All over the internet people are receiving and passing on messages starting out with words like this:

Received this excellent advice regarding H1N1/Swine Flu from . . .

The blog post or email forwards a message that starts out:

Subject: Possible swine flu prevention
This message is from Dr. Vinay Goyal a renowned doctor who visited last week to lecture on the topic H1N1 (SWINE FLU), its origin and precautions. He is an MBBS,DRM,DNB (Intensivist and Thyroid specialist) having clinical experience of more than 20 years. He has worked in institutions like Hinduja Hospital, Bombay Hospital, Saifee Hospital, Tata Memorial etc. Presently, he is heading our Nuclear Medicine Department and Thyroid clinic at Riddhivinayak Cardiac and Critical Centre, Malad (W).

The EPA should not permit mining operations based on regulatory loopholes and lax enforcement practices that have allowed mountain waterways to be treated as waste dumps. The people in Appalachia, like all Americans, have a right to clean streams, rivers, and drinking water — and it’s up to the EPA to look out for their interests. Today the agency fulfilled that duty, and now we expect the EPA to follow-up with the necessary actions to end — not to mend — the practice of mountain removal. Rob Perks, a blogger at the National Resources Defense Council , September 11, 2009.

People in Appalachia have lived and worked with coal for generations. Mining communities have endured countless struggles and tragedies associated with harsh conditions of mining underground and also with harsh environmental results of strip mining.

Since the 1970s, scientists, politicians and voters have debated economic, environmental and health effects of reliance on coal-fired energy. In 2006, Appalachians witnessed the Sago Mine underground disaster in West Virginia (photo, left), in which 13 men were trapped for two days and all but one lost their lives.

Now concerns are growing about about impact of the latest coal-mining method on water quality. This method is known as mountaintop removal.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R: Columbia, SC) — actual name Addison Graves Wilson Sr. — received 40% of his campaign money from PACs. Wilson yelled “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during the President’s address to Congress on health care reform.

Joe Wilson voted for illegal migrants’ healthcare before he was against, took drug company campaign contributions, and sponsored an earmark to give taxpayers’ money to a pharmaceutical industry project.

Wilson’s top donors include major drug companies: Astrazeneca Pharmaceuticals, Glaxosmithkline, Novartis, and Eli Lilly. Among his other corporate sector donors are lobbyists for insurance companies, the beer industry, auto dealers, and the defense industry.

In 2003, Rep. Wilson voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. This landmark legislation provides seniors and individuals with disabilities with a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. But it has also been criticized for securing “big benefits for Big Pharma & the private insurance industry at the expense of real benefits for seniors.”

The 2003 act, for which Wilson voted under President George W. Bush, includes Section 1011 authorizing $250,000 annually of taxpayer money to reimburse hospitals for treatment of illegal immigrants. In 2009, after Pres. Obama stepped into office, Wilson changed to his current position opposing public funds for healthcare of illegal immigrants.

Ohio scientists have demonstrated that diesel exhaust induces the growth of new blood vessels that send blood to supply to solid tumors. This is the first evidence of how exposure to diesel fumes can cause cancer.

The researchers found that more new blood vessels sprouted in mice exposed to diesel exhaust than did in mice exposed to clean, filtered air. The same changes happened in both healthy mice and in sick animals. This suggests, the scientists say, that previous illness isn’t required to make humans susceptible to the damaging effects of the diesel exhaust.

Herbert Klein MD, a nuclear medicine specialist, writes:

As the following item indicates, there is a shortage of technetium-99m, the basic radioisotope for bone scans, as well as heart scans,
kidney scans, etc: Isotope Crisis Threatens Medical Care

So far, in the nuclear medicine department where I practice, there have been no problems, but there might be in the days to come.

James Watson, the scientist who was one of the discoverers of the double-helical structure of DNA, says in an op-ed today that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is “a largely rudderless ship in dire need of a bold captain.” Aside from that, Watson is optimistic:

Today’s New York Times reports:  “A unit in Philadelphia operating with virtually no outside scrutiny botched 92 of 116 prostate cancer treatments over a span of more than six years.” Dr. Gary D. Kao, according to the report, ran a “rogue” cancer unit which covered up botched procedures in which radioactive “seeds” intended for the cancerous prostate landed in the bladder or near the rectum. Dr. Kao’s team rewrote treatment plans, according to the Times, to cover up his bad aim.

Seven percent of adults and 19 percent of children taking chemotherapy drugs in outpatient clinics or at home were given the wrong dose or experienced other mistakes involving their medications, according to a new study led by Kathleen E. Walsh, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and published in the January 1, 2009 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

9/2/05 — To help its members and their patients, ASCO has compiled this list of oncology practices, cancer centers and hospitals in the surrounding region that are operational and able to absorb patients in need of acute care.

The Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness (O PHEP) is in the process of identifying and mobilizing healthcare professionals and relief personnel to assist in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. As our nation and the global community is now aware, the healthcare needs resulting from Katrina has reached an extremely critical nature. HHS has released details on types of assistance needed and how to volunteer here.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has acted to assure that the Medicare, Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Programs will flex to accommodate the emergency health care needs of beneficiaries and medical providers in the Hurricane Katrina devastated states. Following a waiver signed yesterday by HHS Secretary Leavitt, many of the programs’ normal operating procedures will be relaxed to speed provision of health care services to the elderly, children and persons with disabilities who depend upon them. Details of these provisions may be found at www.cms.hhs.gov/hki/. Also, the full text of a letter from CMS Administrator, Dr. Mark McClellan, may be found here.

Several practices have indicated they are open and able to take cancer patients who have been dislocated and are in need of acute care. The list of practices can be found here.

The Hurricane Katrina Message Board has already begun to work in reconnecting providers and patients. If you have been dislocated from your practice, or if you are seeking to contact a provider whose patient you are now treating, post your message on the Katrina Message Board.

Read more at www.asco.org.