Category: Health and wellness

Flea, over at One Good Thing, writes another of her posts that have the effect of reducing me to tears. I don’t think I would have the patience of Job that appears to be necessary to raise a child such as Alex. The rewards must be all the greater for being so hard-earned.

What would you rather be: thin and mad, or fat and sane? As far as I’m concerned, there’s no contest – I’d rather be sane, and if that means I’m fat, then so be it. And yet, reading this report in Prospect, it’s as though the authors almost wish that the young woman who is the subject of the story remained thin – i.e. beautiful in their terms – and hence insane. This seems to me to be bizarre – and it’s clearly infuriated Zuzu over at Feministe; I can see why.

I don’t think that I would care to go as far as professor David Pritchard and his team in the cause of pushing back the boundaries of medicine. But at least they know what they are doing. I am reminded of a friend of ours who bought some diet pills some years back. It was only when one of them started moving that she discovered that the diet pills contained tapeworm eggs. The full horror was that she had already taken some and, yep, she had her very own tapeworm growing inside of her. She was thin, though.

Flight simulators are terrific tools for pilots learning how to fly. Pilots can be introduced to a whole range of flying conditions and dangerous circumstances in complete safety in order to prepare them for the real thing. Flight simulators represent the pinnacle of the simulation business. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it’s clear that there’s a whole industry devoted to providing simulators for training doctors and nurses.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, courtesy of Gizmodo, I give you the Digital Rectal Examination Simulator. While you’re at the web site of Kyotokagaku, you may care to check out the other goods on offer, e.g. the Prostate Examination Simulator (with its cunning rotating unit) or the Male Catheterization Simulator (my legs crossed involuntarily at this one).

 

I’m particularly struck by the thoughtful touch of the company including a jar of vaseline with the rectal and prostate simulators, but I thought that they would have known that KY Jelly is much preferred.

It must be tough, trying to be beautiful in Japan.

 

(hat tip to Zapato Productions intradimensional for the link)

I’ve started reading Dr. Crippen’s NHS Doctor blog. He seems to be another fellow soul; close to having a Victor "I don’t believe it!" Meldrew meltdown like me at the foibles of today’s modern world, infested as it is with management consultants and others of their ilk. The good doctor tells another cautionary tale today about the state of cleanliness in the NHS. I fear that something similar is happening in the Dutch health system, but so far, touch wood, I haven’t yet had to sample it at first hand. My time will surely come, though.

A new version of the classic Peter Gabriel song for the sake of a good cause. And if you don’t want to donate via this channel, then there are plenty of others to choose from. Take a moment to pause this Christmas, and think of others who need help.

Dr. Crippen blogs about something that I wonder about. I’m sure that part of it is a sense of "in my day, you were grateful to live in a cardboard box", but somehow I don’t think that’s all it is.

Sayuri turns up another Odd Thing From Japan: a neck stretcher. Perhaps there’s a market for it with the Padaung tribe?

And, it seems, that means broccoli in particular. At least it isn’t brussels sprouts. Although, if you’re a fan of sprouts, then perhaps you’d care to try Jones’ Brussels Sprouts Soda?

Today is World AIDS Day. One of those occasions that you wish you didn’t have to have, but which is important to remember and do something about. 

 

At  a personal level, it’s a chance for me to recall some lost friends: Kerry, Lance, Eric, Humphrey, Peter, John, Kingsley, Graham, and Neil. I’m sorry that you’re not around with the rest of us today.

 

 

Following along the lines of SETI @ Home and ClimatePrediction.Net, there is now a grid computing project that is aimed at helping to design new anti-HIV drugs: FIGHTAIDS @ HOME. Grid computing makes use of the idle time of your computer, and uses it to carry out computations for the particular project that you choose. I’ve got one of my computers running climate prediction computations, and now I’ve switched the other from looking for signs of extra-terrestial life to running the project looking for candidate molecules for anti-HIV drugs.  I reckon the chances that we’ll be rescued from our mess by aliens are less than the chances of finding a cure for AIDS… If you want to join the project as well, go here.

… 1st December is World AIDS Day. Don’t forget to wear your red ribbon.

 

 

Your homework for today is to read this material. In particular, Dr. Woodson’s excellent guide to what you need to know and what you need to do.

Today’s public health service announcement comes to you courtesy of Tom Reynolds’ Random Acts of Reality blog. Learn to check your moles. You may be glad you did.

…Bird flu, that is. Apparently it’s reached the Russian Urals, and is likely headed this way. And while it’s by no means certain that the avian flu virus H5N1 will mutate into something that causes a flu pandemic in humans, those working in the field are increasingly furrowing their collective brows.

 

Now, two risk communicators working for the WHO have published a long article on how to sound the alarm over bird flu without necessarily scaring the shit out of us. Well, perhaps. To paraphrase TS Eliot, this may be how the world ends, not with a bang, but ah-tishoo!

MRDA stands for "Mandy Rice-Davies Applies"  – dating from the time of the Profumo scandal in Britain. It would seem to apply to the recent pronouncement by the Health Professions of South Africa who today cleared the South African Health Minister of any wrongdoing over her statements about how to deal with AIDS.

 

It seems to me that the Health Professions of South Africa are a body who deserve to be scorned, and South Africa’s Health Minister escapes to let more South Africans die needlessly. I don’t know who I hold in more contempt.

It’s the tradition in the UK for Her Majesty The Queen to send a telegram to those of her subjects who manage to reach the ripe old age of 100. I’d never actually seen one of these fabled things until last week. But now, thanks to my only surviving uncle, I have. He turned 100 last Thursday, and I travelled to the Isle of Man to join in the celebrations. His mind is still pin sharp, he’s just a bit slow in moving about – but he still exercises every day (as he told me with some pride). If ever I manage to last as long as he has, I sincerely hope I’m in equally good condition.

 

Anyway, the telegram… I’d always imagined it to be literally an old-fashioned telegram – you know, the piece of paper with a printed strip of words cut up and pasted on it: "Happy birthday STOP Best Wishes STOP Betty Windsor STOP". But not a bit of it – it actually looks like a superior Birthday Card – with a photograph of Betty on the front, and an uplifting message inside, with her signature (probably written by a machine, he said, cynically).

 

And while the pedants amongst you have probably realised that the Isle of Man is not actually part of the UK, the Queen’s tradition is extended to the island. In fact, she has her representative on the island, in the shape of the Lieutenant Governor – currently His Excellency Air Marshall Ian MacFadyen CB OBE – and he not only sent his own congratulations to my uncle, but he was there in person, along with his good lady wife, at the celebratory High Tea served to over 100 guests in the local church hall.