#Medical College of Wisconsin

[wausaupilot]

Marathon County to build Regional Forensic Science Center

The new center will provide critical support to law enforcement and coroner/medical examiner offices across at least 28 counties in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

WAUSAU — Marathon County officially broke ground for its Regional Forensic Science Center today, July 23, making it the eighth facility in the state to offer forensic autopsies. It is also the first such facility in north central Wisconsin. The new center, on Northcentral Technical College’s Wausau campus, will provide critical support to law enforcement and coroner/medical examiner offices…

[uwmspeccoll]

Marbled Monday

This week's Marbled Monday is a twofer! This publication is a collection of issues of the Homeopathic Medical Reporter/Milwaukee Homeopathic Medical Reporter from the year 1848. The journal was published and edited by Tracy & Douglas, Homeopathic Physicians. Their office was "on Spring Street, West side of the river, in Goodall's Block, up stairs." Unfortunately that's about all we know about them!

The binding is interesting, with a Spanish Wave marbled pattern on the book itself and a French Curl pattern on the inside of the clamshell box it is housed in. The box is in much better condition than the book inside, which suggests that the box was made at a later date to protect the book.

This publication was acquired with the memorial fund of Delia G. Ovitz, who was a librarian at UWM's predecessor institutions, the Wisconsin State Normal School and Wisconsin State Teacher's College, from 1901-1944.

View more Marbled Monday posts.

-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

[tourettesdog]

DP x DC Prompt where Jack and Janet Drake have acquired many oddities from their travels and business deals over the years. 

Amidst their collection is a strange assortment of materials collected from a college in Wisconsin, with the key piece being a defunct "proto-portal", as it was described. It's an interesting piece, if nothing else, but innocuous at best.

Their young son, Tim, is unfortunately the one to discover that this portal is very much active.

Tim is left scarred and sickly from his encounter with the portal. What was merely a curious child's venture turns into sickbeds and medication. Nothing seems to help.

Jack and Janet keep their son's condition quiet. They pay for his medical expenses, but have in a way already accepted that their son will not get better, and may already be gone.

When Jason dies, it's not long after that Tim succumbs to his own illness. When Tim wakes, the years of illness ebbing as something new and wrong takes him over, he knows that he has survived something that his hero didn't (but not entirely-- not right).

Watching Batman spiral downwards as he climbs back up, Tim considers: What better kid to help Batman than one who can no longer die?

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 6, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 07, 2024

Today Vice President Kamala Harris named her choice for her vice presidential running mate: Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. Walz grew up in rural Nebraska. He enlisted in the Army National Guard when he was 17 and served for 24 years, retiring in 2005 as a command sergeant major, making him the highest-ranking enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress, according to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.  

He went to college with the educational benefits afforded him by the Army, and graduated from Chadron (Nebraska) State College. From 1989 to 1990, he taught at a high school in China, then became a social studies teacher in Alliance, Nebraska, where he met fellow teacher Gwen Whipple, who became his wife. They moved to Minnesota, where they both continued teaching and had two children, Hope and Gus, through IVF. 

Walz became the faculty advisor for the school’s gay-straight alliance organization at the same time that he coached the high-school football team from a 0–27 record to a state championship. The advisor “really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married," Walz said in 2018. 

Walz ran for Congress in 2005 after some of his students were asked to leave a rally for George W. Bush because one of them had a sticker for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Walz won and served in Congress for twelve years, sitting on the House Agriculture Committee, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Voters elected Walz to the Minnesota state house in 2018, and in his second term they gave him a slim majority in the state legislature. With that support, Walz signed into law protections for abortion rights, supported gender-affirming care, and legalized the recreational use of marijuana. He signed into law gun safety legislation and protections for voting rights, and pushed for action to combat climate change and to promote renewable energy. 

Strong tax revenues and spending cuts gave the state a $17.6 billion surplus, and the Democrats under Walz used the money not to cut taxes, as Republicans wanted, but to invest in education, fund free breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren, make tuition free at the state’s public colleges for students whose families earned less than $80,000 a year, and invest in paid family and medical leave and health insurance coverage regardless of immigration status. 

While MAGA Republicans are already trying to define Walz as “far left,” his votes in Congress put him pretty squarely in the middle.  His work with Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan to expand technology production and infrastructure funding in the state was rewarded in 2023, when Minnesota knocked Texas out of the top five states for business. The CNBC rating looked at 86 indicators in 10 categories, including the workforce, infrastructure, health, and business friendliness. 

Walz checks a number of boxes for the 2024 election, most notably that he hails from near the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and comes across as a normal, nice guy. He favors unions, workers’ rights, and a $15 minimum wage. He is also the person who coined the phrase that took away the dangerous overtones of today’s MAGA Republicans by dubbing them “weird.” As a student of his said: “In politics he’s good at calling out B.S. without getting nasty or too down in the dirt…. It’s the kind of common sense he showed as a coach: practical and kinda goofy.”

Walz is also a symbol of an important resetting of the Democratic Party. He has been unapologetic about his popular programs. On Sunday, July 28, when CNN’s Jake Tapper listed some of Walz’s policies and asked if they made Walz vulnerable to Trump calling him a “big government liberal.” Walz joked that he was, indeed, a “monster.” 

“Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn, and women are making their own health care decisions, and we’re a top five business state, and we also rank in the top three of happiness…. The fact of the matter is,” where Democratic policies are implemented, “quality of life is higher, the economies are better…educational attainment is better. So yeah, my kids are going to eat here, and you’re going to have a chance to go to college, and you’re going to have an opportunity to live where we're working on reducing carbon emissions. Oh, and by the way, you’re going to have personal incomes that are higher, and you’re going to have health insurance. So if that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the label.” 

Right-wing reactionary politicians have claimed to represent ordinary Americans since the time of the passage of the Voting Rights Act—on August 6, 1965, exactly 59 years ago today—by insisting that a government that works for communities is a “socialist” plan to elevate undeserving women and racial, ethnic, and gender minorities at the expense of hardworking white men. 

Historically, though, rural America has quite often been the heart of the country’s progressive politics, and the Midwest has had a central place in that progressivism. Walz reintegrates that history with today’s Democratic Party. 

That reintegration has left the Republicans flatfooted. Trump and J.D. Vance expected to continue their posturing as champions of the common man, but on that front the credentials of a New York real estate developer who inherited millions of dollars and of a Yale-educated venture capitalist pale next to a Nebraska-born schoolteacher. Bryan Metzger, politics reporter at Business Insider, pointed out that J.D. Vance tried to hit Walz as a “San Francisco-style liberal,” but while Vance lived in San Francisco as a venture capitalist between 2013 and 2017, Walz went to San Francisco for the first time just last month. 

Head writer and producer of A Closer Look at Late Night with Seth Meyers Sal Gentile summed up Walz’s progressive politics and community vibe when he wrote on social media: “Tim Walz will expand free school lunches, raise the minimum wage, make it easier to unionize, fix your [carburetor], replace the old wiring in your basement, spray that wasp’s nest under the deck, install a new spring for your garage door and put a new chain on your lawnmower.” 

Vice President Harris had a very deep bench from which to choose a running mate, but her choice of Walz seems to have been widely popular. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who are usually on opposite sides of the party, both praised the choice, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to post: “Dems in disconcerting levels of array.” 

Harris and Walz held their first rally together tonight in Philadelphia, where Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, who had been a top contender for the vice presidential slot, fired up the crowd. “Each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game, and to do our part,” he said. “Are you ready to do your part? Are you ready to form a more perfect union? Are you ready to build an America where no matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love, or who you pray to, that this will be a place for you? And are you ready to look the next president of the United States in the eye and say, ‘Hello, Madam President?’ I am too, so let’s get to work!”

Pennsylvania is a crucial state, and Shapiro issued a statement offering his “enthusiastic support” to the ticket. He pledged to work to unite Pennsylvanians behind my friends Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and defeat Donald Trump.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mariacallous]

Content warning: This story includes references to death by suicide.

Evan Hansen was born to play football. A strong, rambunctious kid, he started playing sports year-round as early as he could. “He was very selfless, always willing to sacrifice himself for the betterment of the team,” says his father, Chuck Hansen. As a fearless linebacker at Wabash College in Indiana, the young player made 209 tackles in his first three seasons, and was hit far more than that during games and practices. Two days after winning the second game of his senior year, Evan died by suicide.

Searching for an explanation, Chuck Hansen pored through his son’s internet search history. One query popped out: “CTE.”

CTE stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative brain disease that causes symptoms like memory loss, depression, and emotional dysregulation. Since 2005, it has been linked to head trauma and to contact sports like football, where brains can get knocked around during tackles and collisions. In 2016, the National Football League acknowledged that the sport was linked to CTE after many retired players were diagnosed posthumously by researchers at the Boston University CTE Center.

Given the NFL-centered media coverage throughout the mid-aughts, “people have this impression that CTE is a disease of former NFL players,” says Julie Stamm, a clinical assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But it’s not just a disease for professional athletes.”

Yet until recently, few studies focused on athletes like Evan, who never played professionally and died before developing age-related brain changes. (In older players, it can be challenging to separate signs of CTE from other kinds of neurodegeneration.) The Hansen family knew that Evan had only been diagnosed with one concussion in his 14 years of football—none since starting college. And although they knew that he’d had trouble doing schoolwork and experienced a bout of depression his junior year, his mental health seemed to have stabilized with therapy and medication.

While Evan’s search history suggests he suspected that these issues were signs of CTE, the disease can’t be diagnosed without examining the brain posthumously. So, like many other families seeking answers for unexplained changes in their loved ones’ behavior, the Hansens donated Evan’s brain to the Understanding Neurologic Injury and Traumatic Encephalopathy (UNITE) Brain Bank, run by the Boston University CTE Center.

Ann McKee, the center’s director, chose 152 of them to study. All were contact sports athletes who died under the age of 30, many by suicide or unintentional drug overdose. And as McKee’s team reported in August in JAMA Neurology, 41 percent of them already had CTE. One of them was Evan. Like him, of those diagnosed, most had only played sports at a high school or college level.

This study reveals that young, amateur athletes aren’t spared from the brain damage that comes with contact sports, even if they quit before going pro. And studying early-stage CTE in young, otherwise healthy brains, McKee says, “may give us clues as to how the disease is triggered.” To her, the takeaway is clear: “We need to reduce the number and the strength of head impacts in contact sports. If we don’t, we’re going to face consequences like this.”

McKee, who is also the director of neuropathology for Veterans Affairs Boston, began studying the brains of former NFL players 15 years ago. She couldn’t believe what she saw: big lesions in the crevices of the brain, dotted with abnormal protein clusters. A huge Packers fan, McKee has watched a lot of football games. But, she recalls, until then, “it never occurred to me that they were damaging their brains, because you don’t see it on the field. They’ve got the helmets. They look invincible.”

Researchers now know more about what is happening to the brain beneath the helmet. The jostling of the brain tugs at neural tissue, placing cells and blood vessels under stress. Tau proteins, which stabilize the scaffolding that gives neurons their structure, fall off when a cell is stressed. These fallen proteins pile up inside the cell, “a sort of toxic clump,” as McKee describes it. Eventually, the pileup overwhelms and kills the cell, leaving neurofibrillary tangles, which appear as ominous dark smears under a microscope. These tangles, which also appear in Alzheimer’s disease, make it harder for neurons to communicate with each other, causing memory problems.

Meanwhile, injured blood vessels compromise the sacred blood-brain barrier that normally protects sensitive neural tissue from irritating molecules flowing through the rest of the body. The resulting irritation causes inflammation, which induces more tau clumping, initiating a downward spiral of neurodegeneration.

To screen the donated young athletes’ brains for CTE, the researchers looked for tau, as well as signs of larger-scale problems like inflammation, hardening or deterioration of blood vessels, and changes to white matter, which contains the connections between neurons. They also interviewed the donors’ loved ones to learn more about their behavior and cognitive symptoms while they were alive. All of them had experienced issues like memory loss, depression, and impulsive behavior.

Of the 152 brains examined, 63 were posthumously diagnosed with CTE. The vast majority were still in early stages of neurodegeneration, but three of them—one belonging to a former NFL player, one to a college football player, and one to a professional rugby player—had reached the third of CTE’s four stages. Notably, another brain with CTE belonged to a 28-year-old women’s collegiate soccer player—the first case of its kind.

The youth of these players also allowed the research team to rule out aging as the cause of the damage. Aging, as well as high blood pressure, cardiac disease, and other neurodegenerative problems, can all damage brain tissue. But in the sample used for the new study, all of the athletes died between the ages of 13 and 29. “These are pristine, beautiful brains,” McKee says.

The fact that so many of the donors’ families had noticed mood and memory changes—regardless of whether their child was ultimately diagnosed with CTE—might be an artifact of the study’s sample pool. Families were simply more likely to donate to the brain bank if they had noticed unusual behavior in their child. But McKee says this also suggests that some of the symptoms experienced by these young athletes are not always caused by CTE, but may still reflect the aftermath of head trauma. Chris Nowinski, a study coauthor and CEO of the nonprofit Concussion Legacy Foundation, remembers struggling with chronic symptoms after the concussion that ended his pro wrestling career in his twenties. In cases like his, concussion-related problems like sleep impairments, or the difficulties of coming to terms with life as an injured or retired athlete, are likely the root cause of the mental health issues—not necessarily tau pathology.

The new study’s results build upon a mountain of evidence connecting contact sports to CTE. One 2017 study of 202 deceased football players found that 87 percent had CTE, including 110 of the 111 brains belonging to retired NFL players. Other studies revealed that CTE is more prevalent in athletes than non-athletes, and is specifically tied to experience playing contact sports, not one-off traumatic brain injuries. Ongoing studies are developing ways to diagnose CTE while people are alive, in the hopes of finding ways to intervene while the disease is still in its earliest stages.

A common misconception is that a one-time impact can lead to neurodegeneration. The real problem is getting hit in the head over and over, for years and years. “A tennis player who had five concussions is not going to get CTE,” says Nowinski. “There’s something about getting hundreds or thousands of head impacts a year. That’s what triggers it, whether you have concussion symptoms or not.”

Like many kids in the United States, Evan Hansen started playing tackle football in third grade. “He was in his 14th year of football, a senior in college, when he died,” says his dad. The number of years he played, and the age he was when he started facing regular blows to the head, likely contributed to developing CTE, according to McKee’s findings. When he signed his son up for football, Hansen recalls, “It was just pure ignorance. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.”

While his son’s diagnosis wasn’t made until after his death, Chuck Hansen suspects that Evan’s fear of the disorder, and what it meant for his future, weighed on him heavily. “I believe that he thought he had CTE, and had never talked about it,” Hansen says. “Maybe he thought it was a terminal thing that would only get worse, and that there was no hope.”

While there is no medical treatment for CTE yet, McKee and Nowinski recommend that young athletes focus on seeking treatment for individual mental health symptoms, like insomnia or depression. The Concussion Legacy Foundation runs a HelpLine for those who are struggling with post-concussion symptoms, or who are worried about CTE. The Hansen family also started a foundation to promote mental health awareness and CTE research, and to fund scholarships for medical students.

But CTE is preventable. Small changes to practice drills and gameplay could make a huge difference for young athletes, says Nowinski. The playbook for prevention is simple: Reduce the number of hits to the head, and reduce the strength of those hits. Most happen during practice, so by reducing the number of drills involving head impacts and choosing ones that are less likely to cause high-magnitude blows, coaches can spare their players unnecessary danger. “You can’t get rid of CTE in tackling sports,” adds Nowinski, “but you can get rid of most cases of CTE.”

Reducing the length of each game and the number of games per season can minimize the likelihood of head injuries, and banning brain-jostling events, like fighting in hockey or heading in soccer, can make games safer, he continues. Perhaps most importantly, youth sports leagues can raise the age at which kids are first exposed to preventable head impacts. “With tackle football before 14, the risks are not worth the benefits,” Nowinski says. “You don’t become a better football player from playing young.” In one case study reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, transitioning from tackle to flag football would reduce a young athlete’s median number of head impacts per season from 378 to eight.

But, Nowinski points out, there is no central governing body in charge of youth sports leagues, leaving it largely up to individual coaches to make changes to their practice drills and recruitment strategies. “The opportunity is right in front of our faces,” says Nowinski. “I remember being told how much football makes you a leader. But right now, on this issue, there’s a black hole of leadership.”

McKee doesn’t think that parents should take their kids out of sports—far from it. “We just need to change the rules and our thinking about these games, so that CTE isn’t a consequence of playing contact sports,” McKee says.

And for young athletes concerned about CTE, she urges them to seek help for mental health symptoms, build personal support systems, and keep moving forward with their lives. “Individuals like Evan need to be seen, because in all likelihood, we can treat their symptoms and help them feel less hopeless,” she says. “It’s not a time to despair. It’s a time to come in, be evaluated, and be treated.”

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for free, 24-hour support from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for the Crisis Text Line. Outside the US, visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for crisis centers around the world.

[480pfootage]

any thoughts about the bri-guy (brian thomas)?

hehe bri guy

i do have a lot of thoughts abot him... (under cut, extremely long tangent I apologize)

hmmm His mom wasn't in the picture while his dad was one of those paranoid doomsday preppers so he didn't have much of a childhood.. However with his dad being the way he is, he drilled into Bri's head at a young age how to handle guns, encode messages, some basic medical stuff, n other stuff like that. I think I mentioned it in another post but my Brian has ASPD and uh... growing up with the constant dread of everything being snatched away from you and the world ending combined with arduous 'training' kinda fucked him up in the head.. Around ten-ish he began to practice hunting animals with the neighborhood pets. Sooner or later though, he was found out (he may have preformed an impromptu surgey on the class pet lol) and got appointed a counselor at school.

During middle school he started to realize that he was exceptionally good at getting what he wanted. He could throw on a nice charm and even if things didn't go his way, he could steer it back to where he wanted....

High school was when he met Tim and Brian went onto college to major in psychology whilst rooming with him :3 Tim was the only one that Brian really really trusted back then, and the only one who knew of his diagnosis (which was a reason why he got so pissed when he found Tim's medical records because he thought that having trust in each other constituted to Tim having to tell him everything). And then marble hornets happened but you all know about that stuff.

OH before getting into the more pasta oriented stuffs just wanted to say that the operator and slendy aren't the same entities in my universe (if you wanna know more just ask!!). Either way, under the operator's sickness it was said in the mh comics (3.5) that his head was just filled with all these lines of codes and I interpret that as him being paranoid to the point that he had to encrypt anything he was saying as he thought he was going to get caught by someone.

OKAY pasta time. After mh happened, Tim had tried to escape the op and ended up somewhere up in wisconsin. He was at his breaking point then, he wanted his friends back, he didn't want to be on the run again. And then he met slender. At first he thought it was the operator and i don't want this Tim tangent to go on too long so uh... hehe ask if you'd want more but basically Tim made a deal with slendy to bring one of his friends back under the guise that he and said friend had to gather people for Him to feed on. He had asked for Jay, but that didn't work (Jay was already in Skully at this point) and so Brian was brought back from the ark.

hmm ok after that things get a bit fuzzy for me i can't remember what I planned out, but basically Brian, Tim, Kate, and Toby live in a cabin in the woods together working for slender. Brian doesn't consider himself human anymore, despite the fact that his heart was still beating, hell he didn't consider himself 'Brian Thomas' anymore. During the beginning stages of his revival he would always keep his stupid mask on and was extremely snappy. Brian is a very petty person and he holds grudges, so remembering the fact that Tim kept his medical records away from him, he continued to steal Tim's pills (and also Toby's whenever he came around and pissed him off). But those times are rarer now that he has gotten used to his.... situation.

Brian's the stalker type in their little operation. He gets the information for the gang and scopes the place out, not usually going in for the kill (that's Toby and Tim's jobs). Kills to him are something to relieve stress, whenever a victim is able to escape the others, he pursues them, the thrill of the chase is really what gets him going (it's a plus if he gets to hear them beg for their lives), he likes being in control of the situation. During missions like those he likes to make little snuff films, like I said he finds killing to be stress relief, and he edits it with his quirky little style (think the weird tta vidyas TT) accompanied with nature documentary type videos he takes himseslf.

I would talk about his relationship with Amos but this is getting a bit too long GRHGHRGHGAHGHAGH. OK. Next time I wil........

[going-to-ikea-for-the-fries]

Timeline: Victoria Isabelle "Whiskey" Callahan

CW: Death, Grief, Fire/Burning, Burn Injuries, Scars & Injuries, Canon-Typical Violence, Torture Mentioned, Canon Character Death.

2009 - 18

Victoria graduates high school (3.4 GPA) gets accepted into College (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee).

Joins swim team and tennis in college. Begins situationships.

2010 - 19

Victoria has her first kiss with a girl whose name she doesn’t remember.

Starts dating Lucas Sutton. They date on and off.

2011 - 20

May - Graduates University

Nathan has already enlisted in the Marines and is deployed overseas.

September - Joins Navy as a Seaman (Recruit) in the second half of the year. Progresses to Seaman (Apprentice) within that same year.

Gets placed in USS Sentinel. Picks up troops (Marines and sailors, especially) from Iraq after the Iraq War was declared over.

2012 - 21

Receives Seaman rank.

Remains in the Arabian Sea in the USS Sentinel for many small anti-piracy ops off the coast of Somalia.

October-November - Hurricane Sandy happens and gets shipped back to the States for humanitarian relief.

Meets Philip Graves.

2013 - 22

Returns to Arabian Sea for the first half of the year.

Receives Petty Officer 3rd Class rank after demonstrating bravery in service.

Signs up for Navy SEALS in the second half of the year. Begins Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training.

August - Meets Elaine and they bunk together for 2 years.

2014 - 23

Continues BUD/S training.

2015 - 24

Completes training (16 + 18 months = 2 years and 10 months), becomes a Navy SEAL.

Receives Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class rank.

Begins her Eastern Europe deployment assignments (anti-sex-trafficking ops).

November - Meets Meabh during an OP in the Black Sea.

2016 - 25

Continues series of deployments in Eastern Europe.

Meets Emilio during a joint operation with the Spanish Navy.

2017 - 26 

Receives Légion d'Honneur awarded by the French government for an act of heroism while off duty/on vacation.

Meabh receives the UN Peacekeeper award, Victoria is there to watch it happen.

2018 - 27

January - Loses her father and brother in a joint Marine-SEAL operation that resulted in an explosion and in many burn injuries for her. Spends 3 months on medical leave w/rehab.

Leaves home (to never come back), then spends 6 months in Officer’s Academy.

September - Graduates with Lieutenant Junior Grade rank

Gains the Whiskey callsign. Begins series of short-term deployments in Eastern Europe.

2019 - 28

January-February - Helps Meabh who’s on medical leave

June - Meets Val

Goes through Some Shit (Bad Mission, nearly died).

2020 - 29

Goes through Torture.

May - Meets Ghost & Soap

November - Starts officially working with the 141

2021 - 30

April - Marries Simon Riley

Goes through Torture Again.

June - Receives Lieutenant rank

2022 - 31

Soap & Meabh’s wedding (not invited).

Moves to Scotland with Ghost.

November - Graves betrays the 141 in Las Almas.

2023 - 32

Goes through Some Shit (Bad Mission, had to kill her way out).

August - Gets contacted by her aunt. Goes to see her cousin Rosie in New York.

November - Soap fucking dies, dog.

2024 - 33

May - Becomes an aunt! (Fiadh O'Malley MacTavish)

Extra 🫶:

Rosemary Williams belongs to my beloved @lyralein ;

Meabh O'Malley belong to my beloved @crashtestbunny ;

Emilio Melero belongs to my beloved @cod-z ;

"Valkyrie" belongs to my beloved @superhero-landing ;

Elaine Laswell belongs to my beloved @loveandplanet

[covid-safer-hotties]

Full List of Democrats Who Voted to Ban Mask Mandates - Published Oct 26, 2023

Republican Senator J.D. Vance received support from 10 Democrats as part of a successful amendment prohibiting the Department of Transportation from using any federal funds to enforce future mask mandates.

The amendment to the Senate minibus appropriations bill passed Wednesday by a 59-38 margin and prevents federal mask mandates on passenger airlines, commuter rail, rapid transit buses, and any other transportation program funded through the 2024 fiscal year.

These are the 10 Democrats who voted for the amendment: Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin); Michael Bennet (Colorado); Sherrod Brown (Ohio); Tim Kaine (Virginia); Mark Kelly (Arizona); Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota); Joe Manchin (West Virginia); Jacky Rosen (Nevada); Jean Shaheen (New Hampshire); and Jon Tester (Montana).

Three senators—Democrats John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) and Alex Padilla (California), and Republican Tim Scott (South Carolina—did not vote. Of the three independent senators, Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona) was the only one to vote in favor.

"This is a massive victory for personal freedom in this country," Vance said in a post-vote statement. "We saw countless abuses of authority throughout the COVID pandemic, and the American people were justifiably enraged by unscientific mask mandates.

"Today, the United States Senate took an emphatic step toward common sense and individual liberty. I'm proud of what we've accomplished here and look forward to continuing the fight."

"With the COVID pandemic behind us, the federal government doesn't need to be requiring masks for travel when that could hurt tourism and Nevada's economy," Rosen told Newsweek via email. "Anyone who chooses to wear a mask still has that option, but we've reached a point where a federal mask mandate is no longer necessary for travel."

In September, Vance, who represents Ohio, introduced the Freedom to Breathe Act—a bill intended to prevent the reimposition of federal mask mandates across the entire United States, in response to some businesses and colleges and universities reimposing mask mandates in the summer due to upticks in COVID-19 cases.

In September, the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio announced that all staff will be required to wear masks on the premises beginning September 25.

"This decision was made to promote the safety of our patients, families, visitors, and employees, based on evidence that masks are effective in reducing the spread of respiratory illness," the hospital said in a statement.

Read the rest and get a link to the original at the link above!

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Leah Lowenstein

Dr. Leah Lowenstein was born in 1930 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1954, Dr. Lowenstein was one of only three women in her medical class at the University of Wisconsin. She went on to become a well-known researcher on kidney disease who published extensively. Dr. Lowenstein served on the faculties of Boston University School of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, and Thorndike Medical Laboratories at Harvard Medical School. In 1982, Dr. Lowenstein became dean of Jefferson Medical College, making her the first woman to serve as dean of a co-ed medical school.

Leah Lowenstein died in 1984 at the age of 53.

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 25

1832 – Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, American feminist and physician, born (d: 1919); American feminist, abolitionist, prohibitionist, alleged spy, prisoner of war, surgeon, and the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor. Although she was called by her male enemies "the most distinguished sexual invert in the United States," Dr. Edwards, although certainly a transvestite, was not necessarily a Lesbian. She was an ardent feminist, obsessed by the feminist dress-reform movement begun by Amelia Bloomer, and a mover and shaker in stirring up trouble whenever she was refused the right to do anything a man was permitted to do.

Prior to the American Civil War she earned her medical degree, married and started a medical practice. The practice didn't do well and she volunteered with the Union Army at the outbreak of the American Civil War and served as a female surgeon. She was captured by Confederate forces after crossing enemy lines to treat wounded civilians and arrested as a spy. She was sent as a prisoner of war to Richmond, Virginia until released in a prisoner exchange.

She eventually was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for her work; and she became the first woman the U.S. permitted to dress in male attire - a right granted by Congress, no less! That she lived together with a younger feminist, Belva Lockwood, after she divorced her husband is provocative, but hardly proof that either of them were Lesbians. Eventually, Dr. Walker moved out of step with her sister feminists because her taste in dress offended them. It was one thing to wear men's trousers - that was at least practical - but it was quite another thing to go whole hog, as did Mary Walker. She affected shirt, bow tie, jacket, top hat and cane. A very full discussion of this fascinating woman appears in Jonathan Katz's Gay American History..

1892 – Stewart Mitchell (d.1957) was an American poet, editor, and professor of English literature. Mitchell’s editorship of The Dial magazine signaled a pivotal shift in content from political articles to aesthetics in art and literature.

Mitchell was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. After graduating from Harvard University in 1916 he taught English literature at the University of Wisconsin. He resigned his position for political reasons, frustrated that he was forced to give a "politician's son who should have been flunked" passing grades. Mitchell enlisted in the army, serving in France until he was discharged as a private two years later.

Mitchell returned to the United States and was hired by Scofield Thayer and James Sibley Watson as managing editor of their joint project, The Dial. Mitchell, in association with Gilbert Seldes, was managing editor from 1919-1920. His appointment as editor marked a shift in the influential, modernist little magazine’s focus on politics to an artistic, literary theme.

Mitchell’s work for The Dial involved not only editing but, as was common with the majority of The Dial's editors, active involvement with and submissions to the creative or literary content.

Mitchell’s associating with The Dial proved advantageous and profitable to his own literary career. He completed and sold a volume of poetry that was published in 1921. Several of the poems in his collection were first printed in The Dial. These were reprinted with permission from Scofield Thayer. Following Mitchell’s resignation as editor, he continued to submit book reviews as well as poetry.

His desire to travel led Mitchell to give up editorship of The Dial and pursue further education abroad. In 1922, following two years’ study at the University of Montpellier and Jesus College, Cambridge, he returned to the States and lived with his elderly aunt in New York. Mitchell privately studied foreign language and literature, focusing on French and Greek, before returning to Harvard and graduating with a Ph.D. in Literature in 1933.

While completing his degree he also worked as editor for the New England Quarterly in 1928. The following year he gave up his position to become editor for the Massachusetts Historical Society. It was as a historical editor that Mitchell, according to his associates, truly excelled. His "naturally keen memory and sharp eye, coupled with a sure ear for words and an occasionally brilliant wit, permitted him to excel." After eleven years' service he resigned but was recalled in 1947 as Director and editor.

Mitchell's long-time partner was Richard David Cowan (1909-1939), a student of Cornell University in the 1920s who met Mitchell in the 1930s and they lived together since then. When Mitchell died in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1957, he was buried alongside Richard Cowan, who had died before him.

While at Harvard in his youth, he befriended the poet e.e. cummings who drew the the above sketch of Mitchell.

1913 – Robert Friend (d.1998) was an American-born poet and translator. After moving to Israel, he became a professor of English literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Friend was born in 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants. He was the eldest of five children. After studying at Brooklyn College, Harvard and Cambridge, he taught English literature and writing in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Panama, France, England, and Germany. He settled in Israel in 1950, where he lived the rest of his life. He taught English and American Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for over thirty years. He was well known in Israel as an English-language poet and a translator of Hebrew poetry.

Robert Friend was gay, and his sexuality found expression in his poetry well before the Stonewall era. According to Edward Field in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry, Shadow on the Sun is "remarkable in that, for its time, it contains so many poems about the author's homosexuality." Friend's openness continued throughout his writing career.

1942 – Rosa von Praunheim is a German film director, author, painter and gay rights activist. Openly gay, he is one of the initiators of the gay rights movement in Germany.

A prolific director, he has made over fifty feature films. He began his career associated to the New German Cinema as a senior member of the Berlin school of underground filmmaking.

Born Holger Mitschwitzki, he spent his early years in East Berlin. In 1953, he escaped from East Germany with his family to West Germany. In the 60s, he took the artistic female name Rosa Von Praunheim to remind people of the pink triangle that homosexuals had to wear in Nazi concentration camps.

A pioneer of Queer Cinema, von Praunheim has been an activist in the gay rights movement. He was an early advocate of AIDS awareness and safer sex, but has been a controversial figure even within the gay community. His films center on gay related themes and strong female characters. His works are characterized by excess and employ a campy style. His films have featured such personalities as Jayne County, Vaginal Davis, Divine, and Jeff Stryker.

Praunheim's first big feature film was produced in 1970: Die Bettwurst(The Bolsters), a parody of bourgeois marriage. It became a cult movie, which had a sequel in 1973 (Berliner Bettwurst). In the same year, he also caused a stir with his documentary It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives which led to several gay rights groups being founded.Praunheim has centered his directorial efforts in documentaries featuring gay related themes. In the early 1970s he lived for some time in the United States where he made a series of documentaries about post- Stonewall American gay scene. In Army of Lovers or Revolt of the Perverts (1972-1976) he took on the American gay and lesbian movement from the 1950's to 1976.

Back in Berlin he made feature films such as Red Love (1980), Our Corpses Are Still Alive (1981), and City of Lost Souls (1983). These films were shown in film festivals worldwide.

With the irruption of the AIDS epidemic, Praunheim worked in a tetralogy of AIDS themed documentaries. A Virus Knows No Morals (1985), was one of the first feature films about AIDS. The documentaries Positive and Silence = Death, both shot in 1989 deal with aspects of AIDS activism in New York. Fire Under Your Ass (1990) focuses about AIDS in Berlin.

In Germany Rosa was very vocal in his efforts to educate people about the danger of AIDS and the necessity of practicing Safer Sex. These efforts alienated many gays who came to consider him a moralistic panic-monger. He would remain a highly controversial figure in his native country. On 10 December 1991 Praunheim created a scandal in Germany when he outed, among others, the anchorman Alfred Biolek, the comedian Hape Kerkeling and wrongly the actor Götz George in the TV show Explosiv - Der heiße Stuhl as gay. After the show several celebrities had their coming out. In 1999 he made Geisendörfer Medienpreis for Wunderbares Wrodow, a documentary about the people in and around a German village and its castle.

He lives in Berlin with his companion and assistant Oliver Sechting.

1963 – Kevin Chamberlin is an American actor. He starred as the butler, Bertram on the Disney Channel Original Series Jessie. He is openly gay.

Chamberlin has been nominated for Drama Desk and Tony Awards for Dirty Blonde (as Charlie), Seussical (as Horton), and The Addams Family (as Uncle Fester). Additional Broadway theatre credits include My Favorite Year, Triumph of Love, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Chicago, and The Ritz.

He also appeared in the 1999 gay-themed movie Trick, and in Die Hard with a Vengeance as an enthusiastic NYPD bomb defusal expert. In Lucky Number Slevin, he again had a supporting role as a New York police officer.

Chamberlin's most recent work includes the role of Aron Malsky in the NBC prime-time series Heroes. He also made an appearance in a Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

Chamberlin previously appeared as Uncle Fester in the musical The Addams Family, a role for which he won a Broadway.com Audience Award for Favorite Performance By a Featured Actor In a Broadway Musical.

He has said of his time with The Ritz:

We have a very large gay audience, which is funny, because some female friends of mine went to a preview and were exclaiming, "There was no line to the bathroom at intermission! It was all on the men's side." Someone actually walked out last night and had a row with the director. She was like, "I can't believe the Roundabout is putting on such flagrantly gay plays!" I mean, look at the poster, for God’s sake! And really, it’s a 35-year-old play. There’s nothing offensive — it just happens to take place in a gay bathhouse. This is pre-AIDS, in the middle of the sexual revolution. [Playwright] Terrence McNally was saying that it was an amazing, celebratory time of sexual freedom and also freedom for gay men. Where else could you go to have sex and watch Bette Midler sing at the same time?

1968 – Craig Seymour is an American writer, photographer, celebrity interviewer, music critic and former stripper. He was born in Washington, D.C.. He has written for The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Vibe, and Spin, among other publications, and has served as pop music critic for The Buffalo News and the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Heis now Associate Professor of Journalism at Northern Illinois University. He lives in Chicago.

He has interviewed and profiled some of the biggest names in music, including Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Luther Vandross, who granted him numerous interviews. Seymour has also been a music analyst for CNN's Headline News.

As a graduate student at the University of Maryland in the 1990s, Seymour started frequenting and working in the strip clubs in Washington D.C. while writing his master's thesis: "Desire and Dollar Bills: An Ethnography of a Gay Male Striptease Club." He used these experiences to write the book All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C. Seymour stated that stripping gave him the confidence he needed to interview big stars like Mariah Carey.

In an interview with Dallas Voice, Seymour credited his stripping career with "the ease I had asking celebrities extremely personal questions, especially those having to do with sex and relationships. After all, when someone is playing with your dick in public, it's not only potentially awkward for you, the one being played with, it can also be weird for the person doing the playing, because he is exposing his desires so nakedly in front of other people."

1970 – Yukio Mishima (b.1925), homosexual Japanese author, commits seppuku (ritual suicide).

1997 – In South Africa, a demonstration was held at the Johannesburg High Court in support of an application to decriminalize sex between men. South Africa becomes the first country to enact a constitutional ban outlawing sexual orientation discrimination.

[wausaupilot]

Medical College of Wisconsin Central Wisconsin campus announces Dean transition

With the approval of the MCW Board of Trustees, Dodson will be named founding dean emerita of MCW-Central Wisconsin.

WAUSAU – The Central Wisconsin campus of the Medical College of Wisconsin announced today MCW-Central Wisconsin Sentry Dean and Founding Dean Lisa Grill Dodson, MD, will step down from her executive leadership role effective June 30, 2025. Faculty, staff members and students were informed of the decision earlier this week. Dodson is a professor with tenure in the MCW Department of Family and…

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Christina Buttons

Published: Jun 3, 2024

A new study has found that trans-identified female patients on testosterone face an increased risk of lacerations and vaginal bleeding after undergoing a “minimally invasive hysterectomy.” The study follows another report from just one month earlier, which found that trans-identified females on testosterone have a high incidence of pelvic floor dysfunction.

Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin conducted a study analyzing past data from surgical and medical records at a single, large academic center. They reviewed phone calls, emergency room visits, and clinic visits over 90 days post-surgery. The aim was to compare complications in trans-identified female patients on testosterone with those not on testosterone.

The study included patients aged 18 to 55 who had a minimally invasive hysterectomy, with or without the removal of ovaries, between January 2014 and December 2022. This procedure, which involves removing the uterus through small incisions, is often offered to transgender patients as a “gender-affirming hysterectomy.”

The study group included 88 patients on testosterone who identified as male, transgender male, genderqueer, or nonbinary. The control group included 242 patients who identified as female, genderqueer, or nonbinary and were not using testosterone. Patients using testosterone were generally younger, had lower body weight, better overall health, and were more likely to have never given birth, with a median of 2.5 years on testosterone.

The study found that patients on testosterone had a higher risk of experiencing vaginal lacerations during surgery that required repair. This risk was about 3.3 times higher compared to those not on testosterone. After surgery, patients on testosterone reported more instances of vaginal bleeding through EMR messages or phone calls. The risk of reporting vaginal bleeding was about 1.74 times higher for those on testosterone. More patients on testosterone also needed vaginal estrogen after surgery to manage symptoms like dryness and discomfort. This was observed in 8% of testosterone users compared to 1.7% of those who were not on testosterone.

The study demonstrates that using testosterone before surgery may increase the risk of vaginal tears during the operation and may cause more vaginal bleeding afterward.

“Gender-affirming” hysterectomies are becoming more common among trans-identified female patients. A 2023 study identified 4,489 hysterectomies performed between 2016 and 2020, representing 9.3% of the 48,019 patients who underwent some form of “gender-affirming” surgery at hospitals in the United States. The data was collected from the Nationwide Ambulatory Surgery Sample (NASS), an outpatient hospital surgery database. However, this is likely a significant underestimate, as it only includes hospital-based data and not private surgery centers. While typically performed on individuals aged 18 and older, it has occasionally been done on those under 18.

Aside from postoperative complications, testosterone use is associated with other health concerns. For example, a new study from April 2024 found that 94.1% of trans-identified females on testosterone reported experiencing some form of pelvic floor dysfunction, and 86.7% reported urinary symptoms.

Conducted between September 2022 and March 2023, the study used an online questionnaire to gather data from 68 females who identify as transgender men over 18 using testosterone.

The study found that the majority of participants reported a range of pelvic floor dysfunction symptoms. Specifically, 69.1% of participants reported symptoms related to the storage of urine, 52.9% experienced issues related to sexual function, 45.6% reported anorectal symptoms, and 39.7% experienced unintentional passing of gas. Those with urinary incontinence symptoms reported a moderate severity of the condition. The study concludes that transgender men using testosterone have a high incidence of pelvic floor dysfunction, with a particularly high prevalence of urinary symptoms.

--

Abstract

Study Objective To evaluate operative complications and healthcare utilization in transgender patients on testosterone undergoing minimally invasive gender affirming hysterectomy compared to control patients.

Design We performed a retrospective cohort study. Operative reports were used to gather information on intraoperative complications. We collected information on postoperative complications, EMR messages, phone calls, emergency department utilization, and clinic visits through a 90-day postoperative period. Healthcare utilization reasons were categorized as vaginal bleeding, pain, vaginal discharge, dysuria, urinary retention, bowel concern, incision concern, or other.

[..]

Measurements and Main Results Patients using testosterone were younger, had a lower BMI, lower ASA class, and were more likely to be nulliparous. The median time patients used testosterone was 2.5 years (1.5-5.0). Patients on testosterone are at increased risk of intraoperative perineal lacerations requiring repair (RR 3.3, CI 95% [1.03 – 10.5]). A higher number of patients on testosterone reported vaginal bleeding via EMR message or phone call (RR 1.74 CI 95% [1.1 – 2.7]) compared to controls. No difference in reasons for ED visits was noted. The use of postoperative vaginal estrogen started at the postoperative visit was more frequent in the testosterone using patients (7 [8.0%] vs 4 [1.7%], p=.01).

Conclusion This study demonstrates that testosterone use preoperatively may increase risk of intraoperative vaginal laceration requiring repair. Testosterone use also correlates with increased reports of vaginal bleeding through EMR message, phone call, and clinic visit. These results contribute new evidence to include in preoperative counselling and support existing evidence surrounding the safety of gender-affirming hysterectomy.

==

"Informed consent" really is a myth considering the doctors have no damn idea what this stuff is doing to you.

[beardedmrbean]

Kara Welsh, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater student and champion gymnast, was on the floor in the fetal position when she sustained some of the eight gunshot wounds that killed her on Aug. 30, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

Authorities said they found the 21-year-old in a pool of blood inside the apartment of her boyfriend, 23-year-old Chad Richards, just before midnight.

She sustained eight gunshot wounds to the neck, torso and other areas, a medical examiner determined. 

Richards, a former UW-Whitewater wrestler, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide in Welsh's killing.

ALL-AMERICAN WISCONSIN COLLEGE GYMNAST SHOT AND KILLED DAYS BEFORE CLASSES BEGIN, SUSPECT IN CUSTODY

He told investigators he was acting in self-defense, after he and Welsh argued and struggled over his gun that Welsh grabbed from a nightstand, Fox News Digital reported. Richards said he wrestled the gun away and shot Welsh because he "feared for his life," and he placed the 911 call. 

Welsh attended UW-Whitewater, where she was a member of the gymnastics team and was majoring in management in the school’s College of Business and Economics.

She was preparing to enter her senior year at the university. In 2023, she won an individual vault national title at the NCAA Division III championships. 

"Kara was a daughter, sister, dear friend and teammate," her family wrote in a fundraising page, adding, "Kara had a unique ability to bring joy to any person she crossed paths with, always putting a smile on people's faces with her sense of humor, unwavering support and sweet disposition."

Richards was on the UW-Whitewater wrestling team for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons, during his freshman and sophomore years, according to the school's athletics site. 

He is facing additional charges of endangering safety by use of a dangerous weapon and disorderly conduct and is being held at the Walworth County Jail on $1 million bond. 

[bpod-bpod]

Next Top Model

One member of the minnow family (Cyprinidae) zebrafish (Danio rerio) are often found in research labs across the world. Thanks to their transparent embryos and genetic similarities to humans, these fish offer unique opportunities for researchers to watch how a body is built. But they're only transparent up to a point making later steps in development inaccessible to see. Now a ‘new fish in town’ could be the next top model organism. It’s another type of minnow called Danionella cerebrum that remains transparent until adulthood allowing researchers to use advanced imaging techniques to study development, and even ageing, for longer. Researchers successfully adapted imaging techniques which allowed them to track changes in immune cells (green) and blood vessels (magenta) deep within D.cerebrum’s brain for several days (pictured), resulting in an exciting new tool for researchers to learn more about adult-onset diseases in organs deeper in the body than before.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Video by Pui-Ying Lam

Neuroscience Research Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, December 2022

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

[little-catholic-diva]

When Welch approached the microphone, she offered her personal opinions on abortion access and the potential impact on medical students.

"I think abortion should be unrestrictive. And I think when somebody finds out in pregnancy when – how far along that they are – when someone finds out, they should be able to get an abortion if they want to. And for some people, that is full term," she said.

This woman is sick. There is absolutely no reason for a full term abortion. I don't care what you believe, at this point this is not in any way close to being healthcare this is murder.

[killed-by-choice]

Gladyss Delanoche Estanislao, 28 (USA 1989)

The badly named Wisconsin Avenue Women’s Health Care Center was a hazard to the health of the women they claimed to treat. On April 25, 1989, 28-year-old Gladyss Estanislao underwent a suction abortion. She was six to eight weeks pregnant at the time.

Abortionist Alan J. Ross did not competently examine her in advance and apparently did not notice that Gladyss had an ectopic pregnancy. He attempted the abortion, but only removed blood, which should have been enough to alert him that there was a problem. Despite this, he sent Gladyss on her way, instructing her as if nothing was wrong.

Gladyss was not warned that her life was in danger. Thanks to Ross’s negligence, the ectopic pregnancy ruptured. Gladyss was later found dead in a college bathroom. Someone tried CPR and an ambulance was called, but by the time she got to the hospital, Gladyss was dead on arrival from cardiac arrest due to blood loss from her ruptured ectopic pregnancy.

Documents show that the medical board didn’t know about Ross’s incompetence until the Pro-Life organization Human Life International alerted them in a press release. Had it not been for the hard work of HLI, this death could have stayed unknown.

When the medical board found out what Ross had done, his medical license was suspended for the death of Gladyss Estanislao. Even if her baby had no way to survive, a thorough examination and diagnosis could have saved her. Alan J. Ross was negligent and that negligence killed a young mother who could easily have been saved.

Health Claims Arbitration Office Claim HCA No. 91-240

Archive of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, July 1993

(Medical Board license suspended documents)

"United States Social Security Death Index," database, FamilySearch, G D Estanislao, May 1989; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).

court documents