Are cancer tests unreliable?

This article called "Cancer Fight: Unclear Tests for New Drug" was written by Gina Kolata on April 10, 2010. This article was published by The New York Time and can be accessed by the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/health/research/20cancer.html?pagewanted=2&ref=research.

Today new drugs that are created to fight off cancer all have a common way of carrying this out; targeting and breaking down the proteins that drive cancer. What many of the patients don't know is that these drugs can target the proteins, but the results can be untrustworthy.

Dr. Griffith, Director for the Center for Gynepathology Research at M.I.T., who recently found out that she had breast cancer, underwent a test to see if she had copies of the protein HER2. If she did then she could take the drug Herception, which blocks the protein and stops the tumor growth. Her test came back negative, but it was seen that a small area in her tumor had indeed a lot of HER2. She would have to decide her treatment based on these results.

Herception is a drug that patients can take, but it is very expensive. Also, if there are no apparent levels of HER2 and this drug is taken, it can be toxic and even fatal. So many tests, including the HER2 test, can give false results telling patients to take a drug that is not necessary. Dr. Edith Perez, a breast cancer specialist brings up another problem with tests that, "If you do the tests in two different labs, you can get two different answers." Many patients would find themselves not knowing which one to trust.

I found this article very interesting because breast cancer is such a huge part of the world now, and doctors are always trying to find a cure for it. It amazes me to find out that new drugs that are said to be better and fight off cancer, come out with unreliable test results. This article reminds me of when we studied the H1N1 unit and how a new vaccine was coming out for that. People did not know whether it was safe or not and what the results of it would be. Just like patients who were recommended to take Herception, they did not know where it would benefit them or, in rare cases, take a life. People who took it had to just hope for the best.

Chocolate Helping Your Health?

Dr Brian Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist in Germany, led research to try to prove that chocolate will lower your blood pressure and reduce the risk of getting heart disease. The article, Chocolate Might Reduce Blood Pressure and Risk of Heart Disease, Research Suggests, came out on April 4, 2010 in the European Heart Journal, and the link to the article is http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100330092809.htm.

Frank Ruschitzka a professor of cardiology explained the findings of the research with this "basic science has demonstrated quite convincingly that dark chocolate particularly, with a cocoa content of at least 70%, reduces oxidative stress and improves vascular and platelet function." They have been researching this for eight years and so far their evidence proves true, but they still need to research for longer and test more people. The people in the study would receive a medical examination, where their height and weight would be taken, blood pressure would be checked, and they would answer a survey about how often they eat a 50g bar of chocolate. There were follow up questionnaires were sent out every two or three years up until 2006, where the participants would tell whether they had a heart attack or stroke.

They provided evidence that shows that people that eat at least 6 grams of chocolate, of any kind, every day then their chances of a heart attack would lower by 39%. With more research they found out the dark chocolate may have the most effect on people because of the greater amount of flavanols. To me this connects with class because we always talk about how often people get a disease and it is ironic, and growing up we are always told junk food is bad for you. In this case the researchers say not to eat a lot but have a small intake that replaces other energy-dense foods, like snacks. I think this article is great because it shows that something so little could help your chances of not having a heart attack or stroke. I would love to see what their further research is able to prove fully.

Massachusetts Hospitals Clean?

"474 Infected in Mass. Hospitals in Year, State Says", written by Liz Kowalczyk, was published on April 15, 2010 in the Boston Globe. According to this article, 71 out of the 73 Massachusetts hospitals had infection rates at or below the national average in a one year time span. This report only included bloodstream infections from iv lines throughout the whole year, and surgical site infections from hip and knee operations for only a portion of the year. A few hospitals had higher infection rates than what was expected to occur. One of the hospitals' "disease trackers" said that the whole reason they do these reports is to recognize there is a problem and to fix it, which they did, since neither hospital has seen an infection in months. The CDC estimated that each year there are two million infections received from hospitals, and 99,000 of these are/will be fatal.

Reporting the number of hospital-causing infections is important to help hospitals eliminate infections entirely. Doctors are happy to have their hospitals cause less infections than other hospitals, but they say their goal is to eliminate them completely. “You may be better than the national average, but that still means there are a whole bunch of people getting hurt,’’one doctor stated. Massachusetts hospitals also released information on how many "serious reportable events" they had in 2009; 383 events.

This article relates to something that we talked about in class about polio. We said that more people were getting polio because their environments were so sterile and they were not getting the natural exposure to the bacteria necessary to become immune. This article made me think of this because hospitals are known to be extremely sterile and clean, but in this article it talks about people getting infections from something inside the hospital. These two are not exactly alike or related, but this article made me think of our polio unit in that respect.

I thought this article was very interesting since when I think of hospitals, infections and "serious reportable events" caused by being in a hospital don't usually cross my mind. I was really surprised to see that so many incidences occur in a year, not just in hospitals in Massachusetts, but all over the country. In the article, one of the "serious reportable events" listed was a surgeon leaving a piece of equipment, such as a scalpel, inside of their patient. When I read this, I didn't know how to react. I had no idea surgeons could be so careless as to leave something like that inside a patient; it worried me.

After reading this article, some questions came to my mind. How were the hospitals planning on reducing the number of infections even more? What happened with the surgeons who were careless, did they get fired? What will hospitals do if the number of infections continually rises instead of decreases? If this report counted all kinds of infections instead of just two, would the numbers be much higher? Why doesn't the report include more types of infections?

Hospitals makes you sick?

This article can be found at : Hospital Infection Problem Persists

This article is entitled, "Hospital Infection Problem Persists." This article was in the New York Times on April 14, 2010 and was written by Kevin Sack. This article was about the continued increase of infections in hospitals post-surgery. Over the last year blood infections have increased by 8% and urinary tract infections have increased by 4%. Many hospitals that are trying to actually decrease the problem are very successful. All it really takes is simple hand washing, disinfection of patients and sterile equipment. Dr. Clancy is quoted and said,

"Despite promising improvements in a few areas of health care, we are not achieving the more substantial strides that are needed to address persistent gaps in quality and access.”

Basically some hospitals are improving, but it's not about just one hospital it's about all the hospitals. This article then goes on to say that with the new health care law hospitals that are having more deaths and sickness post-operative will receive less funding than the hospitals that are actually making a persistent effort to keep everything clean and healthy.

This article reminds me of how we learned aseptic technique in our labs and also about a doctor that made it mandatory for aseptic techniques in his hospital in our famous scientists/doctors project. I find it interesting that even after aseptic techniques have been taught and valued in hospitals that they aren't readily being used. When I first was reading the article I was thinking there must be some underlying cause or something about all these post-operative diseases and infections, but then I came to find out that these could be fixed if there was more hand washing and sterile equipment and just kept the patients cleaner. I think it's horrible that some hospitals still don't try their hardest to make their percentage of sickness and death go down after surgery, when it seems so easy. I don't know if they are lazy or something, but I believe that the person running the hospital should take value in keeping people healthy, since they are in a hospital where they are supposed to be getting better, not worse. I find this almost an oxymoron that people come in to have surgery to get better and then run the risk of actually getting sicker than they started out being. I really liked to hear that the health care law will reprimand the hospitals that don't make their percentage of post-operative illnesses go down. I think that they should just take some pride in their work and profession and keep the patients healthy, not sick.

Global Polio Eradication: The Goal and The Reality

This article was published by the New York Times on April 10, 2001. It was written by Celia W. Dugger under the title ‘A Campaign Shows Signs of Progress Against Polio’. The article can be accessed through the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04 /13/world/13polio.html?scp=1&sq=Polio%20in%20India&st=cse. The main idea of this article was to enlighten the reader of the current statistics regarding the polio virus in modern society. It was also created to explain why the goal year for global eradication was not reached and what the newest prediction will be.

Nigeria and India are the two areas of greatest concern reguarding the spread of Polio. They have the greatest potential to cause circulation of the polio virus, which could, in part, create a whole new epidemic. This article gave a few reasons for why vaccines were unable to help everyone. In Nigeria, there was a rumor that the Polio vaccine could transfer the AIDs virus. There was another rumor that stated Muslim girls would risk sterilization. These rumors had a significant affect on the failure to eradicate Polio.

According to the article, Polio should have been eradicated about ten years ago. Now researchers say it won’t be eradicated until after 2012. Although we are past our goal, the rate of spread has decreased dramatically in these places and the overall number of cases has dropped significantly. Only two children have been paralyzed by the wild polio virus in Nigeria this year. In comparison, last year there were 123 cases. This decrease in cases shows significant improvement. The World Health Organization (WHO) has concluded that there are 56 cases of paralytic polio in the world this year. According to the article, this is a 75% decrease in cases. The statistics show that global eradication just may be possible and could be experienced in the near future.

I really enjoyed reading this article. It was relevant in so many ways to what we have been learning in class and expanded on some of the things we talked about. For example, we were told that rumors about the vaccine caused some people to not want to take it. This article gave an example about a couple of the rumors. We will not contract AIDS from getting vaccinated and females will not become sterile. I believe that we can eradicate polio. Some of the other obstacles listed in the article may be more difficult to overcome but I think global eradication is possible and health organizations have created terrific campaigns that are taking steps that are slowly but surely making a difference.

Exotic Pets Wreaking Havoc in other Nations

This article was in the New York Times on June 17, 2003 and was written by Denise Grady and Lawrence K. Altman, the article can be accessed at http://nytimes.com/2003/o6/17/science/beyond-cute-exotic-pets-come-bearing-exotic-germs.html. A quote from that helps summarize the entire article is, " Dr. Olsterholm, who is director for the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy and a professor of public health at the University of Minnesota, said that until recently, his main objection to prairie dogs was that they and their fleas sometimes carried the bubonic plague. He had not even thought about monkeypox..." In this article it talks about how the United States has exported thousands of Prairie Dogs as household pets to places such as Japan and the European Union, this was before the realization that these "pets" carry wild diseases such as the bubonic plague and monkeypox. The monkeypox in humans is equivalent to a milder case of smallpox with only at 10% death rate.
This article was very interesting because I never even knew that the United States exported prairie dogs as household pets to other nations, I find it very bizarre actually. Why anyone would want a prairie dog is beyond me. Also, I had also forgotten that these wild animals would carry abnormal diseases because they do not typically live with humans. This article reminded me of the H1N1 unit we did in class and how a "pig" virus was infecting humans because in both cases the disease was coming from an animal. There appears to be no tension in the article except for when the other talks about how Dr. Olsterholm gets the chills thinking about prairie dogs being shipped to other countries and spreading their germs. Overall, this article was a very intersting read.

Hunting Fossil Viruses in Human DNA

I found this article on Fossil viruses involving Human DNA. The article is called "Hunting Fossil Viruses in Human DNA." The author of this summary is Carl Zimmer and it was published on January 11, 2010. It is credited in the New York Times and the link to the website www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/science/12paleo.html.
The article explains the significance of the borna virus which likely infected the monkey-like ancestors of humans upwards of 40 million years ago. It explains that the virus has been transmitted down in human genetics since we first contracted it, and it has been passed down in our genes ever since. Even though humans have continued to evolve overtime, the fossil virus are effectively frozen in time. "We can really dig fossils out of the genome and literally put them back together," said Cedric Feschotte, a genome biologist at the University of Texas. The article continues on to explain how they believe around 100,000 genomes in the human DNA scale has been caused by an infectous virus that humans have become adapted to. It goes on and explains how humans adapted to these killer viruses as a survival techinque.
I found the article to be very interesting, considering it related to how humans adapted to viruses as a survival technique. As a relation to something we learned in class, the polio virus found a host cell to transmit onto human RNA, which is the same thing the Borna virus did to humans as well. The article did a good job breaking down how the human DNA scale worked, and explained how the Borna Virus would become altered into Human DNA. The only thing I did not like was that the author did not make it clear whether or not the Borna virus is still found in humans today. It left me with some unanswered questions. Do humans have altered DNA as a result of the Borna Virus? If the article answered this question and some of my other ones, I would have found it to be a much better article.