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The incidence of new cancer cases has been falling in recent years in the United States, the first time such an extended decline has been documented, researchers reported Tuesday.
Do more frequent mammograms pick up some breast cancer tumors that might have gone away without treatment? Possibly, according to a controversial study published this week in Archives of Internal Medicine. However, experts caution that the research raises an interesting question, but can't definitively answer it.
Amidst the furor over autism in America, some very simple facts are getting lost in the rhetorical fog of medical denial, corporate self-dealing and civic irresponsibility. They're worth repeating. Autism was once very rare in the United States and required "discovering" by Leo Kanner among a small group of children born in the 1930s. When researchers first measured American autism rates, they were lower than surveys coming from other parts of the developed world, sometimes less than 1 in 10,000. Today, it's nearly impossible to find an American who doesn't know a family touched by autism and rates are over 1 in 100 in some areas of the country. It doesn't take a genius to derive a short list of broad-based environmental exposures that have changed rapidly enough to give us some pretty good ideas about causation.
What comes to mind when you think of arsenic? For most people, it conjures up a deadly poison used by killers in fictional mystery novels and some real-life murderers, too. But the danger of this toxic substance most often comes not from some evil-doer but simply from exposure to it through our environment, including the water we drink. Unwittingly taken into the body over many years, arsenic can result in lung, bladder and skin cancers, as well as heart disease, diabetes and neurological damage.
Writing in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute researchers urge physicians to test for mutations of the fragile X gene in patients of all ages. That's because, after decades of research, it is clear that mutations in this gene cause a range of diseases, including neurodevelopmental delays and autism in children, infertility in women and neurodegenerative disease in older adults.
Seven more people died of a mysterious disease in Goainghat and Companyganj upazilas of the district Friday, raising the death toll from the malady here to 21 in the last seven days. Sources at the Civil Surgeon office said 11 of the victims died in Companyganj while 10 in Goainghat upazilas during the period.
Besides, they said, around 50 people of the two upazilas have been admitted to Osmani Medical College Hospital with symptoms of the mysterious disease. Abdur Rahman (12) of Zakiganj upazila was one of them. He was admitted to the hospital Friday night.
Besides, they said, around 50 people of the two upazilas have been admitted to Osmani Medical College Hospital with symptoms of the mysterious disease. Abdur Rahman (12) of Zakiganj upazila was one of them. He was admitted to the hospital Friday night.
Although Americans are becoming increasingly aware of toxic chemical exposure from everyday household products like bisphenol A in some baby bottles and lead in some toys, women do not readily connect typical household products with personal chemical exposure and related adverse health effects, according to research from the December issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Brown University sociologist Phil Brown is a co-author of the study.
"People more readily equate pollution with large-scale contamination and environmental disasters, yet the products and activities that form the backdrop to our everyday lives - electronics, cleaners, beauty products, food packaging - are a significant source of daily personal chemical exposure that accumulates over time," said sociologist Rebecca Gasior Altman, lead author of the study, "Pollution Comes Home and Gets Personal: Women's Experience of Household Chemical Exposure." Altman received a Ph.D. from Brown in 2008.
"People more readily equate pollution with large-scale contamination and environmental disasters, yet the products and activities that form the backdrop to our everyday lives - electronics, cleaners, beauty products, food packaging - are a significant source of daily personal chemical exposure that accumulates over time," said sociologist Rebecca Gasior Altman, lead author of the study, "Pollution Comes Home and Gets Personal: Women's Experience of Household Chemical Exposure." Altman received a Ph.D. from Brown in 2008.
© Monarch Labs; Irvine, CAIn the United States, 70 vials of medical grade maggots are distributed each week to wound care doctors, clinics and hospitals.
Now, maggot therapy has received a boost from the medical establishment that could make it easier for patients and doctors to get insurance reimbursement for this treatment, which was noticed as effective against war wounds by Napoleon's surgeon general as well as by orthopedic surgeon Dr. William S. Baer during WWI, among others.
Today, specially prepared maggots, typically of the green bottle fly, are used to "debride" wounds, feeding on sick tissue so healthy cells can move in and further infection is avoided. Maggot therapy was common in the United States in the 1930s but was replaced by antibiotics in the following decade or so. Now, with the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria including MRSA or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, maggot therapy is getting a second look.
A Gold Coast school classroom has been quarantined and emergency services are on site after 23 children from a Year Four class began to display rashes.
Firefighters and paramedics are responding to an incident at Emmanuel College on Birmingham Road, Cararra.
Crews were called to the college at 9.30am (AEST) today when several children began to display rashes and complain of itching.
An emergency services spokeswoman said 23 children were being assessed and treated by paramedics at the site.
Officers had yet to confirm the nature of the substance but no children had been taken to hospital.
Firefighters and paramedics are responding to an incident at Emmanuel College on Birmingham Road, Cararra.
Crews were called to the college at 9.30am (AEST) today when several children began to display rashes and complain of itching.
An emergency services spokeswoman said 23 children were being assessed and treated by paramedics at the site.
Officers had yet to confirm the nature of the substance but no children had been taken to hospital.
A new study has provided one of the strongest links yet between pesticide use and Parkinson's disease.
A team of researchers from Duke University, Miami University and the Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence has found that people who were exposed to pesticides were substantially more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than closely related people who did not use so many pesticides, according to a study published in the journal BMC Neurology.
A team of researchers from Duke University, Miami University and the Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence has found that people who were exposed to pesticides were substantially more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than closely related people who did not use so many pesticides, according to a study published in the journal BMC Neurology.
