Here Comes the Science: being cold might actually lead to more colds

Proving that common sense (and your mama) may not be as dumb as EBM wants to make it (or her) seem:

Claire Johnson and Professor Ron Eccles, from Cardiff University's Common Cold Center, recruited 180 volunteers, half of whom they got to immerse their feet in ice and cold water for 20 minutes.

The other 90 in tests during the common cold "season" sat with their feet in an empty bowl.

During the next four or five days, almost a third (29 percent) of the chilled volunteers developed cold symptoms -- compared to just 9 percent in the control group, the scientists said.

Professor Eccles said there was a simple explanation as to why chilly feet could lead to the development of cold virus symptoms.

"When colds are circulating in the community many people are mildly infected but show no symptoms," he said, according to the UK's Press Association.

"If they become chilled this causes a pronounced constriction of the blood vessels in the nose and shuts off the warm blood that supplies the white cells that fight infection.

"The reduced defences in the nose allow the virus to get stronger and common cold symptoms develop.

"Although the chilled subject believes they have `caught a cold' what has in fact happened is that the dormant infection has taken hold."

Because obviously a zillion years worth of people noticing, "hey, my nose is sniffly more often when I'm stuck out in the pouring freezing rain" wasn't good enough for us "scientists."

Next study: vegetable soup (sorry, chicken noodle fans) beats Tamiflu.

Medicine: birth control patch dosing drowning you in estrogen

A little behind on this one, but ya know:

The warning from Johnson and Johnson subsidiary Ortho McNeil, makers of Ortho Evra, says women using the patch will be exposed to about 60 percent more estrogen than those using typical birth-control pills because hormones from patches get into the bloodstream and are removed from the body differently than those from pills.

Thursday's warning comes four months after reports that patch users die and suffer blood clots at a rate three times higher than women taking the pill.

So yeah, time for birth control the old-fashioned way: pills and shots and oral sex.

General Willy Wonka, Sir: (Everlasting?) Combat Chewing Gum

This sounds like a pretty viable civilian consumer product as well. And think about all the people in Britain with rotten teeth.

The gum, described at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists convention this week in Nashville, would contain a special bacteria-fighting agent to prevent plaque, cavities and gum disease.

Soldiers in the field often lack the necessary time and means to brush and floss. Compounding the problem is the stress of combat, which can encourage bacterial growth in the mouth, said Col. Dennis Runyan, commander of the Army Dental and Trauma Research Detachment in Great Lakes, Illinois.

Gum was considered an ideal solution because the Army already issues gum to soldiers in their field rations.

Dr. Patrick DeLuca, a University of Kentucky drug product developer, is working to perfect the prototype, trying to make it taste better and ensure that it retains its flavor and bacteria-fighting ability for 30 minutes to an hour.

Okay, there just had to be somebody from UK working on the everlasting gum. This might be the best development out of Lexington on the horizon short of the rumored Viagra nasal spray.

Go Cats!

Medicine: Curing HIV or just a False Positive?

This article tells of a man who was previously diagnosed with HIV, but had just been named clean from any virus present in his body. Is this a real case of someone curing themselves from HIV or just one of the very few false positives from testing? Either way, I hope we learn something from this... either how to test better or how to start fighting this nasty little bugger!

TORCH: Toxo link to schizophrenia?

So it's nothing new that we've been wondering if some sort of in utero infectious particle exposure may have a hand in the development of schizophrenia. Of course, that theory has always implicated an unknown virus.

But hell, now a UW psychiatrist thinks it's toxoplasmosis!

Proving that cat owner's are nuts (or at least have nutty children).

Cats suck. Cats suck. Cats suck. Dogs rule!

Update: I wrongly assumed he was affiliated with UW, although it looks like they'd be happy to have Fuller Torrey, given the impressive resume.

Santorum: You said that irony was the shackles of youth, uh-huh

Time to be sensationalistic!

Apparently the wife of Sen. ManOnDog, R-Pa, champion of screwing patients through tort reform, sued a chiropractor for 500K and got 330K of it. For those of you who did poorly on the comparison portion of the SAT (if that still exists), 500K > 330K > 250K cap proposed by Santorum and his cronies for a tort cap.

In other news, Sen. ManOnDog's wife went to a chiropractor!!!

Anyway, should anybody be able to sue a chiropractor at all? I mean, you pay them to screw with your back, not to do anything that's ever been shown to actually be helpful for anything. So should you be able to sue them for screwing your back up, when that's what you paid them to do in the first place, just because you aren't happy with the results?

Kalamazoo: Universal Higher Education Had To Start Somewhere

The scholarship program — called the Kalamazoo Promise — will cover 100 percent of tuition and mandatory fees for children who have been enrolled in KPS since kindergarten and whose parents live in the district.

A partial scholarship will be given to students who enter after kindergarten. For instance, a child who transfers to KPS in third grade would receive a scholarship covering 90 percent of tuition, while a student who transfers in ninth grade would receive a 65-percent scholarship.

The scholarship must be used at a publicly funded institution in Michigan, and includes community colleges.

Politics: Buchanan Takes Aim at Shrub

Isn't it the first sign of the apocalypse when Pat Buchanan is the voice of reason? Or perhaps it just shows how badly this adminstration has screwed up when even a deluded idealogue like Buchanan knows Bush is a failure.

My favorite part (outside of his dead-on call about the war in Iraq):

Under Bush II, social spending has exploded to levels LBJ might envy, foreign aid has been doubled, pork-at-every-meal has become the GOP diet of choice, surpluses have vanished, and the deficit is soaring back toward 5% of GDP. Bill Clinton is starting to look like Barry Goldwater.

Now granted, I don't agree with a lot of where Buchanan would rather see this country head. But when even the crazies are saying W is leading us to disaster, maybe it's time the leaders started listening.

Health News (not so Surprising): Trauma centers ill-prepared for disaster

Emergency care is expensive, un-profitable, unpredictable, and absolutely essential. I particularly enjoyed the last part about stocking Tamiflu but not funding programs to change how ED's operate. American's trust expensive drugs over systems based clinical solutions any day. Granted I know it's no suprise that ED physicans argue they are underpaid and underresourced but they are also the first responders for any sort of mass casualty situation. When was the last time you saw Dermatologists begging for more government funding?

Trauma centers and emergency departments similarly are strained in many U.S. cities, experts say. . . "Trauma systems are never more than a couple of minor incidents from being overwhelmed," said Larry Gage, president of the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems.

Trauma and emergency care is a money loser, serving many patients without health insurance. It's also expensive to maintain a round-the-clock staff of specialized surgeons and trauma-care medical workers.

In Atlanta, hospitals often pay subspecialists around $1,000 per day to take calls for trauma care. For those reasons, many hospitals have gotten out of trauma care, increasing the load on those that have stayed in that business, industry experts say.
In September, emergency physicians from across the country gathered in Washington to rally for additional government support. More than 3,000 physicians attended and spoke in favor of a measure that would increase Medicare payments to emergency doctors and hospitals by 10 percent. But the bill so far has only two sponsors. Emergency physicians say they are amazed that the Bush administration is willing to spend billions to stockpile Tamiflu for a possible super-flu outbreak -- even though it's not clear the medicine would be effective -- while showing disinterest in aiding emergency hospitals that would have to handle flu cases.

Emergency departments are the perfect cauldrons for a dangerous strain of flu to spread through large numbers of immune-compromised people, said Kellermann, the Grady physician. Emergency centers should be expanded to have respiratory isolation areas and other services, he argued.

"We're worried about a flu pandemic and we're parking patients cheek to cheek," he said. "That's just mind-bogglingly stupid."

Politics: Tom Coburn, MD/clairvoyant

Apparently Tom Coburn can read people's mind due to his medical training:

SEN. COBURN on Roberts: I've tried to use my medical skills of observation of body language to ascertain your uncomfortableness and ill at ease with questions and responses. I will tell you that I am very pleased both in my observational capabilities as a physician to know that your answers have been honest and forthright as I watch the rest of your body respond to the stress that you're under.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe as a physician you can tell whether a candidate for the Supreme Court is telling the truth?

SEN. COBURN: Mm-hm, I certainly have.

MR. RUSSERT: Has any--have you ever detected someone lying?

SEN. COBURN: Uh-huh, lots of times.

Wikipedia says Coburn graduated from OK State, but doesn't specify whether it means undergrad or medical school. A quick survey of the OK State medical curriculum does not reveal classes in lie detection. Maybe he did an away rotation. Or maybe this valuable educational asset was lost in subsequent curriculum revisions. Or maybe Coburn went to Voodoo Medical School in the Caribbean or something.

Geez, as if the rest of his resume wasn't already a sufficient disgrace to medicine and humanity.

Update: Coburn's Senate.gov page reveals he was a business major at OK State, but went to med school at OU, followed by a gen surg residency in Oklahoma and a family med residency in Arkansas. So basically, Tom Coburn has about the least impressive medical resume you could fathom for someone elected to national public office.

Terror: America's Secret Prisons

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement, the Washington Post reported.

Read it all at the Washington Post if you haven't yet. Thanks to Real Live Preacher for the tip.

Six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush signed a sweeping finding that gave the CIA broad authorization to disrupt terrorist activity, including permission to kill, capture and detain members of al Qaeda anywhere in the world.

It could not be determined whether Bush approved a separate finding for the black-sites program, but the consensus among current and former intelligence and other government officials interviewed for this article is that he did not have to.

Rather, they believe that the CIA general counsel's office acted within the parameters of the Sept. 17 finding. The black-site program was approved by a small circle of White House and Justice Department lawyers and officials, according to several former and current U.S. government and intelligence officials.

This is how democratic, enlightened nations protect themselves? Try these people and give them life sentences if you will, but there is never a valid reason for "interrogations" that occur in complete secrecy and without accountability.

Time to e-mail some congresspersons...

Television: Santos for president!!!

Okay, so the live West Wing debate totally kicked unadulterated ass.

Alan Alda is a genius. Alda, a lifelong liberal democrat playing a conservative on live, unscripted television, wove a much better case for the conservative agenda than the Bush administration could ever dream. Oh wait, maybe because the Bush administration only follows a conservative agenda when its convenient, and a neo-conservative agenda when it knows no one is paying attention.

You totally cannot access the nbc.com West Wing link right now. Awesome.

For background on the whole live debate thing, here's the CNN article explaining what was going down.

Vatican: Don't Knock Science

A Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Pontifical Council for Culture, made the comments at a news conference on a Vatican project to help end the "mutual prejudice" between religion and science that has long bedeviled the Roman Catholic Church and is part of the evolution debate in the United States.

The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.

"The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future," Poupard said.

Very cool. You religious fanatics all hear that? Oh, most of you don't trust the Pope either, well, okay. I should note that this wasn't as great a statement as it sounds as it was followed with this:

But he said science, too, should listen to religion.

Damn, damn, damn. You just never win with these people.

Onion News: Hanukkah Decorations Being Defaced Earlier Every Year

November 2, 2005 | Issue 41•44

NEW YORK—A report released Monday by the Anti-Defamation League confirmed the widely held perception that Hanukkah decorations are being vandalized earlier every season. "Today, we're seeing Stars of David spray-painted with swastikas before the leaves have even fallen," said ADL spokesman Avi Mendenhall. "Our research shows that, even as recently as a decade ago, a menorah wouldn't be toppled over until well after Thanksgiving." The report noted that many shopping malls have, in recent years, begun playing anti-Semitic carols just days after Halloween.

LGBT: Only in Kentucky

If you're an aide, sometimes it pays to know the difference between the forward and reply keys if you are trying to advise your state representative about an e-mail from a constituent:

A Crestwood accountant who asked her state representative to support gay and lesbian civil-rights legislation next year received a reply not from the lawmaker but from an aide, who mistakenly sent comments meant for the legislator to the constituent.

This is one of those issues where it's safe to say 'Thanks for writing, I will consider your views' and not go too far about your personal beliefs," wrote Cheryl Long of the Legislative Research Commission and an aide to Rep. David Osborne, R-Prospect. "Seriously, these people really can get out of hand! ... This particular group is much worse than pro-lifers!"

If you reply to Ms. Amanda, make sure you delete my e-mail!" Long said of answering the e-mail from Amanda McWane.

Then Long mistakenly hit "reply" instead of "forward," sending her comments to McWane and not to Osborne as Long intended.

Politics: Can You Say... Hypocrisy?

1) Conservative Republicans who have bashed Democrats for not giving candidate's a fair up-and-down vote, but who all but booted Miers out of contention for the Supreme Court, who now call on Democrats to accept Alito and give him a "fair" vote. So, do you want all of "our president's" nominations , of whom we should trust because "our president" nominated them, to get an up and down vote, or can Democrats follow suit and bitch and whine about a candidate for once without being called babies?

2) Conservative Republicans who condemn Democrats who have a "litmus" test for a supreme court judge. How many times did I have to listen to the crazy Christian right gab on and on about how Mier's views on abortion and other subjects were not known, and how we had to be sure she was anti-abortion before conservative Christians could accept her nomination. So...having a litmus test for a judge to be pro-choice is wrong, but we can have a litmus test to have judge who is pro-life. Hmmn.....

3) Always my biggest rant and rave that I always air here (and on the bumper of my car): Conservative Christian Republicans who fuss and fume about abortion, yet lack the compassion to care enough about babies after they are born, by cutting social programs for the poor, war-mongering, being the bitches of the gun lobby, polluting our earth for the sake of industry and personal wealth, and (this is always the clencher for me) steadfastly enforcing the death penalty. I thought an eye-for-an-eye was more of an Old Testament kind of virtue, and that we Christians had moved on to the part of the Bible that had Jesus loving all people, not just the ones who are in women's bellies.

I guess I'm not surprised by all of this in politics, but I just have not heard enough commentators on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, etc take people to point on the about-face in rhetoric that has been going on during the Supreme Court nomination (and Plamegate) fiasco.

Regarding my views on Alito - I don't know enough to be happy or sad about this nomination (and unlike my other left-of-left friends, keeping abortion legal is not one of my top priorities), but as I've said before, if James Dobson is happy about a nomination, I'm automatically VERY skeptical (hence my lack of enthusiasm for John Roberts, even though he seems like a qualified judge and not a right-wing whack job).

Politics: Scalia-lite

So consistently conservative, Alito has been dubbed "Scalito" or "Scalia-lite" by some lawyers because his judicial philosophy invites comparisons to conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. But while Scalia is outspoken and is known to badger lawyers, Alito is polite, reserved and even-tempered.

Well, at least he'll be smiling and saying 'please' and 'thank you' as he terminates a woman's right to choose.

The nightmares keep coming.

Update: Emily Bazelon explores Alito's most famous abortion decision, which she says:

Still, Alito's opinion in that case would have limited the right to abortion more severely than Sandra Day O'Connor, whom he will replace if confirmed, has ever been willing to do. And Alito's split with O'Connor involves not only abortion but also marriage. She worried about wives who might be victims of domestic violence. He put first the rights of husbands to know what their wives are doing.

Obvious: Kentucky's #1 cash crop

One official says there's so much pot grown in Kentucky that if every Kentuckian were to smoke a joint an hour, they couldn't use it all.

I've always said Kentucky was the only place on Earth where the BMWs are lined up in front of the double-wide trailers.

Bluegrass.

Sparkgrass.

It's only inevitable!

Medicine: Save the Fat Children!

Podgy children 'face heart risk' from the BBC

Children who are not obese or obviously overweight, but just a little podgy may be harming their hearts, a study says.

Doomed! We're all doomed!

Also, I saw a television commercial here the UK by a health insurer, advertising lower premiums for people who "look after themselves," which they spoke of as comparable to lower rates on auto insurance for fewer incidents, or lower house rates for burgler alarms.

So perhaps I should get a Hamburgler alarm?

What do the med students think about the concept? Not about the alarm, but lower premiums for people who keep and use gym memberships and the like?

The Horror: top 100 horror movie performances

from the fine folks at RetroCrush.

Personal favorites noted: Daveigh Chase in the Ring, Bub the Zombie in Day of the Dead, and that freaky kid from the Grudge. Damn, that kid was freaky.

SEC: Vols retiring Manning's jersey, Cats debut at #10 on ESPN poll

Peyton's #16 goes where it belongs.

Pretty weak respect for SEC hoops.

Media: closing public schools for Muslim holiday "absurd in a Judeo-Christian country"

if you're Bill O'Reilly.

From the October 27 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

BLAIR: Well, in December of 2004, a gentleman representing the Muslim religion came before the school board and asked if Eid, which I believe is part of Ramadan, be recognized as an official school holiday. That went to a subcommittee, a calendar committee that's comprised of 28 members. Where these members come from, we still don't have the exact answers. I guess they're citizens, friends of the school board members, various people like this. As a matter of fact, I think there's a Jewish representative and a Muslim representative on the board. Of the 28, only 12 showed up, as I understand it. They gave them very little feedback other than the option of taking President's Day and turning it -- they basically gave --

O'REILLY: So a Muslim wanted a Muslim holiday, which is absurd in a Judeo-Christian country. I mean, we can't be having Hindu and Buddha. I mean, come on. I mean, this country is founded on Judeo-Christian traditions.

BLAIR: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: Those traditions have been in play for more than 200 years. Christmas is a federal holiday. You know, somebody walks in and says, "Well, I just moved here and I want, you know, this Shinto shrine." And you're going, "Well, look, this is a traditional American situation that we've done for hundreds of years." But now you knocked it out.

I haven't posted anything from MediaMatters in a long time, because they became a bit of a 'stretch-it-till-it-fits' bomb throwing organization, taking good fact checking and turning into unabashed cheerleading. But sometimes people like O'Reilly just make it too easy.

Wouldn't it make sense to leave school scheduling up to local communities? I can't see a community with no Muslims taking a day off for a Muslim holiday, but in a community where some reasonable portion of the population is Muslim, it certainly makes sense. Granted, federal holidays are based on the Judeo-Christian calendar, and we can't keep adding holidays here there and everywhere, nor does it make much sense to remove them from the calendar when business essentially shut down at those times anyway. In this school district, I don't particularly know what the population breakdown might be, but perhaps there should be some sort of standard that states that holidays should be given if they affect some certain percentage of the target population.

Baseball: coastal bias sucks

The Chicago White Sox's first world championship in 88 years was also the lowest-rated World Series ever.

Typical. If the best of anything in the world dwells in the fly-over country, no one on the ocean gives a shit.

Go Central divisions! Because buying championships (*cough* Red Sox and Yankees are overpaid no-talent assclowns *cough*) just isn't as fun as winning them outright.

Evil Empire: move over, Mel Gibson

Wal-Mart's critics, opening a new front in their war on the retail goliath, are borrowing from actor-director Mel Gibson's promotional playbook.

Producers of a new documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, will show it at about 1,000 churches, synagogues and religious sites nationwide on Nov. 13 in a bid to force changes in Wal-Mart's employment and other practices.

The film, by the director of Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, comes as Wal-Mart mounts a new effort to polish its battered image. The movie is part of a broader campaign by a disparate group of critics who now include ministers asserting Wal-Mart's tactics are a moral as well as economic issue.

Let's give some serious props to the religious right (center, up, down, and left!) for standing up for the unambiguous but oft-ignored moral issues of equality, poverty, and exploitation!

My favorite line from the article:

Wal-Mart has not seen the film, says spokeswoman Christi Gallagher. But, she said, "His video is simply unabashed propaganda."

Similarly, I don't have a degree in economics, but I sure can say that Wal-mart is simply unabashed bullshit.

News: U.S., Britain press for action against Syria

If God reads this Blog, please please please don't tell President Bush to invade. You're the only one he listens to.

The United States and Britain jointly criticized Syria on Sunday and called for international action to be taken over a U.N. investigation that implicated Syrian officials in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice didn't discuss any specific actions that the United States might push for when the U.N. Security Council considers the investigator's report Tuesday, but she said the matter "really has to be dealt with."

Medicine: brilliance, or the end of primary care as we know it?

I'd heard rumors about this for a while now, but Solantic has finally struck a deal with Wal-mart to put urgent care clinics in Wal-mart stores.

the good: this might SERIOUSLY reduce costs from unnecessary ED visits depending on how insurances, medicaid, and medicare cover these costs.

the bad: by making 'urgent care' treatment so accessible, will the traditional model of primary care, which emphasizes longitudinal experience, patient-doctor relationship, and preventive medicine, be lost to the market?

the ugly: do you really want to be 'the Wal-mart doctor?' does that mean you got your degree in aisle 19 beside the laundry detergent?

Despite my reservations, I don't see many ways in which the world can be made worse by increasing access to health care.

But with Wal-mart involved, I'm sure they'll figure out something.

I just hope they don't start advertising, 'buy one ZPak, get the second half off!'

Medicine: One small step for man

So the dude who has spent the last twenty years working on a male contraceptive (currently achieving a promising 92% success rate) just got a 3.6 million dollar grant from NIH. Sweet!

I do have one particular concern, though: will a 'male pill' lower the rate of condom use and increase certain STD rates?

Considering the social dynamic, there's really no shame in asking a guy to put on a condom, because essentially the point is to stop from getting someone pregnant, of which almost every male has the capability. If anything, it is that male's very virility which allows him to impregnate, meaning that, by six degrees, the necessity to put on a condom is to some degree a masculinizing event. Not that every dude sees it way, but its certainly a valid read of the phenomenon.

Picture this:

Dude: I'm on the pill. I ain't plantin' the seed, suga.

Chick: But honey, what if you have the clap?

Dude: What you sayin' 'bout me, bitch? You think I'm dirty or sumpin'?

Chick: No, baby. You can rob the bank as long as you left the deposit slips at home.

Chick proceeds to get the clap AND pregnant, because Dude was a lying asshole and wasn't taking the pill anyway, or he missed a few doses here or there, or was taking some antibiotic (just to steal a problem from the estrogen/progesterone pills), and hell, what's he worried about anyway? It's not like he has to take care of the baby.

Now, don't get me wrong. A product that disperses responsibility for birth control to both genders in a non-invasive matter is a great thing. For monogamous couples to have that extra back-up is great. The pluses far outweigh the minuses. But, before we put the male pill on the market, if Dr. Hall puts that grant to good use, we better consider the social awkwardnesses which it might generate in a generally anti-feminist society, and at least attempt to address those dynamics with education.

Sexx Laws: Kansas high court rejects harsher treatment of illegal gay sex

The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday unanimously struck down a state law that punished underage sex more severely if it involved homosexual acts.

The court said "moral disapproval" of such conduct is not enough to justify the different treatment...

... The case involved an 18-year-old man, Matthew R. Limon, who was found guilty in 2000 of performing a sex act on a 14-year-old boy and was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Had one of them been a girl, state law would have dictated a maximum sentence of 15 months.

Even in Kansas, there are but the few sane among them.

I'm tempted to launch into my tirade about the sense of underage sex laws, since I don't particularly see why a 14-year old is mature enough to consent to sex with another 14-year-old, but is not mature enough to consent to an 18-year-old.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't particularly think it's a good idea for 14-year-olds to be screwing around with 18-year-olds OR with other 14-year-olds. But, if consensual, should it be illegal? Should a high school senior go to jail for having sex with a freshman partner?

I don't advocate an age-limitless sexual free-for-all. But I do think current laws do, in particular instances, punish people who have not done anything for which the government should be able to hold them accountable.

No one should be punished by the government for having consensual sex with someone who is intellectually capable of giving consent.

Of course, defining such an intellectual capability would be a legal conundrum as long as pricks like Rick Santorum walk the earth who would inevitably demand that only married heterosexuals capable of reproduction are intellectually capable of consenting to woman-on-bottom-only (don't even THINK about a clitoral orgasm) intercourse, and only once a month twenty-four hours before the speculated moment of ovulation.

But in my fantasy bullshitless society, 'intellectual capacity to consent,' seems a pretty reasonable criteria after reasonable precedent has been set.

NB: if you get the category subject heading, Courtney will bake you cookies, I'm sure.

Medicine: props to the Tigers

So LSU med students are living on a ferry and taking lectures in a cinema. You only find that resilience in the SEC. No offense, Tulane.

Medicine: Your Bird Flu Questions Answered

For all of you prophets of doom and gloom out there, CNN has a special article today directed at answering all your bird flu prevention questions. In short, it's not quite time to hide your birdfeeders and give up the Thanksgiving turkey...yet.

Personally, I think we're all screwed anyway once the monkeys take over (which, as Lewis Black points out, could be very soon), so I say bring it on.

Medicine: Don't Bitch to Me...

... about your flu shot. According to the BBC, I'm doomed over here.

Love and kisses,
Captain Sacrament
Oxford

Medicine: the flu shot kicked my ass

The CDC assures me this will just last for 1-2 days, but damn, I feel like somebody to a crowbar to my entire body.

Of course, that's still better than getting the damn flu. (at least, that's what I'm supposed to say, right?)

Medicine: Pacifier Use May Help Prevent SIDS

Letting your baby suck on a pacifier before bed may help reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). That's the conclusion of a review of studies done on pacifier use. And the evidence was compelling enough for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to include a recommendation about pacifier use in its updated SIDS guidelines.

Apparently this is pissing off some of the breast feeding advocates since they feel pacifiers may reduce baby's willingness to breast feed.

The real question though is why was this an article in Forbes? Buy stock in pacifier companies.

Medicine: Polio eradicated from the world*

WHO launched the drive in 1988 to eliminate polio by the end of this year. Massive immunizations have reduced the number of cases from 350,000 a year in 1988 to 1,255 cases last year. An outbreak in Nigeria two years ago occurred after Islamic clerics urged parents to boycott the vaccine for fear it was part of an American anti-Muslim plot, eventually spread first to Chad, then to nearby Sudan - and then across the Red Sea into Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Indonesia was also affected.

I remember thinking those people were nuts for thinking the Polio vaccine was a plot to hurt them, but then I read about all the parents who refuse to give their kids shots for fear of autism. The insane ability to blame medicine for the very diseases it treats is something that unifies the Arab and American world.

*except in Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Niger, Afghanistan and Egypt, who don't count.

Medicine: black market developing for misoprostol as primary abortifacient

First, to be clear:

Misoprostol is NOT RU-486; RU-486 is mifepristone, an ENTIRELY different drug that inhibits progesterone receptors. Misoprostol, or Cytotec, is a prostaglandin E1 agonist, commonly used for gastric ulcer prophylaxis, refractory constipation, and cervical ripening. Misoprostol is used as the second drug along with RU-486 in the FDA-approved protocol for pharmacologic abortions, but misoprostol is not the 'abortion pill,' and it certainly isn't the 'morning after pill,' although a pharmacology text written by our right-wing pharmacology professor claims otherwise.

And I say right-wing based on his affinity for Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, the reading list posted on his own website, and the pride which he takes in carrying a concealed weapon.

Plus he is an Ohio State fan.

I refrain from further comment about the professor because you just shouldn't mess with a guy who brags on his site that with his Walther 22, he can "put 10 rounds in a small group in about 5 seconds."

But anyway...

Misoprostol is already well known in poor, immigrant communities in New York and abroad as a cheap and private way to end an unwanted pregnancy.

"There's a black market for it," said Dr. Eric Schaff, professor of Family Medicine at the University of Buffalo. "Women get very desperate with unintended pregnancy. And legal abortions still cost several hundred dollars."

An 800-microgram dose of misoprostol, about four pills, is 60% to 90% effective at ending a pregnancy when taken alone in the first seven weeks, studies show.

Local doctors have been using it legally for years in an FDA-approved regimen that includes the abortion pill mifepristone, popularly known as RU-486.

But unprescribed misoprostol use - which is both dangerous and discouraged by the FDA - is commonplace in Latin American countries where abortion is illegal.

Misoprostol goes for about sixty bucks for sixty pills. That's enough for 15 abortions. So basically, a four dollar abortion that works about 2/3's of the time, and carries a risk of severe consequences for baby and mom.

Abortions cannot be safe, rare, and legal if access to them is so prohibited that women will risk their lives to have an illegal one rather than access channels to obtain the procedure legally. Federally-funded clinics can't even mention abortion, nevermind provide information and proper counseling. Planned Parenthood does a great job, but privacy, cost, and fear can still be a barrier. There's no way in hell Medicaid is going to pay for one. And while I don't particularly think that John Roberts or Harriet Miers is going to change the legality of abortion any time particularly soon, access isn't exactly on the upswing, either.

Coat hangers are not a thing of the past. They're simply now in the form of a hexagonal pill.

Politics: Bill Frist is a "Blind", Psychic, Rich, Dirty Bastard Whom I Despise (Did I Mention He's a Relgious Nut too?)

So you may know that Frist's family owns HCA, which is the nation's largest owner of and provider of healthcare services throughout the nation (sorry, no facilities in Michigan. for you Kentucky folk, HCA owns the Frankfort Regional Medical Center and Greenview Regional Hospital in Bowling Green). HCA made Frist's father, Dr. Thomas Frist Sr, a very rich man. HCA is the epitome of what I vehemently disdain in American medicine - CEOs and other non-care providers making millions of dollars of profit off of patients, while those delivering direct patient care are often undercompensated (especially nurses, medical assistants, and all the other non-doctor types). For example, HCA's top CEO routinely takes in roughly 12 million dollars a year, plus or minus a few million (I'm citing this from memory - the exact figure is in a very excellent book about the cost of health care, Bleeding the Patient: The Consequences of Corporate Health Care). HCA executives have also been involved and cited for defrauding Medicare.

So little Fristy-poo, the kind Senate Majority Leader, is himself in a bit of a scandal, as he sold some HCA stock a la Martha Stewart, just before the stock took a substantial plummet. The article linked to this blog describes how Frist has gotten away with owning HCA stock while making KEY medical votes during his Senate tenure. I don't claim to understand these so called "blind trusts" that allow politicians to hold stock in business while allowing them to vote in the Senate/Congress without a conflict of interest, but I am suspicious of how "blind" these stocks really are. If a doctor is not allowed to practice medicine while being in the Senate or Congress (I believe we had a heated blog about this earlier in the year), why do we allow Frist to hold this "blind stock", and form laws that may allow him and his family to continue rip the money out of their patient's (and the government's) pockets. I'm a little biased, as I believe becoming immensely wealthy (i.e. to the tunes of becoming a freaking millionaire) in healthcare is just a bit unethical and a poor use of our healthcare resources, especially when we have over 45 million uninsured persons in this country.

We will have to stay tuned to see if Frist's psychic stock trading and "blind" trust cost our favorite doctor-turned-politician his suspect run for the 2008 Presidency. Probably not though - we seem to like to keep our liars and thieves in Washington.

Literature: and the 2005 Booker goes to...

Irish writer John Banville, for his novel, The Sea, which has been fast-tracked for a November 2005 release in the US.

Smurfs: UNICEF succeeds where Gargamel fails

Bringing whole new meaning to "Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?!?", UNICEF's latest campaign to draw attention to the plight of ex-child soldiers in Africa is a little, uh, unusual. Apparently they believe that depicting the destruction of beloved childhood memories is an effective way to raise money.

Next up, how the beating death of ALF can help raise AIDS awareness.

Garrett Update: here's a clip.

Video Games: Who needs med school?

Now you too can become a trauma surgeon, while battling a mysterious new illness as a member of a top secret medical organization that has already cured Flu and HIV. No, it's not the new recruitment flier for Michigan Med School. It's a new video game called Trauma Center: Under the Knife available on Nintendo DS.

Medicine: we're all gonna die of bird flu

Corpus Callosum has a great post on US-preparedness for a potential (read: eh, probably not) outbreak of avian flu.

Immigration: Coast guard now twice as effective at keeping out Cuban terrorists

US coastguards intercepted 2,712 Cubans attempting to reach America's shores during the past 12 months, more than double the previous year's figure of 1,225 and the highest number since 1994, when 37,000 crossed the Florida straits. Analysts say worsening economic conditions on the island mean more Cubans were trying to escape to Florida, many in unseaworthy boats. Coastguard patrols have been stepped up. The 1994 migration led the US to adopt a "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, under which Cubans who reach land are allowed to stay and those intercepted at sea are repatriated.

Maybe, President Bush is right about the many threats terrorists pose and the valiant war our border patrols and coast guard are waging daily. Or maybe we're just telling a bunch of foreigners they have to go back to live in oppressive squalor because they didn't tag US land and scream "Safe".

International Health: Cash plea to fight Africa's forgotten diseases

Medicine and health care prove more complicated than a 30 second sound bite, again. This is an article in the Guardian, but a link to the original journal article may be found at the PLoS Medicine site.

In a paper published today, [scientists] said that a focus by governments and charities on the big three tropical diseases - HIV, malaria and tuberculosis - had left millions of the poorest people in Africa without treatment for a range of illnesses.
The neglected diseases, which include schistosomiasis, river blindness, ascariasis, elephantiasis and trachoma, affect more than 750 million people and kill at least 500,000 every year.

Writing in the open-access journal Public Library of Science, Medicine, the researchers said that treating all of these illnesses with a cocktail of four readily available drugs would cost less than 50 cents (28p) a person a year. They claimed that dealing with the forgotten diseases would reduce susceptibility to malaria and help to make socio-economic improvements for those in poverty, as well as save lives.

"Instead of 95% of money donated going to malaria, HIV and TB, it would only need to be 90% and we could do an awful lot of cost-effective treatment and help towards making poverty history."

Prof Molyneux said that reducing the incidence of worms and parasites would help control more life-threatening diseases. People with intestinal worms are known to be nine times more likely to contract malaria because their immune systems are weakened by the lesser disease. He added that eradicating schistosomiasis would halve the incidence of malaria.

Politics: Long Live the Empire

As a disclaimer: the following anecdote is an attempt to be funny. I'm not making any arguments about American foreign policy or any serious comment on the intelligence of the US President. And unless we've discussed it in person, I guarantee that you will never guess my actual opinions. If you want to know what Captain Sacrament really thinks about patriotism and the American Empire, look at my blog and the essays listed under Patriotism. The United States is not Christian, merely Christ-haunted, to borrow a phrase...

After wasting the last couple of elections as a Democratic voter, I've decided to throw in the towel. The party will never again regain power in the US; for a start, most of the country is religious, the leadership has never been comfortable with that, and it seems they never will be. They might like the odd Buddhist now and again, but realistically, they don't understand religion, so for the most part fear and even hate religious people.

So since I can't beat them, I'm just going to join them. I want to be an Imperial Administrator. In terms of establishing and maintaining order in a dangerous, unstable world, the American Empire is the best thing since, well, the last thing: the British Empire. As the Pax Americana moves across the Middle East, I want to do my part. I want to be Proconsul of Qatar.

Allow me to make my case. First, it has one of the highest per capita income in the world, and a lot of natural resources. I like having nice things. They are ruled by a monarchy. Frankly, I've always thought I would make an absolutely stellar autocrat. Like many in the region, they're heavily into the autocracy. And finally, according to the entry in the CIA World Factbook, I've been mispronouncing the name of the place for weeks now. Could there be a better match? (And if you think I'm learning Arabic, think again!)

And as I expect that George II will rule as imperator for at least another term or two (to be replaced by JEB I), I do not anticipate much interference from Washington. You see, I'm certain they think a country with such a name is actually located behind the borders of the Klingon Empire.

They'll just give me a couple of Sci-Fi nerds as an ambassadorial staff and leave me be.

Politics: mock liberal outrage

So it's trendy right now to look at president Bush like a hallucinating schizophrenic over these comments to Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath:

"God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... And I did.

"And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East. And by God I'm gonna do it."

Now I guess if you took these comments super-literally and thought that George was just walking down the street and heard voices in his head and decided to do these random invasions, then sure. But come on, kids.

Imagine that, someone who proclaims to be an evangelical Christian (no crime, no problem with that) confirms that, when faced with a big decision, he prays. Oh my gosh, he prays. Oh no. He should be impeached! He should be taught to meditate like all the secularists or he should be thrown into the Potomac.

Get real.

Maybe this is simply an issue of semantics for those who aren't used to the semantics of devoted Christians. And maybe it's just liberals who are too lazy to write about the Tom DeLay indictment, Bill Frist's MarthaStewarting, Harriet Miers cronyism, the Rove-leaking-Plame case, and the no-job-growth month we just had. And maybe some folk are just that anti-Christian that any reference to a man's personal beliefs, however superficial they might be, set off an alarm.

But come on. Bush faces big decision. Bush prays to find out what he should do. Bush comes up with decision, attributes it to his prayer (rightfully or wrongfully). Bush tells folks God told him to do something. NO BIG DEAL!

If anything, this shows us all that Bush at least THINKS about what he's doing before he does it! Prayer, if not a time to commune with God, is at least a time of meditation and contemplation that would benefit rational decision making.

And while we don't think his decisions were necessarily the most rational, we look like morons if we're so out of touch with the majority of Americans that we get upset when we find out that they prayed about a decision instead of creating some mathematical formula to tell them what to do.

Heard around the apartment: poor Harriet Miers

"Oh my God! She's a man! She had a sex change operation! That's a man's jaw!" ~my wife.

Now, usually it would be well below the belt for me to let such an accusation be registered on Sparkgrass. Maybe you just had to be here.

Courtney isn't particularly happy with me for this post, but ya know. Freedom of speech, freedom of press/blog.

Medicine: More FDA resignations over Plan B delay

Dr. Frank Davidoff, an internal medicine specialist, said Thursday he stepped down from his position as a consultant to the FDA's Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee about a month ago. Members of that panel and another committee of outside experts voted 23-4 in December 2003 to recommend non-prescription sales of the contraceptive, called Plan B.

The FDA so far has rejected that advice, as well as support from the agency's scientific staff. Then-FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford announced August 26 he was postponing a decision indefinitely and taking public comment for 60 days.

That delay "crossed the line for me," Davidoff said in an interview.

In his resignation letter, Davidoff said he wrote: "I can no longer associate myself with an organization that is capable of making such an important decision so flagrantly on the basis of political influence, rather than the scientific and clinical evidence."

I don't know what to really add to articles like this, except the obvious "grumble, grumble, grumble." Medicine and medical policy is not necessarily filled with nothing but economic or social liberals. It's a pretty practical, results-oriented group of folk. And even those of us who came into medical school as flag-waving lefties have become tempered by the need for policy to actually work. Necessarily, we develop a fairly low tolerance for bullshit, and there's plenty of bullshit on the left and on the right.

And the FDA delay of Plan B OTC sales is, of course, unadulterated ideological evangelical bullshit.

IgNobels: neuticles get the recognition they deserve

Gregg Miller mortgaged his home and maxed out his credit cards to mass produce his invention -- prosthetic testicles for neutered dogs.

What started 10 years ago with an experiment on an unwitting Rottweiler named Max has turned into a thriving mail-order business. And on Thursday night Miller's efforts earned him a dubious yet strangely coveted honor: the Ig Nobel Prize for medicine.

"Considering my parents thought I was an idiot when I was a kid, this is a great honor," he said. "I wish they were alive to see it."

Here's a great site with excellent dog neutering pictures, including the installation of neuticles. Priceless.

And the next greatest canine invention since Neuticles? Honda's dogmobile prototype!

Medicine: cervical cancer vaccine?

Looks like it blocks HPV 16 and 18. Sweet.

More bad jokes: straight from my PM&R attending

"Did you hear about Bush's last speech? Yeah, someone asked him what he thought about Roe v. Wade. He told them that he didn't care how people got out of New Orleans, as long as they were safe."

Took me a second, and then *groan*

For those of you who are little slower, consider "row vs. wade instead of Roe v Wade." BOOOO!!!

Who the **** is Harriet Miers? Possibly the next Supreme Court Justice.

Bush recently nominated Miers for the current opening on the Supreme Court, prompting most people to reply "Who?". She has never served as a judge at any level and has never argued a case before the Supreme Court, but she's worked with Bush for years as his personal lawyer and then as White House counsel. So you won't be able to read any court opinions of hers (since she hasn't written any) and any legal documents she's written will be protected by both attorney-client privelege and executive privelege. I guess your best bet to find out about this newly fascinating person is Wikipedia. Maybe if she falls through Bush will nominate his high school debate coach.

Never Saw THAT Coming: Roy Moore running for Alabama governorship

"Thou shalt have no other governors before me."




And thus begins Judge Moses' ascent to the throne.

Medicine: H. Pylori worth a Nobel

Marshall and Warren won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine Monday for their relation of H. Pylori and gastritis and stomach ulcers. Cool.

As a bonus, since the American dollar isn't worth crap nowadays, the award amounted to about 1.3 million dollars. If I remember right, last year the award was around 900,000. The award has remained ten million kronor, whatever the hell those are. Silly Swedes.

In pictures: El Salvador volcano's trail of destruction

El Salvador's Ilamatepec volcano had been dormant for more than a century. It erupted on Saturday killing two people and forcing thousands to flee. Officials warn it could erupt again.

Garrett Update: Click on the pic to get a better view of its beautifulness and stuff.

Medicine: Papa Valium dead at age 97

Family members say that Leo Sternbach, the chemist who first synthesized Valium and Klonopin, was really damn relaxed at the time of his death. *rim shot*

Film: PSH getting his due

Finally, Philip Seymour Hoffman gets a leading role well received by critics and poised for an actual decent commercial run with his portrayal of Truman Capote in the midst of writing his uber-journalism In Cold Blood. Capote deserves early Oscar support.

End Times are Near: Jews vs. Gentiles

The Jewish Anti-Defamation League doesn't appreciate the Southern Baptist Messianic Fellowship one bit.

This brings up a point that nobody wants to admit, but by definition, evangelical protestants CANT coexist with other religions. Most Southern Baptist Churches have mission statements that revolve around the concept of 'reaching people for Christ.' It's not a "you leave us alone and we'll leave you alone" sort of philosophy. Southern Baptists don't want to be free to practice their religion. They want to be free to take over everyone else's.

And I don't mean this as a rant against the Southern Baptist Church. If you think that you have the answer to the universe (besides #42), it's pretty reasonable, maybe even loving, to want to make other people have that answer too.

It's also pretty reasonable to leave other people alone to interact with God as they choose if you believe that by doing so you aren't damning them.

Baptist doctrines based on mangled readings of Revelations suggest that Jews A) are going to hell; or B) will have Jesus revealed to them in some new way and will be saved as God's chosen people sometime before that whole Lake of Fire thing happens. Some would argue that the messianic jew movement is a partial fulfillment of B.

With 22 years of Southern Baptist Churching under my belt, I think I stand in a reasonable place to comment upon the doctrines and the implications of those doctrines on a Southern Baptist's own terms. Part of what pushed me away from the SBC is that a true Southern Baptist can't really coexist with those of other religions, and even those of certain denominations of Christianity.

Sure, most Southern Baptists are encouraged to have friends who aren't Southern Baptist, with the hopes that you'll convert them someday, or that they'll 'see the love of Christ in your life, and want to find that love themselves.'

It's a big fiasco of semantics in that many SBC practices are, when removed from the context in which they are advocated, absolutely scary and cult-like. Placed in context, these same practices are mostly the good intentions of a group of people who are trying to love the world in the best way they know how, which is through the love of Jesus Christ.

That's not such a terrible thing, unless you're someone who has different ideas about your spirituality. Then it's frigging annoying.

Medicine: Giving pharmacists too much power

Wyoming is considering a law that would allow pharmacists to not dispence HAART meds (for HIV/AIDS) based on moral grounds. Has no one told them that the majority of HIV/AIDS pts in this country are NOT gay? Do these people really think that they are self-righteous enough to take such a stance? Are these people just that biggoted and filled with hatred? How do we have such people in medicine, the field where we provide care and assistance for anyone, from any walk of life? Come on - grow up!!

News: US clinic halts liver transplants

I agreed with a previous post on here about how shows like Grey's Anatomy--which depict grossly unethical behavior as every day occurences--give the public a slanted view of medicine. However I find it funny that one of the problems with Grey's was its depiction of a conflict of interest in an organ transplant decision: "In real life, hospitals go to great lengths to prevent exactly these types of conflicts of interest, barring doctors from approaching patients directly and designating statewide organizations instead of individual hospitals to distribute organs." Then a day later I read about this scandal in California.

A hospital in California has suspended its liver transplant programme, saying doctors arranged an operation for a Saudi who was low on a priorities list. Los Angeles' St Vincent Medical Center said the fee paid for the operation was about 30% higher than the usual charge. "This event appears to involve an individual who received a liver that was designated for transplantation in another patient," Gus Valdespino, president of St Vincent Medical Center, said in a statement.

Maybe I Should Have Gone Into Babysitting

So I'm sitting in my general pediatrics clinic, listening to my attending doctor go over the plan with a mother to take care of her daughter's contact dermatitis (medical translation - rash on her face from the new fabric softener). The cute little girl, who is about four years old with four adorable braids coming out of her head, comes up to me and asks me if I know patty cake, and I being the patty cake kind of guy reply yes, and proceed to play patty cake (or pat a cake -whatever you prefer to call it). I'm having fun, a lot of fun to tell you the truth, until my attending knocks me out of my happy space by saying, "So Steve - are you going to listen to the plan, or are we teaching you how to play with kids?".

I want to learn how to play with kids.

Medicine: sometimes those forwarded emails are totally worth it

A man walks into a psychiatrist's office wearing nothing except underwear made of Saran Wrap.

The psychiatrist says, "Well, I can clearly see you're nuts..."

Thanks to my dad for sending me that one.

MedTV: Network TV blows

Here's a nice piece by some Brigham and Women's House Officers bitching about how Grey's Anatomy and House are screwing the entire health care system by making everyone think that doctors are over-sexed insensitive bastards. Some nice historical perspective as well about how the AMA has influenced medicine on TV since the 60's and how the shift of focus from the patients to the physicians explains some of the generation of dramatic conundra.

Many moments would make the old-time AMA vetters cringe. Instead of asexual father figures, the doctors on cast are hyper-hormonal. Attendings sleep with residents. Interns bed nurses. Even patients are fair game. On one episode, Grey kisses an injured biker brought in to the hospital after an accident involving spokes sticking out of his abdomen. Normally, any of these infractions would be grounds for dismissal. At Grey's hospital, they're all in a day's work.

These breaches, however, are minor. What matters are the glaring inaccuracies in complicated and delicate areas of medicine. In one egregious episode, the character played by Sandra Oh, Cristina Yang, asks a woman to donate her husband's organs after he dies unexpectedly. Yang botches the job, dispassionately asking for the husband's eyes and skin as if they were no more than items on a grocery list. Then she runs out of the room as the wife begins to cry.

The scene is rife with errors that could damage public perception of organ donation, starting with the premise: Yang is angling for the husband's organs because another patient (who also happens to be a close friend of the chief of surgery) is dying from liver failure and will be saved if the wife agrees. In real life, hospitals go to great lengths to prevent exactly these types of conflicts of interest, barring doctors from approaching patients directly and designating statewide organizations instead of individual hospitals to distribute organs. Maybe we're just two overeducated doctors who take television too seriously, but we worry that this plot line could have done real harm by discouraging people from donating.

In another episode, two of the characters experiment on a patient, performing an illegal autopsy against a family's wishes. On the show, the characters are forgiven, instead of arrested, because they discover the patient had a rare genetic disease (which Oh blithely mispronounces). But as doctors, we could not forgive the producers for their superficial all's-well ending. Since the Tuskegee tragedy, doctors have instilled institutional checks to ensure that clinical research is ethical. Still, many patients avoid doctors because they are afraid of being experimented on. The autopsy on Grey's Anatomy's casually corroborated their worst fears.

Watching these episodes makes us long, in spite of ourselves, for the days when the AMA had television producers on a tight leash. Don't get us wrong: We don't miss Dr. Welby's starched white coat. But we are afraid that TV's worst inaccuracies may compromise what trust remains between doctors and patients.

Health Policy: Goodbye Norris, Hello Theresa

To many this is old news, but I thought it was so hysterical I had to post it in case you missed it. Here's the timeline:

1. Susan Wood resigns as director of Office of Women's Health at FDA to protest the FDA repeatedly backing out of approving OTC morning after pill over the recommendations of its own scientists and review boards.

2. FDA names Norris Alderson, a male veterinarian with a background in animal husbandry and no experience with women (sorry Norris), as the new director.

3. Every women's health group is (justifiably) angered seeing that women are very different from farm animals.

4. FDA sends out notice that Theresa A. Toigo would head the Office of Women's Health and denies it ever said anything about Alderson (even though "The seeming mystery thickened when several women's groups said that not only did they receive e-mails announcing Alderson's appointment, but also that he was also listed on a Health and Human Services directory last week as the acting director of the office. In addition, people who have spoken with women's health office staff said that Alderson was introduced to the staff last week as the new acting director, and that he even had some one-on-one discussions with staff members about future plans").

Maybe that Onion article about Bush appointing a first trimester fetus to the Supreme Court wasn't a fake?

Crack: Nintendo Revolution controller gives foot massages, takes your dog out

Simulations of the controller being used in a number of different games were shown during a video shown at the keynote. It was swung in a baseball game as someone would swing a bat, stabbed into space to kill imaginary bugs as someone might use a fly swatter and swung from side to side to control a tennis game on screen.

There’s an add-on unit, connected via a short cable to the main unit. It was simulated being used in a first-person shooter game, of the type that’s very popular in the U.S. The main controller was held in the hand and pointed while the secondary controller was held in the other hand and became the gun’s trigger.

The new style controller is part of Nintendo’s drive to expand the gaming population and Iwata said he hopes it will be less intimidating for non-gamers to pick up.

Medicine: dashing and daring, courageous and caring, cavity fighting with stories to share...

Those crazies folks at the University of Washington have developed xylitol-based cavity fighting gummi bears.

Your toothbrush surrenders.

Religion: Venti Nonfat Decaff Mint Mocha Chip Worship Service (no whip)

I'll save Kyle the problem of self-promotion and just say that if the graphic interests you, then you should read his most excellent post on turning theological undercurrents into worship style brand names.

Medicine: Preparing for Rita

Here is how the largest teaching hospital in TX is prepareing for Rita. It sounds to me like they've thought through this a lot. Here's hoping that their fate is better than it was for many of the New Orleans hospital patients.

Hogwarts: Expecto Patronum

With the impending deathacaine, and tomorrow being the last day of in-patient pediatrics, seems like we need a light-hearted day of blogging.

I can't help but be impressed by this canon of all the Harry Potter spells.

Zen: Strength in Numbers

Here's a sampling of our favorite conservablogger Bo Cowgill's prediction market work at Google posted on the Google blog. Some pretty fancy stuff.

This stuff also seems like the making of some great science fiction movies with lots of self-fulfilling prophesies, creating a really cool distribution of control to the masses, and a pretty crazy portrait of inertia, blah blah blah.

Okay, I'll stop pretending I understand anything about prediction markets. But at least it seems pretty cool.

a 6:00 AM scene from the children's hospital conference room

Matt: I need a mantra.

Garrett: How about "monkey monkey monkey monkey monkey..."

Matt: No, I need something original.

Agnieszka: Besides, that sounds like "Hem/Onc Hem/Onc Hem/Onc Hem/Onc Hem/Onc..."

Note for the outsider: that's Hematology/Oncology, aka "the seventh floor" of Mott Children's Hospital

Medicine: one small step for AIDS

Zidovudine goes generic. That's AZT for all you folks not spending every moment of your 20s in a pound-me-in-the-ass hospital.

Go Cats: Bluegrass respect

Unlike the other douchebags at ESPN, Dick Vitale knows that putting the Cardinals at 6 and the Cats at 7 is what non-retarded sportswriters would do.

Coolness: Girls Gone Wild pays homage to its source

Video makers notorious for filming women flashing their breasts said they will donate revenues from "Girls Gone Wild" episodes tied to Mardi Gras to the Red Cross to help Hurricane Katrina victims.

Insert your own terrible joke here.

Vonnegut: A Man Without a Country

Kurt Vonnegut's latest collection of essays (fortunately breaking his promise to never publish another book of new work) landed him a wonderful interview on Weekend Edition last week. (I can't get the audio link to work in Firefox, so this is the only time I'll advocate the use of IE.)

Courtney and I talked a lot over dinner about what happens when Vonnegut, 82, passes away. Saul Bellow died. Arthur Miller died. But damn, Vonnegut? Has there been a more important voice in the 20th century than Kurt Vonnegut? Will anyone else be able to weave the sort of cynical optimism that permeated KV books?

He's smoked at least a pack of unfiltered cigarettes every day since he was a kid. His NY apartment caught on fire a few years ago, and almost did him in then. Maybe he'll last twenty more years, but something seems ominous about this last book, and even this interview sounds like the near-last words of a man who has lived life to the end.

When the day comes, we'll all cry Goodbye, Blue Monday.

Update: Vonnegut on the Daily Show. And an article about how all these media appearances are making the book a bestseller.

Update 2: Courtney is threatening to get a Vonnegut tattoo on her right bicep as such:
Heaven help me.

Just plain scary: 9-year-old with a gun

Who in their right mind thought it would be a good idea to advertise hunting to children? Here is a group that offered a contest where the winning child was treated to a three day hunter's paradise trip... shotgun included.

When the child's father teased her, here was her reacion:

At one point, as the group crossed a wooden bridge, Samantha's father, Scott, who had accompanied her - and had filled out her application for the hunting contest - teased her that trolls lived under the bridge.

"Dad," Samantha said with bravado, "I got a gun."

Is is just me or is there something wrong with this picture?

Politics: chip off the old block

Jeb Bush's son just got arrested for public intoxication and resisting arrest.

In other news, John Ellis Bush has announced he will be running for president in 2032 after he sells the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, which his daddy will buy for him in 2024 after their 26th consecutive season as a piece of shit baseball squad, to some Saudi investors. His profits will be protected in a tax-free savings accounts which he will be able to use to buy guns to keep the poor people off the White House lawn.

Politics: choose your battles wisely

Michael Newdow is back in court trying to get the Pledge out of schools. Only in San Francisco.

I don't particulary disagree with Newdow's argument; in fact I think he's pretty much absolutely technically correct on all accounts.

But geez, in a country where Fox News is uber-profitable, is this really a battle worth fighting? Is it really worth insuring that Republican presidents get elected for the next fifty years until enough conservative justices are on the bench to allow Rick Santorum's grandson to transform the pledge into a ten paragraph treatise affirming the Christian God recited at gunpoint every morning. Is it worth making sure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer just so atheists don't have to say "under God" every morning?

Here's a tip to atheists out there: learn about 'symbolism'! If you're an atheist, and you hear 'God,' think 'Organic Chemistry.' Organic chemistry is at least an equivalent deity worth worshipping if you're not into worshipping a deity. It's not worth pissing off the Red country and insuring that gays can't marry for seven thousand years.

LGBT: Massachussetts may be falling off the earth before long

As reported in this NYT article, Mass. lawmakers voted down a proposal to eliminate same-sex marriage in a state-wide vote. While some see this as good news, others may see it as the first step towards the state falling off the main land-mass of the level-headed, religiously-reverent America and deep into the oceans of hell! Pick your side.

FUBAR: Where's Susan Sarandon?

Perhaps I'm in a foul mood, but this just seems like a death penalty day to me.

CNN: Neighbors Say Caged Kids Seemed Normal

One of the children, a boy born with HIV, was adopted as an infant in 2001 through the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services, the agency's director Jim McCafferty said. For caring for him, the Gravelles received a subsidy of at least $500 a month.

The private agencies who reviewed the couple's home life before the adoption gave them "glowing reports," McCafferty said.

BBC: US Men Kill Transgender Teenager

Two US men have been found guilty in California of killing a transgender teenager with whom they both had sex.

Michael Magidson and Jose Merel beat, tied up and strangled 17-year-old Gwen Araujo after discovering she was biologically male, the court heard.

Her body was found in a shallow grave in the Sierra Nevada hills soon after the October 2002 killing in Newark.

The men face 15 years to life in jail for murder but were cleared of hate crime charges.

It was the second time the case had gone to court, after a first attempt in 2004 was declared a mistrial.

A mistrial was declared in the case of a third suspect, Jason Cazares. He told the court he only helped bury the victim.

Oh, if that was all... Does anyone have any guesses why these "men" were cleared of hate crimes?

Learned Helplessness with a Dose of Goold Old Catholic Guilt

Concerning Apathy and Learned Helplessness
Hurricane Katrina and Rita : I feel helpless watching the news coverage, and wish I could go down there and help. But I know I won't, because I'm too busy being a medical student and moving forward with my life. I couldn't possibly take a few months off to go down there and help, because I've got to finish med school, and that would just not be convenient for me. And then I yell at myself because it's not like having a hurricane run through one's home meshes with one's life plans, so why shouldn't I self sacrifice and help people out, because at least I have a home to return to when I get back. And then I argue with myself and convince myself that I will be able to help people out more if I finish my education, and feel better because I at least feel bad for not going down there and helping, and at least I contemplated thinking about taking time off of med school to go help. And then I just feel stupid and selfish and helpless because I know I won't interrupt my schedule to go help, and instead I'll watch and shake my head and say "Oh, that's too bad", and donate some money to the Red Cross (but not the Salvation Army because they can keep their propaganda away from my money), and rationalize that there is probably plenty of help down South right now, and even if I could help stupid FEMA wouldn't have its act together to even know what to do with me, a medical student, who can hardly juggle my clerkships, studying, and trying to maintain my humanity.

Politics: Concerning Race

An open statement to many of my relatives and others in Metro Detroit who share their views:

I'm originally from a working class suburb that borders Detroit, and due to our low taxes and affordable housing, our city is becoming a magnet for those finding their way out of Detroit. Most of these people are black, and now I am watching as my town becomes a focus of white flight. Houses are up for sale on every block, and my neighbors can tell you how many black people have moved onto our street and the adjacent streets as well. I am so sick and tired of hearing "I'm not racist or anything, but you know 'they' [black people] do bring down our home values, and it just would be silly for me to stay", and I'm exhausted from trying to form a logical argument to counter this seemingly sensical statement. Most of the time I get the same response, "You're still young - you'll see how things really are soon", or "You didn't see what they did to our old neighborhood in Detroit, back when it was nice [and before tax incentives from the government convinced jobs to leave the city, and a lack of a public transport system left a wave of people unemployed and without money]. I then juxtapose these moments with my recent weekend trips to weddings and graduation parties where I have been driving about 15-20 miles north of my hometown, continuously watching the sprawl stretch on for miles. I'm afraid that people in Metro Detroit are losing the race battle, and I think I'm watching us move farther away from the dreams of the Civil Rights Act. But maybe I'm just pessimistic, or maybe I've read too much Hurricane Katrina coverage on the racial disparities in New Orleans.

Katrina Hero: Ben Marble, MD

Yeah, he's the guy that told Dick Cheney, "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney. Go fuck yourself." (Video here)

And here is his Ebay auction selling the tape of the encounter.

Apparently he was cuffed and detained by the SS for about 20 minutes after the incidence, being released because, well, it's not exactly illegal to tell someone blocking you from getting to your home to score sick political points to go fuck themselves.

His friend videotaped a little bit longer and then came back to Marble’s house. As they were salvaging a few things from Marble's home, two military police waving M-16's showed up and said they were looking for someone who fit Marble's description who had cursed at Cheney.

"I told them I was probably the person they were looking for, and so they put me in handcuffs and 'detained' me for about 20 minutes or so," Marble wrote. "My right thumb went numb because the cuffs were on so tight, but they were fairly courteous and eventually released me after getting all my contact info. They said I had NOT broken any laws so I was free to go."

So let’s get this straight: A physician with a newborn baby loses most everything he owns in the hurricane, does what most of us WANT to do and “echoes” Cheney’s words he spoke on the Senate floor last year, walks away harmlessly, mission accomplished, and then once the media cameras leave, he is treated like a foreign terrorist as Cheney’s goons waving M-16s handcuff him in front of his destroyed home? Had it not been for the media cameras filming the initial scene, I doubt Cheney’s goons would have just let Marble go after 20 minutes.

America, land of the free?

Especially when that someone has a good record of doing that himself on the Senate floor.

He's a pretty interesting dude to read about, although a lot of the links I had open last night seem to have disappeared from the net. Here's his personal website: hurricanekatrinasucked.com. Of note, he plays in a few alternative bands, one of which, Dr. O (I think was the name), has had like 20 #1 songs on MP3.com.

Medicine: Post-call = Drunk!!

Research from U of M shows that doctors who are post-call perform worse than doctors with a BAC of 0.05. I'm glad I'm the one giving and not receiving care! But watch out on the roads. You never know when a white coat may be coming after you!

LGBT: California legislature makes another step in the right direction

Last week the Senate approved same-sex marriage; this week it's the California Assembly. Now the next question is just what will that Arnold (aka. "the gubernator") have to say? Will he appeal to fellow GOP-ers or will he stick to his purported fiscal conservatism with social liberalism? Only time will tell.

Medicine: Grand Rounds #50 up at Corpus Callosum

CC is run by one of UM's own fine psychiatrists.

Forgotten News: Immigrants die in US desert heat

I should note that Pima county is home to University of Arizona, my alma mater.

Record numbers of illegal immigrants who cross into the US from Mexico have died in the scorching heat of the Arizona desert in the past year. At least 229 immigrants are known to have died since 1 October 2004, the US Border Patrol said. In one Arizona county, a refrigerated trailer is being used to store up to 70 extra bodies as the morgue is full up. The morgue in Pima County, Arizona can hold up to 120 bodies, but officials have called for a new permanent cooler to double its storage capacity.Arizona serves as the main crossing point for some 1.1 million immigrants who make the journey into the US from Mexico each year. Border Patrol officers have carried out about 700 missions to rescue immigrants stranded in the desert region this summer.

News: Microsoft-Google battle heats up

I sense a reality show coming on.

Microsoft's chief executive vowed to "kill Google" in an expletive-laden tirade against the firm, according to US court documents filed by Google. The claim was made in a sworn statement by Mark Lucovsky, a former Microsoft employee who quit for Google in 2004. Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer has denied the claims, saying they are a "gross exaggeration of what actually took place".

In his sworn statement, Mr Lucovsky - a key Windows architect - alleged that Mr Ballmer hurled a chair across the room when he informed him he was moving to Google, before launching into an abusive tirade against Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt.

Nightmares: Bush nominates Roberts for Chief Justice

The fact that we know jack shit about what John Roberts would actually do as a supreme court justice was disturbing, but not enough to disqualify a qualified dude for a spot on the court.

The fact that we know jack shit about what John Roberts would actually do as a chief justice of the supreme court is simple disaster.

As a married white male, I might be the only person safe in the country. *Flair for drama? Sure.*

Politics: Rehnquist succumbs to thyroid cancer

That's pretty sad.

Politically speaking, I'm not sure what it does, as Bush simply has to replace a centrist conservative and a traditional conservative, which shouldn't exactly be difficult.

Seems like it'd be quite nice to appoint someone from the current court to chief justice, but I have a feeling Bush would rather appoint someone a tad bit younger to insure a conservative stays at the head of the bench for as long as possible.

But hey, he was a Chief Justice, and he wasn't particularly an asshole.

I mean, sometimes. But so am I.

Sad day.

Politics: Black lawmakers angry about federal response to Katrina

Black members of Congress expressed anger Friday at what they said was a slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

"It looks dysfunctional to me right now," said Rep. Diane Watson, D-California.

She and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, along with members of the Black Leadership Forum, National Conference of State Legislators, National Urban League and the NAACP, held a news conference and charged that the response was slow because those most affected are poor.

The article also mentions that leaders are refraining from making accusations of racism, but classism is more fun (and more fair) anyway.

This isn't the first time I've heard this meme, as Matt Lauer asked a similar question on the Today show, according to my wife.

Sadly enough, there's probably something to it. And this is not meant to be a partisan attack at all, simply an admonition of further poor priorities throughout a bumbling government.

LGBT: Another glimmer of hope

Well, it's not a done deal, but a step in the right direction. The CA senate has voted to approve same-sex marriage. Now it's time to see where the house stands. [fingers crossed]

Medicine: the sane are few among us

The Food and Drug Administration's assistant commissioner for women's health and director of the agency's office of women's health, Susan Wood, has resigned in the wake of the FDA's decision last Friday to again delay a decision on whether to allow over-the-counter sales of the contraceptive drug Plan B.

And the quote of the article:

"I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled."