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Kim Jong-il Fails to Attend Chuseok Event By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter North Korean leader Kim Jong-il remained out of the public eye Monday, a day after Koreans marked one of their largest traditional holidays, the Yonhap News Agency reported. Japan's Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, meanwhile, said Kim's illness was far more serious than reported and that he was unable to govern the nation, while the Kyodo News Agency reported Kim has difficulty using his arms and legs after suffering a stroke and undergoing surgery performed by Chinese doctors last month. Those reports contrast with the remarks by a South Korean...

/begin my summary Kim Jong-il's Health Trouble Started in Mid-August...Lost Consciousness at One Point sparse human traffic at his office...medical team visits thought to be treated at Bong-hwa Clinic in Pyongyang Chang Il-hyun and Ahn Yong-hyun His current condition Based on information gathered so far, as of Sept. 10, Kim Jong-il is conscious and can speak, but he is not well enough to go around. He still suffers from some paralysis on his left side of body. He lost consciousness at one point, panicking N. Korean inner circle. Emergency treatment was administered and best medical team attended to him. The...

For more than thirty years, Steve Foster has been living his life partially paralyzed, but he hopes a recent trip to Mexico is going to change that. "I want this...bad," said Foster, an adult stem cell patient. Foster traveled south to undergo the adult stem cell transplant procedure, in an effort to gain back what he once had. "I'm tired of this life, and the way it is now," he said. Julie Hood, a human biology assistant professor at Central Oregon Community College, says although the treatment isn't performed in the U.S., it has been performed successfully in other countries....

Close Slideshow SimpleViewer requires Macromedia Flash. Get Macromedia Flash. If you have Flash installed, click to view gallery. Image 1 of 2 | Click for more Dawn Weiss was hit at close range by five bullets. One grazed her kidney and spleen, and another fractured two vertebrae and damaged her spinal cord. (Rich-Joseph Facun/The Virginian-Pilot) Audio Slide Show: The peace of Dawn 2 more teens sentenced in shooting that paralyzed young mother By Michelle WashingtonThe Virginian-Pilot© December 16, 2007 Each move to or from the wheelchair begins with a ritual.One, two, three.Dawn Weiss counts off, each numeral propelling her...

WASHINGTON, DC, October 5, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, yesterday released new documents obtained from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, detailing a total of as many as eleven deaths related to Merck's HPV vaccine Gardasil.  Those deaths resulted between June 8, 2006 - when the vaccine received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - and August 2007 when the latest data was available. The adverse reports coming from the HPV vaccine are increasing daily at...

An experimental body-cooling treatment used on an injured National Football League player offers promise for preventing paralysis in people who sustain severe spinal cord injuries, researchers said yesterday. But the value of "modest hypothermia," the treatment used on Kevin Everett of the Buffalo Bills after he was injured in a game Sunday, is questioned by doctors who want to see more evidence that it helps those patients. The idea behind the treatment is to lower the body temperature — but not by too much in order to avoid complications — to restrict damage to the spinal cord. "Right now, it's...

TAMPA, Fla. -- A man who can no longer feed himself said an uncooked chicken burrito put him in a wheelchair. Roger Anderson said he ate the burrito at a Moe's Southwest Grill in Land O' Lakes in September and became sick with stomach cramps, diarrhea and joint pains. Anderson's attorney said the burrito caused a bacterial infection, which led to a disease that affects the body's nerves. Anderson and his wife filed a lawsuit against Tampa-based GCF Ventures LLC, which operates the restaurant. The company said all of its employees are trained in safe food handling and preparation practices,...

Recent successful tests of neural prosthetics bring the devices closer to widespread use. Paralyzed patients dream of the day when they can once again move their limbs. That dream is making its way to becoming a reality, thanks to a neural implant created by John Donoghue and colleagues at Brown University and Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems. In 2004, Matthew Nagle, who is paralyzed due to a spinal-cord injury, became the first person to test the device, which translated his brain activity into action (see "Implanting Hope," March 2005, and "Brain Chips Give Paralyzed Patients New Powers"). Nagle's experience with the prosthetic...

Hysteria is a 4,000-year-old diagnosis that has been applied to no mean parade of witches, saints and, of course, Anna O. But over the last 50 years, the word has been spoken less and less. The disappearance of hysteria has been heralded at least since the 1960’s. What had been a Victorian catch-all splintered into many different diagnoses. Hysteria seemed to be a vanished 19th-century extravagance useful for literary analysis but surely out of place in the serious reaches of contemporary science. The word itself seems murky, more than a little misogynistic and all too indebted to the theorizing of...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A disability rights advocate who has been a spinal cord injured quadriplegic for nearly four decades says she is happy President Bush vetoed a bill that would have forced taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research. Joni Eareckson Tada was among those gathered at the White House as the president announced why he vetoed the measure.Joining fellow disability advocates, ethicists, researchers, theologians and legislators, Tada said she stands with "countless Americans with disabilities who believe that our cause is not advanced when human life is sacrificed in hopes of finding a cure.""People like me --...

/begin my translationN. Korea: Paralysis of Strategic Decision-making How high-level N. Korean defectors see 'N. Korean missile launches'Kim Jong-il's impulsive decision.... nobody can objectThe sentiment,  "Chinese also need to suffer," is rising   Cho Myong-chol, former professor of Kim Il-sung University Ignoring Chinese plea and going ahead with missile launches, flatly denouncing UN resolution on N. Korea, and loudly threatening to launch additional missiles, these recent actions of N. Korean leadership generate a lot of questions. How do former high-level figures, now defectors in S. Korea, who lived under N. Korean system, see the reason (behind the actions) and the psychological situation of N....

Like linemen stringing an electric cable over a gorge, a research team co-directed by a Cleveland scientist has devised a way to coax nerve fibers to grow a "bridge" across gaps in rats' damaged spinal cords. The new technique, reported today in the Journal of Neuroscience, successfully re-established some neural connections and restored a "considerable" amount of movement in five of seven partially paralyzed rats, according to the researchers. After treatment, animals that had been dragging their forelimbs were able to plant their front feet, bear weight and bend their arms to touch their faces. "I think it's a real...

A wheelchair-bound Los Angeles woman, who has repeatedly filed lawsuits over access for the disabled, got up and ran after police arrested her for fraud, authorities said on Thursday. Laura Lee Medley, 35, had sued in at least four California cities over injuries she claimed she sustained while trying to navigate her wheelchair before she was suspected of fraud. Medley, who claimed to be paralyzed from a drunk driving accident, was tracked to Las Vegas where police there took her into custody and then, when she complained of medical issues, to a local hospital, Long Beach prosecutor Belinda Mayes said....

ATLANTA Iraqi Army Capt. Furat surveys the therapy gym as he stands erect for the first time in nearly four months, every inch as tall as he was before insurgents' bullets left his legs lifeless on Christmas Day. All around him, paralyzed patients are toiling, striving for their own personal victories. "Where are you traveling to right now in your mind?" asks Basle Roberts, a therapy technician at the Shepherd Center. "I wish that I could stand without this equipment," Capt. Furat says, resting on a frame used in physical therapy. The rigid metal device is a relief from sitting...

  Home | News     Adult stem cells help paralysed 18 year old to walk A paralysed 18 year old, Jacki Rabon, who was injured in a car accident in August 2003, is now able to walk with braces six months after being treated with her own nasal adult stem cells. The operation took place at Hospital Egaz Moniz in Lisbon in October 2005 and involved taking olfactory tissue from the upper nasal cavity and transplanting the cells into the patient. The Portuguese neurologist and adult stem cell pioneer, Dr Carlos Lima, who treated her and whose surgery...

15 Apr 2006 A five-year-old girl, Kai Leigh Harriott, wheelchair bound after a bullet paralyzed her three years ago, forgave the man who shot her and told him what he had done to her was wrong. She did this to his face, in court. After breaking down and crying, the girl picked up a glass of water, took a sip, and said to Anthony Warren ‘What you done to me was wrong…..but I still forgive him.' Anthony Warren had pleaded guilty to shooting her, shots that paralyzed the girl. Kai Lee Harriot used to be able to walk. She had...

Spinal Cord Patient Speaks out: Embryonic stem cell helps patents not patients Embryonic stem cells help patents, not patientsJEAN SWENSON A battle is raging between embryonic and adult stem cell research. What are stem cells and why should we care?Stem cells, found in humans throughout their lifespan (including embryos), can divide and change into specialized cells. Researchers hope to use stem cells for human treatments, and we must decide which research deserves our financial support.Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) used for research are extracted from 5- to 6-day-old embryos and then multiplied. Under normal conditions, ESCs would eventually develop into...

China river contamination illustrates paralysis in crisis By CHING CHING NI Los Angeles Times 12/5/2005 BEIJING - The long-term environmental impact of last month's chemical explosion in northern China that left millions of people without safe drinking water remains to be seen. But the political fallout has begun. Beijing sacked its top environmental official Friday in an effort to show accountability for the mishandling of the crisis. More heads are likely to roll, possibly including local party leaders in Jilin province where an accident at a petrochemical plant spilled 100 tons of benzene and other cancer-causing chemicals into the Songhua...

A VIRGINIA WOMAN IS RECOVERING FROM A REVOLUTIONARY STEM CELL SURGERY SHE HOPES WILL HELP HER WALK AGAIN. MICHELLE FARRAR TRAVELED TO SOUTH KOREA - TO BECOME ONLY THE 7TH PERSON IN THE WORLD TO HAVE THIS PROCEDURE. MEDICAL REPORTER KATHY FOWER WAS WITH HER - AND HAS THIS REPORT FROM SEOUL. Story: MINUTES BEFORE THE SURGERY THAT MAY MAKE MEDICAL HISTORY....MICHELLE FARRAR, FROM LEESBURG VIRGINIA IS COMFORTED BY HER SISTER'S SONG AND PRAYERS OF HER SOUTH KOREAN SURGEON WHO WITH JUST ONE INJECTION, COULD QUIET THE CONTRAVERSY SURROUNDING STEM CELLS AND GIVE HOPE TO SPINAL CORD PATIENTS. Michelle: (cries)...

A jump into a swimming pool in 2003 changed Travis Robinson's life forever. Somewhere between a belly flop and a tuck, Robinson, then 17, hit the pool in such a way that he injured his spinal cord. He now is paralyzed from the neck down. But in January, he hopes another moment will change his life: surgery. Robinson will fly to Portugal to get a breakthrough surgery at the Hospital Egas Moniz. In the procedure, the scar tissue that surrounds his spinal cord will be removed. Doctors will take tissue that contains stem cells from his sinuses and implant it...

DOCTORS IN RUSSIA PROVE STEM CELLS CAN BE USED IN TREATING SPINE INJURIES MOSCOW, December 6 (RIA Novosti) - It has been widely believed until recently that nerve cells cannot reproduce themselves, especially those of the spinal cord. But doctors at the Neurology Clinic of Russia's Blokhin Oncology Research Center have now challenged this belief by performing six successful surgical operations on patients with spine injuries. The patients, thought before the surgery to be bedridden for the rest of their lives, are now learning to walk again, the Trud newspaper reports. It was Andrei Bryukhovetsky, Director General of the Neurology...

Adult Stem Cell Research Treats Spinal Cord Injury Patient   LifeNews.com Note: Award winning author Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. An attorney, Smith's new book Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World was published last year. I have known about this for some time, but because I didn't want to be guilty of the same hyping that is so often engaged in by some therapeutic cloning proponents, I waited until it was published in a peer reviewed journal.Now it has been and the...

Scientists have used injections of human stem cells to heal spinal injuries in paralysed mice, allowing them to walk normally again. The research, which was funded by the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, suggests that stem cells could be used to repair spinal damage in people who have suffered damaging accidents or disease, although further studies, including safety tests, are needed before the treatment can go into human trials. Neuroscientist Aileen Anderson and her team at the Reeve-Irvine Research Centre at the University of California, Irvine, used stem cells taken from the neural tissue of aborted foetuses. When injected into the...

A PIONEERING treatment has allowed paralysed dogs to regain some movement. The results have raised hopes that the method will work in people too. So far, nine dogs paralysed in road accidents or by spinal disc injuries have been treated by veterinary surgeons Robin Franklin and Nick Jeffery of the University of Cambridge. Within a month, all regained the ability to make jerky movements in their hind legs, Jeffery told a meeting in Birmingham, UK, this week, although they are only slowly gaining the ability to support their own weight. Many different approaches to treating spinal injuries are being explored,...

Scientists Discover What You Are Thinking PASADENA, Calif. - By decoding signals coming from neurons, scientists at the California Institute of Technology have confirmed that an area of the brain known as the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vPF) is involved in the planning stages of movement, that instantaneous flicker of time when we contemplate moving a hand or other limb. The work has implications for the development of a neural prosthesis, a brain-machine interface that will give paralyzed people the ability to move and communicate simply by thinking. By piggybacking on therapeutic work being conducted on epileptic patients, Daniel Rizzuto, a...

Back in 1978 I was a swimmer on my High School swim team at South Houston High. Each morning I would wake up at 5am to get ready for swimming practice before school. At the time I admired Mark Spitz and wanted to be the 1980 olympics. I did the butterfly stroke and anyone that is familiar with swimming knows that you start off the starting blocks and shallow dive in the pool. The starting blocks are on the shallow end of the pool where the water is only 3ft deep. On 14 November 1978, I was practicing and as...

Very soon, perhaps in a few days or weeks, someone in the United States will injure his or her spinal cord and become paralyzed. They may crash their car, slip on ice or fall at a job site. UMDNJ is one of three sites nationally that is testing specially treated immune cells -- called macrophages -- that are injected into the spinal cord. The treatment may not help patients walk, but they may be able to regain sensations or recover some movement. Proponents want to open new avenues of research, and counter thinking that the spinal cord can never be...

Click Picture for Video image: Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, Inc. Brain PowerFor the first time, a paralyzed man with an experimental brain implant bypassed his damaged spine to manipulate an artificial limb and a computer program using only his imagination. This ScienCentral News video has more.Movin' on His MindAmericans celebrate their freedom every year on the same day that Matthew Nagle lost almost all of his. As Fourth of July fireworks flashed over Wessagussett Beach in Weymouth, Massachusetts nearly four years ago, Nagle found himself in a sea of flying fists and within minutes, Nicholas Cirignano, a man with a...

Secretary McKeithen Has Regained Some Feeling Feb 21, 2005, 04:26 PM CST Email to a Friend Printer Friendly Version People across the state have been praying for Secretary of State Fox McKeithen after 9 News brok the story that he was paralyzed after a fall at his home. At a news conference held in front of the State Archives building Monday afternoon, McKeithen's daughter, Marjorie McKeithen, announced that Secretary McKeithen has had some movement and feeling return to his upper body. He had surgery to stabilize his neck and doctors say it was successful. The circumstances surrounding McKeithen's injurious fall...

http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050219/NEWS01/502190311/1002

Bush Restricted Funding For Stem Cell Research WASHINGTON (AP) Christopher Reeve’s widow, Dana Reeve, is going to President Bush’s State of the Union address in hopes of hearing him propose additional support for medical research. Reeve, who is attending Wednesday night as the guest of Rep. James Langevin, D-R.I., has been a vocal advocate of embryonic stem cell research. And Langevin said Tuesday that, “it is my hope that having Dana present at the State of the Union will help refocus the nation’s attention and the president’s attention on stem cell research and the need for more funding.” Reeve, who...

Notwithstanding former President Jimmy Carter's recent statement to the contrary, Undersecretary of State John Bolton's remarks about Cuba's biological weapons capabilities underscore lingering concerns with the rogue island only 90 miles from the United States. Bolton, on May 6, told an audience at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation that the U.S. is suspicious about Cuban biomedical laboratories and their ability to transfer biological weapons technology to Iraq, Syria and Libya, all countries that Cuban President Fidel Castro visited last year. Bolton also made remarks, which may be interpreted as a clear signal of hardening State Department policy toward Cuba, faulting...

HE WAS a brilliant and handsome doctor from New Jersey who had won a coveted fellowship and once been an Episcopalian altar boy and high-school football star. But Bach McComb, 47, is now paralysed and suffering from pneumonia after becoming the unlikely victim of one of the worst cosmetic surgery disasters in recent memory. The Florida doctor injected himself, along with his girlfriend and two patients, with a huge quantity of cheap, imitation Botox, the anti-wrinkle treatment, which turned out to be raw botulinum toxin, the same lethal bacterium used in biological weapons. The other victims of the black-market Botox...

So far, not a single person has been helped by human embryonic stem cells. But in cramped university labs, a young neurobiologist with movie star good looks, a Carl Sagan-like fondness for the popular media and an entrepeneur's nose for profits is getting tantalizingly close. Hans Keirstead is making paralyzed rats walk again by injecting them with healthy brain cells sussed from a reddish soup of human embryonic stem cells he and his colleagues have created. Keirstead hopes to apply his therapy to humans by 2006. If his ambitious timetable keeps to schedule, Keirstead's work will be the first human...

The treatment only worked on dogs given the injections within about three days of their injury. Some dogs not given the injections eventually walked again, but those getting the new treatment had a dramatically higher recovery rate... In the study, 19 paraplegic dogs were injected with polyethylene glycol, or PEG -- a nontoxic liquid polymer composed of long strings of the same type of molecules found in antifreeze.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Dogs with paralyzed hind legs regained the ability to walk after getting a shot of a chemical cousin of antifreeze that helped repair nerve cells in their damaged spinal cords, scientists reported. Purdue University researchers who led the project hope the approach can soon be tried in people, but caution that there are significant differences between human and canine spinal cords. The treatment only worked on dogs given the injections within about three days of their injury. Some dogs not given the injections eventually walked again, but those getting the new treatment had a dramatically higher recovery...

A report earlier this week that South Korean researchers have used stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood to help a woman with a damaged spinal cord walk again is bound to re-ignite the battle over human embryonic stem cell research. The researchers say they harvested embryonic stem cells from blood taken from umbilical cords and injected them into the spine of a 37-year-old woman named Hwang Mi-soon. Ms. Hwang, who has been chair-bound for nearly two decades, took several steps using a walker at a press conference and declared her progress a “miracle.” And a miracle it is: Cord...

An Edwards Outrage After the second presidential debate, in which John Kerry used the word "plan" 24 times, I said on television that Kerry has a plan for everything except curing psoriasis. I should have known there is no parodying Kerry's pandering. It turned out days later that the Kerry campaign has a plan -- nay, a promise -- to cure paralysis. What is the plan? Vote for Kerry. This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when...

An Edwards Outrage After the second presidential debate, in which John Kerry used the word "plan" 24 times, I said on television that Kerry has a plan for everything except curing psoriasis. I should have known there is no parodying Kerry's pandering. It turned out days later that the Kerry campaign has a plan -- nay, a promise -- to cure paralysis. What is the plan? Vote for Kerry. This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when...

YOU CAN TAKE THE BOY OUT OF AMBULANCE-CHASING BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE AMBULANCE-CHASING OUT OF THE BOY   POURQUOI JOHN KERRY EST DANGEREUX POUR L'AMÉRIQUE by Mia T, 10.14.04   YOU CAN TAKE THE BOY OUT OF AMBULANCE-CHASING BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE AMBULANCE-CHASING OUT OF THE BOY (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) COPYRIGHT MIA T 2004   election update!JOHN KERRY IS UNFIT~THE SERIES RAISING TAXES, YOU POOR SLOBS + TERESA'S 11.5% TAX RATE (LAISSEZ-LES MANGER LE GÂTEAU)THE LETHAL DANGER OF JOHN KERRY: SPACE-TIME, TESSELLATIONS OF THE PLANET + TERRORISMKerry aims for 9/10, the good old days...

The death of Christopher Reeve illustrated something that those who live with paralysis know all too well: the challenges go far beyond the inability to walk. "Walking is the least of it," said Donna Messinger, who is 43 and has been paralyzed since an automobile accident in her senior year of college. Mr. Reeve died of cardiac arrest on Sunday. He had previously been treated for a severe systemic infection that was, in turn, caused by a pressure wound, the medical term for a bedsore, a common complication for people who are paralyzed. Mr. Reeve was, in fact, one of...

Superman star Christopher Reeve, who lobbied for medical research after being paralysed in a fall nine years ago, has died aged 52. He had been suffering from an infection as a result of a pressure wound and died on Sunday, his publicist said. He suffered a cardiac arrest at his New York home and slipped into a coma, Mr Wesley Combs added. Reeve was paralysed in 1995 when he broke his neck after being thrown from a horse. He later became an advocate for spinal cord injury research. In recent years, he had regained sensation in some parts of his...

Unknown cattle disease detected in Britain 1 hour, 49 minutes ago LONDON (AFP) - British scientists have detected a previously unknown brain condition which caused paralysis and death in a young cow, officials said Tuesday in a potential new blow to an industry badly hit by mad cow disease. An investigation had been launched after a white material was found on the brain of a heifer which died after suffering paralysis for around five or six days, Britain's Department for Environment and Rural Affairs said. The animals had been tested for known bovine diseases but none had been detected, a...

Roosevelt may not have suffered from polio, claim Texas doctors Associated Press DALLAS (AP) — Clinical evidence shows that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was probably misdiagnosed with paralyzing polio more than 80 years ago, researchers said in a new study released Friday. Texas doctors suggest the four-term president's paralysis was caused not by poliomyelitis but by Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disease that causes the immune system to attack the nervous system. "We feel from the clinical evidence, which is all that exists, that it's more likely that he had Guillain-Barre syndrome," Dr. Armond S. Goldman, emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University...

A UNION boss threatening to mount a huge public-sector strike in Germany next month has boasted of his determination to soak the rich and accused Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of trying to “Americanise” society. Cue huge laughter from Britain and America - Ivan Frank Bsirske, head of ver.di, the biggest union in Europe, is in combative mood after a week of token stoppages and inconclusive talks about pay. Final attempts at arbitration will be made after Christmas. But the union, which represents 3m workers ranging from nurses to dustmen, is demanding a pay rise of at least 3%. Local authorities say...

The recent Mujahir announcement has really put this issue on the table. I've just finished a very comprehensive look at "dirty bombs," including their history, uses, and connection to 4th Generation Warfare. It's intended to be a fairly definitive primer, much more detailed than you've seen at news sites like CNN.

By now you've read the stories about the latest Al-Qaeda threat against the USA, as delivered on Sunday June 1 by al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman bu Ghaith. There was a threat of this type issued about 3 weeks before Sept. 11. What's the purpose of this one? Winds of Change starts with a careful look at al-Qaeda's strategic situation, then proposes a number of scenarios re: where al-Qaeda might be going with this threat and why. For instance, Donald Rumsfeld might want to be extra-careful on his trip to Pakistan.