The body as machine
Source: The Daily Mail
Inventor spends Christmas with his perfect woman – a £30,000 custom-made fembot (The Daily Mail)
“Inventor Le Trung spent Christmas Day with the most important woman in his life – his robot Aiko. … Her touch sensitive body knows the difference between being stroked gently or tickled. … ‘Aiko is always helpful and never complains. She is the perfect woman to have around at Christmas.’ ”
Celebrity health advice
Source: PLoS Medicine
Are celebrities crossing the line on medical advice? (USA Today)
“Many doctors say they’re troubled by stars who cross the line from sharing their stories to championing questionable or even dangerous medical advice. … Actress Suzanne Somers– already well-known for her diet books and ThighMaster products — in October released her 18th book, Knockout, which experts describe as a catalogue of unproven or long-debunked alternative cancer ‘cures.’ … [Celebrities] ‘can spread misinformation much faster than the average person with a wacky theory. … Correcting that misinformation — even with a mountain of evidence — can be a challenge. … ‘It’s much easier to scare people than to unscare them.’ ”
The Intangible Magic of Celebrity Marketing (PLoS Medicine – Ray Moynihan)
“[P]erhaps most troubling is the way celebrities, with their star power, can help to fundamentally shift the public debate about major health problems.”
Celebrities Help `Educate’ Public on New Drugs (The Wall Street Journal)
“Rob Lowe … the actor from the hit television show ‘The West Wing’ is kicking off a campaign today to raise public awareness of [febrile neutropenia]. [Manufacturer] Amgen’s goal is to persuade doctors both to switch to the new drug and to use it to prevent neutropenia instead of merely treating such infections after the fact. That would open up a far larger market. … A star like Mr. Lowe, however, doesn’t come cheaply. An individual familiar with the arrangement said the actor is likely to receive upward of $1 million for the campaign.”
Health care/Politics
End of the year brings a crush of surgeries (Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune)
“Patients who have hit their high insurance deductibles hurry to cram in elective procedures before Jan. 1. … It’s a problem that’s only going to get worse as more people get insurance with high deductibles. … Many patients now ask about price. … [T]his sort of engagement is a first step to curbing the nation’s runaway health costs. But once the deductible is met, ‘they go right back to their old behavior.’ … The incentive then is to use as many medical services as possible at little or no extra charge before the new year.”
As Aisle Gets Wider, Arms Get Shorter (The New York Times)
More reflections on what the health care battle makes obvious about the political process: “‘Once you get in these battles where you break into camps, every vote is about the next election,’ said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who occasionally works with Democrats on difficult issues. ‘As soon as the last election is over, those who lost are thinking, “What can I do to get back in power?” and those who won are thinking, “What can I do to stay in power? When you try to solve problems from the perpetual campaign mind-set, it is very difficult.’ … While partisanship is a constant in Congress, the unwillingness of the parties to work together seems to be reaching new levels.”
Industrial agriculture
Pressure rises to stop antibiotics in agriculture (BusinessWeek)
This is great news, and BusinessWeek did an excellent job on this story. “More and more Americans … are at risk from the widespread practice of feeding livestock antibiotics. These animals grow faster, but they can also develop drug-resistant infections that are passed on to people. The issue is now gaining attention because of interest from a new White House administration and a flurry of new research tying antibiotic use in animals to drug resistance in people. Researchers say the overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has led to a plague of drug-resistant infections that killed more than 65,000 people in the U.S. last year — more than prostate and breast cancer combined. And in a nation that used about 35 million pounds of antibiotics last year, 70 percent of the drugs — 28 million pounds — went to pigs, chickens and cows. Worldwide, it’s 50 percent. … Farmers and drugmakers are battling back. Pharmaceutical companies have spent $135 million lobbying so far this year, and agribusiness companies another $70 million.”
Medical ethics: Organ transplants
Egypt Debates Transplant Law, Hopes to Cut Organ Trade (ABC News)
“Soheila, an Egyptian village housewife, traded her kidney for $2,185 to pay off debt — the best option the desperate mother of three could find to keep food on the family table.”
This story illustrates a number of issues. The role of religion/culture in matters of death: ” ‘The death of the brain stem is a disease and is not death.’ said Al-Sayed Abdel Maksoud Askar, a lawmaker from the powerful Muslim Brotherhood. … He said organs cannot be taken from a person with brain death because in his view life ends with death of all organs.”
The impact of poverty on the health of the poor: “Commercial living donors, mainly the poor and vulnerable, are thought to supply 10 percent of the world’s kidneys, WHO says. It has estimated the price of a kidney in Egypt at $1,700-$2,700. … Most of Egypt’s commercial living kidney donors are young and male, and later regret selling their organs. Nearly four in five face worsening health after the transplant, and the money they earn is gone within five months, according to WHO.”
The plight of poor women in particular: ” ‘Giving my kidney is better than working in furnished apartments,’ Soheila told an Egyptian transplant advocacy group, using a euphemism for prostitution. ‘This is against my dignity and I wouldn’t want to go and do such things.’ ”
Thanks to Gary Schwitzer’s Health News Review Blog for pointing out several of these stories.
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