In March, Swedish research linked the vaccine to a higher risk of narcolepsy among under-30′s, not just children and teens as previously thought. … Read More
Medical first: Doctors save boy by 3-D printing airway tube
For the first time in medical history, doctors have created an airway splint with a 3-D laser print, which was implanted into a boy whose airway kept collapsing. Kaiba Gionfriddo, a 19-month-old boy who was 3 months old when he had the operation done, was suffering from a birth defect that caused his airway to collapse nearly every day. During each incident, the baby would stop breathing, his face would turn blue, and his heart would occasionally stop. Doctors believed it was only a matter of time before the collapse of his airway would be fatal.“Quite a few doctors said he had a good chance of not leaving the hospital alive,” April Gionfriddo, the boy’s mother, told the University of Michigan Health System for its news release on the procedure. “At that point, we were desperate. Anything that would work, we would take it and run with it.”With no time to lose, doctors at the University of Michigan (UM) immediately began an attempt to build an artificial airway splint. Biomedical researchers at the university had recently obtained a new, bioresorbable device that they believed could help the boy. In just one day, they used computer-controlled lasers to print out 100 tiny plastic tubes that they stacked and fused together. The following day, the doctors implanted one of the tubes they made into Kaiba’s airway – a procedure that had never before been done.The Food and Drug Administration approved the procedure beforehand, despite the lack of information about the effects of this process. But immediately after the tube was inserted, the baby boy was able to breathe normally.“It was amazing. As soon as the splint was put in, the lungs started going up and down for the first time and we knew he was going to be OK,” said Dr. Glenn Green, a pediatric specialist who led the procedure at the UM C.S. Moss Children’s Hospital, in a university press release.And after 19 months, the boy has not had a single problem with his airway, and Green told AP that “he’s a pretty healthy kid right now.”Prior to the boy’s procedure, doctors have only ever conducted trachea or windpipe transplants using body parts from deceased donors. Occasionally, the parts were lab-produced using stem cells. But because Kaiba had an incompletely formed bronchus, those types of procedures were not suitable to treat his condition. Most children who are born with bronchus birth defects outgrow the condition by age 2 or 3. The plastic used for Kaiba’s airway splint degrades over time and is gradually absorbed by the body, allowing the healthy tissue to replace it.About 2,200 babies are born in the US each year with the condition known as tracheobronchomalaci, but few are as serious as Kaiba’s. The new technology could potentially help thousands of children breathe normally until healthy body tissue replaces the defect.“I can think of a handful of children I have seen in the last two decades who suffered greatly… that likely would have benefited from this technology,” Dr. John Bent, a pediatric specialist at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, told AP.Scott Hollister, Ph.D., a professor of biomedical engineering at UM, said that his involvement in the procedure is the highlight of his career.“To actually build something that a surgeon can use to save a person’s life? It’s a tremendous feeling,” he said in UM’s news release.Green, the doctor who led the procedure, believes that Kaiba would most likely be dead if it wasn’t for the implanted airway splint.“He was imminently going to die,” Green said. “…I’ve seen children die from it. To see this device work, it’s a major accomplishment and offers hope for these children.” … Read More
Anti-cocaine vaccine to be tested on humans
“The vaccine eats up the cocaine in the blood like a little Pac-Man before it can reach the brain,” Dr. Ronald G. Crystal, the lead investigator of the Weill Cornell Medical College study said in a press release.“We believe this strategy is a win-win for those individuals, among the estimated 1.4 million cocaine users in the United States, who are committed to breaking their addiction to the drug,” he added. “Even if a person who receives the anti-cocaine falls off the wagon, cocaine will have no effect.”Cornell researchers have successfully administered the vaccine to non-human primates and are now much closer to launching human clinical trials. Human testing is expected to begin within a year, Dr. Crystal believes.Cocaine blocks the recycling of dopamine – a neurotransmitter that is responsible for feelings of pleasure. The drug prevents the reuptake of dopamine by the neuron that releases it, causing higher concentrations of dopamine to remain in the synapse and create a ‘high’.“You get this massive flooding of dopamine and that is the feel good part of the cocaine high,” Dr. Crystal said.The new vaccine prevents dopamine accumulation at the brain’s nerve endings. The vaccine consists of particles of the common cold virus and particles that mimic the structure of cocaine. Once the body receives an injection, it recognizes the cold virus and creates an immune response against both the common cold and the cocaine ‘impersonator’.“The immune system learns to see cocaine as an intruder,” Dr. Crystals said.In order to feel the drug high that cocaine users seek to achieve, at least 47 percent of the dopamine transporter needs to be occupied by cocaine. The Cornell researchers found that in vaccinated primates, cocaine occupied less than 20 percent of dopamine receptors – making it impossible for the animals to be affected by the drug. Researchers expect that the vaccine will work in humans, but do not know how often it needs to be administered to maintain its effect. The vaccine continued to work effectively for 13 weeks in mice and seven weeks in primates.“An anti-cocaine vaccination will require booster shots in humans, but we don’t know yet how often these booster shots will be needed,” Dr. Crystal said. “I believe that for those people who desperately want to break their addiction, a series of vaccinations will help.”There are about 1.9 million current and past-month cocaine users in the US, 1.4 million of which are considered addicts or abusers, according to the latest data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. About one in five people who use cocaine will become addicted. There are about 2 million visits to US emergency departments for drug abuse each year, 480,000 of which come are a result of cocaine use.A vaccine preventing cocaine-induced feelings of euphoria would help drug users break free from their addiction, thereby drastically reducing emergency room visits and health problems in the US.“Cocaine addiction is a major social problem. It causes changes to behavior, it’s expensive and it’s illegal,” Dr. Crystal told LiveScience in 2012. “It’s very difficult to stop. If we could successfully develop a cocaine vaccine it would really be a very positive social advance.” … Read More
Syria Loses Access to the Internet
On Tuesday, Syria’s access to the Internet was cut off. The most likely culprit, security researchers said, was the Syrian government. … Read More
Sucking pacifiers clean good for babys’ health: Swedish study
Parents who suck on their infants’ pacifiers may reduce their children’s chances of developing allergies, a team of Swedish researchers has found. … Read More
Was Mother Teresa a masochist?
With a new Pope at the helm, the Catholic hierarchy has set about to polish its tarnished image. Can an increased focus on the poor make up for the Church’s opposition to contraception and marriage equality or its sordid financial and sexual affairs? The Bishops can only hope. And pray. And perhaps accelerate the sainthood of Agnes Gonxha, better known as Mother Teresa. In the last century, no one icon has improved the Catholic brand as much as the small woman who founded the Missionaries of Charity, whose image aligns beautifully with that of the new pope. In March a team of Canadian researchers noted the opportunity: “What could be better than beatification followed by canonization of [Mother Teresa] to revitalize the Church and inspire the faithful, especially at a time when churches are empty and the Roman authority is in decline?”Continue Reading… … Read More
Canadian boxer may have inspired Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev
Authorities are still searching for answers in the wake of the deadly terrorist attack in Boston that claimed three lives earlier this month, and the only surviving suspect — 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — has reportedly stopped speaking to investigators. As questions continue to go unanswered, though, independent researchers may have stumbled upon the name of another person whose background may prove helpful in piecing together what happened to inspire the April 15 bombing.The extent that Dzhokhar’s 26-year-old brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev played in the bombing may never be known since he was killed in a gun battle with authorities amid a massive manhunt that brought most of the Boston, Massachusetts region into lockdown mode. Now investigators are digging for dirt on another man who may have had a role in influencing the late Tsarnaev brother’s actions: a slain 23-year-old Canadian boxer named William Plotnikov.Russia’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper has called into question Plotnikov, a Muslim convert who fled Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 2012 to fight against Russian security forces. According to the paper, Plotnikov and the elder Tsarnaev brother connected over the Internet during the years before and may have motivated one another to use violence in getting their points across.Details on Plotnikov’s life are presently scarce, but investigators do believe that he spoke to Tamerlan Tsarnaev using an online social networking site. Novaya Gazeta reveals that Plotnikov briefly left the Toronto region in 2010 so he could study Islam in the Dagestan region of Russia. While overseas, a red flag was raised before Russian authorities who in turn ordered an investigation into Plotnikov and a subsequent interrogation. During that questioning, Plotnikov allegedly identified Tamerlan as someone whom he communicated with on the Web.Two years later Plotnikov joined a group of insurgents in the Dagestan region, but an attempt to engage Russian security forces proved unsuccessful and he died in battle with six other militants that summer. Now a number of connections between the two slain young Muslims are making investigators ask new questions.For one, the timing of Plotnikov’s passing raises concerns among investigators. Plotnikov died in battle on July 14, 2012, and two days later Tamerlan Tsarnaev quickly fled Russia for the United States. Simon Shuster of TIME notes that Tsarnaev was in Dagestan at the time of the killing, but fled two days later to Moscow, then to the US.“He did not even wait to pick up his new Russian passport, which his parents claim to be the reason he came to Russia in the first place,” writes Shuster.One source speaking to Novaya Gazeta says Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have had to abort other plans after the untimely passing of an insurgent who admitted to knowing him.”It seems that Tamerlan Tsarnaev came to Dagestan with the aim of joining the insurgents,” a security source told the paper. “It didn’t work out. First you need to contact an intermediary, then there is a period of ‘quarantine’ – before they take someone, the insurgents check him out over several months.”TIME’s Shuster explains more of the similarities between the suspect and his Canadian colleague:“Both their families have roots in predominantly Muslim regions of Russia — Plotnikov’s mother is Tatar; Tsarnaev’s parents are from the North Caucasus. Both of them became avid amateur boxers in North America after their families emigrated there. Both of them embraced radical Islam while grasping around for an identity in their adopted homes. Both of them came to Dagestan to explore their faith. And both of them were in Dagestan between January and July last year, when Plotnikov had already joined an Islamist militant group and Tsarnaev was attending services at a radical mosque.”And while the parents of the Tsarnaev brothers insist their sons are innocent, the father of Plotnikov has been perturbed by his own offspring’s actions. Speaking to Canada’s National post last year, Vitaly Plotnikov said his son converted to Islam in 2009 only to die during an insurgency battle just three years later.“How can the mind of a person be changed in such a short period of time?” the father asked.Tamerlan’s brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been formally charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and has been transferred to Federal Medical Center, Devens outside of Boston, Mass. … Read More
