WeirdMedical™

Welcome home to our Atlantis Space Shuttle and and the STS-132 mission crew!

Just over 10 hours ago Atlantis touched down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL, concluding its 32nd and last voyage as a space workhorse. According to NASA it went as “smooth as silk.”

Upon the routine arrival inspection, the shuttle is reported by NASA engineers to be in fine repair, after 25 years reported to have the capacity to easily double the miles it has already logged – 120 million miles. [Seattle PI.]

Space Shuttle Atlantis The Space Shuttle Atlantis is towed back to the Orbiter Processing Facility after landing on Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Click picture.

This fact makes it all the more difficult to fathom. It is beyond weird that our space shuttle era is coming to a close, retiring Atlantis first, then Discovery and finally Endeavour at the end of this year.

These spacecraft, their mission teams and crews have allowed us to dream we are astronauts, exploring one of our last frontiers, or engineers, enabling that exploration.

Let our medical industry salute NASA’s vast team of astronauts, engineers, aerospace professionals and its supporting industry suppliers as the STS program winds down.

…and let’s give one more pitch to President Obama – to rethink retiring this program to wait until the mid-2030′s for the Mars program, else the loss of  yet anther critical national treasure further tarnishes our nation’s hope for the future.

Do you have patients or family members who struggle daily with Attention Deficit [Hyperactive] Disorder (ADD/ADHD)?

You know the symptoms – difficulty concentrating, constant fidgeting, poor memory, disorganized, sensitive or even argumentative.

“Although ADD carries some basic handicaps, you can’t place all ADD adults in the same box. Here are a few suggestions, keeping in mind both the strengths, as well as the weaknesses of ADD,” says Venice Kichura in hear article entitled, “Good Jobs for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder“:

• Jobs that require a lot of moving
• Jobs related to sales
• Jobs requiring creativity
• Jobs requiring a curious mind
• and more

…Read on…

Any of us could have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit [Hyperactive] Disorder (ADD/ADHD) at one time or another in our lives…

But in the last few years, new anecdotal evidence implies that ADD is often too quickly presented as the explanation for a child’s inattentiveness or hyperactivity…with drugs, behavioral therapies, and support group participation growing double digits…who does this benefit?

ADHD EEG

Consider:

“ADD is the most commonly diagnosed disorder in children (Grossman). Its origins are unknown, but according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it is speculated that ADD is due to these factors: genetics, prenatal complications, and neurotransmitter deficits,” according to Health & Wellness online magazine’s Claudette Ellyse. Further, “It is said that 5 million children have ADD (Alexander-Roberts 1). 50% of those children will not have it when they become adults (Armstrong 13). It is doubtful that all of those children become “cured.” There is no cure for ADD. It is more likely that most of these children never had ADD at all.”

The primary symptoms of ADD, “The Big Four”:

• distractibility
• impulsivity
• restlessness
• hyperactivity

Secondary symptoms can occur when the primary systems go unnoticed and the ADD are not treated. They include low self-esteem, depression, boredom and frustration with school, impaired peer relations, violent behavior due to mounting frustrations, and sometimes alcohol, promiscuity and drug abuse.

Concerned? read on… What do you think?

“Experts have discovered that an extract from the white flower commonly known as Baby’s Breath can boost the efficiency of anti-cancer drugs by a staggering million times,” stated on the British MailOnline website by its Healthcare Section editors.

Apparently this staggeringly significant discovery was made by scientists working for the charity, Leukaemia Busters, based in Southampton, Hampshire. The scientists extracted the molecular substance called saponins from the Gypsophila Paniculata plant. Saponins appears to break down the membrane of cancer cells leaving them vulnerable to antibody-based drugs, known as immunotoxins. Immunotoxins can then more easily attack and kill the cancerous cells.

Baby's Breath Flower Million Star

Leukaemia Busters name and its logo were both devised by Simon Flavell the son of the researchers, Dr David Flavell and his wife Dr Bee Flavell. Drs. Flavell run the charity that was set up in memory Simon who died from the disease aged 10. Simon was a great fan of Ghost Busters.

To learn more about this dedicated research team and their findings read on…

Now this is a good use of our federal tax dollars…

In the northwestern reaches of Washington (D.C. that is) sits a museum that is a “must see” if you like the slightly off-taste, arcane, twisted and in some cases, down-right gross medical oddities. Visit the bricks and mortar “Roadside America of American medicine,” the National Museum of Health and Medicine, America’s oldest taxpayer-funded Cabinet of Curiosities near Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

A row of little skeletons.

At the National Museum of Health and Medicine you can see precariously displayed and disturbingly barely described:

• hanging display of a complete brain and spine, suspended in liquid in an eerily lit glass cylinder
• girl’s head preserved in arsenic
• well-preserved hairball from the stomach of a 12-year old girl who compulsively ate her own hair
• skull with a huge civil war bullet buried in its frontal lobe
• and the list goes on…

To visit…virtually go to the RoadsideAmerica.com Team Field Reporters or National Museum of Health and Medicine, or in real life visit:

6900 Georgia Avenue, Washington, DC

Hours:     M-F 10 am – 5:30 pm, Sa, Su, Hol call ahead

No kidding. This is for real – so when you go to the NMHM in D.C., tell them you want your tax dollars’ worth!