text:
About Me
- Russell Blackford
- Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019); AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021); and HOW WE BECAME POST-LIBERAL: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOLERATION (2024).
Friday, April 18, 2008
Expelled defended - on one point
Obviously, I need to see it for myself, but we can be pretty sure that Expelled is a meretricious pseudo-documentary. Its main claim is that various academics have been "expelled" from the academy for challenging Darwinian evolutionary theory. However, once examined in detail, this turns out to be a farrago of lies and distortions.
The individuals concerned are not involved in any genuine scientific research program based on the idea of "Intelligent Design"; their criticisms of mainstream evolutionary biology are without merit; they have engaged in morally dubious tactics, showing little concern for intellectual honesty; and yet they've been treated with considerable leniency, despite all their efforts to provoke confrontation. Read the details for yourself when you study up on the dramatis personae of Expelled, using the fine Expelled Exposed site.
All that said, let's consider the latest row about Expelled: its use of a snippet from the John Lennon song "Imagine", apparently in a bitterly ironic way. As far as I understand the details so far - without having seen the film - about twenty-five seconds of the song are played, involving the invitation from Lennon to imagine "no religion, too". This recording is played over frightening images related to Nazism and the Holocaust (or maybe it's to Stalin and Mao, or to all the above). The clear effect (if my understanding is accurate so far) is to attack Lennon's message and to suggest that a world without religion would be horrific.
Presumably, this part of the film attributes Nazism to atheism in some way (much as this would be a stupid claim). That is evidently one theme, though a more pervasive one, going on reports, is that Nazism can be blamed on Darwin. Or perhaps, at this stage of the film it's suggesting that any non-religious society would be as bad as Stalinist Russia. The precise point being made by Stein and company doesn't really affect any of the analysis below.
The current kerfuffle on the internet arises from the fact that the song was used without permission and is thus a copyright violation.
There are several things to be said about this. First, given all the other things that are evidently wrong with this film, complaint about a copyright violation sounds pretty trivial. But there's a lot more to it than that.
Second of all, it should be clear by now that I totally disagree with the messages of Expelled, including its attempt to equate atheism and Nazism, or to suggest, as the film is apparently trying to say throughout, that Darwinian evolutionary theory and Nietzschean atheism led to Nazism. That is a massive and unfair distortion of history, as Dawkins discusses in his review. As for a connection between Darwin and Hitler, yes Hitler may have been influenced by some garbled version of Darwinian theory, to which he added a good dose of the Humean fallacy, thus producing one ingredient in the racist, totalitarian witches' brew of Nazi ideology. But that by no means entails that Darwinian theory leads to Nazism. It also has nothing to do with whether the essentials of Darwinian evolutionary theory are actually true.
However - and this is crucial - the perpetrators of the movie are entitled to try to make their case. Which brings me back to the copyright infringement thing.
Intellectual property law exists to encourage the creation of valuable cultural products that, by their very nature, are not scarce and so cannot readily be taken from, or kept from, the commons and turned into property. Items of intellectual property are non-rivalrous because they essentially consist of information. Information can be replicated endlessly (in contrast to, say, a particular hamburger or a particular block of land or a particular, physical CD that your lover gave you for your birthday - all of which are genuinely scarce resources). It is socially important to create a kind of property in the information that cultural products such as songs and recordings ultimately consist in, but it takes a legislative scheme to accomplish that.
However, it is also socially important that items of intellectual property be open to criticism relating to their aesthetic form or to their explicit or implicit ideas. Public policy needs to strike a balance between (1) offering the creators of intellectual property a means of obtaining income from it, thus encouraging the creation of valuable works, and (2) allowing criticism and comment that relates to these works once they are created. The legislative scheme should reflect that policy.
In this case, it appears that the Expelled people play a small part of Lennon's song solely to attack its message, by the way that it is presented with images that make its original message ironic. Given the length of the snippet, it seems that they play no more of it than is needed to evoke the message that they are attacking, so it can't be said that any defence that they're playing "Imagine" to attack it is contrived. Most obviously, they are not using "Imagine" for its entertainment value - this is not a rivalrous use of "Imagine" for the purpose for which it was written, to entertain and to put across Lennon's message. It's not an ornamental use of it, as if it had been pilfered to jazz up an advertisement (for sports shoes, perhaps, or condoms, or life in the army). Rather, it is a nakedly hostile use: it's an unashamed attack on the song and what it stands for.
Given all that, and that this is a clear-cut case, not some kind of contrivance, I think that freedom of speech should prevail here. Morally speaking, the Expelled people should be allowed to put across their message in this way. It doesn't open any floodgates, because this kind of direct attack on a high-profile popular song and its message would be rare. Accordingly, I think that all the attacks in the blogosphere, asserting that this is yet another example of bad ethics by the Expelled people are actually taking the low moral ground. This is a case where we should be defending freedom of speech. If copyright law prevents this sort of thing, then it is operating in a way that goes beyond the fundamental policy considerations that justify the enactment of copyright law in the first place.
That's the moral position. What about the legal position?
I'm not a copyright lawyer. I have no idea what the case law says about a situation like this. As I stated above, it would be a rare kind of case anyway. But from the one or two comments that I've seen from people claiming expertise, Expelled may be on very shaky legal ground.
But should it be? Again, this is not a contrived case: it appears that the song is played in order to make a genuine, and genuinely hostile, comment (however wrong or foolish the comment may be in substance). It also seems that the song is played to no greater extent than necessary to make the film's point. This is not the kind of use that the law should be attempting to prevent.
Protecting the creators of intellectual property from this kind of use of their products is not consistent with the ultimate justification for intellectual property law, which is a statutory system based on particular policy considerations. If the law can be interpreted in a way that allows this kind of use, then the courts should interpret it that way. Obviously, they cannot (or should not) do so if it would go against the clear words of relevant statutes or against binding or overwhelming precedent. Whether that is or is not the situation, I will leave to lawyers with expertise in the area - but I actually hope it isn't.
Finally, a word of caution. While many of us may be involved in a kind of culture war against Expelled, and its makers, and everything they stand for, that does not mean that we should oppose them or their allies on every single issue that crops up day by day. We don't want to be a bunch of knee-jerk atheists. It's important that we stand up for such values as freedom of speech, including our opponents' free speech. That will give us more credibility, and it's also the right thing to do.
22 comments:
- Brian said...
That will give us more credibility, and it's also the right thing to do.
Hear, hear. I'm must be mellowing in my senectitude. Once I would've said f**k 'em, they're liars and deserve what they get. Oh well.... - 18 April, 2008 13:28
- Lippard said...
Russell: I argued that "Expelled"'s use of "Imagine" should constitute fair use, but observed that there's a 6th Circuit Court of Appeals case which says that even 1.5-second samples require licensing.
I agree with your argument on the moral case. - 18 April, 2008 13:30
- sylas said...
Well argued. I am persuaded.
- 18 April, 2008 13:30
Very well-stated conclusion, and one both sides would do well to remember and emulate -- and I concur with your opinion on both the moral and legal fronts.
- 18 April, 2008 13:50
- Russell Blackford said...
Pleasing response so far. :)
Jim, isn't the case you referred to likely to be distinguishable?
I can see a moral claim for post-modernist forms of art to be permitted to sample little bits of earlier works to create something new, which is how I might have argued it in the case you're talking about. But the case that I'd want to run for the Expelled people would be rather different. They weren't doing anything like that. Rather, they were, in effect, making a negative comment on Lennon's song and its message. The relative brevity of the extract would be used merely to show that this defence is not a contrivance: they played no more than was necessary to make their point.
As a result, what they created was a legitimate exercise of free speech in the public interest (which is not affected by whether their view is correct or plausible) and should not be considered as coming under copyright legislation.
That's if there's room for such an interpretation of what ge law permits. Of course, there may not be. - 18 April, 2008 16:11
- Russell Blackford said...
"ge" in the second last sentence? hmmm, I meant to write "the". *scratch head*
- 18 April, 2008 16:13
- Steve Zara said...
I don't think that this film is just some people putting a case, I feel it is a deliberate attempt to deceive. If there is a legal barrier to the showing of the film, I really can't see a problem in using it. I think one can be too pacifist. These people are doing the equivalent of kicking us in painful places. Should we stand back and let them trash science? Isn't it ethical to use legal processes to cause a little pain in return, in a good cause? I don't think this is a knee-jerk issue. I think this goes to the heart of the battle that has to be fought in terms of ideas and education. I have no problem if Yoko Ono proceeds with a legal case.
- 18 April, 2008 20:10
- Larry Hamelin said...
Seems like a clear-cut case of fair use to me.
If there is a legal barrier to the showing of the film, I really can't see a problem in using it.
This is a specious argument, though, because a legal case not only decides a specific issue, it also sets a precedent. The law — as its presently constructed at a higher abstract level — is about consistent ways of settling issues.
And I see a big negative in establishing a precedent further restricting fair use.
This sort of argument is actually a fairly well-established technique in restricting legal protection for civil rights in general, and one of the chief reasons the ACLU in the US seemingly inexplicably defends the free-speech rights of neo-Nazi organizations. - 19 April, 2008 01:17
- Larry Hamelin said...
I have no problem if Yoko Ono proceeds with a legal case.
This is a different issue: Everyone has the right to proceed with a legal case, regardless of anyone else's opinion of its merits.
The question is not whether she should proceed, but whether we think she should win. - 19 April, 2008 01:19
- Steve Zara said...
And I see a big negative in establishing a precedent further restricting fair use.
This seems to me to be begging the question about whether or not this is fair use. What you seem to be saying is you are cautious about testing to see if this is, or is not, fair use. I can understand that.
The question is not whether she should proceed, but whether we think she should win.
Not for me. I think proceeding in itself would be useful negative publicity.
I am probably being both naive and ignorant of legal issues here. What I am concerned about is that the message of this film will simply be largely unchallenged from the point of view of its intended audience. I also feel we can't always sit back and play by the rules when our opponents clearly aren't.
Maybe I need to mellow more, as Brian has. - 19 April, 2008 01:25
- Blake Stacey said...
I'd like to agree, and to an extent, I do — I feel like in slightly different circumstances, this argument would be entirely applicable. For example, it looks like the Killers song was licensed, albeit under false pretenses.
"I just spoke to the band's manager, and adding to the confusion was the fact that they did authorize a project months ago with this request:
Quote: 'The film is a satirical documentary with an estimated running time of 1 hour and 50 minutes, exploring academic freedom in public schools and government institutions with actor, comedian, economist, Ben Stein as the spokesperson.'
What they authorized was a documentary about 'academic freedom in schools', not the film that the producers produced.
They contacted the producers of the film to ask that the song be removed but it is too late. Unfortunately it was misrepresented to them when the request came through to use it. Add this band to a long line of people who were misled by the producers of this film."
She later added: "The band asked the producers to remove their song from the film when they became aware of the true nature of it. They were told it is too late. That's all there is."
Would I support the use of legal machinery to halt the distribution of Expelled until the Killers' request was satisfied? No, just as I didn't think that Dawkins, Myers and Scott should have sued to stop the footage of their interviews — gathered also under false pretenses, you'll recall — from being used. I'm happy to use these cases for rhetorical purposes, as examples of creationist moral degeneracy, but I don't believe the law should become involved.
The "Imagine" case has an extra wrinkle: the song in question was ripped off without the slightest deference to propriety. That tips a balance somewhere within my guts.
On the issue of fair use, my personal standard of judgment actually follows US law pretty closely, although I tend to put the greatest emphasis on the "commercial use" part. I could write a treatise here, but I doubt it would be useful, so I'll just say that in an ideal world, "Imagine" might have been licensed under Creative Commons — perhaps CC Non-Commercial — and the benefits would, I expect, outweigh the irritations. However, we're stuck not living in that world. - 19 April, 2008 02:53
- Lippard said...
Russell: You're right that the sampling case is different in that there's no commentary going on. The purposes of commentary and education do enhance a legal argument for fair use.
The court case I cited actually didn't preclude a fair use defense to a claim of copyright infringement, it just said that there is no such thing as a de minimis use of a copyrighted work that is not prima facie infringing (and requiring of a defense like fair use in order to avoid licensing requirements). - 19 April, 2008 06:31
- Russell Blackford said...
The point for me is the one barefoot bum is making. Any such case would determine a general rule for other such cases; until overruled by a higher court, it would set a precedent. Therefore, anyone thinking about the issue has to think about what rule should apply to all such cases, whether the party claiming fair use in such circumstances is one of the "good guys" or one of the "bad guys". If, having thought that through, we think that the right principle is one that favours the bad guys in this particular case, we should say so. We can still say that (for other reasons) they are bad guys. That isn't being pacifist; it's being principled. IMHO, being principled is not only right in itself but more likely to make the loose movement that most people commenting here sort of belong to a successful one.
I don't know if you find this persuasive, Steve, but that's it in a nutshell.
The wrong way to go about it is to adapt our principles to whether they happen to favour the good guys or the bad guys (as we see them) in whatever case is topical.
I think it was in another forum where I said I hope Yoko Ono doesn't take legal action. I still hope that. She has every right to, of course, but I'd hate to be a in position of rooting against her on the principle. Besides, I think, despite what the legal experts at Pharyngula were saying, that the court just might actually rule against her in these unusual circumstances, and while that might be good for free speech generally, and the balance between free speech and copyright law, it would be a PR disaster for her and a PR coup for Expelled.
Best all round would be if the distribution of the film went ahead and it led to the film's claims being torn to pieces in all the media that are now focused on it. - 19 April, 2008 10:10
- Larry Hamelin said...
This seems to me to be begging the question about whether or not this is fair use.
I think Russell made the substantive case for fair use in the OP. In any event, I disagree with your your position, which seems to hold the substantive meta-legal issue to be irrelevant: "If there is a legal barrier to the showing of the film, I really can't see a problem in using it." This statement seems to argue that the value of suppressing the film (which I can accept arguendo as a Good Thing) should outweigh any considerations of precedent. - 19 April, 2008 14:41
just saw Expelled; the fact that Ben Stein isn't trying to win any popularity contests helps to validate his message... i gather that his goal is to promote free thought, especially more thinking about worldviews that drive American academia
- 23 April, 2008 19:06
- Blake Stacey said...
the fact that Ben Stein isn't trying to win any popularity contests helps to validate his message.
No, it doesn't. He's either right or wrong, and as it happens, on virtually every question of fact, he's flamboyantly wrong. Whether or not he has a nice tie is beside the point.
I ended up arguing something akin to Russell's side of the argument here, by the way. - 24 April, 2008 06:49
I don't know... but it seems to me they might have fair use to criticize the lyrics, in which case Stein could quote them, but not to play the tune for too long. But how long is too long? I wouldn't need 25 seconds to know "Imagined."
- 24 April, 2008 07:57
Idealists always think that someone else's intellectual property should be free for them to use. That is just not how our free market system works however. And Expelled is not a work of scholarly criticism, or a work of journalism; it is a commercial enterprise. They actually charge money for people to see this, and gauge their success by box office receipts etc. So that is definitely a factor. In addition, it is clear that this is not some incidental usage, but is presented together with a criticism of John Lennon's ideas, and possibly Lennon personally, while they play the song with images of totalitarianism. This is not likely to endear them to Yoko particularly. If Yoko does not defend the copyright, it could set a precedent for later infringement; she has to show that she is defending it (for example, why will you get sued if you sing "Happy Birthday" to someone in the media without paying royalties and getting permission first? Same principle). The negative identification and connotations that could attach to the song could hurt its future commercial prospects and value. For example, suppose that Yoko wants to license its use for advertising, but the song has become so unpopular through this kind of representation that she cannot get the same kind of licensing deal?
As nice as it is to think of living in a fantasy world where information is freely copied by everyone and is not owned by anyone, it is just that; a fantasy. - 25 April, 2008 00:17
- Jaakonpoika said...
'Kampf' was a direct translation of 'struggle' from On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859). Seinen Kampf. His application.
Stein is under heavy artillery for 'exaggerating' or 'going easy' on the influence of evolutionism behind Nazism and Stalinism (super evolution of Lysenkoism in the Soviet Russia). But the monstrous Haeckelian type of vulgar evolutionism drove not only the 'Politics-is-applied-biology' Nazi takeover in the continental Europe, but even the nationalistic collision at the World War I.
It was Charles Darwin himself, who praised and raised the monstrous Haeckel with his still recycled embryo drawing frauds etc. in the spotlight as the greatest authority in the field of human evolution, even in the preface to his Descent of man in 1871.
Catch 22: Haeckel's 140 years old fake embryo drawings have been mindlessly recycled for the 'public understanding of science' (PUS) in most biology text books until this millennium, although Haeckel's crackpot raging Recapitulation/Biogenetic Law and functioning gill slits of human embryos have been at the ethical tangent race hygiene/eugenics/genocide, infanticide, and Freudian psychoanalysis (subconscious atavisms). Dawkins is the Oxford professor for PUS - and should gather the courage of Stephen Jay Gould who could feel ashamed about it.
Some edited quotes from my conference posters and articles defended and published in the field of bioethics and history of biology (and underline/edit them a 'bit'):
The marriage laws were once erected not only in the Nazi Germany but also in the multicultural states of America upon the speculation that the mulatto was a relatively sterile and shortlived hybrid. The absence of blood transfusion between "white" and "colored races" was self evident (Hailer 1963, p. 52).
The first law on sterilization in US had been established in 1907 in Indiana, and 23 similar laws had been passed in 15 States and sterilization was practiced in 124 institutions in 1921 (Mattila 1996; Hietala 1985 p. 133; these were the times of IQ-tests under Gould's scrutiny in his Mismeasure of Man 1981). By 1931 thirty states had passed sterization laws in the US (Reilly 1991, p. 87). Typically, the operations hit blacks the most in the US, poor women in the Europe, and often the victims were never even told they had been sterilized.
Mendelism outweighed recapitulation (embryos climbing up their evolutionary tree through fish-, amphibian- and reptilian stages), but that merely smoothened the way for the brutal 1930's biolegislation - that quickly penetrated practically all Western countries. The laws were copied from country to country. The A-B-O blood groups, haemophilia, eye colours etc. were found to be inherited in a Mendelian fashion by 1910. So also the complex traits and social (mis)behaviour such as alcoholism, schizophrenia, manic depression, criminality, rebelliousness, artistic sense, pauperism, racial differences, inherited scholarship (and its converse, feeble-mindedness) were all thought to be determined by one or two genes. Mendelism was "experimental" and quantitative, and its exaggeration outweighed the more cautious biometry operating on smaller variations, not discontinuous leaps. Its advocates boldly claimed that these problems could be done away within a few generations through selection, persisted (although most biologists must have known that defective genes could not be eliminated, even with the most intense forced sterilizations and marriage restrictions due to recessive genes and synergism. Nevertheless, these laws were held until 1970's and were typically changed only when the abortion legislation were released (1973).
So the American laws were pioneering endeavours. In Europe Denmark passed the first sterilization legislation in Europe (1929). Denmark was followed by Switzerland, Germany that had felt to the hands of Hitler and Gobineu, and other Nordic countries: Norway (1934), Sweden (1935), Finland (1935), and Iceland (1938 ) (Haller 1963, pp 21-57; 135-9; Proctor 1988, p. 97; Reilly 1991, p. 109). Seldom is it mentioned in the popular media, that the first outright race biological institution in the world was not established in Germany but in 1921 in Uppsala, Sweden (Hietala 1985, pp. 109). (I am not aware of the ethymology of the 'Up' of the ancient city from Plinius' Ultima Thule, however.) In 1907 the Society for Racial Hygiene in Germany had changed its name to the Internationale Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene, and in 1910 Swedish Society for Eugenics (Sällskap för Rashygien) had become its first foreign affiliate (Proctor 1988, p. 17). Today, Swedish state church is definitely the most liberal in the face of the world.
Hitler's formulation of the differences between the human races was affected by the brilliant sky-blue eyed Ernst Haeckel (Gasman 1971, p. xxii), praised and raised by Darwin. At the top of the unilinear progression were usually the "Nordics", a tall race of blue-eyed blonds. Haeckel's position on the 'Judenfrage' was assimilation and Expelled-command from their university chairs, not yet an open elimination. But was it different only in degree, rather than kind?
In 1917 the immigration of "defective" groups was forbidden even in the United States by a law. In 1921 the European immigration was diminished to 3% based on the 1910 census.
Eventually, in the strategical year of 1924 the finest hour of eugenics had come and the fatal law was passed by Congress. It diminished immigration to 2% of the foreign-born from each country based on the 1890 census in order to preserve the "nordic" balance in population, and was hold through World War II until 1965 (Hietala 1985, p. 132).
Richard Lewontin writes:"The leading American idealogue of the innate mental inferiority of the working class was, however, H.H. Goddard, a pioneer of the mental testing movement, the discoverer of the Kallikak family,
and the administrant of IQ-tests to immigrants that found 83 % of the Jews, 80% of the Hungarians, 79% of the Italians, and 87% of the the Russians to be feebleminded." (1977, p. 13.) Regarding us Finns, Finnish emmigrants put the cross on the box reserved for the "yellow" group (Kemiläinen 1993, p. 1930), until 1965.
Germany was the most scientifically and culturally advanced nation of the world upon opening the riddles at the close of the nineteenth century. And she went Full Monty.
Today, developmental biologists are anticipating legislation of laws that would define the do's and dont's. In England, they are fertilizing human embryos for research purposes and pipetting chimera embryos of humans and monkeys, 'legally'. The legislation should not distract individual researchers from their personal awareness of responsibility. A permissive law merely defines the ethical minimum. The lesson is that a law is no substitute for morals and that dissidents should not be intimidated.
I am suspicious over the burial of the Kampf (Struggle). The idea of competition is innate in the modern society. It is the the opposite view in a 180 degree angle to the Judaeo-Christian ideal of agapee, that I personally cheriss. The latter sees free giving, altruism, benevolence and self sacrificing love as the beginning, motivation, and sustainer of the reality.
Biochemist, drop-out (Master of Sciing)
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Expelled-ID.htm - 01 May, 2008 15:58
- Lippard said...
Stanford University Law School's Fair Use Project is helping to defend "Expelled" against the Ono Lennon suit.
- 02 May, 2008 15:41
To whoever said this above and to all who agree:
"And I see a big negative in establishing a precedent further restricting fair use."
Please remember this is a case that involves the use of music, not just words or ideas. Indeed, one should be allowed to discuss and criticize ideas, but if you ask yourself "why then did they need to actually use the music to make their point?" the answer is, they didn't *need* to, they *chose* to. So that begs the question "why did they use music at all?" and there's only two reasons to add music to film 1) to make it more entertaining; or 2) to help direct an emotional response.
Neither one of those reasons is covered by Fair Use law, and is exactly why, except in the most compelling of cases which this is not, all music in a film is routinely licensed.
My point is, a win for Yoko Ono does NOT set a precedent for *restricting* Fair Use, it merely upholds current practice of it in cases of music used in film.
It would be a far worse errosion of songwriters (lyricists and composers, but especially composers) rights should Premise Media wins. As I've mentioned, this type of juxtaposing images and "synching" music with them is done all the time in film. If a precedent is set that allows filmmakers to use flimsy reasons to use someone else's music (and the reason "I used your music because I wanted to use your lyrics" is pretty flimsy), then this significantly errodes the rights of composers to control and more importantly, profit from their own work.
If you don't quite buy what I'm saying yet, think about this example: What if John Lennon had written the words to "Imagine", but YOU had written the music, say, the melody and chord progression. If some filmmaker used your music, without your knowledge or permission, in a commercially-released film that took in 7 and a half million dollars, and a judge denied you your tiny tiny share of that and what it could potentially make in the future (including royalties from DVD sales) because he said the use of John Lennon's WORDS was fair, I don't think y'all would be so quick to hop on the Fair Use train.
I hope I have helped any of you with your moral dillemnas - see? you CAN still revile Premise Media and uphold Fair Use at the same time! - 30 May, 2008 22:01
- Russell Blackford said...
Well, for now we have a result. The judge has refused an injunction pending trial on the basis of accepting arguments very similar to those I've developed in this post.
- 05 June, 2008 15:27


text:
Tuberville beats Sessions, wins Alabama Senate GOP primary
MOBILE, Ala. - Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions lost the Republican nomination for his old Senate seat in Alabama to former college football coach Tommy Tuberville, likely ending a long political career with a bitter defeat egged on by President Donald Trump.
Tuberville, 65, beat Sessions in Tuesday's Republican runoff as Sessions fell short in his attempted comeback for a seat he held for two decades before resigning to become Trump's attorney general in 2017.
Familiar to Alabamians from his decade as Auburn University's head football coach, Tuberville is now positioned for a strong challenge against Democratic U.S. Sen. Doug Jones. With Alabama's strong GOP tilt, the seat is widely viewed as Republicans' best chance for a pickup as they try to maintain their thin Senate majority amid Trump's lagging popularity nationally.
Sessions, 73, was wounded by Trump's criticisms after he recused himself in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. Sessions, who'd been the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump during the GOP presidential primary campaign, insisted he was required by law to recuse because he was a potential subject and witness given his campaign ties to the president.
Trump endorsed Tuberville after Alabama's March primary, when Sessions finished just ahead of Tuberville with a third of the vote but well shy of the majority required for the nomination. The president tweeted: "3 years ago, after Jeff Sessions recused himself, the Fraudulent Mueller Scam began. Alabama, do not trust Jeff Sessions. He let our Country down. That's why I endorsed Coach Tommy Tuberville (@TTuberville), the true supporter of our #MAGA agenda!"
The president continued his criticism of Sessions right up to the eve of Tuesday's election.
"I made a mistake when I put him in as the attorney general," Trump told Tuberville supporters on Monday. "He had his chance and he blew it.
In the closing weeks of the runoff campaign, Sessions answered Trump directly on Twitter, telling the president he was "damn fortunate" Sessions recused because it "protected the rule of law & resulted in your exoneration."
But it wasn't enough to overcome dynamics that Tuberville willingly embraced. Boosted by both Trump's endorsement and name recognition from his coaching tenure, Tuberville positioned himself as a political outsider and capitalized on the president's criticisms of Sessions.
"Jeff Sessions was a disaster It's time to send a message to Jeff Sessions that President Trump does not want him or his cronies in the swamp" Tuberville wrote on Twitter.
Tuberville ran a risk-adverse campaign, declining media interviews and Sessions' challenges to debate in the closing weeks of the campaign. Despite Alabama's fundamental Republican advantage, Tuberville is almost certain to face more scrutiny in a general election campaign against Jones.
Sessions has maintained loyalty to Trump, noting his early decision to back Trump and arguing he would be most effective in advancing Trump's agenda. Sessions memorably took the stage with Trump at a 2015 rally at the municipal football stadium in Sessions' hometown of Mobile. The event, which drew tens of thousands, stood out in retrospect as the launch of Trump's mega-rally approach that helped propel him to his general election upset of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
When he wasn't defending his loyalty to the president, Sessions tried to focus on his long history in office and questions about Tuberville's background.
"You know me. You know I can be trusted," Sessions told voters during a recent campaign stop.
Sessions, once Alabama attorney general and a U.S. attorney under President Ronald Reagan, was elected to the Senate in 1996. He was just the second elected Republican senator from Alabama since the end of post-Civil War Reconstruction. That first win, which came as the South continued its shift from Democratic to Republican domination, was hotly contested. But Sessions wouldn't be seriously challenged again in three subsequent reelection campaigns before Trump picked him as attorney general.
Despite his strength at the ballot box, Sessions was never a heavyweight in the Senate, overshadowed there and back home in Alabama by Sen. Richard Shelby, the state's senior senator who was elected as a Democrat in 1986 and switched parties in 1994 after Democrats lost their majorities on Capitol Hill.
Shelby, who chaired a number of powerful committees over the years, has always been an eager participant in the federal budget process, unapologetically steering as much money back to Alabama as possible. Sessions, meanwhile, was a budget hawk and fiscal conservative who often eschewed the back-slapping, deal-cutting ways of Washington.
For years, that made him a relative outlier on Capitol Hill. Then he found a presidential candidate who said many of the same things he'd argued for years about immigration, trade and the ways of Washington. That president helped raise Sessions to the pinnacle of his public life, and on Tuesday, that president helped bring it to an almost certain end.
Barrow reported from Atlanta.

subset: commoncrawl


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If your library's like mine, you have staff-only ways to access library stuff … things like employee parking, a staff-only entrance, a back-end way to access the library catalog, etc. Whenever I put a book on hold, I get it delivered via inter-office mail.
I never have to use the library like a patron if I don't want to!
My question – is this a good thing?
Try using your library like a patron. Is it easy or hard? Is there something that frustrates you about the whole process? It's probably doing the same thing to your patrons.
Here's a thought – maybe we should create a "Work Like a Patron" week, where we only use the library like our customers do – use your library's wifi (bonus points for using a Public PC), search using the patron version of your catalog, maybe even sit at those lovely desks in the library. Or hang out in a cafe, accessing all work- and library-related stuff from outside of the building. Use the front door, and see the library through your patrons' eyes.
This works for the IT department, too. Use library employee tools like … library employees, rather than like IT dudes and dudettes. Is it hard? If so … it's probably hard for the rest of the library, too. Make it work for everyone!
If it works wonderfully, great! If not, maybe you have some things to improve.


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Success of Veterinary Medicine Mobility Act in Senate could build momentum for more positive results.
Veterinarians launched 2014 with a political win, but there's more to do. The U.S. Senate passed S. 1171, the Veterinary Medicine Mobility Act, which allows veterinarians in mobile practices to transport and use controlled substances. This addresses a critical need for large animal veterinarians covering a wide territory, in applications ranging from anesthesia to pain management to euthanasia. Of course, this bill also will protect mobile companion animal health services.
What's left is the U.S. House of Representatives and its version of the mobility bill, H.R. 1528. Veterinarians and animal health interests must keep up the pressure as it takes both houses of Congress for the legislation to become law. Veterinarian House members Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) and Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) are leading the charge, but they need outreach and support from the greater veterinary community.
What we've learned with H.R. 1406 (the so-called Fairness to Pet Owners Act, which would have mandated pet prescriptions but failed to pass the last session of Congress) and S. 1171 is that veterinarians can be effective in the federal political arena, just as we've been in state legislatures across the country. It doesn't happen without effort, including engagement in political campaigns, and these initiatives must continue season after season.
What's more, ongoing support must continue for the lobbying resources of our national and state veterinary medical associations. There are rumblings that a version of H.R. 1406 may rear its head again in the near term. So let's keep the momentum going in 2014.
Mark Cushing, JD, is founding partner of the Animal Policy Group, providing government relations and strategic services for various animal health, veterinary and educational interests. He maintains offices in Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C., and is a frequent speaker at veterinary conferences.
The Veterinary Policy Notes blog on dvm360.com helps veterinarians and other animal health professionals keep abreast of the growing number of issues, political challenges and regulatory initiatives affecting the veterinary profession, animal health industry and animal welfare movement.


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These are some Frequently Asked Questions about this service, with some answers.
What is this site?
This is a social network, running the GNU social software.
You can use it to make connections between friends, family and colleagues -- writing short notices about yourself, where you are, and what you're doing, and those notices will be sent to all your contacts.
In the future, we'll be adding support for photo, video and file sharing, as well as events, better contact management and mobile devices.


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Royals slip vs. Tribe to fall back in WC race
Gordon homers in eighth, but flies out with bases loaded in ninth
CLEVELAND -- With both the Royals and Indians battling for a playoff spot, Monday night's matchup was just as tense and close of a contest between contenders should be.
Unfortunately for the Royals, the first of the six meetings against their American League Central rivals over the next two weeks did not go their way in a 4-3 loss at Progressive Field.
After starter Ervin Santana served up three home runs, Kansas City fought back with Alex Gordon's two-run homer in the eighth to make it a one-run game and had loaded the bases in the ninth. But the comeback bid stalled, as Indians closer Chris Perez got Gordon on a flyout for his 23rd save.
"We had our opportunities," Gordon said. "Obviously, coming down the stretch, we need victories. This is a tough one, and especially against a team that's in it, too."
Kansas City (75-69) dropped to four games behind Tampa Bay for the second AL Wild Card spot, while Cleveland (77-66) now sits just 1 1/2 behind the Rays.
Trailing by three in the eighth, Gordon clubbed his 18th homer of the season and 100th of his career off reliever Cody Allen.
In the ninth, the Royals had runners at second and third with one out, but Perez struck out pinch-hitter Carlos Pena on a 3-2 count for the second out. After walking pinch-hitter George Kottaras in a 10-pitch at-bat to load the bases, Perez retired Gordon to end the game.
"I liked the matchups," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "It increased our matchups with Pena, Kottaras and Alex right there. [We] couldn't get it done."
All three of the home runs allowed by Santana were solo shots to right field. Asdrubal Cabrera, Yan Gomes and Carlos Santana were the Indians who circled the bases. Carlos Santana's jack needed a replay review, after his shot off the pole was originally ruled foul.
"Only one bad pitch," Ervin Santana said. It was [the one to] Cabrera. Middle of the plate. And the others were good pitches."
The Royals got on the board in the sixth inning. Gordon hit a soft grounder to third that was fielded by a charging Jose Ramirez, who unleashed an errant throw to first base. That allowed Gordon to move to second, and he came home on Eric Hosmer's single to right.
Ramirez tormented Kansas City on the bases in the third after a leadoff single against Ervin Santana for his first Major League hit. The pitcher repeatedly checked on him during an at-bat by Drew Stubbs, who worked a 3-2 count.
Ramirez took off just before Stubbs hit a grounder to third baseman Mike Moustakas, and when Moustakas threw the ball to first, Ramirez bolted from second and eventually came around to score, as Hosmer's throw across the diamond skittered past Moustakas and ricocheted into left field.
"That was huge," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "That second run came on a grounder to third, because of his hustle. It kind of gave everybody a spark."
Afterward, Yost was asked how disruptive Ramirez was in that inning. He thought a better word to use was "aggressive."
"We made a bad throw. Speed creates those types of situations for the team," Yost said. "[He] made us make a play. Hos hurried and bounced it over there."
Across seven innings, Santana (8-9) was charged with four hits and four runs, three of which were earned. He recorded seven strikeouts without issuing a walk.
Jarrod Dyson, who has often tortured opposing defenses himself with speed, had two hits but was erased on the basepaths after each one. The third inning began with his ground-rule double to right-center. After a bunt from Escobar moved him to third base, he tried to score on a hard grounder from Gordon but was thrown out at home by Nick Swisher. In the fifth, Dyson hit a two-out single and was caught trying to steal second by Gomes, who also threw out Lorenzo Cain on an attempt.
"With Dyson's speed," Yost said about the play at the plate, "you can go on contact because the odds of him beating it out are really, really in your favor. [Gordon] just hit it too hard to the first baseman. ... In that situation, with the [middle of the] infield playing back, [he's] got to try to keep it up the middle."
Said Francona: "It had to be a clean play and it was."
In seven innings, Jimenez (11-9) scattered seven hits and gave up just one unearned run. He also did not issue a walk, while notching 10 strikeouts for the third time in four outings.
"He was really good," Francona said. "That's a good lineup. They do so many things. They can hit the ball out of the ballpark. They can all run."
Monday's defeat gave the Royals a 5-9 record in the season series. They've dropped four straight to the Indians, each loss at Progressive Field.
"It was a tough loss," Yost said. "We had some opportunities to pick up some runs, but this isn't a time to feel snakebitten."


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NOTE: I first posted this on my blog back in 2011. Figured it was worth bringing back today, as we warm up for the weekend ahead.
Dad was the father of seven children, a veteran of World War II who served in the Pacific. After the war, he graduated from Boston University in two and half years, because why in the world would anybody want to waste another minute in school. There was a life to be lived, a brass ring to grab, things to do. Let's get on with it.
It was a different time, a different generation.
Dad settled with my mother on Long Island, became an insurance man, started having kids rapid fire in the Catholic fashion, built a business. I was the youngest in the family, the baby. On rare weekend days I'd tag along when my father needed to pop into his rented office on Wantagh Avenue for an hour or two. We never specialized in father-and-son type stuff, whatever that was, and I'm sure the word bonding did not apply to relationships back in those days, only glue, but I do recall those trips to his office. Dad's place of business offered that most wondrous of commodities, office supplies — electric typewriters, staplers, a copier, boxes of paper clips and, best of all, tracing paper.
I marveled at its magical properties. Dad didn't part with his supply easily, that stuff cost money, so I was thrilled and grateful whenever he brought a stack home. Those are nice memories for me, a lifetime away. I sometimes wonder: Whatever happened to that kid? That boy with the tracing paper? Where'd he go?
From around that time, somewhere in the mid 60's, another day presses forward for attention. One spring morning we set off together — in the hazy gauze of remembrance, just me and dad — to a farm somewhere. Because dad knew a guy, a customer who had a stable and a few horses. He possessed, in others words, shit to spare. And the price was right.
I must have been about five or six years old at the time, no older. We got to the farm, out east on Long Island probably, and I stood around while my father chatted with the owner of the place. Maybe I looked into the stable, fearfully eyed the horses. Did I want to feed one of them an apple? No, I did not. I was shy, watchful and quiet. Eventually my dad keyed open the car truck, borrowed a shovel, and filled it to the brim with horse manure. I stood by, mystified, awestruck. Trunk full, steam rising, we headed back home, where I watched my father spread the still semi-moist shit around the front lawn. It was good for the grass, he explained. Nature's fertilizer.
My older brothers and sisters recall those times with profound mortification. Imagine the embarrassment they felt, the acute stabbing horror, especially those of a certain age, when the opinion of one's peers meant only everything. I can't say this plainly enough: My brothers hated it when dad spread horse shit on the front lawn — even worse, on hot days it smelled like holy hell, the stink filling your nostrils — and yet my father performed the same ritual every year.
And here's the thing about my dad, really the essential memory of him. He didn't care. Alan J. Preller simply did not give a hoot what anybody thought. He never did. He embarrassed us, he ticked off people, annoyed relatives, said what he thought and did what he did. Dad lived on his own terms, remarkably indifferent to opinion. And if that made him impossible at times, well, so be it. He wasn't trying to please anybody.
My father passed away a few years back, coincidentally enough while spreading fertilizer out on the front lawn in Southampton, where he retired. He had moved beyond horse manure by then, thank God, nowadays they'd hang you in Southampton for that, but there was still no way he was going to push around one of those crummy lawn spreaders. No, dad preferred a Maxwell House coffee can, dipping it into a big bag of fertilizer, sprinkling it imprecisely across the yard with a grand sweep of his arm. And to be honest, it's more fun that way. Believe me, I know.
There he was out on the lawn, doing what he always did, and that's when his heart gave out, when he fell, when my father left us.
These days, when I'm particularly infuriating — insensitive, implacable, impossible — my exasperated wife, Lisa, will proclaim that I'm becoming just like my father. I won't listen to anyone, I'll just do whatever I want. And as I age, it only gets worse. That's her complaint. The funny thing is, I always hear it as a compliment.
Happy Father's Day, folks. A good day to pull some weeds, mow the lawn, tend the garden and then, like my father often did, wander into the kitchen, reach into the bottom cabinet where he kept the bottle of Dewar's, and announce, "It's five o'clock somewhere."
Here's to you, old man. Cheers and memories.
Miss you!


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Immigration Help for Employers and HR Professionals
Web Based Interactive System:
Our web-based interactive information collection and processing system significantly eases the burdens on companies and HR professionals who are responsible for processing visa petitions for foreign hires. This system reduces the entire work load and costs and also eliminates the need for international telephone calls, faxes and e-mails to applicants otherwise necessary. Specifically, our on-line interactive visa processing system offers the following immediate benefits and cost savings:
Direct Access to Attorneys:
Direct access to highly trained and competent attorneys via telephone, e-mail messages retrieved and addressed through handhelds throughout the work-day, evenings and weekends.
Instant Global Interactive Access to Petitions, Forms and USCIS Notices:
Clients and their prospective employees have global interactive instant access to forms, etitions and visa information that is updated by our staff, HR professionals, employees or applicants abroad via the internet. Clients also have 24-hour on-line direct access to USCIS notices, completed applications, receipt and approval notices associated with their petitions. Any computer with internet access may log into our secure information server to review and update information as necessary.
Faster, More Efficient Service:
Faster, more efficient service is ensured because applications and petitions are completed and available for 24/7 on-line review, modification, printing, signing and filing upon completion. This eliminates time wasted with postage and courier in most instances. Changes and corrections made by HR professionals, employees, applicants and our attorneys are instantly available for on-line review. Additionally, clients experience increased turn-around times because postage, courier and messenger service delays are eliminated until the application is ready for signing and submission.
Cost Savings and Fixed Pricing Rates:
Significant costs savings accrue because HR professionals and their employees enter information directly into the on-line system (24/7) that can be reviewed instantly, reducing the necessity of multiple international phone calls, facsimiles and courier service. Cost of postage, courier and messenger service is virtually eliminated until petitions are signed and ready for filing. Additionally, our fixed pricing rates for petitions eliminates budget concerns and ensures cost predictability throughout the process.


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Known to allow anyone to obtain a minimum of information about a domain name and its owner, the WHOIS (for "who is", "is" in French) is in danger. The EWG, a group of experts of ICANN, the US company that assigns domain names, has indeed been instructed to consider replacement of the WHOIS. And free access (and free?) Is in danger if the recommendations of this group were to be followed.
"The current model of the WHOIS should be abandoned"
Reflexively used by many companies and individuals wishing to do a quick search on a domain name WHOIS is a handy tool. Whether it is the creation and expiration dates of the domain name, information about the web host, the name of the person or company that owns the domain name, or address even its number phone, the WHOIS is a must for many users. But the present system, free, and maybe even free, could change.
The EWG, a group of experts formed by the CEO of ICANN itself, was in fact responsible for reviewing the WHOIS aging system to better adapt to the changing industry and the arrival of hundreds of different TLD. The group therefore "clean slate" of the past while seeking what the data requirements on domain names. After questioning many actors linked to the sector, the EWG has "concluded that the current model of the WHOIS, which gives each user a public and anonymous access to the data (often imprecise) domain names should be abandoned."
"Certain data accessible only to authenticated seekers"
An abandon that would sound like a real slap if it were to be applied, especially as the authors of the study indicate that they recommend "a paradigm shift in which the TLD data will be collected, validated and disseminated for authorized purposes only with some data accessible only to authenticated seekers, who are then responsible for the proper use ".
These recommendations are still lacking details, however, the group says it has not yet completed its deliberations and is waiting for public feedback by 12 August. We must therefore expect new recommendations in the coming months.
Yet if the recommendations of the EWG were to be followed, critical in controlling the ICANN web would do more vivid. Certainly, in recent years, the organization has tried to be less dependent on the US, but the problem remains. On the other hand, these changes will surely satisfy WHOIS companies who appreciate little that their information is visible to all in a single click.


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Malam Baba Modu, an 80 year-old father to a Boko Haram commander, popularly called 'Ba-Ana', has called on his son to surrender and embrace peace.
Modu made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, on Wednesday in Maiduguri.
He said that he was unable to persuade his son to abandon the cause and surrender under the Federal Government's Operation Safe Corridor.
Recounting his ordeal, Modu said his son was conscripted by the insurgents in 2012 at a farm in Dikwa Local Government Area of Borno.
"I lost hope of meeting my son after his abduction in the past seven years. One day, I met someone who told me that my son was alive and mentioned where I can find him.
"I was also told he is one of the commanders of the Albarnawi faction of the Boko Haram.
"I travelled to the shores of the Lake Chad to plead with Ba-Ana to surrender and embrace peace. It took me about one week to get to where I met him.
READ ALSO: US Secretary of State arrives in Baghdad to meet PM
"When I arrived at the camp, I told them that I am the father of Ba'ana and after series of interrogations, they asked me to wait for him to return from a mission.
"Ba-Ana returned at night, he was marveled to see me, and when he heard my voice; he told his men that I am his father.
"I pleaded with him for about 30 days in a bid to convince him to lay down his arms and embrace peace, regrettably he did not heed my counsel.
"Ba-Ana confessed that he killed many people and believed that the authorities would not forgive his crimes. He also believed that he had committed his life in the course of God.
"I did not lose hope; I will continue to pray God to heal his soul and bring him back to me," he said.


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Autoimmune, neurological, and venous thromboembolic adverse events after immunisation of adolescent girls with quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine in Denmark and Sweden: cohort study
BMJ 2013; 347 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f5906 (Published 09 October 2013) Cite this as: BMJ 2013;347:f5906- Lisen Arnheim-Dahlström, associate professor1,
- Björn Pasternak, postdoctoral fellow2,
- Henrik Svanström, statistician2,
- Pär Sparén, professor1,
- Anders Hviid, senior investigator2
- 1Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm 171 77, Sweden
- 2Department of Epidemiology Research, Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Correspondence to: L Arnheim-Dahlström lisen.arnheim.dahlstrom{at}ki.se
- Accepted 28 August 2013
Objective To assess the risk of serious adverse events after vaccination of adolescent girls with quadrivalent human papillomavirus (qHPV) vaccine.
Design Register based cohort study.
Setting Denmark and Sweden, October 2006 to December 2010.
Participants 997 585 girls aged 10-17, among whom 296 826 received a total of 696 420 qHPV vaccine doses.
Main outcome measures Incident hospital diagnosed autoimmune, neurological, and venous thromboembolic events (53 different outcomes) up to 180 days after each qHPV vaccine dose. Only events with at least five vaccine exposed cases were considered for further assessment. Rate ratios adjusted for age, country, calendar year, and parental country of birth, education, and socioeconomic status were estimated, comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated person time. For outcomes where the rate ratio was significantly increased, we regarded three criteria as signal strengthening: analysis based on 20 or more vaccine exposed cases (reliability), rate ratio 3.0 or more (strength), and significantly increased rate ratio in country specific analyses (consistency). We additionally assessed clustering of events in time and estimated rate ratios for a risk period that started on day 181.
Results Among the 53 outcomes, at least five vaccine exposed cases occurred in 29 and these were analysed further. Whereas the rate ratios for 20 of 23 autoimmune events were not significantly increased, exposure to qHPV vaccine was significantly associated with Behcet's syndrome, Raynaud's disease, and type 1 diabetes. Each of these three outcomes fulfilled only one of three predefined signal strengthening criteria. Furthermore, the pattern of distribution in time after vaccination was random for all three and the rate ratios for these outcomes in the period from day 181 after vaccination were similar to the rate ratios in the primary risk period. The rate ratios for five neurological events were not significantly increased and there were inverse associations with epilepsy (rate ratio 0.66, 95% confidence interval 0.54 to 0.80) and paralysis (0.56, 0.35 to 0.90). There was no association between exposure to qHPV vaccine and venous thromboembolism (0.86, 0.55 to 1.36).
Conclusions This large cohort study found no evidence supporting associations between exposure to qHPV vaccine and autoimmune, neurological, and venous thromboembolic adverse events. Although associations for three autoimmune events were initially observed, on further assessment these were weak and not temporally related to vaccine exposure. Furthermore, the findings need to be interpreted considering the multiple outcomes assessed.
Since the regulatory approval of first the quadrivalent human papillomavirus (qHPV) vaccine in 2006 and later the bivalent HPV vaccine, as of 2011 about 120 million doses have been distributed worldwide.1 The introduction of a new vaccine invariably puts focus not only on its effectiveness but also on its safety. From experience we know that adverse events, with onset shortly after the receipt of a vaccine, especially if these events are serious (for example, chronic immune mediated and neurological diseases), tend to be attributed to this exposure by pure temporal association.2 3 The likelihood of adverse events occurring in temporal association with exposure to vaccine will increase proportionally with vaccine coverage as a new vaccine is introduced. Concern about vaccine related adverse events has been identified as an important barrier to vaccination and one of the reasons for low HPV vaccine uptake in some settings.4 5 Concerns about autoimmune and neurological conditions being triggered by HPV vaccination may be fueled further by findings related to other vaccines, such as the reported association between adjuvanted influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 vaccine and narcolepsy in Sweden and Finland6 7 as well as a small but significantly increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome after influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 vaccination, according to a recent meta-analysis.8 Several potential mechanisms by which vaccines could induce or stimulate autoimmunity have been suggested, including molecular mimicry and bystander activation.2 Consequently, to acquire the best possible evidence of safety, adverse events of newly introduced vaccines such as the HPV vaccines need to be monitored continuously.
Most adverse events occurring after HPV vaccination of adolescent girls have been mild and temporary, such as fever, headache, and injection site reactions.9 10 Pooled analyses of clinical trials have involved almost 12 000 participants exposed to the qHPV vaccine11 and more than 16 000 participants exposed to the bivalent HPV vaccine.12 Although these studies did not identify an increased risk of chronic or autoimmune diseases overall, they were not large enough to study individual conditions. An analysis of 12 424 reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, among which 772 described serious events, identified disproportionate reporting of syncope and venous thromboembolic events but not other events, such as autoimmune conditions.13 However, analysis of data reported to passive surveillance can only identify potential risk signals and can neither estimate the risk relative to an unexposed population nor exclude risks with certainty. Sequential analyses of Vaccine Safety Datalink observational data within seven managed care organisations in the United States (600 558 qHPV vaccine doses) found no increased risk of eight prespecified outcomes, although a non-significantly increased relative risk of venous thromboembolism was observed.14 A cohort study of 189 629 women in two managed care organisations in California explored the risk of 16 autoimmune events and found a significantly increased rate ratio for Hashimoto's thyroiditis, although further assessment revealed no temporal relation or biological plausibility to support a true association.15 In this same cohort, no new safety concerns emerged when the risk of visits to an emergency department or admissions to hospital were evaluated for a wide range of health outcomes.16
Sweden and Denmark keep population based healthcare registers and thereby have unique opportunities to address the safety of HPV vaccination. In Denmark, we have previously described the incidence rates of anticipated immune mediated adverse events among adolescent girls in the period before the introduction of HPV vaccination.17 In the present study we identified potential safety signals after the introduction of qHPV vaccination in Denmark and Sweden by comparing incidence rates of several autoimmune, neurological, and venous thromboembolic adverse events between adolescent girls exposed and not exposed to the qHPV vaccine.
Study population
This register based cohort study of serious adverse events associated with the qHPV vaccine was based on individual level data from all 10 to 17 year old adolescent girls in Denmark and Sweden, between 1 October 2006 and 31 December 2010. Every resident in both Denmark and Sweden has a unique personal identification number enabling individual level linkage between multiple registers.18 To define the study cohort in Sweden, we obtained information on birth date and date of death from the total population register and death register, respectively, from Statistics Sweden. To define the study cohort in Denmark, we used the Civil Registration System, which contains daily updated information on vital and demographic variables, such as birth date and place, and loss to follow-up due to emigration or disappearance from the registers, and death.19
The qHPV vaccine (Gardasil; Sanofi Pasteur MSD SNC, Lyon, France (in the United States: Merck, Whitehouse Station, NJ)) was marketed in Europe on 20 September 2006. In Sweden, the qHPV vaccine has been subsidised for 13-17 year old adolescent girls since May 2007 (inclusion of HPV vaccination in the national vaccination programme for 10-12 year old girls was initially planned for January 2010 but was postponed to January 2012 and then coupled with catch-up vaccination of 13-17 year old adolescent girls). In Denmark, the qHPV vaccine has been included in the national vaccination programme since January 2009 for 12 year old girls, with catch-up vaccination of 13-15 year olds from October 2008.
We obtained information on exposure to HPV vaccine in Denmark from the childhood vaccination database at Statens Serum Institut.20 This database is continually updated from National Health Insurance data obtained from the National Board of Health. General practitioners in Denmark carry out all immunisations in the childhood vaccination programme and are reimbursed for reporting each instance to the National Health Insurance. Reimbursement takes place only after the general practitioner has submitted a form that details the vaccine, the date it was administered, and the personal identification number of the recipient. Therefore the database is thought to be close to complete for vaccines administered through the national programme. Because HPV vaccination was also available outside the national programme in the study period, we retrieved additional vaccination data from the national prescription register, which contains individual level information on all prescriptions filled at all Danish pharmacies. This includes the personal identification number of the recipient, the date the prescription was dispensed, and the Anatomic Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) code.21 The ATC code used to identify the qHPV vaccine was J07BM01. In Sweden, correspondingly, we obtained information on vaccination status from Svevac and the drug prescription register. Svevac is a national HPV vaccination register, established in 2006 and held by the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease. Healthcare staff who administer the vaccines report to Svevac on a voluntary basis, and the register has an estimated completeness of about 80%.22 The drug prescription register contains all prescription drugs dispensed at pharmacies in Sweden since 1 July 2005.23 Adolescent girls aged between 13 and 17 years received subsidised HPV vaccination and vaccination had to be prescribed and expedited at a pharmacy, thereby generating a register entry in the drug prescription register. The register is held by the National Board of Health and Welfare. For adolescent girls aged 13-17 years it is assumed that almost 100% of administered HPV vaccine doses are registered in the drug prescription register.
We identified data on predefined adverse events from the national patient registers in both countries using ICD-10 codes (international classification of diseases, 10th revision). The patient registers include nationwide individual level information on dates of hospital contact and doctor assigned diagnoses according to the international classification of diseases.24 We did not have information on outcomes from primary healthcare. The Danish patient register was established in 1977, has included both inpatients and outpatients since 1994, and has been using ICD-10 codes since 1995, whereas the Swedish patient register has had nationwide coverage since 1987, has included both inpatients and outpatients since 2001, and has used ICD-10 codes since 1997.25 We predefined several serious adverse outcome events, as identified from records of inpatient admissions and hospital outpatient and emergency department visits, based on our earlier study of autoimmune events,17 and we added several neurological events. We also included venous thromboembolism because it represents a potential adverse event.13 14 The included outcomes are all well defined diseases. In total, we assessed 53 outcomes (see supplementary table 1 for all included outcome events, with ICD-10 codes).
Covariate information
From Statistics Denmark and Statistics Sweden we obtained data on parental educational level, country of birth, and socioeconomic status. We identified the parents from the Danish Civil Registration System and Swedish multigeneration register.
Statistical analyses
Adolescent girls were followed from age 10 years or 1 October 2006, whichever came latest, and until either the occurrence of an adverse event, receipt of bivalent HPV vaccine (Cervarix, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals; Rixensart, Belgium; ATC code J07BM02), death, disappearance from the registers, emigration (this information was only available for Denmark), 18th birthday, or end of follow-up (31 December 2010). We aggregated the resulting person years of follow-up with counts of outcome events according to qHPV vaccine exposure status and analysed these using Poisson regression (log-linear regression of the counts using the logarithm of follow-up time as offset). This produced incidence rate ratios according to qHPV exposure status. Exposure to the qHPV vaccine was a time varying variable; thus adolescent girls could contribute person time to the study first as unvaccinated and later as vaccinated, but once vaccinated the girls could not be put into the unvaccinated category again. All individual outcomes were treated as separate analyses, and for each specific analysis girls were eligible only if free from the outcome event before entry to the cohort. Estimates were adjusted for country, age in two year categories, calendar year, parental educational level (highest attained level of either parent classified as: primary school (nine years) or shorter; secondary school (12 years); short tertiary education; and medium or long tertiary education), parental country of birth (categories: both parents, one parent, or no parent born in Scandinavia), and paternal socioeconomic status (categories: employment with basic, unknown, or no qualification; employment with medium level or high level qualifications; self employed; and not in labour market).
For all autoimmune and neurological outcomes, we defined the period at risk as 180 days after exposure to vaccine. This period was chosen to allow for the insidious onset of the diseases studied and because diagnostic investigations may take time; in a recent study of autoimmune outcomes after qHPV vaccination, the median time between first symptoms and diagnosis was 23 days (interquartile range 2-59 days).15 26 For venous thromboembolism, the period at risk was 90 days after vaccination. This was regarded as the maximal period where an acute event could be plausibly related to vaccination; furthermore, the mean time between vaccination and diagnosis of thromboembolism among cases reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System was 42 days.13
Because we acquired data on vaccine exposure from two sources that were partly overlapping—that is, some of the girls had both filled prescriptions and were registered in one of the vaccination databases—we applied an algorithm to harmonise the data and define dates of vaccination. Essentially this algorithm removed double data entries and doses appearing beyond the three dose schedule. Furthermore, on the basis of data from girls with both filled prescriptions and register entries in vaccination databases, it was established that the median lag between the dispensing of a prescription and the date of vaccination as registered in the vaccination databases was two days. Consequently, for vaccine doses that were defined by prescriptions alone, the date of exposure was defined as the date of filling the prescription plus two days.
As the recommended qHPV vaccine schedule includes three doses given at 0, 2, and 6 months, any girl could contribute up to three doses in the analyses; we counted exposed person time from the date the vaccine was administered, and each dose contributed up to 180 days (autoimmune and neurological events) of follow-up or up to 90 days (venous thromboembolism) of follow-up (fig 1⇓). We used SAS statistical software version 9.3 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC).
Analytical strategy
Given that a large number of serious adverse events were assessed and consequently there was a high probability of chance findings, we used the following predefined criteria for the analysis of data. As the first criterion, and in the interest of obtaining relatively reliable rate ratios, for any further assessment to take place we considered only outcomes with at least five vaccine exposed cases during the predefined period at risk. To be regarded as a safety signal, the rate ratio for an outcome with at least five vaccine exposed cases had to be significantly increased (lower bound of 95% confidence interval >1.0). We regarded three criteria as signal strengthening: analysis based on 20 or more vaccine exposed cases (reliability of analysis); a rate ratio of 3.0 or more (strength of association); and significantly increased rate ratios in both countries when analysed separately (consistency). For outcomes where the rate ratio was significantly increased, we additionally assessed clustering of events in time by plotting cases according to time since exposure to the vaccine and estimated rate ratios for a risk period that started on day 181.
The study cohort included 997 585 girls of whom 296 826 (29.8%) received at least one dose of the qHPV vaccine (table 1⇓). Among the vaccinated girls, 238 608 (80.4% of vaccinated girls and 23.9% of total study cohort) received the second dose and 160 986 (54.2% of vaccinated girls and 16.1% of total study cohort) received the third. Overall, 696 420 qHPV vaccine doses were administered. During follow-up, 1322 girls received the bivalent HPV vaccine and hence were censored.
Outcome events
Of the 53 assessed outcomes, 29 fulfilled the criterion for further analysis (≥5 vaccine exposed cases within the predefined risk periods after vaccination) whereas 24 did not (see supplementary table 2). Table 2⇓ and figure 2⇓ show crude incidence rates and adjusted rate ratios, respectively, according to exposure status of the qHPV vaccine for the 29 analysed outcomes.
Autoimmune events
The rate ratios for 20 of the 23 analysed autoimmune outcomes were not significantly increased. Exposure to qHPV vaccine was significantly associated with Behcet's syndrome (rate ratio 3.37, 95% confidence interval 1.05 to10.80), Raynaud's disease (1.67, 1.14 to 2.44), and type 1 diabetes (1.29, 1.03 to 1.62).
Neurological events
The rate ratios were not significantly increased for any of the five analysed neurological outcomes. For two of these outcomes, epilepsy and paralysis, the rate ratios were significantly decreased.
Venous thromboembolism
The rate ratio for the association between exposure to qHPV vaccine and venous thromboembolism was 0.86 (0.55 to 1.36).
Evaluation of safety signals
Each of the three autoimmune outcome events where the rate ratios were significantly increased was assessed using the predefined signal strengthening criteria. For each of these three outcomes, one of the three signal strengthening criteria was fulfilled (table 3⇓). For Raynaud's disease and type 1 diabetes, the fulfilled criterion was that the analysis was based on 20 or more vaccine exposed cases. For Behcet's syndrome, the criterion was that the rate ratio was 3.0 or above.
Subsequently, for each of the three outcome events with a significantly increased rate ratio within 180 days after qHPV vaccination, we estimated rate ratios for a later period. Starting from day 181 after vaccination and onwards, the rate ratios were 3.18 (95% confidence interval 0.83 to 12.19) for Behcet's syndrome, 1.50 (0.95 to 2.37) for Raynaud's disease, and 1.18 (0.91 to 1.55) for type 1 diabetes (see supplementary table 3).
Visual inspection of the temporal distribution of cases revealed no distinct pattern in time for Raynaud's disease and type 1 diabetes (fig 3⇓). For Behcet's syndrome, this analysis was inconclusive owing to the low number of cases.
Sensitivity analysis
Because of the possible delay between disease onset and diagnosis, the selected risk period of 180 days might not have captured narcolepsy events adequately. Therefore we did a sensitivity analysis with the risk period starting from day 181; the rate ratio was 0.64 (95% confidence interval 0.26 to 1.57; see supplementary table 4).
This population based study included all adolescent girls aged between 10 and 17 years in Denmark and Sweden who received quadrivalent human papillomavirus (qHPV) vaccine in the first four years after its licensure. Overall, the findings of this study, which were based on nearly one million girls and 700 000 vaccine doses, were reassuring for autoimmune, neurological, and venous thromboembolic events after qHPV vaccination.
Among 40 predefined autoimmune outcomes, five or more vaccine exposed cases occurred in 23, and these were analysed further. Exposure to qHPV vaccine was not significantly associated with 20 of these autoimmune outcome events. However, the rate ratios were significantly increased for Behcet's syndrome, Raynaud's disease, and type 1 diabetes. According to the predefined analytical strategy, we assessed the strength of the observed safety signal for these outcome events; for each of the three outcomes, only one of three predefined signal strengthening criteria was met. Furthermore, the rate ratios for the association between exposure to qHPV vaccine and each of these three outcome events in the period starting on day 181 after vaccination and beyond were similar to the rate ratios in the primary period at risk (180 days). Additionally, on visual inspection, the distribution of cases exhibited a random pattern. The initially observed associations thus need to be interpreted with several factors considered: the overall number of outcomes included in the study and hence the possibility of chance findings; the relative weakness of these signals, as per our evaluation of predefined signal strengthening criteria; and the biological implausibility of events occurring without a clear temporal pattern in relation to the exposure. On this basis, although significantly increased rate ratios were initially observed for three outcomes, it can be concluded that after further assessment no consistent evidence for a causal association was found.
Relation to other studies
These findings corroborate those from a cohort study of 189 629 women in two managed care organisations in California, which found no safety signal when investigating the risk of 16 autoimmune events.15 That study did find an inverse association between exposure to qHPV vaccine and type 1 diabetes (rate ratio 0.57, 95% confidence interval 0.47 to 0.73), lending further support to the conclusion that the initial signal for type 1 diabetes observed in our study might be a false positive.
Of the 12 neurological outcomes assessed in our study, five fulfilled the criterion for further analyses. The rate ratio was not significantly increased for any of these five outcomes, and both epilepsy and paralysis were inversely associated with exposure to qHPV vaccine. Not at least given that the Vaccine Safety Datalink study of qHPV vaccine related adverse events reported a relative risk of 1.02 for seizures,14 the observed inverse association for this outcome in our study is most likely due to chance. This underlines the need to interpret the findings from our study taking into account the large number of comparisons made and the need for ongoing monitoring in independent populations.
Analysis of data reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System revealed disproportionate reporting of venous thromboembolism.13 A study by the Vaccine Safety Datalink, which involved eight outcomes, identified a non-significantly increased relative risk (1.98) of venous thromboembolism; medical record review could confirm five of the eight cases identified from databases using international classification of diseases codes, and all five had known risk factors for venous thromboembolism.14 In our analysis, based on 21 vaccine exposed cases, there was no significant association with venous thromboembolism within 90 days after exposure to qHPV vaccine. These results are corroborated by a study in two managed care organisations in California that did not find evidence of an association between qHPV vaccination and venous thromboembolism when assessing all events in emergency department and admissions to hospital using international classification of diseases codes.16
Strengths and weaknesses of this study
Our study has strengths and limitations. We analysed nationwide data from Denmark and Sweden, which permitted a large sample size; this was advantageous because many of the outcomes studied are rare and therefore not possible to study in a clinical trial. Furthermore, the use of individually linked data allowed the identification of truly incident cases. Additionally, the inclusion of entire populations in the cohort allowed the rates among those exposed to vaccine to be compared directly with the true national background rates.27 Although Denmark and Sweden are alike in many respects, including having similar healthcare systems and universal access to healthcare, differences in diagnostic coding practices might have influenced the ascertainment of cases. This is, however, unlikely for relatively well defined diseases. Our case definition was based on hospital diagnoses, which likely captured the majority of cases because most adolescent girls with the severe conditions studied are under specialised paediatric care (this type of care is only available from hospitals in Denmark and Sweden), at the very least during the diagnostic phase.
Dates of onset of symptoms or disease were not available for this study, which instead relied on dates of diagnoses to define the index dates of outcome events. It is therefore possible that a proportion of events attributed to vaccine exposure in the analyses had symptom onset before the vaccine was administered, and similarly, that a proportion of events had symptom onset within the risk period but were diagnosed later on and were thus not attributed to vaccine exposure in the analyses. To accommodate the time delay between first symptom and diagnosis we used a 180 day risk period for autoimmune and neurological outcomes, which is longer than in some studies (for example, studies of Guillain-Barré syndrome after vaccination typically have a risk window of 42 days), but consistent with other studies of autoimmune disease after HPV vaccination.15 However, it may have been too short to capture diseases with a more insidious onset. Because the latter may be the case for narcolepsy, we conducted a sensitivity analysis with a risk window starting on day 181 after vaccination; no significant association was observed with narcolepsy.
The vaccine coverage was 49% in Denmark and 18% in Sweden. This difference between the countries may reflect the fact that during the study period the qHPV vaccine had been introduced in the national childhood vaccination programme in Denmark but not in Sweden. The statistical models included adjustment for age, country, calendar year, and parental educational level, country of birth, and socioeconomic status. However, we could not obtain information on other potential risk factors such as smoking as this information is not recorded in any nationwide register. This may represent a source of residual confounding. In particular, given an overall 30% vaccine coverage, adolescent girls who did receive the vaccine may be selected individuals and could be at differential risk of certain outcomes or be more or less likely to consult healthcare for health problems. Self controlled case series analysis28 could have tackled some of the potential problems from confounding. However, as the aim of this study was signal detection and strengthening and the method chosen is computationally efficient for analysing a large number of outcomes, the self controlled case series method is data intensive and would be cumbersome when studying a large number of outcomes. Furthermore, the self controlled case series becomes problematic when onset of disease is not known to any great extent (which is the case, for example, for narcolepsy, which normally has a long incubation period).
An unmasking phenomenon has been described in vaccine safety research.26 This refers to the fact that the vaccination visit provides an opportunity to evaluate symptoms that may not have been evaluated otherwise and, hence, that those vaccinated may be more likely to have certain disorders diagnosed; this would bias results towards increased risk attributed to vaccination. This phenomenon is unlikely for diseases with relatively prominent and well recognised symptoms, such as type 1 diabetes, but is plausible for diseases that may present with obscure symptoms or that initially may be interpreted by the patient as normal variation, such as Raynaud's disease. Although the results from this study are possibly generalisable to comparable populations that are of similar age, they cannot be directly extrapolated to adults. Furthermore, the results should not be inferred to the bivalent HPV vaccine, because the constituents of the vaccine differ.
This cohort study of about one million adolescent girls aged 10 to 17 years utilised routine healthcare data from two Scandinavian countries to identify potential serious adverse events during the first four years after the qHPV vaccine was marketed. While the study expands on the current safety information of the qHPV vaccine by systematically assessing a range of serious adverse outcomes, the results need to be interpreted cautiously considering the large number of statistical tests performed; as well as the chance of false positive findings, true associations may have been missed. Although significantly increased rate ratios were initially observed for three outcomes, further assessment showed no consistent evidence for a plausible association; firstly, these risk signals were relatively weak, as assessed by prespecified criteria, and, secondly, no temporal relation between vaccine exposure and outcome was evident. Thus, this study identified no safety signals with respect to autoimmune, neurological, and venous thromboembolic events after the qHPV vaccine had been administered. Nevertheless, these findings need to be confirmed in studies with longer follow-up time, validation of outcomes, and data on time of onset of disease. Further monitoring of HPV vaccine safety is warranted in other populations when use and coverage has increased.
What is already known on this topic
Vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV) have been available since 2006
Clinical trials and post-licensure studies from the United States have not identified any increase in the risk of serious adverse events after vaccination
What this study adds
This European cohort study found no evidence supporting associations between exposure to qHPV vaccine and autoimmune, neurological, and venous thromboembolic adverse events in almost one million adolescent girls
Cite this as: BMJ 2013;347:f5906
We thank Jonas Hällgren for data administration, Karin Sundström for valuable discussion on the findings in this study, and the Swedish Institute for Communicable Diseases for contributing with HPV vaccination data from the Svevac register.
Contributors: BP, HS, and AH created the database and performed the statistical analyses. LAD and BP drafted the manuscript. All authors actively participated in study design, interpretation and discussion of the results, revision of the manuscript, and approval of the final version of the manuscript. AH is the guarantor.
Funding: This study was supported by a grant from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research and the Danish Medical Research Council. The funding bodies had no role in the study design; the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data; the writing of the article; and the decision to submit it for publication. All authors are independent from the funding agencies.
Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; LAD and PS are and have been involved in other studies with unconditional grants from GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi Pasteur MSD, and Merck; and no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.
Ethical approval: This study was approved by the regional ethical review committee in Stockholm, Sweden, and by the Danish Data Protection Agency. Ethical approval is not required for register based research in Denmark.
Declaration of transparency: The lead author affirms that this manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study being reported; that no important aspects of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained.
Data sharing: No additional data available.
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.


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World War, 1939-1945
Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
Scope Note: Also known as World War II
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Felix and Selma Stefanile papers
Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: MSF 306
Scope and Contents
The Felix and Selma Stefanile papers (1920-2009; 26.75 cubic feet) document the personal and professional lives of Felix and Selma Stefanile. The collection includes rough drafts and notes of Felix and Selma's published poems and essays. It also contains personal papers which document both of their lives in New York before they came to live in West Lafayette, Indiana. Many of the photographs are focused on Felix's childhood, early life, middle and later years. The photographs document less of...
1920-2009; Majority of material found within 1944-2000; Other: Date acquired: 01/02/2010


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Please check out the latest article, "Coping with the Past: The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin" on the European and American Public Policy Forum webs.
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Many people have hormonal imbalances and don't even realize it. Even with medical tests for abnormal thyroid function, it doesn't always pick up on a thyroid that isn't functioning as it should. The same goes for the adrenals. When they get overtaxed, the hormonal imbalance that follows can be very difficult. Fortunately, there are some very good natural remedies for hormonal imbalance.
How do you know if your hormones are not balanced?
Glands that are under-producing will have some symptoms that are different from glands that are over-producing. However, there are some symptoms that are shared across the board. If you notice that you experience several of these symptoms, it could point to a hormonal imbalance:
- Weight loss or gain (without trying or doing anything different)
- Swelling
- Confusion, difficulty finding the "right" word, lack of mental clarity
- Fatigue
- Memory loss
- Muscle weakness
- Sexual dysfunction, lack of desire
- Depression and anxiety
- Aches and pains in the muscles
- Migraines
Your chiropractor, naturopath, or specialist can help you determine if you have a hormonal imbalance. Many medical doctors tend to prescribe medications, but in most cases the problem can be corrected through natural means. These three treatments are very beneficial in treating hormonal imbalances in the body. They can be done separately or combined for more healthful results.
Herbs and Essential Oils for hormone imbalance
There are several herbs and essential oils that are exceptional when it comes to balancing hormones. Ashwagandha tops the list for treating overactive or sluggish thyroid as well as overtaxed adrenals. You can take it as a tablet or capsule, in powder form, or as a liquid. Mixing ¼ to ½ teaspoons of powder into some milk with honey and taking just before bedtime can help you sleep as well as calm your stress and balance your hormones.
Several essential oils like clary sage, lavender, and sandalwood help reduce stress and promote a sense of wellbeing. Hormonal balance is a natural result. To use essential oils, put 3 to 5 drops in a diffuser and breathe it in.
Use nutrition to balance hormones
Hormonal imbalance is often the result of stress, whether it is emotional stress from difficulties in life, or physical stress from poor health habits like not getting enough sleep and not maintaining a healthy diet. Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids are vital for everything from heart health to vibrant skin to hormonal balance. Other nutrients you should be getting include vitamin D, B complex, and magnesium. If you aren't getting enough in the foods that you eat, then consider supplements. Yes, it's that important.
You can also give your body a great boost by taking probiotics and enjoying the marvelous healing properties of bone broth. Bone broth is available in powder or liquid – or you can make it yourself. It packs a serious nutritional punch so incorporating it into your diet is a very smart move.
Chiropractic balances hormones naturally
Chiropractic care is a powerful treatment for hormonal imbalance. It goes right to the heart of many of the factors that cause the body to get out of balance and treats the problem at its root.
It helps to relieve stress in the body and reduce or eliminate pain, both of which can contribute to hormonal imbalances. It is one of the best natural treatments for hormonal imbalance because it brings the body itself back into balance.
What's more, the whole-body approach that chiropractic offers means that you get recommendations on healthy eating, exercise, and positive lifestyle changes. All of these things work together to balance your body and balance your hormones for a healthier, happier you.
This article is copyrighted by Blogging Chiropractors for its Doctor of Chiropractic members and may not be copied or duplicated in any manner including printed or electronic media, regardless of whether for a fee or gratis without the prior written permission of Blogging Chiropractors.