Tag: medicine
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Do no harm – but a white lie couldn’t hurt, could it?
Placebos have been a well-known and effective tool for medical trials and professionals, but how ethical is it for doctors to use them on patients? Nathan Rockley argues they could be a slippery slope that is best left untouched.
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Synthetic “embryos” pave the way for ethical drug screening
Embyronic stem cells could be the key to future drug testing, replacing animal testing with a cheaper and more reliable method, writes Katie Pickup.
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Could genetically modified animal organs solve the human transplant crisis?
Emma Nance discusses the pig-culiar story of the man who had a pig’s heart.
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Can the body remove HIV by itself?
Two patients have astonishingly cured themselves of HIV without any therapy. Kevin Boyle discusses these novel findings and their potential implications in the development of a vaccine against the HIV virus. A recent report in the Annals of Internal Medicine has shown that a female patient previously infected with HIV was able to remove the…
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Long COVID, the enduring toll of COVID-19 on public health
Seán Dunphy discusses the long term impact of COVID-19 on patients and public health. SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, was first identified at the end of 2019. Now, a year later, the long term health implications are becoming clearer. The high infection rate and immediate danger of the virus were apparent early in the…
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Are mRNA vaccines our way out of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Seán Dunphy discusses recent developments in COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccine development is complex and often takes 10 to 15 years of research. With this in mind the scientific response to the Covid-19 pandemic is remarkable. In a single year, 54 Covid-19 vaccines have been brought to human trials, and 13 of these are in the final…
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Back Off Chalmers: protect those accessing abortion services
Talking to the campaign Back Off Chalmers, Katie Pickup explores the impact of anti-choice protesters at abortion clinics and discusses some of the science behind abortion. Imagine you have made a deeply personal decision and are seeking medical treatment. Now you are being heckled and shamed on the way to the medical centre, making the…
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Multiple sclerosis and stem cell transplants: benefits versus risks
Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is a complex neurological and autoimmune disease whereby a patient’s immune cells, for unknown reasons, begin to attack the protective layer surrounding the nerves in the brain and spinal cord. This protective sheath is known as myelin. When myelin degenerates as a result of this autoimmune-mediated damage, the nerves are exposed…
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Targeted cancer drugs can distinguish between healthy and diseased cells
Drug treatment for many diseases often balances the need for high enough drug levels to give a therapeutic benefit against the concurrent increase in the risk of side effects. For example, toxic therapies such as chemotherapy drugs need to be administered at high doses to target and destroy highly replicating cells. However, this results in…
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Sex differences in immune responses to COVID-19
There are a broad range of COVID-19 symptoms, which widely differ in severity between patients. Age quickly emerged as the most significant predictor of this. COVID-19 related deaths are extremely uncommon in those under 50, but for those over 75, the odds of surviving COVID-19 decreases dramatically. Sadly, over 10 percent of this age group…