Author Bram Stoker, while in the throes of outlining what would become his famous horror story about an insidious Transylvanian count, planned to call his villain (and the novel) Wampyr. It doesn't take too long to figure out that wampyr is a Balkanesque word for vampire. But, as mentioned earlier in this report, Stoker stumbled onto the legends of Prince Dracula, and a name Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire that has been unspoken in most parts of the world for centuries was resurrected to human consciousness - in a landmark way.
If anything about the true-life Dracula stirred Stoker's blood, and chilled it at the same time, it was no doubt the stories he read of the man's cruelty toward his fellow Romamians. Even if the Gothic writer had not been searching for a particular prototype, how could he resist fashioning his nosferatu after he whom history books called the Impaler? Stoker couldn't use a lightweight to serve as his model of evil, and Dracula, in no way a lightweight, must have stretched Stoker's already illimitable senses.
He changed the name of his character and his novel to...Dracula.
Klaus Kinski played Dracula in the film Nosferatu the Vampyre
Klaus Kinski played Dracula in the film
Nosferatu the Vampyre
*****
Prince Dracula's "reign of terror," as even contemporary texts called it, lasted from 1456 to 1462. No one was safe from the voivode's deadly decrees. By today's standards, he would be called a mass murderer. Most of his killings were politically targeted - against domestic and foreign enemies - but sometimes he killed merely because he was bored. He hanged his victims, stretched them on the rack, burned them at the stake, boiled them alive, but mostly impaled them.
Estimated numbers of victims vary between 30,000 and more than 100,000. These figures are largely based on translations of Romanian, Hungarian, German and Russian manuscripts written within a century after Dracula's death. Records from his native Romania, which has tended to overlook his atrocities and uplift his military victories, give the lowest figures. Because Dracula hated the Saxon-German entrepreneurs whom he considered interlopers in his country's business affairs, and therefore provided fresh meat for the impaling stick, German sums are the highest.
The total of 100,000 is probably the most accurate, however. The majority of transcripts agree that at one sitting Dracula was capable of impaling an entire village or eradicating an entire brigade of Turkish Muslims.
Impalement wasn't a Dracula creation; if you remember, he learned about it while a boy in Adrianople. The French employed it before the guillotine. Spaniards and Hungarians used it. But, according to Ray Porter's account, "The Historical Dracula," impalement became an art form in Dracula's hands. "Dracula usually had a horse attached to each of the victim's legs and a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body," he explains. "The end of the stake was usually oiled and care was taken that the stake was not too sharp; else the victim might die too rapidly from shock."
Studying the chronology of Dracula's crimes makes it easy to understand why his reign, though horrific, managed to go unchallenged by his own people or by other governments for six long years. For one thing, because he slew so many Turks in recognized time of conflict he was able to sustain the crusader image; foreign dignitaries who heard of the vast impaling applauded him for saving Romania. The domestics, who knew better, who knew that they too were objects of his mania, remained silent by intimidation.
Following are a few examples, anecdote-style, of Dracula's barbarism:
St. Bartholomew's Day
During an outdoor festival of St. Bartholomew at Sibiu, Dracula had 20,000 citizens arrested and spiked in one afternoon. Claiming that they were either treacherous bourgeoisie, or supporters of that element, he had them - men, women and infants - impaled on the outskirts of a neighboring forest. As was his custom, he had his servants draw up a solitary dining table of fine food and wine so that he might enjoy his lunch by watching the tortures at close range. He occasionally had a servant dip his bread in the blood of the dying souls so that he could savor the taste of life. (Is it a wonder that Stoker was inspired?)
It was at this function that he espied one of his knights holding his nose at the repugnant smell of death permeating the air. When he asked the soldier if he was making fun of the situation, the fellow stammered, "No, my lord, my stomach churns, but -" and he quickly added, "I am not of the stout heart that my prince be."
"But, why would I want in my service a man who cannot look at death without regurgitating? Death is a soldier's livelihood!" And with that, he called to his bodyguards to impale the feeble fellow. "Let him join these others, but because he had been loyal until today, hoist him higher than the rest that he does not have to smell his company!"
A Night With The Paupers
A perfect example of the dichotomy that was Dracula is woven into an old Nuremburg legend. It tells us of his sympathy for the downtrodden of his land - the poor, the invalid, the cripple, the infirm. But, this "sympathy" extended to a morbid result. One evening, he invited hundreds of paupers to his dining hall at his castle, treating them to something they had not had in years: a filling meal. After the desserts were served, Dracula and his staff slowly meandered out, leaving only the ragged guests alone in the hall of stone. This is when Dracula's skilled archers shot arrows of fire through the hall's tall windows from outside, igniting the treated tapestries, curtains, carpets and dinner linens into a blaze that erupted into an inferno. While the peasants banged helplessly against the bolted doors for egress, Dracula in a room beyond replied, "The poor unloved creatures, it is best that they leave this world now, on a full stomach."
Is Honesty the Best Policy?
In an episode that reminds us of Pilate's utterance, "What is truth?" as he simultaneously ordered the crucifixion of Christ, Dracula asked two visiting monks what they thought of his hard discipline - then killed the one who answered honestly.
After leading them through the rows and rows of recently impaled citizens one morning, he demanded that, as holy men, they appraise his bloody justice. One monk, no doubt in fear, answered, "You are the prince of all Wallachia! Who am I to question your decisions?" The other, unable to control his feelings, blurted condemnation: "What have these unfortunates done to deserve such fate? There is no excuse for mortal man playing God!" One can guess what friar went home alive that morning.
Another report of Draculean justice, with a different twist, is the story of the traveling merchant whose moneybox had been broken into while passing through Tirgoviste. Dracula heard of the man's loss and summoned him to his palace. "My city is the most crime-free of any in Europe, and incidences such as the robbery on your wagon are not tolerated," said Dracula. "The perpetrator will be apprehended."
As proof of the capital city's forthrightness, its prince ordered the merchant to leave his cart outside his hotel that night, exposed and unlocked. "No more florins will be missing," he promised. "In fact, when you awake in the morning, the stolen money will have been restored to your trove."
As promised, when the journeyer checked into his chest at sunrise, all the florins were replaced. In fact, there was one coin extra. Rushing to the court, the jubilant fellow expressed his thanks to Dracula: "Not only was my account replenished," he rejoiced, "but your guards added an extra florin, which I now return to you."
Dracula smiled, told the man to keep the florin, and added, "You are an upright being. Had you not confessed to the surplus, you would now be joining the thief whose body dangles on a spike in my patio."
As a sidenote, Dracula was not incorrect in assuming that his capital, Tirgoviste, really was an honest city. His reign of terror had so frightened miscreants that it was virtually the safest metropolis on the continent. A website called Castle of Spirits explains, "(Dracula) was so confident that no thief would dare challenge him (that) he placed a golden cup on display in the central square...The cup was never stolen and remained where it was, untouched, throughout (his) reign."
The "Lazy" Wife
Dracula viewed women as, in a word, inferiors. They brought pleasure in the bedroom and they were good for the menial work in life that men shouldn't handle.
Once, when traveling with his entourage through the countryside, Dracula spotted a planter wearing a caftan (apron) shorter than the traditional one worn during harvest. When he asked why his garment seemed incomplete, the man told the prince that his wife couldn't finish making it as she was of ailing health and was forced from her spinning wheel to her bed.
"Excuses!" Dracula barked. "We shall have no sloven women in my kingdom; her duty to you comes before her health!" Despite the husband's protestations, Dracula's men pulled the wife from her sickbed and impaled her outside her cottage. Then, riding to a neighboring farm, Dracula selected a comely, unwed girl whom he ordered to marry the sudden widower. "You are hale and young and are capable of making this poor farmer happy," he expressed. "You will marry this very afternoon, and I will check back in a month to see that your husband is properly clothed and fed."
Whether he returned as promised is not known. But, chances are the new wife proved to be the model of domesticity.
Never Lie to Dracula
Among the brood of Dracula's mistresses there was fervent hope that he would eventually choose one of them as his princess. They competitively fawned over him. One zealous young damsel, finding no other course to nab her prince, told him that she was pregnant.
The voivode, whose complex psychoses cannot be fully explained, went into a dither, fretting that his reputation would be ruined among the devout of his kingdom if he sired an illegitimate child! He called for wedding plans to be effected immediately. In this instance, the woman seems to have known Dracula better than he knew himself.
Not.
While the banns were being prepared, the would- be groom called for his lady to be examined by the royal physicians. When they announced to him that she was without child, he flew to her in a rage. She admitted her lie, but told him it was the only way she knew how to win him. "I love you and I want to conceive on our wedding night to give you a splendid child. Forgive me!" she pleaded.
His answer to her: "A man who lies is one thing, but a woman who deceives is a devil. Well, you shall not use your wiles to trap another man!"
While guards held her down, Dracula stripped her naked. With a dirk, he slashed her body open in a T-shaped formation, from her vagina to her chest and across her breasts. All this while she was conscious. He then commanded that her ravaged form be exhibited for all to see "the evil that a woman can wrought".
One Russian narrative that has survived through time talks about Dracula's view of womanhood in general. They were meant to be without sin, but once they sinned, deserved no dignity.
"If any wife had an affair outside of marriage, Dracula had her sexual organs cut out," the account reads. "She was then skinned alive and exposed in a public square, her skin hanging separately from a pole...The same punishment was applied to maidens who did not keep their virginity, and also to unchaste widows."
Stories like these are but a handful passed down from Dracula's time. Eventually he was to overexert his influence, especially since he began to practice his horrors across the Wallachian Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire border in Transylvania. His justification for this imposition was that he needed to discourage his political rivals there who, he claimed, were planning his demise.
The worst Transylvanian atrocity was his taking of the city of Brasov in the Carpathian Mountains. He torched the city and rounded up its inhabitants on the crest of Timpa Hill. Those who weren't impaled, he had them chopped up like hides of beef before him, limb at a time. While the city burned below, and as the agonies of Hades were played out before him, he ate an extravagant dinner, fit for a prince.
Legend claims that in the background, far off, the wolves bayed at the moon. It was their symphony of terror that they could not help feeling this night. It was in the air.
"The children of the night," Count Dracula called them in the novel. "Oh, what music they make!"
Was he reminiscing?
Monday, November 16, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Kalinin, north of Moscow 3.99 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
THE "MAGIC" BACKGROUND OF PEARL HARBOR
governments enter into agreements covering the general points and leaving the details up to the private broadcasting associations.[1141]
In rejoinder on September 12, the Foreign Minister pointed to the previously established exchange radio agreement between Japan and Italy, which had been based on a sincere understanding between the radio bureaus of both countries. However, if the German authorities, as a matter of government policy, pressed for an understanding regarding this agreement, the Japanese on their part would like to request that an exchange of notes confirm the agreement. The Foreign Minister urged that Ambassador Oshima keep this in mind while once more negotiating with the German authorities.[1142]
After meeting with German officials again according to his instructions, Ambassador Oshima explained to Foreign Minister Toyoda on September 20, 1941 that Germany had decided that an agreement between the two broadcasting associations would be concluded and that the governments of the two countries concerned should have recognition to the agreement by an exchange of memoranda. With regard to clause V, which Germany had previously desired to delete anyhow, they proposed that, "those engaged in the work of broadcasting should reserve to the Government the ultimate right of censorship in matters of political importance and a clause should be included to the effect that officials engaged in exchanging broadcasts should follow instructions given by the Ambassador."
Since a great deal of time had already been spent in discussing the matter, Ambassador Oshima urged that his government compromise on the point of government negotiations and put the plan into practice immediately.[1143]
Foreign Minister Toyoda then notified Ambassador Oshima that the authorities in Tokyo had decided to conclude the agreement between the broadcasting associations of the two countries based on the Japanese proposals regarding the exchange of broadcasts between Japan and Germany and to exchange a memorandum patterned after the official Japanese-German Medical Science agreement of 1939, between the governments of the two countries in order to validify the above. Japan would agree to eliminate Clause V of the proposals.
Expressing the desire of Tokyo broadcasting authorities to have the signing of the agreement take place in Tokyo, Foreign Minister Toyoda proposed that Mr. Shichiro Komori be made Japanese director of this broadcasting association and asked that the Germans select their representative and notify Tokyo.[1144] Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
468. Rumanian Losses Revealed
By October 6, 1941, reports from Bucharest transmitted salient points from a Rumanian official announcement which located the Rumanian alpine and cavalry forces with the Germans between the Dnieper River and the sea of Azov. Since the beginning of hostilities Rumanian forces reportedly had captured 60,000, killed 70,000, and wounded 100,000, while Rumanian loses were counted at 20,000 dead and 15,000 missing. This bulletin reported that the fire caused by the bombing of the Ploesti Petroleum Works had amounted to no more than 300,000,000 lei.[1145]
469. Ambassador Oshima Denies Rumors of Russo-German Pre-War Negotiations
Declaring that intelligence which had been sent to him by the Foreign Office to the effect that Germany was now reaping the mistake of turning against Russia in June, 1941 was a "ridiculous fabrication", Ambassador Oshima on October 2, 1941 gave what he believed to be
[1141] III, 864.
[1142] III, 865.
[1143] III, 866.
[1144] III, 867.
[1145] III, 868.
[235]
the true motives for Germany's entrance into the war against Russia. Since it was Germany's purpose to consolidate the eastern front for the war against England, it had been necessary to annihilate the Russian field troops and to overthrow the Communist regime. With these objectives, it was clear, according to Ambassador Oshima, that no demands had been filed with Russia nor had Germany's objectives been discussed over a conference table. It was true, the Japanese Ambassador conceded, that Russia was putting up a far more obstinate fight than Germany had imagined possible.
Furthermore, the rumors that Herr Von Ribbentrop was operating his own spy agency in Germany were false since the German Foreign Minister, helping and advising daily at Supreme Headquarter in Berlin, was in the closest confidence of Chancellor Hitler. Such rumors were branded as pure nonsense by Ambassador Oshima who stated that they had been circulated in the United States only to drive a wedge between Japan and Germany. Ambassador Oshima suggested that Foreign Minister Toyoda allow competent Japanese authorities to peruse the telegrams he had written before and during the outbreak of Russo-German hostilities.[1146]
470. Ambassador Oshima Counteracts British and American Propaganda
In order to counteract what Ambassador Oshima termed British and American propaganda relative to the strength of the Soviet Army in the Far East, he communicated on October 6, 1941 a list of the Russian Far Eastern divisions which had been destroyed since the middle of September. According to the German High Command, these divisions had already ceased to exist as organized divisions since the middle of August.[1147]
On October 8, Ambassador Oshima related pertinent points of a recent conversation with Germany army and naval attaches who had just returned from a tour of observation of the eastern front. From this meeting, he learned that should the German army continue at its current rate of advance disposing of the Russian troops in Moscow, and its surrounded neighborhood, it would not be long before the eastern front could be consolidated.
Commenting upon the British and United States "propaganda" regarding Germany's plan to offer peace to the Soviet immediately after the fall of Moscow, he stated that this would never happen. In explaining his opinion he remarked that although Germany would in the future direct her principal strength against England, she would not weaken her aggressive attack on the Soviet Union until the Communist regime had been overthrown.
He cautioned Tokyo against believing British and American reports that the war between Germany and the Soviet Union had been stalemated; for it was self-evident that the fall of Moscow would be a tremendous blow to the Stalin regime.[1148]
471. Ambassador Oshima Report on Russo-German Warfare, October 11, 1941
Despite Ambassador Oshima's warning to Tokyo against placing too much confidence in British-American propaganda, he could not deny that the German advance had slowed considerably. In order to explain this event, he announced on October 11, 1941 that the Soviet army had been found to possess a far greater supply of weapons than was expected and that the entire nation had been aroused to stubborn resistance. Therefore, the German army had not attempted the impossible by attacking them outright but had deliberately plotted for their annihilation by means of slow methodical warfare. He repeated that Soviet losses had been extremely heavy in comparison to German army casualties.
In this message the Ambassador also announced the beginning of the large-scale siege of Moscow and predicted that the remainder of Marshal Samyou Timoshenko's troops would suffer severe treatment at the hand of the invading German army. This devastating blow, in line
[1146] III, 869.
[1147] III, 870.
[1148] III, 871.
[236]
THE "MAGIC" BACKGROUND OF PEARL HARBOR
with German strategy, had been dealt the Soviet forces before the severe winter had set in. Germany had seized the larger part of Soviet raw materials, so that soon the invaded country would be reduced to servitude.[1149]
Although Ambassador Oshima had from time to time expressed the belief that the extinction of Communism was the primary purpose of Germany's war aims, he now pointed out with assurance that Germany's principal objective in this war was the overthrow of Great Britain. This would have to be done by an increase of air attacks and submarine warfare followed by landing operations. Such operations, Ambassador Oshima believed, would not take place before spring. Although he acknowledged that Great Britain believed such landing operations would end in failure, he assured his Home Office that the preparations of Germany had assumed large proportions backed by the cooperation of all the war industries of Europe, and by the excellence of the German supreme command and the quality of its soldiers. He then pointed to the example set by the German army in the Norway operations and in breaking the Maginot line.
Ambassador Oshima continued stating that Germany itself was awaiting the invasion hour with the greatest of confidence. In the meantime, it planned to complete operations in the Caucasus, the Near East and Egypt. With regard to British strength in the Far East, Ambassador Oshima explained that Germany considered such claims of 750,000 British troops a great "bluff" and did not believe it necessary to move large opposing forces there. Thus, it would keep its main forces for a concentration of the landing operations in England.[1150]
He again repeated that Germany expected to bring Britain to its knees by force of arms if it did not surrender unconditionally. In this event, although the British royal family, the government and the navy would flee to overseas possessions and continue resistance with American cooperation, still the spiritual effect of successful landing operations on British soil would strike the world a resounding blow.
Should the government flee England, there would be no hope of British victory, since it was not believed that resistance could be continued without immediate leadership and 40,000,000 subjects would be left to die. The Ambassador then commented upon the fact that Germany had repeatedly made the statement that it assumed no responsibility for feeding peoples of occupied areas.
Personally, however, Ambassador Oshima did not believe in the possibility of British leaders' fleeing to overseas areas. He recognized that much would depend upon the United States' attitude in the near future, but he did not expect that America would be in a position to formally declare war on Germany early in 1942. Then, if after having subjugated Britain, Europe, Russia, North Africa and the Near East, Germany proceeded with her plans for a new order in Europe, even the United States would not be able to do anything about it.
Ambassador Oshima also considered the possibility of Germany's not being able to attack the United States even though at war with it, and submitted that he believed some way would be found for Germany and the United States to reach an agreement. In his opinion, even though the two countries should continue to oppose each other, a state of war between them would not last long.
Then Ambassador Oshima dealt briefly on the hope of Britain and United States that internal disturbances would interrupt German progress, stating that at present the occupied areas were of no concern and that Germany was not in the least worried about the situation following the conquest of England.[1151]
[1149] III, 872.
[1150] III, 873.
[1151] III, 874.
[237]
472. Ambassador Oshima Urges Support of Germany's War
Finally, Ambassador Oshima approached the point he had been attempting to emphasize. In his opinion should Germany be forced to accept merely the occupation of the British Isles, abandoning its plan for complete overthrow of the British Empire throughout the world, Japan in the future would still face the combined interests of the United States and Great Britain in the Far East. Therefore, Japan must assist in the complete conquest of the British Empire. Along this line the speedy settlement of the China incident was mandatory and Ambassador Oshima pointed to the need for the resources and markets of the south. The great objective in concluding the Tripartite Pact had been this very thing. Said Ambassador Oshima,
"The realization of our objectives, and destiny of the Empire for a thousand years now hangs upon the success of
Germany and Italy in Europe."
He again warned against being taken in by British propaganda and reiterated his belief that it would be more difficult for Japan in the future should Germany and Italy gain a victory only in Europe.[1152]
To insure the future of the East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, Ambassador Oshima urged that Japan reinstate the true aims of the Tripartite Pact by establishing a definite course with regard to the war in Europe. As one means to this end, he reaffirmed his desire that Tokyo make plans to eliminate the Soviet threat at this opportune time. Then simultaneously with Germany's invasion of England in the spring of 1942, the government should launch its southward penetration. He asked that the German high command be kept informed of Japan's efforts along these lines.[1153]
473. Promiscuous Dissemination of Restricted News is Condemned by Foreign Minister Toyoda
With the continuation of damaging British and Russian propaganda, it soon developed that Ambassador Oshima was not the only one concerned about general dissemination of restricted news in Japan; for on October 11, Foreign Minister Toyoda issued a reprimand to Berlin in which he suggested that since popular dissemination of short-wave wireless news of a certain classification was not permitted in Japan, any privilege accorded to foreign diplomatic establishments should not be abused by allowing promiscuous publication. Foreign Minister Toyoda explained that the policy in Japan had been to restrict all material which was used in publication "Bulletin" to the general public, but to allow it some distribution among foreign officials. In view of the current situation it would also be quite impossible to allow Germany or Italy popular use of the releases.
The Foreign Minister explained that the Vice Minister had already approached Ambassador Ott on the proposition of strengthening cooperation between Axis and Domei reporters, at the same time arranging for an interview between Ambassador Ott and Chief of the Intelligence Bureau Ito, on the 10th of October. At this meeting, it was decided that publication of all pamphlets other than the "Bulletin" would be suppressed. The exhibition of all British propaganda films were to be ruled out and the publication and exhibition of German and Italian films in Japan would be increased.[1154]
474. Government Control of Press Urged by Ambassador Oshima
On October 13, 1941 Ambassador Oshima took his turn in rebuking the home government for releasing an editorial by the Domei press to the effect that Germany should end Russo-German hostilities and concentrate on an invasion of England insomuch as a long war would be disadvantageous to the Axis countries. He also took this opportunity to rebuke the Foreign
[1152] III, 875.
[1153] III, 876.
[1154] III, 877.
[238]
THE "MAGIC" BACKGROUND OF PEARL HARBOR
Office for the release of the Domei dispatch from Ankara revealing that Hungary had lost forty per cent of her total army in the current Soviet campaign. Then releases, Ambassador Oshima pointed out, had been used by Boston and other foreign broadcasting stations in propaganda activities, and, besides, they served to arouse the displeasure of the Axis powers. He demanded that strict representations to the proper authorities be made so that future reports and editorials of this type would be completely Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire eliminated.[1155]
475. Germany and Turkey Sign Commercial Pact
On October 9, 1941 Japanese-Ankara spokesmen revealed that the commercial treaty which had been under negotiation between Germany and Turkey had been signed, effective for one and one half years. The total amount of exports and imports were set at 200,000,000 marks each, with Germany trading manufactured goods for Turkey's raw materials. Although this figure was computed on a basis of 50 per cent of Turkey's output, Germany planned to take over the complete 1943 supply of chrome to bring the total Turkish exports to Germany up the scale.[1156]
476. Ambassador Oshima Confers with Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop
Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop made the first anniversary of the Tripartite Pact[1157] on October 1, 1941 an occasion for expression Germany's dissatisfaction with the Japanese negotiations with the United States. During several visits with him Ambassador Oshima learned that Germany was thoroughly disgusted with Japan, having received proof that although Japan would not confide the secret Japanese-United States negotiations with its Tripartite partner, America was continually revealing Japanese-American secrets to the British. Ambassador Oshima explained that he was attempting to convince the press that German high officials were also informed of the negotiations, but the whole hoax was proving increasingly difficult.
Ambassador Oshima was ever conscious of third power impressions which seemed now to picture Japan as avoiding the conflict because of impoverishment resulting from the China incident, and because she lacked faith in the outcome of the European war.
Now, even though Germany might overlook inevitable attempts of third powers to divide the Axis partners and would keep up a pretense of smooth relations, still there was a general bad feeling among leaders which might precipitate malicious acts on the part of Germany.[1158]
477. Germany Disapproves of Japan's Attitude Toward Russian-American Trade
Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop the following day called to the attention of Ambassador Oshima the receipt of a report revealing that Japan had approved the sailing of American ships through to Vladivostok.[1159]
In answer to Ambassador Oshima's demand that he be told the true situation, Tokyo divulged that Japan had stood firmly against Russian-American trade on the basis of the current political situation. America, when questioned by Japan, had replied that it felt that such trade was a political matter between America and Russia and should cause Japan no uneasiness. To Japan's charge that this was an unfriendly act, America had invoked the freedom of the seas doctrine and had said that it could not tolerate interference with its foreign trade.
Tokyo then explained that five United States tankers carrying between 60,000 and 95,000 barrels of oil each, had entered Vladivostok from the middle of August until October 9th. In
[1155] III, 878.
[1156] III, 879.
[1157] III, 880.
[1158] III, 881.
[1159] III, 882.
[239]
addition, the number of Russian ships which had operated between American and the Soviet Union was nine, with an estimated total of 300,000 barrels of oil and aeroplane parts transported.[1160]
Conductor Hidemuro Konoye, younger brother of the Premier, who had been on tour in Europe at the outbreak of hostilities, joined Ambassador Oshima in an appeal to Prince Fuminaro Konoye for an elimination of existing Axis ill-will resulting from American shipping to Vladivostok and the American-Japanese negotiations.
Hidemaro Konoye explained that as long as the Tripartite Pact was still in active existence, Germany would be much perturbed at Japanese philandering with the Americans and would object strenuously to announcements by the Tokyo Information Bureau that intimate progress was being made in Russian-American negotiations. Mr. Konoye suggested that Tokyo explain to Germany that any negotiations with the United States that were not in harmony with the spirit of the Tripartite Treaty would be merely a political scheme and that actually there would be no change in Japan's policy.[1161]
478. Ambassador Oshima Objects to Pro-American Statements
Meanwhile Diet Member Juiji Kasai in the United States had been making anti-German, pro-American statements;[1162] but Ambassador Oshima was assured by Tokyo that Kasai had been warned vigorously and that close tab was being kept on him.[1163] However, by October 13 Ambassador Oshima, still convinced that Kasai would not reform, requested that Foreign Minister Toyoda return the offender to Japan.
The Ambassador also reported on American broadcasts which contended that Foreign Minister Matusoka had entered into the undesirable Tripartite Pact without the majority consent of the people; and that if the United States and Germany went to war, Germany would be to blame.[1164]
Foreign Minister Toyoda in a reply on October 14, 1941 admitted that he feared that British and United States attempts to separate Japan and Germany would precipitate a difficult situation where he himself was concerned, and he requested that Ambassador Oshima explain Japan's good intentions regarding the Tripartite Pact.[1165]
479. Japanese-German Trade Difficulties Recur
Recurrences of trade difficulties between Germany and Japan continued to cause Ambassador Oshima much concern in view of the insufficient funds available in the exchange allotment for Japanese government purchases. Up until October 13, 1941 there had been no difficulties making payment for government orders out of the fixed allotment; but since then civilian purchases had become so large that even the government was being forced to forego placing new orders. Ambassador Oshima suggested, in order to alleviate the situation, that Germany be requested to make credit available for Japan's use.[1166]
On October 16, 1941 Foreign Minister Toyoda revealed that Japan's payment to Germany which had to be made by March 1943, exceeded 80,000,000 yen or 14,810,000 marks, according to German authorities. Although it was expected that by cancellations of contracts due to the war this figure would be considerably lessened, still the problem of meeting the debt was imminent. The Foreign Minister was of the opinion, however, that the German government would
[1160] III, 883.
[1161] III, 884.
[1162] III, 885.
[1163] III, 886.
[1164] III, 887.
[1165] III, 888.
[1166] III, 889.
[240]
THE "MAGIC" BACKGROUND OF PEARL HARBOR
agree to purchasing goods from Japan in that amount and negotiations for a provisional agreement to cover the purchases and payment of both sides were under way. The goods with which Japan bargained to supply Germany and which were to be applied on the deficit included whale oil, raw silk, and cotton thread.[1167]
480. German Manufacturers Aid Japan's War Industries
That Japan looked to Germany for assistance in developing manufacturing techniques was shown in a series of commercial messages sent through diplomatic channels from August 8 to October 10, 1941. The necessity of Japan's producing its own steel castings caused the navy to decide to have a civilian company in Japan study the matter or to send Japanese technicians to Germany for factory training, depending upon the relative costs.[1168]
An explanation by the Junkers Company of Germany enabled the Japanese by August 8 to complete their investigation of the SV-11 type propeller.[1169] However, as late as October 6 negotiations regarding the propeller-purchase by the Hamamatsu Musical Instrument Company remained unsettled. The transfer of the manufacturing rights had been forced upon the Junkers Company by the Japanese, and the Germans insisted upon a higher price.[1170]
Meanwhile the Tokyo Aircraft Gauge Company had purchased patent rights for the Askania-manufactured automatic pilot. Despite the recognized urgency in learning the techniques, the War Office of the Senior Adjutant in Tokyo wired Berlin on August 30 that it was impossible to send personnel from Japan at that time; however, at least one technician from the Tokyo Aircraft Gauge Company and Engineer Yoshinari would join the Askania laboratory.[1171] By October 6, 1941 discussions concerning the automatic pilot compasses and the Siemens electric gauges had not been completed because of exchange currency and transportation difficulties. In regard to the automatic pilot Berlin informed the Japanese government that this apparatus was not then being manufactured and thus purchases had become impossible.[1172]
The Japanese Vice Minister of War on August 29 requested that Dr. Helmut Wohlthat, German commercial attache in Tokyo, assist Japan in acquiring the "IG" patent rights from Germany. He wired the Japanese delegation in Berlin on September 5 Dr. Wohlthat's reply, that although Germany was in accord in regard to the "IG" transfer, there remained the fact that, just as Japan felt about America, Germany did not wish to goad that country at the moment.[1173]
Market disturbances were created in Bangkok during September because of German buying of rubber and tin. A German agent, Schmidt, had employed 100,000 bahts, sent from Shanghai via the Yokohama Specie Bank to camouflaged Chinese companies, to make these purchases.[1174]
Definite arrangements for paying for special universal drills from the Swiss Rumer Company through Germany were requested by Berlin authorities in a dispatch to the Japanese Vice Minister of War on September 13, 1941.[1175] Other Swiss manufacturing equipment was contracted by Japan through these channels.[1176]
[1167] III, 890.
[1168] III, 891.
[1169] III, 892.
[1170] III, 893.
[1171] III, 894.
[1172] III, 895.
[1173] III, 896-897.
[1174] III, 898.
[1175] III, 899.
[1176] III, 900-901.
[241]
481. Ambassador Oshima Reports on German War Plans, October 16, 1941
On October 16, 1941 Ambassador Oshima reported that German army plans called for leaving a small observation force at Leningrad while part of the Reebuk forces advanced toward the encirclement of Moscow. Ambassador Oshima stated that nothing but annihilation faced the Russian forces in Leningrad. Meanwhile the mechanized forces having already reached Kalinin, north of Moscow, had proceeded as far as Yaroslav, approximately 250 kilometers northwest of Moscow, where the ground was already frozen thereby facilitating troop movements.
Ambassador Oshima also pointed out how ignorant the Russian army was of the true war situation in that, unaware that Germans had taken Kalinin the week before, they proceeded to transport troops for 48 hours after the city had fallen. This blunder resulted in Germany's taking many prisoners.
To the south of Moscow, infantry regiments had already arrived in Tula and mechanized troops were extending in an encircling wing eastward of Moscow. However, thawing snow and complicated forests and swamps were naturally slowing the advance of the German forces. With regard to the Karkov area, Ambassador Oshima revealed that little resistance was being met from Russian forces.[1177]
[1177] III, 902.
governments enter into agreements covering the general points and leaving the details up to the private broadcasting associations.[1141]
In rejoinder on September 12, the Foreign Minister pointed to the previously established exchange radio agreement between Japan and Italy, which had been based on a sincere understanding between the radio bureaus of both countries. However, if the German authorities, as a matter of government policy, pressed for an understanding regarding this agreement, the Japanese on their part would like to request that an exchange of notes confirm the agreement. The Foreign Minister urged that Ambassador Oshima keep this in mind while once more negotiating with the German authorities.[1142]
After meeting with German officials again according to his instructions, Ambassador Oshima explained to Foreign Minister Toyoda on September 20, 1941 that Germany had decided that an agreement between the two broadcasting associations would be concluded and that the governments of the two countries concerned should have recognition to the agreement by an exchange of memoranda. With regard to clause V, which Germany had previously desired to delete anyhow, they proposed that, "those engaged in the work of broadcasting should reserve to the Government the ultimate right of censorship in matters of political importance and a clause should be included to the effect that officials engaged in exchanging broadcasts should follow instructions given by the Ambassador."
Since a great deal of time had already been spent in discussing the matter, Ambassador Oshima urged that his government compromise on the point of government negotiations and put the plan into practice immediately.[1143]
Foreign Minister Toyoda then notified Ambassador Oshima that the authorities in Tokyo had decided to conclude the agreement between the broadcasting associations of the two countries based on the Japanese proposals regarding the exchange of broadcasts between Japan and Germany and to exchange a memorandum patterned after the official Japanese-German Medical Science agreement of 1939, between the governments of the two countries in order to validify the above. Japan would agree to eliminate Clause V of the proposals.
Expressing the desire of Tokyo broadcasting authorities to have the signing of the agreement take place in Tokyo, Foreign Minister Toyoda proposed that Mr. Shichiro Komori be made Japanese director of this broadcasting association and asked that the Germans select their representative and notify Tokyo.[1144] Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
468. Rumanian Losses Revealed
By October 6, 1941, reports from Bucharest transmitted salient points from a Rumanian official announcement which located the Rumanian alpine and cavalry forces with the Germans between the Dnieper River and the sea of Azov. Since the beginning of hostilities Rumanian forces reportedly had captured 60,000, killed 70,000, and wounded 100,000, while Rumanian loses were counted at 20,000 dead and 15,000 missing. This bulletin reported that the fire caused by the bombing of the Ploesti Petroleum Works had amounted to no more than 300,000,000 lei.[1145]
469. Ambassador Oshima Denies Rumors of Russo-German Pre-War Negotiations
Declaring that intelligence which had been sent to him by the Foreign Office to the effect that Germany was now reaping the mistake of turning against Russia in June, 1941 was a "ridiculous fabrication", Ambassador Oshima on October 2, 1941 gave what he believed to be
[1141] III, 864.
[1142] III, 865.
[1143] III, 866.
[1144] III, 867.
[1145] III, 868.
[235]
the true motives for Germany's entrance into the war against Russia. Since it was Germany's purpose to consolidate the eastern front for the war against England, it had been necessary to annihilate the Russian field troops and to overthrow the Communist regime. With these objectives, it was clear, according to Ambassador Oshima, that no demands had been filed with Russia nor had Germany's objectives been discussed over a conference table. It was true, the Japanese Ambassador conceded, that Russia was putting up a far more obstinate fight than Germany had imagined possible.
Furthermore, the rumors that Herr Von Ribbentrop was operating his own spy agency in Germany were false since the German Foreign Minister, helping and advising daily at Supreme Headquarter in Berlin, was in the closest confidence of Chancellor Hitler. Such rumors were branded as pure nonsense by Ambassador Oshima who stated that they had been circulated in the United States only to drive a wedge between Japan and Germany. Ambassador Oshima suggested that Foreign Minister Toyoda allow competent Japanese authorities to peruse the telegrams he had written before and during the outbreak of Russo-German hostilities.[1146]
470. Ambassador Oshima Counteracts British and American Propaganda
In order to counteract what Ambassador Oshima termed British and American propaganda relative to the strength of the Soviet Army in the Far East, he communicated on October 6, 1941 a list of the Russian Far Eastern divisions which had been destroyed since the middle of September. According to the German High Command, these divisions had already ceased to exist as organized divisions since the middle of August.[1147]
On October 8, Ambassador Oshima related pertinent points of a recent conversation with Germany army and naval attaches who had just returned from a tour of observation of the eastern front. From this meeting, he learned that should the German army continue at its current rate of advance disposing of the Russian troops in Moscow, and its surrounded neighborhood, it would not be long before the eastern front could be consolidated.
Commenting upon the British and United States "propaganda" regarding Germany's plan to offer peace to the Soviet immediately after the fall of Moscow, he stated that this would never happen. In explaining his opinion he remarked that although Germany would in the future direct her principal strength against England, she would not weaken her aggressive attack on the Soviet Union until the Communist regime had been overthrown.
He cautioned Tokyo against believing British and American reports that the war between Germany and the Soviet Union had been stalemated; for it was self-evident that the fall of Moscow would be a tremendous blow to the Stalin regime.[1148]
471. Ambassador Oshima Report on Russo-German Warfare, October 11, 1941
Despite Ambassador Oshima's warning to Tokyo against placing too much confidence in British-American propaganda, he could not deny that the German advance had slowed considerably. In order to explain this event, he announced on October 11, 1941 that the Soviet army had been found to possess a far greater supply of weapons than was expected and that the entire nation had been aroused to stubborn resistance. Therefore, the German army had not attempted the impossible by attacking them outright but had deliberately plotted for their annihilation by means of slow methodical warfare. He repeated that Soviet losses had been extremely heavy in comparison to German army casualties.
In this message the Ambassador also announced the beginning of the large-scale siege of Moscow and predicted that the remainder of Marshal Samyou Timoshenko's troops would suffer severe treatment at the hand of the invading German army. This devastating blow, in line
[1146] III, 869.
[1147] III, 870.
[1148] III, 871.
[236]
THE "MAGIC" BACKGROUND OF PEARL HARBOR
with German strategy, had been dealt the Soviet forces before the severe winter had set in. Germany had seized the larger part of Soviet raw materials, so that soon the invaded country would be reduced to servitude.[1149]
Although Ambassador Oshima had from time to time expressed the belief that the extinction of Communism was the primary purpose of Germany's war aims, he now pointed out with assurance that Germany's principal objective in this war was the overthrow of Great Britain. This would have to be done by an increase of air attacks and submarine warfare followed by landing operations. Such operations, Ambassador Oshima believed, would not take place before spring. Although he acknowledged that Great Britain believed such landing operations would end in failure, he assured his Home Office that the preparations of Germany had assumed large proportions backed by the cooperation of all the war industries of Europe, and by the excellence of the German supreme command and the quality of its soldiers. He then pointed to the example set by the German army in the Norway operations and in breaking the Maginot line.
Ambassador Oshima continued stating that Germany itself was awaiting the invasion hour with the greatest of confidence. In the meantime, it planned to complete operations in the Caucasus, the Near East and Egypt. With regard to British strength in the Far East, Ambassador Oshima explained that Germany considered such claims of 750,000 British troops a great "bluff" and did not believe it necessary to move large opposing forces there. Thus, it would keep its main forces for a concentration of the landing operations in England.[1150]
He again repeated that Germany expected to bring Britain to its knees by force of arms if it did not surrender unconditionally. In this event, although the British royal family, the government and the navy would flee to overseas possessions and continue resistance with American cooperation, still the spiritual effect of successful landing operations on British soil would strike the world a resounding blow.
Should the government flee England, there would be no hope of British victory, since it was not believed that resistance could be continued without immediate leadership and 40,000,000 subjects would be left to die. The Ambassador then commented upon the fact that Germany had repeatedly made the statement that it assumed no responsibility for feeding peoples of occupied areas.
Personally, however, Ambassador Oshima did not believe in the possibility of British leaders' fleeing to overseas areas. He recognized that much would depend upon the United States' attitude in the near future, but he did not expect that America would be in a position to formally declare war on Germany early in 1942. Then, if after having subjugated Britain, Europe, Russia, North Africa and the Near East, Germany proceeded with her plans for a new order in Europe, even the United States would not be able to do anything about it.
Ambassador Oshima also considered the possibility of Germany's not being able to attack the United States even though at war with it, and submitted that he believed some way would be found for Germany and the United States to reach an agreement. In his opinion, even though the two countries should continue to oppose each other, a state of war between them would not last long.
Then Ambassador Oshima dealt briefly on the hope of Britain and United States that internal disturbances would interrupt German progress, stating that at present the occupied areas were of no concern and that Germany was not in the least worried about the situation following the conquest of England.[1151]
[1149] III, 872.
[1150] III, 873.
[1151] III, 874.
[237]
472. Ambassador Oshima Urges Support of Germany's War
Finally, Ambassador Oshima approached the point he had been attempting to emphasize. In his opinion should Germany be forced to accept merely the occupation of the British Isles, abandoning its plan for complete overthrow of the British Empire throughout the world, Japan in the future would still face the combined interests of the United States and Great Britain in the Far East. Therefore, Japan must assist in the complete conquest of the British Empire. Along this line the speedy settlement of the China incident was mandatory and Ambassador Oshima pointed to the need for the resources and markets of the south. The great objective in concluding the Tripartite Pact had been this very thing. Said Ambassador Oshima,
"The realization of our objectives, and destiny of the Empire for a thousand years now hangs upon the success of
Germany and Italy in Europe."
He again warned against being taken in by British propaganda and reiterated his belief that it would be more difficult for Japan in the future should Germany and Italy gain a victory only in Europe.[1152]
To insure the future of the East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, Ambassador Oshima urged that Japan reinstate the true aims of the Tripartite Pact by establishing a definite course with regard to the war in Europe. As one means to this end, he reaffirmed his desire that Tokyo make plans to eliminate the Soviet threat at this opportune time. Then simultaneously with Germany's invasion of England in the spring of 1942, the government should launch its southward penetration. He asked that the German high command be kept informed of Japan's efforts along these lines.[1153]
473. Promiscuous Dissemination of Restricted News is Condemned by Foreign Minister Toyoda
With the continuation of damaging British and Russian propaganda, it soon developed that Ambassador Oshima was not the only one concerned about general dissemination of restricted news in Japan; for on October 11, Foreign Minister Toyoda issued a reprimand to Berlin in which he suggested that since popular dissemination of short-wave wireless news of a certain classification was not permitted in Japan, any privilege accorded to foreign diplomatic establishments should not be abused by allowing promiscuous publication. Foreign Minister Toyoda explained that the policy in Japan had been to restrict all material which was used in publication "Bulletin" to the general public, but to allow it some distribution among foreign officials. In view of the current situation it would also be quite impossible to allow Germany or Italy popular use of the releases.
The Foreign Minister explained that the Vice Minister had already approached Ambassador Ott on the proposition of strengthening cooperation between Axis and Domei reporters, at the same time arranging for an interview between Ambassador Ott and Chief of the Intelligence Bureau Ito, on the 10th of October. At this meeting, it was decided that publication of all pamphlets other than the "Bulletin" would be suppressed. The exhibition of all British propaganda films were to be ruled out and the publication and exhibition of German and Italian films in Japan would be increased.[1154]
474. Government Control of Press Urged by Ambassador Oshima
On October 13, 1941 Ambassador Oshima took his turn in rebuking the home government for releasing an editorial by the Domei press to the effect that Germany should end Russo-German hostilities and concentrate on an invasion of England insomuch as a long war would be disadvantageous to the Axis countries. He also took this opportunity to rebuke the Foreign
[1152] III, 875.
[1153] III, 876.
[1154] III, 877.
[238]
THE "MAGIC" BACKGROUND OF PEARL HARBOR
Office for the release of the Domei dispatch from Ankara revealing that Hungary had lost forty per cent of her total army in the current Soviet campaign. Then releases, Ambassador Oshima pointed out, had been used by Boston and other foreign broadcasting stations in propaganda activities, and, besides, they served to arouse the displeasure of the Axis powers. He demanded that strict representations to the proper authorities be made so that future reports and editorials of this type would be completely Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire eliminated.[1155]
475. Germany and Turkey Sign Commercial Pact
On October 9, 1941 Japanese-Ankara spokesmen revealed that the commercial treaty which had been under negotiation between Germany and Turkey had been signed, effective for one and one half years. The total amount of exports and imports were set at 200,000,000 marks each, with Germany trading manufactured goods for Turkey's raw materials. Although this figure was computed on a basis of 50 per cent of Turkey's output, Germany planned to take over the complete 1943 supply of chrome to bring the total Turkish exports to Germany up the scale.[1156]
476. Ambassador Oshima Confers with Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop
Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop made the first anniversary of the Tripartite Pact[1157] on October 1, 1941 an occasion for expression Germany's dissatisfaction with the Japanese negotiations with the United States. During several visits with him Ambassador Oshima learned that Germany was thoroughly disgusted with Japan, having received proof that although Japan would not confide the secret Japanese-United States negotiations with its Tripartite partner, America was continually revealing Japanese-American secrets to the British. Ambassador Oshima explained that he was attempting to convince the press that German high officials were also informed of the negotiations, but the whole hoax was proving increasingly difficult.
Ambassador Oshima was ever conscious of third power impressions which seemed now to picture Japan as avoiding the conflict because of impoverishment resulting from the China incident, and because she lacked faith in the outcome of the European war.
Now, even though Germany might overlook inevitable attempts of third powers to divide the Axis partners and would keep up a pretense of smooth relations, still there was a general bad feeling among leaders which might precipitate malicious acts on the part of Germany.[1158]
477. Germany Disapproves of Japan's Attitude Toward Russian-American Trade
Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop the following day called to the attention of Ambassador Oshima the receipt of a report revealing that Japan had approved the sailing of American ships through to Vladivostok.[1159]
In answer to Ambassador Oshima's demand that he be told the true situation, Tokyo divulged that Japan had stood firmly against Russian-American trade on the basis of the current political situation. America, when questioned by Japan, had replied that it felt that such trade was a political matter between America and Russia and should cause Japan no uneasiness. To Japan's charge that this was an unfriendly act, America had invoked the freedom of the seas doctrine and had said that it could not tolerate interference with its foreign trade.
Tokyo then explained that five United States tankers carrying between 60,000 and 95,000 barrels of oil each, had entered Vladivostok from the middle of August until October 9th. In
[1155] III, 878.
[1156] III, 879.
[1157] III, 880.
[1158] III, 881.
[1159] III, 882.
[239]
addition, the number of Russian ships which had operated between American and the Soviet Union was nine, with an estimated total of 300,000 barrels of oil and aeroplane parts transported.[1160]
Conductor Hidemuro Konoye, younger brother of the Premier, who had been on tour in Europe at the outbreak of hostilities, joined Ambassador Oshima in an appeal to Prince Fuminaro Konoye for an elimination of existing Axis ill-will resulting from American shipping to Vladivostok and the American-Japanese negotiations.
Hidemaro Konoye explained that as long as the Tripartite Pact was still in active existence, Germany would be much perturbed at Japanese philandering with the Americans and would object strenuously to announcements by the Tokyo Information Bureau that intimate progress was being made in Russian-American negotiations. Mr. Konoye suggested that Tokyo explain to Germany that any negotiations with the United States that were not in harmony with the spirit of the Tripartite Treaty would be merely a political scheme and that actually there would be no change in Japan's policy.[1161]
478. Ambassador Oshima Objects to Pro-American Statements
Meanwhile Diet Member Juiji Kasai in the United States had been making anti-German, pro-American statements;[1162] but Ambassador Oshima was assured by Tokyo that Kasai had been warned vigorously and that close tab was being kept on him.[1163] However, by October 13 Ambassador Oshima, still convinced that Kasai would not reform, requested that Foreign Minister Toyoda return the offender to Japan.
The Ambassador also reported on American broadcasts which contended that Foreign Minister Matusoka had entered into the undesirable Tripartite Pact without the majority consent of the people; and that if the United States and Germany went to war, Germany would be to blame.[1164]
Foreign Minister Toyoda in a reply on October 14, 1941 admitted that he feared that British and United States attempts to separate Japan and Germany would precipitate a difficult situation where he himself was concerned, and he requested that Ambassador Oshima explain Japan's good intentions regarding the Tripartite Pact.[1165]
479. Japanese-German Trade Difficulties Recur
Recurrences of trade difficulties between Germany and Japan continued to cause Ambassador Oshima much concern in view of the insufficient funds available in the exchange allotment for Japanese government purchases. Up until October 13, 1941 there had been no difficulties making payment for government orders out of the fixed allotment; but since then civilian purchases had become so large that even the government was being forced to forego placing new orders. Ambassador Oshima suggested, in order to alleviate the situation, that Germany be requested to make credit available for Japan's use.[1166]
On October 16, 1941 Foreign Minister Toyoda revealed that Japan's payment to Germany which had to be made by March 1943, exceeded 80,000,000 yen or 14,810,000 marks, according to German authorities. Although it was expected that by cancellations of contracts due to the war this figure would be considerably lessened, still the problem of meeting the debt was imminent. The Foreign Minister was of the opinion, however, that the German government would
[1160] III, 883.
[1161] III, 884.
[1162] III, 885.
[1163] III, 886.
[1164] III, 887.
[1165] III, 888.
[1166] III, 889.
[240]
THE "MAGIC" BACKGROUND OF PEARL HARBOR
agree to purchasing goods from Japan in that amount and negotiations for a provisional agreement to cover the purchases and payment of both sides were under way. The goods with which Japan bargained to supply Germany and which were to be applied on the deficit included whale oil, raw silk, and cotton thread.[1167]
480. German Manufacturers Aid Japan's War Industries
That Japan looked to Germany for assistance in developing manufacturing techniques was shown in a series of commercial messages sent through diplomatic channels from August 8 to October 10, 1941. The necessity of Japan's producing its own steel castings caused the navy to decide to have a civilian company in Japan study the matter or to send Japanese technicians to Germany for factory training, depending upon the relative costs.[1168]
An explanation by the Junkers Company of Germany enabled the Japanese by August 8 to complete their investigation of the SV-11 type propeller.[1169] However, as late as October 6 negotiations regarding the propeller-purchase by the Hamamatsu Musical Instrument Company remained unsettled. The transfer of the manufacturing rights had been forced upon the Junkers Company by the Japanese, and the Germans insisted upon a higher price.[1170]
Meanwhile the Tokyo Aircraft Gauge Company had purchased patent rights for the Askania-manufactured automatic pilot. Despite the recognized urgency in learning the techniques, the War Office of the Senior Adjutant in Tokyo wired Berlin on August 30 that it was impossible to send personnel from Japan at that time; however, at least one technician from the Tokyo Aircraft Gauge Company and Engineer Yoshinari would join the Askania laboratory.[1171] By October 6, 1941 discussions concerning the automatic pilot compasses and the Siemens electric gauges had not been completed because of exchange currency and transportation difficulties. In regard to the automatic pilot Berlin informed the Japanese government that this apparatus was not then being manufactured and thus purchases had become impossible.[1172]
The Japanese Vice Minister of War on August 29 requested that Dr. Helmut Wohlthat, German commercial attache in Tokyo, assist Japan in acquiring the "IG" patent rights from Germany. He wired the Japanese delegation in Berlin on September 5 Dr. Wohlthat's reply, that although Germany was in accord in regard to the "IG" transfer, there remained the fact that, just as Japan felt about America, Germany did not wish to goad that country at the moment.[1173]
Market disturbances were created in Bangkok during September because of German buying of rubber and tin. A German agent, Schmidt, had employed 100,000 bahts, sent from Shanghai via the Yokohama Specie Bank to camouflaged Chinese companies, to make these purchases.[1174]
Definite arrangements for paying for special universal drills from the Swiss Rumer Company through Germany were requested by Berlin authorities in a dispatch to the Japanese Vice Minister of War on September 13, 1941.[1175] Other Swiss manufacturing equipment was contracted by Japan through these channels.[1176]
[1167] III, 890.
[1168] III, 891.
[1169] III, 892.
[1170] III, 893.
[1171] III, 894.
[1172] III, 895.
[1173] III, 896-897.
[1174] III, 898.
[1175] III, 899.
[1176] III, 900-901.
[241]
481. Ambassador Oshima Reports on German War Plans, October 16, 1941
On October 16, 1941 Ambassador Oshima reported that German army plans called for leaving a small observation force at Leningrad while part of the Reebuk forces advanced toward the encirclement of Moscow. Ambassador Oshima stated that nothing but annihilation faced the Russian forces in Leningrad. Meanwhile the mechanized forces having already reached Kalinin, north of Moscow, had proceeded as far as Yaroslav, approximately 250 kilometers northwest of Moscow, where the ground was already frozen thereby facilitating troop movements.
Ambassador Oshima also pointed out how ignorant the Russian army was of the true war situation in that, unaware that Germans had taken Kalinin the week before, they proceeded to transport troops for 48 hours after the city had fallen. This blunder resulted in Germany's taking many prisoners.
To the south of Moscow, infantry regiments had already arrived in Tula and mechanized troops were extending in an encircling wing eastward of Moscow. However, thawing snow and complicated forests and swamps were naturally slowing the advance of the German forces. With regard to the Karkov area, Ambassador Oshima revealed that little resistance was being met from Russian forces.[1177]
[1177] III, 902.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
widescreen 3.wid.002002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
A former maid, Sadako is treated with open contempt by her husband, a petty bureaucrat at the local library, and tolerated by her mother-in-law only because she has produced a male heir. Sadako’s sole opportunity for escape arrives in the dubious form of a housebreaker who forces himself on her and soon becomes another unwanted male dependent. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire.
Filming in widescreen black-and-white, Imamura violates every rule of classical composition: his frames are crowded and off kilter, offering only partial views of the action where classical directors like Ozu or Mizoguchi would insist on balance and lucidity. Although Imamura would tame his anarchic style as he aged — his last feature film, the 2001 “Warm Water Under a Red Bridge,” is an amused, mellow treatment of his persistent theme of sexual energy — his work here is ferocious, implacable, bitter and brilliant. (Criterion Collection, $79.95, not rated).
Filming in widescreen black-and-white, Imamura violates every rule of classical composition: his frames are crowded and off kilter, offering only partial views of the action where classical directors like Ozu or Mizoguchi would insist on balance and lucidity. Although Imamura would tame his anarchic style as he aged — his last feature film, the 2001 “Warm Water Under a Red Bridge,” is an amused, mellow treatment of his persistent theme of sexual energy — his work here is ferocious, implacable, bitter and brilliant. (Criterion Collection, $79.95, not rated).
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
schizophrenic patient 8.sch.003004 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
opamine conducts a frenzied song of craving at one end of a tiny brain region and a panic-stricken hymn at the other. Depending on where along the length of the region the neurotransmitter is triggered, it elicits emotions ranging from desire to disgust, a new study shows.
“The roles [of dopamine] may be partitioned, and perhaps defined, by anatomy,” comments Emily Hueske, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
With the recent study, researchers have come one step closer to explaining how dopamine performs a spectrum of functions. Dopamine interacts with spatially coded signals so that its output varies from one end of a brain region to the other, the team reports in the July 9 Journal of Neuroscience.
In the long-term, drugs might be developed to locally treat various dopamine-mediated disorders such as drug addiction, obsession, obesity and anxiety.
Kent Berridge, a neuroscientist and psychologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and his colleagues set out to understand how dopamine could lead to desire for a reward, and then turn around and cause fear, pain and stress.
Berridge’s team focused on the area of the nucleus accumbens known as the pleasure center in all mammals. The researchers report the effects of tampering with dopamine and another chemical messenger, the glutamate neurotransmitter, along the length of the nucleus accumbens of rats.
A tiny, localized injection at the front end disrupted glutamate and turned normal rats into binge-eaters. But when researchers injected the same glutamate blocker at the back end of the nucleus accumbens, the rats stopped eating and became fearful — kicking up sand at the bottom of their cages, as wild rodents are wont to do when a snake or a scorpion is in their midst, Berridge says.
When both dopamine and glutamate were blocked, the rats did not display the extreme behaviors. In nature, the interaction between the two may guide how a rat responds to signals from the environment. Glutamate may bring in information from the outside world, and dopamine may act on that information, Berridge suggests.
Because the injections only blocked glutamate or dopamine in tiny bits of the nucleus accumbens, the researchers were able to map out a millimeter-by-millimeter gradient of reactions over the region. “The brain cares where you are exactly,” Berridge says.
“This is perhaps a surprise,” says behavioral neuroscientist Richard Palmiter of the University of Washington in Seattle. He’s not shocked about the gradient of dopamine-mediated reactions because desire and dread aren’t completely unrelated. Regardless of how the rat responds to a stimulus, “dopamine is basically saying: ‘Hey, pay attention to your environment’,” he says.
Still, this study shows how motivation for a reward can turn to fear within a single structure, Berridge says.
The researchers describe the gradient as a keyboard, with keys going from desire to fear. The minute keyboard gradient found in the rats may translate into a slightly larger, centimeter-by-centimeter keyboard in humans’ nucleus accumbens. Berridge speculates that the boundaries of “keys” are skewed in people with certain disorders, such that a sensation produces more pleasure than it should in an addict or too much fear in schizophrenic patients.
Once scientists know what underlies the front-to-back gradient, drugs could be refined to more accurately treat separate disorders, says Charlotte Boettiger, a behavioral neuroscientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be years before those treatments are developed, however. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire “We don’t presently have a way to target drugs to one part or the other.”
“The roles [of dopamine] may be partitioned, and perhaps defined, by anatomy,” comments Emily Hueske, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
With the recent study, researchers have come one step closer to explaining how dopamine performs a spectrum of functions. Dopamine interacts with spatially coded signals so that its output varies from one end of a brain region to the other, the team reports in the July 9 Journal of Neuroscience.
In the long-term, drugs might be developed to locally treat various dopamine-mediated disorders such as drug addiction, obsession, obesity and anxiety.
Kent Berridge, a neuroscientist and psychologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and his colleagues set out to understand how dopamine could lead to desire for a reward, and then turn around and cause fear, pain and stress.
Berridge’s team focused on the area of the nucleus accumbens known as the pleasure center in all mammals. The researchers report the effects of tampering with dopamine and another chemical messenger, the glutamate neurotransmitter, along the length of the nucleus accumbens of rats.
A tiny, localized injection at the front end disrupted glutamate and turned normal rats into binge-eaters. But when researchers injected the same glutamate blocker at the back end of the nucleus accumbens, the rats stopped eating and became fearful — kicking up sand at the bottom of their cages, as wild rodents are wont to do when a snake or a scorpion is in their midst, Berridge says.
When both dopamine and glutamate were blocked, the rats did not display the extreme behaviors. In nature, the interaction between the two may guide how a rat responds to signals from the environment. Glutamate may bring in information from the outside world, and dopamine may act on that information, Berridge suggests.
Because the injections only blocked glutamate or dopamine in tiny bits of the nucleus accumbens, the researchers were able to map out a millimeter-by-millimeter gradient of reactions over the region. “The brain cares where you are exactly,” Berridge says.
“This is perhaps a surprise,” says behavioral neuroscientist Richard Palmiter of the University of Washington in Seattle. He’s not shocked about the gradient of dopamine-mediated reactions because desire and dread aren’t completely unrelated. Regardless of how the rat responds to a stimulus, “dopamine is basically saying: ‘Hey, pay attention to your environment’,” he says.
Still, this study shows how motivation for a reward can turn to fear within a single structure, Berridge says.
The researchers describe the gradient as a keyboard, with keys going from desire to fear. The minute keyboard gradient found in the rats may translate into a slightly larger, centimeter-by-centimeter keyboard in humans’ nucleus accumbens. Berridge speculates that the boundaries of “keys” are skewed in people with certain disorders, such that a sensation produces more pleasure than it should in an addict or too much fear in schizophrenic patients.
Once scientists know what underlies the front-to-back gradient, drugs could be refined to more accurately treat separate disorders, says Charlotte Boettiger, a behavioral neuroscientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be years before those treatments are developed, however. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire “We don’t presently have a way to target drugs to one part or the other.”
Monday, May 4, 2009
calcium 7.cal.001002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
The body tightly regulates the amount of calcium in the blood, much like a surge protector keeps a computer from being fried by too much electricity. Researchers now find that even a slight excess of blood calcium may increase a man’s risk of developing lethal prostate cancer. http://Louis1J1Sheehan1Esquire.us The report appears in the September Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
The unsettling report might actually be good news since it could provide a marker for identifying men at unseen risk of this malignancy, says study coauthor Gary Schwartz, an epidemiologist at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.
A hormone made by the parathyroid gland in the neck regulates calcium concentrations in the blood. Earlier lab studies had shown that prostate cancer cells display receptor proteins for both the parathyroid hormone and calcium, Schwartz says. Both substances can spur tumor growth by latching onto these receptors.
Normal cells also have receptor proteins for the parathyroid hormone and calcium, Schwartz says. “But prostate cancer cells have a lot of them.”
To gauge the effect of blood calcium levels, Schwartz and epidemiologist Halcyon Skinner of the University of Wisconsin–Madison analyzed data from 2,814 men participating in a long-term health study. All the men gave a blood sample at the outset. Ten years later, 25 had died of prostate cancer.
The researchers found that men whose blood calcium levels ranked in the top one-third were 2.7 times as likely to have died from prostate cancer as those in the lowest third. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire The researchers accounted for differences in body weight, race and age.
“This is a great study,” says nutritionist Xiang Gao of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. Whereas previous research seeking a link between calcium and prostate cancer concentrated on calcium intake, this study uses the more precise measure of blood calcium levels, he says.
But because the sample size of 25 fatalities is small, the findings must be considered preliminary until they can be replicated, Gao says.
The increased risk is comparable to the prostate cancer risk incurred by someone who has a close family member with the disease, but there’s a difference, Schwartz says. “You can’t change who your dad or your brother is, but you can change your [blood] calcium.”
Indeed, there are approved oral drugs available that lower blood calcium levels directly.
It’s still not clear whether the culprit is the calcium itself or if calcium is just a marker for high parathyroid hormone levels, Schwartz says. But there are drugs that reduce those, too. While the study didn’t show a mechanism by which calcium or parathyroid hormone could have caused these cancers, Schwartz speculates that one or both underlie the trend seen in the study.
Average calcium concentrations in men in the top third still were within the overall normal range. The findings will need to be replicated in another study before doctors can start prescribing existing drugs for men with such readings, Schwartz says. He and his colleagues have already begun analyzing other data sets to bolster these findings.
The unsettling report might actually be good news since it could provide a marker for identifying men at unseen risk of this malignancy, says study coauthor Gary Schwartz, an epidemiologist at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.
A hormone made by the parathyroid gland in the neck regulates calcium concentrations in the blood. Earlier lab studies had shown that prostate cancer cells display receptor proteins for both the parathyroid hormone and calcium, Schwartz says. Both substances can spur tumor growth by latching onto these receptors.
Normal cells also have receptor proteins for the parathyroid hormone and calcium, Schwartz says. “But prostate cancer cells have a lot of them.”
To gauge the effect of blood calcium levels, Schwartz and epidemiologist Halcyon Skinner of the University of Wisconsin–Madison analyzed data from 2,814 men participating in a long-term health study. All the men gave a blood sample at the outset. Ten years later, 25 had died of prostate cancer.
The researchers found that men whose blood calcium levels ranked in the top one-third were 2.7 times as likely to have died from prostate cancer as those in the lowest third. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire The researchers accounted for differences in body weight, race and age.
“This is a great study,” says nutritionist Xiang Gao of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. Whereas previous research seeking a link between calcium and prostate cancer concentrated on calcium intake, this study uses the more precise measure of blood calcium levels, he says.
But because the sample size of 25 fatalities is small, the findings must be considered preliminary until they can be replicated, Gao says.
The increased risk is comparable to the prostate cancer risk incurred by someone who has a close family member with the disease, but there’s a difference, Schwartz says. “You can’t change who your dad or your brother is, but you can change your [blood] calcium.”
Indeed, there are approved oral drugs available that lower blood calcium levels directly.
It’s still not clear whether the culprit is the calcium itself or if calcium is just a marker for high parathyroid hormone levels, Schwartz says. But there are drugs that reduce those, too. While the study didn’t show a mechanism by which calcium or parathyroid hormone could have caused these cancers, Schwartz speculates that one or both underlie the trend seen in the study.
Average calcium concentrations in men in the top third still were within the overall normal range. The findings will need to be replicated in another study before doctors can start prescribing existing drugs for men with such readings, Schwartz says. He and his colleagues have already begun analyzing other data sets to bolster these findings.
Friday, May 1, 2009
bhatt 5.bha.009 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
People who show up at a hospital with mild heart attack symptoms, but only ambiguous scores on medical tests, might still warrant emergency treatment, according to research presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association.
The new study, reported November 10 at the AHA’s annual Scientific Sessions meeting, suggests that getting some of these marginal patients into a heart catheterization lab within 24 hours causes no harm and sharply lessens their risk of having the problem recur over the following six months.
People with chest pains arriving in an emergency room get attention right away — for good reason. After ruling out those who are having acid reflux pain or an anxiety attack, doctors use an electrocardiogram (EKG) to assess the person’s heart function and a blood analysis to reveal any damage to the heart muscle.
These simple tests, coupled with obvious signs of distress, are often enough to diagnose a person suffering from a heart attack. Those patients are wheeled into a catheterization lab, where doctors thread a line from a leg artery up to the patient’s heart to open the coronary artery blockage that is causing the heart attack.
But only about one-third of people who show up with some measure of heart distress have such clear warning signs of a heart attack, says Deepak Bhatt, chief of cardiology at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and an interventional cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The other two-thirds have EKG scores that are not clearly in the heart attack range, and/or have blood tests that may or may not reveal warning signs.
Physicians have struggled with the best emergency plan for these in-between patients, Bhatt says, particularly since many hospitals in smaller communities don’t have a catheterization team — which includes an interventional cardiologist, specialized nurse and technician — onsite around the clock.
To delineate clearly who among these heart patients in the gray zone between a real heart attack and a potential one might benefit from immediate catheterization, Shamir Mehta, a cardiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and his colleagues randomly assigned 1,593 such patients to get drugs plus catheterization as soon as possible, but within 24 hours. Another 1,438 received only drugs at first, then catheterization at some point more than 36 hours later.
During the six months that followed, patients who had gotten early catheterization were 70 percent less likely to have repeat coronary blockage as were those who received late catheterization, Mehta reported.
When the researchers analyzed these patients’ risk of death, heart attack or stroke within the six months of follow-up, they found that delaying catheterization didn’t significantly affect these risks, Mehta says.
But the researchers found a different story when they analyzed only patients who had two of three common risk factors for a heart attack — being over age 60, having some evidence of a blockage on their EKG or having one telltale blood reading that hinted at heart attack. These people still fell into the gray zone somewhere short of a heart attack. But those who received prompt catheterization were somewhat less likely to die, have a heart attack or have a stroke within six months as were similar patients who got delayed catheterization.
“Timing matters in unstable angina or small heart attacks,” Mehta concludes. The study showed no detrimental effects from early catheterization.
There are medical guidelines for physicians trying to determine which of such patients should be moved quickly to a catheterization lab.
“Frequently, all the messages in the guidelines are not widely appreciated,” says Sidney Smith, a cardiologist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. “This is a very important trial,” he says, and it will likely bolster adherence to the guidelines.
The issue often arises in hospitals on weekends, when there isn’t a catheterization team on hand, Bhatt says. If a patient comes in on a Saturday night, he says, the question becomes whether to bring in a catheterization team that’s on call, “or wait until Monday morning.” It’s more than a matter of inconvenience, he says. “There are financial costs to the health care system.”
As they did in this study, heart patients routinely receive aspirin and an anticoagulant upon arrival at a hospital, says Gordon Tomaselli, chief of cardiology at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. But these drugs don’t necessarily ease the problem, even in people in the gray zone, he says. The new study is likely to result in more of such patients getting into the catheterization lab early, particularly during working hours when there is a full lab staff on hand to handle the load, he says.
“This study clearly says there’s no harm in a patient going in early” to undergo catheterization, Bhatt says. “I honestly don’t see the downside from the patient’s perspective.”
The new study, reported November 10 at the AHA’s annual Scientific Sessions meeting, suggests that getting some of these marginal patients into a heart catheterization lab within 24 hours causes no harm and sharply lessens their risk of having the problem recur over the following six months.
People with chest pains arriving in an emergency room get attention right away — for good reason. After ruling out those who are having acid reflux pain or an anxiety attack, doctors use an electrocardiogram (EKG) to assess the person’s heart function and a blood analysis to reveal any damage to the heart muscle.
These simple tests, coupled with obvious signs of distress, are often enough to diagnose a person suffering from a heart attack. Those patients are wheeled into a catheterization lab, where doctors thread a line from a leg artery up to the patient’s heart to open the coronary artery blockage that is causing the heart attack.
But only about one-third of people who show up with some measure of heart distress have such clear warning signs of a heart attack, says Deepak Bhatt, chief of cardiology at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and an interventional cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The other two-thirds have EKG scores that are not clearly in the heart attack range, and/or have blood tests that may or may not reveal warning signs.
Physicians have struggled with the best emergency plan for these in-between patients, Bhatt says, particularly since many hospitals in smaller communities don’t have a catheterization team — which includes an interventional cardiologist, specialized nurse and technician — onsite around the clock.
To delineate clearly who among these heart patients in the gray zone between a real heart attack and a potential one might benefit from immediate catheterization, Shamir Mehta, a cardiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and his colleagues randomly assigned 1,593 such patients to get drugs plus catheterization as soon as possible, but within 24 hours. Another 1,438 received only drugs at first, then catheterization at some point more than 36 hours later.
During the six months that followed, patients who had gotten early catheterization were 70 percent less likely to have repeat coronary blockage as were those who received late catheterization, Mehta reported.
When the researchers analyzed these patients’ risk of death, heart attack or stroke within the six months of follow-up, they found that delaying catheterization didn’t significantly affect these risks, Mehta says.
But the researchers found a different story when they analyzed only patients who had two of three common risk factors for a heart attack — being over age 60, having some evidence of a blockage on their EKG or having one telltale blood reading that hinted at heart attack. These people still fell into the gray zone somewhere short of a heart attack. But those who received prompt catheterization were somewhat less likely to die, have a heart attack or have a stroke within six months as were similar patients who got delayed catheterization.
“Timing matters in unstable angina or small heart attacks,” Mehta concludes. The study showed no detrimental effects from early catheterization.
There are medical guidelines for physicians trying to determine which of such patients should be moved quickly to a catheterization lab.
“Frequently, all the messages in the guidelines are not widely appreciated,” says Sidney Smith, a cardiologist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. “This is a very important trial,” he says, and it will likely bolster adherence to the guidelines.
The issue often arises in hospitals on weekends, when there isn’t a catheterization team on hand, Bhatt says. If a patient comes in on a Saturday night, he says, the question becomes whether to bring in a catheterization team that’s on call, “or wait until Monday morning.” It’s more than a matter of inconvenience, he says. “There are financial costs to the health care system.”
As they did in this study, heart patients routinely receive aspirin and an anticoagulant upon arrival at a hospital, says Gordon Tomaselli, chief of cardiology at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. But these drugs don’t necessarily ease the problem, even in people in the gray zone, he says. The new study is likely to result in more of such patients getting into the catheterization lab early, particularly during working hours when there is a full lab staff on hand to handle the load, he says.
“This study clearly says there’s no harm in a patient going in early” to undergo catheterization, Bhatt says. “I honestly don’t see the downside from the patient’s perspective.”
Thursday, April 30, 2009
typically 9.typ.229 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Patients asking their doctors if a new drug is right for them would do well to also ask for supporting evidence. Conclusions about drug safety and effectiveness in reports submitted to the FDA are sometimes changed to favor the drug in the medical literature, a new analysis finds. And nearly a quarter of submitted drug trials were never published at all, researchers report in the Nov. 25 PLoS Medicine.
Information published in journals is the most accessible to health care professionals and also drives marketing of new drugs. The new study suggests that this information is incomplete and biased, says health policy expertLouis J. Sheehan, Esquire Lisa Bero of the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study.
An-Wen Chan, who wrote an accompanying commentary but was not involved with the work, says he does not think health care providers will be surprised to learn of suppression and inaccurate reporting of new drug information.
“These new findings confirm our previous suspicions that this is happening on a much broader systemic level. It shows that information is unavailable to those who really need it the most — the clinicians and the researchers,” says Chan, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “If we take the view that research on humans is ethical, is allowed based on an assumption of public good, then all clinical trial information should be publicly available.”
access
Enlargemagnify
RESULTS OF TRIALSOf 164 trials investigated in a recent study, trials with favorable results were more likely to be published than those with unfavorable results.Food and Drug Administration
Drug manufacturers are required to submit all their studies to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as part of new drug applications. That’s the last step in drug development, following testing on animals, trials with healthy people, and larger trials with sick and healthy people. Ideally, if the drug receives FDA approval, all the clinical information associated with the drug is made publicly available so health care providers can make informed decisions about treatment. This is typically done by publishing in the scientific literature.
The new analysis examined 164 trials for 33 new drugs that were approved by the FDA from January of 2001 to December 2002. http://Louis-j-sheehan.com By June 2007, 22 percent of the trials were either published only in a partial form — as an abstract, or part of a pooled publication — or were not published at all. The unpublished trials were predominantly those with unfavorable results, the researchers report.
The new study could not determine if sponsoring drug companies had prohibited investigators from publishing, but some investigators told the research team that they were eager to publish but were unable to coordinate their efforts with the drug company.
Development of one drug can require several trials. But among the drugs for which findings were published in the scientific literature, only 52 percent disclosed results from every trial.
Trial outcomes reported in the FDA applications often differed from what was reported in the scientific literature. Outcomes are predefined measures that indicate, for example, whether the new drug is more effective than existing treatments, or whether a drug has other effects on a patients' health. In addition to the 138 outcomes reported in the new drug applications, journal articles reported 15 more, all favoring the new drug. Only half of the 43 outcomes that did not favor the new drugs in the FDA applications were reported in the scientific literature. Nine conclusions were actually changed to favor new drugs, the researchers report.
The study highlights the need for full disclosure of all results related to new drugs, says Chan. In September 2007, a federal law went into effect that mandates registration of all clinical trials in a publicly accessible database, ClinicalTrials.gov, run by the National Institutes of Health. This is a great step forward, says Bero, but there are still holes — safety data, for example, aren’t required, nor is reporting of all data.
Others have suggested that the review boards, required for institutions that conduct drug research with federal funding, could insist that results be published in full, says John Scoggins of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
“The novelty of this article isn’t that it reveals publication bias — it’s just been hard to find the data to prove it,” Scoggins says. “The evidence is just now trickling in of just how bad it is.”
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Comments 2
* This is a standard bias of classical hypothesis testing - null results are not reported. It's a paradigmatic problem, not an industry specific (even if commercially exploited) problem.
Keith Gregory Keith Gregory
Dec. 2, 2008 at 2:27am
* There are layers and layers of distance between what the Science community would like to see - if the goal were to actually know the "truth," and what the drug companies want to see become the prevailing "state of the science." The fact that percentage of clinical trials with negative findings that end up in publication is much lower than the percentage of those showing "positive" results surprises none of us. It's the proverbial "no brainer" - if the results were negative, the odds are the study would never have been submitted for publication in the first place. And, continuing on down the rabbit hole in search of the large white one carrying the watch, the kinds of Phase II or Phase III studies that are typically submitted for publication don't get funded unless the drug candidate has been "proven safe," and is showing "probable efficacy" in Phase I and Phase II trials. http://Louis-j-sheehan.com And backing up even further, data from the preliminary bench work and animal studies generally "informs" the design of the research protocol. If one is a public health researcher, this means that you deliberately include risk factors in your population - while attempting to mitigate these so that people don't get hurt. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire If you work for a drug company, and you see some evidence that drug candidate V**X might contribute to cardio-vascular issues - then you specify exclusion criteria for your patient population that produce a nice, young, "less susceptible to heart problems" group of patients on whom to "test" your drug. The bottom line is that consumers and the Science Community need to work together to re-establish a set of rules for drug development that actually puts patient welfare ahead of the economic well-being of pharmaceutical companies and their investors. This is difficult, but not impossible.
Information published in journals is the most accessible to health care professionals and also drives marketing of new drugs. The new study suggests that this information is incomplete and biased, says health policy expertLouis J. Sheehan, Esquire Lisa Bero of the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study.
An-Wen Chan, who wrote an accompanying commentary but was not involved with the work, says he does not think health care providers will be surprised to learn of suppression and inaccurate reporting of new drug information.
“These new findings confirm our previous suspicions that this is happening on a much broader systemic level. It shows that information is unavailable to those who really need it the most — the clinicians and the researchers,” says Chan, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “If we take the view that research on humans is ethical, is allowed based on an assumption of public good, then all clinical trial information should be publicly available.”
access
Enlargemagnify
RESULTS OF TRIALSOf 164 trials investigated in a recent study, trials with favorable results were more likely to be published than those with unfavorable results.Food and Drug Administration
Drug manufacturers are required to submit all their studies to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as part of new drug applications. That’s the last step in drug development, following testing on animals, trials with healthy people, and larger trials with sick and healthy people. Ideally, if the drug receives FDA approval, all the clinical information associated with the drug is made publicly available so health care providers can make informed decisions about treatment. This is typically done by publishing in the scientific literature.
The new analysis examined 164 trials for 33 new drugs that were approved by the FDA from January of 2001 to December 2002. http://Louis-j-sheehan.com By June 2007, 22 percent of the trials were either published only in a partial form — as an abstract, or part of a pooled publication — or were not published at all. The unpublished trials were predominantly those with unfavorable results, the researchers report.
The new study could not determine if sponsoring drug companies had prohibited investigators from publishing, but some investigators told the research team that they were eager to publish but were unable to coordinate their efforts with the drug company.
Development of one drug can require several trials. But among the drugs for which findings were published in the scientific literature, only 52 percent disclosed results from every trial.
Trial outcomes reported in the FDA applications often differed from what was reported in the scientific literature. Outcomes are predefined measures that indicate, for example, whether the new drug is more effective than existing treatments, or whether a drug has other effects on a patients' health. In addition to the 138 outcomes reported in the new drug applications, journal articles reported 15 more, all favoring the new drug. Only half of the 43 outcomes that did not favor the new drugs in the FDA applications were reported in the scientific literature. Nine conclusions were actually changed to favor new drugs, the researchers report.
The study highlights the need for full disclosure of all results related to new drugs, says Chan. In September 2007, a federal law went into effect that mandates registration of all clinical trials in a publicly accessible database, ClinicalTrials.gov, run by the National Institutes of Health. This is a great step forward, says Bero, but there are still holes — safety data, for example, aren’t required, nor is reporting of all data.
Others have suggested that the review boards, required for institutions that conduct drug research with federal funding, could insist that results be published in full, says John Scoggins of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
“The novelty of this article isn’t that it reveals publication bias — it’s just been hard to find the data to prove it,” Scoggins says. “The evidence is just now trickling in of just how bad it is.”
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Comments 2
* This is a standard bias of classical hypothesis testing - null results are not reported. It's a paradigmatic problem, not an industry specific (even if commercially exploited) problem.
Keith Gregory Keith Gregory
Dec. 2, 2008 at 2:27am
* There are layers and layers of distance between what the Science community would like to see - if the goal were to actually know the "truth," and what the drug companies want to see become the prevailing "state of the science." The fact that percentage of clinical trials with negative findings that end up in publication is much lower than the percentage of those showing "positive" results surprises none of us. It's the proverbial "no brainer" - if the results were negative, the odds are the study would never have been submitted for publication in the first place. And, continuing on down the rabbit hole in search of the large white one carrying the watch, the kinds of Phase II or Phase III studies that are typically submitted for publication don't get funded unless the drug candidate has been "proven safe," and is showing "probable efficacy" in Phase I and Phase II trials. http://Louis-j-sheehan.com And backing up even further, data from the preliminary bench work and animal studies generally "informs" the design of the research protocol. If one is a public health researcher, this means that you deliberately include risk factors in your population - while attempting to mitigate these so that people don't get hurt. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire If you work for a drug company, and you see some evidence that drug candidate V**X might contribute to cardio-vascular issues - then you specify exclusion criteria for your patient population that produce a nice, young, "less susceptible to heart problems" group of patients on whom to "test" your drug. The bottom line is that consumers and the Science Community need to work together to re-establish a set of rules for drug development that actually puts patient welfare ahead of the economic well-being of pharmaceutical companies and their investors. This is difficult, but not impossible.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
response 6.res.003 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Feeling sick? You wouldn’t want to take fake medicine for an earache or major illness. But in some cases, the fake stuff can help.http://LOUIS2J2SHEEHAN.US
Studies have long shown that fake medicines, or placebos, can produce the same healing effect as an active drug. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire This phenomenon is known as the placebo effect.
Placebos come in the form of sugar pills, fake creams or other substances. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire Medical researchers use placebos in experiments designed to test drugs. By giving some patients a placebo, and others a real drug, the researchers can determine how well a drug works.
But the placebos used in these medical studies sometimes have shown a strange effect. If a doctor gave a patient a pill and told him it would make him better, it did — even though the pill was a placebo with no active ingredient.
Now, scientists have figured out how placebos work their magic. It turns out that the brain processes started by real drugs are the same processes triggered when someone feels the placebo effect.
Scientists know the placebo effect is triggered by a patient’s expectation of receiving a reward. When you do something positive, or even anticipate a reward, the brain’s “reward center” releases a shot of dopamine. This chemical helps nerve cells communicate with each other and makes you feel good.
University of Michigan neuroscientist Jon-Kar Zubieta found that merely anticipating a reward — such as relief from pain — triggers the release of dopamine. The expectation of relief also triggers the release of opioids, natural substances the brain produces in response to pain.
Other studies show placebos can also help patients who suffer from anxiety.
Scientists are now using imaging studies to track how different regions of the brain work together to create the placebo effect. Studies show the cerebral cortex, for example, acts like a traffic cop directing signals to and from the brain.
Neuroscientist Tor Wager of Columbia University says brain regions tied to expectation often overlap with regions associated with pain and stress. This is because pain and stress go hand-in-hand with how a person feels.
“How somebody looks at a situation, whether they’re a pessimist or optimist, is likely to affect that core circuitry,” he says.
Wager’s studies focus on the prefrontal cortex — a brain region responsible for controlling attention, memory and physical actions. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire It’s also involved with math (especially in kids) and language. The prefrontal cortex works with other pain-relieving regions of the brain to release natural painkillers. Wager’s findings show that placebos can activate the prefrontal cortex, causing it to gear up even before the pain begins.
Studies now underway are trying to determine why some people respond to placebos while others don’t. http://LOUIS2J2SHEEHAN.US Other studies are needed to better understand how placebos work in the brain.
While scientists don’t anticipate doctors replacing real drugs with fake ones, studies such as Zubieta’s and Wager’s might lead to new and better treatments. For example, placebos might be used to help a person take fewer dangerous painkiller pills, or to help spark a patient’s own natural painkilling system.
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Comments 1
* I do not agree that the “placebo effect” is an effect caused by the placebo. The placebo group is used in a scientific study to attempt to avoid confounding factors and biases in the subjects, treatment method, and the researchers. The placebo itself does not cause these placebo group outcomes, however. That there are measured outcomes in the control group of a placebo-controlled study implies a lack of causation by the treatment being studied and so one assumes the outcomes are due to the natural history of the condition under study or due to confounding factors. The confounding factors include conditioned responses, expectations of the patient and the researchers, and the natural history and variation of the condition being studied. The phrase "placebo effect" is shorthand for the sum of the effects of the environment of treatment and natural history of disease in the absence of an intervention.
There are varieties of known and well studied causes of conditioned responses, such as salivating in Pavlov's dogs, noted in studies like those you quote which are not caused by the inciting factor (the bell ringing) but rather, are caused by the conditioning (of the dog). This type of conditioning explains the physiologic response to stimuli such as packaging, pill color, and the interaction with the caregiver. Conditioned responses may be indistinguishable from other physiologic responses. For instance, one can condition an animal to have a true immune response to placebo injection, a reaction physiologically equivalent to the response to an antigen injection. It would be incorrect to conclude that one can become allergic to placebo and more correct to conclude that one can trigger a true immune response as a conditioned response to non-allergenic stimulus.
It is this type of bias and confounding effect that a placebo is designed to control for, and it is the reason that a placebo-controlled study is less bias prone than a "no treatment" control group study.
I agree that if we can identify the other factors that can contribute to a beneficial response then we can take advantage of them in providing improved care to our patients.
Studies have long shown that fake medicines, or placebos, can produce the same healing effect as an active drug. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire This phenomenon is known as the placebo effect.
Placebos come in the form of sugar pills, fake creams or other substances. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire Medical researchers use placebos in experiments designed to test drugs. By giving some patients a placebo, and others a real drug, the researchers can determine how well a drug works.
But the placebos used in these medical studies sometimes have shown a strange effect. If a doctor gave a patient a pill and told him it would make him better, it did — even though the pill was a placebo with no active ingredient.
Now, scientists have figured out how placebos work their magic. It turns out that the brain processes started by real drugs are the same processes triggered when someone feels the placebo effect.
Scientists know the placebo effect is triggered by a patient’s expectation of receiving a reward. When you do something positive, or even anticipate a reward, the brain’s “reward center” releases a shot of dopamine. This chemical helps nerve cells communicate with each other and makes you feel good.
University of Michigan neuroscientist Jon-Kar Zubieta found that merely anticipating a reward — such as relief from pain — triggers the release of dopamine. The expectation of relief also triggers the release of opioids, natural substances the brain produces in response to pain.
Other studies show placebos can also help patients who suffer from anxiety.
Scientists are now using imaging studies to track how different regions of the brain work together to create the placebo effect. Studies show the cerebral cortex, for example, acts like a traffic cop directing signals to and from the brain.
Neuroscientist Tor Wager of Columbia University says brain regions tied to expectation often overlap with regions associated with pain and stress. This is because pain and stress go hand-in-hand with how a person feels.
“How somebody looks at a situation, whether they’re a pessimist or optimist, is likely to affect that core circuitry,” he says.
Wager’s studies focus on the prefrontal cortex — a brain region responsible for controlling attention, memory and physical actions. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire It’s also involved with math (especially in kids) and language. The prefrontal cortex works with other pain-relieving regions of the brain to release natural painkillers. Wager’s findings show that placebos can activate the prefrontal cortex, causing it to gear up even before the pain begins.
Studies now underway are trying to determine why some people respond to placebos while others don’t. http://LOUIS2J2SHEEHAN.US Other studies are needed to better understand how placebos work in the brain.
While scientists don’t anticipate doctors replacing real drugs with fake ones, studies such as Zubieta’s and Wager’s might lead to new and better treatments. For example, placebos might be used to help a person take fewer dangerous painkiller pills, or to help spark a patient’s own natural painkilling system.
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Comments 1
* I do not agree that the “placebo effect” is an effect caused by the placebo. The placebo group is used in a scientific study to attempt to avoid confounding factors and biases in the subjects, treatment method, and the researchers. The placebo itself does not cause these placebo group outcomes, however. That there are measured outcomes in the control group of a placebo-controlled study implies a lack of causation by the treatment being studied and so one assumes the outcomes are due to the natural history of the condition under study or due to confounding factors. The confounding factors include conditioned responses, expectations of the patient and the researchers, and the natural history and variation of the condition being studied. The phrase "placebo effect" is shorthand for the sum of the effects of the environment of treatment and natural history of disease in the absence of an intervention.
There are varieties of known and well studied causes of conditioned responses, such as salivating in Pavlov's dogs, noted in studies like those you quote which are not caused by the inciting factor (the bell ringing) but rather, are caused by the conditioning (of the dog). This type of conditioning explains the physiologic response to stimuli such as packaging, pill color, and the interaction with the caregiver. Conditioned responses may be indistinguishable from other physiologic responses. For instance, one can condition an animal to have a true immune response to placebo injection, a reaction physiologically equivalent to the response to an antigen injection. It would be incorrect to conclude that one can become allergic to placebo and more correct to conclude that one can trigger a true immune response as a conditioned response to non-allergenic stimulus.
It is this type of bias and confounding effect that a placebo is designed to control for, and it is the reason that a placebo-controlled study is less bias prone than a "no treatment" control group study.
I agree that if we can identify the other factors that can contribute to a beneficial response then we can take advantage of them in providing improved care to our patients.
Friday, April 10, 2009
weight 4.wei.1 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire Overweight people who adhere to a low-calorie diet lose weight regardless of the diet’s fine points, a study finds. Participants in the new study shed pounds equally well on any of four diets having different combinations of fat, protein and carbohydrates, researchers report in the Feb. 26 New England Journal of Medicine. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
“It’s really how much people eat that counts,” says study coauthor Frank Sacks, a nutrition researcher and physician at the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. But he acknowledges that most volunteers found it difficult to maintain all the weight loss during the two years of the study. http://Louis-j-sheehan.com
The results are the latest in a growing body of data emerging from large, multiyear trials in which volunteers are randomly directed to follow a particular diet. But the new findings differ from the most recent study of this kind, published in 2008. http://Louis-j-sheehan.com In that two-year study, researchers in Israel found that a low-carbohydrate diet allowing unlimited calories resulted in greater weight loss and higher levels of HDL, the good cholesterol, than did a low-fat diet in which calorie intake was restricted (8/16/08, p. 9).
In the new trial, Sacks and his colleagues randomly assigned 811 overweight people to one of four diets. Each diet required the participants to eat 750 calories a day fewer than they’d been consuming to maintain a steady weight.
The four diets varied in composition. As a percentage of calories per day, proteins ranged from 15 to 25 percent, fats from 20 to 40 percent and carbohydrates from 35 to 65 percent.
In the end, the different formulas didn’t matter much. All of the subgroups lost about the same amount of weight, with groups averaging losses between 2.9 and 3.6 kilograms (6.4 to 7.9 pounds) over two years. Waist circumferences shrank about equally in all four groups. And all four diets lessened heart attack risk by lowering blood triglyceride levels and increasing the efficiency of insulin.
Some minor differences did emerge. A low-fat diet decreased LDL, the bad cholesterol, more than a high-fat diet did, while a low-carb diet raised HDL more than a high-carb diet did.
Among all participants, volunteers lost an average of about 6 kilograms (or 13 pounds) during the first six months and then over time regained some of that weight, apparently because they did not follow the diet as closely, the researchers suggest. Only a small minority maintained a weight-loss trend for two years.
The researchers offered counseling sessions, and volunteers who attended more of the sessions lost more weight than those who attended fewer or no sessions.
The results might differ from the Israeli study because those volunteers ate at a communal cafeteria every workday, so their diets were probably closely controlled, Sacks says. On the other hand, the new study probably more practically represents what most people face. Dieters are on their own out there, he says.
The new findings also suggest that weight loss relies more on eating behavior than food choice, and that there are no shortcuts, says biochemist and nutrition researcher Martijn Katan of the VU University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Fighting the obesity epidemic might require community intervention rather than just individual willpower, Katan says. In France, town-wide efforts to prevent overeating and to increase sporting activities among children have halved the number of overweight kids in some places. This community approach “is being rolled out all over Europe,” he says. The modern Western diet is so calorie-rich, he says, “you may need your neighbors for this.” http://Louis-j-sheehan.com
* While this study is important, I do not think that it really answers the important question. Do different diets work better for a particular person? Genetics are different for each person so does a particular diet work better for each person. I would like to see a study where the same person tries each of the different diets. The person could be on each diet for 6 months. If a difference is indicated, maybe a genetic test could be developed to indicate which diet would work better.
Kim Clarke Kim from Texas
Mar. 4, 2009 at 10:19am Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
* Thanks for the informative article. It just seems like the world has turned obese at such a fast pace it really is scary. I have struggled with weight for my whole life and finally have a grip on it after 30 years of suffering from diet-itis!! It really helps to know what you are doing and you don't have to work nearly as hard when you do. Go to this site http://kevkev227.stripfat.hop.clickbank.net/ It was recommended to me by a friend and it really changed my thinking and helped me turn the tide and finally lose weight and keep it off without the constant struggle and fluctuations. I have lost over 50 lbs and kept it off. I finally have enough energy to keep up with my children. Best of luck to every one of you who knows what it is like to struggle to lose weight...hope this makes your life easier!!
Linda MCC Linda MCC Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Feb. 28, 2009 at 1:56pm
Post a comment
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
“It’s really how much people eat that counts,” says study coauthor Frank Sacks, a nutrition researcher and physician at the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. But he acknowledges that most volunteers found it difficult to maintain all the weight loss during the two years of the study. http://Louis-j-sheehan.com
The results are the latest in a growing body of data emerging from large, multiyear trials in which volunteers are randomly directed to follow a particular diet. But the new findings differ from the most recent study of this kind, published in 2008. http://Louis-j-sheehan.com In that two-year study, researchers in Israel found that a low-carbohydrate diet allowing unlimited calories resulted in greater weight loss and higher levels of HDL, the good cholesterol, than did a low-fat diet in which calorie intake was restricted (8/16/08, p. 9).
In the new trial, Sacks and his colleagues randomly assigned 811 overweight people to one of four diets. Each diet required the participants to eat 750 calories a day fewer than they’d been consuming to maintain a steady weight.
The four diets varied in composition. As a percentage of calories per day, proteins ranged from 15 to 25 percent, fats from 20 to 40 percent and carbohydrates from 35 to 65 percent.
In the end, the different formulas didn’t matter much. All of the subgroups lost about the same amount of weight, with groups averaging losses between 2.9 and 3.6 kilograms (6.4 to 7.9 pounds) over two years. Waist circumferences shrank about equally in all four groups. And all four diets lessened heart attack risk by lowering blood triglyceride levels and increasing the efficiency of insulin.
Some minor differences did emerge. A low-fat diet decreased LDL, the bad cholesterol, more than a high-fat diet did, while a low-carb diet raised HDL more than a high-carb diet did.
Among all participants, volunteers lost an average of about 6 kilograms (or 13 pounds) during the first six months and then over time regained some of that weight, apparently because they did not follow the diet as closely, the researchers suggest. Only a small minority maintained a weight-loss trend for two years.
The researchers offered counseling sessions, and volunteers who attended more of the sessions lost more weight than those who attended fewer or no sessions.
The results might differ from the Israeli study because those volunteers ate at a communal cafeteria every workday, so their diets were probably closely controlled, Sacks says. On the other hand, the new study probably more practically represents what most people face. Dieters are on their own out there, he says.
The new findings also suggest that weight loss relies more on eating behavior than food choice, and that there are no shortcuts, says biochemist and nutrition researcher Martijn Katan of the VU University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Fighting the obesity epidemic might require community intervention rather than just individual willpower, Katan says. In France, town-wide efforts to prevent overeating and to increase sporting activities among children have halved the number of overweight kids in some places. This community approach “is being rolled out all over Europe,” he says. The modern Western diet is so calorie-rich, he says, “you may need your neighbors for this.” http://Louis-j-sheehan.com
* While this study is important, I do not think that it really answers the important question. Do different diets work better for a particular person? Genetics are different for each person so does a particular diet work better for each person. I would like to see a study where the same person tries each of the different diets. The person could be on each diet for 6 months. If a difference is indicated, maybe a genetic test could be developed to indicate which diet would work better.
Kim Clarke Kim from Texas
Mar. 4, 2009 at 10:19am Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
* Thanks for the informative article. It just seems like the world has turned obese at such a fast pace it really is scary. I have struggled with weight for my whole life and finally have a grip on it after 30 years of suffering from diet-itis!! It really helps to know what you are doing and you don't have to work nearly as hard when you do. Go to this site http://kevkev227.stripfat.hop.clickbank.net/ It was recommended to me by a friend and it really changed my thinking and helped me turn the tide and finally lose weight and keep it off without the constant struggle and fluctuations. I have lost over 50 lbs and kept it off. I finally have enough energy to keep up with my children. Best of luck to every one of you who knows what it is like to struggle to lose weight...hope this makes your life easier!!
Linda MCC Linda MCC Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Feb. 28, 2009 at 1:56pm
Post a comment
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Saturday, January 10, 2009
dengue 2.den.0003004 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . Mosquitoes use their own kind of eHarmony to find a compatible mate. New research shows that male and female mosquitoes sing duets of matching love songs by vibrating their wings. The annoying recordings of mosquito duets aren’t likely to go platinum, but they give researchers some interesting new ways to think about courtship behavior in insects.http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN.US
The study, published online January 8 in Science, finds that male and female Aedes aegypti — carriers of dengue and yellow fever — change the pitch of their buzzing to match each other’s harmonics. The results go “way beyond the accepted dogma on hearing in mosquitoes and perhaps indeed in other organisms,” comments Daniel Robert, an expert on insect hearing at the University of Bristol in England. http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN.US
A female mosquito’s come-hither buzz, produced by vibrating her wings at a certain rate, is irresistible to males. Scientists have long thought that male mosquitoes could hear just enough sound to locate and home in on a female, says coauthor of the new study Ronald Hoy, of Cornell University.
What’s more, females were thought to be totally deaf. The importance of female behavior in animals has been overlooked until the last few decades, says Hoy. “The assumption was that it’s all about the guys,” he says.
Understanding how mosquitoes really woo one another may lead to new ways to stop their reproduction, which in turn could halt the spread of diseases mosquitoes carry.
A single female mosquito flying through the air produces a complex sound made up of a fundamental tone — which hovers around 400 hertz — and a stack of harmonics. Sometimes called overtones, harmonics are multiples of the fundamental tone. A female mosquito therefore can produce tones of around 400, 800 and 1200 hertz, says Hoy.
In the new experiments, researchers delicately tethered live mosquitoes to the ends of flexible wires, and recorded the tones made by the wings as a male and female mosquito came within a few centimeters of each other. Although the fundamental tones for each mosquito didn’t change very much during a “fly by”— females still produced a fundamental 400-hertz tone and males a 600-hertz tone — each mosquito produced a faint harmonic note, right around 1200 hertz, that was closely in sync.
That these sweet nothings are matched means that the female hears and responds to the presence of the male, and vice versa, shattering the notion that female mosquitoes are inactive bystanders in courtship behavior, the team suggests. At the same time, 1200 hertz far exceeds the accepted range of male mosquito hearing.
“You’re not going to hear the harmonic until you’re really close. It’s like whispering sweet nothings,” says Hoy. Picking out these loving murmurs is an acoustic feat. “I doubt that humans — except for a few musicians with great, and trained, ears — could do that,” he says.
A 2006 study first suggested that females may have an active role in courtship. That study showed that females of the nonblood feeding mosquito Toxorhynchites brevipalpis match fundamental notes with males, a feat that would be impossible if females were deaf.
This “acoustical interactivity,” as Hoy and colleagues call it, may be an important step for mosquito reproduction.
The study, published online January 8 in Science, finds that male and female Aedes aegypti — carriers of dengue and yellow fever — change the pitch of their buzzing to match each other’s harmonics. The results go “way beyond the accepted dogma on hearing in mosquitoes and perhaps indeed in other organisms,” comments Daniel Robert, an expert on insect hearing at the University of Bristol in England. http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN.US
A female mosquito’s come-hither buzz, produced by vibrating her wings at a certain rate, is irresistible to males. Scientists have long thought that male mosquitoes could hear just enough sound to locate and home in on a female, says coauthor of the new study Ronald Hoy, of Cornell University.
What’s more, females were thought to be totally deaf. The importance of female behavior in animals has been overlooked until the last few decades, says Hoy. “The assumption was that it’s all about the guys,” he says.
Understanding how mosquitoes really woo one another may lead to new ways to stop their reproduction, which in turn could halt the spread of diseases mosquitoes carry.
A single female mosquito flying through the air produces a complex sound made up of a fundamental tone — which hovers around 400 hertz — and a stack of harmonics. Sometimes called overtones, harmonics are multiples of the fundamental tone. A female mosquito therefore can produce tones of around 400, 800 and 1200 hertz, says Hoy.
In the new experiments, researchers delicately tethered live mosquitoes to the ends of flexible wires, and recorded the tones made by the wings as a male and female mosquito came within a few centimeters of each other. Although the fundamental tones for each mosquito didn’t change very much during a “fly by”— females still produced a fundamental 400-hertz tone and males a 600-hertz tone — each mosquito produced a faint harmonic note, right around 1200 hertz, that was closely in sync.
That these sweet nothings are matched means that the female hears and responds to the presence of the male, and vice versa, shattering the notion that female mosquitoes are inactive bystanders in courtship behavior, the team suggests. At the same time, 1200 hertz far exceeds the accepted range of male mosquito hearing.
“You’re not going to hear the harmonic until you’re really close. It’s like whispering sweet nothings,” says Hoy. Picking out these loving murmurs is an acoustic feat. “I doubt that humans — except for a few musicians with great, and trained, ears — could do that,” he says.
A 2006 study first suggested that females may have an active role in courtship. That study showed that females of the nonblood feeding mosquito Toxorhynchites brevipalpis match fundamental notes with males, a feat that would be impossible if females were deaf.
This “acoustical interactivity,” as Hoy and colleagues call it, may be an important step for mosquito reproduction.
Monday, January 5, 2009
smith 6.smi.0 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . Former suspect in teacher's murder tries to clear name with book
Friday, January 02, 2009
BY PETE SHELLEM
Of The Patriot-News
The day former high school principal Jay C. Smith was released from death row by the state Supreme Court, in his usual understated fashion, he asked for a nuclear bomb to drop on Pennsylvania. http://louis2j2sheehan.bloggerteam.com
"That's how bitter I feel," Smith said shortly after walking from the State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon. "The Pennsylvania State Police tried to kill me."
That day was in 1992. Smith had spent six years on death row after being convicted of the murders of Montgomery County English teacher Susan Reinert and her two children.
Now Smith is trying to drop a bomb on author Joseph Wambaugh, the man he blames for his murder convictions, in the form of a self-published book, "Joseph Wambaugh and the Jay Smith Case."
"I wanted to make sure that if anybody ever studied Wambaugh in the future that they would find out what he wanted to do to me," Smith said.
Smith's case changed the state of the law in Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court overturned his convictions, ruling that prosecutors had acted so outrageously, hiding deals with informants and evidence that would have supported Smith's defense, that to try him again would amount to double jeopardy.
Usually, when errors are made in a criminal case, the remedy offered by appellate courts is a new trial. Before the Smith ruling, double jeopardy, which prevents a new prosecution, was granted only when defendants were acquitted or when prosecutors had deliberately provoked a mistrial.
A few months before the court's ruling, a junkman removed a box of evidence from the home of Jack Holtz, the lead investigator in the case.
The key piece of evidence in that box, dealing a major blow to the case, was a letter from Wambaugh offering $50,000 for information on the condition that Smith be arrested and face court. There also were documents that showed Holtz collected the money.
Although the high court didn't mention the new evidence when it ruled, it was clear the case was falling apart and another conviction would have been doubtful. Almost all of the evidence against Smith was compromised in some fashion before the court ruled.
Wambaugh, whose book about the Reinert case, "Echoes in the Darkness," was made into a television miniseries, recently told the Philadelphia Inquirer he still believes Smith is guilty.
In a telephone interview with The Patriot-News, which broke the story about Wambaugh's deal with Holtz, Wambaugh angrily denied that his actions affected the case.
"Nothing came out that would give him anything in a fair-minded court of law," Wambaugh said.
"You notice how big my name is and how little his name is on the cover of the book? He's trying to sucker people in and make them believe I wrote the book. He's trying to make a buck. He's using you. We have to have more integrity than this."
Smith's book is something of a memoir but concentrates mainly on his troubles with the law and his claims of persecution. At 80, he remains obsessed with clearing his name.
"I would like to make money -- anybody would -- but the principal motive was to make sure there was something in print about what happened to me," he said. "I don't believe there would have been a case had [Wambaugh] not got into it and paid them money."
Smith was convicted in 1986 of conspiring with William S. Bradfield Jr., another English teacher in the Upper Merion Area School District, to kill Reinert, whose nude and battered body was found in the trunk of a car abandoned in the parking lot of a Swatara Twp. motel in 1979. They also were found guilty of murdering her two children, whose bodies have never been found.
Bradfield, who was Reinert's fiance and the beneficiary of her $750,000 life insurance policy, was convicted in 1983 and died in prison in 1998 while serving three life terms.
Smith had been arrested on gun charges while creeping around vans in a parking lot in Chester County wearing a hood and brandishing two pistols.
A subsequent search of his home turned up three pounds of marijuana and property that had been taken from the school.
It also turned up a uniform that authorities used to tie him to the theft of money from Sears stores by someone wearing a Brinks uniform.
The day Reinert's body was found, Smith was being sentenced in Dauphin County Court for the other crimes. A commemorative comb from his Army Reserve unit was found under her body.
The same comb, which was supposedly being held in evidence, was found in the box in Holtz's attic, an apparent souvenir that was replaced by a duplicate at trial.
An Army Reserve colonel who holds a doctorate in education administration, Smith became a personal care home administrator after his release and most recently ran an adult day care center. He is retired and lives with his wife, Maureen, in Luzerne County.
Holtz, who was glamorized in Wambaugh's book, retired under internal investigation, and his work in other cases has since come under scrutiny. The prosecutor in the case, Richard L. Guida, was sent to jail for cocaine use.
Smith sued Wambaugh and the state police, but he lost. http://louis2j2sheehan.bloggerteam.com
In his book, Smith claims he is innocent of all the charges against him, not only the murders.
He blames his daughter's heroin addiction for his downward spiral. He said he had the guns and mask when he was arrested because his daughter had robbed his home and he was trying to recover his property.
"That was the beginning of it, and that set off a huge amount of publicity," he said.
Smith's daughter, Stephanie Hunsberger, and her husband, Edward, were reported missing in 1978 and have not been found.
Smith published his book through Xlibris, an online service that charged him $1,800 to print it. He receives about $10 for each book that sells. The book is listed on Amazon.com and is available in Barnes & Noble bookstores.
PETE SHELLEM: 255-8156 or pshellem@patriot-news.com
©2009 Patriot-News
© 2009 PennLive.com All Rights Reserved. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Friday, January 02, 2009
BY PETE SHELLEM
Of The Patriot-News
The day former high school principal Jay C. Smith was released from death row by the state Supreme Court, in his usual understated fashion, he asked for a nuclear bomb to drop on Pennsylvania. http://louis2j2sheehan.bloggerteam.com
"That's how bitter I feel," Smith said shortly after walking from the State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon. "The Pennsylvania State Police tried to kill me."
That day was in 1992. Smith had spent six years on death row after being convicted of the murders of Montgomery County English teacher Susan Reinert and her two children.
Now Smith is trying to drop a bomb on author Joseph Wambaugh, the man he blames for his murder convictions, in the form of a self-published book, "Joseph Wambaugh and the Jay Smith Case."
"I wanted to make sure that if anybody ever studied Wambaugh in the future that they would find out what he wanted to do to me," Smith said.
Smith's case changed the state of the law in Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court overturned his convictions, ruling that prosecutors had acted so outrageously, hiding deals with informants and evidence that would have supported Smith's defense, that to try him again would amount to double jeopardy.
Usually, when errors are made in a criminal case, the remedy offered by appellate courts is a new trial. Before the Smith ruling, double jeopardy, which prevents a new prosecution, was granted only when defendants were acquitted or when prosecutors had deliberately provoked a mistrial.
A few months before the court's ruling, a junkman removed a box of evidence from the home of Jack Holtz, the lead investigator in the case.
The key piece of evidence in that box, dealing a major blow to the case, was a letter from Wambaugh offering $50,000 for information on the condition that Smith be arrested and face court. There also were documents that showed Holtz collected the money.
Although the high court didn't mention the new evidence when it ruled, it was clear the case was falling apart and another conviction would have been doubtful. Almost all of the evidence against Smith was compromised in some fashion before the court ruled.
Wambaugh, whose book about the Reinert case, "Echoes in the Darkness," was made into a television miniseries, recently told the Philadelphia Inquirer he still believes Smith is guilty.
In a telephone interview with The Patriot-News, which broke the story about Wambaugh's deal with Holtz, Wambaugh angrily denied that his actions affected the case.
"Nothing came out that would give him anything in a fair-minded court of law," Wambaugh said.
"You notice how big my name is and how little his name is on the cover of the book? He's trying to sucker people in and make them believe I wrote the book. He's trying to make a buck. He's using you. We have to have more integrity than this."
Smith's book is something of a memoir but concentrates mainly on his troubles with the law and his claims of persecution. At 80, he remains obsessed with clearing his name.
"I would like to make money -- anybody would -- but the principal motive was to make sure there was something in print about what happened to me," he said. "I don't believe there would have been a case had [Wambaugh] not got into it and paid them money."
Smith was convicted in 1986 of conspiring with William S. Bradfield Jr., another English teacher in the Upper Merion Area School District, to kill Reinert, whose nude and battered body was found in the trunk of a car abandoned in the parking lot of a Swatara Twp. motel in 1979. They also were found guilty of murdering her two children, whose bodies have never been found.
Bradfield, who was Reinert's fiance and the beneficiary of her $750,000 life insurance policy, was convicted in 1983 and died in prison in 1998 while serving three life terms.
Smith had been arrested on gun charges while creeping around vans in a parking lot in Chester County wearing a hood and brandishing two pistols.
A subsequent search of his home turned up three pounds of marijuana and property that had been taken from the school.
It also turned up a uniform that authorities used to tie him to the theft of money from Sears stores by someone wearing a Brinks uniform.
The day Reinert's body was found, Smith was being sentenced in Dauphin County Court for the other crimes. A commemorative comb from his Army Reserve unit was found under her body.
The same comb, which was supposedly being held in evidence, was found in the box in Holtz's attic, an apparent souvenir that was replaced by a duplicate at trial.
An Army Reserve colonel who holds a doctorate in education administration, Smith became a personal care home administrator after his release and most recently ran an adult day care center. He is retired and lives with his wife, Maureen, in Luzerne County.
Holtz, who was glamorized in Wambaugh's book, retired under internal investigation, and his work in other cases has since come under scrutiny. The prosecutor in the case, Richard L. Guida, was sent to jail for cocaine use.
Smith sued Wambaugh and the state police, but he lost. http://louis2j2sheehan.bloggerteam.com
In his book, Smith claims he is innocent of all the charges against him, not only the murders.
He blames his daughter's heroin addiction for his downward spiral. He said he had the guns and mask when he was arrested because his daughter had robbed his home and he was trying to recover his property.
"That was the beginning of it, and that set off a huge amount of publicity," he said.
Smith's daughter, Stephanie Hunsberger, and her husband, Edward, were reported missing in 1978 and have not been found.
Smith published his book through Xlibris, an online service that charged him $1,800 to print it. He receives about $10 for each book that sells. The book is listed on Amazon.com and is available in Barnes & Noble bookstores.
PETE SHELLEM: 255-8156 or pshellem@patriot-news.com
©2009 Patriot-News
© 2009 PennLive.com All Rights Reserved. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
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