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The Left-Wing Hipster Democrat Couple That Exposed NYC to #Ebola October 24, 2014 by Charles C. Johnson 19 Comments Dr. Craig Spencer and his live-in girlfriend Morgan Dixon exposed New Yorkers in two different boroughs to ebola during their night out on the town. While authorities are saying that Spencer followed protocol, the CDC’s own documents show that isn’t the case. Spencer is now being treated for ebola while Dixon is in quarantine. They are both registered Democrats with a history of working in public health. Both Spencer and Dixon are professional do gooders according to their LinkedIn and professional...

The Star Trek tricorder diagnosed any illness at once.Ten finalists have been chosen in a $10m (£6m) competition to develop a real-life "tricorder" - the medical scanner used in the Star Trek series.The Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, launched last year, challenges anyone to develop a wireless device capable of detecting a range of diseases. The technology employs sensors and imaging to measure vital signs and diagnose conditions non-invasively. X Prize officials said the technology was now "fact, not science fiction". The 10 finalists come from a range of backgrounds, including universities, medical device manufacturers and tech start-ups. One research team...

The Economist October 18, 2014 On March 25th the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported a rash of cases of Ebola in Guinea, the first such ever seen in west Africa. As of then there had been 86 suspected cases, and there were reports of suspected cases in the neighbouring countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia as well. The death toll was 60. On October 15th the WHO released its latest update. The outbreak has now seen 8,997 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Ebola. All but 24 of those have been in Guinea (16% of the total), Sierra Leone (36%)...

The new research could help doctors to quickly identify patients who are aware despite appearing unresponsive and unable to communicate. Researchers from University of Cambridge in the UK have identified hidden networks in vegetative patients that could support consciousness, even when a patient appear to be unresponsive. There’s been a lot of interest lately into how much patients in vegetative states, such as comas, are aware of their surroundings. Recently, research involving functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning has shown that even patients who are unable to respond or move are able to carry out mental tasks, such as imagining...

Researchers from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute have made an exciting discovery for cancer patients everywhere. A chemical found in a rare plant from Australia has the ability to "eat" cancerous tumors and completely eradicate them within days. The tumor-eating chemical is found in the seeds of berries of the Blushwood plant. The chemical, which is being called EBC-46, takes three weeks to extract and the process is quite difficult. Experts are even saying that they still don't completely understand why the chemical is in the seed of the Blushwood berry in the first place. Farming Blushwood in large quantities...

(Reuters) - Sex could keep the Ebola epidemic alive even after the World Health Organization (WHO) declares an area free of the disease, one of the discoverers of the deadly virus said on Tuesday. The WHO is hoping to announce later this week that Nigeria and Senegal are free of Ebola after 42 days with no infections -- the standard period for declaring an outbreak over, twice the maximum 21-day incubation period of the virus. However, it appears the disease can last much longer in semen. "In a convalescent male, the virus can persist in semen for at least 70...

Dr. Elizabeth Vliet, [snip] accused the government of “underplaying the risk” of the Ebola virus, and seemed to argue that flights from countries with large Ebola outbreaks should not be allowed into the US on Thursday’s [snip] “The Laura Ingraham Show.” snip Speaking on the prospect of a flight ban and the contention that only individuals who are showing symptoms of the virus can transmit it, she said “viruses mutate and change, and so to say anything with 100% certainty when you are dealing with viruses that change is medically irresponsible.” And that “no one can say with 100% certainty”...

We have a friend, Kayse, here in Michigan who has a beautiful little 2 year old girl named Lila. Kayse sent us an update the other day (Saturday September 27th) because Lila has been sick for the last couple of weeks. Most people have read about the viruses making their way around the country and get a little nervous about their children getting one of these viruses that have put so many children in the hospital. Well, we pay close attention to these updates that we receive because Lila has Trisomy 18 (Edwards Syndrome) which is the same chromosome abnormality...

ob Schneider has learned the hard way that there's no way to inoculate yourself against an Internet backlash. State Farm Insurance has dropped an ad campaign featuring the "Deuce Bigalow" star in a reprisal of his "Richmeister" character -- a.k.a. the "making copies" guy -- from "Saturday Night Live." The decision stems not from an objection to rehashed humor from the mid-'90s, but to Schneider's outspoken stance against childhood vaccines. Along with former "View" co-host Jenny McCarthy, Schneider, who has lately been busy trying to revive his career with a spec sitcom, has been one of the most vocal celebrity...

Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Rene Garcia presented the University of Miami with a check for $1 million for HIV/AIDS research Monday morning. Scott stopped by the university’s Miller School of Medicine to highlight funding in the “It’s Your Money Tax Cut Budget” for HIV/AIDS research.

Health professionals who treat burn victims are acutely aware of the necessity to treat burn injuries, particularly severe ones, as rapidly as possible. As one journal article explains it, “In severe burn injuries where both the epidermal and dermal layers of skin are destroyed, prompt wound closure is critical for favourable [sic] patient outcomes and reduced mortality rates.” A team of biomedical and mechanical engineering graduate students at the University of Toronto have developed what may at the least be considered a preliminary–but certainly extremely technologically advanced–solution to the problem of critical, temporal health intervention for burn patients. For their...

So it begins: Panel Urges Overhauling Health Care at End of Life Taking care to make sure that Republicans are implicated, the NY Times hails death of the elderly. “The current system is geared towards doing more, more, more, and that system by definition is not necessarily consistent with what patients want, and is also more costly.” The operative word here is "costly."I have no problem with any old person expressing the wish to be left to die in peace. I have a big problem with Death Panels deciding that death is cheaper than life and making that the national...

The Italian government has plans to produce medical marijuana in a military factory in Florence, national media reported on Friday. Roberta Pinotti, defence minister, and Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin have given their backing to the plans to see the army produce drugs using cannabis, La Stampa said. If approved the medical marijuana will be cultivated at a chemical plant run by the army, originally used to produce medicines for the military. The plans could see cannabis drugs available in Italian pharmacies as early as next year, the newspaper said. But although the defence and health ministries have been drawing up...

Mark Smith was a microbiology graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when, in 2011, a family friend became infected with the notorious superbug clostridium difficile. C. diff can cause severe diarrhea, disability, and malnutrition and is responsible for roughly 14,000 deaths in the United States each year. In 2012, after taking seven rounds of the antibiotic vancomycin and failing to improve, Smith’s friend received a DIY fecal transplant from his roommate—in their apartment, using an over-the-counter enema kit. The friend recovered within days, but “the whole thing was absurd, not at all how it should be done,” Smith...

President Obama urged West Africans in areas affected by the Ebola virus not to touch the corpses of loved ones who had succumbed to the deadly disease in a public service announcement released by the State Department on Tuesday. "When burying someone who has died from this terrible disease, it's important to not directly touch their body," Obama says. "You can respect your traditions and honor your loved ones without risking the lives of the living." [Snip] "If you feel sick with a high fever, you should get help right away," Obama said.

All too often these days, I find myself fidgeting by the doorway to my exam room, trying to conclude an office visit with one of my patients. When I look at my career at midlife, I realize that in many ways I have become the kind of doctor I never thought I'd be: impatient, occasionally indifferent, at times dismissive or paternalistic. Many of my colleagues are similarly struggling with the loss of their professional ideals. It could be just a midlife crisis, but it occurs to me that my profession is in a sort of midlife crisis of its own....

Brain-wave sensing machines have been used to ‘telepathically’ control everything from real-life helicopters to characters in a computer game. Now the technology has gone a step further by allowing someone in India to send an email to his colleague in France using nothing but the power of his mind. The researchers used electroencephalography (EEG) headsets to record electrical activity from neurons firing in the brain, and convert the words ‘hola’ and ‘ciao’ into binary. In EEG, electrical currents in the brain are linked with different thoughts that are then fed into a computer interface. This computer analyses the signal and...

Britons are to be the first in the world to test a new vaccine against the deadly ebola virus. Altogether 60 healthy volunteers will be given the vaccine next month in a trial led by Oxford University scientists. If the vaccine performs as well in humans as in monkeys, the trial will be extended to 80 people in The Gambia and in Mali. The entire trial programme is being fast-tracked – subject to ethical approval – with the intention of using the vaccine in people at high risk in West Africa early next year. Latest figures show that more than...

Bad memories could be reversed after scientists discovered the part of the brain which links emotions to past events Bad memories of past trauma can leave people emotionally scarred for life. But now neuroscientists believe they can erase feelings of fear or anxiety attached to stressful events, in a breakthrough which could help treat depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Researchers at MIT, US, have discovered which brain circuits attach emotions to memories, and crucially, how to reverse the link. They managed to ‘switch off’ feelings of fear in mice which had been conditioned to feel anxious. It is likely the...

People who tend to blame others for their suffering and think setbacks in their lives are irreparable tend to report more pain after knee replacement surgery, according to a new study. This is not the first time feelings of personal injustice have been tied to longer recovery times and increased disability after injury, the authors write. “Pain is a complex phenomenon that is influenced by biological, social, and psychological factors,” said lead author Esther Yakobov, a doctoral student in clinical psychology at McGill University in Montreal. “Studies conducted with patients who suffer from chronic pain because of an injury demonstrated...