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Posts Tagged ‘health’

How to die from cancer

Does it sound trite to say that ‘cancer’ is a word and not a sentence? A Samaritan friend uses it. It works. It helps. Jack Thomas, a journalist at the Boston Globe since 1958 responds to his cancer diagnosis:

As the saying goes, fate has dealt me one from the bottom of the deck, and I am now condemned to confront the question that has plagued me for years: How does a person spend what he knows are his final months of life?

Atop the list of things I’ll miss are the smiles and hugs every morning from my beautiful wife, Geraldine, the greatest blessing of my life. I hate the notion of an eternity without hearing laughter from my three children. And what about my 40 rose bushes? Who will nurture them? I cannot imagine an afterlife without the red of my America roses or the aroma of my yellow Julia Childs.

We told each of the three children individually. John Patrick put his face in his hands, racked with sobs. After hanging up the telephone, Jennifer doubled over and wept until her dog, Rosie, approached to lick away the tears but not the melancholy. Faith explained over the telephone that, if I could see her, she was weeping and wondering how she could get along without her dad. Now, she is on the Internet every day, snorkeling for new research, new strategies, new medications. My wife cries every morning, then rolls up her sleeves and handles all doctor appointments and medication. Without her… I cannot imagine.

Spotter: nextdraft

Posted: 27th, July 2021 | In: News | Comment


Amazon’s Mindful Practice Room makes working there look even worse

Amazon minul prctice room

Amazon’s workers keen to get away from it all can step inside the ZenPod, an interactive kiosk wherein they can watch videos about “mental health” and “mindfulness practices”. They should not use the head box as a toilet or bedroom, however tempting that might be.

Posted: 28th, May 2021 | In: News, Technology | Comment


Oxford-AstraZenaca : Countdown to Fear

Sorry. No Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine for you under-30s. Having been linked to extremely rare blood clots in adults, the advice is to chose a different jab, the Pfizer one, say, or Moderna vaccine. But the UK’s medicine regulator (MHRA) says the AZ vaccine is safe and the benefits of taking it outweigh the risks for the “vast majority of people”. You take it if you like. But would you? You’re never ill until you are, at which point everything changes. So try to avoid catching Covid-19, of course. One dose has made some people feel floored for a few days. Imagine what the full-blown illness is like. Get the jab.

Which one would you pick? The MHRA says under-30s with no underlying health conditions should be offered an alternative vaccine “where available”. Vague? How about this – Mr Hancock says there is “no evidence” of rare blood clots after the second dose of the vaccine. If your first was the AZ treatment, you get offered only the same supplier for the second dose.

Dr June Raine, head of the MHRA, says the link between rare blood clots and the AZ jab is “firming up”. She says more evidence is needed to establish any link.

And then things get arbitrary. Use of the AZ vaccine has been stopped in Denmark; restricted for people 60 and over in Germany, Spain and Italy; and only be given to those aged 55 or over in France. Why the differences? And don’t those differences spread uncertainty and fear?

A good time, then, for clear and concise journalism to serve information to the people. Well…

Daily Express: What Iceberg?

The Guardian : Fear the Fear.

Daily Mail: The Patriotic Thrombosis

The Times: Johnson Knows

The Sun: What Are The Odds (With A Corona Lager Chaser)

The Telegraph: Neil Astles, 59, died. He suffered 10 days of worsening headaches and loss of vision after receiving a first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

“We are still shocked at the loss of our brother… from my own perspective, I sat and watched [England’s deputy chief medical officer] Professor Van Tam yesterday on the news talking about the clot risk and the benefits to population of having the vaccine,” Neil Astles sister Alison told ITV.

“And as I sat there and watched him, it occurred to me that my family and me were in a particularly unique situation to give a very strong public health message about this.

“Because it’s not statistics to us, it’s an actual, loved human being who died.

“At the same time, I still believe that for the vast, vast majority of us the safest way forward is for people to have the vaccine, because that in the end will save the most lives.”

The i: No. That wasn’t what was said.

Such are the facts.

Posted: 8th, April 2021 | In: Broadsheets, News, Tabloids | Comment


Free hotels with full board for all British and Irish Covid-19 travellers

Jet off on your hols to one of 33 destinations on the “red list” and on your return British and Irish travellers get to stay free at an airport hotel for 10-days. The Government is block-booking rooms at hotels at airports a cost of around £85 a night – tea, coffee and three meals a day included. Hotels will be reserved exclusively for quarantining travellers.

If you want to go out, a security guard must accompany you. These pre-paid security guards will patrol inside and outside the hotel to “prevent unauthorised access”. Anyone wanting to smoke outside or get fresh air will also be escorted by security staff.

If you’re hard up and want a tip to Portugal or Dubai, two of the destinations on the “red list”, why not get a cheap flight there, stay in a cheap hotel for a few days and then on your return put your feet up in one of the Government’s new chain of free Covid-19 Hotels?

Offer begins February 15.

Posted: 5th, February 2021 | In: Money, News | Comment


A pictogram illustrating the power of vaccinations

This pictogram illustrating the power of vaccines delivers a clear message: they work. But Varicella… People still die from chicken pox and shingles?

Spotter: @melizeche

Posted: 3rd, February 2021 | In: News | Comment


Dr Fauci and the delayed Covid-19 injection that robbed Trump and left people dead

When Dr Anthony Fauci, “the top US infectious disease expert” (BBC), was rolling his eyes and smirking at Donald Tump (easy enough), he was a darling of Twitter. And then he went on Fox News and told everyone that the UK had not checked Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine “as carefully” as US health regulators, who have yet to give their jab their endorsement. He then doubled down, heading over to CBS News to say the UK had “rushed” the approval.

Dr. Anthony Fauci criticized the United Kingdom for rushing through the authorization process for a coronavirus vaccine. He told CBS News that British regulators failed to adequately scrutinize data from drug manufacturers before approving a vaccine…

“They kind of ran around the corner of the marathon and joined it in the last mile,” Fauci told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett in an interview for this week’s episode of “The Takeout” podcast. “They really rushed through that approval.”

Now Fauci says we might have misconstrued his comments. “Our process is one that takes more time than it takes in the UK. And that’s just the reality,” Fauci tells the BBC. “I did not mean to imply any sloppiness even though it came out that way.”

He misspoke? Nonsense, of course. We heard him loud and clear. He painted all the clinicians, doctors, professors and scientists who worked hard to fill the usual white space between each stage of a drugs approval process with hard work, testing and productivity as cheats. And you begin to wonder what role politics plays in Fauci’s to-camera grimaces and opinions. The BBC:

Politics may also explain why the FDA hasn’t yet given the green light. Back in October, President Trump pressured health officials to approve the first vaccine candidates before election day on 3 November but they pushed back, fearing it might become a political football.

The FDA said it wanted to see two months’ extra safety data from the final phase vaccine trials before pharmaceutical companies could apply for emergency approval.

That has inevitably left some arguing the US has got bogged down in a much more detailed review than might have been necessary.

Had Donald Trump been able to hail the vaccine before the US election in which he lost to Joe Biden, he’d have walked it. And wouldn’t faster approval have saved lives?

Posted: 4th, December 2020 | In: News, Politicians | Comment


Arsenal fail to take head injuries seriously – Arteta puts ‘the process’ over player health

David Luiz Arteta head

The good news. Wolves striker Raúl Jiménez is conscious and responding to those around him. Rushed to hospital after a clash of heads with Arsenal defender David Luiz early on in last night’s Premier League victory at Arsenal, Jiménez lay prone on the pitch for around 10 minutes. He went off. But Luiz stayed on, blood oozing through a bandage taped around his head. Madness. Stupid. Dangerous. And those are just the good points in Arsenal’s reaction to head injuries.

“David is OK,” said Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta. “He had a nasty cut and he was conscious. He had a test and was completely fine.”

So fine that Luiz was replaced by Rob Holding at half time. He was not fine. He was injured. Head injuries cannot be diagnosed in seconds, as the hapless Arteta believes. That Luiz remained on the pitch after such a sickening clash of heads shames Arsenal. It was a move born of desperation.

Arteta decided against common sense and decency in favour of sticking with what he comically calls “the process” – a “process” that has resulted in Arsenal’s worst ever start to a PL season.

“When you see the reaction of the players you know something really bad is happening,” adds Arteta. “We followed the protocol to check [Luiz] had not lost any consciousness, which he hadn’t, and then some tests. They will continue to do some more checks on him. He was really uncomfortable and couldn’t really head the ball and couldn’t continue.”

Time to take head injuries seriously. Arsenal didn’t.

Posted: 30th, November 2020 | In: Arsenal, Sports | Comment


British commuters get free doses of murderous adrenaline with every train ride – study

commuiting adrenline

According to the TUC, the total average UK commute takes up just less than an hour per day (58.4 minutes). Londoners having the longest commute (81 minutes). So does it figure that Londoners make for the better fighter pilots?

Commuting

Dr Lewis, a fellow of the International Stress Management Association who led the HP research, observed: “The difference is that a riot policeman or a combat pilot have things they can do to combat the stress that is being triggered by the event. But the commuter, particularly on a train, cannot do anything about it at all. So it is this sense of helplessness combined with the stress that is perhaps the most worrying aspect of it…

“At best it’s a dismal experience; at worst it may well have health consequences. How much harm it is doing would depend on how robust your physical system is anyhow and how high your blood pressure goes. We have measured a systolic pressure [the force blood exerts on the artery walls when the heart beats] in the region of 170-180 in some people. These have been occasions when the person we’ve been monitoring has lost their temper and had a serious row. And under those circumstances you can have a heart attack.”

Source: The Times

Posted: 6th, September 2020 | In: News | Comment


Michelle Obama’s ‘low-level depression’ is not a mental illness; Donald Trump appears unwell

Feted and minted former US First Lady Michelle Obama is worried. The BBC tunes into her podcast and hears her say: “I’m waking up in the middle of the night because I’m worrying about something or there’s a heaviness.” The older we get the less well we sleep. “These are not, they are not fulfilling times, spiritually,” says Mrs Obama. “I know that I am dealing with some form of low-grade depression.” Depression is a disease. It’s not to be confused with feeling low or blue. It comes from somewhere other, an invasion that kills your sense of reason and infects your being with a “lie of the mind”.

Rod Dreher likened his depression to walking around the house “as if I were wearing a heavy wool blanket soaked in cold water almost all the time.”

Depression kills. So why is Michelle Obama a little bit depressed? She explains: “Not just because of the quarantine, but because of the racial strife, and just seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting.”

Pathologising the Trump presidency and being woke – literally awake – might be a step beyond. And you don’t need therapy to cure yourself of Trump-phobia – you need better politics and ideas.

And if we are going to talk about mental illness, can we talk about Donald Trump? The man does not seem to be well.

Posted: 6th, August 2020 | In: Celebrities, News, Politicians | Comment


Coronavirus: Dr El-Hawrani, the NHS and the death of facts

Four newspapers lead with the death of Dr Amgad El-Hawrani, an NHS and private earth nose and throat consultant who was infected with coronavirus before he died. All newspapers call him Dr Amged El-Hawrani, even though the NHS knew him as Dr Amgad El Hawrani. This is his profile on the NHS website:

NHS doctor covid-a9

Having renamed the doctor – although a filing at companies house does give his name Amged El-Hawrani – the papers tell the story of how a talented man at the top of his field came to die at just 55 years old. The Times leads with news what he picked up an infection from a patient.

Amged El-Hawrani

So Dr El-Hawrani picked up Covid-19 virus from a patient. Fact. Well, no. It’s just a maybe. After the headline news has grabbed your eyeballs, the Times tells its readers:

A consultant ear, nose and throat specialist has become the first frontline hospital worker to die in the fight against Covid-19 after seemingly contracting the virus from his patients.

So he could have come into contact with the disease anywhere. We’re looking at likelihood not facts.

Amged El-Hawrani, 55, died on Saturday night at Leicester Royal Infirmary after testing positive for the virus and being treated on a ventilator for the past two weeks.

We do not know where Dr El-Hawrani caught Covid-19. But the story is out there that he caught it on a ward as he worked for the NHS. The headlines suggest that much. We hear an opinion:

The death of Amged El-Hawrani, 55, an ear, nose and throat specialist, marks a sad moment in Britain’s fight against coronavirus but is a familiar story in countries around the world (Kat Lay writes).

In China, Iran and Italy doctors from his specialty seem to have been particularly likely to become hospital in-patients or even die from the virus. Another ENT consultant, in Sheffield, is said to be improving after receiving critical care. The nature of ENT doctors’ work means they have to get close to patients’ faces — and coronavirus spreads through droplets from sufferers’ noses or mouths. This means that specialists are particularly likely to be exposed. Research suggests that those exposed to a higher initial “dose” of the virus are more likely to suffer a severe form of the disease.

Amged El-Hawrani

The Mirror calls Dr El-Hawrani a hero and links his death to a demand for more protective kit.

Ear, nose and throat specialist Dr El-Harwani, who died on Saturday, is understood to have contracted the virus several weeks ago.

Understood by whom? We’re not told. We do not know where the doctor caught the virus. Low down the front-page story, the Mirror concedes: “It is not known how Dr El-Hawrani contracted Covid-19.” But that fact comes after readers are told:

NHS England described Dr El-Hawrani as the first practising hospital doctor to die of the virus…

Might he have caught the disease elsewhere? Did he travel overseas recently? We’re not told.

As worrying footage of a nurse working in a coronavirus ward wearing only basic protection was passed to the Mirror, the Doctors’ Association UK said it was “deeply saddened” by Dr El-Hawrani’s death.

And it urged the Government to make a priority of “protecting the lives of the life-savers”.

The facts are thin. But that does not stop the Mirror from spreading anxiety. Aren’t things safer than they were several weeks ago when Dr El-Hawrani caught the disease now that the country is under lockdown, patients are being tested for Covid-19 and awareness is growing? It’s not ideal, of course, this is dangerous work – and medics come into contact with sick people every day of their working lives in GP surgeries and hospitals. But without facts media should be cautious about using a man’s death for any narrative purpose other than to mourn it and empathise with his family’s loss.

Amged El-Hawrani

The Guardian reports:

A 55-year-old hospital consultant has died of coronavirus, underlining the danger to frontline NHS workers.

It’s horrible news. But we do not know how Dr El-Hawrani caught the disease.

Amged El-Hawrani

Did Dr El-Hawrani take on private patients? If he did, as many consultants do, might he have contracted the coronavirus working with them and not on the “frontline” for the NHS? But the media narrative has not time to entertain that possibility:

Did he only work for the NHS? No papers mention that Dr El-Hawrani also worked in private medicine.

About Private Healthcare UK

Private Healthcare UK was established in 1996 and helps patients to find information about private medical treatment, hospitals, clinics, doctors, specialists and health insurance.

Amged El-Hawrani private NHS

And there’s BUPA – “A leading international healthcare group, we run care homes, health centres, dental centres and hospitals, offer personal and company health insurance and provide workplace health services, health assessments and chronic disease management services including health coaching.” In short: private healthcare.

Dr El-Hawrani

Such are the facts.

Posted: 30th, March 2020 | In: Key Posts, News | Comment


Coronavirus: Wash your hand with soap and water – gels, wipes and sanitisers are over-rated

Did you wash your hands with soap and water or did you buy some mix of chemicals and smear it all over them, a gel, a wipe or a hand sanitiser, perhaps? These products are ok if you can’t reach soap and water. But if you can, use them. Here chemistry professor Palli Thordarson explains why washing with soap is best at killing the virus:

The soap takes care of the virus much like it takes care of the oil in the water. “It’s almost like a crowbar; it starts to pull all the things apart,” Thordarson says.

One side of the soap molecule (the one that’s attracted to fat and repelled by water) buries its way into the virus’s fat and protein shell. Fortunately, the chemical bonds holding the virus together aren’t very strong, so this intrusion is enough to break the virus’s coat. “You pull the virus apart, you make it soluble in water, and it disintegrates,” he says.

Then the harmless shards of virus get flushed down the drain. (And even if it the soap doesn’t destroy every virus, you’ll still rid them from your hands with soap and water, as well as any grease they may be clinging to.)

Posted: 13th, March 2020 | In: The Consumer | Comment


Coronavirus and SARS: Why do new diseases come from China?

Coronavirus Wuhan china

Why did Coronavirus strain COVID-19 begin in China? Vox takes a look:

Both SARS and COVID-19 are in the “coronavirus” family, and both appear to have emerged from animals in China’s notorious wildlife markets. Experts had long predicted that these markets, known to be potential sources of disease, would enable another outbreak. The markets, and the wildlife trade that supports them, are the underlying problem of these pandemics; until China solves that problem, more are likely to emerge.

China’s wildlife-farming industry has been shut down by Chinese officials.

Posted: 11th, March 2020 | In: News | Comment


Coronavirus: how to prevent a world soap shortage

detroit soap-Dispenser

Having been told to wash out hands for 20 seconds – or as long it takes to sing Happy Birthday twice – not to touch our face (and certainly not to touch Donald Trump’s face: “I haven’t touched my face in weeks,” he said recently. “Been weeks… I miss it” – you can wonder if you’ve enough soap. Thankfully, Clean the World is a non-profit organization helps hotels to recycle used soap & other toiletries:

Posted: 6th, March 2020 | In: News, The Consumer | Comment


Coronavirus in London: Who is Lady Buckethead?

Coronavirus in London

Are you taking precautions against catching the coronavirus, like washing your hands whilst singing Happy Birthday to the tune to Anarchy in the UK and “self-isolating” in a place where nobody will come into contact with you, like on a bed pushed into a hospital corridor, attending a LibDem conference or becoming Prince Andrew.

Maybe you do like to this woman does (see above) and wear a plastic jar on your head whilst riding the London Underground or a bus?

Hat by Tupperwear. Scarf: model’s own.

Posted: 5th, March 2020 | In: Key Posts, News | Comment


Woman snorts 500 times LSD dose thinking it’s cocaine – case study

A volunteer undergoing LSD research project at an honor camp in Viejas, California, Sept. 6, 1966.
A volunteer undergoing LSD research project at an honor camp in Viejas, California, Sept. 6, 1966.

The woman who snorted 550 times the average dose of LSD thinking it cocaine has lived to tell the tale. The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, tells of the middle-aged woman who believing it to be cocaine snorted 55 milligrams of pure LSD. This, we read, is 550 times the usual recreational dose of LSD. 

The women, who had been taking morphine for a decade to treat “foot pain”, was decidedly unwell, blacking out, vomiting and being otherwise immobile for 12 hours. She then felt “pleasantly high’ for the next 12 hours (with infrequent vomiting)”. Adding: “The collateral report from the roommate revealed that she sat mostly still in a chair with her eyes either open, closed, or rolled back, frothing at the mouth, occasionally vocalizing random words and vomiting frequently. Ten hours later she was able to converse.”

And then she felt good. Pain in her foot was music reduced. She ceased taking morphine, experiencing no withdrawal. 

Do not try this at home.

Posted: 4th, March 2020 | In: Strange But True | Comment


Watch the live Coronavirus tracking map

Coronavirus tracking map

You can keep track of the coranavirus with this tracking map run by America’s Johns Hopkins University.

In response to this ongoing public health emergency, we developed an online dashboard (static snapshot shown below) to visualize and track the reported cases on a daily timescale; the complete set of data is downloadable as a google sheet. The case data visualized is collected from various sources, including WHO, U.S. CDC, ECDC China CDC (CCDC), NHC and DXY. DXY is a Chinese website that aggregates NHC and local CCDC situation reports in near real-time, providing more current regional case estimates than the national level reporting organizations are capable of, and is thus used for all the mainland China cases reported in our dashboard (confirmed, suspected, recovered, deaths). U.S. cases (confirmed, suspected, recovered, deaths) are taken from the U.S. CDC, and all other country (suspected and confirmed) case data is taken from the corresponding regional health departments. The dashboard is intended to provide the public with an understanding of the outbreak situation as it unfolds, with transparent data sources.

See it here.

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Posted: 30th, January 2020 | In: News | Comment


28 animals you can eat at China’s Wuhan Market

These are the 28 animals identified by the South China Morning Post for sale at the Huanan (Wuhan) market in China. Many animals do not feature. And the thinking is why not? If you can eat camel and donkey, why not llama or flamingo? And are Hoxton’s hipsters lagging, sticking to ostrich, emu and crocodile when those food-forward Chinese are dining on Asian badger, otter and scorpion? As the West weeps over footage of the burnt Australian wildlife, are Chinese sympathies fogged by the scent of roast koala?

bat soup
Best served accompanied by a young Robin with a Penguin chaser

Some science suggests the coronavirus spreading in China started in bats served at the aforementioned Wuhan market. Analysis shows the virus’s genetic makeup is 96% identical to that of a coronavirus found in bats. “I would be very surprised if this were a snake virus,” says Timothy Sheahan, a virologist at the University of North Carolina. Bats were also the ultimate source of SARS, scientists believe.

bat soup
Apple News

“evil! Chinese eat bat – movie exposure, ” says a headline to an Apple News story shared by the Daily Mail. The video features a woman eating bat soup. Why eating bat should be evil and, say, eating newborn lamb the stuff of daytime telly cooking shows and Easter treats is moot, moreover eating kangaroo testicles for slots of entertainment dished up between ads for insurance, holidays and mobile phones?

But war with the bats has begun. And you need to pick sides. (I’ll have a side of chicken wings and foie gras.)

Posted: 24th, January 2020 | In: Key Posts, News, The Consumer | Comment


Abortion is not a criminal offence : Northern Ireland joins the 21st Century

Women won’t need to flee Northern Ireland to get an abortion in the rest of the United Kingdom. The province has decided to decriminalise abortion. A woman cold get a legal abortion in Northern Ireland if her life was in serious danger. The law also permitted abortion for victims of rape and incest.

Women seeking an abortion would be judged. And the rules were arbitrary. Criminal offence or public health issue? Who owns a woman’s body? Who knows best?

But at midnight last night, Section 58 and Section 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 – which made abortion a criminal offence – were repealed.

Good.

Posted: 22nd, October 2019 | In: News | Comment


Human babies have lizard body parts

Lizard babies

Hey, eyeball lickers. News is that babies in the womb are possessed of extra lizard-like muscles in their hands. “Most” babies lose the lizard part before they’re born. (Where do they go?) Others take up residence in Buckingham Palace.

The journal Development says the lizard muscles are a hangover from when reptiles transitioned to mammals. Dr Rui Diogo, from the Howard University, who wrote the research, says:

“We have a lot of muscles going to the thumb, very precise thumb movements, but we lost a lot of muscles that are going to the other digits. In our evolution, we do not need them so much. Why are they there? Probably, we cannot just say in evolution, ‘Look, I will delete from scratch, from day zero, the muscle going to digits two, three, four, five and I will just keep the one going to the thumb.’ Probably it is not so easy. Probably you have to form this layer of this muscle and then it disappears on the other digits but persists on the thumbs…

“The important question for me now is, ‘What else are we missing? What will we find when all the human body is inspected at this detail during its development?”

The next King of England?

Posted: 1st, October 2019 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment


Vaping marijuana – don’t panic

vaping

A conspiracy can start any number of ways. But let’s consider the Daily Mail’s news on vapes and cannabis and death. The headline is a burp of worry words: “Black market cannabis vapes are found to contain hydrogen CYANIDE amid health panic after 13 die from mysterious illness linked to e-cigs.” This one nearly has the lot: drugs, crime, a health panic and mystery. But what are the facts?

The story is based on a report by America’s NBC. Researchers bought 18 vaping cartridges containing THC, the main psychoactive compound found in marijuana. The three purchased at legal dispensaries were fine. But 13 of 15 bought from unlicensed dealers contained Vitamin E, which causes lung damage when inhaled and myclobutanil, “a pesticide that, when burned, can turn into hydrogen cyanide, a chemical that causes oxygen levels to fall and leads to death within minutes.”

The Mail links that shocker – criminals cheat! – with news that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recorded the deaths of 13 Americans with “vaping-related illnesses”.

“You certainly don’t want to be smoking cyanide,” says Antonio Frazier, the vice president of operations at CannaSafe, the company that tested the products. I don’t think anyone would buy a cart that was labeled hydrogen cyanide on it.”

Don’t be so presumptuous. People will buy anything it it’ll give them a buzz. But before we go, what is Cannasafe? “CannaSafe Analytics is committed to defining consumer safety and quality assurance standards for the cannabis industry.” It’s private concern that will test what’s in weed products – looking for such things as: excreta, hairs, aflatoxinB2, lead, pesticides and bacteria. It will also test how potent your harvest is. There is no kite mark for cannabis, but there could be. So here’s news that the people from the Cannasafe lab found that uncertified products might be harmful.

What might be causing vapers to die is unclear. Patterns are emerging – the same brands of black-market THC cropping up in reports. The black-market THC cartridges could be to blame. Which makes this story not one about am ambitious company or the perils of vaping but the sad state of the war on drugs. But instead of a debate on that debacle, we’re getting more not fewer bans. President Trump announced a Food and Drug Administration ban on flavoured e-cigarettes. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has banned the sale of vaping products at retail outlets. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo imposed a ban on flavoured e-cigarettes on an “emergency” basis. “Vaping is dangerous, period,” he guffed.

Well, of course it is. But it’s still less dangers than smoking cigarettes. And as for people smoking illegal, unchecked, imported Chinese cartridges of THC to get stoned – well if marijuana was legal nationwide, would that still be a sensible consumer choice?

Posted: 27th, September 2019 | In: Key Posts, News | Comment


Dentist promises sedation – GPs doll out uppers

Dentist promises sedation

Where America leads, the UK follows. Look out, then,. for a dentist advertising sedation. Rob Beschizza saw a sign of the times:

Driving near Pittsburgh, PA, my wife Heather noticed this excellent billboard featuring a woman saying “Scared of the dentist? No, I called and got SEDATED!”.

The chemical cosh is wielded with abandon. A Public Health England review at the end of March 2018 found that half of people prescribed strong painkillers, antidepressants and sleeping tablets had been on them for at least 12 months.

Drugs UK

The numbers of people being fed these drugs are huge:

Nearly 12 million people took drugs such as antidepressants, sleeping pills and painkillers between 2017 and last year,

Worrying stuff.

Posted: 10th, September 2019 | In: Key Posts, News | Comment


Moped prang gives man nine-day erection

Erection score hardness

The 35-year-old British man was riding a moped when he crashed. Injuries to his genitals caused a ‘Grade IV’ erection that lasted for nine days – who knew these things were graded? Well, the knob-ometer is officially called the ‘Erection Hardness Score’ and it goes thus:

  • Erection Hardness Score (0-4)

0 – Penis does not enlarge.

· 1 – Penis is larger, but not hard.

· 2 – Penis is hard, but not hard enough for penetration.

· 3 – Penis is hard enough for penetration, but not completely hard.

· 4 – Penis is completely hard and fully rigid.

The man was not overly affected by his persistent boner and complained only of “difficulty in walking”. But once his moped is back from the garage, that should be less of an issue.

Like his ride, he’s now ok.

Spotter: The Journal of Case Reports in Urology.

Posted: 17th, July 2019 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment


Marijuana: cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome is something to worry about

How’s your learning curve? A bit flat? Business Insider brings news of something making marijuana users violently ill. This matters. You should know what you’re taking.

Cannabis is all the go in medical and medical circles. The Sun wonders: “Could cannabis oil fast-track your weight loss?” So in tune with the new “miracle drug” is the Sun that it tells readers to look out for “CBD – the element of cannabis associated with relaxation rather than tripping.” That’s CBD not LSD, although confusing the two is plainly simple. More questions follow, like this in the Guardian: “Can we all chill out about cannabis?” No, because the writer who “rarely got paranoid from smoking weed” recalls an episode in which she was so stoned she thought there was something wrong with the car she was driving along a busy road. There wasn’t.

So at what point do you stop puffing away? When you’re looking for non-existent puncture or choking your guts up?

For nearly a decade, the Australian woman had experienced sudden and severe episodes of nausea and vomiting in connection to using the drug. Before that, she’d smoked safely for years with no symptoms. In 2004, a team of emergency room physicians in the country detailed Mrs. X’s experience anonymously alongside a handful of similar cases that happened in the same region that year. In nearly all of them, patients described an illness that cropped up suddenly, often after decades of normal marijuana use. Piping hot baths were their only relief. The Australian physicians dubbed it “cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome,” or CHS.

Although the Australians’ report raised some red flags locally, most experts continued to believe that cases like Mrs. X’s were rare across the globe. Until a spate of similar reports begin to crop up elsewhere.

Now, several recent studies from emergency room physicians across Europe and the US are beginning to suggest that CHS could be a lot more common than previously thought.

This woman smoked weed and kept smoking it for ten years despite it making her ill. Weed, you know, it can make you a little slow.

Posted: 27th, March 2019 | In: News | Comment


Radioactive man cremated in Arizona

Cremation radiotherapy

A man treated with a radioactive compound to fight his tumour died two days after treatment. The bright minds then cremated him, releasing Lutetium 177 into the environment. A month after the cremation, a Geiger detected radiation levels inside the cremation chamber, on the oven and over the bone crusher. Just over 50% of all American opt for cremation. A public health story looms:

This alarming case, reported in a new research letter this week, illustrates the collateral risks potentially posed by on average 18.6 million nuclear medicine procedures involving radiopharmaceuticals performed in the US every year.

While rules regulate how these drugs are administered to living patients, the picture can become less clear when those patients die, thanks to a patchwork of different laws and standards in each state – not to mention situations like the 69-year-old man, whose radioactive status simply slipped through the cracks.

“Radiopharmaceuticals present a unique and often overlooked postmortem safety challenge,” researchers from the Mayo Clinic explain in a case note.

“Cremating an exposed patient volatilises the radiopharmaceutical, which can then be inhaled by workers (or released into the adjacent community) and result in greater exposure than from a living patient.”

A scare story brews…

Image: William Price helped to legalize cremation and was himself cremated after his death in 1893.

Posted: 28th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True | Comment


Writer turns sleep apnea mask into an Alien Facehugger

CPAP Mask  Alien Facehugger

Who says you can’t have fun with sleep apnea? Not Jared Grey, who fashioned his Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) mask into an Alien life-size foam Facehugger. And here’s how he did it, telling us:

I’ve been joking for years that if I ever ended up needing a CPAP mask, I’d incorporate it into a facehugger. Because obviously. …I was recently diagnosed with sleep apnea, and now have my own CPAP torture machine. Seriously, these things are awful and create as much discomfort as they prevent. So I may as well have some fun with this thing while it’s intruding on my life.

CPAP Mask  Alien Facehugger
CPAP Mask  Alien Facehugger
CPAP Mask  Alien Facehugger

Spotter:  Jared Greyvia Technabob

Posted: 31st, January 2019 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment