Showing posts with label MLV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MLV. Show all posts

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Alter, Lo and Gill Live Webcast, February 22, 3pm CST: CFS: Is There a Virus?

Demystifying Medicine - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Is there a virus?

The NIH is airing a live webcast and the event can be viewed live at: http://videocast.nih.gov/

Air date:           Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 4:00:00 PM EST

Description:     This event will include the presentation of patients, pathology, diagnosis and therapy context of major disease problems and current research. The course is designed to help bridge the gap between advances in biology and their application to major human diseases. Each session includes clinical and basic science components presented by NIH staff and invitees. These seminar series are primarily directed toward PhD students, clinicians and program managers. All students, fellows and staff are welcome, as well.

For more information, visit http://www1.od.nih.gov/oir/DemystifyingMed

Author:            Shyh-Ching Lo (FDA), Fred Gill (NIDDK) and Harvey Alter (NIDDK)
Runtime:         120 minutes
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Maybe this time we can get the straight talk without the interference and insinuations of smoke screeners and denialists like Dr. Stoye and others of his ilk we suffered at the Blood Products production.

Still no new info on this as of 2/15/2011.

Here's the NIH profile of Dr. Gill:

Biosketch
After receiving his medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School, Dr. Gill trained in internal medicine as an intern and resident at New York University-Bellevue Hospital followed by research training as a research associate of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He completed his clinical training as a medical resident and infectious disease fellow at Cornell-New York Hospital. Dr. Gill is an elected fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
 

After many years of private practice in Bethesda, Maryland, Dr. Gill initiated the Internal Medicine Consultation Service for the Clinical Center in 1998. His practice in the Bethesda community combined primary care in internal medicine and consultation in infectious diseases. He served as chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Rheumatology and Allergy and chair of the Infection Control Committee at Suburban Hospital and as attending physician on the Consultant Service of NIAID’s Laboratory of Clinical Investigation. During this time, he participated as a co-investigator on research projects in the NIAID, the CC Clinical Pathology Department (now the Department of Laboratory Medicine), and the National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Gill led the development of the AIDS clinic for the Montgomery County Health Department and has chaired the AIDS Committee of the Medical and Chirugical Faculty of Maryland. He has served on many committees, including the Maryland Governor’s Advisory Council on AIDS, NIAID’s Advisory Council for Lyme Disease and Suburban Hospital’s Board of Trustees.

At NIH, besides heading the internal medicine consult service, Dr. Gill is chair of the CC Ethics Committee, principal coordinator for clinical education for the NIH Clinical Research Training Program, and an attending physician for NIAID’s Infectious Disease Consultation Clinic. He is a co-investigator on protocols of the National Human Genome Research Institute, National Eye Institute and NIAID. and served as the medical monitor for a National Human Genome Research Institute study. He is a member of data and safety monitoring boards for other institutes and of several CC and NIH committees.

And Dr Alter:

Biosketch
Dr. Harvey Alter earned his medical degree at the University of Rochester Medical School, and trained in internal medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital and at the University Hospitals of Seattle. In 1961, he came to the National Institutes of Health as a clinical associate. He then spent several years with Georgetown University, returning to NIH in 1969 to join the Clinical Center's Department of Transfusion Medicine as a senior investigator becoming Chief of the Clinical Studies and Associate Director of Research in the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the NIH Clinical Center.

Dr. Alter is also a clinical professor at Georgetown University.

Dr. Alter co-discovered the Australia antigen, a key to detecting hepatitis B virus. Later, Dr. Alter spearheaded a project at the Clinical Center that created a storehouse of blood samples used to uncover the causes and reduce the risk of transfusion-associated hepatitis. He was principal investigator on studies that identified non-A, non-B hepatitis, now called hepatitis C. His work was instrumental in providing the scientific basis for instituting blood donor screening programs that have decreased the incidence of transfusion-transmitted hepatitis to near zero.


In 2000, Dr. Alter was awarded the prestigious Clinical Lasker Award and in 2002, he became the first Clinical Center scientist elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and in that same year was elected to the Institute of Medicine. Only a small number of scientists nationally are elected to both these scientific societies.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

New Year’s Resolution: Contract AIDS/HIV

I wanted AIDS for Christmas but I was too sick to seek out someone who could give it to me.

I was too weak to look for unprotected sex. Who would admit to having it let alone be willing to give it to me? I shudder to think how many “exposures” it might take to, ah, “take”.

I've never liked needles, don't know any needle-using drug fiends. I didn't want to get mugged just cruising the kind of area such persons might inhabit.

As I lay in bed in pain and an exhausted stupor, I tried to think up my own Modest Proposal*. I thought about putting an ad in the newspaper, asking for someone with AIDS to come to me. I'd supply needles.

From there, the details get trickier. I would want someone with proof of AIDS. I would want the date of the test to be very recent.

I would also require that he swear he had not begun treatment. I guess I'd have to take his word for that. I would be counting on the fact that it takes a day or two after any test to get the prescription(s) and start taking them. It might even take a month or more for the drugs to have any effect. So maybe I could accept someone with a positive HIV test that was a month old.

Then I tried to think of what I might have to offer in return for the favor.
I'm living on less than $800 a month in disability insurance, so it wouldn't be money. I have codeine for pain. Maybe I could trade a month's worth of pain pills for a month's worth of needling.

I'm not sure just what to needle myself with or just how to do it. Maybe my “provider” will have suggestions. We could just scrape or scratch my skin until it bleeds and then drop a drop of the donor's blood onto my injury. We wouldn't need the needles at all.

Why would I want AIDS?

For the treatment. I would like to take AZT, Viread and Isentress asap. If I had AIDS Medicare would cover treatment and doctor visits. I've done my research and those drugs are pretty safe. Unfortunately, together they cost about $1500 a month.

Why do I want to take antiretroviral drugs? I have myalgic encephalomyelitis, erroneously renamed chronic fatigue syndrome. It has recently been proven to my satisfaction that it is caused by a retrovirus. A lab tested the drugs used to treat AIDS and found these three also treat the retroviruses found in ME/CFS.

The government calls all treatments for ME/CFS experimental, meaning no insurance pays for them. Yet those who can afford to pay for them have experienced great improvement in the few months they have taken them.

It's simple. If I had AIDS I could get treated for ME/CFS.

*1729 satire by Jonathan Swift, suggesting that the starving Irish eat their children

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1080

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009948