February 21, 2017 issue

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Founded 1876 daily since 1892 online since 1998

Tuesday february 21, 2017 vol. cxli no. 11

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } ACADEMICS

Expert speaks to function of ‘vaccine courts’

staff writer

The “vaccine court” is organized in a manner that reconciles science and policy, by ensuring that those with scientifically credible claims to vaccine injuries get generously compensated, Anna Kirkland explained. Kirkland, a professor of women’s studies at the University of Michigan, discussed the politics of vaccination in an event promoting her new book, which is titled “Vaccine Court: The Law and Politics of Injury.” The most recent wave of cases that the court sees have been from adults claiming inf luenza vaccine injuries like neurological damage, almost all of which are compensated through settlement, Kirkland said. She added that in contrast, between 2002 and 2007, the court dealt with 5600 autism-related cases, comprising over 30 percent of all cases seen since the court’s inception in the 1990s, until it was finally decided that autism was not a compensable vaccine injury. Kirkland, whose research for the book was funded by the Program in Law and Public Affairs (LAPA) at the University, explained that the court was created to be very accessible, with attor-

neys and experts fully paid regardless of the outcome of the case, and that the court was organized in an inquisitorial rather than an adversarial manner. Rather than being heard by a panel of judges, each case is heard individually by the “Special Masters,” appointed by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, who don’t screen out any expert or evidence, she added. “A 75c excise tax on all vaccines recommended for use in children funds the reparations and payments to attorneys and experts,” Kirkland explained. She noted that pharmaceutical companies were exempt from liability, a rule that followed severe reactions to pertussis vaccines in the 1980s, which led to many vaccine manufacturers pulling out of the market and endangered the vaccination program in its entirety. Kirkland, who also serves as the associate director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) at the University of Michigan, said that the evidence for determining what vaccine injuries are compensable lies in one of two categories. “On table” refers to an official list of all adverse reactions that occur withSee VACCINE page 2

ACADEMICS

COURTESY OF DAILY PRINCETONIAN PHOTO STAFF

Nassau Hall shines on a sunny afternoon amidst the present wave of warmth embracing New Jersey.

Eisgruber discusses annual letter at CPUC meeting By Audrey Spensley staff writer

University President Christopher Eisgruber ‘83 discussed his first annual letter to the community at the Council of the Princeton University Community meeting on Monday. Eisgruber began by addressing the broader political climate and its recent effects on the University community. “I think that universities have an important role to play in a time like this, but the key to that important role is to be focused on the values that define us as an institution and

COURTESY OF RUBY SHAO

Forced relocation of Japanese Americans. as in the image above, resulted from mass hysteria, says former detainee.

Former detainee Mihara addresses internment Japanese internment camps existed because of prejudice, hysteria, and failures in leadership, former World War II detainee Sam Mihara argued at a lecture on Monday. A San Francisco native, Mihara was first taken to a temporary camp in Pomona, Calif. He then was moved to the Heart Mountain camp,

See CPUC page 5

Anthropologist discusses biological mechanisms behind human love staff writer

news editor emerita

be conducted in a way that is academically stringent and supported. “One of our responsibilities as a university is to be a place where contesting views can be heard and where those views can be elevated and made more rigorous, and where the contestation among views can lead us further in the pursuit of truth,” Eisgruber said. “It is important that we stand for the importance of impartial debate, for the value of having forums where people of contending views come together, and where there’s a real contest between those things, and

ACADEMICS

By Jisu Jeong

By Ruby Shao

to continue to move forward on those values,” he said. “Figuring out exactly what that means in political times that are characterized by a lot of anxiety, by division, by upheaval, is not an easy thing to do.” Expanding on this, Eisgruber stated that he must take two major factors into consideration when debating whether to take action on political issues. The first is whether the issue contradicts the University’s values, one of which is a commitment to providing a forum in which discussion on controversial topics can

which spanned Cody and Powell in Wyoming. After the war ended three years later, he was released and then attended high school. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in engineering from UC Berkeley and a graduate engineering degree from UCLA. He built a career as a rocket scientist at the Boeing Company before retiring. He traced the cause of the See INTERNMENT page 3

People today are more likely to have sex earlier but wait longer to get married, biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher said in a lecture on Feb. 20. “We’re very well built to fall in love, for pair bonding and real sorrow in relationships,” explained Fisher. A member of the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies in Rutgers University’s Department of Anthropology, as well as chief scientific advisor of Match. com, Fisher talked about the science behind love — why we are attracted to one person instead of another, and how evolution shaped the biological processes behind human love. She began her talk by saying that love is universal and that the phenomenon is comparable among people regardless of gender, age, or sexual orientation. Contrary to what women’s magazines may say, Fisher said men are more romantic than women. They fall in love more often and more quickly and are two-and-a-half times more likely to kill themselves when a relationship ends. She explained that there were three basic brain sys-

tems that govern mating and reproduction: one for sex drive, one for romantic attraction, and the last for attachment. “I think all three of these brain systems evolved for different reasons,” Fisher said. The first gave our ancestors the instinctive drive for sex; the second, the ability to focus our energy on that one special someone; and the last, the capacity to tolerate someone and sticking with him or her at least long enough to raise a child, she said. Once you’re attracted to someone, everything about that person becomes sexy, even “the way he gets on the bus,” she added. Fisher then explained the neuroscience behind love. A certain region of the brain becomes activated when one is in love, she said, and this region is the same that becomes activated in “all ... substance addictions and behavioral addictions.” According to her, love is a “wonderful addiction when it’s going well, and a horrible addiction” when it’s not. Fisher added that she wouldn’t be surprised if modern drugs “hijacked” the brain system developed for mating and love.

In Opinion

Today on Campus

Senior columnist Beni Snow reviews Princeton’s legacy admissions, and columnist Daehee Lee reflects on a Princeton taboo. PAGE 4

4:30 p.m.: REEES Lecture Series: Space-time, Deathresurrection, and the Russian Revolution. Lewis A. Simpson International Building room A71.

Continuing her examination of the evolutionary and anthropological origins of love, she described her hypothesis of how human romantic love evolved with human pair bonding. Once our ancestors moved out of living in trees and started walking on two limbs instead of four, women couldn’t carry both a baby — the equivalent of a “twenty-pound bowling ball” — and tools to perform the necessities of survival. “She began to need a mate to help her rear her young, at least through infancy,” Fisher said. On the other hand, men couldn’t defend multiple women and their babies simultaneously. So, according to Fisher, our ancestors crossed the monogamy threshold at one point, and the circuitry for romantic love evolved. Then, after examining the traditional factors behind what makes certain people likely to fall in love with each other, such as similarity in socioeconomic and ethnic background, education, and social values, Fisher asked if biology could be involved. She explained that she has found four traits linked See LOVE page 2

WEATHER

By Samvida Venkatesh

U . A F FA I R S

HIGH

51˚

LOW

38˚

Cloudy. chance of rain:

0 percent


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