When Anti-Infant Immunizations Become Childhood Onset Diseases

On February 17, 2012 I wrote an article — When Doctors Fire Patients — that dealt with, among other things, the anti-vaccination efforts of some people — led by debunked semi-celebrity Jenny McCarthy — who believe childhood immunizations cause Autism even though there is, and has never been, any empirical medical proof for that claim.  When pressed for scientific evidence, the anti-vaccine believers simply talk about “mother’s intuition” and other nonsense that not only puts their non-immunized children at risk for disease, but the rest of society at risk as well as these unprotected children become certain carriers of diseases that should have been eradicated from the face of the earth.

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A 30-Year-Old Perfume Poisoning and the Three-Day Sneeze

Is it possible to poison oneself with a spritz from a 30-year-old bottle of perfume?  Can one create their own self-inflicted bioterror attack and suffer the consequences for three straight days of full-body sneezing?  I am here to testify that it is not only possible, it just happened to me!

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MRSA Revisited: “Out, D-a-m-n-e-d Spot! Out, I Say!”

Four or five months ago when I was doing my routine self-breast check I found a small pea sized lump on my breastbone, nestled in my cleavage.

A quick check with our doctor at the time confirmed what I had first thought — a fatty lump or sebaceous cyst — nothing to be concerned about.

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50 Years of Regret

My article on Seven Depressions yesterday brought an old friend back in touch who shared with me that he has been suffering from depression most of his adult life.  He appreciated the bluntness of the post that depressed people are sort of stuck in their lives traveling from one medication to another looking for the right mix of meds to help them build a bridge to start feeling average again.  Some never feel better.  Nobody finds a cure.

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Seven Depressions

We know most of my friends are still medicated and, the other day, I was concerned when I read an article claiming that most depressive people on daily maintenance medication will have seven major episodes over the arc of their lives.  The demarcation between depressive events was notched as major changes in medication.  Some of my young friends have had only a couple of events.  Some of my older friends are deeper into their modes of seven.

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Möbius Strip Death Notifications at Sunnyside Manor

The smell hung in the air so densely I felt like I could see it: a gray, sickly cloud that pervaded every hallway of the cheerily-named Sunnyside Manor. As I walked to the courtyard toward my Alzheimer’s-afflicted aunt, I couldn’t help the sense of dread building in my stomach. As she turned toward me, her eyes narrowed in confusion, then turned grimly polite.

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Copper Reduces Nosocomial Infections by 58%

When I was teaching Public Health at the graduate level at UMDNJ, the notion of how nosocomial infections  spread was a major source of my research intrigue.  What constitutes a nosocomial infection?  Patient-to-patient MRSA?  The patient’s own flora?  A rouge and evil nurse?  The answer to all those questions is a resounding, “Yes!”

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The Over-Stimulated Brain in a Dead Mind

I spent most of last Sunday night slowly and steadily working through the heap of responsibilities that I had steadfastly ignored in favor of the weekend. I did this despite knowing the pitfalls of procrastination, and unsurprisingly, I was tired when I woke up in the morning. I walked to meet a friend for breakfast, silently bemoaning my terrible decision the whole way there, and when I arrived, she was not in much better shape. We exchanged mumbles, I admitted I’d brought this fate entirely on myself, and her reaction was misguided, although sympathetic: “You want an Adderall?”

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Curiosity Can Kill More than the Cat

This has been specifically written for cats and their owners, a lot of the information will apply to dogs and their owners as well.  If your cat is special to you, is a pedigree cat, or has unusual or special markings please, get it chipped. In Portugal this will cost between twenty-five and fifty euros and can be done by most vets.  These cats have a high risk of being stolen.

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Vegan and Vegetarian Food and Recipes in Portugal

Over the last few weeks, I have shared some of the abundance that Portuguese cuisine has to offer. David asked me in one the comments how well Vegans were catered for in Portugal.  It was time for me to do some research.  On the face of it, Vegetarians can manage quite well as a lot of traditional Portuguese dishes incorporate eggs and cheese.  There are even some places where Vegetarian cheese can be bought.

If you are a Vegan, however, it is a very different story.

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Christine Quinn Leading from Behind the SoundProof Room: When Five Paid Sick Days are Not Enough

A sad bit of history was made this week when New York City finally passed a law that requires businesses with at least 15 employees to provide five paid sick days a year.  Five.  Days.  Five days are not enough days to be out sick in a single year, especially in a living space jam-packed-with-people New York City — but at least its a start in a City that clearly has cared more about your cigarettes and sugar consumption and your Big Gulps than ever it did about actually giving you a few days off to heal while still being able to make the rent.

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Metaphoric Synesthesia and the Myoclonic Tick

Synesthesia is one of the most fascinating phenomena.  In its simplest example, one hears a sound and sees a color associated with that sound.  Stevie Wonder has stated that, even though he’s blind, his music is specifically filled with colors he sees in his mind depending on the key and rhythm of the sound:  Visual Hearing.  In its more sophisticated form, Synesthesia changes the colors of words or numbers in a sequence depending on the context of arrangement.  For example, an outline of the number 7 might be perceived as being “seven” and trigger the color blue, but when you look closer — and learn that the 7 is actually made up of many tiny number threes — then the color changes from a 7 trigger color to a 3 trigger color like, say, gold.  Some synesthetes can actually taste the colors as they view them.

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Banishing the Monday Morning Blues

It is a grey day here in Portugal — the sun has temporarily deserted us hidden behind layers of cloud. I have a day full of chores ahead after a weekend of relaxation. Cleaning, laundry, changing cat litter — all the mundane things I love to “hate” but know have to be done. Mr P is already fielding phone calls, organizing international transports from France to Portugal via our usual third-party who just happens to be in Brazil this week — the usual Monday mediocrity.

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