News Stuff

Tom Philpott has a great post with aspects of this story at grist.org [http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-25-swine-flu-smithfield] There is also, as of today (May 1st) a good entry in Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_outbreak] There are two reasons why this swine flu outbreak (let’s not call 150 or so deaths a “pandemic” or even epidemic, yet) could have started in Mexico. 1.As Mark Sircus (International Medical Veritas Association) points out: In Mexico City children rarely use the color blue when they paint the sky. The atmospheric pollution in the Mexican capital, one of the world’s biggest cities, is one of the most severe air pollution cases in the world. Contaminated air hangs over its population of more than 20 million people doing damage to children’s lungs causing chronic lung diseases when they are adults. Perched at 7,300 feet in a bowl-shaped valley where the air is thin, vehicle fumes get trapped and you might as well be living in a gas chamber. It is that bad and this explains in part why we are finding deaths from the flu concentrated there with no deaths reported outside of Mexico to this date. Even the healthy are sick. Full of toxins, they are medically speaking “accidents waiting to happen,” so when a strong flu strain strikes such a population the death rate will be very high. The cause of death is debatable! 2.Most of the initial severe cases appear to be centered on a hog farm owned by Smithfield Foods in the immediate area. Smithfield Food, the world’s largest pork packer and hog producer, operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. According to the locals, the organic and fecal waste produced by Granjas Carrol isn’t adequately treated, creating water and air pollution in the region. Residents have long complained of “fetid odors” in the air and water, and swarms of flies hovering around waste lagoons of shit and hog urine. The Mexico City daily La Jornada has also made the link. According to the newspaper, the Mexican health agency IMSS has acknowledged that the orginal carrier for the flu could be the “clouds of flies” that multiply in the Smithfield subsidiary’s manure lagoons.

Tom Philpott has a great post with aspects of this story at grist.org [http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-25-swine-flu-smithfield] There is also, as of today (May 1st) a good entry in Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_outbreak] There are two reasons why this swine flu outbreak (let’s not call 150 or so deaths a “pandemic” or even epidemic, yet) could have started in Mexico. 1.As Mark Sircus (International Medical Veritas Association) points out: In Mexico City children rarely use the color blue when they paint the sky. The atmospheric pollution in the Mexican capital, one of the world’s biggest cities, is one of the most severe air pollution cases in the world. Contaminated air hangs over its population of more than 20 million people doing damage to children’s lungs causing chronic lung diseases when they are adults. Perched at 7,300 feet in a bowl-shaped valley where the air is thin, vehicle fumes get trapped and you might as well be living in a gas chamber. It is that bad and this explains in part why we are finding deaths from the flu concentrated there with no deaths reported outside of Mexico to this date. Even the healthy are sick. Full of toxins, they are medically speaking “accidents waiting to happen,” so when a strong flu strain strikes such a population the death rate will be very high. The cause of death is debatable! 2.Most of the initial severe cases appear to be centered on a hog farm owned by Smithfield Foods in the immediate area. Smithfield Food, the world’s largest pork packer and hog producer, operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. According to the locals, the organic and fecal waste produced by Granjas Carrol isn’t adequately treated, creating water and air pollution in the region. Residents have long complained of “fetid odors” in the air and water, and swarms of flies hovering around waste lagoons of shit and hog urine. The Mexico City daily La Jornada has also made the link. According to the newspaper, the Mexican health agency IMSS has acknowledged that the orginal carrier for the flu could be the “clouds of flies” that multiply in the Smithfield subsidiary’s manure lagoons.

Infertility is a true medical problem that haunts many couples. I’ve made my mark over the years, with sound nutrition. One of my allergy patients actually got pregnant after she stopped her allergy foods. But most of the advances (maybe not the right word) have come from powerful hormonal interventions, such as the drug Clomiphen. It is heavy-handed and notorious for getting multiple pregnancies. This to me is a bad thing: a woman who Nature has declared a poor reproducer should not be given the sudden burden of 4,5 or 6 simultaneous offspring. Nutrition and lifestyle changes remain top of my list of necessary and worthwhile approaches to rectifying infertility. But here’s something new on the way!

Infertility is a true medical problem that haunts many couples. I’ve made my mark over the years, with sound nutrition. One of my allergy patients actually got pregnant after she stopped her allergy foods. But most of the advances (maybe not the right word) have come from powerful hormonal interventions, such as the drug Clomiphen. It is heavy-handed and notorious for getting multiple pregnancies. This to me is a bad thing: a woman who Nature has declared a poor reproducer should not be given the sudden burden of 4,5 or 6 simultaneous offspring. Nutrition and lifestyle changes remain top of my list of necessary and worthwhile approaches to rectifying infertility. But here’s something new on the way!

Regenerative medicine is here. Do you believe we can regrow limbs and missing parts? You bet. Watch this Pop!Tech video: http://poptech.org/popcasts/PopCasts.aspx?viewcastid=224 It will get better as we BELIEVE it will get better. People will do whatever they BELIEVE they can do! That’s the medicine I’ve given my last 38 years to. The spirit has power […]

Regenerative medicine is here. Do you believe we can regrow limbs and missing parts? You bet. Watch this Pop!Tech video: http://poptech.org/popcasts/PopCasts.aspx?viewcastid=224 It will get better as we BELIEVE it will get better. People will do whatever they BELIEVE they can do! That’s the medicine I’ve given my last 38 years to. The spirit has power […] The post You can if you believe you can! appeared first on Dr. Keith Scott-Mumby.

We look back at leeches and scoff (medical leeches have made a comeback, by the way). But maggots? Are they kidding? Maggots was one of the most revolting sexually transmitted diseases I met during my time as House Surgeon (man and woman both flyblown and infested—we never could decide who gave who the problem). But […]

We look back at leeches and scoff (medical leeches have made a comeback, by the way). But maggots? Are they kidding? Maggots was one of the most revolting sexually transmitted diseases I met during my time as House Surgeon (man and woman both flyblown and infested—we never could decide who gave who the problem). But […] The post Maggot therapy. Are you kidding me? appeared first on Dr. Keith Scott-Mumby.

You may not be aware of the furore that has broken out in Sweden over the fact that a convicted murderer was granted permission to enter medical school and study. The guy has had various aliases, so the story is difficult to follow. But—bottom line—he was admitted to a medical school at one of the greatest institutes in the world. The Karolinska Institute. Then the story broke and the Institute (which I hold in the highest regard) was really embarrassed. The trouble was that it was not easy to get rid of him! Sweden is a civilized country which holds the basic premise that once a criminal has served time, he’s paid his debt and there is nothing further that he need fear. This is in complete contrast to the USA, which has a cruel and inhuman view that once a guy gets out of jail, after serving time, then the punishment starts. He can be hounded, abused, persecuted and generally hurt in ways which are reminiscent of the behavior of vicious and crude school children. But the question is raised: should anyone who has ever taken life be allowed to the (supposedly) hallowed ranks of a healer? I think not. I think VEHEMENTLY not. We can treat him with courtesy and regard but that doesn’t mean we have no boundaries. No-one who has stooped to murder can ever claim to be pro life, pro love, pro healing and a pastoral counselor. Look, I know people change, people reform. But THERE IS A LINE. There must be a line… Only a fool would not take into account that criminals who go to jail, often to NOT reform. Anyway, the Karolinska was lucky and finally got rid of him on the grounds that he had falsified his high school records. But then he was admitted to a second well-known medical school — Uppsala, Sweden’s oldest university. He was using a false name, of course, which is how he got past the admissions board. Nobody asked him about the gap in his CV, which covered the years he was in jail [he didn’t mention it, so he is an untrustworthy liar too]. But once the truth is out, what are the authorities to do? Last week, Uppsala officials, responding to concerns about the murderer’s admission, said he had not participated in class work, but did not say why. In another embarrassing twist, a Swedish newspaper reported that much of the verdict and court files regarding Bjorn Soderberg, the murder victim, had been cut out or replaced with blank pages. The police said they had been unable to find a culprit. Does that mean the killer had an accomplice within the system? And in still another case, a 24-year-old medical student at Lund University was convicted last April of raping a 14-year-old boy while he slept. A district court sentenced the student to two years in prison, but a higher court reduced the sentence to two years’ probation and medical therapy. When the dean at Lund sought to expel the student, a national board that reviews expulsions blocked the action, saying that although the man had committed a serious crime, he was not considered a threat to people or property. The decision was then reversed by an administrative court, which upheld the expulsion; the student did not appeal.

You may not be aware of the furore that has broken out in Sweden over the fact that a convicted murderer was granted permission to enter medical school and study. The guy has had various aliases, so the story is difficult to follow. But—bottom line—he was admitted to a medical school at one of the greatest institutes in the world. The Karolinska Institute. Then the story broke and the Institute (which I hold in the highest regard) was really embarrassed. The trouble was that it was not easy to get rid of him! Sweden is a civilized country which holds the basic premise that once a criminal has served time, he’s paid his debt and there is nothing further that he need fear. This is in complete contrast to the USA, which has a cruel and inhuman view that once a guy gets out of jail, after serving time, then the punishment starts. He can be hounded, abused, persecuted and generally hurt in ways which are reminiscent of the behavior of vicious and crude school children. But the question is raised: should anyone who has ever taken life be allowed to the (supposedly) hallowed ranks of a healer? I think not. I think VEHEMENTLY not. We can treat him with courtesy and regard but that doesn’t mean we have no boundaries. No-one who has stooped to murder can ever claim to be pro life, pro love, pro healing and a pastoral counselor. Look, I know people change, people reform. But THERE IS A LINE. There must be a line… Only a fool would not take into account that criminals who go to jail, often to NOT reform. Anyway, the Karolinska was lucky and finally got rid of him on the grounds that he had falsified his high school records. But then he was admitted to a second well-known medical school — Uppsala, Sweden’s oldest university. He was using a false name, of course, which is how he got past the admissions board. Nobody asked him about the gap in his CV, which covered the years he was in jail [he didn’t mention it, so he is an untrustworthy liar too]. But once the truth is out, what are the authorities to do? Last week, Uppsala officials, responding to concerns about the murderer’s admission, said he had not participated in class work, but did not say why. In another embarrassing twist, a Swedish newspaper reported that much of the verdict and court files regarding Bjorn Soderberg, the murder victim, had been cut out or replaced with blank pages. The police said they had been unable to find a culprit. Does that mean the killer had an accomplice within the system? And in still another case, a 24-year-old medical student at Lund University was convicted last April of raping a 14-year-old boy while he slept. A district court sentenced the student to two years in prison, but a higher court reduced the sentence to two years’ probation and medical therapy. When the dean at Lund sought to expel the student, a national board that reviews expulsions blocked the action, saying that although the man had committed a serious crime, he was not considered a threat to people or property. The decision was then reversed by an administrative court, which upheld the expulsion; the student did not appeal.

I love mussels (and oysters); give me a glass of champagne and a dozen Pacifics or West of Ireland Browns and I’m in Stone Age heaven (Oh yes, there were fermented fruits in Stone Age times, didn’t you know that?) So I’m right along there with Nature! Her bounties spread beyond the table. It turns out that mussels are the latest surgical breakthrough (I love amazing things!) Current sutures are non-biological and can cause complications such as discomfort, infection and inflammation. Synthetic adhesives might have been a way round this but they are somewhat toxic and environmentally unfriendly. But bio and eco-friendly adhesives — that’s a different matter altogether. Here come the mussels.

I love mussels (and oysters); give me a glass of champagne and a dozen Pacifics or West of Ireland Browns and I’m in Stone Age heaven (Oh yes, there were fermented fruits in Stone Age times, didn’t you know that?) So I’m right along there with Nature! Her bounties spread beyond the table. It turns out that mussels are the latest surgical breakthrough (I love amazing things!) Current sutures are non-biological and can cause complications such as discomfort, infection and inflammation. Synthetic adhesives might have been a way round this but they are somewhat toxic and environmentally unfriendly. But bio and eco-friendly adhesives — that’s a different matter altogether. Here come the mussels.