epidemiology is the study of diseases and these students are focusing on public health. the judges were impressed. this kind of research is usually expected from students going for advanced degrees in college. >> the work we saw this weekend was graduate-level work and these are high school kids. and that's the sort of talent that we need to meet the growing health demands today. >> reporter: so, how do you become a winner like gazelle from pennsylvania? start with a topic you care about. >> the study i presented to the "yes" competition was regarding the prevalence of migraines among teenage girls, and for my project, i won a $50,000 scholarship. >> reporter: gazelle gets migraines herself, so finding out how many other girls get them was a natural topic to explore. >> didn't we have a great time in washington? >> yeah. >> reporter: we visited another "yes" scholar at home, and found out that his research topic is also something that grew from his own experience. he was learning the lifesaving technique called cpr, cardio pulmonary resuscitation. >> we were required to

craig newschaffer, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at drexel university in philadelphia. i asked first how close we are to finding the cause of autism. >> we're much closer now than we were five years ago. there's been a tremendous amount of new information and discoveries but with any disorder as complicated, as multifaceted as autism. i'm reluctant to say how close. >> everything we know about autism is that there are multiple genes that confer risk. the children have various co-morbid problems. and everything we know looks like this is a multitude of disorders all under the umbrella that we call autism spectrum disorders. >> well, to begin with, i think there probably is no cause of autism. we're probably talking about multiple causes. and i think we already have identified some causal components on the genetics front. but if i can interpret your question as a complete understanding of all of these complex causes of autism, i think we're still quite a ways away. >> reporter: some people we've talked to say, "we are on the verge of big discoveries." others say, "we're j

therefore, based on our history, epidemiologically. we don't have reason to believe they're not functioning. there's no reason. these are working just federal fine. >> it always works at least to get you out of the second floor. the last floor is easy. thank you for coming. our brown bag lunches continue and we invite you to join us. thanks a lot. >> he has looked at the quality. he believes in people and human rights. he's one of the greatest guys i know and i'm so happy that he is our major. i bring to you mayor edwin lee. [applause] >> good afternoon. welcome. thank you very much for that wonderful introduction. i have a lot to be happy about. this is the 100th anniversary celebrating international women's day and to tell you we have quite a bit to celebrate. we probably have the highest number of women commissioners ever in the history of the city today. isn't that wonderful we have clearly a good and growing balance of women on the board of supervisors, commissions, agency appointments, and department heads. i'm proud to be headin

it's too early to tell as far as as far as quote your novel is concerned we already know the epidemiological measurements have been done there's been plenty of studies done that show increases in cancer and an enormous range of ill health following to normal and i have to say that people who ignore history are doomed to repeat it as far as far as the people who are talking this down are concerned there. really people connected to the nuclear industry and there's an awful lot of money i have to say you know running running on whether this is the case or not just briefly the japanese authorities are confident that they'll be able to sort all this out within the next nine months cool the reactor stop the leaking of the radiation believe that putting this cover over and sort of problem out could actually be achieved in nine months time and would be the end of a potential catastrophe. i'm sorry you had some trouble here i'm sorry i think i just lost you there for a second just just briefly are you confident or perhaps not as confident as the japanese authorities are saying that this could all be

which has no set of electronic epidemiology. which are not particularly used by the fda. the fact is we have electronic data you can take much higher risk with improving things because you have real-time monitoring of huge classes of people. you could say this is not good for anybody who's on who's on an electronic health record, which by the way would accelerate everyone using health electronic records every night. you never again have to do a special class follow-up study because we were just track all the epidemiology everybody in the country who is on that particular drug. you could have real-time data every night. mcdonald's gets 37,000 stores worldwide every night. i'm not describing a distant future. i'm describing government systems that are 25 years behind reality. now, i don't know if the fda would be cheaper or more expensive. what i know is what recovery say is in no to pay for the current bureaucracy and add 10% we need a lot more money because we refuse to become more efficient or to use i.t. ibm and dell and others at the takeout produced a report last year

which has no set of electronic epidemiology. which are not particularly used by the fda.ake much higher risk with improving things because you have real-time monitoring of huge classes of people. you could say this is not good for anybody who's on who's on an electronic health record, which by the way would accelerate everyone using health electronic records every night. you never again have to do a special class follow-up study because we were just track all the epidemiology everybody in the country who is on that particular drug. you could have real-time data every night. mcdonald's gets 37,000 stores worldwide every night. i'm not describing a distant future. i'm describing government systems that are 25 years behind reality. now, i don't know if the fda would be cheaper or more expensive. what i know is what recovery say is in no to pay for the current bureaucracy and add 10% we need a lot more money because we refuse to become more efficient or to use i.t. ibm and dell and others at the takeout produced a report last year that said even the federal government as thou

there is an integrated approach, not the old style epidemiology but molecular biology and cancer genetics would be required to solve these puzzles. in general especially with this there is a smoking gun. i don't know if you agree or disagree. questions in the back? >> i was wondering if you could comment on your evolution as a writer. >> in the sense -- >> an extraordinary book. i am curious how you evolve as an author? >> my general approach to writing this book for any kind of writing that i do happens to be informed through my scientific work. in this case i had an urgent question. in terms of learning to write when i wrote this book, if you wrote this book you might sense that as the book progresses from 200 pages to 400 pages if you are a careful reader at least to me it is obvious i am learning to write. by the 400th pages i am but different writer than the first page. i work backwards and try to cleaned up and tried to clean up what i had done before. had to realize the writing itself--that is one feature of it. i talk to this and spoken to others, i am a deeply disciplined writer

so, i mean, there's an old adage in epidemiology which is that large, rare risks are much easier to assess than small, common risks. so, in other words, you know, if there's a sudden epidemic of liver cancer which is associated with a particular toxin, right? those risks are very easy to determine and, therefore, you can determine the toxin. it's when you have a small, increased risk many this a very common form of like, let's say breast cancer, to detect -- it took a huge study to detect the very substantial but nonetheless relatively small relative risk of increase of breast cancer with hormone replacement therapy. now, again, this risk was large enough to even register on an end deem logical scale. this was a large risk, but it takes a sophisticated kind of study to figure it out. so the quick answer to your question is, unfortunately, i'm not sure we're there yet in terms of technology, in terms of figuring out what these small, common risks are. i suspect that for some cancers we'll never be there because, you know, in the end can one really determine whether this was a very small ris

and to try to figure out what was happening with my daughter and what was happening with autism epidemiological. was there an epidemic? i started traveling to different countries and i found some interesting things. one of my first trips was to south africa where a young couple named susanna and bolden to mollah, is zulu families, they have an adorable boy named big boy and around the age of 2 big boy lost the language he had developed. he started to make rapid repetitive stereotyped movements with his fingers and hands, he had only one interest which was drawing circles which parents said where marbles or planets. they looked to be just like circles. they knew something was wrong and they decided to go to a western-style hospital in order to have him evaluated by their parents objected. they said this is not a western illness. this is not a white man's illness. this is an illness of god or an illness of the ancestors of the spirits. you have to go to the witch doctor. they objected. they are not terribly well educated. neither of them graduated high school but they think of themselves as very

so then you take that out and you start -- now you get down to, okay, if you have a smaller epidemiologicalbase that is appropriate for your intervention, what does that do to your pricing? well, that's a conversation we all need to have. and you're not going to solve it in a room like this. but all i'm saying -- and i don't want you -- i'm sad that you're frustrated with us because if you don't clear out the other cobwebs, you can't get there. but if you start where you were and you don't deal with all this other stuff, we'll be bankrupt before we get there. >> that's all the time we have so thank you -- i want to thank our panelists. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> and this is a panel focusing on issues in measuring innovation and value. while everyone up here is getting mic'd up, i want to make just a few introductory remarks to connect what we're doing on this panel to what you've been hearing about so far this morning. you've already heard a lot about the importance of measuring performance of medical care and performance of the key technologies involv

but epidemiology understands that. i think that's just a case of scientist communicated in their chart in a race don't fully understand. they could be far more sensitive about it. >> iceni time is expired. thank you, madam chair. >> thank you. senator lost her. >> trevor, you said something in your commentary and we so much appreciate your being here. usage required to be alive. we are all glad you're alive. connecticut u.s.a. professional grandfather. i've got 10 grandchildren i know what they i want for them. they live are relatively moderate if compared to cancer. one of the things i find so disturbing us in this place of contemplation and legislation, we often hear the theme for those who are afflicted with cancer or other threatening to life diseases. but somehow or other, we separate the heart and the mind here because we'll get into a about costs and what does it cost to save a child slave? it doesn't matter what the cost is. there isn't a family in the world who could dispose of -- wouldn't dispose of all of th