FINEST KIND CLINIC AND FISHMARKET.... Discussing medicine, culture, and the joys of cooking Pansit.
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BUCKY DRUG. Model of a fullerene-based HIV protease inhibitor recently designed by Simon Friedman.
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More than a decade after Friedman and others first pondered the idea, research toward medical uses for buckyballs continues trekking forward. Buckyballs are members of a class of all-carbon, cage-shaped molecules now known as fullerenes. In recent months, for example, daylong sessions at national meetings of both the American Chemical Society and the Electrochemical Society were devoted to the topic, and at least three companies are working toward medical uses of fullerenes.
Friedman notes that fullerenes' unique qualities have promise for certain types of drug design. Their small size, spherical shape, and hollow interior all provide therapeutic opportunities. Moreover, a cage of 60 carbon atoms has 60 places at which to attach chemical groups in almost any configuration. Such opportunity has led to the development of not only drug candidates for treating diseases including HIV, cancer, and neurological conditions, but also new diagnostic tools. Among these are contrast agents for X-ray and magnetic resonance imaging (see box, below).
Molecular pincushion
One of the best ways to use fullerenes' unique structures is as scaffolding for building drug molecules, says Friedman, now at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. "You can think of the fullerene as a molecular pincushion," agrees Uri Sagman of C Sixty, a small, Toronto company specializing in developing fullerenes for biomedical uses.
Ah, Molecular pincushion. That's easier to understand...
A Johns Hopkins team told Nature how they found it effectively treats enlarged hearts - a common feature of heart failure - in mice.
Cardiologists said it was reasonable to presume it would have such an effect.
Viagra was initially designed to be heart drug until scientists found a useful spin off effect on the blood vessels of the penis.
It works by expanding blood vessels to improve blood flow, similar to other angina drugs.
Good news for Mickey and other aging rodents...
Frieda Smith, who gave birth to Stonewall Jackson Smith in 1979, remembers being confronted by a doctor just days after a difficult birth, before she had time to come to terms with her baby's birth impairment.
"He (the doctor) told me that I would always have to take care of him, that he would be blind, that he would never know me, that he was more like some kind of animal than a human being," she says. "He never really sat down with me and explained what the operation would do for Stoney." Ms. Smith was never told that the failure rate for spina bifida treatments is very low, nor did she understand that the operation would reduce the degree of sensory, mobility and intellectual impairment that her son experienced. "He made it sound like Stoney would live longer, but he wouldn't ever get any better."
Ms. Smith signed a consent form agreeing that Stonewall would be fed and given minimal "supportive care," but no antibiotics or surgery. Later, when she had questions about her baby's treatment, the doctor refused to make himself available to answer them. Ms. Smith also says that she did not know that she could have taken her son to another hospital, where he would have been treated at once.
During the five years of the study, 69 babies with spina bifida were born in the Children's Hospital of Oklahoma (now known as Oklahoma Children's Hospital), a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Oklahoma. Thirty-three babies were recommended for "supportive care" without treatment; eight of them were eventually treated anyway, either because their parents insisted or because their parents or guardians eventually obtained more accurate information. All of the 24 babies whose parents consented to the "supportive care" regimen died. ( a twenty-fifth baby in the "supportive care" regimen was moved out of state by his parents and lost to the study. Two of the eight babies that were eventually treated also died, possibly because the treatments came too late.) Most of the babies who were deprived of treatment were born to women in the welfare system, who were paying for their care with Medicaid benefits. None of the 36 babies that were given antibiotics and surgery died from the effects of spina bifida. (One did in an accident.)
In addition to being poor, many of the families of the children that were chosen to die were poorly educated. Frieda Smith felt that she was manipulated by a doctor who took advantage of her medical ignorance. Her experiences, and the experiences of other mothers whose babies died, raised serious questions about whether they truly gave "informed consent" when they signed the forms agreeing to the "supportive care" regimen. Indeed, some parents came away from their meeting with the doctor under the false impression that the hospital was not required to treat babies who did not meet the "criteria for treatment" (i.e., the formula)
What eventually broke the story was when a Black Congressman noticed that most of the "non treatment" babies were poor and black or Native American...
Here is an example of the bleak life lived by one Okie who did get treated for his Spina Bifida...
Whether killing by partial birth abortion or by infanticide or by merely killing by "non treatment decisions", The dirty little secret, however, is that "quality of life" does not depend on the level of the sac on the back, nor on the hydrocephalus.
Americans have rights given by the Creator, and if the saints are correct, that same creator sees us all of equal worth...Our worth does not depend on the wealth of the parents involved, nor even if that person is welcomed by those parents. After all, if it is true that rights come from the creator, it is true that the creator insists on responsibility for the most vulnerable as part of our duties in life.
And, as one right wing fundamentalist wacko pointed out,
In America's ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak. Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another. Our nation relies on men and women who look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love. Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth.
Frieda Smith, who gave birth to Stonewall Jackson Smith in 1979, remembers being confronted by a doctor just days after a difficult birth, before she had time to come to terms with her baby's birth impairment.
"He (the doctor) told me that I would always have to take care of him, that he would be blind, that he would never know me, that he was more like some kind of animal than a human being," she says. "He never really sat down with me and explained what the operation would do for Stoney." Ms. Smith was never told that the failure rate for spina bifida treatments is very low, nor did she understand that the operation would reduce the degree of sensory, mobility and intellectual impairment that her son experienced. "He made it sound like Stoney would live longer, but he wouldn't ever get any better." (for link see previous post).
The good news is that now such defects can be closed in the womb.
Samuel's story is quite well known, thanks to his famous picture.
Here is Anna's story, with links from the local paper. Gives a lot of links to put into perspective the entire struggle to save Anna's life and give her early treatment to prevent major disability.
Matt Drudge, call your office....
"This research shows that the root cause of poverty is the absence of money," said Mr. Annan. "Our experts tell us that if we give enough cash to poor people, then they become middle-income people. Naturally, the cash we give them should come from countries that now have too much cash."
Mr. Annan immediately proposed a plan to distribute cash to poor people, with the United Nations serving as middleman and retaining "only the usual processing fee of no more than 65 percent."
This is not as absurd as it sounds. From the NYTimes article
