Dogs can sometimes suffer sudden episodes of aggression without their owners understanding why. But, in many cases, the cause of these attacks can be Pain that has never been diagnosed or treated. For the first time the study describes the characteristics of this irritability, which can make dogs violent and increase aggression in already conflictive individuals. There are many factors that explain aggression in dogs: the conditions of the mother during gestation, the handling of the puppy in the neonatal phase, the age at weaning, the experiences of the animal during the socializing phase, diet, exercise, genetics and learning techniques based on active punishment during adulthood. However, aggressive behavior also arises from the presence of pathologies and pain in the dog. read more..
Wednesday 27 June 2012
Sunday 17 June 2012
Government Officials-Civil Society Groups-Bangkok, Thailand-Statute Books-HIV
| |
Open Society Foundations Blog: "These stories stand beside countless others as testament that what is written in the statute books, and what is done by governments and others in the name of the law, can significantly increase the vulnerability of groups that are already at a high risk of HIV and other serious diseases. This week in Bangkok, Thailand, civil society groups that represent sex workers, drug users, men who have sex with men, people living with HIV, women and children, and those seeking access to essential medicines, will sit down with government officials and policymakers from across the Asia-Pacific region to share their experiences of how the law affects their daily lives." read more..
Friday 15 June 2012
Pediatric Aids Foundation-Multinational Study-Congenital Syphilis-Pregnant Women
[E.G. Pediatric Aids Foundation] This press release details the results of a multinational study on rapid, point-of-care testing of Pregnant Women for Syphilis. Treating and preventing syphilis in mothers and infants could save millions of lives, and help eliminate both congenital syphilis and pediatric AIDS. read more..
Nigeria: 'Don't Reject Women Who Deliver At Home'
[Daily Trust] The FCT Primary Health Care Development Board, Abuja on Wednesday directed health centres and hospitals in the FCT not to reject Women, who delivered their babies at home before getting to the hospital. read more..
Hormonal Contraception-Birth Control Pills-Healthday News-Heart Attacks
WEDNESDAY, June 13 (Healthday News) -- Sweeping new research comparing various forms of hormonal contraception -- including Birth Control pills, vaginal rings and skin patches -- suggests that the risk for heart attacks and strokes is twice as high among users of combined estrogen-progestin versions. read more..
Annals Of Internal Medicine-Intimate Partner Violence-Intimate Relationship-Abusive Behaviors
1. Evidence Review: Screening Women for Intimate Partner Violence May Have Benefits, Few Harms Intimate partner violence, or IPV, includes a range of abusive behaviors perpetrated by someone who is in an intimate relationship with the victim. Abusive behaviors may include physical violence, sexual violence, rape, and psychological aggression - all of which have immediate health effects on the victim. While victims and perpetrators can be male or female, women are disproportionately victimized (up to 5.3 million women are affected each year in the U.S.)... read more..
Thursday 14 June 2012
Child Hiv Transmission-African Countries-Sexual Behavior-Hiv Prevalence
Despite the monstrous quantities of 'unsafe' sex that Africans are claimed to engage in by UNAIDS and other HIV institutions, HIV is not at all distributed evenly. Prevalence ranges from less than 1% in some African countries, a lot less than in some US cities, to more than 25% of the adult population in others (and even 50% in some demographic groups). Even within high prevalence countries HIV is not distributed evenly. In many African countries the virus tends to be far more common in cities, close to main roads, close to health facilities, among wealthier and better educated people, etc. It is also generally far more common among women than among men.
Other research has found HIV prevalence to be higher in areas where diseases such as schistosomiasis (bilharzia) and malaria are higher. However, as these both tend to be higher among less wealthy people with lower levels of education and in rural, as opposed to urban areas, there is more than a suggestion that HIV transmission may have widely varying risk factors. Yet UNAIDS and friends tend not to dwell on most forms of non-sexual risk in Africa.
As David Gisselquist writes in the Don't Get Stuck With HIV website: "Unlike Western countries, where almost all HIV transmission occurs outside families, a lot of HIV transmission in Africa happens within families – mother-to-child and spouse-to-spouse transmission together account for an estimated 45% of new infections." Not only is a lot of HIV not transmitted sexually, but a lot is not transmitted through 'unsafe' sex. Many of these couples where at least one partner is infected have no sexual risks. Hundreds of thousands of new infections every year occur through these two routes.
In Africa, then, the main groups are those at risk of mother to child transmission and married couples, especially couples where one partner has been infected. It's as likely to be the female as the male partner, but how does the index partner become infected, the first in the couple? Sex, says UNAIDS, but sex with whom, how much sex and what kind of sex? Heterosexual sex is not an efficient means of transmitting HIV. Gisselquist is suggesting that the focus of international HIV reduction efforts in African countries should address these and other risk groups, where sexual risk is very likely to be low but HIV prevalence is high; this could cut as many as 700,000 transmissions annually.
A serious set of risk factors could arise from unsafe healthcare and perhaps even unsafe cosmetic services. It's not just that conditions in healthcare and cosmetic facilities in African countries are primitive but also that many people are not aware that such risks exist; if they are not aware of the risks, they will not know that they need to avoid them, nor how to avoid them. But if they are aware, they will also realize that a person's HIV status is not a reliable indication of their sexual behavior. This should reassure some who have been brainwashed to associate HIV with 'immoral' behavior; many women, especially, have been beaten by their partners, ostracized by their communities and even killed because of the incorrect association of HIV with sexual behavior.
The HIV industry does talk a lot about the importance of HIV testing. But they also put people off testing where being positive has such terrible consequences. If people were to know that there were other, non-sexual risks, the stigma associated with testing and with having (or being thought to have) HIV should reduce. People who know their status don't tend to take risks, neither sexual nor non-sexual; but they must also be advised of the non-sexual risks. Those who are infected non-sexually can be involved in sexual transmission just as easily as those who are infected sexually. But in the current climate of sex-obsessed HIV policies, they are unlikely to know about non-sexual risk.
Prevention of mother to child HIV transmission is vital if the mother is already infec read more..
Wednesday 6 June 2012
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide-Nitrogen Fixation-Cryptogamic-Growths
In cities, the presence of algae, lichens, and mosses is not considered desirable and they are often removed from roofs and walls. It is, however, totally unfair to consider these cryptogamic covers, as the flat growths are referred to in scientific terms, just a nuisance. Scientists have discovered that these mostly inconspicuous looking growths take up huge amounts of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and nitrogen and fix it at the earth’s surface. Cryptogamic covers are responsible for about half of the naturally occurring nitrogen fixation on land and they take up as much carbon dioxide as is released yearly from biomass burning. These new findings will help to improve global flux calculations and climate models, in which up to now the carbon and nitrogen balance of the cryptogamic covers have been neglected. read more..
Success Story-Social Change-Zimbabwe-HIV
| |
RadioVop Zimbabwe: "'The modelling showed it couldn't just be the natural curve [of the epidemic]; the decline was too dramatic,' he told IRIN/PlusNews. 'The modelling suggested it was also due to behaviour change and behavioural data also suggested a change, but what was missing was the all important `why'.' According to Halperin, Zimbabwe's success story points to the power of social change and the need for more detailed analyses of HIV success stories in Africa. He compared it to the role of partner reduction in the fight against HIV in Uganda, which promoted a reduction in concurrent partners as the key focus of its HIV prevention campaigns in the late 1980s and early 1990s." read more..
Tuesday 5 June 2012
Infant Mortality Rates-Unwanted Side Effects-Investigational Drug-Insulin Sensitivity
[Daily Trust] Ado-Ekiti - Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Dr. Adewale Omirin has said that a grave danger is looming in the country if nothing is done to address the high maternal and infant mortality rate in the country. read more..
Investigational diabetes drug may have fewer side effects
Drugs for Type 2 Diabetes can contribute to unwanted side effects, but researchers have found that in mice, an investigational drug appears to improve insulin sensitivity without side effects. The medicine works through a different pathway, which could provide additional targets for treating insulin resistance and Diabetes. read more..
Game Of Thrones-Season Finale
Already going through 'Game of Thrones' withdrawal after last night's season finale? Well, at least you can get fit like the Starks in the off-season with these GoT-inspired workouts
Old-World Calorie Burners | Fitbie
Skip the gym for one of these age-old activities read more..
Transmission Of Hiv-Joseph Sonnabend
This was written together with Joseph Sonnabend In 2010 there was a great deal of outraged comment about the US government’s award of $823,000 to an HIV related project in Africa. Specifically, the taxpayer dollars were to be used to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex. The grant states; [...] read more..
Food And Drug Administration-Aids Healthcare Foundation-Poor Efficacy-Truvada
In addition to the good work that the Aids Healthcare Foundation is doing to question the 'fast-tracking' of the use of Truvada as PrEP when it has so far shown such poor efficacy, a group of 55 US physicians have signed a letter, also urging the US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) to delay approval until further tests, which may take years, have been carried out.PrEP may be a great theory and Truvada may be a great drug. But there is little to get excited about yet. If effectiveness in the real world (as opposed to efficacy in carefully controlled trial contexts) can reach a reasonable level, which would be a lot higher than the unimpressive 44% found in the iPrEX study, then it will be time to consider the use of Truvada as PrEP.It's good to hear that some doctors are standing up for their patients. Others appear to be in the thrall, or in the pocket, of Big Pharma. Many AIDS and human rights activists seem to have got the wrong end of the stick on this one: people have a right to safe healthcare, not to be used as free lab-rat material.Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) involves putting HIV negative people on antiretroviral drugs (ARV) with the aim of protecting them from HIV infection. read more..
Monday 4 June 2012
Maternal Mortality-Health Facilities-Genetic Testing
[New Era] Despite the Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality (CARMMA) that was launched in 2009, a shocking 61 mothers died in health facilities countrywide in 2009, 80 died in 2010 and a further 62 mothers died in health facilities across the nation last year. read more..
Not all patients will pay for genetic testing, study suggests
More than one-fifth of people who have received referrals to test for cancer-causing genes say they will only undergo testing if their insurance covers the cost -- just as more insurers are instituting cost-sharing for medical services like Genetic Testing, according to new findings. read more..
Voluntary Counseling And Testing-Religious Leaders-Hiv Prevention
The International (formerly African) Network of Religious Leaders living with or Affected by HIV/AIDS (INERELA+) promotes SAVE as a response to Africa’s HIV/AIDS epidemic. SAVE stands for: Safe sexual and skin-piercing behavior; Access to treatment; Voluntary counseling and testing; and Empowerment. This note considers some of the ways that SAVE could strengthen Hiv Prevention in Africa. AIDS was first recognized [...] read more..
Retraction: 127 Zimbabwean Women-Antiretroviral Drug-HIV
Following an article in ZimEye.org, I mistakenly wrote that one arm of the Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic (VOICE) trial, involving the antiretroviral drug Tenofovir, was stopped because 127 women taking the drug became infected with HIV. In fact, these women were taken out of the trial because of 'futility', the finding that it would not be possible to show that the treatment they were receiving was more effective than the placebo that another group was receiving.I apologise for reporting something so alarmist when the only source was an online article (which apparently also appeared in the Sunday Mail) that was released without any named author. I will take more care in commenting on such articles in the future. I have removed my blog post from the three sites where I placed it and will make the same efforts to publicize this retraction as I made with the original.There will be a press release confirming the above, which I will post as a comment to this report as soon as it is available.Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) involves putting HIV negative people on antiretroviral drugs (ARV) with the aim of protecting them from HIV infection. read more..