The incidence of thyroid cancer worldwide has consistently been increasing in recent decades and may be attributable to the use of new diagnostic techniques coupled with increased medical surveillance and access to health care services, according to a perspective published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
However, no substantial change in thyroid cancer-related mortality has been observed despite rising incidence, according to Salvatore Vaccarella, PhD, of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, and colleagues.
Vaccarella and colleagues calculated the number of overdiagnosed cases of thyroid cancer in 12 countries — Australia, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Scotland, Sweden and the United States — using data from the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s reference publication Cancer Incidence in Five Continents.
“Countries such as the [United States], Italy and France have been most severely affected by overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer since the 1980s, after the introduction of ultrasonography, but the most recent and striking example is the Republic of Korea,” Vaccarella said in a press release. “A few years after ultrasonography of the thyroid gland started being widely offered in the framework of a population-based multi-cancer screening, thyroid cancer has become the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women in the Republic of Korea, with approximately 90% of cases in 2003 to 2007 estimated to be due to overdiagnosis.”
Researchers conclude that overdiagnosed cases in women from 2003 to 2007 account for 70% to 80% of cases in the United States, Italy, France and Australia and 50% of cases in Japan, the Nordic countries, England and Scotland. Overdiagnosis in men for the same period accounted for 70% of cases in France, Italy and South Korea, 45% in the United States and Australia and less than 25% in the other countries evaluated.
“More than half a million people are estimated to have been overdiagnosed with thyroid cancer in the 12 countries studied,” Christopher P. Wild, PhD, director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, said in the release. “The drastic increase in overdiagnosis and overtreatment of thyroid cancer is already a serious public health concern in many high-income countries, with worrying signs of the same trend in low- and middle-income countries. It is, therefore, critical to have more research evidence in order to evaluate the best approach to address the epidemic of thyroid cancer and to avoid unnecessary harm to patients.” – by Amber Cox
Dad raises boy with foetal alcohol syndrome – despite finding out he isn’t his biological son
This man raised his son with mental and physical disabilities alone for three years before discovering he wasn’t the father.
THERE are many things Thomas wants to be when he grows up.
A fireman, a doctor, a vet… But I don’t know if he’ll ever get to be those things.
Aged seven, he still kicks, screams, swears and breaks things.
He can’t manage his temper and he has no friends.
But he isn’t naughty – Thomas was born with foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), a lifelong, incurable condition caused by drinking during pregnancy, which can result in severe mental and physical disabilities.
Gary Atkinson, 29, with his son, seven-year-old Thomas, who was born with foetal alcohol syndrome
I met Thomas’ mum – my ex Sophie* – when I was a 21-year-old tiling apprentice in Yorkshire.
Just four weeks into our relationship, she told me she was pregnant.
She’d told me she’d had the contraceptive injection, so I was shocked, but I didn’t want her to have an abortion.
If a baby was on the way, we’d make it work.
But Sophie – who had spent her childhood in and out of care – wasn’t ready for the responsibilities of motherhood and drank throughout the pregnancy.
Gary with Thomas when he was about an hour old: He’d been with the mother for just four weeks when she told him she was pregnant
While I asked her to stop, I had no idea her drinking was so dangerous (Department of Health guidelines say it is safest not to drink at all while pregnant) so I never told the midwife.
When Thomas was born at Harrogate Hospital on April 2, 2009, he looked perfect.
At 5lb 7oz, he was small, but gorgeous and healthy.
Holding him in my arms was such a happy moment.
Life with a newborn was a whirlwind, and as the weeks went by there was still nothing to indicate there anything was wrong with Thomas. Sadly, when he was nine months old, my relationship with Sophie fell apart.
Gary and Thomas at his christening: Thomas lived with his father after his Gary and Sophie’s* relationship broke down when he was nine months old
We knew it wasn’t working and she agreed Thomas should live with me, while she kept in contact.
By then I was working in a petrol station, but quit to look after Thomas.
I had no choice other than to rely on benefits – he needed me.
I went to parenting groups, but I was always the only man and found it daunting.
It was isolating, especially as my family lived far away.
Thomas hit the usual markers of crawling, walking and babbling, but he was tiny.
But by the time he was two, he was still wearing nine-month-old baby clothes.
Thomas was always very small for his age but Gary never suspected it was due to his mum drinking through the pregnancy
Our GP referred him to a paediatrician who diagnosed him with ‘failure to thrive’ and began investigating, with blood and urine tests and looking at his diet, to try to find the cause.
It didn’t occur to me that it could be because of Sophie’s drinking.
As Thomas got older, he was hyperactive and the only downtime I got was when he was asleep.
One day, when he was two and a half, I turned away for a second and he’d picked up a piece of broken glass from the recycling bin and was playing with it, ignoring the blood pouring from his cut hand.
He’d play with a toy until he broke it, then move on to the next.
Thomas condition means he is hyperactive, cant manage his temper and struggles to make friends
Then, when he was nearly three, he ran out across a busy road as a car screeched to a stop, just inches from him.
My heart was in my throat, but he wasn’t scared.
In February 2012, Sophie sent me a text telling me Thomas wasn’t my son.
She didn’t say who his father was and I didn’t want to know, but I felt so angry.
It had always niggled me that she got pregnant so quickly after we met, but I so wanted Thomas to be mine, I hadn’t let myself think otherwise. But I had to know the truth.
The next day, I paid £90 for Thomas and me to take a DNA test.
The results came back on my 26th birthday, and I hid the envelope.
Gary read about foetal alcohol syndrome online and took Thomas to be tested – the results confirmed his suspicions
When I finally opened it the next day, the results confirmed I wasn’t his biological father.
I locked myself in the bathroom and cried while he played downstairs.
I felt so betrayed and began to shut down and distance myself from Thomas.
Even though I’d raised him for three years, it felt like I no longer had the right to parent him.
Of course, Thomas didn’t realise what was going on, and as much as I pulled away, he still treated me like a dad.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realised he was my son.
I’d raised him and my name was on his birth certificate. That was what mattered.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t petrified that the courts might see it differently.
Thomas was three years old when Gary, who quit his job to take care of Thomas, found out he wasn’t his biological son
But when I spoke to social services, they agreed I was the best person to raise Thomas, and supported me while I obtained a permanent residence order.
All the while, I’d been researching what might be wrong with Thomas, as the doctorswere yet to find an answer.
Then, in March, I read about FAS on the internet.
Thomas ticked all the boxes – his light birth weight, small head size, hyperactivity and attention problems, as well as his mood swings and violent temper.
The next day I raised it with the doctors and in June 2014 a paediatrician at Airedale General Hospital finally confirmed Thomas had FAS.
I was relieved that we finally knew what was wrong – but I was angry at Sophie, too.
Gary initially struggled to come to terms with the fact Thomas wasn’t his – but he then realised that didn’t mean he wasn’t still his father
Gradually, however, that has given way to sadness.
Sophie was a victim of her difficult upbringing, and I can’t hate her for that.
When Thomas started mainstream school the following year, he struggled to fit in.
Almost every day, they’d call for me to collect him.
He would scream and shout when he was frustrated, which meant he had to be segregated from the other kids.
Now, he’s in a school for children with special needs and is doing well.
He’ll soon be assessed by Child Adolescent Mental Health Services to see what other support he might need.
I’ve had one relationship since Thomas was born, which lasted for four years. But it didn’t work out, as Thomas was such a handful.
Because of his mood swings, it’s also difficult to find help with care and I can’t get a job as his needs are so great.
Thomas now goes to a school for children with special needs and is doing well
I’ve considered moving closer to my family, but all Thomas’ support is here and I can’t face trying to change all that.
I do get help from a few close friends, my social worker and the Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) support network.
I also get respite one weekend every six weeks.
And of course, it’s not all tantrums and stress. Thomas has 50 teddy bears in his bedroom and every night we make sure each of them gives him a goodnight kiss.
I’ve invented silly voices and character traits for all of them. It’s a really special moment between us.
Being a dad has changed me.
I’m working with my MP to appeal to the secretary for public health for clearer labelling on alcohol products and better education in schools – we need to know more about the dangers of drinking in pregnancy.
I don’t know what my son’s future holds and some days I worry. I’m aware I might be his carer for life.
Being his biological dad is irrelevant. I raised Thomas from birth, I love him – and I’ll always be here for him.”
Gary doesn’t know whether Thomas will ever be able to lead a ‘normal’ life, but he’s prepared to be his carer for as long as he needs him
BTW
Approximately 1% of babies are born with some form of FASD.**
International FASD Awareness Day is on September 9. For more information, visit Nofas-uk.org or Fasdnetwork.org.
“YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW STRONG YOU ARE, UNTIL BEING STRONG IS THE ONLY CHOICE YOU HAVE.”
It is in our human nature to care most about the things and issues that affect us directly over other people’s problems. Someone else’s pain lasts only but a moment because it never really was ours to begin with.
Needing to break barriers in this fight against cancer, educating and spreading awareness is the difference between preserving life and losing it. Breast cancer mainly occurs in women resulting in male breast cancer being overlooked. It is the most common invasive cancer in females worldwide and accounts for 18.2% of all cancer deaths worldwide.
There are varying symptoms and signs such as (but not limited to);
Lumps in the breast
Skin dimpling
Change in skin colour and or texture of the breast
WHEN IT COMES to explaining climate change, it helps to have clear, convincing evidence on hand. Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading with a knack for data-visualization, specializes in precisely this kind of evidence.
Perhaps you’ve seen his work. His “Spiraling global temperatures” animation, which depicts a rainbow-colored record of global temperatures coiling outward at an accelerating pace, went viral back in May. It even made an (unexpected) appearance at the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Rio.
His latest visualization, “Mapping global temperature changes,” is less abstract, but conveys a similar sense of urgency.
The infographic combines 167 global temperature maps—one for every year from 1850 to 2016—into a single chart. Those maps (Robinson1 projections, for those wondering) come from HadCRUT4, a gridded, color-coded dataset of global surface temperatures produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change. If you hover your cursor over the visualization at the top of this post, you’ll see that each map is divided into pixels colored varying shades of red and blue. Blue signifies cooler temperatures (relative to a 1961-1990 reference period) and red warmer ones. If a cell is grey, it indicates there was insufficient data to determine its color for that year.
The visualization couldn’t be more straightforward: As the years progress, the number and intensity of the red-colored cells increases. Slowly at first, then dramatically from around the 1980s onward. “It’s useful for presenting a simple message: the world is getting warmer,” Hawkins says.
The clarity of that message is a direct result of the way Hawkins presents the information. He uses the so-called “small multiples” technique, a method in which several images of identical scale and orientation are placed beside each other to encourage comparison not just between individual images, but the entire set. The fact that each map is further divided into pixels helps drive the message home. “That nearly every region has warmed links to people’s everyday experiences in their own location, and makes climate change more relevant on an individual level,” Hawkins says.
It’s a compelling way to visualize change over time—whether the data you’re perusing is a set of global heat maps, or satellite imagery of arctic sea ice.
It has always been postulated that the radioactive cesium-137 particles from the leaking nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, would find its way to the United States. Has this day now finally come? Just this last month, whales have been found washed up and dead on shores along the West Coast. Birds and fish are also being found lying dead in droves in Alaska. And judging by this chart below, which is a report of measurements last week from around the country, this is not only isolated to the West Coast. The following chart is provided by CoyotePrime-RunningCauseICantFly.BlogSpot.com.
All radiation counts reported are partial counts. Uncounted types of radiation include alpha, beta, neutron and X-ray radiation. Uncounted radiation, if added, makes the actual count higher and more dangerous.
Normal radiation is 5 to 20 CPM. 50 CPM is an alert level.
RADIATION CPM • TIMES NORMAL BACKGROUND LEVEL • CITY, STATE • TYPE
480CPM, 96Times Normal, Las Vegas, NV. Gamma, Beta.
476CPM, 95.2Times Normal, Phoenix, AZ Gamma, Beta.
428CPM, 85.6Times Normal, South Valley, NM Gamma Only.
364CPM, 72.8Times Normal, Grand Junction, COGamma Only
When weighing out the possibilities of what could be causing these distinct kinds of gamma and beta radiation spikes, there are very few real culprits to choose from. Radiation from Fukushima is on the top of the list and is likely responsible. The real scary part is that, with the 35-year radioactive shelf life of cesium-137, this problem is likely to only get worse as time progresses. Don’t wait for the government to intervene; prepare yourselves and your family now, as it might not be long until 100 times the normal accepted radiation level is considered a “safe zone.”
A new type of virus has been identified, and it’s so weird, it’s challenging long-held notions of what it takes for a virus to infect and proliferate in an animal host.
Conventional wisdom states that if a single virus manages to insert its genes into a cell, the host becomes infected. But what if you chopped up that virus, and tried stuffing the pieces into an animal cell separately? It wouldn’t work, right.
Well, scientists from the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have just discovered the viral equivalent of a bag full of body parts, and if you throw them at a cell wall, somehow, against all odds, they stick.
“It’s the most bizarre thing,” virologist Edward Holmes from the University of Sydney, Australia, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Michaeleen Doucleff at NPR.
“If you compare it to the human body, it’s like a person would have their legs, trunk, and arms all in different places,” he says. “Then all the pieces come together in some way to work as one single virus. I don’t think anything else in nature moves this way.”
Normal viruses are like perfectly crafted infection machines. Their genes are all neatly contained in a single viral particle that’s about 100 times smaller than a bacteria cell, and its surface is so covered in spikes, it can latch onto any cell it comes into contact with.
Once a virus makes contact with a receptor on the surface of a cell, it cuts away at the outer membrane, and deposits its DNA and RNA inside.
The host’s enzymes start making new virus particles based on these blueprints, and when enough replica particles have been produced, the virus kills the cell and breaks free to infect another.
Okay, now go back to the start of that scenario and cut the original viral particle into five.
That’s the case for the Guaico Culex virus (GCXV) – a new type of ‘multicomponent’ virus that’s been identified for the first time in living mosquitos.
For some reason, the genetic material of Guaico Culex has been split up into five independent packages, and in order to be infected by it, you need to be exposed to at least four different types.
“The fifth ball seems to be optional,” says one of the team, Jason Ladner, adding that perhaps getting the fifth part determines how strong the effect will be on the host.
Until now, multicomponent viruses were thought to only infect plants and fungi,because their mode of transmission seems so incredibly inefficient. But now that the Guaico Culex virus has been found in several Culex mosquitos in the Guaico region of Trinidad, the question is, how many other animals could be affected by it?
While this type of virus doesn’t appear to be capable of infecting mammals, the team found that they’re closely related to a group of segmented viruses called Jingmenviruses, which appear to infect monkeys.
Unlike the multicomponent Guaico Culex virus, which has its genetic material separated in different packages, segmented viruses – such as the influenza virus– have their DNA and RNA segmented within a single viral particle.
Ladner and his team recently found the first evidence of a Jingmenvirus in the blood of a non-human primate – a Ugandan red colobus monkey – and while the most likely infectious viruses to make the jump to humans are those in non-human primates, it’s not yet clear if all Jingmenviruses are multicomponent.
The Guaico Culex virus was discovered as part of a wider investigation by the US Army medical team to isolate mosquito-borne viruses from all over the world, in an effort to prevent epidemics like the recent spread of Zika taking researchers by surprise.
“We’re trying to make sure that we’re not blindsided when the next virus comes around,” virologist Gustavo Palacios, who helped lead the study, wrote in a statement. “With all of the diversity seen in these emerging viruses, we never know what the next one will be to have an impact on human health.”
Your home is part of your spirit and body – what you give to it, you give to yourself. According to some experts, putting certain plants in your home can promote positive energy and improve your well-being almost immediately. Here’s what plants can help you reduce the negative energy in your inner sanctum:
Rosemary
Rosemary attracts love and stimulates lust while purifying your air and improving your memory and mood. Besides having the plant in your home, put a few sprigs in small cloth bags and distribute them around your house to attract the loyalty of those closest to you.
Lucky bamboo
Bamboo has been used as a symbol of goof fortune and prosperity in Asia for centuries. Put it in a corner of a room away from direct sunlight and keep it in a glass bowl with an inch of distilled water.
Peppermint
A fresh peppermint plant is said to attract economic prosperity and can also improve communication in your home, so make sure you put it close to the dining table or in your bathroom.
Lavender
Besides its pleasant aroma, lavender can promote sleep and eliminate depression. It will promote harmony and peace in your home, effectively making you feel better.
Orchid
This lovely plant is an excellent ornament for your home which will also improve the energy inside and your life as well. The orchid has long-lasting flowers that have different shape and size, and has a pleasing mood-boosting aroma. Put an orchid in your bedroom as it releases oxygen overnight.
Jasmine
Jasmine is believed to attract money like a magnet, and is also considered a powerful aphrodisiac, which means that you should keep it in your bedroom.
Aloe Vera
Besides fighting bad vibes and attracting prosperity, Aloe Vera will also help you in cases of small cuts and burns.
We live in a strange world, and as Neil Armstrong once said, there are “great ideas undiscovered, breakthroughs available to those who can remove one of the truth’s protective layers.”
Fast forward to today, and a number of people have become aware of the fact that not all of what goes on behind the scenes is made public. This is precisely why the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was created; it’s a federal freedom of information law that allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government.
There are still many obstacles in the way of full transparency, one of which is the use of ‘national security’ to keep information classified and hidden from public viewing. This has become more evident with the revelations of WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden, but the problem goes deeper still. Did you know that the U.S government classifies roughly five hundred million pages of documents every single year?
NASA SCIENTISTS & WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT THE MOON
Multiple NASA personnel have made some pretty shocking claims about the Moon. George Leonard, a NASA scientist and photo analyst who obtained various official NASA photographs of the Moon, many of which he published in his book titled Somebody Else Is On The Moon, is just one of these personnel.
Although the photos are small in size and their resolution is not up to today’s standards, they show details of original, massive prints. While Leonard published the identifying code numbers of the photos in his works to back up their source, we still can’t say for sure that they were real, and their poor resolution only makes matters worse. Far more compelling than these photos are his statements about what was found on the Moon, along with his verified NASA credentials. Leonard was not the only one with a credible background trying to tell the world the truth regarding the Moon and the photos that were taken from the Apollo missions.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my government, NASA, which many of us in the United States say stands for Never A Straight Answer, proceeded to erase 40 rolls of film of the Apollo Program — the flight to the Moon, the flight around the Moon, the landings on the Moon, the walking guys here and there. They erased, for Christ’s sake, 40 rolls of film of those events. Now we’re talking about several thousand individual frames that were taken that the so-called authorities determined that you did not have a right to see. Oh, they were ‘disruptive,’ ‘socially unacceptable,’ ‘politically unacceptable.’ I’ve become furious. I’m a retired Command Sergeant Major. I was never famous for having a lot of patience.”
The quote above is from Bob Dean, who was speak UFO phenomenoning at a conference in Europe. Bob is a retired US Army Command Sargent Major, and he also served at the (SHAPE) of NATO as an intelligence analyst.
It’s also important to note here that the Russian government recently called for an international investigationinto the U.S. moon landings regarding the disappearance of film footage from the original moon landing in 1969. They are also referring to the (approximately) 400 kilograms of lunar rock that was obtained during multiple missions between 1969 and 1972.
Leonard argued that NASA knew about extraterrestrial activity on the Moon and attempted to hide that information. He’s not the only one to make such an assertion.
“Read the books, read the lore, start to understand what has really been going on, because there is no doubt that we are being visited. . . . The universe that we live in is much more wondrous, exciting, complex and far reaching than we were ever able to know up to this point in time. . . . [Mankind has long wondered if we’re] alone in the universe. [But] only in our period do we really have evidence. No, we’re not alone.” – Dr. Edgar Mitchell, ScD., NASA astronaut (6th man to walk on the moon).
Leonard is not the only NASA scientist to say some strange things about the Moon. Recently, a plasma scientist by the name of Dr. John Brandenburg said the same thing. He was the Deputy Manager of the Clementine Mission to the Moon, which was part of a joint space project between the Ballistic Missile Defence Organization (BMDO) and NASA. The mission discovered water at the Moon’s poles in 1994.
It was (the Clementine Mission) a photo reconnaissance mission basically to check out ifsomeone was building bases on the moon that we didn’t know about. Were they expanding them?
He then went on to state that:
Of all the pictures I’ve seen from the moon that show possible structures, the most impressive is a picture of a miles wide recto-linear structure. This looked unmistakably artificial, and it shouldn’t be there. As somebody in the space defense community, I look on any such structure on the moon with great concern because it isn’t ours, there’s no way we could have built such a thing. It means someone else is up there.
If you were to tell the average person that you think another civilization, advanced enough to have mastered space travel, had been to the Moon before we got there and is possibly still going there, you would, without a doubt, receive some very peculiar looks in return. On the other hand, if that other person were to decide to hear you out, you would probably get their attention pretty quickly. For some, this type of information can be overwhelming, even terrifying, and that’s okay. Many people are not ready to open their minds up to these possibilities, but the truth of the matter is, it’s something we are going to have to confront eventually. We are clearly heading towards the inevitable reality of extraterrestrial contact — that is, if we smarten up and start taking care of our planet to the best of our ability. Perhaps we can make it long enough to realize this future, or maybe it’s coming sooner than we think.
Whether or not you can teach something as subjective as critical thinking has been up for debate, but a fascinating new study shows that it’s actually quite possible. Experiments performed by Stanford’s Department of Physics and Graduate School of Education demonstrate that students can be instructed to think more critically.
It’s difficult to overstate the importance of critical-thinking skills in modern society. The ability to decipher information and interpret it, offering creative solutions, is in direct relation to our intellect.
The study took two groups of students in an introductory physics laboratory course, with one group (known as the experimental group) given the instruction to use quantitative comparisons between datasets and the other group given no instruction (the control group). Comparing data in a scientific manner; that is, being able to measure one’s observations in a statistical or mathematical way, led to interesting results for the experimental group.
Even after these instructions were removed, they were 12 times more likely to offer creative solutions to improve the experimental methods being used in the class, four times more likely to explain the limitations of the methods, and better at explaining their reasoning than the control group. The results remained consistent even in the next year, with students in a different class. So what does this imply about critical thinking, and how can we utilize these findings to improve ourselves and our society?
We live in an age with unprecedented access to information. Whether you are contributing to an entry on Wikipedia or reading a meme that has no sources cited (do they ever?), your ability to comprehend what you are reading and weigh it is a constant and consistent need. That is why it is so imperative that we have sharp critical-thinking skills. Also, if you don’t use them, you will have nothing to argue with your family about at Thanksgiving. More importantly, it keeps your brain from nomming on junk food and on more of a kale-based diet. Look at any trending topic, and test yourself. Is this true/accurate? How do I know either way? Is there a way I can use data (provable, factual information) to figure this out?
Certainly, we can train ourselves to become better critical thinkers, but it’s also important that we teach these skills to kids. Studies have shown how important this ability is to our success, and yet many feel that we’re doing a terrible job of teaching it. This study, however, may lead to educators and parents realizing that these skills are teachable. The implications of a better thinking society are not quantitative, but I do believe they would be extraordinary.
ARYAN'S BLOG 