Health & WellnessS


Syringe

HPV vaccine recommended for all 12-year-old girls in Ireland

Young girls in Ireland should be vaccinated against the human papilloma virus (HPV), as this will reduce their risk of developing cervical cancer, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has said.

HIQA has proposed a school-based national programme of vaccination for all 12-year old girls against the HPV virus, in addition to a once-off HPV vaccine programme for 13 to 15-year old girls.

It says both such vaccination schemes would, along with the new cervical screening programme, help reduce the incidence of cervical cancer in Ireland.

Comment: Unfortunately, the situation is not as clear cut as made out in this article. There are many opinions that the HPV vaccine's benefit is modest and not worth the risk and cost. Plus, there are a lot of reported cases with adverse side effects (here and here). And the disease is not even contagious. So why is the push for more and more vaccines onto young children?


Life Preserver

Blue Zones: locales of the long lived

Can 'Blue Zones' Help Turn Back the Biological Clock? Dan Buettner spent five years visiting areas of the world where people tend to live longer, healthier lives, areas he calls "Blue Zones

Dan Buettner
©national geographic society
Author Dan Buettner has traveled the globe visiting "Blue Zones," where people tend to live longer and lead healthier lives

Comment: For his book Buettner interviewed several experts on aging. While they all had the usual: eat well, be active, etc., expert Robert Kane also had to inform us that "the biggest threat to improving our lifestyles has been smoking"
And indeed it is ,since it couldn't also be the toxic stuff in our food and water and the socio-economic shock doctrine imposed on us.



Pills

Paxil Babies: The Dangers of Antidepressants

Mothers suffering from depression are increasingly pushed into taking pills, at great potential risk to themselves and their infants.

Today in the United States, 11 percent of women take antidepressants, the use of antidepressants by pregnant women has dramatically increased, and postpartum depression -- rare in those cultures in which women receive high levels of social support following childbirth -- has become so staggeringly common among U.S. women that Congress is legislating increased medical treatment.

Bizarro Earth

The 5 Most Terrifying Rites of Manhood from Around the World

So what did you do to earn your manhood? At the very worst, some of you had to read a prayer or two from a select holy book, maybe a distant uncle sent you a few bucks. Your parents start bugging you about getting a job and force you to move out by the time you're 20, or maybe 35.

But in some parts of the world, manhood is still something you earn.

Attention

US: 2 in Wisconsin sickened by salmonella, possibly from tomatoes

Milwaukee - The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are looking into whether two cases of salmonella food poisoning in Wisconsin might have come from eating raw tomatoes.

Magic Wand

Circadian Math: One Plus One Doesn't Always Equal Two

Like a wristwatch that needs to be wound daily for accurate time-telling, the human circadian system - the biological cycles that repeat approximately every 24 hours - requires daily light exposure to the eye's retina to remain synchronized with the solar day. In a new study published in the June issue of Neuroscience Letters, researchers have demonstrated that when it comes to the circadian system, not all light exposure is created equal.

The findings have profound implications for exploring how lighting can be used to adjust our bodies' clocks, and they could redefine the way lighting is manufactured, according to Mariana Figueiro, lead author of the paper and assistant professor in the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Short-wavelength light, including natural light from the blue sky, is highly effective at stimulating the circadian system. Exposure to other wavelengths - and thus colors - of light may necessitate longer exposure times or require higher exposure levels to be as effective at "winding the watch."

Question

Mysterious disease spreads through North Korea border towns

A South Korean humanitarian agency says a mysterious epidemic has been spreading along North Korean towns along the border with China, killing dozens of children.

The Seoul-based Good Friends agency says five or six children have died every day since the highly infectious disease emerged on April 27.

People

Cuba approves free sex change operations

Cuba, in the latest change since President Raul Castro took office in February, has allowed doctors to perform sex change operations, a specialist at the National Center for Sex Education said on Friday.

Center director Mariela Castro, the president's daughter, has pushed for the operations and said that at least 28 people in the country of 11 million want the surgery.

The specialist, who asked not to be named, said the Public Health Ministry approved the surgery this week. Cuba's health care system will perform it free of charge.

Syringe

Bird flu can mix with human influenza virus: research

This is a transcript from PM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 5:10pm on Radio National and 6:10pm on ABC Local Radio.

You can also listen to the story in REAL AUDIO and WINDOWS MEDIA and MP3 formats.

MARK COLVIN: A worrying new research paper has been published in the United States.

It proves that H5N1 bird flu, which has so far only killed people in its pure form is capable of combining with conventional human flu viruses.

A mutated virus combining human flu and bird flu is the nightmare strain which scientists fear could create a worldwide pandemic.

The research was conducted in a laboratory by the US Centers for Disease Control.

Jeff Waters reports.

Syringe

Vietnamese bird flu vaccine to be tested on humans

Following successful testing on animals, a Vietnamese health institute has asked the Health Ministry for permission to test its bird flu vaccine among humans.