Thursday, Nov 06th
Last update08:31:35 AM GMT
Health Glance
Researchers at Cambridge University have discovered how tumour cells protect themselves from the body's natural defences.
By turning off this process, they believe that the body would cure itself of the disease.
In the past attempts to harness the immune system have failed because a protein appears to shield – and even nurture – cancer cells.
But destroying this molecule leaves the cancer completely defenceless and it is killed by the immune system.
Last month, when Breast Cancer Action, a non-profit advocacy organization, attempted to rent a billboard in Indianapolis, they got the kibosh by every rental company in the city.
The message was simple–the billboards simply read, “Eli Lilly is making us sick.Tell them to stop,” and referred to Lilly's manufacturing of recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), which has been linked to cancer. BCA followed the guidelines of all companies contacted, but Indianapolis is home to Eli Lilly's corporate headquarters, and it seems their ad dollars aren't good there.
The charity Medicins sans Frontieres (MSF) says that hidden clauses in the free trade agreeement (FTA) currently being negotiated between Europe and India will prevent the manufacture and distribution of crucial generic medicines produced in the country.
"There are dirty legal tricks being used," says Dr. Tido von Schoenangerer, who runs the MSF campaign for essential medicines. "Any person living with HIV in the developing world is facing a future scenario in which the medicines they need will be under threat."
By the mid-1980s, there were seven vaccines -- diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella and polio.
Today, children may receive as many as 37 doses of 14 vaccines by the age of two, and as many as eight vaccines in a single visit!
The United States recommends more vaccines than any country in world. The CDC recommends 48 doses of 14 vaccines by age six, and 69 doses of 16 vaccines by age 18.
Alcohol abuse is more harmful than crack or heroin abuse, according to a new study by a former British government drug advisor and other experts.
Neuropharmacologist David Nutt, MD, of Imperial College London, and colleagues rated 20 different drugs on a scale that takes into account the various harms caused by a drug. Drugs are rated on nine harms a drug causes an individual and seven harms a drug causes society.
Although the study was conducted in Denmark, experts believe that it applies to other parts of the First World, including Europe and the United States. This earlier age of maturation is even more striking when compared with the 19th century, when girls reached puberty at an average age of 15, and boys reached it at 17. Since then, the age of puberty has moved back steadily, until age 14 for boys and age 12 for girls were formally declared "normal" in the 1960s. These numbers were based on the average age of first period for girls and of voices breaking for boys.
It's not just scientific studies suggesting these figures are now obsolete; anecdotal reports of boys dropping out of choir schools when their voices break at age 12 or 13 are now widespread. According to Richard Stanhope, an expert in childhood hormonal disorders, specialists are now convinced that early puberty is a real phenomenon.
When a King Country dairy farmer came down with a serious case of swine flu, intensive care specialists said there was no hope. They were set to pull him off of life support, but his family refused to give up.
The family demanded that the doctors try high doses of Vitamin C. The hospital told them it wouldn't work, but the family insisted. They had to hire a lawyer to get their way -- but their actions saved the man's life.
What makes this story even more remarkable, is the fact that once admitted to the hospital with swine flu, Allan was also diagnosed with leukemia, which dramatically worsened his chances of recovery.
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