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Alternative medicine on PBS's Frontline - Tues. 9 pm

With all the stuff we've been posting about medicine lately I figure it'd be worth plugging this showing on PBS's Frontline tomorrow night (9 pm):

The Alternative Fix:  Americans are spending billions on alternative medicine treatments. And major hospitals and medical schools are embracing them. But do they work?

And if you miss it, fear not: the entire show is viewable online, along with additional interviews and analysis.

Got pranks?

For the upcoming "pranks and hoaxes" issues of Stay Free! we'd like to hear from you, dear reader.

Ever pulled off a stellar prank - or been the unfortunate victim of one? If so, tell us about it: the hows, the whys, the results. Stories can be as short as a couple of sentences or up to several paragraphs long. We'll edit our favorites and include them in the February 2006 issue of the magazine. If we choose yours, we'll send you a free issue.

Send responses to temporary181 (a) stayfreemagazine.org

Here are some past readers polls, to give you an idea of the format:

After breaking up with someone, what do you do with their stuff?
Every been fired?
Readers share their fast food experiences

Another disaster waiting to happen

News outlets report that ex-FEMA Director Michael Brown is starting a disaster-preparedness firm. One supposes his first bit of advice might be something like: don't hire an incompetent asshole with no relevant experience in disaster-preparedness.

In other news, convicted pedophile priest Paul Shanley is opening a day care center. (ba-dum-bump)

Absolut cease-and-desist

With all of the Absolut parodies floating out around there, you might think that the makers of the overpriced vodka had a "thing" for the First Amendment... but you might think wrong. The Swedish liquor firm is going after blogger Maria Lupinacci who created a fake ad -- "Absolut Corruption" criticizing the Bush administration.

A lawyer for Absolut's owners, V&S, e-mailed Lupinacci Nov. 14, saying the parody infringes on Absolut's copyright and trademark, and requested it be immediately removed. The firm's policy is to stay away from political statements of any kind, attorney Jenny Bergquist wrote, and "you are using the Absolut trademark in order to promote your political message."

So far, Lupinacci and her co-blogger, David DeAngelo, haven't budged.

The human lab rat racket

If you don't know much about the drug testing industry, well, you're not alone. Until coming across this Bloomberg News story, I didn't realize that pharmaceutical companies outsource most of their clinical trials to third parties - private companies that are scarcely regulated, practice under dangerous working conditions, and often lack licensed medical doctors. Drug companies love 'em, though, because the outfits turn trials around quickly and, should something go afoul, the drug companies can maintain plausible deniability.

Of course, if there is one job title that makes working at Wal-Mart sound good, it is "human lab rat." But the illegal immigrants and other poor who participate don't have much choice, and the companies take full advantage.

[A drug trial for Purdue Pharma] paid volunteers $2.78 an hour, or $66.72 per 24-hour day, for the first nine days of confinement. For those who remained, payment jumped to $333.33 a day for the final three days, with a bonus of $800 paid following a single follow-up visit.

Such payment backloading is coercive and thus unethical, says Peter Lurie, a physician who is deputy medical director of Public Citizen, a Washington-based group that monitors patient safety issues. "It provides a very powerful incentive for somebody to continue in a study even if they're being made uncomfortable by it,'' he says.

What's more, like good marketers, the clinical farms describe tests to subjects in a misleading way. For instance, one company lists the goal of one of its study as determining "the highest daily dose of TD-6301 that will not cause an undesired increase in heart rate." But as a University of Miami biologist points out, what they should really be saying is: the purpose of this study is to make you sick in order to find out how much of this drug people can handle.

Anyway, those curious to learn more about clinical testing should check out Guinea Pig Zero. Formerly a print zine, GPZ is now defunct but an anthology is available and selected archives are  online.

Weak Minds Think Alike

Our friend Jim Hanas noticed that times are so tough in the dinosaur media world that the New York Post and Daily News are sharing their front page layout staff:

Of course, the Daily News didn't blame the verdict on liberals undermining our soldiers in Iraq.

C'mon, touch that kid like a man!

Ohio has proposed mandating that serial sex offenders and pedophiles use pink license plates.

On Wednesday, Cuyahoga Falls Republican Kevin Coughlin introduced legislation in the state Senate that would require the [pink] plates. He says it would be a good method for warning parents and children.

A warning of what? That a sex offender wants to pass you on the highway? Or is somewhere in the vicinity of the Parmatown Mall? I guess you would have to take the bus to interview for childcare jobs.

What bothers me about this isn't the light-Scarlet-Letter vibe, but the assumption that calling sexual predators feminine is more of an insult to pedophiles than it is to, say, women or the terminally fabulous.

(Via Broadsheet at Salon)

Seeking a volunteer copyeditor

We're looking for someone with professional copyediting experience and a solid block of free time to help out with the upcoming issue of Stay Free! If you or someone you know is interested in (or at least willing...) helping out, please get in touch: stay.free at verizon.net.

Support the EFF's Bloggers Rights campaign

One of our favorite nonprofit organizations, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is having a fundraising drift for its Bloggers' Rights campaign. If you've seen the EFF's Legal Guide for Bloggers, you know the issues at stake here: threats to free expression, political speech, and privacy, for example.

The EFF has also a key player in the Copyfight (they helped defend yours truly when our Illegal Art Exhibit received some legal threats last year)... so send 'em your money today!

Great old Brand Names Foundation ad

Friend of Stay Free! Jim Hanas recently posted this awesome 1950s trade ad from the Brand Names Foundation that instructs readers on "How to get rid of an inferiority complex in a single day."

How does one get rid of an inferiority complex? According to some hilariously circular reasoning, by recognizing that corporations exist to please YOU:

[S]ay out loud: “I’m the boss! If a brand becomes famous, it’s because of me! If I and people like me stop buying a particular brand, that company goes out of business! I make the wheels go ‘round in America. I am the American consumer!”

As Jim points out, the current ad industry mantra about the "powerful consumer" is, thus, nothing new. The Brand Foundation and other trade groups have been making this argument for decades

I'm curious to know more about the Brand Foundation, though. I've got some old ads from the 1920s promoting brand-name goods, which made a lot of sense in a period when people were still acclimating themselves to a burgeoning consumer society. But, generally, the industry only initiates these kind of awareness campaigns when its public image is somehow suffering (from public criticism or other external threats). And in the early 1950s, when this ad appeared, the ad industry was doing quite well. If any of you knows more about this organization, let me know.