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Posted December 26, 2003:
►December 26, 2003 - Mad Cow Scare Lingers in England - Early Missteps Contributed to Public Mistrust of Government and Science - Washington Post
►December 26, 2003 - Sugar Drink Helpful for Genetic Disease - Ivanhoe via www.healthcentral.com
►December 26, 2003 - Nicotine Vaccine - Ivanhoe via www.healthcentral.com
►December 24, 2003 - New understanding of why brain cells die after stroke will lead to development of new treatments - University of Toronto via www.eurekalert.org
►December 26, 2003 - Death Rate for Salmonella Strain Is Lower - AP via The Herald-Sun
►December 26, 2003 - R.I. Hospital to Resume Stomach Procedure - AP via The Herald-Sun
►December 26, 2003 - Flu 'widespread' in all but 5 states, CDC reports - AP via www.sunspot.net
►December 23, 2003 - Many believe flu shots unnecessary - Capitol Hill Blue - "Health officials are looking for ways to build public interest in the flu vaccine so more doses will be available in future years, Dr. William Schaffner of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases said."
Comment: Huh? Create more demand in order to decrease shortages? Probably the only reason there wasn't enough flu vaccine this year was because hysteria was created about the flu and availability of the flu vaccine. Had this hysteria not been created, there would have been (more than) enough vaccine for everyone who wanted it. It sure seems as if this entire exercise is mostly a (somewhat) disguised attempt to sell more vaccines and at the same time try to ensure there will be no excess supply (although were they to increase demand, there is no reason to assume that the increased demand would necessarily be any more predictable than it is now).
►December 23, 2003 - Study: Stress weakens resistance to illnesses - The Washington Post via The Seattle Times - "Scientists are gaining new insights into the role of temperament in making some people vulnerable to physical disease through studies exploring how stress influences the immune system, weakening disease-fighting cells and creating fertile environments for pathogens...This month, a carefully done study showed that shy men have much less resistance to the AIDS virus than extroverted men and benefit far less from treatment with antiretroviral drugs. It is the first study to demonstrate through laboratory tests a connection between being introverted and the course of AIDS in individuals, researchers said."
►December 23, 2003 - Caution: All those warnings can be a downer - Toledo Blade - "But then, on the other hand, maybe there should be a warning sign on warning signs: CAUTION: Reading too many warning signs could be detrimental to your mental health and could turn you into a risk-averse, humorless curmudgeon."
►November 2003 - Visualizing How One Brain Understands Another: A PET Study of Theory of Mind - The American Journal of Psychiatry via http://mentalhelp.net - "Objective: Theory of mind (TOM), or 'mentalizing,' refers to the the ability to attribute mental states to self and others. Inferring what people are thinking and feeling is an important aspect of human social interaction, and it is also an important aspect of both psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. The authors conducted a positron emission tomography (PET) study to examine the neural substrates of TOM, using a task that mimics real-life social interaction."
►December 24, 2003 - French doctors face manslaughter charges - The Guardian, UK - "Six top staff, including two surgeons, at one of Paris's leading public hospitals are facing manslaughter charges over the death of a patient who contracted gangrene after undergoing surgery...The case, in which, coincidentally, the deceased had been the hospital's chemist overseeing internal hygiene, has come amid a mounting crisis in France's public health system. Hailed in Britain as a model for the NHS, the French service has been criticised at home for poor hygiene after reports that 10,000 patients a year died from infections contracted in the country's 1,500 state medical institutions."
►December 23, 2003 - Many Americans at High Risk from the Flu Have Not Gotten Vaccinated This Season - One in 10 Americans Report Difficulty Involving Shortages - Harvard School of Public Health
►December 22, 2003 - Environmental Working Group Files Legal Challenge to FDA Mercury Health Advisory - Group Seeks Tougher, Scientifically Sound Protections for America's Children - Environmental Working Group - "The Environmental Working Group (EWG) today filed a legal challenge seeking to block the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from issuing a weak proposed health advisory for mercury in seafood. New analyses contained within the filing show that FDA's advice fails to meet the standards for accuracy and scientific integrity of the Data Quality Act (The Act), a law passed in 2000. The Act requires all influential statements by the federal government to be accurate, reproducible, clear and based on the best peer-reviewed science. The FDA's proposed mercury health advisory meets none of these criteria."
►December 26, 2003 - Pentagon: Anthrax shots suspended - Stars and Stripes - "Such was the confusion earlier this week among the Pentagon’s leadership that Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, stood behind the Pentagon’s lectern Tuesday afternoon and refused to say whether the department planned to obey the judge’s order."
►December 26, 2003 - In Medical Mystery, A Hint of Smallpox - Washington Post - "
Librarian Susanne Caro was leafing through an 1888 book on Civil War medicine when she spied a small, yellowed envelope tucked between the pages. Freeing it, she read the inscription 'scabs from vaccination of W.B. Yarrington's children' in the corner, with the signature 'Dr. W.D. Kelly,' the book's author...Researchers believe the scabs found in March are either from smallpox vaccine patients or from victims, whose scabs were used in an early inoculation procedure. At the very least, inoculation scabs would shed light on the historic development of American vaccines for smallpox, which though eradicated a generation ago has returned to public consciousness as a potentially devastating weapon for bioterrorists."►2003 - How to avoid dangerous diseases during pregnancy. - Smallpox - American Baby - "If you're pregnant, you're at a greater risk for serious side effects from the smallpox vaccine and shouldn't receive it. Also if you're breastfeeding, you should avoid getting it; the vaccine could be passed on to the baby.The vaccine would only be advisable for pregnant or nursing women as a method of treatment if they were exposed to the smallpox virus. Other people who should not get the vaccine include those who suffer from eczema or other allergic rashes (even if it's mild or was just a childhood condition) and those with weakened immunity (e.g., due to treatment for cancer or being HIV-positive)."
►December 26, 2003 - Researchers intrigued by century-old smallpox scabs - AP via www.kobtv.com - "Government health researchers are going to conduct tests on the contents of a yellowed envelope found in a New Mexico library...The envelope is apparently filled with scabs from 19th-century smallpox vaccinations."
►December 23, 2003 - China Says to Punish Any AIDS Coverup - Reuters Health via Yahoo! - "China warned against any new AIDS (news - web sites) cover up Wednesday, a day after telling health workers they will be punished if they fail to report new SARS (news - web sites) cases...The official China Daily highlighted a meeting between Vice-Premier Wu Yi with HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS patients in Henan province, where blood-selling schemes led to mass infections in some villages, in which she vowed to punish anyone trying to conceal the disease."
►December 23, 2003 - Mad Cow Quotes - AP via Yahoo!
►December 24, 2003 - Mold in Schools Raises Fears of Illness: Unusually Wet Spring, Summer Fed an Ongoing Problem in Several Suburbs - Washington Post
►December 26, 2003 - Scientists Begin Measuring Pollution in Human Bodies - www.newsmax.com - "Davis Baltz shops for organic food and otherwise tries to live as healthy as he can. So he was shocked to learn that the pollutants collecting inside his body sounded much like a Superfund cleanup site: pesticides, flame retardants and other nasty, man-made chemicals turned up in a recent test...''What that told me is that no matter what I tried to do, the plumes of chemicals that we are passing in and out of everyday give us exposure,' said Baltz, who works for Commonweal, an environmental group in Bolinas."
►December 23, 2004 - Taming SARS: What Worked, What Didn't - Quarantines, certain drugs helped to contain 1st outbreak of the disease - HealthDayNews via http://drkoop.com
►December 24, 2003 - Newly Approved Therapy Successfully Targets Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma - University Of Michigan Health System via ScienceDaily
►December 24, 2003 - Research Team Uncovers New Compound In Human Stomach - University Of Missouri-Columbia via ScienceDaily - "
Farmers use ammonium nitrate as a crop fertilizer and plants produce it to use as an energy source in the absence of light. The problem, according to a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher, is that nitrate could be responsible for starting a chain of events in the body that leads to the formation of cancer causing agents."►December 24, 2003 - 'Mad cow' mechanism may be integral to storing memory - Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research via www.eurekalert.org - "Scientists have discovered a new process for how memories might be stored, a finding that could help explain one of the least-understood activities of the brain. What's more, the key player in this process is a protein that acts just like a prion – a class of proteins that includes the deadly agents involved in neurodegenerative conditions such as mad cow disease...The study, published as two papers in the Dec. 26 issue of the journal Cell, suggests that this protein does its good work while in a prion state, contradicting a widely held belief that a protein that has prion activity is toxic or at least doesn't function properly."
►December 21, 2003 - Mercury is rising - Power plant emissions are fouling area's waters - The Standard Times via www.southcoasttoday.com
►December 23, 2003 - Smallpox Concerns Fading Away? - UPI via The Washington Times - "
Although the nation's terror threat level recently was raised to high, Americans appear to have become unconcerned about the possibility of attacks involving biological weapons, including individuals who only a year ago were clamoring for health officials to make vaccines and medications available to the general public...Even smallpox -- one of the deadliest diseases known to man and one of the most likely to be used in a bioterror attack -- no longer seems to instill the fear it did shortly after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001."►December 23, 2003 - Heeding Court Order, Pentagon Halts Anthrax Shots - Reuters via http://wireservice.wired.com
►December 24, 2003 - Air Products Makes Strategic Investment in Sterilox Technologies - PRNewswire/First Call/ via Yahoo!
►December 21, 2003 - Tort reform proponents, foes ready for battle in coming session (requires registration) - The Post and Courier - "A typical day for Lily includes basic physical therapy, learning to hold her head up, grasp and follow objects with her eyes. She doesn't walk, talk or speak, and her parents don't know that she ever will. They say her 10 or so epileptic seizures every day just make her cry...Lily was left severely mentally handicapped at birth...In a lawsuit they filed... they were able to win a sizable settlement...'It lets us pay for Lily's extensive treatment and a lot of the little things that have helped make life a little easier for us,' said Tony Zionkowski."
►December 24, 2003 - Results of AP-Ipsos Poll on the Flu - AP via News day
Comment: Although the percentage getting the flu vaccine (or not) and getting the flu (or not) was reported, the "crosstab" showing how many of those vaccinated (or not) who got the flu (or not) was not reported. Why not?
Here is what we know:
Got the flu 9% Did not get the flu 91%
Got the flu vaccine 35% Did not get the flu vaccine 65%
Here is what we don't know, but should know (in red), where x is the number:
| Flu vaccine | No flu vaccine | Total | |
| Got the flu | x/% | x/% | x/9% |
| Did not get the flu | x/% | x/% | x/91% |
| Total | x/35% | x/65% | x/100% |
►December 15, 2003 - Antibiotic may treat Alzheimer's disease - The Chicago Tribune via www.kanasa.com
Breaking News Archives - from December 1, 2003 (check here for breaking news you might have missed and breaking news that didn't ever hit the "front page")
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