From Time.com:

On July 17, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, scrapped plans for a large clinical trial of the government’s most advanced HIV vaccine candidate to date. The vaccine, a two-shot injection, was designed to fight HIV infection a new way — by activating the body’s cell-based immune responses rather than by relying on antibodies to HIV.

It’s not a complete surprise, as a similar vaccine failed to live up to expectations last year. Very disappointing, and there’s not much else on the immediate horizon.

Early on in the AIDS epidemic, the experts were very confident that there would be a vaccine within a few years. Once the virus was identified, it was only a matter of putting the components together and coming out with the magic potion. But as the years passed, and vaccine attempt after vaccine attempt failed, the outlook was less rosy.

While I don’t think that efforts to find a vaccine should be abandoned, I do think that the emphasis should be on preventing and treating the disease. We know how its spread, we know how to stop it. Which is why it is so devastating to see the U.S. throwing away funding to meet political and idealogical goals, rather than the needs of the population being served. See my post from July 18.

Like, does it make sense to ignore sex workers? Are they going to disappear if they are ignored, go uneducated about AIDS, and untreated? Are they not going to infect anyone if we refuse to acknowledge that they exist? And do the wealthy politicians in the US have any inkling that sex work is the only job for many of these young girls (and boys)?

Or the idea that needle exchange is going to encourage people to be drug addicts. Please, that philosophy reeks of the “just say no” attitude. Drug addicts don’t live in a vacuum. If they share dirty needles, they spread infectious diseases. It’s as simple as that. And then not only will they become ill (and become a burden on society if you want to look at it monetarily), but they will spread it around.

Anyway, in lieu of the elusive vaccine, we need to work with the information and tools that we have right now.

It seems that the CDC, while certainly concerned about human health, is also concerned about phama industry financial health and profits. Most of you have probably seen the new recommendation that all children get a flu shot, every year! Like kids aren’t already getting enough shots, now the CDC wants to add a yearly flu shot to the repertoire. I certainly hope that this will not become a mandatory requirement for school, as a lot of people just do not want flu shots for either themselves or their family (I am one of them).

This was an interesting opinion piece on the subject, and also points out the rather disturbing factors that figure into this equation, namely to “buy” flu shots so that the manufacturers continue to make them.

From foodconsumer.org:

The panel’s advice came roughly two weeks after the U.S. health officials at the CDC showed concerns about the efficacy of the flu vaccine that does not well-match the strains that are circulating currently in all the 50 states.

As estimated, large percentages of flu strains are not covered by the flu vaccine, meaning that vaccine’s efficacy is in doubt. And indeed, it has been observed that some people who got flu shots still came down with the illness that often causes only inconvenience.

However, Dr. Joe Bresee of the CDC’s influenza division said early “While a less-than-ideal virus match between the viruses in the vaccine and those circulating viruses can reduce vaccine effectiveness, we know from past influenza studies that the vaccine can still protect enough to make illness milder or prevent flu-related complications.”

Early this month, the CDC released news saying that 6 children died from flu complications, but the agency did not elaborate any case. Sensitive health observers took a note of this and predicted earlier that the CDC’s vaccine panel in the regular meeting this year would make their recommendations for flu vaccine in a way to cover all people.

So even though the vaccine is often less than effective, they still want to push this yet on more of the population. A lot of people do not want this vaccine, and while it would be difficult to mandate it for adults, I suppose that the CDC/pharm lobby figure that they can push up usage (and profit) by forcing it on children instead.

One very hazy area is the actual death rate from the flu. The CDC touts the magic number “36,000″ as the number of Americans who die from the flu each year, and if you ever notice, that number does not change. It remains the same whether its a bad year or a good year, and I imagine that if everyone on earth got a flu vaccine, they would still be touting that same number.

You know why? It’s not an actual number and amazing how the media never questions it. It’s a computer guesstimate. Notice that the CDC never actually posts the real number of people who die due to flu complications. That’s because the number is incredibly low, and doesn’t fit into the scare tactics of “needing” a vaccine.

If you ever take a look at their actual statistics, the CDC lumps influenza and pneumonia together. That makes the number higher. When divided up, the real casualty from flu is probably about 1 to 1.5% of these 36,000, and the rest was due to pneumonia.

But getting back to kids…this year, 22 children had died of the flu, but last year, which was a milder season, 68 children died. While it is sad that these children died, it is not a reason to force the vaccine on 59 million children, in order to avoid 22 deaths. That’s like saying that school age children shouldn’t be allowed in cars, because so many die in traffic accidents (a helluva lot more who died of the flu). Or backyard pools should be banned, because children have drowned in them ( a lot more than die of the flu)

This is perhaps the most insidious comment:

Even in the group aged 6 months to 2 years, the inoculation rate was only 20% during the 2006-2007 period, according to Reuters reporting today, a rate that has made CDC officials to show their worry last year that the pharmaceutical companies may cease producing the flu vaccine because of the low usage rate. One top official at the CDC indicated last year that even for the sake of the vaccine makers, people should go get flu shots.

So in other words, we should all get the flu vaccine just to keep the manufacturer happy? Are these people daft or what?

If someone wants to get a flu vaccine, or wants to get a child vaccinated, then fine. But making flu vaccines mandatory for anyone is way out of line, simply because of the fear that the manufacturer isn’t making a huge profit. First, how about the CDC publishing real numbers as far as death rates from the flu. That would be a start. It is amazing how the mainstream media just spits out that 36,000 number like its a mantra. Haven’t any reporters noticed that its a little weird how the number never changes?

Second, vaccine production needs an overhaul. There must be some way that the government and manufacturers can come to an agreement about the vaccine.

Just as an addendum to the late, great study on STDs in teens. I notice that none of the mainstream media outlets mentioned the timing of this, given how Merck’s aggressive and ethically challenged lobbying for HPV vaccine mandates was exposed and largely failed last year. Why now? Is it because enough time has passed that people don’t remember, so it’s time to make another push for the vaccine by going through the back door, via a “scientific study.”

Also of concern is the study population itself. The survey contacted 838 women ages 14 to 19 who agreed to be tested for a sexually transmitted infection. Now, these are girls who are probably sexually active if they agreed to be tested. Do they represent the general population? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on where you’re looking, and also the age group. There are going to be a lot more 18 and 19 year old girls screwing around, as opposed to 14 year olds.

But from the very select population, the researchers estimated that 3.2 million teenagers are infected with at least one STD.

It doesn’t seem like any reporters questioned this data, or asked the CDC what else can be done aside from promoting the Merck vaccine.

Well, yeah, we already know that the United States leads the developed world in sexually transmitted infections, and also in HIV infection (as opposed to just your run of the mill twat and weenie diseases). And we also lead the developed world in rates of teenage pregnancy, abortion, and unwanted/unintended pregnancy in general, despite the fact that rates for pregnant teens have declined somewhat.

But this new CDC report is a little sketchy, and of course, the mainstream media has to present it in the most alarmist way possible. Nothing like stirring the pot in the fight for ratings, is there.

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than one in four U.S. teen girls is infected with at least one sexually transmitted disease, and the rate is highest among blacks, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

An estimated 3.2 million U.S. girls ages 14 and 19 — about 26 percent of that age group — have a sexually transmitted infection such as the human papillomavirus or HPV, chlamydia, genital herpes or trichomoniasis, the CDC said.

This really isn’t at all surprising, considering that decent and informative sex ed isn’t available in schools (just say no until marriage doesn’t cut it). And after we get through the hype and canned quotes, it isn’t until much further down that we learn that HPV, which can cause genital warts and cervical cancer, was the most common infection, seen in 18% of the girls. HPV, for the vast majority of both girls and boys, is transient. You catch it, and your own body’s immune system takes care of it. There is no treatment for it and most people wouldn’t need treatment anyway. Most people in fact, never even know that they have an HPV infection. So girls who were counted at the time of the survey as having HPV may have been “cured” of it by the time theses results were published.

It says that the second most common infection was chlamydia, seen in 4% of the girls. Trichomoniasis was seen in about 3% of the girls, and 2% had Herpes simplex virus type 2–which seems kind of low. They didn’t ask about syphilis, gonorrhea or HIV infection, but the prevalence of those diseases are quite low in this age group. But without HPV in the picture, the rate of STDs that actually cause symptoms and have a treatment protocol, is only 9%.

This isn’t to downgrade the importance of HPV as having the potential to wreck havoc, but as I said, for most people who come in contact with it, HPV is benign. Some studies estimate that up to 75% of the sexually active population are exposed to at least 1 strain of HPV (there are about 100), and because HPV is so firmly entrenched in the general population, a person can have very few sexual partners and still come into contact with this virus.

But I think the main message here is the differences among ethnic/racial groups.

Forty-eight percent of black teen-age girls were infected, compared to 20 percent of whites and 20 percent of Mexican American girls. The report did not give data on the broader U.S. Hispanic population.

So why are black girls so much more likely to be infected? Well, I guess that can be the subject of a thesis, as racial disparities in healthcare are seen in all areas, whether it be breast cancer, heart disease or STDs.

What does this survey tell us? Absolutely nothing that we didn’t already know. Instead of wasting time and funds coming up with new numbers to crunch, how about doing something about the high rates of STDs in the U.S., as well as racial disparities. But I guess it’s easier to keep doing studies that conclude that we “need to do something,” rather than actually doing it.

Doing something about it means getting the new HPV vaccine, according to the CDC. And these articles read like an advertisement for it. I wouldn’t be surprised if this survey was just a scare tactic to show how many girls are infected with it, and why we are in dire need of this vaccine. Never mind that evidence is slowly creeping out that there are safety issues connected with the vaccine (deaths have been reported), and that perhaps the benefit does not equal the risk.

I would recommend the vaccine to women in developing nations, where cervical cancer is a major cause of cancer death. But in the U.S. and other industrialized nations, closer attention needs to be paid to the adverse events.

And as I said, touting a vaccine doesn’t to address the health problems that I described above. The CDC should be on the forefront advocating universal primary health care, reproductive services for both men and women, and getting some real sex ed into schools–and having it taught by someone who is trained to teach it, not the algebra teacher who isn’t quite sure what sperm is.

I’m really surprised that this hasn’t gotten more press. I looked in Google news, and nearly all of the media outfits that picked it up are Canadian. Not one American mainstream news service other than Science Daily.

Now I realize that this study does come out of Canada, but this is really exciting stuff. Canada is a first world nation, speaks English, and conducts reputable scientific experiments. So why no interest?

From the University of Alberta:

February 28, 2008 - Edmonton - A team of researchers at the University of Alberta has discovered a gene that is able to block HIV, and in turn prevent the onset of AIDS. Stephen Barr, a molecular virologist in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, says his team has identified a gene called TRIM22 that can block HIV infection in a cell culture by preventing the assembly of the virus.

One of the greatest challenges in battling HIV is the virus’ ability to mutate and evade medications. Antiretroviral drugs introduced during the late 1990s interfere with HIV’s ability to produce new copies of itself - and though beneficial, the drugs are unable to eradicate the virus. Barr and his team have discovered a gene that could potentially do the job naturally.

If you are not weary yet of press releases, here is another one from the Center for Health and Gender Equity. Apparently, our government officials, or at least the ones who hold the purse strings to PEPFAR (no names mentioned) think that family planning is anti-life.

I’m not really sure whose life they are talking about. The potential fetus who may be conceived if the HIV infected woman has unprotected sex and doesn’t use any time of contraceptive? Are we now going from embryos to “possible embryos.”

As far as I know, HIV is spread by having unprotected sex, among other routes. HIV is also transmitted from mother to baby. Being ill with a disease like AIDS, to say nothing of the socioeconomic impact, isn’t really the best time for most women to think of starting a family, adding to their current family, or getting pregnant accidentally. To say nothing of how many women die of pregnancy/childbirth related causes in developing countries, or die from botched illegal abortions.

But somehow, providing reproductive services is “contrary to PEPFAR’s life saving principles.” Hmm, let’s see how many little chickadees the Bush girls produce once they get married. And how odd that George himself only had 2 children, and twins no less, that were the product of a single pregnancy. Why is it okay for people living in wealthy nations like the U.S. to have access to family planning, but it’s not okay for women in poor nations (and arguably the ones who need it most) to have the same benefit?

However, I know we’ve heard a lot of this gibberish before, but twisting together family planning with HIV infection, and calling it “anti-life” goes beyond absurdity.

U.S. Health, Rights Leaders Decry Department of State Position that Family Planning is Anti-Life, Demand Response

(Washington, D.C.)-As the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs deliberated over legislation to reauthorize the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) this week, U.S. health and rights organizations objected to the State Department’s opposition to a draft version of the bill regarding a provision that would have allowed PEPFAR funds to be used for family planning to prevent HIV transmission.

How difficult is it to get this right? They try to do something helpful, but in the end, put up hoops and inundate everything with this abstinence only nonsense. How many times do they have to be told, that abstinence-until-marriage programs do not address the needs of the populations who are currently most at risk for getting infected with HIV (hint: women who are ALREADY married, but have husbands with wandering organs and/or who are at risk for sexual abuse).

Another thing is the obsession with sex workers. If you ignore sex workers, or try to muscle them out of HIV programs, you may as well pack up shop and leave. Sex workers exist, like it or not, and if you don’t treat them and make sure they protect themselves, they are one group that is capable of spreading the virus like there is no tomorrow.

And just to add–perhaps Mr. Bush and his prudish friends, who can’t bear the sound of the word “prostitute,” might like to come up with an alternative means of making a living for these people. What does he plan to do, right now, right at this second, to help several thousand poor illiterate women who have no means of supporting themselves? Or the girls out there who are making money to feed their families with the only thing they have–their body?

Well, I’m waiting. Come on guys, let’s hear it. Are you packing your bags and heading overseas to give these women (and men) jobs? Are you setting them up in school or in a place to learn skills? Are you going to give them money to live on so that they don’t have to peddle their bodies for cash (or dinner, or medicine for their infant, etc)?

It sounds so noble to come out against prostitution, and to have recipients of PEPFAR funding pledge their opposition to prostitution, but in reality, the vast majority of people working as prostitutes in developing nations probably aren’t doing it as a lifestyle choice. It’s a lifestyle necessity, so maybe instead of trying to pretend they don’t exist or moralize them away, it may be more useful to do something constructive about it.

And as far as abstinence, you know, you never hear Bush talk about his daughters’ virginity. Are they abstinent until marriage? Are both of them pure and pristine? Was GW Bush or Laura before marriage? How about all the other holy rollers? How about their kids?

Anyway, this diatribe is leading up to a press release about the latest from PEPFAR.

U.S. Congress Introduces New PEPFAR Bill: Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back

Center for Health and Gender Equity praises removal of abstinence earmark and support for female condoms; criticizes ambiguous abstinence language, compromise over family planning language, and re-insertion of the anti-prostitution pledge

The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) is a US-based non-governmental organization that seeks to ensure that U.S. international policies and programs promote sexual and reproductive health and rights through effective, evidence-based approaches to prevention and treatment of critical reproductive and sexual health concerns, and through increased funding for critical international programs and institutions.

A real man should have a real penis–here it is…

So said the email in my box, and on Thanksgiving Day no less. Well, I didn’t see a penis enclosed in that email. Liars!

But considering the inordinate number of emails that I get box in my regular box and blog comments, about the plight of men with a small penis, I have to wonder if there really is something going on. Is there a small penis epidemic raging in the U.S. and even worldwide? Is it some deadly plague that is silently creeping up on us and insidiously shrinking the male penis to microscopic measurements?

Hmmm….

Did you know that prehistoric scorpions were over 8 feet tall? Well, now you know.

Check out Boing Boing. They do have the weirdest stuff on that site.

That’s of course if they walked upright. Since they crawl around on fours, I would imagine that they were about the size of alligators. Nice, huh?

Imagine getting bitten by a poisonous one. That would be about equal to have a quart of venom released into your body. I doubt the local ER could do anything, except if it’s an ER doc like George Clooney. Or a saint like Dr. Welby.

From the NY Times:

A new, unusually virulent form of a virus that can cause colds and other respiratory infections has caused 10 deaths in the last 18 months, federal health officials said. The new virus, Ad14 (for adenovirus serotype 14), has caused at least 140 illnesses in New York, Oregon, Texas and Washington, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The illness made headlines in Texas in September, when a so-called boot camp flu sickened hundreds at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. A 19-year-old trainee died.

I’m actually surprised that this hasn’t made more news until now. Usually killer bugs splash across the headlines with news of their exploits. Well, this can be a trial run for when the great flu pandemic hits. Let’s see if they can supply healthcare workers with the proper safety gear.

The United States is a leader in….drum roll…

Well, take a guess.

Okay, I’ll give you a hint. It’s stuff that you can get from having sex. It’s also stuff that happens when people aren’t being properly educated, and there is no comprehensive primary care network of healthcare.

See what we have to show for ourselves, from the Seattle PI

Just when you thought that it was safe to go outside….

The plague. Like, isn’t that from the middle ages, when the plague swept across Central Asia and Europe and is believed to have killed about 75 million people before calling it a day? Actually, 75 million was just the toll for one year.

* 1000 38 million
* 1100 48 million
* 1200 59 million
* 1300 70 million
* 1347 75 million
* 1352 50 million

However, the bubonic plague has not been wiped off the face of the earth, and is found in many countries including the United States. Yes, gasp, we have the plague right here at home. It’s not very common, but it is endemic in the southwest.

An average of 10-15 cases per year have been reported in the U.S. during the last few decades. One of the largest animal foci of the plague worldwide is found west of the 100th parallel, in states such as New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and California. Only one case of imported plague has been reported since 1926, and in 2006, 13 human plague cases were reported in the United States, the most since 1994. Not a good trend, if you ask me.

I remember reading a while ago that because the plague is quite uncommon in the U.S., your chance of getting a correct diagnosis is not very good. At least, not before it kills you. In fact, you are far more likely to get a correct diagnosis in Vietnam, where they see far more cases, and changes of survival are far greater.

From Medical News Today:

Eric York, a 37 year old wildlife biologist who worked at the Grand Canyon National Park who was found dead at his home on the South Rim of the Canyon in Arizona on November 2nd, probably died of the plague caught while carrying out an autopsy on a mountain lion that had probably died of the disease a week earlier.

Plague, due to the bacterium Yersinia pestis, was confirmed as the likely cause of death following preliminary laboratory tests at the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

York had been treated at a local clinic for flu like symptoms that started three days after he did the autopsy, but nothing more serious than that was diagnosed at the time. When he was found dead health officials suspected either plague or hantavirus that causes a type of hemorrhagic fever, and immediately tracked down 49 people who had been in recent contact with him so they could have aggressive antibiotic treatment. None of them has become ill.

No, it seems. I don’t know if this applies to nurses in general, but it seems that at least the nurses and nursing students posting on allnurses.com are not about to sacrifice themselves for the “public good.” Whatever that means.

Backtrack…someone posted the classic hypothetic scenario. The bird flu finally manages to mutate, causes the long awaited pandemic, with a fatality rate of 60% and with 80% of the cases in the 0-40 year old age range.

You, as the devoted nurse, must face the following situation: Hospitals are overwhelmed and staffing is at about 50%. The Government orders all nurses to work (and I’m assuming, although the poster didn’t say, all doctors as well). There is not enough Personal Protection Equipment (N95 masks, gloves, goggles, tamiflu, vax, etc).

Home quarantines become common, your family is quarantined and supplies are running low (stuff like food). However, Big Brother aka the feds, promise that you will be “taken care of” if you are a good nurse and report to work.

So would you go to work?

The scenario does sound like the real situation, should a pandemic ever occur. Since healthcare workers are readily treated like throwaway items, hospitals and government have not invested in making sure that there are sufficient amounts of Personal Protection Equipment. So if you are a good nurse and enter the hospital, you better be ready to sacrifice yourself.

I didn’t read all of the comments, but the majority would not go in. Or would only go in if they were able to attend to their family first. But most were highly skeptical of a government promise to be taken care of….I mean, without protection, does that mean the government will pay your funeral expenses? Put lilies on your grave?

One person made an excellent point, and one that any of our pandemic planners should take to heart:

“Pandemic or not, my family comes first. Sorry, but its not my problem that they have not invested enough money for PPE, staff and research; nor, should I risk my life trying to accomodate their mistakes.”

The poster also pointed out that we are not likely to see politicians or any other high level officials rolling up their sleeves and exposing themselves to patients stricken with a deadly disease, without being able to protect themselves.

You can read the full thread on allnurses.com

It is a conundrum because someone has to care for the sick. And I’m sure that nurses and other healthcare workers wouldn’t mind coming in, if they truly were going to be “taken care of.” Paid extra, have food and other supplies delivered to their families, and given the top of the line protection against contracting the virus from patients. But gone are the days when the nurse is supposed to lay herself on the altar and try to be a martyr.

I had an interesting conversation a few years ago about coming into work during a disaster. A nurse, who I will call Marcy, was talking about her friend who worked during one of the hurricanes that hit the Atlantic coast during the 1980s. I think it may have been Hugo. She said that her friend went into work, rather than evacuate. The hospital she was working at was damaged, as was her home. Because she was at work and couldn’t leave, she had no time to even attempt to secure her home.

I said that the nurse was crazy. Marcy got a stiff lip and said that her friend was a “devoted nurse” and should be commended. I said that the hospital, being in harm’s way, should have evacuated their patients. There was quite a bit of warning for the hurricane, and hospitals do have the option of evacuating patients. They should not expect staff to risk their lives coming into work, or to willingly stay over and do shift after shift. What they did was put everyone at risk.

It is an interesting conundrum, nevertheless.

Just like a virulent bacteria or virus, Wal-Mart has spread across the U.S. The entry from Boing Boing contains an interactive map, which shows the insidious spread of WalMartitis, from ground zero in Bentonville, AR.

When you click on the Boing Boing link, you will see a map of the US that begins in 1962, with the first Walmart store. Then as the years and decades go by, you can see how the WalMart pathogen has spread, just like any other dangerous parasite.

The good news is that we seem to be developing a way of containing WalMartitis, and of eradicating the parasite. Hopefully, we will see it vanish, just like small pox and polio.

Today, though, Wal-Mart’s influence over the retail universe is slipping. In fact, the industry’s titan is scrambling to keep up with swifter rivals that are redefining the business all around it. It can still disrupt prices, as it did last year by cutting some generic prescriptions to $4. But success is no longer guaranteed.

Rival retailers lured Americans away from Wal-Mart’s low-price promise by offering greater convenience, more selection, higher quality, or better service. Amid the country’s growing affluence, Wal-Mart has struggled to overhaul its down-market, politically incorrect image while other discounters pitched themselves as more upscale and more palatable alternatives. The Internet has changed shoppers’ preferences and eroded the commanding influence Wal-Mart had over its suppliers.

You know, the Walton family are among the richest people in the world. WalMart still earns zillions in profit. So why should I have to subsidize WalMart employees, who are often eligible for public assistance (think Medicaid) because their pay check is so low, and WalMart refuses to offer universal health insurance to its employees.

I just love this history site I found. It is terrific for a history buff like me, as it contains first person accounts dating back several hundred years ago. I’ve been looking at entries related to health and nursing, but they cover all kinds of topics.

This is an interesting audio interview with a nurse named Bruce Priebe who became infected with HIV and subsequently became an AIDS activist in the 1980s.

PRIEBE: I was a nurse for eight years before I found out that I was HIV+. And I like to think that I was delivering healthcare in a caring, compassionate way and a way that did not bring any harm to anyone. And I didn’t have a personality change after I found out I was HIV+. I still feel that way. There are a lot of healthcare workers that are HIV+, including physicians. But we do not allow them to tell us that because when they do we hit them over the head with a hammer. So I can understand why people chose not to do it. Unfortunately, because again, that creates the illusion that there aren’t, that there’s just this isolated little group.

I don’t really consider myself a political activist, but you’d be amazed at how active you can become when this is happening to you and to your friends and your family. I think it’s called a lot of us into a type of activism that we might not have imagined seeing ourselves doing. We formed a civil disobedience group called the Forget-Me-Nots and we had t-shirts with pictures of people close to us who had died with their names and the dates of their birth and death. And we went to the Supreme Court and were arrested. And when we were at the FDA in 1988, we were chanting 40,000 died and I remember thinking, what a horrendous number of people — 40,000 people. And yesterday I read there were 153,000 people and God only knows how many thousands of people will have died by the time this film is seen.

Unfortunately, the audio or transcript doesn’t say if Priebe became infected in the workplace via a needlestick, or if he was a gay male who picked it up sexually, or so on. I think that information is important to the interview, as it would demonstrate that healthcare workers were very much at risk, especially in the early days of the epidemic.

If towering snow capped mountains, thick forests, constant rain and Microsoft aren’t reason enough to convince you to move to Washington, here’s some news that might make you change your mind.

Sex.

Yes, people living in Washington state are apparently screwing around quite a bit. According to the Washington State Department of Health the rates of STDs in the state are soaring.

Gonorrhea cases in 2006 increased 13% from the year before to the highest rates seen in 13 years. We’re also seeing increased resistance to antibiotics and an increase in risky behavior–obviously, but I love when the talking heads tack that on.

The award for highest rates of gonorrhea go to Cowlitz County, which has clocked in with more than triple the state average of 66.4 cases per 100,000 residents. Chlamydia remains the most commonly reported STD in Washington, with the most cases reported among women 15-24 years old.

Overall, more than 22,000 cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis infection were reported to local health agencies in Washington in 2006.

Now isn’t this something to be proud of!

Is it my imagination, or is there a serious lack of safety protocols in our food industry? It seems every other day there is something that is being recalled, or that has sent people to the hospital, or is contaminated with ghastly microbes.

Could it be that the safety enforcement is so lax because we don’t have a real agency that monitors this? I don’t consider political mouthpieces and industry puppets to be taking care of food and drug safety, do you? And certainly, the hallowed FDA gives these industries a tap on the knuckles when they should be giving them a kick in the ass and setting steep fines that really hurt.

Here’s the latest in recalls. Beware fans of canned chili, botulism is coming to get you!

From MedicalNewstoday.com:

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers not to eat certain brands of canned chili sauce because they could get botulism poisoning which can be fatal.

A couple in Indiana and two children in Texas are seriously ill in hospital after eating the affected products. This was confirmed after testing left overs in a refrigerator. They started getting ill between June 29 and July 9.

All of the affected products are made by the Castleberry Food Company in Augusta, Georgia.

It seemed odd to me that we switched Surgeon Generals in the middle of an administration, but I guess George W did not like having someone around who actually wanted to do his job. Put it this way, he wanted a mouthpiece who would back-up his devastating policies and attacks on reproductive rights, and who would embrace his ideas even though they conflicted with evidence based medicine.

So Richard Carmona, who happens to be a really nice guy with a squeaky clean background (I met him), and one who has been on the frontlines as a medic and a nurse prior to becoming a physician, got the boot.

But now at least, he is speaking up. And letting the nation know how deadly George W. Bush is to our health–as if we don’t didn’t know that already, but it’s nice that the former Surgeon General has broken the silence.

From the Washington Post:

Former surgeon general Richard H. Carmona yesterday accused the Bush administration of muzzling him on sensitive public health issues, becoming the most prominent voice among several current and former federal science officials who have complained of political interference.

Carmona, a Bush nominee who served from 2002 to 2006, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that political appointees in the administration routinely scrubbed his speeches for politically sensitive content and blocked him from speaking out on public health matters such as stem cell research, abstinence-only sex education and the emergency contraceptive Plan B.

Ah yes, the insidious Plan B. George got his lap pups at the FDA to do his bidding on that, but even they couldn’t hold out forever. Then again, the FDA was simply living up to their name and reputation (Faith Drug Agency).

In one such case, Carmona, a former professor of surgery and public health at the University of Arizona, said he was told not to speak out during the national debate over whether the federal government should fund embryonic stem cell research, which President Bush opposes.

“Much of the discussion was being driven by theology, ideology, [and] preconceived beliefs that were scientifically incorrect,” said Carmona, one of three former surgeons general who testified at yesterday’s hearing. “I thought, ‘This is a perfect example of the surgeon general being able to step forward, educate the American public.’ . . . I was blocked at every turn. I was told the decision had already been made — ‘Stand down. Don’t talk about it.’ That information was removed from my speeches.”

Carmona said that when the administration touted funding for abstinence-only education, he was prevented from discussing research on the effectiveness of teaching about condoms as well as abstinence. “There was already a policy in place that did not want to hear the science but wanted to just preach abstinence, which I felt was scientifically incorrect,” Carmona said.

The White House weenies of course deny this, giving the usual pre-digested rhetoric (their nonsensical statements are in the article). But I believe Carmona, because he’s not the only one who’s been ousted from Bushland. And there was no reason to replace him, except that he didn’t walk the Bush-line. He wanted to do his job.

Imagine if Koop hadn’t broken free of Reaganitis, and kept silent on AIDS in the 1980s? Imagine if he had allowed himself to be muzzled? To Reagan’s credit, he didn’t get rid of Koop, and I kind of think he was a little bit grateful that his staunch conservative Surgeon General flew the conservative coop (yes, a pun) of silence and pretending that AIDS didn’t exist, and became a staunch advocate of promoting sex ed, condom use, and demystifying AIDS. Reagan had a lot of friends in Hollywood–friends who were gay and dying of AIDS. Koop may have well been his Godsend, actually, because when all of the neo-cons got crazy over what was coming out of Koop’s mouth, Reagan could just shrug and say, “I don’t know, it’s not in my script. Go talk to Nancy.”

And no one wanted to mess with Nancy!

Bush’s bedroom, that is. What happens when wife Laura smacks him in the face and says, “George, your policy sucks.”

Never mind that the man just pardoned a traitor to the United States of America…a man who betrayed his country…but that’s another story which I don’t want to get into.

Bedroom antics are more in tune with this blog. Here’s a hot news release, fresh off the press from the The Center for Health and Gender Equity. I know, the very name probably makes the Prez and his comrades queasy.

First Lady Laura Bush Supports Waiver of Abstinence-Until-Marriage Earmark in PEPFAR

Washington, DC: During her trip to several African countries, U.S. First Lady Laura Bush told CNN that, while she believes abstinence is an important component of prevention efforts, she has no problem with Congress waiving the requirement that 1/3 of U.S. global prevention funding be spent on abstinence-until-marriage programs. Mrs. Bush was talking about the language passed by Congress that waives the abstinence-until-marriage earmark in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). According to CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux, Bush said “she found that idea perfectly fine.”

The CNN video can be found at http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/07/03/malveaux.laura.bush.aids.cnn

So not even his wife supports his damning policies. Very interesting and I hope we hear more about this. Trouble in paradise, hmm…

I certainly hope that nurses are ignoring this nonsense, and giving patients the information that they need, whenever they can. If a teen asks how to protect herself from getting AIDS, or even getting pregnant, please don’t tell her to cross her legs and wait for the bliss of holy matrimony. The reality is–the girl has probably already had sex but is getting smart and wants to protect herself. And in many nations around the world, this girl may be about to be sold off to an older man who is already infected.

On this date in 1860, the first 15 students entered the training program with St. Thomas’s Hospital in London. It was Florence Nightingale’s grand experiment, which as we all know, was a great success in some respects and backfired badly in others. But whatever, it is a date indelibly etched into the archives of nursing history.