Author: Art Diamond

Scientist Latta Knows, but Cannot Prove, That Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Is Not Extinct

I respect and admire Dr. Latta for having the courage to affirm what he saw with his own two eyes. Other scientists should not be so quick to ‘give him the bird’ (so to speak ;).

(p. A19) If there’s new hope, it’s blurry. What’s certain: The roller coaster tale of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a majestic bird whose presumed extinction has been punctuated by a series of contested rediscoveries, is going strong.

The latest twist is a peer-reviewed study Thursday [May 18, 2023] in the journal Ecology and Evolution presenting sighting reports, audio recordings, trail camera images and drone video. Collected over the last decade in a Louisiana swamp forest, the precise location omitted for the birds’ protection, the authors write that the evidence suggests the “intermittent but repeated presence” of birds that look and behave like ivory-billed woodpeckers.

But are they?

“It’s this cumulative evidence from our multiyear search that leaves us very confident that this iconic species exists, and it persists in Louisiana and probably other places as well,” said Steven C. Latta, one of the study’s authors and director of conservation and field research at the National Aviary, a nonprofit bird zoo in Pittsburgh that helps lead a program that searches for the species.

But Dr. Latta acknowledges that no single piece of evidence is definitive, and the study is carefully tempered with words like “putative” and “possible.”

. . .

. . . Dr. Latta, the study co-author, insisted that he had seen one clearly with his own eyes. He was in the field in 2019 to set up recording units, and he figures he spooked the bird. As it flew up and away, he got a close, unimpeded view of its signature markings.

“I couldn’t sleep for, like, three days,” Dr. Latta said. “It was because I had this opportunity and I felt this responsibility to establish for the rest of the world, or at least the conservation world, that this bird actually does exist.”

For the full story, see:

Catrin Einhorn. “Experts Strive to Prove ‘This Bird Actually Does Exist’.” The New York Times (Friday, May 19, 2023): A19.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added. The online version of the article says that the print version appears on p. 21. My national edition of the print version appeared on p. 19.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated May 18, 2023, and has the title “A Vanished Bird Might Live On, or Not. The Video Is Grainy.”)

The peer-reviewed paper, co-authored by Latta and mentioned above, is:

Latta, Steven C., Mark A. Michaels, Thomas C. Michot, Peggy L. Shrum, Patricia Johnson, Jay Tischendorf, Michael Weeks, John Trochet, Don Scheifler, and Bob Ford. “Multiple Lines of Evidence Suggest the Persistence of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (Campephilus Principalis) in Louisiana.” Ecology and Evolution 13, no. 5 (2023): e10017 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.10017.

California Democratic Leaders Are “Shook” that Voters in Their “Liberal Bastion” Prefer Merit Instead of Affirmative Action

(p. 1) The 2020 campaign to restore race-conscious affirmative action in California was close to gospel within the Democratic Party. It drew support from the governor, senators, state legislative leaders and a who’s who of business, nonprofit and labor elites, Black, Latino, white and Asian.

The Golden State Warriors, San Francisco Giants and 49ers and Oakland Athletics urged voters to support the referendum, Proposition 16, and remove “systemic barriers.” A commercial noted that Kamala Harris, then a U.S. senator, had endorsed the campaign, and the ad also suggested that to oppose it was to side with white supremacy. Supporters raised many millions of dollars for the referendum and outspent opponents by 19 to 1.

“Vote for racial justice!” urged the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

None of these efforts persuaded Jimmie Romero, a 63-year-old barber who grew up in the working-class Latino neighborhood of Wilmington in Los Angeles. Homelessness, illegal dumping, spiraling rents: He sat in his shop and listed so many problems.

Affirmative action was not one of those.

“I was upset that they tried to push that,” Mr. Romero recalled in a recent interview. “It was not what matters.”

Mr. Romero was one of millions of California voters, including about half who are Hispanic and a majority who are Asian American, who voted against Proposition 16, which would have restored race-conscious admissions at public universities, and in government hiring and contracting.

The breadth of that rejection shook supporters. California is a liberal bastion and one of the most diverse states in the country.

. . .

(p. 12) Valerie Contreras, a crane operator, is a proud union member and civic leader in Wilmington, where half the voters were against the referendum. She had little use for the affirmative action campaign.

“It was ridiculous all the racially loaded terms Democrats used,” she said. “It was a distraction from the issues that affect our lives.”

Asian voters spoke of visceral unease. South and East Asians make up just 15 percent of the state population, and 35 percent of the undergraduates in the University of California system.

Affirmative action, to their view, upends traditional measures of merit — grades, test scores and extracurricular activities — and threatens to reduce their numbers.

Sunjay Muralitharan is a voluble freshman and a leader of the Democratic Party chapter at the University of California, San Diego. A Bernie Sanders supporter, he favors universal basic income, a higher minimum wage and national health care.

In 2020, as a 16-year-old, he joined the campaign against race-conscious affirmative action in California. Afterward, he and friends applied to elite private universities outside California and were often surprised by the rejections, reaffirming his view that Asian students need higher grades and scores to gain admission.

“There were lots of students of Indian and Chinese descent who had to settle for schools not of their caliber,” said Mr. Muralitharan, who grew up in Fremont, a predominantly Asian middle-class suburb of San Jose.

. . .

Kevin Liao, a consultant and former top Democratic Party aide, . . . was not surprised, . . ., that many Asian Americans balked. “The notion that you would look at anything other than pure academic performance is seen by immigrants as antithetical to American values,” he said.

For the full story, see:

Michael Powell and Ilana Marcus. “The Affirmative Action Vote That Divided California Democrats.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, June 11, 2023): 1 & 12.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated June 5, 2023, and has the title “The Failed Affirmative Action Campaign That Shook Democrats.” The online version says that the print version had the title “California Vote Exposed a Divide Amid Democrats” but my national print version had the title “The Affirmative Action Vote That Divided California Democrats.”)

Fred Siegel Went from Liberal to Conservative During the New York Blackout of 1977 When Looters Burned Stores, Restaurants, and Civility

(p. B10) Fred Siegel, a passionate urban historian whose rejection of the liberal establishment’s response to crime, poverty and public civility transformed him from a spokesman for the Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern in 1972 to a voter for Donald J. Trump in 2020, died on Sunday at his home in Brooklyn.

. . .

His ideological evolution was evidenced in the titles of his books: “The Future Once Happened Here: New York, D.C., L.A., and the Fate of America’s Big Cities” (1997); “The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York, and the Genius of American Life” (2005), which he wrote with Harry Siegel; and “The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class” (2014).

. . .

And, perhaps more in sorrow than in anger, he quoted former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York as saying that his fellow Democrats had “rewarded the articulation of moral purpose more than the achievement of practical good.”

. . .

. . . in 1991, Mr. Siegel argued: “Middle-class citizens, rightly or wrongly, have become convinced that modern liberal urban government is mostly about letting the poor misbehave at the expense of the middle class, and paying public employees very well to deliver services very poorly.”

. . .

Mr. Siegel’s metamorphosis — from a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, a fellow of the Progressive Policy Institute and a voter for the independent John Anderson in 1980 and the Democrat Walter F. Mondale in 1984 (each time voting against the Republican Ronald Reagan) — reached its apogee (depending on one’s political point of view) in 2020.

After a lifetime of sitting out presidential elections or mostly voting for losers, he cast his ballot for Mr. Trump.

He listed his reasons for doing so in 2020 in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, lauding Mr. Trump for “crushing ISIS, pulling us out of the Iran nuclear deal, moving our embassy to Jerusalem and making fools of those people who insist that the Palestinian issue is at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict.” He also favored Mr. Trump, he said, for displaying an “ability to withstand a prolonged coup attempt by the Democrats and the media” and for championing “bourgeois values.”

In an online tribute this week, Brian C. Anderson, the editor of City Journal, wrote that Mr. Siegel had identified what he called a “riot ideology” that took hold of public officials in major cities, “making them reluctant to confront public disorder and crime for fear of violent opposition.”

. . .

The essayist Irving Kristol famously defined a neoconservative, a breed Mr. Kristol epitomized and popularized, as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” But Mr. Siegel’s conversion wasn’t the result of a single personal experience, his son said — even though a thief once grabbed a bag of $100 worth of kosher meat from him on the subway and several of the family’s cars were stolen.

If Mr. Siegel approached a philosophical epiphany, though, it was during the blackout of 1977, when looters raged through parts of Brooklyn, stripping stores of merchandise and setting them ablaze in a night of rioting.

Mr. Siegel, whose favorite restaurant, Jack’s Pastrami King, was among the places destroyed, reflected in 2017: “The city itself had been mugged, I realized. I’m still haunted by that moment from 40 years ago, when my political re-education began.”

For the full obituary, see:

Sam Roberts. “Fred Siegel, 78, Urban Historian And a Former Liberal, Is Dead.” The New York Times (Saturday, May 13, 2023): B10.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary was updated May 15, 2023, and has the title “Fred Siegel, Urban Historian and a Former Liberal, Is Dead at 78.”)

The most recent of Siegel’s books mentioned above is:

Siegel, Fred. The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class. New York: Encounter Books, 2014.

Feds Impose Tariffs on Imports of Paper-Thin Steel Needed to Make EV Engines

(p. A3) Large U.S. steelmakers are ramping up production of a hard-to-make, paper-thin steel to capture a fast-growing market for a material critical to powering electric vehicles.

. . .

Such electrical steel, which accounts for about 1% of all the steel produced annually in the world, already is in short supply for electric vehicles, executives said. Companies expect demand to accelerate faster than production as EV volumes expand in the coming years.

“It’s in limited supply and with very long lead times. Sometimes 50 or 52 weeks,” said Hale Foote, owner of Scandic Springs Inc., a San Leandro, Calif., company that uses high-grade electrical steel to make parts for scientific measurement devices.

. . .

More than 80% of the electrical steel produced comes from China, Japan and South Korea, all countries that are subject to U.S. tariffs or quotas on steel imports, industry analysts said.

. . .

(p. B2) “It takes intense focus. You have to have absolute consistency or you scrap the material,” said David Stickler, who led the investment group that built Big River Steel in Osceola, Ark., and then sold the mill to U.S. Steel in 2021. Mr. Stickler said he envisioned electrical steel being a core product at Big River when he started planning the mill nearly a decade ago.

. . .

Steel-industry executives said that creating more domestic capacity to make electrical steel for vehicles will likely take years, as steel companies acquire equipment and become proficient at the exacting production process.

“You can’t just buy the equipment and start making electrical steel. Those who’ve made the investment will have an advantage for the next five to 10 years,” Mr. Stickler said.

For the full story, see:

Tita, Bob. “Paper-Thin Steel Used to Power EVs Is in Short Supply.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, March 28, 2023): B1-B2.

(Note: ellipses added. The online version is longer, but the passages quoted above appear in both versions.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 27, 2023, and has the title “The Paper-Thin Steel Needed to Power Electric Cars Is in Short Supply.”)

Innovative Farmers Can Adapt to Scarcer Water

(p. D4) The Colorado River, Arizona’s largest water source, is so low that last month, for the first time in history, the federal government proposed cutting water allotments to three states that rely on the river, including Arizona. Climate change is parching soil and depleting aquifers already taxed by corporate agriculture. Large swaths of Arizona farmland are devoted to water-hungry crops like lettuce and hay, grown to feed livestock as far away as Saudi Arabia.

. . .

Drawing on lessons she learned at the Urban Farm, a Phoenix-based business that teaches home gardeners how to grow food in a dry climate, Ms. Norton turned her backyard “from bare-bones, dead-ground scratch” into a lush mix of garden and orchard. She’d be open to raising chickens as well, if not for the presence of predators like coyotes, roadrunners and rattlesnakes.

What appears wild is the result of careful planning. A mulberry tree provides shade for the dragon fruit growing around its trunk. The drip tape that waters apricot, plum and apple trees also irrigates Mexican primrose flowers and sweet potato vines below.

“These grapes are strategically placed to keep the afternoon sun off these young trees,” Ms. Norton said. “I take the leaves and give them to a lady four doors down. She uses them to make dolmas.”

Ms. Norton is an ardent member of the Phoenix area’s sprawling gardening community. She is now general manager of the Urban Farm, and owns a seed business with its founder, Greg Peterson.

. . .

A primary goal of gardeners like Ms. Norton is to naturally rejuvenate soil degraded by synthetic fertilizers and neglect. Zach Brooks started the Arizona Worm Farm to help.

Nearly halfway into a 10-year plan to establish a fully sustainable, off-the-grid farm, Mr. Brooks sees his project as proof of how quickly damaged land can be restored using natural methods. It includes gardens and a food forest, a dense collection of plants that support one another, comprising mostly fruits and vegetables. Together, they provide produce for a small farm store and meals for his 20 employees.

. . .

As challenging as it is to farm and garden around Phoenix, Sterling Johnson said it’s (p. D5) even more so in Ajo, about 100 miles south, which is even hotter and dryer.

“If we can do it out here,” he said, “we think you can do it anywhere.”

For the full story, see:

Brett Anderson and Adam Riding. “Feeding a Region As Water Runs Out.” The New York Times (Wednesday, May 10, 2023): D4-D5.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 8, 2023, and has the title “In Parched Arizona, the Produce Gardens Bloom.”)

Mice on Taurine Lived 10% Longer and Looked Healthier

(p. A3) Scientists are exploring a new biological link to longer life.

Boosting levels of an amino acid called taurine made mice and worms live longer, according to research published Thursday [June 7, 2023] in the journal Science. Middle-aged monkeys given taurine supplements became healthier, researchers said. In humans, lower levels of taurine were associated with age-related problems.

“This is a very promising molecule,” said Vijay Yadav, an assistant professor of genetics and development at Columbia University, who co-wrote the paper.

People have been searching for life-extending substances for millennia. Other recent studies have explored antiaging properties of compounds including resveratrol, found in red wine, and the immunosuppressive drug rapamycin. Yadav said he first suspected taurine’s connection with aging over a decade ago when his lab compared the contents of blood drawn from people of different ages.

. . .

Researchers gave daily doses of taurine to hundreds of 14-month-old mice, considered middle-aged, and compared their average lifespans to mice that didn’t get extra taurine. The female mice given taurine lived 12% longer on average and male mice that got taurine lived 10% longer, researchers said.

Mice that received taurine also appeared to be healthier.

For the full story, see:

Dominique Mosbergen. “Amino Acid Found To Slow Down Aging.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, June 9, 2023): A3.

(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added. The online version is longer, but the passages quoted above appear in both versions.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated June 9, 2023, and has the title “Is Taurine the Key to Longer Life? It Made Monkeys Healthier.”)

The Science paper on taurine mentioned above is:

Singh, Parminder, Kishore Gollapalli, Stefano Mangiola, Daniela Schranner, Mohd Aslam Yusuf, Manish Chamoli, Sting L. Shi, Bruno Lopes Bastos, Tripti Nair, Annett Riermeier, Elena M. Vayndorf, Judy Z. Wu, Aishwarya Nilakhe, Christina Q. Nguyen, Michael Muir, Michael G. Kiflezghi, Anna Foulger, Alex Junker, Jack Devine, Kunal Sharan, Shankar J. Chinta, Swati Rajput, Anand Rane, Philipp Baumert, Martin Schönfelder, Francescopaolo Iavarone, Giorgia di Lorenzo, Swati Kumari, Alka Gupta, Rajesh Sarkar, Costerwell Khyriem, Amanpreet S. Chawla, Ankur Sharma, Nazan Sarper, Naibedya Chattopadhyay, Bichitra K. Biswal, Carmine Settembre, Perumal Nagarajan, Kimara L. Targoff, Martin Picard, Sarika Gupta, Vidya Velagapudi, Anthony T. Papenfuss, Alaattin Kaya, Miguel Godinho Ferreira, Brian K. Kennedy, Julie K. Andersen, Gordon J. Lithgow, Abdullah Mahmood Ali, Arnab Mukhopadhyay, Aarno Palotie, Gabi Kastenmüller, Matt Kaeberlein, Henning Wackerhage, Bhupinder Pal, and Vijay K. Yadav. “Taurine Deficiency as a Driver of Aging.” Science 380, no. 6649 (June 9, 2023): eabn9257.

“By Far the Biggest Risk to Global Climate Comes From Volcanoes”

(p. C9) What’s the connection between sugar and Xi Jinping? Why does the political turbulence in today’s Middle East trace back to the Cretaceous period? How did the humble potato revolutionize the world? Why did the great Mayan cities of the ninth century run out of potable water? What does the contemporary West African practice of polygyny—one man, many wives—have to do with the trans-Atlantic slave trade?

Peter Frankopan raises these beguiling questions—and many others, bless him—in “The Earth Transformed,” a book that examines the entire sweep of the relationship between humans and nature.

. . .

Whereas Mr. Frankopan never disguises the fact that he is on the greenish side of the climate-change conversation, he steers clear of enviro-preaching and finger-wagging.  . . .  In words that will startle many of us, he says that “by far the biggest risk to global climate comes from volcanoes.” He contrasts the “considerable thought and attention” that have gone into planning for a warming world with the almost complete absence of planning or funding on the likely implications of major volcanic eruptions. Estimates put the chances of a mega-eruption—one that could cost “hundreds of millions of lives”—at one in six before the year 2100.

. . .

The history of the Earth is a history of large-scale transformations that have wreaked havoc in some cases and blessed us with benign climatic eras in others (such as the Roman Warm Period from 300 B.C. to A.D. 500). The most famous instance of the former was the asteroid strike in the Yucatán Peninsula 66 million years ago in which our beloved dinosaurs were wiped out. The rise of humankind, Mr. Frankopan writes, was the result of an “extraordinary series of flukes, coincidences, long shots and serendipities” that made the planet hospitable to our existence. It was “geological chance” that gave the Middle East its oil reserves, the result of warming in Cretaceous times.

. . .

Mr. Frankopan’s thesis is that civilizations thrive best when they are resilient to shocks. Yet “hyperfragility,” he believes, is the name of the game in the 21st century—whether in response to warming, a rudderless U.S., Mr. Xi and Taiwan, Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, or a nuclear Saudi Arabia and Iran. The march of history has left such places as Uruk, Nineveh, Harappa, Angkor and Tikal in ruins, not because of climate change but because of a lack of resilience to shocks, made worse by obtuse planning and even worse decision-making. That’s the lesson Mr. Frankopan is trying to teach us.

For the full review, see:

Tunku Varadarajan. “Doom May Have to Be Delayed.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, April 22, 2023): C9.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the date April 20, 2023, and has the title “‘The Earth Transformed’ Review: Doom May Be Delayed.”)

The book under review is:

Frankopan, Peter. The Earth Transformed: An Untold History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023.

So-Called “Inflation Reduction Act” Mandates Pharma Firms Dishonestly Say They Voluntarily Negotiated Prices

(p. A15) The pharmaceutical company Merck claims in a lawsuit filed this week that the “Drug Price Negotiation Program for Medicare,” part of last summer’s Inflation Reduction Act, is an unconstitutional taking of company’s property and a violation of the company’s freedom of speech. If successful, this lawsuit will prevent the unconstitutional practice of forcing drug companies to sell drugs to the U.S. government at a government-determined price.

To make the provision of the 2022 law constitutional, Congress could have imposed price controls, or it could have bargained with pharmaceutical companies using the massive marketing power of Medicare, which accounts for some half of all American drug spending. Instead, Congress tried to prevent pharmaceutical companies from walking away from any potential deal. Under the act, secret negotiations force pharmaceutical companies to agree to government-determined prices amounting to massive discounts off market-based prices, under the threat of crippling taxes and penalties.

Americans tend to support pharmaceutical “price negotiations,” but oppose “price controls.” Knowing this, Congress set up a ruse.

. . .

. . ., the law essentially requires a company to communicate that it agreed to the set price—compelled speech that is prohibited by the First Amendment. Time and again, the Supreme Court has declared forced speech beyond the power of the government. The government’s only seeming interest is to pretend that a system of unilateral price controls and mandated sales is actually a system of voluntary negotiations.

For the full commentary, see:

Daniel E. Troy. “An Unconstitutional Offer Drug Companies Can’t Refuse.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, June 9, 2023): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date June 8, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

An Hawaiian Wants Land She Can Own and Control, Even if Not in Hawaii

(p. 1) When Pauline Kauinani Souza was a child in Hawaii, she spent early mornings watering her grandfather’s watermelons and papaya trees.

Her family lived frugally, eating homemade bread and heating water over a fire for bathing. But the no-frills life came with the ultimate perk: living near the beach and drifting off to sleep at night to the sound of waves gently crashing on the shore.

Now, at 80, Ms. Souza lives in Las Vegas, a desert city of neon reinvention far from the ocean and her ancestral home. It is not paradise, but it is full of Native Hawaiians like her who have flocked there in recent years for the endless entertainment, reasonable cost of living and something few people can find in Hawaii: a house they can afford.

“I own it outright,” she said proudly of her two-bedroom, ranch-style home in Las Vegas. “In Hawaii, there aren’t many people who can say that.”

Increasingly, Las Vegas is drawing Hawaiians who came to visit and decided to stay, convinced that an affordable faux version of the islands is better than an endless struggle to make ends meet in the real thing.

Between 2011 and 2021, the population of Native Hawaiians and (p. 19) other Pacific Islanders in Clark County, Nev., which includes Las Vegas, grew by about 40 percent, for a total of nearly 22,000 people. That was the greatest number of newcomers in that demographic in any county outside Hawaii, according to population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. In that same period, the total population of Clark County grew by about 17 percent.

For many, the draw is real estate: Houses in the Las Vegas area have a median listing price of about $460,000, compared with about $800,000 in Honolulu, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data.

Americans migrating for cheaper housing is not unusual, as seen most dramatically in the decades-long shift from the Northeast to the Sunbelt. But this migration from the impossibly lush natural landscape of the islands to the brash desert of Las Vegas is a particularly vivid glimpse of how the search for housing remakes the country in sometimes surprising ways.

. . .

In 2022, Hawaii had the highest cost of living out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to data from the Council for Community and Economic Research. The state imports the vast majority of its food, making everyday groceries especially expensive. And strict regulations on building have contributed to housing shortages and prices out of reach for many.

For the full story, see:

Eliza Fawcett and Hana Asano. “Priced Out of Paradise’ But Hawaiians Thrive in Desert.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, May 21, 2023): 1 & 19.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 20, 2023, and has the title “There’s No Ocean in Sight. But Many Hawaiians Make Las Vegas Their Home.” The online version says that the print version has the title “Desert Provides A New Paradise For Hawaiians” but my national print version has the title “They’re ‘Priced Out of Paradise’ But Hawaiians Thrive in Desert.”)

As Millennials Age They Shift to Republicans

(p. B4) Fifteen years ago, a new generation of young voters propelled Barack Obama to a decisive victory that augured a new era of Democratic dominance.

Fifteen years later, those once young voters aren’t so young — and aren’t quite so Democratic.

. . .

This shift toward the right among the young voters who propelled Mr. Obama to victory 15 years ago is part of a larger pattern: Over the last decade, almost every cohort of voters under 50 has shifted toward the right, based on an analysis of thousands of survey interviews archived at the Roper Center.

It’s not necessarily a stunning finding. Political folklore has long held that voters become more conservative as they get older. But it is nonetheless at odds with a wave of recent reports or studies suggesting otherwise. The Financial Times, for instance, wrote that “millennials are shattering the oldest rule in politics” by not moving to the right as they age.

For the full commentary, see:

Nate Cohn. “Millennials Aren’t an Exception. They Have Moved to the Right.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, June 4, 2023): A16.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary was updated June 2, 2023, and has the title “Millennials Are Not an Exception. They’ve Moved to the Right.”)

Man Died When Pharmacist Refused to Give Him EpiPen Without the Mandated Prescription

(p. A15) Rates of hospital admissions for asthma, nut allergies in children, and prescriptions for EpiPens (used to treat extreme reactions) have all tripled in recent decades. Not only are food allergies now more common in children, but they are less likely to be outgrown with age than in years past.

The causes and consequences of this epidemic are the subject of “Allergic,” an important and deeply researched book by Theresa MacPhail, a medical anthropologist who memorably portrays the human face of disease.   . . .   Ms. MacPhail . . . has a personal connection to this subject: Her father died after being stung by a bee on the main street of the New Hampshire town where she grew up. (His girlfriend drove him to a drugstore instead of a hospital; even though he was in extremis, the pharmacist refused to dispense an EpiPen without a prescription.)

For the full review, see:

John J. Ross. “BOOKSHELF; Runny Noses, Itchy Eyes.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, May 24, 2023): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the date May 23, 2023, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; ‘Allergic’ Review: Runny Noses, Itchy Eyes.”)

The book under review is:

MacPhail, Theresa. Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World. New York: Random House, 2023.