Americans at the gas pump can see it coming: $4/gallon gasoline this spring. Even at $4/gallon, the United States will still have some of the cheapest gasoline in the world. The Oil Drum posted global gasoline prices in June 2007 culled by the AA Motoring Trust. The US ranked 33rd out of 44 countries included.
Toxicologist Deborah Rice studied the neurological effects of flame retardant deca on lab animals. Given she’s an award winning scientist in her field, surely she be a great resource to the EPA while evaluating that chemical — Being a scientist of great repute who isn’t owned by industry.
On the contrary, she was dismissed because of her bias, after industry leaders complained she adulterates the panel set to review the chemical. We can’t have individuals who rely on scientific fact in charge. . . the danger!
In laboratory tests, PBDEs have been found to skew brain development and alter thyroid hormones, slowing the learning and motor skills of newborn animals.(LATimes)
EPA documents show that Rice’s comments while serving on the panel focused on technical, scientific issues. For example, she advised the EPA to consider the cumulative effects of not just deca, but chemicals with similar neurological effects.
No doubt, chemical industry reps were concerned because after Rice’s and others’ testimony in Maine, the state passed laws to limit deca’s use. We get exposed to tens of thousands of chemicals every day, most of which have not been studied as to their long term effects in humans. Kinds of seems like every time in depth study is done on one of these chemicals, it gets banned; that outcome is just not good for business.
Does anyone else notice that when it comes to animal cruelty, people are quick to take a stand, but when people are being massacred — Rwanda or Darfur, anyone? — the crowds can be pretty quiet.
The Independent reported on changes in consumer behavior in the UK after a campaign about the cruelty of care for boiler chickens. As a result, free range chickens have seen sales soar.
Turns out consumers would rather buy no chicken at all than to purchase abused chickens. (This chicken tale is also further proof that consumers will pay a premium for a product that that respects the raw materials.)
On the other hand we have cruelty against human kind. On a local level, I will never forget my freshman year at UPenn. That spring alcohol was banned on campus after the death of an alum at a fraternity’s reunion weekend. Over 1000 students showed up on college green to protest the alcohol ban. In the same time frame a group of students were protesting Penn’s link to sweatshop labor (the high price of Penn branded clothing wass not due to its fair-labor-friendly practices). About a dozen students staged a sit-in to demonstrate against the sweat shop labor, camping out in the president’s office for a week. It just wasn’t right.
Bad news for music execs praying for an industry miracle: 48% of teenagers (up from 38% in 2006) bought ZERO CDs in the past year, according to a NPD Group study.
With CDs facing a steady decline as Gen Y embraces portability, changes will be inevitable. The 12 track CD, with several filler songs, will ultimately go the way of the dinosaur. More and more bands will be signed for 3 or 4 songs, which means the loss of those secret gems that only the true fans know about. The entire label system may die off, given bands are being discovered and promoted online. Web-based tastemakers like Perez Hilton will likely become more common as the distribution funnel is ripped wide open.
It’s like something out of an episode of the Bionic Woman (the classic and good version with Lindsey Sommers). Norway is host to a doomsday seed vault (near the North Pole) with a capacity of 4.5 million seed samples, in order to have a way of rekindling a species, or many, in the event of a global disaster.
Police officers in Duesseldorf Germany are taking care of their canine force of 20. In searching for a solution to high paw injury rate (it seems there’s a lot of broken glass in the street), the department discovered special shoes for sensitive puppy paws.
Ran across a very exciting article in the Guardian this evening.The PR teams for Big Pharma will be working overtime for the next few weeks after the release of a study that shows most major antidepressants are, in fact, no more effective than a placebo, except in the case of the severely depressed. I’ll write it again, the antidepressants reviewed show NO statistically significant improvement over the placebo, unless you’re just about ready to be talked off a ledge.
The analysis is considered significant because of the extensive data set the researchers obtained covering fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Seroxat), venlafaxine (Effexor) and nefazodone (Serzone) .
Big Pharma isn’t going to be happy, given the amount of money made off those drugs. Even taking the introduction of generics into the market, the Pharmaceutical industry would face steep losses if doctors take this study to heart. More than 17 million Americans take antidepressants, and this study would argue that a lot of them don’t need to be on them at all.
Let’s look at some of the statistics, shall we.
In 2004, global sales of antidepressant agents exceeded $15 billion. Japan is currently a relatively unimportant market for antidepressants, constituting about 5% of the global market; Europe (19%) and especially the United States (71%) account for most of the global sales of antidepressants.
Global sales of branded antidepressants exceeded $14 billion in 2004; U.S. sales totaled $9.9 billion. Venlafaxine (Wyeth’s Effexor) and sertraline (Pfizer’s Zoloft) led the global market, each generating sales of $3.3 billion. (ResearchAndMarkets)
Is anyone else disturbed that 71% of anti-depressants are sold in the US?
Again and again, I come back to the business of medicine. And, in the United States, a business is linear. More and more revenue is expected year after year. If research isn’t creating pricier and sexier treatments, where would that financial growth come from?
PS. Props to the researchers who sought publication in an open-access journal, which means everyone, not just academics and physicians, have access to the article!
Highest unemployment rates in the US — never a good thing to be living in one of the top 10 states.
Who lives in lucky number 5? me.
A 2005 study in the UK found that 1 in 3 individuals made a book purchasing decision based on looking smart.
It finds one in every eight young people confessing to choosing a book ‘simply to be seen with the latest shortlisted title’. This herd instinct dwindles to affect only one in 20 over-50 year-olds.
Just over 40% relied on recommendations from friends and family.
In the short term, publishers don’t care why people buy books, just that the titles are moving. But in the long term, what does it say about society that 33% of consumers are just trying to keep up appearances?
PS. For loads of great publishing industry statistics, check out the running list kept by Para Publishing
It’s a glass half-full, glass half empty thing. I love how the media enjoys focusing on dramatic statistics devoid of any context.
Regarding the Amazon Kindle, Steve Jobs commented, “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore.” When considering other tools of entertaining, Jobs’s remarks lose steam quickly.*
Let’s start with the books. A 2007 Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that 25% of Americans didn’t read a single book in the previous year. On the flip side, that means 3 in 4 Americans did.
Forty-one percent reported reading up to five books, 31 percent read between six and 15 books, and 27 percent read more than 15. The [average] number of books read rises to seven when you eliminate those who sad they had not read any books. (Associated Content)
Consider other types of content. . .**
Per the MPAA, in 2006, 26% of survey respondents hadn’t seen any movies in the past year, which means just like books 3 in 4 Americans did hit the theaters. Reads familiar, yes? The average movie goer saw 7.6 movies. So reading is about on par with movie attendance.
Next, the Online Reporter covered an Ipsos study, TEMPO: Keeping Pace with Digital Music Behavior, published last spring, which concluded that “the average number of CDs purchased in the past six months is just fewer than three (2.8)” To keep our math consistent, we’re looking at around 5.6 CD purchases in the past year. People purchase more books than CDs on average. And more people are buying books than are buying CDs. “Half (51%) of US consumers aged 12 and older purchased a physical CD in the past six months,” whereas we say that 75% of Americans bought a book in the past year.
Additionally,
Just over half (51%) of US downloaders aged 12 and up have purchased individual digital tracks.
Arguably, while Gen Y and younger are integrated with technology like fish are with water, Boomers and older will possibly never fully embrace the technological lifestyle that is increasing taken for the norm. 3 in 4 Americans probably won’t be downloading for another 15 to 20 years; I just don’t see my grandma downloading heavily in her lifetime.
Don’t you agree that when compared to other entertainment experiences, books hold their own?
If you stumble across average DVD purchase rates, post them in the comments section; I had trouble finding those through a free resource. But I suspect it’s about 10 DVDs/year.
*Let’s give Jobs some credit and note that he was using a 2004 study that may or may not have had some credibility issues of its own.
**As a disclaimer: I presume the buy rates published for each product is posted as average bought among people buying 1+ of that item; I have not seen the original data sets for these studies. From my experience in market research, we generally took out the non-buyers from the buy rates. It A) buoyed the numbers and gave the client a false sense of security and B) more realistically represented buyers.
Recent Comments