Health & WellnessS


Health

Surgery for China's elephant man

Doctors in southern China are preparing to operate on a man who suffers from the world's most extreme case of elephantiasis of the face.

Huang Chuncai, 31, also known as China's elephant man, plans to undergo surgery in Guangzhou that will remove the 15kg tumour that has crippled him and left him ostracised from society.

The weight of carrying the tumour on his face has deformed his backbone, stunted his growth and left him in continual pain.

Mr Huang has had the condition since he was born and the tumour has grown as he grew older.

If the operation is successful, his quality of life will improve tenfold. But the procedure is very risky.

Mr Huang's doctor explained: "The tumour is huge and there are many blood vessels inside which makes the operation very difficult. If we cannot stop the bleeding during the operation, Huang will die."

Magnify

An Epidemic: Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in the U.S.

The percentage of Americans disabled by mental illness has increased fivefold since 1955, when Thorazine - remembered today as psychiatry´s first wonder drug - was introduced into the market.

There are now nearly 6 million Americans disabled by mental illness, and this number increases by more than 400 people each day. A review of the scientific literature reveals that it is our drug-based paradigm of care that is fueling this epidemic. The drugs increase the likelihood that a person will become chronically ill, and induce new and more severe psychiatric symptoms in a significant percentage of patients.

Red Flag

UK: A million children now suffer from mental health problems

More than a million children have mental health problems, a doubling of the number in a generation, devastating research reveals today.

An epidemic of disorders ranging from depression, anxiety and anorexia to violent delinquency has struck one in ten youngsters.

Attention

Chewing gum with aspartame habit 'poisons' woman

Abigail Cormack thought she was dying from a mystery illness. She never realised her daily chewing gum habit was probably poisoning her.

The sugar-free gum contained aspartame, a food additive widely used in thousands of products, including gum, diet soft-drinks and tea and coffee.

Comment: The New Zealand Food Safety Authority shoud use the SOTT search engine:

Aspartame Causes Cancer in Rats at Levels Currently Approved for Humans

and

New aspartame data to be presented

and

Nations starting to Ban Aspartame


Cut

Male circumcision overstated as prevention tool against AIDS

In new academic research published today in the online, open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journal PLoS ONE, male circumcision is found to be much less important as a deterrent to the global AIDS pandemic than previously thought. The author, John R. Talbott, has conducted statistical empirical research across 77 countries of the world and has uncovered some surprising results.

The new study finds that the number of infected prostitutes in a country is the key to explaining the degree to which AIDS has infected the general population. Prostitute communities are typically very highly infected with the virus themselves, and because of the large number of sex partners they have each year, can act as an engine driving infection rates to unusually high levels in the general population. The new study is entitled "Size Matters: The Number of Prostitutes and the Global HIV/AIDS Pandemic" and is freely available online at the PLoS ONE publication website.

The study has a number of important findings that should impact policy decisions in the future. First, male circumcision, which in previous studies had been found to be important in controlling AIDS, becomes statistically irrelevant once the study controls for the number of prostitutes in a country. The study finds that the more Muslim countries of North Africa do indeed suffer much less AIDS than southern and western Africa, but this lower prevalence is not due to higher numbers of circumscribed males in these Muslim communities, but rather results from the fact that there are significantly fewer prostitutes in northern Africa on a per capita basis. It appears that religious families in the north, specifically concerned fathers and brothers, do a much better job protecting their daughters from predatory males than do those in the south. A history of polygamy in these Muslim communities does not appear to contribute to hi gher AIDS prevalence as previously speculated. In a frequently cited academic paper, Daniel Halperin, an H.I.V. specialist at the Harvard Center for Population and Development and one of the world's leading advocates for male circumcision, weighted results from individual countries by their population. When this artificial weighting was removed Talbott found that circumcision was no longer statistically significant in explaining the variance in AIDS infection rates across the countries of the World.

Health

Hepatitis C a growing problem in NWT, Canada

Hepatitis C, a relatively new disease in the North, is becoming a bigger problem in that part of Canada than HIV or tuberculosis, the Northwest Territories' chief medical officer said during a national conference in Yellowknife.

Dr. Andre Corriveau told CBC News on Monday he hopes to raise awareness about hepatitis C to curb its spread in the territory.

About 300 N.W.T. residents have been diagnosed with the disease - one of the highest infection rates in Canada - and about 30 new cases are found every year. The infection numbers are evenly split between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people.

Attention

Parents and Physicians Outraged Over Comments From NBC's Dr. Snyderman on Autism Omnibus Hearings, Vaccines

Parents and Physicians Outraged Over Comments From NBC's Dr. Snyderman on Autism Omnibus Hearings, Vaccines


Health

Study: Breast cancer genes can come from father

A deadly gene's path can hide in a family tree when a woman has few aunts and older sisters, making it appear that her breast cancer struck out of nowhere when it really came from Dad.

A new study suggests thousands of young women with breast cancer - an estimated 8,000 a year in the U.S. - aren't offered testing to identify faulty genes and clarify their medical decisions.

Health

Study finds staggering cost of treating diabetics

One out of every eight U.S. federal health care dollars is spent treating people with diabetes, a study found, and advocates are calling for the creation of a government post to oversee coordination of spending on treatment and prevention among federal agencies.

Light Sabers

UK: Level of abortions reaches record high of 200,000 a year

More than 200,000 women had abortions last year, the highest number ever, figures show today.

Almost 4,000 of the 201,173 procedures carried out in England and Wales were on girls under 16, the legal age of consent for sex.

The total rose by almost four per cent last year on 2005. The increase is being blamed on a crisis in contraception services.

Lambeth had the highest rate of abortions among under-18s - 44 for every 1,000 women having a termination. Across London, 24 in every 1,000 under-18s had an abortion last year.