Booby Prize

Feeling annoyed, angry, confused, nay, veritably pissed off about how your breasts have become a punching bag for various groups? Are you wondering exactly what’s behind the battle of the sumo-sized egos when it comes to the new United States Preventative Services Task Force recommendations

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to NOT screen women in their forties […]

Mammogram Guideline Changes Kickstart Healthcare Politicking

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It is mind boggling. Somehow a mild-mannered, statistically-based recommendation that perhaps breast cancer screening guidelines should be revised becomes the same thing as a medical rationing – and somehow related to healthcare reform. The issue here is nothing to do with the screening recommendation (which are in fact […]

Swine Flu/H1N1 Now Most Common Strain – But People Still Can’t Get Vaccines

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The news about the H1N1 virus is not so great right now. As expected, this flu has accelerated its growth going into the Northern Hemisphere’s colder seasons and the World Health Organization now says that it is the commonest strain of flu globally. The WHO samples influenza sufferers worldwide […]

H1N1/Swine Flu Scams

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Even the mainstream media is noticing the swine flu scams that are cropping up all over the internet. I wrote about some of these and some things that DO work over on my City Brights column in SFGate here. But some of the new scams are truly breathtaking in their absolute […]

Vitamin D associated with better outcomes in melanoma

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A new study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology suggests that Vitamin D levels are linked to the rate and amount of melanoma development. Specifically, people with low levels of Vitamin D get more frequent melanoma lesions and the lesions are thicker and more virulent.

“Although avoiding sunburn is very important […]

Turns out that ‘don’t worry, be happy’ might not be the best medicine

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Well – if you are getting too much UV radiation and potentially developing squamous cell carcinoma anyway. A study at the Stanford Cancer Center and Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection suggests that periods of short-term stress can boost the immune system temporarily and help protect against cancer cell development. The […]