Ebola Fever: “Don’t Panic”
by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, author Douglas Adams provided his protagonist with two pieces of advise: don’t panic and always carry a towel. The first is good advice when it comes to Ebola panic.
I was sitting down on the plane in San Diego airport after the American Society for Bioethics & Humanities meeting when I noticed a woman walking down the aisle with a face mask. Being a public health-oriented person, I figured she had tuberculosis and was under order to wear a mask to protect other people’s health.… (Source: blog.bioethics.net)
Source: blog.bioethics.net - October 24, 2014 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Craig Klugman Tags: Featured Posts Public Health ebola Source Type: blogs
AppStudio Humanitarian Challenge
Save the World by Developing or Donating!
September 3, 2014 — The number of smart phones in third world is growing at the almost the same rate as Malaria, Ebola, Tuberculosis and AIDS.
Nedzad Demirovic, an AppStudio user, had a great idea. Could we motivate our developer community to create some great apps to help people? He made a generous contribution to get this started. We here at NS BASIC Corporation have matched it, and we’re looking for more.
We are organizing a Challenge for the best mobile application that will warn and educate users how to avoid the threats of diseases in the friendly game like mann...
Source: The Palmdoc Chronicles - October 7, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: palmdoc Tags: Software News AppStudio Javascript NSBasic Source Type: blogs
500 Days And Counting: Critical Steps In The Countdown To Achieving MDG 6
Editor’s note: For more on global health, see the September issue of Health Affairs.
We are now less than 500 days away from December 31, 2015, the target date for reaching the world’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG). This includes MDG 6, the goal of combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.
Astonishing progress has been made to date (as mentioned previously in our Health Affairs Blog post): AIDS-related deaths have fallen 35 percent since their peak in 2005; global mortality from tuberculosis has fallen by 45 percent since 1990; and global malaria mortality rates dropped 42 percent globally between 200...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - October 6, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Deb Derrick and Peter Yeo Tags: All Categories Global Health Public Health Source Type: blogs
A Little Reverse Engineering of the Role of Inflammation in Age-Related Immune Dysfunction
In this study, we demonstrate that the lungs of old mice have elevated levels of proinflammatory cytokines and a resident population of highly activated pulmonary macrophages that are refractory to further activation by IFN-γ. The impact of this inflammatory state on macrophage function was determined in vitro in response to infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb). Macrophages from the lungs of old mice secreted more proinflammatory cytokines in response to M.tb infection than similar cells from young mice and also demonstrated enhanced M.tb uptake and P-L fusion.
Supplementation of mouse chow with the NSAID ibu...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 2, 2014 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Five Absurd Overreactions to the Surge in Child Migrants
Alex Nowrasteh
The surge of unaccompanied migrant children (UAC) that dominated the news cycle in June and July of this year has receded – so much so that many emergency shelters established to handle the inflow are shutting down. At the height of the surge, many commentators and government officials expected 90,000 UAC to be apprehended by the end of the fiscal year (FY). As the end of the FY approaches, the number of apprehended UAC stands at roughly 66,000 - far below the estimates.
Now that the surge has receded, here are some of the most absurd overreactions to it. Never before...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 11, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
Partnership And Progress On The Path To Achieving Millennium Development Goal 6
TweetEditor’s note: For more on global health, stay tuned for the upcoming September issue of Health Affairs.
In 2000, nearly 200 world leaders came together and agreed on a set of objectives intended to tackle some of the most pressing development challenges of our time, such as poverty, AIDS, and child mortality. With a target date of December 31, 2015, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provided a clear path for progress and a platform for immediate action. Last week, on August 18, we reached a milestone on that path – as of that date, 500 days remained to achieve these eight goals. So where do we stand, a...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - August 25, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Deb Derrick and Peter Yeo Tags: AIDS All Categories Global Health Policy Public Health Source Type: blogs
Nature Podcast: 21 August 2014
This week, how seals took tuberculosis to the Americas, a better map of Neanderthals in Europe, and microbial life lurking beneath the Antarctic ice. (Source: Nature Podcast)
Source: Nature Podcast - August 20, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Nature Publishing Group Source Type: blogs
A Brief Letter to the Long Retired
Life isn't fair, but you've probably figured that out by now. Your body is corroding, and there's nothing great about that. I guess I'm not telling you anything you don't know here.
So try this on for size: in among all of the modern wonders of medicine, many of which you have become familiar with, some few scientists are working on ways to control the causes of aging and thus put a halt to all age-related disease.
"All?" you might well ask. Well, aging is just another medical condition, so why not? We didn't put up with tuberculosis once we could do something about it. Coughing up your lungs just because everyone else u...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 18, 2014 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs
Help support acupuncture clinical skill building and vital healthcare in Nepal!
Founder’s note: Hey folks, this post is from a NCNM graduate who is going to be participating in the Acupuncture Relief Project in Nepal. She asked that I help her drum up funding for her endeavor – a very worthy cause. She’s going to be contributing some content about the project and her experience, starting with this post. Please give to her cause, if you can, and tell your friends!
Dear Chinese Medicine Central Readers,
In early January 2015, I will leave my husband, two young children, a sweet German Shepherd and a cozy home.
I will load a backpack aboard a flight in Portland, Oregon that will ...
Source: Deepest Health: Exploring Classical Chinese Medicine - August 13, 2014 Category: Alternative Medicine Practitioners Authors: Guest Author Tags: Community and Cultivation Foundational Science Source Type: blogs
Preventing Damage from Mitochondrial Mutations
SENS, the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, is an ongoing research and advocacy program that aims to bring aging under medical control. One day aging will be in exactly the same bucket as tuberculosis: it exists, it is a threat if you somehow lose access to modern medicine, but most people are never troubled by it. After watching the research community for more than a decade, I firmly believe SENS is the best path towards this goal, offering a shot at real working rejuvenation within our lifetimes if funded sufficiently. Aging is a matter of cellular and molecular damage, and SENS is in essence a repair prog...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 7, 2014 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
“Give me your tired, your poor…”
The rapid influx of unaccompanied immigrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the last few months has spurred a national conversation regarding the United States’ role in offering refuge to these children, the majority of whom are fleeing widespread gang violence and delinquency in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. A key talking point for some in the debate has become the supposed threat to public health that these children pose.
Pundits and politicians, from city councils to the U.S. Congress, have latched on to the alarmist claim that immigrant children are carrying diseases with t...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - August 1, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Access Advocacy Consumer Health Care Disparities Global Health Policy Politics Publc Health Source Type: blogs
Do we need more schooling, or just re-tooling?
In a conversation on the OT Connections Forum Dr. Pam Toto stated "These other professions - PT, Pharmacy, Nursing - whether you think they are comparable or not, have evolved to a point where they feel a need for that additional training for competent entry-level practice."I think these comments are interesting. Dr. Toto is not the first to make these kinds of observations. Others have stated that we need to prepare practitioners for the complexity and demands of the future.' I have been wondering what that really means.First of all, I would like to acknowledge that in some instances our practice tools...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - July 31, 2014 Category: Occupational Therapists Tags: history OT Education OT practice philosophy Source Type: blogs
Top stories in health and medicine, July 23, 2014
From MedPage Today:
Salt Consumption Tied to Heart Risk in T2D. Higher salt intake was associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Three-Drug Cocktail Has Promise in TB. An experimental, three-drug tuberculosis (TB) treatment regimen demonstrated bactericidal activity in patients with drug-sensitive or multidrug-resistant disease.
Antiviral Group: ‘Biomedical’ Tx Could Slow HIV. Nearly all people living with HIV could be rendered noninfectious by a suite of “biomedical interventions,” according to new recommendations for HIV prevention.
ACS: What Work...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 23, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Authors: MedPage Today Tags: News Diabetes Endocrinology Heart Infectious disease Source Type: blogs
Life in Britain on the Eve of the First World War
Marian L. Tupy
The Telegraph has an interesting series of short articles about life in Britain at the start of WWI. While all of the articles are worth reading, here are the best parts for those who like to compare standard of living then and now.
Work and leisure
Most Edwardians worked in dark, noisy factories, cut hay in fields, toiled down dirty and dangerous mines; had bones bent by rickets and lungs racked by tuberculosis. Life expectancy then was 49 years for a man and 53 years for a woman, compared with 79 and 82 years today. They lived in back to back tenements or jerry-built terraces, wore cloth caps or bonnets (...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 22, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Marian L. Tupy Source Type: blogs
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB meets SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB is a biopic about an unlikely hero, directed by Québécois Jean-Marc Valle and written by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack. In case you get a call from your local AIDS-Walk coordinator, remember 50,000 cases of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) still occur in the USA annually. Transmission is largely preventable with education, testing and early intervention. Ethnic peoples of color are disproportionately affected in new cases. Thirty-five years ago, I never imagined AIDS would be the defining disease of my career and then some. After my AIDS-Walk call, I ...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - July 20, 2014 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: September Williams, MD Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs
