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Charles Darwin, Chagas ’ disease, and the killer kissing bugs of California
Follow me on Twitter @JohnRossMD It is possible, although very unusual, to get Chagas’ disease in the United States. The medical journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases recently reported a case of Chagas’ disease acquired in California. A healthy 19-year-old student from the greater Los Angeles area donated blood, and tested positive for Chagas’ disease. (Blood donations in the United States are routinely screened for Chagas’ disease, as it is estimated that 300,000 Latin American immigrants in the United States have been infected with Trypanosoma cruzi.) He had never traveled to Latin America; his infection probab...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 15, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Ross, MD, FIDSA Tags: Health Infectious diseases Source Type: blogs

The Dark Matter of Senescent Cell Clearance Research: Other Approaches and Quiet Research Groups
There is no such thing as a scientific breakthrough. Advances in science and its application don't emerge from out of the blue, especially in very complex fields such as medical research, where any meaningful progress requires a team, and in very close-knit fields such as aging research, where everyone knows everyone else and at least a little about what they are working on. If the latest news looks like a breakthrough to you, that just means that you didn't know much about the people who spent years working on the foundations, the incremental advances, and the early prototypes. And why should you? You have your life to li...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 8, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Bit by the Research Bug: Priscilla ’s Growth as a Scientist
This is the third post in a new series highlighting NIGMS’ efforts toward developing a robust, diverse and well-trained scientific workforce. Credit: Christa Reynolds. Priscilla Del Valle Academic Institution: The University of Texas at El Paso Major: Microbiology Minors: Sociology and Biomedical Engineering Mentor: Charles Spencer Favorite Book: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot Favorite Food: Tacos Favorite music: Pop Hobbies: Reading and drinking coffee It’s not every day that you’ll hear someone say, “I learned more about parasites, and I thought, ‘This is so cool!’” But it’s al...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 28, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Christa Reynolds Tags: Being a Scientist Bacteria BUILD Infectious Diseases Profiles Training Source Type: blogs

U.S. Malaria Cases Set Record - Two Years Ago
The CDC announced on Oct. 31 that it had finalized the number of malaria cases found in the U.S. in 2011. The 1,925 cases diagnosed set a 40 year high for the parasitic disease. The vast majority of the illnesses were contracted overseas.Contributor: Charles SimminsPublished: Nov 01, 2013
Source: Most Recent Health Wellness - Associated Content - November 1, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Source Type: blogs

Public Disclosure Bar Blocks Recovery in Stryker False Claims Act Case
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit rejected a whistleblower suit against Stryker Corp. and other pain pump manufacturers because the allegations were based on information that had already been made public. The Court upheld the District Court in ruling that the plaintiff failed to pass the “public disclosure bar” necessary for whistleblowers to recover under the False Claims Act (FCA). Whistleblowers are able to share in the government's recovery when they are integral to the discovery of the fraud.  The Eighth Circuit referenced a frequently cited quote in its opinion, which describes the public dis...
Source: Policy and Medicine - September 16, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs

Once again we present the Upper Class Twit of the Century
That would be Charles Windsor, whose inbreeding continues to get the better of him. The Prince of Woo "won influence over Prime Minister Tony Blair and delayed the introduction of regulations governing the sale of herbal medicines, letters between the heir to the throne and government ministers have revealed."The story is that a European Union Directive in 2004 required that new herbal products be approved before they could go on sale in the EU. This followed many cases of people being harmed by quack medicines. Older products were grandfathered until 2011, but the definition of older would have excluded some currently on ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 27, 2015 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 137
Just when you thought your brain could unwind on a Friday, you realise that it would rather be challenged with some good old fashioned medical trivia…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 137 Question 1 Is it rude to pandiculate in front of your consultant? + Reveal the Funtabulous Answer expand(document.getElementById('ddet1142952534'));expand(document.getElementById('ddetlink1142952534')) Yes! This is yawning. From the latin pandiculātus, to “stretch oneself”. Technically if you were to pandiculate you would add a stretching of the arms and arching of the back to your yawn. [Reference] Question ...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - March 11, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Neil Long Tags: Frivolous Friday Five bad air FFFF hot dog headache Malaria pandiculate pimping roman fever william harvey Source Type: blogs

The Shame of US Health Care Dysfunction: Hookworm Returns to Alabama
ConclusionsAs we have noted endlessly, the US spends more per capita on health care than any other developed country.  US politicians used to make the claim that the country has the best health care system in the world, often to ward off any attempts at true health care reform.  However, US rankings on various measures - some of which may be disputed - of health care processes and outcomes have been decidedly mediocre.  (See for example the latest Commonwealth Fund studyhere.)The new study of hookworm prevalence was not based on a big, systematic, or geographically diverse sample.  However it is strikin...
Source: Health Care Renewal - September 7, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: government health care foundations public health Source Type: blogs

Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 224
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog Just when you thought your brain could unwind on a Friday, you realise that it would rather be challenged with some good old fashioned medical trivia FFFF…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 224. Question 1 Which children’s author wrote “The Pocket Book of Boners”? + Reveal the Funtabulous Answer expand(document.getElementById('ddet789838069'));expand(document.getElementById('ddetlink789838069')) Dr Seuss It was one of the bestselling b...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - February 2, 2018 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Neil Long Tags: Frivolous Friday Five boners coffee cups Dr Seuss Dr Thomas Neill Cream faecal matter mazzotti reaction onchocerciasis penile injury Zippers Source Type: blogs

What Zombie Ants Are Teaching Us About Fungal Infections: Q & A with Entomologists David Hughes and Maridel Fredericksen
  I can still remember that giddy feeling I had seven years ago, when I first read about the “zombie ant.” The story was gruesome and fascinating, and it was everywhere. Even friends and family who aren’t so interested in science knew the basics: in a tropical forest somewhere there’s a fungus that infects an ant and somehow takes control of the ant’s brain, forcing it to leave its colony, crawl up a big leaf, bite down and wait for the sweet relief of death. A grotesque stalk then sprouts from the poor creature’s head, from which fungal spores rain down to infect a new batch of ants. A fungal fruiting b...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - February 21, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Chris Palmer Tags: Computers in Biology Cell Biology Cellular Processes Electron Microscopy Infection Source Type: blogs

Psychologists Have Identified The Creatures We Find Most Scary And Revolting
via Polák et al, 2019 By Christian Jarrett You may be best advised not to read this article late at night or before you eat. Psychologists at the National Institute of Mental Health and Charles University in the Czech Republic have surveyed a large sample of non-clinical volunteers to gauge their reaction to 24 creatures that are commonly the source of specific animals phobias. The results, published in the British Journal of Psychology, not only contribute to our understanding of animal phobias, but could prove incredibly useful to horror writers. Among the key findings is that spiders were unique in being both intensely...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 25, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Emotion evolutionary psych Mental health Source Type: blogs

How Much Is Life Worth?
Multivitamins, drugs, gene therapies, human skin, heart, eyeballs, kidneys, entire dead bodies – everything comes with a price tag. Putting aside the moral questions of why and how come that the capitalist market priced even our body parts and health, we asked the question of how much is life worth: what is the maximum that you would/should pay for a life-saving drug? How high is too high a cost if a drug can save 200-300 babies a year from debilitating illness or death? And ultimately, does the pricing of new technologies, especially gene therapies, enable to fulfill their promise? There’s a price for everything: ...
Source: The Medical Futurist - August 31, 2019 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Bioethics Biotechnology Future of Pharma Genomics cost daraprim drug drug price Gene gene therapy genetics insulin life medication pricing policy rare disease rare disorder Source Type: blogs

Case of the Week 573
This week ' s case is Dr. Charles (Chuck) Sturgis. He noted the following structures on a Papanicolaou-stained anal Pap smear (performed for cancer screening). They measure approximately 14 micrometers in length. Identification?
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - December 17, 2019 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs

Answer to Case 685
 Answer to theParasite Case of the Week 685:Raphides, i.e, needle-shaped crystals of calcium oxalate or calcium carbonate used by several plants such as pineapple, kiwi, and rhubarb as a defense against plant-eating animals. According to Idzi, " The weird feeling you get in your mouth when eating too much pineapple is apparently caused by these crystals. You can find them quite often in stools and they should not be confused with Charcot-Leyden (C-L) crystals! " They can be differentiated from C-L crystals by their long needle-like shape and uniform diameter:As a comparator, Idzi provided 2 nice photographs of C-L cry...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - June 5, 2022 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs