April 7th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
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It was just time to end the era of gene patents. About 20 percent of human genes have patents, which is unacceptable. Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times story:
A federal judge on Monday struck down patents on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The decision, if upheld, could throw into doubt the patents covering thousands of human genes and reshape the law of intellectual property.
One of the individual plaintiffs in the suit, Genae Girard, who has breast cancer and has been tested for ovarian cancer, applauded the decision as “a big turning point for all women in the country that may have breast cancer that runs in their family.”
Chris Hansen, an A.C.L.U. staff lawyer, said: “The human genome, like the structure of blood, air or water, was discovered, not created. There is an endless amount of information on genes that begs for further discovery, and gene patents put up unacceptable barriers to the free exchange of ideas.”
I’m curious how Myriad will respond to it.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
April 6th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, News, Research
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This is the era of evidence-based social media as more and more papers focusing on medicine and social media are coming out. An interesting paper was published a few days ago in the American Journal of Infection Control. Scanfeld et al. tried to reveal the rate of misunderstanding or misuse of antibiotics in Twitter messages in their study: Dissemination of health information through social networks: Twitter and antibiotics.
BACKGROUND: This study reviewed Twitter status updates mentioning “antibiotic(s)” to determine overarching categories and explore evidence of misunderstanding or misuse of antibiotics.
METHODS: One thousand Twitter status updates mentioning antibiotic(s) were randomly selected for content analysis and categorization. To explore cases of potential misunderstanding or misuse, these status updates were mined for co-occurrence of the following terms: “cold + antibiotic(s),” “extra + antibiotic(s),” “flu + antibiotic(s),” “leftover + antibiotic(s),” and “share + antibiotic(s)” and reviewed to confirm evidence of misuse or misunderstanding.
RESULTS: Of the 1000 status updates, 971 were categorized into 11 groups. Cases of misunderstanding or abuse were identified for the following combinations: “flu + antibiotic(s)” (n = 345), “cold + antibiotic(s)” (n = 302), “leftover + antibiotic(s)” (n = 23), “share + antibiotic(s)” (n = 10), and “extra + antibiotic(s)” (n = 7).
CONCLUSION: Social media sites offer means of health information sharing. Further study is warranted to explore how such networks may provide a venue to identify misuse or misunderstanding of antibiotics, promote positive behavior change, disseminate valid information, and explore how such tools can be used to gather real-time health data. 
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
April 4th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, News, Opinion
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Thanks to Dr. Mike Cadogan, Scienceroll.com is included in the list of “Top 10 Clinical Medicine Blogs” on Blogs.com, and described as:
Amazingly comprehensive blog covering all aspects of medical education, medical technology, e-learning and virtual medicine. Through his blog, Dr. Bertalan Meskó aims to arm all medical professionals with the e-tools required to meet and manage the next generation of e-patients.
Here’s the top 10 list in alphabetical order:
33 charts
Academic Life in Emergency Medicine
Clinical Cases and Images
Clinical Correlations
Dr Shock MD PhD
Life in the Fast Lane
Musings of a Distractible Mind
Other Things Amanzi
Science-Based Medicine
Scienceroll
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
March 28th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Research
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Pillbox is the result of a partnership between the National Library of Medicine and the Food and Drug Administration. It helps you identify unknown pills and tablets by parameters such as form, color, size or imprint. The constantly updated database now has more than 7,000 entries with images.
Pillbox was developed to aid in the identification of unknown solid dosage pharmaceuticals. The system combines high-resolution images of tablets and capsules with FDA-approved appearance information (imprint, shape, color, etc.) to enable users to visually search for and identify an unknown solid dosage pharmaceutical. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
March 25th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Opinion, Research
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As I’m doing my PhD in clinical genomics, I’m really interested in the connection between the Internet and medicine. I was happy when Pathway Genomics, one of the newest direct-to-consumer genetic companies, offered me a free genetic test.
After an interview I did with them, I sent my saliva sample back and 3-4 weeks later, I received an email that my results were ready. This is my experience and the things I found interesting. As I got a free test from Navigenics a year ago, I plan to compare these services. I was very interested in the service of Pathway Genomics because of what they analyze:
1) Sampling: It was quite an easy process with only a few papers to fill (though it’s always hard to solve FedEX issues from Europe) and clear instructions. A video about a patient showing the whole process in 1-2 minutes, including saliva collection and filling out the paperwork, would be useful.
2) Preparations: I liked that I had to complete a questionnaire focusing on my lifestyle and patient history (Your Environment and Lifestyle, The Shape You’re In, and You and Your Family). As family history is the best genetic test out there, so it’s important to use that data while analyzing genetic results. Though, I couldn’t calculate my BMI (couldn’t use kg and centimeter) and the family history application wasn’t working for me. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
