Cancer... the tide is turning.

FTA: During the 15-year period, the cancer death rate among men dropped by 19.2 percent, mainly due to decreases in lung, prostate, and colon cancer deaths. In women, the cancer death rate fell by 11.4 percent, largely due to a drop in breast and colorectal cancer deaths.

OK, sure, a cure is still a long way off, but we've got to stop thinking about the cure for cancer as being one thing - a magic bullet - and accept that it's much more likely that we'll reduce the death rate to near zero over the course of the next couple of decades....

... or maybe we will find a magic bullet...

FTA: Scientists at Oxford University have tamed a virus so that it attacks and destroys cancer cells but does not harm healthy cells. They determined how to produce replication-competent viruses with key toxicities removed, providing a new platform for development of improved cancer treatments and better vaccines for a broad range of viral diseases.

FTA: Researchers in London have demonstrated the ability of adult stem cells from bone marrow (mesenchymal stem cells, or MSCs) to deliver a cancer-killing protein to tumors.

FTA: Therapeutic cancer vaccines received a potentially big boost this week when Seattle-based biotech company Dendreon announced that its Provenge vaccine prolonged the lives of prostate cancer patients. The success of this trial could pave the way for approval of the drug, which triggers the body's immune system to attack malignant prostate tumors.

Smart Pills: It begins.

GTFO! Ultrasound Imaging Now Possible With Smartphone

Nothing magical here, just a combination that makes such perfect sense yet I totally did not see coming. FTA: Computer engineers at Washington University in St. Louis are bringing the minimalist approach to medical care and computing by coupling USB-based ultrasound probe technology with a smartphone, enabling a compact, mobile computational platform and a medical imaging device that fits in the palm of a hand.

Man, those pervs that try to take pictures up girls' skirts just got a new toy that's gonna take the gross to a whole new level.

An idea

I went to see a doctor the other day since I have okay health insurance again. I mentioned a few problems, and the fact that they haven't been taken care of since I didn't have the money, and he went on for five minutes about how horrible health care in this country is and how we should have universal health care already. It was a little shocking, not because of what he was saying, but because HE was saying it. Every other doctor I've had the misfortune of seeing in New York has been greedier than Scrooge McDuck. At any rate, we all heard a lot of talk during the campaign about health care and the big changes that were going to be made. Apparently, Tom Daschle's idiotic tax problems are now being used as an excuse to, once again, ignore the problem of health care in this country.
There are a lot of arguments on the other side about "socialized" medicine (anything socialized is apparently evil). It's a little silly. We pay taxes. These taxes go to the government, which is ostensibly supposed to use this money to provide for us basic services. Public education. Department of Defense. I realize there are some extreme loonie-tune rightwingers out there that believe we should get rid of the Department of Education (who needs lernin' anyways?), but would any of them argue that we should get rid of the Department of Defense? For some reason, there are enough people out there that think it's okay for us to spend over a TRILLION DOLLARS on our defense budget, but zero on universal health care (I'm not counting medicaid/medicare because it's not universal). Some of these people also want to cut public education. Defense=Yes, Education & Health=No. This means we would be the safest country for sick idiots in the world. Yay!
So, my idea: The Department of Defense is tasked with keeping this country safe and secure. Well, what could be more tantamount to safety and security than our national health? Let's start pulling a few of our troops out of every corner of the world, kill a couple of the more ridiculous and extravagant spending projects in the defense budget (missile defense shield, really?? Uh, Cold War is over, boys...) and use that money to create a line item for Universal Health Care in the DOD budget. And if the billion-dollar health insurance industry wants to fight that, we'll call them unpatriotic for not supporting the Department of Defense.