Patent Medicines Get A Belated Chemical Checkup

Ads for patent medicines and medical appliances dominate a 1930s storefront in England.

General Photographic Agency/Getty Images

Ads for patent medicines and medical appliances dominate a 1930s storefront in England.

General Photographic Agency/Getty Images

The patent medicines sold in days gone by may, contrary to the name, not have had real government patents. But that didn't stop their makers from claiming the concoctions could cure ailments ranging from indigestion to jaundice and fever.

Now, researchers have put some of these old elixirs and pills in the Henry Ford Museum's large collection of patent medicines to a modern test. They found a mix of potentially harmful metals like lead and mercury along with benign ingredients, including calcium and iron.

Library research only goes so far in understanding the once-popular medicines. "They can find out what they were supposed to cure, they can find out based on old newspapers what they caused," says chemist Mark Benvenuto who led the research for the Dearborn, Mich., museum. "But they can't necessarily find out what was in them."

Dr. Sawen's Magic Nervine Pills contained calcium, iron, copper and potassium. Despite advertising claiming they were free of lead and mercury, both elements were found in the pills.

Courtesy of Mark Benvenuto

Dr. Sawen's Magic Nervine Pills contained calcium, iron, copper and potassium. Despite advertising claiming they were free of lead and mercury, both elements were found in the pills.

Courtesy of Mark Benvenuto

Hundreds of these patent medicines were sold in stores, by mail order and from traveling medicine shows in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were called patent medicines because people put their names on them. Take, for instance, Hollister's Golden Nugest Tablets and Dr. Sawen's Magic Nervine Pills.

"Before the creation of the Food and Drug Administration in the early 1900s, people could claim to cure anything, and they didn't have to list what was in them," says Mary Fahey, chief conservator and head of preservation at the museum.

Benvenuto and seven of his students at University of Detroit Mercy analyzed studied 25 medicines using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence to identify metals and nuclear magnetic resonance to look at all compounds, including carbon-based chemicals, or organics.

So, did the analysis find any of the ingredients actually listed on the label? "It's tough to make that call with the organics," Benvenuto says. "None of them were nice, clean and pure for just one compound. So by NMR, you're going to see all the compounds at once. And the other thing is these things have been sitting in a bottle for 120 years ? organics tend to break down."

Because the mixture of organic substances proved to be a challenge, research on them is ongoing. The preliminary results were recently presented at the American Chemical Society's National Meeting & Exposition in New Orleans.

For now, the researchers focused on identifying elements first because they are much less ambiguous. "I found a lot more iron, calcium and zinc than I did mercury and lead," Benvenuto says.

For example, the team found iron, calcium and a little bit of silver and copper in Reynold & Parmely's Female Health Restorative. The pill claimed to contain coffee, ceratrum, nux vomica, pulsatilla, cocculus, cimifuga and chamomile. But just because the researchers weren't able to discern the listed organics in their analysis, doesn't mean they weren't originally included.

And then there was P.P.P. Parson's Purgative Pills which was said to contain aloes, colmel, powdered colocynth, gamboge, soap, mandrake root and peppermint oil. That actually had a significant amount of mercury in them.

When they first found mercury in a couple of them, they were reminded that medicines containing the metal were a common treatment for syphilis. "It kills the spirochete," Benvenuto says. "It almost kills you, but it kills the spirochete."

Some patent medicines were known to contain other risky ingredients like cocaine and heroin.

The modern chemists aren't able to determine a drugmaker's motive. "I don't know if people were in it just to sell stuff or actually thought they had something that would solve a problem," Benvenuto says. "But if you stop and think about this, what we were analyzing here is kind of a first step into where we've come to today. If you go back to the year 1800, the way people got rid of ailments was a lot of home remedies."

In hindsight, we can say someone had a virus and their body would have dealt with it regardless of what they ingested, he says. So taking a patent medicine and then getting better was just coincidence.

"You and I might say they didn't really do a controlled study on this sort of thing, but no one had really conceived of controlled studies back then," Benvenuto says. "That doesn't mean they cured nothing."

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/04/08/176561880/patent-medicines-get-a-belated-chemical-checkup?ft=1&f=1007

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Was McConnell's Senate Staff Digging Up Dirt on Ashley Judd?

Was McConnells Senate Staff Digging Up Dirt on Ashley Judd?

Along with the mystery surrounding who secretly recorded Mitch McConnell and his staff discussing campaign strategy at his campaign headquarters is another issue the tapes raise: the possibility that the Kentucky senator's legislative staff was helping dig up dirt on Ashley Judd and other potential opponents.

Democrats are seizing on it, but it's still unclear whether McConnell's staff did anything wrong.

In the recording, obtained by Mother Jones magazine, the aide doing the presentation thanks a group of people:

"So I'll just preface my comments that this reflects the work of a lot of folks: Josh, Jesse, Phil Maxson, a lot of LAs, thank them three times, so this is a compilation of work, all the way through. The first person we'll focus on, Ashley Judd - basically I refer to her as sort of the oppo research situation where there's a haystack of needles, just because truly, there's such a wealth of material," the aide says to laughter from the group. "Ah, you know Jesse slogged through her autobiography. She has innumerable video interviews, tweets, blog posts, articles, magazine articles."

"Jesse" may refer to Jesse Benton, McConnell's campaign manager, but the word "LA" probably refers to Legislative Aides or Legislative Assistants, people who work in his senate office.

Two other possible Senate staffers are Phillip Maxson, who is listed on the National Journal Almanac as Legislative Assistant, Projects Director, and "Josh," which may refer to Josh Holmes, McConnell's Senate chief of staff. It's common and legal for senate staffers to work on a campaign, but only if they take vacation time when they are working on the campaign and are volunteering.

In a statement this afternoon, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee criticized "McConnell's use of taxpayer-funded legislative aides to do opposition research for his reelection campaign."

"Mitch McConnell is desperate to play the victim," DSCC Executive Director Guy Cecil said in a statement. "The DSCC doesn't know if this tape came from a disgruntled Senate staffer who was forced to dig up dirt on their boss' potential opponents or another source, but its content is a clear example of how Mitch McConnell is the living, breathing embodiment of everything that is wrong with Washington. It is beneath the office of Minority Leader to engage in this kind of trivial politics."

The ethics rules read explicitly that, "Senate employees are free to engage in campaign activity, as volunteers or for pay, provided they do so on their own time, outside of Senate space, and without using Senate resources."

"Because Senate pay should be commensurate with Senate duties performed, when an employee intends to spend additional time on campaign activities beyond regular working hours and any accrued annual leave, a Senator should either reduce the salary of or remove the employee from the Senate payroll, as appropriate," the rules read.

Larry Noble, the head of Americans for Campaign Reform, said the work can just not be done "on Senate time."

"If they are referring to Senate staff working on this, the question is: Were they working on opposition research for the campaign while they were on the Senate payroll, while they were being paid by the Senate?" Noble said.

The meeting took place on Feb. 2, which was a Saturday, giving credence to the argument these staffers were volunteering their time, but as Noble points out it "doesn't mean the research was done on the weekend."

Noble said they also can't use any "any of the resources of the Senate office," adding, "There is no indication they were."

Benton, McConnell's campaign manager, would not comment only saying: "We're not commenting on the substance of illegally obtained recordings."

McConnell's Senate staff would not comment, instead directing all questions to the campaign.

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/were-mcconnells-senate-staff-digging-dirt-ashley-judd-225756863--abc-news-politics.html

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New evidence that natural substances in green coffee beans help control blood sugar levels

Apr. 9, 2013 ? Scientists today described evidence that natural substances extracted from unroasted coffee beans can help control the elevated blood sugar levels and body weight that underpin type 2 diabetes. Their presentation on chlorogenic acids ? widely available as a dietary supplement ? was part of the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, being held here this week.

Joe Vinson, Ph.D., who led the research, pointed out that type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes, is an increasing global health problem. In the United States alone, almost 26 million have the disease, in which the pancreas does not produce enough of the insulin that enables the body to use sugar, or cells resist the effects of that insulin. Blood sugar levels rise, increasing the risk of heart attacks, stroke and other health problems. Current treatments focus on oral medications that stimulate insulin secretions and/or reduce insulin resistance, dietary changes that control blood sugar levels and weight loss that reduces insulin resistance.

"A simple natural pill or capsule that would both help control blood sugar and foster weight loss at the same time would be a major advance in the treatment of type 2 diabetes," Vinson said. "Our own research and studies published by other scientists suggest that such a treatment may, indeed, exist. There is significant epidemiological and other evidence that coffee consumption reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes.

"One large study indicated a 50 percent risk reduction for people who drank seven cups of coffee a day compared to those who drank only two cups a day. I am trying to make the coffee and diabetes story as clear as possible for the public. The evidence points to chlorogenic acids as the active ingredients in coffee that both prevent diabetes and improve glucose control in normal, pre-diabetic and diabetic people."

Chlorogenic acids are a family of substances that occur naturally in apples, cherries, plums, dried plums and other fruits and vegetables. Vinson, who is with the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, which funded the research, pointed out that coffee ? due to its popularity as a beverage ? is a major dietary source of these substances. Large amounts of chlorogenic acids exist in green, or unroasted, coffee beans. However, the high temperatures used to roast coffee beans to make them suitable for use in coffee breaks down much of the chlorogenic acids. Thus, the focus has been on using concentrated extracts of green coffee beans, which contain higher amounts of chlorogenic acids.

In a previous study, Vinson found that overweight or obese people who took such an extract lost about 10 percent of their body weight in 22 weeks. The new study sought to document the effects of various doses of a commercial green coffee extract on the blood sugar levels of 56 men and women with normal blood sugar levels. They got a glucose tolerance test to see how their bodies responded to the sugar. Then over a period of time, they took 100, 200, 300 or 400 milligrams (mg) of the extract in a capsule with water. Follow-up glucose tolerance tests showed how the green coffee extract affected their responses.

"There was a significant dose-response effect of the green coffee extract and no apparent gastrointestinal side effects," Vinson said. "All doses of green coffee extract produced a significant reduction in blood sugar relative to the original blank glucose challenge. The maximum blood glucose occurred at 30 minutes and was 24 percent lower than the original with the 400 mg of green coffee extract and the blood glucose at 120 minutes was 31 percent lower."

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/WpHNwSPJ67s/130409124741.htm

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LG 23ET83V-W

LG monitors have always blended style and functionality, and the new LG 23ET83V-W is no different. This sleek 23-inch monitor sports an IPS panel and 10-point projected capacitive touch technology to deliver a colorful and responsive touch-screen experience. Its cool, white finish and seamless glass design will draw a fair amount of attention, and its color and grayscale performance will satisfy all but the most demanding users. However, it's missing some of the features that I've come to expect from the new crop of touch-screen monitors.

Design and Features
Taking a page from the Apple stylebook, the 23ET83V-W's 1,920-by-1,080 resolution panel is housed in a slender (1.7-inch) glossy white cabinet and sports a sheet of edge-to-edge glass over black borders. There's an LG logo in the center of the bottom border and five touch sensitive function buttons and a power switch off to the right.

The cabinet is supported by a white base and mounting arm that offers 30 degrees of tilt, but unlike Dell S2340T, it doesn't allow you to fold the panel flat so that it is parallel with the desktop surface. Nor does it offer height, swivel, or pivot adjustments. The stand is permanently attached, which prevents you from mounting the cabinet on a wall.

The rear of the cabinet houses two HDMI ports, a VGA port, and an upstream USB 2.0 port. There are no downstream USB ports on the 23ET83V-W, which is disappointing, nor are there any speakers, but there is a headphone jack. The monitor ships with a USB (upstream) cable and a VGA cable but doesn't include an HDMI cable. A resource CD and Setup Guide are also included in the box. LG covers the 23ET83V-W with a one-year parts and labor warranty.

The on-screen menus are uncluttered and easy to navigate. There are five picture presets while operating in PC mode (Custom, Text, Game, Cinema, Photo) and five AV modes (Custom, Vivid1, Vivid2, Standard, Cinema). Basic image settings include Brightness, Contrast, Sharpness, Black Level, and Overscan, and Advanced settings include Gamma, Color Temperature, and Six Color, which lets you adjust hue and saturation levels for red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow colors. One of the buttons is a hot key for the Super Energy Savings (SES) feature which, when enabled, lowers the screen brightness and shows you total power reduction, CO2 reduction, and how many trees you have saved with the SES feature enabled.

Performance
The 23ET83V-W offers excellent touch-screen functionality. I had no trouble swiping in the Windows 8 Charms bar and gestures such as pinching, zooming, and scrolling were smooth and accurate. Moreover, the stand kept the panel firmly in place while using the touch-screen.

On the DisplayMate 64-Step Grayscale test I observed a trace of compression at the light and dark ends of scale but the effect was minimal and still much better than what you'd get from a TN panel. As with any IPS panel worth its salt, colors remained sharp from every angle.

As illustrated in the CIE (International Committee on Illumination) chromaticity chart below the 23ET83 produced fairly accurate colors; reds and blues were right in their respective zones (each small box represents the ideal color coordinates set forth by the CIE) and greens were just a tad off, but not enough to affect overall color quality or cause tinting.

The monitor averaged 24 watts of power usage during testing, which is typical for a 23-inch IPS panel. Engaging the SES (Super Energy Savings) feature had very little effect on picture quality and only saved 2 to 3 watts. No trees were saved during my testing either.

With the LG 23ET83V-W you get a gorgeous 23-inch touch-screen monitor that delivers robust colors and relatively good grayscale performance. Its responsive 10-point touch technology is ideal for navigating Windows 8 and it has dual HDMI ports so you can stay connected to external peripherals without having to swap out cables. However, it's missing a few key components found on similarly priced touch-screen monitors, including downstream USB connectivity, speakers, and a flexible stand. If USB connectivity and speakers are a must, consider our Editors' Choice for touch-screen monitors, the Acer T232HL.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/TbhkolZ44f0/0,2817,2417482,00.asp

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Education Schools Innovate to Supply STEM Teachers

Biologist Kaleigh LaRiche spent most of her first two years after college working in wildlife education at the Akron, Ohio, zoo. Today, she's a first-year science teacher in a Cleveland middle school.

LaRiche, who earns her master's in education from the University of Akron this spring, thanks the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship for her confidence in the classroom. The two-year master's program recruits accomplished science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) college graduates, as well as career changers like LaRiche, and puts them through their paces in preparation to work in high-need schools.

[Explore the Best Education Schools rankings.]

It is one of several model programs leading the charge to fulfill President Barack Obama's call for 100,000 highly qualified STEM teachers over the next decade, and to get them ready for the much-anticipated new K-12 math and science standards. With only 26 percent of U.S. 12th graders now deemed proficient in math, most states have adopted more rigorous new Common Core Standards for what kids should master at each level.

These guidelines stress depth over breadth; a separate effort, the Next Generation Science Standards, emphasizes questioning and discovery rather than rote memorization.

The Wilson Fellowship partners with several graduate schools of education in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and New Jersey, including the University of Indianapolis, Ball State University, the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Montclair State University.

Almost from the start, fellows are immersed for the school year in local K-12 classrooms. LaRiche's four-day-a-week internship at a Canton, Ohio, middle school provided a $30,000 stipend and two mentors to show her the ropes. Course work included classes in the biology department and on problem- and project-based learning.

LaRiche is now a licensed teacher at Cleveland's Harvard Avenue Community School. When covering renewable and non-renewable energy in her sixth grade science class, she breaks students into groups and has them examine which renewable energy alterative would work best for a fictitious town and why.

"They are not used to learning this way," she says. "They are used to a teacher lecturing, taking notes, doing worksheets and labs." The goal is to make clear that science is a process.

Such innovations reflect the latest thinking about what is needed to put better science and math teachers - all kinds of teachers, in fact - into classrooms: an emphasis on subject content knowledge, abundant field experience and high-caliber candidates, as outlined in a 2010 National Research Council report.

Additionally, teacher-prep programs are creating subject-specific methods courses - so a biology candidate can study how best to teach biology, say - that provide training in problem-solving and project-based instruction.

"Woodrow Wilson really opened us to innovation and thinking creatively," says Jennifer Drake, dean of the college of arts and sciences at the University of Indianapolis. The university therefore has embedded intensive hands-on practice in all of its teacher-prep programs, is moving to require elementary-ed candidates to take more math and science courses and has deepened cross-pollination between the arts and sciences and education schools.

"In math, there is always a right answer, but there are always different ways to get there," says Christopher Lewine, a third-year teacher in Redwood City, Calif. So instead of moving to the next problem when a correct answer is given to an algebraic problem, Lewine's class at Everest Public High School is just getting started.

Rather than lecturing, he prompts students to discuss and defend how they solved the problem, discovering different approaches from one another. He learned this technique while getting his master's in the yearlong practice-heavy Teacher Education Program at Stanford University.

[Stay up to date with the High School Notes blog.]

Though the pace of innovation has picked up, teacher-prep programs vary widely in quality, and far too many still prepare teachers in a bubble, disconnected from the realities of the classroom, says Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and author of "Educating School Teachers," a milestone 2006 report.

You want "strong support in a total immersion program," preferably one that partners with K-12 schools and provides teacher-mentors, says Charles Coble, co-director of an Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities initiative to overhaul teacher training. That effort, the Science & Math Teacher Imperative, has sparked a move toward these sorts of best practices at 132 public and flagship universities and 13 university systems, which together produce more than 40 percent of the nation's math and science teachers.

Some of the new master's options aimed at scientists and mathematicians are modeled on the clinical training medical residents get. Kevin Perry was headed for a career in surgery when he decided he'd rather teach middle-school biology in New York City instead. He gets his teaching certification in middle- and high-school science this summer after a year in New York University's Clinically Rich Integrated Science Program (CRISP).

"On the second day of the program, we were put in the classroom," Perry says. After several weeks observing during a summer session last July, he was paired with a biology teacher in September to observe and then begin co-teaching at East Side Community School in Manhattan.

Each week, Perry and fellow teaching residents are led by NYU and K-12 school faculty in instructional "rounds" in which they discuss what works and what doesn't. He also takes courses in science, teaching methods, literacy and language acquisition and data and assessment.

Perry receives $30,000 in scholarships from NYU's Steinhart school and New York State, along with a $20,000 living stipend. Similar residencies are offered by the University of Pennsylvania, University of Delaware and Georgia State University, among many others.

[Discover ways to pay for graduate school.]

How can current teachers beef up their STEM bona fides and get set for the coming standards? Part-time and online options are springing up to meet their needs.

The University of Maryland, for example, has created a teacher-oriented master's of education in middle-school mathematics.

"This truly has made me a better teacher," says Germantown, Md., algebra teacher Adam Ritchie, who finished the Maryland evening and summer program in December. "I was able to apply [course work] right off the bat in the classroom."

Besides studies that encouraged exploratory and inquiry-based learning and gave him the know-how to better challenge all kids regardless of ability, Ritchie took algebra, geometry and statistics, and now feels much more ready for the Common Core in math, which gets rolled out in county middle schools next year.

The other welcome payoff: a 20 percent bump in salary.

This story is excerpted from the U.S. News Best Graduate Schools 2014 guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings, and data.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/education-schools-innovate-supply-stem-teachers-144757267.html

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Dave Wood Offers An Assortment Of Unique 40th Wedding ...

40th wedding anniversary gift

A round of applause to the couple who are soon to be commemorating their 40th wedding celebration anniversary! 10 years later and you will be celebrating your half a century wedding event anniversary! Nevertheless, before that, 40th wedding event anniversary is also an excellent explanation to commemorate.

You possibly a person who has actually been invited to a fortieth marriage anniversary celebration. Or, you are an individual that wants to make this turning point memorable for your spouse. Then you should choose 40th wedding anniversary gift that are agent of four many years of togetherness. The red colored ruby is both the conventional and modern gift concept for the 40th marriage wedding anniversary.

Various other methods to celebrate your 40th wedding anniversary:

Making a CD containing lengthy tracks that you and your partner made use of to listen closely prior to the both of you are married is likewise an excellent concept for 40th wedding anniversary gift. Tunes played throughout the wedding celebration dinner or wedding ceremony can be placed in the CD too.

A photo cd filled with memories is constantly an excellent 40th wedding anniversary gift idea. Nonetheless, rather than just having photos of you and your partner, feature the other additions that your loved one can bring out. Stories from your youngsters or grandchildren are constantly an excellent means to end the picture album to reveal the progression that had actually been made nevertheless these years.
A poem in ruby red ink is one more good gift idea. Think about words that best describes the things that had actually occurred to you and your partner for the past 40 years. Framing the poem in ruby red framework is a good way to add to the finishing touches of your poem.

As mentioned the 40th wedding anniversary has always been taken into consideration as a vital one. 40 years is a long time, and individuals always thought that alone been worthy of to be effectively commemorated. Traditionally, the 40th wedding anniversary is called the Ruby Anniversary. This is the label people inflicted her as it is taken into consideration as one of the most important, if not the most important anniversaries in a marriage. And rubies have actually always been the rarest, and the most costly of gems. Unfortunately, just as rubies, wedding anniversaries like these are likewise unusual today. If you reach have one, you ought to actually try and get a traditional present to your partner for your 40th anniversary: ruby charms. Nevertheless, since many individuals simply could?t afford something such as this you may attempt and make a present that may remind your partner of the rubies, and the worth they stand for. A container of great red vine, or a box of chocolate, covered in abundant red box. Likewise a red climbed, or red nasturtiums. All these can easily remind you and your partner of the style of rubies, which is appropriate for the 40th anniversary.

The 40th wedding anniversary, the Ruby Wedding anniversary is a point to keep in mind, and a thing to cherish. If you are among those privileged sets that manage to get to it, ensure you make it a day that you will never forget.

With all this details nearby and the varied 40th wedding anniversary gift buying choices offered, choosing anniversary presents for loved ones was never this simple. So, what are you waiting for, make this anniversary party something to be remembered by with a beautiful shock 40th wedding anniversary gift for your unique a person.

Click Right here for getting more details associated with 40th wedding anniversary gift

Source: http://shopping-product-reviews.com/dave-wood-offers-an-assortment-of-unique-40th-wedding-anniversary-gift/

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Mom: 'BUCKWILD' star a Christian, now in heaven

FILE - This Jan. 2, 2013 file photo shows Shain Gandee, from MTV's "Buckwild" reality series in New York. Gandee was found dead Monday, April 1, in a sport utility vehicle in a ditch along with his uncle and a third, unidentified person, authorities said. Gandee died doing what made him famous: careening through huge mudholes in his SUV, taking chances most others won?t, living free and reckless in front of reality-show TV cameras. His death further blurs the line between entertainment and real life in an age where fame is easier than ever to attain. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision/AP, file)

FILE - This Jan. 2, 2013 file photo shows Shain Gandee, from MTV's "Buckwild" reality series in New York. Gandee was found dead Monday, April 1, in a sport utility vehicle in a ditch along with his uncle and a third, unidentified person, authorities said. Gandee died doing what made him famous: careening through huge mudholes in his SUV, taking chances most others won?t, living free and reckless in front of reality-show TV cameras. His death further blurs the line between entertainment and real life in an age where fame is easier than ever to attain. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision/AP, file)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) ? For all his on-camera carousing and cussing, "BUCKWILD" reality TV star Shain Gandee was a publicly proclaimed and baptized Christian, and his mother told hundreds of mourners Sunday that she will see him again.

"I know where Shain is," Loretta Gandee told the family, friends and fans crammed into the Charleston Municipal Auditorium. "He said about a month ago, 'I know when I die I'm going to heaven.'"

Dressed in a hot-pink "Gandee Candy" T-shirt and jeans, she spoke only a few words but bellowed out an unaccompanied hymn, her voice echoing through the auditorium in prayer for their reunion.

Gandee, his 48-year-old uncle, David Gandee, and 27-year-old friend Donald Robert Myers were found dead April 1 in a sport utility vehicle that was partially submerged in a deep mud pit near Sissonville. They had last been seen leaving a bar at 3 a.m.

Autopsies determined all three died of carbon monoxide poisoning, possibly caused by the tailpipe being submerged in mud. That could have allowed the invisible gas to fill the vehicle's cabin.

Shain Gandee, nicknamed "Gandee Candy" by fans, was a breakout star of the show that followed the antics of young friends enjoying their wild country lifestyle. Season one was filmed last year, mostly around Sissonville and Charleston.

The Rev. Randy Campbell told the many young people in the crowd he understands that life bombards them with difficult choices. But he urged them to follow Shain Gandee's lead and embrace their faith now, while they are energetic and engaged.

"This life will hand you a lot of things and call it pleasure, but there is nothing that brings greater joy to a person's heart than serving the Lord," Campbell said. "You may think at this point, you're having fun, but those days will pass."

When they do, he said, God is all that matters.

Cameras were not allowed at the funeral or private family burial in Thaxton Cemetery.

As hundreds filed past the two closed coffins on the auditorium stage, a slideshow of family photos showed the simple life that Shain Gandee lived long before TV cameras started following him.

Set to country music were snapshots of him as a uniformed pee wee football player, as a teenager in a tuxedo for prom, then graduating from high school in a black gown and mortarboard.

In other images, he kissed a bride and held babies. In several, he wore hunting camouflage, displaying a slain buck by its antlers and lining up a batch of gray squirrels on a bench.

Gandee favored four-wheelers, pickups and SUVs over cellphones and computers, and "mudding," or off-road driving, was one of his favorite pastimes.

It was no coincidence some mourners arrived in mud-splattered trucks.

Dreama and Charlie Frampton, who live a few doors down, said Gandee had been playing in the mud since he was 5.

"If it wasn't a four-wheel drive truck," Dreama said, "it was a four-wheeler or a dirt bike."

"He was dedicated to the sport," Charlie added. "That's all you can do out in the country."

Gandee's family asked mourners to wear camouflage or the neon-colored Gandee Candy T-shirts to the service because Shain didn't like to dress up.

Ricky Sater, 23, said his friend would have loved the sea of camo and T-shirts that filled the auditorium.

"He probably would walk in there going, 'BUCKWILD!'" he said.

Sater has known Shain since middle school and last saw him a week ago, when he came over to borrow a pin for a trailer hitch.

"He said, 'See ya, Rick!' and I said, 'See ya, drunk!" recalled Sater, who got the terrible news days later in a phone call.

"My sister told me about it, and it being April Fool's, I thought she was joking. But she wasn't," he said, swallowing hard. "I try to keep my emotions balled up, but I started breaking down about six hours later."

Shooting was underway on season two at the time of Gandee's death, but MTV spokesman Jake Urbanski said film crews were not with him over Easter weekend and hadn't filmed him since earlier that week.

MTV says it will be weeks before producers and cast members decide whether to continue. For now, the network said, everyone is focused on supporting Gandee's family.

Katrina Burdette, 25, of Cross Lanes, didn't know Gandee but is friends with his cast mate, Ashley Whitt. Burdette has watched every episode and wants to see more.

"I think it should go on. Give them time to mourn and everything, but he'd want the show to go on," she said. "He wanted to be in the show and keep it going, so why not ? in his memory ? keep it going?"

MTV said the half-hour series in the old "Jersey Shore" time slot was pulling in an average of 3 million viewers per episode since its premiere and was the No. 1 original cable series on Thursday nights among 12- to 34-year-olds.

Others, like his neighbors the Framptons, say the show just won't be the same.

"They should just leave well enough alone," Charlie Frampton said.

But he won't object if the show survives. It's bringing people to West Virginia, and he rejects the notion that it portrays the state in a negative light.

"They're just showing what true country is," he said. "It's no worse than that 'Teen Mom.'"

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-07-BUCKWILD%20Death-Funeral/id-451aff5622db4665972db08500ed93e2

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