Medical news

Cross posting from my medical blog:

BBC report on sickle cell treatment using gene repair.
Gizmodo article.

my discussion.

good news for the 100 thousand Americans (mostly in the black community) who have the disease. Our next door neighbor's cousin died of this back in the 1960's, and although aggressive routine treatment has resulted in longer lives for these people, a cure is the best hope.

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Colon cancer in young people nytimes article.

My discussion. diet has a lot to do with this, but HPV is now a question for distal cancers.

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Soft drinks are evil and must be stopped!

Uh, the CDC says that only 7 percent of calories come from sugary drinks.

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Bill Gates is worried an epidemic might kill a lot of us. Maybe released by terrorists.

my long wordy discussion about Spanish influenza, on how vaccines have stopped a lot of very nasty diseases (but like Rodney Dangerfield don't get much respect) and about the 1545 Salmonella epidemic that helped wipe out Mexican natives.

and at the end I point out that even "incurable" diseases can be stopped by simple hygiene, hand washing, and isolation.

This, not fancy medicines, was how they stopped Ebola and SARS.

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and a relink: Don't forget the white plague: TB still kills 1 million folks a year and could now become a problem as drug resistant cases increase.

again, isolation and masks and a decent diet cuts this death rate.

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