November 11th, 2010 by Iltifat Husain, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: British Government, Dr. Basil Donovan, Dr. Tariq Sadiq, Electronic Self-Testing Instruments, eSTI, Health Protection Agency, HIV/AIDS, HPA, Iltifat Husain, iMedicalApps, Medical Apps, Medical Data Protection, Medical Research Council, Medical Technology, Medicine and Smartphones, Nanotechnology, National Centre in HIV Epidemiology & Clinical Research, Patient Confidentiality, Public Health, Rapid Home Tests, Self-Test Devices, Sexual Health, sexually transmitted diseases, Sexually Transmitted Infections, St. George's-University of London, STDs, STIs, Sydney Morning Herald, UK Clinical Research Collaboration, University of New South Wales
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A new £5.7 million project being led by St. George’s-University of London is developing self-test devices that can plug directly into mobile phones and computers, immediately identifying sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
The project is called eSTI — electronic self-testing instruments for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) — and is being led by Dr. Tariq Sadiq, senior lecturer and consultant physician in sexual health and HIV at St George’s-University of London. Most of the funding is coming from The Medical Research Council and the UK Clinical Research Collaboration.
The UK has seen a 36 percent rise in STIs from 2000 to 2009 — often blamed on the reluctance of the population to get diagnosed and the stigma of going to public health clinics — prompting the support of this project. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
November 11th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Chile, Chilean Mine Rescue, Disaster Relief, Dr. Andres Llarena, Dr. J.D. Polk, Dr. Michael Duncan, Flight Surgeons, Global Rescue, Human Nutrition, International Medicine, International Space Station, Limited Food Stores, Medgadget, MedPage Today, NASA, Nutritional Issues, Refeeding Plan, Reintroducing Foods, Space Medicine, Starvation, Submersion Medicine
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The Chilean mine rescue was a great example of international cooperation and effort, much like the International Space Station. Another similarity between the two was some of the physicians involved.
Dr. J.D. Polk and other flight surgeons at NASA had, years ago, made a contingency plan for how to make the limited Space Station food stores last for months if there was a problem with re-supply. So when the Chilean government asked if NASA had any advice for how to care for the miners trapped in a similar resource-limited setting, Dr. Polk and a team went down to help, and MedPage Today wrote up a great summary of their efforts. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
November 11th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Advice On Patient Care, Biomedical Community Websites, Doctors on the Internet, Dr. Bertalan Mesko, General Medicine, Internet-Based Healthcare, medCrowd, Medical Crowdsourcing, Medical Peers' Professional Opinions, Medicine and the Internet, Online Medical Communities, Physician Social Network, Science Roll, Social Medical Community, Social Networking For Doctors
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medCrowd is the 52nd in my list of biomedical community sites and maybe the first one using crowdsourcing. From medCrowd:
Perhaps, you have a patient with a rare condition and you don’t know the best treatment. Or you are treating a patient and you have heard there have been recent developments in the field, but you are not sure how these actually affect your patient’s day-to-day management.
The problem is finding the best solution for your patient. What you need is help finding it.
medCrowd enables you to find the best solution for your patient by collecting your peers’ professional opinions, simply and in one place. This is called crowdsourcing.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
November 11th, 2010 by Kimball Atwood IV, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
Tags: AANP, Alternative Medicine, American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, Anti-Vaccine, Autism, Chiropractic, Complementary And Alternative Medicine, Dr. Josephine Briggs, Dr. Kimball Atwood, H1N1, Health Fraud, Homeopathy, Jenny McCarthy, Legal, Medical Ethics, MMR, Naturopathy, NCCAM, Pseudoscience, Public Health, Science And The Media, Science Based Medicine, Senator Tom Harkin, Thimerosal, Vaccines
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If you go to the website of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), you’ll find that one of its self-identified roles is to “provide information about CAM.” NCCAM Director Josephine Briggs is proud to assert that the website fulfills this expectation. As many readers will recall, three of your bloggers visited the NCCAM last April, after having received an invitation from Dr. Briggs. We differed from her in our opinion of the website: One of our suggestions was that the NCCAM could do a better job providing American citizens with useful and accurate information about “CAM.”
We cited, among several examples, the website offering little response to the dangerous problem of widespread misinformation about childhood immunizations. As Dr. Novella subsequently reported, it seemed that we’d scored a point on that one:
…Dr. Briggs did agree that anti-vaccine sentiments are common in the world of CAM and that the NCCAM can do more to combat this. Information countering anti-vaccine propaganda would be a welcome addition to the NCCAM site.
In anticipation of SBM’s Vaccine Awareness Week, I decided to find out whether such a welcome addition has come to fruition. The short answer: Nope. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
November 9th, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: ACP Internist, American College Of Physicians, Anti-Viral Medication, Antibodies, Common Cold, Gastroenteritis, Gastroenterology, Infectious Disease, Last Line of Defense Against Infection, Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Reducing Infection, Ryan DuBosar, TRIM21, U.K., United Kingdom, Viral Diseases, Viruses, Winter Vomiting
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Antibodies can fight viruses from within infected cells, reported researchers who now believe that treatments could be applied to viral diseases like the common cold, “winter vomiting,” and gastroenteritis.
Previously, scientists thought that antibodies could only reduce infection by attacking viruses outside cells and by blocking their entry into cells. Once inside the cell, the body’s only defense was to destroy the cell. But protection mediated by antibodies doesn’t end at the cell membrane. It continues inside the cell to provide a last line of defense against infection.
Researchers at the U.K.’s Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology showed that cells possess a cytosolic IgG receptor, tripartite motif-containing 21 (TRIM21), which binds to antibodies with a higher affinity than any other IgG receptor in the human body. Antibodies remain attached when viruses enter healthy cells. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
A new £5.7 million project being led by St. George’s-University of London is developing self-test devices that can plug directly into mobile phones and computers, immediately identifying sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
