#health and medicine

[nipply-castform]

love how doctors' new-patient questionnaires STILL ask "do you have sex with men, women, or both" as if the answer to that question actually tells them what they want to know. it wouldnt be that suprising if it was just the trans exclusionism, but do they not realize by this point that:

cishets have anal sex too

cishets have sex where the man is anally penetrated

cishets have nonpenetrative sex all the time

I feel the solution to this would be pretty simple. just give patients a checklist for what kinds of sex they have and include stuff like "penetrative anal (giving), penetrative anal (receiving), oral anal (giving), etc etc etc." Not only would this be more gender inclusive but it would ACTUALLY TELL the doctor what they need to know

just remove gender from the question entirely, otherwise you are quite literally making assumptions about the patient's sexual behavior that could affect their health and how your treat them

[tieflingkisser]

Explainer: Why it’s still a good idea to avoid COVID (and how to do it)

The best way of reducing your risk of developing long-term health issues from COVID is by taking a few simple steps to prevent getting COVID in the first place. Staying up to date with the latest COVID vaccine reduces your risk of serious illness, infection, and Long COVID. Wearing a mask helps boost your own protection, protects others around you, and works against any COVID variant or other type of airborne virus. Another effective way to reduce your risk of getting sick from airborne viruses is to improve indoor air quality.

[une-sanz-pluis]

John Bradmore appears as one of a group of practitioners called in by the Infirmarer of Westminster Abbey in 1390–91, the others being John Middleton, William Wadesworth and another William (whose surname is cut off at the edge of the folio). John Middleton was a royal physician, and William Wadesworth an apothecary. This prior association with Middleton and Wadesworth makes Bradmore a strong contender to be the ‘Master JB’ who, with John Middleton, William Waddisworthe and others, prescribed and supplied medicines for Anne of Bohemia, queen to Richard II of England, in 1393–94.

S. J. Lang, "John Bradmore and the Case of the Bitten Man: A Tantalising Link Between Three Medieval Surgical Manuscripts", Social History of Medicine, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2021

[mcbitchtits]

[politijohn]

Source

[great-and-small]

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

[thesprouts02]

The foundation of Ayurveda is the idea that physical, mental, and environmental balance is necessary for good health. The three main doshas—Pitta, Kapha, and Vata—are biological energies present in the human body and psyche. These doshas are balanced differently in every individual, and imbalances can cause problems with one’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

[alecsimonson]

What Is Antibiotic Resistance and Why Is It Important?

Antibiotic resistance is also known as antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and represents one of the biggest threats to public health and development in the world. Bacterial AMR was responsible for an estimated 1.27 million deaths globally in 2019 and contributed to a further 4.95 million deaths.

The main drivers behind the development of drug-resistant pathogens are the overuse and misuse of antimicrobials in plants, animals, and humans.

What Are Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria?

Antimicrobial resistant bacteria are bacteria that aren’t killed or controlled by antibiotics. They can both survive and multiply even when an antibiotic is present. While many types of bacteria that cause infections can gain resistance to some antibiotics, bacteria that’s resistant to many antibiotics are termed multi-resistant organisms (MROs). Furthermore, some types of bacteria have a natural resistance to antibiotics; for example, benzylpenicillin has little effect on most bacteria present in the human gut.

The Devastating Effects of AMR

AMR is responsible for a huge global death toll, and one that is likely to increase unless action is taken. While inequality and poverty exacerbate its consequences and effects, AMR impacts all countries, although middle and low-income nations are most affected. As well as making it harder to treat infections, it makes undertaking many other treatments significantly riskier.

As well as the devastation of disability and death, AMR comes with a huge economic cost, with the World Bank estimating that it could result in around $1 trillion to $3.4 trillion worth of GDP losses per year by 2030 and $1 trillion in additional healthcare costs by 2050.

How Can the AMR Challenge be Tackled?

Those with experience in this field – such as Alec Simonson, who was involved in bioinformatics and neuropharmacological research during his studies – know that one of the most important ways to prevent AMR is to use antibiotics properly. This means reducing the overprescribing of antibiotics and preventing unnecessary use. It’s also important that patients complete the entire course of any antibiotics they are prescribed so the medication will be fully effective and not promote resistance. Good hygiene (such as handwashing) and the deployment of appropriate infection control procedures will also play a key role in tackling AMR.

The Global Action Plan (GAP) on AMR was adopted by countries during the 2015 World Health Assembly. Adoptees committed to developing and implementing multisectoral national action plans to tackle AMR, using a One Health approach.

For information about World AMR Awareness Week, take a look at the embedded PDF.

[thebibliosphere]

Still not over the head of cardiology, who said she wouldn't formally diagnose me with dysautonomia because she didn't want me to think of myself as disabled.

As if good vibes and a can-do attitude can stabalize autonomic dysfunction.

[reasonsforhope]

Sorry I'm kind of dissociated and my vocab crashes during that can you explain the Biden drug thing in just. Shorter simple sentences.

Sure! You're not the only one who's mentioned being unclear on what it means either, and I'm happy to help

(Context for anyone else: US Sets Policy to Seize Patents of Government-Funded Drugs if Price Deemed Too High, via Good News Network, December 11, 2023)

From the very basics:

When drug companies create new drugs, they get a legal protection called a "patent." The patent means no one else can make or sell the same drug for whatever number of years.

Usually, this is about 10 years after the drug starts being sold to the public.

So, for those years, that one drug company is the only source of whatever medication. And since people need their medication, drug companies can charge however much money they want.

Meaning a lot of drugs that people need to live cost way too much money to buy.

So, with this, Biden told drug companies "Fuck you, if you keep making medicine too $$$ for people to afford, I'm giving your competition the right to make and sell those drugs too."

The US has never done anything like this before.

This is a huge threat to the whole (awful) drug industry in the US. It will save people thousands of dollars. If he does this, it will save lives.

--

Edit 12/17/23: Quick note, as people have said in the notes, this only applies to drugs made in part using taxpayer money. Which is! Literally all of them!

[tieflingkisser]

The COVID-safe strategies Australian scientists are using to protect themselves from the virus

Four years into the COVID-19 pandemic we're living in a "public health Barbieland", says Professor Brendan Crabb, director and chief executive of the Burnet Institute. Too many of us are playing "make-believe" that life has returned to "normal", he says, and there's an "enormous disconnect" in the community: a failure to grasp both the true scale of COVID circulating and the impact of infections on our health and longevity.

[my-midlife-crisis]

[greg-katana]

If you're between the ages of 21-35, how many prescription medications do you take in a day?

[the-crazymedicinelady]