Free Republic

Young adults are the nation’s largest group of uninsured — there were 13.2 million of them nationally in 2007, or 29%, according to the latest figures from the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research group in New York. They borrow leftover prescription drugs from friends, attempt to self-diagnose ailments online, stretch their diabetes and asthma medicines for as long as possible and set their own broken bones. When emergencies strike, they rarely can afford the bills that follow.

Michael Savage, the incendiary radio host who last week characterized nearly every autistic child as “a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out,” said in a telephone interview Monday morning that he stood by his remarks and had no intention of apologizing to those advocates and parents who have called for his firing over the matter. “My main point remains true,” Mr. Savage, whose radio audience ranks in size behind only those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, said in an interview on Monday. “It is an overdiagnosed medical condition. In my readings, there is no definitive...

A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators. [excerpt - click here to read the whole article]

Lynne Yurosko said she was crushed when she learned another Long Island woman was misdiagnosed with cancer only after a double mastectomy. "I ache for her," Yurosko said Wednesday of Darrie Eason, who like Yurosko was the victim of a medical lab's error. "They told me that I was the only person that it had happened to. It's happening out there; maybe the government should be involved and really find out how many women this has happened to." Yurosko, 57, of Garden City, underwent a lumpectomy and 25 radiation treatments in 2005 before she was told she never had cancer....

I have two easy questions for you. For some background, I had a brainstem tumor removed 6 years ago. In those first scans they also saw two "lesions", one in each frontal lobe. Those lesions never changed all these years until now.

CUBA is on tenterhooks today over Fidel Castro's fragile health, as residents of the Communist island await a visiting Spanish doctor's diagnois on whether additional surgery is needed. Officials in Madrid confirmed today that a Spanish surgeon had been disptched to Cuba to treat Castro, 80, who has not been seen in public for five months. Few medical updates have been made public since his reported intestinal surgery. "The Cuban Government decided to ask one of our top professionals to care for its president," health councilor for Madrid's regional government, Manuel Lamela said. "When a government asks for help or...

By the 1960s, American institutional psychiatry was a very large elephant caught in a seemingly inexhaustible growth spurt. “Nothing of human concern is really outside psychiatry,” proclaimed Dr. Karl Menninger, the profession’s unofficial dean. “So in one sense I have no hobbies. They are all part of my work.” This was to be the beginning of a golden age in psychiatry’s relationship with the American public. Psychoanalysis was busily remaking psychiatry after its own image—a new medicine born equally of natural and spiritual sciences. Practitioners were more than mere medics, they were soul doctors. The profession, as one practitioner predicted,...

Fellow FReepers, your prayers are urgently needed for MamaB and her husband and family. I received the following email from her this morning: We got more bad news yesterday at the Kirklin Clinic. There is no treatment available right now unless the dr. down there can find a clinical study at a cancer research center like in San Antonio. He has 6-9 months to live without any treatment. We are all heartbroken and disgusted with the oncologist here who shoul have found this months if not years ago. Could you tell the people on the Dose tonight? Thanks. I have...

Earlier Diagnosis Allows More Time for Decisions A first-trimester screening test can reliably identify fetuses likely to be born with Down syndrome, providing expectant women with that information much earlier in a pregnancy than current testing allows, according to a major study being released today. The eagerly awaited study of more than 38,000 U.S. women -- the largest ever conducted -- found that the screening method, which combines a blood test with an ultrasound exam, can pinpoint many fetuses with the common genetic disorder 11 weeks after conception. That allows women to decide sooner whether to undergo the riskier follow-up...

Question to My colleagues in the Mental Health Field? As a Counselor I ask this question of my colleagues in my field because we live, eat, breath and excrete liberalism every day. I haven't read Michael Savage's book "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder" yet but it does sound like an interesting diagnosis. If so what are the criterias that would make up the illness? Conservatives in our field could come up with some very interesting answers and I would like your input to add or reinforce my point. First would be to look at the self explanatory quote "Any man...

<p>Few Islamic countries have taken steps to tackle the pandemic as the death toll continues to mount.</p> <p>''I just pray that God ends my life before more symptoms show. I don't want to create problems for my family.''</p> <p>Before his HIV-positive diagnosis in 2001, the Egyptian engineer who spoke these words thought that AIDS was a faraway disease that afflicted only foreigners. He had no idea that the global AIDS pandemic had reached his country. Now he says he would rather kill himself than be rejected along with his family by neighbors and friends, who regard HIV as synonymous with sin and shame.</p>

Schiavo Autopsy Leaves Most Important Questions Unanswered For more information: Diane Coleman or Stephen Drake (708) 209-1500 exts. 11 & 29 708-420-0539 (cell) Forest Park, IL, June 15, 2005 -- Today's release of findings in the autopsy of Terri Schiavo leave the central issues in her life and death unanswered, says a national disability rights group. For example, contrary to articles stating the autopsy report "supported" the diagnosis of "persistent vegetative state (PVS)," a neuropathology expert today was careful to say that PVS is a clinical diagnosis rather than a pathological one. He added that nothing in the autopsy was...

Predatory killers often do far more than commit murder. Some have lured their victims into homemade chambers for prolonged torture. Others have exotic tastes - for vivisection, sexual humiliation, burning. Many perform their grisly rituals as much for pleasure as for any other reason. Among themselves, a few forensic scientists have taken to thinking of these people as not merely disturbed but evil. Evil in that their deliberate, habitual savagery defies any psychological explanation or attempt at treatment. Most psychiatrists assiduously avoid the word evil, contending that its use would precipitate a dangerous slide from clinical to moral judgment that...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects some 400,000 Americans and is the most common neurological disorder diagnosed in young adults. MS affects eyesight, mobility, bladder and bowel control, and causes chronic pain and dizziness. A quarter of those diagnosed with MS may actually have a benign form, meaning they won't have any symptoms for at least 10 years. Currently, however, there is no method of determining who has this benign form. The result: Many people, diagnosed with MS, are taking medication they don't yet need, with all the attendant side-effects, as well as suffering from excessive anxiety. There is also no way...

The extended post-election public despair of disappointed Democrats has been nearly as remarkable as the Republican victory, its supposed proximate cause. Therapists, anxious to keep their couches warm, have rushed in to make up a self-serving syndrome for their clients to overcome, “Post Election Selection Trauma.” A nice bit of marketing, that. Most important is the acronym PEST. Turn the electoral mandate of George W. Bush into a public affliction, with overtones of vermin as the root cause. Throw in a hot button word like “selection” to get to the right four letters, dredging up memories of the 2000 Florida...

Moscow's medical workers discovered a magnificent gift of a sixteen-year-old girl Natalya Demkina from Saransk. The girl possesses "dual vision". She is capable of discerning a person's internal organs without using X-ray or ultrasound. Natasha has already disproved several medical diagnoses and has not made any mistakes. A series of medical experiments conducted in one of the clinics provide substantial and undeniable proofs of the girls' unique abilities. "Growing up, my daughter was just an ordinary child," states Natasha's mother Tatyana Vladimirovna. "Perhaps, she just a bit more mature than other kids her age. Natasha started to talk when she...

  High-speed access in ER Smaller, faster machines are making a difference in hospitals. ADVERTISEMENT By Foster Klug ASSOCIATED PRESS Monday, December 29, 2003 BALTIMORE -- It's nine o'clock on a Saturday night when a 15-year-old boy with a bullet in his leg is rolled on a gurney into the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. More than 20 minutes have passed since he was shot in a drive-by. Here at Cowley, and at other trauma centers across the nation, leaping improvements in emergency medical technology are helping doctors to save lives that a few years ago would almost certainly...

For the first time, scientists have identified a gene that appears to influence the development of at least some cases of dyslexia. This learning disorder is characterized by difficulties in perceiving sounds within words, spelling and reading problems, and troubles with written and oral expression. It's estimated that dyslexia affects at least 1 in 25 people. Although scientists are investigating dyslexia's suspected neural roots (SN: 5/24/03, p. 324: http://www.sciencenews.org/20030524/fob4.asp), the condition's causes remain unknown. If confirmed in further studies, the new genetic finding represents a major step forward for dyslexia researchers. Until now, investigators have only been able to link...

<p>Sekou Mims's son was 16 when he experienced a sudden psychotic breakdown. Over three months, the black teenager had a series of delusions - that white police were following him, that white strangers on a train were staring at him menacingly. He'd hyperventilate walking down the street. All his delusions revolved around racism.</p>