Monthly Archives: April 2017

Anatomy

The unmistakable anatomy of a President Trump flip-flop – Chicago Tribune

President Donald Trump took to Fox News on Tuesday morning to defend his flip-flop on labeling China a currency manipulator. And what we got was a perfect little illustration of a president who believes his campaign-trail promises mean basically nothing.

Here's the exchange with "Fox and Friends" host Ainsley Earhardt:

TRUMP: Somebody said "Currency manipulation." What am I going to do? In the middle of him talking with North Korea, I'm going to hit them with currency manipulation? This is the fake media that just does a number. Think of it: He's working so nicely, many coal ships have been sent back, fuel has been sent back, they're not dealing the same way. Nobody's ever seen it like that. Nobody's ever seen such a positive response on our behalf from China, and then the fake media goes, "Donald Trump has changed his stance on China." I haven't changed my stance. China's trying to help us. I don't know if they are going to be able to or not, but do I want to start heavy, heavy trade or currency manipulation statements against someone who's out there trying to stop what could be a very bad situation? You understand that.

EARHARDT: I understand that.

Yes, we all understand that.

Except that the "fake media" didn't invent anything here. Trump has said repeatedly that he would label China a currency manipulator as many as a dozen times as a 2016 candidate and three times on Twitter back in 2012, according to the Donald Trump database. This is the definition of him changing his stance; Trump's contention that it isn't is complete nonsense.

Trump's "Contract with the American Voter," which is still on his campaign website and is labeled a "contract" (!), pledges to do this within 100 days: "THIRD, I will direct the Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator." And here's what Trump said in late October in Florida: "I blame our politicians for letting this take place. So easy to stop. So easy to stop."

Except that it's apparently not so easy to stop, which is really the point here. As Trump has acknowledged to his credit, perhaps China plays a significant role in containing North Korea and is otherwise a world power to be reckoned with. Against that backdrop, labeling it a currency manipulator is a dicey move.

But that backdrop was very much the same when Trump made this promise, over and over. And he still made it, over and over.

This is a nice little microcosm of Trump's repeated flip-flops and contortions. It goes a little something like this:

1. Amateur politician makes big statement (in this case, that China is a currency manipulator)

2. Amateur politician promises to take swift and controversial action (to label China a currency manipulator as president)

3. Crowd cheers

4. Amateur politician repeats promise over and over, to more cheers

5. Amateur politician actually becomes president

6. Amateur politician-president realizes his stance was completely impractical (given China's role in containing North Korea, among other things)

7. Amateur politician-president can't understand why people would have taken him at his word in the first place

The arc is completely similar on any number of Trump campaign-trail promises and applause lines: prosecuting Hillary Clinton, repealing Obamacare, attacking Barack Obama for golfing as president, renegotiating the Iran deal, calling NATO obsolete, etc. Trump made big promises and statements on each that proved impractical once he was actually in position to make good on them. So he didn't even try. And on each one, he simply wants us to grant him a mulligan.

The only conclusions from there are: a) He makes big promises about hugely consequential issues without doing his homework confirming the belief that he's in way over his head or b) He says these things without ever planning to do them lying to his supporters. It's the old "Stupid or Liar" theory.

It's one thing to come across new information as president; it's another to have been completely unaware of things like China's role in North Korea while making huge promises as a candidate. That's Foreign Policy 101 stuff.

And this casual approach to facts and the political and foreign policy realities of the day has cost Trump dearly when it comes to his credibility.

Aaron Blake is senior political reporter for Washington Post's The Fix.

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Anti-immigrant views helped Trump win. Will they also cause his undoing?

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The unmistakable anatomy of a President Trump flip-flop - Chicago Tribune

Anatomy

Anatomy of a winning streak: How the Yankees have become MLB’s hottest team – CBSSports.com

The New York Yankees are the hottest team in baseball. Monday night they beat the Chicago White Sox (NYY 7, CWS 4) for their eighth consecutive win, which is the longest winning streak by any team in baseball this season -- no other club has won more than five games in a row -- and New York's longest winning streak since a 10-gamer in June 2012.

Thanks to this winning streak, the Yankees currently boast a plus-23 run differential, the best in baseball. They rank second among all teams in runs scored per game (5.15) and fourth in runs allowed per game (3.38), so they're playing well in both phases. This eight-game winning streak has had a real impact on their postseason chances. From FanGraphs:

Coming into the season the Yankees had a 15.9 percent chance to make the postseason, according to the projections and depth charts at FanGraphs. Two weeks in, they are up to 39.9 percent, fourth highest in the American League. Improving your odds 24 percentage points in two weeks is pretty great. No, the Yankees won't keep winning forever, but these eight wins are in the bank. They can't be taken away.

What, exactly, has propelled the Yankees to this eight-game winning streak? Well, as I mentioned earlier, they're both creating runs and preventing runs well, and yes, there's a little luck involved too. The Yankees aren't being carried by one or two players. It's a team effort. Here are the biggest reasons the Yankees are now the hottest team in MLB.

It always starts with pitching, doesn't it? Five games into the season the Yankees were 1-4 and their starters had a 7.59 ERA and 1.88 WHIP in 21 1/3 innings. Not once in those five games did a starter record an out after the fifth inning. The Yankees were getting low quality innings from the starters and they were taxing the bullpen. That's a bad combination.

The eight-game winning streak started in New York's sixth game of the season, and since then their starters have pitched to a 2.77 ERA and 1.00 WHIP in 52 innings. Only once in those eight games did the starter fail to complete six full innings -- rookie lefty Jordan Montgomery went 4 2/3 innings in his MLB debut Wednesday because he was on a pitch limit. Now the rotation is providing quality innings and bulk innings.

Oddly enough, staff ace Masahiro Tanaka has been the Yankees'worst starter in the early going. He was one of the AL's top hurlers last year, but control issues have hampered him early. Erstwhile ace CC Sabathia reinvented himself as a cutter pitcher last year and has a 1.47 ERA in 18 1/3 innings and three starts so far. He has been the club's most reliable starting pitcher.

Their most electric starter has been Michael Pineda , at least during this eight-game winning streak. He retired the first 20 batters he faced in the home opener April 10, then Sunday night he chucked seven innings of two-run ball. Pineda is both talented and unpredictable. He'll dominate one start and blow up the next -- he allowed four runs in 3 2/3 innings in his first start of the season, so yeah -- though these last two times out, the good version of the man they call Big Mike showed up.

We all know about Dellin Betances and Aroldis Chapman , who form arguably the top setup man-closer combination in baseball. Having those two at the end of the game sure makes life easy for manager Joe Girardi. The rest of the bullpen has been very good too, however. Tyler Clippard picked up a save Saturday when Chapman and Betances were unavailable due to their recent workloads, and rookie righty Jonathan Holder has yet to allow a run in five appearances.

Adam Warren , who never quite fit in with the Chicago Cubs last year before being traded back to the Yankees, and Bryan Mitchell competed for rotation spots in spring training and opened the regular season as multi-inning relievers. Mitchell allowed his first run of the season Sunday. Warren allowed his first run Monday after retiring the first 22 batters he faced this season. Those two have combined to allow two runs and six base runners in 13 1/3 innings spread across nine appearances.

Chapman and Betances get all the headlines and deservedly so. They've combined to allow one run with 17 strikeouts in 10 2/3 innings. Bullpens are not a two-man show, however. Not these days. Bullpen depth is crucial and the Yankees have gotten strong work from supporting cast members like Clippard, Holder, Warren and Mitchell. The Yankees are second in bullpen ERA (1.36), third in bullpen WHIP (0.96) and fifth in bullpen strikeout rate (10.7 K/9) in all of baseball thanks to their relief depth.

This spring MLB.com ranked 24-year-old Aaron Judge as the 42nd-best prospect in baseball, though his MLB debut did not go too well last season. The Yankees called him up after trading Carlos Beltran to the Texas Rangers and installed him as their starting right fielder. Judge hit .179/.263/.345 (61 OPS+) in 27 games before suffering an oblique injury. He's a massive human listed at 6-feet-7 and 275 pounds, and pitchers took advantage of that big strike zone -- Judge struck out 42 times in 95 plate appearances (44.2 percent) in 2016.

All throughout the minors Judge's history has been get promoted to a new level, struggle initially, then adjust and rake. He spent the offseason working with the Yankees' hitting instructors and the result is a .275/.356/.650 (175 OPS+) batting line with four very long home runs. Statcast says Judge is responsible for five of the 12 hardest-hit balls in MLB this season. The man is as strong as that 6-7 frame would lead you to believe.

Judge has gone 9 for 25 (.360) with four home runs during the eight-game winning streak, and he also became the first Yankee to be intentionally walked using the automatic intentional walk rule. Pitchers are aware of the damage he can do at the plate and his at-bats have become must-see television for other players around the league.

Judge is always going to strike out a bunch because he's so darn big, though he has been able to cut his strikeout rate down to 28.9 percent. That is still higher than the 21.7 percent league average, but Judge's strikeout rate is no longer untenable like it was last season. The Yankees are in the middle of a youth movement and Judge is one of their most prized young players. He has lived up to the hype this year.

The Yankees know a thing or two about veteran players not living up to their big-money contracts. They released Alex Rodriguez last year and ran out the final season of Mark Teixeira 's contract. There have been countless others over the years.

Last season the Yankees ranked 22nd among the 30 teams in runs per game (4.20) largely because their veterans disappointed. A-Rod and Teixeira dragged down the offense, and others like Starlin Castro , Chase Headley and Jacoby Ellsbury did not give the Yankees nearly as much as expected. They were OK at best.

Castro, Headley and Ellsbury have given the Yankees what they've paid for this season, and that's big production. Check out their performances:

2016 Stats

2017 Stats

During 8-Game Win Streak

2017 Salary

Castro

.270/.300/.433 (93 OPS+)

.365/.389/.538 (157 OPS+)

12 for 32 (.375), 3 2B, 2 HR

$9.9M

Ellsbury

.263/.330/.374 (88 OPS+)

.326/.367/.435 (124 OPS+)

8 for 27 (.296), 4 SB

$21.1M

Headley

.253/.331/.385 (91 OPS+)

.395/.509/.605 (212 OPS+)

10 for 27 (.385), 2 2B, 1 HR

$13M

Ellsbury in particular has helped the Yankees with his lineup versatility. He has started games not only at his customary leadoff spot, but also in the cleanup spot and the No. 5 spot. Ellsbury doesn't fit the traditional middle-of-the-order run-producer mold, but the Yankees have bounced him around and he has produced everywhere he has been in the lineup.

Obviously these three won't play this well all season -- I suppose Castro, who is still only 27, could be figuring things out as he enters what should be the prime of his career -- but they're crushing the ball right now and helping the Yankees win games. They didn't do that much last season.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this eight-game winning streak is that the Yankees have done it without Gary Sanchez and Didi Gregorius , their starting catcher and starting shortstop. Sanchez injured his biceps taking a swing and landed on the 10-day disabled list the day before the winning streak started. Gregorius has not played at all this season due to a shoulder injury suffered during the World Baseball Classic.

Backup catcher Austin Romine has taken over behind the plate and gone 7 for 21 (.333) with two doubles, one homer, four walks and three strikeouts during Sanchez's absence. Ronald Torreyes has taken over for Gregorius at short, and while his .250/.250/.425 (85 OPS+) batting line is underwhelming, he has come up with some clutch hits. In fact, his two-run triple last Sunday could easily be considered a turning point for the Yankees.

That triple drove in New York's first two runs of the game. They would eventually complete the comeback and win that game to kick off this eight-game winning streak. Torreyes might be hitting .250, but his 10 RBI are second on the team behind Judge, who has 11.

Furthermore, fourth outfielder Aaron Hicks has already swatted three home runs in his limited time, including two in one game last Thursday. His two home runs accounted for all three runs the Yankees scored in their win that night. Hicks his contributed off the bench in a big way already.

Losing Sanchez and Gregorius, arguably the Yankees' two best position players, could have been devastating. Instead, their replacements have played well and helped not only keep the team afloat, but also thrive. The Yankees are getting some nice production from unexpected sources in Romine, Torreyes and Hicks.

Is it better to be lucky or good? It doesn't matter, because the Yankees have been both during this streak. At one point last week they went 1 for 30 (.033) with runners in scoring position during a three-game span, yet they won all three games because A) They've been hitting home runs; and B) The other team kept making mistakes. Carlos Martinez gift-wrapped the Yankees two runs Saturday with a wild pitch and an error, for example.

The Yankees haven't played the best competition during this winning streak -- they've played their past seven games against the struggling Tampa Bay Rays , St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago White Sox -- but you can only play who is on the schedule. Besides, one of the reasons the Yankees have played only onepostseason game the past four years has been their inability to beat the teams they're "supposed" to beat. The Yankees have played well during this winning streak and they deserve a lot of credit. They've also benefited from some sloppy play by their opponents. No doubt about it.

Coming into this season I thought the Yankees had the widest range of possible outcomes among all 30 teams in baseball. If the kids like Judge and Sanchez and Greg Bird perform well and the pitching holds together, they could absolutely be in the mix for a postseason spot. But if the kids stumble and the pitching falls apart, a win total in the 70s is not out of the question.

Early on, the Yankees have gotten great work from their pitching staff and Judge, as well as several key veterans and bench players, and it has helped them put together this winning streak. There are still 149 games to play, so this is far from over. If nothing else, the 2017 Yankees sure seem to be a heck of a lot more interesting and exciting than the 2013-16 versions. Those teams were mediocre and boring.

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Anatomy of a winning streak: How the Yankees have become MLB's hottest team - CBSSports.com

Anatomy

How ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Brings Dream Weddings to the Small Screen (PHOTOS) – Wetpaint

The production team at Greys Anatomy including set decorator Nicole Cramer, former set decorator Karen Bruck, and costume designer Mimi Melgaard knows how to put on a helluva wedding, especially 13 seasons into the ABC drama.

I'm not a wedding planner, but we always joke that I could be after how many weddings weve done, Nicole tells Cosmopolitan.

Everyones always shocked when they find out weve put a wedding together in 10 days, Mimi adds. Were kind of used to it.

Read on for the behind-the-scenes secrets the women shared, and tune in as Greys Anatomy Season 13 airs on Thursdays at 8 p.m ET on ABC.

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Karen says she got the instruction that this would be Shondas dream wedding That kinda freaked me out. I said, Oh my god, how am I going to live up to that? but notes it wasnt Cristinas dream wedding.

We had to make it a little over the top so it was definitely not Cristinas personality. Nothing about it was her personality, she says.

Im sure that there are brides who can relate to that in real life being dressed up and propped up and having to walk through and have a wedding with 200 people, and you only want to talk to four.

The dress got its own stunt double for the scene in which Meredith rips it off her.

We took the zipper out and inserted a piece of silk fabric that was attached by Velcro and she cut into that, and that piece of silk was easily replaceable for each take we needed to shoot, Mimi says.

Izzie ended up with the nuptials of her dreams after Meredith donated her wedding to her, a wedding Izzie had planned herself amid her cancer treatment.

Her wedding was the fairytale wedding over the top, with candles, romantic, Nicole says.

That was Shondas notes: that Izzie was living vicariously through Meredith by planning the best, most beautiful wedding she could.

Shonda and I wanted her to feel like a princess you know, its a princess wedding, she could be dying, Mimi says of the Kenneth Pool for Amsale dress.

So its a big, beautiful dress with sparkles.

After the Burke fiasco, Cristina had more say over her second wedding, opting for a home wedding, sweet and sophisticated, as Nicole describes it.

She already had a wedding that was so unlike her, so I wanted this one to feel like her, Mimi says. Shonda and Sandra Oh both loved it.

The team wanted to make sure Calzona wore different styles so it doesnt look like two big, white dresses, Mimi says.

They chose a traditional wedding dress for Callie because shes from a more traditional family, her familys Catholic and an off-white dress of torn chiffon for Arizona because Callie was in white, and that color with Jessicas skin just worked perfectly.

Though Calzona ultimately broke up long after the wedding which was filmed at Descanso Gardens they live on in matrimonial bliss in Shondaland headquarters.

We found somebody local in Los Angeles to make the little cake topper to match Callie and Arizona and their dresses, Nicole reveals.

Shonda actually has that cake topper in her office now.

Bailey is that perfect mix of a soft, feminine person who has a strong job So I wanted a really feminine dress for her, Mimi says of this wedding, filmed at Calamigos Ranch with a budget of around $40,000.

We started with a dress and altered it a lot I added the bling around the sweetheart neckline. I added the belt Chandra [Wilson] looks so good in things that hug her figure, which is amazing, that I just went for it.

But Baileys wedding dress wasnt the only one Mimi needed to find.

That was an interesting episode because it went into Richard dancing with his wife, Adele, whod just died, she says.

We had to get a dress for her, too. We tried to get something that felt vintage-y since their wedding was supposed to be decades ago.

Shonda & Co. wanted a barn wedding to reflect Aprils upbringing on a farm, so the team settled on Windy Hill Ranch at El Campeon Farms and decked it out with huge chandeliers, twinkle lights, and cutesy signs. (We were like, April would do this, for sure.)

All told, the wedding cost $20k, even without a reception. Still, it was a breeze, Nicole says.

Of all the weddings, this one was probably the least stressful because the venue was pretty already, she explains. Of course, what youre seeing out the barn doors, the mountain and the lake, are a green screen.

While searching the web for inspiration, Mimi found a dress with which she fell in love, one designed by Peter Langner in Rome.

We sent [Sarah Drews] measurements, and Peter made it with very few changes. The process is usually four or five months for real brides, and he did it lickety-split.

Mimi reveals she and the shows wonderful full-time seamstress created Catherines dress in-house.

Hopefully that seamstress was one of the crew members who ate the three-tier wedding cake by Cake and Art in Los Angeles after filming finished Nicole cant remember if it even made it into the episode!

Nicole reveals this wedding has special significance for the team: The reception took place at Meredith and Dereks house, which we called the The Dream House. It was the last time we ever filmed on that set.

[Caterina Scorsone] was secretly pregnant, so I had to choose a loose silhouette, because nobody [from the show] knew she was pregnant besides Shonda and me, Mimi reveals.

Amelia is so strong, but she has broken parts, so we tried on a lot of dresses to find something that wasnt too girly, wasnt too precious, but that was also beautiful and honored the day for her.

Mimi also says she had to make two other versions of the same dresses one for the rainy scenes of the Season 12 finale and one for the Season 13 premiere when Caterinas pregnancy was much further along.

The production team at Greys Anatomy including set decorator Nicole Cramer, former set decorator Karen Bruck, and costume designer Mimi Melgaard knows how to put on a helluva wedding, especially 13 seasons into the ABC drama.

I'm not a wedding planner, but we always joke that I could be after how many weddings weve done, Nicole tells Cosmopolitan.

Everyones always shocked when they find out weve put a wedding together in 10 days, Mimi adds. Were kind of used to it.

Read on for the behind-the-scenes secrets the women shared, and tune in as Greys Anatomy Season 13 airs on Thursdays at 8 p.m ET on ABC.

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How 'Grey's Anatomy' Brings Dream Weddings to the Small Screen (PHOTOS) - Wetpaint

Immunology

Runners gearing up for marathons to support Southampton Centre for Cancer Immunology campaign – Daily Echo

MORE than 200 people will be taking part in ABP Southampton marathon runs to support a campaign to build a 25million state-of-the-art centre for cancer immunology.

As previously reported by the Echo, the project was launched by the University of Southampton to offer the chance for Hampshire cancer patients to undergo trials using revolutionary new medicines.

Just 4.5million is needed to finish the build of the trailblazing facility at Southampton General Hospital.

Now, 223 runners are hoping to reduce that total by lacing up their shoes and taking part in the ABP Southampton Marathon, Half Marathon and 10k this Sunday.

Professor Tim Elliott, director for the Centre for Cancer Immunology, said: It is wonderful to see such support for the campaign from both staff and students all around the university.

The construction of the centre is well underway but we still need another 4.5m towards our fundraising target to make it a reality.

All contributions make a real difference and we are so grateful to all those running for the campaign.

At last years event, 30 runners collectively raised more than 9,500 towards the centre.

The four-storey building will be home to world-class research facilities, a clinical trials unit, and a suite of molecular biology laboratories, where genetic engineering will be used to develop new vaccine and antibody constructs.

It will also house a pre-clinical immunology lab investigating the complex interaction of cancer and the immune system

The state-of-the-art centre will be the first of its kind in the UK - and bring 50 new jobs to the city.

The flagship purpose-built centre will also bring together world-leading specialists who will use world-class research facilities and laboratories to work on a new cure the disease.

University bosses also hope it could transform the city into a hub for world leading biomedicine research and attract pharmaceutical manufacturers to the region.

The ABP Southampton Marathon, half marathon and 10k will be held this Sunday.

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Runners gearing up for marathons to support Southampton Centre for Cancer Immunology campaign - Daily Echo

Human Behavior

Not Only Is This Not The End Of A Bull Market, We Think It Is The Beginning Of One – Seeking Alpha

The only market-affecting factor that is truly constant, is Human behavior. It, never changes. Human behavior is behind sentiment readings which always show confidence at market tops, and fear as markets grind their way higher toward tops. Human psychology is also behind the fundamental underpinnings of markets; it is Humans who make the decisions that result in increasing metrics such as industrial production and GAAP earnings. All of this can be visualized as repetitive patterns throughout the past. In this piece, we present the historical patterns of both sentiment and fundamental indexes and how they correlate to the S&P 500 index.

Sentiment (Emotions)

The AAII investor sentiment survey correlates strongly with S&P 500 tops; Major tops occur when investor bullish sentiment is above 50%, and bearish sentiment is less than 30%. In other words, tops happen when investors are confident (not fearful) about the market, and at the moment, the bullish sentiment is only at 29% while the bearish sentiment is at 37%. This correlates more with the beginning of a bull market than it does the end of one (chart below).

The National Association of Active Investment managers (NAAIM) survey index, although exhibiting wide short-term swings, has its 50 MA rising which corresponds with a rising S&P 500 (chart below).

These levels of investor sentiment are not normally exhibited at market tops.

Fundamentals

While current PE ratios for the equity markets have produced much fearful digital ink, the more fundamental measure, GAAP earnings, is showing a renewed surge in strength (blue-colored oval on the chart below) which has coincided with the start of bull markets going back three decades (pink-rectangles on the chart below).

The chart below also dispels the myth that rising interest rates kill bull markets. Notice how the FED rate was increased during all bull markets since 1989, except for the last one (2009-2015). The latter was certainly an anomaly, but as the chart below shows, the FED is now starting to normalize rates once again just as a new bull market gets underway.

The chart above, also demonstrates how bull markets coincide with rising Industrial Production (dark-green line). Industrial production is now turning back up after a two-year slump, which is what would be expected at the start of a bull market---not at the end of one.

In conclusion, contrary to the majority of current popular market-analysis, we see evidence coming from both sentiment and fundamental metrics that point to the beginning of a bull market, not the end of one.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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Not Only Is This Not The End Of A Bull Market, We Think It Is The Beginning Of One - Seeking Alpha

Genetics

Do Parents Have a Right to Sue Over Their Kids’ Genetics? – Gizmodo

An animatronic baby at the London Science Museum. Photo: Getty

Its a nightmare scenario straight out of a primetime drama: a child-seeking couple visits a fertility clinic to try their luck within-vitro fertilization, only to wind up accidentally impregnated by the wrong sperm.

In a fascinating legal case out of Singapore, the countrys Supreme Court ruled that this situation doesnt just constitute medical malpractice. The fertility clinic, the court recently ruled, must pay the parents 30% of upkeep costs for the child for a loss of genetic affinity. In other words, the clinic must pay the parents child support not only because they made a terrible medical mistake, but because the child didnt wind up with the right genes.

At a time when rapidly advancing science and technology puts things like genetically engineering embryos to prevent disease in the realm of reality, the case sets an intriguing precedent. First, it places a monetary value on the amount of DNA that a child shares with their parents. And it suggests that the base genetic makeup of a child can actually be wrong.

Its suggesting that the child itself has something wrong with it, genetically, and that it has monetary value attached to it, Todd Kuiken, a senior research scholar with the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University, told Gizmodo. They attached damages to the genetic makeup of the child, rather than the mistake. Thats the part that makes it uncomfortable. This can take you in all sort of fucked up directions.

In the court case in question, the couple underwent a successful IVF procedure at Thomson Medical Centre in Singapore and gave birth to a healthy baby girl in 2010. Soon, though, the couple suspected something was amiss. Their daughters features seemed markedly different from their own, and different from those of their first child. A genetic test soon confirmed that their daughter was related to her mother, but not her father. The center then confirmed a mistake: An anonymous donors sperm had accidentally been used to inseminate the mothers egg. The couple were of Chinese and German heritage. But the genetic father of their daughter was Indian.

The couple sued the medical center, seeking damages including child care costs through the age of 21. The court ultimately granted those damages, setting a new legal standard. Whether were related to our kids, the court found, is highly valued in societyit is, after all, the reason so many people spend so much time and money on IVF procedures in the first place.

Interestingly, the court settled on establishing a new category of lossgenetic affinityin order to avoid sending the message that the childs birth itself was a mistake, a basis upon which courts often deny wrongful birth claims. These cases often arise when, say, one parent has been sterilized but a couple gets pregnant anyway. In a wrongful fertilization case in New York, the state supreme court found that it cannot be said, as a matter of public policy, that the birth of a healthy child constitutes a harm cognizable at law.

In the Singaporean case, however, the court disagreed. Parents, they found, have a legal right to share traits like eye color and skin color with their children. The court made that determination relying on an obscure 1999 law review article that argues parents have an interest in having children with whom they share symbolically identifying traits. This on its own raises all kinds of questions.

Does this mean that adopted children are more or less valuable? said Kuiken. Or you can imagine a divorce scenario in which child support is determined by what percentage of genes a parent shares with the child. Or blame is placed on one parent for a child inheriting a particular disease.

According to Eleonore Pauwels, a science policy expert at the Wilson Center, the ruling defines kinship as something thats only skin deep. Defining someone by their genotype is the most reductionist way you can look at an identity, said Pauwels told Gizmodo. Genetic affinity is such a superficial concept. It questions the very basis of what makes someone a parent.

But the problems this ruling raises extend beyond genetic affinity. In creating this new category of loss, the court sought to avoid suggesting there was something inherently wrong with the childs birth, but the ruling suggests specific genetic traits are more valuable than others all the same.

Pauwels said that for her this brings to mind one particular quote in the 1997 sci-fi film Gattaca: They used to say that a child conceived in love has a greater chance of happiness. They dont say that anymore.

This sets the stage for much more personalized, genome-level discrimination, she said.

What if, for example, a mother found out she had a devastating mitochondrial disease a underwent the controversial three-parent baby technique to avoid passing that DNA on to her child, and it failed? Could she sue for the childs DNAits existencebeing incorrect? Further down the line, should science and the law ever allow parents to select specific genetic traits, could you sue if your kid had the wrong eye color, or a lower-than-expected IQ? If you engineered a child, and it wound up having more genetic affinity with one parent than the other, does that constitute some kind of loss?

This opens up a dangerous box that when we start talking about editing the human genome, Kuiken said. A ruling like this places value on the specific genetic makeup of a child.

Obviously, the parents in the Singaporean case were at the wrong end of a devastating medical mistake. But in ruling that the genes their child wound up with warrant financial reward in a court of law, the court is placing a value on her genes, whether intended or not. And that is the top of one very slippery slope.

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Do Parents Have a Right to Sue Over Their Kids' Genetics? - Gizmodo

Genetics

Study to explore connection between autism and genetics – Chicago Tribune

Denise Ricco didn't know for sure what was hampering her son's development until his relatively mild form of autism spectrum disorder was diagnosed in the fourth grade.

She wondered, how much more effective would therapy have been if she had known the diagnosis when her son was an infant, or even before he was born?

"We could have found out if we needed to go in a different way, and sought additional support," she said.

Ricco, of Northbrook, said she wants to help give that kind of head start to the next generation of parents of children with autism.

Ricco, her husband and son all were tested as a part of what organizers are calling the largest study of its kind to find genetic markers of autism spectrum disorder. Organizers of that year-old study called SPARK (Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research for Knowledge) are asking for the families of 50,000 people with autism to be tested.

Not only is the study large but it's also inclusive, said Kathryn Heerwagen, a local organizer for the project.

"Other studies have depended solely on an intact biological family," she said. "Ours works with any family structure."

She said that families can easily have parents, and one sibling under the age of 18, tested, because the inside-the-cheek-swab can be done at home, and arranged entirely through the Internet, through http://www.SPARKforAutism.org/rush, and mailed back to researchers. The study promises to mail a $50 gift card to each family.

As of early in April National Autism Awareness Month "25,328, individuals with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and their families are participating," said Heerwagen, of the Assessment, Research, Treatment and Services Center at Rush University Medical Center. Rush is handling the Chicago-area end of the three-year-long study.

Researchers also are offering professional testing of families next month, for those who prefer to go that route. Testing will take place May 6 at Have Dreams, 2020 Dempster St., Evanston, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the AHSS Autism Center, 85 Revere Drive, Suite B, Northbrook, 2 to 5 p.m. Another collection opportunity will take place about a month later, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 17, at the Autism Family Center, 670 W. Hubbard St.

"There are a lot of families who would rather come in, get additional assistance, and have us walk them through it," Heerwagen said.

She said that it's still far from clear how much of autism is genetic, and how much is caused by other factors.

"There are traits that are handed down through lineage, and de novo (new) traits that happen in that child," Heerwagen said.

She said that research has already shown that autism sometimes runs in families. With this study, scientists hope to find out more about how that happens.

When, for instance, a chromosomal abnormality is found in a person with autism, "we want to pull all the individuals with that certain deletion, and then we can re-contact those individuals, and study the efficacy of treatments of people with that deletion marker," Heerwagen said.

Other, more personal stories may be told with the research, she said. Those include finding which families might have a genetic marker for autism. Then, a person who has been tested might get a call asking how much they would like to know about their genetic predisposition for the disorder.

All of the data will be made available, with security controls, to unaffiliated research groups, she said.

She said the data also may reveal possible indicators of autism spectrum disorders in children even before they are born, but that isn't the focus of the research.

"Prevention is not the aim of this study," she said. "It's better understanding."

ileavitt@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter @IrvLeavitt

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Study to explore connection between autism and genetics - Chicago Tribune

Genetics

Ambry Genetics Recruits Patient Cohorts to Discover New Links … – Business Wire (press release)

ALISO VIEJO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ambry Genetics Corporation (Ambry) is calling on psychiatrists, psychologists and behavioral specialists to encourage their patients with autism, along with their family members, to sign up for a new study conducted through Ambrys data sharing program, AmbryShare. With this program, Ambry is taking a step towards discovering possible associations between genes and autism, so clinicians can provide their patients with targeted treatments and therapies much earlier in life.

Whats unique about AmbryShares approach is that we collect genetic information from clinics and families from all over the world to answer questions that cant be answered with just a handful of patients, said Brigette Tippin Davis, PhD, Ambrys Director of Emerging Genetic Medicine. The great thing about Ambry partnerships is that we are building connections between research institutions and empowering them to develop new approaches to treating patients with autism based on genetic profiles.

So far, dozens of behavioral clinics and other medical offices have contributed to AmbryShare studies by encouraging participation from their patients. Ambry strives to enroll more than 10,000 patients from clinics nationally and internationally.

Genetic testing would allow us to personalize treatment from a genetic profile and optimize it together with our rich behavioral data, said Dennis Dixon, PhD, Chief Strategy Officer at Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD). I really value working with Ambry, knowing this data will have an impact on treatment for our patients and then will still be available for other researchers to access to answer additional research questions. As we each put more samples in, it increases the overall likelihood that were going to find something that really makes a difference.

One in 64 children in the United States is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which can impact social interaction, communication and behavior. Genetic testing can help identify an underlying cause in up to 40% of autism spectrum disorders. Some genetic causes include chromosome microdeletions/microduplications, fragile X syndrome, Angelman syndrome, and tuberous sclerosis. New gene discovery can allow clinicians to determine their patients course of treatment and the gene-disease relationship associated with their individual case of autism. Through the recruitment of a massive cohort, more data will be collected to discover more genes, develop medical management plans and enact preventive strategies.

The scientists need the data to be out there, said Charles Dunlop, Ambrys President and Chairman. We need to know what these diseases are actually doing, what causes them, what gene mutations are associated with them so we can move forward as an industry and move onto the next phase where there is no disease of any kind. A phase where pharmaceutical researchers know exactly what to do, or exactly what problems theyre trying to solve at a minutiae levelthats when the cures come.

In 2016, Mayo Clinic and University of Utah collaborated with Ambry on a new research study of more than 60,000 patients to help refine breast cancer risk estimates from predisposition genes that are either previously lacking data or have limited data. The study, Breast cancer risks associated with mutations in cancer predisposition genes identified by clinical genetic testing of 60,000 breast cancer patients represented the largest genetic study of women with hereditary breast cancer. The large amount of data was able to provide researchers with new information about genes that contributed to breast cancer risk. Ambry wants to provide researchers with the same capabilities for autism.

Since 2001, Ambry has been dedicated to scientific research to help empower the scientific community and refine clinician management guidelines so patients may receive tailored medical management. AmbryShares initial launch in 2016 provided scientific researchers and clinicians with the largest open, de-identified database of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer cohorts with the goal of achieving a greater understanding of human disease.

For more information and to enroll in the AmbryShare autism study, visit the AmbryShare portal here.

ABOUT AMBRY GENETICS

Ambry Genetics is both College of American Pathologists (CAP)-accredited and Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)-certified. Ambry leads in clinical genetic diagnostics and genetics software solutions, combining both to offer the most comprehensive testing menu in the industry. Ambry has established a reputation for sharing data while safeguarding patient privacy, unparalleled service, and responsibly applying new technologies to the clinical molecular diagnostics market. For more information about Ambry Genetics, visit http://www.ambrygen.com.

About the Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD)

CARD treats individuals of all ages who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at treatment centers around the globe. CARD was founded in 1990 by leading autism expert and clinical psychologist Doreen Granpeesheh, PhD, BCBA-D. CARD treats individuals with ASD using the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA), which is empirically proven to be the most effective method for treating individuals with ASD and recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Surgeon General. CARD employs a dedicated team of over 3,000 individuals across the nation and internationally.

For more information, visit http://www.centerforautism.com or call (855) 345-2273.

Continued here:
Ambry Genetics Recruits Patient Cohorts to Discover New Links ... - Business Wire (press release)

Genetics

Weekly genetics review: Dramatic increase seen in AI use – Beef Central

THE use of artificial insemination in Australian beef herds is accelerating dramatically, and surprisingly the biggest increase is being seen in commercial herds.

Beef seedstock herds have traditionally been the biggest users of AI as they attempt to more efficiently multiply superior genetics.

Bovine semen marketing industry veteran Bill Cornell, who for the past 14 years has headed the beef division of ABS Australia, said unit sales of beef semen for the company had doubled over the past two years, and there was no sign of the trend abating.

Bill Cornell

Its just been amazing the response in terms of dollar turnover domestically for beef semen for us, he said.

Fixed time AI and confidence in Breedplan are the main reasons commercial producers are prepared to take on AI programs aimed at introducing superior genetics into their herds.

While the swing to AI may raise questions as to the number of bulls required for natural matings, back-up bulls are still required and seedstock producers will still be rewarded when they breed a potential donor bull combining superior phenotype and Breedplan figures.

And in more good news for Australian seedstock producers, two out of every three beef semen units sold in Australia today is produced domestically. In addition, Australia now exports more beef semen than it imports.

Australia has developed a strong reputation worldwide as the developer of superior genetics, the result of the preparedness of Australian seedstock producers over many years to use the best genetics available globally and Australias highly-regarded Breedplan performance recording system that can describe those genetics, Mr Cornell said.

Australian-based semen producing companies are buying, leasing or making partnership arrangements with more and more Australian seedstock producers to generate product to satisfy increasing demand.

At the top end was the sale of the Angus bull Millah Murrah Kingdom for $150,000 a couple of years ago, to a syndicate comprising Angus studs Ascot, Gilmandyke and Witherswood, and ABS Australia. The stud syndicate members have the paddock rights, while ABS Australia controls the semen rights world-wide.

Kingdoms sales have gone really well, not only in Australia but to several overseas countries. There are calves on the ground showing great promise, said Mr Cornell.

ABS Global and sister company Genus is the worlds largest provider of domesticated livestock semen and also head the lists as the largest providers of beef bovine semen.

Fixed time AI is all the rage in commercial beef herds performing artificial breeding programs, meaning no more tedious and often erroneous heat detection.

While overall well-being, being properly vaccinated, well managed and on a rising plane of nutrition are still important in getting females in calf in AI programs, the seven day co-sync program results in good conception rates with only three visits to the yards.

Australia is now punching above its weight in the semen production industry relative to its beef herd size

The program can differ slightly for heifers and cows, but basically it comprises CIDR (Controlled Internal Drug Release, based on progesterone) input on day 1, seven days later remove the CIDR and treat with prostaglandin and 2.5 days later AI and treat with GNRH.

ABS Globals conception average is 58pc to the first AI, the company says. Producers using the system for the first time may achieve a 45-50pc conception rate while the experienced operator on their fifth or sixth run can achieve up to 65pc success rates.

Australia is now punching above its weight in the semen production industry relative to its beef herd population, and now sells semen to around 22 countries, Mr Cornell said.

We now export more semen than we import, he said.

Mr Cornell also listed Australias disease-free status as a reason for Australias attraction as a semen supplier.

Of all the countries that we export to, the United Kingdom would be the hardest because of their IBR requirements, he said.

Many bulls fail the UKs IBR test, but they are mainly the older bulls. If a bull is 12-14 months old and been running in groups of similarly aged bulls, they are generally OK.

But older bulls that have been out in the paddock with cows have a bigger chance of testing positive. Interestingly some farms and even some districts dont seem to test positive for IBR, Mr Cornell said.

Excerpt from:
Weekly genetics review: Dramatic increase seen in AI use - Beef Central

Embryology

Everyone Thinks The Unborn Are Persons. Saying Otherwise Is Denial – The Federalist

I am going to ask a favor from those of you with pro-choice inclinations. I ask that you answer these questions to yourself quickly and instinctively before you see where this is going. We all have a tendency to deny a premise simply because we do not like the conclusion it leads to.

More often than not, if we are to be intellectually honest, we should consider each premise on its own merits of plausibility and if it leads to a conclusion we find unpalatable, so be it. After all, the truth is not dependent on whether we like it. Successful discourse can never occur if we are only defending conclusions. I admit I also have a relentless desire to deny the opposing conclusion. I am no better. I only ask that you try.

Now, on to the questions: Were you ever a fetus? Were you ever in your mothers womb?

If you answer yes to either of these questions, then you affirm the personhood of the unborn.

To go further we need a brief explanation of what philosophers call accidental and essential properties in relation to personal identity over time. Accidental properties are things about us that can change, or we may even lose completely, without us ceasing to exist. For example, if you cut your hair, or even lose an arm, you will still be you. In other words, you have not lost anything essential to your identity.

On the other hand, essential properties are things about us that are necessary for our existence. If we lose them, we cease to be. An example of an essential property of our identity is our humanity. Atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel gives a great illustration of this in his famed essay, What Is It Like to Be a Bat?

We must consider whether any method will permit us to extrapolate to the inner life of the bat from our own case, and if not, what alternative methods there may be for understanding the notion. Our own experience provides the basic material for our imagination, whose range is therefore limited. It will not help to try to imagine that one has webbing on ones arms, which enables one to fly around at dusk and dawn catching insects in ones mouth; that one has very poor vision, and perceives the surrounding world by a system of reflected high-frequency sound signals; and that one spends the day hanging upside down by ones feet in an attic. In so far as I can imagine this (which is not very far), it tells me only what it would be like for me to behave as a bat behaves. But that is not the question. I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat.

In other words, we can never experience what it is like to be a bat, because if we became a bat, we would have changed something essential about our identity. It would require a substantial change. We would cease to be ourselves.

A more obvious example of an essential property of your identity is the fact that you are a person. This is where the argument begins.

You cannot be you without being a person.

You were once a fetus.

Therefore you, as a fetus, were also a person.

To state again, an essential property of what makes you you is the fact that you are a person. It doesnt make any sense to say that you once were an inanimate object. If you are essentially a person, and you were once a fetus, it follows that you as a fetus were also a person.

Just as we recognize we could not become a bat without ceasing to be ourselves, we cannot become an impersonal thing without our existence ending. I cannot become, nor could I ever have been, a rock or a toaster oven. Yet when we reflect upon it, we recognize that we were in our mothers wombs. We cannot deny this without going against all of our intuitions about ourselves.

Someone reading this article right now has the unfortunate knowledge of the specific circumstances in which he or she was conceived. Now, when your parents were telling you this story, your initial reaction was not to say, Mother, dont you know that I was not conceived at all? Rather, your reaction was, Dear mother, why did you burden me with the circumstances of how I came to be conceived? We acknowledge that, like it or not, we all have a conception story. This is only intelligible if we were the person that was conceived.

Biologically speaking, it is clear that our life begins at conception. Pattens Foundations of Embryology, which is described as one of the standard texts in the field of embryology, states that The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual.

In other words, the scientific data tells us that each of our lives, as an individual, began at conception. This is beyond an affirmation of the second premise. If personhood is necessary for each of us to exist as an individual, and our individual lives began at conception, the scientific evidence only works to confirm that we have been persons from conception.

As Patrick Lee, Christopher Tollefsen, and Robert P. George point out in their article in the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy titled The Ontological Status of Embryos: A Reply to Jason Morris, the unborn maintains his or her identity over time:

A human organism, irrespective of its stage of development, is a dynamic substance, an entity that exists in itself instead of inhering in another entity; its size and location are accidents (characteristics that inhere in a substance). Its (i.e., his/her) coming to be or ceasing to be is a substantial change which is distinct from changes in its size, location, and other accidental characteristics, where the organism persists but acquires new accidental characteristics such as size, location, and others. As a consequence, a human organism must begin to exist at a definite time.

The point of conception is this definite time.

Inherent in the concept of development is the notion that a being goes through a series of accidental changes, rather than essential ones. When a human being develops from the embryonic stage to a fetus, then on to an infant, at no point do the changes transform the entity from one being to another kind of being.

If the unborn was not the same being at all these stages of change, the term development would not be appropriate. The biological terms themselves suggest a human being maintains the same identity over time. A fetus is to an infant as an infant is to a toddler. If a fetus develops into an infant and then to a toddler, this is one and the same being that goes through this development. Given the first premise, this would only be possible if the fetus is a person.

Denying the status of personhood to the unborn is a metaphysical claim, not a scientific one. To be clear, metaphysical claims are valid. In fact, they are unavoidable. One side just seems more aware of this than the other.

The fact that humans have tendencies to reduce things, including personhood, into scientifically accessible categories, does nothing to show personhood is merely chemical reactions and synapses firing. The assertion that the unborn are not persons is no more scientific and no less metaphysical of a claim than the belief in human souls.

As philosopher Alexander Pruss argues in his essay, I Was Once a Fetus, I now need a simple metaphysical principle. If an organism that once existed has never died, then this organism still exists. I will not argue for this principle. Someone who thinks that something can exist at time A and not exist at a later time B, without having ceased to exist in between, is beyond the reach of argument. The crucial question now is: Has the embryo ever died?

The biological answer to this question is no. If you are looking for a view that is least dependent on metaphysical claims, then we are brought back to the biological fact that we are the same individual organism that was conceived.

The implications of this are considerable. The Fourteenth Amendment says no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Given that the unborn are persons, it is clear that this most vulnerable class of human beings should be provided this equal protection under the law. Our jurisprudence should reflect this reality.

Some may now decide to deny they were ever in their mothers womb in order to avoid the conclusion that the unborn are persons. This is a mistake with one exception; namely, a reductio ad absurdum argument. These are conclusions that seem so absurd that there is warrant to go back and reexamine the truth of the premises.

As you have guessed, I dont think concluding the unborn are persons meets this criteria. I have found that premises that lead to absurd conclusions do not seem to have strong plausibility on their own anyway. In fact, it is the denial of these premises that leads to an absurd conclusion.

If you dont believe you were ever in your mothers womb, you must believe that you did not exist until you were born. The circumstances around your own birth seems to clearly involve an accidental change (a difference of location) rather than an essential one. In other words, it is absurd to believe cutting the umbilical cord is the act that furnishes every human being with the status of person.

Timothy Jackson loves to discuss God, politics, and what it means to pursue the Good. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and two children.

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Everyone Thinks The Unborn Are Persons. Saying Otherwise Is Denial - The Federalist