Friday, December 6, 2019

Medicine and statistics

I was watching one of the network news programs and they were reporting about a guy who was a paraplegic.  He had been in some sort of accident, had a very high vertebral fracture which severed his spinal cord.  He had been confined to a bed or wheelchair.  He was considering killing himself.  

His Neurologist did some research and found a trial of stem cell injections in animals which had some good results.  FDA had allowed a human trial.  

Short explanation about T-cells.  Early research was done on fetal cells  Due to the public outcry and government regulations, the scientists discovered that fat carried T-cells.  It was also discovered that the fat T-cells worked better than the fetal cells.   The best thing about T-cells is that they can become all sorts of cells; the T-cells injected into the spinal lesion settle in and develop into neural cells which turn into nerves and all that lovely useful stuff.

The gentleman was recommended for the trial.  He had his own fat cells harvested from which the T-cells were processed.  He was then given a direct injection of T-cells at his spinal cord lesion. He had some promising results immediately.  He suddenly had sensation in his toes.  He had not been able to move or feel anything since his injury.  It got better, the sensations came back and then some partial muscle control in his arms.  The report showed him getting up from his wheelchair and taking a few steps. The really cool part of the report, the investigator is the son of Christopher Reeve, paralyzed in a horse riding accident. 

While the patients recovery is miraculous, the doctor cautioned that he was a fast responder.  Not all patients will have such a good response.  

Almost the same day and program there was disturbing report from a statistician taking a look at the census.  He discovered that the numbers were pointing out that generally more Americans were not living to retirement age.  They were not living as long or longer than their parents.  (Before he went any further I was going to say it was bad diet) But what he said was that for the first time ever in America deaths outnumbered births.  What!?  

The study was from 1995 (I think) to 2017.  The deaths were mostly attributed to four states; Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee. There were also high spikes in the Appalachian states.  The most deaths were low income white people, equally distributed between men and women.  The man further revealed that most of these deaths were due to the opioid plague.  

Stop and think about this for  a minute.  With big Pharma in so much trouble already, that trouble could  possibly get worse.  The drugs must be better monitored and controlled. But that does not help with the drug cartels providing product.  

Some of the other implications of those numbers would eventually lead to accelerated increase of non-white voters.  Those folks in charge (old white men?) will want to prevent that happening.  Therefore it is important to keep voting registration regulations just as strong and fair as possible.

In summary I talked about T-cells, the opioid problem and the plications which I probably got all ass-backwards.  

Have a nice day....


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