Cybermed Update July 2000

 

Nipah Virus

As I have touched at length during the last issue on the controversy or should I say lack of clarification on some issues surrounding the present stand on quarantine and culling of pigs, I leave you with more comments posted in Promed......

 

West Nile Fever (WNF)

WNF seems to still plague New York. The New York Philharmonic concert had to be cancelled because of this!

"Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said at a news conference mosquitoes infected with the virus that causes potentially deadly brain diseases in humans was detected in Central Park and in the borough of Staten Island.

Tens of thousands of people were to attend the New York Philharmonic concert, but the mayor said, ``we would be pushing the odds if we brought that many people into the park.''" Mosquito-Borne Virus Halts Open-Air Concert in NYC (Down)- Reuters

Other interesting links include

 

Haze

The haze seems to be making a comeback. There was some debate recently as to whether the API should be revealed to the public. Finally according to The Star Online dated 21st July 2000 (Down) the "The Department of Environment (DOE) will only make public Air Pollutant Index (API) qualitative readings recorded at 11am." Well at least something is better than nothing. They (The Star) also conducted an online poll (Down) as to whether the API should be published. As of 25th July 2000, 9852 voted with 85% for the publication, 13% against and the remaining 2% seem to be a bit "hazy" being not bothered about it. I am still unclear as to what is meant by qualitative readings? So far at the DOE site I have yet to see any API readings. (Up again in August 2005)

 

Some interesting sites for you to have a look......

 

Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine ( http://www.cebm.net/ )

The Centre has been established in Oxford as the first of several centres around the country whose broad aim is to promote evidence-based health care and provide support and resources to anyone who wants to make use of them.

 

THE TROUBLING LEGACY OF THE TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS STUDY (http://www.med.virginia.edu/hs-library/historical/apology/index.html )

From 1932 to 1972, 399 poor black sharecroppers in Macon County, Alabama were denied treatment for syphilis and deceived by physicians of the United States Public Health Service. As part of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, designed to document the natural history of the disease, these men were told that they were being treated for "bad blood." In fact, government officials went to extreme lengths to insure that they received no therapy from any source. As reported by the New York Times on 26 July 1972, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was revealed as "the longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history." Read this and you will understand why "Good Clinical Practice" guidelines are important.

 

The Health Law Resource (http://www.netreach.net/~wmanning/ )

This page is for those interested in health care law. Primarily, this page is intended as a resource for health care practitioners, professionals or anyone interested in learning more about the dynamic field of health care law, and more specifically, the regulatory and transactional aspects of health care law practice

 

The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy   - Seventeenth Edition Centennial Edition ( http://www.merck.com/mrkshared/mmanual/home.jsp )

An on-line general medical textbook (OB-Gyn, Medicine, Peds, etc...)

 

Quackwatch (http://www.quackwatch.org/ )

Your Guide to Health Fraud, Quackery, and Intelligent Decisions.

Quackwatch, Inc., a member of Consumer Federation of America, is a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, and fallacies. Its primary focus is on quackery-related information that is difficult or impossible to get elsewhere. Founded by Dr. Stephen Barrett in 1969 as the Lehigh Valley Committee Against Health Fraud, it was incorporated in 1970 and assumed its current name in 1997. Their activities include:

The next time you reach for a so called claimed remedy by "compound X or devise Y, check this site. Most of these products/devices when given"an inch, take by the yard and you end up being kicked by the foot"!

 

Museum of Questionable Medical Devices (http://www.mtn.org/~quack/index.htm )

A veritable encyclopedia of the world's most inane and useless information about how to cure and/or comprehend what may ail or puzzle you. Dubbed "The Quackery Hall of Fame" by the Copley Wire Service, the museum is the world's largest display of what the human mind has devised to cure itself without the benefit of either scientific method or common sense. It comprises the major collections on loan from The American Medical Association, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, The St. Louis Science Center, The Bakken Library, The National Council for Reliable Health Information and is supported by the The Phrenology Company of Golden Valley, Minnesota.

Google
 
Web www.vadscorner.com
Locations of visitors to this page


With that I let your "mouse" or your "keyboard" do the "talking".

Till next month, "Happy Surfing".

Cyberdoc (vadivale@yahoo.com )


The links to URL mentioned above are valid at the time of writing (26 July 2000).

Updated 15 October 2005.

This page can be accessed at http://www.vadscorner.com/internet41.html or at http://www.vadscorner.com/mma_internet.html.

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