Interesting reading around cyberspace…
Health officials in Los Angeles are targeting young woman with a program that offers STD Results Via Text. The progam that started earlier this week provides home delivery of STD testing kits and a text message to alert them when the results are ready online.
A man is suing a Chicago restaurant that he claims provided an undercooked salmon salad that resulted in him having a  9-foot-tapeworm growing inside him.  The Scientific American article that highlights this case asks Are Urban Tapeworms on the rise?
Chastity Bono (daughter of Sonny and Cher) is transitioning from woman to man.
An anti-abortion blogger, who wrote in detail about …read more

Some sad but true actions by religious leaders that, in my opinion, really does nothing to help improve the world’s health.
Back in 2003,  imams in northern Nigeria  claimed that polio vaccinations were part of a western plot aimed to make Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS.  This resulted in large scale boycotting of the vaccines and an almost doubling of children crippled with polio the following year.
(the good news – a big new anti-polio push is currently under way in Nigeria and this time, many of the Muslim imams are advocating for people to have the vaccination.)
Meanwhile, the Pope, during his recent …read more

Today’s Sunday Sidebar focuses on three different cases that intrigue and mystify me.
First up, the 60 year old woman from Western Canadian who recently gave birth to twins. Seems she had her heart set on having children and when it didn’t happen naturally, resorted to IVF treatment in India (Canada apparently has a cutoff age of 50). I’m sorry but having twins at 60 sounds more like a nightmare than a blessing. Keeping up with one infant would be hard enough but two? Even a thirty year old might have problems doing that.
Second up, the baby faced 13 year …read more

Size does matter according to John Coates, the author of a stock trading study. He found that men with longer ring fingers relative to their index fingers seem to be better at high-stakes, fast-paced stock trading as compared to those whose index finger was almost as long as their ring finger. Honestly. I’m not making this up. Researchers gathered together 44 male stock traders working in high finance arenas making quick decisions with large amounts of money and measured their right hands. The study then followed these traders for the next 20 months and discovered that those whose ring fingers …read more

The cell phone saves the day…
…in the Congo when volunteering British surgeon uses text message instructions to perform a life-saving arm amputation on a young boy who was bitten by a hippopotamus. Seems while general and vascular surgeon David Nott knew that a forequarter amputation was required to save the 16-year-old boy, he’d never actually done one before. Aware that such an operation before was a huge risk, he decided to call in the ‘cavalry’ – that is, he text messaged Professor Meirion Thomas, one of the few British surgeons  experienced in such procedures and asked for help. Luckily, his …read more

There’s a truly eclectic selection of topics in this week’s Monday Sidebar.
To start of with, what do you think about this – a ‘chastity belt’ lingerie fitted with GPS tracking system’. Lingerie maker Lucia Lorio of Brazil says it’s designed for ‘modern, techno-savvy woman’. But feminist are calling it a modern-day slaver and are urging women to boycott the GPS underwear
Meanwhile, Swedish health authorities are causing controversy with their decision to supply free prosthetic penises that are not fully functional to transsexual men. Seems these free prosthetic penises [are] strictly flaccid a situation that some call ridiculous. But the …read more

No candy. No sodas. And no birth control. – it will be interesting to see if this unconventional business plan will work for the Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy, a new drug store at a Virginia strip mall. It just one of at least seven pharmacies across America that is refusing to sell contraceptives of any kind as a matter of faith, even if a person has a prescription.
Singing a Song of Sanitation – When Feliciano Dos Santos, a leading South African musician, is not touring Europe with his band Massukos,  he can be found wandering Mozambique’s highland villages, singing about …read more

Another Monday Sidebar full of interesting, bizzare, and strange health news….
Beware edible sex ’spreads’… they could contain melamine, the poisonous chemical linked to the Chinese milk crisis. The UK Food Standards Agency issued a food alert on Friday for Chinese-made “I Love You” sets. According to an agency spokesperson said: ‘This is a first. We’ve never had to put out an alert before on “willy spread” – chocolate-flavoured or otherwise.’
Extreme Allergies… due to environment has caused one woman to live a large portion of each day in a galvanized-steel-and-porcelain shed, complete with toilet, a metal cabinet, a box spring with …read more

Today’s Monday Sidebar’s might be sparse but it’s not dull…
Bluegrass and Brain Surgery – Mostly, surgeons prefer patients to be unconscious during surgery, but in this case, they not only wanted to keep their patient awake but they also wanted him to play the banjo. Why? Because they were trying to determine what region of the brain was causing the patient to suffer tremors. See for yourself here.
Dead Man Walking Bathing – He’s been dead since 1924, but every year, he has a bath. Can you guess who? No. Then head over to Morbid Anatomy for the answer. And if …read more

Ready for some more interesting, fascinating, unusual, strange, and even bizarre news…
Pay patients to go to the doctor? – in England, Health Service Managers are looking at ways to get people in unhealthy people in the lower social economic rankings to visit the doctor. The thinking is that if you can get people to the doctor earlier, before chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease set in, the government health system would save money. It makes sort of makes sense. But the idea is getting flack from politicans and medical experts alike who say that the government shouldn’t be …read more