I have shocking news. Smoking is very very bad for you.
In 1964 the US Surgeon General issued a report summarizing the known adverse health effects of smoking. At that time about 40% of American adults smoked. A widespread campaign followed informing Americans about the link between smoking and lung cancer, emphysema, stroke, and heart attacks. Federal law required the placement of health warnings on cigarette packages, and school children all learned about the adverse health effects of smoki...
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Curing Clostridium difficile with, um, Feces
[This post is grosser than most. You may not want to read it over lunch.]
Last year I warned that Clostridium difficile (C. dif.) infections are becoming more common.
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C. dif. is a bacterium that infects the colon causing severe, sometimes life-threatening, diarrhea. C. dif. infection is frequently a complication of antibiotic use. Antibiotics can kill...
This Year’s Flu Season Isn’t Mild
The last two years have graced us with atypically mild flu seasons. This year we’re not so lucky. The flu season seems to have started early, and at least on the East Coast is quite severe. This week Boston has declared a public health emergency as their emergency departments became swamped with flu cases. In Pennsylvania, a hospital erected a tent outside its emergency department for the increasing number of flu patients. The number of flu cases is increasing in California too, though we may ...
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Many Women Who Don’t Need Them Are Still Getting Pap Tests
My regular readers know that I frequently bemoan the fact that we have no effective way to test for most cancers, and that in many cancers early diagnosis does not improve survival. Cervical cancer is one of the few exceptions. Since Georgios Papanikolau developed the test named after him, the Pap test has dramatically reduced the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer.
More recent advances have shown that cervical cancer is caused by human papilloma virus (HPV), a sexually transmitted in...
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