[Rhodes22-list] Politics and Science a reply to Mike W

[Tootle]

Mike:

Now that you have some good experience under your belt, how about running
for public office?

When you asked the question, tongue in cheek, "To save 10% across the board,
we could reduce 
oxygen usage by 10% when treating patients requiring O2 therapy, placing 
patients on 90% instead of 100% oxygen."  Unfortunately you are now critical
of a valid question.  A pulmonary doctor should be asked what is the optimum
% for this patient.  Only a penny?  If it beyond what is necessary to
achieve results, why be wasting resources?  

Therefore, I disagree with your point of view, it was a valid question in
all instances.  Just as often the minimal maintenance level of 2L is not
adequate for a particular patient.  It resides in area of education,
experience and good judgement.

Maybe the best dose of O2 is received in a cockpit of a sailboat in a
breeze?

Ed K
Greenville, SC, USA
"Modern research ... Ah, the sound of a million monkeys typing (on their
PCs?) ..."  Michael D. Weisner 






R22MikeW wrote:
> 
> Ron,
> 
> Unfortunately, research funding cuts continue to be made by folks who
> really 
> have no idea what they are doing.  In the mid 80s I entered industry as a 
> result of a similar instability in medical research and high energy
> physics 
> funding cuts (can you say Reagan and Brookhaven?)  Most of us scattered 
> fairly quickly as the paycuts (10% at first) and layoffs began to threaten 
> the security of our growing families.  Every postdoc was approached by 
> industry and most of us found new "homes" within months.
> 
> The attitude of the bean counters seem to be that research funding is a 
> luxury.  It can therefore be cut without great loss.  One administrator
> who 
> had to cut 10% out of his budget at the last minute, thought hard and long 
> when I offered, jokingly, "To save 10% across the board, we could reduce 
> oxygen usage by 10% when treating patients requiring O2 therapy, placing 
> patients on 90% instead of 100% oxygen."  He was so intrigued with the
> idea 
> that he asked for a full justification why some patients had been on 100% 
> oxygen in the first place.  Peter principle at work ...
> 
> I hope your funding is restored - call Obama and ask him why IL was not 
> represented properly.
> 
> Modern research ... Ah, the sound of a million monkeys typing (on their 
> PCs?) ...
> 
> Mike
> s/v Shanghaid'd Summer ('81)
>        Nissequogue River, NY
> 
> 
> From: "Ronald Lipton" <rlipton at earthlink.net> Saturday, January 12, 2008 
> 12:17 AM
>> 2008 was supposed to be a good year for science in the US.  A study
>> by the National Academies had made a strong argument that basic
>> research is vital to the economic health of the US.  That resulted in a
>> bipartisan agreement to increase funding for the physical sciences.
>> Budgets were increased for the NSF and DOE Office of Science in
>> the appropriations bills passed by the House and Senate.  Last summer
>> these bills were vetoed by the president as "budget busters".  The
>> government
>> operated on a continuing resolution until the end of last year when
>> the Omnibus bill was passed.
>>
>> This bill reduced overall funding for Science by $1 billion below the
>> level agreed last summer.  The cuts in Particle Physics and at
>> Fermilab, where I work were particularly devastating.  All funding
>> for a new experiment to measure the properties of neutrinos was
>> cut.  R&D funds for the next generation particle accelerator, the ILC,
>> which was intended to regain leadership in the field in the next decade
>> from
>> a new machine in Europe scheduled to start up next year, were cut to 1/4
>> the level expected.  Since the budget was passed 1/4 of the way through
>> the year all of this money has been already been spent.
>>
>> As a result all work on the projects which would have been the future of
>> the
>> field in the US have to stop.  At Fermilab 170 people were working on
>> these projects and will be reassigned and 200 layoffs are planned.  At
>> Stanford Linear Accelerator Center 125 people will be laid off.  The
>> Fermilab
>> budget was $52M below the budget initially passed by Congress. Those of
>> us who survive will be asked to take 2-3 days/month of unpaid furlough.
>>
>> The cuts were a result of a last minute flurry of adjustments to bring
>> the
>> budget below the limit set by President Bush for veto.  Fermilab was
>> hit particularly hard because Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the
>> house,
>> had resigned a month earlier and none of the Illinois delegation was
>> watching the store.  The cuts were not the result of any plan as far as
>> I can tell, just a random cut in the final weekend of preparation of the
>> Omnibus bill. US commitment to ITER, a demonstration fusion reactor
>> to be built in France was also cut to zero in spite of international
>> funding
>> agreements that took decades to negotiate.
>>
>> This is the sort of thing that can't easily be recovered from.  The
>> accelerator
>> group at Stanford, the best in the world, will be fragmented.  People
>> will be
>> laid off and leave the field.  Bright students will go elsewhere.  The
>> international
>> community will get yet more evidence that the US is not a reliable 
>> partner.
>>
>> I had been working on detectors for the ILC.  We had a program
>> that led the field in the development of advanced silicon detectors and
>> electronics. Because we do R&D much of our work with US companies funds
>> beyond state-of-the art work too risky for immediate commercial
>> applications but which
>> lay the technical base for the future.  We we strongly involved in 3D
>> electronics,
>> where ~10 micron thick layers of circuit are stacked vertially,
>> increasing the
>> density of electronics without decreasing the transistor size.
>> We may be able to continue, but certainly at
>> a reduced level. Our group of IC design engineers, one of the best such
>> groups
>> in the world, will likely fragment, and much of the R&D will be delayed
>> or
>> narrowed.
>>
>> This was not due to on party or another, but our government has become
>> increasingly
>> dysfunctional.   As by far the richest country in the world we could
>> afford to be inefficient,
>> but we have real challenges now.  Killing the future of a field of
>> science that, aside
>> from enormous scientific and intellectual contributions, has generated
>> technologies such
>> as medical imaging, fast electronic logic, practical superconducting
>> magnets for MRI,
>> and the world wide web protocols, essentially by accident, is one
>> example of that
>> dysfunction that hits close to (my) home.
>>
>>
>>
>> Ron
>> __________________________________________________
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>>
>> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 

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