Sunday, October 06, 2019

Medical stuff in the news

Most of these are links to my medical blog.

the CDC posted a lot of stuff lately, which I comment on here.

1: Most violent deaths are suicides. Especially in young or elderly white males but also AmerIndians.

2: a discussion of using opioids in persons with lupus.

Several flaws in the study, such as there are no good studies about using opioids for pain, but lots of studies on the side effects of opioids. Duh. So do you want constipation or living in pain?

3: remember the zika virus hysteria, because it causes mental retardation in some of the babies whose moms caught it when pregnant? Well, another major cause of retardation, blindness, and deafness is rubella, and this is decreasing thanks to giving MMR (Measles mumps rubella) shots instead of just measles vaccine to kids.

4: CDC discuses measles outbreak in the USA.

my take: It seems a lot of the cases are among Orthodox Jewish groups, who seem to have been targeted by an anti vax pamphlet, and enough of them didn't get the shot that there was no herd immunity to protect the children under age one (who usually don't get the vaccine since they inherit mom's antibodies which keeps the vaccine from working).

5: Can polio be eliminated?
my summary of the article here.

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STRATEGYPAGE has a long essay on the problem of obesity in the modern world. 

some of it is because young men are on line instead of playing games etc. but it is a world wide problem.

All Western nations (including Japan and South Korea) have similar problems with recruiting and maintaining training standards after recruit training. Even China is having a problem because so many Chinese families have suddenly become affluent since the 1980s.
Worldwide nearly 40 percent of adults are over overweight and third of those were considered overweight. ... Worldwide obesity rates have increased along with the massive reduction in poverty rates worldwide. In the last half-century obesity rates worldwide have tripled. 


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and finally my longer essay on generics, which I posted here a few days ago.

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