2010: Seven Medical Stories That Mattered

[HuckleB]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/12/michael-specter-health.html

"1. Revolutionary tuberculosis tests. There will be ten million new cases of TB in 2010, the highest number in history. TB is curable—at least, it’s curable it you know you have it and can get treatment. Too often, though, clinics in places where people need help the most—India (whose TB problems I wrote about last month), China, Africa—rely on useless blood tests. In many cases the tests are wrong as often as they are right. There are better tests, but it can take weeks, or more, to get results. That may soon change. This week, the World Health Organization endorsed a molecular diagnostic for TB that is accurate nearly ninety-nine per cent of the time and produces results in two hours or less. If the tests are used widely—and the WHO support will help insure that they are—they could save the lives of millions of people.

2. Cholera epidemic in Haiti. More than two thousand are dead so far, and the Centers for Disease Control says a hundred thousand have been infected. The numbers will rise far higher. Haitian officials have sent out a plea for more trucks to ferry the dead. Cholera spreads where sanitation is lacking and health systems are minimal. But biological reality is making things far worse. Until this year, there had not been a case of cholera detected on the island in a century. That means Haitians lack immunity to the bacterium that causes the disease, and medical workers lack the experience to deal with it.

3. Health-care reform. After years of failed attempts to overhaul America’s wasteful, depraved medical system, on March 23rd, President Obama signed legislation into law that will guarantee health insurance for thirty million people who currently lack it. The law passed without a single Republican vote, and Tea Party philosophers have treated the law as if it were a document lifted from the files of Stalin. Many of Obama’s supporters on the other side of the political spectrum are just as harsh, regarding the law as toothless. In fact, the reforms have already resulted in some of the most significant changes in the U.S. health-care system in decades.

4. Polio strikes the Republic of Congo. The tantalizing dream of eradicating polio will have to be put off yet again. More than two hundred people have died from polio this year in the Republic of Congo—where there had not been a case reported in the past five years. Polio has no cure, but a there is, of course, a simple, cheap, and safe immunization—which is why the disease has disappeared from the developed world. In this outbreak, more than forty per cent of those who are infected have died, a particularly high level of mortality.

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and three more at the link...

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I found the quick take to be mildly interesting.

:hi: