Tag: medicine

Progress in the fight against Hospital Acquired Infections

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The problem:

Over the last few years, public attention has been focused increasingly on the problem of nosocomial or hospital acquired infections (HAI’s). Why is there so much concern? A study by the CDC published in the March/April 2007 issue of the journal Public Health Reports, estimated that 1.7 million hospital patients per year ― 4.5 of every 100 admissions ― become infected, causing or contributing to the deaths of nearly 100,000 people per year. (IHI.org) 100,000 people per year is about 1/5 of the total deaths from cancer per year in the US, or about the same as the total stroke or accidental deaths. Or, another way to understand the size of this number, picture the population of South Bend Indiana, dying every year of mostly preventable causes. This is an epidemic.

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The biggest medical stories of the year

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There were some incredible breakthroughs in medicine this year:

Diabetes and Nerve function linked
Drop in the incidence of breast cancer
New treatments for Macular Degeneration
Progress toward an Alzheimer’s Vaccine and other treatments

Diabetes linked to nerve function in the pancreas
One of the biggest stories, if it is confirmed by other researchers, is the discovery of the relationship between the nervous system and diabetes.

Diabetes Breakthrough | National Post

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What Caused the Flu Vaccine Shortage?

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I did a little research into why we now only have two (no, make that one!) suppliers of flu vaccine for the entire US, and why that supply is available only through the government. If the authors quoted below are correct, perhaps current policy needs to be revised.

I’ve heard various politicians and administrators lately (most recently Tommy Thompson) telling us how the flu vaccine shortage is not a public health problem, and people questioning how dangerous the flu can be. I have to disagree with them – for anyone who has asthma or respiratory diseases, or simply doesn’t have a lot of defense against the flu, ithe possibility of getting a bad case of the flu can be a pretty scary prospect.

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How we die

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Remember all those sci-fi stories where people learn the date and cause of their own death? “Life-Line” by Robert Heinlein is one that pops to mind, but there are many others.

Well, you may not be able to tell when you will die, but you can make a pretty good guess what you may die of, based on age-related statistics published by the CDC. The latest final statistics are for 2001, so this is based on those numbers. The complete report can be found here: Leading causes of death for 2001

Note for clarity: percentages given in the samples
below are the percent of the total people in a given age group
that actually died in 2001, not the percentage of all people
in that age group.

Note 2 : 2001 data includes the 3028 deaths they
were certain of by the publish date of the statistics caused by the terror
attacks on September 11. Of these, 2,922 are classified as homicides and 4
as suicides. Only residents of the United States are counted in these statistics.

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