Yesterday was the start of the official, lecture-filled part of Hacking at Random, an episode of a Dutch hackers convention that takes place every four years under a different name and at a different location. This year’s HAR is situated at Nunspeet, in the Dutch bible belt, and as always has a strong emphasis on debating the confluence of politics and technology.

Speakers this year include the guy who’s getting a camera planted in an empty eye socket, the people who make prostheses for 50 bucks instead of 250,000 (presumably we’re not talking about eyes anymore), IP/IT lawyer Arnout Engelfriet, and the infamous BREIN organisation, the Dutch ‘RIAA’.

If I have the time, I will report on the activities from the scene of the action in future postings.

All 20 contestants of the Belgian bodybuilding championship fled the venue in the Dutch city of Vlissingen, Zeeland, yesterday when three doping inspectors entered the room. The championship was cancelled, and the 300 or so spectators had to go home without seeing a single bodybuilder compete.

One of the inspectors, doctor Hans Cooman, told Nieuwsblad (Dutch): “I have never witnessed anything like it.” Nieuwsblad insinuates that the organisers of these contests often move their competitions off-shore in the hope of escaping doping tests even though these tests can be held anywhere. Says Cooman: “Sometimes sports federations take the initiative and invite us to come by, like the cycling union does. But we have never had an invitation like this from bodybuilders.”

(Photo by Jo Christian Oterhals, partially based on a photo by Lin Mei, both some rights reserved.)

A judge in Haarlem ruled last month that acupuncturists who are also certified Doctors of Medicine qualify for a tax exemption that other acupuncturists must miss out on, reports NRC (Dutch). The ruling (Dutch) seems to suggest that jurisprudence and European law leave little room for the court to rule otherwise. Apparently, there is a European Union directive that says tax exemptions for healthcare can only apply to those who have had medical training.

The irony is that quacks who should know better—because they have had an education that should have emphasized critical thinking—are the ones that get rewarded by the state, which to me, you know, yuck.

(Photo of an acupuncture needle by Wikipedia User: Xhienne, some rights reserved.)

Two scientists from Leiden University, Joke Bouwstra and Robert Rissman, invented a gel that has the same healing properties as “the buttery coating that protects and nurtures a foetus’s developing skin,” reports New Scientist. Apart from helping premature babies, the ‘baby butter’ could also be used for other applications. Writes the magazine:

Natural vernix caseosa contains a mixture of fatty compounds that waterproof the foetus. Crucially, it also contains dead cells called corneocytes, which store large amounts of water and ensure that the foetus does not get dehydrated. Vernix may also act as a barrier to infections.

To mimic this versatile substance, Joke Bouwstra and Robert Rissman [...] mixed a range of fatty compounds including lanolin, fatty acids, ceramides and cholesterol with particles made of a water-storing hydrogel. When they rubbed this white cream on mice missing a patch of their outer skin, the mice healed three times faster than untreated ones, Bouwstra says.

Illustration by Leonardo da Vinci. Somehow I cannot remember the Florentine one mentioning “baby butter.”

Nefarma (the industry association for innovative medicine) and its members are found not innovative enough. In a study commissioned by Nefarma itself Amsterdam marketing research agency Motivaction further concludes that manufacturers shirk their social responsibility, and are not transparent about their price-making process. Nefarma itself is portrayed as a messenger boy for the industry, with lack of clout, and invisible in the public debate.

Motivaction came to its conclusions after holding fourteen interviews with politicians, civil servants, doctors and pharmacists. “A step-by-step improvement of existing drugs is generally not seen as real innovation, but rather as a clever marketing trick”, the report says.

An interesting aside: proponents of a (stronger) patent system have argued for years that patents—government granted monopolies on inventions—are important because they allow the pharmaceutical industry to come up with life-saving innovations. There goes that argument.

Source: Trouw (Dutch). Photo by Tom Varco, published under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

It’s not yet on the market (and it will look different than this picture), but two inventors from Breda, North Brabant hope that it will be soon: a pillbox that reads the directions folders of medicine. Once the box is opened, it will start reading automatically. The box makes sure to state that it is medicine and not sweets, a good idea when children are around.

A text can be up to 4.5 minutes long, and a 60-second text can be read some 150 times.

Let’s hope that the direction folders are properly written (an issue about two years ago in the Netherlands), properly translated (always an issue) and not too long (nobody needs to hear an entire disclaimer in 27 EU languages).

(Link: rtl.nl)

Last Wednesday a trio of judges held that quacks are responsible for their diagnoses, and can therefore be prosecuted when something goes wrong. The case was brought by the Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij (Association against Quackery) and the Stichting Skepsis (Skepsis Foundation) against the public prosecutor, after the latter had decided to drop prosecution against two “alternative” physicians and “faith healer” Jomanda. The alternative healers had been accused of leading comedian Sylvia Millecam to her death in 2001 by steering her away from regular medicine. Millecam had been diagnosed with breast cancer, from which she died.

The court held (Dutch) that the association and the foundation had standing, and that care givers have a care duty, even if they are not accredited. This means that quacks who were able operate in relative safety in the Netherlands will now have to face the criminal consequences of their “healing” practices gone bad, just like regular physicians.

Via Wis(s)e Words.

The Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen has started an addiction study programme for doctors, the first specialised study option of its kind in the country. Some 18 general practitioners have been accepted and six more are on a waiting list. The addiction doctor study option is a two-year post-doctorate study. Institutions in the addiction care sector have pushed for this study. Some time next year, psychologists who work with addicts can specialise in addiction, as now many of them do not have the medical background to treat people with addictions to alcohol, drugs, medication and gambling.

(Link: De Gelderlander)