We suffer as grass in fighting cancer

In the scheme of things, cancer

An African proverb says, “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” The meaning from The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs suggests, ‘The weak get hurt in conflicts between the powerful.’ [TODOP]

This was the thought that came up in discussion with my boyfriend on the shocking and sudden death of his uncle from cancer. I reflected once again on how battling cancer rarely involves the person as there is hardly any natural means of defeating it.

Rather, we are the battleground on which the cancer is tackled by chemotherapy, radiotherapy, therapeutics, and/or surgery. For we are the hosts for the onslaught that is raised against cancer, with the caveat that we might or not have the physiological capacity to tolerate the treatment.

Tolerance in intolerance

When I had 7 sessions of chemotherapy, each session progressively attacked cancer and left me weaker with a totally compromised immune system that was already immunodeficient because of HIV and full-blown AIDS that my consultant was beginning to worry about doing something for the cytotoxicity of the treatment.

Meanwhile, one the day of my 7^th session, early that morning I had attended the funeral service of a friend who passed on after 2 sessions of chemotherapy. It had exhausted him totally that friends who attended his PhD viva voce just 13 days before he passed on said, they can hear the strength drain out of him in his voice, he was barely there.

Our mortal frame

I do not subscribe to the idea of battling cancer as something you can overcome by the force of the will or any kind of determination, you can only aim to trust in the medical expertise brought to bear and hope that you can tolerate whatever is thrown at your body and that there is just sufficient in your system to carry you through to the other end where you have just been fortunate to have survived.

For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
[Bible Gateway Psalm 103:14-16 (NKJV)]

Nigeria: Football, Age Determination and Record Keeping

Page to age rage

As the FIFA Under-17 World Cup 2013 plays away in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) we find ourselves being ambivalent about the players my other footballing country of Nigeria has fielded. I support England be reason of birth and the Netherlands having lived there for 12 years. [Wikipedia]

We as fans of a football loving country are always taken by the amazing performance of our players, as somewhere in our minds we wonder whether the players are really as young as they state they are.

In 2008, David Moyes, then Everton manager made this comment about Yakubu Aiyegbeni, “He's only 25, albeit a Nigerian 25, and so if that is his age he's still got a good few years ahead of him.” [BBC News]

Whatever he might have been alluding to, he created the perception probably long held that some Nigerian players might well be many years older than the ages presented in their contractual documents.

Age fraud and overwhelming successes

Age fraud in association football is well documented in Africa and Asia, Nigeria was even suspended and sanctioned for fielding over-aged players in certain FIFA tournaments. [Wikipedia]

Nigeria is the most successful team in the U-17 World Cup tournament having been in six finals, winning three, followed by Brazil in five finals, winning two, but we must come to a stage where we are confident that we are playing on a level field without taking advantage of our opponents.

We must be in the eligible age range and what should show is our football talent and prowess in our taking the laurels. This however is not to take away from the successes of teams past and the pride we have in all their victories.

Some science to the rescue

In 2009, FIFA introduced the mandatory use of Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which apparently has 99% accuracy in determining how old a person is up until the age of 17 after which it is difficult for medical expertise to determine the age that accurately. [BBC Sport]

The MRI system of age determination checks the grade of ossification/fusion in the distal radius [bones at the wrist] where fusion suggests the subject is above the age of 17 and thereby ineligible to compete in the FIFA Under-17 World Cup tournament. [NIH] [BBC Sport]

Courtesy of Wikipedia [Source]

Many African countries first rejected this age determination process, but it is the best science could do for countries that have poor documentation processes that have no proper trust or verification systems to ascertain the provenance or authenticity of birth certificates or declarations. [BBC News]

My scepticism is predicated on whether our kind of physiology is catered for and whether the scanners are calibrated to account to possible racial differences in bone structure, environment, diet and other factors. However, this is the best system we have to rely on now.

A poor record-keeping culture

We do not have proper systems to register life births in hospitals or maternity homes, our municipalities have poor record keeping systems for the registration of births, of marriages and of deaths; beyond which there is no centralised archiving system to maintain such information if acquired.

What we have adopted is a system of swearing affidavits, many of which are taken on self-recognisance given the weight of a notary public and then rubber stamped by the judicial arm of government.

These poor archiving systems permeate all works life; in government, in the private sector and in academia. There was an instance where a PhD holder from a reputable institution in the UK had to present all certificates he had acquired dating back to primary school after a 25-year career, with him approaching 50 to take up an appointment in Nigeria.

I dare say that white Africans are far ahead on the record keeping and documentation front; in another world, they would probably be able to produce enough documentary evidence to lay claim to anything even if acquired fraudulently by their forebears.

The fun in record keeping

I watch programmes on British television like "Who Do You Think You Are?" and I am always impressed with how researchers could trawl through archives going back centuries to piece together genealogies, ancestries and histories. We probably have just the adulterated and sometimes exaggerated or fabled oral histories to go by – we need to pay more heed to record keeping and documentation.

The idea that our sports ambassadors have to be herded like cattle through MRI scan turnstiles to determine the ages of the participants is degrading enough, if not disgraceful, but we brought this ignominious exercise upon ourselves.

We must address this now

The FIFA U-16 World Championship founded in 1985 and then renamed to FIFA U-17 World Cup has been running for 28 years. We should have learnt the lessons by now to ensure any new entrants to the competition have a good paper trail of birth certificates, medical histories, school reports and other supporting documentation not to have to suffer the indignities of an MRI scan.

This must be integral to our health policy, our education policy and other population census documentation and government planning policies. We need to get to a stage where the writing on any document emerging from our countries is worth the paper it is written on and accepted as authentic by any verification or certification organisation anywhere in the world.

2013 Nobel Prize Week

Nobel excitement

The second working week in October is always quite exciting for me; it is the Nobel Prize announcement week.

Today, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three scientists James Rothman and Randy Schekman of the United States and Thomas Sudhof of Germany, “for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells.”

The people and the detail

Professor Göran K. Hansson, the secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine made the announcement at 9:30 GMT impressively and flawlessly in 5 different languages.

After the announcement, Professor Juleen Zierath the chair of the committee explained the rationale behind the award of the prize and science behind it; I could not help but notice her American accent.

The BBC website attempts to break down the science into digestible detail, stating it is discovering how cells precisely transport material, that it is crucial for the way the brain communicates, the release of hormones and parts of the immune system and that a defective vesicle transport system is implicated in diabetes and brain disorders.

Nomination cycle

The process of nomination starts in September of the year before the award is made, in February the nomination process is closed, then consultation, reports and recommendations are made through to the first week in September. The laureate(s) are then chosen the day before the announcement during which time they are contacted and informed of the honour before the public announcement we heard today.

Names of the nominees and all related nomination material are kept secret for 50 years after the award is made.

This means anyone who is interested can now ask for information about other nominees, when the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine of 1963 was awarded to Sir John Carew Eccles (Australia), Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin (UK) and Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley (UK); for their discoveries concerning the ionic mechanisms involved in excitation and inhibition in the peripheral and central portions of the nerve cell membrane. [Wikipedia][Nobel Foundation]

The 2013 Nobel Prize Announcements

You can join the Twitter discussion by following NobelPrize_Org and using the #NobelPrize or #NobelPeacePrize hashtags.

The announcements can be viewed on the Nobel Prize YouTube Channel, each scheduled as shown below:

Announcement of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - Monday 7 October, 11:30 a.m. CET at the earliest

Announcement of the Nobel Prize in Physics - Tuesday 8 October, 11:45 a.m. CET at the earliest

Announcement of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry - Wednesday 9 October, 11:45 a.m. CET at the earliest

Announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature - Thursday 10 October, 1:00 p.m. CET

Announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize - Friday 11 October, 11:00 a.m. CET

Announcement of the Prize in Economic Sciences - Monday 14 October, 1:00 p.m. CET at the earliest

 

Medically happy

All side-effects are good effects

I am most pleased about the physiological reaction to my new medication; it would appear I am quite well adjusted to the drugs. My body responds well to professional medical prescriptions than to self-medicated concoctions.

There was one time when I stayed up late and really had the feeling of being stoned and the at risk of losing my balance, I made my way to the security of a bed and lying down your senses do not have to contend with whether you are standing, falling or somewhere in between.

The vivid dreams can be vivid but no more as terrifying; in fact, they are no different from the dreams I normally have. The sleep is a bit deprived but not something I cannot manage, in fact, I have not called my treatment supervisor since to intimate her on my feelings about the medication, I guess I have been just too cross with her for suggesting sleeping pills as a first resort – I needed to see what pattern was developing before getting back to her.

Changes for the good

The diarrhoea is long gone but I still have the pain patch on, it has been on a quarter of the original dosage for the past two weeks and I have just decided it would eventually fall off for the wearing off of the adhesive component that allows it to adhere to my skin.

I would suppose that would call for some celebration, a meal with some wine – I have been abstemious since August, the taste of some fine wine would not go amiss.

There are other aspects of my health and well-being I need to consider, reducing my intake of sugar, trying some water rather than fruit juice, a bit of exercise and working out on my abdominal muscle firming gym-kit before the moving parts freeze up for lack of use.

The body watch

My weight is racing far ahead of where I have ever wanted it to be, in some cases, it would be considered moving towards the normal weight but I seeming to like the slightly slender look I had from December through March – it does not come free, one either works it out or infirmity forces it on you to your great detriment.

Obsession with looks comes to you at one time or the other hopefully one has the resolve to do something about it before your body runs away from you.

Luc Montagnier takes the Nobel Prize for isolating HIV

It is Nobel week

This week is Nobel Prize week and the first one has already been named for Physiology or Medicine 2008 [1].

In what can only be the recognition of peers and retribution of the gods, one name stuck out in the list of winners, the prize is shared by three persons, but for me, the name I can remember is Luc Montagnier.

What causes AIDS?

Professor Luc Montagnier [2] was a pioneer at the world renowned Pasteur Institute [3] in Paris whose work has been acknowledged and feted in the search for the causative agent of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Just like the arms race between the West and the Soviet Union, there was a virus race between America and France to isolate the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).

As history would have it, there was an acrimonious dispute about who first isolated HIV and the reckoning that now accepts that it was first isolated by the French but the glory was snatched away with a rushed announcement by the Americans under the genius abilities of Dr. Robert C. Gallo [4].

The work of others

Now, this is not to discount [5] the ground-breaking work of Dr. Gallo because Prof. Montagnier discovered the virus and Dr. Gallo showed that the virus caused the disease, he also went on to create a blood test which has a shared patent between the French and the Americans.

Laughing last

But today, for all the work and in recognition of a man who at times looked wronged, was once frustrated and trumped by the ascendancy of publicity over the once respectable endeavour of scientific research for the good of humanity; he takes the prize, just a quarter of it, but the Nobel Prize is the Nobel Prize whatever the share. Some might record this event as controversial and did I forget to mention that Professor Luc Montagnier sharesone half og the prize with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi [6], a lady, with whom he shares the work for which he is honoured.

Congratulations! Professor Montagnier and thank you very much.

Sources

[1] The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008

[2] Luc Montagnier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] Pasteur Institute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Robert Gallo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] The sound and fury of HIV - US News and World Report

Luc Montagnier – From Internet FAQ Archives

Robert C. Gallo – From Internet FAQ Archives

Happy Retirement, Dr. Watson

Gone with the wind of controversy

The humanity in me entreats me to commiserate with the resignation-retirement of Dr James Watson, the DNA pioneer from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which he has headed for about four decades.

Last week, the board of the laboratory suspended the esteemed Nobel laureate from his administrative duties after the furore that erupted from his assertion that blacks were genetically inferior to whites.

I feel sorry for the fact that even if he had scientific proof of this assertion, he chose the wrong forum to publicise such a volatile and seemingly racist view – definitely not a newspaper interview whilst promoting a book – tact properly a recessive gene in this man.

Now, Dr. Watson is given to stirring up controversy, it is however debatable if he is genetically predisposed to rubbing people up the wrong way when he should have advanced his scientific prowess at discovering something else worthy of another Nobel accolade.

For instance, Dr. Watson was 34 when he was cited for the discovery of DNA amongst other esteemed colleagues and a pioneering lady would died, years earlier, 45 years on, one would wonder if he is resting on his laurels, because 4 people have achieved that accolade with Maria Skłodowska-Curie and Linus Pauling winning in two different fields of endeavour.

But, one should not do Dr. Watson down; as an academic, he has lead a very distinguished career, it is a shame that all that might end up being reviewed through the keyhole of an unguarded moment of a candid expression of views.

I wish Dr. Watson a great retirement, his singular work of achievement is helping people seek and attain a greater equality to opportunity and the great things to be enjoyed in this world and for that, we would be ever so grateful enough to forgive the hereditary strains of incipient racism.

Happy Retirement, Dr. Watson.

Doctor Neutralises Africans

The mystique of Nobel accolades

Nobel Prize laureates are considered prime brain-boxes of intelligence and are in the unique situation of having brought great good to humanity. This is sometimes less expressed in the peace and literature prizes but more evident in the sciences.

At 34 in 1962, James Watson jointly shared the prize with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins who were both 12 years older and both died in 2004, quite uncanny.

Their prize, The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962, was “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.” In common parlance, he was involved in discovering the structure of DNA a field of endeavour that has brought significant progress and understanding about the make up of living organisms and their hereditary factors.

Avoid Boring People

45 years on, Dr. Watson was out promoting his new book - Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science and part of that promotional tour included an interview with an English newspaper which is par for the course, and as a Nobel laureate, there are many who would have flocked to hear him wherever he was speaking along with those would want to read about him.

Before I get into the substance of this matter, I remember chatting online years ago and the moment my correspondent learnt I was African I was hit with a diatribe that started with him saying he does not have time for monkeys. Much as I was quite slighted by this turn of conversation, I responded saying that either this monkey was so smart it could interact with humans or he had lost his humanity and was now cavorting with simians.

It makes you wonder where people get all these crazy ideas from, and this not helped when a respected and celebrated Nobel laureate gives oxygen to such views by implying that black people are less intelligent compared to white people.

Of evidence or generalisation

Obviously, there are some events and situations in Africa that would almost allow this esteemed scientist to draw more than inference and be able to give contrived and believable examples to support this claim, to that extent I can share the position that many are “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa”, but I cannot assimilate the extension that portends that in the West “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really.”

He goes on to say that whilst he hopes everyone is equal – “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true - there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level.”

Now, I would not know what testing has taken place to arrive at these conclusions, and it is no surprise that the aversion to gene research is sometimes the fear that certain elements of the research can lead to eugenics, xenophobia, or unacceptable pronouncements, albeit from learned persons.

DNA debunking

Dr. Craig Venter, who is a contemporary authority in gene science and a man I dislike for probably the media portrayal of his seeming arrogance but respect for his grasp of his science and the relevance of his endeavour, debunks this claim with this statement – “Skin colour as a surrogate for race is a social concept not a scientific one, there is no basis in scientific fact or in the human genetic code for the notion that skin colour will be predictive of intelligence.”

Many would breath a sigh of relief to that, though an unhealthy debate has started with the accompanying backlash which the malevolent would dismiss as the onslaught of the political correct rather that the offensiveness of opinions that should never be expressed.

The greater concern here is DNA is so fundamental to understanding the physiology of the human-being, adding social dimensions to purely physiological issues complicates the matters, relating that to race allows for elements of race supremacy to develop and the vicious cycle of man’s inhumanity to man is given impetus by those who should know a lot better.

Backslash backlash

In any case, doors began to close in the face of Dr. Watson, the Science Museum cancelled a talk, the Bristol Festival of Ideas cancelled an appearance stating Dr. Watson’s opinions were unacceptably provocative and now the Board of Trustees of the New York’s Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory where Watson was chief for four decades has suspended him from his administrative responsibilities pending a review of his comments.

It would appear Dr. Watson has now gone to ground, cancelled all engagements in England and returned home, but not before he tried to extricate himself from the quagmire he sank into with all his Nobel-lauded faculties about him.

Mortified and almost remorseful, he contends that the reportage of his words do not reflect his position properly and appreciates why people would have reacted in the ways that they have about his comments.

However, a new area of study is emerging as genetic intelligence which is not in and of itself racism as Dr. Watson does agree that there is no scientific basis for considering Africans inferior and the apology reads further as thus – “To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.”

Well Dr. Watson, before I step up to hug you, I might as well just do some research to see if this is a simple error of judgement or getting away with form has inadvertently deserted you at this hour.

Nobel Syndrome

Roger Highfield in The Telegaph comment section contends that Dr. Watson is suffering from a mental condition called Nobel Syndrome, a tendency for laureates to stray from their knitting to create controversy and worse.

There is however a great risk in suppressing scientific ideas if we attack contrary commentary, but a man of Dr. Watson's stature should understand his position of responsibility and the import of his opinions which may not be subjected to the quality of peer review as “lesser mortals” would suffer, in fact, many might read his words as incontrovertible truth.

Worse still, his actions bring into disrepute and dishonour the good name of one lady whose work was the precursor to his work on discovering DNA, as the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously Rosalind Franklin’s good name and work depends on how the other recipients conduct themselves, she died in 1958 and these activities 49 years on are definitely not what all who were involved in the discovery of DNA would want to be associated with.

References

James Watson: To question genetic intelligence is not racism – The Independent

The elementary DNA of Dr. Watson – Times Online

Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA