultimately responsible.”

Later Wednesday afternoon, Abbott’s Calamari told lawmakers his company plans to build extra capacity and redundancies into its supply chain to avoid future disruptions. He reiterated the company’s point that the FDA has not drawn a direct link between the illnesses reported in infants and bacteria samples collected from its plant.

After the company restarts production next month it will be able to produce more formula than before the recall, he noted.

“We’re going to learn from this. We’re going to get better as a result of this,” Calamari said.

Executives from Reckitt and Gerber also testified on their efforts to boost production.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

HINDUTVA IS NOT HINDUISM

Dispute over mosque becomes religious flashpoint in India

By SHEIKH SAALIQ and KRUTIKA PATHI

An Aerial view shows Gyanvapi mosque, left, and Kashiviswanath temple on the banks of the river Ganges in Varanasi, India, Dec. 12, 2021. A group of Hindus petitioned a local court seeking access to pray inside the mosque compound, saying they believe the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, one of Hinduism’s holiest cities, was built on top of the ruins of a medieval-era temple and that the complex still houses Hindu idols and motifs, a claim that has been contested by the mosque authorities. 

(AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

NEW DELHI (AP) — For nearly three centuries, Muslims and Hindus in India’s northern Varanasi city have prayed to their gods in a mosque and a temple that are separated by one wall. Many see it as an example of religious coexistence in a country where bouts of deadly communal violence are common.

That coexistence is now under threat due to a controversial court case.

A local court earlier this month began hearing a petition filed by a group of Hindus that seeks access to pray inside the Gyanvapi mosque compound, arguing it was built on top of the ruins of a medieval-era temple that was razed by a Mughal emperor. The petitioners say the complex still houses Hindu idols and motifs, a claim that has been contested by the mosque’s authorities.

The legal battle is the latest instance of a growing phenomenon in which Hindu groups petition courts demanding land they claim belongs to Hindus. Critics say such cases spark fears over the status of religious places for India’s Muslims, a minority community that has come under attack in recent years by Hindu nationalists who seek to turn officially secular India into an avowedly Hindu nation.

“The idea to bombard the courts with so many petitions is to keep the Muslims in check and the communal pot simmering,” said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a political analyst and commentator. “It is a way to tell Muslims that their public display of faith in India is no more accepted and that the alleged humiliation heaped on them by Muslim rulers of the medieval past should be redressed now.”

The court case involving the 17th century Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, one of Hinduism’s holiest cities, in many ways embodies India’s contemporary religious strife. The widely accepted consensus among historians is that it was built on top of a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva after it was demolished by the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb.

The two communities have in the past stuck to their claims but also made sure the dispute didn’t worsen. That changed last week when a local court in Varanasi ordered the mosque to be surveyed after five Hindu women filed a petition seeking permission to offer prayers there.

A video survey found a stone shaft alleged to be a symbol of Shiva inside a reservoir in the mosque used by Muslim devotees for ablution before offering prayers, according to Hari Shankar Jain, a lawyer representing the Hindu women.

“The land on which the mosque is built belongs to Hindus and should be returned to us,” Jain said.

Mosque representatives have refuted the claims. Rais Ahmad Ansari, a lawyer for the mosque’s committee, said the alleged stone shaft found in the reservoir was the base of a fountain.

The discovery of the alleged Hindu symbol led the local court in Varanasi to seal the premises, banning large Muslim gatherings inside. India’s Supreme Court later overturned that judgment and allowed Muslims to pray in the mosque. But it also ordered local authorities to seal off and protect the area where the stone shaft was found, dispossessing Muslims of a portion of the mosque they had used until this month.

The dispute over the mosque and survey has now been taken up by a higher court in Varanasi, with hearings set to continue Thursday.

Lawyers representing the Muslim side have questioned the legal basis for the survey, arguing that it was against the law and a precedent most recently upheld by the Supreme Court in 2019.

India’s Hindu nationalists have long claimed that thousands of medieval-era mosques are built on the sites of prominent temples that were demolished by Mughal rulers. Many historians have said the numbers are exaggerated, arguing that a few dozen temples were indeed razed but largely for political reasons and not religious.

In the late 1980s, Hindu nationalist groups started campaigns to reclaim these mosques. One such campaign culminated in 1992 with the destruction of the 16th century Babri mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya by Hindu mobs.

Hindus believe the site of the mosque was the exact birthplace of their god Ram. Its demolition sparked massive communal violence across India that left more than 2,000 people dead — mostly Muslims — and catapulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party to national prominence.

A grand Hindu temple is now being constructed on the site after India’s Supreme Court handed over the disputed land to Hindus in a controversial 2019 judgement. However, the court assured Muslims that the order would not be used as a precedent or pave the way for more such contentious cases.

The court in its judgment cited the 1991 Places of Worship Act, which forbids the conversion of a place of worship and stipulates that its religious character should be maintained as “it existed” on August 15, 1947, the day India won its independence from British colonialists.

Lawyers representing the Muslim side say the Gyanvapi mosque court case goes against that very judicial commitment.

“The act was seen as sacrosanct, that it was there to not reopen old controversies. But allowing a survey is doing exactly that — you are scraping at old wounds. This is what it was meant to prohibit,” said Nizam Pasha, a lawyer representing the mosque’s committee.

The Gyanvapi mosque case also fits into a narrative of Modi’s party, which has long campaigned to reclaim what it calls India’s lost Hindu past. Many party leaders have openly suggested they would take such legal battles head on.

Critics say the party does so by providing support to Hindu nationalist groups that often contest such cases in court. Modi’s party has denied this, saying it cannot stop people from going to the courts.

Pasha, the lawyer, said the filing of such court cases was a “very carefully thought out pattern” meant to bolster Hindu nationalists.

He said the cases are brought by ordinary Hindu citizens as plaintiffs who say they are devotees of a deity asking for the right to pray at disputed sites. Once the matter goes to court, the Hindu plaintiffs then push for searches of the sites and present evidence that is used to build a media narrative and galvanize the public, he said.

“It is very difficult to convince a public then, already influenced by the media, that this is not true, that this is a fountain,” Pasha said of the Gyanvapi mosque case.

Meanwhile, Hindu nationalists have begun eyeing more such mosques.

Last week, a local court accepted a petition to hear a case on the site of another mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura city, located next to a temple, that some Hindus claim is built on the birthplace of the Hindu god Krishna. Similarly, another court in New Delhi heard arguments this week on restoring a temple that Hindu petitioners say existed under a mosque built at the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Qutub Minar. The court said it will deliver a verdict next month.

Many other cases are expected to take years to resolve, but critics say they will help Modi’s party as it prepares for elections in 2024.

“These cases help Hindu nationalists with a groundswell of support for their divisive politics. And that’s what they need,” said Mukhopadhyay, the political analyst.

Associated Press writer Biswajeet Banerjee reported from Lucknow.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

CONSERVATIVE CULTURE WAR MEME'S

‘Horrifying’ conspiracy theories swirl around Texas shooting

By DAVID KLEPPER and ALI SWENSON

May 26, 2022

Crime scene tape surrounds Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Wednesday, May 25, 2022. Desperation turned to heart-wrenching sorrow for families of grade schoolers killed after an 18-year-old gunman barricaded himself in their Texas classroom and began shooting, killing at least 19 fourth-graders and their two teachers. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)


PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — By now it’s as predictable as the calls for thoughts and prayers: A mass shooting leaves many dead, and wild conspiracy theories and misinformation about the carnage soon follow.

It happened after Sandy Hook, after Parkland, after the Orlando nightclub shooting and after the deadly rampage earlier this month at a Buffalo grocery store. Within hours of Tuesday’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, another rash began as internet users spread baseless claims about the man named as the gunman and his possible motives.

Unfounded claims that the gunman was an immigrant living in the U.S. illegally, or transgender, quickly emerged on Twitter, Reddit and other social media platforms. They were accompanied by familiar conspiracy theories suggesting the entire shooting was somehow staged.

The claims reflect broader problems with racism and intolerance toward transgender people, and are an effort to blame the shooting on minority groups who already endure higher rates of online harassment and hate crimes, according to disinformation expert Jaime Longoria.

“It’s a tactic that serves two purposes: It avoids real conversations about the issue (of gun violence), and it gives people who don’t want to face reality a patsy, it gives them someone to blame,” said Longoria, director of research at the Disinfo Defense League, a non-profit that works to fight racist misinformation.

In the hours after the shooting, posts falsely claiming the gunman was living in the country illegally went viral, with some users adding embellishments, including that he was “on the run from Border Patrol.”

“He was an illegal alien wanted for murder from El Salvador,” read one tweet liked and retweeted hundreds of times. “This is blood on Biden’s hands and should have never happened.”

The man who authorities say carried out the shooting, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, is a U.S. citizen, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a news conference on Tuesday.

Other social media users seized on images of innocent internet users to falsely identify them as the gunman and claim he was transgender. On the online message board 4Chan, users liberally shared the photos and discussed a plan to label the gunman as transgender, without any evidence to back it up.

One post on Twitter, which has since been deleted, featured a photo of a trans woman holding a green bottle to her mouth, looking into the camera, headphones hanging from one ear.

“BREAKING NEWS: THE IDENTITY OF THE SHOOTER HAS BEEN REVEALED,” claimed the user, saying the shooter was a “FEMBOY” with a channel on YouTube.

None of that was true. The photo actually depicted a 22-year-old trans woman named Sabrina who lives in New York City. Sabrina, who requested her last name not be published due to privacy concerns, confirmed to The Associated Press that the photo was hers and also said she was not affiliated with the purported YouTube account.

Sabrina said she received harassing responses on social media, particularly messages claiming that she was the shooter. She responded to a number of posts spreading the image with the misidentification, asking for the posts to be deleted.

“This whole ordeal is just horrifying,” Sabrina told the AP.

Another photo that circulated widely showed a transgender woman with a Coca-Cola sweatshirt and a black skirt. A second photo showed the same woman wearing a black NASA shirt with a red skirt. These photos didn’t show the gunman either — they were of a Reddit user named Sam, who confirmed her identity to the AP on Wednesday. The AP is not using Sam’s last name to protect her privacy.

“It’s not me, I don’t even live in Texas,” Sam wrote in a Reddit post.

Authorities have released no information on the gunman’s sexuality or gender identification.

Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar fit both unfounded claims about Ramos in a single now-deleted tweet that also misspelled his name. “It’s a transsexual leftist illegal alien named Salvatore Ramos,” Gosar tweeted Tuesday night.

Gosar’s office did not return a message seeking comment.

In some cases, misinformation about mass shootings or other events are spread by well-intentioned social media users trying to be helpful. In other cases, it can be the work of grifters looking to start fake fundraisers or draw attention to their website or organization.

Then there are the trolls who seemingly do it for fun.

Fringe online communities, including on 4chan, often use mass shootings and other tragedies as opportunities to sow chaos, troll the public and push harmful narratives, according to Ben Decker, founder and CEO of the digital investigations consultancy Memetica.

“It is very intentional and deliberate for them in celebrating these types of incidents to also influence what the mainstream conversations actually are,” Decker said. “There’s a nihilistic desire to prove oneself in these types of communities by successfully trolling the public. So if you are able to spearhead a campaign that leads to an outcome like this, you’re gaining increased sort of in-group credibility.”

For the communities bearing the brunt of such vicious online attacks, though, the false blame stirs fears of further discrimination and violence.

Something as seemingly innocuous as a transphobic comment on social media can spark an act of violence against a transgender person, said Jaden Janak, a PhD candidate at the University of Texas and a junior fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies.

“These children and adults who were murdered yesterday were just living their lives,” Janak said Wednesday. “They didn’t know that yesterday was going to be their last day. And similarly, as trans people, that’s a fear that we have all the time.”

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Swenson reported from Seattle. Associated Press writers Angelo Fichera and Karena Phan contributed to this report.

More on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/school-shootings

War surges Norway’s oil, gas profit. Now, it’s urged to help

By MARK LEWIS

May 28, 2022

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Johan Sverdrup oil field off the North Sea is shown on Oct. 9, 2018. Europe’s frantic search for alternatives to Russian natural gas has dramatically increased the demand — and price — for Norway's oil and gas. As the money pours in, Europe’s second-biggest natural gas supplier is fending off accusations that it’s profiting from the war in Ukraine. 

(Carina Johansen/NTB Scanpix via AP)

STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — Europe’s frantic search for alternatives to Russian energy has dramatically increased the demand — and price — for Norway’s oil and gas.

As the money pours in, Europe’s second-biggest natural gas supplier is fending off accusations that it’s profiting from the war in Ukraine.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who is looking to the Scandinavian country to replace some of the gas Poland used to get from Russia, said Norway’s “gigantic” oil and gas profits are “indirectly preying on the war.” He urged Norway to use that windfall to support the hardest-hit countries, mainly Ukraine.

The comments last week touched a nerve, even as some Norwegians wonder whether they’re doing enough to combat Russia’s war by increasing economic aid to Ukraine and helping neighboring countries end their dependence on Russian energy to power industry, generate electricity and fuel vehicles.

Taxes on the windfall profits of oil and gas companies have been common in Europe to help people cope with soaring energy bills, now exacerbated by the war. Spain and Italy both approved them, while the United Kingdom’s government plans to introduce one. Morawiecki is asking Norway to go further by sending oil and profits to other nations.

Norway, one of Europe’s richest countries, committed 1.09% of its national income to overseas development — one of the highest percentages worldwide — including more than $200 million in aid to Ukraine. With oil and gas coffers bulging, some would like to see even more money earmarked to ease the effects of the war — and not skimmed from the funding for agencies that support people elsewhere.

“Norway has made dramatic cuts into most of the U.N. institutions and support for human rights projects in order to finance the cost of receiving Ukrainian refugees,” said Berit Lindeman, policy director of human rights group the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.

She helped organize a protest Wednesday outside Parliament in Oslo, criticizing government priorities and saying the Polish remarks had “some merits.”

“It looks really ugly when we know the incomes have skyrocketed this year,” Lindeman said.

Oil and gas prices were already high amid an energy crunch and have spiked because of the war. Natural gas is trading at three to four times what it was at the same time last year. International benchmark Brent crude oil burst through $100 a barrel after the invasion three months ago and has rarely dipped below since.

Norwegian energy giant Equinor, which is majority owned by the state, earned four times more in the first quarter compared with the same period last year.

The bounty led the government to revise its forecast of income from petroleum activities to 933 billion Norwegian kroner ($97 billion) this year — more than three times what it earned in 2021. The vast bulk will be funneled into Norway’s massive sovereign wealth fund — the world’s largest — to support the nation when oil runs dry. The government isn’t considering diverting it elsewhere.

Norway has “contributed substantial support to Ukraine since the first week of the war, and we are preparing to do more,” State Secretary Eivind Vad Petersson said by email.

He said the country has sent financial support, weapons and over 2 billion kroner in humanitarian aid “independently of oil and gas prices.”

European countries, meanwhile, have helped inflate Norwegian energy prices by scrambling to diversify their supply away from Russia. They have been accused of helping fund the war by continuing to pay for Russian fossil fuels.

That energy reliance “provides Russia with a tool to intimidate and to use against us, and that has been clearly demonstrated now,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, told the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Russia has halted natural gas to Finland, Poland and Bulgaria for refusing a demand to pay in rubles.

The 27-nation European Union is aiming to reduce reliance on Russian natural gas by two-thirds by year’s end through conservation, renewable development and alternative supplies.

The Ekofisk oil field off the North Sea, Oct. 24, 2019.

Europe is pleading with Norway, along with countries like Qatar and Algeria, for help with the shortfall. Norway delivers 20% to 25% of Europe’s natural gas, vs. Russia’s 40% before the war.

It is important for Norway to “be a stable, long-term provider of oil and gas to the European markets,” Deputy Energy Minister Amund Vik said. But companies are selling on volatile energy markets, and “with the high oil and gas prices seen since last fall, the companies have daily produced near maximum of what their fields can deliver,” he said.

Even so, Oslo has responded to European calls for more gas by providing permits to operators to produce more this year. Tax incentives mean the companies are investing in new offshore projects, with a new pipeline to Poland opening this fall.

“We are doing whatever we can to be a reliable supplier of gas and energy to Europe in difficult times. It was a tight market last fall and is even more pressing now,” said Ola Morten Aanestad, a Equinor spokesman.

The situation is a far cry from June 2020, when prices crashed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and Norway’s previous government issued tax incentives for oil companies to spur investment and protect jobs.

Combined with high energy prices, the incentives that run out at the end of the year have prompted companies in Norway to issue a slew of development plans for new oil and gas projects.

Yet those projects will not produce oil and gas until later this decade or even further in the future, when the political situation may be different and many European countries are hoping to have shifted most of their energy use to renewables.

By then, Norway is likely to face the more familiar criticism — that it is contributing to climate change.

__

AP reporter Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, contributed.

Weather’s unwanted guest: Nasty La Nina keeps popping up

By SETH BORENSTEIN

May 28, 2022

The Manayunk neighborhood in Philadelphia is flooded Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021, in the aftermath of downpours and high winds from the remnants of Hurricane Ida. La Nina, the natural but potent weather event linked to more drought and wildfires in the western United States and more Atlantic hurricanes, is becoming the nation’s unwanted weather guest and meteorologists said the West’s megadrought won’t go away until La Nina does. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Something weird is up with La Nina, the natural but potent weather event linked to more drought and wildfires in the western United States and more Atlantic hurricanes. It’s becoming the nation’s unwanted weather guest and meteorologists said the West’s megadrought won’t go away until La Nina does.

The current double-dip La Nina set a record for strength last month and is forecast to likely be around for a rare but not quite unprecedented third straight winter. And it’s not just this one. Scientists are noticing that in the past 25 years the world seems to be getting more La Ninas than it used to and that is just the opposite of what their best computer model simulations say should be happening with human-caused climate change.

“They (La Ninas) don’t know when to leave,” said Michelle L’Heureux, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast office for La Nina and its more famous flip side, El Nino.

An Associated Press statistical analysis of winter La Ninas show that they used to happen about 28% of the time from 1950 to 1999, but in the past 25 winters, they’ve been brewing nearly half the time. There’s a small chance that this effect could be random, but if the La Nina sticks around this winter, as forecast, that would push the trend over the statistically significant line, which is key in science, said L’Heureux. Her own analysis shows that La Nina-like conditions are occurring more often in the last 40 years. Other new studies are showing similar patterns.

What’s bothering many scientists is that their go-to climate simulation models that tend to get conditions right over the rest of the globe predict more El Ninos, not La Ninas, and that’s causing contention in the climate community about what to believe, according to Columbia University climate scientist Richard Seager and MIT hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel.

What Seager and other scientists said is happening is that the eastern equatorial Atlantic is not warming as fast as the western equatorial Atlantic or even the rest of the world with climate change. And it’s not the amount of warming that matters but the difference between the west and east. The more the difference, the more likely a La Nina, the less the difference, the more likely an El Nino. Scientists speculate it could be related to another natural cycle, called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or it could be caused by human-caused climate change or both.

“At this point we just don’t know,” L’Heureux said. “Scientists are watching and I know, are actively studying. But it’s really important because of regional conditions. We need to get this right.”

La Nina is a natural and cyclical cooling of parts of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather patterns worldwide, as opposed to El Nino’s warming. Often leading to more Atlantic hurricanes, less rain and more wildfires in the West and agricultural losses in the middle of the country, studies have shown La Nina is more expensive to the United States than the El Nino. Together El Nino, La Nina and the neutral condition are called ENSO, which stands for El Nino Southern Oscillation, and they have one of the largest natural effects on climate, at times augmenting and other times dampening the big effects of human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas, scientists said.

“They really have a very, very strong” effect, said research scientist Azhar Ehsan, who heads Columbia University’s El Nino/La Nina forecasting. “So a third consecutive La Nina is not at all a welcome thing.”

He said the dangerous heat in India and Pakistan this month and in April is connected to La Nina.

The current La Nina formed in the late summer of 2020 when the Atlantic set a record for the number of named storms. It strengthened in the winter when the West’s drought worsened and in the early summer of 2021 it weakened enough that NOAA said conditions were neutral. But that pause only lasted a few months and by early fall 2021 La Nina was back, making it a double dip.

Normally second years of La Nina tend to be weaker, but in April this La Nina surprised meteorologists by setting a record for intensity in April, which is based on sea surface temperatures, Ehsan said.

“These are very impressive values for April,” L’Heureux said. Still, because La Ninas historically weaken over summer and there are slight signs that this one may be easing a bit, there’s the small but increasing chance that this La Nina could warm just enough to be considered neutral in late summer.

La Nina has its biggest effect in the winter and that’s when it is a problem for the West because it’s the rainy season that is supposed to recharge areas reservoirs. But the West is in a 22-year megadrought, about the same time period of increasing La Nina frequency.

Three factors — ENSO, climate change and randomness — are biggest when it comes to the drought, which is itself a huge trigger for massive wildfires, said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. Without climate change, La Nina and bad luck could have made the drought the worst in 300 years but with climate change it’s the worst in at least 1,200 years, said UCLA climate hydrologist Park Williams.

La Nina “is a pretty important player; it may be the dominant player,” said Swain, who has a blog on Western weather. “It could be responsible for one-third, maybe one-half of the given conditions if it is pronounced enough.”

“It’s much less likely that the Southwest will see at least even a partial recovery from the megadrought during La Nina,” Swain said.

La Nina “amps up your Atlantic storms” but decreases them in the Pacific, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

It’s all about winds 6 to 7 miles (10 to 12 kilometers) above the water surface. One of the key factors in storm development is whether there is wind shear, which are changes in wind from high to low elevations. Wind shear can decapitate or tip over hurricanes, making them hard to strengthen and at times even stick around. Wind shear can also let dry air into hurricanes that chokes them.

When there’s an El Nino, there’s lots of Atlantic wind shear and it’s hard for hurricanes to get going. But La Nina means little wind shear in the Atlantic, making it easier for storms to intensify and do it quickly, said University of Albany hurricane researcher Kristen Corbosiero.

“That’s a really huge factor,” Corbosiero said.

“Whatever is the cause, the increasing incidence of La Ninas may be behind the increasing hurricanes,” MIT’s Emanuel said.

Some areas like eastern Australia and the arid Sahel region of Africa do better with more rain during La Nina. India and Pakistan, even though they get extra spring heat, also receive more needed rain in La Ninas, Columbia’s Ehsan said.

A 1999 economic study found that drought from La Nina cost the United States agriculture between $2.2 billion to $6.5 billion, which is far more than the $1.5 billion cost of El Nino. A neutral ENSO is best for agriculture.

Columbia’s Seager said even though there may be some chance and some natural cycles behind the changes in La Nina, because there’s likely a climate change factor he thinks there will probably be more of them.

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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

CBD doesn't appear to affect driving, study suggests

By HealthDay News

Researchers from the University of Sydney found that even 1,500 mg, the highest daily medicinal dose of cannabidiol (CBD) tested, did not seem to affect study participants' thinking skills or driving when tested in a simulated driving situation. Photo by Julia Teichmann/Pixabay

Though it is a cannabis component, very high doses of CBD don't appear to affect driving, a small Australian study reports.

Researchers from the University of Sydney found that even 1,500 mg, the highest daily medicinal dose of cannabidiol (CBD) tested, did not seem to affect study participants' thinking skills or driving when tested in a simulated driving situation.

"Though CBD is generally considered 'non-intoxicating,' its effects on safety-sensitive tasks are still being established," said lead author Danielle McCartney, a research associate at the university's Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics.

"Our study is the first to confirm that when consumed on its own, CBD is driver-safe," she said in a university news release.

RELATED CBD tablet seems to relieve pain after shoulder surgery, study finds

CBD does not appear to intoxicate people, researchers said. That's unlike THC, another cannabis component that can induce sedation, a "high" and impairment.

Use of CBD is increasing in Western nations.

Around 55,000 requests to access medicinal CBD have been approved in Australia since 2016, according to a recent study. It is most commonly prescribed for pain, disorders and anxiety.

RELATED Most parents would use CBD to treat a child, survey finds

For the new study, 17 participants did simulated driving tasks after consuming either a placebo or 15 mg, 300 mg or 1,500 mg of CBD in oil. These amounts represent often-used dosages.

Participants were asked to try to maintain a safe distance between themselves and a lead vehicle, and then "drive" along highways and rural roads. They completed the task between 45 and 75 minutes after taking their assigned treatment.

They did it again between 3-1/2 and four hours after dosing, which was meant to cover the range of blood plasma concentrations at different times. They repeated this under each of the four treatments -- a placebo plus three different doses.

RELATED CBD has potential as COVID-19 treatment, but more study needed, experts say

The researchers measured participants' control of the simulated car, how much it weaved or drifted, as well as their thinking function, subjective experiences, and the CBD concentrations in their blood plasma.

The examinations found that no dose of CBD induced feelings of intoxication or appeared to impair either driving or thinking.

"We do, however, caution that this study looked at CBD in isolation only, and that drivers taking CBD with other medications should do so with care," McCartney said.

The findings were published Monday in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. A similar look at CBD and driving was published last year.

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more on CBD.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

ABOLISH THE MONARCHY
In Commonwealth, queen’s jubilee draws protests and apathy

By JILL LAWLESS

yesterday

1 of 13

A man waves a British union flag and a flag bearing the image of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II ahead of the annual Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey in London, Monday, March 9, 2020. After seven decades on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II is widely viewed in the U.K. as a rock in turbulent times. But in Britain’s former colonies, many see her as an anchor to an imperial past whose damage still lingers. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)

LONDON (AP) — After seven decades on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II is widely viewed in the U.K. as a rock in turbulent times. But in Britain’s former colonies, many see her as an anchor to an imperial past whose damage still lingers.

So while the U.K. is celebrating the queen’s Platinum Jubilee — 70 years on the throne — with pageantry and parties, some in the Commonwealth are using the occasion to push for a formal break with the monarchy and the colonial history it represents.

“When I think about the queen, I think about a sweet old lady,” said Jamaican academic Rosalea Hamilton, who campaigns for her country to become a republic. “It’s not about her. It’s about her family’s wealth, built on the backs of our ancestors. We’re grappling with the legacies of a past that has been very painful.”

Queen Elizabeth II walks past Commonwealth flags in St George's Hall at Windsor Castle, England to mark Commonwealth Day. (Steve Parsons/Pool via AP, File)

The empire that Elizabeth was born into is long gone, but she still reigns far beyond Britain’s shores. She is head of state in 14 other nations, including Canada, Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Bahamas. Until recently it was 15 — Barbados cut ties with the monarchy in November, and several other Caribbean countries, including Jamaica, say they plan to follow suit.

Britain’s jubilee celebrations, which climax over a four-day holiday weekend starting Thursday, aim to recognize the diversity of the U.K. and the Commonwealth. A huge jubilee pageant through central London on Sunday will feature Caribbean Carnival performers and Bollywood dancers.



But Britain’s image of itself as a welcoming and diverse society has been battered by the revelation that hundreds, and maybe thousands, of people from the Caribbean who had lived legally in the U.K. for decades were denied housing, jobs or medical treatment — and in some cases deported — because they didn’t have the paperwork to prove their status.

The British government has apologized and agreed to pay compensation, but the Windrush scandal has caused deep anger, both in the U.K. and in the Caribbean.

A jubilee-year trip to Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas in March by the queen’s grandson Prince William and his wife Kate, which was intended to strengthen ties, appears to have had the opposite effect. Images of the couple shaking hands with children through a chain-link fence and riding in an open-topped Land Rover in a military parade stirred echoes of colonialism for many.

Britain's Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge attend the Commonwealth Service on Commonwealth Day at Westminster Abbey in London. (Daniel Leal/Pool via AP, File)

Cynthia Barrow-Giles, professor of political science at the University of the West Indies, said the British “seem to be very blind to the visceral sort of reactions” that royal visits elicit in the Caribbean.

Protesters in Jamaica demanded Britain pay reparations for slavery, and Prime Minister Andrew Holness politely told William that the country was “moving on,” a signal that it planned to become a republic. The next month, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told the queen’s son Prince Edward that his country, too, would one day remove the queen as head of state.

William acknowledged the strength of feeling and said the future “is for the people to decide upon.”

“We support with pride and respect your decisions about your future,” he said in the Bahamas. “Relationships evolve. Friendship endures.”

When then Princess Elizabeth became queen on the death of her father King George VI 1952, she was in Kenya. The East African country became independent in 1963 after years of violent struggle between a liberation movement and colonial troops. In 2013, the British government apologized for the torture of thousands of Kenyans during the 1950s “Mau Mau” uprising and paid millions in an out-of-court settlement.

Memories of the empire are still raw for many Kenyans.

“From the start, her reign would be indelibly stained by the brutality of the empire she presided over and that accompanied its demise,” said Patrick Gathara, a Kenyan cartoonist, writer and commentator.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II arrives for a church service at St. John's Cathedral, Antigua, Feb. 20, 1966. (AP Photo, File)

“To this day, she has never publicly admitted, let alone apologized, for the oppression, torture, dehumanization and dispossession visited upon people in the colony of Kenya before and after she acceded to the throne.”

U.K. officials hope countries that become republics will remain in the Commonwealth, the 54-nation organization made up largely of former British colonies, which has the queen as its ceremonial head.

The queen’s strong personal commitment to the Commonwealth has played a big role in uniting a diverse group whose members range from vast India to tiny Tuvalu. But the organization, which aims to champion democracy, good governance and human rights, faces an uncertain future.

As Commonwealth heads of government prepare to meet in Kigali, Rwanda, this month for a summit delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, some question whether the organization can continue once the queen’s eldest son, Prince Charles, succeeds her.

“Many of the more uncomfortable histories of the British Empire and the British Commonwealth are sort of waiting in the wings for as soon as Elizabeth II is gone,” royal historian Ed Owens said. “So it’s a difficult legacy that she is handing over to the next generation.”

The crisis in the Commonwealth reflects Britain’s declining global clout.

Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth under its authoritarian late President Robert Mugabe, and is currently seeking readmission. But many in its capital of Harare have expressed indifference to the queen’s jubilee, as Britain’s once-strong influence wanes and countries such as China and Russia enjoy closer relations with the former British colony.

“She is becoming irrelevant here,” social activist Peter Nyapedwa said. “We know about (Chinese President) Xi (Jinping) or (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, not the queen.”

Sue Onslow, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, said the queen has been the “invisible glue” holding the Commonwealth together.

But she says the organization has proven remarkably resilient and and shouldn’t be written off. The Commonwealth played a major role in galvanizing opposition to apartheid in the 1980s, and could do the same over climate change, which poses an existential threat to its low-lying island members.

“The Commonwealth has shown a remarkable ability to reinvent itself and contrive solutions at times of crisis, almost as if it’s jumping into a telephone box and coming out under different guise,” she said. “Whether it will do it now is an open question.”

Q&A: Cronenberg on bodies, death and the future of movies

By JAKE COYLE

1 of 10

David Cronenberg poses for portrait photographs for the film 'Crimes of the Future', at the 75th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 25, 2022. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)


CANNES, France (AP) — David Cronenberg is sitting on a balcony when a squawking seagull flies overhead.

“Full of plastic, that bird,” Cronenberg says, smiling.

The 79-year-old Canadian auteur has long been fascinated by what’s in our bodies and what we put in them. His latest film, “Crimes of the Future,” which opens in theaters Friday, stems partly from his interest in the ubiquity of microplastics.

Cronenberg, who sat for a recent interview at the Cannes Film Festival where “Crimes of the Future” was premiering, first wrote the film’s script in 1998. Sensing it had grown only more relevant, Cronenberg unearthed it for his first film in eight years, and, he says, didn’t change a word.

It revolves around the performance artist couple of Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and Caprice (Léa Seydoux). In a near-future where plastics have changed human biology, they artfully remove tumorous organs from Tenser in surgical performances. It co-stars Kristen Stewart as a bureaucrat turned super-fan after witnessing a performance.

Art as an organ cut out and displayed is a fitting metaphor for Cronenberg, whose early films (“Videodrome,” “The Fly”) made him a master of body horror. The director is simultaneously auctioning an NFT of his recently passed kidney stones. Mortensen, who’s starred in Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence,” “Eastern Promises” and “A Dangerous Method,” calls “Crimes of the Future” Cronenberg’s most autobiographical film.

“Each time when I watch one of his movies,” Mortensen says, “I see more.”

For Cronenberg, the layers of “Crimes of the Future” were a way to probe both the nature of being an artist and the way our increasingly unnatural environment is transforming our bodies — not to mention seagulls. It’s an evolution that doesn’t frighten but excites Cronenberg. He marvels at how scientists are already working on whether plastics might be made edible — and maybe even taste good.

“That’s actually happening,” he says. “It’s not sci-fi anymore.”  

Viggo Mortensen, from left, Lea Seydoux, director David Cronenberg, and Kristen Stewart pose for photographers at the photo call for the film 'Crimes of the Future' at the 75th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Tuesday, May 24, 2022. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

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AP: As you’ve aged, has your relationship to your body changed?

CRONENBERG: Oh, of course. Usually dismay, but it’s not so bad. It’s very interesting. It’s a part of life that you’ve anticipated and read about and blah, blah, now you’re experiencing. It hasn’t been as bad as one as it could be, let’s put it that way. I’m 79. I don’t feel that age at all.

AP: Do you take care of yourself?

CRONENBERG: I’ve been lifting weights since I was 16. Not to be a bodybuilder, but just to stay in shape. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. Not out of any political or sociological agenda. I just have never been attracted to those things. Maybe that helps.

AP: So you think about what you put in your body?

CRONENBERG: Not obsessively.

AP: Much of your work is about the connection or disconnection between one’s body and the world around it. In the years you’ve been making films, technology has increasingly entered our bodies, even if it’s not a videocassette in our torso.

CRONENBERG: Well, I just had cataract surgery. Now, that’s amazing. Basically, they’re destroying the lenses in your eyes, sucking them out and then putting in plastic lenses that unfold and become your eyes. I’ve been looking through my lenses for my whole career as a moviemaker. And now the reason I’m wearing sunglasses is because I get more light in my eyes because of the cataracts being gone. Everything’s brighter. The colors are different, quite different. I joked with my director of photography that we’ll have to recolor the whole movie now that I have different lenses in my eyes. That’s pretty intimate. Technology in your eyeballs. I’ve got hearing aids. I’m totally bionic. Years ago this would be all be problematic. My career would have ended a lot sooner because if you can’t hear and you can’t see, it’s hard to make movies, you know?

AP: Do you imagine what we can do to our bodies, and what will be judged acceptable, will only increase in time?

CRONENBERG: Absolutely. We’re now realizing that just drinking water from a plastic bottle is depositing microplastics into our bloodstream. Even before that, it was posited that maybe 80% of the human population has microplastics in their flesh. So our bodies are different than human bodies have ever been before in history. This is not going away.

Pawel Pawlikowski, left, Malgorzata Bela, Peter Sarsgaard, David Cronenberg, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Isabelle Huppert pose for photographers upon arrival at the 75th anniversary celebration of the Cannes film festival and the premiere of the film 'The Innocent' at the 75th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Tuesday, May 24, 2022. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

AP: Do you foresee battles over things like computers implanted in our brains?

CRONENBERG: There’s a Nobel Prize winner named Gerald Edelman who said the brain is not at all like a computer. It’s much more like a rainforest because there’s a struggle for dominance in your brain with your neurons that’s constantly changing. The thing that people are afraid of with mRNA because it’s a new thing and they say Bill Gates is inserting microchips in our body, it’s fantastic! It’s such a breakthrough. CRISPR is fantastic. Now, can it be used for evil? Well, yeah, like the atomic bomb. But beautiful things absolutely are possible from that.

AP: In presenting “Crimes of the Future,” do you feel like you’re putting an organ out for display?

CRONENBERG: (Laughs) I’m presenting my kidney stones to the audience. I’m saying “This came from inside my body.” How more intimate could it possibly be? Yeah, I mean, that’s the metaphor. That’s the surgical organ metaphor in the movie, an artist putting out their inner-most intimate thoughts and feelings and visions and whatever else. Definitely you are vulnerable. You are incredibly vulnerable.

AP: This is your first film in eight years. How do you feel about how the movie landscape has changed?

CRONENBERG: One of the things that brought me back to moviemaking was Netflix and the idea of streaming and a streaming series. I tried to make one. I thought, well, this is not really movie making, but it’s still cinema. It’s a different kind of cinema, seriously different. I thought, well, this is a whole different ballgame, and yet it’s still cinema. I mean, my idea of cinema. I think theaters are dead. I think they’ll be a niche thing for superhero movies. I haven’t gone to the cinema for decades. You know, I just prefer to watch it at home. And the TV sets have gotten so good, the sound systems have gotten so good that I defy those who say that you can’t have a true cinematic experience at home. I completely don’t agree.

AP: “Crimes of the Future” hinges in part on how far Saul Tenser is willing to go for his art. Are you thinking much about death?

CRONENBERG: I’ve always thought about death. I don’t think you can be a human being without thinking about death. Ever since I was a kid and I had a pet die, you think, what just happened? Where’s that cat? You realize that not only are you going to die, but your parents are going to die. I can still remember the moment when I had that discussion with my parents. So it’s always a question. At my age, I wouldn’t say it’s more of a question, except that you have many friends who are now dying, who are exactly your age. Every time I look in the newspapers there’s a guy that I knew — William Hurt, for example, or Ivan Reitman — and they’re younger than I am. There’s not much you can do with it other than to acknowledge that, yes, you will die. Beyond that, what can you say? I always thought in novels where it would say for a living author “Born 1943—.” It’s like the dash is waiting for you. It’s waiting for you so that it could be filled in. And I’m saying, “(Expletive) you, I’m not going to die. I’m not going to tell you when I’m going to die.”

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

Many young sarcoma patients continue using opioids after treatment
By HealthDay News

After their cancer treatment was done, about 14% of patients overall and 23% of those who used opioids during treatment continued to use opioids. Photo courtesy of West Virginia Attorney General's Office/Twitter

When a teen or young adult has sarcoma, a type of cancer in the bones or soft tissues, a doctor will often prescribe opioids for the pain.

A new study found that nearly a quarter of those young people continue to take opioids after their treatment is done.

"These results highlight the need to monitor young patients with sarcoma for post-treatment opioid use, given the potential negative impacts of long-term opioid use, including misuse and overdose," said study lead author Melissa Beauchemin, an assistant professor at Columbia University School of Nursing in New York City.

"Age- and developmentally appropriate strategies to effectively manage pain while minimizing opioid exposure are urgently needed," she said.

Beauchemin noted that teens and young adults are a vulnerable population because they have benefitted less than younger and older cancer patients from recent advances.

For the new study, the researchers used a large insurance claims database to analyze information on patients aged 10 to 26 years old who had not received prior opioids and who were diagnosed with sarcoma between 2008 and 2016.

Among the 938 patients in the analysis, 64% received opioid prescriptions during treatment.

After their cancer treatment was done, about 14% of patients overall and 23% of those who used opioids during treatment continued to use opioids. They met the criteria for new persistent use, which was defined as at least two opioid prescriptions in the 12 months after treatment ended.

The findings were published online recently in Cancer, a journal of the American Cancer Society.

Factors associated with persistent opioid use included being covered by Medicaid versus commercial insurance having bone tumors versus soft tissue tumors and taking lorazepam, a medication often used to treat anxiety and sleeping problems.

Patients who have sarcoma often develop damaged and fractured bones. They typically undergo major surgeries.

Beauchemin said doctors should prioritize safe and early discontinuation of opioids for those young patients who require them for pain management.

"Further, there is a critical need for clinical practice guidelines to support clinical decision making to safely and effectively manage pain specifically for adolescents and young adults with cancer," she said in a journal news release.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more on opioids.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.