Bits and Pieces

article image
ILLUSTRATION: FOTOLIA/ARTENOT
In 1979 a congressional task force set up to help family farms found that 80% of total farm assistance payments went to just 17% of all agricultural operations, and 70% of what were then considered "small" farms benefited from only 5% of USDA extension activities.

DANGEROUS DOCTORS? Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Illinois, contends that we’d be better off if 95% of the doctoring (not just surgery) in this country were to stop! Furthermore, he supports his claim with statistics which show that the death rate declines during doctors’ strikes, then goes back to its “normal” level when the physicians return to work.

WORK-A-LONG: If you have an office skill and are feeling nomadic, Olsten Temporary Services can provide a fee-paid job (and, if you’re interested, accommodations) in each city along your route.

A POTENTIAL CANCER FIGHTER: Biogen S.A., a Swiss firm, has announced the development of recombinant DNA technology which would enable Interferon–a naturally occurring human protein that’s shown great promise as a cancer cure–to be economically manufactured by genetically altered bacteria. (The drug is currently extracted from human white blood cells . . . and is produced in such minute quantities that a pound would cost an astronomical $22 billion!)

BIG GOVERNMENT/ BIG FARMS: A Congressional Family Farm Task Force, organized to redirect federal policy away from large-scale factory farming, reports that the 70% of what are considered “small” farms benefit from only 5% of USDA extension activities . . . while 80% of total farm assistance payments go to just 17% of all agricultural operations.

“FRIENDLY FIRE”? Years ago, while the movie The Conquerors was being made in St. George, Utah, radioactive fallout from a Nevada atomic test blanketed the town. Later, stars Susan Hayward, John Wayne, Dick Powell, Agnes Moorhead, and Pedro Armendaris–plus the movie’s art director, production manager, and wardrobe mistress–all contracted cancer . . . perhaps as a result of their exposure to the radioactivity.

  • Published on Mar 1, 1980
Online Store Logo
Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368