Posted on 12/19/2006 9:37:04 PM PST by neverdem
Attention is paid to hair.
In our culture the hair industry is huge — shampoos, conditioners, coloring, cutting, shaping, styling. For “hair-loss treatment” alone, Google conjures up 749,000 references. Some people undergo surgical procedures, sometimes uncomfortable and expensive, to implant hair.
Total hair loss is often an unfortunate and undesirable complication of the agents used to treat and cure cancer. Yet baldness — the hairless look — can for some represent spirituality and religion, or for others may suggest that they are athletic, smart, cool, reeking of testosterone.
Depending on where you are in your life, what you are doing, your age and sex, baldness is loved or hated — or just accepted. Baldness can be bought and bought off. But it is not a medical treatment, at least not since shaving the head for lice was stopped.
In one patient, however, shaving the head was life saving.
A 50-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital with complaints of severe weakness and difficulty breathing. She had been quite healthy until the afternoon of the admission, with no history of serious illnesses.
The doctors at the university hospital where she became a patient are known for using their brains. They also use their stethoscopes wisely, and observe closely how a patient looks.
On examination this one was sweaty and had pinpoint pupils, and her lungs were wheezy. But unlike physicians of centuries ago, doctors today do not regularly use their noses.
--snip--
Organophosphates are frequently used in agriculture as an insecticide. Studies suggest that each year, there are 18 cases of pesticide-caused illness for every 100,000 American workers. In gaseous forms, like tabun and sarin, they can also be deadly biological weapons. Sarin was used by members of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo in the Tokyo subway attack of 1995.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The smoky bomb threat Polonium 210
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
I went to the market down the street to get something to drink. The store clerk indicated that my experience wasn't uncommon. People in the area had varying degrees of severity with similar exposures. It's not something I would ever want to experience again.
Just DAMN
I think you should have sued the SOBs.
It was around 1:30 AM. Pitch dark except for the lights on the wingtips of the ag sprayer plane. It would have been difficult to read a tail number if I hadn't be incapacitated by the spray. As it was, I decided my best probability of surviving was to get inside the central office building. It's disconcerting to try to draw a breath and sense that your diaphragm isn't responding.
I wonder why the person who washed her hair didn't absorb the stuff through her hands?
Sorry for your experience, but this is a common problem for hundreds of thousands of workers (machinists, tool workers) who are exposed to low levels of pesticides on a regular basis. These pesticides (called biocides) are used to manage the high levels of bacteria that grow in metalworking fluids -- the fluids that cool and lubricate the grinding or milling process and take away the metal swarf (chips) from the part. These fluids are a great breeding ground for bacteria. When the bacteria levels get up to very high levels (10^8 per ml -- that is, 100 million per milliliter... imagine a 10K or 20K gallon sump filled with that contaminated mess) the stench in the plant requires a dose of biocide. When these fluids are being used in the machining process, they are turned into aerosols so the workers are exposed to this mix of metalworking fluid, bacteria, dead bacteria, and biocides. For this reason, OSHA named exposure to contaminated metalworking fluids one of the top 5 workplace health hazards in the US back in the late 1990's. Some workers find they can't take it after a short time working in these plants -- others adjust and live with the conditions, and often suffer long term health consequences: occupational asthma, bronchitis, skin rashes, and some of these conditions are life-shortening.
It might be interesting to see if machinists have a higher incidence of CJD. Other factors are required to move the organophosphate exposure down the road to CJD. There needs to be a copper deficiency and enough manganese to start the conversion of normal proteins to prions.
The average doctor asks three questions before making a diagnosis... Older doctors are worse. What it means is anything outside of the "common" is misdiagnosed for a time. The answer? Computerize medicine. A computer will keep asking questions - the best diagnosticians can put their wisdom into a comprehensive medical program - for the benefit of all...
gloves
Enter bastian fo into PubMed for an author search. He has a theory that Spiroplasma causes spongiform encephalopathies.
People that wash my hair don't use gloves.
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