Free Republic

FULL TITLE: Watchdog Says Report of 10,000 Toddlers on ADHD Drugs Tip of the Iceberg—274,000 0-1 Year Olds and 370,000 Toddlers Prescribed Psychiatric Drugs Mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights says a new report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the 10,000 toddlers being prescribed ADHD drugs, is only the tip of the iceberg regarding children being prescribed psychiatric drugs in the U.S. According to IMS health, more than 274,000 0-1 year olds are being prescribed psychiatric drugs and a staggering 370,000 toddlers.

SYNOPSIS The American military experience in World War I and the influenza pandemic were closely intertwined. The war fostered influenza in the crowded conditions of military camps in the United States and in the trenches of the Western Front in Europe. The virus traveled with military personnel from camp to camp and across the Atlantic, and at the height of the American military involvement in the war, September through November 1918, influenza and pneumonia sickened 20% to 40% of U.S. Army and Navy personnel. These high morbidity rates interfered with induction and training schedules in the United States and rendered...

Three scientists whose discoveries have driven scourges of the developing world to the brink of eradication have been awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine. The Nobel Committee announced Monday it had awarded the 2015 prize to 85-year old William C. Campbell, 80-year-old Satoshi Omura and 85-year-old Youyou Tu of China for their discoveries leading to the development of antimicrobial treatments for such tropical diseases as river blindness, lymphatic filariasis (also known as elephantiasis) and malaria. Campbell, an Irish biochemist and parasitologist at Drew University in New Jersey, and Omura, a bioorganic chemist at Kitasato University in Japan and...

3D printing is proving to be a potential game changer for a wide variety of fields. One group in particular that could benefit is the medical community, thanks to a recent development by scientists that could make it easier to print organs from living tissue. How? By printing structures inside of special gel that provides support during the build process. New Scientist reports that researchers from the University of Florida in Gainesville came to the breakthrough method while searching for a way to enable the printing of items that cannot support their own weight. The technique prints objects inside a...

Researchers have successfully created a new test that could eliminate the need for needles in testing for viruses — and dramatically increase the success rate of doctors trying to diagnose an illness. It’s called ViroCap, and while the test is not ready for use in patients just yet, it has passed a big clinical trial that is paving the way for its eventual entry into the market, according to a UPI report. ViroCap supposedly can detect any virus known to man — and animals — and it could help doctors who don’t know what they’re looking for spot a virus...

There is only one guaranteed way to get fired from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Falsifying records won’t do it. Prescribing obsolete drugs won’t do it. Cutting all manner of corners on health and safety is, at worst, going to get you a reprimand. No, the only sure-fire way to get canned at the VA is to report any of these matters to authorities who might do something about it. That, at least, is what the U.S. Office of Special Counsel recently reported to the president of the United States. The Special Counsel’s office is the agency to which government...

C'mon folks, this isn't complicated. Hill used Indian government data on the cost of pharmaceutical ingredients and allowed for a 50-percent profit margin - but no money for investment in research - to work out the costs of producing certain drugs. On this basis, he found that Novartis' leukaemia drug Glivec actually cost $159 for a year's treatment, against the $106,000 charged in the United States. Roche's Tarceva for lung cancer cost $236, against a U.S. price of $79,000, and Novartis' Tykerb cost $4,000 against a price of $74,000. In all these cases the U.S. cost was far above that...

In Brief Japanese researchers have successfully grown kidneys from stem cells that worked as they were supposed to after being transplanted into rats and pigs. The Breakthrough With all the parts, grown, the kidney was placed inside a rat, then the pathway was added, followed by the bladder they’d grown—the new bladder was then connected to the rat’s native bladder. After sewing up the rat, they found the whole system worked. The team then repeated what they had done with a much larger animal, one much closer in size to humans—a pig—and found the same results. The paper was published...

The glaring unfairness of ObamaCare can be seen in the anonymous analysis done by a well salaried California engineer and his very low paid girlfriend, a part time mail clerk. The lady friend earns $18,000 per year to his yearly income of $60,000 to $ 125,000. “For me, making $60,000 a year, under ObamaCare, the cheapest, lowest grade policy I can buy, with a $5,000 deductible, costs $482 a month. His gal friend, holding the exact same policy with the same deductible, pays $1.00 a month! “That’s right, $1.00 per month. I’m not making this up,” he said. Can you...

As the vital relationship between 3D printing and medical science continues to flourish, potentially life-altering developments continue to be made. A national team of researchers has developed a first-of-its-kind, 3D-printed guide that helps regrow both the sensory and motor functions of complex nerves after injury. The groundbreaking research, undertaken in Minnesota, has the potential to help more than 200,000 people annually who experience nerve injuries or disease. Nerve regeneration is a complex process. Because of this complexity, regrowth of nerves after injury or disease is very rare, according to the Mayo Clinic. Nerve damage is often permanent. While the peripheral...

Blocking D1 receptors in brain blocks alcohol cravings: study. Scientists say a cure for alcoholism could be on the horizon thanks to the remarkable discovery of neurons in the brain that play a role in whether one glass of wine turns into a bottle. Texas A&M researchers explain the part of your brain known as the dorsomedial striatum contains neurons with spiny protrusions, each with two types of dopamine receptors. One type, called D1, encourages action but is structurally altered when large amounts of alcohol are consumed. The alteration causes the neurons to activate with less stimulation and the result...

Dr. Sudi Namir, who was fired from the Israel Medical Association Ethics Committee for controversial comments he made about homosexuals on an internet forum, has defended his comments in an exclusive interview with Arutz Sheva.

A domestic pig on an organic farm in Solothurn, Switzerland. Image: Wikimedia Commons --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stories of people waiting for organ transplants that could save their lives are well known. The numbers, though, are not encouraging. The US Department of Health and Human Services has some data: 122,407 people need a lifesaving organ transplant (total waiting list of candidates). The agency said that the gap between supply and demand continues to widen. The total number of donors from January through May this year was 5,975. On average, 22 people die each day while waiting for a transplant. Here is another statistic:...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has, for the first time, approved a drug that uses 3D printing technology, paving the way for potential customization of drugs to suit patients' needs. The drug, made by privately held Aprecia Pharmaceuticals Co, was approved for oral use as a prescription adjunctive therapy in the treatment of epilepsy, the company said on Monday. Spritam uses Aprecia's "ZipDose" technology, a delivery system that creates premeasured doses which disintegrate in the mouth with a sip of liquid. 3D printing could help companies make products "to the specifications of an individual patient rather than (take a)...

As the sun went down after the 1862 Battle of Shiloh during the Civil War, some soldiers noticed that their wounds were glowing a faint blue. Many men waited on the rainy, muddy Tennessee battlefield for two days that April, until medics could treat them. Once they were taken to field hospitals, the troops with glowing wounds were more likely to survive their injuries — and to get better faster. Thus the mysterious blue light was dubbed “Angel’s Glow.” In 2001, 17-year-old Civil War buff Bill Martin visited the Shiloh battlefield with his family and heard the legend of Angel’s...

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) recently called attention to an IRS ruling that would penalize small businesses up to $500,000 for daring to compensate their employees for health insurance premiums. The NFIB reports, “On July 1, 2015, employers will be penalized $100 per day per employee if they try to make health insurance more affordable by reimbursing their employees for individual market health insurance premiums. The penalty affects businesses that provide reimbursement for more than one employee. The healthcare reimbursement prohibition regulation decreases an employer’s ability to assist employees with health insurance costs.” The ruling would fine the...

Uber is completely revolutionizing the market for urban transportation. Could a similar revolution occur in other fields, including the market for medical care? That’s what University of Chicago economist John Cochrane wondered the other day. But we no longer have to speculate. Uber medicine has already arrived. There are a number of firms that will bring a doctor to your doorstep at the flick of a cell phone app, including Doctors Making House Calls (North Carolina), Pager (New York City), Heal (Los Angeles) and Medicast (Seattle). Insurance rarely pays for the service. Like so many other innovations in meeting the...

Drug maker says better poised to licence and position its novel molecule Itolizumab, which has a Cuban origin Mumbai - Bangalore-based Biocon http://www.dnaindia.com/topic/biocon hopes that the thaw in bilateral relations between the US and Cuba offers the company a "better opportunity" to licence and partner its novel molecule Itolizumab, used for the treatment of psoriasis. The molecule, which has a Cuban origin, is the world's first novel anti CD-6 monoclonal antibody to treat multiple autoimmune diseases. The drug was launched in India in 2013 under the brand name Alzumab. "Itolizumab is advancing well. With relations restored between Cuba and the...

Robert Folmer of the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center gave people with chronic tinnitus transcranial magnetic stimulation as part of a study. Participants found their symptoms decreased by about a third. (Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center ) ================================================================================================= Imagine dealing with stresses of every day, juggling the demands of family life and deadlines at work, with a constant ringing in your ears? That's just what millions of Americans who suffer from tinnitus face. Hope could be on the way. New research by the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Oregon Health & Science University found that a noninvasive technique involving...

Q: I wanted to share my experience with tinnitus. It's not incapacitating, but it is annoying. I found something that helps by serendipity. My wife has hair loss. She takes levothyroxine (Synthroid) and liothyronine (Cytomel) because her thyroid was removed via radiation. She also takes biotin to lessen her hair loss. I'm bald on top, but I thought I'd see if biotin would help grow new hair. It didn't. What DID happen with the very first dose was total elimination of my tinnitus! A few hours after I take the biotin, the tinnitus returns, but at a much lower intensity....