This story caught my eye because of the 'ew' factor, so naturally I wanted to share my newfound fear of catheters (which already took up a healthy amount of time during my daily phobia-pondering) with you all. Misery loves company, so I assume that stands true for other negatively connotated emotions like disgust, fear of microbes, etc.

People who believe eating genetically modified organisms will turn them literally into what they eat are in for a new nightmare - genetically engineered animals.

Highly ironic case of misinformed alarmist sprouting antlers, snout reported to FDA

The Food and Drug Administration issued a draft guidance on the regulation of genetically engineered animals today. (For those not well versed in the parlance of regulation, this is a document that describes FDA's current thinking on an issue. The agency alerts the relevant stakeholders that they can comment on the guidance, and then a final guidance is developed. This is not regulation, it's guidance - as the name implies, the document guides stakeholders in what actions they should take.)

Yes, you read that right - the very people you look to for comfort, for learning, for a shoulder to cry on, could lead you down the path of annihilation. You don't have to be a lemming zombie to take up terrorism after all!

A New Kind of Networking

Ol' Blue Eyes was way ahead of the curve in diabetes treatment - I nominate his 1956 hit, "I've Got You Under My Skin" for the official anthem for type 1 diabetes patients.

A study published online in the New England Journal of Medicine Sept. 8 details a new continuous glucose monitor device placed - you guessed it - under the skin.

The Skinny on CGM

If you are on vacation in the Mediterranean basin and happen upon a person gnawing on a pine tree, fear not – the person is likely treating one of a myriad of inflammatory symptoms.

Often people taking antidepressants - or really any drug - have to balance side effects versus benefit overall. Those crippled by depression and/or anxiety may be willing to give up a few things to dispel the gray clouds. For example, sex.

Doctors in a study published in JAMA estimate antidepressant treatment-associated sexual dysfunction occurs in 30 percent to 70 percent of people treated for major depression. Also, women experience major depressive disorder at nearly double the rate of men and also experience greater subsequent sexual dysfunction.

Typically the palm of your hand doesn’t excite much interest, unless you’re a chirologist – those who divine the future through palm-reading.

Luckily for palmophiliacs, there’s a new show in town, and it just may change the way we think about biometric security systems.

A new biometrics system called PalmSecure, developed by Tokyo-based Fujitsu Ltd., works by matching the unique vein pattern in your palm to an infrared scan of your palm stored in a database. The system is akin to fingerprinting, but improves upon the oft-used identification system of police stations everywhere.

A story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune caught my attention today, not only because it was an interesting article but because it may indicate a shift in our country’s approach to health care. As we all know, the number of people with diseases and conditions that are preventable is growing in America (and globally).

 One way to deal with this is on an individual level, treating the symptoms or curing the disease after the fact. In this model, the focus is on individual treatment, or downstream of the event. Another way to deal with this problem is at the community level, working to prevent the disease or condition from ever occurring. In this model, the focus is on prevention, or upstream of the event. (I’ve greatly oversimplified the issues – there are accidents, genetic predispositions, etc that we can’t prevent – but you get the general idea.)

Health care costs are skyrocketing, competing with gas, food and mortgages. Perhaps at an individual, day-to-day level, we can’t control gas, food or the housing crisis. But we can do something about our health. If we take steps to prevent something from occurring, we can dramatically increase the health of our nation (and ourselves) while reducing the money spent on treating health issues.

An article published in the Journal of Forensic Science details the fruits of a collaboration between the University of Leicester and the Northamptonshire Police, which led to a “major breakthrough” in crime detection, perhaps allowing “hundreds of cold cases being reopened,” according to a press release.

The University’s Forensic Research Center has been working with Northamptonshire Police's scientific support unit to develop new ways of taking fingerprints from a crime scene. The collaboration between the boffins and bobbies – boffin being British slang for someone engaged in technical or scientific research, apparently, and bobby being slang for police – was formally launched May 14. (For those without an intimate knowledge of U.K. geography, Northamptonshire Police headquarters is located in Northampton, about 70 miles NW of London. The University of Leicester is another 40 miles or so northwest of Northampton.)

The newly developed method enables scientists to visualize fingerprints even after the print itself has been removed, the press release said.

Do you ever get the feeling that science figures out a problem a few years after the fact, but then discovers that their methods for fixing the problem are also hopelessly outdated or just plain wrong, which puts us back another several years and at that point we may as well just give up and have wine with breakfast and hot fudge brownie sundaes for dinner?

We know that Americans are fat. (If you don't believe me, look down - do you have a lap?) We also know that kids are getting fatter, which leads to a whole host of problems that will further tax our already overburdened health care system. Now, it seems as if maybe we're not getting fat as fast as we thought they were - although it could be a statistical aberration - and even if they are, we aren't sure if the diagnostic tools we have are relevant!

Actually, I have no proof – yet. But an article this month’s issue of Scientific American highlights the myriad therapeutic benefits of blogging, so maybe dashing off a quick article will help with my aching back…

Jessica Wapner writes in her article that self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off.

A segment on ABC’s Good Morning America May 19 caught my attention, so much so that I spent a good chunk of time attempting to find research to back up the claims.

The idea itself seems to be obvious – if you have a neurological disorder affecting your brain, you should examine the brain in order to figure out exactly what’s going on to figure out how to best treat the problem, right?

I am not a neurologist, so my thinking could be flawed. A comment by the doctor featured in the segment made sense to me, though: diagnosing children with behavioral disorders like ADHD and autism without looking at their brains is like trying to diagnose heart problems without actually looking at the heart.

Common Sense 101: if benefits outweigh the costs, generally people will opt in to whatever action is under consideration. If you can prevent or reduce your chance of death from cancer by early screenings at a nominal fee, you will probably get screened.

Now throw a twist into the equation. Say that screening is only 50 percent effective at catching early cancer. On the benefit side, screening will still prevent or reduce cancer. On the cost side, you may not catch a tumor; you may be exposing yourself to harmful radiation (which ironically could contribute to the cancer you’re trying to prevent), emotional stress from false positives and possible physical harm from false negatives; and you’re spending money on a service that only works half the time. (Using the same idea, if your airbag only worked in 50 percent of accidents, would you pay for it to be installed in your car, or would you demand that auto manufacturers developed an airbag with 100 percent efficiency?)

President Bush has a bill on his desk, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which will prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment. He is expected to sign the bill, but is science – and the people – ready?