News in perspective

Upfront–

IT IS said you can prove anything

with statistics – even, if you believe

the White House, that climate

change can be tackled without

making economic sacrifices. Last

week US government statisticians

announced that the country’s

carbon dioxide emissions

dropped in 2006, even as the

economy grew. President Bush

took the opportunity to announce

that his “effective” and “science-

based” policy was working well.

Yet Bush’s approach to

combating climate change, which

relies on the development of low-

carbon technologies, had almost

no effect on 2006 emissions. The

bulk of the 1.3 per cent drop

was due to mild weather, which

reduced demand for heating and

air conditioning. High oil prices

also helped cut petrol use. True,

renewable sources are starting to

play a greater role in the US, but

they still generate just 0.8 per

cent of electricity there. It was

market forces and a clement

climate that cut emissions, not

new technology.

This is not the first time the

White House has spun emissions

statistics. In May press secretary

Tony Snow repeated a claim the

administration has made many

times: that the US is doing

better than Europe in cutting

greenhouse gas emissions.

European emissions are up a

few per cent since 2000, says the

White House, while the US has

managed a drop of 1.7 per cent.

A closer look at the numbers

shows that while Snow’s

statement is not untrue, he has

been selective in the data he

quotes. According to an analysis

by the Pacific Institute, an

independent research centre

based in Oakland, California,

European emissions have

dropped 1 per cent since 1990,

and over the same period, US

emissions have risen 15 per cent.

Snow is able to make his claim by

ignoring data from before 2000;

since then the US does indeed

have a very slight edge, although

both sets of emissions are

effectively flat over that period.

IF NOTHING else, this should

worry smokers: the radiation

dose from radium and polonium

found naturally in tobacco can be

a thousand times more than that

from the caesium-137 taken up

by the leaves from the Chernobyl

nuclear accident.

Constantin Papastefanou

from the Aristotle University of

Thessaloniki in Greece measured

radioactivity in tobacco leaves

from across the country and

calculated the average radiation

dose that would be received by

people smoking 30 cigarettes a

day. He found that the dose from

natural radionuclides was 251

microsieverts a year, compared

with 0.199 from Chernobyl fallout

in the leaves (Radiation Protection Dosimetry, vol 123, p 68).

Though the radiation dose

from smoking was only 10 per

cent of the average dose anyone

receives from all natural sources,

Papastefanou argues that it is an

increased risk. “Many scientists

believe that cancer deaths among

smokers are due to the radioactive

content of tobacco leaves and not

to nicotine and tar,” he says.

ALWAYS LETHAL WEAPONS?When is a non-lethal weapon lethal?

When it’s a drug, say UK doctors. In a

report last week, the British Medical

Association concluded that drugs used

to stupefy hostage-takers, for example,

can never be classed as “non-lethal”

because they can all kill at high doses.

The BMA cites the alarming death

toll from the Moscow theatre siege in

2002, when Chechen terrorists held

more than 800 theatre-goers hostage

and threatened to kill them all. To end

the siege, Russian authorities filled the

theatre with the breathable anaesthetic

fentanyl, quickly knocking out the

occupants. However, 130 of the hostages

died from the drug’s effects (New Scientist, 2 November 2002, p 7).

The report urges doctors to oppose

the development of drug-based non-

lethal weapons, denouncing calls from

countries such as the US, China and Czech

Republic to legalise them by rewriting

the Chemical Weapons Convention.

QUICK CHECK-UP AND AN HIV TEST

“Renewable sources generate just 0.8 per cent of electricity in the US”

Next time you visit your family doctor,

don’t be surprised if you’re offered an

HIV test. New guidelines issued by the

World Health Organization on 30 May

have recommended that doctors

everywhere, including richer nations,

consider routinely offering the test.

The aim is to identify carriers before

they unwittingly spread the virus or

get too ill to benefit from treatment. In

some parts of sub-Saharan Africa where

HIV is rife, only 12 per cent of men and

10 per cent of women know their HIV

status, while research in the US has

shown that unwitting carriers account

for 50 to 70 per cent of new infections.

“I think this is extremely

important,” says Kevin De Cock, the

WHO’s HIV/AIDS director. “This is advice

for countries and it must be country-

led.” The guidelines stress that no one

should feel forced to take a test, and

people can opt out. But by offering tests

much more routinely, the hope is to de-

stigmatise HIV infection. Only in “high-

burden” countries would all visitors to

surgeries be offered the test. Elsewhere

it would be confined to those at greatest

risk, such as intravenous drug users.

The WHO decided to act following

encouraging results from countries that

had already introduced routine testing,

such as Kenya, where 85 to 95 per

cent of people now agree to be tested.

The US also introduced routine testing for

all citizens aged 13 to 64 last September

(New Scientist, 24 July 2006, p 8).

However, there are concerns that

testing may not be appropriate for those

who can’t get access to antiretroviral

drugs – a total of 72 per cent of people

infected with HIV globally. Even so,

De Cock says they can still benefit from

interventions such as better nutrition.

ROBY

N BE

CK/A

FP

–Awareness saves lives–

6 | NewScientist | 2 June 2007 www.newscientist.com

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