Posts Tagged ‘medicine’
Georg Bartisch’s fabulous eye surgery illustrations from the 16th Century
In 1583, Georg Bartisch (1535–1607), a German physician, produced the first Renaissance manuscript on ophthalmic disorders and eye surgery. The book, Ophthalmodouleia Das ist Augendienst, discusses ocular diseases, surgical techniques and instruments, and contained an ophthalmic atlas of 92 woodcuts depicting diseases of the eye. The pick of those illustrations are featured here, and be bought as prints and even T-shirts in our shop.
Posted: 13th, September 2021 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | 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
This is lovely: 91-year-old British man gives a great TV interview after receiving Covid vaccination in London
A 91-year-old London grandfather spoke beautifully to a CNN reporter after receiving the Covid-19 vaccination at Guys Hospital. “There’s no point in dying now when I’ve lived this long, is there?” he mused. After a “nasty lunch” and trouble finding a place to park his car, the man got his dose.
- There is no footage of our hero then whipping off his jacket, screaming “I AM IMMORTAL!” before heading off to find his car and the fastest route to Ibiza.
Posted: 9th, December 2020 | In: News, TV & Radio | Comment
Post ICU syndrome in the age of Covid-19
I’ve been in intensive care. I remember the nurse from Redcar who made me laugh. She worked with the strength of purpose and efficiency of a submarine commander. I remember the brightly lit room, my back being to the window so I couldn’t see out and wondering about the man to my left who’d been in there for over a year. I don’t remember sleeping. Does that matter? Diagnosis changes how you sleep. Treatment does something else. I can relate to the stories of people who wake suddenly in the night. I’ve found myself stood on the bed, dashing around outside the bedroom or heading for the front door. Is that behaviour linked to my health? Recurring nightmares are one of the hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder. But that’s not it. It’s not a nightmare I’m having. It’s more like a trip. Dr Dhruv Khullar looks at what some are calling post-ICU syndrome and what it means in the age of Covid-19:
Among the patients I care for at the hospital is a young woman recovering from covid-19. To keep her blood oxygenated, she needs a device called a non-rebreather mask… It’s considered an advanced oxygen-delivery device, because it supplies more oxygen than a simple nasal cannula; it is also cumbersome and uncomfortable to wear. But the mask, my patient says, isn’t her biggest problem; neither is her cough or shortness of breath. Her biggest problem is her nightmares. She can’t sleep. When she closes her eyes, she’s scared she won’t wake up. If she does fall asleep, she jolts awake, frenzied and sweating, consumed by a sense of doom. She sees spider-like viruses crawling over her. She sees her friends and family dying. She sees herself intubated in an I.C.U. for the rest of time
The ill and the well is a true divide. You cross the line with a jolt…
Spotter: The New Yorker
Posted: 27th, April 2020 | In: Strange But True | Comment
The incredible story of the Soviet hero who removed his own appendix
In 1961, Leonid Rogozov (14 March 1934 – 21 September 2000), was forced by extreme pain and the absence of another doctor for 1,000 miles to remove his own appendix. This diary entries set the scene.
“It seems that I have appendicitis. I am keeping quiet about it, even smiling. Why frighten my friends? Who could be of help? A polar explorer’s only encounter with medicine is likely to have been in a dentist’s chair…
“I did not sleep at all last night. It hurts like the devil! A snow storm whipping through my soul, wailing like 100 jackals…
“Still no obvious symptoms that perforation is imminent, but an oppressive feeling of foreboding hangs over me… This is it… I have to think through the only possible way out – to operate on myself… It’s almost impossible… but I can’t just fold my arms and give up…
“I’ve never felt so awful in my entire life. The building is shaking like a small toy in the storm. The guys have found out. They keep coming by to calm me down. And I’m upset with myself – I’ve spoiled everyone’s holiday. Tomorrow is May Day. And now everyone’s running around, preparing the autoclave. We have to sterilise the bedding, because we’re going to operate…
“I’m getting worse. I’ve told the guys. Now they’ll start taking everything we don’t need out of the room…
“My poor assistants! At the last minute I looked over at them. They stood there in their surgical whites, whiter than white themselves. I was scared too. But when I picked up the needle with the novocaine and gave myself the first injection, somehow I automatically switched into operating mode, and from that point on I didn’t notice anything else.
“The bleeding is quite heavy, but I take my time… Opening the peritoneum, I injured the blind gut and had to sew it up… I grow weaker and weaker, my head starts to spin. Every four to five minutes I rest for 20 – 25 seconds.
“Finally here it is, the cursed appendage! With horror I notice the dark stain at its base. That means just a day longer and it would have burst… My heart seized up and noticeably slowed, my hands felt like rubber. Well, I thought, it’s going to end badly and all that was left was removing the appendix.”
Read more on Flashbak.
Posted: 16th, January 2020 | In: Strange But True | Comment
The teen who did not go blind from eating crisps, chips and sausages
Hear about the boy “blinded by chips and sausages”? Or as the BBC’s headline puts it, a little more accurately: “Teenager ‘blind’ from living off crisps and chips.”
The tabloid’s headline conjures all kinds of images (see above). But the story is less bizarre. The 17-year-old has long-standing eating issues for which he sought help. And for that we can only feel sympathy. Things got so bad that the lack of nutrients affected his vision. His diet is a composite mix of: French fries, Pringles, white bread, the occasional slice of ham or a sausage.
Truth is that the sausage might well be the heartiest thing he ate. Sausage did not make the teenager blind.
The boy’s visit to the Bristol Eye Hospital is recorded in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Dr Denize Atan, who treated him at the hospital, notes: “His diet was essentially a portion of chips from the local fish and chip shop every day. He also used to snack on crisps – Pringles – and sometimes slices of white bread and occasional slices of ham, and not really any fruit and vegetables. He explained this as an aversion to certain textures of food that he really could not tolerate, and so chips and crisps were really the only types of food that he wanted and felt that he could eat. He had blind spots right in the middle of his vision. That means he can’t drive and would find it really difficult to read, watch TV or discern faces. He can walk around on his own though because he has got peripheral vision.”
Sausages are innocent. Mental health should not be mocked.
Posted: 3rd, September 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True, Tabloids | Comment
‘A physician’s letter to his wife’ – the most condescending letter ever written?
In “A physician’s letter to his wife” the self-styled “The Physician Philosopher” – an “anesthesiologist who blogs at his self-titled site, The Physician Philosopher” – writes an open letter to his wife. It looks like an online public display of affection, which, to my mind, are often precursors to divorce. You know, those irritating Facebook posts between husband and wife played out because a private conversation is too intimate for such kismet-kissed souls. He calls her “gorgeous”, “talented” and, in an egomaniacal bid at self-deprecation, “long suffering”. She laughs at his jokes. Narcissism rules.
And so to “The Physician Philosopher” who schools his wife what to do should he die before her. She should not punch the air, whoop, use bunting nor should she exclaim, “I pity anyone in the hereafter listening to that bore’s preachy horse shit”. He begins, as he must, at the beginning:
Let’s just start at the beginning.
If you’ve made it past that without rolling your eyes into your skull, read on…
When we first met, you thought I was arrogant and prideful. For two and a half years we would rarely talk while we walked past each other in our small college town. At the time, we never could have imagined that one day we would get married. In a twist of irony, two weeks before we started dating you still didn’t know as you told one of your best friends, “I could never date a guy like him. He is too sure of himself.”
Then something changed.
You wanted to talk late one night outside of your dorm. We even got yelled at for talking too late into the night. We first became friends, then we became best friends, and then you become the love of my life. Ten years of marriage and three kids later, you still have my heart and always will.
You made me a better me.
You are the most caring, compassionate, and forgiving person that I’ve ever met. I guess God knew that you’d need those qualities in order to be married to me – particularly that forgiveness part. When you make as many mistakes as I do, a lot of forgiveness is required.
I tell everyone every day that you are a better person than me, and I’ll continue to say that to the grave. But if I should make it to the grave prematurely, I want you to have this letter to guide you on exactly what you should do for our family.
And now it gets fist-bitingly awful:
Financial plan
When I die, you’re going to realize that you are immediately financially independent. If not, reading this will teach that to you.
Do one!
With the money, you’ll be able to pay off all of our debts and have more than enough to last as long as you and the kids live. That said, you are likely to have no idea what to do with it given that you’ve always trusted me with the big picture of our finances. (We need more money dates, apparently).
So, I’m going to walk you through exactly what you should do with it.
Furs. Diamonds. Unsuitable Men?
Cash in my life insurance
You need to get my term life insurance policy. It’s in the folder in my desk.
Call the insurance company up and tell them the bad news. And then call my workplace and do the same thing (I have a life insurance policy at work, too). Tell them you’d like to collect the full sum of money. I’ve done the math and this amount of money should allow you to do whatever you want to do with your life.
After you realize your awesome financial situation, make sure to change all the beneficiaries on your estate planning documents to the kids. I won’t need to be your beneficiary anymore for obvious reasons.
You still there? He hasn’t finished.
Cash in my life insurance
After you get the money in hand, you will be able to pay off all of our debt with ease, including our house. Hopefully, we’ve done well enough by the time that you need this that the mortgage is all that is left.
It’s worth saying twice: pay off the debt before you do anything else.
It will make life easier for you and the kids. Also, consider fully funding our kids college education by putting $100,000 into each kid’s 529 plan and letting it grow until they need it.
Nicole Cliff interjects: “If Steve left me a letter this condescending in his effects I would liquidate every single account and give all of it to lesbians. Just random lesbians. Then I would eat my children.”
You have to do some math
I know that you don’t like math, but you’ll have to do some.
I’m rich! I’ll hire a mathematician. Then shag him to deathbed on the solid gold sun lounger I bought.
After paying off all of our debt, you’ll have a certain amount of money left. If you multiply that number by 3% (Total money x 0.03), that is the amount of money that you can spend annually and rest assured it’ll last as long as you need it.
It should be a lot more than you need.
If you decide to keep working, because I know you – and that’s what you’ll likely do – just subtract your annual income from that number above and draw less out of the account. It’ll give you an even better chance that it’ll last long enough and you can give what is left to the kids someday.
Tom Jamieson interjects: “Teach the children how to make that lovely tea you insisted I drink every night before bed. The one that tasted faintly of burnt almonds my dearest, as each day I grew weaker and weaker until near the end, you had to hold the cup to my lips in your kind sweet uncomplicated way.”
You have to do some math
Take $100,000 of the money and put it into a Money Market Account for an emergency fund. This should cover any unexpected expenses that arise. Also, feel free to give me the cheapest funeral possible. No one will be looking at my casket when it’s underground ten years after I die. A wooden box will be just fine.
Put all of the rest of the money into a taxable account at Vanguard. Put 50% into the total stock market index fund (VTSAX), 25% into the total international stock market index fund (VTIAX), and 25% of the money into the tax-exempt bond index fund (VTEAX).
Take any money I have in my work retirement plans and simply roll it over into an IRA at Vanguard. Since the money in this account will hopefully be dwarfed by the money from my death that you’ve placed into a taxable account, you can put 100% of this money into the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund (VBMFX).
If you need help, call Vanguard. They are great. If you still need help, call a fee-only financial advisor who operates as a fiduciary for a flat-fee.
Tom Jamieson has a word: “look after our children. You’ll find them in the smaller rooms adjacent to our master bedroom, They are called children’s bedrooms and that is where they sleep.”
Speaking of help
Ask our lawyer friend at church to help you make a trust for the kids and plan for our estate. Your money will likely grow while you are taking it out at 3%, and so you want to make sure that the kids won’t get hammered by massive estate taxes.
If you need help with the financial stuff, feel free to look at my recommended financial advisors list (coming soon!). I’ve vetted them myself. Or, I am sure, that many of my financial advisor friends will reach out to you to offer help.
Jennifer Van Goethem interjects: “So, looks like the lesson here is trust your first impressions.”
Speaking of help
You know one of my favorite things to do is to give to other people. And I know you’ll do the same. But it would make my heart happy if you found some people who really needed help and gave them a leg up in life.
Oh, and pay for the medical school to support someone who will start a curriculum to teach the students about money. It’s important stuff, and it just may save them from burnout so that they can save you and our kids someday.
Verity Reynolds interjects: “There are three children. That is more than two and less than four. I know how you hate math.”
Life plan
First of all, recognize that my death wasn’t too soon. It was right when it was supposed to be. You and I both know that there is a bigger calling in this life, and I hope that you continue to teach our kids the selfless love of Jesus.
I also hope that you find love again. This life is too short to live it alone. Just make sure he loves you, and loves our kids. (Also, make sure he signs a prenuptial agreement given all that money stuff we just talked about. 🙂 )
Continue to teach our kids to be selfless, respectful, and to put others first. Spend time with them and support their passions.
Brian Roemer interjects: “There’s not a jury in the world that would convict her.”
You may not realize this, but families who have money usually lose it by the third generation. So, don’t let our kids touch any of their non-college money until they are 24 at the youngest. Continue to teach them about money. Make sure they associate hard work with earning money. And make them give you a plan for what they want to do with it.
Tell our oldest little philosopher that she is brave, inquisitive, and sweet. I pray that she always continues to stay that way. And tell her that I am proud of the little woman she has become. My hope is that she stands up for those who can’t.
Hillary Rowe interjects: “Dear wife, I’m writing you this open letter to make sure the whole world knows that I (appear to be) financially controlling you, and I demand that same level of control after my untimely death.”
Tell our only son that, while I wasn’t always the best at understanding his emotions, I love his empathy. That is his gift – understanding others. Help him use it to serve others well. Make sure he knows that I am proud of him, and will always be proud of him no matter what he chooses to do with his life.
And to our fiesty Jack-Jack, teach her to harness all of that charisma and fervor. Teach her to love others with just as much passion. I hope that she always possesses a jealous and fierce love for her family.
Take home
To end this open letter to my wife – I want to point out that a chapter of our life has finished. We are selling the first home we had after getting married. The one where we brought home all three of our children, and created our life together over the past nine years. While this is bittersweet, I cannot wait for the memories that we have to come in our new house.
Know that I love you and that, if I die before you, I have cherished every moment we had together, even if I wasn’t always the best at showing it. Continue to love the kids the same way you loved me – unconditionally.
Love,
Your lesser half
Spotter: Nicole Cliffe
Posted: 15th, December 2018 | In: Key Posts, Money, Strange But True | Comment
Patient coughs up lung-shaped blood clot
The New England Journal of Medicine reports on a patient suffering from heart failure who reportedly coughed up a huge blood clot. That’s it in the photo. It looks a lot like a mould of the lung and its tributaries. The Atlantic’s Haley Weiss notes: “Doctors Aren’t Sure How This Even Came Out of a Patient”:
In Wieselthaler’s case, blood eventually broke out of his patient’s pulmonary network into the lower right lung, heading directly for the bronchial tree. After days of coughing up much smaller clots, Wieselthaler’s patient bore down on a longer, deeper cough and, relieved, spit out a large, oddly shaped clot, folded in on itself. Once Wieselthaler and his team carefully unfurled the bundle and laid it out, they found that the architecture of the airways had been retained so perfectly that they were able to identify it as the right bronchial tree based solely on the number of branches and their alignment.
Mr Wieselthaler died not long after.
Spotter: Boing Boing
Posted: 7th, December 2018 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Sweden campaigns for standardised sex toys as hospital cases of objects stuck up rectums grows
The Swedish Standard institute is working towards increased security for users of sex toys. Anna Sjögren, project manager at SIS, Swedish Standards Institute, points to the peril of ineffective sex toys. The press release is informative:
The new standardization committee is working on a proposal for a global standard that will be sent to the ISO standardization organization hoping more countries will participate. The standard will benefit both consumers, manufacturers, retailers and purchasing managers.
Today there are no standards that directly affect the design or quality assurance of this kind of products, either in Sweden or internationally. If the product has a battery, that particular part falls under the EU Low Voltage Directive, but it does not say much about the design or risk analysis made by the manufacturer in the design stage or demanding information for the consumer.
But what about those perils? Sjögren points us to a study in the International Journal of Colorectal Disease. It looked at the rectums arriving at Stockholm South General Hospital.
Retained foreign rectal objects may require surgical removal. To estimate the magnitude of this problem, we report the incidence and treatment of retained rectal objects at a large emergency hospital, and calculate incidence rates at the national level in Sweden.
We show an increasing incidence in rectal foreign bodies in Swedish national data. The increase was most noticeable in men…To mitigate surgical cost and comorbidity, policies to decrease the risk of retained sex toys could be considered.
Objects like…
Median age was 41 years (range 15–92) and 65 (76%) were males. The majority of incidents were self-inflicted (72%)… The objects were sex toys (dildos and butt plugs) in 41% of cases. The other 59% consisted mostly of cans, bottles, candles, and eatables. We admitted 63 patients (74%) where bedside retrieval was unsuccessful. In 3 patients, the object spontaneously ejected while awaiting surgery.
The solution?
We hypothesize that a safety string or adequate-sized stopper potentially could have prevented retaining the dildos, since a recurring problem was difficulty in grasping the objects endoluminally.
And lighting candles before ‘digestion’…
Posted: 4th, December 2018 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Woman with fear of owls wins damages from religious quack
Headline of the week appeared on the BBC News website: “Owl phobia woman wins damages from religious doctor.” Yep. Quack!
Meet Sally Brayshaw, 54, of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. In pain following an operation, she was seeking relief. The Beeb says at a religious meeting locum doctor and Pentecostal Christian Thomas O’Brien told Sally the devil was “having a real go” at her. It was suggested she was possessed by demons. She was advised not to see a psychiatrist.
The pair met in August 2012:
Over the next six months Dr O’Brien engaged Mrs Brayshaw in a number of religious activities, taking her to services, giving her religious gifts and setting her television to the Gospel channel to “soak” her in religious content. On one occasion, Mrs Brayshaw said she was taken to a meeting where a preacher spoke of sacrificing an owl…
This left her so terrified of the birds she could no longer look at a picture of one without becoming terrified.
Mr Justice Martin Spencer said it was “foreseeable” Mrs Brayshaw might “react adversely”, adding: “By reason of his zealous promotion of the religious aspects, [Dr O’Brien] became blind to the medical aspects and thereby caused or contributed to the deterioration in the claimant’s mental health.” Ruling Dr O’Brien was “negligent”, Spencer said Mrs Brayshaw was entitled to more than £12,700 in compensation from the doctor. The BBC notes: “Dr O’Brien took no part in the case and his whereabouts are unknown.” He was struck off in 2015 after a General Medical Council investigation.
Posted: 1st, December 2018 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Woman takes first breath after double lung transplant (video)
Doctors often misdiagnose conditions. Jennifer Jones had been told over and over that her suffering was down to allergies and asthma. But, as ABC 6 News reports, after Jennifer gave birth, medical realised she had had Cystic Fibrosis for years. Something had to be done.
“Last year in October she went in and it was getting so bad they put her on oxygen full time,” said Jennifer’s fiancé, Rob Ronnenberg.Jennifer was put on a transplant list for new lungs in June, which is when things really got bad. In mid-October Jennifer’s lung function was a little over 10%.
But good news was headed their way.
“The nurse comes in the room and says hey you’re going to get a phone call and then the phone rang and we’re like okay, that’s never happened so what’s going on? Well, all of a sudden she goes are you for real, are you serious? Is this really happening? And that was it that was the call,” Rob said.
Jennifer was given a double lung transplant. Now watch as he takes her first breath:
Spotter: Twisted Sifter
Posted: 14th, February 2018 | In: Strange But True, Technology | Comment (1)
Master embroiderer performs wing transplant on Monarch butterfly
Romy McCloskey used not little skill to transplant a new wing onto a Monarch butterfly. “I am a professional costume designer and master hand embroiderer,” says Romy. “This was right up my alley.”
Equipped with a coathanger (wire), a towel, a wire hanger, a toothpick, cotton swabs, scissors, tweezers, quick-drying cement, talcum powder, Romy set about using a dead butterfly’s wing to give flight to a newborn.
No anaethetics were used. Apparently, Monarch butterflies do not feel pain in their wings.
“The patient: this 3-day-old little boy was born with torn upper and lower wings. Let’s see how we can help!”
“The operating room and supplies: towel, wire hanger, contact cement, toothpick, cotton swab, scissors, tweezers, talc powder, extra butterfly wing”
“Securing the butterfly and cutting the damaged parts away. Don’t worry it doesn’t hurt them. It’s like cutting hair or trimming fingernails”
“Ta-da! With a little patience and a steady hand, I fit the new wings to my little guy”
“The black lines do not match completely and it is missing the black dot (male marking) on the lower right wing, but with luck, he will fly”
“FLIGHT DAY! After a day of rest and filling his belly with homemade nectar, it is time to see if he will fly”
“With a quick lap around the yard and a little rest on a bush, he was off! A successful surgery and outcome! Bye, little buddy! Good luck”
Via Romy McCloskey on Facebook; Bored Panda
Posted: 11th, January 2018 | In: News, Strange But True | Comment
The Guardian makes cracking error in dyslexia story
Dyslexia news in the Guardian, where the paper infamous for its typos relays news that dyslexia may be caused by the light-receptor cells in “the human eye”. Scientists noticed a difference between the arrangement of cones between the eyes of dyslexic and non-dyslexic people. Might it be that vision is linked to dyslexia?
In non-dyslexic people, the blue cone-free spot in one eye – the dominant one, was round and in the other eye unevenly shaped. In dyslexic people, both eyes have the same, round spot.
“The lack of asymmetry might be the biological and anatomical basis of reading and spelling disabilities,” said the study’s authors.
Interesting stuff. But dyslexics and non dyslexics alike can then work out what the hell the Guardian means when in its rehashed press releases, the news becomes:
Transcribed:
About 700 million people worldwide are known to have from dyslexia – about one in 10 of the global population.
There’s no helping some people…
Posted: 15th, November 2017 | In: Broadsheets, News | Comment
Young girl shows friends her prosthetic leg for the first time
Young girl shows friends her prosthetic leg for the first time pic.twitter.com/GgmCkuPCkR
— Eric Alper (@ThatEricAlper) October 16, 2017
Get a load of Anu, 7, showing her new sports blade and prosthetic leg to her friends at school in Birmingham.
Heartwarming stuff.
Isn’t humanity great…
Posted: 17th, October 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Doctors retrieve 40-year-old toy from patient’s lung
Ever lose a toy when you were a child? Maybe you didn’t lose it. Maybe you’ve been taking it everywhere with you. Doctors have recently removed a plastic traffic cone from a 47-year-old British man’s chest. He got the Playmobil cone for his seventh birthday. And then it vanished.
In later life the man developed a nagging cough. Medical tests revealed a shadow on his lungs. A tumour? No. A small traffic gone he’d swallowed all those years ago.
A cautionary tale, indeed.
And what goes down, can also go up, right. At Bedtime Heaven you can buy an Extreme Cone Butt Plug. If that gets lodged in your insides, tell the doctor it only hurts when he laughs.
Danger: men at work
Spotter: BBC.
Posted: 28th, September 2017 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Billionaire donates £200m to investigate ‘baloney’ and spread bad science
Mega-rich Henry Samueli, a fan of “integrative medicine” (homeopathy) has donated – get this – 200m to UC Irvine. “The human body is a very complex and highly interconnected system. Therefore our healthcare needs to be looked at through a more holistic lens,” opines Samueli, who owns the Anaheim Ducks. “Our genetics, our surrounding environment, our nutrition, our physical activity and our mental state all play critical roles in our well-being.”
As someone who has been stricken by serious illness, I can says that I’m going with the science and the big machines over the pseudoscience, personal prejudice, propaganda, faith-based medicine guff that denies human progress in chemistry and physics.
Rebecca Watson is scathing:
Now they’ve given millions to UC Irvine, a public university, to set up a school for baloney….I mean “alternative medicine.” It’ll be called the “College of Health Sciences,” misusing at least three words in a four-word name, which is really pretty impressive.
I read about all this in a positively glowing article in the LA Times, which didn’t seek out a single voice to disagree with the idea that a college of baloney is a brilliant idea. The LA Times didn’t even consult the LA Times of six months ago, where they reported on another woman who took aconite as a remedy. That woman was hospitalized for weeks and then she died, because aconite is a poison. Susan’s aconite product must have been real homeopathy, meaning that it was just sugar water and there wasn’t actually any aconite in it at all. Otherwise, instead of getting better naturally from her cold she also would have fucking died, and then nobody would be giving millions of dollars to a public university to spread dangerous baloney.
As they say in Anaheim: Quack!
Spotter: BB
Charlie Gard: an emotive trial by media
Charlie Gard’s face is splashed across the Daily Mail’s front page. His face hovers above the word “MANSLAUGHTER”. The accusation is not levelled at those who have ruled that the child should die but given some of the reaction to his story it might as well be.
A judge, a rank the Mail not long ago labelled “enemies of the people”, has “ruled” that Charlie Gard cannot die at home. His parents’ words – “We’ve been denied out final wish” – complete the picture. This is another chapter of the story of parents v State – and once gain the State is winning.
Charlie Gard has featured on the Mail’s front page many times. His loving parents sold their story and we got to know about the chronically ill baby boy and his parents’ fight to defy the experts and allow him to leave hospital and undergo experimental treatment.
The court case is now over. Charlie Gard will not be subjected to any further treatment. His parents conceded defeat in their legal battle. He is being allowed to die. Reason has triumphed over hope. One US website told is readers that Charlie Gard is the baby the “British courts sentenced to death”. But the ruling was never that callous. Nothing close to it. The therapy on offer was no cure. The High Court judge heard from eight doctors and two nurses. He told the court: “The entire highly experienced UK team, all those who provided second opinions and the consultant instructed by the parents in these proceedings share a common view that further treatment would be futile.”‘ Charlie Gard is living what might be termed a faux life, kept going by machinery but not living autonomously. Medical opinion is in total agreement: he will never get better.
The judge added: “If Charlie’s damaged brain function cannot be improved, as all seem to agree, then how can he be any better off than he is now, which is in a condition that his parents believe should not be sustained?… with complete conviction… that it is in Charlie’s best interests that I accede to these applications and rule that Great Ormond Street Hospital (SOSH) may lawfully withdraw all treatment, save for palliative care, to permit Charlie to die with dignity.”
But emotions run high. Reason fails to inspire. The Star notes how “some on social media channels for campaign group ‘Charlie’s Army’ believe the tot will breathe on his own.” Would you take belief over medial knowledge?
So now news that Charlie’s parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, have been denied time with their child. They wanted to spend “a week or so” in a hospice with their son before the machines keeping him alive were switched off. But GOSH says that would require a round-the-clock intensive care team. And with none forthcoming by the courts’ deadline, a GOSH spokesman tells media: “Sadly, as the judge has now ruled, there is simply no way that Charlie, a patient with such severe and complex needs, can spend any significant time outside of an intensive care environment safely. The risk of an unplanned and chaotic end to Charlie’s life is an unthinkable outcome for all concerned and would rob his parents of precious last moments with him. As the judge has now ruled, we will arrange for Charlie to be transferred to a specialist children’s hospice, whose remarkable and compassionate staff will support his family at this impossible time.”
Intensive life support cannot be supplied away from a hospital intensive care unit. So Charlie Gard cannot die at home.
This, says the Mail, is “heart-wrenching”. Charlie’s mother tells the paper amid photos of a family picnic by GOSH: “We just want some peace with our son, no hospital, no lawyers, no courts, no media just quality time with Charlie away from everything to say goodbye to him in the most loving way. Most people won’t ever have to go through what we have been through, we’ve had no control over our son’s life and no control over our son’s death.”
The parents now agree with his son’s doctors that he should die in a hospice. They want him to be kept alive for up to a week but medics say he should “slip away” within a few hours of arriving.
And so a baby kept alive for five months will be allowed to die. The medics who looked after Charlie Gard are not uncaring pen-pushers. GOSH and the courts are not places where children are sentenced to death and human life is cheap. Ethics matter.
But something nags. Was it all about money? And if it was – and money must always be a factor when resources are not infinite – why can’t a rich country provide for its own?
This struggle was for Charlie Gard and the future for us all. It was for those not yet born. It was for love, reason and force of argument. Through that we hope to get to the truth.
Medics kill twice as many Americans than strokes
The third biggest killer in the USA is death by medical error.
You go into hospital – but will you come out?
Medics pull 27 contact lenses from patient’s eye
Contact lenses can be hard to see. One aged patient had trouble locating theirs. None of us have ever seen this before,” says eye surgeon Rupal Morjaria, a trainee ophthalmologist at Solihull Hospital near Birmingham. “It was such a large mass. All the 17 contact lenses were stuck together. We were really surprised that the patient didn’t notice it because it would cause quite a lot of irritation while it was sitting there.”
They then found 10 more.
“She was quite shocked.,” adds Morjaria. “When she was seen two weeks after I removed the lenses she said her eyes felt a lot more comfortable.’
Spotter: Optometry Today, British Medical Journal.
Posted: 16th, July 2017 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Poop doping: one woman’s DIY faecal transplant and how turd implants can improve performance
How full of the brown stuff are you? One cyclist is into poop doping. What’s that, then?
The madwoman behind “poop doping” is Lauren Petersen, a postdoctoral microbiologist at the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine. Petersen has been racing bikes all her life, but as she told The Scientist earlier this month, she’s struggled with chronic Lyme disease since her teen years. She finally rid herself of the disease in 2013, but the intense course of antibiotics she took had ravaged her system and left her with chronic fatigue and stomach problems.
Eventually, she learned that her microbiome (the colony of microbes in her body) was dangerously unbalanced and was not functioning as it should. She was not breaking down any food, and she learned that she was not eligible for a potentially beneficial fecal transplant. So she simply did one herself. As she said, it was a fairly dangerous DIY procedure and it wasn’t fun, but it worked better than she thought it could:
In February 2014, with the support of her family, she recruited a donor and did it herself. “I just did it at home. It’s not fun, but it’s pretty basic. It costs like six bucks to do.” (The $6 being for the drugstore enema kit.) The do-it-yourself solution worked. “Within two months I was a new person,” Petersen says. “I had no more fatigue. I could ride my bike hard three days in a row, no problem.” She started racing four months after her fecal transplant, and was winning races at the pro level soon after that. “Everything changed,” Petersen says.
Petersen’s donor was a fellow elite cyclist, and after analyzing the sample and those of other riders, she discovered an unusually high prevalence of the bacterium Prevotella, which helps synthesize amino acids that help in muscle recovery. Petersen’s analysis of her friends’ craps also showed an abundance of M. smithii, which performs a complementary function. The science is complicated, but in short, a healthy amount of both bacteria types in one’s gut means you can more efficiently process food and then deal with debilitating byproducts like carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
Spotter: Boing Boing
Posted: 25th, June 2017 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Woman comes out of coma when medic accinbally touches her toe
When its the right time to switch off the machines keeping a patient alive? On July 20, Sam Hemming, 22, a Bangor University graduate and keen sportswoman, was a passenger in her boyfriend’s car when it crashed on the M6. The car flipped over. Sam Hemming banged her head hard on the window.
At hospital, after six hours of operations doctors placed the badly injured woman in a coma. They told her parents Emma had no chance of recovery. For 19 days she showed no sign of brain activity. They were all set to tun off the life-support machines when Emma’s toe moved when a staff member inadvertently brushed it with an ice-cold wipe.
“The computer showed some brain activity,” Ms Hemming’s mother, Carol, tells the Times. “It was amazing. She would have had the heat and cold test before they switched the machine off but they brushed it across her toe earlier than expected and it saved her.”
Eight weeks later Emma returned to her parents’ Hereford home. She has learnt to talk and walk.
“Doctors are totally in shock,” Mrs Hemming adds. “You see the specialist surgeons, paramedics and police and they look at Sammy and their mouths fall open. Why her condition is different is that part of the brain has developed her speech and movement. That is why all the neurosurgeons were getting so excited as it is very rarely seen. She is a walking miracle.”
Says Emma: “My talking is fine and I just want to get better now. Before the accident I wanted to be a solicitor and that ambition hasn’t changed. I still want a career in the law.”
Medicine is amazing. (The legal profession, less so.)
Prisoner sue over removal of marbles from his tattoed penis
To West Virginia where a prisoner is upset medics removed marbles he had implanted in his tattooed penis.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says Adrian King can pursue claims that officials at Huttonsville Correctional Center illegally threatened him into consenting to the June 2013 surgery, “or risk being segregated from other inmates and lose his eligibility for parole.”
“The interest in bodily integrity involves the most personal and deep-rooted expectations of privacy, and here, the nature of the surgery itself, surgery into King’s penis, counsels against reasonableness,” says the Virginia-based appeals court.
King now complains of “tingling and numbness” when his bellend is touched “or when it rains, snows or gets cold.” Or when he puts it in blender, uses it to mix drinks in a coffee shop, or fills it with ink and uses it as a biro. If King’s penis history is any guide, his knob could end up in all manner of unusual situations.
King adds that officials hurt his feelings whenever they called him “Marble Man”.
King, who is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, is (ball)baring up well.
Posted: 9th, June 2016 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
Daily Mail scare stories: antibiotics and depression
It’s Health Tuesday in the Mail. Scare Story highlights are:
Page 47: “Just one court of antibiotics may raise risk of depression.” The thinking is if you take antibiotics, you cause in imbalance in bugs in your guts which upsets your brain cells’ ability to communicate.
You might have read the same tory in 2015, when it appeared on a website as, “Antibiotic exposure associated with increased risk for depression, anxiety.”
But what of one courts of antibiotics making you depressed?
Exposure to antibiotics was not associated with a change in risk for psychosis. A single course of antifungals was associated with a mild increase in risk for depression and anxiety, however, there was no increased risk with repeated exposures.
In The Gut Microbiome and the Brain, Leo Galland has more:
No, antibiotics do not directly cause panic attacks.
They can, however, exacerbate symptoms in those who already have anxiety disorders.
There has been a wealth of research in the recent years connecting gut bacteria to mental processes. This connection is aptly named the “gut-brain axis.” Antibiotics are prescribed to get rid of bacterial infections. Unfortunately, most antibiotics don’t just kill the bad bacteria, they kill the healthy bacteria living in your gut. This healthy bacteria has a lot of different functions, one being to line the gut and basically reinforce its “walls.” They can also influence neurotransmitters.
When you destroy these bacteria, it makes sense that you may notice a bodily change. This could be intestinal distress or mood changes. In scientific studies “germ-free” mice, or those without gut bacteria, are more reactive to stress than non-germ-free (normal) mice. It’s important to remember this is a mouse study, not a human study. It can give some important clues, but might not be the whole picture.
In short, antibiotics will not induce a panic attack, but may increase reactivity, making it more likely that a person prone to panic attacks will feel anxious. This can possibly turn into a panic attack, but with an established treatment regimen, it can be avoided.
You can read the the research first-hand here.
