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Does prison-based rehabilitation of drug-addicts work?
REUTERS
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HIV witch-hunt STIGMATISING HIV-positive men will not help the Egyptian government contain the spread of the disease. Officials are accused of using the HIV status of some gay men to bolster the case for jailing them under anti-gay laws, and violating human rights by forcing detainees to undergo
Revenge of the syph Syphilis is on the rise in the west, particularly among gay men and drug users. Risky sexual behaviour, influenced by Viagra, illegal drugs and internet dating, is the main cause, according to a review in The Lancet Infectious Diseases (vol 8, p 244). It urges doctors to learn how to spot symptoms.
Milk wheeze “Prosecuting Egyptians for their HIV status will keep them from seeking treatment” HIV tests and intimate bodily examinations. Last week, five men were put on trial, charged with the “habitual practice of debauchery” – a euphemism for homosexual sex. As the trial began, the lead government prosecutor told a lawyer for the defendants that the men, four of whom are HIVpositive, should not be allowed to “roam the streets freely” because the government considers them “a danger to public health”. By linking HIV status to “debauched activities”, the government risks undermining attempts to contain HIV, by discouraging people from getting tested and seeking treatment, says Joseph Amon of Human Rights Watch. Egypt has arrested 12 men under its debauchery laws since October 2007, and four are now serving year-long jail terms. The country’s Ministry of Health and Population declined to comment.
Desert glitch A SIX-million-acre “glitch”. That’s what US Senator Diane Feinstein called a huge swathe of California desert left out of a major US conservation bill. The bill, which was passed to the House of Representatives last week, aims to strengthen the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS). This protects more than 850 parcels of federal land scattered across the American west from urban
“A huge swathe of California desert has been omitted from a major US conservation bill”
DAVID PAUL MORRIS/GETTY
sprawl, and a thumbs-up from Congress would ensure this protection is permanent. The bill has been hailed by politicians and conservation groups as analogous to the creation of the National Park Service in 1916, which manages the US network of national parks and monuments. But some watchdog groups are concerned by the exclusion of a New Hampshire-sized portion of the California Desert Conservation Area, which is covered by NLCS. The reasons are unclear, says Jeffrey Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in Washington DC. “As best we can –Green at the gills– tell, omitting the land would
www.newscientist.com
Babies may not be the only ones allergic to milk proteins in formula. Researchers at the University of Birmingham, UK, have found that workers at a factory in Thailand exposed to powdered baby –Mono Lake, edge of the desert– milk were twice as likely as unexposed colleagues to have wheezing, allow utilities to build power breathlessness and a blocked nose, transmission lines and open it up apparently due to allergy. to energy development,” he says. House bill sponsor Mary Bono Seeds of life Mack has a different story: she points out that wind farms, two The theory that life on Earth was military bases and an interstate “seeded” from space has gained a highway already built on the land boost. Three Antarctic meteorites from make it unsuitable for a single the time the solar system formed have protection scheme. Feinstein has concentrations of amino acids – the vowed to include the area in the building blocks of proteins – 10 times Senate’s version of the bill. higher than have been found in similar meteorites, and so could have spiked the organic soup that spawned life (www.arxiv.org/0803.0743). SHOULD prisons try to help inmates kick their drug habit? Space hiccup Perhaps, but there has been no assessment of whether existing Computer glitches are so frustrating. programmes in UK prisons Last week, the operators of NASA’s actually work, according to a Cassini sent the spacecraft on a report released this week by the daredevil plunge through icy geyserUK Drug Policy Commission. like jets on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, It asked the Institute for but a software hiccup left a key Criminal Policy Research at King’s instrument dead. It could have revealed College London to review whether particles in the jets come from published evidence for the the moon’s surface or its interior. effectiveness of community and prison-based provisions for drugGoing, going, gone... using offenders. While there is reasonable evidence that Glaciers are melting faster than at any community sentences have cut time during the past 5000 years, says reoffending rates from 91 per cent a UN report released on 16 March. The to 53 per cent, there has been no average rate of melting between 1980 assessment of whether prisonand 1999 was about 0.3 metres per year, based provisions such as drugand this had nearly doubled by the end free prison wings, have reduced of 2006. Many glaciers may disappear drug use in the UK – even though altogether within decades – bad news investment in them has increased for India and the western US, which from £7 million to £80 million depend on glacial runoff for water. since 1997 in England and Wales.
Wasted money?
22 March 2008 | NewScientist | 7
60 SECONDS
HIV witch-hunt STIGMATISING HIV-positive men will not help the Egyptian government contain the spread of the disease. Officials are accused of using the HIV status of some gay men to bolster the case for jailing them under anti-gay laws, and violating human rights by forcing detainees to undergo
Revenge of the syph Syphilis is on the rise in the west, particularly among gay men and drug users. Risky sexual behaviour, influenced by Viagra, illegal drugs and internet dating, is the main cause, according to a review in The Lancet Infectious Diseases (vol 8, p 244). It urges doctors to learn how to spot symptoms.
Milk wheeze “Prosecuting Egyptians for their HIV status will keep them from seeking treatment” HIV tests and intimate bodily examinations. Last week, five men were put on trial, charged with the “habitual practice of debauchery” – a euphemism for homosexual sex. As the trial began, the lead government prosecutor told a lawyer for the defendants that the men, four of whom are HIVpositive, should not be allowed to “roam the streets freely” because the government considers them “a danger to public health”. By linking HIV status to “debauched activities”, the government risks undermining attempts to contain HIV, by discouraging people from getting tested and seeking treatment, says Joseph Amon of Human Rights Watch. Egypt has arrested 12 men under its debauchery laws since October 2007, and four are now serving year-long jail terms. The country’s Ministry of Health and Population declined to comment.
Desert glitch A SIX-million-acre “glitch”. That’s what US Senator Diane Feinstein called a huge swathe of California desert left out of a major US conservation bill. The bill, which was passed to the House of Representatives last week, aims to strengthen the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS). This protects more than 850 parcels of federal land scattered across the American west from urban
“A huge swathe of California desert has been omitted from a major US conservation bill”
DAVID PAUL MORRIS/GETTY
sprawl, and a thumbs-up from Congress would ensure this protection is permanent. The bill has been hailed by politicians and conservation groups as analogous to the creation of the National Park Service in 1916, which manages the US network of national parks and monuments. But some watchdog groups are concerned by the exclusion of a New Hampshire-sized portion of the California Desert Conservation Area, which is covered by NLCS. The reasons are unclear, says Jeffrey Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in Washington DC. “As best we can –Green at the gills– tell, omitting the land would
www.newscientist.com
Babies may not be the only ones allergic to milk proteins in formula. Researchers at the University of Birmingham, UK, have found that workers at a factory in Thailand exposed to powdered baby –Mono Lake, edge of the desert– milk were twice as likely as unexposed colleagues to have wheezing, allow utilities to build power breathlessness and a blocked nose, transmission lines and open it up apparently due to allergy. to energy development,” he says. House bill sponsor Mary Bono Seeds of life Mack has a different story: she points out that wind farms, two The theory that life on Earth was military bases and an interstate “seeded” from space has gained a highway already built on the land boost. Three Antarctic meteorites from make it unsuitable for a single the time the solar system formed have protection scheme. Feinstein has concentrations of amino acids – the vowed to include the area in the building blocks of proteins – 10 times Senate’s version of the bill. higher than have been found in similar meteorites, and so could have spiked the organic soup that spawned life (www.arxiv.org/0803.0743). SHOULD prisons try to help inmates kick their drug habit? Space hiccup Perhaps, but there has been no assessment of whether existing Computer glitches are so frustrating. programmes in UK prisons Last week, the operators of NASA’s actually work, according to a Cassini sent the spacecraft on a report released this week by the daredevil plunge through icy geyserUK Drug Policy Commission. like jets on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, It asked the Institute for but a software hiccup left a key Criminal Policy Research at King’s instrument dead. It could have revealed College London to review whether particles in the jets come from published evidence for the the moon’s surface or its interior. effectiveness of community and prison-based provisions for drugGoing, going, gone... using offenders. While there is reasonable evidence that Glaciers are melting faster than at any community sentences have cut time during the past 5000 years, says reoffending rates from 91 per cent a UN report released on 16 March. The to 53 per cent, there has been no average rate of melting between 1980 assessment of whether prisonand 1999 was about 0.3 metres per year, based provisions such as drugand this had nearly doubled by the end free prison wings, have reduced of 2006. Many glaciers may disappear drug use in the UK – even though altogether within decades – bad news investment in them has increased for India and the western US, which from £7 million to £80 million depend on glacial runoff for water. since 1997 in England and Wales.
Wasted money?
22 March 2008 | NewScientist | 7