The Far Right Goes Anti-Vax
A phenomenon which has always puzzled me is popular resistance to vaccination. It goes back to the very beginning, vaccination against smallpox, which was a terrible scourge that killed 30% of its victims and left the rest disfigured. When Edward Jenner proved in 1796 that inoculation with cowpox, which caused only mild disease, conferred immunity to smallpox, the world was given a priceless gift.Yet popular movements arose almost immediately to oppose vaccination, both in England and the U.S. Eventually smallpox vaccination became widely accepted, and smallpox was eradicated from the earth. Later, the terror of the polio ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - December 21, 2018 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 19th 2018
Fight Aging! provides a weekly digest of news and commentary for thousands of subscribers interested in the latest longevity science: progress towards the medical control of aging in order to prevent age-related frailty, suffering, and disease, as well as improvements in the present understanding of what works and what doesn't work when it comes to extending healthy life. Expect to see summaries of recent advances in medical research, news from the scientific community, advocacy and fundraising initiatives to help speed work on the repair and reversal of aging, links to online resources, and much more.
This content is...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 18, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
More Evidence for the Genetic Contribution to Longevity to be Smaller than Suspected
How much of the natural human variation in longevity and pace of aging has its roots in genetics, and how much is determined by lifestyle and environment? Some gene variants result in beneficial metabolic alterations such as lower cholesterol or a greater resilience in the face of the molecular damage of late old age. Lifestyle choices such as calorie intake and exercise clearly influence long term health and mortality. Similarly, exposure to pathogens and pollutants can accelerate the pace of aging via their interaction with the immune system. The consensus of the past few decades had come to be that the split is around 2...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 13, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Nonsense-Based Health Care - in the Service of Political Ideology and Sectarian Beliefs
ConclusionSince 2016, we have seen increasing attempts to distort or ignore medical science, clinical and epidemiological research findings to support the political ideology of the ruling party and the religious beliefs of their extreme fundamentalist supporters. As we have discussed, most recentlyhere, the Trump regime has seen fit to put ill-informed people in positions of power in health care and public health agencies. Some of these people have put their political and/or religious agendas ahead of the public ' s health. Our examples above show a continuing inclination by the administration, its sympat...
Source: Health Care Renewal - November 2, 2018 Category: Health Management Tags: DHHS disinformation Donald Trump ill-informed management mission-hostile management propaganda Source Type: blogs
The Migrant Caravan, Central America, and Vaccination Rates
Many commentators have recentlywritten andsaid that members of the migrant caravan and Central American immigrants in general are diseased. Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent David Ward claimed that the migrants are “coming in with diseases such as smallpox,” a disease that the World Health Organization (WHO) certified as beingeradicated in 1980. One hopes Mr. Ward was more careful in enforcing American immigration law than in spreading rumors that migrants are carrying one of the deadliest diseases in human history nearly 40 years after it was eradicated from the human population. But even on oth...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 1, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 245
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog
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 FFFF…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 245
Readers can subscribe to FFFF RSS or subscribe to the FFFF weekly EMAIL
Question 1
What is a HeLa cell?
+ Reveal the funtabulous answer
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HeLa cells are an imm...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - July 20, 2018 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Mark Corden Tags: Frivolous Friday Five George Otto Gey Glanzmann's thrombasthaenia Hela cells Henrietta Lacks NEJM new england journal of medicine Sildenafil smallpox viagra Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 245
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog
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 FFFF…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 245
Readers can subscribe to FFFF RSS or subscribe to the FFFF weekly EMAIL
Question 1
What is a HeLa cell?
+ Reveal the funtabulous answer
expand(document.getElementById('ddet769736162'));expand(document.getElementById('ddetlink769736162'))
HeLa cells are an immor...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - July 20, 2018 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Mark Corden Tags: Frivolous Friday Five George Otto Gey Glanzmann's thrombasthaenia Hela cells Henrietta Lacks NEJM new england journal of medicine Sildenafil smallpox viagra Source Type: blogs
LITFL Review 340
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog
Welcome to the 340th LITFL Review! Your regular and reliable source for the highest highlights, sneakiest sneak peeks and loudest shout-outs from the webbed world of emergency medicine and critical care. Each week the LITFL team casts the spotlight on the blogosphere’s best and brightest and deliver a bite-sized chunk of FOAM.
Readers can subscribe to LITFL review RSS or LITFL review EMAIL subscription
The Most Fair Dinkum Ripper Beauts of the Week
Skeptic’s Gui...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - July 16, 2018 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Marjorie Lazoff, MD Tags: LITFL review LITFL R/V Source Type: blogs
TWiV 501: Outbreak
Vincent visits the Smithsonian Institution and speaks with Sabrina Sholts, Jon Epstein, and Ed Niles about the exhibit Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World. <span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”></span><span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”></span>&lt;span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=&...
Source: virology blog - July 8, 2018 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology ebola virus epidemic influenza virus MERS National Museum of Natural History Nipah virus One Health outbreak SARS smallpox virus Smithsonian spillover viral viruses zoonosis zoonotic Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 25th 2018
In this study, we investigate mitochondrial energetics and mtDNA methylation in senescent cells, and evaluate the potential of humanin and MOTS-c as novel senolytics or SASP modulators that can alleviate symptoms of frailty and extend health span by targeting mitochondrial bioenergetics.
Exercise versus the Hallmarks of Aging
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2018/06/exercise-versus-the-hallmarks-of-aging/
The paper I'll point out today walks through the ways in which exercise is known to beneficially affect the Hallmarks of Aging. The Hallmarks are a list of the significant causes of aging that I di...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 24, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Investigating the Direction of Causation in Frailty and Cardiovascular Disease
It remains the case that a great deal of aging research these days is purely observational, which is, I think, unfortunate. This is an age in which more than mere observation of aging might be achieved; the first interventions likely to reliably slow or reverse aspects of aging are making their way out of the laboratory and into clinical development. There should be a lesser emphasis in the research community on watching what happens to a population of older individuals who lack effective treatments for aging, and a correspondingly greater emphasis on getting those treatments built and into the clinic.
Given this, d...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 18, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Has the anti-vaccine movement affected vaccination rates?
Vaccines have been hailed by virtually all medical experts, as well as medical historians, as the among the greatest triumphs of public health to occur in the past two centuries. Yet since Jenner first proposed vaccination for smallpox using the vaccinia, or cowpox, virus there have been both skeptics of its effectiveness and people who thought it was dangerous. That is, they had the risk/benefit ratio of vaccination exactly backwards, believing risk high and benefit low. They also often ridiculed the entire procedure, even from the beginning, as this 18th-century cartoon shows; Jenner is the fat gent kneeling by the cow.
...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 12, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/christopher-johnson" rel="tag" > Christopher Johnson, MD < /a > Tags: Conditions Pediatrics Public Health & Policy Source Type: blogs
TWiV 493: Condit is on drugs and norovirus is lit
The TWiVerati discuss the FDA Advisory Committee deliberation on the anti-poxvirus drug tecovirimat, and immune cells in gut-associated lymphoid tissue as the major target during acute murine norovirus infection. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Kathy Spindler <span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”></span><span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: […] (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - May 13, 2018 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology antiviral GALT gut associated lymphoid tissue in situ hybridization norovirus Peyer's patch poxvirus RNAscope SIGA smallpox ST249 tecovirimat viruses Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 12th 2018
In conclusion, most experimental data on immune changes with aging show a decline in many immune parameters when compared to young healthy subjects. The bulk of these changes is termed immunosenescence. Immunosenescence has been considered for some time as detrimental because it often leads to subclinical accumulation of pro-inflammatory factors and inflammaging. Together, immunosenescence and inflammaging are suggested to stand at the origin of most of the diseases of the elderly, such as infections, cancer, autoimmune disorders, and chronic inflammatory diseases. However, an increasing number of gerontologists have chall...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 11, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
