BIOMEDICAL ENGINEER JOBS AT PUNE

COMPANY NAME

Apollo Lavasa Health Corporation Ltd.

Experience: 3 – 8 Years Location: Pune Compensation: According to the qualification and experience. Education: UG – B.Tech/B.E. – Biomedical PG – Other Industry Type: Medical/ Healthcare/Hospital

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

Humans Can Grow New Teeth - Thanks To Stem Cells

The Guardian reports -

The procedure is fairly simple. Doctors take stem cells from the patient. These are unique in their ability to form any of the tissues that make up the body. By carefully nurturing the stem cells in a laboratory, scientists can nudge the cells down a path that will make them grow into a tooth. After a couple of weeks, the ball of cells, known as a bud, is ready to be implanted. Tests reveal what type of tooth – for example, a molar or an incisor – the bud will form. Using a local anaesthetic, the tooth bud is inserted through a small incision into the gum. Within months, the cells will have matured into a fully-formed tooth, fused to the jawbone. His team has set up a company, Odontis, to exploit the technique, and has won £400,000 from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and the Wellcome Trust.

Read MORE.

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

Last-minute Christmas present idea

I’m sure a lot of us are sitting on edge, waiting for those last minute gifts to arrive in the mail. Or, you haven’t even bought those last-minute presents yet.

Well, here’s one idea: organ donor dolls!

From Underwire: Seeking to inject a little whimsy into the deadly serious business of organ transplants, David Foox has created a line of Organ Donor Dolls garbed in hospital gowns and crowned with bulbous heads shaped like kidneys, hearts, livers and other internal organs.

The New York lawyer-turned-artist took his cue from Kidrobot Munnies and other hypercute dolls in designing the platoon of vinyl figures.

Foox became inspired to put a friendly face on the organ-donor process when he learned a family member needed a double lung transplant.

“Each of these pieces carries with it the notions of good fortune, good luck and opportunity,” he said.

These dolls designed by David Foox represent red and white blood cells. Images courtesy 323 East

The art dolls, measuring about 3.25 inches high, were featured through Dec. 18 in Foox’s solo exhibition at 323 East gallery in Royal Oak, Michigan. Qualifying as Christmas gift potential for the medical obsessive who has everything, limited Chinese Edition dolls are being sold individually for $30 or as a complete set priced at $450.

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

PeRSSonalized Pediatrics: Selected News, Blogs, Journals, Twitter and Youtube

PeRSSonalized Medicine is an easy-to-use, free aggregator of quality medical information that lets you select your favourite resources and read the latest news and articles about a medical specialty or a medical condition in one personalized place.

Now here is the newest category, PeRSSonalized Pediatrics with all the quality news sites, blogs, peer-reviewed journals and web 2.0 tools focusing on pediatrics.

Some reasons why it is unique:

• You can search in the database. It means you will find medical information only from a quality selected portion of the world wide web.

• You can personalize any of the sections.

• You can also receive the newest Pubmed articles focusing on your search term. Just insert your field of interest, a therapy, a condition, etc. and click Search. Then you can add the newly created box to your personalized medical “journal”.

• It is a community-based project. Please let us know which quality resources should be added to the database.

[Via http://scienceroll.com]

How do we know if Complimentary and Alternative 'medical' practices and products are worth healthcare money?

David Colquhoun published an excellent editorial this week in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in which he looks back at the last 100 years of “secret remedies.” He points out that a century ago the medical establishment and government regulators tried to protect the public from unscientific patent remedies, but those efforts were anemic, and eventually faded away. Now we are in the midst of a resurgence of unscientific remedies, and those who should be protecting the public health are not even mounting a half-hearted defense.

Unless a practice or profession is based upon transparent evidence, how can meaningful regulation take place? If proponents can simply make up their own standards based upon ideology and philosophy, without being held to any external standard, the regulation is a farce.

It is a sad state of affairs when not only tabloids, but comedians, are doing a much better job of informing the public about the reality of homeopathy and other fantasy-based treatment than governments, medical organizations, and universities.

Read Steve’s entire article here at Neurologica.

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

"Intermittent Explosive Disorder"

It’s that time of the year again!  Happy Holidays, lots of cheer and tension and stress.  And in such conditions, the possibility that someone will explode goes up.  And with it the chances of misery and even injury, perhaps a permanent break in a family group.

This blog has been very concerned about domestic abuse, and the fact that women are so often the target.  So I was  interested to see today in a list of recent papers that crossed my desk a reference to intermittent explosive disorder.   (I  didn’t know it had such an official name!)

According to the Mayo Clinic, this is a disorder characterized by:

Intermittent explosive disorder is characterized by repeated episodes of aggressive, violent behavior in which you react grossly out of proportion to the situation …  Later, people with intermittent explosive disorder may feel remorse, regret or embarrassment.

Explosive eruptions, usually lasting 10 to 20 minutes, often result in injuries and the deliberate destruction of property. These episodes may occur in clusters or be separated by weeks or months of nonaggression.

Road rage. Domestic abuse. Angry outbursts or temper tantrums that involve throwing or breaking objects.

Like many other clinical diagnoses, the behavior described may be exhibited without the full disorder, so there can be a number of different conditions that produce the frightening 10 to 20 minutes of rage that may be accompanied by behavior designed to hurt, either physically or emotionally.   

These anger fits can be dangerous; they should less bad that the systematic bullying and brutalizing that can go on.   But as always, anyone feeling in danger needs to try to get out of the situation. 

If it seems not that bad – maybe all that will happen is that a day is ruined for the rest of the family – then simply heading the tantrum off might be possible.  It completely sucks  to be stuck with such a problem, and the last thing you should think is that  you are responsible; think of taking action as instead like a way to protect oneself against the elements.

The Mayo Clinic suggests part  of the solution lies with anger management.  If you know someone you are concerned may throw one of these frightening tantrums, you might consider whether you can use any of the information on self-management.  Some of these translate into ways to head off the behavior in others.  For example, you can arrange some time out by suggesting a walk or another sort of break.  Other  things you might talk over with people who seem likely to explode. 

1. Take a ‘timeout.’ Although it may seem cliche, counting to 10 before reacting really can defuse your temper.
2. Get some space. Take a break from the person you’re angry with until your frustrations subside a bit.
3. Once you’re calm, express your anger. It’s healthy to express your frustration in a nonconfrontational way. Stewing about it can make the situation worse.
4. Get some exercise. Physical activity can provide an outlet for your emotions, especially if you’re about to erupt. Go for a brisk walk or a run, swim, lift weights or shoot baskets.
5. Think carefully before you say anything. Otherwise, you’re likely to say something you’ll regret. It can be helpful to write down what you want to say so that you can stick to the issues. When you’re angry, it’s easy to get sidetracked.
6. Identify solutions to the situation. Instead of focusing on what made you mad, work with the person who angered you to resolve the issue at hand.
7. Use ‘I’ statements when describing the problem. This will help you to avoid criticizing or placing blame, which can make the other person angry or resentful — and increase tension. For instance, say, “I’m upset you didn’t help with the housework this evening,” instead of, “You should have helped with the housework.”
8. Don’t hold a grudge. If you can forgive the other person, it will help you both. It’s unrealistic to expect everyone to behave exactly as you want.
9. Use humor to release tensions. Lightening up can help diffuse tension. Don’t use sarcasm, though — it’s can hurt feelings and make things worse.
10. Practice relaxation skills. Learning skills to relax and de-stress can also help control your temper when it may flare up. Practice deep-breathing exercises, visualize a relaxing scene, or repeat a calming word or phrase to yourself, such as “Take it easy.” Other proven ways to ease anger include listening to music, writing in a journal and doing yoga.

Any other suggestions?  Comments?  Thoughts?

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

Report: Progress on Prevention Lags

According to the annual America’s Health Rankings report, the U.S. healthcare system does not put forth the effort in preventing illnesses caused by smoking and other unhealthy behaviors.

According to the findings, smoking, poor dietary habits and lack of exercise are costing the U.S. billions of dollars in health care costs.

Reed Tuckson, M.D., the executive vice president and chief of medical affairs at UnitedHealth Group, stated “Over the past 20 years, our national health care system has helped extend the length of life, but not the quality of life. Making progress against smoking and obesity is a critical step to successfully tackling the health reform our nation wants to achieve.”

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

Monopoly, Homeopathy, and Adam Baldwin, oh my!

It might be old news, but I saw one of these in a shop for the first time today. A Boutique edition of Monopoly, coloured entirely in different shades of pink. The focus is shifted from ruthlessly trading in real estate, to having lots of girly fun going shopping. Chance and Community Chest are replaced with Instant Message and Text Message. And it’s very pink.

My gut reaction was to call it the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen, and maybe if I were in a grumpier mood I’d have stuck with that. But actually, I don’t think there’s anything objectionable here. There are dozens of Monopoly spin-offs, and I don’t really see a problem with tailoring the specifics of a game so that a particular demographic can more easily relate to it. I know I’d rather play a version with £’s on the money and bits of London I’ve been to, than with dollars and a bunch of American places I’ve never heard of. The uber-pink theme is just an extension of that.

I know it’s the obvious thing to say that anyone or anything attempting to update itself by mentioning text messaging is tragically unhip, like an embarrassing dad trying to be “down with the kids” and failing hopelessly to get any of it right. But here it just seems like good sense. If I’ve won second prize in a beauty contest, sure, text me about it. But what the hell is a community chest?

The old-fashioned form isn’t “better” just because you’re nostalgic for it, and if somebody else’s childhood didn’t heavily feature Old Kent Road and a little stainless steel models of a dog, you can’t blame them if their current tastes don’t match up with your own personal fond memories. Sure, I’d miss the battleship if it was replaced by a handbag, but this game really isn’t meant for me.

I gather some people are concerned about the unhealthy gender stereotypes it could be reinforcing. If it was called “Monopoly: Girls’ Edition”, I think you’d have a point, but I think it’s just a version for people who like this sort of thing. Which seems fine.

If you like this, Amazon recommends Pink Yahtzee. Now that’s just retarded.

Moving on.

Not that I necessarily needed to be reminded, but this is why Crispian Jago is one of the highlights of the skeptical movement. I never got around to actually finishing my own attempted Pythonesque parody, but I should probably just stand back and let the maestro show us all how it’s done. (“SUSCEPTIBILITY attracting MIASMS? What kind of talk is that?”)

The Perry in that sketch, incidentally, is Simon Perry off of the Leicester Skeptics in the Pub, who had an article about homeopathy in Boots published in the Leicester Mercury paper lately. Less funny, but more informative, and kinda important.

Also, I got to chat to Adam Baldwin earlier. Yes, that one. Okay, it wasn’t exactly a chat, if I’m honest. He posted a link on Twitter to a political cartoon, which depicts a pampered government representative sitting with his feet up on a barrel of money, while several (white) men representing taxpayers are literally picking cotton and singing Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen. The government guy is talking to them about healthcare, and the scene is said to describe “the big issue of freedom vs. socialism. Or, in other words, freedom vs. slavery.”

Yes, the political philosophy of public ownership of the means of production is being equated to the way black people used to be white people’s property.

I made a comment to the effect that this was pretty damn classy.

And whatever else you want to say about Adam Baldwin, you can’t say that he’s totally oblivious to overpowering sarcasm.

He sent me a message back, directing me to this video, in which some US politician I’ve barely heard of asserts that Republicans have historically not been especially progressive, and gets a few significant facts wrong according to the captions. This, I’m told, provides some much-needed “context”. To the cartoon in which, if you remember, white people whose tax dollars might have to cover a comprehensive healthcare plan for a few million of people who can’t afford insurance, are having their hardships compared to the suffering of the black people who were owned as property by white people a few decades ago.

If this context somehow sheds new light on that, and is supposed to be making me see it in a whole new non-crazy perspective, it’s not working.

I guess there was no particular theme to any of this, but that’s enough for today.

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

Nelson-Hatch Fails!

The situation is not perfect, and the problems are not over, but still it is a good moment.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has rejected an effort to stiffen abortion restrictions in the health care bill.

The vote was 54 to 45.

Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah wanted to ban any insurance plan that gets taxpayer dollars from offering abortion coverage. The stronger restrictions mirrored provisions in the House-passed health care bill.

The Senate bill currently allows insurance plans to cover abortions but tries to separate private funds from federal money. It specifies that abortion coverage can only be paid for with private dollars.

Majority Leader Harry Reid said the legislation is about access to health care, not abortion

Perhaps last sentence is related to the protest we described here.

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

Vaccines and Hospital Workers

Let’s say that you work in a hospital. Let’s say that the hospital is mandating everyone have vaccinations against H1N1. Let’s say you don’t want to get vaccinated. What should happen to you?

In the case of two people working at a children’s hospital in Philadelphia, they got fired. Their excuse for not getting the vaccination?

God doesn’t want them to.

Of course these people have a right to their faith. They have a right to refuse vaccination, and the hospital has a responsibility to remove them from the staff if that’s what these people choose to do.

A little more annoying, though, is this quote from the article I linked to above:

Some of the fired employees, including Gary Cowlay, are members of the health care union. A union spokesperson said some people were granted a religious exemption but others were not.

Now that’s just not right. First off, no one should be given a religious exemption. If you work in a hospital, and you are told you need to be vaccinated against H1N1 in order to continue to work, you need to be vaccinated. If you don’t want the shot, you need to find another job.

Second, if there’s going to be any religious exemption, it should be applied fairly and to everyone who asks for it. Letting some people have it and some not really isn’t right.

To those who say that these poor people shouldn’t have lost their job over this, let me ask you: what if they’d said their religion wouldn’t allow them to wash their hands? It’s not out of the question. If there’s sects of Christians out there who so fucking stupid they believe vaccines are the tool of the Devil, you can be there’s ones out there who are so fucking stupid they believe soap is evil. Should they be allowed a religious exemption so they can keep working at a hospital?

“Sure,” you might say, “they should be fired, because hand washing has been proven to work, but vaccines haven’t, or even if they have, this particular one hasn’t!”

Well, they have been proven to work and while the H1N1 vaccine hasn’t undergone as many tests as one might like and while there hasn’t been much time to do those tests, from all the tests done so far, it seems to work fine. But, hey, if you don’t want to take the risk, don’t. Just don’t expect to work in a hospital.

Ultimately people have the right to their religious beliefs, and well they should. But when those beliefs come into conflict with an issue of public health, guess what needs to happen?

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

For old people! Paine's Celery Compound ad, 1888

Paine's Celery compound, 1888

 

Montreal Daily Star,

14 August 1888, page 3

For Old People!

In old people the nervous system is weakened, and that must be strengthened.  One of the most prominent medical writers of the day, in speaking of the prevalence of rheumatic troubles among the aged, says: “The various pains, rheumatic or other, which old people often complain of, and which materially disturb their comfort, result from disordered nerves.”  There it is in a nutshell—the medicine for old people must be a nerve tonic.  Old people are beset with constipation, flatulency, drowsiness, diarrhea, indigestion, rheumatism, neuralgia.

These diseases are of nervous origin.  Paine’s Celery Compound, that great nerve tonic, is almost a specific in these disorders, and by its regulating influence on the liver, bowels, and kidneys, removes the disorders particular to old age.  Old people find it stimulating to the vital powers, productive of appetite and a promoter of digestion.

Sold by druggists.  $1.00.  six for $5.00.  Send for an eight-page paper, with many testimonials from nervous, debilitated and aged people, who bless Paine’s Celery Compound.

Wells Richardson & Co

Montreal, PQ.

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

"Worst Night Ever" + Possible Torn Retina = Visit to ER for My Unhappy Wife

This is what my wife's inner child has felt like lately

Cat’s fine. And she doesn‘t have a torn retina. But on Sunday morning, pale and soaked, she told me she’d just spent the worst night of her life.

Her life!

Cool. So I’m off the hook for that night I spent rolling around and vomiting on the living room floor from confusing vodka with lemonade.

Saturday and Saturday night were extremely rough on Cat. Her system was all kinds of bent. Her stomach distress kept her up all night Saturday, and by three the next afternoon we were thinking we needed to take her back to the hospital. So we called Urgent Care to get a nurse’s advice. And what did we learn? That Cat’ seriously dysfunctional stomach and chronic light-headedness weren’t nearly so much a concern as the big cloudy spot that had developed in the vision of her left eye.

“That sounds exactly like a detached retina,” said the nurse on the phone. “You need to go to the emergency room right now.”

So off we went to the hospital. Again.

Our emergency room doctor knew more about the human eyeball than I’ll never know about anything. It was stunning. While Cat sat on an examining table separated by a thin curtain from people she could hear she was glad weren’t her, Dr. Amazingly Competent busted out all kinds of optical exam equipment, and got busy.

Fifteen minutes later, he phoned the hospital’s ophthalmologist on call that weekend to report what he’d found, which we were all glad didn’t appear to be anything serious. And then, just to be sure it wasn’t anything serious, the most conscientious ophthalmologist in the Western World left his home to meet us at his office so he could give Cat a full eye exam.

On the evening of the Sunday following Thanksgiving, this guy stops his life just to be absolutely positive that Cat doesn’t have a detached retina—even though the emergency room doctor had left no doubt that she didn’t. Dr. Reuben Yoo nonetheless showed up his jogging suit just to make sure.

Who are these doctors and nurses who know so much, who care so deeply? The doctors who performed Cat’s operation were amazing. The nurses who cared for her during her stay at the hospital were amazing. The emergency care doctors and nurses were insanely perfect. Dr. Yoo rocked the entire universe for opening his office on the weekend just to be absolutely positive that Cat was all right.

Who are these people? How do they get that way? Who has those kind of brains? Who has that kind of stamina? Who dedicates their life to the physical well-being of others?

Anyway, Cat’s fine. Her eye is fine; her stomach is slowly but surely returning to normal. She’s still anemic from the blood lost during her operation, which of course keeps her light-headed, but that, too, is daily improving, and will be fully better in about a month.

I don’t know how I would have processed all this before I was Christian. But now it’s simple enough: I drop to my knees, and send up to God every last iota of gratitude in my soul.

**********************************************************************************************************

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[Via http://johnshore.com]

ปฎิบัติการตรวจวินิจฉัยทางเวชศาสตร์นิวเคลียร์ขั้นสูงด้วยวิธีถ่ายภาพ

3011767    ปฎิบัติการตรวจวินิจฉัยทางเวชศาสตร์นิวเคลียร์ขั้นสูงด้วยวิธีถ่ายภาพ    Advanced Practical Nuclear Medicine Imaging

วิธีการตรวจ การวิเคราะห์ข้อมูล การแปลผล ลักษณะผิดปกติจากการตรวจอวัยวะของระบบต่าง ๆ ของร่างกาย ด้วยวิธีการถ่ายภาพทางเวชศาสตร์นิวเคลียร์ขั้นสูง

(Real-life prctice on procedures, data analysis, interpretation, abnormal findings from advanced radionuclide imagine study of all systems of the body.)

(3011767 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

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

I wonder if my secretary notices I'm trans?

I was listening to Jan Morris on the Radio4’s Excess Baggage the other day. Actually I was listening to the podcast of Excess Baggage. I am a child of web 2.0 you know. Well a teenager really.

Anyway, as I said I was listening to this podcast on my iPodlet. And I was struck my two things, once is how very cool it is for Jan Morris to be able to talk on the radio and not be referred to as ‘Jan, formerly James’ Morris. The first 20 or so times I saw Jan  Morris on TV she was referred to as Jan, formerly James Morris. The think I love about Jan Morris is that there is so much more to her writing than being a transsexual, and I find her descriptions haunting and evocative. I love reading them.

The other thing I noticed about Jan Morris on the Radio was that her disembodied voice did sound, er, male. Even however many years post transition. Now I am aware that my voice sounds female because occasionally people assume that I’m female on the phone.

In person very few people assume that I’m trans, because I look male the voice goes almost unnoticed. Though I do wonder if my secretary notices. She hears my disembodied voice every time I do a tape of letters from clinic. I have tried to avoid it. I can type nearly as fast as she can, so it seems silly to have to dictate letters. But I can’t print the letters of and file them in the right places, so I give in and dictate them.

But I can’t help wondering if my voice gives me away. Maybe she knows. Maybe the girls in the typing pool know. Maybe I should just insist on doing my own typing. It’s ridiculous to dictate when I can type at 70wpm. Though I don’t have a login for the automatic send a letter to GPs system the secretaries use.

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

Conscience clause for Medical Professionals

When Religious Beliefs Play a Role in Medical Care Columbia Law School Hosts Debate on Conscience Objections in the Medical Profession New York, Nov. 23, 2009 — Under the First Amendment, a healthcare provider’s religious beliefs should be accommodated, but the question remains to what extent.   Steve Aden, senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, and Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, staff attorney in the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, tackled this question in a recent debate at Columbia Law School.   The issue of conscience objections in the medical profession gained increased attention when the Bush Administration, in its final days, promulgated a provider refusal rule. It expanded the right of health care workers and institutions to refuse to provide medical care, counseling, and referrals for religious or moral reasons.

Read the entire article at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/media_inquiries/news_events/2009/november2009/medical-conscience

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

The New Breast Cancer Guidelines: Debunking Some Myths

From the better-late-than-never department: I’ve been getting questions in real life about how I view the new mammogram guidelines, so I might as well weigh in on them here, too.

First, the new guidelines are only the culmination of years of research that has demolished the belief that routine mammograms for women in their forties will save lives. I’ve been following the medical debates on early detection of breast cancer ever since a Danish metastudy called into question the efficacy of routine screening mammography back in 2001; Gina Kolata reported on this study for the New York Times, and she’s done a fabulous job of following the controversy ever since. Feminist advocacy groups, such as the National Breast Cancer Coalition, have long questioned the advisability of regular mammograms for women under 50. Basically, mammograms pick up a lot of false positives and miss a lot of actual tumors. They also result in treatment of cancers that may never become dangerous. For breast cancer (unlike, say, colon cancer), early detection is no panacea because cancer cells often metastasize very early on. The scientific evidence really is pretty compelling. I’m not going to dissect it here, but see Our Bodies, Our Blogs and Echidne as well as the very thorough analysis by the NBCC.)

Instead, I’m going to tease apart some myths and misconceptions that have muddied the debate. Most are coming from those who’ve criticized the new guidelines. (And no, I’m not even going to bother with Rushbo’s revival of the death panel canard; Echidne snarked it into oblivion already.)

First, the new guidelines have been accused of being racist, as in this post at Feministing. Note, though, that the guidelines in no way discourage routine screening of women who are at higher than average risk; instead, they propose evaluating each woman’s particular risk. Compared to other ethnic groups, black women are indeed at higher risk of developing breast cancer in their forties. The new guidelines are thus simply inapplicable to black women, since they only address women who are at low risk. Black women should definitely get routine screening earlier than white women. By now physicians should be aware that breast cancer discriminates by race; to the extent that they’re still clueless, what’s needed is better awareness through continuing medical education. The new guidelines call for individualized risk assessment, not cookie-cutter methods. If this doesn’t work for women of color – and I agree there’s a chance that it won’t – then the problem isn’t the new guidelines, it’s racism, ignorance, and medicine geared to the bottom line.

Second, the media is teeming with heart-rending stories about women who find a lump and who wouldn’t have gotten diagnosed under the new guidelines. While stories about the human costs of cancer are really important, these stories are completely irrelevant to the debate. If you find a lump, your doctor will send you for a diagnostic mammogram. The new guidelines only address screening mammograms, which are done at regular intervals without any reason to suspect cancer. The new guidelines say nothing about diagnostic mammograms, which have never been controversial.

Third, the new guidelines don’t have any binding power. I do think it’s reasonable to worry that insurers will refuse to cover mammograms for women under 50, just because insurers are always looking for ways to cut costs. That would be a gross misapplication of the guidelines, which call for women and their doctors to decide whether screening mammograms are right for them. I’m fairly sanguine about this, though, because the breast cancer lobby is strong enough – and the public outcry loud enough – that insurers are far more likely to cut corners elsewhere.

Fourth, there’s no evidence that the revised guidelines are motivated by sexism. Routine PSA screening for men has recently been challenged on very similar grounds. While prostate cancer survivors have been just as skeptical as breast cancer survivors when it comes to decreasing early detection efforts, they haven’t enjoyed a similar bully pulpit. Nor have men in general risen up in protest. Perhaps Sir Charles of Cogitamus is right when he suggests a link to men’s general tendency to use fewer medical services:

Not to engage in gender essentialism, but I think this may have to do with the fact that men are always comfortable with a recommendation that reinforces our tendency toward denial in these kinds of matters — oh the test is no good — great, I’ll skip it. (Or maybe I’m just projecting.)

At any rate, men and women face similar issues here, not fundamentally different ones. The conversation about what we gain and lose through massive screening campaigns is one that both men and women ought to be having.

Proponents of the new guidelines (including Echidne, whom I otherwise agree with) are also making one wobbly assumption: that funds not spent on screening mammograms will be redirected to areas where we’ll get more health for the buck. I’m skeptical. Insurance coverage of mammograms has been mandated by law. If those laws should change (and I’d be surprised if they did), insurance companies would more likely divert the funding for mammograms straight to their bottom line (see point three above). Sober policy analysis of costs and benefits needs to take good old fashioned greed into account, too.

So by all means, let’s have a debate about the limits and possibilities of early detection and huge screening campaigns. But let’s have it on the basis of facts, rather than using the new guidelines as a Rorschach blot for our hopes and fears. (I have more to say about those fears, but that’ll have to wait for another day.)

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

Just in the nick of time

I drank an entire pot of soup yesterday before I left  for the show, and thank goodness I did. My voice was mostly back for the duration of the show.

When I woke up this morning… or should I say afternoon? I didn’t wake up till 3. XD Anyways, when I woke up, my voice was completely gone. Yep. I’ve lost my voice. T_T But it’s okay, because I don’t need to be onstage for another two whole weeks! (Christmas concert)

So Music Man is over. Wow. It’s going to be weird going back to “real life”.
Now, time to get started on homework… T_T
My face hurts.

On a side note, last night I did something very shocking.
I can’t say I never expected to, since I’ve been pondering it for a while… but I guess I was on a sugar-high from Chelsea’s brownies or something. So I did it. O_O Oh my… Boldness isn’t always a good thing. I’m a little worried about how this might go. T_T

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

Hope...

Some time ago, I had received en email from a website, NewDoctor.com.  It was written that they had recently ran a poll asking the professionals listed what online informational resources they use to keep up to date or even to simply find great information. It many of their users had labeled my blog as an excellent source of Medical information. They had decided to make my blog as part of our top medical blogs and award me with a Top Medical Blogs award banner. This had really give me encouragement and support… Lately, again, I received a wonderful news…
Another foreign website had listed my blog as one of the “Top 50 Blogs for Holistic Health and Wellness”. It provides people with ideas, thoughts and spirits different from those of Western Medicine. It also contain information about healthy treatment and health care. The Top 50 blogs listed there were categories into 10 groups, with one of them is for Traditional Chinese Medicine. My blog was listed in this category. It had commented my blog as a site providing health information including information about Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture. From these two notifications, I had an inspiration: “True and Traditional Chinese Medicine has a wide range of market, where it is popularly accepted by Western countries. “ I was also deeply impressed by people’s urgent desire to seek for knowledge of Traditional Chinese Medicine. I do hope that the launching of my new personal website – http://YeSenAcupuncture.com can bring more comprehensive information on Traditional Chinese Medicine, and helping  everyone to be healthy.

The violence of inner healing at its best - Bio-behavioral medicine to heal from domestic violence

For over 25 years, I taught biofeedback, meditation and stress reduction for people suffering from chronic and debilitating psychological. He "has been extremely rewarding to be part of the magic of the human body itself is the repair process.

Satisfaction is only surpassed by the pleasure that I designed to engage the intelligence of my patients to help them embrace the removal of their health and mending process … serving more as a coach to call a discipline asregular as breathing … a little "all psychological processes opening attracts attention.

Organic long-and short-behavioral medicine is what was then called. You may know as "holistic healing" or "mind-body". It has several names.

I developed, managed and provided treatment to professional practice in serving the Chicago metropolitan area. When I look back, I am well aware of today is like teaching and healing nuggets of this book fills the desires of those currentlyattracted me to the service.

Why biofeedback and meditation for the victims of domestic violence

Over the past seven years I have dedicated my life to help survivors of domestic violence. My energy was consumed by the rubble of legal advocacy and social chaos of political violence. I realized that not wants not only, and may serve victims of domestic violence in bio-behavioral medicine, but I have to serve this population in this way.Why.

Biofeedback, meditation and training to reduce the stress associated with psychotherapy will help you find the "you" behind the rumors … The "you" back and front of your domestic violence … the "you" is the center of your being, if all goes well … when you are together, happy, at peace with yourself and the universe.

Anaphylaxis

I stumbled upon this topic after reading this article (Kerala man fears ant could kill him)

Khader had emigrated to the Gulf and was doing good till 1998 when he took ill after an ant bite. His body was inflamed and he felt like he was in an oven. What surprised me the most is that doctors say that there is no permanent cure. The only solution is to keep out of the reach of ants. Man!

The condition is known as Anaphylactic Shock. It is quite serious and life-threatening.

According to Science Daily

Anaphylactic shock is an acute, life-threatening allergic reaction, usually brought on by  medication, insect stings, or other allergens, which has become more frequent in recent decades. In sensitized persons, the presence of the allergen leads to the release of various substances (mediators) from immune cells in the blood.

Anaphylaxis can occur in response to any allergen. Common triggers include insect bites or stings, food allergies, and drug allergies. Pollens and other inhaled allergens rarely cause anaphylaxis.

Symptoms include constriction of the airways, resulting in wheezing, difficulty breathing, and gastrointestinal symptoms such as abdominal pain, cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea. Histamine causes the blood vessels to dilate (which lowers blood pressure) and fluid to leak from the bloodstream into the tissues (which lowers the blood volume). These effects result in shock.

First aid measures for anaphylaxis include rescue breathing (part of CPR). Rescue breathing may be hindered by the constricted airways, but if the patient stops breathing on his or her own, it is the only way to get oxygen to him or her until professional help is available.

Some patients with severe allergies routinely carry preloaded syringes containing epinephrine, diphenhydramine (Benadryl), and dexamethasone (Decadron) whenever they go to an unknown or uncontrolled environment. Some immunization that!

Read this

Make what you want of it.

And she’s there, sitting inside the golden ratio as beautiful as ever. Me? I am on a parabola with no ends at all four corners. My destination is infinite and if I must get what I want then off this path I am to stride. But what is there isn’t sure of anything about herself right now and this is just an example of my helping hand and thirst for personal connection; an impact, a memory, a kiss.

And then there is the thought of distraction. Are the one’s in which I am meeting right now just pure distraction, something for me to chase after? And if the time were to come where a decision was necessary, no, needed, would I be the one to wave the flag and walk away? Am I a whore? Are my words too much for myself? I believe so because I am completely reading a blank and running amok in this cubicle of independence. Though being successful is all I ask, and no relations are wanted on an official level, the advancement on the company of said person would be highly appreciated.

Consider this the closest my heart can get to writing a love letter right now, girl. I don’t do it often. And I hate being blunt. But so be it; your energy, though you claim you lack it, is there and your smile; gorgeous. Yeah, I talk to other girls and tell them things but soon after, I only wish I was telling them to you. I am here, you can call me yours if you want…we don’t need the physical contact, just emotional connection, smirks and winks. I want to see those perfect teeth smiling back at me and then feel that beautiful head of hair upon my shoulder, maybe your hand in mine. That’s all.

And if this day comes, know I hope to never abandon you but I do have personal plans that will go through. Though miles apart, you’ll forever be beside me and the care we share wouldn’t wither and die like the false ideals of love. This is a growing experience and a personal bridge to my heart whenever you want to skip the traffic and come straight home.

….I can’t believe I just wrote this crap…but I guess I needed to let it out.

Don't be afraid of the doctor!

When I was a youngster, the doctor still was G-d. He (and it was almost always a he) was the expert and you knew nothing. That was especially true ’cause the “you” were usually females (macho men almost never needed the doctor) and since Women’s Lib was first taking hold, female patients obviously couldn’t ask an intelligent question. (I’m being sarcastic of course.)

For as far back as I can remember, I was asking the doctor questions. Living with a chronic condition since age 3, I was asking simple things by age 6 or 7 like:

“What is this?”
“Why am I taking this?”
“Why aren’t I feeling well (or any better)?”

All I ever got was a pat on the head and this answer, “There, there, sweetheart, don’t worry about it.”

I didn’t like that answer, even at age 7. And I kept pushing. And my Mother, who was even more intimidated by a doctor, was mortally embarrassed that I would question him.

If you think this changed as I got older, it didn’t. I didn’t care. I was asking questions, yes, but I wasn’t belligerent. I was polite, my questions were straightforward…I was just refusing to be patronized.

And that’s all it takes for anyone: male or female, whether or not English is your native language, your level of education, or if the U.S. is your original home. Don’t be afraid of the doctor! It is his/her job to take care of you.

I've found it in the archives and annuls of my mind.

When I lay my head unto this pillow, I fear not the possibility of death but rather long for it. I can count her freckles, but get lost in her ever changing eyes. The way her jet black hair so smoothly wraps itself around me as if night were forever is the most comforting thing I have felt in the past three years…putting me to sleep like the prescription pills I never took. My drug, my love…will you be here forever? The girl of my dreams…everything I need smirks back at me and then, as quick as it came, the signal is lost and the satellite floats away on it’s path around my world.

I believe in the future. I believe in our future, girl halfway around my mind. Sleep has never felt so good nor have these drugs in which I have deprived myself of for far too long.

As you come closer, your image becomes more clear and your eyes so much more consistent in color. I didn’t know swimming through emerald was possible let alone so invigorating. The colors around me…..the colors around…..us. While we are underwater, let’s share this bubble and call it home. Together, we’ll float no matter how far apart we are, letting the current take control with the knowledge that one day you and I will meet. We are invincible…more so inevitable.

I’m in love with the girl inside my head, so in love.

 

 

Ode to the Pinkie Toe

Judgement Day.

The pathology results of the 13 skin cancers I had carved from my hide last week all came back today, and just as I suspected, none of them were actual skin cancers. Six of the sites were just smudges of dirt, 3 were specks of spaghetti sauce, 2 were splotches of Taco Bell Fire Hot Sauce, one was a small piece of crystallized corned beef hash, and one was listed as “left pinkie toe”. Upon reading that, I ripped off my left sock and sure enough…no pinkie toe. No wonder I have been walking tilted at an angle in circles all week!

OK so maybe I exaggerated just a little. All the pathology results came back as Basal Cell Carcinomas
but I had to frantically try to think up some rational way to explain away the fact that I woke up this morning without a pinkie toe. My loving wife will have a field day with this little nugget as she is always quick to remind me that I would lose my own head if it was not attached to my body. I spent the better part of the morning scouring through the bedding and under the bed but could find no sign of the toe. How in the world does a pinkie toe just up and run away anyway? I somehow suspect that one or more of our Obese House Cats are to blame as I have noticed they tend to drool quite a bit as I shuffle past with bare feet. I am going to try to play this one low key and will pray that the wife does not notice the missing toe anytime soon. I just hope that someday a week or two from now she is not rifling through the fridge looking for a snack and then starts screaming “OH MY GOD!!! WHO THE HELL PUT A PINKIE TOE IN THE REFRIDGERATOR AND DID NOT PUT IT IN A BAGGIE OR TUPPERWARE CONTAINER!!!”

Somewhere in New York City, Cosmo Kramer is recounting the pinkie toe incident to George Costanza and Jerry Seinfeld…

Kramer: Yeah, I found the toe. So I put it in a Cracker Jack box, filled it with ice and took off for the hospital.

George: You ran!?

Kramer: No I jumped on the bus. I told the driver “I got a toe here buddy, step on it!”

George: Holy cow!

Kramer: Yeah, yeah, then all of a sudden, this guy pulls out a gun. Well, I knew any delay is gonna cost the idiot guy in Texas his pinkie toe, so I got out of the seat and I started walking towards him. He says, “Where do you think you’re going, Cracker Jack?” I said, “Well, I got a little prize for ya, buddy – ” – knocked him out cold!

George: How could you do that!?

Kramer: Then everybody is screamin,’ because the driver, he’s passed out from all the commotion…the bus is out of control! So, I grab him by the collar, I take him out of the seat, I get behind the wheel and now I’m drivin’ the bus.

George: You’re Batman!

Kramer: Yeah. Yeah, I am Batman. Then the mugger, he comes to, and he starts chokin’ me! So I’m fightin’ him off with one hand and I kept drivin’ the bus with the other, y’know? Then I managed to open up the door, and I kicked him out the door with my foot, you know – at the next stop.

Jerry:(Incredulous)You kept making all the stops!?

Kramer: Well, people kept ringing the bell!

George: You did all of this for a pinky toe?

Kramer: Well, it’s a valuable appendage.

Jerry: What the hell kind of Idiot loses a Pinkie Toe anyway? What a loser!

อณูทางการแพทย์

3744503    อณูทางการแพทย์    Molecular Medicine

กลไกของการเกิดโรคและการดำเนินของโรคในระดับยีน การใช้เทคนิคอณูชีววิทยาในการทำนายการเกิดโรค การป้องกัน และการรักษาโรค

(Mechanisms of disease development and progression at gene level; use of molecular biology techniques in the prediction, prevention and treatment of diseases.)

(3744503 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

Wake Up America!

Pay attention to your business!

Did you vote for your congressman, senators and the president of the United States in order for them to tell you how much you can earn?

Did you vote for them to tell you what doctor you can see and for what ailment he can treat you?

Did you elect them to direct the nation’s banking, car manufacturing, insurance or other industry?

Were they put in office by you to tell you what vaccinations you should have and in what order you can have them (depending on who you are)?  Or, that you must have them?

Did you vote for your “representatives” so that they could tell you what car you can drive, what light bulb you can use, what size your toilet has to be or in what lane you can drive during certain hours?

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you voted for these people for any of these reasons (and hundreds of other areas of your choices which they have usurped) then you did not vote for a “representative”.  You voted for a master.

Who are these people?  What right do they have to direct us in these manners?

WE  are 300 million people.  THEY are – representatives, senators, president and v. president, supreme court – 496 people.

If we don’t want them, they go.

Question:  Do you want them?  If so, for what?

Not that long ago, elected officials concerned themselves with defense, national infrastructure, courts & justice, treaties with other nations and the like.  They budgeted and raised taxes in support of those legitimate government activities.  In short, they created and sustained an environment where the private sector could flourish according to it’s own direction.  The private sector flourished.  The government then was for the people, meaning that it set them up so they could pursue their private interests.  It works.

In the present time, the government has grown itself and expanded to the point where it now wants to command and direct the private sector – that would be you, the private citizen.  It wants us to work for them.  Our constitution permits congress to regulate commerce, not direct it.  Yet, Washington has intruded into nearly every aspect of our lives to the point where nothing of any consequence can be accomplished without a government component.  You can find hundreds of examples simply by looking at the label on most anything you buy!

Our present economic troubles reflect that involvement.  The private sector is not flourishing and the average government worker is paid more money (I decline the word “earns” because government produces nothing.)  than the average non-government worker earns.  Further to that, the “involvement” is that of unqualified people – the politicians – meddling with private sector business affairs in order to create, not a business result, but a political outcome.  This led directly to the so-called real estate bubble and subsequent financial meltdown. (Sometime when you have a few minutes, look at the resumes of our 100 senators and ask yourself, “by what experience shown here, are they qualified to pass law on the details of medicine and healthcare delivery?  Banking and finance?”)

Ladies and Gentlemen, anything government has, anything they are paid, they first take from us.  We are each others’ security and we are government’s security.  Without us, they don’t exist.   Our parents and grandparents fought wars to keep us free from what’s happening here, now.   Here’s a simple question: Do you want them to serve you or rule over you?

We need not tolerate the latter.

Don’t.

And the Hits Just Keep on Comin’

Recently, on an undisclosed date, The Eventual Doc ventured to Boston for his very first interview, at Boston University. If you recall, this was not only his first interview of the application cycle, it was, in fact, his first interview out of three cycles. So this is what you might call a Very Big Deal to him. The drive was fairly pleasant, actually. Driving through Vermont and New Hampshire, the leaves were a fiery, golden blanket across the landscape, and with a few This American Life podcasts saved to his iPod, little in the way of traffic, and nearly ideal driving weather, The Eventual Doc made excellent time.

Just as he reached the outskirts of Boston, however, his Palm Prē buzzed to indicate an incoming email. A glance at the email subject, which was all The Eventual Doc could read (as he is a Very Safe Driver, and doesn’t text or email on the road) indicated that the Dartmouth Medical School admissions office had reached a decision on his application. With the GPS device indicating at least another 10 minutes before he reached the hotel, The Eventual Doc excitedly imagined parking at the hotel, flipping open the phone, and reading the email in which Dartmouth would exclaim that they’d never seen as impressive a student as he, won’t he please come on down at his earliest convenience to interview.

This, of course, was decidedly not what the email said.

The Eventual Doc was assured that his application was considered with care, but that wherever he went to medical school, it wouldn’t be there. One more down.

The interview at Boston University was great. Having been a GMS student, it wasn’t necessary for him to attend a full interview day, sparing him the student-led tour, lunch, etc. Actually, he was pretty bummed about not getting a free lunch. But otherwise, the prospect of a one-and-done interview day was a pleasant surprise, and that would mean he could return home to Snowville, NY much earlier than he’d feared. Then he got the Red Folder.

Ah, the Red Folder. Countless times, The Eventual Doc had seen herds of somberly-clad interviewees on the medical campus at BU, clutching their Red Folders nervously. He had never seen the inside of one, but imagined it had to contain untold treasures, and that the mere fact of holding one admitted a person to an elite, secret club, like the Masons, or Scientologists. Turns out, it just contained some facts and figures about the school, some financial aid information, and the like. Nothing too spectacular, and no magic membership to the BUSM Cabal. Still, he found himself unconsciously holding it so that the embossed “Boston University School of Medicine” was conspicuously visible wherever he went.

Secretly, he imagined mothers leaning over their children and whispering, “See? That man there is Going Places. He’s On His Way to doing Great Things.” Old men would look on admiringly as The Eventual Doc passed, nodding in approval. Of course, in reality, he appeared, more than anything, just like those herds of self-conscious interviewees he had jealously despised the year before. But damn it, he finally had his Red Folder.

He learned that his interviewer would be none other than Dr. Wonderful, whom he knew by reputation and occasional interactions to be very nice and easy to speak to. The interview was extremely conversational, not in the least stressful, and left him with a cautious optimism for his chances at gaining acceptance there. That said, Dr. Wonderful candidly warned The Eventual Doc that nothing was certain, and that she could offer no guarantees or even any indication of which direction the decision may go. This will be a long winter.

Before he left, he remembered that he had a logo blanket he’d been awarded by his employer, DrugCorp. He left it beside a pile of blankets in the shape of a sleeping homeless person; it was getting cold, and surely others needed it more than The Eventual Doc. He didn’t want to wake the pile of blankets, so he just left it there. Would it be appreciated? He didn’t know.

Upon arriving in Snowville, The Eventual Doc settled down to his computer to check his email, and then status pages for his medical school applications. UVM had apparently taken advantage of his trip to Boston to update his status; rejected.

So here’s how things stand for The Eventual Doc:

1. Warren Alpert (Brown)
   
2. Tufts
   
3. Boston University [Hooray!!!]
   
4. Yale
   
5. University of Michigan
   
6. Washington University in St. Louis
   
7. Dartmouth
   
8. Medical University of South Carolina
   
9. University of North Carolina
   
10. Mayo
    
11. University of Vermont
    
12. University of Rochester
    
13. Georgetown
    
14. Baylor
    
15. SUNY Stony Brook
    
16. Duke
    

Things are certainly not looking good. Before the cycle began, The Eventual Doc had imagined the doors to highly-ranked medical schools swinging open to welcome him. Now, he’s hoping to get an invite to at least one more.

 

H1N1 Flu Vaccinations for the First Family

Posted by Audiegrl

WhiteHouse.gov/Catherine McCormick-Lelyveld—We’ve been asked about whether the President, Mrs. Obama, and Sasha and Malia have received their H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines. All four members of the Obama family have received their seasonal flu vaccine. Malia and Sasha were both vaccinated for H1N1 last week, after the vaccine became available to Washington, DC schoolchildren. President and Mrs. Obama have not yet been vaccinated for H1N1, and they will wait until the needs of the priority groups identified by the CDC – including young people under the age of 24, pregnant women, and people with underlying conditions – have been met. The girls’ H1N1 vaccine was administered by a White House physician, who applied for and received the vaccine from the DC Department of Health using the same process as every other vaccination site in the District.
While the initial distribution of vaccine is being administered to priority target groups, there are steps every family can take to help protect against H1N1 and seasonal flu. Remember to check Flu.gov for the latest on vaccine availability near you, steps you can take to protect your family, and what to do if you or a loved one gets the flu.

A Strange System: Food: Too Corny

Too Corny

Corn is a wonderful vegetable.  Admittedly, the stuff we consider corn is actually maize, but I’m not here to argue semantics.  The kernel of maize is a mature ovary of fruit fused with a seed coat.  Corn can be eaten raw, cooked, or ground into flour for bread.  Good stuff this corn.  Perhaps that is why so many Native American cultures used it as the basis for their agricultural system.   However, we decided that there can’t be too much of a good thing.  Too bad that’s not true.

A cornfield

If you drive through the Great Plains states, you will be seeing a ton of cornfields.  In fact, that is probably the only type of farming you will see.  We have turned our central Great Plains into a monoculture, where one crop dominates.  This causes a number of problems.  First, this limits the genetic variability of the crops.  If a blight or fungus decided to mosey its way into a corn field and do some damage, you can bet that the whole system is likely to fail, because now, certain plants that are resistant to this infestation are gone.  It is all the same.  Second, it depletes the soil.  When the early white settlers were moving into the Great Plains, the grass had root systems several feet deep.  There was a huge amount of top soil.  But due to constantly farming the same thing and not rotating crops, we have decreased the topsoil levels to a paltry few inches.  Where did this soil go?  Into the streams.  Where do the streams go?  In that area, all roads may lead to Rome, but all streams head to the Mississippi River.  And where does the Mississippi River go?  Unless you flunked seventh grade social studies, you know that it empties into the Gulf of Mexico.  These sediment deposits disrupt the natural ecosystem of the Gulf.  They also carry with them nitrates from fertilizers (more on that in the next segment), which create huge algal blooms.  The algal blooms don’t have all that much oxygen in the rather warm Gulf stream waters (warm liquids don’t hold gases as well as cold ones (why pop is better cold)), so they die relatively quickly, but not before using up all of the oxygen in the water, creating a dead zone.  This is a continuous cycle of nutrient depletion and algal blooms, creating a large dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi.

And we eat it.  Corn, that is.  Well, perhaps eat is isn’t the best word.  We ingest it in some form.  Corn is convertible into tons of cool food additives, like high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, corn starch, corn oil, and many more of your favorite food label regulars.  We find it everywhere.  Why?  (That one question is so important).  It is common because it is cheap.  Why?  One word: subsidy.  Why?  Because big companies love to use corn.  Why?  Aha, now that is the right question.  The corn kernel is essentially a packet of starch that can be broken down and rearranged as all of those additives, sweeteners, and preservatives listed above.  So to keep their costs down, companies need to keep corn cost down.

Brought to you by the letter c: Corn

Not only is corn convertible to foodstuffs, it can be made into, drum roll please… ethanol!  Ethanol amongst the dumbest ideas I ever heard, and to think that I once believed it had potential.  Right now, whether you like it or not, your gas is 10 percent ethanol.  It’s required by law.  Ethanol is a renewable bio-fuel.  It may burn a bit more cleanly than gas, but, depending on which study you read, some scientists claim that you need to put 1.2 calories of corn into the system to get 1 calorie’s worth of ethanol (this depends on what you consider a cost of farming and producing for corn ethanol.  Some analysts believe tractors fall from the sky so they don’t need to be considered in cost analysis).  It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to do the math.

A factory farm dairy feedlot

Cows are grazing animals.  They are supposed to eat grasses.  So when farmers take cows to pasture, they can have some fun, eat some grass, chew some cud, poop some poop (fertilizing the soil so more grass grows) and everybody goes home happy.  Now, cut to the factory farms.  Cows stand with little to no room to move, knee deep in their own feces.  Factory farms use corn to feed all these cows.  But wait, didn’t I just say that cows are supposed to eat grasses?   Corn is not a natural part of their diet, and it completely messes up their digestive system.  So now what are we going to do with all this fecal matter?  Well, the brilliant solution we have come up with is to create giant cesspools of crap.  These, in turn, seep into the ground water and streams, killing those systems, much like nitrates from fertilizers created a dead zone in the Gulf.  Yum.  Good, clean water.  Also, whenever we divert corn to ethanol, or to livestock feed, we divert it from people who need it for food.  And as the amount of corn being grown for food decreases, the prices increase, causing many people to go hungry.  Seems like a system designed to fail!  It gets better.  We use gas with ethanol in it to ship corn from the Plains to the factory farms in the Carolinas and the Dakotas, and then the cows to the processing plant, and then your local supermarket.  Every calorie of commercial food you eat expends almost 10 fossil fuel calories.  Talk about inefficient.

The Cosmic Perspective

But, you say, how can I make a difference?

A feedlot

You have buying power.  The purchases you make directly influence companies and our governmental policies.  Buy grass fed beef instead of factory farm meat if you have the money to do so.  It will have less fat and will taste better!  Or, eat less meat.  I am not asking you to become vegetarians.  In fact, I think vegetarianism is unhealthy (The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Kieth) and often committed to for the wrong reasons.  The clear-cutting of forests to make room for fields for cattle, the environmental impact of slaughterhouses, transportation costs and the sheer amount of methane gas emitted by cattle herds, is damaging to the planet.  Also, eating less meat will positively affect our health in the long run.  The average American obtains 80 percent of their caloric intake from meats, 7 percent from pop and processed foods, and 3 percent from plants.  Is it any surprise that 30 percent of the population is obese, 8 percent have diabetes and 1 in 5 adults have high cholesterol.  400,000 people in the US die from obesity related diseases each year.  Type II diabetes was once thought to be only found in adults.  Now, this generation is set to be the first to have a lower life expectancy than their parents.  We should try to move towards 45-5-50 with regards to our caloric intake.  This will help us lower our cholesterol, blood sugar, and weight.

But it costs so much.

Well, thanks to those nice government subsidies, corn fed beef and corn products can be sold cheaply.  If the actual cost of those corn products was displayed in the supermarket, people would never buy them.  Think of all the water, fertilizers, pesticides, energy, and man hours went into making those foods.  I think that may be worth a bit more that what the supermarkets are saying it is worth.  Not to mention the environmental costs!

Think about it.

Reading Lists

I’m always on the lookout for comprehensive, reliable reading lists in the areas of general European history, history of science, and history of medicine, if for no other reason than to be able to see where the gaps in my knowledge are most stark. And, since my move from a focus on the 19th century to the 18th and 17th centuries (once I began here at Edinburgh), I am acutely aware of how large these gaps can be. So it is in that spirit that I post links to a few helpful reading lists:

[University of California, Los Angeles]

UCLA European and Intellectual History reading list

UCLA History of Science reading list || UCLA History of Science reading list II (perhaps more recent?)

UCLA Renaissance and Reformation reading list

UCLA Early Modern Europe (Reformation to the Revolution) reading list

UCLA Modern History after 1740 reading list

UCLA Social and Economic History reading list

[Harvard University]

Intellectual and Cultural History of Early Modern Europe reading list (Ann Blair – PDF)

History of the Book reading list (Ann Blair – PDF)

[Cambridge University]

A ‘Core’ Reading List for Cambridge HPS students (PDF – modified by me)

Cambridge HPS Research Guide (lots of helpful recommendations here, if slightly dated)

[Oxford University]

Course Programme and Reading List for HSTM Master’s students (2009-10, PDF)

—[History of Medicine]—
And finally the National Library of Medicine in the U.S. has a wonderful website where you can access hundreds of course syllabi on the history of medicine by professor, institution or date. Very helpful. Here are links to a few of the ones I find particularly interesting (note: all of the links point to PDFs):

Katharine Park (Harvard, 2002): Medicine and Society in Medieval and Renaissance Europe

Anne Harrington (Harvard, 2003): In Search of Mind

Thomas Broman (University of Wisconsin – Madison, 2005): The Physician in History

Christopher Lawrence (UCL Wellcome Trust, 2005-6): The Rise of Modern Medicine 1650-1900

Vivian Nutton (UCL Wellcome Trust, 2003-4): Medicine, Disease, and Society from Antiquity to the Renaissance

Penelope Gouk (Manchester Wellcome Unit, 2002-3): Medicine before 1800: Changing Conceptions of the Body, Disease and Health in Early Modern Europe

Clare Pilsworth & Penelope Gouk (Manchester Wellcome Unit, 2004-5): Medicine before 1800: Changing Conceptions of the Body, Disease and Health in Early Modern Europe

Not.So.Good.So.Far.

I feel like a filthy, disgusting rat that has been traipsing endlessly, throughout the sewers of the city all night.  And speaking of filthy, disgusting and night, I awoke from the worst nightmare of my entire life! Absolutely! Without question! Bar none! I will not disclose any of the content, lest I throw the majority of my readers into permanent hospitalization! Except for the odd fact that it came in two versions.  Like film ratings? One for viewers with more hearty stomachs and one for…? Those who wish to have their entire innards obliterated!

Further, why on earth am even remembering my dreams at all now? I never could before! I suppose the one benefit of it all is if they are pleasant?

I did not take my meds before my MRI (which I suppose is one semi-good thing–the MRI was no problem.)  I did this anticipating it would make me more dopey, so I could just flop there and not think of much.  Well, of course I thought of all sorts of icky things, but I tried to squeeze some good things in there, as well.  So, perhaps some more “semi-good-ness,” in my thinking of those items in the MRI tube.

Nonetheless, onto more “filthy-disgusting-ratness.”  I had to return to my former workplace to do some banking.  In case you want to track PA and she is “Anonymous,” her former workplace was not a bank.  So, screw you if you try and find me.  Therefore…  Yes, I have an account at my former establishment of employment–sounds-weird–don’t ask.  TRIGGER! Also, extremely WRONG music while walking there on my iPod.

Bite.Lip.Don’t.Cry.

Walk.In.Head.Down.Avoid.All.Eye.Contact.

Walk.Out.Head.Down.Avoid.All.Eye.Contact. (…while also trying not to think about your bank balance, or lack thereof…)

I then returned to transit where I got on and “waited” to fall apart.

Head.Down.Start.Bawling.Profusely.

I am now home and have swallowed my handful of “Happy Pills,” and made myself a Pint Cuppa! Maybe that will bring my sorry, filthy, disgusting, sewer rat, ass around! I also have an appt. for my haircut at 1300hrs.  Maybe that will “pretty” PA up, and also make her look and feel like less of a sorry, filthy, disgusting, sewer rat!

True, they day is hardly over.  Perchance, there is some improvement yet to come?

U.S. eases stance on medical marijuana

Though a welcome step, it has to be carefully exercised as the law may be misused by Drug Addicts with the help of crooked Doctors.
As a matter of academic interest, are there no alternative to marijuana in treatiing specific cases?
I am sure there are;Can somebody enlighten me on this?

Story:
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. directed federal prosecutors Monday to back away from pursuing cases against medical marijuana patients, signaling a broad policy shift that drug reform advocates interpret as the first step toward legalization of the drug.

The government’s top lawyer said that in 14 states with some provisions for medical marijuana use, federal prosecutors should focus only on cases involving higher-level drug traffickers, money launderers or people who use the state laws as a cover.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101903638.html?nav=hcmoduletmv

Read my lips! No health care rationing!

Florida plan advises hospitals to bar some patients in event of severe flu pandemic By Sheri Fink, ProPublica

Florida health officials are drawing up guidelines that recommend barring patients with incurable cancer, end-stage multiple sclerosis and other conditions from being admitted to hospitals if the state is overwhelmed by flu cases.

The plan, which would guide Florida hospitals on how to ration scarce medical care during a severe flu outbreak, also calls for doctors to remove patients with poor prognoses from ventilators to treat those who have better chances of surviving. That decision would be made by the hospital.

The flu causes severe respiratory illnesses in a small percentage of cases, and patients who need ventilators and are deprived of them could die without the breathing assistance the machines provide.

In June, Florida Surgeon General Ana M. Viamonte Ros sent the draft guidelines — which had already undergone a series of internal revisions — to 16 state medical organizations for their feedback.

But the state has not yet publicized the guidelines or solicited input from the general public. The Florida Department of Health released a copy of the draft plan at the request of ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, which provided it to the Sun Sentinel.

Marc Emery - Prince of Pot

Here’s a piece I found on Marc Emery on U.S TV – it includes an interview with his wife Jodie Emery and is well worth a watch!

Marc is one of the figureheads of the cannabis legalization movement and his treatment by U.S and Canandian prosecutors who circumvented normal procedure to extradite him from Canada is both contradictory and illegal in our eyes.  Further information can be found at drugwarrant.com

FREE MARC!

New York: Get a flu shot, or get fired.

I’m not sure if this kind of mandate has been rolled out across the country, but here in New York, we were told, up front, that the entire hospital staff was required to get a flu shot this year (and the swine flu shot as well when it comes out) OR face termination.  Fired over a flu shot?  I thought Cleveland Clinic’s anti-smoking policy was pushing it…

There have already been talks of protests and law suits here in Albany.  Personally, I’m indifferent, but I guess I can see their point- being forced into doing something they otherwise would not have done, but is it worth a law suit?  Probably not.

I’ve heard a few different explanations for dissent.  Perhaps the most interesting reasoning I’ve heard is this- because the flu shot is offered for free or reduced cost by the drug companies, the companies are protected from litigation if a patient is injured as a direct result of the vaccination.  Another question to be asked would be, “Does the punishment fit the crime?”  Is termination the proper penalty for not receiving a shot?  They require house staff to be up to date on their vaccinations, after all.  So is that any different?  I suppose.  Can you fire an employee for poor hygiene?  Either of my examples could perceivably place patients at risk, but it’s not clear to me that either of these would be enforced.  Finally, do ALL employees really need the shot, even those with no patient contact?  As a pathologist, I did ask myself that question.  Sure we have some patient contact, and we surely have contact with other employees that do have contact with patients, so I suppose the idea is to cover all your bases and just vaccinate everyone.

In the end, it seems clear to me that the New York State government has gotten swept up in the media craze surrounding the H1N1 virus, which, as a concept is sad, but in practice is probably better for everyone in the long run.  I do wonder, however, if we will be required to get our flu shots next year too…

Gahhhhhh....

I took Mom down to The Heart Institute and got her fitted with the  ambulatory blood pressure monitor this afternoon about 2:30. We went from there to the chiropractor’s and then I drove her home. I went out to Sears and bought 2 pairs of shoes for myself and then got some shopping done. I arrived home, just before 6, and went to put the groceries away and Mom started complaining about the blood pressure monitor as soon as I got in the door. “We need to take this back.”

I asked if it was uncomfortable or something and then walked into the living room to find that she had taken it off. I asked why she’d taken it off. “Because I’m done with it!”

“We have to take it back.”

I said “You aren’t supposed to take it off. It’s supposed to be left on!” We paid $100 for this test that isn’t covered by OHIP and I’m worried that we’ll have to pay another $100 to have it put on again. I am still trying to understand why she took it off. And then she says “Aren’t we supposed to take it back, today?”

I said that we are supposed to take it back Thursday that she’s supposed to wear it for two days!

“But I’ve been WEARING it for two days!”

I kept trying to tell her that she’s had it on for less than 4 hours, at this point. She’s looking at me like I’m crazy…

I told her what we did today and she’s convinced that that was 2 days ago…

I managed to get the thing put back on properly, though. Hopefully, it will STAY on for the next two days.

And every time the thing beeps before the cuff inflates, she’s asking “Is this going to go on all night?”. I explain that it only beeps for the first few hours and then before bedtime, it stops beeping and won’t beep at all before we take it off. It will take her blood pressure every half hour but it won’t beep…. It beeps again and she gets irritated and asks if it is going to go off all night long, again.

“It seems to be beeping every 2 minutes!”. It is 1/2 an hour by my count…..

Jesus and all the Saints preserve me….

scar tissue

i hold the hands of the people i never touch.

i provide comfort to people i never embrace.

i watch people walk into brick walls, the same ones over and over again, and coax them to turn around and try to walk in a different direction.

people rarely see me gladly. as a rule, i catch the residue of the despair. i see people who are broken, and people who only think they are broken. i see people who have had their faces rubbed in their failures. i see weak people wanting anesthesia and strong people who wonder what they have done to make such an enemy of fate. i am often the final pit stop people take before they crawl across the finish line that is marked: i give up.

some people beg me to help.

some people dare me to help.

sometimes the beggars and dare-ers look the same. absolutely the same. i’m supposed to know how to tell them apart.

some people who visit me need scar tissue to cover their wounds. some people who visit me need their wounds opened further, explored for for signs of infection and contamination. i make those calls, too.

some days i’m invigorated by it all. some days i’m numbed.

always, i’m humbled by the role of helper.

and, occassionally, i’m ambushed.

Jabbing Myself

At 6:55 p.m. last night, the UPS truck pulled up and the driver dropped a box on my doorstep, knocked on the door, and sped off into the night. What timing since overnight deliveries are to arrive by 7:00 p.m. This moment was filled with anticipation since being prescribed Cimzia a week earlier after Enbrel was no longer doing its thing for my RA. The box was carefully opened and the styrofoam cooler inside gave off a mist of cool air as the lid was lifted. Inside was a brightly colored, ergonomically designed box full of a magic potion in ergonomically designed syringes. But anticipation quickly gave way to fear as the thought of jabbing myself with two needles crept into my mind. This was never an issue with the autoinjector Enbrel Sureclick pens. My heart raced as I opened the box and read all of the safety material (I didn’t really read it all as I had spent much time reading websites already). The reading seemed to calm me down a little as I joked with my children about the side effects of the clear, viscous liquid.

Band aides were arranged, sterile conditions were ensured, hands washed, and alcohol was swabbed on my stomach. The moment had arrived. I removed the protective cap, tapped the syringe to get the air to the top, pushed the plunger up until the air was removed (see pic that my son took), and then quickly pushed the needle into my stomach. To my surprise, I didn’t feel anything which was quite unlike Enbrel whose large needles hurt when they go in. Confidence was raised. But then I started slowly plunging the Cimzia into my flesh. Much like Enbrel, the sting of the medicine was quite noticeable and lingering. But, I wasn’t finished. I repeated the steps with the second syringe. It was all over in 10 minutes but I emotionally felt much better. I could actually jab myself! I still am amazed about how quickly my life became wrapped up in high level, biological medical treatments.

Now the wait begins. How long until I notice an impact? Will I get my energy back? Will joint pain diminish? Will I be back here in 5 months looking at another medicine.  Stay tuned for results.

What pill did I just take?

My friend carries around one pill bottle with several medications. Once, she took a pill that turned out to be a piece of candy. Funny, yes, but it goes to show that pills can be confusing.

For that reason, the NIH is developing a handy database of images and information on FDA-approved pills. As you input details like color, size and shape, the image of the pill in question is updated. Once the pill on screen matches the one in your hand, you can obtain more information such as ingredients and dosing.

The system is still in beta form but according to the Pillbox Web site it will eventually be available for use by “healthcare providers and concerned citizens”.

-Amber

Dad’s Life or Yours? You Choose by Nicholas D. Kristof

Posted by betham37

Op-Ed by Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof

New York Times/Nicholas D. Kristof—So what would you do if your mom or dad, or perhaps your sister or brother, needed a kidney donation and you were the one best positioned to donate?
Most of us would worry a little and then step forward. But not so fast. Because of our dysfunctional health insurance system, a disgrace that nearly half of all members of Congress seem determined to cling to, stepping up to save a loved one can ruin your own chance of ever getting health insurance.
That wrenching trade-off is another reminder of the moral bankruptcy of our existing insurance system. It’s one more reason to pass robust reform this year.
Over the last week I’ve been speaking to David Waddington, a 58-year-old wine retailer in Dallas, along with his wife and two sons. I’d love to know what the opponents of health reform think families like this should do.
Mr. Waddington has polycystic kidney disease, or PKD, a genetic disorder that leads to kidney failure. First he lost one kidney, and then the other. A year ago, he was on dialysis and desperately needed a new kidney. Doctors explained that the best match — the one least likely to be rejected — would perhaps come from Travis or Michael, his two sons, then ages 29 and 27.
Travis and Michael each had a 50 percent chance of inheriting PKD. And if pre-donation testing revealed that one of them had the disorder, that brother might never be able to get health insurance. As a result, their doctors had advised not getting tested. After all, new research suggests that lack of insurance increases a working-age person’s risk of dying in any given year by 40 percent.

More @

Real Canadian doctors...

…who know what it means to be doctors:

Pereira, chief of palliative medicine at the long-term-care hospital Bruyère Continuing Care in Ottawa, specializes in caring for and improving the quality of life for patients who are terminally ill or require long-term care.

He said he is concerned about a private member’s bill to legalize euthanasia after his experience in Switzerland, which already allows the practice.

While working at a hospital in Geneva, Pereira said, he noticed that a few months after the hospital began offering assisted suicide, community-based palliative care services were shut down and the number of palliative-care physicians at the hospital was reduced.

Pereira, who is also a University of Ottawa professor who heads the university’s palliative-care program, said he is concerned that a similar “social slippery slope” could appear in Canada if Bill C-384 is passed.

Canada Halts Swine Flu Shots Due To Safety Concern

The Vancouver Sun reported -

B.C. might suspend the seasonal flu shots as early as today, in the wake of a Canadian study that suggests people who get the flu vaccine are twice as likely to contract the H1N1 virus. Several news outlets reported the preliminary findings of the study, which is still under peer review. Researchers found that those who received the seasonal flu vaccine in the past were more likely to catch H1N1. While the research was initially met with much skepticism from health officials, several provinces, including Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia, have suspended seasonal flu shots for anyone younger than 65, the Globe and Mail newspaper is reporting in its Monday editions.

Read MORE.

Don't Know Much 'Bout New Biology

“‘The new biologist’ is not a scientist who knows a little bit about all disciplines, but a scientist with deep knowledge in one discipline and a ‘working fluency’ in several.” 

A report released today by the National Research Council “calls on the United States to launch a new multiagency, multiyear, and multidisciplinary initiative to capitalize on the extraordinary advances recently made in biology and to accelerate new breakthroughs that could solve some of society’s most pressing problems — particularly in the areas of food, environment, energy, and health.”

The release noted that recent advances in technology call for an approach that brings together physicists, chemists, computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and other scientists to create a “new biology” research community that can tackle society’s big problems, such as:

• Food security: develop capacity to quickly adapt plants to new growing initiatives.
• Environmental: monitor ecosystems; repair damage
• Energy: speed development of alternatives to fossil fuels.
• Medicine: personalize treatments with a goal of providing “individually predictive surveillance and care.”

 The authors note that “new biology” holds great potential to attract new talent to the field: people who want to use their talents to solve real problems, not just live in the lab. They also make explicit an underlying challenge: quantitative skills will be more important than ever.

The report was requested by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and U.S. Department of Energy. Read the release here.

More H1N1 flu controversy: vitamin D deficiency, being elderly, and the seasonal vaccine

Here are a few questions that have been asked of me in response to my first H1N1 post, or at work in the process dealing with other healthcare providers who are concerned about their well-being during the flu this season. I’m not an expert in H1N1, and below are simply my opinions on the issues raised. I think discussion is important and you can take what you will from it.

1. Is Vitamin D deficiency linked with H1N1?

According to the website of naturopath Dr. Mercola, being deficient in Vitamin D makes one susceptible to H1N1. He argues this by employing CDC data about recent deaths in chronically ill children. [ JI: I hope you will bear with me as I think this is an important idea, and it's worth re-hashing our discourse in this public forum]

The argument is as follows:

1. kids who are sick are more susceptible to getting sick! (i.e. kids with cerebral palsy are more likely to get very sick with H1N1)
2. kids who are chronically sick are vitamin D deficient
3. those who get H1N1 must be vitamin D deficient

Yes, the correlation may be there, but premise 3 does not follow from the axioms 1 &2.

As the article says, lots and lots and lots of children are Vitamin D deficient, and they don’t all have H1N1. Also, of those who have H1N1, not all are Vitamin D deficient [ok, this article does not demonstrate that ANY of the children who died were in fact Vitamin D deficient, it just says it is likely]. In addition, no mechanism for Vitamin D and susceptibility for flu is proposed.

Compound this with the fact that the website sells Vitamin D  (hello, conflict of interest!) and I just don’t buy it. This is where I feel the Internet can be a dangerous place. I am lucky enough to have been through the rigours of undergrad science and medical school, having had critical thinking beaten into me.  I think lots of non-allopathic practitioners and health reporters (including those with the CBC) are lacking in this area. Education in language and logic, as well as scientific reasoning, should be necessary for anyone trying to draw scientific conclusions or to interpret technical literature.

That said, in my part of the world, people don’t get enough Vitamin D from the sun between October and April. Talk to your doctor and see if you need Vitamin D for bone health.

2. Are older  people already exposed to H1N1, and thus resistant?

Yes and no. People born before 1950 may have encountered, carried, or been actively infected with a similar strain of the flu, according to a CDC report in May 2009 (MD Consult news). Past exposure means a potential for current resistance. But not everyone over a certain age will have been exposed, and even if they were, it is not certain that they will have maintained any degree of resistance. On an individual level, this fact should not affect whether a person get a flu vaccine. I think it’s best to consider this piece of news as an interesting explanation for the lower-than-expected rate of H1N1 in the senior population.

3.  Does the seasonal flu vaccine interfere with the H1N1 vaccine’s efficacy?

Maybe? So far, there isn’t a lot of data on this. Preliminary testing reveals there may be some interaction. Quebec has taken a hardline stance on this, intending to offer only the H1N1 shot, but I think the safest thing is to wait for more information. Lots of medications are known to interact, and in many cases, staggering the dosing (i.e. leaving enough time between each medication) can be helpful for avoiding/reducing the degree of interaction. Seasonal flu shots are due in October, and H1N1 vaccines won’t be available until November. Seasonal flu is not a nice beast either. Just because then H1N1 strain is getting all the media attention, it doesn’t mean the seasonal flu is going to forget to infect us.

4. Are vaccines safe? Aren’t they full of Mercury and other toxins? Don’t they cause autism?

I hear these questions a lot. I’m going to address it more thoroughly in a separate post, because I think it deserves a lengthy discussion. Stay tuned!

Cancer Therapy Herbs

If You Require Cancer Therapy Herbs look No Further

There is no doubt to the fact that herbal treatment is the best treatment for cancer. For the best cancer therapy herbs you need look no further. We have them all in our inventory. In fact, so many people come to us for cancer therapy herbs that we are surprised ourselves.

People are looking for cancer therapy herbs in places we never knew they were places. Wish they would save them the trouble and just go to the site mentioned below.

Summithealthproducts.com is a site where you can get all your cancer therapy herbs under one roof. So look no further.

Gold stars. Alone with his dead.

My desk is pretty awesome.

As bedroom furniture goes for the most part I am very lame. My bed is just a box spring and a mattress on a metal frame, my chest of drawers is a hideous old hand-me-down I can’t bring myself to get rid of, and my bookcases are Ikea standard issue. Until a few years ago my nightstand was – I am not making this up – an old Tandy XT monitor jammed into the top of a white milk crate. For the longest time I figured “oh, well, this monitor-stuck-in-a-milk-crate keeps my glasses and whatnot off the ground just as well as a fancy-schmancy ‘night table,’ so why shouldn’t I have this next to my bed? Oh, how droll and utilitarian and twentysomething I am!”

Of course, at some point when I was 28 or so I realized, as all intelligent folk do, that utilitarianism is a joke and John Stuart Mill is a fucking dickhead. I threw out the monitor-stroke-milk crate and resolved to keep my essentials on the corner of my desk. People like me who are largely blind without their glasses will recognize the need to place them, Leonard Shelby-like, in the same place every night. So now I keep my glasses and wallet and phone and whatnot on this one corner of my desk.

And this isn’t just any desk, mind you.

From the time I was approximately seven years old until about two years ago my desk was this ancient, mirror-topped mahogany behemoth I assume was scavenged from one of my mother’s dead relatives. This was how we obtained just about all of our furniture back then. Now bear in mind two important things at that time: 1) My parents were literally the age I am now, but with two kids and a mortgage living on the salary of a schoolteacher and a part-time optometrist. 2) In the entirety of my mother’s comically-abundant extended Irish family, by some cosmic demographic hiccup we were the ONLY new family with young kids. So every time someone died – which was quite often given the sheer quantity of family members – my parents would end up with their furniture because, “oh, John and Teresa need it.” This is why my father didn’t have a reliable car until he was 40 but we have three complete dining room sets, and why as a third-grader I was given a gigantic antique for a desk.

Over the next twenty years or so I would proceed to beat the living shit out of this desk, and when I started going back to school a couple years ago I realized I needed a place to both put my computer and do homework and that my desktop wasn’t big enough for that. (The lack of such realization perhaps explaining some of my poor academic performance beforehand.) I also realized that the mirror that was the top of my desk was sufficiently cracked and broken such that if I slipped while typing my hands would be sliced off at the wrists.

So with much sadness I disposed of my old desk. My sadness ended when I proceeded to replace it with something that looked like it came from the bridge of the JJ Abrams Enterprise. This desk DOES NOT FUCK AROUND. It is acres of polished glass held up by gleaming black metal in a way that at first glance seems to defy the laws of physics. It is awesomely L-shaped so that I have, essentially, an entire desk for my computer and another entire desk for homework and reading and whatnot, with a third smaller desk in between usually reserved for laptops of dubious purpose. It has got LEVELS: on side of it has an entire second story. My desk is what you would get if you force-fed mescaline to Frank Lloyd Wright and then chained him to a drafting table and held a gun to his head while shouting: “a desk, Frank, MAKE US A FUCKING DESK!”

At the moment a significant portion of it is covered with half-painted Space Marines and a forest of medicine bottles.

For the longest time I tried to keep some order to the medicine bottles, to maintain a sort of straight line that I could go down as I needed to, but as I grew more and more resentful of the fact that I take so many goddamn pills every semblance of order faded and now there are just bottles all over the place. For the back: Neurontin, Vicodin. For the liver: Vitamin E, Milkthistle, Ursodiol. For emergencies/special occasions: Dilaudid. Now that one, that’s special. Dilaudid is what your body turns morphine into. It is wicked bad juju. When I first got the prescription my pharmacist told me, “okay, basically, never take this stuff. It will erase the world.” Since then I’ve taken it three times when the pain in my back flared to a point where I was unable to successfully prosecute my day to day life. My pharmacist’s warnings were not inaccurate. I’m going to hold on to the rest of it and give the pills out as Christmas presents; the nicer you are to me between now and then the more you’ll get.

This weekend I was down with a cold and added some NyQuil to the menagerie. My love of NyQuil borders on abuse, and not even for its alcohol content: taken at half-dosage it is the only medicine I have ever found that actually relieves my symptoms when I have a cold, and as a sufferer of chronic anxious insomnia a full dose is one of the few things guaranteed to put me to sleep. At one point this Saturday I was sitting at my awesome desk, taking my NyQuil, and as I put the bottle down it landed next to the Dilaudid. I thought, “I wonder what would happen if I mixed them,” and then realized that thoughts like that bring me dangerously closer to being a character in a James Ellroy novel. The fact that I am currently reading a James Ellroy novel probably contributed to that realization, but I stuck with that line of thought for a little. Well, let’s think, what would that be like?

I mentally composed a list of pros and cons.

Pros: an authority figure of some sort (police, FBI, etc). Get to hobnob with interesting underworld types and make lots of money. Get to experiment with heretofore unknown combinations of drugs and alcohol. Get to have sex with (inexplicably lots of) interesting women. Free to regularly indulge darkest, basest, vilest desires. Witty yet realistic dialogue.

Cons: complicity in most heinous acts of the 20th century. Tendency for every associate to be evil scumbag. Utter moral bankruptcy.

As I sat there at my awesome desk, I felt the delicious warmth of red NyQuil seeping into my tissues and I thought, “tough call, tough call…”

JLK

Health Care- US.

One thing is sure .US Government is subtle in promoting Big business. In India, it is done quite openly and brazenly.In Tamil Nadu,A state in India,the State Government arbitrarily deducted premium for personal health care from govt.employees for a multinational insurance company.Federal Govt. openly sold Spectrum band licences for about Rs 2000 crores which could have fetched Rs.60,000 crores, other wise.(Rs 50=1$).This is just a tip.Be happy in America, for there seems to be atleast some subtlety.None can save us from the politicians or from big businesses.

Healing puffed-up stomach

Insya Allah this can help you
Healing puffed-up stomach

Bake 2 seeds of “Kedawung” (Parkia biglobosa Benth). After getting ripe, pulverize it with a thumb of red onion and fennel sufficiently. Then stick it on your stomach, especially around its center, buttock, and sole of foot.
———————————————————————————————————————–

Insya Allah ini bisa membantu Anda
Mengobati perut kembung

Bakar 2 biji kedawung. Setelah matang dilumatkan bersama bawang merah sebesar ibu jari dan adas secukupnya. Kemudian tempelkanlah pada perut, terutama di sekitar pusar, pantat, dan telapak kaki.

lose 45 lbs in just 30 days easily

A lady doctor named Dr Suzanne Gudakunst has just release what many are calling the end of the need for potentially harmful weight-loss drugs and designer foods made to help you lose weight.

Dr Suzanne’s discovery allows anyone regardless of their particular diet to do “just one simple thing” and instantly start shedding anywhere from 15 lbs to as much as 200 lbs of unwanted and dangerous fat!

Typical results average 45 lbs in just the first 30 days alone for most people just starting out using her new secret.

The reason this is so is because her secret (aptly titled: “Top Secret Fat Loss Secret”) operates on an entirely different approach in the battle against the ever-increasing “bulge.”

Dr Suzanne discovered that harmful crusty “plaque” builds up over the years in all of us – and which is the direct result of harmful chemicals, preservatives, pesticides, etc. deliberately placed in perhaps every food on the market (much of which is now suspected as being carefully and intentionally done so that people will continue to get fatter and thus sicker, and in order to make the food & drug companies richer!)

The result: This harmful plaque is responsible for your weight gain because is BLOCKS your body’s natural ability to absorb proper nutrition – and which causes two (2) chief things to occur:

>>  Your body starves no matter how much you eat – so by not
feeling satisfied you continue to stuff your face and get very
very fat (and eventually at the permanent cost of your
health!)

>>  Your body thinks it’s starving so your ‘hypothalamus’
adjusts your metabolism to burn food much, much slower in
an effort to store food – thus making you even more and
more fatter than even before!

So it makes sense that if and when you REMOVE this unwanted “garbage” from lacing your ‘insides,’ you will naturally start dissolving the fat and “stored chunks of lard” that disfigure an otherwise more attractive and healthier frame and sexier body.

As if this ‘plaque’ goop weren’t enough, Dr Suzanne identified multitudes of specific species of “parasites” (i.e., little worm-like “critters” – some which have ‘fangs’ but no eyes) living inside nearly 99.964% of all people’s small and large intestines in the United States alone, and about 92.36% of people on average worldwide.

These parasites excrete (meaning they take a CRAP inside YOU!) a jelly-like “SLUDGE” they coats your insides and which is very, very harmful and extremely TOXIC!

Additionally, much like the plaque, they often steal your nutrition which in turn again causes your body to believe it’s starving, and as a defense you continue even more just to get FATTER and FATTER!

These parasites usually end up dying (but not before laying millions of eggs!) — and once they die they fossilize forming a coral-like barrier preventing your even further from absorbing the correct amounts of proper nutrition.

When these parasites are FLUSHED from your guts, you end up magically losing tons of fat and extra weight – and even WITHOUT making one slight change to your diet or how much you eat!

SHOCKINGLY, these same “little critters (as Dr Suzanne calls them) actually release chemical “messengers” that make you crave foods that you are not even supposed to eat at all!

People who get rid of the parasites, therefore, suddenly find that they no longer even desire the Cheetos, pork rinds, jelly-filled treats, and 10,000’s of other equally deadly so-called “foods.”

In the past 6 years alone Dr Suzanne has tested her amazing new discovery and “TOP SECRET Fat Loss Secret” privately with a select group of volunteers, and seen results that fall nothing short of the truly FANTASTIC!

For instance, a Chicago woman who weighed until recently a whopping 587 lbs and who had even been visited by a living-legendary diet and fitness guru (name withheld by request), but who after much direct assistance from him (the guru) was not able to shed even 1 lb, suddenly dropped 449 lbs from her body weight in under 5 months using Dr Suzanne’s SECRET! — and she didn’t change or reduce one thing she regularly ate in her diet!

Now the woman weighs just 138 lbs, looks like a completely different woman altogether — and as if that weren’t enough, she became a swimsuit model for a well-known company! (But most importantly, this woman added who knows how many years to her life as a direct result of using Dr Suzanne’s “Top Secret Fat Loss Secret!”)

Another equally tearfully-joyous account was of a woman named Lisa Stephens from Ohio who was told her diabetes could “never” be cured or reversed — and this by countless doctors.

After shedding over 156 lbs in just 91 days of having used this same amazing revolutionary breakthrough secret discovered by Dr Suzanne, her diabetes is gone completely and she no longer depends on insulin just to be able to survive!

These kinds of results are flooding Dr Suzanne’s email each and everyday from all over the world (not just from North America — which has by far the fattest population as a group).

And even though you like me recognize these results as both newsworthy and for the common good of humanity as a whole, there are some who are literally out to get the good lady doctor.

Recently investigators began carefully keeping an extra protective eye on Dr Suzanne after she received death threats from “individuals” purportedly connected to the vast drug empires and weight-loss food manufacturing companies.

It would appear on the face of it that Dr Suzanne’s “Top Secret Fat Loss Secret” must really work, because if it didn’t no one would care to bring her harm.

This would be akin to an inventor discovering how to make a car that runs on water instead of gas assassinated by the major auto manufacturers!

Investigators insist that the reason she received threats is largely because what she is doing may actually make people healthier, leaner, sexier and trimmer, as well as make them live longer fuller lives — and as a result they stand to lose lots of money (possibly BILLIONS of dollars!!)

The BEST part of her secret is that it’s nothing difficult to do, and it doesn’t require a major change in either your lifestyle or diet.

In fact, “Nature’s actually on our side” according to Dr Suzanne, as her solution to the arduous ills of fat and obesity is simply the ingestion of Nature’s own ‘protections’ against both the harmful death-causing/obesity-causing plaque as well as the nasty little critters living in your bowels!

Anyone with anywhere from just a few extra pounds to those 100 lbs or more overweight must as a rule now secure for themselves Dr Suzanne’s “TOP SECRET Fat Loss Secret” (and before someone tries to lobby against you ever discovering what’s truly in it!)

I recognize a great thing when I see one — and THIS SECRET is definitely the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.

We all know that people are just getting fatter and fatter, and more and more UNHEALTHY – so this is a secret whose time is long overdue.

While many people may tell you to just stick to your diet, exercise to the point of exhaustion, etc, the naysayers will definitely be disappointed when they find out that Dr Suzanne’s cure to obesity is completely NATURAL!

If you want the good doctor’s secret for yourself and so that no one can ever take it away from you or steal out of your hands, then all you need to do is grab your own PDF copy here:

=>   http://AFF_ID.fatsecret.hop.clickbank.net

But I have to warn you of two (2) things:

1. Pay processors are already struggling to keep up with orders as this SECRET is now one of the most sought after things anywhere online! (So if you put off, don’t be surprised to find you can’t even place your order, and may not receive notice as to when order-taking may resume.)

2. Dr Suzanne in an effort to get people to get off their butts and to take action for their own good, is making it available at nearly HALF OFF just for people getting over there TODAY through the next 48 hours only — after that, the low price now nearly DOUBLES! (So you’d best beat the crowds over there NOW!)

So if you’re wise, and want to grab her secret before something unforeseen forever prevents you from doing so, then you’d best do what I did and go secure it now at:

=>   http://samgrg.fatsecret.hop.clickbank.net

How many times have you seen sudden “breakthroughs” of such great controversy potentially come along and cause a woman doctor to actually get death threats for her secret ‘know-how?’ — You’re right … very, very few.

So don’t overlook this email as it may very well prove to be one of the most influential and important ones you’ve ever received…

Copy the link below and paste to your browser..

=>   http://samgrg.fatsecret.hop.clickbank.net