From the category archives:

Healthcare

Stem Cell Transplant Cures Leukemia Patient’s HIV

by Rod Edwards on February 20, 2010

The article speaks for itself. An HIV+ person received a stem cell transplant to treat leukemia. The transplant was from someone with natural resistance to HIV. The donor’s HIV resistance was conferred upon the recipient:

A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

via Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant – CNN.com.

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Vitamin D Cuts Breast Cancer Risk by 50% – take 2,000 IU / day

by Rod Edwards on February 11, 2010

If its really this effective, and harmless in large dosages as suggested below, why don’t municipalities start adding it to drinking water, like we do with flouride? I’ll let you wonder whether that’s a serious suggestion or not. In the meantime, do your part for our healthcare budget and take your vitamins.

Don’t be concerned that 2,000 IU will give you too much. With exposure to sunlight in the summer, the body can generate between 10,000 IU and 20,000 IU of vitamin D per hour with no ill effects. In addition, no adverse effects have been seen with supplemental vitamin D intakes up to 10,000 IU daily.

via Dr. Andrew Weil: New Recommendation: Why You Need More Vitamin D.

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Cocaine Vaccine: Would you vaccinate all convicts?

October 7, 2009

It worked on 40% of a study group. Given the costs of addiction in society – everything from healthcare, to the criminal industry that grows around it, to the damage to people and families – the concept of vaccinating against addictions seems profoundly beneficial.
“In clinical practice, you’d probably give people a booster shot every two [...]

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Universal Healthcare

October 5, 2009

There’s a time, in the history of a people, when pride in what they can afford to do for everyone overshadows what individually they can afford to do for themselves. For Canadians, that time started in the forties and continues to this day. America’s tearing itself into partisan pieces over the same. Take a moment [...]

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“Letting non-physicians prescribe drugs like letting flight attendant fly plane”

September 23, 2009

So says the Ontario Medical Association.
“The doctors’ lobby is fighting back against government plans to let nurse practioners lead local health clinics and to allow pharmacists to prescribe some drugs.” [Winnipeg Free Press via @fpbowen]
I have to disagree with the OMA’s position. In certain circumstances, for certain drugs, I believe MD-only prescriptions to needless overhead. [...]

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Schizophrenia in Pictures

September 23, 2009

A poignantly-illustrated, factual examination of a profoundly damaging illness, and an appeal for compassion. Click the image below to read the whole comic, 11 pages long.

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Alcoholic denied liver transplant, dead at 22

July 21, 2009

A double header on organ transplants: see this post on legalizing organ sales. This article notes the precedent setting case of a 22 year old alcoholic being denied a transplant and left to die – attributed to the severe shortage or available organs in Britain. If organ sales were legal, this fellow would have had [...]

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Legalizing organ sales: one way to reduce waiting lists

July 21, 2009

UPDATE: Also see this follow-up post on a 22 year old alcoholic denied a transplant and now dead.
Doctors proposing that selling your organs need not be illegal: This article will make you think. It tells the story of a somewhat schizophrenic homeless American man, recruited to sell a kidney in Houston, and along the way [...]

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Easter Island and Canadian Healthcare Policy

July 9, 2009

The health research world is a-twitter today about the longevity boosting effects of a compound called Rapamycin. Hailing from the soil of Easter Island, Rapamycin significantly extends the lifespan of mice, and may do the same for humans. I imagine happenstance discoveries like this to be the tip of the iceberg for radical longevity therapies.
Which [...]

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