That’s One Busy Patient
First- and
second-year students at Wake Forest University School of Medicine are now using
Laerdal SimMan, a full-patient simulator, to practice giving injections, inserting
urinary catheters or breathing tubes, and learn about sympathetic and parasympathetic
nervous systems and how different medications affect brain cell receptors. SimMan
can vomit, make heart, lung, and bowel sounds, and be programmed to have various
medical problems, including brain injury, stroke, and hypoglycemia.
Federally Funded Monkey Study Gets Second Look
Accusations
of animal negligence against a neuroscience researcher at a University of Connecticut
lab have been corroborated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service. For the past 15 years, UConn Health Center
faculty member Dr. David Waitzman has been drilling holes into the heads of
monkeys, implanting steel springs in their eyes, inflicting brain damage, and
measuring the effect of the brain damage on the monkeys’ eye movements.
An inspection of Dr. Waitzman’s lab resulted in five citations for noncompliance
that contributed to the death of a rhesus monkey named Cornelius. The lab has
been cited by the USDA before for not effectively seeking out alternatives
to potentially painful or distressful procedures.
Want Viruses with Your Cholesterol?
 The Food
and Drug Administration recently approved a mixture of six bacteria-killing
viruses, called bacteriophages, to be sprayed on meat and poultry to combat
fecal bacteria called Listeria monocytogenes. Listeria can
cause a serious infection in pregnant women, infants, and adults with compromised
immune systems. The new virus spray, manufactured by a Baltimore company called
Intralytix, is to be used on ready-to-eat meat and poultry products right before
they are packaged. The use of the viruses will not be disclosed on package
labels.
Meat Makes Mommy Sick
Morning
sickness, common in the first trimester of pregnancy, may be nature’s
way of keeping women from eating too many unhealthy foods that could be harmful
to the developing baby. Scientists at the University of Liverpool recently
found that morning sickness may be associated with high intakes of meat, oils,
sugar, and alcohol. Researchers believe that a pregnant woman’s body
may have evolved to reject meat because before the days of refrigeration and
expiration dates, meat may have contained potentially dangerous bacteria and
other disease-causing agents. Cereals are the least likely foods to cause vomiting
or nausea.
Drug Company Sued Over Estrogen Replacement
More than
4,500 lawsuits have been filed nationwide against drug company Wyeth over its
hormone-replacement therapy Prempro. The Women’s Health Initiative found
that women who took the estrogen-progestin combination for premenopausal symptoms
had a higher risk of breast cancer, as well as stroke, coronary heart disease,
and potentially fatal blood clots. The “Prem” in Prempro is short
for “Premarin,” Wyeth’s estrogen pill, derived from PREgnant
MARes’ urINe. Wyeth previously paid out more than $21 billion in settlements
over the diet drug combination fen-phen.
Many Americans Too Obese for X-Rays
 Americans
are becoming too big to fit into medical scanners, including standard X-ray
machines and CT, PET, and MRI scans. And sometimes their fat is too dense for
X-rays, sound waves, or ultrasound beams to penetrate. In the August issue
of the journal Radiology, radiologists reported that the number of
scans that are unreadable because of body fat has doubled in the last 15 years.
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