MORE MEDICAL NOTES

At last! "Professor Sir Roy Meadow, the cot deaths expert who gave evidence at a string of criminal cases which resulted in mothers being jailed, faces charges of serious professional misconduct. The paediatrician was a key witness in the cases of women wrongly accused of killing their children including Sally Clark. He will appear before the General Medical Council (GMC) in June accused of serious professional misconduct. Prof Meadow gave evidence in the trials of Trupti Patel, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony as well as Mrs Clark. All denied murdering their children and were eventually vindicated."

African AIDS isn't spread by vaginal sex either: "Ninety-nine percent of AIDS and HIV cases in Africa come from sexual transmission, virtually all heterosexual. So says the World Health Organization, with other agencies toeing the line. Massive condom airdrops accompanied by a persuasive propaganda campaign would practically make the epidemic vanish overnight. Or would it? A determined renegade group of three scientists has fought for years - with little success - to get out the message that no more than a third of HIV transmission in Africa is from sexual intercourse and most of that is anal. By ignoring the real vectors, they say, we're sacrificing literally millions of people.... The chief reason it's so hard to spread HIV vaginally is that, as biopsies of vaginal and cervical tissue show, the virus is unable to penetrate or infect healthy vaginal or cervical tissue. Various sexually transmitted diseases facilitate vaginal HIV infection, but even those appear to increase the risk only slightly..... "

Circumcision and African AIDS: "At the heart of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, there is a deadly mystery that has puzzled scientists for years. There are groups of people who are four times less likely to get HIV than other people, sometimes living just yards away, across a single valley - people with apparently similar behaviour and lifestyle. Scientists realised that if they could understand why these people are so much less vulnerable to the HIV virus, it might lead to an answer that could save millions of lives. And after 15 years of detective work it turns out there may be a remarkably simple answer: the high risk areas for HIV coincide with tribes who are uncircumcised. In Africa, it seems a man is much more likely to get HIV if he is uncircumcised".

Male homosexuals have partly female brains: "Gay men employ the same strategies for navigating as women - using landmarks to find their way around - a new study suggests. But they also use the strategies typically used by straight men, such as using compass directions and distances.... "Gay men adopt male and female strategies. Therefore their brains are a sexual mosaic," explains Qazi Rahman, a psychobiologist who led the study at the University of East London, UK. "It's not simply that lesbians have men's brains and gay men have women's brains." The stereotype that women are relatively poor map readers is borne out by a reasonable bulk of scientific literature, notes Rahman. "Men, particularly, excel at spatial navigation." The new study might help researchers understand how cognitive differences and sexual orientation develop in the womb, he says."

Richard Irving reports in The Times on plans by Epitan to market the drug Melanotan to supply a sun-tan without the need for harmful exposure to bright sunlight, or recourse to tanning salons whose regular use may carry risks. It works by encouraging the body to produce Melanin in its brown-black form which helps block out the sun’s harmful effects: "The drug will initially be available in injection form at a cost of about 105 pounds. The jab takes about a week to work and lasts for between 60 to 90 days". It sounds like a way to acquire the good-looking tan, but without the health risks. Ah, but there's more: "Originally developed by scientists from the University of Arizona, Melanotan could have two other potentially lucrative uses. The first is that in sufficient quantities it appears to suppress the appetite; the second is that it appears to ease erectile dysfunction". The major problem with what appears to be a significant advancement in lifestyle choices is that it all seems too good to be true! (Post lifted from the Adam Smith blog)

There is a pretty worrying article from a few years back here which strongly suggests that somebody does not want antidotes or vaccines against biological weapons developed. The fact that we have heard no more of the matter since suggests that it is only the fear of Mecca being nuked that protects the USA at the moment.

I put up a report on POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH yesterday that should be central to any discussion of feminism -- if facts were relevant to feminism, that is.

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