Acetaminophen dose recommendations will be lowered significantly by the FDA, and some products will be pulled off the market, because of concerns over liver damage. If you look up “Tylenol” on Wikipedia as I write this, you see the following:

Indeed.

From MSNBC:

Despite years of educational campaigns and other federal actions, acetaminophen remains the leading cause of liver failure in the U.S., according to the FDA.

Panelists cited FDA data indicating 60 percent of acetaminophen-related deaths are related to prescription products. Acetaminophen is also found in popular over-the-counter medications like Tylenol and Excedrin.

“We’re here because there are inadvertent overdoses with this drug that are fatal and this is the one opportunity we have to do something that will have a big impact,” said Dr. Judith Kramer of Duke University Medical Center.

People like to help pregnant women.

On buses it is routine to give up one’s seat for a pregnant woman. In Boston, drivers try less hard to run over pregnant women in crosswalks. And so on. But sometimes good intentions can lead to bad advice.

First, I’d like to point out that there is reasonably good evidence that obesity has negative health effects, and obesity in relationship to pregnancy is probably worse. So women who are planning on getting pregnant should probably trim down a bit if they need to. Also, exercise is good for many many reasons, so women who are planning on getting pregnant should look at their own exercise and activity routines and see if some adjustment can be made in those areas. And certainly, activity levels and patterns of diet and fat storage are all related, so in making these considerations do remember that this is all an interconnected complex whole.

And then, if you do actually get pregnant, don’t listen to anyone.

Or at least, think about the advice you are getting when people are yammering at you.

In particular, cast off and ignore the following pieces of advice that you will receive again and again and again:

1) Forget about healthy eating, just shove whatever food is in front of you into your mouth, preferably focusing on saturated fats; and

2) Stop all forms of exercise for the next several months as your brood develops inside you.

Now, you might be thinking “I’ve never heard anyone say those things to a pregnant woman” but if you are thinking that, then you are just not listening. You hear it all the time. Maybe not in exactly those words, but this is what people are telling the pregnant women.

You, the pregnant woman, are NOT eating for two. You are one person, you weigh somehwere between 90 and 160 pounds (leaving lots of room for variation) and for the first third of your pregnancy, the unit of additional biomass that you are also eating for will reach a whopping two pounds or so. So for your first trimester you need to increase your intake by about one percent to make up the difference. In the last trimester, you’ll have a lot more extra tissue that you are feeding via your blood supply, but still, imagine a 7 pound baby and add 7 pounds overhead (because for some reason we never weigh the placenta as part of the baby, even though it is, and there’s the expanded uterus) and you get 14 pounds. Maybe, maybe, the additional tissue that you are feeding will be about 8-15 percent.

If you were eating for two you’d be eating 200% of your normal diet, and to do that in terms of calories, you are going to have to eat a LOT of fatty foods because there is just not enough time in the day to double your caloric intake by eating leaves and other low-quality “diet” food.

In terms of activity levels, I would say that a pregnant woman should start, by the end of the first trimester, to avoid activities in which you have an elevated risk of injury. Motorcycle racing, water skiing, that sort of thing. This is because of the significant added medical complications of combining trauma with pregnancy. Later, activity levels will also have to be modulated in certain ways because of balance issues, and the simple fact that certain activities could damage the offspring directly. So no fencing or boxing.

But activity levels need to be maintained just to keep healthy for a reasonable amount of time, adjusting as needed for all those common issues that happen late in pregnancy.

In other words, when it comes to activity levels and types, as well as diet, follow the advice of:

• Mainstream books and possibly web sites
• Your doctor and/or
• Your certified midwife

Ignore the advice of

• Everybody else that you know, especially
• Anyone who has had a baby but not in the last five years or more; and especially especially
• Anyone who has not had a baby

…. when they tell you to sit quietly on the couch and eat ice cream for six months. As much as that sounds like it might be fun.

And take your prenatal/pregnancy vitamins, of course.

The long-awaited pandemic announcement is scientific confirmation that a new flu virus has emerged and is quickly circling the globe. WHO will now ask drugmakers to speed up production of a swine flu vaccine. The declaration will also prompt governments to devote more money toward efforts to contain the virus.

This means that the alert level is going to Level Six.

Ominously, WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan said: “The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century, … The (swine flu) virus is now unstoppable.”

We are warned that a second wave of the flu may pass through areas that have already experienced a first wave. We are also told that this flu is badly affecting a relatively larger percentage of relatively healthy people than does seasonal flu (another hallmark of the 1918 pandemic).

The core of the statement by WHO’s director is:

On present evidence, the overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms and make a rapid and full recovery, often in the absence of any form of medical treatment.

Worldwide, the number of deaths is small. … we do not expect to see a sudden and dramatic jump in the number of severe or fatal infections.

We know that the novel H1N1 virus preferentially infects younger people. In nearly all areas with large and sustained outbreaks, the majority of cases have occurred in people under the age of 25 years.

In some of these countries, around 2% of cases have developed severe illness, often with very rapid progression to life-threatening pneumonia.

Most cases of severe and fatal infections have been in adults between the ages of 30 and 50 years.

This pattern is significantly different from that seen during epidemics of seasonal influenza, when most deaths occur in frail elderly people.

Many, though not all, severe cases have occurred in people with underlying chronic conditions. …

At the same time, it is important to note that around one third to half of the severe and fatal infections are occurring in previously healthy young and middle-aged people.

Without question, pregnant women are at increased risk of complications. This heightened risk takes on added importance for a virus, like this one, that preferentially infects younger age groups.

Finally, and perhaps of greatest concern, we do not know how this virus will behave under conditions typically found in the developing world. To date, the vast majority of cases have been detected and investigated in comparatively well-off countries.

Sources:

MSNBC
WHO

Danny Hauser, 13 year old shaman with cancer, recently returned from foray from the courts with his mother, now in treatment, had a web site dedicated to raising money for his ‘treatment’ (seemingly for the CAM part of his treatment … he is otherwise covered by insurance). That site was taken down early today or late yesterday, with the comment from the Hauser’s lawyer that it would stay down until certain “ramifications” were explored.

So, I was poking around this afternoon looking for ramifications and stuff, and instead found that the site is back up.

Since the last site disappeared without a trace, I made a copy of this one as soon as I found it.

Among other things, the site says:

Continue reading Danny Hauser’s Web Site Is Back Up (I think) →

I was quite dissapointed this morning to hear the Minnesota Public Radio station interview a guy who had kept medical treatments from his son several years ago withoiut asking some of the truly critical questions that would be needed in this kind of situation. In that case, the father claims, doctors claimed that the boy had cancer, but the parents somehow knew that he did not, kept him from treatment, and he was fine. There was no great interest on their part in “alternative treatments” … just a disbelief that the doctors were competent.

Which may well have been the case … I have no idea … but if so, this cannot really be a relevant comparison with what is going on right now in Minnesota.

Cathleen Hauser

A felony arrest warrant has been issued for Colleen Hauser of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, and a nationwide manhunt is under way for her and her son, Daniel. This is the case of a young boy (13 years old) who may die of Hodgkin’s lymphoma if not treated, will likely live if treated, but whose treatment is being denied by his mother. The treatment method preferred by the medical community involves radiation ad chemotherapy. The method preferred by the Hausers is some sort of made up post-cultural mumbo jumbo thinly disguised as “Native American Healing.”

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Upper Midwest, home of the Coen Brothers who really needed very little for inspiration for any of their movies ….

A mother accused of homicide for praying instead of seeking medical help as her 11-year-old daughter died of untreated diabetes decided Thursday to call no witnesses in her defense.

Leilani Neumann’s attorney, Gene Linehan, said the decision was reached after prosecutors agreed to tell the jury that to a “casual observer” Madeline Neumann appeared healthy on March 20, 2008, three days before she died at her rural Weston home surrounded by people praying for her….

strib

In all of these cases there is clear apeasment going on. As far as I know, at least for the first 48 hours of the Hauser’s disappearance, there was no amber alert. This case in Wisconsin appears to involve the D.A. stipulating what would normally require witnesses who are cross examined (imagine that this was a drug overdose related death and then try to imagine such a stipulation).

I’m all for alternative medicine. As long as you do it on yourself in your own time after first pursuing scientific medical options and mainly use it for stress reduction and to facilitate whatever it is good at facilitating, and avoid zero-return expensive claims or crazy shit like not getting your children vaccinated or any form of chiropractry or homeopathy and several other things. Well, OK, so I’m not all for alternative medicine. I just know a lot of people who I like who are into it to one degree or another and I don’t want them to hate me. Too much.

But I digress.

My point here has nothing to do with alternative medicine. It has to do with religious appeasement, which is unjustified, unconstitutional, and unwise.

I wonder if they’ll ever find Hauser? ?

The press has been reporting that the swine flu is waning, and that it is not as serious as once thought. Well, they’ve got that totally wrong, as usual.
Continue reading Swine Flu Update: Nothing has changed →

photograph of some grapefruit Grapefruit juice contains enzymes that break down common types of compounds of which pharmaceuticals are made. This means that if you drink grapefruit juice along with some drugs, the effect of the drug will be enhanced.

(That was a slight oversimplification.)

So great, you say, why not just take all drugs with a glass of grapefruit juice? Well, I can think of two reasons. One, grapefruit juice tastes like ape-piss, so why would you ever drink it. Two, drug experts feel that they have more control over your dosage if you just leave the grapefruit juice out of the equation.

But, not always.
Continue reading Grapefruit juice might boost cancer drug’s effects →