Blog: medicine

Another Snow Job

2010-03-22T11:21:00.000+02:00

Spring has finally arrived in the Nation’s Capital and the last of the traces of the snownami that hit the city during Snowmageddon 2010 have disappeared… well, mostly.

Obama has been working long and hard to rid this country of its biggest problem.

No, not the ridiculous war we’ve been involved in for the past eight years that he promised to get us out of quickly – he lied, of course – that problem is minor by comparison.

The problem was the electorate’s aversion to universal healthcare coverage. Ted Kennedy tried for decades to get it passed… it was Bill Clinton’s main thrust – politically, as he did not deal in snow – for his two terms… and now Obama has finally gotten it to pass.

No longer will people have the choices they had in the past as the government tentacles reach ever deeper into our private lives, as well as our pocket books.

Obama could truly be the Lincoln of his age. He makes slaves of the citizenry, not just the states.

Heck, he might even win a Nobel Peace Prize for this.

[Via http://carltonwelsh.wordpress.com]

Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » Great News

Obama: Haha, I Win You Lose!

2010-03-22T03:14:00.000+02:00

Sorry for the long delay between posts. We have been ultra busy with our startup and like most Americans have grown so tired of this awful President, and even more atrocious Congress, that we have all but tuned them out. Our leaders seem intent on following their own agendas and not listening to the will of the American people, which has been affirmed by tonight’s healthcare bill approval, which not only will be passed using devious methods, but also violates our constitution. Are we living in Venezuela? This healthcare bill seems like it was introduced by Hugo Chavez, not the leader of the free world. We warned America when Obama was elected, that he was a radical who would stop at nothing to create a welfare state. But I guess we were just “crazy racists” for questioning the anointed one. It is clear that he isn’t concerned with being elected to a second term. His goal is to inflict as much damage as possible in 4 years, whereby the core of this country will be so socialized and centrally controlled by the government, that there will never be any turning back.

Obviously this is a sad day for all Americans. Jon Kraushar, who is a PR consultant for Fox News sums things up beautifully with these 10 things Obama is communicating to the American public:

1. I win; you lose.

2. My will; not the will of the people.

3. Government of Obama, by Obama, for Obama; not government of the people, by the people, for the people.

4. Corrupt House rules and autocracy; not play by the rules and democracy.

5. “I’ll tread on you” now steps on “Don’t tread on me.”

6. “I, the president”; not “We, the People.”

7. “All men are created equal” but I am more equal than others.

8. “The dissent of the president” overrules “the consent of the governed.”

9. “Give me tyranny and give me debt” replaces “Give me liberty or give me death.”

10. “That government is best which governs most” supersedes “That government is best which governs least.”

[Via http://obamulist.com]

Real or Bizzaro News? | Dissident Voice

Rheumatology and Surgical techniques.

2010-03-19T19:45:00.000+02:00

Well blog number 3 I was gonna quit this due to lack of time but I will try to push ahead, mainly due to my sister encouraging me.

On last tuesday we started a new Internal medicine practice. If I would try to explain it with my words. It would be that for me Internal is how I always imagined medicine, doctors diagnosing, just wards and patients and history taking. Just like Dr. House except less grumpy and less weird diseases. We already finished 4 weeks of Immunology. Immunology is when the body starts attacking itself, a so called auto immune disease, the body usually produces antibodies to ward off infections and other invading factors, but in auto-immune diseases they go after the body itself. But now we have started Rheumatology that focuses on the joints, soft tissue and connective tissue(bones). We had really good doctors showing us what happens how to diagnose and do an physical examination. We examined one patient that had osteoarthritis. It is a degenerative disease of the cartilage and even the bone. The patient had pain and stiffness in the joints of distal phalanges, knee and shoulders. When we examined her we saw an really distinct bone growth coming out from her distal phalanges, she also had a so called crepitation, a clicking feeling in the knee joint. Next week we will go into Rheumatoid Arthritis and the physical examination.

I also started a surgical elective, so called Surgical Operative Techniques. Last semester we took Basic Surgical Techniques so this is a continuation of that subject. Since I am thinking of becoming a surgeon I am trying to take as many elective courses that have anything to do with surgery. This course is a prerequisite of further surgery subjects, like Laparascopic surgery, Microsurgery and Robotic surgery. Today we learned some knotting techniques, like the vienna knot, instrumental knot and some others. They probably have different names depending on where they are being taught. You can search for surgical knots on youtube if you are interested in seeing how this knots are performed.

[Via http://bjarturs.wordpress.com]

EVE Tyrannis expansion due in May News | MMO | Eurogamer

Stress During Pregnancy may Raise Child's Asthma Risk

2010-03-19T03:31:00.000+02:00

A mother to be’s stress during pregnany may increase the risk of asthma in the offspring, a new research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harward Medical School in Boston shows.

In the research, differences in immune function markers in cord blood between infants born to mothers in high stress environments and those born to mothers with low stress, was investigated. The study found marked differences in patterns that may be associated with asthma risk later in life.

The findings will be published in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, and according to Rosalind Wright, associate physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, “This is the first study in humans to show that increased stress experienced during pregnany in urban, largely minority women, is associated with different patterns of cord blood cytokine production to various environmental stimuli, relative to babies born to lower-stressed mothers.”

It has been known that asthma is more prevalent among ethnic minorities and among more disadvantaged urban communities, but the role of stress in asthma development has been poorly understood. To determine the transference of stress-mediated immune differences, the researchers recruited pregnant women in suburban areas with large groups of ethnic miorities and with high poverty levels. All the 557 mothers had a history of asthma in their families. The researchers did find that the patterns of cytokines (chemical messengers in the body that are involved in cell-to-cell communication) related to certain stimulant differed based on the level of stress the mothers reported.

Dr. Wright explains, “For example, while the debate continues as to whether primary sensatization to allergens begins before birth, these findings suggest the possibility that prenatal stress may enhance the young babie’s response to inhalant antigens (molecules that stimulate an immune system response) specifically those antigens that the fetus is likely to encounter more directly in utero, like dust mite.” She continues, “The current findings suggest that psychological stress is involved in programming of the infant immune response and that this influence begins during pregnancy.”

The research study will continue as the infants grow older, and will hopefully give us more insights to how the factors manifest in terms of the development of asthma and allergy in older children.

Asthma Inhaler

[Via http://novasans.wordpress.com]

Fox News Interviews The Prez!!! FOX NEWS! | PerezHilton.com

Help vs. Harm

2010-03-17T19:28:00.000+02:00

In my search for better wellness, I have been reading and trying new types of healing.

Now, I feel I am a pretty typical person. I trust doctors to give me good care, just as I trust teachers to teach me well, business people to treat me honestly, and friends to offer friendship.

I have faith in Western treatment because it worked for me–I had mobility back for several years after my diagnosis, and no pain.

I also have faith in non-Western treatment because it worked for me. I have gone to acupuncture and received other Oriental Medicine treatments throughout my disease–in pain and in peace–and have experienced many healthful benefits.

In the past year an a half, however, I have felt especially unsatisfied by a strictly Western approach–my cocktail of medicines are not giving me the results that I had hoped for, and I am experiencing some of the side effects (hair loss, cracking nails, fatigue, stomach upset, dizziness) more profoundly than I once did.

I intend to remain on these medicines, however, because I believe in their efficacy to reduce my overall inflammation. I just hope to reduce the amount and frequency that I take them.

I want my body to begin healing itself.

Because autoimmune diseases are diseases of oneself, it can be confusing what is helping and what is harming. I like the way Wikipedia defines autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis: Autoimmune diseases arise from an overactive immune response of the body against substances and tissues normally present in the body. In other words, the body actually attacks its own cells.

If my own body is attacking itself–how can I fight back?

I have a few ideas that I want to pursue–diet, acupuncture, physical/occupational therapy, massage, healing sessions, meditation, yoga (of course). I know that none of these individually will heal me–but I have to try.

I bet that many people with chronic illness get to this point–I am willing to make my health a priority, even if it inconveniences me to do so (oh, how I will mourn chocolate gone from my life!).

I am willing to try anything to be well. I am hopeful that I can cultivate kindness (yes, my intention) inside my cells and in my world.

[Via http://theopeningyear.wordpress.com]

Small Business News March 15 | Small Business Trends

Primum Non Nocere

2010-03-17T03:26:00.000+02:00

That’s Latin for “First, do no harm”. This is one of the guiding principles of the practice of Medicine. I remember my Training Director in Internal Medicine making that point time and time again. He said that the first thing you do when you are called into the patient room, is to put your hands in your pocket. This is to prevent you from doing something or writing something without thinking it over first. However, even the simplest task or the most benign procedure can have the potential of disaster.

We were 4th year Medical students in UST. It was our first day in the hospital wards as Medical clerks. My first rotation was in the Neurology ward. We were not allowed to administer medications nor push IV meds. We were not to make decisions of our own without the guidance of our Medical Residents or our attending physicians. We were not to write any orders in the patient’s chart without the co-signature of our supervising Interns. We were not to do any bedside procedure without the supervision of our seniors. We were there though to take medical history, examine the patient, help monitor them and take their vital signs. Armed with just stethoscope, sphygmomanometer, and thermometer, how can we do harm? Well, you lack imagination.

As part of our duty, one of my classmates placed the thermometer in the mouth of the patient to check his temperature. This patient has seizure disorder. All of a sudden he went into convulsions with his whole body flailing. He bit the thermometer and crushed it into small pieces. Can you imagine the horror of my classmate! After the seizure was over, we helped our classmate retrieve the broken thermometer in the patient’s mouth (at least what is left of it). I’m not sure if we recovered the mercury or not. Did the patient develop oral lacerations from shattering the thermometer? Did he suffered esophageal or gastric ulcerations from the swallowed glass pieces? Did he develop mercury poisoning? Or did he become a human thermometer? God alone knows.

Over the years, I have heard, have witnessed, and have been involved in medical misadventures. So it is with great diligence and prudence that I perform my duties, and with humbleness I accept my limitations and mistakes. May I always be guided by the precept of first, do no harm. So help me God.

(I don’t use oral thermometers anymore. Neither do I use rectal thermometers. I can just imagine what catastrophe I can do with that!)

[Via http://iowapinoy.com]

Fox News Interviews The Prez!!! FOX NEWS! | PerezHilton.com

Anatomical Theatre

2010-03-15T11:57:00.000+02:00

Since I went to see Exquisite Bodies at the Wellcome Museum last year, I have fallen in love with nineteenth century anatomical models. Art and Science coexists in them. They are delicate and precise, morbid, beautiful. They are exquisite pieces of work to show us the developments of anatomy. They were born out of a necessity for anatomical models which would not rot, there were no fridges then, and also out of a shortage in real corpses, much on demand in a period of booming investigation. I fancy they are kind of tragic, these open bodies, vulnerable to inspection, exposed to thousands of prying eyes.

This Anatomical Venus rests in the Natural History Museum in Florence, Italy. I have found the pictures in the web titled Anatomical Theatre, a virtual museum of anatomical models and medical artifacts ranging from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. To see and read more about this fascinating world click on the images below.

Click here to see the Anatomical Theatre site.

Click here to see images of the theatre installation

[Via http://maenadismisalifestyle.wordpress.com]

Economic Principals » Blog Archive » How We Got the Bad News

Exciting week!

2010-03-15T03:03:00.000+02:00

To keep all of you updated, we have been posting article summaries on twitter ( http://twitter.com/robbinsrehab ) and facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/pages/Allentown-PA/Robbins-Rehabilitation/190845489292 ). So check us out…

First off, is it a problem that I can’t get that Justin Beiber song out of my head? Catchy tune I guess, tried everything to get it out but to no avail… What do you think one hit wonder? I sure hope not..

Anyway, we started off our week posting about our vibration plate (1 of only 3 on the east coast) and it’s ability to increase peak power output. The study was done on the biceps muscle where a dumbell curl was performed before and after general vibratory stimulus. Peak power was higher in the post stimulus measurements.

Speaking of peak power, check out Mitch Petrus cranking out 45 @ the combine http://blogs.nfl.com/2010/02/26/petrus-shocked-after-record-tying-bench-press/

The next article we looked at came fromADVANCE for physical therapy and rehab medicine, a publication free to licensed therapists. The article stated that by using a therapist who implements three strategies for preventing non-contact ACL injuries, an athlete can stay clear of such affliction. The three strategies were: assessing postural alignment, strengthening the weaknesses that would predispose one to injuy, and neuromuscular training interventions or re-educating the athlete’s movement patterns.

Check us out for more info!

[Via http://robbinsrehab.wordpress.com]

The Big Picture » Blog Archive » Lehman News Round Up

To be (a poet) or not to be, that is the question.

2010-03-12T19:34:00.000+02:00

I have, at best, a love/hate relationship with poem. That is, I love to read it (mostly to see it performed) but hate to write it. I’ve written very few poems in my life time, one of which won a rather undeserved award (perhaps my brave nature of late will prompt me to post it here – but don’t hold your breath).

That being said, I find this conference very appealing – and Duke isn’t that far from me. Also, did I mention Duke is one of my top choice medical schools?

We’ll see if I can a) get into poetry again, and b) justify the $75 registration and hotel fees to attend.

I’d love to attend a conference not centered around basic science for once.

[Via http://flightsofwhimsy.wordpress.com]

Macsimum News - Judge says to keep Pink Floyd albums intact

Methadone Madness

2010-03-12T03:50:00.000+02:00

My usual disclaimer applies – this is just my experience and understanding. I’m not a doctor, I just play one on TV. Actually, I am a doctor, and I don’t play one on TV, but my opinions are my own and my understanding skewed by my juniour-ness in the profession.

Part of my recent psychiatry rotation saw me spending one morning each week in a local Methadone Maintenance Therapy (MMT) Clinic. Methadone is a synthetic NMDA/Opiate agonist, developed in early Nazi Germany, and has been in regular use longer than you’d think.

Those of you from inner city neighbourhoods and especially my friends and colleagues who have worked in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver will know the Methadone program well. In the mid 1950s in New York, MMT gained ground. It even involved production of the following comic book:

Methadone is used in addictions medicine and for chronic pain management. It is also useful in palliative care for patients who need less frequent dosing or who are unremittingly confused/delirious on other narcotics, since it has a unique half-life and does not carry the exact side effect profile as some of the other opiates. I want to talk more about the addictions side of things since that is what my recent learning focused on.

Methadone Clinic, First Visit:

When used in an MMT (methadone maintainance therapy) setting, there are strict rules governing how the drug is administered. Usually, a person comes into the system after referral from a friend, doctor, or when they themself have accepted the need to change. They meet with a doctor who has a special licence to prescribe – though technically, it is a licence not to be prosecuted for dispensing an illicit substance. First visits are good times to screen for other drug dependence (cocaine, alcohol, and benzos are often in the mix). One can also acquire a bit of a medical history, and screen for things like Hepatitis C, as well as learning about the rich psychosocial aspects of a patient’s life. Depending on their situation, we may recommend referral to Social Work or to the Mental Health Team.

Methadone Maintenance Process:

Initially, a patient will be started on a once daily dose, a very low dose, and over a period of weeks, titrated up to a therapeutic level. We treat cravings and opiate withdrawal symptoms. Some patients will say that they are really sweaty, so they need more methadone, but unfortunately it is probably a side effect of the treatment itself. The patient keeps returning, and we check in to see if they have a stable living situation, a job or other source of income, supportive relationships, etc. We ask if they are using narcotics or other drugs. They give us urine samples to prove that they are not using other drugs. If their lives begin to stabilize and they are not using, they may be given “carries.” No, these are not cavities (“caries” in dentalspeak) but rather quantities of methadone dispensed from the pharmacy that may be taken home. If they don’t follow the rules, they are stuck on Daily Witnessed Ingestion (DWI). The hassle of having to get to the pharmacy on a daily basis is one of the motivators for people to ‘get their shit together’ so to speak.

Maintenance, or tapering off?

Once people reach a dose at which their addiction is treated and the side effects minimal, they may plateau there for some time. Maybe for a long time. Many wish to taper off eventually because of the attached inconvenience (even if they have 6 carries, they still have to go weekly to pick up the “juice”). There is also a stigma with methadone that many wish to escape, and to start their new life, they want to be 100% clean. Some very high-functioning individuals just don’t do well with tapers. They may be candidates for methadone pills, or a substitute (Suboxone), however, this is not paid for by the government and can be quite costly.

What is Harm Reduction?

You’ll see that I’m a supporter of “harm reduction.” This can be interpreted a few ways, but in my own mind, it is what it says: For example, even though we know that sexual abstinence is the only way to stay free from STIs and unwanted-pregnancy, the reality is that people will be having sex. I recommend contraception and barrier protection, like condoms, because abstinence may not be a practical solution in our culture. I recognize that condoms are not as successful as abstinence, but they are more likely to be utilized than is abstinence. We are not avoiding all harm, but we are realistically reducing harm.

Providing methadone to opiate addicted patients can improve their health and other wellbeing; even though abstinence from drugs might be even better in this regard, I am willing to accept a bridging measure (the Methadone) because total abstinence is not a realistic solution. Addiction is hard to beat. As my preceptor would say to a patient with addictions:

your brain was once a cucumber, now it is a pickle.

There’s no going back to before you tried that drug for the first time – you are wired to it. Your pleasure centres rattle with the thought of it. You ache without it. And your brain still wants it, even when your life is falling apart because of it. There are many barriers to get beyond that urge; fortunately, methadone is a great help.

That doesn’t mean that I think people should aim to be on methadone forever, but it offers a safe and practical pathway to better things. Some individuals will never be able to live off of it, and some will not be able to straighten out their lives whilst on it, but it certainly offers a chance for normalcy in those suffering.

Advantages:

With methadone maintenance in their lives, opiate-dependent individuals benefit in numerous ways. The program is an attempt at harm reduction, substituting something ‘less bad’ for the greater evil – in this case, heroin or oxycodone from the street and their associated ill-effects. It’s thought that by providing a safe, monitored narcotic replacement, we can reduce overdoses, the petty crime associated with trying to finance an illicit habit, and the rates of infectious disease transmission. At the same time, doctors and other health care workers can create a connection with marginalized individuals who might otherwise never encounter the health system.

Months or years of respect from a physician can go a long way; a patient who is disenfranchised may tell you about that funny mole on their back or the cough they’ve had for a while. Having built a solid relationship around MMT, a doctor can also aid a patient with other aspects of their health. Many of these patients have treatable, comorbid conditions like Hepatitis C and HIV, and will live better lives for having these addressed as well.

It feels good for doctors to see a patient down to single digit doses of methadone and eventually off the drug. Even in those who require continuous maintenance, there are huge victories. It is not uncommon to see a person regain custody of their children, find a new and comfortable home, form solid relationships, get on disability, get off disability, or find gainful employment.

Downsides

There are downsides. Over-sedation can occur and overdoses are a possibility; that’s why we use the ’start low, go slow’ methodology for dosing. Like any drug, methadone has some undesirable side effects. High doses may lead to profuse sweating. Long term therapy with opiates of any kind – including methadone- can cause things like constipation, and in the very long term, impaired libido and erectile dysfunction (via suppression of GnRH in the pituitary). There is a major stigma attached to methadone, and people treat methadone patients differently. Often, they are treated like shit, even by health care ‘professionals.’

Unfortunately, Methadone is also drug of abuse, for the little high it can generate at such a low cost. This is part of the motivation for the DWI program; if a patient must ingest their medication in front of a pharmacist, they cannot turn around and sell it on the street. People with addictions do play a role in the choice to get better, but sometimes, their desperate need to use (other drugs) can overcome whatever bit of willpower they have retained. It’s very difficult for an addict to earn trust, but it is possible.

Bullshit!

One of my favourite parts of working in the Methadone Clinic was being able to call people on their bullshit. Some describe the life of an addict as “living the big lie.” They know it, I know it, so let’s not be naive! The pathology of addiction does not allow a person to be honest with themself, and if they have been beg/borrow/steal-ing to maintain the habit, those are tough patterns to break. But methadone does help. And so does seeing that someone (like a doctor or nurse) is invested in your recovery.

Urine testing is one way that a person can prove their progress. The privilege of ‘carries’ will be withheld if the patient provides a dirty urine; this means, their urine shows traces of other drugs or a lack of methadone metabolites.

My patients and preceptor gave me lots of tips about interpreting urine tests. Pee in a cup, and we will discover many delightful and amusing things:

Urine Shows Patient has told me: Actually… no methadone metabolites “I forgot today’s dose” Not taking their methadone, it’s someone else’s urine or water; patients are dependent on this substance, so it is unlikely that they wouldn’t have had their dose (esp. in our clinic as it is right beside the main methadone-dispensing pharmacy)even if they missed their dose, there should still be metabolites in urine from prior doses other opiates or oxycodone positive “I’m not using”“I had a headache. My friend gave me a Tylenol. Maybe it was a Tylenol with codeine? I don’t know, I don’t even want that stuff.”

“maybe a few weeks ago, I might have had an oxy”

Oxycodone requires a special assay; if that is positive, they are definitely using oxycodone!However, if the opiates are positive, that could include heroin, morphine, codeine, etc. cocaine positive “It’s okay, that’s just a party drug. I use it, like, once a month. It’s not like I’m addicted to it or anything. Why can’t I get Methadone carries anyway?” Ccocaine use! Polysubstance dependence is not uncommon, and recreational drugs all have effects on a common neuropathway; a condition of gaining the privilege of carries is that they are clean from all drugs Benzodiazepines positive “I take it for sleep”“Oh really, I don’t know how that could’ve got in there.” Might be on a benzo sleeping pill, should not be! There are very few legitimate uses for benzodiazepines.Lots of addiction here, and cross-dependence with alcohol. Canabinoid Positive “yeah, I smoke pot”“I haven’t smoked up in ages” Probably telling the truth. Metabolites can last for longer than 30 days in certain individuals.Might be on nabilone, esp if their Methadone is for chronic pain Amphetamines Positive “Oh, yah, I had some cough syrup for my cold” “You said that last time. Remember how we talked about how cough syrup is ineffective anyway? Sorry, no carries for you until you stop this stuff. How can we help you kick the amphetamines?” Cold urine “hmmmmm” Tap water, someone else’s urine Blue-tinged urine “yah, maybe… I didn’t want to give the uhm urine” This is toilet water! Some clinics that dose a lot of methadone put blue dye in the toilet so that this can’t be used

This wikipedia chart about how long drug metabolites appear in urine/blood&saliva/hair should be study material for every doctor and addict alike!

Some patients will try to tell you that they are rapid metabolizers and will require taking methadone twice a day rather than once a day. While this is a rule in pregnant women, it applies to only a small section of the regular population. The half-life is variable from patient to patient, but at the same time patients may have an ulterior motive for requesting twice-daily dosing. It’s challenging to figure out which is the legitimate complaint and which is someone trying to abuse the system. Luckily, we can say “there’s a test for that!” We compare peak (4 hr after dose) to trough (just before dose) serum levels and see if they truly are rapid metabolizers. This is important because too much methadone can be a bad thing; I’ve seen patients admitted to hospital, dosed at the amount their prescription record shows. By day 2 they are totally sedated – this is because they have not been taking all of their methadone in the community, usually selling the extra dose. Dangerous.

Being a hard-ass can be fun. It’s not difficult to know when you are being scammed, but you get used to it and start to enjoy calling people on their BS. Being blunt with a patient shows them you aren’t afraid to be honest – and it asks that in return for your efforts to help them, they will respect you with honest discourse. Only if both the doctor and patient are honest with each other can treatment achieve success, as defined by either party.

I really want to incorporate methadone-prescribing into my practice in the future. If you thinking of doing the same, develop a firm policy of universal precautions and stick to it. Enjoy watching your patients do well, because so many of them will.

[Via http://drottematic.wordpress.com]

Helped by Olympics, 'NBC Nightly News' Has a Big February - Media ...

Dr Michael Dixon is annoyed

2010-03-10T11:58:00.000+02:00

In which Dr Aust spots that Prince Charles’ favourite GP is in a state of high dudgeon over people being mean about magic medicine. You know – being mean by asking about evidence, and other awkward stuff.

Dr Aust occasionally checks the website of the GPs’ magazine Pulse. This is partly because alerts to it appear on my email and in my Twitter feed.

It is also because the Pulse website has blogs on it; the three I read are by Prof Edzard Ernst, by that excellent blogger (and an on-line acquaintance of mine) the Jobbing Doctor, and by the rather exasperated and often very funny Phil Peverley.

It is a bit of a faff to read the articles at Pulse online because you have to register, but it is free to do so, and once you have, you get an interesting perspective on what is going on in what a lot of doctors I know call “GP-land”.

Including with respect to complementary medicine.

The thing that caught my eye there recently was a distinctly splenetic article (as one splenetic middle-aged gentleman talking about another) written by Prince Charles’ favourite GP, Dr Michael Dixon OBE.

Dr Michael Dixon of the Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health

Dr Dixon is the medical director of the Prince of Wales’ Foundation for Integrated Health, probably the most influential lobby group promoting CAM in the UK.

In the article, Dr Dixon is evidently rather annoyed.

You can tell this from the very beginning, where he describes Edzard Ernst as

“A leading member of science’s militant tendency”

Dr Dixon also referes to his opponents – which seems to be anyone who thinks that CAM should live up to the same standards of evidence as the rest of medicine – as

“the new fundamentalists”

In fact, the whole paragraph that contains this phrase is worth quoting.

“The new fundamentalists rarely, if ever, think about the patient. That is not surprising. Most are not doctors. Even Professor Ernst hasn’t faced a real live patient for at least seventeen years. Those were the days when you could still, just, get away with ‘doctor knows best’. Seems he is still living that dream.”

The last bit of this is particularly smile-inducing – at least if you are a conoisseur of irony.

After all, who is it that is demanding the right to use hocus-pocus on the patients, and not explain exactly what is in the remedies?

Is it Professor Ernst?

Or is it Dr Dixon?

As one respondent puts it (read the article and then comments to find out who):

“It is the very essence of old fashioned paternalistic medicine to pretend that it’s a good idea to deceive the patient for the sake of eliciting a placebo reaction.”

While another commenter characterizes Dr Dixon’s extended harrumph (rather accurately in my view) as an “embarrassing diatribe”.

In fact, the main reason for mentioning Dr Dixon’s article is to draw your attention to the excellence of many of the comments that follow it.

The commenters, as the phrase is, “take Dixon’s ass to school“.

Though I suspect his evident blind spots will mean he will not learn very much.

—————————————————————————————————-

PS For anyone interested in what the medical ethicists think of homeopathy, and the ethical issues involved, the answer can be found here.

[Via http://draust.wordpress.com]

The Cable News Bubble | Mother Jones

Tuesday Night

2010-03-10T03:41:00.000+02:00

* Today in science: Australian scientists are describing “fat” as a taste. Those more sensitive to fat consume less and have a lower BMI.

* Today in science 2: Doctors are gross, not washing hands.

* Support for health-care reform growing as Obama gets more publicly involved? Quick, somebody please tell Congressional Democrats.

* Urban farming in Detroit and mall farming in Cleveland.

* Ana Marie Cox explains Washington as the Venn intersection of science fiction geeks, politicians, indie rock fans, and gay people.

* In short, this entire genre of political coverage is useless. If/when the economy picks up, Obama’s speeches will start “connecting” and everyone will marvel at how effective the White House political team has become. Via Matt Yglesias.

* South Park Reenacts Actual Thing Blackwater Did.

* Winning fifteen-year-old arguments: Clintons cleared in FBI Filegate.

While this Court seriously entertained the plaintiffs’ allegations that their privacy had been violated–and indeed it was, even if not in the sense contemplated by the Privacy Act–after ample opportunity, they have not produced any evidence of the far-reaching conspiracy that sought to use intimate details from FBI files for political assassinations that they alleged. The only thing that they have demonstrated is that this unfortunate episode–about which they do have cause to complain–was exactly what the defendants claimed: a bureaucratic snafu.

* Continental Will Cancel Flights To Avoid Fines For Late Takeoffs. I’m sure their customers will understand.

* The 10,000th Glenn-Beck-related outrage of the day: The Census Is The Government’s Attempt To ‘Increase Slavery.’

BECK: Why were they asking the race question, you said when, in 1790? … Right, they want to know, do you count as three-fifths? Do you count at all? So, you have to know how many slaves did you have? People find that offensive today because the idea was, if we’re going to count, we want to know how many are here for services etc. etc. and slaves would get less. Well that’s not right. One. One. ‘I’m not three-fifths, I’m one. Whites are not worth than me.’ Now reverse it, why are they asking this question today?

CO-HOST: Because minorities are worth more than whites.

BECK: Exactly right. So you will get more dollars if you are a minority. So you are worth more as a monitory. Well there is no difference. The reason you don’t answer the race question is because one, everyone counts as one. All men are created equal. If you were offended back in 1790 about slavery and that everyone should count the same, do not answer the race question. How dare you. How dare you. At least in 1790, they were doing it to slow the South down on slavery. To try to stop it as much as they can. Today they are asking the race question to try to increase slavery. Your dependence on the master in Washington. No way, don’t answer that question.

* How America tortures.

* “Wash. Post accuses White House of demonizing insurance industry by accurately portraying industry’s actions.”

* “I Tickled Aide, but That Was All, Massa Says.”

* And Jim Halpert is and is not your Captain America.

[Via http://gerrycanavan.wordpress.com]

Disney's deal with Cablevision is good news for broadcasters ...

Halter on abortion (Arkansas News Bureau)

2010-03-08T19:52:00.000+02:00

Here’s a film clip from Roby Brock on Talk Business on Senate candidate Bill Halter’s answer to a question about abortion. Halter, a Catholic, gives a thoughtful, nuanced answer in which he expresses a personal aversion to abortion but a reluctance to impose his beliefs on others. He calls for work on a consensus on the issue that [...]

Halter on abortion (Arkansas News Bureau)

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:05:59 GMT

What’s interesting is that this Catholic is willing to open a dialogue, pursuant to giving women the right of free will and choice. And that speaks volumes about the Catholics as compared to the Christian conservatives. Because the Christian conservatives are the ones who are maintaining that they don’t care how many women the murder. As long as they make sure that they can get that fetus. Plus it’s important to remember that the Christian conservatives are never talking about women’s rights. They never talk about women’s rights. They only talk about the rights of the fetus. And that’s because to the Christian conservatives, women have no rights. And we know this is true because if the Christian conservatives actually believed that women had rights, then they, the Christian conservatives would you talking about women’s rights, which they never do.

Furthermore, it’s important to understand that I, as an American citizen, and what’s more, a Jewish American, and taking the position whereby my mother was actually murdered at white cross hospital in 1950 by Catholic nuns, and that I was been sold on the black market, which all of my legal documents in my biographical profile clearly show, that I firmly believe in every ounce of my being, that the Christian conservatives are attempting to establish another theocratic fascism form of government. Whereby they can install any position against women as their first step in attempting to kill everyone in the United States the leader is not a white fundamentalist Christian or who will not submit as a total slave to the white fundamentalist Christian Nazi manifesto.

And of course if I’m wrong, then again the question still comes to the surface. Why do Christian conservatives never talk about women’s rights? Why do they only talk about the rights of the fetus? Why do Christian conservatives always put the rights of the fetus above the living host, who is carrying the fetus, which is of course women? So again, why the Christian conservatives, if they don’t hate women. Never talk about women’s rights, but only talk about how much they want that fetus. And how the fetus has rights and the woman never does?

While it is true that I firmly believe that I am what the Christians and the Catholics and the Jews. And most people who have known me at one time or another have called me, to be nothing more than a failed abortion; I also believe that when I die I will return to that which made me and that in my particular heart and mind and soul is God. And one thing that I find remarkable is that God who created me has never called me a failed abortion. It was only Christian conservatives and Catholics and Jews who called me that. Not God.

So again, my question is very simple regarding that issue. Why do the critic conservatives and the Catholics and Jews consider me a failed abortion? Why do they find it so easy to call me a failed abortion? And why do the Christian conservatives who claim to be pro-life refused to discuss women’s rights? Why do the Christian conservatives who claim to be pro-life and who are supporting Jesus Christ. Always talk about the rights of the fetus being more important than the living host that is carrying the fetus, which is of course women?

I don’t expect the Christian conservatives to answer this issue. Just like I don’t expect that the Catholics to come forward and either express any kind of sorrow for the fact that my mother was murdered by members of their religion. And just like I also don’t expect anyone to come forward. And even investigate as to why members of the Catholic church murdered my mother. I understand fully that I’m going to die without ever having been given an explanation as to why my mother was murdered by Catholic nuns. I realize I’m going to have to leave this world and I without ever having any explanation as to why my mother was hated. I the Catholic religion. And why she was killed. Just like I realize that I’m going to die and never see the Christian conservatives stop their open hatred and their war against women where they are determined to kill every single woman in the world with dares to refuse to give them their precious fetus. Again I say it the Christian conservatives are truly pro-life. And why do they put so little value on the life of the living host that is carrying the one thing that the Christians want more than anything else, which is the fetus? How can Christian conservatives claim to be pro-life when they are in fact showing as much hatred and contempt for the very form of life itself. That is carrying the fetus that the Christian conservatives want so badly that they are willing the kill women and destroy their lives in order to maintain their, the Christian conservatives, continuing to have their pro-life stand? How can murdering women and devaluing the life of women be looked upon as pro-life?

And as I said before, I am praying to God that God will protect me from the same hatred and the same diatribe of Inquisition that my mother suffered in 1950 when the Catholic nuns at white cross hot will murdered her. I am praying to God that God will protect me from the same hatred that the Christian conservative the Catholics are showing two women these days that murdered my mother in 1950 timeframe to God for God to bring me home as soon as possible to let me die and be with God as soon as I possibly can. Because I realize that the Catholics and the Christians will never under any circumstances, either feel sorry for what they did to my mother, or ever explained why they killed her. I understand that very clearly, because all my life it’s been the Christians and the Catholics and the Jews who have repeatedly called for me. What I have become known as, a failed abortion.

Protect me from this satanic Inquisition being brought against us here on Earth. Dear God by the Christian conservatives and the Catholics, protect me dear God.

Annotations Regarding Non-Pro-Life Activities Of The Republican Party And The Christian Conservatives And The Catholics Of The United States:

The Christian conservatives and the Catholics don’t ever want to be responsible for the fact that since 78% of the United States is pro-life Christian that basically means that 78% of all the women and children murdered in the United States are killed by pro-life Christians and Catholics. It also means that Christians in United States are demanding that the world understand that to them being pro-life means killing, because while the Christian conservatives and Catholics are demanding that everyone understand they are pro-life. They are with their own actions, supporting a number of forms of killing.

78% of all the women murdered in the United States are killed by pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the children abused in the United States are abused by pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the children murdered in the United States are murdered by pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the murders that take place in the United States are committed by pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the soldiers in the United States, who go out and kill are pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of the membership of the National Rifle Association (The NRA ), which support GUNS THAT KILL are pro-life Christians and Catholics.
Every single white supremacist group in the history of United States has always been white fundamentalist pro-life Christian. And these white supremacist groups are dedicated to killing anyone who is not white and Christian.
The Army of God is a white fundamentalist Christian group who is dedicated to murdering and killing every single nonwhite Christian in the United States.
78% of all the people who favor and support the death penalty meaning killing people for committing crimes are pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the ministers in the United States who carry firearms to church and are threatening to kill anyone who comes near the church was not white and Christian are pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the crimes against gay people in the United States are done by pro-life Christians and Catholics.
Every month between one and two transgendered females are murdered and every single one of these killings is done by pro-life Christian.
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who demand the right to own black Americans and to kill them whenever they wanted to during the signing of the The Declaration of Independence.
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who took over the Republican Party during the battle of Washington and try to overthrow the United States government under president Hoover at the battle of Washington in 1932.
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who took over the Republican Party on the evening before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War. And who then used the Republican Party to hire John Wilkes Booth to murder President Abraham Lincoln.

When you have all these forms of killing being supported by pro-life Christians and Catholics it’s easy to understand that the pro-life Christians and Catholics are demanding that everyone else be responsible for their own actions. But the white fundamentalist Christians and Catholics under no circumstances want to be responsible for anything they do because they are demanding that the entire world understand that to them being pro-life means killing, because that’s what they support killing. That’s why that those who claim to be pro-life are now becoming known as nothing more than, “Killers For Christ”. And of course it the white fundamentalist Christians and Catholics don’t like what I’m saying or want to take exception to what I’m saying they need to disprove everything that follows, and every single item in my see also section below.

Laugh Out Loud.

2010-03-08T11:00:00.000+02:00

I laugh a lot. I laugh out loud a lot. And, I laugh loudly.

It’s true. You can ask anyone who knows me well. I really can’t help it. I’ve asked Kris if my loud laugh embarrasses him. He kindly tells me it’s one of the things he loves about me.

That’s a good thing. Because, he makes me laugh every day we are together.

We can even laugh about things that most married couples wouldn’t laugh about. Like his past relationships….and sometimes, even my divorce.

I’ll tease about things I lost in the divorce. Like a CD or some other random item. “Yep,” I’ll say, “Lost that in the divorce.”

Last night, he made me laugh again.

Me: (folding laundry) “Ya know, I used to iron Bryan’s golf shirts, even some of his t-shirts.” Kris: “Did you lose that in the divorce?”

We should really take our act on the road. Like Sonny and Cher.

Or, I guess, not.

Life is much too short to not truly enjoy even the smallest of moments. To laugh out loud. To laugh at oneself. It can be easy to let the stresses of daily life overtake these moments.

Don’t let them. Scripture tells us that a merry heart does us good like medicine. (Proverbs 17:22) What does medicine do? It comforts. It heals. It prevents our hurts from getting worse.

Don’t let worry, fear, stress, or anger plague your life. Let your heart be merry. We can’t control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we react to them. If we choose to laugh, we’ll find life much more enjoyable (and more enjoyable to be around.)

We can also find in Proverbs 15:13 that “a happy heart makes the face cheerful.” And, that is something you’ll never find in those expensive facial creams. So, laugh more. And, save yourself some money with Oil of Olay. My momma swears by that stuff….and by the laughs my dad has consistently provided her the past thirty-seven years.

[Via http://dustytakle.com]

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Good news: Pop stars now posing in ...

KONNICHIWA, TOKYO!

2010-03-05T11:22:00.000+02:00

I’ve been twittering this the past few days; now, I’m sharing it with you here.

Interview done.

Contract signed.

Passport submitted for Visa application.

Just waiting for the release of the Visa, plane ticket and the issuance of monetary allowances.

I’ve never been away from my family (Tina+Gabby or even from my parents+siblings) for more than 4 days neither I have been abroad for work and not for leisure so you can’t blame me if I’m having mixed feelings for more than a week now. Although I am hundred and one percent certain of my decision, still a bit of anxieties begin to kick in.

I cannot be grateful enough for the blessings I’ve received the past week. It has been overwhelming. It’s in fact beyond my expectations.

I applied for a different position via a job hunting website but another local job from the same medical facility landed on my lap like effortless. Tuesday of last week, I received an invite via phone call for me to report to an interview. I obliged last Thursday. During the presentation of myself to the kind HR manager, I was offered a position that’s hard to resist. Never mind if it entails reinventing myself into a new medical person via 30-day-all-expense-paid-training in their main branch in Tokyo, heck it’s in Tokyo and who would not want it? Never mind if my new job requires me to let go of teaching Medical-Surgical Nursing in both academe and review centers which has been my bread and butter for 6 years now, I honestly welcome positive changes and personal+professional growths. I am so excited to join an internationally established huge medical office and be part of their local dynamic team.

I was told this morning that my Japan Visa will be available early next week and they wanted me to be in Tokyo to start the training on March 15 the latest. This is to stay on schedule on our grand launch in Makati on the latter end of April. I will join the Pinoy surgeons and other specialists who have been training there for some time now.

If the entire universe and constellations of stars will conspire on my side, I’ll fly to the training ground Friday of next week.

I might experience Sakura or the beauty of Cherry Blossoms but I will miss Lent and Easter Sunday.

I might see a Shinto wedding in Meiji Temple on a Sunday morning but I will miss the graduation of my son from Kindergarten.

I might eat authentic sushi, sashimi, ramen, sukiyaki but I will miss enjoying it with Tina+Gabby.

Thirty days away from family…

Rigid clinical training with state-of-the-art-medical equipments…

Local job that promises stability and career advancement…

Lord, bring it on!

Thank you so much!

PS : I will write and send photos to Tina+Gabby via this virtual home so keep me company, OK?

Please pray for me to successfully hurdle everything there particularly my training.

Kindly pray for my family not to miss me that much.

Wish me luck!

So help me, God!

C’mmon, let’s go to Tokyo soon!

[Via http://docgelo.wordpress.com]

Insomniac working on two new games News | PS3 | Eurogamer

Great Tips from Survival Blogs

2010-03-05T03:18:00.000+02:00

There are several great tips from the various survival/prepper blogs I visit daily that I’d like to share here. If I can remember to keep at it, I’ll make this a weekly post.

Bug out Bags (BoB): Survival Blog has a great post with tips on effectively carrying a heavy pack, with follow-up input from readers here and here. In a related post on what you really need in a BoB, the American Minuteman has a post, with some excellent advice in comments. Most recently, Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest posted on the utility of MOLLEE rucksacks.
Insulin Post-TEOTWAWKI: Commenter Jack at The Survivalist Blog provided two links on producing insulin for when supplied run out. The first link is the story of a type-1 diabetic Jewish woman who made her own insulin during WWII, while the second link details the process for doing so (also see this). I haven’t had time to study these instructions, but it seems incredibly difficult – looks like it would help to have a background in lab work or chemistry, or recruit someone who does. Still, it has and can be done and is well worth for keeping in mind.
Airguns: Finally, another post from Survival Blog on Airguns for Survival. I hadn’t seriously considered air guns, but Jock Elliot (author of the post) does a fair good job of convincing me that there could be very beneficial for both target practice and taking small game – and do both more quietly that a .22. Air guns aren’t cheap, but you can (probably) use them now for target practice in residential areas where discharging firearms is prohibited.

[Via http://suburbansurvivalist.wordpress.com]

Once Again: People Want To Share The News | Techdirt

Inflamation Seen in Obese 3 Year Olds

2010-03-03T11:44:00.000+02:00

Another sign that we need to watch what we feed our children.

CHAPEL HILL – A study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers found that obese children as young as 3 years old have elevated levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation that in adults is considered an early warning sign for possible future heart disease.

In addition, the study found elevated levels of two other inflammatory markers – the ratio of ferritin/transferrin saturation (F/T) and the absolute neutrophil count (ANC) – in obese children. Elevated F/T levels started at age 6 and elevated ANC levels were found starting at age 9.

High fructose corn syrup in baby foods is probably contributing to this, but parents with overweight toddlers should take notice.

[Via http://dromeish.wordpress.com]

Atari unveils Test Drive Unlimited 2 News | Eurogamer

How You can Avoid Food Allergies in Babies

2010-03-03T03:51:00.000+02:00

Many new parents are concerned with their newborns becoming allergic to different kinds of food. Many parents also wonder, if one child already has food allergies, how can a pregnant woman help ensure that her next child won’t be affected too?

Researchers at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Camperdown, Australia, claims that their latest research has found, that the best way to avoid food allergy is to wholly avoid exposure to the food the child is allergic to. The avoidance should last at least from the third trimester until the second year of life.

70% of the babies born to mothers who took avoidance measures had no food allergies. In the cases where the moms did not follow the doctor’s avoidance advice, the number was instead 45%.

Remember, eliminating the offending food from the children does not only mean eliminating if from their diet, but also from their environment. The pediatrician and study leader Valencia Soutter says, “take peanut allergies, for example. If someone eats a lot of peanuts in your house, there is going to be aerosolized peanut protein in the environment. You need a clean household.”

The study, presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Acacemy of Allergy, Asthma / Immunology, involved 274 pregnant mothers of children with peanut, milk or egg allergies. The study results were staggering. 30% of babies born to mothers who took avoidance measures had one or more food allergies. Amongst the mothers who did not take the avoidance measures, the number was insead 55%.

Babies born to mothers who took avoidance measures were less likely to develop symptoms of asthma (only 11% with symptoms by the age of 3, compared to 43% of the babies whos mothers did not follow the advice!).

However, according to Robert Wood, MD and director of the division of pediatric allergy and immunology at John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, pregnant women should not feel guilty for not following the avoidance measures and advices. He says that even though exposure to food allergens during pregnancy seems to be a risk factor in many studies, the results are not wholly consistent and at present we are still lacking the full answer.

[Via http://novasans.wordpress.com]

Activision holding back MW2 royalties? News | Eurogamer

Utah Abortion Bill: Punishing Miscarriages or Preventing Crime? (ABC News)

2010-03-01T19:36:00.000+02:00

Critics of a Utah abortion bill on the governor’s desk say the measure to prevent illegal abortions could actually punish a woman who suffers a miscarriage. Abortion – Miscarriage – Utah – Pregnancy – Law

Utah Abortion Bill: Punishing Miscarriages or Preventing Crime? (ABC News)

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:10:11 GMT

As I’ve already explained the Utah abortion bill is nothing more than a new form Christian Inquisition in these United States. Based upon the religiously hysterical and duplication of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany under the agenda of theocratic fascism. Because the Christian conservatives and the Utah legislature want women to know that if they do not put up and shut up and give babies like cows give milk that the women will be marched in the person and executed in death camps. Just like Hitler did with the Jews because the Utah government is desperate to make sure that the people United States understand that they have declared war on women, and they will kill every single woman in Utah and murder her if she dares to refused to get pregnant and to give Utah her child. Because that is what Utah want they want women to get pregnant and bear children and if they don’t and the women in Utah will be put to death in death camps, because that’s what the Inquisition of the Christian conservative movement is calling for.

Of course if I’m wrong, then the Christian conservatives and you told be only too glad to give women the same equal rights that the Christian man in the Christian conservative movement want for themselves. But we know that’s not true, because we know that the American Baptist Congress and all the ministers in the Christian conservative movement support the beating and killing and raping of women because in the bylaws of the American Baptist Congress to this very day women are defined as chattel, meaning that they are defined as nothing more than cow’s or livestock. And so the American Baptist Congress and all the ministers in the United States, who are members of the Christian conservative movement wholeheartedly support the beating and killing and raping women and beating them to death. If they dare to refused to do with their husbands tell them. And the ministers of the Christian conservative movement want all women to know that they will be put in cages and forced to bear children against their will. That they don’t bear children, they will be put to death just like the Jews were murdered in death camps during World War II by off of because that’s exactly what the Christian conservatives are in fact supporting with their theocratic fascism and refuse to support the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.

And we know the Christian conservatives are not supporting the Constitution because if they were they would support the equal rights of the people inside the medical clinics were the Christian conservatives are in fact demonstrating and would want those people inside the medical clinics to have the same equal rights of the Christian conservatives are demanding for themselves. And yet we know that’s not true. We know the Christian conservatives are not about to give equal rights to those people inside the clinics.

But what people need to understand that during the battle of Washington in 1932, the Christian conservatives using some Republicans attempted to commit mass murder and to murder president Hoover. And they were using one of their agent by the name of Douglas MacArthur who was actually put on trial as a result of the battle of Washington in 1932 because he was seen setting fire to American veterans with flamethrowers and shooting women and children in the head. And a matter how many filthy bastard lies the stupid bastards of the Utah legislature my to help because there nothing but a filthy traitors and a matter how many filthy bastard lies the Republican Party and the stupid bastards the Christian conservative movement might tell they will never be able to lie about this stupid bastard attempt to bring insurrection against United States at the battle of Washington. And the reason they won’t be able to lie is because my grandfather was there. My grandfather was one of the largest political leaders for the Republican Party in these United States while he lived he ran the entire Republican Party for all northeastern Ohio. And he was the U.S. Customs inspector under president Harding for the entire United States.

And so while the Christian conservatives are doing everything they can to help the Utah legislature to show what filthy bastards and traitors they are to these United States and how desperately they want to kill women including their own lives, if they ever dare did want to have free will, because the Utah legislature would rather kill a woman in every of her free will they want to murder her. And that’s what this law is all about. My message to you stupid bastards of the Christian conservative movement and the Republican Party and the Utah legislature is clear. I’m a patriot of these United States, and it was the Maschke family in 1932 stopped you stupid bastard Republicans and you Christian service from destroying this country with your insurrection. Even though I’m in my deathbed so to speak. Because I’m suffering with terminal disability, I will give my life in any given second to defend the Constitution of these United States I will die defending the Constitution I will die being a patriot of these United States I will die in defense of equal rights which you Christian conservatives and Republican Party members and you Utah legislators are trying to take away from women and the people of this country and the only way you are going to destroy the Bill of Rights and the Constitution with your theocratic fascism is over my dead body and if you stupid bastards of the Utah legislature and you stupid and then American traitors of the Christian conservative movement and Republican Party want to go ahead and do that. If you wanted destroying me and show the world how much you hate America and the Constitution and how much you hate women and you want to kill every woman in this country who dares not get pregnant and do what she’s told by your new Inquisition. Glad kill me first and if that’s what you wanted to know damn problem I am an American citizen and I am a patriot of these United States. And so, I will die before I will allow you to destroy this country and to destroy the freedoms of the Constitution, so do your worst. Bring it on.

Economic Fact Sheet (Current as of Jan. 2010)

1. The United States currently has a national debt in excess of $12 trillion.

2. The interest on the national debt is now in excess of $11 trillion.

3. The operating budget for the United States government is now in excess of $43 trillion.

4. The members of the United States Congress stole $200 million from the Medicare fund, which was going to go for cost-of-living increases to Medicare recipients, so that the members of Congress could have their paper medical records converted to computerized medical records. The attitude by the members of Congress was that they didn’t care if they murdered American citizens as long as they get the medical protection they wanted.

5. The Christian conservatives and the Republican Party are taking the stand that they do not want American citizens to have any kind of healthcare the of healthcare is extended to anyone that the Christian conservatives or the Republican Party does not like. And this is based not on constitutional law or the Christian conservatives and the Republican Party being patriots. It’s based upon the Christian conservatives Republican Party demanding that the American government understand that no Christian conservative or Republican Party member will in any way ever support the US Constitution above their Christian religion and above their Christian Bible. And so as a result, their Christian Bible and Christian religion says that healthcare should not go to Hispanic Americans or black Americans or Jews or Muslims or gay Americans or Native Americans or anyone who is an immigrant that the Christian conservatives Republican Party just doesn’t happen to like.

And so as a result, the Christian conservatives Republican Party members are trying to commit mass murder in United States by denying health care to millions of American citizens who are in desperate need of medical attention. But the Christian conservatives Republican Party doesn’t really care about that because as far as they’re concerned if they have to walk through rivers of blood to make sure that their Christian religion and their Christian faith is supported more than the Constitution of these United States and the Christian conservatives will do just that.

6. The current level of unemployment in the United States is now over 10%.

7. The current cost for liquidating the national debt is now in excess of $39,000 per person, which means that every man woman and child in the United States would have to pay at least $39,000 to be able to liquidate the national debt.

8. When you look at the history of United States from the American Civil War until present day you find that the Republican Party and Christian conservatives were in total and complete control of the United States government every single time there was a financial crisis from the American Civil War to present day. And that basically means that all the policy decisions that were being made by the American government during these times when these financial catastrophes were taking place were being made strictly by Christian conservatives and the Republican Party . And of course that’s all public record. And if the Christian conservatives or the Republican party say that these financial catastrophes were not their fault, That would mean that all the public statements that the Christian conservatives and the Republican party, were making during the times when all these financial disasters were taking place, to the news media and the general public were lies. On the other hand if they say that they were not lying then, that means that they are lying now. But either way you look at, the Christian conservatives and the Republican party are being found out for the liars that they have always been, and that they still are today.

9. As my financial analysis of the global economic system , in my see also section below, clearly shows, it was the Republican Party and the Christian conservatives under President Bush who gave the American banking industry $400 billion of taxpayer money and simply told the banking industry to use the money anyway they wanted to. And the banking industry did just that they use the money to pay for expensive gifts and presents and take vacations.

10. To date, the banking industry has only paid back $30 billion out of the over $500 billion that was given to them by the American taxpayers.

11. The issues of profitability indexing, pursuant to profit margins and per unit costs and customer bases as they relate to compensation packages throughout the entire corporate sector have not been resolved. That basically means that most businesses are being held hostage by upper level management and executive employees in their own companies who are demanding more and more for their compensation packages. As a result of this most companies are having to readjust their per unit costs for their goods and services in such a way so that what they are doing is pricing their services and their products. So that mostly the upper class and the wealthy will be able to afford them. And this is being done so these companies and corporations can get as much money into their company as possible.

But they are in fact forgetting one of the major factors which is that while most of the money that any company gets comes from the wealthy are customers most of their day-to-day cash flow actually comes from the middle and lower income customers. This is true regardless of where that company exists. So as a result of this most of the companies in the corporate sector are operating on what is known as a cash poor basis. And this basically means that since they are pricing their goods and services in order to get the most money possible they are foregoing pricing their goods and services so they will be more affordable to the middle and lower income customers, which actually provide these companies with their day-to-day cash flow. And so as a result, these companies don’t have enough money to pay for employees or many of the other day-to-day costs that come up.

This factor has not been dealt with in any country in the world at this time. Furthermore, these companies are refusing to be honest about their financial reporting. They are constantly using and accounting,/statistical variance, which is .5%. And .5% variance is such a large variance pursuant to statistical and financial analysis that you can basically drive a moving van through the space. That is allocated for plus or minus error correction in the statistical analyses and financial analyses that are in fact done with .5% variance. This is why I have never used that level of variance statistically or financially. I’ve always used .05% variance because it is such a small variance that the statistical analysis of the profitability analysis cannot be falsified. It is true that using .05% variance does require an additional 100,000 to 200,000 calculations in order to be able to complete the analysis. But when you consider that the final product is incredibly more honest and reliable. It’s worth it.

12. The banking industry has turned cruel. For example here in Cleveland Ohio Keycorp is taking a lot of pride and threatening senior citizens and kicking them out of their homes so that they can foreclose on the property. This is happening all over Cleveland Ohio and KeyCorp actually is one of the most hated banks in the entire state of Ohio. But KeyCorp is not the only one who’s doing this practice. Because was really happening is that banks all over the United States are basically threatening senior citizens with foreclosure to the point where suicides are now escalating and accelerating at an alarming rate. So badly that the medical community is swamped by the number of suicide calls they are getting. And this is all happening because KeyCorp and other banks like KeyCorp are basically taking the attitude that they don’t care how many men and women and children they have to murder. They just want their money.

When you consider these kinds of factors are going on in the banking industry you realized that the other thing that’s happening is that senior citizens and homeowners are becoming incredibly sick. Do becoming physically ill as a result of the horrible attitude that KeyCorp in other banks like KeyCorp are pushing on the citizens. And there is no help for this at all.

13. Additionally, the medical community is helping with this because we have a hospital here in Cleveland Ohio called MetroHealth that basically is working hard. Just like KeyCorp to threaten senior citizens and have them thrown out of their homes. So that they can foreclose on the property. And basically kill the individuals. I have been personally threatened by KeyBank and MetroHealth and have recorded conversations proving that.

So MetroHealth does all these commercials where they’re talking about how good a hospital they are and yet they have been sued a number of times for Medicare fraud. They have also been sued by their own employees for unfair business practices. And they have lost doctors so badly because they don’t treat their doctors very well either. Nobody likes MetroHealth.

And for the record, it needs to be understood that my grandfather’s brother, Dr. ally Maschke, was the director of medicine at mount Sinai medical center here in Cleveland Ohio until his death. And my cousin, Dr. Victor Vertese, was also the director of medicine at mount Sinai medical center until his death. Additionally, my grandfather, Maurice Maschke, and his business partner, Mark Hanna, who founded the Hana mining company, which became the 3M company, basically built mount Sinai medical center in Cleveland. And in addition to that, my father, Maurice Maschke Junior, was on the Board of Trustees at Case Western Reserve University, University hospitals of Cleveland, Cleveland clinic, and mount Sinai medical center until his death. And in addition to that, my father, Maurice Maschke Junior, and I., were partners and co-owners of pioneer linen supply company of Cleveland Ohio for 25 years until 1975 when we sold the company.

14. So given all of the foregoing as actual facts. The only reason that the accelerated growth has taken place is because certain industries in the United States have in fact been making money. Only because their industries are addressing sections of the population who are otherwise disenfranchised by most of the business sector. For example Tyco International is a business that specializes and fire prevention and warning systems and security systems. And of course they’ve done a really good job because people are scared to death and living in their homes and there are so many foreclosures going on that people are having to protect their homes because in most cities the number of police has dropped so badly because most cities are in a huge budget crisis. In Cleveland, Ohio, for example, the city went from 1,500,000 people down to approximately 400,000 people in only a matter of months. And conditions are so bad in Cleveland that Cleveland is now charging nine dollars a month just pick up our garbage.

15. Furthermore, as I predicted on May 21, 2009, the American market system had already lost approximately $500 trillion of market value. And, in my journal entry (see my LiveJournal entry of May 21 2009). Then on May 22, 2009, I accurately predicted that the American market system would lose approximately $800 trillion of market value. (see LiveJournal entries of May 22, 2009, entry #1, entry #2, and entry #3, ). And the market did lose that much money. So, I was right. As I have always said. In 42 years of being a financial analyst, I have never been wrong on any financial projection I have ever done. Just like I was not wrong in 2009, with the above projections, I am, by the like term, not wrong now.

So again, it’s really easy for people to talk about how well the market is doing that the foregoing represents the actual facts of what’s going on in business.

And as I said before, I have been studying the stock market since I was six years old. At age 6 I started studied the stock market at Prescott ball and turban here in Cleveland Ohio. With one of the partner broker’s, Bernie Towell, who was a personal friend of mine. And so every day for four hours every day and age 6 until age 16 I studied the stock market and learned economics and financial analysis . At age 16, while working and being a partner and co-owner of pioneer linen spy company in Cleveland, I did my first financial analysis and profitability analysis . It was done on the linen supply company’s of Cleveland Ohio. The analysis was so good that the results were used to program some computers at the time. And in 42 years and having been a financial analyst I’ve never once been wrong in any financial projection I’ve ever done. Not once. Just like I’m not wrong now.

In my financial analysis of the global economic system in my see also section below, I clearly show that the American market system was going to lose $800 trillion of market value in the third business quarter of 2009. I further substantiated this claim last January in January of 2009. When I explained that the American market system was going to take a huge hit in the third quarter and that it would come out to about $800 trillion of market loss. And that this was in fact in line with the Kondratieff wave . And in fact that’s exactly what did happen. Which means the analysts were wrong. And I was right.

Now, it’s important to remember that anyone can say anything about the market that they want. But being able to back up what they say takes an expert. And someone who understands the science of financial analysis. And that’s something I have been doing for 42 years.

Therefore, if you go ahead and look at all these factors without looking at all of the peripheral details than you are going to be responding to the information in a very symptomatic, or symptomatically oriented manner whereby you will behave to the information in an extremely reactionary way. By the like term, if you look at all of the information regarding economics throughout the entire global economic system in a problematically oriented manner you will be looking at the financial information in a more anticipatory manner. And much more pervasive rather than in a stereotypical or linear manner. And as a result, you will begin to understand that all of these different factors that I have brought forth in this article right now. Actually do justify what I’m saying that the American market system is on the verge of collapse. And that the economic system for Greece is about to go under. And that unemployment in Spain and France and England is running at almost 30%.

These do not make things look like they’re going good in the United States is basically doing nothing but lying about the economic they I went to school with most of the people who run a lot of these companies in the United States and who are working on Wall Street either went to school with them at Case Western Reserve why went to school with them at Fort Lewis college board went to school with them at southern Arizona school in Tucson Arizona. Or, I did business with them throughout my life.

So again, this is a reality check. And all I can say is, if you don’t believe what I’m saying that’s not a problem. Because you haven’t believe me, for 40 years, what I’ve been talking about all of these issues facing the economic system in the United States and the global economic system. So why would you believe me now?

But the fact is that just because you may not believe what I’m saying doesn’t mean that what I’m saying is not true. Simply means you are refusing or are not able to see the veracity in what I’m saying and that’s all it means.

Annotations Regarding Non-Pro-Life Activities Of The Republican Party And The Christian Conservatives And The Catholics Of The United States:

78% of all the women murdered in the United States are killed by pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the children abused in the United States are abused by pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the children murdered in the United States are murdered by pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the murders that take place in the United States are committed by pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the soldiers in the United States, who go out and kill are pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of the membership of the National Rifle Association (The NRA ), which support GUNS THAT KILL are pro-life Christians and Catholics.
Every single white supremacist group in the history of United States has always been white fundamentalist pro-life Christian. And these white supremacist groups are dedicated to killing anyone who is not white and Christian.
The Army of God is a white fundamentalist Christian group who is dedicated to murdering and killing every single nonwhite Christian in the United States.
78% of all the people who favor and support the death penalty meaning killing people for committing crimes are pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the ministers in the United States who carry firearms to church and are threatening to kill anyone who comes near the church was not white and Christian are pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the crimes against gay people in the United States are done by pro-life Christians and Catholics.
Every month between one and two transgendered females are murdered and every single one of these killings is done by pro-life Christian.
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who demand the right to own black Americans and to kill them whenever they wanted to during the signing of the The Declaration of Independence.
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who took over the Republican Party during the battle of Washington and try to overthrow the United States government under president Hoover at the battle of Washington in 1932.
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who took over the Republican Party on the evening before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War. And who then used the Republican Party to hire John Wilkes Booth to murder President Abraham Lincoln.

The Christian Black Codes Of 1724:

Article 1

We want and understand that the law of the late King of glorious memory our lord and father, of the April 23rd 1615, be executed in our islands. We order to all our officers to chase out of our islands all the Jews who have established their home, to who, like to declared enemies of the Christian name, we order to get out within three months, from the day of publication of the law, on pain of confiscation of body and possessions.

Article 2

All the slaves who will be in our islands will be baptized and educated in the catholic, apostolic and roman church. Order the inhabitants who buy Negroes newly arrived to inform the governor and quartermaster of the islands within eight days the latest, on pain of arbitrary fines; that will give order to baptize and educate them in adequate time.

Article 3

We forbid public exercise of other religion than the catholic, apostolic and roman one; want that the contravening persons be punished as rebels and disobeying persons to our commandments. Forbid any assembly for this reason, we declare those one as illicit and seditious subject to the same pain, which will be the same even for the masters who let this done by his slaves.

Article 4

There will no commander to direct the Negroes, who is no of the catholic, apostolic and roman religion, on pain on confiscation of those Negroes against this masters who put a such commander and arbitrary punishment against the commanders who accept this job.

Article 5

We forbid our subjects of the so-called reformed religion to cause trouble either impediment to our other subjects, even to their slaves in the free exercise of the catholic, apostolic and roman religion, on pain of exemplar punishment.

Article 6

We enjoin, all our subjects, whatever function and condition they are, to observe the Sundays and holidays; which are kept to our subjects of catholic, apostolic and roman religion. Forbid them to work either to make their slaves work the appointed days, since midnight to other midnight, to culture the land, making sugars and any other work, on pain of arbitrary fine and punishment against the masters, and of confiscation of the sugars as well as the slaves that our officers will see working. [NB: all pretexts are good, to deprive the slaves of weekly rest and holidays.]

Article 7

We forbid them to hold Negroes market and any kind of goods the appointed days too, on same pain of confiscation of the goods on the market, and arbitrary fine against the merchants.

Article 8

Declare our subjects who are not of the catholic, apostolic and roman religion incapable to contact in the future any valid marriage. Declare bastards the children who will birth from these conjunctions, that we want to be held and reputed, we hold and repute for real cohabitation.

Article 9

Free men who had one or several children in their cohabitation, with their slaves, the master and him will be condemned to a fine of two thousand pounds of sugar. And if they are the slave masters with who they had the so-called children, we want that further the fine, they will be deprive of the slave and the children, and she and them be confiscated to profit of the hospital, without any possibility to be emancipated. This article is not valid when the man is free and he is not married to an other person during his cohabitation with the slave, will marry in the church rules his so-called slave, who will be emancipated by this mean, and the slave become free and legal.5in the black code of 1724 (Louisiana): no possible marriage between white and black, banning of celebrate mix marriages for the priests; no cohabitation between whites and blacks emancipated or free, and slaves.]

Article 10

The so-called solemnity prescribed by the edict of Blois and the declaration of the month of November 1639, for the marriages, will be observes as for free persons as slaves, with nevertheless that the consent of the slave’s father and mother be necessary, but only the master’s. [NB: the slaves who would be constrained to marry by their master have no legal mean to refuse.]

Article 11

Forbid very expressly the priest to proceed to slaves’ marriages, if they don’t have their masters’ consent. Forbid to the masters to use no compel on their slaves for marry them against their will.

Article 12

The children who will birth from marriages between slaves will be slaves and will belong to the masters of the slaves women and not to their husband’s one, if the husband and the wife have different masters.

Article 13

Want if the husband has married a free woman, the children as males as females follow their mother’s condition and be free like her in spite of their father’s servitude; and if the father is free and the mother slave, the children be slave too.

Article 14

The masters are required to bury in holy land in a cemeteries intended to this aim their baptized slaves; and for those who will die without receive baptism, they will be buried by night in some field close to where they’ll deceased. [NB: the black men “holy land” is quite different to the whites “holy land”.]

Article 15

Forbid to slaves to carry offensive weapon, either big sticks, on pain of whip and confiscation of the weapons to the benefit of who will seize them; except only those who have been sent hunting by their masters, and will have their notes or know marks.

Article 16

Forbid also to slaves belonging to different masters to form a crowd by day or night on the pretext of wedding party or otherwise, either at one of their masters or elsewhere, and more less in big paths or place away, on pain of corporal punishment, which will not be less than whip and lily flower; in case of frequent repeat offense and others aggravate circumstances, will be able be punished of death, what we let to the judges arbitration. Enjoin our subjects to hunt for the contravening, and arrest them and lead them in jail, although they are not officers and there is no decree against them.

Article 17

The masters will be convinced to have let or tolerated such assemblies composed by slaved who don’t belong to them, will be condemned in their own and private names to repair any damage which will be done to their neighbors during these assemblies, in ten ecus fine for first time and twice for subsequent offense.

Article 18

Forbid the slaves to sell sugar canes for any reason or occasion, even with their masters’ permission, on pain of whip for the slaves, and of ten pounds for the masters who let this and the same for the buyers.

Article 19

Forbid them too to expose for sell in the market, either bring in the particular houses to sell any kind off foodstuff, even fruits, vegetables, firewood, grasses to feed animals and the products they made, without an express permission of their masters by a note or known marks, on pain of claims of the sold goods, without restriction of price by their masters.

Article 20

Want for this reason that two persons are in charge of each market to verify the foodstuff and goods that have been brought by the slaves, together the notes and known marks of their masters, the carry.

Article 21

Permit to all our subjects inhabitants of our islands to seize all the things they’ll find the slaves in charge when don’t have notes of their masters, either known marks, to be delivered very shortly to their masters, if the plantations are close of where the slaves will be surprised at committing offense; or else the things will be very shortly sent to the hospital to held in trust till the masters are informed.

Article 22

The masters will be obliged to make supply, per each week, their slaves aged of ten more for their food, with two pots and half, measurement of the country, of manioc flour, or three cassavas weighting two pounds and half each at least, or equivalent things, with two pounds of salted beef or three pounds of fish or anything else with same proportion; and the children, since they are weaned till ten years old, the half of provisions above. [NB: the mortality of black people was very important. They were poorly fed. The white people make them work out of their possibilities for more benefits.]

Article 23

Forbid them to give to the slaves sugar cane brandy for the provisions mentioned in previous article.

Article 24

Forbid them also to release themselves of the food and subsistence of their slaves, by letting them work some days of the week “to be self-employed”

Article 25

The masters will be obliged to supply each slaves every years two clothes or four alders of cloth, as so-called masters like. [NB: in fact, the masters don’t care of clothing them.]

Article 26

The slaves who won’t be fed, clothed and maintained by their masters in accordance with what we have order by the presents rules will be able to give the opinions to general attorney and the memories in his hands, on what and automatically, if the opinions come to him from other persons, the masters will be prosecuted by his petition and without pay anything, what we want to be observed as the masters’ crimes and barbarian and inhuman treatments toward their slaves. [NB: the articles 30 and 31 quash purely and simply the good intentions of the article 26.]

Article 27

The infirm slaves by age, illness otherwise, either the illness is incurable or non, will be supported and will maintain by their master; and incase they would have neglected themselves them, the so-called slaves will be assigned to the hospital; the masters will condemned to pay six sols by day by days for the food and the maintain of each slave. [NB: the current practice is pure and simple desertion]

Article 28

Let us declare that the slaves can not have anything which is not belong to their master, and all come them by industry or liberality of other persons or otherwise whatever the way, is acquired in full property to their master, without the slaves’ children, their father or mother, their parents and any free or slave others can lay claim nothing by inheritance, provision of a will between living people or because of death. We declare the such provisions are useless, both all the promises or obligations which would be made, as being made by people legally incompetent to incline and to contract by their own.

Article 29

Let us want nevertheless that the masters are responsible of what their slaves will make by their commandment, and together for what they’ll will have managed and negotiated in the shops, and the particular kind of trade of which their masters will appoint them; and the case the masters didn’t give any order and didn’t appoint them, they will be responsible only for what will profit to them; and if nothing profit to the masters, the earning of this so-called slaves that their masters permitted them to have will be seized, after the masters will have deduced what will be owed to them; except if the earning is, all or a part of goods which the slaves have been permitted to trade for their own, on what their masters will take only by contribution of a sol for a pound with the other creditors.

Article 30

The slaves won’t have office neither commission with public functions, neither be constituted agents by others than their masters for manage neither administrate any shop, neither be arbitrators, experts or witnesses in civil and criminal matter. And in case they are listen as witness, their deposition will serve only for memories to help the judges to find out, but those depositions won’t be able to be used to have presumptions, neither circumstances, neither evidences.

Article 31

The slaves won’t be able to be litigant neither is in judgment in civil matter, in plaintiff or in defendant; neither be private party in criminal matter, except their masters to act and to proceed, and to prosecute for compensations for insults and excess their slaves have been subjected.

Article 32

The slaves will be prosecuted without the need the master get responsible but only in the case of complicity; and so-called slaves will be judged in first pending by ordinary judges and on appeal by the supreme council on the same pre-trial investigation of the case, with the same procedures than free persons.

Article 33

The slave, who hit his master, his mistress or his mistress husband or their children with contusion or bloodshed, or at the face, will be punished by death.

Article 34

And as for the immoderate language or assault which will be committed by slaves against free people, we want that it’s be severely punished, even by death if it’s necessary.

Article 35

The daylight robberies, even the horses, the mares, the mules, the oxen and the cows one which will be made by slaves, or by emancipated persons, will be punished by corporal pains, even by death if necessary.

Article 36

The robberies of sheep, goats, pigs, poultry, sugar canes, peas, millet, manioc, or others vegetables made by the slaves will be punished regarding the degree of robbery, by the judges, if they’ll be able if it’s necessary condemn them to be beaten by birch by the enforcer of the great justice, and marked by lily flower.

Article 37

The masters will be obliged, in case of robbery or other damage caused by their slaves, besides the slaves corporal pains, to right the wrong in their name, if they don’t prefer to abandon the slaves to the one who the wrong has been made; what they have to choose in three days, starting from the day of the sentence, otherwise they will be waned.

Article 38

The runaway slave who has been on the run during one month starting from the day his master will denounce him to justice, will have the ears cut off and will be marked by lily flower on a shoulder; if he re offends one more time starting from as well as the day of his of the denunciation, will have the ham cut off and will be marked by lily flower on the other shoulder; and the third time he will be punished by death.

Article 39

Emancipated people who will harbor in their house runaway slaves will be condemned for each one toward their masters in fine of three hundred pounds of sugar by retention day; and the other free people who help them in the same way, in ten pounds of fine for each day.

Article 40

The slave, punished by death on denunciation of his master, non accomplice of the crime for what he will have been condemned, will be appraised before the execution by two major inhabitants of the island who will be appointed automatically by the judge; and the price of appraisal will be paid to the master; and to satisfy for what, it will be fixed by the quartermaster for each head of Negroes who rights of the amount of money given by the estimation. It will be settled up for each so-called Negroes, and will be levied by the farmer of the western royal property to avoid charges.

Article 41

It is forbidden to the judges, to our prosecutors, and to the clerks to collect any tax in the criminal trial against the slaves, in pain of misappropriation of public funds.

Article 42

The masters will have the right, when they’ll estimate it’s necessary, to chain up the slaves and make beat them by sticks and ropes; defend them to torture them, neither make them member mutilations, on pain of confiscation of the slaves and very extraordinarily the masters will be prosecuted. [NB. The reality is that settlers bully, wound, torture, and kill.]

Article 43

We demand to our officers to prosecute the masters and the commanders who will kill a slave under their power and leadership, and punish the murder regarding the atrocity of the circumstances; and in case the forgiveness it’s necessary, permit our officers to sent back the forgiven masters and commanders, without it’s needing letter of mercy from us.

Article 44

We declare the slaves be movable, and as such enter the community, can not be seize by mortgage, can be shared equally between co-heirs without possibility for one of them to take a part before the sharing neither birthright, neither to be reserved to their wife before death by the husband, and be subject of feudal or descendants retract, feudal and seigniorial rights, to the formalities of the decrees.

Article 45

We don’t want to deprive our subjects of the faculty to stipulate them proper to their persons and to their own folks by their side and lineage, as it’s the use for money and other movables things.

Article 46

In slaves seizures will be fulfilled prescribed formalities by our orders and customs for seizure of movable things. We want that the money which coming from to be distributed by order of the seizures, or, in case of ruin, a sol for a pound, after the privileged debts will have been paid, and generally that the slaves condition to be well-ordered in all matter, as the one of the others movables things, except these cases.

Article 47

Do not let them be seized and sold separately the husband and the wife with their under age of puberty children, if they are all under the power of the same master; we declare null seizures and separate sale which will be done of them, what we want to take place in voluntary alienations, on punishment against those who would do alienations to be deprived of the one or those they will have kept, who will be awarded to the acquirers, without they would pass to do any supplement of value. [In the practice the master can sell children separately of his parents and to bargain for separately the spouses.]

Article 48

Do not let them can therefore slaves working now in the sugar-refinery, indigo houses and plantations, age of fourteen years and overhead until sixty years, be seized for debts, otherwise as to will arise of the value of their purchase, or that the sugar-refinery or the indigo house or the plantation where they work would been seized really, we defend, hardly of nullity, to proceed by real seizure and adjudication by decree on the sugar-refineries and indigo houses neither plantations, without comprising in it the slaves of the aforesaid age and there working now.

Article 49

The judicial farmers of sugar houses, indigo houses or plantations really seized with slaves will have to pay the entire price of their lease: without the possibility to count as the fruits they perceive the slave children born during their lease.

Article 50

We want, nevertheless all contrary conventions that we declare null, that the so-called children belong to the seized part, if the creditors are satisfied or to the adjudicator if it intervenes a decree; and for that purpose mention, will be done in the last forepart notice before the interposition of the decree, the so-called children born the slaves since the real seizure; that in same notice mention will be done the deceased slaves since the real seizure in which they were counted.

Article 51

We want to avoid expenses and procedure lengths, that the giving away of entire value of the conjoined fund adjudication and slaves and what will proceed from the value of judicial leases, be done between creditors according to the order of their privileges and mortgages, without distinguishing what is for the fund value of what is for the slaves value.

Article 52

And nevertheless the feudal and seigniorial rights will be paid only in proportion to the funds price.

Article 53

It will be only admit to retire the ordered funds, the persons of noble lineage and feudal lords who retire the slaves who have been sold with these funds, neither the purchasers won’t be able to keep the slaves without the funds.

Article 54

We enjoin to noble guardians and burgesses, persons who rent usufruct and others enjoying of the funds to which are joined who work, to steer the appointed slaves as good paterfamilias without they would pass after their administration to give back the value of those who will be deceased or full-fashioned by illness, age or otherwise without their lack, and without they draw as to hold back as fruits to their profits born of slaves children lasting their administration; who we want be preserved and return to those who will be his masters and proprietors.

Article 55

The masters of twenty years old will be able to free their slaves by all actions between living persons or because of death, without they would to pass to give reasons of their emancipation, neither that they would need of opinion of their parents, though they would be minor of twenty five years. [Measures will come hereafter to penalize hardly the emancipation]

Article 56

Slaves who will have been done residuary legatees by their masters, or named executors of their testaments, or guardians of their children, will pass and will consider as free men. [It didn’t ever has been any black guardian neither of mulatto of the whites, and of course, there hasn’t been a black executor or half-breed of the white deceased masters.

Article 57

We declare their emancipation made in our island serve as them as place of birth in our island, and the emancipated slaves don’t need our letters of naturalization to enjoy our natural subjects advantages in our kingdom, lands and countries of our obedience, even they born in foreign countries.

Article 58

We command the emancipated persons to respect singularly their ancient masters, their widows and their children; or else the insult they will have made to them be punished more severely than if it has been somebody else. We declare them franc and quit toward them of all other charges, services and useful rights that their ancient masters would like too pretend, both on the persons and properties and succession in quality of bosses.

Article 59

We grant to the emancipated persons the same rights, privileges and immunity, which enjoy the persons born as free, we want that merit of an acquired freedom produce in them, also as for their persons than for their goods, the same effects as the happiness of the natural freedom causes to our other subjects. [NB: a lot of restrictions will be added: no access to nobility, no access to the “whites class”, no possibility to have a practice in magistrate and in the militia, no job which can make them meet, even far from, the juridical or judicial functions, etc.]

Article 60

We declare the seizures and fines, which have not particular destination by these present articles, belong to us, to be paid to those who are appointed to the collect of our incomes. We want nevertheless that the third of these so-called confiscation and fine be given to the hospital established in the island where they have been made. We ask the persons who hold our sovereign council established in Martinique, Guadeloupe, saint-Christopher, that they have to make read, publish and register these present articles, and keep and observe point by point in accordance with the form and the term of the content in them, without to agree on neither permit they are contravened in any way, in spite of all edicts, declarations and customs, we have departed and depart from by these present articles. Because it’s our good pleasure; in order to be firm and stable matter forever, we have made append our seal. Given in Versailles in the month of March sixteen eighty-five and our reign the forty-second. Signed Louis. Further, by the King, Colbert. Stamp Le Tellier. And sealed with the great green wax seal, in green and red silk shellac.

Bibliography: le Code Noir, Louis Sala-Molins, Presses Universitaire de France

The Christian Black Code Of 1724

Interview as an ambassador to Hungary for Health 2.0 Europe

2010-02-26T19:55:00.000+02:00

Health 2.0 taking place in Paris (April 5-7) is going to be one of the most exciting events this year and I will present Webicina.com in action. Also I have the honour to be a regional ambassador to Hungary for Health 2.0 Europe. So Denise Silber, health 2.0 expert and co-organizer of the event, asked me some questions and published the interview on her blog.

[Via http://scienceroll.com]

In other news - Beyond The Commons - Macleans.ca

The Era of Wireless Medicine

2010-02-26T03:37:00.000+02:00

It’s Not Your Kids iPhone Anymore

In the past two and a half years more has been learned about disease then in the entire history of humans. In this effort the use of wireless technology has been profound and impressive. Extreme innovations and devices have literally changed the tools of medicine. The stethoscope has been a staple for nearly 100 years with little change to it’s technology…that is until the wireless phone. The incredible explosion and rapid advancements in monitoring individual health conditions will undoubtedly change the models of sharing of information and privacy. You have to believe that with these incredible technological tools health privacy and governance will follow…ultimately individual health outcomes will benefit by the monitoring and shared results of the data.

Health Care isn’t Easy (Ask the President He’ll Tell You)

Health care is complex when it comes to how information can be legally shared and you have to believe those in this space certainly recognize and adhere to it. If they didn’t they wouldn’t last long. So keep the faith and realize the astonishing innovations and possibilities this will grant health care providers, patients and researchers. It’s all good.

Eric Topol reveals the wireless future of medicine in this engaging presentation brought to you from our friends at TEDGLOBAL.

[Via http://tbird827.wordpress.com]

Juggalo News, from the Insane Clown Posse dimension Boing Boing

Let's take another "for the children"

2010-02-24T19:56:00.000+02:00

Pediatricians in the United States are calling for hot dogs to be redesigned to reduce the risk of children choking on them. In a new policy statement published yesterday, the American Academy of Pediatrics says hot dogs are the food most commonly linked with choking deaths among children

The Pediatrics article says round candy, grapes, marshmallows, meat sticks, sausages, chewing gum and peanut butter are also high-risk foods that can act as plugs in the throats of young children.

“Food manufacturers should design new foods and redesign existing foods, including meat products, to avoid shapes, sizes, textures and other characteristics that increase choking risk to children, to the extent possible,” the group recommends.

Or…we could have family sit-down meals where the little savages are taught not to eat so damn fast.

[Via http://jeffreyquick.wordpress.com]

Sigma planning interchangeable lens compact: Digital Photography ...

Canadian premier's US heart surgery

2010-02-24T03:53:00.000+02:00

I’m not about to argue that socialist healthcare is wrong because its advocates and enforcers are hypocrites. Don’t worry. Although this event is couched in the context of socialist healthcare, this brief piece is meant as nothing more than a close reading, a thin-slicing, of what goes on in a politician’s psyche.

When I read this article about Canadian Premier (Labrador and Newfoundland) Danny Williams coming to Florida to have a more advanced heart operation than what he could get in Canada, a couple things struck me as hilarious.

In a disastrous attempt to downplay the significance of his hypocrisy, he said the following: “”I would’ve been criticized if I had stayed in Canada and had been perceived as jumping a line or a wait list. … I accept that. That’s public life…”

The awesome thing about this statement is his automatic, pre-emptive assumption, that no matter how you slice the healthcare pie, he was entitled to treatment above and beyond that of the citizens he’s supposed to serve. If he hadn’t gone to the U.S., he would have at the very least bypassed the well-documented, sometimes fatal waiting periods for special treatment that exist in his own country.

The sad and laughable thing about this is that he’s using the statement as a defense. He thinks he’s making himself and his situation more sympathetic by clarifying how deeply rooted his beliefs in his own entitelement go.

He later goes on to justify his decision by proclaiming how important his own personal survival is to the Canadian people: “God forbid for the Canadian public I won’t be around longer than ever.”

They say actions speak louder than words, but I’m going to have to say that this man would have appeared to be less of a snake if he’d just had the surgery and kept his cake hole shut about it.

I’m not saying this man’s narcissistic personality disorder, and his blithe ignorance of the fact that condescension and hypocrisy aren’t usually the means by which one evokes sympathy from the Little People proves anything about the moral status of socialist healthcare. All I’m saying is, if Ayn Rand had given these lines to one of her villains, it would be derided as one-dimensional, ham-fisted caricature.

I mean, for Christ’s sake, look at this beautiful double-whammy:

“This was my heart, my choice and my health,” Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.

Really?

“My heart, my choice, and my health”?

The quote itself reads like a sign that one of them racist, uninformed, redneck teabaggers might brandish at one of their staged non-events. Like something the statist media would have pounced on as proof that these astroturf yokels are just neo-con zombies vomiting up undigested Fox News soundbites they don’t understand. Let us not lose sight for a moment of the fact that the opposition movement–all popular movements–are full of people happy to repeat slogans they don’t really understand. Whether it’s a slogan that crystalizes the essence of a thoroughly pondered position, or a vacuous soundbite, it doesn’t change the fact that Williams lifted his defense straight off a teabagger’s sign.

Then, finally, the hail of dropping shoes comes to an end with the article mentioning that he’s making this statement from his condo in Florida.

Jesus. H. Fuck. Am I the only one who remembers the joke about the liberal celebrity giving a statement about the evils of capitalism as he stepped out of the limousine and boarded his private jet?

The last time I stopped to really criticize the way a politician thinks, I turned the lens on a guy I respect, Ron Paul. So anyone who reads this blog knows that spend zero time trying to villify individual politicians with whom I disagree. To be perfectly honest, I’m not even trying to villify this person, as a politician. I read the article, and what leaped out at me was a snapshot of a human being who is clearly detached from reality. Drunk on his own Kool-Aid.

But this could have been any issue. It’s not particular to healthcare and proves nothing about healthcare. I’m just throwing this piece onto the mountain of evidence in favor of what ought to be the uncontroversial understanding that politicians are clods with delusions of grandeur.

[Via http://kamikazeairlines.wordpress.com]

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Good news: RNC burning through midterms ...

Basur ( Hemoroit)

2010-02-22T11:23:00.000+02:00

BİTKİLERLE MODERN TEDAVİ

Basur (Hemoroit)

Basur bir damar hastalığıdır. Kalın bağırsağın sonunda toplar damarın genişlemesi ve şişmesi sonucunda ortaya çıkar.

Hastalığın nedenleri arasında uzun süreli kabızlık, oturarak çalışma, hareket yetersizliği, alkol, fazla baharatlı yemek, şişmanlık, uzun süreli ağır bedensel işler sayılabilir.

şikayetler arasında kaşıntı, ağrı, akıntı ve kanama, yanma hissi görülebilir.

Bitkisel ilaçlarla kaşıntı, yanma ve ıslaklık gibi şikayetler azaltılabilir. Henüz dış meme oluşmadığı veya memeye bastırılınca iç kısma geçtiği devrelerde (I. ve II.) bitkisel ilaçlarla tedavi tek başına mümkündür. Daha ileri devrelerde hekim gözetiminde tedavi gereklidir.

Büzücü etki ve kaşıntıyı azaltmak için cadı fındığı yaprağı ve kabuğu, kavak tomurcuğu, saplı meşe kabuğu ve tavşanmemesi kökü kullanılmaktadır.

Damarları destekleyici olarak tavşanmemesi kökü kullanılmaktadır.

İltihaplanmayı önleyici olarak cadı fındığı yaprağı ve kabuğu, kavak tomurcuğu, papatya çiçeği, saplı meşe kabuğu ve tavşan memesi kökü kullanılmaktadır.

Kanamayı önleyici olarak cadı fındığı yaprağı ve kabuğu ile saplı meşe kabuğu kullanılmaktadır.

Tedavi amacına uygun olarak yukarıda belirtilen gruplardan bir veya bir kaçı birlikte kullanılabilir.

Tedaviye destek olmak amacı ile dar elbise giyilmemeli, pamuklu rahat iç çamaşırı kullanılmalı, temizlikte tuvalet kağıdı yerine ıslak mendil kullanılmamalıdır. Makatın tekrar tahriş edilmemesi için yumuşak dışkılama şartlarının hazırlanması çok önemlidir (Bakınız: Kabızlık).

Dahilen Kullanılan Bitkisel İlaçlar:

Cadıfındığı yaprağı ve kökü: Fitil şeklindeki hazır ilacı kullanılır.

Kavak tomurcuğu: Fitil şeklindeki hazır ilacı kullanılır.

Papatya çiçeği: Fitil şeklindeki hazır ilacı kullanılır.

Tavşanmemesi kökü: Merhem ve fitil şeklindeki hazır ilacı kullanılır.

Haricen Kullanılan Bitkisel İlaçlar:

Cadıfındığı yaprağı ve kökü: Merhemi kullanılır,

Kavak tomurcuğu: Kremi kullanılır.

Papatya çiçeği: Sargı, yıkama, banyo: Kıyılmış 50 gr çiçek üzerine 2 litre kaynar su ilave edilir, kabın ağzı kapalı olarak 10 dakika bekletilir, süzülür. Sulu kısıma 8 litre su ilave edilir (Her 10 litre su için 50 gr çiçek). Hazır krem ve merhem şeklindeki ilacı kullanılabilir.

Saplı meşe kabuğu: İnce kıyılmış 3 yemek kaşığı kabuk 300 ml su ile 15 dakika kaynatılır, süzülür. Sulu kısım 20 litre ılık suya (32-35 derece) ilave edilir. Bu su ile oturma banyosu yapılır. Oturma banyosu başlangıçta günde bir defa, daha sonra gün aşırı olarak 20 dakika süreyle uygulanır.

Tavşanmemesi kökü: Hazır ilaç şeklinde kullanılır.

Kaynaklar:

1- Dr. Ahmet Toptaş, Alman kanunlarına göre düzenlenip izin verilen BİTKİLERLE MODERN TEDAVİ, Gonca Yayınevi, İstanbul 2009, ISBN: 978-9944-790-31-4, (0212) 5285076-5286005.

2- Dr. Ahmet Toptaş, ÇÖREKOTU Tepeden tırnağa şifa deryası, Gonca Yayınevi, İstanbul 2008, ISBN: 978-9944-62-613-2,

(0212) 5285076-5286005.

[Via http://w2q3.wordpress.com]

Fox News—home of Brit Hume ("Tiger Woods should leave Buddhism for ...

Watch This Face

2010-02-22T03:55:00.000+02:00

Courtesy of flickr user South Carolina's Northern Kingdom (creative commons)

From the Consortium for Psychoanalytic Research Annual Conference, Washington, DC:

Picture this audience participation activity: Watch a face projected on a screen. It starts out with a neutral expression, and then subtly shifts to show signs of being happy, angry, disgusted, frightened, surprised, or sad. You choose one. Then the face morphs into a full expression of one of those six emotions, and you choose again. This was how Patrick Luyten, Ph.D., of the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), kicked off a one-day psychoanalytic conference. Each audience member had a sheet of paper, and we were asked to identify which emotion we thought the face was showing at both the subtle and intense emotional levels, and rate how confident we were of our guesses.

We went through this exercise with 18 faces. I felt confident guessing emotions that were expressed intensely, but less so when the changes were more subtle. I had to really focus on the face to try to pick up on whether someone looked frightened vs. angry, for example.

As I understood it, this exercise was developed to evaluate psychiatric patients, but I think that anyone—clinician, researcher, or even a journalist, can learn something from it about the importance of paying attention.

In most of our day-to-day dealings with each other, our faces aren’t scrunched up in anger or open-mouthed in surprise. It takes some attention to see whether your customer is upset, your patient is scared, or your colleague is happy.

It’s easy to have a conversation with someone without really looking at them. Multi-tasking is standard procedure, and it has reached new levels thanks to personal electronic devices. But the next conversation you have, try to pay extra attention to the other person’s expression. The better you can sense how someone is feeling, the better you can empathize and respond accordingly, in both professional life and personal life.

Some people are especially skilled at sensing people’s feelings, Dr. Luyten observed. Let’s hope that enough of them continue to go into psychiatry.

Heidi Splete

(@hsplete on twitter)

[Via http://egmnblog.wordpress.com]

Tiger Woods Statement: YouTube LIVE STREAMING Woods' News Conference

things I learned while growing up in the province:

2010-02-19T11:20:00.000+02:00

1. Apply tip of a cocoleaf pointer with the sticky white sap of a starapple for an instant dragonfly catcher. -from playmates

2.Joining a beauty pageant? Use the same sap as #1 as applicator glue for the false lashes. – from a parlorista

2. Eat many green ipil-ipil seeds… for worm-free stomach. – from my mother

3. Secret to successful bubbles: Add grounded up gumamela flower to a soapy brew. – from pong pagong

4. Stung with bees? Apply sap of amorseko stalk to stung area. (works wonders!) – from lola

5. Ground up some malunggay leaves and apply to wounds and scratches. -from my mother

[Via http://liguified.wordpress.com]

Google News Blog: Open-sourcing the Living Stories format

Why Universal Medicare Isn't an Option

2010-02-19T03:52:00.000+02:00

At one time, those advocating a “public option” were trying to claim it was not a socialized health care proposal like Medicaid/Medicare.

Now they’re actually proposing that this massive socialized bureaucracy be extended to cover all Americans.

The obvious question is, with a system that requires the whole of the nation to suffer a massive tax burden in order to cover 14% of the population, where are we going to get the huge amount of money necessary to cover 100%? Especially when that system is already underfunded, in danger of going broke in only a few years.

Right now, most Americans pay more to FICA than they pay in income taxes.

What happens when you increase it to cover SEVEN TIMES as many people?

Are YOU ready to pay 700% as much in taxes, to cover universal Medicare?

This socialized system only works because it involves the productive part of America paying out the nose to support a tiny fraction of the population. Making it universal would be, quite literally, saying “I know how to make a pyramid scheme work: Put EVERYONE at the top of the pyramid, at the same time!”

And this is aside from how bad, how harmful, Medicare already is to America, even when it only covers one seventh of Americans:

Fraud and Theft: Medicare is already fraught with fraud…it is thought that between sixty and seventy two billion dollars are stolen from the taxpayers via Medicare fraud, each year. That’s $72,000,000,000 every year. Imagine how much the fraud would balloon if the government had to police seven times as many people. The lost money would be comparable to the recent Stimulus/Bailout spending, but it would never end.
Too Expensive and Inefficient: Medicare is ALREADY expected to run out of money by 2017. It is horribly under-funded. How are we going to expand it 700%?
Abysmal quality: Consumer and doctor dissatisfaction with Medicare is only surpassed by the similarly government-mandated HMO system.
Driving Costs: The ballooning cost of health care is consistently charted as having begun in the late sixties, right after the creation of Medicare. This system strips away consumer controls of prices…if the government took over the buying of your meals, the price of food would similarly go through the roof.
Tax the Poor: The wealthiest segment of Americans is the oldest. Americans tend to gain more wealth as they age. Yet the poorest segment of Americans are forced to pay in full for FICA, already. In effect, the poorest are being taxed for the richest.

Next time someone suggests that we should simply extend Medicare to cover everyone, because it’s working so well, ask him where we’ll get the two billion people necessary to fund extending that this fraud-ridden, insolvent, price-ballooning system to the 86% of Americans who now fund it for the rest.

[Via http://butnowyouknow.wordpress.com]

News Ticker: Beyonce, The Grateful Dead, Animal Collective, “Wu ...

Medical Marijuana: Putting Together California’s Research

2010-02-17T19:31:00.000+02:00

By Anna Wilde Mathews

After California became the first state to allow medical use of marijuana, legislators decided in 1999 to fund research that was supposed figure out what the drug was good for therapeutically. Now we have an answer: a report issued today says it seems to ease some types of pain, and maybe muscle spasticity from multiple sclerosis.

Of course, lots of state residents have found their own, much more varied, answers, since California’s law is one of the most open-ended about who’s eligible for medical marijuana. Anyone who can get a doctor to write a recommendation, based on just about any medical condition, can buy marijuana in California. But this is the official report from the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, based at the University of California, San Diego.

Since its 2000 founding, the center has funded 15 clinical studies, including seven trials. The results include some fodder for medical-marijuana supporters who argue for the drug’s unique importance, particularly the finding that it worked as an add-on to more standard treatments for pain stemming from nerve damage.

The report argues marijuana may have a “novel mechanism of action not fully exploited by current therapies.” The drug may also have an effect on multiple-sclerosis patients’ spastic motions “beyond the benefit available from usual medical care,” the report says. Other research hasn’t shown this effect consistently.

The report also flags some mild side effects, including dizziness and, ahem, “changes in cognition.” Marijuana opponents will probably say that the studies weren’t long-term enough to show the potential downsides of chronic use.

The center has made these findings public before — they can be found on the center’s Web site. Still, the report is important because it pulls together the results in a document that is supposed to reach the general public.

And now that 13 other states have followed California in adopting medical marijuana laws, the research is likely to play a role as the Golden State once again tries to take the lead in marijuana policy: a California ballot measure that would attempt to legalize the drug’s use by adults 21 and older is likely to come to a vote later this year.

The WSJ took a recent look at marijuana research here.

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/02/17/medical-marijuana-putting-together-californias-research/

[Via http://californiamarijuana.wordpress.com]

NBC News Notes Malfunctioning 'Environmentally Friendly' Machines ...

Yumuşak doku romatizması ve kas ağrıları

2010-02-17T03:02:00.000+02:00

BİTKİLERLE MODERN TEDAVİ

Dr. Ahmet Toptaş

Yumuşak Doku Romatizması ve Kas Ağrıları

Bitkisel İlaçların Etki Şekilleri:

Esans (Eterik yağ, uçucu yağ) ihtiva eden bitkisel ilaçlar iltihaplanmayı önler, ağrı dindirici etki gösterir, dokuların kanlanmasını artırır. Bu grupta bahçe nanesi esansı, biberiye yaprağı, çam tomurcuğu, çam esansı, kâfur, ladin esansı, nane esansı, ökaliptüs esansı ve arıtılmış terebentin yer almaktadır.

Esans ihtiva eden bitkisel ilaçlar tarif edildiği şekilde uygulanırsa istenmeyen etkileri göz ardı edilebilecek kadar azdır. Ancak tıbbi kalitede olmayan, iyi muhafaza edilmemiş, üreticisi belli olmayan, üretim izni olmayan ürünler fayda yerine zarar verir.

Esanslar sıcaklık, ışık ve hava etkisiyle bozulurlar. Serin ortamda, ağzı kapalı olarak ve ışık görmeyecek şekilde muhafaza edilmelidir.

Hamilelik ve emzirme döneminde esans ihtiva eden bitkisel ilaçların kullanımından kaçınılmalıdır. Bu konuda yeterli bilimsel çalışma olmadığı için emniyet tedbiri olarak kullanılması önerilmemektedir.

Uyarı: Esanslar çocukların yüzüne ve özellikle burnuna tutulmamalıdır, şok etkisiyle boğulma meydana gelebilir. Emzirme döneminde anne göğsüne ve göğüs çevresine esans ihtiva eden ilaçlar sürülmemelidir, çocuk zarar görür.

Ağrı dindirici olarak dağtütünü çiçeği, kavak tomurcuğu, söğüt kabuğu, kullanılmaktadır.

Dokuların kanlanmasını sağlamak için biberiye yaprağı, çam esansı, çayır çiçekleri, kâfur, ladin esansı, ökaliptüs esansı ve arıtılmış terebentin kullanılmaktadır.

Bağışıklık sistemini desteklemek amacıyla çörekotu ve sarımsak kullanılabilir. Diğer destek tedavilerle şikayetler azaltılır. Bağışıklık sisteminin güçlendirilmesi esas tedavidir. Belirtilen şekilde sarımsak 3 ay, çörekotu 8-10 ay kullanılır. Çörekotunun her yıl kullanılması genel sağlık açısından arzu edilen etkiler sağlar.

Bitkisel ilaçların bünyesinde çok sayıda madde olduğu için burada belirtilen etkilere ilave (sinerji) olumlu etkiler de beklenebilir.

Tedavi amacına göre aşağıda belirtilen bitkisel ilaçlardan bir veya birkaçı seçilerek birlikte kullanılabilir.

Bayırturpu: Dokulara kan akımını artırarak beslenmesini sağlar, mikrop öldürücü etkisi vardır. Uygulanacak alanın büyüklüğüne göre parmak kalınlığında bir tabaka ile kaplanacak miktarda bayır turpu rendelenir, ağrılı bölgeye yayılır, sargı beziyle sarılır 5 dakika tutulur. Rendelenmiş bayır turpu uzaklaştırılır, kızarmış bölgeye zeytinyağı sürülür. Bu uygulama günde bir defa veya gün aşırı yapılır ve en fazla 2-3 hafta süreyle uygulanır.

Biberiye yaprağı: Kanlanmayı artırarak dokuların beslenmesini destekler.

Banyo için: 50 gr dövülmüş veya öğütülmüş yaprak 1 litre kaynar su içinde kabın ağzı kapalı olarak 30 dakika demlenir, süzülerek banyo suyuna ilave edilir.

İlave olarak kâfur, ladin esansı ve nane esansı karışımından hazırlanan merhem kullanılabilir.

Çam Esansı: Dokuları kanlandırarak beslenmesini destekler hafif mikrop öldürücü etkisi vardır. % 10-15 esans ihtiva eden hazır ürünler ilgili bölgeye sürülerek kullanılır.

Hardal tohumu: Dokuları kanlandırarak beslenmesini sağlar. Sargı için: 4 yemek kaşığı öğütülmüş hardal tohumu ılık su ile lapa haline getirilip ilgili bölgeye sürülerek sarılır, sargı 15 dakika tutulur (çocuklarda 5-10 dakika). Hassas kişilerde süre kısaltılabilir. İlk uygulamada deri üzerinde 3 dakika tutulur, daha sonraki sargılarda süre uzatılarak derinin etkilenmesi gözlenir. Günde en fazla 4 defa uygulanır. 2 hafta süreyle kullanılabilir.

Kâfur: Dokularda kanlanmayı artırarak beslenmesini destekler. % 10-20 oranında kâfur ihtiva eden merhem şeklindeki hazır ürünler kullanılır. Biberiye yaprağı, nane esansı ve ökaliptüs esansı ile birlikte kullanılarak dokuların kanlanması artırılabilir, ağrı giderici etki sağlanır.

Ladin esansı: Dokuları kanlandırarak beslenmesini sağlar, hafif mikrop öldürücü etkisi vardır. % 10-15 oranında esans ihtiva eden ürünler ilgili bölgeye sürülerek uygulanır.

Nane esansı: Mikrop öldürücü ve serinleticidir. % 5-20 oranında esans ihtiva eden merhem şeklindeki hazır ürünleri kullanılır.

Ökaliptüs esansı: Dokuların kanlanmasını artırır, hafif kramp giderici etkisi vardır. % 5-20 oranında esans ihtiva eden merhem (veya yağda) halindeki hazır ürünleri sürülerek kullanılır. Kâfur ve terebentin (arıtılmış) birlikte kullanılarak etki artırılabilir.

Kâfur + Ökaliptüs esansı + Terebentin (arıtılmış) karışımı:

Dokuları kanlandırarak beslenmesini destekler ve mikrop öldürücü etki gösterir.

Örnek bir karışım şöyle olabilir:

Kâfur 5 gr

Ökaliptüs esansı 10 gr

Terebentin (arıtımış) 10 gr

Ayçiçek yağı 75 gr

Bu karışım ilgili bölgeye günde birkaç defa sürülerek ovulur.

Sarımsak: Günde 4 gr sarımsak ( Diş), bir defada 1 gr olmak üzere 4 defada yenir. Sarımsak havanda dövüldükten sonra, 4-5 dakika havanda bekletilir, yoğurda veya yemeğe katılarak yenir.

Sarımsak kokusunu bastırmak için maydanoz yenir, kakule çiğnenir, naneli sakız veya şeker kullanılır. Eşinize kokuyorsa yemesini öneriniz.

Çörekotu: Günde toplam olarak 15 gr çörekotu yenir. Bu miktar 2 veya 3 e bölünerek yemeklerden 30 dakika önce öğütülüp, az suyla yenir. Rendelenmiş bir elma veya armuda öğütülmüş çörekotu katılarak da yenebilir. Şeker hastası olmayanlar, pratik olması açısından haftalık kullanım miktarını öğütüp bekletmeden tahin-pekmeze ( 100 gr yeni öğütülmüş çörekotu, 100-150 gr pekmez ve 200-250 gr tahine karıştırılabilir, kişiler tat algısına göre miktarlarda değişiklik yapılabilir) karıştırarak yiyebilirler. Dişleri sağlam olanlar çiğneyerek yerlerse diş eti bakımı da yapılmış olur.Öğütülmüş olarak hazır satılan çörekotu alınmamalıdır, çok zararlıdır.

Not: Çörekotu hamilelik döneminde yenmemelidir. Doğuma bir hafta kala başlanıp emzirme süresince yenirse anne ve çocuk sağlığı açısından çok faydalıdır.

Çörekotu yeterli miktarda omega-3 ihtiva eder, ilave olarak omega-3 takviyeli gıdalar yenmemelidir.

Kaynaklar:

1- Dr. Ahmet Toptaş, Alman kanunlarına göre düzenlenip izin verilen BİTKİLERLE MODERN TEDAVİ, Gonca Yayınevi, İstanbul 2009, ISBN: 978-9944-790-31-4, (0212) 5285076-5286005.

2- Dr. Ahmet Toptaş, ÇÖREKOTU Tepeden tırnağa şifa deryası, Gonca Yayınevi, İstanbul 2008, ISBN: 978-9944-62-613-2, (0212) 5285076-5286005.

[Via http://w2q3.wordpress.com]

NFL Labor News - Baltimore Beatdown

Medical School: Supply and Demand

2010-02-15T19:45:00.000+02:00

Today’s NY Times hosts an article discussing the future of expansion in the U.S. medical education system. Proponents of the increase state that with the competitiveness of medical school applications and rejections leave bright students fleeing to offshore medical schools, or leave them giving up hope entirely. Their solution is to create more supply for the demand.

While I can’t disagree with the solution, the article fails to discuss a more important component that will limit the number of U.S. physicians; the number of residency positions.

When a medical student finishes medical school, they are a doctor that cannot practice medicine. That medical student has to be trained for an additional 3-7 years in a sub-specialty residency position. Currently there are ~15,000 medical school positions and an equivalent number of residency positions in the U.S.. More plainly, an increase in medical schools will make residency even more competitive with no actual increase in the annual production of practicing physicians.

The article goes on about expanding care with nurse practicioners (NP) and physicians assistants (PA) and while these providers are a useful tool, they are not a replacement for doctors and should not be treated as such.

Following this article, I suspect increased pressure will be put on the AMA and other policy makers to address the real rate limiter in medical education and expand residency training positions so that rural America will finally see an increase in the number of practicing doctors. Until then, they are only putting a band aid on a much larger problem- and making real money on each entering students tuition.

By Keyana Azari

[Via http://keyana.wordpress.com]

Another week of GW News, February 14, 2010 : A Few Things Ill ...

Medical and dental treatment and coverage in Oaxaca, Mexico

2010-02-15T03:22:00.000+02:00

When I first gave legal practice in Toronto, an early retirement in Oaxaca, I thought my life for many years, I would like to add that will lead to great pressure in Mexico, lost the lower the health care system, and I have contact by the restrictions. So, my assessment of the extent to which my hypothesis is correct, and information and for tourists and potential residents of the former consulting with the PatriotsOaxaca.

In addition to small private hospitals, they are often referred to as clínicas, there are four government-funded and insurance – the city's hospital, a pair of suburban hospitals, providing a range of special treatment for serious diseases. There is a Red Cross for those who regularly used only for emergency treatment facilities. Civil society, the hospital provides a low-cost pro-rata increase or decrease in the concern of free services or treatment手段. ISSSTE is a government-funded agency officials, union members are restricted. Finally, there is the Social Security Board, the federal insurance program available to residents and Mexican citizens before the shoot with the hospital doctors and hospitals a great extensive network. It provides funds to a large extent supplied by the operator. In addition to these hospitals, there are several small, suburban and rural areas to facilitate decentralized clinics.

ForPassengers before the shoot with a visa that will allow the country's inhabitants to maintain emergency treatment through the Red Cross, the Mexican Social Security (ie, does not accept a pay-service basis), or cover the most commonly refers to patients with private hospitals. However, this is the only one in the last three where you can get a reasonable assurance that the time is very professional and efficient staff to visit.

What to do, what is a holiday

If you do notOutside the country, a comprehensive medical care by all means, go buy it before you journey. However, it is better first question to ask your credit card company, but in fact, if you already have at least one of the fundamental determination of coverage, for example, with gold or platinum card. Then, you can focus more informed decisions about whether to purchase insurance and, if so at what level. On the other hand, a broken leg, gastrointestinal problems or other non-life -Fatal disease may be caused by a private doctor or clinic in the absence of being accessed wealth. Which, of course, the amount of more than 100 yuan, which is good reporting.

If you intend to make private operators claim, credit card companies or government-funded health plans to ensure you not only keep all receipts, but asked for a written diagnosis and treatment plan, the rules will enter what the purpose is to provide for each drug (ieAntibiotics, analgesics, etc.). Many doctors only as a matter of course provide all the information needed. Accepted practice, at least in the provision of narcotic drugs, except to your pharmacy prescription form. Medical plan requires that each translation is usually submitted as part of treatment and repayment conditions, have their documents. If you have doubts, they should submit any documentation with your claim, so you are sure to determine whether the originalIs necessary, and keep a copy. Often, as is the case in Ontario, which is a two-step process. Receipts and diagnosis and treatment plan is submitted to the province. As long as you are not does not include parts, prescription receipts together with the relevant reports will be requested to repay the money down to provincial and submitted to a private plan. In theory, these two schemes, 100% refund will be achieved.

You can in your hotel or bed and breakfast managerEach of them to make a translation of the evidence in order to save you the trouble in your home. Please note that the exchange rate at the time, and put it on your paper bill to your plan to make it easier to pay. If a staff member deal with your request, it will be less willing to set aside the sale made a day or a week, if they already contains all the necessary and relevant data organized readableFormat.

Playing here, in the illness or accident, you should be able to English-speaking proposal, saying that private medical practitioners, your host, accommodation and private clinics. With regard to the former, although the medical school in Oaxaca, many doctors the ability to travel out of their post-graduate training, such as the University in Mexico City or the United States, state, and regularly attend meetings and modernization programs. Trip ideasAs part of specialist training abroad. In fact, seems to have noticed the people of Oaxaca, and like a doctor who can display foreign diplomas.

Our personal experience with emergency treatment over the past 10 years, no longer us, but a positive, our families and our guests, in hospitals and Carmen Molina, city … in the capacity, speed, their visit , while the presence of English-speaking emergency department doctor.On the other hand, we do not encourage people to visit the civil hospital or due to delay in treatment, and the Social Security Board in charge of the medical staff not able to attend 24 hours a day, in the normal and emergency (ie, the minimum Social Security Administration an emergency department) suture. After this, many excellent private practice of non-surgical doctors, private hospitals indicated that there are often more the country's most advanced and mature设备.

In terms of price and family doctors, dentists consult experts or the normal range, is 20 yuan – 50 yuan (All amounts are expressed in U.S. dollars, and in 2008 unless otherwise stated, about numbers).

Lean elections and cosmetic surgery

In recent years, Oaxaca has become a popular destination for Americans and Canadians both a wide range of plastic surgery and dental work. Word, and the two folders with expertise in the quality of work, school, and, dissemination andDentists, of course, the very low compared to the cost of local doctors to pay. Many foreigners and from Mexico City and other areas of the country to face lift, breast reduction or increase, liposuction and other procedures and improve the look and Oaxaca, Mexico. A friend of mine said that in Oaxaca, which is well-known plastic surgeon a few years ago, she read an article on plastic surgery in Canada,Magazines for the same program, that he has completed 500 U.S. dollars the cost of targets 3,500 – 5,000 U.S. dollars at home. In fact, they have free travel to Oaxaca, to return home with extra money in your pocket.

Our personal experience with the dental treatment is very positive. Costs that are often about one-third to the United States and Canada, half the price, for example, crowns and bridges, implants, root canal, gums, and bones and so on, while laughing, the use of nitrous oxide (Gas) has not yet arrived in Mexico in most cities, can be a touch more dentists to follow up, temporary high, but the lack of the chair.

Solution in the first eight puzzle

Get any additional coverage is available, you are in your country and Mexico, of course, affordable.

In my opinion, and Mexico, the cost of social insurance coverage for married couples in the $ 400 1 year, why do not other insurance you already have an independent. Then, the Mexican Social Security Institute supplementInternational coverage of catastrophic harm, unless you have from other sources like insurance. Our friends in Oaxaca, not much, but they have a different mentality, and not the history of the insurance costs as a rule, an assessment or, This is home, car or health.

Some American acquaintances swear by the Social Security Board, as it often care including prevention programs, all appointed by the Government to give up, including experts, doctors, and laboratory testing,Drug treatment and hospitalization. Limited registration the first year, there are considerations. A clean environment, the extent of the hospital, rather than the standard have been accustomed to most of us in the United States and Canada growth. Many doctors have not yet received their private counterparts in the quality of medical education. To provide the drug through clinical pharmacy are often not the best in the market for the treatment ofA specific disease, because of the cost. Usually, you call your doctor or laboratory may be a long wait, it is necessary for every aspect of a half-day promise: visiting a series of tests, general practitioners, and others, were last seen in the experts.

So, why even bother with the Mexican Social Security, all of these shortcomings? There is a foolproof, another form of insurance, you have to take care of a long and serious disease conditions. As mentioned earlier,Is often the largest hospitals, such as the Social Security Administration has the best equipment, and with the practice of some private operators surgeon. And there are any additional costs of hospitalization, if you have sufficient coverage of social insurance in Mexico. Although he is a private clinic, and their experience, before moving to Mexico, if you are hospitalized for a long time, the cost is too high may be in the hospital … just like at home.

Access to a private doctor,Even reluctantly let private testing laboratories, insurance is familiar with the quality of care is reasonable. Together with the Mexican Social Security coverage to ensure that in almost every aspect you want. In the cases may be a lengthy hospital stay, you can afford, as long as necessary. The best locally available equipment will be used for diagnosis and treatment, and there is a reasonable possibility, the doctor attending theWho uses those in one or more time with the practice of private hospitals and division to carry out procedures for the main hospital.

We believe that the Mexican Social Security coverage, but rarely use, they are more like our experts, Oaxaca's social network remittances, if they do not open. In any case, a pair of Oaxaca to live for many years after the couple, who are aged over 50 in our expertise that we have introduced a wide range. Strange, though still possibleCanada and subscribe to pay-as-you play the health care philosophy, which services and Social Security Bureau under the safety net, our aim.

In some cases, you may want to continue to stay even the best Oaxaca has to offer. For the flow of tourists to Mexico City Oaxaca movement of a strong and extensive. Exchanges in the country's capital, the upper middle class, but soon the state in terms of doctors and the best search, right diagnostic equipment, sophisticated,The treatment of life-threatening diseases.

Even in the state of Oaxaca in the Mexican Social Security Institute doctors work and the association of female hospital treatment, has been arranged, not here, to Mexico City or visit the other major centers in order to save. However, this process can only be slow. We know the situation, there are heart problems, and finally sent to the Association in Puebla surgery, a two-month-old baby, and only death to be completed before surgery.

The solution,Unless you are may be used as part of your pension plan, high-quality foreign coverage, the insurance pay for the whole world in Mexico City, or better treatment, as long as you make your way to the participants at the top of a long right to buy — on-line hospital. In my case, I have a small annual premium, high-net, which in case of an accident to give up. Similarly, it is the case, say, a serious car accident or cancer, stroke fault protection mechanisms,A heart attack or other catastrophic illness, or they will not be affordable. Oaxaca states have less than the best diagnostic equipment and treatment equipment. My plan provides for less 1 million, 2,000 annual premium, in Oaxaca, Mexico City and other parts of the Republic of the members of the private hospitals, of course, in foreign countries, including the United States Mayo Clinic in Rochester, one participant said .

In conclusion, my medical insurance and treatment planBelow. We have our regular family doctor, pointing out that, together with our friends in Oaxaca experts, where we have the greatest confidence, and we pay him every time. The same dental health services. We have the Mexican social security coverage, we do not reluctantly (because we believe that it does not use) a year contract, but it extends the value for money, we need to be hospitalized or have surgery, rather than in private clinics. And IMy catastrophic coverage, but I wish I had never visited.

Health care and coverage is not expensive, it can be expensive. This is an individual or family, a philosophy, or set the priority of the issue, raised before the election Oaxaca. Make sure you live in a little more sober as to the medical and insurance costs, understanding, so disposable income solution for your lifeBe discarded, what is the best way is to keep as much as possible get a new life abroad. If you are not in a comfortable in dealing with these issues and decision-making level, then may not be for you.

[Via http://alpraxolamxanax.wordpress.com]

Foreclosure "good" news may not be so good after all

Star in a UC Medication Commercial

2010-02-12T19:09:00.000+02:00

I was recently contacted by an advertising agency that is looking for patients with ulcerative colitis for a medicine advertisement they are developing. The ad will be in print but some people may be videotaped.

The company has chosen not to reveal which medication they are looking for. The reasoning is, they want people to contact the agency to see if they are genuinely interested in the ad, as the agency doesn’t want people to say they are on this medicine just to get in the ad.

When contacting them, give the agency the information you want and if you fit the criteria they will contact you and set up a phone interview. The photo shoot is in NYC or Philadelphia, but they are accepting people from anywhere in the country and will pay any expenses to get to the shoot.

If interested, the following is the complete casting call information.

Keep fighting,

~Dennis

CASTING CALL

ULCERATIVE COLITIS MEDICINE (CONFIDENTIAL)

PAY RATE: Any travel expenses

Shoot/Start Date: March-TBD

Location: NYC or possibly Philadelphia

Are you under treatment for ulcerative colitis? Would you like to be an advocate or participate in a photo shoot to bring attention to this condition?

Digitas Health is seeking people who are on a medication for the treatment of ulcerative colitis.

SEEKING:

We are looking for 15 -30 people, ages 21-48, both male and female.

Caucasian, Hispanic and Mixed Ethnic types please.

It will be for a print shoot but some people may be

videotaped for patient testimonials. Please submit photo ASAP to lisa@llproductioncasting.com and include any information about how long you have been under treatment for UC and current medicine. All people submitting for this project must have been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and be on medication for this condition.

Client believes in the medicine and wants you to as well which is why there is no pay.

[Via http://ucvlog.com]

Blizzard: 70% of new WoW players don't get past level 10 | News

Do It for the Herd

2010-02-12T03:44:00.000+02:00

You know how you sometimes get a sticker for voting? This is what I got for getting an H1N1 vaccine a couple weeks ago:

This has to be a prank from some snarky graphic design student. It perfectly fits into a conspiracy milieu:

Encouraging herd mentality (literally!)
Scary needles on the side
Hypnotic pattern in the background
U of MN livestock branding
Vaguely propagandist art style (part-Soviet, part-wartime US?)

See what I mean:

The sticker perfectly fits into the paranoia. It’d only be more perfect it had a sheep’s head saying BAA instead of MOO.

[Via http://karpology.wordpress.com]

Blizzard: 70% of new WoW players don't get past level 10 | News

I'm A Sick Kitten

2010-02-10T11:09:00.000+02:00

Girl’s sick. Again. Whats with this France?! Get ur shiz together and put me on the healthy train!!

I have an infection in my tonsils. How the eff does that happen?! haha This morning I went to the SIMPPs (the health center at Rennes II) straight away and was the first person there…waiting until they unlocked the doors lol. The nurse then told me that I needed to go to the doctor TODAY, which I did the earliest she was available, which was at 10:20 and by 10:40 I had left “la pharmacie” with some serious drugs. Here is my regimen:

2 pills of Josacine, twice a day, for six days

1 or 2 pills of Paracétamol three times a day as needed, but not to exceed 6 pills daily

1 grande cuillère (one big spoonful) of Alfa-Amylase three times a day

Awesome. Who even knows what these meds are…but hopefully they do their job I keep comforting myself with the knowledge that at least I’m on the path to recovery…(I sound like a drug addict in rehab lol)

xxo

[Via http://annhyphencharlotte.wordpress.com]

News – Angelina Jolie Heads to Haiti – Celebrity News – UsMagazine.com

Spray-on Glass, Far Better than Spray-on Latex

2010-02-10T03:43:00.000+02:00

Spray-on products have always been a bit gimmicky. First there was spray-on hair luster, then that butter spray from the guy with the hair, and of course, spray-on latex. Years of disrepute and neglect left the suggested pairing of “spray-on” with any product as an automatic demotion for someone working in the marketing business. That’s all about to change.

For those like me who have waited eagerly for nanotechnology to become cheap and mainstream, it’s finally here, and it’s spray-on glass. A muted initial reaction is understandable, after all it’s just glass, right? The beauty of spray-on glass is in the nano-scale. After application it forms an extremely durable and highly flexible film that is one millionth of a millimeter (or around 20 molecules) thick. Its surface is so smooth that on a molecular level there are no pits or cracks where things get stuck. No dirt filled reservoirs means that stains come right off. That’s right, all that’s necessary to remove the worst staining offenders from a treated surface is warm water. It can even be applied to clothes. I know I’m starting to sound like Billy Mays here (still too soon?), so pardon me for skipping along.

The manufacturers at Nanopool claim that this glass layer is revolutionizing every industry in which it is applied. Cars and trains whose windward sides are coated in it have decreased drag coefficients. Since drag grows exponentially as speed increases, about 60% of the force needed to travel at highway speeds is spent overcoming drag. Less drag means more speed with less power at a higher fuel efficiency. Can you imagine a getting a paint job that improved gas mileage and acceleration? Even better, seeds and plants coated in this stuff grow faster without the need for anti-fungal treatments. It is considered food-safe in Europe, and they are giddy with optimism that it will result in massively increased crop yields. Perhaps the best part of spray-on glass is that it prevents contamination by bacteria. Applying the solution creates an easily cleanable, anti-microbial surface that will last for years. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is being tested as the replacement for the Band-Aid. It can also be used to decrease the risk of infection from invasive medical procedures by coating requisite tools and implants.

They pull off this crazy feat in a funny way. The solution is made almost entirely of silicon dioxide (the principle ingredient in glass). It doesn’t require the addition of any binding agents in order to form. In fact, the absence of such substances is the source of its thinness, strength, and versatility. The molecules of liquid glass bind together through natural quantum phenomenon. It’s been tested for use in several markets, and is now generally available in Germany. It will be sold in England in short order, and the rest of Europe is soon to follow. It won’t be long before the entire world reaps the benefits of this spray-on product, and the sour connotation from times past is reversed.

[Via http://wilfinley.com]

News to know: Server wars; Windows 7; GMail; China hacker arrests ...

Cleft Lip and Palate Reconstruction

2010-02-08T19:12:00.000+02:00

By: Sonya Chitra Subash

What is a cleft lip and palate? Most commonly signified by a ‘harelip’, or slight gaping holes in the roof of the mouth, cleft lip and palate is a benign genetic birth defect affecting approximately one in every seven hundred children born in accordance to the Cleft Lip and Palate Association. Asians are the most affected, while African- Americans are least affected. Research being conducted by the Cleft Lip and Palate Association is still in progress to understand the main underlying reasons. For the births occurring in developed countries, a simple set of procedures is enough to fix this nonfatal defect. However, in developing countries, a child born with such a minor disfigurement is subjected to life as an outcast without proper treatment. They are shunned from the community, subjected to taunting, rejected for job opportunities, abandoned by family members, subjected to witchcraft rituals, and sometimes attacked and killed.

How does this defect occur? Sometimes during embryonic development, the upper lip and the roof of the mouth do not fuse properly. This typically happens during the first six to ten weeks of gestation. The physical severity of this birth defect can range from a minuscule to notch in the upper lip to a large groove. The severity of the physical deformity can also lead to complications with the ears, nose, and mouth. Ear infections will occur more often (due to the inability of the muscles of the palate to open the Eustachian tubes that allow for the middle air to drain, causing a rapid collection of fluid), and speech pathologists are often needed to help the child with speech development.

What is the treatment? The treatment to cure and better the quality of life is simple. Surgery to close the lip and palate together is not life threatening, and oral maxillofacial surgeons provide surgeries to fix this.

One surgical technique used is ‘bone grafting’. A small portion of bone is extracted from the patient’s hip, ribs, leg, or head and is placed in the cleft area (the bone protected by the upper lip) to introduce great support for un-erupted teeth that will grow as the child’s mouth develops after the surgery. This is usually most effective if the patient is five to six years old during the treatment. The added bone will make the gum appear more natural, and help increase the strength of the pre-maxilla (the front part of the roof of the mouth).

Older people affected have a lesser chance of having a perfectly symmetrical gum, but dentists can perform procedures using prosthetic teeth. Metallic dental bone implants are also used-the proper treatment will vary per patient. However, the cost of these procedures can be expensive, especially for those afflicted in developing countries where resources are scarce.

How can I help? There are many specialists in the US available for help with cleft palate reconstruction, and many organizations that travel to developing countries are available to aid. One organization, Operation Smile does humanitarian work with volunteers and dental specialists every year. Mission trips continually leave from the US, and anyone can help in some way. Smile Train, another organization, is in constant need of donations to keep funding its mission trips as well. We often underestimate, or don’t necessarily think about, the value of a smile. In developing countries it is worth more than it is here in the US, and volunteers are always needed to help aid these missions.

Information regarding sources and organizations in this article can be found at the following websites:

Cleft Lip and Palate Association: http://www.clapa.com/

Operation Smile: http://www.operationsmile.org/

Smile Train: http://www.smiletrain.org/

[Via http://sciencetranslation.wordpress.com]

SNL goofs on FOX News coverage of DADT | Crooks and Liars

Fish Oil For Brain Health

2010-02-05T19:45:00.000+02:00

Omega-3 Fish oils are good for the brain.

Individuals at extremely high risk of developing psychosis appear less likely to develop psychotic disorders following a 12-week course of fish oil capsules containing long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

“Early treatment in schizophrenia and other psychoses has been linked to better outcomes,” the authors write as background information in the article. “Given that subclinical psychotic symptoms may predict psychotic disorder and psychosis proneness in a population may be related to the rate of psychotic disorder, intervention in at-risk individuals holds the promise of even better outcomes, with the potential to prevent full-blown psychotic disorders.”

[Via http://dromeish.wordpress.com]

Silent Hill composer joins Grasshopper News | Eurogamer

we're all in this together.....

2010-02-05T11:07:00.000+02:00

when we reach, we can fly, know inside, we can make it….

oh the cheese. I LOVE IT!

This first year of work is tough. That’s why it’s one year I guess. Not many could pull it off much longer without burning out. The running, chasing, pleading, pacifying, apologising, worrying….gets intense.

But we’re all in it together. And (cue the awws) it’s true. It’s the other junior docs that pull you through. It’s the nurses who give you a nudge in the right direction or a word or two of wisdom. It’s the registrar who tells you you’ve done the right thing and most of all it’s the patient who puts a smile on your face and the family who take the time to say thank you.

That’s what makes the mountians of crap you have to deal with bearable.

And that’s why I find myself praying that with good grace I’ll get there.

Here’s hoping.

[Via http://thepurplecoat.wordpress.com]

Brennan: All Transferred Detainees Who Returned to Terrorism Were ...

What makes a physician forum work? Part I

2010-02-03T19:29:00.000+02:00

The first essential and limiting step is to ensure that only doctors can become members. It is somewhat difficult to explain the reason for this to all the rest of humankind and especially to the other healthcare professions, but to most doctors it is self evident. If you’re a small town doctor, to give one example, the town comes to you, undresses, and places their trust in you. You, on the other hand, can’t talk to anyone about what you yourself go through during the day. You can’t talk to anyone about patients. You can’t talk about your own personal stuff, except perhaps with your spouse. Being a physician puts you in a unique and isolated position and there is a need, a very great need, to have a room of your own, a space exclusive to your own profession.

How do the various forums measure up? There are two parts to this question: who can sign up and who else can see your posts.

Let’s look at several forums and see how they’re doing. Since I started this blog by critiquing Sermo.com, I’ll start with them.

I believe they have done a good job in ensuring their participants are indeed physicians only, despite a few glitches in their authentication process along the way. Initially this created what felt like a safe and secure environment to talk to colleagues about anything and everything, from medical cases to personal stories.

Sermo is a private for profit company and was created with the concept of ‘information arbitrage’, i.e. selling information gleaned from physicians to outsiders, these being investors and Pharma. Some physicians found the concept “creepy” and avoided Sermo for this reason. I myself believe that the owner, Dan Palestrant, did a good job at selling this info in such a way that physician privacy was maintained. As far as I can tell the ability of paying clients to view the discussions was limited to the specific discussion they paid to see. At times concerns were raised about just how much these clients could see, as some were listed as members, so this specific question was not completely settled. That aside, data was sold in aggregate and no personal information was revealed. Dan’s attention to this issue was clearly due to his being a physician himself and his intimate understanding of doctors need for privacy from prying eyes.

There is one huge problem with all this, which I’ll get to in later posts.

Let’s look at a small forum I discovered just today called doctorshangout.com. They could serve as an example of what not to do. I won’t even bother to critique their noisy layout or any other issue, as these are moot. They state they are open to doctors worldwide and medical students. The presence of students is a no-no. Their authentication process is non existent. These two problems render them unusable as a safe gathering place. They could rethink this and redo, though having a forum open to physicians worldwide requires a much more complicated authentication process.

Let’s move on to the second of the two big players in the market: Madscape. Oops, Medscape, sorry. Judging by what I see there, and without looking into their financial records, Medscape, a part of WebMD, is owned by Pharma, lock, stock and barrel. How does Medscape fare on these two issues?

In the beginning their forums were open to everyone and anyone who could utter the words “I’m a doctor”. Also, since they cater to other healthcare professions, the boards were not physicians only. About two years ago they did start an authentication process, so one can assume I suppose that now they are indeed doctor only.

What is Pharma’s involvement in these discussions? What can they see and what do they know about the participants?

Curiously, this has been much more a topic of concern on Sermo, which is doctor owned and which has been upfront about client involvement, than on Medscape – which is owned by Pharma. The answer to these questions is: who knows? Medscape’s privacy policy promises that data will be used only in aggregate. The problem is that they are so corporate and impersonal that I trust them about as much as I trust any large corporation to “care” about anyones best interest. But, hey, that’s what they say.

Medscape’s saving grace in this regard is, ironically, that it is so corporate, impersonal and off-putting in every respect (I’ll get to them later in detail) that I can’t imagine anyone wanting to read their discussions and gather any meaningful information from them.

Next post: what makes a physician forum work, part II. Stay tuned.

[Via http://sermoblog.wordpress.com]

News Ticker: Broken Social Scene, “We Are the World,” Trent Reznor ...

References, please?

2010-02-01T11:52:00.000+02:00

So far, I’ve always manually referenced things in Word; Insert->Reference->Footnote->Endnote (1,2,3) etc. I put a new endnote for each time I referenced anything, and then the numbering order etc. was preserved. At the end, I’d delete the duplicates, and manually add a superscript number for the remaining ones. I’ve decided to investigate EndNote this time, as it’s supposed to be very useful. More to come in (a?) future post(s)!

[Via http://joelschneider.wordpress.com]

Jane's Learning Pick of the Day: January 2010 News

10:23 "Overdose by Homeopathy" Event a Miserable Failure

2010-02-01T03:13:00.000+02:00

This is a follow up to my recent “Suicide by Homeopathy?” post – and by calling the event a “miserable failure” I mean that it was the homeopathy that was an epic fail. Hundreds and hundreds of skeptics attempted to overdose on a variety of homeopathic remedies, and not one person was adversely affected. Which begs a question: why do homeopaths bother mentioning anything at all about dosage on their remedies when it is apparent that dosage doesn’t matter?

Apparently, the press caught wind of this public experiment and thought it was interesting – check out the BBC article on it. In addition, here’s an update on the event from the 10:23 Campaign, along with some neat footage as well…

[Via http://skepticalteacher.wordpress.com]

Some former Cowboys assistant news | Dallas Cowboys Blog | Sports ...

Ginkgo biloba epilepsy issue.

2010-01-29T11:17:00.000+02:00

A report in the Journal of Natural Products investigates a link between ginkgo biloba and epileptic seizures.

Among many active ingredients, ginkgo biloba contains ginkgotoxin. This is concentrated in the seeds in lethal amounts.

Ginkgotoxin is also present in the leaves. Report authors Eckhard Leistner and Christel Drewke noted massive variations in the strength of active products in ginkgo biloba teas, although they did not specifically test for ginkgotoxin.

They did look at how ginkgotoxin works in humans. They found it prevents uptake of vitamin B6 by the brain, appears to interfere with 2 neurotransmitters known to trigger epileptic convulsions, and also may prevent the uptake of anticonvulsant medicine.

The report covered 10 cases, 7 of which are on the US FDA’s Special Nutritionals Adverse Event Monitoring System.

The authors suggested product manufacturers should be required to test for the level of ginkgotoxin.

The German equivalent of the FDA, Bfarm, ruled recently that pharmaceutical companies selling ginkgo biloba medications have to amend the package insert advising patients suffering from seizures to consult their physician before taking high-dosage medications of this type.

[Via http://teammccallum.wordpress.com]

Create Digital Music » How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple ...

Medical issues in the works

2010-01-29T03:46:00.000+02:00

Creating a French Country antique paint finish on a Medicine Cabinet is an easy project that can be accomplished in one weekend. To start this French Country antique Medicine Cabinet project you will need a few different materials from your local home improvement store as well as some time.

Those cheap plain fake wood Medicine Cabinets are perfect for French Country antiquing. If you have old or outdated wood Medicine Cabinet and just want to change the color or look this French Country antique paint process is also good.

Here is a list of supplies you will need to start French Country antiquing and resurfacing your old Medicine Cabinet:

Primer

Bright or Royal Blue Paint & Sunny Yellow Paint or Terra Cotta and Blue Paint

Roller paint brushes

A variety of 2″, 3″, or 4″ paint brushes

Wood stain

Glaze

Sandpaper

Drop clothes

Cheap, outdated, or plain Medicine Cabinet

Now, start sanding the surface of your plain Medicine Cabinet. Once you have the surface lightly sanded, you should wipe off the dust with a clean dry clothe. An old white t-shirt will work perfectly here.

Now, you are ready to put a coat of primer. If you are using a cheap fake wood Medicine Cabinet this is a very important step. Your resurfacing and French Country antique paint technique will not stick to your surface if you don't sand and then prime your Medicine Cabinet.

If you want a rough more rustic French Country look try putting the primer on with one of the 4″ brushes. This will give texture and create the look of real wood. If you prefer the smoother look you can roll the paint on with any type of paint roller. A foam roller will create the smoothest surface.

Allow your primer to dry completely.

Put on a coat of your base paint, which can be one of two colors. You can use yellow as your base and blue as your topcoat or blue as your base and terra cotta as your topcoat. This first paint should not be the actual color you want your French Country Medicine Cabinet to end up, but the color you want to show through when you antique the Medicine Cabinet.

Now you are ready to paint your French Country Medicine Cabinet with the real color you wish them to be, so blue or terra cotta, whichever applies to you?

Don't be scared to choose a bright color because the antiquing process will tone down the appearance of the French Country Medicine Cabinet considerably.

Once your French Country Medicine Cabinet color has dried you are ready to start antiquing it. Start by using the sand paper to rough up edges and other areas that would typically be used over time.

This will allow your sunny yellow to show through the bright blue or your blue to show through the terra cotta color.

Once you have finished sanding the French Country Medicine Cabinet wipe the surface down with a clean dry cloth. That old white t-shirt will work well here again. You can stop at this point, but if you want to go the extra mile you can use a mixture of ½ wood stain and ½ glaze to darken your piece.

Start by mixing your wood stain and glaze in a plastic container. Use a white rag or another old t-shirt to rub the stain onto the French Country Medicine Cabinet.

You can do this process until you achieve the antique look you want for your French Country Medicine Cabinet.

Tips:

For additional French Country antique inspired embellishments to a very plain Cheap Medicine Cabinet try attaching some pre cut wood embellishments. You can find them at any home improvement store.

This will completely change the look of your inexpensive Medicine Cabinet and instantly give a French Country antique feel.

You can also add some picture and ceiling molding as well.

Check out more of Rebecca's Vintage Crafts.

This article brought to by http://www.freemedicaltextbooks.hostoi.com

http://www.freemedicaltextbook.com

[Via http://erectiledysfunctionaid.wordpress.com]

Apple Live Announcement & Event: Watch Live Online Coverage and ...

Insider Medicine 60-2 in December 2009

2010-01-27T19:49:00.000+02:00

From London – According to a report in the journal "Nature" published the budget of the protein which could be the best diet for healthy aging as a restriction of caloric intake. Researchers, fruit flies fed different amounts of vitamins, lipids and amino acids in a diet consisting of sugar, water and yeast. The researchers were able to lifespan, without the need to maximize the fertility of the Flies by varying the amount of amino acids, while the modification of other nutrients had no such effect. Chicago – …

[Via http://wheyprotienreview.wordpress.com]

Stocks in the News: Apple, Toyota, Yahoo, Berkshire Hathaway ...

Day 26 ~ 26th January, 2010

2010-01-27T11:00:00.000+02:00

Today’s photo is of the other woman in James’s life – Annie, his Animas 2020 insulin pump. This pump continuously infuses insulin under James’s skin via an infusion site, and James can also tell it to give a larger ‘bolus’ of insulin when he eats. This is better for his body than insulin injections as it is closer to what a healthy pancreas does, which then minimises the complications that can occur in long term diabetics.

Caring means sharing your husband with another woman! But hopefully only other women who are insulin pumps!!!

[Via http://acaringproject.wordpress.com]

Gloves Off Gillibrand (Updated)

Medicare for All, after All?

2010-01-25T19:48:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago I floated the idea – which I swiped from Cenk Uyger – of using reconciliation to pass meaningful health care by vastly expanding Medicare. Now it seems that Ezra Klein is warming up to the idea:

My preference is that House Democrats pass the Senate bill and then run their fixes through the reconciliation process. But I think there is an argument that the current health-care bill has been terribly compromised by the months of controversy, the shady deal with Ben Nelson, the ambivalence of key legislators, the endless meetings with industry players, the wasted time, and the collective freak-out of congressional Democrats in the aftermath of Scott Brown’s election.

There is another option.

Democrats could scrap the legislation and start over in the reconciliation process. But not to re-create the whole bill. If you go that route, you admit the whole thing seemed too opaque and complex and compromised. You also admit the limitations of the reconciliation process. So you make it real simple: Medicare buy-in between 50 and 65. Medicaid expands up to 200 percent of poverty with the federal government funding the whole of the expansion. Revenue comes from a surtax on the wealthy.

And that’s it. No cost controls. No delivery-system reforms. Nothing that makes the bill long or complex or unfamiliar. Medicare buy-in had more than 51 votes as recently as a month ago. The Medicaid change is simply a larger version of what’s already passed both chambers. This bill would be shorter than a Danielle Steel novel. It could take effect before the 2012 election.

(The rest of his column is here.)

I realize that reconciliation is tricky, and it can’t do things like eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. Also, Medicaid is no panacea. It’s second-class health insurance in some pretty major ways. Many doctors won’t accept it.

Still, a massive expansion of Medicare would also be a massive step toward affordable health care for all. It would establish the principle of universal coverage without making millions of Americans essentially captive to private insurers. It could set the stage for further expansions of Medicare.

Regulatory reform could still be achieved, though probably in a more piecemeal way. How many congresscritters would come out in favor of preserving the insurance industry’s right to discriminate on preexisting conditions, if that were the centerpiece of a bill? (This would obviously assume the prior existence of an individual mandate, because otherwise people would try to game the system, only buying insurance after they needed it.)

Anyway, just ’cause Ezra Klein likes it doesn’t mean it will happen. But his suggestion does mean that the policy wonks who have a voice in the debate haven’t declared “game over.” It means that we could accomplish meaningful reform without the likes of Ben Nelson and Scott Brown and (shudder) Joe Lieberman. It would mean lives saved.

[Via http://kittywampus.wordpress.com]

Will Ferrell wife | News World Wide

Getting Food Poisoning

2010-01-25T03:47:00.000+02:00

That’s what I did Friday night. It wasn’t just me, though-five of the other fourteen people in Bangkok got it around the same time. Nobody is sure what caused it though. I did do something to help bring it on, though. All I had for dinner was flavored soy milk, a scotch and soda and peanuts. A humorously nausea-inducing combo. It sucked for sure-I had diarrhea and barfing simultaneously and eventually ended up in the hospital with a shot to end the nausea and a saline drip to rehydrate me. It worked, but I had to lie there half-awake for like four hours.

The Thai hospital was pretty nice. The emergency room felt basically like an American one-I was impressed. They got a little confused, though; they weren’t keeping good track of what had already been done so they tried to give me a pill twice. Another impressive thing was the price. The whole trip, all five or so hours of it at the hospital, including the cab and drugs, came to under ten dollars. I felt like giving a donation.

Their English was pretty good. At one point, though, the doctor said “we’re going to give you some fluid,” but her accent made it sound like “food” because Thai people have trouble with consonant blends. I was like “Sunil, go tell them I’m a vegetarian.” It was sort of funny. The best part of the experience, actually, was that Sunil was really supportive (he’s my roommate). He went with me to the hospital, filled out paperwork, paid for me and everything. It was great. I owe him one.

[Via http://zakinbangkok.wordpress.com]

News Corp's 2nd Biggest Shareholder Says 'Avatar' Will Gross $2B ...

Pap...

2010-01-22T03:15:00.000+02:00

I finally found a family doctor (again…).

This one is part of a family medical centre. For a few years I have been forced to see whatever doctor is available in one of these huge medical centres where even if you have an appointment with a certain doctor, you can wait hours. While I was seeing one particular doctor whenever I could, he wasn’t MY doctor and I was hesitant to sign on as his patient. Provincial health care rules mean that if you sign on with a particular doctor, that’s it. You are stuck for life unless they leave the practice and don’t take you with them.

My beloved family doctor retired back in 2000 and was unable to find me a doctor. I’ve been with a couple of others but they simply left the clinics they were in and the clinics didn’t seem to care what happened to their patients.

So this week, I had my first actual check-up since 2000.

I had a “check-up” a few years ago at one of the “megaloclinics”. My “appointment was for 9am and I arrived at 8:45. I didn’t get called until 2:15. My “check-up” consisted of height, weight, and an eye-test (which the “nurse” did, insisting that I tack off my glasses and look at the chart 15 feet away… Since I can barely see the palm of my hand front 3 inches away, this was pretty pointless… Since I had just had my eyes checked less than a week ago by an actual eye doctor, it was even more pointless). That was the sum total of my check-up.

THIS time, I got the full work-up, including a home colon-cancer test kit.

So, now for the Pap…

Women know the scoop. Butt at the end of the table and knees in your ears.

Doctor says “This may be a little uncomfortable, since it hasn’t been used in a while…”

I’m thinking to myself “Either she doesn’t do too many internal exams and is using a reusable speculum…”

“Ummm, you mean the speculum or my…”

“I meant your….”

I’d have doubled over if I didn’t think that might just hurt a lot….

[Via http://mudpuddle.wordpress.com]

Development kit launches for Kindle | News

Sen. Cantwell's Response on Health Care

2010-01-20T19:49:00.000+02:00

I received the following today. Of course, late responses are welcome, although it would’ve been better to get it sooner.

Dear Mr. Gardner,

Thank you for contacting me about comprehensive health care reform. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

Let’s see if you actually read what I wrote to determine how much you appreciate hearing from your constituents.

As you know, the Senate approved, with my support, comprehensive health care reform legislation on December 24, 2009. This legislation, titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), will tightly regulate insurance companies to protect consumers, ensure that 94 percent of Americans actually have health coverage, improve Medicare benefits and reduce the federal deficit by $130 billion over the next ten years.

She claims the bill is there to “protect consumers”, and “ensure that 94 percent of Americans actually have health coverage”, “improve Medicare benefits” and “reduce federal deficits”.

Protect consumers: I don’t feel safer having my future in the hands of government regulators. A fat lot of good regulation did in our financial industry, one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country. Rather, I feel safer when people are competing for my money and business. I trust the free market, not government. I don’t have to look very far to see how the Federal Government is treating our soldiers in the VA hospital or our medicare recipients to see that sub-standard care and an apathetic bureaucracy are the results of heavy regulation.

Ensure that 94 percent of Americans actually have health coverage: How can we have health coverage if our health industry is in the same state of ruin as every other country with socialized medicine? Or what does she think health coverage is? Actually getting treatment, or having a piece of paper signed by the Federal Government?

Improve Medicare benefits: Apparently, cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the Medicare budget is supposed to improve benefits. The only place in the world where you can get more with less is in free enterprise economies, with real competition provided by actual companies that have to make a profit. In government, you get less with more, as we can see with our education system.

Reduce federal deficits: Here, the democrats played a trick on the people. See, they gave the CBO instructions to only look 10 years in the future, pretend that the medicare cuts would actually go through, and then only count the benefits of the bill after 4 years when they go into effect. Of course, if you take 6 years of spending with 10 years of taxes, along with an impossible cut, they are going to claim that they are saving money. But what happens in the next 20, 30, 50, 100 years with their bill? No one talks about that, because the answer is obvious: BANKRUPTCY.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the product of more than a year’s work by the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, with the final debate taking place on the Senate floor. The last steps of the process involve merging the House and Senate passed bills and having each chamber vote for final passage before sending one final bill to the President to be signed into law.

The senator believes we don’t see what kind of rules they are breaking to move this forward. They are supposed to get consent from the Senate before moving into conference committee. They failed to obtain that.

This bill is being ram-rodded down our throats, in violation of several senate rules.

As we work through these final steps of the legislative process, I will be fighting to make sure the health care reform bill we send to the President retains the strong reforms I have worked to include in the Senate’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I will also be pushing to strengthen the legislation where there remain weaknesses. The Senate bill would be stronger if it included additional elements I have supported, such as a public option, that would further reduce costs and improve Washingtonians’ choices in health care coverage.

Yes, socialism! Here she is admitted that she is fighting to thrust socialism upon the American people, despite the fact that we don’t want it and we stand ideologically opposed to the semblance of it.

Maria Cantwell, you do Josef Stalin proud. Keep up the good work, comrade! One day, they’ll raise a statue to you, and we can force our little children to lay wreaths of flowers around it, worshiping your hard work in taking from those who have and giving to those who would’ve had had the rich been able to continue what they were doing.

You, my friend, are an enemy to America, you are an affront to individual liberty, and you have no right to sit in your office because you do not support the basic principles and clear limits on government in the constitution you swore, falsely, to uphold.

Included as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is my Basic Health Plan. This provision allows all 50 states to establish programs similar to Washington’s Basic Health Plan, which has a successful 20-year track-record of providing quality coverage to people with income below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. This provision will fully fund our state’s program by directing money to participating states so they can use their purchasing power to negotiate with insurance carriers to lower costs and improve benefits. A typical Basic Health Plan will cost 30 percent less than the same plan in today’s market. In Washington State, residents will see improved benefit packages under the Basic Health Plan, and the state will save much needed funds.

Wake me when I see a federal program that actually delivers more for less money than the private sector.

The way these plans work is that tax your pants off and then give a fraction of it to the poor in a shoddy manner. These are the same poor that are only poor because of the taxes and regulations enforced upon those people who are working hard to drive costs down and increase employment and wages in our economy.

Additionally, I was able to secure critical short-term funding for state-funded health care programs, including Washington’s Basic Health Plan. This bridge funding will help to improve coverage in our state until federal reform is fully implemented in 2014. It will also provide significant relief to our struggling state.

WAIT A MINUTE! I thought you just said that Washington’s Basic Health Plan was successful. Why do we need federal funding? Isn’t it more efficient at delivering health care than the private sector? Why do we need to tax ourselves and other states to provide for our own poor? Something is fishy here!

Also included in the Senate’s health reform bill is my Medicare “value-index.” This proposal will adjust the way physicians are paid under Medicare to reward high quality health care. Under the current system, doctors are paid strictly by the number of services they provide to patients without regard to how their patient’s health improves. My value-index provision puts the focus back on patient health, paying doctors more when they provide better care to their patients. The value-index will significantly benefit Washington State doctors, patients, and taxpayers by bringing more money to Washington State providers while reducing over payments in other parts of the country, saving the Medicare program billions of dollars a year.

The unfortunate fact is that doctors are fleeing medicare. It’s stupid regulations like the one you are proposing that make providing care to medicare patients more expensive and less profitable. If they can’t feed their families by providing medicare, they won’t do it at all. Without doctors, what are you going to do? Can we enslave doctors to provide medical care? Or are we going to have to increase the payouts to compensate for the mountain of regulations they have to comply with?

This value-index is one of several crucial reforms to the Medicare system, reforms that are necessary to ensure the program remains solvent and provides America’s seniors with the health coverage they need. Under the currently flawed system we have today, both providers and Medicare Advantage plans in other parts of the country receive more federal funding per patient and provide more benefits than those in Washington State. I support keeping Medicare Advantage strong for Washington State seniors. The reforms in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would help Medicare Advantage plans in Washington State by correcting the payment imbalance that has hurt us in the past. Washington State Medicare providers and Medicare Advantage plans would finally be eligible for higher payments to reward their long history of efficiency. This will create a more equitable Medicare program across the country and bring substantial benefits to Washington State’s senior citizens.

Unfortunately, the doctors don’t seem to agree with you. More regulation is not the answer.

This health care legislation stabilizes skyrocketing costs, encourages quality and extends health care coverage to 31 million uninsured Americans. It will also tightly regulate the health insurance industry to protect consumers from being denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. Insurance companies will be prevented from dropping coverage due to illness and it will be illegal to arbitrary increase premiums on policy holders. Additionally, small businesses will be allowed to pool together to achieve the purchasing power of large companies, which will finally allow them to access affordable coverage for their employees.

Why are costs skyrocketing? I’ll give you several reasons.

There is no competition in the health insurance industry. More competition would lower costs and increase quality. As it is today, the tax code gives insurance companies a monopoly in each employer. Eliminate the tax incentive to provide health care, and allow people to buy insurance from out of state.
Lawyers like John Edwards abuse the malpractice laws to extort billions from good doctors. End the abuse of our tort system by placing caps on pay-outs and limits on what doctors can be held accountable for. Better yet, allow the juries to be composed exclusively from doctors of a similar field so that they can judge whether their colleague actually was abusing his profession. This malpractice payout money ultimately comes from the pockets of the patients, driving up health care costs.
Stop regulating medical devices and drugs. The FDA is supposed to insure that only safe drugs and devices are introduced into the field of medicine. They have failed. We are better left with doctors and manufacturers regulating themselves, and allowing patients to choose whether they will experiment with a new drug or not. This will reduce the cost of R&D by billions.
Stop regulating the medical industry altogether. Stupid regulations are expensive to enforce. Rather, let each doctor, hospital, and association of doctors and hospitals set their own standards, and enforce the same. Let the patients decide which doctors, hospitals, or professional organizations are trustworthy and which are not.
Stop buying drugs and paying for doctors for the elderly and sick. By getting the Federal Government out of the charity business, and leaving private individuals and organizations to care for those who truly can’t afford their care, there will not be a massive incentive to extort money from the federal government. Let charities determine how much or how little they will pay for drugs and care for the elderly and sick. Let individuals have the ultimate say, not the government.

The final product will not include everything I believe we need to improve our health care system, but make no mistake: this is a landmark bill that institutes significant reform, offers immediate relief and provides a foundation for a health care system that will last us well into the future. As we work to combine the House and Senate bills, I am focused on ensuring the policies which benefit Washingtonians remain strong. For the full text and various summaries of the bill as passed by the Senate on December 24, 2009, please see: http://dpc.senate.gov/dpcdoc-sen_health_care_bill.cfm.

It is landmark in its audacity to violate Article 1, Section 8. Have you even read it? If you have, how can you justify this bill by it?

Thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts on this matter. You may also be interested in signing up for periodic updates for Washington State residents. If you are interested in subscribing to this update, please visit my website at http://cantwell.senate.gov. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Maria Cantwell

United States Senator

Senator, you’ve addressed none of my concerns. Instead, I feel like you have deleted my email and ignored my comments. Please, seriously consider the following facts.

Article 1, Section 8 clearly delineates what Congress can do. Medical regulation is not one of them. Please explain to me why you feel it is justified to violate our sacred constitution and violate that oath you swore to protect and defend the same.
The medical system in the United States is the #1 system in the world, bar none. Tell me why you feel it necessary to emulate the failing systems of the UK and Canada. Tell me why you are not working to extend the freedoms and liberties of the people, the very thing that makes our medical system superior to all others.
What is it about the Republican proposals that you refuse even to admit they exist? Why not reform our tax code to allow people to buy their own insurance, outside of their company? Why not allow out-of-state insurance companies to sell policies to the people? Why not reform the tort system?

I fully expect to be ignored, because that is the MO of the Democratic Party nowadays.

You may interpret Scott Brown’s victory as evidence that you need to pass more communist bills faster. I assure you, I have a different opinion. At the very least, I encourage you to pursue the path you are following. It’s been a while since we’ve sent a conservative republican to the senate from Washington, anyway.

[Via http://fwcon.wordpress.com]

Rock Band Network open beta goes live | News

Scott Brown Is Now A US Senator

2010-01-20T03:22:00.000+02:00

Scott Brown (R) has pulled it off and will become the next US Senator in Massachusetts, a seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy. He ran in a very Democratic district and his Democratic opponent was ahead in the early stages of the campaign. That all changed as more and more independent voters turned away from the Democratic Party and President Barack Obama. This spells trouble for other Democrats who are up for election around the country.

Congressman Travis Childers (D) is up for reelection here in Northeast Mississippi but has become unpopular with independent voters. He will be running against Alan Nunnelee or Henry Ross. Also a black female conservative at Fox News has expressed interest in running in the GOP primary. I predict that the Democratic Party will lose huge numbers of seats this year and Congressman Travis Childers will also be defeated.

One thing you might want to consider. Everyone knows that President Barack Obama has America on the wrong track but who started that direction? President Bush started the bailout of the bankers and Wall Street and continued his unneeded wars in the Middle East. Barack Obama is only following his lead. Who gets elected isn’t important. It is who is behind the certain. As long as the Federal Reserve is still in operation – nothing will change. Abolish The Federal Reserve!

[Via http://southpopulist.wordpress.com]

Bayh Warns "Catastrophe" If Dems Ignore Massachusetts Senate Race ...

Artificial muscle to save sight?

2010-01-18T19:11:00.000+02:00

Surgeons from the Davis Medical Center have used artificial muscle to make the eyelid of a human cadaver blink.

The technique could benefit thousands of people each year who lose their ability to blink due to stroke etc., and may also have application in other conditions, such as inability to smile.

Craig Senders, Travis Tollefson and colleagues used EPAM (electroactive polymer artificial muscle) and a small battery to power a simple setup for making a blink. They found the amount of force and stroke required to close the eyelid with the setup were well within the attainable range of the artificial muscle.

Two techniques currently in use to restore blinking both have drawbacks.

Senders and Tollefson estimate the technology will be availabe for patients within 5 years.

The report is in the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery.

[Via http://teammccallum.wordpress.com]

Food Processors | Computer Technology News

a woo in surgeon's clothing?

2010-01-15T11:01:00.000+02:00

Dude, I am so happy I’m not the only one who gets cringey feelings and second-hand embarrassment when I see Doctor Oz in his tv scrubs:

First off, I really, really wish that Dr. Oz would stop wearing scrubs on his show. I realize that it’s designed to scream to the audience that “I’m a doctor, dammit! Listen to me! I know what I’m talking about!”…Dr. Oz is in his TV studio doing a partially scripted talk show, and he just looks silly. There’s no other way to describe it. Orac, over at Respectful Insolence, taking down the good doctor’s disturbing style preferences in and amongst taking aim at his more disturbing…medical tendencies of late.

The scrubs on set are bad enough. He then goes and adds Crocs. Worn without socks.

It’s just weird, really. For instance, he must pitch up at the studio in normal casual wear, or a suit from a meeting, or whatever, and then gets to work and gets ready for the make-up chair and….dons his scrubs for the important clinical sterile requirements of a talk show studio? For me to sit there and think “dude, what…is the ‘Dr’ in front of your name not enough, and OMG your feet must stink by the end of taping!?’.

As if that weren’t enough it seems like the dollar signs are now too mesmerising. Sigh. The large, funny-named woman on the telly and everywhere else is dangerous! Repent! Flee, flee for your lives!

[Via http://ayeshafakie.wordpress.com]

News Corp. Shakes Up Top Fox Executives

Found Words - The Oath of Maimonides

2010-01-15T03:22:00.000+02:00

“The eternal providence has appointed me to watch over the life and health of Thy creatures. May the love for my art actuate me at all time; may neither avarice nor miserliness, nor thirst for glory or for a great reputation engage my mind; for the enemies of truth and philanthropy could easily deceive me and make me forgetful of my lofty aim of doing good to Thy children.

May I never see in the patient anything but a fellow creature in pain.

Grant me the strength, time and opportunity always to correct what I have acquired, always to extend its domain; for knowledge is immense and the spirit of man can extend indefinitely to enrich itself daily with new requirements.

Today he can discover his errors of yesterday and tomorrow he can obtain a new light on what he thinks himself sure of today. Oh, God, Thou has appointed me to watch over the life and death of Thy creatures; here am I ready for my vocation and now I turn unto my calling.”

-Moses Maimonides, 12th Century Physician

[Via http://wordsbeforewords.wordpress.com]

World's News Media Enters Port-au-Prince - Media Decoder Blog ...

Here is your scientific word/term for Jan. 13, 2010:

2010-01-13T19:46:00.000+02:00

Today’s term is a twenty-letter word that many nursing students learn.

Term: pharmacotherapeutics

Definition: The study of the effects of drugs in a clinical setting.

The emphasis here is on the effects that a drug has, and accordingly, the drug’s proper uses.

A couple of somewhat similar-looking words have their own meanings of course. “Pharmacodynamics” refers to the study of the interaction of drugs with living tissue, and “pharmacokinetics” refers to the study of what happens to drugs in living organisms.

The more general term, “phamacology” can be defined as the study of the effects of drugs.

Coming on Saturday (1/16/10), “If I had a hammer…”

—

Any single term and definition provided here may be used for personal or educational purposes. Please attribute any such use using “From ScientificWords.wordpress.com – ” followed by the posting date. Source material includes various editions of the “EasyTerms” series of books on scientific vocabulary. More info at:

Applecreek Books

You can also search for books by title or by searching for my name at major online retailers.

[Via http://scientificwords.wordpress.com]

Sarah Palin: FOX News contributor: The Swamp

Doctors Fighting for Gifts from Pharma Companies

2010-01-11T19:41:00.000+02:00

In many countries, prescription drug advertising is banned, but pharma companies can still give little gifts to doctors. Now a Spanish blog covers, as reported by Advertising in Health, a lot of gadgets and gifts which sometimes are quite weird or have no functionality.

And if you think doctors are fed up with these, just take a look at the two videos below. The first one becomes interesting at 0:35.

For more information on prescription drug advertising, see the website of the Food and Drug Administration and also EthicAd.org.

[Via http://scienceroll.com]

Erica Hill Leaving CNN For CBS | News Articles | LifeBytes

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc - Why my iPod Didn't Kill my Computer

2010-01-08T19:00:00.000+02:00

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc is Latin for “after this, therefore because of this,” or in other words, associating correlation with causation.

People are notorious for making this error in logic, because when something significant happens we want to be able to know & explain why it happened.

I was guilty of this error the other day when my laptop broke (I lost all of my files, I cried and learned my lesson – back them up!!!). I was going about my computer business as usual, and remembered that my iPod battery was nearly drained, so decided to plug it in. As soon as the cord hit the USB port, the screen went black, it crashed, and I couldn’t turn it back on.

I blamed this crash on the iPod, I even yelled at it and threw the cord against the wall! But when my husband took it in to get fixed, they said it wasn’t possible that the iPod was what caused the problem. Sorry iPod, it was just a coincidence that my computer happened to die at the exact moment that I plugged it in. I think this is a great example that helps to understand why many people buy into the anti-vaccine movement in spite of the complete lack of evidence correlating vaccines with autism.

Just like a certain amount of peoples’ computers will crash shortly after they plug their iPods into their USB ports, a certain number of children will be diagnosed with autism shortly after they are immunized. Just because it happens before, doesn’t mean it was the cause.

There’s a story that Paul Offit, author of Autism’s False Prophets, likes to tell that illustrates this beautifully:

My wife is a privately practicing pediatrician in the suburbs. And she was in the office one day and there was a four-month-old sitting on her mother’s lap. And my wife was drawing a vaccine into a syringe that she was about to give this child. Well, while she was drawing the vaccine into a syringe the child had a seizure, and actually went on to have a permanent seizure disorder—epilepsy. And there had been a family history of epilepsy, so she was certainly at risk for that. If my wife had given that vaccine five minutes earlier, I think there’s no amount of statistical data in the world that would have convinced that mother that anything other than the vaccine caused the seizure, because I think those sort of emotional events are very hard to argue against.

[Via http://struckbyenlightning.wordpress.com]

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: This is Great News! For ...

Good News - Alt-Med Gets Whacked in 2009

2010-01-06T02:34:00.000+02:00

It looks like, upon looking back at the year 2009, that in many ways it was a good one for science & skepticism – at least, it was good for medical science. That’s because, according to a breakdown by LiveScience.com, various forms of alt-med woo woo got a well-deserved smackdown. That’s because a number of popular alt-med ideas were – gasp! – actually tested out under controlled conditions to see if they actually do what their practitioners claim. Let’s look at the results…

Reiki

Reiki is a spiritual practice developed in Japan in the early 20th century that, in the hands of Westerners, has evolved into a new-age healing practice. Popular in Hawaii and California by the 1970s, reiki has since become a staple at health spas and in granola-loving cities across the United States.

Reiki involves a practitioner (that is, someone who has taken a couple days of training) who places her hands on or just above a patient’s body to transmit healing energy — the “ki” or reiki, better known as qi in Chinese traditional medicine. Reiki has all the trappings of new-age healing: restoring balance and instilling life energy through mysticism and/or vibrational energy. Akin to a hands-off massage, reiki is said to relieve stress, fatigue and depression and promote self-healing for just about any disease, including cancer.

The two largest scientific reviews of reiki, published last year in International Journal of Clinical PracticeJournal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, reveal that reiki is not an effective treatment for any condition. and in November 2009 in the Also in 2009, the U.S. Catholic Church weighed in, stating at a March meeting of bishops that, “since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate for… Catholic health care facilities… to provide support for Reiki therapy.”

Reiki is not an outright scam; the practitioners seem to believe in what they are doing. In the end the soft music and whispery speech of the practitioners during the reiki sessions merely helps one relax.

Well, regardless of the Catholic Church’s theological opinion on reiki, one thing is clear: the science shows that, despite the fervent belief held by its practitioners, reiki doesn’t work. I can wave my hands in the air just as well as a “qualified” reiki practitioner and achieve exactly the same results… nothing at all. What’s next?

Reflexology or zone therapy

What’s the connection between the center of the ball of the left foot and the heart? Apparently nothing, according to systematic reviews of reflexology, or zone therapy, the practice of massaging the feet and sometimes hands or ears to cure disease.

Maybe you’ve seen the charts. The toes are somehow connected to the head and sinuses. There’s a spot in the middle of the foot that can help control diabetes, and next to that is the fresh-breath button. Foot massages sure do feel great. But “feel great” and “cure halitosis” are two different things.

As summed up in a study of over 250 adults, published in November-December 2009 issue of the journal Heart & Lung, reflexology and other massage techniques had no effect for heart surgery patients on postoperative mood, pain, anxiety, hospital stay and several other measures. (Actually, anxiety was lower in the group not getting the foot massage.)

This study follows systematic reviews published in September 2009 in the Medical Journal of Australia and in June 2008 by Taiwanese researchers in the Journal of Advanced Nursing finding no evidence that reflexology helps any condition.

So the bottom line is this: if your feet hurt, get a foot massage; if you’re recovering from heart surgery, for frak’s sake go see a cardiologist! Sheesh!

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is the use of physically impossible or implausible dilutions of medicines — or, poisons, actually, for homeopathy’s main tenet is “like kills like” — to cure just about anything. Numerous studies in 2009 found homeopathy to be either useless or marginally better than a placebo. But results tilt towards the “useless” side when the studies are bigger and the diseases are more serious.

In April in the journal Intervention Review, British researchers reported that there’s no evidence to support the use of homeopathy to treat the adverse effects of cancer treatment. In June in the journal Primary Care, a systematic review found homeopathy to be ineffective for weight loss. In October in the Annals of Oncology, more researchers reported no benefit from homeopathy in cancer treatment. And a medical perspective in JAMA in October detailed the lack of oversight for homeopathic products. (Maybe that’s why they don’t work.)

Also, in August 2009, the World Health Organization felt the need to make an official statement warning against the use of homeopathy for serious diseases, such as HIV, TB and malaria, after word spread that homeopathy was being promoted in some developing countries.

To be fair, the Faculty of Homeopathy, a UK-based professional society, lists numerous randomized, controlled trials on its website from previous years demonstrating the efficacy of homeopathy. If you want lots of positive results, you can always subscribe to the journal Homeopathy. And so the debate continues.

Actually, as far as I’m concerned – until the homeopaths can come up with some kind of plausible physical mechanism by which their woo-woo is supposed to work (as opposed to random hand-waving explanations) – the debate is DOA. Otherwise their claims amount to little more than a dragon in the garage. This silliness reminds me of a joke:

A man is strolling down the street, completely naked. A cop driving by pulls over and arrests the man for indecent exposure. As the man is being put into the cop car, he protests loudly by stating: “But officer, I’m not naked – I’m wearing my homeopathic pants!”

Moving on…

Magnetic therapy

Unlike many alternative therapies that come with ample amounts of good intentions, magnetic therapy seems like an outright scam. Most manufacturers know the magnets have no proven benefit for health, and yet magnets are added to everything from headbands to back braces to shoe inserts.

The basic premise, that magnets somehow improve blood flow, defies physics. The iron in your blood is bound to hemoglobin and is not attracted to magnets of any strength. This is a good thing. Otherwise you’d blow up in an MRI machine, with magnets thousands of times more powerful than your shoe insert.

Also, the magnets in most magnetic therapeutic devices are far too weak to penetrate the skin, particularly through clothing such as socks. Simply cover a magnetic shoe insert with a sock and try to attract something as light as a paper clip.

Nevertheless, some people swear by them, and some researchers still have the stamina to test these despite decades of negative results. And so, as published in August 2009 in Rheumatology International Clinical and Experimental Investigations, magnetic therapy did not improve the chronic pain associated with fibromyalgia.

The deathblow to magnet therapy should have been the large, randomized, double-blinded study on pain published in 2007 in Anesthesia & Analgesia. Yet sales of therapeutic magnets remain legal.

This one annoys me, as a physicist, to no end. The point about the MRI machines is particularly relevant – MRI machines generate magnetic fields many, many thousands (in some cases millions) of times more powerful than the crappy little magnets sold by these alt-med hucksters to the gullible. And an MRI machine is a diagnostic tool – it doesn’t treat or cure anything! So, just do the math folks… and save your money when approached by the next bogus magnetic therapy ad you see.

Last, but not least…

Kava

Herbs hold great healing promise. Many common drugs, such as aspirin and digitalin, were either once or continue to be synthesized from botanical herbs. Yet herbs can be deadly, too. Kava is one such herb, taken for relaxation. When mixed with alcohol, it can kill you. This is likely not the level of relaxation you are after. Also, the leaves and stems (but not the roots) can be toxic to the liver. Kava is indeed banned in many countries through Europe, where herbal medicine is otherwise popular.

In systematic reviews of kava and other herbals published in September 2009 in the journal Drugs and in Integrative Cancer Therapies, researchers found kava to be more trouble than it is worth, because it interferes with real medicines for cancer and other diseases.

Kava is not without its merits. Kava root is mixed into a drink in many South Pacific countries with few adverse effects, other than those that mimic alcohol abuse. Some studies have shown kava’s value in treating anxiety and depression from a specially prepared root extract. But despite the availability of kava on supermarket shelves, because of potential toxicity and drug interference, it is best to check with a doctor before self-prescribing this herb.

That last point cannot be emphasized enough, in my opinion. One of the dangers of buying into the alt-med, herbal remedy, “natural is good” philosophy is that it often leads people to circumvent the trustworthy medical process and go down the road of self-diagnosis & self-medication – which is sometimes very dangerous! It’s even more dangerous when self-medicating with some untested herb that is being pushed by someone who doesn’t have relevant medical training. For more info on this, check out what the potential harm is of self-medicating with herbs like kava.

So what is likely to be the response of many in the alt-med community to this news? My guess is that rather than acknowledge that the scientific process has put their cherished ideas to the test and found them lacking, they’ll instead attack the entire endeavor of medical science. This is often done by various alt-med woos when they drone on and on about various conspiracy theories involving “Big Pharma”, the government, doctors, and medical scientists.

And they can rant on all they want, it still won’t make their bogus therapies work. Self-delusion is sad to see.

[Via http://skepticalteacher.wordpress.com]

News Corp. Unloads Rotten Tomatoes Onto Flixster

A Wiki about Doing Research

2010-01-04T19:19:00.000+02:00

Dean Giustini just published a fantastic list of educational guides that will help you when you have to do some research and have questions. It’s intended for librarians but I think any kind of medical professionals will find what they are looking for. The material is on HLWiki Canada. A few of the great collections:

Applying for grants
Bibliographic citation software
Citation management
Expert searching
Evidence-based librarianship
Impact factor
Major clinical studies & trial types
Open search
Structured abstract
Style manuals
Submitting to an academic journal

[Via http://scienceroll.com]

Obama's Busy Last Day of Vacation - Political Punch

Swedish Neuroscience Institute and Institute for Systems Biology Form Alliance to Learn More about Brain Diseases

2010-01-01T11:00:00.000+02:00

Joint fund-raising efforts will support collaborative work of this unique partnership SEATTLE, Sept. 30, 2008 – The Swedish Neuroscience Institute (SNI) has joined forces with the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) to fundraise for and collaborate on research they hope will lead to cures for diseases of the brain and nervous system. The new partnership brings together physicians, researchers and fundraisers from two of the most respected organizations in the Pacific Northwest. Greg Foltz. M.D., SNI neurosurgeon and head of the recently opened Center for Advanced Brain Tumor Treatment at Swedish’s Cherry Hill Campus, is jointly leading the project with Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., ISB co-founder and president. “This is the first time that such a large group of established researchers have been brought together from the fields of neurosurgery, neuropathology, systems biology, genomics and biostatistical analysis to address serious diseases affecting the brain, such as malignant brain tumors,” said Dr. Foltz. “Also of significance is the fact that the SNI and ISB researchers are focused solely on developing early diagnostic tools and treatment solutions for human disease rather than theoretical pursuits.” The collaboration also brings to bear some of the most advanced research technologies that exist today. The SNI and ISB collaboration represents a powerful strategic partnership that joins the clinical expertise of Swedish with the systems biology, technology and computational expertise of ISB,” said Dr. Hood. “This study will integrate many different types of biological information from these patients which may in time lead to a deep understanding of the kinds of brain tumors today that are inevitably fatal.” ISB has been a global leader in the development of systems biology and the effort to identify organ-specific molecular ‘fingerprints’ in the blood that could lead to the pre-symptomatic diagnosis of disease. Diseases such as Glioblastoma (the most common and most aggressive type of primary brain tumor) are so deadly because by the time symptoms present in a patient, the disease has usually progressed to the point where a cure is not possible. In addition, researchers hope that understanding how biological networks of genes and proteins interact in brain cancer will reveal new and better targets for drug development and treatment of the disease. One of the partnership’s first research collaborations has been the creation of a brain tumor tissue bank and associated genomic database derived from samples removed during surgery. Dr. Foltz believes the tumor bank and database provide researchers in Seattle and beyond the critical resources they need to further their research into slowing or stopping the growth of malignant brain tumors. “One thing that’s made learning about these tumors difficult is that there are few patients at any one center and the tumors progress so rapidly without treatment. With the tissue bank and associated genomic database, we are establishing the foundation for one of the largest brain tumor research projects in the country,” said Dr. Foltz. “It’s a project with a mission to help not only patients in the future, but also those currently affected and whose tumors are now being so carefully studied.” The Institute for Systems Biology, founded in 2000, integrates such sciences as biology, chemistry, physics, computation, mathematics and medicine. “Systems biology is the science of discovering, modeling, understanding and ultimately engineering at the molecular level the dynamic relationships between the biological molecules that define living organisms,” said Dr. Hood. “System-based approaches to diseases such as Glioblastoma afford powerful new opportunities for bringing this disease under control.” “This new partnership between the SNI and ISB represents the future of medicine,” says Dr. Foltz. “As a physician whose primary concern is my patients, it’s inspiring to see scientists working so hard to find a way to help them. Especially encouraging is the fact that this collaboration will bring together researchers from different backgrounds who will be working in concert to attack the most difficult problems in disorders of the brain.” “We had a very strong program before this collaboration,” Dr. Foltz added. “But, ISB’s inclusion in this effort puts some of the best scientific minds in the world to work on behalf of our patients.” For his part, Dr. Foltz has recently developed a way to analyze brain tumor patients’ blood and look for certain ‘markers’ that can help determine the best course of chemotherapy for their particular type of tumor. While there is still a long way to go, the early results look promising not only for brain tumors, but for other types of diseases as well. Additionally, the knowledge gained from the brain tissue bank may shed light on the causes and possible cures for other neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and strokes now affecting aging baby boomers in ever greater numbers. The partnership’s joint fund-raising efforts will be spearheaded by Randy Mann, senior director of Campaign for the Swedish Foundation, and Laurence Herron, vice president of development for ISB. ### About Swedish Medical Center Swedish Medical Center is the largest, most comprehensive, nonprofit health-care provider in the Greater Seattle area. It is comprised of three hospital campuses (First Hill, Cherry Hill and Ballard), a freestanding emergency room and specialty center in Issaquah, Swedish Home Care Services and Swedish Physicians – a network of 12 primary-care clinics. In addition to general medical and surgical care, Swedish is known as a regional referral center, providing specialized treatment in areas such as neurological care, cardiovascular care, oncology, orthopedics, high-risk obstetrics, pediatrics, organ transplantation and clinical research. For more information, visit www.swedish.org About the Swedish Neuroscience Institute In 2004, Swedish Medical Center expanded its neuroscience services by establishing the Swedish Neuroscience Institute. The team of leading neurosurgeons and other specialists are building a world-class institute dedicated solely to the treatment and advancement of neurological disorders for patients in the Pacific Northwest and around the world. The Swedish/Cherry Hill Campus is the hub for the Institute and has been upgraded with four state-of-the-art operating rooms with intra-operative MRI and CT scanning, neuro-interventional radiology capabilities, a renovated neuro intensive-care unit, and a CyberKnife® facility for radiosurgical treatment of tumors throughout the body. SNI specializes in the research for and treatment of stroke; cerebral aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations; movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and tremors; brain tumors (including both malignant tumors and benign tumors such as meningiomas); neuro-endocrine disorders including pituitary tumors; epilepsy; child neurological disorders; neuro-ophthalmology; headaches; multiple sclerosis and many other neurological conditions and diseases. In each category, physicians from different specialties are brought together to provide a multi-disciplinary approach centered on providing top-notch patient care. About the Center for Advanced Brain Tumor Treatment Founded in 2008, the Center for Advanced Brain Tumor Treatment gives brain-tumor patients and their families access to: A multi-disciplinary team of skilled neurosurgeons, oncologists, radiologists and a specialized nursing staff to deliver coordinated care and innovative treatments. An integrated care coordinator who serves as a patient advocate and liaison Access to clinical trials that offer patients early and timely access to investigational drugs and treatments Promising new therapies that use gene-sequencing technologies to identify customized treatment options A comprehensive brain tumor research laboratory that provides rapid genetic analysis of brain tumors Funding for the Center has been lead by a recent $2 million donation by the David and Sandra Sabey family, which was announced May 31, 2008 at Swedish’s annual auction, Celebrate Swedish. A total of $3.3 million was then raised in support of the Center during the auction’s ‘Fund-A-Need’ program. Earlier this summer, the Center then hosted a first-year event – the Seattle Brain Cancer Walk (www.braincancerwalk.org) – to increase awareness about the cause and raise money for the Center and its related work. About the Institute for Systems Biology The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) is an internationally renowned, non-profit research institute headquartered in Seattle and dedicated to the study and application of systems biology. Founded by Leroy Hood, Alan Aderem and Ruedi Aebersold, ISB seeks to unravel the mysteries of human biology and identify strategies for predicting and preventing diseases such as cancer, diabetes and AIDS. ISB’s systems approach integrates biology, computation and technological development, enabling scientists to analyze all elements in a biological system rather than one gene or protein at a time. Founded in 2000, the Institute has grown to 14 faculty and more than 230 staff members, an annual budget of more than $30 million, and an extensive network of academic and industrial partners. For more information about ISB, visit www.systemsbiology.org CONTACT: Todd Langton Associate Director of Communications and Public Relations (206) 732-1333

http://www.systemsbiology.org/Press_Release_093008

[Via http://xunanfang.wordpress.com]

ABC News' Wrongest Reporter Strikes Again - Brian Ross - Gawker

Webicina.com: 2009 Summary

2009-12-30T19:18:00.000+02:00

In October of 2008, I launched Webicina.com, the world’s first medical free web 2.0 guidance service, in order to help empowered patients and their doctors find quality medical information and medical web tools easily. 2009 was a fantastic year with many new features and international conferences where I presented our work. Here are the milestones.

Webicina.com was presented at:

Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Conference 17 (Long Beach, CA; January, 2009)
Web 2.0 BarCamp in Budapest, Hungary (March, 2009)
Acutezorg.nl event in Nijmegen, The Netherlands (March, 2009).
Sanidad 2.0 in Bilbao, Spain (June, 2009)
Science Foo Camp in San Francisco, USA (July, 2009)
Pharma 2.0 event in Budapest, Hungary (October, 2009)
Reshape Health 2.0 event in Nijmegen, The Netherlands (October, 2009)
Cor 09 National Cardiology Congress in Budapest, Hungary (November, 2009)

Webicina.com Medical Web 2.0 Collections:

Neurology and web 2.0
Rheumatology and web 2.0
Radiology and web 2.0
Diabetes and web 2.0
Depression and web 2.0
Cancer and web 2.0
Pregnancy and web 2.0
Weight Loss and web 2.0
Autism and web 2.0

Webicina.com free e-guides:

How to keep yourself up-to-date in medicine?
How to write a quality medical blog?
How to give a remarkable slideshow?
Medicine in Second Life

PeRSSonalized Medicine is a free tool that lets you select your favourite resources and read the latest news and articles in one personalized place. Now it has 26 sections!

Languages of PeRSSonalized Medicine:

English
German
Spanish
Portuguese
Dutch
Hungarian

We are just finishing major changes on Webicina, so in 2010, we will come up with some innovative and useful features. Please stay tuned for more!

Our mission is to help patients and doctors use the web as efficiently as possible.

[Via http://scienceroll.com]

Best News Yet for Fox | Right Wing News

7 Months and 2000 Miles Later

2009-12-28T19:39:00.000+02:00

After a week off work, I returned home from Illinois last night at 8pm. For at least 24 hours before that I had been counting the hours until I had to return to work, laughing at the absurdity of being at work 900 miles away. Laughing mixed with bitterness I see now. Laughing is what I always do when it comes to impossible situations.

I was ready to return, though. Lack of structure is hard on me psychologically, so one week is plenty of break. After returning home, I mostly took it easy last night.

This morning, after shoveling through a mountain of email (which, yes, is better than shoveling snow), I headed for the chapel. I was there over an hour. I always have mixed mind about that. I believe very strongly in prayer, and I believe that any ministry job which faults me for praying too much has its own problems. Yet I also know that the ‘desire to pray’ and the ‘desire to take a nap’ can overlap with each other. This wasn’t that kind of prayer. For weeks perhaps, I have been without set aside times for prayer, which is unusual for me. There were plenty of days where I consciously noted that I hadn’t had two days in a row where I really gave any time to prayer in a while. I was parched, and I needed that time.

The one part of my unit’s final evaluation with less than the highest marks was attending to self-care. I vocally disagreed with my supervisor’s assessment, but my decision to stay in the chapel was definitely a self-care decision (although not only a self-care decision).

Then I went to see patients. There were two referrals and one other family that I had been seeing before the break. I have been seeing that family since I started at Duke in June. They were literally the second family I ever visited with at the beginning of my residency, and they have been at Duke continuously since May. Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a handful of family birthdays later, they are still here. And since the end of June, I have known (or at least have constantly assumed) that he was going to die. Nothing went right with his recovery from surgery. Kidneys shut down, liver shut down, digestive tract shut down, depression and anxiety set in. And for weeks, literally every heart beat and every breath has been dictated by the steady metronome of machines. He is as healthy as a machine. His heart and breath rates are so perfect and so pristine, that he is more ‘healthy’ than nature will provide.

After I saw him today and talked to one of his doctors, I wondered if the miracle his family has been praying for all along is just around the corner. I wonder if the miracle might be a good death, that God would rescue him from an end wrapped in blood, clawing for air (and this is the end which his doctor says is now likely).

In a CPE residency, one of the things we talk about so often is transference and counter-transference. Transference is when a middle aged female patient notices that I look a bit like her son and then starts relating to me as if I were her son. Counter-transference is when I relate to her as if she were my mom. Most of the time it is much more subtle, and you notice it because your emotional attachment to a patient is a lot stronger than any intellectual view of the relationship can explain.

In my view, the reason my job is hard is not because people die around me, but because when they die, I somehow experience it. I am in it. I am with them. And sometimes, I experience enough of their pain that I know that I am too close. This is one of those times. This will be one of those deaths where I need to ask myself the question again, “What will happen to you if this patient dies?” and the corollary, “Why this patient?”, as in “Why is this patient’s death and not some other death really getting to you?”

The easy and true answer is that this family has been at the hospital longer than I have. Add up their hours since May and my hours since June, and I would guess they have been here 2-3 times as long as I have. I introduced this family to at least three other chaplains, as the patient was shuttled from floor to floor, unit to unit. And then the second crop of interns left at the beginning of December, and I was their chaplain again. Add up the hours I have spent with them, and it is…well, a lot.

I’m angry about it really. Why won’t God just kill the guy? (A question with tone enough to show you how strongly I feel this death.) Why won’t his family let him go? Why can’t the doctors say, “There is nothing more that we can do. Sorry, but we need to remove support,” and then do it and not have their labcoats sued right off their backs? Everything is wrong about this.

What is at stake for me in this? As I am assessing the last several months, the thread that runs through it all is this man, and I have failed him. No, I haven’t failed him, but he is a failure. He didn’t live and he won’t live, and he won’t even get a good death, as far as I know. For anyone wondering whether there are fates worth than death, there are. And for those wondering if there really are such things as the undead, there are, but they can’t walk the earth. Their skin is far too destroyed, their legs far too weak, and their wills are snapped in pieces. All that’s accurate about the movies is the groaning, because they can no longer speak. If we continue on this cinematic route, just know that Darth Vader is a beautiful fantasy to real machine people.

So what is it to me? I keep asking myself this. What is it for you? What is here for you? I can give lots of answers, many of them true, but I can’t find the answer. Maybe the truth is that there is no ‘the answer.’

A practical side. If I see him every day, I will not be able to stay separate. I cannot minister to the other if I become enmeshed with the other. And I am in danger of becoming enmeshed. I know this. I am Harry Potter staring too closely into Albus’s pensieve; if I’m not careful I will be sucked into somebody else’s life head first.

Yet the family needs care and would benefit from daily visits. The balance (and this is a daily rather than an anomalous balance for chaplains) is that I ask for help. I can go twice a week, but I can ask someone else to go on those other days. But that gives them three days and me two!, I may think. Possessiveness is evidence that I am getting too close. I know I’m healthy enough if I can ask somebody else to provide care to this patient alongside me. Asking someone else also reminds me that I am not alone in my suffering with this family. It’s a whole other reflection (and this is already three or more in one), but the reminder that I am not alone here is a reminder that at my most alone feeling, I am never alone.

[Via http://tasersedge.wordpress.com]

Six Contentious Animal Culls in the News in December are Small ...

Handbook of medical imaging: processing and analysis By Isaac N. Bankman-Imaging Books

2009-12-28T11:50:00.000+02:00

Book overview In recent years, the remarkable advances in medical imaging instruments have increased their use considerably for diagnostics as well as planning and follow-up of treatment. Emerging from the fields of radiology, medical physics and engineering, medical imaging no longer simply deals with the technology and interpretation of radiographic images. The limitless possibilities presented by computer science and technology, coupled with engineering advances in signal processing, optics and nuclear medicine have created the vastly expanded field of medical imaging. The Handbook of Medical Imaging is the first comprehensive compilation of the concepts and techniques used to analyze and manipulate medical images after they have been generated or digitized. The Handbook is organized in six sections that relate to the main functions needed for processing: enhancement, segmentation, quantification, registration, visualization as well as compression storage and telemedicine.

* Internationally renowned authors(Johns Hopkins, Harvard, UCLA, Yale, Columbia, UCSF)

* Includes imaging and visualization

* Contains over 60 pages of stunning, four-color images

Download this book for free from here Download link

[Via http://kushtripathi.wordpress.com]

Live-blog: Ashura in Iran – December 27, 2009 | Iran News Now

AKU event: ‘Over four million suspected Hepatitis-B carriers in Pakistan’

2009-12-25T11:09:00.000+02:00

An estimated 300 to 350 million people worldwide are carriers of the Hepatitis-B virus (HBV); around four to five million people are suspected HBV carriers in Pakistan. This was stated by doctors and experts who spoke about the dangers of HBV at a public awareness seminar on Thursday.

The event was organised by the Aga Khan University (AKU), in collaboration with the Pakistan Society for the Study of Liver Diseases (PSSLD). The HBV can cause a number of liver diseases, including chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis (scarring of the liver) and liver cancer.

Close to two million people worldwide die each year from HBV, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the virus is 50 to 100 times more infectious than HIV/AIDS. HBV is endemic in parts of Asia, with more children being affected as the virus can be passed from an infected mother to her baby at birth.

Reading materials in medicine

2009-12-23T18:53:00.000+02:00

*Allen, David E.; Bird, Lewis P.; and Herrmann, Robert, eds. Whole Person Medicine: An International Symposium. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1980.
*Bouma, Hessel, et al. Christian Faith, Health and Medical Practice. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989.
Granberg-Michaelson, Karin. In the Land of the Living: Health Care and the Church. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1984.
Hauerwas, Stanley. Suffering Presence: Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Mentally Handicapped and the Church. Notre Dame, Ind.: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1986.
Jones, D. Gareth. Our Fragile Brains. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1980.
*Kelsey, Morton. Psychology, Medicine and Christian Healing. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.
Kilner, J.F., Cameron, N.M. de S., Schiedermayer, D.L., eds, Bioethics and the Future of Medicine: A Christian Appraisal. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995.
Lammers, Stephen E., and Verhey, Allen, eds. On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987.
Marty, Martin, and Vaux, Kenneth, eds. Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions: An Inquiry into Religion and Medicine. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982.
Miller, J. Roman and Brubaker, Beryl H. eds. Bioethics and the Beginning of Life: An Anabaptist Perspective. Scottdale, PA. and Waterloo, ON: Herald Press, 1990.
Munson, R. Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Medical Ethics, 5th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1996.
Nelson, J. B. Human Medicine. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1973.
Peters, Ted. Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom. New York and London: Routledge, 1997.
Ramsey, Paul. Fabricated Man. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1970.
Shelly, Judith Allen. Dilemma: A Nurse’s Guide for Making Ethical Decisions. Downers Grove, Ill.: intervarsity Press, 1980.
Shelly, Judith Allen, and Fish, Sharon. Spiritual Care: The Nurse’s Role. 3d ed. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988.
Verhey, Allen, ed. Religion and Medical Ethics: Looking Back, Looking Forward. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996.

[Via http://wesleychristianity.wordpress.com]

Parker Griffith's departure forewarns Dems - - POLITICO.com

Healthcare Reform: Just Business as Usual

2009-12-23T02:56:00.000+02:00

Some see the likely passage of healthcare reform as a victory for everyone except the people. Why? There are two big issues from my perspective. First, the orignal bill is about 2,000 pages long and there have been 478 Senate ammendments offered against this bill. Who has a clue what it actually says now? And have our Senators actually read the damn thing, cover to cover? I think not; certainly, neither of my Senators have confirmed to me they have. Second, what Article of the US Constitution grants the Congress authority to mandate citizens buy private health insurance? I don’t think any of them do.

On several occassions, I’ve asked my Senators, Carl Levin (D) and Debbie Stabenow (D) these same questions. So far all I’ve received is boilerplate responses about why they support healthcare reform in general. Neither has responded about the Constitutionality of the bill nor whether they’ve read the entire bill—in its current incarnation, mind you—not to mention if it will actually cut costs and save money.

The Senate voted for cloture on the healthcare reform bill strictly along party lines: 58 Democrats and 2 Independents for, 40 Republicans opposed. In his remarks on the early Monday vote, Pres. Obama said:

By standing up to the special interests—who’ve prevented reform for decades, and who are furiously lobbying against it now—the Senate has moved us closer to reform that makes a tremendous difference.

Frankly, I’m confused. It seems to me Congressmen being in bed with the American Medical Association and other bribes, such as Sen. Levin’s donations from non-profit insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield, played a large role. In fact, those 478 Senate ammendments are nothing more than maneuverings to buy votes, just like when Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) bought out Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) for that 60th vote. The American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association both support the bill, even if they have issues with parts of it. Interestingly, both point to insuring an additional 30 million citizens as their reason for supporting the bill. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t these two of the largest special interest groups regarding healthcare?

So, it seems, it’s just business as usual and the taxpayer be damned. Michigan’s two Democrat Senators voted in favor of cloture. See how your Senator voted on Roll Call 385. But, the, you already know: Democrats, for; Republicans, opposed. So much for a bipartisan healthcare bill.

Here’s what I told my Senators yesterday:

You must vote no on all future votes on the current health care reform bill in the US Senate.

I am disappointed in your failure to answer whether or not you have read the entire HR 3780 and each of the 478 Senate ammendments to the bill for which you have voted in favor of cloture. I am also disillusioned by your apparent complicity in the corruption and bribing of your fellow Senators to reach the necessary 60 votes.

You have also failed to inform me as the the specific Article(s) of the US Constitution from which the Congress derives the authority to require citizens to purchase private health insurance. I find it inexcusable that my elected representatives can vote yea on legislation for which they have not established clear Constitutional authority to do so.

According to recent public opinion polls, somewhere between 53% and 85% expect higher costs, either in premiums or taxes or both, from this fiasco. The bill does not enjoy public support and you need to vote in accordance with your constituents. Failure to do so is a violation of their sacred trust. Vote against SA 2786 at the next vote.

Results released today of a Quinnipiac University poll found most voters oppose the healthcare reform bill. The poll said 53% “mostly disapprove” of the plan and 56% disapprove of Obama’s handling of the matter. Overwhelmingly—72-23 percent—they disapproved of using public money to pay for abortions.

Today the Senate held its 60-39 majority to shut off debate on Majority Leader Harry Reid’s version of healthcare reform. The next hurdle is tomorrow’s vote to limit debate on the bill.

While using maximum times to delay votes on the bill, Senate Republicans caved in to a final vote 11 hours earlier, assuming the Democratic caucus maintains it’s 60-40 lead for Wednesday’s vote. With this expected result, the Senate will pass its ammended HR 3780 on healthcare reform before most of us are done with coffee on Thursday.

Even if it might not matter, have you told your Senators how you feel on this issue? You better, right now; we’re just two votes away.

[Via http://cynicalsynapse.wordpress.com]

Weekend news and notes - LA Observed

Health 2.0 News: 20 People Who Make Healthcare Better

2009-12-21T10:47:00.000+02:00

The increasing use of social media to recruit patients for clinical trials (Pharma Strategy Blog): There are more and more news ways for patients to find ongoing clinical trials and also for pharma companies to find interested patients.

ResearchGATE and Its Savvy Use of the Web (BusinessWeek): The world’s biggest scientific community site has over 200,000 members and an official blog which I’m a co-author of.

Buzzwords in Academic Papers (Flowing Data)

20 People Who Make Healthcare Better (Health Leaders Media)

FDA Social Media Guidelines Best Done in Baby Steps (Pharma Marketing Blog)

Are any of these the Web’s next big thing? (CNN)

Hacked Wiimote Makes Super Scientific Sensor (Wired Science)

To gamers, $40 may seem like a steep price to replace a Wii remote controller, but to scientists, a hacked Wiimote is a steal compared to the pricey sensors needed for a lot of field research.

Inspired by videos of renowned hacker Johnny Chung Lee turning the Wiimote into a finger-tracking device and a touchscreen white board, physicist Rolf Hut of Delft University of Technology built a Wiimote wind sensor.

[Via http://scienceroll.com]

Steam News

Maine Legislator Pushes Cell Phone-Cancer Woo

2009-12-21T03:14:00.000+02:00

In another *facepalm* moment, the state legislature in Maine will soon be considering a bill that would require cell phones to carry warning labels that they, you guessed it, might cause brain cancer. Ugh – I have posted about this topic before (in my post “Electromagnetic Fields & Cancer Myths”), and I cannot state strongly enough that there is no evidence that cell phone use causes cancer! Not only is there no conclusive evidence that cell phone radiation causes cancer, but according to the known laws of physics there is no physical mechanism by which this is even possible. But that won’t stop some non-scientifically minded nut with political clout from pushing this nonsense into a useless law…

Maine to consider cell phone cancer warning

A Maine legislator wants to make the state the first to require cell phones to carry warnings that they can cause brain cancer, although there is no consensus among scientists that they do and industry leaders dispute the claim.

The now-ubiquitous devices carry such warnings in some countries, though no U.S. states require them, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. A similar effort is afoot in San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom wants his city to be the nation’s first to require the warnings.

Maine Rep. Andrea Boland, D-Sanford, said numerous studies point to the cancer risk, and she has persuaded legislative leaders to allow her proposal to come up for discussion during the 2010 session that begins in January, a session usually reserved for emergency and governors’ bills.

And here’s my favorite part of the article…

While there’s little agreement about the health hazards, Boland said Maine’s roughly 950,000 cell phone users among its 1.3 million residents “do not know what the risks are.”

Ahem, Rep. Boland, this is an argument that is essentially begging the question… the assumption is that there is a risk, despite there being any conclusive evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship (not to be confused with correlation) between cancer & cell phone use AND a lack of any kind of physical mechanism to even facilitate that process. Folks, this is what happens when you mix political power with the Paralyzing Precautionary Principle. Now this may be crappy science, but I’m sure it’ll raise Rep. Boland’s political profile – too bad she couldn’t just stick to the actual science as opposed to pushing pseudoscientific & fear-mongering woo woo.

Folks, if you live in Maine, please take a moment to contact your state representatives and ask them to – for the sake of good science & sound legislative policies – just throw Boland’s bill in the trash heap where it belongs. I’m sure there are far better, more important, and real issues the Maine legislature could be dealing with on behalf of that state’s citizens.

Rep. Boland, this one’s for you…

[Via http://skepticalteacher.wordpress.com]

Iran News – Iran dissident Montazeri dies, opposition calls ...

PLacements

2009-12-18T19:46:00.000+02:00

Well, placement is finally over, and Christmas has begun!!! I still haven’t quite taken in that it’s Christmas Day in one week’s time. It still seems like months away, and even scarier is that I graduate in 6 months time. It really doesn’t seem long since I was a nervous 1st year, and scared of everything and everyone. And now i’m much more confident, and loving every minute of being in Swansea.

Haverfordwest wasn’t actually that bad. The staff were really amazing, and let me get on with whatever I wanted to do. It was really great.

My medicine application is still going well. I received a letter inviting me for an interview at St. Georges for 25th January, and an email asking for work experience information for Nottingham. So things seem to be on track. I’m learning to trust that God has everything in his control, and if it’s his will, it will happen regardless of me.

The last couple of days have been a little rocky, and apparently for no particular reason. I’m just feeling really down, and emotional. I suppose it’s something to do with being so tired at the moment, and being drained of energy. I need a holiday, but that won’t be possible til at least May, and possibly not even until July when my exams are over.

Oh well, i’ll just have to survive, and keep going.

[Via http://saraidievi87.wordpress.com]

Joe Trippi: FOX News contributor: The Swamp

so very exhausted.

2009-12-18T03:26:00.000+02:00

Ohhhh this week has been hard.

For the past four days, my alarm has gone off at 6 am. Why? Because for the intercession schedule at work, my shift is the 7:30-10:30 am. You would think this would technically be a good thing, as it gives me the entire day to get things done. But then I get off and all I want to do is sleep. Which I do. Tomorrow is the last day before winter break, two weeks of doing absolutely nothing except for Christmas stuff.

The holidays passed me up this year, I think. I feel like I’ve been too busy with life and trying to sort things out to really get in the spirit. If that makes sense. Maybe tomorrow, when I’m done with work, I’ll go home and clean my room and set up a little tree of some sort while listening to Christmas music. Hopefully it’ll help.

I went to see my psychologist on Tuesday. He’s a pretty cool dude. He’s into medication and therapy, but also in alternative healing practices, like meditation and hypnosis. We decided to up my mood stabilizer and see if that made me a little less irritable and such. I have yet to drop off the prescription, but I suppose I’ll go do that tomorrow as well.

Auguste got a new job as a bar back at Riverside Warehouse. He starts next Friday and I think he’ll be happier there, though I hate that he’ll be working Friday and Saturday nights. But I want him to be happy, so you know.

I just wanted to update a bit. I took a melatonin and I’m now going to go mess around online a bit and then try to get some sleep.

[Via http://kateeblayne.wordpress.com]

Sony, News Corp. Collaborate on Exclusive E-Reader Content | Peter ...

Senator Tom Coburn Makes The Progressive Radical Socialists Read Their Socialized Medicine Amendment to Health Care Bill!--Three Cheers--Kill The Bill!

2009-12-16T19:28:00.000+02:00

Senate Chaos

Support Senator Coburn in his efforts to stop socialized medicine by requiring that any amendments and the final bill be read first in its entirety.

Three Cheers!

Tom Coburn and John Barrasso Talk About Reforming Health Care

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[Via http://raymondpronk.wordpress.com]

Breaking Gitmo News | Talking Points Memo

Mysterious electronic implant discovered in mans tooth

2009-12-14T11:00:00.000+02:00

Bizarre implant was discovered during routine dental exam.

The National Reporter

Wally Hanson, a sixty-seven year old retired police officer from Albany New York, got an unexpected surprize last week.

While visiting his dentist for a routine check up, a mysterious metallic object was discovered in his tooth.

“It’s weird as hell.” He said. ”It’s a tiny electronic implant of some sort. I have no idea how the hell it got there. It wasn’t there the last time I had my teeth X-rayed a year ago.”

His dentist, Dr. Fred Wallington had this to say.

“I never saw anything like this. There is no opening anywhere near the implant. No scarring or filling, it’s like it just grew there.”

There are no markings to indicate how the strange electronic implant was placed into the tooth.

Mr. Hanson contacted the FBI about his mysterious implant the day after it was discovered and they were very interested in finding out what it was.

He was immediately flown to Washington DC to under go some extensive tests.

Dr. Bernard of the FBI’s forensic medical investigations unit conducted several tests on the object and concluded that it was a transmitter of some sort and that not only was it transmitting a very high frequency signal, it was also receiving an incoming signal.

What that incoming signal is and how it is effecting Mr. Hanson is a mystery.

“It doesn’t seem to be having any kind of effect on Mr. Hanson.” Dr. Bernard told us. “But we do know that every time it transmits, a few seconds later a signal is returned to the device.”

The National Reporter – How often does the implant send out signals?

“We’re not sure, but it seems to be at least four times a day. They are very short and easy to miss, so there may be more. Some of them only last for a hundredth of a second, but despite the short transmission time, there is a lot of information being exchanged.”

The National Reporter - Do you have any idea who or what put the implant in Mr. Hanson’s tooth?

“Not yet, but it can be anything from some kind of marketing device placed in there by a corporation or a foreign government using it to spy on us. And we aren’t counting out extra terrestrial’s either.”

The National Reporter - Do you have any idea’s what the signals are saying?

“They are in some kind of code, but it isn’t the usual binary code. This is weird, it’s in some sort of quad code. So far we haven’t been able to make heads or tails out of it.”

The National Reporter – Have you tried to remove it?

“Yes, and when we did the implant immediately lost power and shut down. Apparently it is rigged to disable itself if the tooth is removed, so we have to study it while it is in Mr. Hanson’s mouth.”

The FBI has still not been able to decipher the code or locate the origin of the implant.

They have informed The National Reporter they we would be notified when they have learned more about it.

Until then, we will just have to wait.

© The National Reporter, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to The National Reporter with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

[Via http://aceflashman.wordpress.com]

College Sports Blog | Sports News | News from Dallas, Texas ...

aids videos

2009-12-14T03:21:00.000+02:00

HIV=AIDS : Fact Or Fraud (1997)

A letter from the producer, Stephen Allen, is quoted at the bottom of this post.

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Deconstructing The Myth Of AIDS (Gary Null)(2001?)

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The Other Side of AIDS – (Robin Scovill) 2004

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AIDS Inc. (Gary Null) (2007)

HIV=AIDS : Fact Or Fraud

A shocking documentary that exposes HIV/AIDS as a deceptive and deadly scam.

A LETTER FROM THE PRODUCER, Stephen Allen

In 1992, I embarked upon a pursuit that eventually would compel me from the grandstand of passive-objective journalism into the dangerous realm of “non-objective” advocacy. It all began when I took an in-depth look at America’s war against AIDS.

Like any independent reporter, I wanted my shot at a groundbreaking story. Any shocking expose that would accolade my career with the likes of great muckraking writers like Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, Bernstein and Woodward would do. What I found however, plunged me into long hours of despair, frustration and deep debt, accompanied by an inability to tear myself loose from the cause of millions of lives hanging in the balance. The story was even bigger than I suspected! But what I did not expect was that only a few discerning souls would want to hear it—and even fewer care enough to voice opposition.

It all began when I followed a lead from a story written by Tom Bethell in The American Spectator, about a “heretic” scientist named Dr. Peter Duesberg, Duesberg is a prominent retro-virologist from the University of California at Berkeley, which was a great setting for an antiestablishment fracas to germinate. Quirks and quacks are always common with any high-profile story like the “AIDS epidemic,” but Dr. Duesberg sparked my interest because he was different. He had been a pioneer and cornerstone in the field of virus biology and the first scientist to map the genetic structure of retroviruses like HIV. During his research, he discovered oncogenes (genes that cause cancer), a find that is proving to be one of the greatest medical breakthroughs in understanding cancer.

Yet, despite a brilliant career of scientific research and government grants, Dr. Duesberg risked everything when he stood up against the gods of science and public opinion and boldly stated, “HIV is NOT the cause of AIDS!” I had to know more — could he be right?

In early 1992,Dr. Duesberg’s arguments were already five years old, having been published in his well-researched denunciation of HIV in Cancer Research back in 1987. By the time I interviewed him, other respected biomedical experts had joined their voices in dissent with HIV/AIDS: Nobel prize winners Dr. Walter Gilbert from Harvard and Dr. Kary Mullis (who ironically invented the polymearse chain reaction technology used to falsely determine what is called HIV “viral load”); Dr. Richard Strohman, Berkeley professor emeritus of cell biology; and Dr. Charles Thomas, a biomedical research scientist who headed labs at Scripps-Howard and Upjohn. As a former Harvard professor, Dr. Thomas used his administrative skills to formulate, “The Scientific Group for Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis.” HIV has never been proven to cause AIDS and remains a hypothesis mired in a myriad of idiosyncrasies. The “Group” only numbered 40 members then, but would soon swell to over 600 members by 1996 (eventually thousands more by 2000).

I booked tickets, packed video equipment and flew to California to document their story. To present an “objective” point of view, we also interviewed Dr. Warren Winklestein, an HIV-supporting epidemiologist and Dr. Duesberg’s on-campus rival, along with Dr. Chip Schooley, the “AZT guru” from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. They added balance, but nothing more; unless you value scientific arrogance. Instead, they proved to be typical of an army of financially vested “experts” who only muddy the waters with useless and deceptive data in support of HIV as the “cause of AIDS.” It was apparent early on that Robert Gallo (who invented the AIDS fraud after pirating the HIV virus from the French Pasteur Institute), and the money behind this scientific disaster had swayed the best of minds. All other facts be damned!

It didn’t take long to see that Robert Gallo’s bug had never passed real scientific scrutiny. On April 23rd, 1984,without peer review or debate, Health and Human Services Secretary, Margaret Heckler, and Gallo were busy at the U.S. Patent Office securing the royalties to the HIV antibody blood test as they made the announcement that they had discovered “the probable cause of AIDS”. All of the CDC’s earlier assessments, that the AIDS crisis was primarily the result of recreational drug use among addicts and sexual stimulants called “poppers” among a small percentage of gay men, was brushed aside due to it’s non-lucrative value. HIV was clearly where the money was, and the only cause of AIDS anyone wanted now. The landslide of public funding that followed would blow away any common sense and dissent from “honest” scientists who stood in the way.

The simple but profound letter questioning HIV issued by the Group for Reappraisal was the first victim of censorship. Their four-sentence statement called for proof that HIV really was the culprit behind this crisis, and that the entire hypothesis of HIV/AIDS be re-evaluated by a “suitable independent group”. The letter didn’t receive a smattering of ink in the galleys of the pharmaceutical-funded publications Nature, Science, New England Journal of Medicine or Lancet. Evidently, something foul was underfoot. The AIDS machine had already corrupted these editors into becoming the gatekeepers of silence.

But what was proving far worse then the absurdity of the HIV hypothesis itself, was the industry of death it was spawning. The same year Peter Duesberg exposed HIV as a fraud (1987), Burroughs-Wellcome, (now Glaxo-Smith-Cline) finagled an old cancer chemotherapy called AZT through the FDA for approval to treat AIDS patients. This highly toxic nucleoside analogue, designed to destroy the DNA of white blood cells, was given to human patients for the first time (after it caused cancer and poisoned the rats they fed it to in studies).One could only wonder why this known carcinogenic toxin was being administered to patients who desperately needed the very cells it was designed to kill. Unless of course, the drug was needed to actually cause AIDS because HIV did not. Dr. Duesberg pointed out that even the manufacturer’s warnings claimed AZT could cause AIDS by prescription!

The whole thing loomed at me like some kind of medieval nightmare. A failed hypothesis about a phantom germ, that terrorized the victim into taking poisonous “medications” that caused the very disease they are supposed to prevent. It was a self-fulfilling formula for medical disaster: “HIV causes AIDS”

In his brilliant investigative work, Poison by Prescription, statistician turned journalist, John Lauritsen, exposed the crooked and fraudulent tests the Wellcome company used to get AZT through FDA approval. Yet his voice, along with others from both the scientific and gay communities questioning the AIDS establishment’s terror tactics, were shouted down in anger.

That is exactly what happened to my first attempt with the documentary. After about four months of hard work and time, a rough-cut of the project was circulated to numerous potential distributors. They were colder then gravestones…no one wanted anything to do with it! Steve Smukie of the prestigious Creative Artists agency in Hollywood told us that he “found the information very compelling, but we can’t use it.”

Within months, Tom Hanks and Philadelphia would sweep the Oscars. Stars, news anchors, politicians, talk-show hosts, educators and preachers were turning AIDS into some kind of pathetic party with every guest wearing a red ribbon. As Tom Bethell was later heard to say, “AIDS has become more of a social program than a disease.”

Now anyone who questions HIV and AIDS as a sexually transmitted threat to the entire world, is dangerous and politically incorrect. I have seen it so many times even among my friends. When these questions are raised, there is almost a programmed psychological reaction that shuts off all information intake and analysis. This reflex reaction disables all analytical thinking, and leaves the listener uncomfortable and despondent. Like a an icy talon twisting it’s way into the inner mind, the AIDS establishment’s 20-year fear and terror campaign has embedded itself deep into the American psyche.

Grudgingly, I admitted my documentary effort was a lost cause. Yet somehow I trudged on and continued to follow the issue. I joined the Scientific Group for Reappraisal, followed the news and talked to anyone who might be willing to think above the HIV/AIDS lemming mentality. As the months drifted by, our numbers were growing. 1993 was a pivotal year. Dr. Robert Root-Bernstein released his book Rethinking AIDS and it generated reports questioning HIV orthodoxy on CNN, CBN and slew of local newscasts. Nicholas Regush and John Hockenberry did a prime time expose interviewing Dr Root- Bernstein and Dr. Peter Duesberg on ABC’s DAY 1. Later, Root-Bernstien and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US Health Department’s AIDS “expert”, debated the issue on Nightline.

But this had little lasting effect. When I contacted John Hockenberry about the response he received concerning the DAY 1 segment, he responded that it “hit with a thud”. He was actually surprised that there was virtually no audience response to the issue. Here was the most deadly and expensive medical hoax of the 20th century being exposed on prime television and even this was not enough to awaken the public from the spell. Former London Sunday Times Science Editor, Neville Hodgekinson, who has experienced the same reaction in the UK, expressed his curiosity with this “extraordinary” power of the fear of phantom germs over rational thinking adults. In our brief phone conversation we both agreed that this is an issue for sociologists, not research scientists. There was never any science behind HIV and that is progressively evident. The only real question is how this campaign of fear and social engineering continues to manipulate our highly educated modern culture?

I must admit that I grew weary of the battle. I excused myself from the issue for a while, thinking that these adults who chose to believe the government’s virus lies did so by their own consent, and it was their option to inform themselves. It was then that Celia Farber’s articles in Spin magazine about pediatric AIDS and pregnancy torched my anger, and compelled me back into the fight. Farber had been the lone light in this tunnel of media darkness for several years with her “AIDS: Words from the front” series. Her outstanding and ongoing investigation was now focusing on the use of AZT in children and treating pregnant women with it. This enraged me to no extent! To this day there are no large clinical tests in the US to determine what effects a substance designed to destroy DNA could have on a developing baby. But reports from small foreign studies are shocking! Babies are born with extra fingers, odd bowling-ball shaped heads, nerve and brain damage, holes in the vital organs and—AIDS.

In 1993, a large cohort study released at the Berlin AIDS conference (Concorde study 93) revealed that AZT was ineffective in slowing the progression of AIDS. In fact, as Peter Duesberg and John Luritsen had warned, people were dying 25 % percent faster—AIDS by Prescription. And now they were giving this useless toxic drug to pregnant women?

Imagine the US Department of Health, which recommends that women refrain from a few ounces of alcohol during pregnancy, actually advocating that these same women take a substance designed to destroy their baby’s DNA! Even if one believes that HIV causes AIDS, this is utter madness! 80 percent of all babies born to HIV positive mothers will be HIV negative. Of the remaining 20 percent, about half will not test positive to the virus according to Glaxo-Wellcome’s claims. (The media reports a 50% reduction of HIV transmission but it is actually only 1 out of 10) So we are destroying the DNA in developing fetus and babies in nine out of ten cases (90%) for no reason at all!

I had to do everything I could to stop this. With the help of Dave Dodd, my wife Debbie and the encouragement of some potential distributors I set out to produce the documentary for the second time. Because of legal complications, virtually everything was lost from my first attempt. I had to call Dr. Peter Duesberg, Dr. Charles Thomas and Dr. Richard Strohman again and ask them for more of their valuable time. They were very gracious and granted it. With credit cards in hand and my wife Debbie as production assistant, we began the task again in 1996.

By now I was developing a strong bond with Dr. Charles Thomas and we enjoyed dinner and the hospitality he and his wife showed us. The Group then numbered over 600 members and was a constant source of new scientific data in dispute of HIV. When we arrived at Peter Duesberg’s lab in Berkeley, he asked us “so why are you still covering this?” Obviously he had seen many reporters come and go. My only answer was, “the kids”. I think we both pondered for a moment on the consequences of the HIV disaster now threatening a young defenseless generation. His wife had given birth to a son just days earlier and that brought to mind my son, less then 1 year old, back in Denver.

The interviews went well. In a few weeks I was ready to start editing. Shortly thereafter I met Dr. David Rasnick, now president of the Group, who explained the dangers of the new class of drugs called protease inhibitors. Dave Rasnick also provided data documenting why HIV mutation theories lack scientific support. Dave has been at the forefront of the battle ever since and has been fully involved in resolving African AIDS problems and myths with South African President, Thabo Mbeki.

My goal with this new documentary was to present the Group’s position on almost every aspect of the HIV debate. Unlike before, I intentionally didn’t interview HIV proponents, though I did discuss their views and arguments. They have had over 15 years and 60 billion dollars of government-funded support to make their claim. (At 2007 this amount is about 250 billion) I wanted a clear, unencumbered presentation of the Group’s position, without the useless, time-wasting nonsense they use to confuse the public. The program was to follow a logical progression. History first; how the AIDS crises started and how HIV was hoisted upon the public. Then 10 scientific reasons that explain in layman’s terms why HIV can NOT be the cause of AIDS. After this, we explain what the causes of AIDS really are and why drugs like AZT and the protease inhibitors are dangerous and can cause AIDS chemically.

It is only after you dispel the fears and myths about HIV that you can actually see the dark forces that are behind it. Based upon a solid scientific critique, I could expose the: 1.Political-economic reasons why the program is genocidal and self-serving . 2.Why we have been terrorized by lies about AIDS being sexually transmitted. 3. The invalidity of “HIV testing, viral load counts, CD4 counts and “treatment” benefits. 4. How these propaganda distortions have entwined themselves into the media, the medical industry, the gay community, Christian fundamentalists and political leaders.

I believe I succeeded in accomplishing my objective. In February of 1997 the tape premiered at several HEAL (Health, Education, AIDS, Liaison) chapters around the country. We got standing ovations and great reactions in Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, New York and San Diego. The tapes sold like hot cakes for about 3 months, mostly to people directly affected by HIV. I never attended any of the events, but I was encouraged by the reports.

We scheduled our own premier in Denver, June 17th 1997. Ironically, the theater we scheduled the event at was also presenting a play called “Angles in America” simultaneously, a play about AIDS that supports AZT as a “miracle AIDS treatment” We invited all the newspapers, television news outlets, radio stations and local politicians. None of them came or reviewed the tape even though we sent them copies. Angels in America (which by this time was a re-heat of an old play from several years back) was reviewed and promoted by almost all the media extensively. Sadly, only the best of our friends attended the premier. But there were a small group of young HIV positive men who came and paid admission. Since then, they have gone off their medications and are all healthy. They bought the tape and have made dozens of copies for their friends.

But my prospective distributor refused to handle it claiming it was too long. I knew the real reason. Then other promoters and agents failed to secure television distribution and tape orders. I was deep into thousands of dollars in debt and by now most of the people hungry for the truth about HIV were already pirating copies from their friends. I am actually happy that the tape has been ripped off by so many people, because it is the only way the information could get out. The tape is saving lives and is circulating all over the world. Copies exist in the UK, France, Russia, Mexico, Australia and South Africa. I have sent copies to senators, congressmen, mayors, consumer groups and public watch-dog organizations. They rarely write back to even acknowledge they received it. But every now and then I am surprised by someone who has seen the documentary—and in cases where they are HIV antibody positive, they are deeply grateful. With a bitter sweetness, I have no regrets.

We offered the documentary, free of charge, to various PBS affiliates and “free Speech TV” channels, all declined to air it. Most cited reasons that it “didn’t present a balanced counter argument from the AIDS establishment.” We argued that if they really wanted balance they would air this tape to counter the hundreds of hours they spend providing unscientific programming in support of HIV=AIDS, which incidentally is paid for by huge pharmaceutical grants. Tony Brown’s Journal, which presented several programs that featured Dr. Duesberg’s debate on PBS, has been moved back past midnight in almost every market and eventually cancelled.

When we contacted our local PBS affiliate KBDI, they were at first thinking of presenting part of the tape along with a debate over the issue with Dr. Peter Duesberg and our old chum, Dr.Chip Schooley, from the AZT school of medicine at Colorado University. But when Schooley and Health official Frank Judson got wind of it they refused to debate the issue in any way and pressured KBDI not to even discuss the topic. On the night the debate was to air, the time was occupied by more AIDS establishment propaganda. Immediately after the program when they opened “free lines” for discussion, the program producer, Barbara Jabailey, recognized our voices and would not let us into the discussion. She laughed when we told her the information we had was lifesaving to many of the people viewing this program. These are typical examples of the censorship going on all around the world.

As I write this, a storm is brewing in South Africa where the conflict continues. The AIDS establishment has exported their hideous exploits to the third world, after the decline of AIDS in the US, and are now pressuring South African President Thabo Mbeki to give AZT to millions pregnant women. But thanks to the free flow if information through the internet and work of dissidents like Dr. Charles Geshekter and Anthony Brink, Mbeki is aware of the AIDS fraud and is resisting international pressure. Millions of lives hang in the balance of this decision—as President Mbeki reassesses the risk of HIV among the real heath concerns of this troubled little nation. As the international AIDS conference scheduled for South Africa draws near in July of 2000, the AIDS establishment is in an utter panic after Mbeki requested the advice of hated dissidents Dr. Peter Duesberg and Dr. David Rasnick. This may be the beginning of the end for the HIV/AIDS death march.

I sent several copies of the tape to Dr. Geshekter back in 1997. He has duplicated and circulated them at my request, and I know that they are having a great impact on the situation there. We are all part of a huge team effort and it’s finally beginning to pay off.

HIV/AIDS has robbed the public coffers of billions of dollars, wasted valuable research and medical talent, terrorized society and poisoned hundreds of thousands of people. It is by every measure the most dangerous and deadly medical fraud of all time. It is estimated that as many as 400,000 Americans have died due directly to the effects of “miracle drugs” like AZT. That’s almost eight times the number of US servicemen killed in Vietnam. The genocide induced by Robert Gallo’s titanic duplicity will be remembered in infamy for centuries to come. Was it conspiracy, collusion, fame or just the love of money that created HIV, the golden idol of junk science? Historians will ultimately have to make that call, as a journalist I can only report the facts as they happen.

I am very thankful that Marty Freyer came to Denver shortly before the documentary’s premiere and has headed up our local chapter of HEAL. He has been a constant support and influential leader. Together, we have done several radio and newspaper interviews while we worked through our strategies. He has a talent for cultivating the grass-root support and has talked to thousands of people. There are lots of local people who owe their lives to Marty, along with Larry Schneider, Chris, Bobbie, Jim Olsen, Rodney Richards and finally Tim and Eric. My deepest gratitude is extended to every one. Also I must thank my family and very good friend, Mike Sumrall, for their help and assistance in this horrific ordeal. These are only a few of the growing number of the finest people who have stood up against this madness. In spite of countless encounters with ignorance and callused arrogance, we are, as John Lauritsen put it, “bloodied but not bowed!”

Stephen Allen

Producer / HIV=AIDS: Fact or Fraud?

MAY 2000

[Via http://quintaldo.wordpress.com]

Some Democratic Senators Raise Red Flag On Medicare Expansion Idea ...

A Very Impressive Day in...

2009-12-11T02:23:00.000+02:00

Rochester Minnesota!

I was so excited about photographing my journey in Rochester.

The Mayo Clinic is a very impressive place!

(I say that mostly from an artistic standpoint.

I know it’s impressive in many other ways, but the art captivated me.)

Consider this your personal tour of the clinic.

Art is everywhere…

…as it is so healing

…inspiring…

…interesting…

Everything I saw made me respond in some small way.

Truly.

I felt like I was having a spiritual experience as I walked through the halls at Mayo.

I was close to tears.

I wondered how it would feel to be a patient at the clinic.

I felt like I was in an art museum at times.

The views of the city were incredible!

Everywhere you go, you can feel inspiration, healing, love.

I couldn’t get enough.

I wasn’t expecting to feel this way,

but I did.

And I liked it.

On the 19th floor with a woman taking a snack break.

She had kicked off her shoes and was rotating her ankles when I passed her.

It’s very very quiet on the 19th floor.

Every time I see this quote (And it’s EVERYWHERE in the clinic) I smile because it’s truly what happens here.

Our 30 hours in Rochester were fabulous!

This interview business is rather fun for me;

I get to have lovely dinners with Rick and the residents, learn more about each hospital and program,

drive around the city during the day and get a feel for life there,

stay in nice hotels with gyms and pools

and sleep on soft beds with cleans sheets each night.

It was a luxury being with my husband on this interview trail.

I am loving it!

Until….

[Via http://zinke.wordpress.com]

Mix: iTunes Gift Cards on Facebook, Time Magazine, Qik, ezGear ...

Post-Vioxx, still no safety changes at FDA

2009-12-09T19:49:00.000+02:00

GAO: Post-Vioxx, still no safety changes at FDA

December 9, 2009 by Maureen Martino

Three years after the Vioxx safety debacle, the FDA has yet to improve its drug safety oversight, according to Government Accountability Office findings. Vioxx was pulled from the market in 2004 after the drug was linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Two years later, the GAO, Institute of Medicine and other experts made recommendations to the FDA in order to prevent another Vioxx-like catastrophe.

bureaucracy, government, health, medicine, scandal

[Via http://feltd.wordpress.com]

Apple launches iPhone Developer RSS Feed | iLounge News

Unconventional Uses for Neosporin

2009-12-07T19:41:00.000+02:00

The Magic Ointment?

I once read in a magazine that Neosporin acted as a perfect cuticle repair during the winter. Being a victim of brutal hangnails, I decided to slather my fingertips before bed for a couple nights. My roommate laughed at my dedicated primping, but the results were worth the extra minute before bed! The ointment was a little greasy (it has an White Petrolatum base) and spotted my sheets; but for me, the pros outweighed the cons. Hangnail free, I began to wonder what else Neosporin was capable of…

What I dug up:

Acne Treatment – Neosporin kills bacteria and promotes healing, so why shouldn’t it work as a spot treatment? Many people seem to swear by it, but I can’t help but consider the company’s warning, “Do not apply the ointment over large skin areas.” Don’t mask your face in this ointment, apparently Neomycin is a highly toxic antibiotic, used sometimes as an intestinal antiseptic in surgery.
Soothes raw skin and ingrown hairs! Ladies, if you wax or shave this ointment can save you from embarrassing bumps. I personally use this for a couple days after I wax my bikini line, it relieves the irritation and keeps my skin clean.
Eye Colds and Ear Aches – Surprisingly, a lot of people swear by warming the paste into a liquid and putting it… pretty basically anywhere. However, Neosporin warns that the ointment is for “external uses only” and also shouldn’t be applied to eyes. Hmm…

Ingredients: Polymyxin B Sulfate, Neomycin and Pramoxine Hydrochloride. Inactive – Mythlparaben, Mineral Oil, Polozamer 188, Propylene Glycol, Water Purified, White Petrolatum.

What Neosporin doesn’t tell you:

White Petrolatum is an inactive ingredient found in many moisturizers, lip balms, sunscreens, anti-itch creams, and even eye drops. However, it is regulated as a moderately toxic mixture and possible carcinogen.
Polymyxin B is an antibiotic that has been used to treat Strep Throat and Swine Flu. Perhaps this is why some people condone gargling watered-down Neosporin?

In conclusion, I can only recommend Neosporin as cuticle cream and bikini-line soother. Although it is fairly unnatural, it does an amazing job at combating painful skin irritations!

[Via http://ladybird21.wordpress.com]

Paywall watch: The news you're willing to pay for

So, Mr. Patient, guess your next letter.

2009-12-07T03:26:00.000+02:00

In-surgery round of hangman.

Dr. Gawande playing hangman during surgery, on his patient’s covers. Copyright : New York Times, 2007.

P.S – By the way, LOVED his book, “Complications”. Thinking about reading his sequel, “Better”.

Dr. Atul Gawande is such a great writer AND a doctor. It is admirable how he can be two amazing things simultaneously

[Via http://lovescribe.wordpress.com]

InFamous sales top 1.2 million worldwide // News

Drugs and or Nutrition

2009-12-04T19:21:00.000+02:00

It’s your Body, your Life, and your Feelings…

How could a Doctor or Physician possibly know how you feel in your own body other than yourself.

Infact, he can’t see what you see or feel what you feel because he/she doesn’t have your eyes or body.

Your Doctor is very wrong in most cases, due to the ROTTEN PHARMACEUTICAL industry. Get a better understanding of why you are in your doctor’s or physician’s care, and will continue coming or going back to them if you don’t stand up for your own health, by watching the following video.

Don’t let the PHARMACEUTICAL decide what you need for your Body… Follow your own Gut…

Take the First Step by Simply Visiting http://eCa.sh/BlackGrape

[Via http://postalmail.wordpress.com]

SingStar reaches 20 million sales // News

On Being Incystent

2009-12-02T19:29:00.000+02:00

Good news! (I think.) The dreaded lump has been pronounced a cyst! Guess I wasted a hell of a good worry, huh? Guess we all did. I still need my doctor to tell me what to do next, as E-Bro and Mr. GF both say that you just shouldn’t listen to the radiologist about anything other than the basic facts. My doctor had a death in the family and won’t be back until Monday, but at this point, I can wait.

The mammogram process was as pleasant as could be expected. There’s not much that’s fun about having your breast squeezed between two metal plates, especially when your orders are “Now, let me know when this is as tight as you can possibly stand it.” To be a wimp? Or to grit your teeth and bare (I mean bear) it? I chose the teeth-gritting stance, so they could get the best image possible.

The ultrasound was painless, and she let me see what she was seeing. She did mark me up with a Sharpie, but at least she didn’t draw a face or a mouse with whiskers or anything goofy. But her advice was not overly helpful. “What should I do now?” I asked. “Go through menopause and don’t take hormones,” she said. Gee. Thanks. I’ll get right on that.

The radiologist didn’t come to talk to me – just told the ultrasound tech what to tell me – and everyone kept saying that they’d looked at this before, which they hadn’t, which rather shook my confidence in them. Exactly who did they think they were looking at? But seeing the dark, vacant space on the ultrasound that represents fluid, not solid, was a certain relief.

So now, it goes away by itself, I suppose. I wait.

I wonder what I would have felt around me energetically if things hadn’t been okay? I was pretty sure things were okay, even though I was tearful and worried on Monday night, mostly because I couldn’t feel any clustering of comforting souls, and I am certain that I would have had I needed them.

Time to turn to, as the Captain would say, and focus on the next things…getting my back put back into place, since it went out on Sunday, finalizing the divorce thingamajiggys, and what to do with my work life for the next few years.

There’s hope in the air again.

[Via http://seasweetie.wordpress.com]

News – New Woman Claims Affair With Golfer Tiger Woods – Celebrity ...

ทฤษฎีการตรวจวินิฉัยและการรักษาทางเวชศาสตร์นิวเคลียร์

2009-11-30T11:34:00.000+02:00

3011727 ทฤษฎีการตรวจวินิฉัยและการรักษาทางเวชศาสตร์นิวเคลียร์ Nuclear Medicine Imaging and Therapy Theory

พยาธิสรีรวิทยา กลการการจัดของสารเภสัชรังสี ข้อบ่งชี้และข้อห้าม วิธีการตรวจ การแปลผล ลักษณะปกติและผิดปกติจากการตรวจอวัยวะของระบบต่าง ๆ ของร่างกายด้วยวิธีการถ่ายภาพทางเวชศาสตร์นิวเคลียร์ ข้อบ่งชี้และข้อห้ามในการบำบัดรักษาด้วยวิธีทางเวชศาสตร์นิวเคลียร์ การเตรียมสถานที่และผู้ป่วย การคำนวณปริมาณ และวิธีการบริหารสารเภสัชรังสี ข้อควรระวัง ผลข้างเคียงที่อาจพบได้ทั้งในระยะแรกและระยะหลัง

(Pathophysiology, mechanism of radiopharmaceutical localization, indications and contraindications, procedures, interpretation, normal and abnormal findings from nuclear medicine imaging study of all systems of the body indication, and contraindications for radionuclide therapy, space and patient preparation, dose calculation, administration techniques, precaution, early and late complications, radiation dosimetry.)

(3011727 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

[Via http://sclaimon.wordpress.com]

Longtime CBS News producer Bernard Birnbaum dies (AP) | Buzz Newsroom

การศึกษาพิเศษทางอาชีวเวชศาสตร์

2009-11-30T03:46:00.000+02:00

3014770 การศึกษาพิเศษทางอาชีวเวชศาสตร์ Special Studies in Occupational Medicine

หัวข้อทางอาชีวเวชศาสตร์ที่ศึกษาในแนวลึก ภายใต้การแนะนำของอาจารย์ผู้สอน

(Occupational medicine topics for in-depth study under supervision of the instructors.)

(3014770 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

[Via http://sclaimon.wordpress.com]

Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » What's news

เวชศาสตร์ธนาคารเลือด

2009-11-27T11:30:00.000+02:00

3020795 เวชศาสตร์ธนาคารเลือด Transfusion Medicine

การเตรียมส่วนประกอบของเลือด ข้อบ่งชี้ในการใช้ส่วนประกอบของเลือดการจัดการเมื่อเกิดปฏิกิริยาหลังจากการให้เลือด

(Preparation of blood components, indications of the use blood components; management of adverse reactions from blood transfusions.)

(3020795 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

[Via http://sclaimon.wordpress.com]

News Corp. and the Business of Search; Media Has Little to Lose ...

Chocolates work 'like anti-depressants'

2009-11-27T03:14:00.000+02:00

What about other side effects like tooth decay,increase cholesterol and tendency to become obese.?

Story:

AUSTRALIAN scientists have confirmed what chocoholics have been praying is true – their favourite comfort food can reduce stress.

Food rich in fat and sugar can alter chemical composition in the brain to reduce anxiety, professor Margaret Morris said.

In a study of rats, Professor Morris, from the University of NSW’s School of Medical Sciences, found effects of past trauma could be erased by “unlimited access to yummy food”.

“Implementing that diet reversed anxiety … it took an animal back to the non-stressed state,” Professor Morris said.

“We really don’t know why, but there seems to be a biochemical link.”

Using two groups of baby rats, one with normal contact with mothers, the other with lengthy separations and higher stress hormones, scientists found they became less stressed with comfort foods.

“The control group had no effect from the diet really, but the stressed animals had a deficit … which was restored by the diet.”

“(The) food seems to affect neurogenesis similar to the way anti-depressants promote nerve growth in the brain.”

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26398290-5003426,00.html

[Via http://ramanan50.wordpress.com]

Iwata: Mario Wii is a true "game for everyone" // News

ระบาดวิทยาและเวชศาสตร์ป้องกันทางสัตวแพทย์

2009-11-25T11:34:00.000+02:00

3107301 ระบาดวิทยาและเวชศาสตร์ป้องกันทางสัตวแพทย์ Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine

ระบาดวิทยาของโรคติดเชื้อ และโรคที่ไม่ได้เกิดจากการติดเชื้อในสัตว์ นิเวศน์วิทยา ความสัมพันธ์ของสัตว์และสิ่งก่อโรค โปรแกรมในการป้องกันและควบคุมโรคสัตว์ที่มีความสำคัญทางเศรษฐกิจ วิธีการในการเฝ้าระวังโรค หลักเศรษฐศาสตร์ทางสัตวแพทย์ การบริหารและการตัดสินใจในการป้องกัน ควบคุม และกำจัดโรค

(Epidemiology of infectious and non-infectious diseases in animals; ecology; interrelation of hosts and agents of diseases; programs for prevention and control of animal diseases of economic importance; methods employed for animal disease surveillance; economics for veterinary science; administration and decision making for prevention, control, and eradication of diseases.)

(3107301 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

[Via http://sclaimon.wordpress.com]

The official news that News Corp and Microsoft are in talks. Or ...

Being Thankful for the Contrast

2009-11-23T19:35:00.000+02:00

I’m sitting here typing away, feeling fine, no aches-pains-dizziness-weakness, just feeling fine. But recently I was very ill for a month, pneumonia. I was weak, confused, and barely able to draw a breath for a while. Thoughts blew through my mind like autumn leaves, I really thought I was a goner for a while, what would happen to my kids, my mother that I care for? My 13 room house and outbuildings just full of stuff, who would deal with all that? My life was so unfinished. Contrast is what makes things visible, and this experience illuminated something I usually take for granted, my health. Well, thanks to modern antibiotics, I’m still here. All better now. And every day I wake up feeling that I’ve been granted an extension on things. I’ve started chipping away at the detrius of my life to try and reduce and bring order to it. I can’t really love my kids anymore than I already do, but every day with them is a blessing and every day they are closer to self-sufficiency. I run up and down the stairs as I always have, but I don’t take it for granted anymore.

So this is what I’m thankful for at the moment, I’m thankful for many things, but this is what’s in focus for me. I realize how privileged I am compared to so many in the world, and of all the things I take for granted. That’s why global awareness is so important, it offers the contrast we need to really see things.

This post was created as part of a global groundswell of gratitude called TweetsGiving. The celebration, created by US nonprofit Epic Change, is an experiment in social innovation that seeks to change the world through the power of gratitude. I hope you’ll visit the TweetsGiving site to learn more, and to bring your grateful heart to the party by sharing your gratitude, and giving in honor of that for which you’re most thankful.

[Via http://booksbelow.wordpress.com]

Open Left:: Climate change news on 3 fronts--denialism, nuclear ...

Squeaky Danskos

2009-11-23T03:33:00.000+02:00

I got a pair of Dansko clogs about a year ago because I was told that they were the best shoes for being on your feet all day. I didn’t really understand why I needed good shoes until I had to be on my feet in the hospital for 12 hours every day. My feet were killing me. So I bought a pair and love them. You know these shoes are good when so many people wear them despite the fact that they are one of the ugliest shoes on earth, especially when worn with green scrubs. I’ve worn my pair of Danskos so much that they look normal to me now, but I distinctly remember seeing people wear them before I started working in the hospital and wondering why the hell anyone would wear those shoes.

Anyway, $120 and three months later, my left shoe started squeaking. It progressed from a soft intermittent squeak to a very loud consistent squeak. It echoed in the halls where there was tile. It even squeaked loudly when I was walking on carpet. At first I was convinced that there was something on the bottom of my shoe, but after multiple cleanings I was disappointed to realize that the noise was coming from the inside of my shoe. Nurses and patients would look at me when I walked down the hall. It was so embarrassing. I knew they were judging me for having “dirty shoes”, but the soles weren’t dirty, they were defective! My Danskos were too comfortable and expensive to give up, but after a year of squeaking I couldn’t take it anymore.

I brought them to a department store that was selling them without a shoebox or receipt. I mentioned that I was having a problem with my Danskos…and was quickly interrupted and asked if they squeaked, even on carpet. Surprised, I said yes. Before I knew it, I was walking out the store with a new pair of Danskos. Apparently there was a large batch of Dansko clogs that had manufacturing defects and a lot of them squeaked. I felt like an idiot, I had suffered through months of squeaking when I could have just bought them in and exchanged them under the Dansko warranty. Whatever. I’m happy now, this pretty much made my day. No more squeaking and a new pair of Danskos.

[Via http://lametothemax.wordpress.com]

Iran News – Iran to hold war games to protect nuclear sites ...

SWAT4LS2009 - Sonja Zillner: Towards the Ontology Based Classification of Lymphoma Patients using Semantic Image Annotation

2009-11-20T10:59:00.000+02:00

(Again, these are notes as the talk happens)

This has to do with the Siemens Project Theseus Medico – Semantic Medical Image Understanding (towards flexible and scalable access to medical images)

Different images from many different sources: e.g. X-ray, MRI etc…use this and combine with treatment plans, patient data etc and integrate with external knowledge sources.

Example Clinical Query:” Show me theCT scans and records of patiens with a Lymph Node enlargement in the neck area” – at the moment query over several disjoint systems is required

Current Motivation: generic and flexible understanding of images is missing

Final Goal: Enhance medical image annotations by integrating clinical data with images

This talk: introduce a formal classification system for patients (ontological model)

Used Knowledge Sources:

Ann-Arbor Staging System – particularly suitable for lymphoma patients
RadLex
Foundational Model of Anatomy
Semantic Image Annotation

Requirements of the Ontological Model

Capture the rationale of the Ann Arbor Staging system
Integrate external ontologies
Ontology must describe the patient record

Now showing an example axiomatisation for the counting and location of lymphatic occurences and discussses problems relating to extending existing ontologies….

Now talking about annotating patient records: typical problems are abbreviations, clinical codes, fragments of sentences etc…difficult for NLP people to deal with….

Now showing detailed patient example where application of their classification system led to reclassification of patient in terms of staging system.

Energy and Global Warming News for November 18: Promise in 'Cash ...

Checking the Right Boxes, but Failing the Patient

2009-11-20T03:41:00.000+02:00

Image by The National Guard via Flickr

Here is an article written by a doctor but I believe the message is for all health care providers–including, but not limited to aides, nurses, doctors, administrator, CEOs.

We are all so careful to give good care but in today’s healthcare world, that really means making sure you cannot be sued or at the least, investigated. I agree that when you are responsible for people’s lives–both physical and emotional–you have an obligation to do your best. It seems that today we live in such a litigious society that doing your best is just not enough. Maybe you didn’t eat breakfast that day, maybe you fought with your spouse, maybe you don’t feel well…all fodder for law suits. So, we protect ourselves by treating patients legally instead of medically sometimes.

Dr. Rifkin is correct that we may be missing salient and vital information about our patients because we are always “satisfying the system”. This is really no way to practice medicine, is it? What can be done, or what can we do differently? You tell me.

____________________________________________________________________________________________ By DENA RIFKIN, M.D. Published: November 16, 2009

The voice on the phone was authoritative, even brusque. A father was calling our after-hours line to ask about his teenage daughter.

Heidi Younger

“She’s got another headache,” he said, as I recall. “I’m going to the pharmacy, just wanted your advice on what strength of Tylenol to get her.”

Those opening lines did not admit much room for questions. I knew neither him nor his daughter, but there seemed to be little margin for error in my response. I could almost hear his foot tapping, waiting for the answer.

I hesitated. Who is this young woman? Why is her father calling about a simple headache?

I began to ask questions. Yes, his daughter had headaches every now and then. No, this one seemed a bit worse, that’s all. He wouldn’t even have called, but he wasn’t sure if Tylenol was safe, now that she was breast-feeding.

Breast-feeding?

Yes, yes, there was a new baby, just a few days old. Yes, there had been some problem with the pregnancy and delivery — something about blood pressure — but she had come home just fine. Could I just tell him the right dose?

I sent the young woman and her father to the emergency room, and she was admitted to the hospital with severe pre-eclampsia, a rare but life-threatening postpartum complication.

It has been 10 years since the Institute of Medicine’s seminal report on deaths caused by medical errors (numbering at least 44,000 a year). Since then, there has been tremendous focus on how many mistakes physicians and hospitals make, how much they cost and how to prevent them.

The response at most hospitals has been brisk and multifaceted. Hospital accreditation committees now audit charts for outdated abbreviations and proper signing of notes. Electronic prescription systems are rapidly becoming the norm. Pay-for-performance interventions by insurers promise to reward those who make the grade and to refuse payment to those whose treatments cause complications like hospital-acquired infections.

I do not dispute the need for these interventions. There is no doubt that hospitals are powerful and dangerous places, that “best practices” are not always followed and that the so-called polypharmaceutical approach — a drug for every ailment a patient may have — offers endless opportunity for adverse reactions.

An accessible and informative electronic medical record might have prevented my near-miss just as effectively as my questions did. (Under the vanished health care system in which doctors were available for their own patients 24 hours a day, this particular kind of error would have been all but impossible.)

None of these interventions, however well meant, address a fundamental problem that is emerging in modern medicine: a change in focus from treating the patient toward satisfying the system. The effects of focusing physicians’ attention on benchmarks and check boxes are not, I think, to the patient’s advantage.

A close family member was recently hospitalized after nearly collapsing at home. He was promptly checked in, and an electrocardiogram was done within 15 minutes. He was given a bar-coded armband, his pain level was assessed, blood was drawn, X-rays and stress tests were performed, and he was discharged 24 hours later with a revised medication list after being offered a pneumonia vaccine and an opportunity to fill out a living will.

The only problem was an utter lack of human attention. An emergency room physician admitted him to a hospital service that rapidly evaluates patients for potential heart attacks. No one noted the blood tests that suggested severe dehydration or took enough history to figure out why he might be fatigued.

A doctor was present for a few minutes at the beginning of his stay, and fewer the next day. Even my presence, as a family member and physician, did not change the cursory attitude of the doctors and nurses we met.

Yet his hospitalization met all the current standards for quality care.

As a profession, we are paying attention to the details of medical errors — to ambiguous chart abbreviations, to vaccination practices and hand-washing and many other important, or at least quantifiable, matters.

But as we bustle from one well-documented chart to the next, no one is counting whether we are still paying attention to the human beings. No one is counting whether we admit that the best source of information, the best protection from medical error, the best opportunity to make a difference — that all of these things have been here all along.

The answers are with the patients, and we must remember the unquantifiable value of asking the right questions.

Dr. Dena Rifkin is a physician at the University of California, San Diego.

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H1N1 "super flu" plague in Ukraine

2009-11-18T03:35:00.000+02:00

NaturalNews.com

November 16 2009

H1N1 “super flu” plague in Ukraine sparks concern, conspiracy theories about origins

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) Here’s what we know with some degree of certainty about the H1N1 virus in Ukraine right now: nearly 300 people have died from the viral strain, and over 65,000 people have been hospitalized (the actual numbers are increasing by the hour). The virus appears to be either a highly aggressive mutation of the globally-circulating H1N1 strain, or a combination of three different influenza strains now circulating in Ukraine. Some observers suspect this new “super flu” might be labeled viral hemorrhagic pneumonia (meaning it destroys lung tissue until your lungs bleed so much that you drown in your own fluid), but that has not been confirmed by any official sources we’re aware of.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has issued emergency quarantine orders for nine of the country’s regions and ordered the deployment of mobile military hospitals. He announced that the nation had been simultaneously hit with two different seasonal flu strains plus H1N1 — and then hinted that all three might have recombined into the deadly new Ukrainian super flu.

In his own words, as reported by Daily Mail, “Unlike similar epidemics in other countries, three causes of serious viral infections came together simultaneously in Ukraine: two seasonal flus and the Californian flu. Virologists conclude that this combination of infections may produce an even more aggressive new virus as a result of mutation.”

On November 6, Ukraine’s Deputy Health Minister Zinovy Mytnyk announced that over 600,000 citizens had already caught the new flu. British scientists are now conducting tests on the new viral strain to find out why it appears to be so deadly (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor…).

The mainstream media is blaming Ukraine’s poor health care system for the relatively high rates of hospitalization and death (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/w…), but they refuse to mention (yet again) the vitamin D deficiency found across this population living at high latitude in the winter, where sunlight is relatively scarce.

Here’s a useful blog for staying up to date on the Ukrainian plague:

http://ukraineplague.blogspot.com/

What we don’t know

Now here’s what we don’t know about the Ukraine outbreak:

What is the actual genetic composition of this mutated strain?

Scientists have not released any meaningful news about the genetic sequence of the Ukraine strain. For the moment, the WHO is somewhat quiet on the matter. The last WHO update was from November 3 (and the situation has become considerably worse since). (http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_11_…).

Was this viral strain released as a bioweapon?

There are numerous reports circulating widely across the ‘net that cite aerial spraying across Kiev in the days before the new “super flu” outbreak. People are speculating that this was a bioweapon attack intentionally unleashed upon the Ukrainian population. So far, NaturalNews can find no credible information supporting this theory, but it remains a possibility to be researched further.

Does Baxter Pharmaceuticals have anything to do with the outbreak?

You may recall that earlier this year, Baxter shipped live avian flu viral material to labs in 18 countries, including one in the Ukraine. (http://www.naturalnews.com/025760.html) There is suspicion that Baxter could be tied to a planned outbreak of a weaponized virus as a population control bioweapon of some sort, but NaturalNews has not been unable to find any credible information sources supporting this theory. Lacking any better leads on this subject, as far as we can tell right now this remains an unproven conspiracy theory. (If anyone has more credible info on this, please send it our way for review.)

It is plausible that Baxter had something to do with this, but we just don’t have any convincing evidence to back it up at this point.

H1N1 vaccines likely offer little protect against the Ukraine super flu

People receiving H1N1 vaccine shots right now need to know that currently-available H1N1 vaccine shots may offer no protection whatsoever against the “Ukraine Strain.” That’s because once the virus mutates, changing it genetic structure, it can instantly render all existing vaccines obsolete.

Depending on the degree of genetic changes, there is a possibility that some level of immunity may be conferred to people who already have H1N1 antibodies, but here’s the dirty little secret the vaccine industry doesn’t want you to know: People who built their own natural immunity to H1N1 through exposure rather than vaccines have a much greater likelihood of exhibiting natural immunity to genetic variations of H1N1. In other words, people who overcame H1N1 exposure on their own, without being vaccinated, have a far stronger defense against H1N1 variations that might appear.

This is yet another reason why flu vaccines are so dangerous: The deny your immune system the important opportunity to exercise its own adaptive defenses and build stronger protections against future infections.

One possible scenario that could unfold with all this is that the Ukraine strain might spread around the world, wiping out those who got vaccinated against H1N1 because their immune systems suffer from a suppressed ability to naturally generate antibodies to a new strain. Meanwhile, drug companies will try to scramble and create a whole new batch of “super flu” vaccines, but they’re always too little, too late. Theoretically, millions of people could die around the world while waiting in line for yet another vaccine shot.

All they really need is vitamin D3, some herbal anti-virals, a healthy diet and plenty of rest, but no one is telling them that.

Even the Ukraine super flu is no match for a healthy immune system. Remember: Out of 65,000+ hospitalizations, fewer than 300 people have died so far. That’s still a very low mortality rate, even if the spread of the viral infection seems aggressive.

WHO cranking up anti-viral drug push

Meanwhile, the WHO is upping its push for anti-viral drugs, saying that drugs like Tamiflu should now be used earlier on swine flu victims (http://www.google.com/hostednews/af…).

They still won’t recommend anti-viral herbs, foods, supplements or natural remedies, of course. The WHO remains a faithful pusher of Big Pharma’s profit agenda, even while denying the People of the world the truth about how they can save their own lives with anti-viral natural remedies. To both the WHO and CDC, the swine flu pandemic has always been about pushing a pharmaceutical agenda at the expense of public health.

Had the public been informed about vitamin D and natural anti-virals like Lomatium, many lives could have already been saved. Instead, the drug pushers at the CDC and WHO have tens of millions of people standing in line waiting for vaccines instead of consuming natural supplements and remedies that could help protect them from influenza.

The profit agenda forces us to wonder: With the current H1N1 strain fizzling out — and yet billions of dollars worth of vaccines still needing to be sold — could the Ukraine strain have been engineered to scare up more demand and more sales of vaccines and anti-virals?

That’s a question that all thinking people need to be asking right now. But we also need to be careful in assessing what’s true here. Reading the postings about this on the ‘net, I’ve noticed way too many people leaping to assumptions about what’s happening in the Ukraine without any real evidence to back that up. The reports about Joseph Moshe, in particular, appear to be a complete hoax.

While it’s possible this was an engineered bioweapon of some sort, it’s not enough to just assume that’s true and then declare it to be so. More evidence is needed before NaturalNews would back a theory like that.

We’ll keep you posted on what we find. New documents tend to come our way after we post the first story on a subject like this, often leading to a follow-up story that benefits from more information.

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