ScienceDebate2008

If you strongly believe that voters do not need to be subjected to another inane presidential candidate debate like the one arranged by ABC news last Wednesday night, please urge the three candidates left standing to accept the May 2008 invitation from the leading scientists in this country to ScienceDebate2008, which will be covered by the science channel "Nova."

Voters have the right to know, and a vital need to know, where the three presidential candidates stand on science policy issues. We also have the right to know who they are considering as advisors in this important arena. Frankly, a huge number of votes depend on their willingness to participate in this debate, and the numbers are growing every day.

Protecting our future starts with understanding that much of the wealth and the wellbeing in this country comes from scientific research and technological innovation, which has suffered from inadequate government funding for way to many years.

It seems that the public is generally unaware of the vital role of Federal funding agencies (NIH and NSF) in driving biomedical and technology research, which in the minds of many of us is the heart of the ScienceDebate problem; all three candidates feel they can blow off this request from millions of people because the general public is ignorant of the issues.

Use the following link to add your support for this proposed debate:

http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=23

Vitamin D, Calcium & Colon Cancer

A clinical study on 92 patients suggests that supplementing diet with calcium and vitamin D appear to increase the levels of a protein called Bax that controls programmed cell death in the colon. More Bax might be pushing pre-cancerous cells into programmed cell death.

The studies of colorectal biopsy samples are part of a ten-year multi-center study of the effects of increased vitamin D and calcium and biomarker-guided treatment of colon cancer recurrence. This effort is to identify a portfilio of measurments that together can gauge someone's risk of getting color cancer. The study involves almost 2,500 people nationwide who have regular colonscopies.