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The discovery of a new virus implicated in the death of a Kansas farmer this past June raises many questions about its host, prevalence, spectrum of disease, and ultimately its treatment and prevention, according to an infectious disease expert who treated the patient. Yesterday, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment announced the first known case of the so-called Bourbon virus, named after the Kansas county where the unidentified patient had lived. His symptoms — fever, low red and white blood cell counts, elevated liver enzymes, and loss of appetite — suggested a tick-borne illness such as ehrlichiosis or the...

GPs will be asked to identify patients who are putting on weight under a new national programme to help fight obesity. Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, said it was time for Britain to "get back in shape" in order to protect millions of people from a host of obesity-related diseases. Under the scheme, family doctors will be asked to identify anyone who has gained weight and is at risk of diabetes – particularly those aged below 40. They will then be offered tests for pre-diabetes, followed by healthy lifestyle advice and close monitoring to ensure they are eating...

New implant improves vision for older people struggling with cataracts, astigmatism, or long and short-sightedness. For many people getting older brings a catalogue of vision problems which make everyday tasks like reading and driving a major challenge. But a new lens implant which mimics the working of a youthful eye is giving sight back to people struggling with cataracts, astigmatism, or long and short-sightedness. It is the first lens that corrects for all types of vision problems at once and can be inserted in just a simple operation. It works at any distance and in any light condition, acting more...

Testing has become to the United States’ medical system what liquor is to the hospitality industry: a profit center with large and often arbitrary markups. From a medical perspective, blood work, tests and scans are tools to help physicians diagnose and monitor disease. But from a business perspective, they are opportunities to bring in revenue — especially because the equipment to perform them has generally become far cheaper, smaller and more highly mechanized in the past two decades. And echocardiograms, ultrasound pictures of the heart, are enticing because they are painless and have no side effects — unlike CT scans,...

They cited the example of the asthma drug albuterol sulfate. The average cost for a bottle of 100 pills was $11 last October, the pair said. The average charge by this April was up to $434. The antibiotic doxycycline hyclate cost $20 last October for a bottle of 500 tablets, the congressmen observed. By April, the price was $1,849. Experts say generics are growing more expensive because of reduced competition among manufacturers and shortages of raw materials. However, that might not explain triple-digit price hikes for some drugs. "Most generics are increasing in price by an average 10% a year,"...

Kate Kelland, Reuters December 10, 2014LONDON, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Drug-resistant superbugs could kill an extra 10 million people a year and cost up to $100 trillion by 2050 if their rampant global spread is not halted, according to a British government-commissioned review. Such infections already kill hundreds of thousands of people a year and the trend is growing, the review said, adding: "The importance of effective antimicrobial drugs cannot be overplayed." Former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill, who led the work, noted that in Europe and the United States alone around 50,000 people currently die each year from...

...Yet a very small study out of UCLA is offering a glimmer of hope for those with what is often a hopeless diagnosis. Nine out of the 10 patients involved in the study, who were in various stages of dementia, say their symptoms were reversed after they participated in a rigorous program. The program included things like optimizing Vitamin D levels in the blood, using DHA supplements to bridge broken connections in the brain, optimizing gut health, and strategic fasting to normalize insulin levels. A few months after starting the extreme program, patients in the study, aged 55 to 75,...

Tom Telford ’s stomach ached. The New York City teacher had been drinking cup after cup of coffee as he labored to finish year-end grading and coach his high-school baseball team through the playoffs. He worried he might have an ulcer. When school let out, though, Mr. Telford looked forward to relaxing on a 25th anniversary cruise with his wife. But once in the Caribbean, he struggled to swim and climbing from one deck to another exhausted him. Back at home, he collapsed while running a TV cable in his bedroom. His family doctor told him he had lost two...

Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome are accustomed to disappointment. The cause of the disorder remains unknown; it can be difficult to diagnose, and treatment options are few. Many patients are still told to seek psychiatric help. But two recent studies — one from investigators at Stanford a few weeks ago and another from a Japanese research team published earlier this year — have found that the brains of people with chronic fatigue syndrome differ from those of healthy people, strengthening the argument that serious physiological dysfunctions are at the root of the condition. Both studies were small, however, and their...

December 1st, is World AIDS Day. In the 35-years of the epidemic, about 80-million people have become infected with HIV and nearly 40-million have died. But great progress has been made in recent years in preventing and treating the disease. UNAIDS – the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS – has set a goal of ending the epidemic by 2030. An advocacy group says a strategic plan and much funding are needed to achieve that goal.

Researchers in Germany have grown complete spinal cords – partly thanks to a gene called sonic hedgehog.As regenerative medicine and stem cell technologies continue to progress, so the list of tissues and organs that can be grown from scratch – and potentially replaced – continues to grow. In the past few years, researchers have used stem cells to grow windpipes, bladders, urethras and vaginas in the lab, and, in some cases, successfully transplanted them into patients. Others are making progress in growing liver and heart tissue; one team in London is busy growing blood vessels, noses and ears; and some...

A medical-device company lost out on a hefty Minnesota subsidy on Wednesday after the firm and its leader were criminally charged. The Department of Employment and Economic Development scrapped a potential $800,000 package tied to an expansion and hiring proposal put forth by Vascular Solutions. The decision came Wednesday, a day after The Associated Press reported the deal was cast into doubt by last week’s federal indictment. A hearing to consider approval of the Minnesota Job Creation Fund award had been set for Friday. […] Vascular Solutions and CEO Howard Root were federally indicted last week on charges of conspiring...

t’s the holy grail of HIV and AIDS research: the search for a cure for the virus that attacks the immune system, allowing life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. Significant strides have been made with pharmaceutical drugs – antiretrovirals – that help those diagnosed as HIV positive to manage their condition, and live longer, healthier lives. But so far, a cure has proved elusive. Now French scientists believe they have uncovered the genetic path by which two men were spontaneously cured of the HI virus. They believe it’s an exciting discovery which could offer a new strategy in the...

A Dutch student has revealed a prototype ‘ambulance drone’, a flying defibrillator able to reach heart attack victims within precious life-saving minutes. Developed by engineering graduate Alec Momont, it can fly at speeds of up to 100 kilometres per hour (60 miles per hour). Painted in emergency services yellow and driven by six propellers, the drone can carry a four kilogramme load – in this case a defibrillator. ‘Around 800,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest in the European Union every year and only 8.0 percent survive,’ Momont, 23, said at the TU Delft University. ‘The main reason for this is...

The thing about cancer is that you need to catch it early. Once it spreads, it becomes harder and harder to treat. But part of the problem is making yourself go to the doctor in the first place; a lot of people would rather avoid finding out really depressing news, in some cases via invasive poking. But what if you could detect cancerous cells and various other diseases in 60 minutes using your phone? A new start-up named Miroculus has made a device, "Miriam," that hopes to allow you to do just that. In hugely simplified terms, cancer happens when a cell...

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...