Rewards for Not Paying Attention

Should people be rewarded for not paying attention or for pretending they didn’t know about dangers that have been well publicized to the point that they are common knowledge? 

First, a less dire example of well-known information: a study hitting the Internet and the airways recently revealed that “Washing your hands under running water may be a better way to stop the spread of infections than using a hand sanitizer.” The hand sanitizer can be nearly as effective as washing hands for removing flu viruses, provided both are done properly. It just takes longer.

In laboratory experiments “it took about 30 seconds for the sanitizer to eliminate all the flu virus in the saline samples, but more than 4 minutes for the sanitizer to get rid of flu in the mucus samples.” From the lab tests they moved to a more real-life situation by putting mucus directly on people’s fingertips. When it was given time to dry (for 40 minutes), the hand sanitizer killed the flu virus within 30 seconds. But in a more realistic situation where the mucus was still moist, it took about 4 minutes of rubbing for the flu virus to be completely eliminated.

Proper hand washing removed traces of the virus in both cases in about 30 seconds, whether the participants used soap or not. The benefit is not from the soap, but from the rubbing under running water. 

No one is likely to rub the hand sanitizer for 4 minutes or alternatively to let their hands dry after sneezing for 40 minutes, but neither do many people spend half a minute scrubbing under running water. When a sink is not available the alcohol is a good option. 

That’s what we know today, but we had substantially the same information 10 years ago. From Live Science in October 2009: “Hand washing with ordinary soap and water is the most effective way to remove germs. But when you're on the go, alcohol-based hand sanitizers are tremendously effective in preventing the spread of the seasonal flu.” They gave 20 seconds for washing and 15 for the sanitizer, so the latest study just worked a little on the details. It wasn’t really news.

This is just one everyday example of how the media likes to present old news as some brand new revelation wrapped in the cloak of the latest study.

In light of that consider the opioid epidemic. Within the last two weeks, “OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP filed for bankruptcy protection…succumbing to pressure from more than 2,600 lawsuits alleging the company helped fuel the deadly U.S. opioid epidemic.” Nearly every state, numerous cities and counties and many others insist that the company “aggressively marketed prescription painkillers while misleading doctors and patients about their addiction and overdose risks.”

Any money awarded will not bring back even one of the 400,000 lives lost between 1999 and 2017, but the various levels of government hope to be able to confiscate money from drug company profits to remedy the situation rather than taking from tax payers.

My question is: what are they going to do with this money? Treatment is no doubt an option. Perhaps they will fund stocks of Naloxone (sometimes sold under the brand name Narcan). 

Of course, awareness will surely be part of the plan. But with the opioid epidemic in the news daily, with current Public Service Announcements and with the subject sure to come up in the upcoming presidential campaigns, what more can they do to get the word out? The company may have been playing fast and loose with the truth in the past, but now their website clearly states, “OXYCONTIN® exposes patients and other users to the risks of opioid addiction, abuse, and misuse, which can lead to overdose and death.” 

With so much information available, should compensation be available to everyone who becomes addicted from now on? At what point does society expect people to recognize and deal with the danger? In the case of cigarettes it has taken decades – people are still suing tobacco companies over risks that have been widely known for 50 years or more, but they claim to be victims. 

If risky or irresponsible behavior continues to be rewarded even well after the risks are known, problems will never be solved.

Risk Adaptation

Several years ago I mentioned partially in jest to my sister, at the time an elementary school teacher, that the stock market was doomed.  With all the safety features being implemented on playgrounds and other facilities for children, by the time they reached adulthood they would be too risk averse to want to invest in anything other than guaranteed accounts.  Farewell, stock market and entrepreneurship.

She immediately set me straight.  With padded playgrounds, instead of hanging upside down by their knees from the monkey bars, they were now hanging by one leg.  Reduce the risk; increase the risk taking.

That same idea came up again when I began to see the relationship between automobile safety features and careless driving.  And this is not new.

An article from 2006 tells of Researchers at Purdue, led by a civil engineering professor, that “determined that airbags and antilock braking systems do not reduce the likelihood of accidents or injuries because they may encourage more aggressive driving.”  The feeling back then was that drivers adapt to the new technology giving up some responsibility for safety “by becoming less vigilant.”

By 2012 technology and safety features and enhancements other than air bags and anti-lock braking systems became more common as they migrated to more cars from the luxury brands.  Some of these were vehicle crumple zones, stricter seat belt enforcement, side-impact protection, traction control, and better conceived speed limits.  According to another source, these were “all designed to save lives and make driving a less risky activity. However, despite all these safety measures, road accidents and fatalities have remained constant over the last few decades.”

Traditionally, safety innovations begin at the luxury level and work their way down, but today some of the autonomous vehicle research also contributes to the new technology.  Today we are beginning to see more backup cameras, collision mitigation systems, lane departure warning systems, blind-spot monitors, and drowsiness detection monitors.  Guess what!  A July article from Carfax cites their in-house study finding “that some drivers, especially younger drivers, may come to over rely on car technology safety features rather than basic safe driving habits.”

And just a few weeks later in an article principally about self-driving cars the Seattle Times confirms, “Driver-assist technology that keeps cars in their lanes, maintains a safe distance from other vehicles, warns of unseen traffic and slams the brakes to avoid rear-end crashes are rapidly spreading from luxury cars…But these automated aids aimed at improving safety are having an unintended consequence: They’re degrading driving skills.”  Drivers become lax through over-reliance on newer and newer technology.  Through interviews they confirmed that most drivers agreed that people tend to quickly become so comfortable with the technology that they would pay more attention to it than relying on their own driving skills; for example, listening for the warning chime instead of looking over their shoulder to check the blind spot.  But, of course as in most interviews, it’s always the other guy.

Driving is dangerous.  Better cars and better roads can’t totally change that.  This adaptation behind the wheel is as irresponsible as the grade-schoolers hanging upside-down by one leg, except if they slip they only hurt themselves, not their passengers or others on the road.

It’s also interesting to suppose where else this tendency to over-rely on technology may be leading, places where it's not so obvious because the consequences are subtler, hidden or delayed.

The Best Exercise for Losing Weight

News of the latest study from Duke University claims to settle what some refer to as a decades-old debate - which type of exercise: classic cardio, strength training, or a combination of the two is the best for losing weight?  “An 8 month study that followed 119 overweight volunteers found that cardio was the winner!”  That’s the simple answer, but not the whole story.  Let’s use some critical thinking and research to take a deeper look into this revelation.

First, they were not using a very large sample size, and we find out the 119 subjects were split into three smaller subgroups of about 40 each.  Cardio did provide the best results but the group that did both “actually had the most improved ration of fat-to-lean muscle mass.”  In an attempt to decide if it’s one or the other, they conclude that the best answer is both – pretty anticlimactic.

But pay close attention to the subtitle of the article:  “Don't forget to make healthy food choices too.”  Exercise alone isn’t the answer.

The big mystery, though, is why they presented this as a decades-old debate.  Another very thorough article on the subject from the WebMD archives dated 2007 tells us, “In all cases, however, you'll burn more calories with cardio (aerobic) exercise than with strength or resistance training.”

Then they come to pretty much the same conclusion about the benefits of doing both and top it off with:  “Eating and exercise are not separate issues…Too many people think these large doses of exercise are an excuse to eat whatever you want."

Which takes us to an NPR segment from six months ago on the results of long-term research looking at the effectiveness of wearable technology, specifically those fitness monitors.  “The 470 people in the study were put on a low-calorie diet and asked to exercise more. They all started losing weight. Six months in, half the group members started self-reporting their diet and exercise. The other half were given fitness trackers to monitor their activity.”  Researchers were surprised to find that after two years, reporting equal amounts of physical activity, the group with the fitness trackers lost less weight.”

A possible explanation for this difference is related to a theory of behavior called risk compensation (later renamed risk homeostasis).  The theory was developed to “explain the fact that people adjust their behaviour in the face of interventions.”  Often used to explain why making cars safer causes some drivers to take more risks and adding padding to playgrounds results in wilder play among some children, risk compensation can also refer to how a technological monitor could cause some dieters to eat more than they otherwise might have.  They are more easily tempted to offset the more visible effect of the exercise by snacking a little more.

This brings us full circle.  There was never any need for a debate or for a new study.  We’ve known for at least 10 years that cardio burns more calories but cardio and strength training work well together.  But any exercise alone is not enough.  It’s well known that healthy eating is top priority and that it’s much easier not to eat calories than to burn them off through exercise.

Finally, the same wisdom applies to both exercise and dieting.  The best exercise for you is the one you will do.  The best diet is the one you will stick to.  Nothing new here!

Death of the Stock Market

I joked to my sister one day that I predicted the death of the stock market in about 20 years.  With padded playgrounds, car booster seats and all the other regulations and mandatory protections for our children, upon reaching adulthood they will have no concept of risk.  Who will be around to buy stocks or participate in other risk/reward financial transactions?  My sister who works at a school set me straight.  She informed me that the opposite was true from her observations.  The kids on the playground now take more risks than we did growing up, hanging from one knee instead of two for example, taking advantage of, or in some cases, negating the advantage of the added padding.

In the parlance of psychology, it’s called risk homeostasis.

Risk homeostasis is a controversial theory that the safer an individual feels, the more chances he is inclined to take in order to return to what he considers an acceptable level of risk.  There are many examples both for and against this theory.  A classic one comes from Sweden.  When they changed from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right there was a 40% drop in accidents due to the extra caution exercised as drivers got used to the new feel of maneuvering the car.  A few years later, this feeling of caution stemming from the unfamiliar orientation wore off and the accident rate returned to its former level.  Several other interesting examples are listed in this Wikipedia summary. 

It is a controversial theory, which may not apply in all cases, but it's interesting to consider some possible behaviors where it might.  If parents today expect the world to take over for them with built-in safeguards, their complacency might backfire.  As they spend more at the grocery store, avoiding genetically modified food, indulging their love affair with organics and all natural products, does that make it more likely the kids will become fast food junkies when not supervised?  Does the problem of teens (and others) texting and driving relate to efforts to make automobiles safer and safer?  Do the actions of “helicopter” parents coming to the rescue of their children lead to expectations of a false sense of security resulting in situations like this one where a mother sued because her 19-year-old died from an overdose of an energy drink?  Surely part of parental responsibility consists of an appropriate mix of protection and teaching children that behavior has consequences.  This balancing act, which Bill Cosby calls “some kind of judgment” or “taking back the house,” seems to make sense with or without a controversial psychological theory.

I guess a prediction of the death of the stock market was off base, but a call for better parenting and a bias toward moderation is always a good reminder.

Turkeys and Carnival Rides

Four days ago the news carried warnings of injuries on amusement park rides – that they are more prevalent in the summer and that they can happen even in unexpected places like malls, restaurants and arcades.  Since 1990 an average of over 9,000 children were treated in emergency rooms annually for ride-related injuries.  But what does this have to do with turkeys? 

The end of the USA Today article about the risks of amusement park rides included “tips for staying safe.”  Some of the tips were:  follow all posted height, age, weight and health restrictions; follow special loading instructions; use safety equipment such as seat belts and safety bars; and keep hands and feet inside the ride at all times.  This can be condensed to knowing and following the rules.  Parents were also cautioned to keep children who might be unable to follow the rules off the ride.

On the same day we were reading about problems with ground-turkey purchased in supermarkets.  People who thought they were eating healthier by switching from beef to turkey burgers were distressed to find out that 90 percent of samples tested in 21 states were contaminated with one or more types of disease-causing organisms, some of which were antibiotic-resistant bacteria.  Most reports emphasized the debate over whether treating turkeys with antibiotics was a good idea, but NBC and a few others concluded with advice for consumers on how to reduce risks.  This advice is fairly generic and is often included at the end of food safety reports relating to meat:  Store it at 40° F or below if you will cook it within a couple of days, otherwise freeze it; cook ground turkey to at least 165° F; wash you hands and all surfaces after handling ground turkey; and don’t return cooked meat to the plate that held it raw.

These are the rules for handling meat.  If your local restaurant or school cafeteria failed to follow these rules, the health inspector would charge them with a major violation.  If you follow these rules at home you will greatly reduce risk of food-borne illness.  Do you have a meat thermometer and a thermometer in your refrigerator?

When you think about problems in behavioral terms, commonalities leap out from seemingly-unrelated areas, like turkeys and carnival rides.  In both cases, responsible behavior, following the rules, reduces risk of injury on one hand and illness on the other.  These positive behaviors have good consequences.

The Magic Money Tree

I wrote about this issue over a year ago, but this recent article gives me an opportunity to reinforce the idea.  Data from a Bankrate.com survey shows that truly free checking accounts are becoming less common and that other banking fees are increasing as well.  The cause, of course, is the well-intentioned efforts of our government to play hero by protecting us from those evil bankers.

What a large number of Americans don’t seem to understand is that there is no magic money tree to fund programs, pay insurance claims or make up for business losses brought about by regulations.  The money in our economy moves within the system and does not appear out of thin air.  When shoplifting increases, the store loses in the short term but eventually finds a way to pass losses along to their customers in the form of slightly higher prices, otherwise they go out of business.  If the local government workers get a raise in pay or benefits, our taxes increase or some other expense must be cut.  If regulations on credit cards change in the name of consumer protection, the banks figure out other ways to make up for it.  We are all part of that system, and actions within the system can usually be traced back to our money.  This reduction in “free” checking and increase in other fees is a typical example.

Some wonder why stores, banks or insurance companies don’t just take it out of their “obscene” profits.  The answer is fundamental to investing.  If you are willing to settle for a low return on your money you choose a low-risk investment.  Put it in the mattress for absolute safety but no return.  Put it in an FDIC-insured bank account for a small amount of interest.  The more risk you take, the more return you deserve, because sometimes the risk doesn’t pay off.  That’s why stocks, investments in businesses, usually return more than bonds, which are merely loans to companies.  Usually government bonds pay less than corporate bonds for the same reason.  In general, if you buy shares of a company that drills for oil or flies airplanes you take on more risk than if you buy shares of a company that delivers electricity to your house.  If your friend wants you to invest in a new invention or to start a new business, you expect a much higher return.  (Hint: If anyone tells you of a high-return investment that's "a sure thing," you can bet it's a scam.)

As companies face new threats, their risk increases so they owe their investors a higher return.  Threats may be the possibility of increased lawsuits, new government regulations, or merely facing the unknowns of being first to enter a new market.  They shouldn't permanently take these losses out of profit, which represents a return on overall investment, because the risk is higher, not lower, and their investors deserve a higher, not a lower, return.  They are not just being greedy or evil.  The result, however, will often be that we, the consumers, pay more for the same product or service as an indirect result of that added risk.

 Perhaps politicians understand this and are just trying to fool us when they take credit for a new law or mandate to protect us, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they don’t get it either.