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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 12:48pm Jun 10, 2001 EST (#4690 of 4695)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I think an extremely good model of how "redemptive solutions" can actually work in the complicated world -- and an example that I wish some Russians would notice, is involved in some of my history, and some areas where trust is problematic in areas important for military balances. I'm putting it here, because of how it relates to some difficulties, but also because I believe it sets out an exemplar of reasons that we have for careful hope.

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rshowalter "Science in the News" 12/16/99 6:16pm . . . .(#331 of 3421)

"THE NEW YORK TIMES, and its reporters, GINA KOLATA and KURT EICHENWALD, have guided and catalyzed as close to a miracle as is likely to happen in human affairs. http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/121699insurance-cancer.html .

"" A number of insurance companies have decided in recent weeks to pay for experimental treatments for cancer, but only for policyholders who participate in clinical trials sanctioned by federal health agencies. .......... with these recent decisions, the insurance industry has begun to signal a willingness to finance medical research, a change that would have seemed improbable just a few years ago."

"The more I think about this, the more impressive it seems. A large group of actors, each subject to separate institutional complications and interests, came together and agreed to an important, carefully crafted mutual cooperation, expensive to many involved, because it was the right thing to do.

" They did so under circumstances that were complicated in many ways, on an issue that was important, but not easily grasped or explained. They did so in clear violation of many ordinary expectations. Many different people must have worked, and worked hard, against their direct, material self interest. Many people who might have blocked progress, did not do so, though blocking the change would have been in their direct, material interest. People did what they felt was the right thing to do. By and large, these people agreed on what the right thing was. And they acted, and the action was workable.

"The right thing had been clear to an insurer, to some physicians, and to some others, for a long time - clear, in some cases, for more than a decade. Then, when the TIMES laid the facts and context out, so that many could judge it, and a community of common opinion could come into being, action became possible. The newspapers have a major input into the collective consciousness and conscience of their communities, and THE NEW YORK TIMES is the first among newspapers. When people ask (and not only in Washington)

" What would this look like, written up, in detail, in THE NEW YORK TIMES?"

" they aren't usually thinking of actual coverage, though they sometimes are. They are thinking of the standards of their common culture, and what it would mean to them to be public actors. When people think of this, they may act more in the interest of the commonweal than they might at other times.

" And so, when NYT reporters start asking questions, working through the possibility of a story, they set the people they contact thinking about public spirited action. And when a NYT story prints, they set a big, influential community to thinking. Sometimes good things get done that might never occur without this catalyst.

" Under the leadership of the TIMES, a leadership that must have been difficult for the institution of the TIMES, and for the reporters involved, a human change has occurred that must be expected, over time, to significantly extend the lives of many millions of people in America, and all over the world. It is likely to extend the lives of more people than Kolata or Eichenwald are ever going to pass close to in their physical lives.

"Good show!

^^^^^^^

Still a good show, and an interesting exa

rshowalter - 01:05pm Jun 10, 2001 EST (#4691 of 4695)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

In the December 19, 1999 WEEK IN REVIEW there was this:

Ideas & Trends; Insurers Come in From The Cold on Cancer by GINA KOLATA and KURT EICHENWALD

Abstract: Growing number of insurance companies agree to pay for experimental cancer treatments administered to policyholders who participate in clinical trials sanctioned by federal health agencies; experts call development momentous; for almost two decades, cancer researchers have been fighting over inadequate federal payments for clinical trials; change has come as courts and state legislatures, faced with desperate patients, have begun to require insurers to pay for experimental therapies . . . .

The phrase "come in from the cold" is used in the paper from time to time - and was used today. For reasons that made sense in context, I asked a NYT writer, writing under a pseudonym rather easily breached - it that was a signal to me to debrief -- and was led to believe that it was. The debriefing, by email correspondence, took my full attention for some months, and much of that writer's time, for some months. I was led to believe that the CIA was involved -- and at the end of the debriefing, after an enormous amount of work, I was told that the mathematical research unit with which I'd been associated had been disbanded, and there was no place for me. I would have appreciated being told that before spending months of intense effort.

I feel sure, for what I believe are good reasons, that the NYT writer involved then is also "dirac" MD4639 rshowalter 6/8/01 10:27pm

MD4627 rshowalter 6/8/01 5:16pm

MD1742 rshowalter 3/29/01 8:09pm

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