Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus: the latest lethal germ

In 2003 a brand new virus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) caused an outbreak of serious illness in Asia. The outbreak sickened over 8,000 people and killed over 700. Many of the infected were healthcare workers. In February of last year a similar but distinct virus was identified in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Since that time about 200 people have been sickened by MERS, all linked to six countries in or near the...
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Knee Surgery Ineffective for Many Cases of Torn Cartilage

With minor variation, the following is an extremely common sequence of events. A man notices slowly worsening nagging knee pain that persists over months. He sees an orthopedist who examines him and orders an MRI. The MRI shows a tear in the medial meniscus. (The lateral and medial menisci are the cartilage pads that cushion the knee joint.) Pain medicine and physical therapy are prescribed but the pain persists. So the orthopedist recommends surgery and performs an arthroscopic partial meni...
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A Polio Outbreak in China in 2011

Two weeks ago I wrote about the reemergence of polio in Syria and the Herculean task the World Health Organization faces to eradicate the disease – the vaccination over a million children in the Middle East, some of whom live in a war zone. (See that post for a review of the symptoms of polio and the history of polio eradication in the West.) This week’s post is about another polio outbreak which was managed very differentl...
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A Step Forward for Artificial Limbs

Four years ago Zac Vawter was in a motorcycle collision that severely injured his right leg. He underwent an amputation at the knee, thereby becoming one of the more than one million amputees living in the U.S. Over half of the amputations in the U.S. are due to vascular disease – poor circulation caused by diabetes, smoking, and high cholesterol. Just under half are due to trauma. Modern leg prostheses that replace both the knee and ankle joint use motors that power each joint and multip...
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A Better Understanding of Sex Hormones in Men

Testosterone is one of the most over-prescribed and poorly understood medications. It is prescribed to millions of men for myriad indications, many of them unproven. Athletes believe it will improve their muscle mass and strength. Older men look to it as an anti-aging remedy. Men with flagging libido hope it will restore their sex drive. Testosterone has developed a mythology of masculinity. This is very similar to the notions we had a generation ago about estrogen being a fountain of femini...
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Marie Curie Helps Patients with Metastatic Prostate Cancer

Anytime you or I feel particularly content with our achievements, we would be well advised to review the biography of Marie Curie. We would then quickly realize that we are unambitious mediocrities who should be much more productive. The magnitude of her accomplishments is dizzying. Virtually everything we know about radioactivity rests on the work of Madame Curie and her husband Pierre. The Curies coined the term radioactivity. She discovered the elements polonium and radium. She r...
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Even More Studies You Should Ignore

Back when I was a medical student (in the Cretaceous Period) we were taught that someone once did a study comparing folic acid levels in the blood of cancer patients compared to the blood of healthy patients. The cancer patients had, on average, significantly lower folic acid levels. And the ones with the largest, fastest growing tumors tended to have the lowest folic acid levels. “Aha,” they thought. “Something about folic acid deficiency predisposes them to cancer. We should give folic aci...
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A New Weapon against Hospital-Acquired MRSA Infections

The bacterium Staphylococcus aureus can live on our skin and in our noses without causing disease. Such a condition is called bacterial colonization, to contrast it from infection in which the bacteria causes illness. When the skin is broken or when host immunity is weakened Staph. aureus can enter the blood stream or other body spaces and cause life-threatening infection. Because medical procedures frequently involve puncturing or cutting the skin, Staph. aureus a...
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