TWiV 359: A Blossom by any other name
On episode #359 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent speaks with Blossom about her laboratory’s research on Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, including how it transforms cells, the switch between lytic and latent replication, and its interaction with the innate immune system of the host.
You can find TWiV #359 at www.twiv.tv. (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - October 18, 2015 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology cancer cGAS innate immunity kaposi kaposi's sarcoma kaposi's sarcoma associated herpesvirus kshv latent lytic sarcome STING tumor viral Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 121
Just when you thought your brain could unwind on a Friday, you realise that it would rather be challenged with some good old fashioned medical trivia…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 121
Question 1
The Valsalva manoeuvre. We’re all familiar with it for treating SVT, but what was it initially used for?
+ Reveal the Funtabulous Answer
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It was initially used to expel pus from the middle ear. [Reference]
Question 2
Name one of two (unrelated) drugs which are known as the “zombie drug”...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - October 16, 2015 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Niall Hamilton Tags: Frivolous Friday Five chamberlen coley's toxin FFFF forceps Krokodil pufferfish stat tetrodotoxin valsalva Source Type: blogs
What the Atlanta HIV Data Tells Us About Public Health in America
This article was initially published in Georgia Health News.
(Source: The Health Care Blog)
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 10, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: THCB AIDSVu Atlanta CDC HIV Maithri Vangala Source Type: blogs
There are only 3 ways to allocate health care resources
Manny Alvarez is a 23-year-old college student with the misfortune of having not just a devastating cancer — but the wrong devastating cancer. The chemotherapeutic agents shown to be highly active against his specific tumor cells are FDA approved for the treatment of leukemia, but not for the stunningly rare kind of sarcoma with which Manny has been diagnosed. Nothing is FDA approved, or standard care, for the stunningly-rare cancer with which Manny has been diagnosed.
That potentially effective drugs have been identified at all is thanks to Manny’s exemplary oncologist, Dr. Breelyn Wilky at the University of M...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 8, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: David L. Katz, MD Tags: Policy Health reform Source Type: blogs
Jess Ainscough, Belle Gibson, and “wellness warriors” vs. cancer
Recent articles in The Daily Mail and The Australian reminded me that it’s been over a month since the unfortunate demise of Jess Ainscough, a young Australian woman who was diagnosed with an epithelioid sarcoma of her left upper extremity in 2008. Before I get to the articles, a brief recap is in order. This… (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - April 6, 2015 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Naturopathy Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking belle gibson Candace Marie-Fox epithelioid sarcoma Jess Ainscough The Wellness Warrior Source Type: blogs
Alternative cancer therapies: The quest for certainty
“I don’t want knowledge. I want certainty!” –David Bowie, from Law (Earthlings on Fire) I know I’ve already said this once, but I have to say it again, but it’s been a rather stressful week on the old blog, but I hadn’t planned on writing about this particular topic again (although I will say that… (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - March 6, 2015 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Popular culture Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking Charlotte Gerson coffee enema epithelioid sarcoma Gerson protocol Gerson therapy Jess Ainscough Max Gerson raw vegan Sh Source Type: blogs
Aftermath: Will the “alternative health movement” learn anything from Jess Ainscough’s death?
It’s been a rather…interesting…weekend. Friday, I noted the death of Jess Ainscough, a.k.a. “The Wellness Warrior,” a young Australian woman who was unfortunate enough to develop epithelioid sarcoma, a rare cancer, at the age of 22. I’ve been blogging about her because after her doctors tried isolated limb perfusion with chemotherapy in an attempt to… (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - March 2, 2015 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Naturopathy Popular culture Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking alternative health community diet Gerson protocol integrative medicine Jess Ainscough Laura Schoenfeld pal Source Type: blogs
The Wellness Warrior, Jess Ainscough, has passed away
Two months ago, I took note of a somewhat cryptic blog post by a young woman named Jess Ainscough. In Australia and much of the world, Ainscough was known as the Wellness Warrior. She was a young woman who developed an epithelioid sarcoma in 2008 and ended up choosing “natural healing” to treat her cancer.… (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - February 27, 2015 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking Australia coffee enemas epithelioid sarcoma Gerson therapy Jess Ainscough Sharyn Ainscough The Wellness Warrior Source Type: blogs
Jess Ainscough finally admits her condition is deteriorating
Not being Australian and, for some reason, never having encountered her promotion of “natural health” online before, I first encountered Jessica Ainscough, also known as “The Wellness Warrior” over a year ago when I learned that her mother Sharyn Ainscough had died of breast cancer. Her mother, it turns out, had rejected conventional treatment for… (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - December 16, 2014 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Quackery epithelioid sarcoma forequarter amputation Gerson therapy Jess Ainscough Wellness Warrior Source Type: blogs
Pfizer and 23andMe Collaborate to Study Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Lab industry observers have long suggested that that the 23andMe business model ultimately involved selling anonymized client genomic data to the deep-pockets pharmaceutical industry (see: 23andMe as an Example of "Big Bang" Market Disruption; 23andMe Builds Online Sarcoma Research Community). This model required abundant capital up-front to attract clients with a relatively low lab testing cost. At some point, it's even possible for these costs to drop to zero but this might arouse suspicion and reveal more about the business model than was necessary. At any rate, a recent article discussed a new...
Source: Lab Soft News - August 25, 2014 Category: Pathologists Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Healthcare Delivery Lab Information Products Lab Regulation Laboratory Industry Trends Medical Consumerism Medical Research Pharmaceutical Industry Public Health Informatics Source Type: blogs
Best Post of May 2014: Primary Progressive Aphasia (non-fluent/agrammatic variant) in a patient with Pick disease
The next in our "Best of the Month" series is from May 14, 2014:I recently performed an autopsy on a 67-year-old man had a seven-year history of progressive difficulty with halting speech. His wife described him as seeming to be “groping for words”. Three years after initial presentation, he demonstrated profound difficulty both initiating and finishing sentences. His verbal communication was marked by jumbled grammatical errors in which he put words in the wrong order and tense. For example, when asked by his neurologist to recount his activities over the day, he responded: “Go I… the grocery store… to.” He ha...
Source: neuropathology blog - August 25, 2014 Category: Pathologists Tags: Best of the Month series frontotemporal dementia Source Type: blogs
Rare Cancer are Subsets of Common Cancers
In June, 2014, my book, entitled Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs: Keys to Understanding and Treating the Common Diseases was published by Elsevier. The book builds the argument that our best chance of curing the common diseases will come from studying and curing the rare diseases. One of the key ideas developed in the book is that each common diseases is actually an aggregate of cellular processes that are present, individually, in rare diseases. In the case of the common cancers, we can find specific rare diseases that are subsets of the common diseases. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8: 8.3.3 Inherited syndromes that...
Source: Specified Life - July 9, 2014 Category: Pathologists Tags: cancer syndromes carcinogenesis common cancers common disease familial cancer syndromes genetic disease orphan disease orphan drugs rare cancers rare disease Source Type: blogs
Recovering from my superman complex
As published on reimagineYou have a tumor,” my mother told me. I was 16 years old. I didn’t cry that day, but I did force tears the day after. I was alone in a small basement room, yet the sobbing humiliated me. I vowed to never cry again. I decided I would become superhuman.I received treatment at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, for Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer. I would often compare myself to other patients on the pediatric floor. Besides our identical hairless appearance and disease, we had nothing in common. Some of them would call the poison “cheemy...
Source: I've Still Got Both My Nuts: A True Cancer Blog - July 7, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: life lessons Source Type: blogs
After Cancer, Giving Back
As published on The Huffington PostResting anxiously on a retractable bed and about to begin the chemotherapy drug Cytoxan, I sent my mom for a chocolate iced glazed Krispy Kreme donut from the hospital cafeteria. During treatment there were just three times each day when I could eat: immediately upon waking, and before and after the infusion.Mom returned with an original glazed. I yelled at her: "The chocolate would drown the nickel taste of the infusion, but I don't want this!" "I'm sorry. That is all they had," she said with her usual patience. Two hours later with the infusion complete, I asked for small cereal boxes f...
Source: I've Still Got Both My Nuts: A True Cancer Blog - June 4, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: family man of the year Source Type: blogs
Primary progressive aphasia (non-fluent/agrammatic variant) in a patient with Pick disease
I recently performed an autopsy on a 67-year-old man had a seven-year history of progressive difficulty with halting speech. His wife described him as seeming to be “groping for words”. Three years after initial presentation, he demonstrated profound difficulty both initiating and finishing sentences. His verbal communication was marked by jumbled grammatical errors in which he put words in the wrong order and tense. For example, when asked by his neurologist to recount his activities over the day, he responded: “Go I… the grocery store… to.” He had no difficulty with naming objects or understanding their use. ...
Source: neuropathology blog - May 14, 2014 Category: Pathologists Tags: neurodegen dz (other) Source Type: blogs
