The Medical Thread

Well it makes sense. As you get older, you become more conscious of your own health and mortality. That stuff affects you more now because you realize that shit could actually happen to you. When you're younger, you think nothing will ever happen to you.

Ah, to be young again.

The EU has just given antivaccine cultists a massive boost, saying that the presence of a certain number of illness claims made within a given time frame of receiving a vaccine is sufficient evidence of "vaccine injury" regardless of scientific evidence. Essentially giving EU antivaxers and those filing spurious lawsuits legal groundwork for arguing "correlation=causation" .

The ruling stemmed from a case in France where the family of a man who dies of complications caused by MS sued a pharmaceutical corporation because he received a hepatitis vaccine a few months before his diagnosis.

'

Yeaaaah. I don't think it's so much of a "correlation vs causation" issue (proving the latter can take a really long time if at all), but that there needs to be sufficient epidemiological data to prove that there's a statistically and clinically-significant increase in adverse events, and that it exceeds the risk of not using said drug /vaccine, before action should be taken.

edited 23rd Jun '17 6:49:35 PM by Pyrite

The WHO is reporting that at least 3 people have developed totally drug-resistant strains of gonorrhea independently of each other.

Yes, totally drug resistant.

Use condoms, for fuck's sake!

And stop misusing/abusing antibiotics, you morons! >_< (For the record, such misuse/abuse is practically an epidemic here in Saudi Arabia.)

I learned something interesting about viruses being helpful, do helpful viruses, bacteria, microbes exist? If so, my 'brainwashing' and 'indoctrination' about viruses has been wrong.

Viruses can be helpful by inoculating you against worse ones. Cowpox is one of these "helpful" viruses.

edited 10th Jul '17 6:47:42 PM by M84

Bacteria definitely especially in digestion. I haven't heard about helpful viruses before.

Virus inserts into our genetic structure can be boons, not just banes. More than once, they've helped trigger significant evolutionary changes.

It's not just random cancer.

So they can be helpful as well as harmful? I really wish that I took that doctor path years ago.

I think retroviruses were involved in the development of placentas, and consequently the ability to have live births.

Yes, the placenta co-opts a protein that a retrovirus uses to merge itself with the host cell to merge placental cells with each other. The original virus has been integrated in the human genome.

Sperm Counts Have Plummeted Among Western Men, Scientists Confirm (longer article, first two paragraphs below)

edited 26th Jul '17 3:08:02 AM by TerminusEst

I am interested in knowing the age brackets involved.

... Wow, a Excuse Plot element from pornographic doujinshi^note Basic summary: "Sperm count of Japanese men is drastically declining, therefore Japanese government passes law to encourage virile men to have as much sex with women as possible to spread 'healthy' genes back into the national gene pool and avert catastrophe. Fetishes are of no concern." In darker takes, even outright male-on-female rape is universally legalized across the country. is becoming Truth in Television.

Don't be too hasty. While the article doesn't mention porn, it does point out that we shouldn't be worried about turning into the Republic of Gilead. But this issue is one we probably should figure out sooner rather than later.

Quantity =/= quality?

Further research on this is something I'm actually looking forwards to.

I'm wondering if this is simply due to people in the Western world on average not needing to have as many kids to contribute to the next generation these days. What with infant mortality rates being far lower than what they were in the past.

It's a study on studies. More specific information on who, what, where and when is probably forthcoming or at least warranted.

Too much sugar could increase depression risk in men, study suggests

So men apparently suffer depression from eating too many sweets. Given how much sugar is in the USA's food (seriously it's nearly everywhere), that's...not good.

Spurned by a recent case in Switzerland: How frequent is pregnancy in young girls?

How young? Because cases of between 7 and 9 occur in Southern Africa way more frequently than most people would like to know.

It's rare, but it happens. More often, these days, too; not starving as kids means earlier onsets of puberty. Which can get very early in families with an inclination that way.

12 in this case. In such cases Kesb (the Swiss counterpart to CPS) is always involved.

(As an aside, the legal aspects of this case seem odd to me but that's possibly offtopic)

<shrugs> I got my period when I was 11. I definitely started ovulating before 12. And, I'm pretty typical for my family. Heck, younger cousins of mine have started earlier.

In Africa, a belief that having sex with virgins cures *name illness here* means some rape young kids, the younger the better. And, said kids can wind up preggers, because... well... Just as an uncle or whatever who thinks having unprotected, molestation-sex with a 9-year-old niece means he can't get caught can also wind up with a nasty surprise if he didn't bother checking with the female members of the family as to when their onset of puberty was. Or if he forgot to guestimate downwards to allow for the general trend of earlier periods.