Free Republic

**SNIP** “Today is more than about Democrats and Republicans, it’s about restoring the constitution’s checks and balances to the Trump administration,” Pelosi, 78, said at the election night party in Washington D.C. “It’s about stopping the GOP and Mike—Mitch—McConnell’s assaults on Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and the health care of 130 million Americans living with pre-existing medical conditions.” Then, raising her fist in the air, Pelosi declared: “Let’s hear it more for pre-existing medical conditions!”

If you're considering eating raw or undercooked snails, slugs or centipedes — you may want to think again. Some of these delicacies may carry "rat lungworm," a parasite that can infect critters through rodent feces. Here's what you should know about the parasitic roundworm, Angiostrongylus cantonensis, and how it can be avoided. Where is the parasite found? Rodents have the adult form, with sickened rats passing the parasite's larvae in feces, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says online. How are snails, slugs and humans infected?Infections occur in snails and slugs when they consume the parasite's larvae, the agency says, adding that humans...

A man in Australia has died from rat lungworm caused by a garden slug he ate for a dare eight years earlier. Sam Ballard, who was a promising rugby player, died at the age of 27 after developing a series of complications from the disease. Ballard was 19 in 2010 when he and some friends were drinking wine with his friends in a garden. “We were sitting over here having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying to act as grown up and a slug came crawling across here,” his friend Jimmy Galvin told news.com.au. “The conversation came...

Health officials have confirmed 12 cases of rat lungworm disease in the continental United States since January 2011 — including six patients who had not traveled abroad but still contracted the illness caused by a parasite endemic to tropical regions in Asia and Hawaii. [...snip...] The disease is also known as angiostrongyliasis, after the parasitic roundworm Angiostrongylus cantonensis whose larvae hatch in the lungs of rats and then are expelled in the rodents’ excrement. At that point, the larvae can be picked up by snails and slugs, and then passed along to humans if the snails and slugs are eaten...

Centipedes mean business. They can slay animals 15 times their size, even devour whole snakes if they want. But the true horror of the centipede may be something else, hiding unseen inside their many-legged forms: a dangerous parasite, which scientists say has never been observed in these segmented critters – until now. The stowaway in question is the parasitic roundworm Angiostrongylus cantonensis – aka 'rat lungworm' – a food-borne parasite typically found in snails and other mollusks, which has now for the first time been detected in centipedes too. As for the strange reason we know this? It starts with...

Sam Ballard never did anything wrong, if you ask family and friends. The teenager from Sydney’s upper north shore was having a laugh and some red wine with mates in the backyard, “trying to act like grown-ups”. It was 2010 and it was a night that would change his life, and the lives of everybody around him, forever.A slug crawled across the concrete patio and, teens being teens, a dare emerged for Sam to eat it.One of his best friends, Jimmy Galvin, later described the moment. “We were sitting over here having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying...

Boston, Mass. – The rate of infectious disease (ID) markers, such as those for HIV and hepatitis B and C viruses (HBV and HCV), in donated blood is higher for men who have sex with men (MSM) relative to blood donors overall, according to an analysis of data from more than 8.4 million blood donations collected from January 2017 through September 2018 by the American Red Cross. However, the ID marker rates for reinstated (1.44%) and newly eligible (2.0%) MSM donors were similar to those of first-time male donors (1.52%). The findings were presented at the 2018 AABB Annual Meeting,...

New research from Plymouth State University and the University of New Hampshire indicates that collecting and bleeding horseshoe crabs for biomedical purposes causes short-term changes in their behavior and physiology that could exacerbate the crabs' population decline in parts of the east coast. Each year, the U.S. biomedical industry harvests the blue blood from almost half a million living horseshoe crabs for use in pharmaceuticals—most notably, a product called Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL), used to ensure vaccines and medical equipment are free of bacterial contamination. This lifesaving product can only be made from horseshoe crab blood, says researcher Win Watson,...

A newly released psychological study shows that some students are exhibiting symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder following the 2016 election. The study revealed that of 769 students at Arizona State University studying psychology in January and February 2017, 25 percent of them reported experiencing “clinically significant” levels of stress after completing a psychological assessment known as the the Impact of Event Scale. The assessment, which had been adjusted to take into account the 2016 election, indicated that students’ average stress score was similar to those of witnesses of a mass shooting seven months after the incident. “What we were...

our friend is back and typing and on FR again!! last i heard about a month and a half ago i think was that he was going home Make a post or reply here buddy, would be great to hear from you!

NEW YORK -- The NFL is attacking the concussion issue on a team-by-team basis. At the owners meetings in New York on Tuesday, Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL's chief medical officer, said the league identified seven teams in 2017 that had a higher incidence of preseason concussions than the others and "did a targeted intervention with those clubs." Sills said that process involved wide-ranging discussions with the football operations staffs of the teams that included the design of practice drills and which helmets players were wearing.

So, look at the picture of RBG, look at what the arrow is pointing to, on her neck. Beyond that she looks very very ill, I don't wish her Ill I just think she should be taking it easy at a nursing home or something.

Whenever one segment of an economy exhibits, year after year, inflation above the general rate, and when there is no constraint on supply, then either a cartel is in operation or there is a lack of price transparency—or both, as is the case with American medical care. So it is clear that there is something terribly wrong with how health care is financed in our country. And a consensus on how to fix the problem—how to provide Americans the best medicine money can buy for the least amount of money that will buy it—has proved elusive. But the history of...

Artificial sweeteners are an important class of sugar substitutes known as high-intensity sweeteners. These substances provide a sweeter taste than sugar and also enhance food flavor, while contributing very little to energy intake.The Food and Drug Authority (FDA) has approved the use of six artificial sweeteners, which includes aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, advantame, neotame and acesulfame potassium-k (ace-k), in food and beverages. The recent EU legislation has also approved these artificial sweeteners.-snip- “The results of our study might help in understanding the relative toxicity of artificial sweeteners and the potential of negative effects on the gut microbial community as well as...

A proposal to repeal Obamacare entitlements and replace them with grants to states would reduce premiums for individual coverage by as much as 32 percent, according to an analysis by the Center for Health and Economy.The Health Care Choices Proposal also would modestly reduce the deficit, increase the number of people with private health insurance, and cut Medicaid spending, according to Center for Health and Economy.The proposal, the product of national and state think tanks, policy analysts, and others in the conservative community, embarks on a new path to empower consumers and return authority to the states to provide people...

Tanisha Gordon doesn’t see what white people love so much about cottage cheese. Or salads, especially when they’re topped with fussy ingredients like candied almonds, pickled carrots or Brussels slaw. Gordon is a 37-year-old employee at an IT company in the Washington, D.C. area, and until recently, her diet was deeply saturated with fast food - McDonald’s, Taco Bell, you name it. When her doctor diagnosed her last year with pre-diabetes and prescribed her a CPAP machine to help her sleep through the night, she began working with a nutritionist to clean up her diet. But the lifestyle change she...

Video LinkI've been doing this lately as part of my regular rowing, bike-trainer biking, and crossfit (sort of) regime.Easy on the feet and legs but the heart gets a good workout (I wear a heart rate monitor and keep it above 140 bpm).I am impressed with this style of running for cardio.

Ebola has spread beyond the designated infection zone of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu, with new cases springing up in Ituri province, just 31 miles from the Ugandan border.

A few weeks ago American media began heavily promoting a generally odd video of Supreme Court Justice doing a workout. It seemed weird. Today, the motive of putting out that video becomes transparent. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg appears at an event hosted by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA). Watch:

BOSTON — For some, it’s the best four years of their lives. For others, it’s a period of constant struggle, whether academically, socially, or both. College brings about new experiences and challenges for young adults that can be difficult to adapt to and overcome, so perhaps it’s no surprise that a new study reports high rates of stress and mental health conditions among students.