Health

Please do not lose any weight. Not one ounce. Not one milligram. You look perfect just the way you are right now.

Seriously, you make ME want to lose 40 pounds, cover myself in leather and tattoos and totally go butch for a night of good lesbo love for you.

Did I say I am a het?

Yet gurl, you got it going on after those twins. It's why I can't believe the rumors that you've been falling on your anorectic tendencies because you feel fat and ugly.

You know I don't have to tell you EVERY SINGLE WOMAN goes through that after giving birth. Don't knock yourself down woman. You look perfect. Eat more a couple of hamburgers a week and splurge on that pizzas you like.

'Cause, child, you make a het woman want to go totally bi for you. Am thinking if I want to hit that with you ten thousand ways to Monday, I'd have to find it in my heart to entertain Brad. Anyhow, you look lovely and perfect and healthy.

So girl, stay just the way you are.

Love,
liza

White rice cooked Puerto Rican style and and maduros (fried sweet platains).

What about you?

The Chinese government didn't want the world to know about the melamine-tainted milk that has poisoned 50,000 babies in their country and killed at least 4. Nope. They stonewalled foreign media and clamped down on their local outlets until they couldn't contain the outcries of parents with ill or dead children.

If not, it would have been, you know, bad for China's image:

JIAN Guangzhou of the Oriental Morning Post in Shanghai has received widespread applause for being the journalist who first named famous Chinese dairy brand Sanlu as being responsible for the nationwide milk powder poisonings of thousands of babies.

But it is a sorry triumph, because the reporting of China's worst food disaster of recent years -- with at least 53,000 babies suffering from kidney problems and four dying -- has remained constrained by party controls.

The first local media reports on the disaster were published and broadcast in July, but were not followed up. That was because a blackout was imposed.

The central party propaganda department delivered a 21-part instruction to all Chinese media before the Beijing Olympics, preventing any critical reporting to ensure a positive mood during the Games. The eighth clause stated that "all food safety issues are off limits".

So the milk poison stories were not to be reported until after the Games. By then, the crisis was so widespread it was impossible to suppress entirely.

But in the meantime, immense additional damage was done to babies' kidneys. For even though Sanlu's board was told about the disaster shortly before the Olympics, the poisonous products were not recalled until afterwards -- ensuring the Games remained a period of harmony and national pride.

Yet the problem is bigger than the Sanlu baby-milk scandal. Kraft, Mars, Cadbury are now recalling millions of chocolate bars, cookies and snacks made with milk produced in China and sold in Asia.

Not so in Indonesia who are finding melamine even in products not produced with milk :

So like, I was watching Lou "I hate dark-skinned immigrants" Dobbs because no matter how much of a jerk he is, when it comes to economics, the guy knows and has people around him who know a thing or two.

Anyway, I noticed there's a lot of ads for Cialis during his show, selling 36 hour erections.

Ok sex and health bloggers, I need you to answer this one : why in the world would a guy want to be for 36 hours in a state of arousal induced by "erectile dysfunction" drugs?

Am baffled at the idea that a guy, an old guy at that, would have a hard-on for 36 hours.

WTF?

So, like, 'tis the first time I get a mammogram --I guess I am finally of a certain age. Aside of knowing that my tits are going to get squished into a machine, I have no idea what else is involved.

Anybody care to share their stories?

Is it going to hurt? Is it going to tickle? Do I get results immediately? Do I get a lollipop at the end?

Think Progress just discovered that the Bush Administration is forcing HPV vaccines on immigrants :

In July, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services quietly amended its list of required vaccinations for immigrants applying to become citizens. One of the newest requirements? Gardasil, which vaccinates against the human papillomavirus (HPV). From the agency’s press release:

CDC’s revised Technical Instructions to Civil Surgeons for Vaccination Requirements require the following age-appropriate additional vaccinations to adjust status to legal permanent resident:

* Rotavirus
* Hepatitis A
* Meningococcal
* Human papillomavirus
* Zoster

This regulation goes directly against the advice of Dr. Jon Abramson, chairman of the CDC’s advisory committee on immunization practices. In Feb. 2007, Abramson said that he and other committee members advised that Gardasil should not be mandatory because HPV is not a communicable disease like chicken pox.

As I move into ping.FM and Twitter to microblog the quotidian, I am find it is increasingly harder for me to use blogging as a personal space. I am gradually leaving blogging to the realm of "big think" publishing that takes longer to write and produce and certainly longer to read and react to.

Yet today I am making an exception because there's another reason for my not writing as much as I would like to. That reason is pain.

I have been consumed by the pain that ails me and my body at any given time of the day for the last year and a half. And yes, I speak of my body as a separate entity because as someone who is her 40s, I am suffering from the realities of this twilight age where the youthfulness of my body doesn't mesh with the decomposing realities of a body that by evolutionary standards should have been turned to dust if not 5 years ago, then right about now.

Pain is nothing new in my blogging life. Actually, as I created this blog to break free from the shackles of a writing block that I had dragged into motherhood from my years as a PhD candidate, I found that the only thing I could rant about was pain. Here's an example from 2003 :

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists recent newsletter, the antibiotic resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that has been an increasing problem in hospitals around the world is now infecting apparently healthy schoolkids outside of hospitals. This is a major development. Up until now anti-biotic resistance was only occasionally a problem outside of hospitals (so-called community-acquired" cases). This may be changing. According to the Centers for Disease Control, MRSA was responsible for almost 19,000 US deaths in 2005.

Another part of this development is also important. Evidence from Europe indicate that the community-acquired cases of MRSA are often associated with livestock operations. This is yet further evidence that the idiotic practice of pouring massive amounts of antibiotics into the feed of healthy animals is contributing to the public health risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria that treatens our children and people with a compromised immune system.

This is what I would do if I had several thousand dollars to spare these days :

1. I would have wire clothes hangers, like the ones dry cleaning stores us, and I'd covered them in dark blue rice paper with the blue and logo of the McCain campaign.

2. The tag line under the logo? "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."

3. A second design option would have his fateful words about how he would change the Supreme Court of the United States with the judges like like Roberts and Alito or his dear friend Chief Rhenquist.

4. If I had more money, I'd hang a Supreme Court Justice looking robe from several hundreds of them and deliver them to each and every one of the high-profile Democrats, whereas politicians or funders, who are being assholes about supporting Obama.

Plain and simple message : You support McCain? Kiss equal rights for women away.

This post was going to be a long rant about how I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. After a long week battling a sore throat, I succumbed to antibiotics the following 5 days, only to find out on the last day that, alas, the pain and rawness in my throat are back again.

It's in times like these that I reckon how much I need some sand, a Caribbean beach and the soothing nothingness of a blue ocean's horizon. I miss living close to a beach. And no, Coney Island or any other dirty, stinky, filthy New York City beach just doesn't cut it because I actually may end up with a cut up foot if I don't watch every step I take.

No.

I need salty clean and fresh blue water. I need the unrelenting wind that only comes with whirly waves. And no, neither a river nor a lake or needless to say a pond or lagoon can make me happy.

It's why I've never believed the Babalawo who dare to read my Orisha as Osun and not Yemanya. I can't understand how I can be an Oshun if I hate mountains, rivers and lakes so much. Am happiest when I know I have a sea or an ocean where I can rest my weary soul.

Am getting old.

Am pining for my old Puerto Rico days.

And it's making me think about what would be for me a heaven on earth.

The answer is simple : A house, close to a Puerto Rican beach yet with a nice pool for a backyard.

I would have subtitled this video "America's New Civil War".

From the production company :
The New York Times and the Washington Post have recently reported on the "System of Neglect," namely, the state of immigration detention center conditions. As told by her sister June Everett, watch the story of Sandra Kenley, a 52- year-old grandmother, who after living in the U.S. legally for 33 years, was subjected to these very conditions and died in immigration detention.

"Dr. Katari ... invited me to a first session with a lovely group of rapists, murderers and robbers." --John Cleese in The Benefits of Laughter Yoga with John Cleese

Whenever I start researching uplifting stories involving science or technology for Kenneth Cole's Awearnessblog, I always end up unearthing some really funky project from India. The latest is the Yoga of Laughter created by Dr Madan Kataria who has this published on his website, Laughter Yoga :

BILL CLINTON spoke last night at the University of Oregon in Eugene in behalf of his wife's candidacy, and of course, your trusty citizen journalist Nezua was on the scene.

The speech was attended by about 800 - 1000 people. I didn't count, but the venue was switched at the last moment from a ballroom at the EMU that had a capacity of 700, I believe, to an outside courtyard which wasn't quite full. I asked Hillary's press liaison what necessitated the change, and she told me that there were more people in line than would fit in the rather small ballroom. The switch was after the security sweep was done and everyone's credentials checked and everything locked down. Because of the last minute move, the lighting and sound and security went from controlled and having a feeling of being well-organized to an "on-the-fly" and very thrown together situation, in some ways quite lacking. But nothing that prevented us from doing our jobs.

I found Steve Harvey, one of the Kings of Comedy, unleashing his inner sexy beast over at Oh No They Didn't; which was in turn sourced from Bossip.

Oh no they didn't indeed.

There are no words to describe this photograph, and this is not even the best of them. Check out tiny after the jump :

An ongoing effort of mine is to fight the misuse of antibiotics. Misuse of antibiotics has been an increasing health hazard for people, leading to many strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria that infect, and sometimes kill, people, particularly children, the elderly and the immunocompromised. Last time I wrote about this I was able to report a victory in the fight to keep antibiotics effective. Today I want to introduce the latest fight.

First, for those who want more background, the Union of Concerned Scientists has an excellent rundown. An excerpt from their site:

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise. Patients once effectively treated for pneumonia, tuberculosis, or ear infections may now have to try three or more antibiotics before they find one that works. And as more bacterial strains develop resistance, more people will die because effective antibiotics are not identified quickly enough or because the bacteria causing the disease are resistant to all available antibiotics.

Why have bacterial strains become resistant? The short answer is overuse of antibiotics. Physicians and hospitals have overprescribed the drugs, and patients have demanded them—even for illnesses not caused by bacteria. Veterinarians, too, overprescribe drugs to treat sick animals.

The odds are great that you or someone you care about will have a heart attack and survive it. But until I had a heart attack I was totally unaware that after surviving one there is a critically important option that far too few survivors take advantage of. It is called cardiac rehab, a medically supervised and monitored program of exercise with counseling, dietary and other features.

After a seven-day hospital stay where I received angioplasty, three stents and a pacemaker, my cardiologist informed me about the cardiac rehab program at the hospital. It sounded terrific and I did not hesitate entering the program. I had to wait awhile while I recuperated and then I had to pass a stress test to qualify for the program. But as soon I could, I entered the award-winning program at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.

An individualized, tailored program based on my medical condition was designed and over time the program evolves to restore physical strength and endurance through use of a variety of exercise machines. Rehab programs also provide referring physicians with valuable surveillance information on how well their patients are doing, information that may cause new decisions on medical treatment or drug intervention.

As I learned more about cardiac rehab I was shocked to learn that about two thirds of patients in the United States who survive a heart attack do not undergo outpatient cardiac rehabilitation, even though such programs have been proven to reduce the risk of illness and death, and to also improve psychological recovery, according to findings reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Healing to Wellness Courts and Tribal Court Responses to Substance Abuse

Type of Event: Training
Hosted By: Tribal Judicial Institute
Event Dates: 5/15/2008 - 5/16/2008
Event Location: Anchorage, AK
Contact: Melissa Johnson
Email: mjohnson@law.und.edu
Contact Phone:701-777-6306
Contact Fax:701-777-0178
Website: http://www.law.und.edu/npilc/judicial

Course Description:Partners will assist Tribes to develop and implement Healing to Wellness Courts to respond to a burgeoning drug and alcohol problem including methamphetamine.

How to Register: Visit the Tribal Judicial Institute website to download a registration form at: http://www.law.und.edu/npilc/judicial/downloads.php

3rd Annual Conference on the Health of the African Diaspora: Mental Health

Saturday, February, 9, 2008
9:00Am to 6:00PM
NYU Medical Center
550 First Avenue
New York, NY 10016

To Register: http://www.med.nyu.edu/ichr/chad/events/events.html

Conference Fee: $50 General, $20 Students

The 3rd Annual Conference on the Health of the African Diaspora: Mental Health is an interdisciplinary meeting that brings together physicians, social workers, psychologists, public health professionals and policy makers to discuss the status of mental health among peoples of the African Diaspora. The one-day conference will provide an opportunity for a better understanding of mental health issues across the demographic cross-section of peoples of African descent through a comprehensive discourse of the social, medical and demographic framework that shapes mental health policy, diagnosis and treatment. Over 250 participants are expected and confirmed speakers include: Hugh Hendrie, MD, Indiana University School of Medicine; Hugh Butts, MD, Author, Racism & Posttraumatic Stress Disorder; David Henderson, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; Jacqueline Mattis, PhD, New York University; Kirby Randolph, PhD, Kansas Medical School; Ernest Marquez, PhD, National Institute of Mental Health; Alfonso Wyatt, MDiv, Fund for the City of New York; Rosemonde Pierre-Louis, Manhattan Borough Deputy President; Adeyinka Akinsulure-Smith, PhD, CUNY, Bellevue/ NYU Program for Survivors of Torture; and Robert Fullilove, EdD, Columbia University.

About a conniving opportunist who cheatead first-responders out of medical insurance, worker's compensation and any help at all from the government. All in the name of his beloved "cri de coeur", 9-1-1.

This man doesn't deserve to even think he is deserving of the presidency.

At all.

It's in moments like these that my love for dictionaries knows no end. Today is Epiphany Day. Here's what I found for the definition of epiphany :

epiphany |iˈpifənē| noun ( pl. -nies) (also Epiphany) the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1–12).
• the festival commemorating this on January 6.
• a manifestation of a divine or supernatural being.
• a moment of sudden revelation or insight.

DERIVATIVES epiphanic |ˌepəˈfanik| adjective

ORIGIN Middle English : from Greek epiphainein ‘reveal.’ The sense relating to the Christian festival is via Old French epiphanie and ecclesiastical Latin epiphania.

Now, I've repeatedly said here how even though I am an atheist, I am strongly attached to many of the catholic rites I grew up with. This has to do with what Joseph Campbell called The Power of Myth. I love mythologies, I love the stories humans have created and propagated through millennia in order to justify our existence.

I've been missing "Navidad en Puerto Rico" for a long time. It is the perfect social expression of our mulatto culture and mythologies and it's nothing, and I mean, nothing like Christmas in New York or anywhere in the United States.

In Puerto Rico we call today El Día de los Reyes Magos. It's the day catholics all around the world use to commemorate the Three Wise Men's visitation of the baby Jesus in manger in the middle of nowhere in Bethlehem. That's where the "manifestation of a divine or supernatural being" comes into play on this day.

On this day we kind of do what anglos do with Santa Claus. On the evening of the 5th, kids gather grass and water dishes for the three kings' horses. Parents put together candy with a little "ofrenda" of rum. "The magic revelation" happens when the kids go to sleep.

My parents loved to get their Reyes Magos on and would go as far as get coconuts and, in an unironic Monty Pythonesque moment, clopclopclop their way around the house while scattering the grass, emptying the bowls full of water and washing down a coconut candy or two with the "ofrenda" they had left out for themselves.

I tried doing the same for my kids but it just doesn't work out the same. For one, all the kids in Puerto Rico wait eagerly for Los Reyes Magos. Here in New York? Not so much. Not even american catholics celebrate the day!

Yet what I love and miss about los Reyes Magos is that it marks the half-point of our Christmas festivities.

Yes people, we Puerto Ricans have to do things differently, especially if it involves partying. In Puerto Rico we don't have 12 days of Christmas. We have 22 days.

Dear Sandra,

I don't mean to rub it in, but I bet you're wishing you had paid attention to that open letter I wrote you a few years ago. This week, a report on channel KPNX leaked that your Alzheimer's-stricken husband John is living, happily, with a new girlfriend in an old age home. Their video exposé even contains hard-core shots of your husband John holding hands with Kay, the local hooch of the Huger Mercy Living Center. Far from being jealous or upset, you, according to your own son, are a bit of a voyeur who likes to watch: "For Mom to visit when he's happy ... visiting with his girlfriend, sitting on the porch swing holding hands... No stress on mom. No guilt laid on mom."

Well I'm glad you enjoy watching your husband and his lady friend "exchange oxygen masks" and play footsie under the Bingo table. And I'm glad that you don't feel guilty about your John. But I still haven't forgiven you for what you did to me and, more importantly, what you did to America. And that is something to feel guilty about.

Liberals were so busy pointing their fingers at Alito and Roberts for shifting the court to the right they forget to look at the bigger question: How did Alito and Roberts get there? By replacing Rehnquist and O'Connor, respectively, on the bench. We can hardly blame Rehnquist, or as Nixon liked to call him, " Renchburg" the "Jewish clown". I mean Rehnquist could barely walk, couldn't talk, and had a gaping hole in his throat, which he covered ingeniously with his signature "tracheo-scarf." And yet this judge chugged away on decision after decision until the day he died at the age of 81.

(Day 3 on the THK Blog Tour belongs to the Democracy Cell Project, a website I've been known to frequent from time to time. This is the intro and outro to the Day 3 threader there -- to read the actual Q&A-with-THK portion of the program, visit the DCP blog and view it in its native habitat so I don't have to overwhelm CK by re-posting the whole thing here.)

Teresa Heinz Kerry is no stranger to the spotlight. She's been on stage in front of crowds larger than most of us can even imagine. But as far as she's concerned, her most important work takes place behind the scenes. As head of the Heinz Endowments and the Heinz Family Philanthropies, she has long been a leader in promoting responsible, sustainable social action.

One of Teresa Heinz Kerry's more visible projects is the ongoing Women's Health and the Environment Conference series. This year's keynote conference will be held in Pittsburgh on this coming Friday, April 20, and will feature a number of outstanding speakers, scientists, and activists discussing critical health issues facing women today.

We will be attending the Women’s Health & the Environment: New Science, New Solutions conference and will posting reports about it here at the DCP blog. Today, however, we're also participating in a special 17-stop virtual blog tour (see the complete tour schedule here). And that gave us the opportunity to ask Teresa Heinz Kerry a few questions of particular interest to members of the DCP community:

I am happy to kick off Teresa Heinz Kerry's blogtour promoting the “Conference on Women’s Health & the Environment” held in Pittsburgh on April 20th.

Teresa Heinz Kerry’s two marriages bring together two American political traditions, the Republican Heinz family and the Democratic Kerry family, and shows how good people in both parties have common ground. Teresa herself is of Portuguese descent and grew up in Mozambique. To those who think French is the most romantic of the Romance languages, to my mind Portuguese is a much more beautiful and romantic language, though also a bit sad and wistful. Educated in South Africa and Switzerland, Teresa is fluent in 5 languages. She received the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism in 2003 in recognition for her philanthropy through the Heinz Family Philanthropies which also sponsors the conference.

Much of her philanthropic effort has focused on two areas: the environment, and women’s health and economic security. To most Americans, environmental issues and women’s issues tend to be put in separate conceptual boxes. We have an environmental movement and a feminist movement and the two are not perceived as intersecting. But in Europe, particularly in the European Green movement, these issues are conceptually much more closely linked. I once was able to hear my mother, an Anthropology professor and one-time coordinator of Women’s Studies at California State University Northridge, speak on the link between these two movements, presenting them as, in essence, the two areas where traditional, patriarchal attitudes have most glaringly failed, leaving problems and inequalities that are among the most difficult issues of the modern world. The way I look at it, human society from the development of agriculture on has been understandably obsessed with fertility: the fertility of our crops and our families. This obsession has led both to the success of our species in thriving practically everywhere on earth, but also has led to what amounts to unacceptable treatment of both the land that sustains us, and one half of our species--women. Industrial poisoning of our water supplies and fish stocks, global warming, overpopulation, domestic violence, unequal pay for equal work, laws limiting a woman’s right to control her own fertility, and many, many other issues that make headlines today are at least in part a result of the patriarchal and agricultural obsession society has had with fertility for some 10,000 years. Not to say there aren’t other aspects to these issues, but the cultural mindset that dominates the world is one where both the environment and women are resources to be exploited for the benefit of the species and are not often valued for themselves.

Antibiotics, their misuse and the risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria, have been things I have blogged about before at some length (e.g. here). My main focus has been the misuse of antibiotics in agriculture: the routine use of antibiotics in animal feed. This practice is considered one of the main reasons why there has been such an increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria in recent years.

But an article on BBC discussing medical treatments that are known to be ineffective reminded me of another source of selective pressure for the evolution of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria: misuse of antibiotics in people.

As a parent, I know full well the dread one feels when a child's eye starts looking red and oozy. That discharge in the corner of the eye tells you it is that dreaded ailment known as "pinkeye." Nothing to do but stay home from work and try to get a doctor's appointment...and start washing your hands like you have OCD to prevent spreading the germs.

You finally get to see the doctor, he takes one look, declares it pink eye...then prescribes antibiotics.

And therein is the problem. Antibiotics don't really work for pinkeye...it is a waste of money, effort in giving the poor mite drops, and it adds to the selective pressure for the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria, creating an actual health hazard.

Teresa Heinz Kerry has a conference coming up Friday, April 20th, discussing women's health and the environment sponsorder by the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Leading up to this she is on a "blogtour" which I am happy to kick off on 4/14. Here is the schedule to date (changes possible):

4-14 Culture Kitchen http://culturekitchen.com/

4-15 Light Up The Darkness http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog

4-16 Democracy Cell Project http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/

4-17 A Dem Fine Woman http://www.demfinewoman.com

4-18 The World Women Want/Big Green Purse
http://theworldwomenwant.com/blog.htm
http://www.biggreenpurse.com

4-19 John Kerry Is My Hero http://www.johnkerryismyhero.com

4-20 Democratic Daily http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/

4-21 Post Carbon http://postcarbon.org/blog/3475

4-22 The Unofficial Kerry Blog http://kerryblog.blogspot.com/

4-23 Culture Kitchen http://culturekitchen.com/

4-24 We Love John Kerry http://www.welovejohnkerry.com

4-25 Violet Voices http://www.meredithefken.com/blog

4-26 Cocking A Snook http://cockingasnook.wordpress.com/

4-27 VB Dems http://www.vbdems.org

4-28 Tough Enough http://www.toughenough.org

4-29 Liberal Values http://liberalvaluesblog.com/

Yesterday Bill Richardson vetoed legislation that would have made Gardasil vaccination of 6 year-old girls compulsory. Here's the story :

"While everyone recognizes the benefits of this vaccine, there is insufficient time to educate parents, schools and health care providers," he said.

The measure would have taken effect June 15, requiring girls entering sixth grade this fall to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, before they enter public or private school.

The bill would have allowed parents to opt out of the vaccination requirement.

Merck, the company that produces Gardasil, needed a homerun drug after the legal mess and PR nightmare of the Vioxx cases. The company lost a $235 million lawsuit for knowingly suppressing documentation about the potential lethal cardiovascular effects of Vioxx and for "tweaking" clinical studies evidence to support their false claims of safety.

The company knew as far back as 2000 the painkillers could kill people with cardiovascular problems but it took them a warning from the FDA, requests for new trials by American Heart Association, the National Stroke Association, the Arthritis Foundation and 4,000 lawsuits for the company to conduct another round of clinical trials that would further the minimum of testing they submitted to the FDA in order to get their drug approved.

On September 30, 2004 Merck finally pulled the drug off the market after the second round of trials did confirm Vioxx was not safe. In 2005 they lost the landmark Ernst v. Merck product liability case --which granted a record $253 million in damages to the plaintiff. The company's stock fell almost 8% minutes after the verdict and, given the drug accounted for 10% of the company's revenue, Merck has been losing since 2004 a record $2.5 billion annually in revenue.

This is the kind of thing that Republicans have been opposing for years now. In their rush to create a false moral high ground and trying to protect frozen balls of cells that will never become a human being, Republicans have been blocking some really remarkable scientific breakthroughs. Fortunately, British scientists can ignore the Republican crusade against science.

British scientist report that they have successfully grown a heart valve from stem cells and are working on developing the ability to grow an entire heart. This could change the entire dynamics of heart transplantation, making it unnecessary to have long lists of desperately ill patients waiting for some one to turn up brain dead so they can get their heart. This new breakthrough adds to the other tissues, including tendons, cartilages and bladders, that have successfully been grown from stem cells.

Republicans like to claim that we already have stem cell lines in labs that can be used for research and we don't need new stem cells to work with. Well, this is why they are wrong. You can't use immortalized cell lines to grow tissue for transplant back into a human. The process of immortalizing cells to create cell lines can often depend on mutations that bring the cell closer to a cancerous state. To grow this kind of tissue with long-term cultured cells would be irresponsible if you plan on transplanting it into human patients.

Cancer...it is something that is happening all the time in our bodies, yet most of the time our bodies fight it off with ease. Cancer is nothing more than a cell, part of ourselves, that starts growing uncontrollably. That’s all. And yet it can kill.

With Elizabeth Edwards relapsing after recovering from cancer, I thought it a good idea to give a brief lesson on cancer. This is a topic I am very familiar with. A big chunk of my professional career has involved studying subjects that are related to cancer. I have also seen someone die of cancer. I know what happens in cancer on the level of molecules, cells…and to a whole person and that person’s family.

Cancer is what happens when a cell escapes from the normal controls that limit its ability to divide. Cell division is how we develop from a single cell—a fertilized egg—into a human being. Cell division is how our hair grows, and how our intestinal lining and blood cells constantly replenish themselves. It is also how injuries heal. Cell division is a very tightly regulated process. It isn’t easy for a cell to divide. Our cells are constantly exchanging messages about what’s going on in our bodies, and most of those messages prevent cell division.

Cells require survival signals from other cells. Without these, a cell will simply commit suicide. They don’t just die. They actually chew up their own DNA, package up their insides into parcels that immune cells can dispose of, and kill themselves. Every cell in our body has to receive these survival signals or they kill themselves. That is one level of control.

Liveblogging NBC News:

She may have a fracture on the left side and may have something suspicious on her right side. Wednesday they went to the hospital. The cancer has returned and it is malignant.

She has had a battery of results. Her cancer is bad. It is confined in bone --he is saying it is a good thing.

When it goes into the bone it is no longer curable, it is only treatable. The tumor is small and that is why they are optimistic. John is saying that many patients go on to live for a long time. It is similar to what diabetes patients have to live with.

Elizabeth says the needed to talk to their family and the kids, The kids thought that it was cool for her to loose her hair the first time and are disappointed she may not go bald again.

She is saying that every cancer survivor goes through this. They know the ache on a side, that any symptom might be putting you into alarm mode. This is something that every survivor has to live with for the rest for their life. She doesn't forsee changing anything.

She is asymptomatic. Cracking the rib was a 'fluke'. Had she not cracked the rib, she would not have had the opportunity to catch the cancer.

The campaign goes on. "We are not choosing not to cower in a corner".

They are going forward. They are coming tonight to New York City to the DL21C event.

"I am immensly proud of this campaign ... Is this a hardship for us? ... There is nobody offering a more positive and delineated vision of where we can go on as a county. "

I have succumbed to the networking powers of the evil Murdoch. It seems, there's no getting around this net-working-world if you don't have a MySpace.

Heck, if Obama has one, then so should we.

So add me to your friends or I'll pout until my lips turn purple.

A growing number of women of color are seeking alternative mental health services to help cope with stress and other recurrent struggles in their lives more effectively. Many of these women are now utilizing hypnotherapy, breathwork, and reiki as means of effective therapeutic intervention minus psychiatric labels and medications.

One of them is "Maya," a 36 year-old African American woman. Among many things, Maya is a single mom of two pre-teens, and a lawyer. In the past, Maya sought treatment from a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). She had been an incest survivor since age 8 and experienced recurrent nightmares, flashbacks, and anxiety attacks. Maya also had difficulty maintaining relationships with men as a result of her childhood trauma. Years of intensive talk therapy and anti-anxiety medication led Maya to see very little improvement in her recovery, until a friend recommended that she try hypnotherapy.

Maya says, "At first, I was skeptical about hypnosis and what it could do for me. But I was frustrated. I felt like I was hitting a wall with my therapist and that she didn't really understand where I was coming from. This had been the eighth therapist I had been to, and I was beginning to feel like talking about my symptoms and my past was beating a dead horse. When was I going to get over it? I just wanted to feel better and stop the panic attacks. . . "

A Palestinian doctor and 5 Bulgarian nurses have been found guilty of intentionally spreading HIV to Libyan children and are slated for execution by the Libyan government. They have been jailed since 1999 on charges that they spread the HIV virus deliberately to more than 400 children at a Benghazi hospital. Western nations, themselves not always to be trusted when it comes to accusations against Muslim nations, blame the infections on unsanitary conditions at the hospital and believe Libya is using the nurses and doctors as scapegoats to avoid dealing with their own problems. In this case, the opinion of Western nations is not based on crap that Bush got from Chalabi, but is for once based on reality and Libya is guilty of ignoring reality.

This is not only a travesty of justice, but of science as well since all scientific evidence exonerates the Palestinian doctor and Bulgarian nurses. Libya is about to execute innocent people because they refuse to listen to science.

According to one of the world's most respected scientific journals, Nature, all scientific evidence shows the nurses are innocent. From the article:

In 1998, outbreaks of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection were reported in children attending Al-Fateh Hospital in Benghazi, Libya. Here we use molecular phylogenetic techniques to analyse new virus sequences from these outbreaks. We find that the HIV-1 and HCV strains were already circulating and prevalent in this hospital and its environs before the arrival in March 1998 of the foreign medical staff (five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor) who stand accused of transmitting the HIV strain to the children.

MORNING UPDATE: I called it last night. They now think he had a TIA, not a full blown stroke. He is still in critical condition, but a TIA is generally far less damaging and life threatening than a stroke. Probably no one will notice, but I may have been the first blogger to call "TIA."

UPDATE: The descriptions I am hearing make it sound more like a TIA than a full-blown stroke, suggesting he should be able to make a full recovery. But details are thin right now.

Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota has suffered a stroke. As of 4:30 PM there are no details as he is still under evaluation.

Of course, should he be unable to finish his term, the Republican Governor of South Dakota would appoint his replacement. A lot is riding on the good health of Senator Johnson!

The Democratic victory in November has already yielded some very important things. First, Rumsfeld fled the scene faster than you can say "Congressional investigation." The Mainstream media, realizing that Democrats largely won because people are sick of the war and the lies surrounding the war, have finally recognized that Iraq is in the midst of a Civil War largely due to Bush's incompetence.

Now, the Republican campaign to poison America has receieved a set back thanks to the Democratic victory. The EPA is abandoning part of Bush's plan to let polluters poison Americans at will. From Salon.com:

The Bush administration, looking at the prospect of stronger oversight from a Democratic-led Congress, is withdrawing a proposal to let big polluters report less often on what they spew from their smokestacks.

The administration, however, is going ahead with a plan to make one-third less provide detailed figures at all.

The government last year proposed easing air regulations to exempt some companies from having to tell the Environmental Protection Agency about what it considers to be small releases of toxic pollutants.

That proposal is still alive. But abandoned now is the idea of making companies that must make such reports, known as toxic release inventory, do so every other year instead of annually.

Some believe that one contributing factor to the decline of the Roman Empire was the fact that they used lead pipes for drinking water. Chronic lead poisoning, it is argued, sapped the Romans of their health and intelligence, contributing to their decline.

I personally think this is an unlikely scenario...but, in an Empire known for its extensive public water system, it is possible. But one thing is indeed clear, poisons like lead and arsenic in drinking water are a major health hazard. And this health hazard is one part of the Republican poisoning of America.

This is another one of my pet issues: the ongoing poisoning of American by Republican policies. This is not an accidental thing. It is a byproduct of intentional deregulation, intentionally ignoring clear warning signs of health problems, and allowing companies and utilities to circumvent environmental regulations. Sometimes it is very specific: Bush ordering the EPA to lie about the toxicity of the World Trade Center smoke plume, thus poisoning thousands of New Yorkers, particularly first responders, leading to a syndrome known as "Ground Zero Cough" which has struck New York's rescue workers or Conrad Burns (A Montana Republican now happily ousted from the Senate by Jon Tester, a populist organic farmer) advocating testing pesticides on humans. Other times it is a more general increase in dangerous pollutants thanks to Republican blind faith in deregulation. But there is now a clear pattern of Republican policies threatening the health of Americans through our air, drinking water and soil.

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Lorraine needs your blessings. Her boyfriend, who was just 43, died suddenly of a brain hemorrage. He had no know medical condition. The actually had had a wonderful night out, only marred by the splitting headache that was to cost him his life.

To say she is devastated is to put it mildly.

Pondering about the gift of love and the sorrow of death, I looked to the Tao Te Ching for widsom. I found this:

Verse 16, Tao Te Ching
Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.

If you don't realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.

Breast feeding, for a long time seen as a bad thing, has made a resurgence in recent years in America for many reasons. Science has suggested many benefits from breast feeding including a better immune system, higher intelligence, a happier baby, and better mother-child bonding.

The overall benefit of breast feeding, when possible, are pretty clear. And it is important to keep this in mind. Breast feeding is NOT EASY. Contrary to what many expect, the process is not easy or automatic and can be quite painful and frustrating for both mother and child. Hence the need for "lactation consultants" and such. But if it can be worked out between mother and baby, it is well worth the effort.

What is less clear is WHY it is more beneficial. The initial breast milk provides antibodies that protect the child right at the beginning. But that is a fairly brief benefit. There are clear later benefits that CORRELATE with breast feeding, but it is hard to find the CAUSATION behind that correlation.

One example is the observation that in the developed world (I am unaware of studies that look cross-culturally) there is a positive correlation between breast feeding and intelligence.

Based on this, a friend of mine at UCLA did some research in rats where they looked at different formulas vs. breast milk diets. Their data suggested that there are fatty acid in breast milk that are vital to brain development that are not in formula. This is very likely since formula traditionally was not made with the specific fatty acid composition in mind. I think some effort has been made by some formula manufacturers to take these studies into account when they make their formula.

This is an issue I have been pushing for some time because it amounts to a genuine and widespread health hazard. To quote the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise. Patients once effectively treated for pneumonia, tuberculosis, or ear infections may now have to try three or more antibiotics before they find one that works. And as more bacterial strains develop resistance, more people will die because effective antibiotics are not identified quickly enough or because the bacteria causing the disease are resistant to all available antibiotics.

Why have bacterial strains become resistant? The short answer is overuse of antibiotics. Physicians and hospitals have overprescribed the drugs, and patients have demanded them—even for illnesses not caused by bacteria. Veterinarians, too, overprescribe drugs to treat sick animals.

It is livestock producers, however, who use the vast majority of antibiotics produced in the United States. An estimated 70 percent of antibiotics and related drugs produced in this country are used for nontherapeutic purposes such as accelerating animal growth and compensating for overcrowded and unsanitary conditions on large-scale confinement facilities known as "factory farms." This translates to about 25 million pounds of antibiotics and related drugs fed every year to livestock for nontherapeutic purposes—almost eight times the amount given to humans to treat disease.

[via Taller people are smarter: study - Yahoo! News]:

"As adults, taller individuals are more likely to select into higher paying occupations that require more advanced verbal and numerical skills and greater intelligence, for which they earn handsome returns," they wrote.

For both men and women in the United States and the United Kingdom, a height advantage of four inches equated with a 10 percent increase in wages on average.

I saw a documentary about Howard Zinn the other day and noticed how freakishly tall the man is. If he's supposed to be smarter than the rest, why isn't he, like, the president or sometin' ...

And if 5 inches above the average American (I had no idea gringos were so short ... 5'4"?!?), why is it that I am not a millionaire? And why am I missing $10.

I don't know ... I feel ... short-changed.

I almost never watch network TV anymore. There's only a couple of shows I watch on cable and that's it. So it came as a surprise my opportunity to watch ABC News: 'Out of Control: AIDS in Black America'

Black Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for over 50 percent of all new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. That infection rate is eight times the rate of whites. Among women, the numbers are even more shocking%u2014- almost 70 percent of all newly diagnosed HIV-positive women in the United States are black women. Black women are 23 times more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS than white women, with heterosexual contact being the overwhelming method of infection in black America.

I urge you to watch all 6 parts over at You Tube. I have included above part 5, "Failure to Lead". You will be disgusted by the Reverend Jakes. Who shocked me with his cluelessness was Jesse Jackson. He got owned by Terry Moran when he called him on his focus on AIDS in Africa but not in the United States.