Actually scary medical fact of the day

Okay, this one is actually scary:

"The biggest risk factor [for Down syndrome] is maternal age (1 in 1500 offspring of 16-year-old mothers and 1 in 25 offspring of 45-year-old mothers)."

I'm saying "scary" because there are an awful lot of people putting off having children until their late thirties or early forties, and then apparently expecting everything to work out hunky-dory as if they were still rabbit-fertile teenagers, and it's just not a good idea, okay? (Intentionally waiting until that age isn't, anyway. Don't plan on it. You can't schedule reproduction and the workings of genetics like a board meeting or a conference call.)

Medical mnemonic of the day

The "five Fs" of cholecystitis (cholesterol gallstones): "fat, forty, fertile, female, and flatulent." Man, I'd hate to have that on my chart. (It also sounds like the beginning of a really, really bad personal ad.)

More from the medical book

In response to the question "What causes acute pancreatitis?":

More than 80% of cases are due to alcohol or gallstones. Other causes include hypertriglyceridemia, viral infections (mumps, coxsackie virus), trauma, hypercalcemia, peptic ulcer disease, medications (steroids, azathioprine), and, of course, scorpion bites.

"Of course scorpion bites"? It seems kind of a random and prosaic thing to toss off at the end of a list of clinically precise disease and medication names. And it makes it sound like scorpions are everywhere, the way the alcohol and the steroids are. ("What could have caused the acute pancreatitis in this person who lives in Alaska?" "Well, check inside his snow boots for scorpions!")



(Okay, I'm easily amused at this point.)



(And anyway, scorpions don't bite; they sting.)

Mystery medical phrase of the day

In a list of signs of Addison's disease: "hyperpigmentation (only if the pituitary is functioning because of proopiomelanocortin—a common pimp on the wards)." Um, a what? On the where? I assume there's some medical meaning of the word "pimp" here (although I can't find it in a dictionary), but yikes, it sure sounds weird.



(Even weirder than the word "proopiomelanocortin," which appears to be a pituitary prohormone related to weight regulation. Phoenix Pharmaceuticals will tell you all about it, if you can actually figure out what they're saying, which I can't.)

Medical directive of the day

I'm working on one of those oh-so-enjoyable medical books again. Medical directive of the day: for treating burns, "removal of all clothes and other smoldering items on the body." Yes, I would hope you'd remove the smoldering items on the body.

You're not being served

Last night on ABC News: a segment on pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control on religious grounds. And not just morning-after pills, which can, depending on circumstances and your definition, be counted as abortifacients. We're also talking about the plain old Pill here:

The Food and Drug Administration and American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology have defined pregnancy as beginning at the moment a fertilized egg is implanted in the uterine wall. But many conservatives believe pregnancy—and therefore life—begins at the moment of fertilization, up to a week before implantation. Since the pill, the so-called morning-after pill, and other hormonal contraceptives can take effect after fertilization, they see these medications as ending human life.

Okay. Fine. Be that way. I'm not going to bother to argue about it. But this is the part that steams me:

CVS [the pharmacy that this particular story is about] says its policy is to dispense legally prescribed therapies to customers as quickly as possible, but it will not force pharmacists to do things that would violate their religious beliefs.

This is the "slippery slope" part. You start from there, and where do you go next? What do you set the precedent for? "Hm, your last name looks Jewish. You need to convert and be saved before I can help you." "You want AZT? Well, God sent AIDS to kill you people, so you'd better just go home and get busy dying." Once you start, where do you stop?



(And can I point out that people take birth control pills for other reasons than birth control? I take them because otherwise I have The Periods From Hell, with anemia-inducing blood loss and crippling cramps. Don't you dare tell me I can't take medicine to prevent that, instead of having to check into a hospital and get an IV drip to rehydrate after puking my guts out for three days. Okay?)

April fooling

In honor, or something, of April Fools' Day:



National Geographic presents famous hoaxes in history, from classics like 1957's Swiss spaghetti harvest to last month's near-ban of dihydrogen monoxide.



The BBC, on the other hand, presents current news stories that sound like hoaxes but aren't. At least I think they aren't. That would be a bit too meta-fool-ical.