The New Uncertainty about Mammograms

“I’d like to be tested for every kind of cancer.” All primary care doctors have heard this request. Our answer is an explanation that we can’t. Understanding this explanation is important before we get to the most recent study about mammograms. We don’t test for all kinds of cancers for an important reason. The outcome of most cancers don’t depend on when they are diagnosed. This may come as a surprise to many, since we’ve all heard the message of the importance of ear...
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Meningitis Outbreaks Strike Two Campuses

Those of us who believe in the unvarying beneficence of Mother Nature have yet to contemplate Neisseria meningitidis. N. meningitidis is a bacterium that can live harmlessly in the throats of healthy people. But about 500 times a year in the US it causes bacterial meningitis, a life-threatening infection in which the membranes lining the brain and spinal cord become inflamed. Bacterial meningitis is treatable with antibiotics but even with treatment patients sometime suffer...
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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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Polio Outbreak in Syria

If you remember the 1950s you probably remember the terror of polio. Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is a disease caused by a virus which can cause severe inflammation of the spinal cord. Though most infected people have no symptoms, a small fraction of patients are left with permanent paralysis and deformities. The disease is sometimes fatal. In the US, the 1952 polio epidemic killed over 3,000 people and left over 20,000 with some paralysis. The isolation of the polio virus and the deve...
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Anticipating Autumn

Fall is upon us with its much-anticipated wonders. Giddy parents are gently pushing anxious children onto school buses and then enjoying their first child-free hours in months. The temperature is dropping into the 70s. The leaves on the palm trees in Beverly Hills are staying exactly the same color. An occasional cloud dots the sky. We Jews are anticipating the arrival of the New Year by taking stock of our most recent loop around the sun and contemplating our fates during the next loop. ...
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On Stinting On Stents

Former President George W. Bush underwent an angioplasty this week, and the details sparked a public debate about the controversies of heart disease treatments. His spokesman stated that he underwent a routine physical exam and had no symptoms of heart disease. A stress test showed EKG changes and a CT angiogram found a blocked artery. He was transferred to another hospital and underwent an angioplasty, a procedure in which a stent (a wire mesh tube) is inserted into the blocked artery an...
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