Monday, March 21, 2011

Mar 21 Hepatitis News; In Focus Complementary and Alternative Medicine


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Hepatitis C; Complementary and Alternative Medicine
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This study indicated that in patients with CHC performing silymarin (650 mg/day) for 6 months, improved serum HCV-RNA titer, serum aminotransferases (ALT, AST), hepatic fibrosis and patient’s quality of life. More future studies are warranted
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An imbalance between too much oxidative stress and too little antioxidative defence has been suggested to cause a variety of liver diseases. Therefore, antioxidant supplements (beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and selenium) could have a potential role in patients with liver disease. The evidence on whether antioxidant supplements are effective in treatment of liver diseases is contradictory. In this review treatment with antioxidant supplements of alcoholic, autoimmune, hepatitis B or hepatitis C virus liver diseases, or liver cirrhosis is assessed. The review includes 20 randomised clinical trials. In total, 1225 participants were randomised to antioxidant supplements (beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and selenium) versus placebo or no intervention. The low number of randomised participants increases the risk of random errors ('play of chance'). Trial quality was low and accordingly the risk of systematic errors ('bias') was high.
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100th Traditional Herbal Registration Granted, UK
21 March 2011The number of herbal products registered under the Traditional Herbal Registration (THR) scheme hit the 100 mark today increasing consumer choice for safe herbal products across the UK...
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Hepatitis C and CAM
March 2011
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Hepatitis C, a liver disease caused by a virus, is usually chronic (long-lasting), with symptoms ranging from mild (or even none) to severe. Conventional medical treatments are available for hepatitis C; however, some people also try complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies, especially herbal supplements. This issue summarizes the scientific research on the effectiveness and safety of selected supplements.
Read more about what the science says
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Some Natural Therapies Have Real Value
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There are also natural approaches for dealing with HCV. The credible ones focus on protecting and supporting the liver and keeping the immune system healthy. There is some proof that you can use natural means to help you live a long and relatively healthy life with this virus and die of some other cause (preferably old age). There is no natural cure for HCV, and if anyone claims they have one, they are lying. It is as simple as that.
Dubious treatments and supposed cures for HCV are being sold by charlatans and rip off artists. You need to be discerning when considering alternative therapies to help you deal with HCV. Look for scientific clinical validation. Objective third-party proof of effectiveness and safety is essential. We are involved with one product we think very highly of called Maximum Milk Thistle. It is a high quality medical milk thistle with scientific validation and a very reasonable price
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Is Coffee a Wise Adjunct to Hepatitis C Therapy?
In the debate over coffee's effect on health, coffee lovers who are undergoing treatment for Hepatitis C have just scored a victory. Read more.
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Ahhh the caffeinated beverage, it enhances alertness and invigorates the mind. Drinking coffee has its benefits, one of the first studies on caffeine revealed that regular coffee drinkers actually had a 41% less risk of liver cancer.
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Choosing a painkiller off the drug store shelf can be, well, painful. To offer some relief, Consumer Reports Health released its "Best Buy Drugs" -- a 22-page report that compares the effectiveness, safety and price of some of the top brands (and generics) for pain killing.
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Grapefruit juice: Dangerous medication interactionsResearchers have known for twenty years that taking medications with grapefruit juice can increase the absorption of certain drugs — with the potential for turning normal doses into toxic overdoses.
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The liver needs vitamin K to make factors that regulate blood clotting
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Vitamin K deficiency is extremely rare in healthy people. It can, however, occur in individuals who have significant liver damage or disease disorders that interfere with the absorption of nutrients from the intestine.
Liver disease (cirrhosis) causes a decrease in bile salt synthesis, leading to impaired absorption and Vitamin K deficiency. The liver makes a number of coagulation (clotting) factors including prothrombin and fibrinogen. Most of these require the presence of vitamin K to function normally. Vitamin K, as a fat-soluble vitamin, in turn requires bile salts to be absorbed properly by the body. If the liver is impaired and does not produce enough bile this will have an effect on the capacity to clot blood; increasing the risk of bleeding.
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1-Vitamin K is necessary for the formation of prothrombin and other blood-clotting factors in the liver, and it also plays a role in bone metabolism..........
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2-A form of the vitamin is produced by bacteria in the colon and can be utilized to some degree.
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Depressed Seniors Benefit From Tai Chi
17 March 2011The numbers are, well, depressing: More than 2 million people age 65 and older suffer from depression, including 50 percent of those living in nursing homes. The suicide rate among white men over 85 is the highest in the...
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If you have diabetes or metabolic syndrome, you’re at increased risk of developing fatty liver disease, a condition that is becoming increasingly common among Americans. The condition is “silent” at first, with no apparent symptoms. Read more »
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USDA
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Industry Watchdog "Dumbfounded" by USDA’s Failure to Enforce Organic LawUSDA Continues Bush-era Policy of Allowing Unapproved Synthetic Additives
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Cornucopia, WI—The Cornucopia Institute, one of the nation’s leading organic industry watchdogs, condemned the position of the United States Department of Agriculture that it will allow products containing unapproved synthetic additives to be labeled “organic” for an indefinite grace period.
The Cornucopia Institute had filed legal complaints against infant formula manufacturers and Dean Foods, manufacturer of Horizon dairy products, for adding unapproved additives: Martek Biosciences Corporation’s omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (DHA/ARA), derived chemically from fermented algae and fungus, to foods with the organic label.
The Cornucopia Institute maintains, and the USDA reiterated in a compliance letter issued March 16, that these additives are illegal in organics. But the USDA also stated it would not take enforcement action at this time. The USDA’s compliance letter suggested that it would allow companies to continue adding the additives to organic foods during a phase-out period of unspecified length, despite its clear statement, in the same letter, that the additives were being used in organics due to an “incorrect” interpretation of the federal standards..
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FDA
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FDA not ready to act on tainted wipes, despite new recall Agency 'very concerned' about iodine pads tainted with dangerous bacteria, official says
msnbc.com
.,updated 3/18/2011 6:05:02 PM ET 2011-03-18T22:05:02
A federal Food and Drug Administration official says the agency is “very concerned” about detection of new, potentially dangerous bacteria in iodine prep pads made by a Wisconsin firm already under scrutiny for tainted alcohol wipes tied to infections and death. But it will take more time and more analysis to decide what action to take regarding H&P Industries, Inc., the parent company of the Triad Group of Hartland, Wis., said Michael Rogers, the FDA’s acting director of the Office of Regional Operations.
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“It’s a lot of information to evaluate. This is a very large company,” said Rogers, adding: “Our interest is to insure that there are safe and effective products on the market."'Significant pathogens' Rogers’ comments followed the voluntary recall this week of all lots of povidine iodine prep pads manufactured by H&P Industries Inc. after FDA tests indicated they may be contaminated with Elizabethkingia meningoseptica, rare bacteria tied to life-threatening infections in newborns, people on ventilators and others who may be very ill.“Those are significant pathogens,” said Rogers. “The agency is very concerned about those findings."
.The iodine wipes are used to prevent infection from cuts, scrapes and burns and also to prevent infection in surgery. Although the over-the-counter pads are marketed as non-sterile, they’re supposed to be free of organisms that could cause infection, medical experts say. A press release by H&P Industries indicated that a raw material component of the iodine pads could be responsible for the contamination with the bacteria normally associated with frogs, fish and other environmental sources, but not with human infection. The company began distributing the pads in March 2008.
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FDA officials posted a recall notice Friday and H&P Industries added the notice to its Triad Group website. The notices include information about the brands under which the iodine pads were distributed.
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Cirrhosis
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There are potential legal ramifications for physicians of patients who drive with cognitive impairment, according to a study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.
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Hepatitis C Around The World
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Doctors in Bradford say they're worried about the number of people from the city's Asian community with hepatitis C. More than two thousand people have the disease, but don't realise it. Read more
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KARACHI: An estimated 10 per cent of Pakistan’s population of 160 million is suffering from Hepatitis, which shows high prevalence of the disease in the country. Five per cent of the troubled individuals have hepatitis C.Pakistani scientists, working in the area of health biotechnology are conducting research to find out cheap medicine for treatment of this fatal disease, Dr. Mazhar Iqbal of National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetics Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad said while delivering a lecture at Latif Ebrahim Jamal (LEJ) National Science Information Center, Karachi University (KU).
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Healthy You
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Opinion
Daphne Miller, primary-care physician and author (The Washington Post, March 14, 2011)"There is very little research on why or how often patients keep secrets that might help a doctor recognize what’s going on…What little research does exist shows that the greater the social stigma connected with a behavior, the less likely patients are to disclose it to their doctors…Teens have the highest rates of deceiving their health providers, which makes sense because there is probably no phase of life where one is more fearful of judgment or persecution."
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Laura Blue (TIME.com, March 16, 2011)
"Whether 5% seems like a big number or a small number, of course, depends a lot on the situation. But a growing body of research shows that presenting the same information in different ways, with different statistics, can lead people to very different decisions. We know that we don't always fathom risk easily…Studies to date suggest already that people may be more persuaded by some stats than others…[a new Cochrane Collaboration report] finds that, in general, both health consumers and health professionals have better comprehension of absolute risk reductions than relative risk reductions."
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Experts believe a simple blood test could spot diabetes up to 10 years before the first symptoms of the disease occur.
By looking at levels of five amino acids in the blood US researchers were able to correctly identify people who went on to develop type 2 diabetes.
Ultimately the Harvard team hope a test like this could be used to screen for type 2 diabetes, Nature Medicine says.
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Early detection can help prevent related complications like blindness.Risk prediction
Dr Victoria King, head of research at Diabetes UK, said: "Early diagnosis and effective management of type 2 diabetes are crucial in reducing the risk of developing diabetes complications, such as heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, blindness and amputation.
"Therefore finding ways to identify those who are at risk of developing the condition are important.
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Diabetes
Diabetes is a condition where the amount of glucose in your blood is too high because the body cannot use it properly
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Type 1 diabetes develops when the insulin-producing cells in the body have been destroyed and the body is unable to produce any insulin
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Type 2 diabetes develops when the body can still make some insulin, but not enough, or when the insulin that is produced does not work properly
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Type 2 diabetes accounts for between 85-95% of all people with diabetes and is treated with a healthy diet and increased physical activity. Some may also need medicaton and/or insulin
"This research, in future, could lead to ways to help us identify those at risk as well as giving us new insights into how and why type 2 diabetes develops."
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The risk of developing type 2 diabetes is strongly linked to being overweight, leading a sedentary lifestyle and eating an unhealthy diet.
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In many cases the condition can be prevented or delayed by maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle, Dr King said.
Aside from keeping an eye on a person's weight and blood sugar, doctors have had little else they can use to identify at risk individuals.
The test used in the study looks for levels of small molecules in the blood. Among the 2,422 health volunteers tested, 201 later went on to develop diabetes.
And the researchers found that the early blood tests readily identified these patients years before they developed any symptoms.
Those with the highest levels of amino acids in their blood were five times as likely to develop diabetes within the following 12 years of the study.
Dr Robert Gerszten and colleagues who carried out the work say more studies are needed before the test could be recommended for general use.
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You are what your mother ate
By NewsRx.com
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Poor diet during pregnancy increases offspring's vulnerability to the effects of aging, new research has shown for the first time.
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The research, by scientists from the University of Cambridge, provides important insight into why children born to mothers who consumed an unhealthy diet during pregnancy have an increased risk of type 2 diabetes (a significant contributing factor to heart disease and cancer) later in life (see also Diabetes).
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"What is most exciting about these findings is that we are now starting to really understand how nutrition during the first nine months of life spent in the womb shape our long term health by influencing how the cells in our body age," said Dr Susan Ozanne, the senior author on the paper and British Heart Foundation Senior Fellow from the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge.
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It is well established that environmental factors interact with genes throughout life, affecting the expression of those genes and, consequently, tissue function and disease risk. Diet during critical periods of development, such as during the nine months in the womb, has been cited as one such environmental factor. Epigenetics, which refers to modifications to the DNA that regulate how much of a gene is produced, has been suggested to underlie these effects.
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However, until now, very little was understood about the underlying mechanisms that control the interaction between diet during gestation and gene expression in offspring throughout their adult life. Research, funded by the BBSRC and the British Heart Foundation, has now shown that the gene Hnf4a, which has been linked to type 2 diabetes, is regulated by maternal diet through epigenetic modifications to our DNA. Additionally, they found that poor diet exacerbates the rate at which these key epigenetic modifications accumulate during the aging process.
Previous research has shown that the gene Hnf4a plays an important role both during development of the pancreas and later in the production of insulin. The researchers hypothesised that diet during pregnancy influences the expression of this gene later in life, thereby influencing the risk of diabetes.
To test their theory, the researchers used a well-established rat model where, by altering the protein content of the mother's diet during pregnancy, the offspring develop type 2 diabetes in old age.
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First, they studied the RNA from insulin secreting cells in the pancreas from offspring of normally fed as well as malnourished mothers in young adult life and in old age. When they compared the two, they found that there was a significant decrease in the expression of the Hnf4a gene in the offspring prone to type 2 diabetes. The expression of Hnf4a also decreased with age in both groups.
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Second, they studied the DNA and found that the decrease of Hnf4a was caused by epigenetic changes. The age associated epigenetic silencing was more pronounced in rats exposed to poor maternal diet. They concluded that the epigenetic changes resulting from maternal diet and aging lead to the reduced expression of the Hnf4a gene, decreasing the function of the pancreas and therefore its ability to make insulin (and thereby increasing the risk of diabetes).
The scientists then studied the DNA from insulin secreting cells from human pancreases to show that expression of this important gene was controlled in the same way in humans.
"It is remarkable that maternal diet can mark our genes so they remember events in very early life," said Dr Miguel Constancia, the senior co-author on the paper from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Metabolic Research Laboratories at the University of Cambridge. "Our findings reveal a novel mechanism by which maternal diet and aging interact through epigenetic processes to determine our risk of age-associated diseases."
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Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said: "We already know that a healthy pregnancy is important in shaping a child's health, and their risk of heart disease as they grow up. The reasons why are not well understood, but this study in rats adds to the evidence that a mother's diet may sometimes alter the control of certain genes in her unborn child. It's no reason for expectant mothers to be unduly worried. This research doesn't change our advice that pregnant women should try to eat a healthy, balanced diet."
Professor Douglas Kell, Chief Executive, BBSRC said: "Epigenetics is a relatively young field of research with tremendous potential to underpin our understanding of many biological processes in all organisms. The fact that there is a relationship between the biology of a pregnant mother and the long term health of her child has been known for some time but our understanding of the biological processes behind some of the more subtle effects is still at a nascent stage. This study uncovers - through epigenetics and molecular biology research - an important piece of this puzzle and shows us how apparently minor changes within cells at the very earliest stages of development can have a major influence on our health into old age."
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This article was prepared by Women's Health Weekly editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2011, Women's Health Weekly via NewsRx.com.
To see more of the NewsRx.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.newsrx.com/ .
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Pharmaceuticals
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In an unusual move, the California Insurance Commissioner has intervened, or joined, a whistleblower lawsuit that was filed in 2007 by three former Bristol-Myers Squibb employees, who charged the drugmaker with bribing doctors to prescribe its meds - Abilify, Avapro, Glucophage, Plavix, BuSpar, Pravachol and others. In all, private insurers in the state paid more than $3.5 billion to cover the drugs.
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By Ed Silverman // March 21st, 2011 // 9:42 am
Over the past week, a note has been circulating on the Internet about the web site that Eli Lilly created for its Strattera ADHD medication for consumers in China. Specifically, the missive points out that the Strattera site offers very different info about the risks and benefits of the medication. As an example, the US Strattera site warns patients of suicide risk, but not the Chinese site.
“Lilly’s web site in China says nothing about this risk; patients are told nothing about any Strattera side effects at all. Chinese readers are warned instead about the dangers of ADHD (deliquency, substance abuse, unemployment, depression and other serious problems, both personal and social) unless treated with medication,” according to the note that was distributed by Ben Hansen, a Michigan resident and self-styled mental health advocate, who runs a web site called Dr. Bonkers (background here).
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Sac Bee, On CalPERS -- And Merck's Stint Controlling Medco -- The Scandal Allegations Roll On. . . And On.
The Sacramento Bee has done an excellent job of covering this public corruption story for years now. Lately, one facet of the [alleged bribes to] Villalobos [to curry favor, for certain investments by CalPERS] matter to sudenly sparkle dazzlingly -- in the Bee's bright sunlight -- is the connection between Villalobos and Merck-Medco. Apparently, while receiving around $4 million to consult on the audit of a prior Cal contract for prescription benefits management, Alfred JR Villalobos was being paid an additional $20,000 per month continuously through 2009 (or about a quarter-million dollars a year) from Medco, for "largely non-CalPERS related" contract advice. Really? As they say, where there's smoke -- often there is fire, too.Do go read the whole Bee article, here -- but this is a bit of it:
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Off The Cuff

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By: SHADOWFAX March 16, 2011

Antarctica, 1961: A Soviet Surgeon Has to Remove His Own Appendix (from The Atlantic)
I worked without gloves. It was hard to see. The mirror helps, but it also hinders -- after all, it's showing things backwards. I work mainly by touch. The bleeding is quite heavy, but I take my time -- I try to work surely. Opening the peritoneum, I injured the blind gut and had to sew it up. Suddenly it flashed through my mind: there are more injuries here and I didn't notice them ... I grow weaker and weaker, my head starts to spin. Every 4-5 minutes I rest for 20-25 seconds. Finally, here it is, the cursed appendage! With horror I notice the dark stain at its base. That means just a day longer and it would have burst
More complete case report here in the BMJ.

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Doctors and Differences

Opinion

Damon Tweedy, M.D., physician at Duke University Medical Center(The News & Observer, North Carolina, March 12, 2011)"It has been 15 years since I first entered the world of medicine. During that time, several groups…have made national news issuing reports that detail differential treatment based on race…medical schools and physician training programs have implemented cultural competency initiatives and stressed increasing the numbers of black doctors to help remedy health disparities. While this may be a welcome start, there are several other factors beyond the scope of any individual doctor -- expanding insurance coverage and greater patient education to name two -- that are needed to make real change."

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Is Happiness Overrated?

Shirley S. Wang(The Wall Street Journal, New York, March 15, 2011) "Some researchers say happiness as people usually think of it...is far less important to physical health than the type of well-being that comes from engaging in meaningful activity. Researchers refer to this latter state as 'eudaimonic well-being.' Happiness research, a field known as 'positive psychology,' is exploding. Some of the newest evidence suggests that people who focus on living with a sense of purpose as they age are more likely to remain cognitively intact, have better mental health and even live longer than people who focus on achieving feelings of happiness."

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Amid War on a Mystery Disease, Patients Clash With Scientists

Amy Dockser Marcus(The Wall Street Journal, New York, March 12, 2011) "As the debate over XMRV illustrates…[scientist / patient] clashes are starting at increasingly early stages of the scientific process, sometimes altering the way research is conducted. The Internet has given patients the ability to organize and rapidly disseminate medical information -- and rumors as well…Scientists warn that putting early science in the public spotlight can not only slow down research, but also backfire."

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Video: An Up-Close Look at Springtime
March 18, 2011

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Springtime - A Journey Into Macro Space from Gunther Machu on Vimeo.

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