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Good luck. Seriously.

"Man Who Led FDA Team to Approve LASIK Now Says It Was a Mistake"

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/909011

It's looking to me like researchers have been able to dissolve plaques in the brain as well but that patients didn't benefit. I agree that the mechanical stimulation from ultrasound could be a potential game changer, but I'll still keep my hopes low. Here's some information about a drug called Verubecestat. The second link unfortunately requires an account to be able to read it.

"The Phase 1 trial, reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine, recruited just 32 patients and was chiefly concerned with dosage and safety. However the trial showed that amyloid was reduced nearly entirely in some cases, and the effect increased with higher doses."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sc...

"In their article, Michael Egan, MD, of Merck Research Laboratories, and colleagues note that despite a 'near-maximal' reduction in amyloid-beta (A) in cerebrospinal fluid and a 'modest' reduction in brain amyloid load after 78 weeks of treatment with verubecestat, the drug was not effective in slowing the clinical progression of mild to moderate AD.
'This suggests that once dementia is present, disease progression may be independent of A production or, alternatively, that the amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease may not be correct,' they offer."
https://www.medscape.com/viewa...

Stop lying when lives are at stake. Medical professionals in the US are required to get the flu shots. It's not true only a small amount of them get it - 100% gets it

Sorry, but I'm not the one spreading lies. The vaccination rate among medical professionals in the US is high but well short of 100% according to this article. Furthermore when not mandated the article states that the rate drops to 45%.

In Canada it seems the rates have increased somewhat in recent years but still around half do not get vaccinated as this, very pro-flu vaccine article states. In BC making it mandatory has increased rates of vaccination to 80% but that's avoiding the point.

If the only way you can get medical professionals to have flu vaccinations is to force them to it raises very serious questions about how medically valuable this vaccination is. Trying to cast doctors as uncaring, as the Alberta article does, has not been my experience, Generally, they seem to just disagree that the shots are worth it due to the rapid-evolving, unpredictable nature of the virus. The recommendation I have always received is that when you get elderly it is worth it but for a normal, healthy adult the benefit is minimal.

I think you missed the part about Rickets. "Without enough of it, bones can become thin, brittle and misshapen, causing a condition called rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults" Rickets in children has been and continues to be a problem, especially amongst the poor in America. When you see very bowlegged or bandy legged children, most likely you are seeing children who suffer from rickets. http://articles.latimes.com/20... https://www.medscape.com/viewa... https://abcnews.go.com/Health/... https://www.webmd.com/children...

If someone wants to take shrooms to hallucinate or "get wasted" why is that a problem for you? From what I understand, no one has ever had a medical emergency due to taking them,

That's because, just like with marijuana, there are no effects to taking shrooms. Nonewhatsoever. No one has ever had an adverse medical reaction to something so natural.

If someone wants to take shrooms to hallucinate or "get wasted" why is that a problem for you? From what I understand, no one has ever had a medical emergency due to taking them,

That's because, just like with marijuana, there are no effects to taking shrooms. Nonewhatsoever. No one has ever had an adverse medical reaction to something so natural.

You made a good choice to go vegan. There have been a number of studies that show positive outcomes for diabetics on vegan diets. Whether it's "no meat" or "calorie restriction" or something else, no one actually knows, but there is clear evidence that being vegan helps.

Interesting that you're now off the metformin. I've been a diabetic for 8 years, but never received any clear diagnosis of what type. The best guess from a Dr is that I have LADA. For treatment I take Lantus (long acting insulin) daily, Humalog (fast insulin) with each meal, and on top of that, I'm on the max dose of 2000mg of metformin each day. The research group attached to my endocrinologist are of the firm opinion that metformin is a "wonder drug" and that everyone should be on it, even non-diabetics. Here is an article about it.

So I'm going to keep taking the metformin in the hope that it improves my health beyond the negative effects of the diabetes.

As for diabetes management. Without a doubt, diet and exercise is the place to start. Be active. Don't drink. Don't smoke. Be on the best diet (vegan if you want to, but at the very least: whole foods, reduced carbs, somewhat calorie restricted from time to time) you can, and then take the bare minimum of medication (insulin or otherwise) to keep your blood sugars at the recommended levels.

Unfortunately, even with all of that, us diabetics have our life expectancy shortened by 10-20 years, so make the most of what you have, while you can. Good luck!

"...you get Alzheimer's. If you use artificial sweetener you get dementia. Either way you're fucked."

Just get Stevia, it's not sugar and also not artificial. Sweet.

The nice thing about Truvia is it comes with erythritol. I don't mind the taste of Splenda but it contains maltodextrin and dextrose (so you can measure it), which is still sugar the bacteria in my mouth can metabolize. Erythritol has been shown to be more effective than xylitol.

And the less aggressive approach is taking Proscar, which is basically being chemically neutered. Not much fun, either.

Someone in the know told me that it's not a matter of if you'll get prostate cancer, but how bad you'll get it.

One of the interesting issues of civilization is that men get a hellava lot less sex than they used to in days of yore. After marriage and children, the nookie time drops way off. Now with a lot of evidence that the more use of old Willie the better, http://www.medscape.com/viewar... it doesn't jibe with modern society.

From the sound of it, it seems to be an economical factor brought on by government. I believe I read something similar to this in the UK medical field and US medical field as well.

There seems to be a very fine balance between regulations that help and ones that actually destroy.

Next on your reading list.

First, there have been no reported deaths from this infection as per the article, so how exactly is this deadly? Dangerous, potentially deadly? So, please, lets title these articles responsibly. The remainder of this post is not meant to bash the parent, just to define terms and clarify concepts. My opinion is at the end.

Not a doctor, but there is only a little overlap between antibiotics and antifungal medications.

The term antibiotic covers both anti-bacterial agents (e.g. penicillin) used against bacteria, and anti-fungals (e.g. fluconaole/Diflucan), and technically, they also refer to anti-virals (e.g. aciclovir), but in the most common use, antibiotics refer to antibacterials, and never to antivirals. There are no medications that treat both bacteria (prokaryotes [no nucleus]), fungus (eukaryotes [true nucleus]) simultaneously; yes, bleach (sodium hypochlorite) can destroy both, but internal use is discouraged [and as referenced in the wikipedia article, your body's neutrophils (a type of white blood cell - cells that fight infection) uses hypochlorous acid as an antimicrobial . So.....yes and no. [sorry that kept getting longer and longer]

This stuff is resistant to Diflucan (I'm not trying to spell the generic name correctly right now),

Flu con a zole - that's not too hard....Talimogene Laherparepvec...that's hard. :-)

which is often handed out with much less oversight than antibiotics.

Ummm, no. You can get pretty powerful topical antibiotics and topical antifungals over the counter. Fluconazole is an oral antifungal that still requires a prescription (at least in the US and other "responsible" countries).

Any bio-female could probably get a few doses for a yeast infection without seeing their doctor; calling in and asking is all most require since it is a common ailment.

It is a common ailment, but it is also a true infection that can be cultured and proven, and usually requires treatment. (I don't want you to poo-poo this aliment :-), pretty miserably for those afflicted), and unless there is a well established relationship between physician and patient, an exam is required (and strongly encouraged to rule out other more dangerous diagnoses).

The problem is that many primary care doctors have been told that C. albicans (the common human strain) can not become resistant. I was told the same, only to be corrected by a very indignant Tropical and Infectious Disease specialist who had seen that first line drug become useless in a few cases.

I see fluconazole resistant candida albicans frequently (reported 7% resistance rate), but I work at a tertiary care referral center, so YMMV. Never been under the illusion that it could not become resistant. Every organism (meaning microbial species) given enough time and opportunity can become resistant to just about anything.....The only thing that microbial organisms will never become resistant to is fire, well heat anyways (shout out to the the post below).

But this doesn't mean we need to panic and shut down Madagascar. There are other classes of drugs, like the old standby nystatin, and other families of antifungal medications in the larger azole drug category. This should be treatable if caught early. The danger is that drugs like nystatin can not be absorbed so

I've been told this is exactly how a baby is delivered by a woman.

These people were laughing at you when telling you that. Kidney stones and babies don't come out by the same hole.

Female Reproductive Organ Anatomy:
http://emedicine.medscape.com/...

tar baby.

Not even close.

400k a year for a specialist is easy,

The data doesn't back that up:

http://www.medscape.com/featur...

https://www.theatlantic.com/he...

https://blog.doximity.com/arti...

Single payer in Canada costs about half as much than multiple payer healthcare in the US, while yielding better overall outcomes.

That is a lie.

The only way it's better is that everything is free. The way that it sucks is that everything being free means you have big delays in getting something, if you can get it at all...

It should be noted that the rich love single payer systems, because it makes them feel good. They don't ever have to use it, they fly to countries to pay for quality healthcare with no limits like the plebes face.

Single payer healthcare systems are in the process of collapsing across the world, it would be best if America remains an example of a working healthcare system to which all other countries can return once the systems are completely dysfunctional.

According to the following studies, darker skin colors are are significantly associated with poorer vitamin D status and whites are 30% more likely than blacks and 50% more likely than Hispanics to be identified with Autism. These trends do not seem to support the hypothesis that vitamin D deficiency is a primary cause of Autism. http://www.medscape.com/viewar... http://www.aappublications.org...

Medical liability cases are increasing around the world, and the cost of insurance is driving many people from the profession. (See articles)
My wife wanted to give birth at home, it was both very difficult to organise and extremely costly.
All her friends said she was mad; plan the date with your Dr. for a C-section, fast, painless and no stress waiting for contractions to start.
It's as much a matter of convenience for both sides as a question of baby size IMHO.

http://www.medscape.com/viewar...

http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

Take this case: Trump can simply direct the FCC not to enforce net neutrality, the same way Obama directed the DEA not to enforce federal marijuana laws in states that chose to legalize.

I am so tired of Obama's lies being regurgitated as truth. I can only imagine what the next four years are going to be like from the other side.

And, in case you're wondering, the DEA has been merrily harassing legal marijuana growers even after Obama pretended to tell them to do otherwise. He's the executive. All he had to do was say "You *will* quit enforcing federal marijuana laws in states where it is legal or you will be fired and possibly prosecuted under federal statute (honest services fraud would fit)" and then followed it up. There are plenty of news stories so it wasn't like nobody knew who the agents and offices were that did it. But he did nothing about it.

And in case you're too lazy to use Google:

https://cannabisnow.com/breaki...

The Republican congress actually cut the DEA's funding and told them they could no longer raid dispensaries in states where marijuana is legal (note: the Republican congress did this as a matter of law, the President signed the law that they wrote):

http://www.medscape.com/viewar...

That was two years ago. The article I linked to above is earlier this year. That means that the agents who raided the place may have directly broke federal law.

The medscape article repeats the lie that "Before this law, the Justice Department could shut down dispensaries that states legally opened, although under the Obama Administration the department had kept its distance."

Took some digging, but here is the original study (paywalled).

Contrary to the click-baity Telegraph article linked, the brains were not shrinking -- there was a correlation between the most strongly linked genes to Alzheimer's and relatively smaller/thinner areas of the brain associated with things like memory and executive function. There was also a correlation between these thin areas and reduced ability of the tested children.

If reproducible, this result would be absolutely shocking. Our current understanding is that the genes in questions (APOE 4) are not even associated with early-onset Alzheimer's, only late-onset, and even then the association is so weak that screening is unjustifiable.

Drug abuse deaths have more than doubled in the last decade. They've now passed car accidents as the leading cause of accidental death. This is probably the biggest scourge in the U.S. this century, and most people are clueless it's even happening because the media isn't reporting it.

Yesterday there was a murder-suicide at UCLA which left two people dead and ended with no further incident, and a concert where 2 people died and an additional 57 were hospitalized after apparent drug overdoses. By any objective measure, the second is the bigger story. But the first made national news and was the biggest headline of the day. The second was only local news, with Fox the only national news outlet carrying the story according to Google News. Because a disproportionate number of people in the media think "guns bad, drugs good," and promote the gun death stories while suppressing the drug death stories.

That's been a little bit more difficult lately.

For instance, Myriad has had its patent cancelled on the BRCA1 / BRCA2 mutation test it had developed with such data:

Another Defeat for Myriad in BRCA Gene Patent War

Thyroid cancer is one of those things that is incredibly easy to overdiagnose. Apparently about a third of people have "microtumors" in their thyroid, but only about 1 in 200,000 people die from thyroid cancer. Here's one article that talks about the problem of overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer.

That is not even close to be true. The number of autopsies in the western world dwindled since the '70s. Here an article about autopsies in the Canton Ticino (Switzerland, not a poor country by any means): 304 autopsies in 1977, 144 in 2007. The same trend is present in all the other University and Cantonal hospitals of Switzerland. According to this site in the United States before 1970, autopsies were performed in 40% to 60% of all cases involving hospital deaths, while in recent years, that number has decreased to approximately 5%.

So it is very likely that cancer cases can go unnoticed and that official statistics are based on an undersampled number of cases. This is quite evident in the case of Chernobyl, where the survival rate is exceptionally high, even though Belarusian and Ukrainian health systems are in a dire state since the '90s.

You've got is backwards: frequent ejaculation reduces risk of prostate cancer.

Daily statin use significantly increases cataract risk:

http://www.medscape.com/viewar...

Really? Where? Just because canned food is "processed" it does not make it bad for you.

There are countless studies out there regarding the health effects of processed foods. Twenty seconds on Google should answer your question.

And i have never seen a study to support this assertion in any way or form.

Then you haven't looked. You might want to actually study the issue before discussing.

After all bread is processed foods!

[facepalm]

Here's one citation:

Acetaminophen Ineffective for Back Pain, Knee/Hip OA
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/842430

There are apparently "responders" and "non-responders". For non-responders, the risk of acetaminophen outweighs the benefits (actually, the absence of benefits).

It seems exercise, in an actual trial, worked as good (or better) than a stent:

November 16, 2011 (Orlando, Florida) — Adding a supervised exercise program to optimal medical care can improve walking performance better than performing stent revascularization in patients with symptomatic aortoiliac peripheral artery disease (PAD), a small randomized trial suggests [1].

So...why would we do stents if exercise works as good or even better?

"It's also notable that, at least in North America, stent procedures are reimbursed, [and] supervised exercise is not," Hirsch noted.

http://www.medscape.com/viewar...

We've been using this stuff for 10 years already in the military. You can buy it on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001BCNTHC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

NOT the same thing, however in your defense the article does not make this distinction very clear without already knowing the definitions.. Quick clot and related technologies are for "compressible wounds" that are bleeding to the outside. If you can see the source of bleeding, you can usually compress it. TFA references "Non-compressible bleeding". These are typically truncal wounds that require an operation to fix.

This product is more in line to what TFA is referring to: and this product already exists. I know it has been tested on animal models, and I believe is close to, or in human testing. As a side note, this was developed by a trauma surgeon, not a chemist, so I'll give the nod to David King as he has already take into account several aspects of the foam that TFA authors probably have yet to discover along with being much farther ahead in the testing.

For those who didn't follow the links, the bleeding around organs is far from incompressible. In the OR we frequently compress organs or their blood supply to stop bleeding (liver and spleen being _very_ common), (the problem is that they are incompressible from the outside, hence the thought of using a biocompatable foam internally). The problem with internal foam (as anticipated by DK) is that while this pressure may do a good job of stopping the hemorrhage, it may cause too much pressure resulting in abdominal compartment syndrome. There are literally dozen of issues like this that are related to the foam and the consequences of its use, just stopping the bleeding is not enough, you have to deliver a viable patient to definitive care.

Agreed. It's mostly bullshit reporting too. 65% of cancers are not caused by "bad luck". They are caused by yet unknown reasons. Unknown reasons is not "bad luck". Bad luck is getting hit by a meteor.

http://www.medscape.com/viewar...

In the United States, 1 in 3 cancer deaths is related to obesity, poor nutrition, or physical inactivity, and the problem will only increase as more countries and regions adopt the diet and lifestyles of more economically developed economies.

Nearly 20% of the world's adult population smokes, and worldwide tobacco is killing around 6 million people each year from a variety of smoking-related diseases, the report estimates.

Precise figures are given for the year 2000, when 4.38 million premature deaths globally were attributed to smoking, with causes listed as cardiovascular disease

Still under-recognized, and not acted on, is the association between drinking alcohol and cancer.

The IACR has labeled alcoholic beverages as "carcinogenic to humans" (and placed them in group 1, alongside ultraviolet light and chronic infection with hepatitis B). This classification was first made in 1988, and then confirmed in 2007 and 2010.

http://www.livestrong.com/arti...

33% is from obesity, and inactivity. 20% of the population is succeptible to smoking related cancers. In the US that is 60m people and 200k got cancer from it. And 1.6m total cancers a year. So, 12% of all cancers are tobacco.

http://seer.cancer.gov/statfac...

So, WTF? 100% - 33% - 12% = 55% remaining

so *how* do you even get to 65% with just tobacco and obesity/inactivity accounting for 55% already? We haven't even accounted for external chemical factors like record usage of RoundUp alone, never mind the rest of the crap.

Where does diabetes fall on the cost-effectiveness spectrum? Testing isn't expensive (sometimes you just need a scale), and complications from untreated diabetes can be extremely costly (and go up if you include disability costs).

A quick bit of googling turned up this article: Preventive Efforts in Type 2 Diabetes Are Cost Effective.

The deal is if you are (say) an Rh positive fetus in an Rh negative mom who was previously exposed to another fetus's D antigens (and D is often the culprit) you can get your blood cells nailed by mom's previously-formed anti-D antibodies. You get anemia, jaundice as well, and the potential various bad side effects therefrom (heart damage, brain damage, swelling all over[may not be safe for work]). Similar havoc ensues with anti-K. Preventive therapy with RhoGAM is available to prevent anti-D disease; it's a soup of anti-D antibodies that scavenge any fetal Rh-D positive blood cells that happen to find their way into mom's circulation. It's produced from pooled human blood plasma, though even most Jehovah's Witnesses (since a 1974 church opinion) and Jews (because there's an escape hatch in kashrut for saving human life) find it acceptable for treatment in order to prevent this fairly terrifying surprise G-d had in store for a few unlucky babies.

Probiotics are only effective to prevent C diff. Useless once you have it, except maybe to prevent recurrence. Once you have C diff, it is imperative to get treatment, either fecal transfer (either as a pill or via colonoscopic instillation; enemas or nasoduodenal routes are less effective) or go on to a special antibiotic regiment.

The problem is that C diff has become to common that it is starting to become resistant to the typical treatment (metronidazole or oral vancomycin). This is starting to become dangerous, because unchecked C diff can be lethal (I have seen people die from this) or result in the removal of the entire colon - if your surgeon can get to you in time.

And before you DIYer get any ideas....this is not something to mess around with. It's kinda like packing your own parachute, you better know what the hell you're doing cause you probably only have one shot at this.

You might find this article which claims otherwise, interesting:

"No Amount of Alcohol Is Safe" http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/824237

I would like to check it out, but it wants me to login. Can I see the article some other way?

You might find this article which claims otherwise, interesting:

"No Amount of Alcohol Is Safe"
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/824237

You have obviously never done any research in this area. Start here. Then go here. Also I put a good bit of information (complete with some more links of Ted.com talks) in this post

If you're still not convinced, go get you a good couple of doses of a strong series of antibiotics, see if you have any experience that resembles mine. After that you're on your own.

And to any medical doctors out there, you should inform your patients when you give them strong antibiotics about the concerns of stomach flora. Let them know that eating raw fruit, yogurt (kefir is better) and taking probiotics after completing their antibiotics is a wonderful idea.

Good, this indicates that doctors and people who think they should take antibiotics like vitamins haven't completely screwed up our natural immunities and that most of the world still fights off this infections even though drugs no longer work on them.

The problem with Staph Aureus is that it's omnipresent in the respiratory tract and skin. It seems to have spent a long time evolving with immune systems, because it has two lines of defense (producing catalase and carrotenoids) which neutralise two of the chemicals that white blood cells use to break down foriegn bodies (superoxide and singlet oxygen). Additionally the protein A in the cell wall confuses the shit out of white blood cells, making them difficult to detect.

Add that to producing some really nasty toxins, and that's why a Staph Aureus bacteremia, even MSSA has about a 30% kill rate, even if you're in a modern hospital.

So it would be nice to have some antibiotics to fall back on, at least in the case of golden staph.

Can we please get back to the point where we take antibiotics when we're in need of them, not just because we might have an infection or have a mild infection?

Your favourite ID doctor, and mine, posted about this today. He has a solution:

The solution? We do not want to make antibiotics more toxic to the patient, so I suggest that every time there is an order for Zosyn and vancomycin (or whatever your decerebrate choice is at your institution) the ordering physician receives a short, painful shock from the keyboard. If you really think the patient needs the antibiotics you will take the shock. That would likely solve a lot of issues with inappropriate antibiotic use and be simpler than a stewardship program.

Although in this case the problem is prophylactic antibiotics given to livestock.

Oh, I'd be happy to point you in the right direction if I could. But this was 13 years ago. All I read were excerpts and summaries from dozens of old medical journals in half a dozen countries. I was the engineer, not the guy searching old archives, so didn't pay any attention to where the stuff was published. Heck, I've searched for information since, and can barely find anything useful. The only thing I found even related was through a link in Wikipedia: http://www.medscape.com/medlin...

Scattered in the old literature were about 100 reports of different forms of lavaging bowel to affect blood chemistry. Sometimes it was serious research on one or two patients. Sometimes it was accidental. In one case, a guy drank 4 gallons of colon cleanser each day and managed to stay alive. Most patients were extremely sick and didn't do well, but improved vs no treatment. We used some surgery to greatly improve outcome and potential quality of life. A breakthrough we couldn't make a dime from.

And unfortunately, the non-profit research hospital we donated it to did not publish the research (they were a consultant to the company for the work, so could have easily published). It was animal research, but still relevant.

I'm guessing you've never been out of the US then, otherwise you'd know that the vast majority of "AB resistant diseases" are mainly from the 3rd world, or developing countries where people simply stop taking it.

With that, you were attempting to dismiss the GP's assertion that "the US have one of the highest rates of antibiotics (ab)use." He's actually correct, and you've missed the mark with your reply. Please reference my other reply on this subject.

The problem with hospitals is it being such a sterile environment, it makes a prefect breeding ground for aggressive strains when there are no other bacteria or virii to keep them in check.

Hospitals are anything but sterile environments, but the reasons for cross infection can be complex. Please review the following resources:

• Hospital-acquired infection - United States
• HAI Prevalence Survey
• Hospital-Acquired Infections - Frequency

Where are you getting your information?

fMRI looks at what regions of the brain are active (by looking at which the rate at which different regions consume oxygen) and has been used to communicate with patients that can not otherwise communicate. First the patient is told to imagine two different activities (one at a time) like walking through a house and playing tennis. The pattern of brain activation is different for each thing but consistent between trials. Then, you can ask questions like "imagine playing tennis if X or walking through the house if not X" The results have been widely replicated. It has been widely used in MCS (minimally conscious state) but no reason it should not work in locked in patients. You can google it and find lots of article. Here are a couple. http://www.medscape.com/viewar... http://www.safar.pitt.edu/arch...

They also cause impotence due to extra pressure on the perineum from the skinny seat and bent over posture. It's much better from your manly bits to be in an upright position. Much less pressure on the nerves and blood vessels supplying those vital areas.

I never liked the old "ten speed" or racing bikes. Maybe it's because I'm older now, but I'm much happier on a "comfort" or "cruiser" bike. It's easier on my carpal tunnel wrists as well.

I've been diagnosed Type 1 Brugada's Syndrome (http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/163751-overview , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brugada_syndrome ). In my case, the trigger is a high fever, which was brought on by the flu.

I don't have much sympathy for the rest of the world if I get sick and become feverish. I'll take my aspirin and avoid cardiac arrest, thank you very much. Selfish, maybe. I'm not quite ready to find out what's on the other side of that line.

Those poor folk that have the spontaneously triggered type of Brugada's have my sympathy instead. Just dropping dead spontaneously isn't my preferred way to go.

Yes, the ancient Greeks, etc etc. I'm referring to a time, centuries *later* when the Catholic church burned people at the stake for it. Sometimes knowledge is lost, regained, suppressed, ignored. Round Earth was not by any means common knowledge for large stretches of human history.

(and I doubt your statement about citrus fruits is accurate),

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/125350-overview

The relevant story is under the header "Woodall and Lind". It took 170 years for the Royal Navy to adopt what the East India Company knew. That's the short of it; you can Google more if you wish.

> its like the idiots who think the supermarkets are tracking them personally with the loyalty cards. stores want aggregate data and
> purchase bundles to do loss leader promotions. they really couldn't care what you buy personally

Agreed, the supermarkets are interested in aggregate data. But they also keep the individual purchase data. This came out recently in a food poisoning case where the authorities used loyalty card data to narrow down what food was contaminated and the source (Medscape.com).

Just because aggregate data is the current stated goal, new data uses could easily appear. Then what?

I remain a bit puzzled why patents are blamed in the paper for the system not working instead of the approval processes. For new drugs, it can take tens to hundreds of millions of dollars per potential use of a potential drug in order to pass government hurdles in the developed world. And there's a lot of risk that the drug won't work as expected. That's a lot of disincentive to research new pharmaceuticals or other medical technology.

2. What can we do? Is it possible to safely eliminate just this one bacteria via a vaccine or antibiotic?

You do not want to encourage antibiotic resistance in this genus!

Link

Slippery slope.

It's okay to kill humans under certain circumstances (self-defense &c.).

  - a fetus doesn't have a beating heart until almost halfway through the first trimester (5th week --- http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/prenatal-care/PR00112 )

  - an amputation doesn't result in the death of a person, and no portion of a person likely to be amputated is likely to develop into a person.

  - Cancerous tumors have no reasonable possibility to create a living person.

  - ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny --- a fetus doesn't have a recognizable, human face until well after the 8th week ( http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/844962-overview )

  - ``A fetus responds to the human voice'' --- not until ~16 weeks

The problems w/ outlawing abortion are that enforcement of it requires an invasion of a woman's privacy which is problematic:

  - can't allow pregnant women to travel to anywhere abortion is legal (unless on effects a world-wide ban)
  - every mis-carriage / still-birth must be investigated as a potential murder
  - rape becomes an effective method for a man to procreate

For my part, I'd rather that all the effort which goes into anti-abortion to instead be put into caring for un-wanted children and single mothers. Once we've ensured that every woman who wishes to be pregnant is effectively cared for, then one might be able to justify doing something _to_ women who don't wish to be pregnant.

William

Consider the feedback loop. In response to our actions, the flu itself will change.

We're already seeing how microbes are developing resistance to antibiotics, and how germs acquired during healthcare are more virulent than those out there in the wild.

Do we want to incentivize the flu to mutate into something more vicious and fast-acting?

Sometimes, mother nature represents a balance between extremes. Somewhere between no-flu and a flu that resembles airborne superfast Ebola is the current balance.

I am not saying we should not explore this technology, but with our current record, we should move cautiously.

LMGTFY Judaism and Islamic religions have strictures about keeping the body intact, which some sects take to mean autopsies are forbidden.

There's an episode of House where this is nicely demonstrated by House and Wilson trying to figure out if Cuddy's daughter has swallowed a coin. On ultrasound it might be a dime, or it may just be an air bubble.

While I've heard that some House episodes are very educational, I can tell you that that House episode was just another medical TV show keeping the public sufficiently ignorant of medicine to ensure that we'll always need health professionals. What the HELL were they doing getting an US!?! I work in an emergency department and anyone with eyes can tell the difference between a foreign body and an air bubble on an X-ray. To my knowledge US is never used to evaluate for foreign body.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_body_in_alimentary_tract

GI tract example: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/776566-overview - Is it a nail, or an air bubble???

However, just because US aren't useful for evaluating foreign bodies it doesn't mean that the technology isn't extremely promising for other factors of disease or (in the case of the article) complications with pregnancy. Can you imagine if these were widely available how easy it would be for a soon-to-be mother to learn the basics on what to look for to prevent a serious complication? Think about how many books and media a pregnant mother reads and intakes to educate themselves on pregnancy to ensure they have a healthy 9 months? If a 3-hour class was offered to mothers about how to look for an US complication and a hand-held US machine was loaned to them for their pregnancy, I'm confident that nearly all would jump at the opportunity. It wouldn't be training them to diagnose themselves or their babies with any disease it would be like, "If you see your baby's umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and you feel funny, then you should probably come see the OB/GYN immediately." That's something you could teach in a 3-hour class.