health care

Note: ScienceBlogs has been following the 16th Annual AIDS Conference, with a special temporary blog reporting on the goings-on. I encourage you to all check it out. ------------- As more and more women are acquiring AIDS in South Africa, a new trend is emerging: in order to not look HIV positive, women are becoming obese in large numbers. According to the Independent Online, half of all women in South Africa are overweight, and almost one-third are severely overweight. More than 5 million of South Africa's 45 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS, and the cultural perception is that if a…
According to a recent survey of 11,000 people, 75% of obese Americans think their eating habits are healthy. In addition 40% claim to exercise vigorously at least 3x a week! The survey was conducted by an Ann Arbor based group called Thomson Medstat "There is, perhaps, some denial going on. Or there is a lack of understanding of what does it mean to be eating healthy, and what is vigorous exercise," said Dr. David Schutt of Thomson Medstat, the Michigan-based health-care research firm that conducted the survey. Obese people were slightly more likely to read food labels and eat out at…
Reading the paper this morning reaction to murder charges being brought against a New Orleans doctor and two nurses post-Katrina makes me want to read a little more into the facts of the cases. However, my SiBling, Prof Shelley Batts at Retrospectacle, points out correctly that the circumstances surrounding the delivery of health care in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina may have led to the deaths of the patients involved. Most certainly, those levying the charges had likely gotten out of town and were enjoying drinks, air-conditioning, and putting their feet up on a soft bed…
Interesting. Many in the medical community are outraged that a doctor and two nurses are being charge in the mercy killings during Hurricane Katrina. Dr. Ben deBoisblanc, director of critical care at Charity Hospital, said he and others are angry at the accusations against a doctor and nurses who risked their own safety, and provided care in a chaotic and frightening situation. "This doctor and these nurses were heroes. They stayed behind of their own volition to care for desperately ill people. They had an opportunity to leave and chose not to," he said. I certainly wondered how the medical…
Imagine this: You are a doctor at a hospital in New Orleans, and you've just heard that the worst hurricane to hit New Orleans in centuries is headed your way. Your hospital is completely unprepared for this event, and nurses, doctors, and staff are leaving in droves. The wind and rain whip the hospital, tree branches are breaking through the windows. The power goes out; those on life supporting machines are now supported by a generator. Then, the generator goes out. You watch patients suffocate and die, as the hospital halls are filled with panicked, frantic patients, family, and staff. As…
Recently the topic of Parkinson's has come up both here (in regards to more young people getting the disease) and at Neurotopia (who gave a great summary of a paper which suggested that chemicals in pesticides can contribute to Parkinson's symptoms). I want to keep the ball rolling on the topic by offering a silver lining: a promising new therapy for Parkinson's via neurogenesis (replacing or regenerating lost neurons). This post (beginning below the fold) was written by an expert on the dopaminergic system and a fellow Neuroscience PhD student here at the University of Michigan. We'll call…
Physicians are beginning to use a novel therapy for treating aneurysms: the use of a platinum coil, which is threaded to the site of concern and seals off the potential rupture. (More, with pictures and info about aneurysms, under the fold.) What is an Aneurysm? Aneurysms among Americans are both quite prevalent and quite deadly. It describes a local dilation (ballooning or distortion) of a blood vessel, which is usually cause by a build up in pressure due to blockage. When this pressure builds up, the wall of the blood vessel is progressively weakened and the liklihood of bursting increases…
Currently, AIDS patients must take a complicated regimen of many different kinds of pills to ward off the virus. But today the FDA approved the first "one and only" AIDS pill, which combines the other drugs into one pill. Called Atripla, it is a combo of Sustiva and Truvada (which itself two kinds of drugs), making it 4-drugs-in-one. (More below the fold....) While 10 years ago, AIDs patients had to take as many as 25 pills per day, this new drug simplifies the drug regimen which in turn increases chances for correct dosing, and thus longer life. "You're getting the first and only medication…
I had to go to the dentist today, for the first time in 5 years. I always dread doing that since, for some reason, any of the regular anesthetics they use to numb the gums and teeth don't work on me. Anything thats part of the "caine" groups of numbing chemicals (lidocaine, novocaine, etc), well I can't even tell a difference. all my life, I thought it was just normal for those not to work well, and just grin and bore horrible pain to get my teeth cleaned and cavities filled. Hence, why I haven't gone in 5 years. When I told my doctor about my troubles "getting numb" she said something…
Consider this scenario. A woman walks into a bank, and up to the teller's window. You are the teller. She pulls out a check from her purse, made out to her in the amount of $5,000. She slips it under the teller window, to you, and asks you to cash it for her. You look at the check--its from a casino. Uh oh. You are against gambling in any form whatsoever. You think its immoral and wrong, a sin!! Its against your religion and beliefs to condone such a practice, therefore you refuse to cash the check. Its against your beliefs, so why should you be made complicit in the rampant, sinful gambling…
In August of last year we wrote a post, Festering wounds of Iraq. It was about an antibiotic resistant organism, Acinetobacter baumannii, proving very troublesome in wound infections in soldiers. A. baumannii resides in the soil and is a problem world-wide, not just an Iraqi problem. But it is also a problem specifically related to the war in Iraq. Wound infections with this organism are more likely to occur at the time of injury under battle conditions or to be acquired in emergency treatment settings. Preventing this infection in stateside hospitals has also been a challenge. Without the…
Despite a lack of scientific evidence to back up their claims, herbal remedies are used by millions. effectiveness isn't the only issue. Could they be dangerous, too? A news story with this headline appeared in Delaware Online today, highlighting the complex relationship that Americans have with herbal remedies. I personally am quite interested in this topic for several reasons: 1) Most effective pharmaceuticals originated in plants or animals, in a more dilute form (opium, growth hormones, aspirin, etc.) 2) A paucity of peer-reviewed clinical studies back up the health benefits of a variety…
If you live in Europe, you probably like to complain about your national health care system. I have no doubt you have a lot to complain about. But you could live in the US, be over 65 and have to contend with the new government sponsored (but privately administered) prescription drug plan. Anne and her husband Dixie, both in their 70s, got frazzled trying to work their way through the maddening maze of George W's new prescription drug program, which compels seniors to choose among 1,400 competing drug-insurance schemes offered by 80 corporations. Each plan in this baffling "marketplace"…
Quite an interesting ethics debate, really. An 8-year-old boy is caught in the middle of his parent's court battle over whether he should be circumcised or not, and groups opposed to the procedure are keeping a keen eye on the case. The mother wants him to undergo circumcision in order to prevent a recurring inflammation she says he's experiencing, but the father is opposed to what he considers an unnecessary and psychologically (and physically) scarring procedure. "The child is absolutely healthy," the father said during a break in a court hearing on the matter Wednesday. "I do not want any…
People dying of terminal illnesses now have the right to take experimental drugs that are not yet approved by the the FDA, a federal court of appeals ruled last month (as reported in June's Nature Medicine). While on the one hand, these drugs may bring some hope to those whose illness has been thus far unresponsive to therapy, on the other it may hasten their demise by exposing them to a range of untested side effects while not even conclusively treating their illness. The recent ruling is the result of a lawsuit filed against the FDA by the advocacy group Abigail Alliance, whose namesake…
If they didn't want to know, they shouldn't have asked. In 2003 Congress passed a bill creating the Citizens' Health Care Working Group. The bill was the infamous Medicare prescription drug "benefit." The Working Group was something else. They just recommended universal health coverage. "Assuring health care is a shared social responsibility," says the interim report of the Citizens' Health Care Working Group, a 14-member committee that went to 50 communities and heard from 23,000 people. The committee describes its recommendations as a framework. The recommendations don't say who would pay…