Health & Wellness
As children across the world look forward to opening their presents, young Izabelle Evans has already received a precious gift - her sight.
Izabelle, four, had been blind since birth but she can now see thanks to ground-breaking stem cell treatment in China.
Parents James Evans and Hollie McHugh say they will never forget the way they felt when their daughter saw them for the first time and said "Mummy and Daddy".
Izabelle can now see things 3ft away after the treatment that cost the family £50,000.
An HIV-positive man who received a stem cell transplant for leukemia has been cured of HIV infection, doctors announced recently.
While the case was first reported at the 2008 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, doctors have now published an updated report in the journal Blood, which affirms extensive testing.
"It is reasonable to conclude that cure of HIV infection has been achieved in this patient," the doctors wrote.
In 2007, Timothy Ray Brown suffered a relapse of leukemia that required a stem cell tranplant. Brown, also known as "Berlin patient," was given stem cells from a donor that lacked the CCR5 receptor, "a condition that is present in less than 1 percent of Caucasians in northern and western Europe," according to London-based AidsMap.
In fact, the investigation, conducted by a Swiss National Research Program called Endocrine Disrupters: Relevance to Humans, Animals and Ecosystems, found UV filters, which are common in cosmetics and sunscreens, were present in 85 percent of human milk samples tested. What does this mean for adults, much less babies taking in this contaminated milk? The alarming truth is, no one knows.
As S510: Food Safety Modernization Act stumbles toward what it beginning to feel like inevitable passage, with support from progressive food personalities like Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, we would do well to consider the inherently weak assumptions that are propelling it forward.
It is often stated that foodborne illness kills more than 5,000 Americans annually, sends another 325,000 to the hospital, and provides a whopping 76 million of us an unwelcome opportunity to become overly familiar with the view from our toilet. It is less often stated that the 1999 study providing these numbers ends with a line that reads "unknown agents account for approximately 81% of foodborne illnesses and hospitalizations and 64% of deaths." In other words, a significant majority of assumed illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths are just that: Assumed. The numbers are merely extrapolated from estimates of all deaths by gastroenteritis of unknown cause. Indeed, the extrapolation accounts for 3,400 of the total study estimate of 5,194 deaths annually.
Let me explain.
Before this summer, what I knew about whooping cough, I learned as a new mother when my son was immunized as an infant. I knew he needed three shots before he was six months old to be protected from the illness as a baby. I didn't know how dangerous the disease could be to infants, I just knew immunizing him could spare him from getting sick.
Now, 13 years later, after a state-wide epidemic has killed 10 babies, infected thousands, and lasted far longer than health officials had ever expected, I know more about the dangers and complexities of whooping cough than I should. After all, this is a disease that was nearly wiped out when I was a kid in the 1970's. Whooping cough or pertussis, is a respiratory illness caused by bacteria. It can be deadly to young babies and debilitating to adults. KPBS began reporting on the epidemic in early summer. By late summer when news releases indicated many of the children getting sick were up to date with their immunizations, we decided to look at the data. Who was getting sick? Were they immunized?
Smith has come to see first-hand how carelessly flu shots are administered, how dangerous the mercury that remains in most of them can be, how little public health officials actually seem to care when the worst happens, why the worst may not be so rare after all - even how similar the side effects can be to symptoms of autism.
She talked to Age of Autism about her ordeal, which began in 2005, in the hope of sparing others.
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In 1999, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked the U.S. 24th in the world for overall life expectancy. But over the past decade, that ranking has dropped 25 spots, and experts have been scrambling to come up with an answer as to why this is the case.
Authors of a recent study allege that the "uniquely inefficient" health care system in the U.S. is to blame, and in a sense they are right. The U.S. health care system promotes disease rather than health. But on the other hand, the authors miss the point because their sentiment seems to suggest that universal health will solve the problem when, in reality, it will only make it worse.
A few weeks ago in New York a group of college students gathered at a vigil. They sang songs, and held candles as they mourned the passing of a friend.
The scene can be seen on YouTube. What makes it slightly surreal is that the gathered crowd is lamenting the demise of an alcoholic drink, Four Loko.
From Monday, Four Loko will no longer exist in its original incarnation - as a mix of alcohol and caffeine in a can - on the orders of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Watch these videos featuring Dr. Mary Newport to learn about an amazing discovery which could potentially be a "cure" for Alzheimer's and memory loss.
Source
Coconut Ketones July 22, 2008










Comment: The reader may choose to find alternatives to using anti-inflammatory drugs, such as suggested in this article: The Anti-Inflammation Diet.