Posts Tagged → research
Even the Birds and the Bees do it.
Sorry if this article seems a little too much. It was very hard to write simply because I’m straight and have very rarely had the privilege of writing about the gay community. Not that they ever need defending …..
“It’s a real disease, they should all be burned that way there’ll be no gays. Think about it, you get rid of the problem all at once”
When I heard that I decided I hated all homophobes, they’re a bunch of people who are either ignorant or just plain old idiots. I heard that from a friend not two weeks after he became a doctor, I was still a student. I also found out that a fair chunk of doctors don’t really try to understand people and would rather stick to learning things like the rate, rhythm and character of a pulse or how to describe a funny looking rash.
The statement not only showed a deep lack of empathy for his fellow brethren, its also shows a complete lack of understanding of our fundamental behaviour as species. For one thing it isn’t a disease nor is it a symptom of one. Homosexuality has been part of our innate behaviour as mammals since the dawn of time; there are infact over 1500 species that have displayed and documented homosexual behavior. Here’s a list stolen from wikipedia Show ▼
And despite the best efforts of many “doctors” and “psychologists” it’s not exactly something that needs fixing or infact should be fixed. They’ve tried everything from aversion therapy (which failed on both penguins and humans), to medication, to electro shock therapy and even religious killings and floggings with practically no success (perhaps they keep failing because it’s a part of human nature?)
I’ve always regarded sexual orientation as being akin to left or right handedness. There are people who are left handed, people who are right handed and people who are ambidextrous and enjoy both worlds and then there are people who are somehwhere in the middle and can do somethings with the left and somethings with the right. But I’ve increasingly begun to see that it’s far more than that. Most of us are now in our mid to late twenties (a couple are probably hitting their 70′s and are reading this blog hoping that it’ll be a dummies guide to euthenasia and some of you are probably 8 or 9 year olds who are here for the toilet humor) and have at some point longed for or have experienced an connection with a person of the opposite sex. We probably treasure memmories of that time and tend to look back on it very often. Imagine if you could only experience that with someone of your own sex and try and understand the feelings of disgust and disdain you’d face from everyone around you including pillars of your community; that’s what gay people have to go through in our society today ….. and that’s why I for one can say I admire them for their strength and fortitude when they do “come out” and try to function in a society that loaths them and wants to send them all to hell for no real reason.
And when I say no real reason I do mean that. I have yet to see a single point against homosexuality that I couldn’t argue against. The most common and generic is that they tend to have a higher incedences of STDs within their community ….. fucking garbage , the strictly lesbian population has the lowest incdence of HIV when compared with heterosexual and other homosexual groups according to the NAM (National AIDS Manual) and although the homosexual male population was at some point the group with the highest prevalence of HIV the number is now going down drastically over the past 10 years, where as the numbers for normal folk seem to have been on the sharp rise since 2003. Another arguement that I keep hearing is that it goes against God and nature …. please click the show button a couple of lines up, read the whole thing and then explain how this goes against nature when it has populated natural history since the dawn of time.
Another good one is that it’s” a disease that keeps spreading “…… I always answer that one by asking for numbers ….. which most people can’t give me. I then rattle of my own set of numbers comparing a kinsey series from the 1940′s and 50′s with a modern survey of similar scope conducted by a whole gaggle of people all agree that the number of people who have had some homosexual tendencies varies between 25-33% andthe number who are openly and strictly homosexual is around about 5%. (well more like 4-10%) which means that the numbers haven’t really changed drastically over the past 60 years and are probably not likely to change either. The Kinsey numbers are also significant because they mean that at least a third of your friends and family have at one point thought of batting for the other team as it were (just have a look around your dewaniya the next time you’re there)
Besides think of how much easier dating would be i Kuwait if you were gay, you could come and go as you pleased. Go on dinner dates, kiss in public and live together and no one would bat an eye lid. I’ve often thought about it but alas the hoo hoo has me wrapped up in its mystical spell ……. having to work under cloak and dagger and keep sneaking in public is definitely a worthy price to pay for the love of the hoo hoo …….
So the next time you see someone who is gay (or more likely someone you may think is gay and have used as a butt for every joke at the office) try and put yourself in thier shoes, the poor bastard isn’t blind nor deaf; he’s just willing to put up with your snickering ……
And we Fail……
One of my dummer posts. Doesn’t really work. Tried to write it a couple fo ways. You needn’t read on unless interested.
Its a diseae that can turn Patrick Sawze to this:
What can kill 7.6 million people a year? Cancer is almost an almost god-like disease. It’s mysterious (we’ve attributed everything from deodorant (false) to chemicals, to obesity, to food), can’t be stopped and comes in mysterious ways, it’s also varied and is built into your very DNA and is therefor one of the oldest diseases in existance (First reference was made by Hippocrates or Galen (I forget) a couple of hundred years ago). Since Nixon declared the war on cancer in 1971 over 200 billion dollars ahve been invested into a finding a cure in the US alone and we still don’t have one clean cut one, size fits all cure for it.
Sure we’ve made lots of progress but it just isn’t enough; we now know that cancer is caused by changes in our DNA which makes our cells divide uncontrollably, we also know that therefor anything that changes our DNA (chemicals, radiation, even viruses) can cause cancer. We’ve also manged to make chemo and radiotherapy more accessible, easy to give and safer over all. However that just doesn’t seem to justify the 200 million invested.
One of the best defintions of cancer I’ve come accross is “a group of cells display uncontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood)”. I like it because it’s clear. It basically means that cancer is a cellular disease (lumps are a bi-product; it can happen in any type of cell) which makes cells grow and divide without regards to their neighbours making them take up more and more space so that the surrounding healthy cells can’t get enough nutirtion to survive and therefor waste away and these cells continue to devide regardless of how much resources they take up (hence the whieght loss), it also means that these cells can migrate. Their migration is largely based on what type of cell they are but as a given they can go almost anywhere, and that’s where we have a problem.
I cannot see us finding a cure based on that definition because it just isn’t true, it’s over generalized just like the term cancer. Cancer tends to present with different symptoms depending ion the site. For example breast cancer presents as a lump (usually painless and brand spanking new) brain tumors present with headaches or loss of vision and pancreatic cancer presents with abdominal pain, leukemia with malaise and fever, and lung cancer as painless coughing long term with whieght loss.
The spread of cancers also various according to type, It’s really very simple (brace yourselves …. this is a tough one); for a cell that was normal and has become cancerous to spread it has to find similar cells to bind with. Cells which are similar come from one of three different origins (think of them as grand daddies of your fully grown cells), either neuro-endocrine(your nerves, brain and gonads come from these ones), Mesodermal ( these form your lungs, liver, pancrease, intestines and wind pipe) and ectorderamal (Your skin, nails and boobies as well as some layers within your nerves). So for example pancreatic cancer is more likely to spread to the liver because those cells are similar. Testicular cancer is more likely to spread to the brain because those cells are similar and skin cancer can spread to the sensory areas of the brain because those cells are similar.
Based on these facts (1. Each type of cancer has a different set of symptoms, 2. each cancer spreads differently based on it’s embryonic/genetic origins) and the fact that each type of cancer is caused by a different set of genetic mutations I think that we can safely assume that each type of cancer is infact completely seperate disease. If a disease has it’s own set of symptoms, it’s own genetic mutations and it’s own way of spreading then why not give it it’s own name? Why the fuck do we still use the term cancer.*
Rebranding is never a solution but it does help put things into persepctive. For one thing when you tell a person they have cancer they all think they are going to die but if you tell them they have a disease that they know is curable (or isn’t) it gives them a much clearer picture. It will also help medical students understand the diseases better because they aren’t under such a broad blanket and will mean that researchers and physicians can work on a specific type without feeling like their specialty is too minute to make a difference.
Best of all it’ll mean the end of a dogma that has haunted the profession forever …… the idea that all caners kill. Don’t get me wrong, many do but quite a few are now very much treatable thanks to early detection and better understanding.
It may be something simple, stupid and fool hardy but it won’t cost 20 million and will stop doctors from telling people that every lump “could be cancer” as is the case with many dick wads I work with who can’t diagnose cancer if it grew out of their left nut and got stuck on their assholes.
* I lie, there are medical terms for each type of cancer for example dysgerminoma, adenocarcinoma and sarcoma but their still referred to as skin cancer, testicular cancer and breast cancer by most of the profession because they are taught under the same blanket. Changing the names will fix this.
A cure for the Urge
As anyone who has come accross this site should have already summized by now, I tend to suffer from a myriad of conditions (well not conditions; more like neuroses), the vast majority of which pertain to patients and their ability to hurt themselves while annoying everyone around them and as many of you may have gathered I have (on more than one occasion) had to beat back the urge to just let the fools kill themselves with their panadol/brufen/lipo6/growth hormone/laxative of choice/piercing while I go back to reading the paper and assuring them that it’s all in their head and that 3 days sick leave will be the answer they’ll need.
But occasionally (and only occasionally) I do give in to the venomous anger that collects drip by drip and let the damn patients shoot themselves in the proverbial leg as it were and for the most part this isn’t very harmful; however I don’t like it.
But I suppose we all have days like this*, this* and this* when our anger, distaste and frustration (understandably) gets the better of us and we end up lashing out at those around us and in most cases regret it (lets face it, it’s very hard to work with someone after you’ve made them cry three times).
Which is why the fine pharm companies which brought you instant stiffies that keep lasting longer and longer even after the age of 80 may soon be producing what Alexis Madrigal of Wired Magazine calls “Ghandi Pills” thanks to the fine efforts and excellent observational skills of Professor Sean Spence who’s latest paper (one of over 50 he has published during his career) suggests that the use of certain drugs (some of which may already be freely available) to enhance your morality would not be the worst thing you can do for a person.
He proposes that a psychiatrist should in the near future able to make somebody more sociable, less violent, more kind and even more honest (as harmful as that may be in some cases) without altering their mood or dulling/enhancing their emotions in a way that the current generation of drugs do (the current drugs work by increasing or reducing chemicals in the brain to make you feel good, bad or nothing; i.e. prozac makes you high, ritalin makes you hyper, lithium dulls everything in shades of grey). He also cites various examples where morality enhancing drugs can be used in a clinical setting. The article is very well written and unlike most modern medical literature is actually a very good read.
I for one see nothing wrong with taking a couple of pills that will help me think before I speak and not pinch coffee from the office next door every morning….. besides we have an industry based on performance enhancing drugs such as steroids, hormones and “smart pills” so I don’t see how a “Ghandi pill” can be a bad thing for anyone …….and think of how many rapists, murderers and prison wardens we could get rid of…….
* Apologies if you find the fact that I’ve linked to your posts offensive in anyway; personally I’m flattered when people link to mine and hope you feel the same……
Another Excellent week…..
Well for some of use at least.
From the establishment of management/treatment protocols for clubbers and ravers in England who may have had too much to drink or perhaps the wrong set of pills (yes we do have them in Kuwait as well) to the development of new ways to stop malaria dead in its tracks which will undoubtedly prevent thousands of deaths in developing countries; this week has been an exciting week for medics all around the world.
We’ve (by we I mean people in the Netherlands who I’ve never heard of) even managed to come up with new ways to look at individual arteries in the heart using ultrasound (think of it as a nano radar) so that our coronaries can be monitored more accurately than ever before and in real time and heart attacks can be diagnosed and treated in minutes rather than hours or even days…..
Even scientists in Australia have taken time off from surfing (the lucky bastards) and managed to devote countless hours (not to mention millions in R & D costs) to the development of “living” pour on (liquid) condoms that could prevent the spread of AIDS (or at least lower your chances of getting it).
Which brings me to our contribution to the fight against disease; the political equivalent of a flame war over a bunch of health-care workers having fun on their time off.
Great ….. just great ….
While others are dedicating their time and money to finding out if sunlight is to blame for type I diabetes.(An endeavor which should be a priority for our boys/girls since diabetes is practically endemic in this country.) We’re spending countless man hours chasing after people for reasons/actions that have no effect* on the standard of care their patients receive. (Legality and morality aside; the ministry should have more important priorities).
Oh well I guess it’s one more reason why health-care is so damn good in this country……………
* Apologies; I never learned when to use effect and when to use affect……
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