#what is a clinical research associate

[theabigailthorn]

What in the academic fuck is a GIC assesment

A GIC assessment (Gender Identity Clinic) assessment is the psychiatric interrogation you have to go through in Britain if you want permission to medically transition (and some aspects of legal transition too). Also called a Gender Dysphoria Assessment.

It involves answering a bunch of medically irrelevant, repetitive, deeply humiliating, repetitive questions like how you masturbate, what you wear when you masturbate, your sexual history, your childhood history, what toys you played with as a child, your employment, the clothes you like to wear, your relationship with your partners and family, etc. The classic is "Do you imagine yourself as a woman when you masturbate?" It also involves various psychiatric tests to check whether you're psychotic, which are deeply stigmatising. You will likely have to suffer this interrogation more than once if you want certain medical and legal doors to open. If you do not answer these questions "correctly" you may be refused transition.

If you want to get it for free, you'll need to wait several years, possibly decades depending on where you live, to be admitted to a Gender Identity Clinic.

If you want to go private, it will cost you about £500 a go, maybe more. (It's not technically a GIC Assessment unless it takes place at an NHS GIC; otherwise it's just sparkling humiliation.)

At the end of your interrogation you will - if you answered correctly - be diagnosed with "gender dysphoria." There is no way for them to check whether the answers you gave were truthful or whether you just told them what they want to hear. In Britain, about a third of trans people surveyed said they lied or withheld information during these assessments. There was no way for the 2015 American Psychiatric Association Working Group on gender dysphoria - the cis people who created the diagnosis* - to know that the interview data they based it on wasn't also full of people telling doctors what they wanted to hear! The unreliability of that data, some researchers have said, calls into serious question the use and sense of the diagnosis! * Fun fact: Ray Blanchard and Kenneth Zucker were both on that working group!

The NHS spends somewhere between 20 and 90 million pounds a year (depending on how you count it) on doing this.

Contrast that process to, say, the treatment pathway for menopause, where a cis woman who wants hormone replacement therapy can just get it from her family doctor 🙃

If you'd like to know more about this, I spoke about it here in more detail with citations

And wrote about it here

[boobav]

!season 1

Viktor is, you've clearly observed, insecure of himself.

Quite valiantly, due to some looming social norm or personal feeling, he tries to hide it. But in moments like these, such an act becomes impossible. Try as he might, desperately at times, when he's pressed against you in the warm water, your fingers over his skin, your fingers in his hair, his failure is palpable.

"Are you okay?" You murmur into the nape of his neck, his back against your chest. The water threatens with gentle churns to spill over the bathtub.

He turns his head to press a kiss against your wrist.

"More than," he says, voice quiet but firm, "I just feel, sometimes," and he hums, as though forming an adequate description of his emotions were the hardest task on the planet. Viktor, your genius scientist, hesitant not to innovate, to change the world with his research, no. He's hesitant only to make sure he says the right thing to you.

"Like I'm too good for you?" You ask, catching his eye. By the gentle look you know that's what he means. He faces away again, nods in a vaguely ashamed way.

How, you've always wondered, can you truly change someone's perspective? When words don't seem to persuade, when actions bring only fleeting relief, what can you do?

"It's irrational, I know, some... flaw of the mind. You don't need to keep reassuring my senselessness." He leans into your touch, takes your free hand into his, soap suds bubbling between your fingers.

"Sometimes you talk about yourself like you're a machine, you know." You muse. He gives a half-hearted laugh.

"Not a well functioning one."

Are words or actions worth more in this game of convincing? Does he feel it deeper when you press your lips into his hair, or when you mumble compliments and honeysuckle words into his ear? He shivers either way.

It's a long game, you know. It's taken months to even reach this stage, where the self-deprication is a rarity, not the norm. Maybe it'll take his whole life before he can accept every part of himself like you can, before he can truly see himself through your eyes, gleaming and gem-speckled as they are.

You free your hand from his, reach up instead to knead shampoo into his thick hair. He responds with a sigh and sinks somehow further against you, the water falling slowly to a more lukewarm temperature. You're not sure how long the two of you have been in here, talking quietly about very little, exchanging words that'll disappear forever with the water. But you really can't find it in you to care.

There's work to be done, errands to run. Errands that should've been run a week ago. This ceremony, this meditation makes all of it null. For where else would you want to be? Where else exists besides here, this room, this moment, static in the cooling water with the embodiment of perfection.

When you tell it to him, as you so often do, when you tell him that he's perfect, he can't believe you. The first time you ever said it, peering into his eyes as if they held some secret treasure within, he thought you were joking. He'd laughed, more out of obligation than actual humour, but your expression remained still. Sincere. To say he was moved would be a wildly inadequate explanation. What he felt in his chest that night was something otherworldly, something without a name. He's come now to associate it simply with yours.

You run water through his hair, rinse out the shampoo as he lies pliant in your hands. He insists you use your soaps in his hair, some floral-scented collection you've used for who knows how long, because the smell reminds him of you.

There's no point in overthinking it, you suppose. No point in trying to map out and organise moods, emotions. No point in trying to turn a gentle human experience into something clinical, something without humanity.

That swirling, omnipresent yet transient concept of humanity. You simply must cradle it within your own. You press your lips into his wet hair, whisper words made of ginger and lavender into his ear. Because at the end of the day, you're human. You're in love. And sometimes, that's all that matters.

[nanamiscocksleeve]

Natural Breeding Clinic - Prologue

warnings: MDNI, breeding kinks, general sex, mention of infertility and insemination methods

a/n: It's here. Finally.

Teaser - Prologue - Patient 1

You take a deep breath and sit down in front of the laptop, waiting for the other person to join the call. Never in your life had you heard about such a unique reproductive center but lately, you’d been feeling the pull to start your own family. You’d discussed this with relevant people in your life. Everyone had said if you really wanted a child, then you should go with the options you thought were right for you.

You’d done the research, looking into different doctors and fertility clinics, but this one just stood out. There were testimonials from several happy families, saying their methods, though unconventional, were effective, and the doctors showcased on the website were all incredibly striking, each one handsome in their own way. But it was the success rate that caught your eye. A 98% guaranteed rate that you would be pregnant, and that pregnancy would be healthy. The site didn’t go into too much detail on their method, but the wording caught your eye.

“A natural breeding clinic” they’d called themselves. You’d finally bitten the bullet and called, requesting an information session. The screen suddenly lightens and you focus your attention as an attractive woman with shoulder-length brown hair comes into view. She smiles in a welcoming way before speaking.

“Hello. Am I speaking with Mrs. L/n?” You nod and smile back, trying not to look awkward or uncomfortable. 

“Perfect! My name is Shoko Ieiri, I’m the main coordinating nurse here at Jujutsu Fertility. Thank you for scheduling an information session with us.”

“Yes, of course. I just needed more details before I booked an appointment.”

“Indeed.” Shoko claps her hands together before continuing. “Let me start by telling you a little bit about ourselves. We’ve been around for almost 6 years now. What sets us apart is that we focus more on women’s comfort than most other clinics. And we are sought out by people who are willing to use a sperm donor. We do not perform insemination services with sperm that are not from our own stock.”

“Your own stock? Are you associated with a sperm bank? And screen all the donors yourself?”

“Not a sperm bank in the conventional sense. We have 5 doctors who keep excellent health and their sperm is regularly screened to ensure quality. They are the only stock we allow for insemination.”

You blink to make sure you haven’t misheard. “The…doctors? Are you saying the fertility doctor I’d be meeting with will also be my sperm donor?”

“That is correct.” Shoko nods her head to confirm. “You will be meeting with the doctor of your choosing for at least 5 sessions. They will need to be at least once a week. Some women take the week off and come in 5 days straight.”

“5…sessions?” you ask, confused by the wording.

“Yes. It’s to ensure the insemination process has occurred an optimal number of times.”

“Wait…so…I’m going to be inseminated multiple times? How much downtime do I need in between each insemination?”

“Hardly any. Our method isn’t like a typical clinic. Most women leave feeling very normal and a lot more satisfied than when they came in.”

“Not like a typical clinic? So…you don’t use the catheter method?”

“We use minimal medical equipment in our inseminations.”

“Minimal…so what does the procedure entail?”

Shoko clears her throat and continues. “So it begins with you choosing one of our doctors. We highly recommend spending some time on this part. It’s essential that you feel attraction towards your doctor. Once you make a choice, they will reach out to discuss how your insemination experience can be optimized for you. You will receive a biodata on their sexual profile, their preferred methods of arousal, and other relevant details.”

“I’m sorry, but what?” You are at the edge of your seat wondering if you’ve entered an alternate dimension. Surely, this was all being made up? “Arousal, sexual profile- why would I need all these details? I thought sperm donors only gave information like height, weight, medical history and stuff like that.”

“Why wouldn’t they? You’re choosing to be bred by them. They would have to make sure their patient is satisfied with the experience.”

“Bred?” You bleat the word stupidly.

“Yes. We are a natural breeding clinic. We use the method nature has provided to us to ensure a pregnancy.”

The gears in your brain start turning and something finally clicks.

“Are-are you saying…I would be having sex with my doctor?”

“That is correct.” Shoko smiles gently at you, pleased that you have finally caught on.

“The human body doesn’t necessarily enjoy having medical equipment inserted into it. All that cold plastic, and the mechanical methods of insertion. It puts the body in a state of stress. Not good for implantation. So our doctors will inseminate you through the process of intercourse.”

 Her words fall like a fog around you. You can feel your heart racing, a flush creeping into your cheeks. It was…insane. The doctor of your choosing was essentially going to fuck a baby into you. As your mind starts pulling up the images of their doctors, each one impossibly handsome and striking, you feel a familiar throb starting between your legs. Wetting your lips, you try to talk to continue with the information session.

“I see. And…there are benefits to this?”

“Yes. Intercourse allows the body to relax, releasing happy hormones. In this stress-free state, in addition to the knowledge that your doctor is someone you’re attracted to and trust, the chance of an implantation doubles.”

You gape at Shoko, your mind reeling from all the information.

“And…when you say the insemination process will be optimized for my best experience…?”

“The doctor you choose will ask you extensive questions about your preferences. What turns you on, positions, dislikes, toys. It’s to determine if they will satisfy your breeding experience. If they feel they might not be a good fit, they’ll recommend another one of our doctors.”

You swallow, your mouth going dry. “I see. And…what else do I need to know?”

“We will start by collecting your medical history and run some blood work to make sure your body is ready for an insemination process. Women who have a domestic partner will need to get both a waiver and a consent form signed by their partner that they have been informed what happens for the insemination.”

“Of course. Makes sense.”

“You will be assigned an emotional support companion during this process. It will either be myself or Mr. Ijichi Kiyotaka. We are there to help ease your nerves and ensure you enjoy the process. And all patients must think of a unique safeword to use during the insemination process.”

“Safeword?” you parrot back, still processing.

“Yes. At any point during the process, should you feel uncomfortable, your safeword ensures all actions cease and your doctor will give you some space to breathe and reassess the situation.”

All you can do is nod along. Shoko gives you a look of reassurance. “I can guarantee that most women are pleased with the results. And our doctors are quite skilled in what they do. It’s natural to feel a little shy and embarrassed but at the end of the day, we all share a common goal- a healthy baby.”

Despite your initial shock, you feel some of your trepidation fade away. Shoko continues.

“If you are ok with all of this, I can send you the forms to get the process started. Once those are filled, you can take some time to decide on your doctor. Then we’ll set up a call with them.”

“Thank you.” You make a split-second decision. “Please go ahead and send the forms.”

“Excellent. I’ll send them to the email you put in your inquiry. Was there anything else?”

You shake your head no. “I think I have all I need.”

“Great! I look forward to assisting you again.” Shoko ends the call and you immediately go the the website again to look at the doctors, one of which will end up fathering your child. Such a hard decision. How will you ever make the choice?

@thesunxwentblack @kentocalls @actuallysaiyan

@belle-oftheball34 @jesssicapaniagua

@figmentforms

© nanamiscocksleeve original work | no copying, plagiarizing or translating

[fight-nights-at-freddys]

MASTER POST OF PROSHIP RESOURCES!!! <3<3

this is just for links (bc i just have No Way of formatting this properly), so for more in-depth stuffs and credits, head to the google doc, or the carrd !! :3c

Fiction ≠ Reality

Violent media -

Does Media Violence Predict Societal Violence? It Depends on What You Look at and When

Video Game Violence Use Among “Vulnerable” Populations: The Impact of Violent Games on Delinquency and Bullying Among Children with Clinically Elevated Depression or Attention Deficit Symptoms

Extreme metal music and anger processing

On the Morality of Immoral Fiction: Reading Newgate Novels, 1830–1848

How gamers manage aggression: Situating skills in collaborative computer games

Examining desensitization using facial electromyography:Violent videogames, gender, and affective responding

'Bad' video game behavior increases players' moral sensitivity

Fiction and Morality: Investigating the Associations Between Reading Exposure, Empathy, Morality, and Moral Judgment

Comfortably Numb or Just Yet Another Movie? Media Violence Exposure Does Not Reduce Viewer Empathy for Victims of Real Violence Among Primarily Hispanic Viewers

Fantasy Crime: The Criminalisation of Fantasy Material Under Australia's Child Abuse Material Legislation

Being able to distinguish fiction from reality -

Effects of context on judgments concerning the reality status of novel entities

Children’s Causal Learning from Fiction: Assessing the Proximity Between Real and Fictional Worlds

Reality/Fiction Distinction and Fiction/Fiction Distinction during Sentence Comprehension

Reality = Relevance? Insights from Spontaneous Modulations of the Brain’s Default Network when Telling Apart Reality from Fiction

How does the brain tell the real from imagined?

Meeting George Bush versus Meeting Cinderella: The Neural Response When Telling Apart What is Real from What is Fictional in the Context of Our Reality

loli/shota/kodocon -

If I like lolicon, does it mean I’m a pedophile? A therapist’s view

Virtual Child Pornography, Human Trafficking and Japanese Law: Pop Culture, Harm and Legal Restrains

Lolicon: The Reality of ‘Virtual Child Pornography’ in Japan

Report: cartoon paedophilia harmless

‘The Lolicon Guy:’ Some Observations on Researching Unpopular Topics in Japan

Robot Ghosts And Wired Dreams Japanese Science Fiction From Origins To Anime [pg 227-228]

Australia's "child abuse material' legislation, internet regulation and the juridification of the imaginationjuridification of the imagination [pg 14-15]

Multiple Orientations as Animating Misdelivery: Theoretical Considerations on Sexuality Attracted to Nijigen (Two-Dimensional) Objects

Positive Impact on Mental Health

Art therapy -

The effectiveness of art therapy for anxiety in adults: A systematic review of randomised and non-randomised controlled trials

Efficacy of Art Therapy in Individuals With Personality Disorders Cluster B/C: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Effectiveness of Art Therapy With Adult Clients in 2018 - What Progress Has Been Made?

Benefits of Art Therapy in People Diagnosed With Personality Disorders: A Quantitative Survey

The Effectiveness of Art Therapy in the Treatment of Traumatized Adults: A Systematic Review on Art Therapy and Trauma

The clinical effectiveness and current practice of art therapy for trauma

Writing therapy -

Optimizing the perceived benefits and health outcomes of writing about traumatic life events

Expressive writing and post-traumatic stress disorder: Effects on trauma symptoms, mood states, and cortisol reactivity

Focused expressive writing as self-help for stress and trauma

Putting Stress into Words: The Impact of Writing on Physiological, Absentee, and Self-Reported Emotional Well-Being Measures

The writing cure: How expressive writing promotes health and emotional well-being

Effects of Writing About Traumatic Experiences: The Necessity for Narrative Structuring

Scriptotherapy: The effects of writing about traumatic events

Emotional and physical benefits of expressive writing

Emotional and Cognitive Processing in Sexual Assault Survivors' Narratives

Finding happiness in negative emotions: An experimental test of a novel expressive writing paradigm

An everyday activity as treatment for depression: The benefits of expressive writing for people diagnosed with major depressive disorder

Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process

Effects of expressive writing on sexual dysfunction, depression, and PTSD in women with a history of childhood sexual abuse: Results from a randomized clinical trial

Written Emotional Disclosure: Testing Whether Social Disclosure Matters

Written emotional disclosure: A controlled study of the benefits of expressive writing homework in outpatient psychotherapy

Misc -

Emotional disclosure about traumas and its relation to health: Effects of previous disclosure and trauma severity

Treating complex trauma in adolescents: A phase-based integrative approach for play therapists

Emotional expression and physical health: Revising traumatic memories or fostering self-regulation?

Disclosure of Sexual Victimization: The Effects of Pennebaker's Emotional Disclosure Paradigm on Physical and Psychological Distress

Kink/Porn/Fantasies

Sexual fantasies -

A Critical Microethnographic Examination of Power Exchange, Role Idenity and Agency with Black BDSM Practitioners

Women's Rape Fantasies: An Empirical Evaluation of the Major Explanations

History, culture and practice of puppy play

What Exactly Is an Unusual Sexual Fantasy?

The Psychology of Kink: a Survey Study into the Relationships of Trauma and Attachment Style with BDSM Interests

Punishing Sexual Fantasy

Women's Erotic Rape Fantasies

Sexual Fantasy and Adult Attunement: Differentiating Preying from Playing

What Is So Appealing About Being Spanked, Flogged, Dominated, or Restrained? Answers from Practitioners of Sexual Masochism/Submission

Dark Fantasies, Part 1 - With Dr. Ian Kerner

Why Do Women Have Rape Fantasies

The 7 Most Common Sexual Fantasies and What to Do About Them

Sexual Fantasies

Pornography -

The Effects of Exposure to Virtual Child Pornography on Viewer Cognitions and Attitudes Toward Deviant Sexual Behavior

American Identities and Consumption of Japanese Homoerotica

The differentiation between consumers of hentai pornography and human pornography

Pornography Use and Holistic Sexual Functioning: A Systematic Review of Recent Research

Claiming Public Health Crisis to Regulate Sexual Outlets: A Critique of the State of Utah's Declaration on Pornography

Pornography and Sexual Dysfunction: Is There Any Relationship?

Reading and Living Yaoi: Male-Male Fantasy Narratives as Women's Sexual Subculture in Japan

Women's Consumption of Pornograpy: Pleasure, Contestation, and Empowerment

Pornography and Sexual Violence

The Sunny Side of Smut

Other -

Fantasy Sexual Material Use by People with Attractions to Children

Fictosexuality, Fictoromance, and Fictophilia: A Qualitative Study of Love and Desire for Fictional Characters

Exploring the Ownership of Child-Like Sex Dolls

Are Sex and Pornograpy Addiction Valid Disorders? Adding a Leisure Science Perspecive to the Sexological Critique

Littles: Affects and Aesthetics in Sexual Age-Play

An Exploratory Study of a New Kink Activity: "Pup Play"

Jaws Effect

The Jaws Effect: How movie narratives are used to influence policy responses to shark bites in Western Australia

The Shark Attacks That Were the Inspiration for Jaws

The Great White Hope (written by Peter Benchley, writer of Jaws)

The Jaws Myth [not a study BUT is an interesting read and provides some links to articles and studies]

Slenderman Stabbings

Out Came the Girls: Adolescent Girlhood, the Occult, and the Slender Man Phenomenon

Jury in Slender Man case finds Anissa Weier was mentally ill, will not go to prison

2nd teen in 'Slender Man' stabbing case to remain in institutional care for 40 years

Negative effects of online harassment

How stressful is online victimization? Effects of victim's personality and properties of the incident

Prevalence, Psychological Impact, and Coping of Cyberbully Victims Among College Students

Offline Consequences of Online Victimization

The Relative Importance of Online Victimization in Understanding Depression, Delinquency, and Substance Use

Internet trolling and everyday sadism: Parallel effects on pain perception and moral judgement

The MAD Model of Moral Contagion: The Role of Motivation, Attention, and Design in the Spread of Moralized Content Online

Morally Motivated Networked Harassment as Normative Reinforcement

When Online Harassment is Perceived as Justified

Violence on Reddit Support Forums Unique to r/NoFap

"It Makes Me, A Minor, Uncomfortable" Media and Morality in Anti-Shippers' Policing of Online Fandom

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive (Check out the site for full daily updates!)

By Dave Fornell

New research supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health revealed a history of COVID-19 can double a patient's risk of heart attack, stroke or death.[1] The study, published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, found that the heightened risks can sometimes last for years after a COVID diagnosis.

The research was led by Cleveland Clinic and the University of Southern California. Anyone who had a COVID-19 infection, regardless of severity, was twice as likely to have a major cardiac event, such as heart attack, stroke or even death, for up to three years after diagnosis, the group found. The risk was significantly higher for patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and more of a determinant than a previous history of heart disease.

The researchers also found that patients with a blood type other an O (such as A, B or AB) were twice as likely to experience an adverse cardiovascular event after COVID-19 than those with an O blood type.

These findings show that the long-term risk associated with COVID-19 “continues to pose a significant public health burden” and the findings warrant further investigation, according to the authors.

Cardiology may see increasing numbers of former COVID patients in the years to come During the pandemic, there were serious concerns that the SARS-CoV-2 virus may cause an increase in future cardiovascular issues in COVID patients. This was based on the larger than expected vascular and myocardial involvement seen in many cases. What was originally thought to be long-term damage subsided in patients overtime. While concerns about heart damage and increased numbers of heart failure patients did not come to pass, this study shows evidence that cardiologists may still see increasing numbers of patients in the years to come.

“Worldwide over a billion people have already experienced COVID-19. The findings reported are not a small effect in a small subgroup,” co-senior study author Stanley Hazen, MD, PhD, chair of cardiovascular and metabolic sciences in Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute and co-section head of preventive cardiology, said in a statement. “The results included nearly a quarter million people and point to a finding of global healthcare importance that promises to translate into a rise in cardiovascular disease globally.”

Why do COVID patients have elevated cardiovascular risks? Researchers used U.K. Biobank data from 10,005 people who had COVID-19 and 217,730 people who did not between February and December 2020. Certain genetic variants are already linked to coronary artery disease, heart attack and COVID-19 infection, so researchers completed a genetic analysis to see if any of these known genetic variants contribute to elevated coronary artery disease risk after COVID-19. They found none of the known genetic variants were drivers of the enhanced cardiovascular events observed post COVID-19 infection. Instead, the data highlighted an association between elevated risk and blood type.

Previous research has shown that people who have A, B or AB blood types were also more susceptible to contracting COVID-19, the researchers said.

“These findings reveal while it’s an upper respiratory tract infection, COVID-19 has a variety of health implications and underscores that we should consider history of prior COVID-19 infection when formulating cardiovascular disease preventive plans and goals,” Hazen said. “The association uncovered by our research indicates a potential interaction between the virus and the piece of our genetic code that determines blood type and signals the need for further investigation.”

“Given our collective observations and that 60% of the world's population have these non-O blood types, our study raises important questions about whether more aggressive cardiovascular risk reduction efforts should be considered, possibly by taking into consideration an individual's genetic makeup," explained Hooman Allayee, PhD, of USC’s Keck School of Medicine, who was co-senior author of the paper.

Study link: www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/ATVBAHA.124.321001

[ashleyrowanthewriter]

Porcelain Doll HRT Observation Report

Part I - WTO Foreword

The report is based on studies and observations performed by Dr. Pierre Oupée, Dr. Kotomi Abuki and Dr. Pirkko Osliini. The team studied 25 participants who underwent therapy including Dr. Osliini.

The therapy has been approved by the World Transhumanism Association, but every licensed physician administering the treatment has to report the course of therapy of at least 50% of patients for clarity of data. The therapy is to be submitted for reapproval once reports of at least 1000 patients are collected.

Part II - Recommended Psychological Evaluation

Before undergoing the therapy it is recommended to evaluate the patients psychologically. The evaluation should take three sessions, which should be performed in intervals of 14 days. The process of evaluation prioritises informed consent and letting the patient consider their decision.

The first session is focused on discussing the desired effects with the patient. During the second session the patient is to be explained about the effects of the therapy. During the third session the patient signs the informed consent file after which they can undergo an endocrinological evaluation and get prescribed the medications.

Part III - Required Medications

All medications are available in oral and epidermal form. It is important to note that the exact dosage differs from patient to patient.

Antihomogen (0,5-2 mg/week) - Humanity removal agent. Due to the anthropomorphic nature of the therapy it is important to keep the dosage low unless cross administering multiple therapies.

Antisomatotropin (10-17 mg/week) - Somatotropin halting agent.

Contostropin (13-22 mg/week) - Shrinking hormone. Due to the rate of influence the final dose should be taken when the patient reaches the height of 5-7 cm higher than desired. Further research is advised.

Tsichirone (17,5-32 mg/week) - Porcelanising agent.

Part IV - Course of Therapy

Phase 1 (onset on week 4-8) - Somatotropin in the patient’s body stops influencing it and constopropin causes it to start shrinking.

Phase 2 (onset on week 7-14) - Tsichirone starts turning the patient’s skin into soft porcelain. The effects of constotropine become amplified causing rapid decrease in height. The patient’s hair starts falling out. It is not understood what causes this effect, but it is observed that it doesn’t affect scalp hair. Further research is required.

Phase 3 (onset on week 20-30) - Tsichirone might cause the patient’s body to spontaneously freeze for a short time. The effect first affects small parts of the body such as single fingers to later spread to entire limbs and near the onset of phase 4 even the entire body. The patient’s scalp hair stops growing. It is not understood what causes this effect. Further research is required. The patient’s body hair falls out entirely midway through this phase. Tsichirone causes the patient’s skin to become more brittle. The patient’s hearing becomes more sensitive to high sounds. It is not understood what causes this effect. Further research is required.

Phase 4 (onset on week 40-56) - The patient’s body is completely turned into soft porcelain. While the patient retains muscle control for some time, tsichirone starts causing muscle atrophy and conversion of movable soft porcelain into immovable hard porcelain.

Phase 4A (10 weeks after the onset of phase 4) - The patient has to register in a surgery clinic licensed to perform dollification surgeries.

Phase 5 (onset on week 55-70) - Tsichirone causes complete conversion of soft porcelain into hard porcelain and complete muscle atrophy. The patient loses control over their body. Dollification surgeries become possible. The medication process is deemed completed.

Part V - Course of Surgeries

All the surgeries become possible after the patient reaches phase 5 of therapy. 

Articuplasty involves cutting the patient’s body and shaping new joints out of kintsugine. The joints become integrated with the patient's body after two to three weeks of auxiliary tsichirone therapy after which the patient is to undergo physical rehabilitation. Articuplasty is to be performed on shoulder joints, elbows, wrists, finger joints, hips, knees and ankles. If the patient expresses such desire, articuplasty can also be performed on toe joints, neck and some regions of the torso. The patients are able to use their joints despite muscle atrophy.

Voice box transplantation is not necessary for transition, but if the patient wishes not to undergo it, it is advised they learn sign language. The surgery involves cutting a hole in the body region chosen by the patient, inserting an artificial voice box and sealing the hole using kintsugine. The seal gets healed after one to two weeks of auxiliary tsichirone therapy. Although the voice box can be transplanted to any part of the body that is big enough to store it, it is highly recommended to transplant it into the neck or the torso.

Some patients express a desire for their post-transition forms to possess winding keys. In such cases it is possible for them to undergo winding key transplantation. The transplantation consists of drilling a hole in the patient’s body, constructing a key rail out of kintsugine, inserting the key and sealing the rail. The key becomes integrated into the patient’s body after two to three weeks of auxiliary tsichirone therapy, during which it is absolutely necessary not to touch the key. Touching the key during the auxiliary therapy may result in damage which may render the key unusable or require repeating the surgery. Winding the key seems to have no effect on the patient's physical state. It is however understood to cause feelings of relaxation. Further research is required.

Some patients express a desire for their post-transition forms to possess movable eyelids. In such cases it is possible for them to undergo palpebraplasty. The surgery involves cutting the eyelid rails into the patient’s eye sockets and shaping the eyelids out of kintsugine. The eyelids become integrated with the patient’s body after four to eight days of auxiliary tsichirone therapy. To ensure proper shape of the eyelids they are to be shaped in the closed position.

Part VI - Reversibility

The effects of the therapy are currently understood to be irreversible once the patient’s body enters phase 4 of the transition process. Further research is required.

Part VII - Contraindications

The therapy is not to be administered to patients with calcium deficiency until the deficiency is treated.

To prevent damage to the organism the therapy is not to be administered to patients with brittle bone disease.

Patients with any health conditions causing muscle atrophy are to be thoroughly observed by their physician.

The physician has the right to alter or completely halt therapy if it poses danger to the patient’s life.

Part VIII - WTO Approval

The World Transhumanism Organisation approved the therapy on August 2nd 20XX.

*************

Sorry, but I like the otherkin HRT genre too much. And while it will feel weird to self-insert myself into such a story as a receiver (because it seems my disability prevents me from gender HRT IRL), I thought I could write some lore bits to contribute to the community. It might not even be the only report I decide to write.

Of course, feel free to base your own story on that report. I'd be excited to read it!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Andy L.

Published: Apr 14, 2024

It has now been just little under a week since the publication of the long anticipated NHS independent review of gender identity services for children and young people, the Cass Review.

The review recommends sweeping changes to child services in the NHS, not least the abandonment of what is known as the “affirmation model” and the associated use of puberty blockers and, later, cross-sex hormones. The evidence base could not support the use of such drastic treatments, and this approach was failing to address the complexities of health problems in such children.

Many trans advocacy groups appear to be cautiously welcoming these recommendations. However, there are many who are not and have quickly tried to condemn the review. Within almost hours, “press releases“, tweets and commentaries tried to rubbish the report and included statements that were simply not true. An angry letter from many “academics”, including Andrew Wakefield, has been published. These myths have been subsequently spreading like wildfire.

Here I wish to tackle some of those myths and misrepresentations.

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Myth 1: 98% of all studies in this area were ignored

Fact

A comprehensive search was performed for all studies addressing the clinical questions under investigation, and over 100 were discovered. All these studies were evaluated for their quality and risk of bias. Only 2% of the studies met the criteria for the highest quality rating, but all high and medium quality (50%+) studies were further analysed to synthesise overall conclusions.

Explanation

The Cass Review aimed to base its recommendations on the comprehensive body of evidence available. While individual studies may demonstrate positive outcomes for the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in children, the quality of these studies may vary. Therefore, the review sought to assess not only the findings of each study but also the reliability of those findings.

Studies exhibit variability in quality. Quality impacts the reliability of any conclusions that can be drawn. Some may have small sample sizes, while others may involve cohorts that differ from the target patient population. For instance, if a study primarily involves men in their 30s, their experiences may differ significantly from those of teenage girls, who constitute the a primary patient group of interest. Numerous factors can contribute to poor study quality.

Bias is also a big factor. Many people view claims of a biased study as meaning the researchers had ideological or predetermined goals and so might misrepresent their work. That may be true. But that is not what bias means when we evaluate medical trials.

In this case we are interested in statistical bias. This is where the numbers can mislead us in some way. For example, if your study started with lots of patients but many dropped out then statistical bias may creep in as your drop-outs might be the ones with the worst experiences. Your study patients are not on average like all the possible patients.

If then we want to look at a lot papers to find out if a treatment works, we want to be sure that we pay much more attention to those papers that look like they may have less risk of bias or quality issues. The poor quality papers may have positive results that are due to poor study design or execution and not because the treatment works.

The Cass Review team commissioned researchers at York University to search for all relevant papers on childhood use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for treating “gender dysphoria”. The researchers then graded each paper by established methods to determine quality, and then disregarded all low quality papers to help ensure they did not mislead.

The Review states,

The systematic review on interventions to suppress puberty (Taylor et al: Puberty suppression) provides an update to the NICE review (2020a). It identified 50 studies looking at different aspects of gender-related, psychosocial, physiological and cognitive outcomes of puberty suppression. Quality was assessed on a standardised scale. There was one high quality study, 25 moderate quality studies and 24 low quality studies. The low quality studies were excluded from the synthesis of results.

As can be seen, the conclusions that were based on the synthesis of studies only rejected 24 out of 50 studies – less than half. The myth has arisen that the synthesis only included the one high quality study. That is simply untrue.

There were two such literature reviews: the other was for cross-sex hormones. This study found 19 out of 53 studies were low quality and so were not used in synthesis. Only one study was classed as high quality – the rest medium quality and so were used in the analysis.

12 cohort, 9 cross-sectional and 32 pre–post studies were included (n=53). One cohort study was high-quality. Other studies were moderate (n=33) and low-quality (n=19). Synthesis of high and moderate-quality studies showed consistent evidence demonstrating induction of puberty, although with varying feminising/masculinising effects. There was limited evidence regarding gender dysphoria, body satisfaction, psychosocial and cognitive outcomes, and fertility.

Again, it is myth that 98% of studies were discarded. The truth is that over a hundred studies were read and appraised. About half of them were graded to be of too poor quality to reliably include in a synthesis of all the evidence. if you include low quality evidence, your over-all conclusions can be at risk from results that are very unreliable. As they say – GIGO – Garbage In Garbage Out.

Nonetheless, despite analysing the higher quality studies, there was no clear evidence that emerged that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones were safe and effective. The BMJ editorial summed this up perfectly,

One emerging criticism of the Cass review is that it set the methodological bar too high for research to be included in its analysis and discarded too many studies on the basis of quality. In fact, the reality is different: studies in gender medicine fall woefully short in terms of methodological rigour; the methodological bar for gender medicine studies was set too low, generating research findings that are therefore hard to interpret. The methodological quality of research matters because a drug efficacy study in humans with an inappropriate or no control group is a potential breach of research ethics. Offering treatments without an adequate understanding of benefits and harms is unethical. All of this matters even more when the treatments are not trivial; puberty blockers and hormone therapies are major, life altering interventions. Yet this inconclusive and unacceptable evidence base was used to inform influential clinical guidelines, such as those of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which themselves were cascaded into the development of subsequent guidelines internationally.

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Myth 2: Cass recommended no Trans Healthcare for Under 25s

Fact

The Cass Review does not contain any recommendation or suggestion advocating for the withholding of transgender healthcare until the age of 25, nor does it propose a prohibition on individuals transitioning.

Explanation

This myth appears to be a misreading of one of the recommendations.

The Cass Review expressed concerns regarding the necessity for children to transition to adult service provision at the age of 18, a critical phase in their development and potential treatment. Children were deemed particularly vulnerable during this period, facing potential discontinuity of care as they transitioned to other clinics and care providers. Furthermore, the transition made follow-up of patients more challenging.

Cass then says,

Taking account of all the above issues, a follow-through service continuing up to age 25 would remove the need for transition at this vulnerable time and benefit both this younger population and the adult population. This will have the added benefit in the longer-term of also increasing the capacity of adult provision across the country as more gender services are established.

Cass want to set up continuity of service provision by ensure they remain within the same clinical setting and with the same care providers until they are 25. This says nothing about withdrawing any form of treatment that may be appropriate in the adult care pathway. Cass is explicit in saying her report is making no recommendations as to what that care should look like for over 18s.

It looks the myth has arisen from a bizarre misreading of the phrase “remove the need for transition”. Activists appear to think this means that there should be no “gender transition” whereas it is obvious this is referring to “care transition”.

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Myth 3: Cass is demanding only Double Blind Randomised Controlled Trials be used as evidence in “Trans Healthcare”

Fact

While it is acknowledged that conducting double-blind randomized controlled trials (DBRCT) for puberty blockers in children would present significant ethical and practical challenges, the Cass Review does not advocate solely for the use of DBRCT trials in making treatment recommendations, nor does it mandate that future trials adhere strictly to such protocols. Rather, the review extensively discusses the necessity for appropriate trial designs that are both ethical and practical, emphasizing the importance of maintaining high methodological quality.

Explanation

Cass goes into great detail explaining the nature of clinical evidence and how that can vary in quality depending on the trial design and how it is implemented and analysed. She sets out why Double Blind Randomised Controlled Trials are the ‘gold standard’ as they minimise the risks of confounding factors misleading you and helping to understand cause and effect, for example. (See Explanatory Box 1 in the Report).

Doctors rely on evidence to guide treatment decisions, which can be discussed with patients to facilitate informed choices considering the known benefits and risks of proposed treatments.

Evidence can range from a doctor’s personal experience to more formal sources. For instance, a doctor may draw on their own extensive experience treating patients, known as ‘Expert Opinion.’ While valuable, this method isn’t foolproof, as historical inaccuracies in medical beliefs have shown.

Consulting other doctors’ experiences, especially if documented in published case reports, can offer additional insight. However, these reports have limitations, such as their inability to establish causality between treatment and outcome. For example, if a patient with a bad back improves after swimming, it’s uncertain whether swimming directly caused the improvement or if the back would have healed naturally.

Further up the hierarchy of clinical evidence are papers that examine cohorts of patients, typically involving multiple case studies with statistical analysis. While offering better evidence, they still have potential biases and limitations.

This illustrates the ‘pyramid of clinical evidence,’ which categorises different types of evidence based on their quality and reliability in informing treatment decisions

The above diagram is published in the Cass Review as part of Explanatory Box 1.

We can see from the report and papers that Cass did not insist that only randomised controlled trials were used to assess the evidence. The York team that conducted the analyses chose a method to asses the quality of studies called the Newcastle Ottawa Scale. This is a method best suited for non RCT trials. Cass has selected an assessment method best suited for the nature of the available evidence rather than taken a dogmatic approach on the need for DBRCTs. The results of this method were discussed about countering Myth 1.

Explainer on the Newcastle Ottawa Scale

The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) is a tool designed to assess the quality of non-randomized studies, particularly observational studies such as cohort and case-control studies. It provides a structured method for evaluating the risk of bias in these types of studies and has become widely used in systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

The NOS consists of a set of criteria grouped into three main categories: selection of study groups, comparability of groups, and ascertainment of either the exposure or outcome of interest. Each category contains several items, and each item is scored based on predefined criteria. The total score indicates the overall quality of the study, with higher scores indicating lower risk of bias.

This scale is best applied when conducting systematic reviews or meta-analyses that include non-randomized studies. By using the NOS, researchers can objectively assess the quality of each study included in their review, allowing them to weigh the evidence appropriately and draw more reliable conclusions.

One of the strengths of the NOS is its flexibility and simplicity. It provides a standardized framework for evaluating study quality, yet it can be adapted to different study designs and research questions. Additionally, the NOS emphasizes key methodological aspects that are crucial for reducing bias in observational studies, such as appropriate selection of study participants and controlling for confounding factors.

Another advantage of the NOS is its widespread use and acceptance in the research community. Many systematic reviews and meta-analyses rely on the NOS to assess the quality of included studies, making it easier for researchers to compare and interpret findings across different studies.

As for future studies, Cass makes no demand only DBRCTs are conducted. What is highlighted is at the very least that service providers build a research capacity to fill in the evidence gaps.

The national infrastructure should be put in place to manage data collection and audit and this should be used to drive continuous quality improvement and research in an active learning environment.

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Myth 4: There were less than 10 detransitioners out of 3499 patients in the Cass study.

Fact

Cass was unable to determine the detransition rate. Although the GIDS audit study recorded fewer than 10 detransitioners, clinics declined to provide information to the review that would have enabled linking a child’s treatment to their adult outcome. The low recorded rates must be due in part to insufficient data availability.

Explanation

Cass says, “The percentage of people treated with hormones who subsequently detransition remains unknown due to the lack of long-term follow-up studies, although there is suggestion that numbers are increasing.”

The reported number are going to be low for a number of reasons, as Cass describes:

Estimates of the percentage of individuals who embark on a medical pathway and subsequently have regrets or detransition are hard to determine from GDC clinic data alone. There are several reasons for this:

Damningly, Cass describes the attempt by the review to establish “data linkage’ between records at the childhood gender clinics and adult services to look at longer term detransition and the clinics refused to cooperate with the Independent Review. The report notes the “…attempts to improve the evidence base have been thwarted by a lack of cooperation from the adult gender services”.

We know from other analyses of the data on detransitioning that the quality of data is exceptionally poor and the actual rates of detransition and regret are unknown. This is especially worrying when older data, such as reported in WPATH 7, suggest natural rates of decrease in dysphoria without treatment are very high.

Gender dysphoria during childhood does not inevitably continue into adulthood. Rather, in follow-up studies of prepubertal children (mainly boys) who were referred to clinics for assessment of gender dysphoria, the dysphoria persisted into adulthood for only 6–23% of children.

This suggests that active affirmative treatment may be locking in a trans identity into the majority of children who would otherwise desist with trans ideation and live unmedicated lives.

I shall add more myths as they become spread.

==

It's not so much "myths and misconceptions" as deliberate misinformation. Genderists are scrambling to prop up their faith-based beliefs the same way homeopaths do. Both are fraudulent.

[fatliberation]

I totally understand and can empathize with fat activists when it comes to medical fatphobia. But I do think its important to provide nuance to this topic.

A lot of doctors mention weight loss, particularly for elective surgeries, because it makes the recovery process easier (Particularly with keeping sutures in place) and anesthetic safer.

I feel like its still important to mention those things when advocating for fat folks. Safety is important.

What you're talking about is actually a different topic altogether - the previous ask was not about preparing for surgery, it was about dieting being the only treatment option for anon's chronic pain, which was exacerbating their ed symptoms. Diets have been proven over and over again to be unsustainable (and are the leading predictor of eating disorders). So yeah, I felt that it was an inappropriate prescription informed more by bias than actual data.

(And side note: This study on chronic pain and obesity concluded that weight change was not associated with changes of pain intensity.)

If you want to discuss the risk factor for surgery, sure, I think that's an important thing to know - however, most fat people already know this and are informed by their doctors and surgeons of what the risks are beforehand, so I'm not really concerned about people being uninformed about it.

I'm a fat liberation activist, and what I'm concerned about is bias. I'm concerned that there are so many BMI cutoffs in essential surgeries for fat patients, when weight loss is hardly feasible, that creates a barrier to care that disproportionately affects marginalized people with intersecting identities.

It's also important to know that we have very little data around the outcomes of surgery for fat folks that isn't bariatric weight loss surgery.

A new systematic review by researchers in Sydney, Australia, published in the journal Clinical Obesity, suggests that weight loss diets before elective surgery are ineffective in reducing postoperative complications.

CADTH Health Technology Review Body Mass Index as a Measure of Obesity and Cut-Off for Surgical Eligibility made a similar conclusion:

Most studies either found discrepancies between BMI and other measurements or concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support BMI cut-offs for surgical eligibility. The sources explicitly reporting ethical issues related to the use of BMI as a measure of obesity or cut-off for surgical eligibility described concerns around stigma, bias (particularly for racialized peoples), and the potential to create or exacerbate disparities in health care access.

Nicholas Giori MD, PhD Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Stanford University, a respected leader in TKA and THA shared his thoughts in Elective Surgery in Adult Patients with Excess Weight: Can Preoperative Dietary Interventions Improve Surgical Outcomes? A Systematic Review:

“Obesity is not reversible for most patients. Outpatient weight reduction programs average only 8% body weight loss [1, 10, 29]. Eight percent of patients denied surgery for high BMI eventually reach the BMI cutoff and have total joint arthroplasty [28]. Without a reliable pathway for weight loss, we shouldn’t categorically withhold an operation that improves pain and function for patients in all BMI classes [3, 14, 16] to avoid a risk that is comparable to other risks we routinely accept.

It is not clear that weight reduction prior to surgery reduces risk. Most studies on this topic involve dramatic weight loss from bariatric surgery and have had mixed results [13, 19, 21, 22, 24, 27]. Moderate non-surgical weight loss has thus-far not been shown to affect risk [12]. Though hard BMI cutoffs are well-intended, currently-used BMI cutoffs nearly have the effect of arbitrarily rationing care without medical justification. This is because BMI does not strongly predict complications. It is troubling that the effects are actually not arbitrary, but disproportionately affect minorities, women and patients in low socioeconomic classes. I believe that the decision to proceed with surgery should be based on traditional shared-decision making between the patient and surgeon. Different patients and different surgeons have different tolerances to risk and reward. Giving patients and surgeons freedom to determine the balance that is right for them is, in my opinion, the right way to proceed.”

I agree with Dr. Giori on this. And I absolutely do not judge anyone who chooses to lose weight prior to a surgery. It's upsetting that it is the only option right now for things like safe anesthesia. Unfortunately, patients with a history of disordered eating (which is a significant percentage of fat people!) are left out of the conversation. There is certainly risk involved in either option and it sucks. I am always open to nuanced discussion, and the one thing I remain firm in is that weight loss is not the answer long-term. We should be looking for other solutions in treating fat patients and studying how to make surgery safer. A lot of this could be solved with more comprehensive training and new medical developments instead of continuously trying to make fat people less fat.

[mariacallous]

On Saturday, an Associated Press investigation revealed that OpenAI's Whisper transcription tool creates fabricated text in medical and business settings despite warnings against such use. The AP interviewed more than 12 software engineers, developers, and researchers who found the model regularly invents text that speakers never said, a phenomenon often called a “confabulation” or “hallucination” in the AI field.

Upon its release in 2022, OpenAI claimed that Whisper approached “human level robustness” in audio transcription accuracy. However, a University of Michigan researcher told the AP that Whisper created false text in 80 percent of public meeting transcripts examined. Another developer, unnamed in the AP report, claimed to have found invented content in almost all of his 26,000 test transcriptions.

The fabrications pose particular risks in health care settings. Despite OpenAI’s warnings against using Whisper for “high-risk domains,” over 30,000 medical workers now use Whisper-based tools to transcribe patient visits, according to the AP report. The Mankato Clinic in Minnesota and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles are among 40 health systems using a Whisper-powered AI copilot service from medical tech company Nabla that is fine-tuned on medical terminology.

Nabla acknowledges that Whisper can confabulate, but it also reportedly erases original audio recordings “for data safety reasons.” This could cause additional issues, since doctors cannot verify accuracy against the source material. And deaf patients may be highly impacted by mistaken transcripts since they would have no way to know if medical transcript audio is accurate or not.

The potential problems with Whisper extend beyond health care. Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Virginia studied thousands of audio samples and found Whisper adding nonexistent violent content and racial commentary to neutral speech. They found that 1 percent of samples included “entire hallucinated phrases or sentences which did not exist in any form in the underlying audio” and that 38 percent of those included “explicit harms such as perpetuating violence, making up inaccurate associations, or implying false authority.”

In one case from the study cited by AP, when a speaker described “two other girls and one lady,” Whisper added fictional text specifying that they “were Black.” In another, the audio said, “He, the boy, was going to, I’m not sure exactly, take the umbrella.” Whisper transcribed it to, “He took a big piece of a cross, a teeny, small piece … I’m sure he didn’t have a terror knife so he killed a number of people.”

An OpenAI spokesperson told the AP that the company appreciates the researchers’ findings and that it actively studies how to reduce fabrications and incorporates feedback in updates to the model.

Why Whisper Confabulates

The key to Whisper’s unsuitability in high-risk domains comes from its propensity to sometimes confabulate, or plausibly make up, inaccurate outputs. The AP report says, "Researchers aren’t certain why Whisper and similar tools hallucinate," but that isn't true. We know exactly why Transformer-based AI models like Whisper behave this way.

Whisper is based on technology that is designed to predict the next most likely token (chunk of data) that should appear after a sequence of tokens provided by a user. In the case of ChatGPT, the input tokens come in the form of a text prompt. In the case of Whisper, the input is tokenized audio data.

The transcription output from Whisper is a prediction of what is most likely, not what is most accurate. Accuracy in Transformer-based outputs is typically proportional to the presence of relevant accurate data in the training dataset, but it is never guaranteed. If there is ever a case where there isn't enough contextual information in its neural network for Whisper to make an accurate prediction about how to transcribe a particular segment of audio, the model will fall back on what it “knows” about the relationships between sounds and words it has learned from its training data.

According to OpenAI in 2022, Whisper learned those statistical relationships from “680,000 hours of multilingual and multitask supervised data collected from the web.” But we now know a little more about the source. Given Whisper's well-known tendency to produce certain outputs like "thank you for watching," "like and subscribe," or "drop a comment in the section below" when provided silent or garbled inputs, it's likely that OpenAI trained Whisper on thousands of hours of captioned audio scraped from YouTube videos. (The researchers needed audio paired with existing captions to train the model.)

There's also a phenomenon called “overfitting” in AI models where information (in this case, text found in audio transcriptions) encountered more frequently in the training data is more likely to be reproduced in an output. In cases where Whisper encounters poor-quality audio in medical notes, the AI model will produce what its neural network predicts is the most likely output, even if it is incorrect. And the most likely output for any given YouTube video, since so many people say it, is “thanks for watching.”

In other cases, Whisper seems to draw on the context of the conversation to fill in what should come next, which can lead to problems because its training data could include racist commentary or inaccurate medical information. For example, if many examples of training data featured speakers saying the phrase “crimes by Black criminals,” when Whisper encounters a “crimes by [garbled audio] criminals” audio sample, it will be more likely to fill in the transcription with “Black."

In the original Whisper model card, OpenAI researchers wrote about this very phenomenon: "Because the models are trained in a weakly supervised manner using large-scale noisy data, the predictions may include texts that are not actually spoken in the audio input (i.e. hallucination). We hypothesize that this happens because, given their general knowledge of language, the models combine trying to predict the next word in audio with trying to transcribe the audio itself."

So in that sense, Whisper "knows" something about the content of what is being said and keeps track of the context of the conversation, which can lead to issues like the one where Whisper identified two women as being Black even though that information was not contained in the original audio. Theoretically, this erroneous scenario could be reduced by using a second AI model trained to pick out areas of confusing audio where the Whisper model is likely to confabulate and flag the transcript in that location, so a human could manually check those instances for accuracy later.

Clearly, OpenAI's advice not to use Whisper in high-risk domains, such as critical medical records, was a good one. But health care companies are constantly driven by a need to decrease costs by using seemingly "good enough" AI tools—as we've seen with Epic Systems using GPT-4 for medical records and UnitedHealth using a flawed AI model for insurance decisions. It's entirely possible that people are already suffering negative outcomes due to AI mistakes, and fixing them will likely involve some sort of regulation and certification of AI tools used in the medical field.

[pierrotdoesnteat]

NUTRITION JOURNALS: VITAMINS (PT 1/2)

HOW MANY VITAMINS ARE THERE?

- there are thirteen (13) essential vitamins; vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pathogenic acid (B5), biotin (B7), and folate (B9). these are the ones i'll focus on in this past, and it will be a longer post.

WHAT IS VITAMIN A?

- vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that supports your immune system, vision, reproductive health, and fetal growth. there are two forms of vitamin A; preformed vitamin A which are found in things like dairy, liver, and fish, and provitamin A carotenoids which can be found in fruits, vegetables, and oils. - The recommended daily amount of vitamin A is 900 micrograms (mcg) for adult men and 700 mcg for adult women.

WHAT IS VITAMIN B6?

- vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) is important for normal brain development and for keeping the nervous system and immune system healthy. Food sources of vitamin B6 include poultry, fish, potatoes, chickpeas, bananas and fortified cereals. - vitamin B6 has been shown to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and helps your body to make DNA, hemoglobin, and neurotransmitters. - in addition to low iron, low vitamin B6 has been linked to anemia, which i dont imagine i need to tell yall is incredibly common in disordered people. - because B6 is connected to neurotransmitters, it can help regulate mood and even aid sleep. One study showed that higher vitamin B6 intake is associated with lower depression and anxiety risk in females, but not males. - vitamin B6 also helps your body maintain normal levels of homocysteine, an amino acid that helps to build proteins. - vitamin B6 supplementation specifically has been shown to improve body composition – your ratio of lean muscle to fat. it has also been linked with higher muscle mass and lower body fat levels. in particular, vitamin B6 supplementation has been linked to lower-body weight loss, with a reduced amount of fat across the hips and waist.

WHAT IS VITAMIN B12?

- vitamin B-12 (cobalamin) plays an essential role in red blood cell formation, cell metabolism, nerve function and the production of DNA, the molecules inside cells that carry genetic information. - sources of vitamin B-12 include poultry, meat, fish and dairy products. Vitamin B-12 is also added to some foods, such as fortified breakfast cereals, and is available as an oral supplement. - some studies suggest that vitamin B12 could affect body fat and metabolism. one review concluded that vitamin B12 plays a key role in fat metabolism, noting that a deficiency could be linked to increased fat accumulation and obesity. take this with a grain of salt, though, because there is limited research on the topic. - vitamin B12 plays a role in serotonin production, so a deficiency may be connected with clinical depression. this may feel irrelevant, but your physical and mental health are really complexly connected. taking care of one can help improve the other.

WHAT IS VITAMIN C?

- vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is a nutrient your body needs to form blood vessels, cartilage, muscle and collagen in bones. vitamin C is also vital to your body's healing process. additionally, it is an antioxidant that helps protect your cells against the effects of free radicals- molecules produced when your body breaks down food or is exposed to tobacco smoke and radiation from the sun, x-rays or other sources. - vitamin C is found in citrus fruits, berries, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, brussel sprouts, broccoli and spinach. - vitamin C helps your body to absorb iron in foods like beans and spinach, who's bio-availability is lower. - although vitamin C doesn't necessarily cause weight loss, it seems to be related to body weight. getting sufficient amounts of vitamin C increases body fat oxidation during moderate-intensity exercise. - another critical function of vitamin C is synthesizing carnitine, which transports long-chain fatty acids into the mitochondria that produce energy.

WHAT IS VITAMIN D?

- there are different forms of vitamin D, including ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) and cholecalciferol (vitamin D3). vitamin D is found in fish, eggs, and fortified milk. It's also made in the skin when exposed to sunlight. during periods of sunlight, vitamin D is stored in fat and then released when sunlight is not available. - your body can only absorb calcium, the primary component of bone, when vitamin D is present. Vitamin D also regulates many other cellular functions in your body. Its anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and neuro-protective properties support immune health, muscle function and brain cell activity. - vitamin D might play an important role in regulating mood and decreasing the risk of depression, and some studies suggest there may be a link between vitamin D and obesity, though more research is needed to verify this.

WHAT IS VITAMIN E?

- vitamin E is a nutrient that's important to vision, reproduction, and the health of your blood, brain and skin. vitamin E deficiency can cause nerve pain (neuropathy). - foods rich in vitamin E include canola oil, olive oil, margarine, almonds and peanuts. You can also get vitamin E from meats, dairy, leafy greens and fortified cereals. - getting enough vitamin E may help prevent oxidative stress and cellular damage. oxidative stress occurs when there’s an imbalance between your body’s antioxidant defenses and the production and accumulation of compounds called reactive oxygen species (ROS). this can lead to cellular damage and increased disease risk.

WHAT IS VITAMIN K?

- vitamin K is actually a group of compounds, with the most important ones being vitamin K1 and vitamin K2. vitamin K1 is obtained from leafy greens and some other vegetables. vitamin K2 is a group of compounds largely obtained from meats, cheeses, and eggs and synthesized by bacteria. - vitamin K's key role is to help heal injuries through blood clotting and strengthen bones by making four proteins among the 13 that are needed for blood clotting (coagulation) and osteocalcin.

[cy-cyborg]

I've seen my new GP twice now, and omg I didn't realise how bad things were with my previous one until now. Like I knew it was bad, but having someone who actually listens and cares to contrast to makes the shitty treatment stand out so much more. Some of the highlights:

My memory isn't great, so my partner wrote out a full report of what had been happening with a list of symptoms and a timeline of the most recent events, as well as printed versions of whatever tests results we could get before we arrived. Id summerised it at the top because every doctor id been to never reads what i give them, even when its from other doctors, but he read all of it, and asked clarifying questions as he did to make sure we were on the same page.

He actually read what little bits of my medical history had access to (while I've never seen this doctor before, I attended this clinic as a child, which was when most of the stuff associated with my primary disability was happening, so he could see that) and agreed that there is almost certainly something chronic going on that he will gladly investigate once the immediate issue is dealt with.

The fact I was autistic came up at some point, and I explained that I'm not formally diagnosed. My current psychologist and one other has done all the testing they can and they were both very confident I am autistic, but we can't get the formal diagnosis without a review from a neuropsyc because of something in my history, and I don't have the money to do that. My autistic traits are in my medical files but they're incorrectly attributed to something else. He was incredibly understanding of that and told me not to stress about the diagnosis (unless i want to, in which case he said hed support me from his end if he can) and asked if I could get something from my psychologist to explain how this might effect my treatment (not noticing symptoms, not being able to articulate problems consistently etc) so he knows what additional support I might need in the clinic.

He admitted to not knowing things, and told me how he was going to go about fixing that gap in his knowledge before my next appointment. For example, He admitted to never having a trans patient before, but that he's going to do some research on his own time to learn what he needs to do to be a better Dr for me.

He asked me to get some scans from a previous hospital stay, and picked up that I was hesitant. mum was with me and explained my auditory processing issues and how it makes communicating via phone hard. he told me not to stress and said he can get the receptionist to do it with my concent.

A lot of these aren't big things, but they make the world of difference when you have a complex medical history and its so refreshing just to feel heard after all this

[transmutationisms]

is there actual proof there's a genetic component to alcoholism? I've been searching and most articles I've read seem to agree it accounts for about half of your predisposition. I'm both skeptical and worried I might be going too far in my questioning to the point of denying science

genetic variants play a role in alcoholism. this is a decently readable overview on the topic from 2013. there are a few main points that should be clarified when discussing this.

often when people ask about this, they're thinking of genetic variants that affect a person's psychology, something like an inherited and inescapable 'addictive personality'. this is not really borne out by the research. as the paper above points out, the strongest genetic effects wrt the development of alcoholism are due to genes that change how we metabolise alcohol. having genes that make your alcohol metabolism more physically unpleasant in various ways (for example, you may have heard of so-called 'asian flushing syndrome') generally lowers the chances you will drink lots of alcohol, and thus lowers the chances you will qualify for a dx of alcohol use disorder. it's not a perfect protection; the paper also notes that, for example, businessmen exposed to cultural and economic pressures to drink heavily were more likely to do so even if they carried the normally protective genes. so, these aren't genes that control our behaviour directly or change our personalities; what we're seeing is largely the result of the fact that people like to do things that feel good, and if drinking makes you feel like hell, you are in general less likely to do it a lot.

this paper, and many papers on this topic, also mentions twin studies and adoptee studies to back up the claim that alcoholism is partially genetically determined. keep in mind that these studies are very hard to control for economic confounding factors, because even with adoptees, genetic siblings are also disproportionately likely to be adopted into families of a similar economic class. this is a general sticking point in a lot of genetics research.

many of the genetic variations believed to contribute to alcoholism are identified by studying families with multiple diagnosed alcoholics. this is tricky because it again has a lot of confounding factors; it identifies broad regions of the genome that then have to be broken down into more detailed analyses; and there are causation-correlation questions in this approach. some of the genes identified by these types of studies have replicated; many have not.

genomes and epigenetic variation are just extremely complicated. that doesn't mean the research isn't worthwhile, but understand that these types of questions turn up hundreds or thousands of potentially relevant genes, whose functions are often completely unknown, and which may be up- or down-regulated in ways no one understands. there are a lot of points of uncertainty between asking "do genes influence alcoholism" and generating an actual working list of such genes. i wrote a little about some of the uncertainties associated with epigenetic research here.

alcoholism itself is, like any psychiatric dx, heterogeneous (there are many different ways to qualify for the dx and the judgments inherently include a degree of clinician subjectivity). so, and this is a problem with studying the genetics of any psychiatric dx and many physical ailments as well, we're not really talking about a single clinical or psychological entity, and thus to even say which genetic variations may contribute to developing it is already pretty dubious in its discursive formulation alone.

[whysperingwoods]

Fear-mongering and herbalism

Herbalism is a crucial element for many practitioners of witchcraft, and lately I've seen a lot of fear-mongering in the #baby-witch and #witchblr tags that it's raising some serious red flags. Caution is necessary, yes, but over-simplified warnings against herbs that have a very long history and tradition of safe and effective use can rob people of accessible, beneficial ways to take an active role in their own health and wellbeing.

True: People absolutely need to be cautious about what they are putting in their bodies. True: "Natural" does not equate to "good" or "healthy". True: You need to speak to a medical professional regarding medical issues.

All these things being true do not mean that you cannot find plants that are safe to ingest, and that can benefit your health and support you. You can use herbs safely and you do have the power and ability to find information about them.

I've literally seen posts that say not to ingest any kind of herb because "you don't know what's in them" and "you don't know dosage, so it might harm you".

This lack of nuance is precisely the type of thinking that breeds misinformation and unnecessary fear, as if there is not enough of that to go around! It seems like because MAGA and anti-vaxx folks have been using the line "do your own research!!" so much, people are associating research with... right wing conspiracy theory? Somehow? Don't forget that being capable of doing good research also means being capable of evaluating your sources, and thinking critically about what you're reading.

Here are some of the misconceptions I've come across in the last couple days:

Laypeople can't safely use herbs

Fear of toxicity in herbs is common and rational, but herbs that you can find in your kitchen are food-grade and widely available. You don't need to eat them in enormous quantities to experience their benefits.

For example, thyme can help support the lungs during cold and flu season. Ginger tea is great for minor digestive upsets. These are things you have access to and can provide a safe means of relief.

Local apothecaries are very knowledgeable about where they source their herbs and what dosages are safe. They are also able to tell you if their herbs are pesticide-free, organic, etc.

Where you want to be cautious is ordering herbs online, especially places like Amazon or Etsy where there is no control whatsoever. Even supplements have been found to frequently not contain what they are said to contain, and you really have to do research about the company you're buying from beforehand.

If you don't have a local apothecary, you can still buy herbs online! Just make sure you are using a reputable website such as Mountain Rose Herbs where you can get bulk herbs.

Lesser known herbs require more caution, but there are fantastic books about herbalism and they provide information on dosage and various ways the herbs can be used responsibly. Your local library is almost guaranteed to have several books about herbalism, and if you aren't sure about a particular herb, look it up in multiple other resources to see if their information matches up. You can even find information about many commonly used herbs on WebMD.

Also, don't forage herbs that you plan to ingest if you are not experienced. This is a recipe for disaster, and incredibly dangerous. I'm not going to go into super huge detail about this, because it would merit its own post, but seriously, just don't do it until you have experience. Plant identification apps are not sufficient to identify herbs you plan to ingest.

Herbal remedies cure major illnesses

Herbs can play a supportive role, but it's crucial to recognise their limits. Herbal medicine should complement, not replace, medical treatment for severe chronic conditions. Clinical herbalists are trained to assess what's appropriate for herb-based support and when a situation requires immediate medical attention.

Herbs are not a panacea that will cure every ailment. Every person is unique and any single herb can have wildly different effects on the body. Some people might find incredible relief, while another person may find no effect at all, or may even find an herb doesn't agree with them.

Herbalists think they are medical practitioners

Because there is no federally regulated body for herbalists, people sometimes think it's the wild west out there and anyone can do anything, but that's not the case. Herbalists are not exempt from the law, and no one is legally allowed to practice medicine if they are not licensed to do so. Period. No amount of traditional knowledge changes that.

While the herbalist profession is not regulated federally, there are regulating bodies that are run by herbalists and that set standards for what is expected and permitted. If you search for "herbalism guild Canada" you will find the Canadian Council of Herbalist Associations which has tons of information, and some provinces also have their own guilds. Most guilds will have a list of reputable herbalists that you can access and they have strict requirements for being added to those lists. You can find these requirements on their websites and gauge them for yourself.

Part of training to become a clinical herbalist is knowing you are not a medical practitioner. You are taught not to diagnose people, and how to recognise when something is outside of your scope of practice.

From the CCHA:

9. A registered herbal practitioner will  offer interdisciplinary collaboration with other health professionals

Herbalists focus on holistic, complementary care, rather than taking on the role of medical practitioners. A qualified herbalist works alongside them to support the body's systems, rather than attempting to independently treat or diagnose medical systems. For example, they might work with clients to ease side-effects from medication, but they won't independently treat serious conditions like infections.

Herbalists are anti-vaxx and anti-science

The vast majority of clinical herbalists are not anti-vaxx or anti-modern medicine at all, and focus on combining traditional knowledge about plants with modern science. Are there herbalists out there who are anti-vaxx? Absolutely, just like any demographic you can find people who are spouting nonsense, but that is not the norm.

Thankfully, herbalism schools and herbalists are pretty up front with their beliefs. The CCHA has these requirements for herbalists in the guild:

3. Herbalists have an extensive knowledge base combining traditional wisdom and modern scientific perspective       [...] 7. A registered herbal practitioner is trained in herbal safety, drug interactions, and possible contraindications [...] 10. A registered herbal practitioner is accountable  to a professional organization, must maintain annual continuing education and must abide by professional standards 

When I was looking for a clinical herbalist myself, I always checked their website information and whether they were registered with a guild, and what the requirements for that guild were. The herbalist I chose also had a clear section on her website where she stated that she had experience working with people on psychiatric medications.

You can also often find their stance on other things such as LGBTQIA+ issues (such as statements on their website regarding their approach to HRT).

The school I ultimately selected for my education was one that had explicit information about how they integrated new science into their curriculum, and how frequently it was updated.

If you are not finding the information you're looking for, just ask! It's completely acceptable and not rude to contact an herbalist and ask them what their approach is on the things you are concerned about. They will be happy to answer these questions and give you any information they can to help you decide if they are a good fit for you.

Conclusion

Herbalism is not about replacing medical care or promising miracle cures. It's about tapping into centuries-old knowledge and combining it with modern insights. Embrace herbs with curiosity, responsibility, and respect, and you can have an incredible and beneficial relationship with them.

I'm sure there are plenty of points here that I have omitted or not sufficiently covered. I hope readers will take this as an indictment of the author, me, rather than one against herbalism as a whole.

[star-anise]

So I've been watching this series of videos where a research-focused psychologist goes through Jordan Peterson's work to see which of his ideas and arguments are based on solid empirical evidence. I love it, even though she does mistakenly say his background is in counselling psychology (my field) when he's actually a clinical psychologist.

Anyway, that's got me thinking about Jordan Peterson, and how his response to criticism is, "People have been after me for a long time because I’ve been speaking to disaffected young men — what a terrible thing to do, that is. [...] I thought the marginalized were supposed to have a voice.”

So, here's my theory: Young men of the 21st century have grown up in a culture that is specifically hostile and punitive towards them. However, I think that while girls and women can participate in this culture, it is as much or more the work of boys and men. And I think that the problem with Peterson is that he's not particularly good at helping his audience escape the maze they are trapped in--and he's absolutely opposed to any attempt to dismantle a maze that is actually of fairly recent manufacture.

Case in point: The metrosexual.

The word "metrosexual" was coined in 1994 by Mark Simpson, a gay writer whose settings seem to be perpetually fixed at "critique the shit out of it".

"Metrosexual" describes heterosexual men who might be mistaken as gay, because they are interested in things very common among gay men, including: Caring about whether they're attractive; caring about how their hair is cut and what products they use in it; caring about what clothes they wear; working out to make their bodies look better; frequenting nightclubs. To be "metrosexual" was, in some people's opinions, to be a "man-boy" searching for his "inner girl".

To be metrosexual was, in some ways, to be called someone who looked gay.

The term didn't really catch on until the early 2000s, when media became briefly obsessed with talking about which celebrities were "metrosexual" or not. In that era of hotly divided opinions over the acceptability of homosexuality and queerness, it was implicitly asking, "Who looks gay? Is he gay? Tell me, fellow broadcaster: How gay does this guy look to you?"

(They got to have their cake and eat it too. A liberal audience, desperate to gather as many LGBTQ+ people and allies as possible in their race for 50% acceptance of gay marriage, cherished any signs that people with social clout might be on their side. And a conservative one, watching the same discussion, would heartily enjoy seeing a rogues' gallery of degenerate Hollywood types paraded before them, their every effeminacy pointed out in loving detail.)

Which of course got us: The Retrosexual!

When everybody's helpfully compiling lists of all the things a man can do that look gay or unmanly, dudes who don't want to get the shit kicked out of them by homophobes know all the things not to do!

Therefore, being "manly" became strictly defined by what was off-limits. To be a Real Man meant you shouldn't care about whether you're attractive, or what soap you use, or how your hair is styled. You shouldn't enjoy dancing or get too enthusiastic about music. A Real Man cares about sports and beer and being on top! Dominant!! A WINNER!!!

And, so like, here's a secret: In Anglophone culture, we are very affected by the Puritan legacy that says pleasure is inherently sinful. Vanity and pride--caring about how you look and whether you're attractive--are literal gateways to the Devil. Gluttony, and therefore seeking pleasure at all, is another such. And in Puritan religious theology, women are inherently more sinful. Yes, it goes back to Adam and Eve, and how Eve was tempted into sin first. Long story short, things associated with women became associated with sinfulness, and sinfulness became associated with effeminacy. And for centuries, you haven't even needed to be religious to drink these attitudes from the groundwater.

Okay, that's not the secret, this is the secret: Pleasure is not inherently sinful.

And liking how you look and feeling attractive and paying attention to your sensuality and your emotional life and connecting with art in a real and vulnerable way can feel really good, if you're able to handle it well.

Being raised to be a Real Man in a world where masculinity is perceived to be actively under threat is so uniquely painful, I believe, because every attempt to define yourself as "not gay" means denying yourself one of life's pleasures, and telling yourself you never even wanted it in the first place.

And then those desperate to be Real Men found a way to take some of those things back in what is surely the most painful context possible: They are allowed strictly as tools of your heterosexuality and masculine need for dominance. You are allowed to care about grooming and dancing, etc, purely as a strategy in playing a game called "Getting Girls", where you either score or you don't, where not scoring means you're worthless and unlovable, and scoring is often... strangely unfulfilling and certainly not enough to fill the aching void inside of you.

The mistake both Peterson and his fanbase make is that they get to this point, and then think: The reason I feel so empty inside is... I just haven't gotten enough girls!

Maybe some guys get out of the maze by finding a woman who is allowed to care about things like affection and love and dancing and looking nice, and their connection with her lets them express all the other parts of their souls that didn't fit in the Real Man box, but can come out in roles like Boyfriend or Father.

But humans aren't telepathic, so relationships can only "fix" you so much as you're willing to do the work of nurturing your own soul in a safe environment, so for a lot of men the maze never ends, and sometimes they don't even get the fleeting joys of relationships or sex, since they're so fucked up about them!

At this point, I as a queer woman am like, "Solution's obvious! Dismantle the maze."

And Peterson, who has worked his whole life to achieve the status of Best Maze-Runner in All of Christendom, is clinging to it like, "NO! DOWN, YOU DARK CHAOTIC MOTHER! THIS MAZE GIVES MY LIFE MEANING! THIS MAZE CONNECTS ME TO MY FOREFATHERS! I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT THIS MAZE!"

At which point, like... what can you do but just leave him there?

At least he's not in my area of specialization. The world would be too unkind if I had to deal with him in any professional capacity. I wish Clinical Psychology all their continued joy of him.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

"Just a cold" that changes the structure and mass of your brain

By Nikhil Prasad

Medical News: A groundbreaking study from researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)-USA has shed light on how Long COVID is linked to structural changes in the brain caused by SARS-CoV-2. By using advanced imaging techniques, the team discovered structural changes in the brains of individuals with Long COVID, including increased cortical thickness and gray matter volume in specific regions. This Medical News report will explore the study's key findings, its implications for understanding Long COVID, and what it means for patients suffering from this persistent condition.

Understanding the Research Approach The study involved participants from the UCLA hospital and broader Los Angeles community, with 36 individuals ranging in age from 20 to 67. Among them, 15 had Long COVID symptoms, while others were used as healthy controls. Researchers utilized structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to compare brain differences between these groups. The study focused on specific brain regions, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the cingulate gyrus, which are known to be involved in cognitive and emotional processes. These areas were chosen because they are susceptible to inflammation and have been linked to neuropsychiatric symptoms.

To assess participants' cognitive and emotional health, tools like the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and the Hamilton Anxiety and Depression scales were used. The imaging data were processed using specialized software to measure cortical thickness and gray matter volume, providing a detailed look at the brain's structural changes.

Key Study Findings The study revealed several critical findings that deepen our understanding of Long COVID's impact on the brain. Participants with Long COVID showed:

-Increased Cortical Thickness: Regions such as the caudal anterior cingulate, posterior cingulate, and rostral middle frontal gyrus exhibited significantly higher cortical thickness compared to controls.

-Higher Gray Matter Volume: In areas like the posterior and isthmus cingulate gyri, Long COVID patients had greater gray matter volume.

Interestingly, these structural changes were associated with the severity of clinical symptoms. For example, higher thickness in the cingulate regions correlated with more severe chronic illness scores, while increased insular thickness was linked to anxiety levels.

Such changes suggest that Long COVID might lead to either swelling due to inflammation or compensatory mechanisms like neurogenesis to counteract damage.

How This Study Compares with Previous Research While most COVID-19-related brain studies have shown reductions in gray matter and cortical thickness, this research indicates an increase in these metrics for Long COVID pa tients. Prior studies focused on acute COVID cases often revealed brain shrinkage and cognitive decline. In contrast, this study highlights that Long COVID might involve unique mechanisms, such as prolonged inflammation or a compensatory response to earlier damage.

Implications for Patients and Healthcare Providers These findings are crucial for both patients and healthcare professionals. They suggest that the persistent symptoms of Long COVID, such as brain fog, fatigue, and anxiety, could have a physical basis in brain structure changes. Recognizing this connection can lead to better-targeted treatments and interventions.

The Future of Long COVID Research While this study offers valuable insights, it also leaves many questions unanswered. For example, are these brain changes reversible? Do they worsen over time? The researchers acknowledge the study's limitations, including its small sample size and lack of longitudinal data. Future studies should aim to include larger, more diverse populations and examine changes over time to build a clearer picture of Long COVID's effects.

Conclusions This research from UCLA represents a significant step forward in understanding the neurological impacts of Long COVID. The observed increases in cortical thickness and gray matter volume in certain brain regions provide strong evidence that Long COVID involves measurable structural brain changes. These findings offer hope that by identifying the physical manifestations of this condition, we can develop more effective treatments to alleviate its symptoms. However, the path forward requires continued research to uncover the full extent of these changes and their implications.

The study emphasizes the importance of addressing neuropsychiatric symptoms in Long COVID patients and highlights the need for comprehensive care that includes both physical and mental health support. As we move forward, it is vital to integrate these insights into public health strategies to help those affected by this debilitating condition.

The study findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal: Frontiers in Psychiatry. www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1412020/full

[soaringthroughthegalaxy]

For soft/fluffy/comforting prompt ideas, could you do something with Crosshair and his lady, like she's been struggling with high blood pressure and associated symptoms (headaches especially during stressful moments, pounding heart, short of breath) and she's supposed to be taking it easy while they wait for the medications to come in? Just him being sweet and soft and concerned?

Thank you so much for the request, anon. I hope this hits the spot. Writing Soft!Cross is always a good time.

I’m sending you all my love if you're struggling with this. I fell down a little research rabbit hole, and it doesn’t sound fun at all 😔

Equilibrium

When your body betrays you, there’s no one else in the galaxy you’d rather have at your side.

Pairing: Crosshair x f!reader

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: reader struggles with high blood pressure and the associated symptoms, Soft!Cross, established relationship, kisses, care and comfort, fluffy sweetness, some playful banter, Cross has some minor negative self-thoughts but we chase those away.

“And another one, kitten.” The slow slink of Crosshair’s voice offered you reassurance, slender fingers drawing soft circles on your thighs as you followed his instructions and took another deep breath.

It was Zhellday night, and you’d been getting ready to head out when the dizziness had started. You’d made it to the edge of the bed, calling out for him as you sat down before you’d had to shut your eyes in a desperate attempt to stop the planet from spinning. The shortness of breath quickly followed, your chest feeling like it was trapped in a vice as your heart pounded. You hated that the most – feeling like you couldn’t breathe.

It broke Crosshair’s heart whenever you went through this. You were so strong and had made it through so much in life, and yet it was your own body that caused you the most grief. “That’s it. You’re doing so well.” He soothed.

“I hate this.” You whine, fingers gripping the bedsheets for dear life as you will away the discomfort.

What he would give to take it away from you or to at least be able to warn you when it was about to happen. Instead, all he could do was watch as the woman he loved the most battled with her own body and be on hand with medication and comfort. His brows furrowed, lips pressing into a line. “I know, I know.” He muttered, giving your thigh a gentle squeeze.

“We’re gonna be late for dinner.” You sigh, frustration bubbling under the surface. Ever since you and Crosshair got your little place in Lower Pabu, you’d visit his siblings for dinner and games night every Zhellday. It was the highlight of your week.

“We don’t need to go,” Crosshair states, though he knows you’ll protest. You should be taking it easy until the doctor at the island’s clinic can determine the underlying cause of your high blood pressure. Although he bit his tongue whenever it came up, Crosshair couldn’t help but wonder if it was from the years of stress – of keeping him and his brothers alive during the war.

You knew you should be resting, but the thought of missing out on life was frustrating. You’d already lost so many years to the war, and for a while, you’d also thought you’d lost Crosshair. But now you could live normally, back with the man you loved. “I want to go.” You state firmly, eyes still closed as you focus on your breathing.

“Stubborn.” Amusement curled around the word, and Crosshair couldn’t hide the smile that tugged at his lips.

Letting out a small huff at the gentle teasing, your heart wasn’t just pounding now from your condition. It didn’t take much for the magnetic force of a man crouching in front of you to make your heart race – and his teasing had always hit the spot. “Pot meet kettle.”

The low rumble of Crosshair’s laugh filled the room, and your chest no longer felt so tight, breaths coming easier as the medication he’d brought you started to work its magic. Slowly, you opened your eyes, Crosshair’s hawkish gaze locked on you.

The splitting pain in your head had you screwing them shut again quickly, dragging in a quick breath as a noise of discomfort slipped from your lips. Everything had been blurry around the edges, which hadn’t helped the dizziness. “Nope. Not good.” You mumble, sighing in frustration.

“You wound me,” Crosshair replied playfully, knowing full well you hadn’t been talking about him, but he’d take some self-deprecation if it made you laugh.

He was dutifully rewarded. The soft sound of your laughter replaced his in the air, and he soaked up the sound like a dying man in the sands of Tatooine. He’d gone without it a whole year, trapped in the Empire’s clutches. He never wanted to be without it - or you - again.

“You’re still the most handsome man I know.” You insist as your laughter subsides, reaching out blindly to cup his face with one of your hands, smoothing your fingers over the angles of his face. In the four months since you’d rescued him from Mount Tantiss – along with Omega and, surprisingly, Tech - he’d started to gain back a little weight. He was still somewhat gaunt, though, cheeks hollow, but you were both taking it day by day. It was all you could do.

Taking one of your hands with his own, Crosshair lifts it, pressing a soft kiss to the back of it, lips lingering for a moment against your delicate skin. As lovely as your compliments were, he was still uncomfortable accepting them, refusing to believe them regardless of how often you said them.

Gentle fingers sought out your wrist, and more circles were rubbed against your pulse point to offer comfort and as a way for Crosshair to monitor your heart rate. It was still too high for his liking.

Pushing up onto his feet, he moved to lay down on the bed, pulling you down next to him. As much as he loved his brothers and sister – their relationship starting to return to how it had been before Order 66 – there was no question in his mind that you came first. He didn’t care if you were both late. His siblings would understand.

Shifting position, you rest your head against Crosshair’s shoulder, hand pressed to his chest, using his heartbeat and the slow rise and fall of his chest to help anchor you. With his arm wrapped around you, holding you close, his fingers brush against your back in light patterns.

You could feel the meds starting to kick in, the dizziness and headache abating as you rested against your love. Still, you kept your eyes shut.

In the comfortable silence, Crosshair could only watch you rest against him, a smile tugging at his lips. Lifting his free hand, he stroked across your cheek, thumb brushing over the little pout of your lips. As you lean into his touch, warmth coils through him.

His gaze lingers on your face, tracing the delicate lines that tell stories of laughter and tears. The weight of the past had not broken you; instead, it had moulded you into someone he admired more with each passing day. “We’ll go when you’re ready.” He murmured, his voice a gentle promise. “No rush.” Crosshair’s fingers continued offering physical reassurance.

“Thank you.” You whisper, grateful for his care. When you’d joined the boys at the start of the war as their liaison with Command, you hadn’t expected to fall so quickly for the snarky sniper.

He hadn’t expected to fall for you, either.

Snuggling a little closer, you let out a slow exhale. “You’re too good to me.”

“I try to be, love,” Crosshair answers quietly, an ache in his chest at your words. Taking care of you was the least he could do after everything that had happened – the heartbreak on your face as he’d levelled his rifle at you as you’d fled Kamino with his brothers would forever haunt him, as would your tears when he’d opted to stay on that blasted platform after Tipoca City had fallen.

Yet you’d still rescued him from Mount Tantiss, careful hands undoing the bindings that had held him down for far too long, concern on your beautiful face as you’d helped him back to the Marauder and to safety.

He didn’t deserve you, no matter how often you told him he was wrong to think that.

“And you succeed.” You reassure him, wanting to pull his mind from any spiralling thoughts. He’d been getting better over the last few months, snippets of his old self shining through, but you knew the marks from his time with the Empire would never entirely be gone.

As your head feels less like it will split apart, you crack open your eyes a sliver, just enough to see Crosshair gazing down at you, the adoration on his face almost stealing your breath. “Hi.” You whisper, pleased that he’s no longer blurry and the planet has stopped spinning.

“Hi yourself.” He replies, lips pressing to your forehead in a gentle kiss.

Humming happily at the contact, you find his gaze again in the semi-darkness of the room. “I think I’m okay now. We should head out.” You decide. There’s a lingering uncomfortableness – you still feel a little off-kilter – but it’s much better than before, and you know it’ll pass soon. Besides, you’ll always find your equilibrium with Crosshair at your side.

Crosshair’s eyes narrow slightly. He doesn’t quite believe you but won’t outwardly call you out on it. “Another few minutes.” He decides, arms tightening around you.

“Cross…” You protest, trying to wiggle away, a smile tugging at your lips, mirrored by his own.

“Shush.” He admonishes playfully, rolling onto his side so he can drag you closer, tucking you against his chest and under his chin.

You can’t help but laugh, your body shaking a little as you burrow closer to him. You can’t deny that it feels cosy and safe. Content, you don’t argue it.

Crosshair’s small smile turns to a grin as he realises he’s won. “There’s my girl.”