Archive Category: Medicine
Infected, the Game
"Infected" is a game by Emily Jo Cureton, where one player draws a "disease" card and then enacts the symptoms/description of the disease. The other players then get to guess what affliction it is. Kind of like “who am I” or charades, but with illnesses!
Previously on Neatorama: NY Times Crossword Drawings
The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep: Boy Stayed Awake 24 Hours A Day for Years
Rhett Lamb is often cranky like any other 3-year-old toddler, but there’s one thing that makes him completely different: he has a rare medical condition in which he can’t sleep a wink.
Rhett is awake nearly 24 hours a day, and his condition has baffled his parents and doctors for years. They took clock shifts watching his every sleep-deprived mood to determine what ailed the young boy.
After a number of conflicting opinions, Shannon and David Lamb finally learned what was wrong with their child: Doctors diagnosed Rhett with an extremely rare condition called chiari malformation.
"The brain literally is squeezed into the spinal column. What happens is you get compression, squeezing, strangulating of the brain stem, which has all the vital functions that control sleep, speech, our cranial nerves, our circulatory system, even our breathing system," Savard said.
The Woman Who Can’t Forget
We go from the boy who can’t sleep to the woman who can’t forget. Here’s the story of AJ, an extraordinary 40-year-old married woman who remembers everything (and not just all the bad things her husband did!):
McGaugh and fellow UCI researchers Larry Cahill and Elizabeth Parker have been studying the extraordinary case of a person who has "nonstop, uncontrollable and automatic" memory of her personal history and countless public events.
If you randomly pick a date from the past 25 years and ask her about it, she’ll usually provide elaborate, verifiable details about what happened to her that day and if there were any significant news events on topics that interested her. She usually also recalls what day of the week it was and what the weather was like.
The 40-year-old woman, who was given the code name AJ to protect her privacy, is so unusual that UCI coined a name for her condition in a recent issue of the journal Neurocase: hyperthymestic syndrome.
Gary Robbins of The OC Register has the interview with Dr. Jim McGaugh, who has been studying AJ for the past 6 years: Link
Illustration: Robert Zavala / The Orange County Register
The Benefits of Big Bottom
Photo: Proggie [Flickr]
Got a big bottom? Well, take heart, as scientists found something good about that: it protects you from diabetes!
A type of fat that accumulates around the hips and bottom may actually offer some protection against diabetes, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. They said subcutaneous fat, or fat that collects under the skin, helped to improve sensitivity to the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar.
Mice that got transplants of this type of fat deep into their abdomens lost weight and their fat cells shrank, even though they made no changes in their diet or activity levels.
"It was a surprising result," said Dr. Ronald Kahn of Harvard Medical School in Boston, whose study appears in the journal Cell Metabolism. "We actually found it had a beneficial effect, and it was especially true when you put it inside the abdomen," Kahn said in a telephone interview.
Link - via Dave Barry’s Blog
And yes, the sculpture above is by the incomparable Ferdinand Botero.
Cigarette Smoking is Good … for Birds!
Photo: Brian Klaus
Cigarette smoking may be bad for your health, but it's great for the wildlife! Brian Klaus of Nothing Else Better To Do Than Read This Blog wrote:
I opened the door and went onto the patio to ask Gabriel what he wanted. I haven't been out on this patio since I quit smoking (I would never smoke in the house). I guess I prefer my patio on the ground.
Now here's the embarrassing part. I used to dump my ash tray into a trash can that was on the patio. I guess since I haven't been on the patio in so long I've forgotten to empty the trash can which is filled about 2/5's of the way up with cigarette butts. Pretty gross, I know. I'm a slob, I admit it.
Just as I was about to shout down to Gabriel I noticed the trash can and a bird that made it's nest inside of it!! I can't tell if there's eggs in the nest of butts and twigs that the bird had made for itself, but I don't have the heart to chase the bird away.
Link | And as you can see above, the first egg hatched! - Thanks Brian!
Real Life Star Trek Medical Tricorder
UC Berkeley Professor of Bioengineering Boris Rubinsky and colleagues have just developed a handheld medical imager that looks just like the medical tricorder in Star Trek!
New handheld medical scanners coupled with regular cell phones resemble "Star Trek" tricorders and could see what ails you with a push of a button.
The invention, using off-the-shelf cell phone technology, would allow medical scanners to boldly go where none have gone before — to the aid of the roughly three-quarters of the world’s population currently without access to ultrasounds, X-rays and other imagers used for everything from detecting tumors to monitoring fetuses.
Trivia: When Watching “Lunatics” Was Entertainment
The Interior of Bedlam, from A Rake’s Progress by William Hogarth (1763)
In the 18th century, watching and taunting "lunatics" in an asylum was a popular form of entertainment.
The cost of admission at the Hospital of St. Mary in London, the oldest psychiatric hospital in the world (later renamed Bethlem Hospital), was one penny. The asylum was so chaotic that it became the basis of the word "bedlam."
Keyboards May Be Dirtier Than a Toilet Seat
UK Consumer group Which? conducted the test that showed keyboards may actually be dirtier than a toilet seat:
Out of 33 keyboards swabbed, four were regarded as a potential health hazard and one harboured five times more germs than one of the office’s toilet seats.
Microbiologist Dr Peter Wilson said a keyboard was often "a reflection of what is in your nose and in your gut".
During the Which? tests in January this year, a microbiologist deemed one of the office’s keyboards to be so dirty he ordered it to be removed, quarantined and cleaned. It had 150 times the recommended limit for bacteria - five times as filthy as a lavatory seat tested at the same time, the research found.
The Man Who Regrew His Finger
We’ve posted about the "magical" power of the pig bladder powder to regrow finger a couple of months ago - and now, the BBC has an interview with the man who regrew his finger, Lee Spievak.
Link (BBC Media Player/Flash Video, complete with some gruesome images of Lee’s finger) - Thanks Jonathan Beaton, Lasse Bang, and Louise!
Skin Cells Made into Heart Cells
Scientists at UCLA have succeeded in reprogramming stem cells from mouse skin to become functioning cardiac cells. This is the first trial to find that partially differentiated, or iPS cells that don’t involve embyos or eggs can be made into the three types of cardiac cells needed for heart repair. Senior author of the study Dr. Robb MacLellan says the results are encouraging.
“I believe iPS cells address many of the shortcomings of human embryonic stem cells and are the future of regenerative medicine,” said MacLellan, an associate professor of cardiology and physiology. “I’m hoping that these scientific findings are the first step towards one day developing new therapies that I can offer my patients. There are still many limitations with using iPS cells in clinical studies that we must overcome, but there are scientists in labs across the country working to address these issues right now.”
Further studies at UCLA will try to determine whether human cells can be reprogrammed as well as the mouse cells. Link -via Digg
(image credit: Dake)
Siobhán’s Miracle
Eight years ago, Siobhán Kilfeather, who was suffering from a deadly cancer, went to Lourdes to pray to the Virgin Mary not for survival, but for more time to allow her young children to remember her.
When she returned to London, her doctors were amazed at her recovery:
Siobhán and Peter clung to each other as the radiologist continued. "Back in December we spotted a small lesion on the lungs. One month later the abnormality was the size of a walnut. By now we expected to be examining irregular cells the size of a grapefruit.
"Instead, there’s nothing to be seen. The abnormalities have disappeared."
Siobhán’s cancer returned seven years later, and this is her story as told by her mother-in-law Ellen Jameson in an upcoming book Siobhán’s Miracle:
"I finally managed: ‘How long do you think I’ve got?’He turned his face away from me and didn’t answer. My head is so full of clutter I can’t think straight.
"I should write to old friends I’ve lost touch with. Tell them I’m going to die. I can’t seem to get things into proportion. The most important considerations are obviously my children and my husband, but also my work is important to me.
"My writing, my book, my students. Should I spend the last 12 hours of my life reading Jane Austen or writing an essay or singing nursery rhymes to my children?"
Trivia: The Fear and Absence of Pain
Odynophobia is the most common fear in the world. It’s the fear of pain.
Most people don’t like feeling pain - but being able to feel pain is actually a good thing. Consider the opposite: about 17 people in the United States are born with "congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis" - basically, they feel absolutely no pain. Far from being a wonderful thing, living without pain is actually hell.
Here’s a story of (then) 4-year-old Roberto Salazar, who was born without the ability to feel any pain:
When you first meet 4-year-old Roberto Salazar, you can’t help but notice his unwavering smile and constant laughter. By all accounts, he’s a very happy boy.
It is only when he rams his head violently into walls or plays a little too roughly with a schoolmate, all the while smiling, that you are reminded that he suffers from an incredibly rare genetic disorder. [...]
His family was shocked when Roberto started teething. He gnawed on his own tongue, lips and fingers to the point of mutilation. "If you could imagine when you bite your tongue how bad it hurts. At one point, you couldn’t even distinguish that his tongue was his tongue," Stingley-Salazar said.
Doctor Felicia Axelrod of the New York University, who specializes in this rare disease, said:
"For some children it’s a mild degree such as breaking a leg, they’ll get up and walk on the leg. They feel that something is uncomfortable but they keep on moving," she said. "For other children, the pain loss is so severe that they can injure themselves repetitively and actually mutilate themselves because they don’t know when to stop." (Source)
Surgeons Remove 125-Pound Belly from Russian Woman
In America, many of us can be lax with our eating habits. Sometimes it requires a week of exercise to compensate for a holiday’s worth of gorging. But in more extreme cases, it requires a team of surgeons to undo. Surgeons recently worked for hours to remove the massive skin fat of patient Natalya M.:
When Natalya M. was rushed to a hospital in Voronezh, Russia, the doctors didn’t believe their eyes – the woman had a gigantic skin-fat growth on her belly that didn’t let her walk normally. It was 36 inches long and weighed 125 pounds.
Click on the link to read the whole story. Be aware, a graphic image lies within.
Shoes are Ruining Our Feet
Researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa compared the feet of people from different cultures plus 2,000 year old skeletons. The skeletons had the healthiest feet (at least when they were alive), followed by the modern population that normally goes barefoot.
“Natural gait is biomechanically impossible for any shoe-wearing person,” wrote Dr. William A. Rossi in a 1999 article in Podiatry Management. “It took 4 million years to develop our unique human foot and our consequent distinctive form of gait, a remarkable feat of bioengineering. Yet, in only a few thousand years, and with one carelessly designed instrument, our shoes, we have warped the pure anatomical form of human gait, obstructing its engineering efficiency, afflicting it with strains and stresses and denying it its natural grace of form and ease of movement head to foot.” In other words: Feet good. Shoes bad.
Walking barefoot may be best, but it’s difficult to do in the modern world. Designers are working on shoes that have less padding, fewer features, and simulate the act of walking barefoot. New York magazine looks at this and other ways we can learn to walk healthier. Link -via Geek Like Me
(image credit: Tom Schierlitz)
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+SUMy Beautiful Mommy: Children’s Book About Plastic Surgery
Florida plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Salzhauer saw an unfulfilled niche and decided to do something about it: he wrote a children’s book about mommy’s plastic surgery!
"My Beautiful Mommy," written by Florida-based plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Salzhauer, is billed by its author as the first book that explains plastic surgery to kids, an issue with which he says many of his patients struggle.
"More than half the women that come in for procedures bring their children with them," he said. "And most parents go into
denial about the surgery with regard to their children.""My Beautiful Mommy" focuses on a mother explaining an impending nose job and tummy tuck to her young daughter, who is scared that her mommy may look different. Mommy also undergoes a breast enhancement in the book, a fact depicted only through the illustrations so as not to get too graphic for child readers.
Link - via Miss Cellania
Schizophrenia is Linked to Pre-Natal Flu
A new study by scientists at Columbia University confirmed a link between pre-natal influenza infection and schizophrenia:
One percent of the world’s population suffers from its symptoms of hallucinations, psychosis and impaired cognitive ability. The disease destroys relationships and renders many of its sufferers unable to hold down a job. What could cause such frightening damage to the brain? According to a growing body of research, the culprit is surprising: the flu.
If you are skeptical, you are not alone. Being condemned to a lifetime of harsh antipsychotic drugs seems a far cry from a runny nose and fever. And yet studies have repeatedly linked schizophrenia to prenatal infections with influenza virus and other microbes, showing that the children of mothers who suffer these infections during pregnancy are more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia later in life. In 2006 scientists at Columbia University asserted that up to one fifth of all schizophrenia cases are caused by prenatal infections.
Doctors have known for many years that microbes such as syphilis and Streptococcus can, if left untreated, lead to serious psychiatric problems. Now a growing number of scientists are proposing that microbes are to blame for several mental illnesses once thought to have neurological or psychological defects at their roots. The strongest evidence pertains to schizophrenia, but autism, bipolar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder have also been linked to bacterial, viral or parasitic infections in utero, in childhood or in maturity. Some of these infections can directly affect the brain, whereas others might trigger immune reactions that interfere with brain development or perhaps even attack our own brain cells in an autoimmune mistake.
Link - via Scribal Terror
Scarless Appendix Removal Surgery: Through Your Mouth!
If you ever need your appendix removed in the future, there is a good chance you’ll never even have a scar. That’s because doctors have successfully performed the world’s first appendectomy … through the patient’s mouth!
The operation, which is a major advance in the quest for scar-free surgery, was performed by doctors in San Diego, California, who used a flexible tube to thread miniature surgical instruments down the 42-year-old’s throat to his stomach.
A tiny incision was then made in the stomach wall to get at the appendix - a small worm-like pouch attached to the large bowel.
The inflamed appendix was cut away, bagged and pulled back into the stomach - and out of the mouth.
Trivia: Marlboro Was a Woman’s Cigarette
Marlboro was originally branded as a woman’s cigarette.
Filtered cigarettes were considered feminine as reflected by Marlboro’s original slogan "Mild as May." In the 1930s, Marlboro even changed the cigarette tips from ivory to red so they wouldn’t smear ladies’ lipstick.
In 1955 Philip Morris & Co. tried to change Marlboro’s feminine image with the "Tattooed Man" campaign, where a rugged cattle rancher, a Navy officer, and a flyer (all with muscular, tattooed hands) were shown holding a cigarette. Supposedly the tattoo was suggestive of "romantic past." Later, ad genius Leo Burnett used the image of a cowboy to prove that the cigarettes weren’t for sissies, and thus "The Marlboro Man" was born. (Source)
There were many Marlboro Men, but two of them - Wayne McLaren and David McLean - died of lung cancers. The original Marlboro Man, David Millar, Jr., died of emphysema. McLaren became an anti-smoking activist before he died, and Philip Morris denied that he ever appeared in a Marlboro ad. Later, the company admitted that he indeed appeared, but not as a Marlboro Man.
Tree Man of Java Getting Treatment, Still Kind of Bark-y But Much Better Now
We posted about Dede Koswara, dubbed the "Tree Man of Java," whose hands and feet were covered in bark-like tissues, before on Neatorama.
Doctors operated on Dede back in January and have now removed growths from his hands and feet:
Dede’s ordeal began when he was 15 and cut his knee in an accident. A small wart developed on his lower leg and spread uncontrollably.
Eventually he had to give up work as a builder and fisherman, and scratch a living in a traveling freak show.
The documentary team took American dermatology expert Dr Anthony Gaspari to Indonesia to see if he could find a cure. Dr Gaspari, of the University of Maryland, concluded Dede’s affliction was caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), a fairly common infection usually causing only small warts.
Dede’s problem was that he has an extremely rare immune system deficiency, leaving his body unable to contain the warts.
The virus was therefore able to "hijack the cellular machinery of his skin cells", ordering them to produce massive amounts of
the substance causing tree-like growths known as "cutaneous horns".
New Drug Fights Radiation Effects
A new drug being developed for the US military can protect cells against the effects of radiation, according to a study publish today in the journal Science.
Although radiation is an important weapon used by doctors to blast cancers, drugs that limit radiation’s devastating effects on healthy cells are needed to reduce the potentially severe side effects.
Radiation induces damage in healthy tissues not by directly killing cells but by prompting them to commit “suicide” through a process called apoptosis.
The new drug, called “Protectan CBLB502, tested in mice and monkeys, protects radiation-blasted tissues by shutting down this cell death programme, which the body normally turns on in cells with damaged DNA to keep them from multiplying, says Dr Lyudmila Burdelya, who worked with Drs Vadim Krivokrysenko and Andrei Gudkov at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and colleagues at the company Cleveland BioLabs, also in Buffalo, New York,
Research shows that tumor cells are not given the same protection by the drug. Link -via Digg
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUGhostly Voices Tell Woman of Brain Cancer: Miracle or Madness?
This one is a bit long, but really interesting. Cabinet of Wonders blog dug up an article by Danny Penman at the Daily Mail about hearing voices.
Now, normally, hearing voices is a sure symptom of mental illness (like schizophrenia) … but is it always a bad thing? Here’s a story recounted by consultant psychiatrist Dr. Ikechukwu Azuonye:
The story begins in 1984 when a married woman in her 40s was referred to him, apparently suffering from a psychiatric illness. Her ‘symptoms’ appeared when she was at home in London quietly reading a book, and a distinct voice appeared in her head.
‘Please don’t be afraid,’ the voice said in a firm but soothing tone. ‘I know it must be shocking for you to hear me speaking to you like this, but this is the easiest way I could think of. My friend and I used to work at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, and we would like to help you.’
She was understandably shocked and was initially determined to dismiss the voice as a bizarre daydream. But it refused to go away and claimed that she was physically ill and would soon need help. [...]
‘The voices told her to go in and ask to have a brain scan,’ says Dr Azuonye. ‘This was apparently for two reasons. She had a tumour in her brain and her brain stem was inflamed.
Because the voices had told her things in the past that had turned out to be true, she believed them when they said that she had a tumour. I requested a brain scan.’
It turned out the diagnosis made by the voices was correct. Interestingly, says Dr Azuonye, there were no clinical signs that would have alerted anyone — including the patient — to the tumour.
The surgeon suggested an immediate operation to remove the tumour, a decision the voices agreed with. ‘They said they would have preferred the operation to be done at the National Hospital, Queen Square, London, because they specialised in neurological diseases. But because she was already at the Royal Free Hospital, they told her to have the procedure done there because it was urgent,’ Dr Azuonye says.
After the operation, and when the woman had recovered consciousness, the voices returned one last time, to bid her farewell. ‘We are pleased to have helped you,’ they said, before bidding her goodbye. ‘It is a miracle,’ says Dr Azuonye. ‘The patient regards herself as being helped by a guardian angel.’
Was it miracle or madness? Link - More over at Cabinet of Wonders
Stressed Loser Monkeys Prefer Cocaine
It’s long been known that monkeys can get addicted to various opiates just like humans can. A new research showed that social standing matters in the "monkey addiction problem" (if there’s such a thing).
It turns out that having a lower social standing increases the likelihood that a monkey to choose cocaine over food when stressed:
… [Robert Warren Gould and colleagues] looked at the effect of the stressful situation on the likelihood that monkeys would use cocaine. After the 40 minutes in the unfamiliar cage surrounded by other monkeys, each monkey could choose between pressing a lever that they knew delivered cocaine or one that they knew delivered a food reward. The subordinate monkey was more likely to choose cocaine while the dominant monkey was less likely to choose cocaine after this encounter, compared to their respective typical choices during the days preceding this encounter.
These differences in both brain activity and the likelihood of using cocaine between animals of different social rank offer clues to the social context of drug use and addiction in humans, say the researchers. Nader said, "We believe this type of research can be used to identify better treatment strategies, including providing environmental enrichment, that may affect the likelihood of abusing drugs."
Link - Thanks Casey! (Photo: Random Factor [Flickr], of a monkey indulging in a lesser vice, I suppose)
New Kids on the Block Returns: Not New and No Longer Kids, but They’re Back!
This news is so stupendous that I had to check the date to make sure it’s not April 1: New Kids on the Block boy band has reunited!
They may be pushing 40, but the New Kids are returning to the block.
The boy band New Kids on the Block, which sold 70 million albums in the 1980s and early ’90s, has reunited and plans to release a new album and go on tour. The reunion comes 20 years after the release of the group’s multiplatinum album, "Hangin’ Tough."
Link - Thanks JoBo S!
“Weight-ism” More Widespread Than Sexism
In America, most of us believe that we shouldn’t discriminate based on characteristics that people can’t control (e.g. race, gender, etc.). However, we also believe that weight is something that people can control, and while that is correct to a certain extent, there are other factors that prevent people from achieving their ideal weight.
A new study from Yale University claims that weight discrimination is more widespread than previously imagined. Some of its findings:
- Men are not at serious risk of discrimination until their BMI reaches 35, while women begin experiencing an increase in discrimination at BMI 27.
- Moderately obese women with a BMI of 30 to 35 are three times more likely than men in the same weight group to experience weight discrimination.
- Compared to other forms of discrimination in the United States, weight discrimination is the third most prevalent cause of perceived discrimination among women (after gender and age) and the fourth most prevalent form of discrimination among all adults (after gender, age and race.)
As for how much control people can exert over their own weight, according to Rebecca Puhl (the study’s author):
We place a lot of emphasis on personal responsibility for body weight. Our billion-dollar diet industry is founded on that premise. Your weight is modifiable. But that does not reflect the current state of science. We know from hundreds of randomized clinically controlled trials that it’s very difficult to sustain weight loss over time with our existing treatment methods. That has compelled a number of expert panels, like the National Institutes of Health, to conclude that we really can’t expect you to lose more than 10 percent of your body weight and be able to keep that off.
Tooth Regeneration
Scientists are working on making teeth regrow the crystals that make up dentin and enamel. This process could eliminate drilling and filling to combat tooth decay. Sally Marshall, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, is looking for a way to catch decay early and cause teeth to start “remineralizing”.
Marshall’s newest work, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Structural Biology, focuses on regrowing dentin in damaged teeth with the help of a calcium-containing solution of ions (electrically charged particles).
By putting a layer of the solution on individual test teeth, Marshall has already been able to remineralize some parts of the teeth. The challenge is to get the crystals to regrow throughout the dentin.
To heal properly, the crystals need to form from the bottom of the tooth up to the enamel. Marshall isn’t sure whether that’s happening yet, but she is confident that she’ll find a way to restore dentin functionality over the next few years.
When this technology progresses to popular use, our grandchildren won’t believe our stories about the dentist’s drill! Link
(image credit: Hollingsworth/Corbis)
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUWal-Mart Reverses Itself and Lets Disabled Woman Keep Her Money
Before this story went ’round the Interweb:
Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley, who called Debbie Shank’s case "unbelievably sad," replied in a statement: "Wal-Mart’s plan is bound by very specific rules. … We wish it could be more flexible in Mrs. Shank’s case since her circumstances are clearly extraordinary, but this is done out of fairness to all associates who contribute to, and benefit from, the plan." (Source)
After the story went ’round the Interweb:
"Occasionally, others help us step back and look at a situation in a different way. This is one of those times," Wal-Mart Executive Vice President Pat Curran said in a letter. "We have all been moved by Ms. Shank’s extraordinary situation." [...]
"We wanted you to know that Wal-Mart will not seek any reimbursement for the money already spent on Ms. Shank’s care, and we will work with you to ensure the remaining amounts in the trust can be used for her ongoing care," Curran said.
"We are sorry for any additional stress this uncertainty has placed on you and your family."
The publicity apparently worked for the family: Wal-Mart dropped its lawsuit to recoup money from a brain-damaged former worker. Link
Previously on Neatorama: Wal-Mart Wants Disabled Woman’s Long-Term Care Money Back
Robot Patient Teaches Doctors in Combat Zones
Thats the METI Human Patient Simulator, a robot that breathes, urinates, and blinks with uncanny realism.
The high-tech robotic mannequin simulates a wide variety of battle wounds and injuries and is currently used in the Navy Trauma Training Center to train doctors and nurses in combat zones.
Link - Thanks Dave! (Photo: Dave Bullock)
A Vaccine for the Ebola Virus?
Scientists may finally be on the cusp of finding a vaccine for the Ebola virus. According to an article in EurekAlert:
Because Ebola virus is so dangerous, producing and testing a vaccine is extremely challenging for the scientists. One significant factor slowing down progress has been that there are only a very limited number of high containment facilities with staff capable and authorised to conduct the research.
“Ebola virus is a Biosafety Level 4 threat, along with many other haemorrhagic fever viruses”, says Dr Sanchez. “As well as the difficulty in getting the right staff and facilities, vaccines for viruses like Ebola, Marburg and Lassa fever have been difficult to produce because simple ‘killed’ viruses that just trigger an antibody response from the blood are not effective. For these viruses we need to get a cell-mediated response, which involves our bodies producing killer T-cells before immunity is strong enough to prevent or clear an infection.”
The researchers have now used several different recombinant DNA techniques, which have allowed them to trigger a cell-mediated response and produce a vaccine that is effective in non-human primates. One of the candidate vaccines is about to be tested on people for the first time, after entering Phase 1 clinical trials in autumn 2006.
I’m old enough to still remember the early 90s, when movies like Outbreak and books like The Hot Zone had a firm grip on the popular imagination. There was a mystique about these deadly diseases that people just found utterly compelling. I can’t really speculate why, except to say that that maybe it’s the same reason people find serial killers compelling too: We long to know why/how they do what they do. But, like serial killers, we’ll probably never understand any of them completely. We just need to be able to stop them.
Here’s wishing Dr. Sanchez good luck at the CDC today, where he’ll be presenting Ebola vaccine developments!
Hackers “Seize-rolled” Epilepsy Sufferers in a Support Forum
This incident is quite possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims: hackers uploaded a flashing computer animation to an epilepsy support forum to trigger epileptic attacks!
RyAnne Fultz, a 33-year-old woman who suffers from pattern-sensitive epilepsy, says she clicked on a forum post with a legitimate-sounding title on Sunday. Her browser window resized to fill her screen, which was then taken over by a pattern of squares rapidly flashing in different colors.
Fultz says she "locked up."
"I don’t fall over and convulse, but it hurts," says Fultz, an IT worker in Coeur d’Alene, Ohio. "I was on the phone when it happened, and I couldn’t move and couldn’t speak."
After about 10 seconds, Fultz’s 11-year-old son came over and drew her gaze away from the computer, then killed the browser process, she says.
Link (Photo: RyAnne Fultz) - Thanks AnotherJake!
When Is Someone Dead or Dead Enough?
According to some ethicists, The current medical definition of death is wrong … and this mistake is costing lives.
The controversy swirls around organ donation, in which doctors remove organs from brain dead patients:
Most organs donated from the deceased come from people who have been diagnosed as brain dead. Organs remain viable for only about an hour or two after a person’s last heartbeat. Brain dead patients are ideal candidates for organ donation, then, because they are kept on ventilators, which means their heart and lungs continue to work, ensuring that a steady flow of oxygen-rich blood keeps their organs healthy. Surgeons remove the donor’s organs, then shut off the ventilator. The patient’s heart eventually stops.
Yet a small but vocal minority in the medical community has always insisted that some brain dead patients may not be dead. For instance, one study documented some kind of brain activity in up to 20 percent of people declared brain dead, suggesting to some critics that doctors sometimes misdiagnose the condition. Although some neurologists contend the claim, University of Wisconsin medical ethicist Dr. Norman Fost points to research showing that many "brain dead" patients have a functioning hypothalamus, a structure at the base of the brain that governs certain bodily functions, such as blood pressure and appetite.
"We have been taking organs out of those patients by the thousands," says Fost, "and they are not brain dead."
Others point to the unsettling fact that the brain dead look alive — their hearts beat, lungs function (albeit with the aid of a respirator), and skin retains a pink hue. Brain dead women have even given birth.
"There is nobody in the world of philosophy and bioethics who thinks brain death is a coherent concept," says Truog.
Here’s an interesting article by Timothy Gower in The Boston Globe: Link - via Look At This