If there's one issue that the Democrats could win votes with, it's limits on pharmaceutical prices, because virtually every American agrees that we're being ripped off by Big Pharma (and that goes double for Obama Democrat voters who switched to being Trump voters in 2016). Read the rest

According to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, prostate cancer is a leading cause of death for men in the US. Men who have benign prostatic hyperplasia, which causes their prostate to grow, often take medication or get surgery to reduce the size of it. But a new study reveals that "it might be a bad idea to downsize an enlarged prostate through surgery or drugs," says a press release from Purdue University, "because doing so could lead to faster growth of prostate cancer."

Computer simulations of patient data offer a possible explanation of why an enlarged prostate might be a lifesaver: because a prostate can only grow so much within a confined space, force accumulates and puts pressure on the tumor, effectively keeping it small.

"It's already known that forces and stresses have an impact on tumor growth, and that patients with enlarged prostates tend to have slower cancer growth, but it wasn't known why," said Hector Gomez, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, who builds models and simulations for understanding tumor growth, cellular migration and blood flow.

Image: Computer simulations show for the first time that when a patient has a history of an enlarged prostate, tumors in the prostate barely grow at all. University of Pavia/Guillermo Lorenzo Read the rest

Failure to vaccinate can cause death. Maybe not killing your own child, tho it is not unlikely, the awful decision to not vaccinate puts at risk all the people who for good reasons can not get the shot.

Snohomish County rocks.

MyNorthWest:

“It’s like taking a pail of gasoline and throwing a lighted match into it. I have some concerns that this is going to get worse before it gets better,” said Clark County Public Health Director Alan Melnick.

Melnick said there are now 25 confirmed measles cases and 12 suspected cases in Clark County. The majority are kids younger than 10.

At least 21 people with the disease never got the MMR vaccine. The other four cases are unverified.

“What people don’t realize about measles is how contagious it is,” said Lawrence Neville, PeaceHealth Southwest Chief Medical Officer. “It’s spread by airborne droplets and that’s why the very air can be infectious for up to two hours later after someone infected with measles is in that vicinity.”

Miranda Smith said she’s frustrated by the outbreak. She has three young kids.

“It’s their lives on the line, honestly. If they’re not vaccinated and something like this happens, then what am I going to do to save them?” she said.

Washington State Department of Health statistics show Clark County has the sixth lowest immunization rate in the state.

“I’d hardly be surprised if we see more cases that are outside of Clark County,” Melnick

said.

The CDC’s immunization recommendation is 90 percent.

A man in Ireland repeatedly injected semen into his arm in the hopes that it would cure his back pain. He instead got a subcutaneous abcess and had to get professional help. [via Gizmodo]

Drs. Dunne, Murphy and Rutledge report:

A 33 year old male was seen complaining of severe, sudden onset lower back pain. He reported lifting a heavy steel object 3 days prior and his symptoms had progressed ever since. This gentleman had a history of chronic low back pain without neurology. Thorough physical exam of the upper and lower limbs revealed an erythematous papule with a central focus on the medial aspect of his right upper limb. His ASIA score for neurology was normal and non-contributory. The patient disclosed that he had intravenously injected his own semen as an innovative method to treat back pain. He had devised this “cure” independent of any medical advice. ... The case also demonstrates the risks involved with medical experimentation prior to extensive clinical research in the form of phased trials inclusive of safety and efficacy assessments.

Editor's Note: Richard Metzger is a connoisseur of cannabis, and recently started growing his own. He's test-driving high-end rig good for small-scale grows from Cloudponics. This is not a sponsored post, Boing Boing is not getting anything from Cloudponics. Metzger's just really *that* enthusiastic about weed, and spoiler alert, so far he likes the Cloudponics setup. Here's an early photo from the grow, and the first installment of Richard's ongoing lab notes. — Xeni

I am a 53-year-old wake-n-bake stoner and I've been high since 1979.

Leaving much of that, er, loaded statement aside (and yes, as a definitive study of one, I do plan to leave my body to science) think of all the money I've spent staying massively stoned since I was fourteen. At approximately $20 a day over 365 days per annum ($7300) for 39 years that comes to $284,700 but do consider that I had to make nearly twice that and pay tax on that income before I could spend it on herb. Money doesn't grow on trees, of course, but there was a time not all that long ago when an ounce of pot and an ounce of gold were the exact same price, for a little perspective. Read the rest

The state of Tennessee pays doctor-contractors by the case to review Medicare disability claims, leading to a situation in which doctors review four or more cases per hour -- and kick profoundly disabled and terminally ill people out of the program. Tennessee leads the nation in denied disability claims. Read the rest

Bill Gates has a long, complicated and showy relationship with malaria eradication, and in a new letter, he makes a case that mosquitoes are Earth's deadliest animals, outkilling even the murderous h. sap.. Read the rest

In Patients' crowdfunding campaigns for alternative cancer treatments, published by researchers from Simon Fraser University in The Lancet Oncology (Sci-Hub mirror) we learn that thanks to Gofundme, 13,000 people have raised $1.4 million to help 200 desperate cancer patients pay for ineffective homeopathic "treatments." Read the rest

In October 2017, Syracuse cops arrested Torrence Jackson with a small amount of marijuana and accused him of hiding drugs in his rectum (the officers say they saw him shift in his seat and concluded that he'd put drugs up his butt). They took him to St Joseph's Hospital where he was nonconsensually X-rayed; when that revealed no drugs, officers told doctors to force sedation on Jackson and then put a tube and camera up his rectum. Read the rest

When your toothbrush is part of the Internet of Shit, sometimes you need to update its firmware, and when that happens, sometimes you have to decide whether your toothbrush will have access to your location. Thank you to Andrew Crow for livetweeting this glimpse of the future of Surveillance Dentistry. (Thanks, Radical Goats!) Read the rest

Senator Elizabeth Warren has introduced a bill called the Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act, which allows the US government to manufacture generic versions of drugs "in cases in which no company is manufacturing a drug, when only one or two companies manufacture a drug and its price has spiked, when the drug is in shortage, or when a medicine listed as essential by the World Health Organization faces limited competition and high prices." Read the rest

Emergency rooms at for-profit hospitals are notorious price-gougers, where an ice-pack and a bandage can cost $5,000, and where no one will tell you how much your care is costing until months after the fact. Read the rest

An outbreak of Legionnaires' disease that killed one person and sickened 22 near Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California last year may have been caused by an unexpected source. Read the rest

Poor people were not the primary target of Obamacare; as a group, their care is more likely to be "non-compensated" (trips to the emergency room while classed as "indigent" and unable to pay), so insurance shouldn't make a big difference to them, right? Read the rest

In this chilling video, YouTuber oncologist Chubbyemu tells the story of a woman who colon-cleansed by drinking a liter of soy sauce—which would be about 200g of sodium on top of whatever other crap is in there, five times the lethal dose. The internet has long been a place to go for bad advice, but now more of it is malicious and no-one can tell. Things did not go well for her. Read the rest