Health & Vaccines

Forbes | Cathy Hutchinson has been unable to move her own arms or legs for 15 years. But using the most advanced brain-machine interface ever developed, she can steer a robotic arm towards a bottle, pick it up, and drink her morning coffee.

Psychology Today | Today, the most salient fact about Profet is her absence. Neither friends, former advisers, publishers, nor ex-lovers has any idea what happened to her or where she is today. Sometime between 2002 and 2005, Profet, who was then in her mid-40s, vanished without a trace.

Vanderbilt University | Now the veil has been pushed back by a new brain imaging study that has found an individual’s willingness to work hard to earn money is strongly influenced by the chemistry in three specific areas of the brain. In addition to shedding new light on how the brain works, the research could have important implications for the treatment of attention-deficit disorder, depression, schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness characterized by decreased motivation.

NPR | Researchers say our brains are probably wired from an evolutionary sense to encourage running and high aerobic activities. Above, a man runs past the Sydney Harbour Bridge on April 22.  Endurance athletes sometimes say they're "addicted" to exercise. In fact, scientists have shown that rhythmic, continuous exercise — aerobic exercise — can in fact produce narcoticlike chemicals in the body.

Medical Express | Newly discovered networks in the brain, shown here in color, go a long way toward explaining why some teenagers are more likely to start experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Diminished activity in some of these networks, discovered by two scientists at the University of Vermont and their European colleagues, makes some teens more impulsive -- and less able to inhibit urges to try alcohol, cigarettes and illegal drugs in early adolescence. Credit: Robert Whelan, University of Vermont, Nature Neuroscience, 2012

Corrente Wire | At the 420 rally in Denver, Colorado, Dr. Stein addressed tens of thousands of marijuana reform advocates. Dr. Stein declared that one of her first actions as President would be to "order the DEA and the Justice Department to cease and desist all attempts to harass or prosecute medical marijuana clinics or other legitimate marijuana-related businesses that are operating under state laws."

Food Freedom News | Monsanto’s Food and Drug Administration can’t close down small dairies and private food clubs fast enough, bursting on the scene with guns drawn as if the criminalized right to contract for natural foods we’ve consumed for millennia deserves SWAT attention.

DVice | The machine is called the Autospense and was designed by Dispense Labs as a way to add another layer of security to medical marijuana transactions. To purchase a serving you need to use a special swipe card, verify your thumbprint, and then enter a secret pin code, all while cameras monitor your movements. Offering marijuana strains named Skywalker, Bio Diesel, Platinum and others, after verification you use a touch panel to make your selection.

Associated Press | Drug maker Novartis is taking legal action in Britain to make state-run hospitals use an eye drug that costs about 700 pounds ($1,130) per shot instead of a cheaper one that costs 60 pounds ($97).  In a statement, Novartis said it was calling for a judicial review "as a last resort" because it believed patient safety was being potentially compromised.

BBC | What we currently call breast cancer should be thought of as 10 completely separate diseases, according to an international study which has been described as a "landmark".  The categories could improve treatment by tailoring drugs for a patient's exact type of breast cancer and help predict survival more accurately.

The Telegraph | Now the government is promising to take a more muscular approach to the problem by making immunisation compulsory, fining parents of children who are not protected and prosecuting religious groups who spread misinformation about vaccines.

Nature.com | The study, by neuroscientist Teri Krebs and clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, is the first-ever quantitative meta-analysis of LSD–alcoholism clinical trials. The researchers sifted through thousands of records to collect data from randomized, double-blind trials that compared one dose of LSD to a placebo.

Global Post | Felipe Sanchez and Maria Aleman share a pack of cigarettes and talk over a couple bottles of beer early one evening at the Bahamas Bar.  Their tobacco smoke lingers out of the bar, passing by the bartender, who lights his own cigarette, and wafts right by the bouncer who fiddles with a lighter in his hand.

The World Health Organisation has removed India’s name from the list of the polio-ridden countries of the world. Union Health Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad informed this on Saturday while addressing the Polio Summit, 2012, inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi. On January 12, this year, India officially marked the first year in history to record no new cases of polio.Meanwhile, Prime Minister Singh, at the summit, said that apart from achieving full immunisation against polio, the government’s main aim is to provide nutrition, hygiene and safe drinking water for all.

The Guardian | Scientists tested vaccine on mice and found that it reduced their consumption of the drug, giving hopes that it could lead to similar results in humans.  A group of Mexican scientists is working on a vaccine that could reduce addiction to one of the world's most notorious narcotics: heroin.

Medical Daily | A novel drug-delivery microchip implant that releases medication on command from a wireless remote control could improve treatment compliance and revolutionize healthcare by paving the way for a new era of “telemedicine” they defined as delivering health care over a distance, according to a news release on Thursday.

BBC | Scientists have developed and tested a "DNA robot" that delivers payloads such as drug molecules to specific cells.  The container was made using a method called "DNA origami", in which long DNA chains are folded in a prescribed way.

Physorg | It turns out that halofuginone (HF) triggers a stress-response pathway that blocks the development of a harmful class of immune cells, called Th17 cells, which have been implicated in many autoimmune disorders.

San Francisco Chronicle | Like alcohol and tobacco, sugar is a toxic, addictive substance that should be highly regulated with taxes, laws on where and to whom it can be advertised, and even age-restricted sales, says a team of UCSF scientists.

Imperial College | In the first study, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 30 healthy volunteers had psilocybin infused into their blood while inside magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, which measure changes in brain activity. The scans showed that activity decreased in "hub" regions of the brain - areas that are especially well-connected with other areas.

NPR | Ketamine has been used as an anesthetic for decades. It's also a widely popular but illegal club drug known as "Special K." When administered in low doses, patients report a rapid reduction in depression symptoms.  There's no quick fix for severe depression.  Although antidepressants like Prozac have been around since the 1970s, they usually take weeks to make a difference. And for up to 40 percent of patients, they simply don't work.

BBC | A dose of ultrasound to the testicles can stop the production of sperm, according to researchers investigating a new form of contraception.  A study on rats published in Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology showed that sound waves could be used to reduce sperm counts to levels that would cause infertility in humans.

Natural News | The pressure is on for researchers and pharmaceutical companies to develop drug-based, non-synthetic versions of marijuana for medical use, as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is poised to approve such varieties in the near future. But this potential approval appears to be reserved only for Big Pharma, as the marijuana plant itself could continue to remain a controlled substance at the federal level with no recognized health benefits.

CNN | The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will inject $750 million into the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates announced Thursday at the World Economic Forum.

TIME | Based on this idea, Huxley posited that ordinary consciousness represents only a fraction of what the mind can take in. In order to keep us focused on survival, Huxley claimed, the brain must act as a “reducing valve” on the flood of potentially overwhelming sights, sounds and sensations. What remains, Huxley wrote, is a “measly trickle of the kind of consciousness” necessary to “help us to stay alive.”

Huffington Post | That’s what U.S.-based agribusiness giant Monsanto has been accused of in India, where the government is planning to charge the company with violating the country’s biodiversity laws over a genetically modified version of eggplant.

Natural Society | The United States is threatening nations who oppose Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) crops with military-style trade wars, according to information obtained and released by the organization WikiLeaks. Nations like France, which have moved to ban one of Monsanto’s GM corn varieties, were requested to be ‘penalized’ by the United States for opposing Monsanto and genetically modified foods.

MSNBC | The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency abruptly changed its mind Saturday about delivering fresh water to residents of a northeastern Pennsylvania village where residential wells were found to be tainted by a natural gas drilling operation.

Scientific American | Deep depression that fails to respond to any other form of therapy can be moderated or reversed by stimulation of areas deep inside the brain. Now the first placebo-controlled study of this procedure shows that these responses can be maintained in the long term.

New York Times | Medicines to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are in such short supply that hundreds of patients complain daily to the Food and Drug Administration that they are unable to find a pharmacy with enough pills to fill their prescriptions.

Science Daily | A team of Weizmann Institute scientists has turned the tables on an autoimmune disease. In such diseases, including Crohn's and rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system mistakenly attacks the body's tissues. But the scientists managed to trick the immune systems of mice into targeting one of the body's players in autoimmune processes, an enzyme known as MMP9. The results of their research recently appeared in Nature Medicine.

MSNBC | Medical milestone or privacy invasion? A tiny computer chip approved Wednesday for implantation in a patient’s arm can speed vital information about a patient’s medical history to doctors and hospitals. But critics warn that it could open new ways to imperil the confidentiality of medical records.

Daily Mail | Tumours were rare until recent times when pollution and poor diet became issues, the review of mummies, fossils and classical literature found.  A greater understanding of its origins could lead to treatments for the disease, which claims more than 150,000 lives a year in the UK.

Hydrogen peroxide is the only germicidal agent composed only of water and oxygen. Like ozone, it kills disease organisms by oxidation! Hydrogen peroxide is considered the worlds safest all natural effective sanitizer. It kills microorganisms by oxidizing them, which can be best described as a controlled burning process. When hydrogen peroxide reacts with organic material it breaks down into oxygen and water.

TIME | The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may move to eliminate age restrictions for the morning-after emergency contraception pill, Plan B One-Step, according to several people involved with the deliberations who spoke with TIME Healthland.

Scientific American | A new breed of genetically modified mosquitoes carries a gene that cripples its own offspring. They could crush native mosquito populations and block the spread of disease. And they are already in the air—though that's been a secret

SC Tech | A blind man who thought he would never be able to read again has had his vision partially restored after being fitted with a 'bionic' eye.  Peter Lane, 51, is one of the first people in the world to have electronic receivers implanted into his eye which send signals mounted in a pair of glasses to
the brain.

Capital FM News | The measure bars GMOs — including seeds, livestock, and fish — from being imported for cultivation or to be raised locally.  Exceptions include the use of GMO products for research purposes in a closed environment, but those will be closely monitored, the legislature’s official news service said.

Bad Science | This week Baroness Susan Greenfield, Professor of pharmacology at Oxford, apparently announced that computer games are causing dementia in children. This would be very concerning scientific information: but it comes to us from the opening of a new wing at an expensive boarding school, not an academic conference.

Doctor Tipster | French researchers were able to restore the youth of cells taken from people aged over 100 years, reprograming them to stem cells stage, demonstrating that aging is in fact reversible. The researchon the possibility to remove traces left by aging cells, published in the Genes & Development journal , marks a new stage in the regenerative medicine field, said Jean-Marc Lemaitre from Fonctionnelle Génomique Institute(INSERM / CNRS / Université de Montpellier), who led the study, informs AFP.

Science Blog | The team, based at McGill University in Montreal, University of British Columbia in Vancouver and the UCL Institute of Child Health in London looked for gene methylation associated with social and economic factors in early life.

No Patent On Seeds Organzation | Surprisingly, the European Patent Office (EPO) has just canceled a public hearing on the controversial patent on a broccoli scheduled for 26 October. A broad range of organisations had been preparing a demonstration against patents for plants and animals on that day. The broccoli protected by the patent EP1069819 was derived by conventional breeding methods. The rights to the patents are being held by US company Monsanto. The company Syngenta which had appealed against the patent, has now surprisingly proposed the cancellation of the planned hearing. The EPO is following this request from industry. This means that the patent for the broccoli, which is derived by traditional breeding methods, will now be upheld with only minor modifications.

Banquets Catering | Have you ever wondered how much sugar in your soda? I always remembered hearing it had 6 tablespoons of sugar within every can. Well, the wait is now over and you can find out how much sugar is inside all these food items. Were you surprised with the results? Please let us know in the comment section. Thank you

Medical Express | IQ, the standard measure of intelligence, can increase or fall significantly during our teenage years, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust, and these changes are associated with changes to the structure of our brains. The findings may have implications for testing and streaming of children during their school years.

Physorg | Cancer treatments are designed to compromise the DNA of cancer cells. But once the DNA is damaged, the PARP protein jumps into action to protect the cell. It attaches itself to the damaged areas and launches a repair process. The EPFL researchers have shown that metal-based compounds alter the PARP protein, thus inhibiting its repair function.

Science Daily | In findings with major implications for the genetics of cancer and human health, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and two other science teams in New York City and Rome have uncovered evidence of powerful new genetic networks and showed how it may work to drive cancer and normal development.

Mother Jones | The Occupy Wall Street protests grew out of anger at the outsized power of banks. But as they've expanded nationwide, the uprisings have evolved into a kind of running challenge to the way power is concentrated in all aspects of our economy—concentrated into the hands of people with an interest in maintaining the status quo.

Foresight Institute | Several decades from now we hope to have sophisticated medical nanorobots, produced by molecular manufacturing, that can enter cells, analyze the state of the cell, and initiate appropriate therapy, such as killing cancer cells.

End the Lie | In the wake of the horror of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, some independent chemists and toxicologists warned that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was using outdated testing procedures and was allowing seafood tainted with oil to make it to the consumer market.

LA Times | Trustees of the California Medical Assn., which represents more than 35,000 physicians statewide, adopted the position at their annual meeting in Anaheim late Friday. It is the first major medical association in the nation to urge legalization of the drug, according to a group spokeswoman, who said the larger membership was notified Saturday.