West Nile went through our area a few years back. Not fun. Protect yourselves.
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Good thing the herbal supplement industry was protected from FDA oversight. Keep in mind, unless you have grown it yourself, you have no idea what’s in it, and they are under no obligation to tell you. Just FYI.
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Hmmm…
Ok Onebox can’t or won’t so here’s the intro:
New Vaccine Can Completely Reverse Autoimmune Diseases Like Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, and Crohn’s Disease
Researchers from Pritzker Molecular Engineering, under the guidance of Prof. Jeffrey Hubbell, demonstrated that their compound can eliminate the autoimmune response linked to multiple sclerosis.
Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have developed a novel vaccine that, in laboratory tests, can completely reverse autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, and Crohn’s disease — all without shutting down the rest of the immune system.
A typical vaccine teaches the human immune system to recognize a virus or bacteria as an enemy that should be attacked. The new “inverse vaccine” does just the opposite: it removes the immune system’s memory of one molecule. While such immune memory erasure would be unwanted for infectious diseases, it can stop autoimmune reactions like those seen in multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, or Crohn’s disease, in which the immune system attacks a person’s healthy tissues.
The inverse vaccine, described in a recent paper published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, takes advantage of how the liver naturally marks molecules from broken-down cells with “do not attack” flags to prevent autoimmune reactions to cells that die by natural processes. PME researchers coupled an antigen — a molecule being attacked by the immune system— with a molecule resembling a fragment of an aged cell that the liver would recognize as friend, rather than foe. The team showed how the vaccine could successfully stop the autoimmune reaction associated with a multiple-sclerosis-like disease.
“In the past, we showed that we could use this approach to prevent autoimmunity,” said Jeffrey Hubbell, the Eugene Bell Professor in Tissue Engineering and lead author of the new paper. “But what is so exciting about this work is that we have shown that we can treat diseases like multiple sclerosis after there is already ongoing inflammation, which is more useful in a real-world context.” …
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If that pans out, it could be an absolute game changer. Clinical trials will be very interesting and followed closely. All my usual cautions around preliminary results and single studies apply, but wow! That would be huge. 
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Just an FYI. Another of those things that I was told in my residency was a historical curiosity that we, luckily, did not have to worry about so much anymore. Time to go review the old texts…
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Mental health side effects to non-mental health meds don’t get nearly enough attention. But this one does, because weight loss? I might be a bit jaded over this kind of thing, but i think warranted.
Does Ozempic have mental health side effects? : Shots - Health News : NPR
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This… poetically… does qualify as a healthcare PSA.
After everyone else
stops monitoring
after the COVID-19 tracking project
and after Johns Hopkins
after the newspapers
and after the states
at least, we know
that for current information
we can always look for a surge
of angry reviewers saying
their Yankee Candles
have no scent
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Well, fuck, can we not leave some of the horrors at the door?
Humans become accidental hosts in various ways. They may eat undercooked snails or inadvertently eat an infected slug or snail hiding in their unwashed salad. Infected snails and slugs can also be eaten by other animals first, like frogs, prawns, shrimp, or freshwater crabs. If humans then eat those animals before fully cooking them, they can become infected.
Well, there you go. Only well-cooked slugs from now on!!
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There’s never been a better time to be a vegetarian.
Come on over to our side, Doc!
We’ve got… banana bread. And spring rolls with peanut sauce. And breakfast tacos.
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Atlanta
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Brain eating diseases in Atlanta again?
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Always right over the horizon
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Only for women at 32-36 weeks, Sept-Jan. But better than nothing.
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I admit to a bias re: implanted devices.
I think it started here, like here at bOING.
This one sealed the deal.
My bias is not helped by news like this, previously…
Still, not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, I can see where a device associated with MIT labs does appeal. For the poor, and for insulin-dependent diabetics needing a Plan B if Plan A fails, though, there will always be the older regular way. And yes, maintenance is… everything (and by that I include “tech support and service for a medical implant device”).
ETA: grammar
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A study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in November 2021 laid out 25 cases of acute liver failure linked to the water—22 in Nevada and three in California, all of which occurred at the end of 2020. Specifically, the cases were linked to Real Water’s 5-gallon Re2al Water product, sold in multiple Southwestern states in places like Whole Foods.
Just so we are clear, “alkaline water” is bullshit. Hydrazine is not, and ingesting it is very very bad.
How bad is it? They asked. This is the statement of the guy who developed it.
He said that the person who developed the water treatment process for Real Water bought the titanium tubes “from some Russian guy in the '80s” and spent four to five months making alkaline waters in his garage, working until he had a formula that didn’t make him vomit or have diarrhea.
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… I didn’t even know I needed a whole new reason not to shop there 
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Check your cabinets, folks.
I was stunned to find that there are a lot of places around here where the only “grocery” store within 30-45 min drive was a Dollar General/Family Dollar. While this is not terribly likely to result in dangerous contamination or anything, it speaks to lack of quality control that bodes ill for everything else.
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