FINEST KIND CLINIC AND FISHMARKET.... Discussing medicine, culture, and the joys of cooking Pansit.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Monday, February 14, 2005
hello from Nueva Ecija
So here we are in the fragrant Philippine Islands.
Our small town is growing. And our son is turning the small house and compound into a mansion with meeting rooms etc. for guests and visitors for his work in human development/character cities.
And so I go around singing nostalgically: I wanna go back to my little grass shack (yes I know, it was a shack in Hawaii)...and our house was never a grass shack, although my husband's original home is still intact, with the traditional raised flooring to protect it from monsoons.
Ah, modern globalization. No near by mcdonalds, but a Jolibee and mall nearby, and when we "jog" every morning, a dozen other people are doing the same thing around the city square.
When things get more efficient, I will post photos.
No broadband yet here, but they do have DSL and I'm trying to get us connected...
Our small town is growing. And our son is turning the small house and compound into a mansion with meeting rooms etc. for guests and visitors for his work in human development/character cities.
And so I go around singing nostalgically: I wanna go back to my little grass shack (yes I know, it was a shack in Hawaii)...and our house was never a grass shack, although my husband's original home is still intact, with the traditional raised flooring to protect it from monsoons.
Ah, modern globalization. No near by mcdonalds, but a Jolibee and mall nearby, and when we "jog" every morning, a dozen other people are doing the same thing around the city square.
When things get more efficient, I will post photos.
No broadband yet here, but they do have DSL and I'm trying to get us connected...
Thursday, February 10, 2005
BBC: TB Killed off Leprosy.
Scientists at University College of London speculate that since historically TB started to increase about the time that Leprosy disappeared in Europe, that maybe it was because of cross immunity.
Now, I don't know much about leprosy, but if you scroll down about the way the body attacks TB, a similar T cell (if I remember correctly) hits the infection in leprosy.
Now, ancient leprosy may or may not have been Hanson's disease-- there is an ongoing argument that it may have been a disease called Yaws, which causes bubos and is a spirochete related to Syphillis. (There is another argument if Syphillis came back with Colombus, or if sailors caught yaws going around the horn of Africa and the disease changed---and syphillis changed after arriving in Europe, from "the great pox" to a slow disease that took years to kill).
Now, most cases of Hansen's disease is caused by being very dirty-- Father Damian caught it because there was no good water supply when he arrived in Molakai, and he was in close contact. However, few modern nurses have ever caught the disease, and indeed, the suspicion is that most cases are "caught" by infants or children who have thin skin and immature immune sytems, and smolder awhile before showing up in young aduts.
So although the TB causing cross immunity theory is nice, I posit two other explanations: One, a gradual increase in cleanliness and the standard of living. Two: People whose immune system was weak from Hanson's disease quickly died of TB, and never spread the disease to new cases.
BTW: Hanson's disease is fairly easily treated in villages, but leprosariums still exist because many cases are thrown out of families when discovered.
James Carville, call your office...
Now, I don't know much about leprosy, but if you scroll down about the way the body attacks TB, a similar T cell (if I remember correctly) hits the infection in leprosy.
Now, ancient leprosy may or may not have been Hanson's disease-- there is an ongoing argument that it may have been a disease called Yaws, which causes bubos and is a spirochete related to Syphillis. (There is another argument if Syphillis came back with Colombus, or if sailors caught yaws going around the horn of Africa and the disease changed---and syphillis changed after arriving in Europe, from "the great pox" to a slow disease that took years to kill).
Now, most cases of Hansen's disease is caused by being very dirty-- Father Damian caught it because there was no good water supply when he arrived in Molakai, and he was in close contact. However, few modern nurses have ever caught the disease, and indeed, the suspicion is that most cases are "caught" by infants or children who have thin skin and immature immune sytems, and smolder awhile before showing up in young aduts.
So although the TB causing cross immunity theory is nice, I posit two other explanations: One, a gradual increase in cleanliness and the standard of living. Two: People whose immune system was weak from Hanson's disease quickly died of TB, and never spread the disease to new cases.
BTW: Hanson's disease is fairly easily treated in villages, but leprosariums still exist because many cases are thrown out of families when discovered.
James Carville, call your office...
Leaving home
Well, we packed a huge suitcase each, and had a neighbor drive us down to the Tulsa airport so we can leave tomorrow early.
The neighbor had a doctor's appointment, so it was easier this way.
The neighbor had a doctor's appointment, so it was easier this way.
We closed an agreement to sell the house, and all the furniture and appliances have been sold or arranged to be auctioned.
This is not the first time I have sold/given away/stored all my belongings to work overseas. It is the third time--twice I went to Africa.
The first African trip, we couldn't ship stuff, so only had suitcases. Ditto for the second time I went there.
Things don't always work out, however...the first African assignment went fine for three years, then the war got bad and we went home in a hurry.
The second time, I was barely there six months when I got shipped home to fix a visa, just in time for a war to break out two days later (most of my friends were worried sick, and I had to call them to say I was okay).
We will see how long this lasts. But of course, this time I am not going as a missionary, but as a wife of a retired physician who is returning home in his retirement.
I have just enough government "pension" to cover health insurance under an early retirement...but not enough to live on (no way I am going without decent health insurance, although except for "female problems" I have always been in good health).
The interesting thing about hotels now is that they have wireless. The last hotel was free, but this one is about 8 dollars for 24 hours. A bit expensive, but no more than a movie or room service...(I LOVE ROOMSERVICE...but that's another story).
Luckily, the new downloads for Windows was available, so I could download it fast...
In the Philippines, we have telephone connections, and it's expensive. No broad band yet...nor satellites in the area.
My husband the doctor is reading his newspaper...happy as a clam. He knows more about the world than I do, and his secret vice is the National Enquirer...
Monday, February 07, 2005
the Hero Salute commercial link is here...
We often see soldiers coming and going at the Tulsa airport, and often people greet them and congratulate them...
And before you joke about whitebread Red states, you should know that we often see Muslims--Iranians, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Lebanese-- welcoming relatives at the airport also. Indeed, many people don't know that the writer of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" studied here, or that a lot of Iraqi refugees settled here after GWI...
Immigrants are all over...one person who came to inspect our house for his brother who is thinking of buying it came with his wife. She is part Osage, part Filippina...
Bobby Jindal, call your office...
We often see soldiers coming and going at the Tulsa airport, and often people greet them and congratulate them...
And before you joke about whitebread Red states, you should know that we often see Muslims--Iranians, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Lebanese-- welcoming relatives at the airport also. Indeed, many people don't know that the writer of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" studied here, or that a lot of Iraqi refugees settled here after GWI...
Immigrants are all over...one person who came to inspect our house for his brother who is thinking of buying it came with his wife. She is part Osage, part Filippina...
Bobby Jindal, call your office...
.
Diabetes transplant
The Japanese overcame the problem of islet cell transplants to treat type I (Childhood) diabetics by using live, related donors...
There are technical problems with getting islet cells to transplant (which is why the holy grail of embryonic stem cells are being pushed by childhood diabetic groups).
You see, insulin is produced in the pancreas. The pancreas is a huge gland that produces digestive juices (think of it as a ten inch spit gland, that spits out fluid when food starts draining out of the stomach).
In the middle of this big gland are tiny islands of different cells, cells that produce insulin. They are aptly called the Islets of Langerhans...(remember an earlier post where I discussed language showing history? Well, Paul Langerhans the physician who discovered them, has an interesting history..did a lot more than discover these cells.)
So the first problem is that, in brain dead people, often other organs are partly injured by the poor circulation or the lack of oxygen that caused the brain damage. So if you try to get the cells, they are often partially digested by damaged pancreas juices from nearby.
The second problem is that the pancreas is plastered against the backbone.
So surgically, to get donor cells, you can't go from the back--the spine and four inches of muscle is in the way. But if you go from the front, you have to move the liver, stomach, and duodenum out of the way.
Needle biopsy--sticking a needle into the islets-- is an option, but what if you get the wrong cells?
Sounds promising, but one wonders about risk to the donor...because there is a big danger if the pancreas is injured, you get a nasty disease called pancreatitis.
All sorts of research in this area is being done, and although pancreas transplants have been successful, the technical aspects make it still experimental...
Dr. Banning, call your office...
There are technical problems with getting islet cells to transplant (which is why the holy grail of embryonic stem cells are being pushed by childhood diabetic groups).
You see, insulin is produced in the pancreas. The pancreas is a huge gland that produces digestive juices (think of it as a ten inch spit gland, that spits out fluid when food starts draining out of the stomach).
In the middle of this big gland are tiny islands of different cells, cells that produce insulin. They are aptly called the Islets of Langerhans...(remember an earlier post where I discussed language showing history? Well, Paul Langerhans the physician who discovered them, has an interesting history..did a lot more than discover these cells.)
So the first problem is that, in brain dead people, often other organs are partly injured by the poor circulation or the lack of oxygen that caused the brain damage. So if you try to get the cells, they are often partially digested by damaged pancreas juices from nearby.
The second problem is that the pancreas is plastered against the backbone.
So surgically, to get donor cells, you can't go from the back--the spine and four inches of muscle is in the way. But if you go from the front, you have to move the liver, stomach, and duodenum out of the way.
Needle biopsy--sticking a needle into the islets-- is an option, but what if you get the wrong cells?
Sounds promising, but one wonders about risk to the donor...because there is a big danger if the pancreas is injured, you get a nasty disease called pancreatitis.
All sorts of research in this area is being done, and although pancreas transplants have been successful, the technical aspects make it still experimental...
Dr. Banning, call your office...
An untold story of rescue
Four Jewish American brothers who had a cigar factory in Manila helped rescue 1500 Jews from Germany...
The brothers from Cincinnati had taken turns going to Manila for two-year periods during the 1920s and '30s to run the Helena Cigar Factory, started by their father in 1918.
The brothers from Cincinnati had taken turns going to Manila for two-year periods during the 1920s and '30s to run the Helena Cigar Factory, started by their father in 1918.
While they were there, they established a Jewish Refugee Committee and worked with highly placed friends - U.S. High Commissioner of the Philippines Paul V. McNutt and Manuel L. Quezon, the first Philippine president - to help the mostly German and Austrian refugees get passports and visas, then find employment and homes in Manila.
"We were welcomed in the Philippines at a time when the gates to Jews were closed all over the world," said refugee Lotte Hershfield, 74, of West Hartford, Conn.
The rescue was little known until a recent book by Ephraim, "Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror," led to efforts in the United States and the Philippines to honor the humanitarian effort before the aging refugees die off.
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