Free Republic

“Some people live longer, many live shorter,” he observes. “At the end of the day, there are very, very few long-term survivors.” Help may soon be on the way, however.

President Trump signed a bill Wednesday allowing terminally ill patients access to experimental medical treatments not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dubbed "right to try," the law's passage was a major priority of Trump and Vice President Pence, as well as congressional Republicans. "Thousands of terminally ill Americans will finally have hope, and the fighting chance, and I think it's going to better than a chance, that they will be cured, they will be helped, and be able to be with their families for a long time, or maybe just for a longer time," Trump said...

Yesterday I visited our local bookstore and was struck by the abundance of magazine covers promoting marijuana. Later my wife commented that she’s received two ads this week for cannabis products, something she’s never received before! What’s going on? In case you haven’t noticed or are simply distracted by the busyness of life, propaganda promoting marijuana and its legalization is bombarding us. Should we be concerned about something that is celebrated as a “harmless recreational” indulgence that progressive people should embrace excitedly? Recently our state newspaper ran a prominent piece by a young woman calling for weed to be legalized....

QUEENSBURY — A medical device company has gone on a hiring spree after buying Bard, which has a well-known local manufacturing plant. BD has put up signs on the bike trail, is passing out flyers and recently changed the sign at Bard on Bay Road as it tries to hire 45 new employees. The company needs engineers, supervisors, workers trained in the “continuous improvement” efficiency system and many other positions. A flyer being circulated around the region says the company is also looking for manufacturing team members, with no previous experience needed. The openings are listed at www.crbard.com/careers. The company...

Rubius Therapeutics, a Cambridge biotech, plans to build a 135,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Smithfield, R.I., after the State of Rhode Island on Thursday approved about $6.4 million in tax credits. The plant is expected to create 160 highly skilled jobs in manufacturing and biotech operations, according to Governor Gina M. Raimondo. Rubius is developing technology intended to turn our own red blood cells into potent new medicines. Rubius plans to invest up to $155 million over about five years to renovate a manufacturing facility in an existing building in Smithfield....

Federal authorities have charged 601 people across the country, including 124 in South Florida, in what they called the largest crackdown in history on health care fraud. South Florida retains its notorious ranking of two decades as a leading region for such cases. Prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida filed charges against 20 percent of the total defendants announced and said they were responsible for $337 million in false billings. “The numbers are really staggering,” Benjamin Greenberg, U.S. attorney for the southern district of Florida said Thursday at a Miami press conference. Nationwide, various schemes involved $2 billion in...

GUANGZHOU, China — A crisis over a mysterious ailment sickening American diplomats and their families — which began in Cuba and recently appeared in China — widened on Wednesday. The State Department evacuated at least two more Americans who fell ill in China after hearing strange noises, officials said. Many other employees at the American Consulate in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou and their family members are also being tested by a State Department medical team that has been flown in, officials said. It is unclear how many of them are exhibiting symptoms, but officials expect more American personnel...

Does anyone know anything about this, my husband got a card in the mail and went to a presentation. They claim they can get the knee cushion re-grown with a 95% success rate that it works for the people getting the injections. I don't want to throw cold water on his hopes but this is all new to me and I don't know where to start looking. Any info appreciated.

Patients beware. When you’re admitted to a hospital, you’re routinely encouraged to sign a DNR, short for Do Not Resuscitate order. Don’t assume it will apply only in extreme circumstances. New research shows having those three letters — DNR — on your chart could put you on course to getting less medical and nursing care throughout your stay. Fewer MRIs and CT scans, fewer medications, even fewer bedside visits from doctors. A DNR could cost you your life. They even hesitate to put DNR patients in the ICU when they need intensive care. No wonder patients with DNRs have far...

A patient at a hospital in Kenya is "progressing well" after a doctor mistakenly performed brain surgery on him. The neurosurgeon who did the recent procedure and the CEO of the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi were both suspended, according to the Guardian. There was a mix-up between one patient who needed to have a blood clot removed and another who merely needed medication for a swollen head, the newspaper reported. "The hospital deeply regrets this event and has done all it can to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the patient in question," the hospital said in a statement,...

The results, published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, showed the patients could be separated into five distinct clusters. Cluster 1 - severe autoimmune diabetes is broadly the same as the classical type 1 - it hit people when they were young, seemingly healthy and an immune disease left them unable to produce insulin Cluster 2 - severe insulin-deficient diabetes patients initially looked very similar to those in cluster 1 - they were young, had a healthy weight and struggled to make insulin, but the immune system was not at fault Cluster 3 - severe insulin-resistant diabetes patients were generally...

Three times this year I've been hit with a sudden and strong bout of some kind sickness. It's gone like this: Severe chills, extreme drowsiness, weakness to the point being unable to move for about a half a day. Then the chills turn into a higher temp but not feverish, slight nausea, but still so drowsy and weak. Usually by 2 or 3 am I finally throw up and start feeling better. The first time I toughed it out and didn't go to the quack. In a couple of days I was fine. The second time a couple weeks ago...

Alcohol use disorders are the most important preventable risk factors for the onset of all types of dementia, especially early-onset dementia. This according to a nationwide observational study, published in The Lancet Public Health journal, of over one million adults diagnosed with dementia in France.

January 8 is Stephen Hawking’s 75th birthday, an age particularly remarkable for a man living with a form of the motor-neuron disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In celebration of Hawking’s remarkable life achievement despite his severe disability, let’s have a look at the disease that we’ve come to so closely associate with this brilliant mind.

A Maryland Circuit Court judge has ruled that the Maryland Board of Physicians, which stripped Dr. Mark Geier of his license to practice medicine back in 2011, acted illegally by humiliating Dr. Geier and his family publicly after they removed his medical license. ...the members of the Maryland Board of Physicians, between $10,000 and $200,000 apiece, depending on their net worth.

A new approach to fighting cancerous tumors in mice by Stanford University researchers has been found to not only eliminate the tumors they targeted, it eliminated all cancer found in the mice. The researchers used a one-time application of two agents injected directly into a tumor. The agents work by stimulating the immune cells only inside the tumor itself, but doctors found some of the T-cells stimulated kept on working after their initial job was done. Dr. Ronald Levy, senior author of the study published in the journal Science Translation Medicine, says one of the agents (CpG oligonucleotide) works with...

Activating T cells in tumors eliminated even distant metastases in mice, Stanford researchers found. Lymphoma patients are being recruited to test the technique in a clinical trial. Injecting minute amounts of two immune-stimulating agents directly into solid tumors in mice can eliminate all traces of cancer in the animals, including distant, untreated metastases, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The approach works for many different types of cancers, including those that arise spontaneously, the study found.

We all know that this year’s flu season is bad. I have been pouring over numbers and reports over the past few days, and it’s actually even worse than we’re hearing about. Tens of thousands of Americans are dying. It’s now worse than the 2009 swine flu outbreak and is on track with the 2014-15 strain. And it’s not showing any signs of slowing down. Despite this, the media is downplaying the severity of the flu and the government makes the statistics pretty difficult to find. Are they trying to avoid a panic? Do they know something we don’t? Here’s...

Ashley was a toddler in December 2008, when she was diagnosed with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Her doctors gave the little girl several rounds of chemotherapy and spinal injections to fight the cancer. The treatment sent her cancer into remission, but one of the spinal injections triggered seizures. She’s been plagued by debilitating seizures since the age of 2, and remained on a number of medications with several serious side effects.... ... To the Surins, the patch and the oil seemed simple and straight forward. Ashley gets what looks like a small bandage on her foot twice a day. They rub...

The flu season that's already been the worst in nearly a decade is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon, according to the latest report released Friday from the nation's health protection agency. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the flu that is blanketing every state except Hawaii is growing more intense and deadly. So far this season, the flu has claimed the lives of at least 30 children, according to the latest CDC report. "The peak of flu season is in February, so we have about a month for things to get worse," Dr. Manny Alvarez,...