After Hospitalization, Mental Trouble for Elderly Patients By: Judith Graham- Aerial Williams

Summary:

This article is about how elderly people's mental health declines after their stay at the hospital. There isn't a real reason to why it is, but people are now thinking it's because of the treatment they are recieving during their stay. There has been a study at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago that has proved that memory loss and reasoning had declined faster after a hospitalization. Researchers also suspect the cause of their poor mental health is delirium. They also found out that older patients who have non- critical health problems are more likely to be diagnosed with dementia after hospitalization. 

Question:

What do you think the main cause of the rapid decline of elderly patient's mental health? 

Link:

http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/after-hospitalization-mental-trouble-for-elderly-patients/#

Puberty Before Age 10: A New "Normal"?


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/magazine/puberty-before-age-10-a-new-normal.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=science

In this article, it tells the story of a little girl who began puberty as soon as first grade, but no doctor could explain why until finally, one said that it was a result of stress, insulin, and sugar.  This has been studied since the 80's, as more girls begin growing breasts earlier and earlier, now at about 9.96 years old.  There are however some factors that can cause an early puberty in young girls.  The first would be their weight. The second, if their mothers, while pregnant, drank milk or ate meat with PBB, an estrogen-mimicking chemical.  The third would be social stressful problems.  The effects of an early puberty are depression, weakened bones, early sexual desires, more sex-partners, lower self-esteem, eating disorders, and anxiety.  More research is being conducted on this matter.

Question:  If girls are going through an earlier puberty than other girls of the same age, should the parents step in and have the girls take hormone-inhibiting medicine in order to delay the changes?

Among Doctors, Fierce Reluctance to Let Go

http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/among-doctors-fierce-reluctance-to-let-go/?ref=health

This article is about a women in her 70s who had in writing that she would not like to be on life support, no artificial nutrition, and no nursing home before she was unresponsive after a stroke.  

When she was brought to the hospital, the ambulance crew put her on a ventilator, considered standard procedure.  When she woke up and was able to breathe again, doctors removed it, but the prominent surgeon ordered that she receives IV fluids.  Dr. Matlock, a geriatrician, saw that the surgeon was deliberating ignoring the old woman's wishes of no artificial nutrition.  

By inserting IV fluids, it makes it harder for dying patients to breathe.  "Dehydration is a gentler death, with less agitation" but because she didn't explicitly say "no IVs"in writing as well.  

Do you think it's ethical that patients can have in writing that they don't want to be on life support and the doctors have to respect that?  Or as a doctor, doctors must respect life and try to save it no matter what, even if it goes against the wishes of that person?  

Johns Hopkins Bioethicist: “Individual Mandate” Is Constitutional - Kristy Owyang

http://www.newswise.com/articles/johns-hopkins-bioethicist-individual-mandate-is-constitutional 

SUMMARY

This article is talking about how the government or the supreme court is pressuring people today to obtain health care by 2014 or  face a monetary penalty. Some people believe that this is happening because the government want to strike down the individual mandate to prevent their crucial authority in matters with a substantial economic effect on commerce. But if they strike them down, then the congress could lose their power over national matters (concerns).

QUESTION:

Do you think that the government should pressure the people to get health insurance or should they stay out of it?

Antonio Reybol- FDA must act to remove antibiotics from animal feed: judge

Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/23/us-fda-antibiotics-idUSBRE82M04R20120323


Summary: U.S. Magistrate Judge Theodore Katz has ordered the FDA to continue their investigation and provide evidence that antibiotics are being inserted in animals, and to make sure they are SAFE!  The FDA had started this proceeding back in 1977 but really has not enforced or followed through in their investigation.  We all know that the meat we eat are injected with hormones and antibiotics for multiple reasons.  Because of this, the FDA is being sued by The Natural Resource Defense Council, Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.  These antibiotics that are being injected in the live stock are affecting human health.  It is costing Americans $20 billion for antibiotic-resistant infections.  With this said, Katz has enforced the FDA to continue their proceedings to make sure that the antibiotics are being used are safe.  


Question: Regardless if the antibiotics being used in animals are safe, should they be used at all, especially if it affects our health?  Explain.  

Solving Racism with a Drug

Link:
http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/9967

Summary:
In this article it discusses the controversial topic of the possibility of curing racism. A new drug, propranolol used to treat heart disease, effects the part of the brain dealing with fear and emotional responses. Eighteen individuals were given propranolol and all of them had significantly less subconscious racial bias. Many ethicist find this study intriguing, the possibility of solving hundreds of years of racism seems unbelievable to be left to the solution of a pill. However Dr Chris Chambers, of the University of Cardiff, expressed his doubts of this solution, stating that there is no way to tell whether the drug altered the racial bias' or the brains system more generally.

Question(s):
1. Is it truly a solution to the problem if it is solved by taking a drug?
2. if one could solve the issue of racism with a drug, would you?

Charlotte McGeever - "Gene therapy cures life-threatening lung infection in teenage boy"

My March article, written by Ian Sample, a science correspondent to The Guardian newspaper
 is titled "Gene therapy cures life-threatening lung infection in teenage boy".  


Link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/feb/29/gene-therapy-cures-lung-infection 


Summary
The article is a report on Remy Halbawi, a sixteen year old boy who has become the "first patient to benefit from a new form of gene therapy". Halbawi has a genetic condition, x-CGD (Chronic Granulomatous Disorder); he has a faulty gene that disrupt his immune cells, weakening the body's immune system making him prone to infections. The condition can be cured through a bone marrow transplant (which cured Remy's brother who also inherited the condition), however doctors haven't found a good donor for Remy and decided to begin an "experimental gene therapy technique to replace the faulty gene with a working copy". In doing this, doctors had to make his bone marrow release stem cells through the administering of a drug; the doctors then collected the stem cells from his blood stream to transform/infect them with "a newly developed, genetically modified virus that carries a correct copy of the gene that is faulty in x-CGD". This procedure helped to boost his immune system...only temporarily, but it helped to tackle his lung infection.


One (well two) question I have
How do you feel about altering genes and using DNA as a way to treat disease? Mutations can be terrible, like the one that caused this genetic condition, however they are vital for genetic variation and the process of evolution. (Thanks AP Bio!) So, do you think it would be good or bad thing if we ended up discovering a way to cure and fix all of these conditions that arise from mutations through gene therapy and stem cells...what do you think would happen to us?