Free Republic

As hospitals in nations hardest hit by Ebola struggle to keep up, desperate patients are turning to the black market to buy blood from survivors of the virus, the World Health Organization warned. The deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has killed at least 2,400 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- the countries most affected by the virus. Blood from survivors, referred to as convalescent serum, is said to have antibodies that can fight the deadly virus. Though the treatment is unproven, it has provided some promise for those fighting a disease that's killing more than half of those...

The music drowns out the dialogue ...

The country’s system for handling end-of-life care is largely broken and should be overhauled at almost every level, a national panel concluded in a report released on Wednesday... The 507-page report, “Dying in America,” said its recommendations...would produce significant savings that would help make health care more affordable.

Chances are chocolate milk was a staple for you growing up. Kids chug the stuff no matter what the occasion, whether it’s with breakfast, lunch, or as an after-school snack. Chocolate powder, chocolate syrup — it’s all good. That is, until you get older. Chocolate milk is for kids, right? So as an adult, it’s either regular milk (almond milk if you’re about that non-dairy life) or bust. But a scoop or drizzle of chocolate isn’t only totally OK to have as an adult, it boasts some serious benefits.

Tonight in a public question-and-answer session at the University of Minnesota Law School, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the Court did not need to rush into the question of same-sex marriage because the lower courts had not yet disagreed on the issue. Asked whether she thought the Court might take the issue up this Term, Justice Ginsburg noted that all three appellate courts to address the issue so far (the Fourth, Seventh, and Tenth) have struck down state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. She added that we are still awaiting a decision from the Sixth Circuit, which has been...

Sarah Palin is not ashamed of her sweat. Former Governor of Alaska and reality star Sarah Palin is certainly no stranger to the paparazzi, but it can be a little rough running into when you’re leaving the gym. But she knows how to brush it off. After the 50-year-old encountered photogs following a hot yoga session when she was "drowning in sweat," she decided to share the pictures herself.

A husband's happiness is significantly related to how his wife feels about the union, according to researchers at Rutgers University and the University of Michigan, who say the happier the wife is with the marriage, the more content her husband will be with life in general. "I think it comes down to the fact that when a wife is satisfied with the marriage she tends to do a lot more for her husband, which has a positive effect on his life," noted Deborah Carr, a professor in the Department of Sociology, School of Arts and Science at RU. "Men tend...

Dr. Jane Orient, Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, reported that the government has been “real tight-lipped” about the mysterious respiratory illness that has struck children in the United States, expressed concern that the illegal immigrant minors from Central America could be the source, and argued that the government should devote more resources to border security to combat the spread of disease on Wednesday’s “Laura Ingraham Show.”

Despite the best efforts of the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders, Ebola is expected to rage on in West Africa for another 12-18 months, with 20,000 cases predicted. Without coordination of relief efforts, the ability to contain the disease is limited and has been labeled a “failure” to date. Countries are sending supplies and equipment in piecemeal fashion. The U.S., for example, is setting up a 25 bed hospital for its part. Unfortunately, it’s far too little to make a dent in the epidemic. It’s difficult for a person in a developed country to believe that medical systems,...

Forty-six percent of doctors give President Obama's healthcare law a "D" or an "F," according to a new survey from the Physicians Foundation. In contrast, just 25 percent of those surveyed gave the law an "A" or a "B." The findings come from a survey that was emailed to "virtually every physician in the United States with an email address on record with the American Medical Association" this March through June as the law's major provisions were taking effect, and received more than 20,000 responses from doctors. In their comments that were included (but kept anonymous) in the report, a...

Joan Rivers’ personal doctor snapped a selfie while the comedian was under ­anesthesia and the physician was about to perform an unauthorized biopsy that led to her fatal cardiac arrest, a report said Tuesday. The doctor took the photo in the procedure room at Manhattan’s Yorkville Endoscopy before performing the procedure on Rivers’ vocal cords, according to CNN. A staffer at the clinic told investigators about the doctor’s behavior, the cable-TV network said. …

Now a new study suggests that a simple blood test could soon allow doctors to diagnose clinical depression as easily as they check cholesterol. Researchers at Northwestern University have developed the first blood test that analyzes levels of nine blood biomarkers associated with adult clinical depression. The results of their study were published Tuesday in the journal Translational Psychiatry. The test looks at levels of nine RNA blood markers, which appear to be different among patients with diagnosed clinical depression versus those who do not have depression. RNA are the molecules that help to process DNA genetic code and carry...

Using artificial sweeteners may set the stage for diabetes in some people by hampering the way their bodies handle sugar, suggests a preliminary study done mostly in mice. The authors said they are not recommending any changes in how people use artificial sweeteners based on their study, which included some human experiments. The researchers and outside experts said more study is needed, while industry groups called the research limited and said other evidence shows sweeteners are safe and useful for weight control. The study from researchers in Israel was released Wednesday by the journal Nature. The work suggests the sweeteners...

Pennsylvania legislators are poised to pass into law an organ-transplant-donation bill that will make it easier for murderers to avoid detection and prosecution. Two bills, almost identical, Senate Bill 850 (SB 850) and House Bill 30 (HB 30), according to its many bipartisan sponsors, will greatly increase the number of organ donors. There are currently 121,000 people on the national waitlist for organ transplants, and laws to increase the organ supply are perennially popular in many states. Those opposing such laws are commonly accused of condemning to death people on the waitlist. Law enforcement officials, however, are taking exception to...

Tired of Cheech & Chong pot jokes and ominous anti-drug campaigns, the marijuana industry and activists are starting an ad blitz in Colorado aimed at promoting moderation and the safe consumption of pot. To get their message across, they are skewering some of the old Drug War-era ads that focused on the fears of marijuana, including the famous “This is your brain on drugs” fried-egg ad from the 1980s. […] “So far, every campaign designed to educate the public about marijuana has relied on fear-mongering and insulting marijuana users,” said Mason Tvert, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, the nation’s...

Talk to the average physician about trying to care for patients in the United States today, and you’ll hear exactly the same sorts of sentiments as those expressed by American soldiers faced with the task of “winning the war” in Vietnam some fifty years ago. For those on the front line of fighting illness, it is apparent that the Democrats' war on American medicine is not a path to cheap quality care, but a quagmire of rules and complexity that can make even the most basic care difficult to deliver. Now that ObamaCare has directly or indirectly wormed its way...

This is what it looks like after you get hit in the face with a 90 mph fastball: "The Aftermath...Making huge progress!! Want to thank everyone who has played a part in my recovery">

After having been a smoker for just about 40 years, I made the plunge. I was very surprised - it pretty much totally eliminated the urge to smoke! Well, except for the hand thingy... but it took away the urge! It's been ten days so far. I have a nearby pack of smokes sittin around if need be. Curious about others situations and experiences.

When it comes to schizophrenia and other complex conditions, individual genes have only a weak and inconsistent association (which is why it's often silly to look for single-gene factors). But groups of interacting gene clusters create an extremely high and consistent risk of illness — in this case, on the order of 70% to 100%. It's nearly impossible for people with these precise genetic variations to avoid the condition. In all, the researchers found no less than 42 clusters of genetic variations that significantly increase the risk of schizophrenia. "In the past, scientists had been looking for associations between individual...

A fourth doctor has died of Ebola in Sierra Leone after a failed bid to transfer her abroad for treatment. Dr Olivet Buck died last night hours after the World Health Organisation said it could not help medically evacuate her to Germany. Sierra Leone had requested funds from the organisation to transfer her for treatment saying it could not afford to lose another doctor.