Sleepless Nights For Evolutionary Biologists: A Greek Tragedy in The Making
By MIKE MAGEE
In my Jesuit high school, we were offered only one science course – chemistry. I took it in my Senior year and did pretty well. In contrast, I took four years of Latin, and three years of Greek, as part of the school’s Greek Honors tract.
Little did I know that Covid would create a pathologic convergence of sorts six decades later. Let’s review the Covid mutants:
Alpha – A variant first detected in Kent, UK with 50% more transmissibility than the original and has spread widely.
Beta – Originating in South Africa and the first to show a mutation that partially provided evas...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 30, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: COVID-19 Health Policy evolutionary biology Mike Magee Source Type: blogs
I Am Not Sure Just What The Implications Are Of This – My Brain Hurts Just Thinking About It
This appeared last week. Patently brilliant: AI listed as inventor for first time By Tom Knowles The Times 5:33PM July 28, 2021 The patent granted last week to a law professor based in Britain was, in most respects, not unusual. It was for interlocking food containers that are easy for robots to grasp and stack, and the creator is listed as Dabus. The difference is that Dabus is not human. Intellectual property officials in South Africa have become the first in the world to award a patent that names an artificial intelligence as the inventor of a product. The moment is a triumph for Ryan Abbott, a professor at the Uni...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - August 5, 2021 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
Our country needs a debridement: A South African physician reflects
This week sees myself in the office only for a few hours. I decided to drive across the city yesterday to meet with supportive friends for lunch. All three of us are fully vaccinated. Along the way in the suburbs, there were still people parked at strategic barriers erected to prevent free movement into theRead more …Our country needs a debridement: A South African physician reflects originally appeared inKevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 30, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/basil-stathoulis" rel="tag" > Dr. Basil Stathoulis < /a > < /span > Tags: Physician Surgery Source Type: blogs
Money and Values: For Healthcare Workers, It ’s Time They Align
By WYNNE ARMAND and CHRISTIAN MEWALDT
It shouldn’t be controversial to say that promoting the well-being of patients and our community should be at the core of our decisions in health care — even when competing factors exist. Yet we have grown increasingly uncomfortable to realize that we’ve been investing in companies whose products — including fossil fuels — are at the crux of diseases we treat.
In 2018 alone, fossil fuel combustion-produced particulate matter was responsible for an estimated 9 million deaths worldwide, according to a recent publication by researchers from Harvard University an...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 23, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: The Business of Health Care Christian Mewaldt Finance Harvard Medical School Massachusetts General Hospital retirement fund Wynne Armand Source Type: blogs
An Economic Case for Waiving Intellectual Property Rights on COVID Vaccines
Gopal Krishna Roy (Jawaharlal Nehru University), An Economic Case for Waiving Intellectual Property Rights on COVID Vaccines, SSRN: India and South Africa approached World Trade Organization (WTO) to negotiate the temporary waiver of Intellectual Property (IP) rights on COVID-19 vaccines... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - July 2, 2021 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
The U.S. Posture on Global Access to Medication & the Case for Change
Michael Palmedo (American University), Srividhya Ragavan (Texas A&M University), The U.S. Posture on Global Access to Medication& the Case for Change, SSRN: The TRIPS Waiver sought by India and South Africa features as the hot button issue of 2021.... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - May 24, 2021 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
76 Percent of Consulates Are Fully or Partly Closed Even after Tests and Vaccinations
David J. BierPresident Bidenended President Trump ’s immigrant visa ban and allowed his nonimmigrant visa ban to expire on April 1. While this is progress, the president is inexplicably keeping 76 percent of consulates fully or partially closed to routine visa processing, affecting about 71 percent of all visa applicants. The consulate closures a re acting as a de facto ban on legal immigration and travel, even thoughall travelers to the country must receive negative COVID-19 tests and more than 551 million doses of the vaccinehave already been administered outside the United States.In March 2020, the State Department c...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 9, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
WTO Waiver from Intellectual Property Protection for COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatments: A Critical Review
Bryan Mercurio (Chinese University), WTO Waiver from Intellectual Property Protection for COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatments: A Critical Review, SSRN: In view of the increasing concern over global efforts to ensure equitable access to affordable COVID-19 vaccines, India and South Africa... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - March 4, 2021 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
The COVID-19 vaccine from the South African frontlines
I have been distracting myself since the second wave. Our hospital has quietened down as far as COVID-19 cases go, and we started doing limited planned surgeries. After my last post, which detailed the overwhelming and horrific difficulties we faced during the second wave, a friend of mine suggested my next post should be about […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 3, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/basil-stathoulis" rel="tag" > Dr. Basil Stathoulis < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions COVID-19 coronavirus Infectious Disease Source Type: blogs
Organ Donation and Transplantation: A Comparative Analysis of Legislations in Kenya, South Africa and United Kingdom
Elizabeth Mbugua, Organ Donation and Transplantation: A Comparative Analysis of Legislations in Kenya, South Africa and United Kingdom, SSRN: Organ donation and transplantation as a practice of modern medicine has over time been used as a life-saving therapy for end... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - March 3, 2021 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
Restorative Justice: Don ’t Presume “We’re Better Than This ”
By MIKE MAGEE
“We’re better than this” is the common refrain heard from many political leaders following the deadly assault on our democracy on January 6th. We hear empty appeals for blind appeasement from the likes of Kevin McCarthy in the interest of “bringing our country together.” But for those of us who study medical history, pursuing this course takes our nation in exactly the wrong direction.
Rather, the model we must follow is the model of Germany in 1945, or South Africa in 1995. In both cases, strict legal and public accountability (retributive justice) were married with fundamental expansion ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 21, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: COVID-19 Health Policy Public Health Mike Magee restorative justicee Source Type: blogs
Fun brain teaser to test your cognitive skills during International Brain Teaser Month
Memory relies mostly on the temporal lobes (see green area) and also the frontal lobes (red), so those are the areas that will get some good neuronal activation when readers raised in the US try to remember the missing words in the American proverbs below.
Now, if you were raised outside the US and are not familiar with those proverbs you will have to use your reasoning skills more than your memory skills — In that case, frontal lobe activation will be wider and more intense.
Conversely, if you were raised in the US you will find the international proverbs below to be more challenging. You will not be able to remember th...
Source: SharpBrains - January 8, 2021 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Dr. Pascale Michelon Tags: Brain Teasers brain puzzles for adults Brain-games brain-puzzles brain-teaser-puzzles cognitive-exercise frontal-lobes improve-memory International Brain Teaser Month logic-puzzle logical-skills mind-teasers proverbs puzzle games Source Type: blogs
The World Trade Organization Is No Impediment to Vaccine Production or Distribution
James BacchusIn a sign of their increasing frustration with global efforts to ensure that all people everywhere will have access to COVID-19 vaccines, a number of developing countries have asked other members of the World Trade Organization to join with them in a sweeping waiver of the intellectual property rights relating to those vaccines. Their request raises anew the recurring debate within the WTO over the right balance between the protection of intellectual property rights and access in poorer countries to urgently needed medicines.The proposed waiver brings back bad memories for all in the WTO of the ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 16, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: James Bacchus Source Type: blogs
The Important Role of the Enduring Power of Attorney and Supported Decision-Making Structures in Reconceptualising the Right of Elderly South Africans with Dementia to Exercise Their Legal Capacity and Avoid Double Discrimination Based on Age and Disabili
Suanne Cosgrove, The Important Role of the Enduring Power of Attorney and Supported Decision-Making Structures in Reconceptualising the Right of Elderly South Africans with Dementia to Exercise Their Legal Capacity and Avoid Double Discrimination Based on Age and Disabilies, SSRN:... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - December 15, 2020 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
Walter Williams, RIP
David BoazAs if 2020 wasn ’t bad enough, today comes the sad news that Walter Williams has died at 84. He was a scholar who made an impact on the public debate, and a great teacher of economics. I’m old enough to remember when he was just breaking into public view in the mid‐1970s. In fact, this past weekend I wa s trying to prune some of my old files, and I found Walter Williams clips in several of them, including a study, “Youth and Minority Unemployment,” published by the Joint Economic Committee, and a full‐page ad in the Wall Street Journal, sponsored by the SmithKline Corporation, featuring hi...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 2, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: David Boaz Source Type: blogs
