The Top 10 Health Stories of 2011

2011 saw some pretty amazing things around The House, but there was some crazier stuff going on in the medical world.  We thought that we’d share some of them with you:

Cantaloupes.  Fruit is good for you, right?  It apparently matters where it came from.  A farm in Colorado sent tasty melons to outlets across the United States, and they were tainted with listeria.  150 people became violently ill and 29 people died.  It was far from the first such outbreak, but it was certainly another wakeup call.  Outbreaks of foodborne illness have involved everything from beef and meat products to vegetables and peanut butter.  Take some advice:  wash thoroughly and cook properly.

Vaccines DON’T cause autism.   A study in 1998 seemed to point to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and a link to causing autism in young children.  Millions of parents questioned having their children vaccinated, and many refused the vaccine altogether.  The British Medical Journal revealed last year that the lead researcher had faked his results, and 10 researchers said that his findings were horse manure.  The researcher has since had his license to practice as an MD revoked, but parents are still worried about the vaccine.  It’s always something, isn’t it?  There was also a viral story travelling around the Internet about giving your kids chicken pox with suckers that had been licked by sick kids.  You’d be better off just letting them go to school.

To screen or not to screen; that is the question.  The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force said that men should not get a blood test screening for prostate cancer.  Oh, and women under 50 should not get mammograms.  Or was it 40?  Or was it cervical cancer screening?  The Centers for Disease Control, the Surgeon General, the American Cancer Society, and everyone else with a horse in the race got their 2 cents in, and there’s still no consensus.  The best first volley in fighting cancer is still early treatment, so we think that if you’re worried or at risk you should get screened.  But what do we know.

Put down your gadget.  The World Health Organization announced that your cell phone was giving you a direct line to cancer.  They also said that maybe it isn’t.  We think that you’re cell phone is at its most dangerous when you’re driving.  Or walking in a mall.

The brain is a remarkable thing.  It’s fragile, it’s resilient, and it’s the world’s most amazing computer.  The late Steve Jobs used his for creating the iPhone and one of the world’s most profitable companies (though he my not have used it for treating his cancer early).  Gabrielle Giffords used hers to return to the floor of Congress after being shot in the head at point-blank range.  The powers-that-be in sports are using theirs to finally address the concern over concussion in football players.

Stem Cells are here!  Northwestern Medicine researchers are using them to repair a neuron that dies early in Alzheimer’s sufferers.  They’re being tested in a patient who was paralyzed in an accident.  And a study of patients with heart disease showed improvement after stem cell therapies.  What was exciting about the heart patients was that the stem cell therapy went after their disease instead of just addressing symptoms.

Defining Alzheimer’s.  About 5 million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer’s, and the disease can be as impactful for a family as it is for the patient.  Studies by the National Institute on Aging, the Alzheimer’s Association, and others were able to identify new ways to diagnose and treat the Big A, and as our population gets older this is some important stuff.  Articles and research have pointed to the role of diet and exercise (always favorites!) and Tennessee Coach Pat Summit showed that a diagnosis is not a death sentence.  Made us closet Volunteer fans, but don’t tell the Rams.

Food:  It’s not just for Listeria.  Eat peanut butter, or don’t.  Fat is good, but only if it’s good fat.  Your diet should be high in protein or low in protein, depending on whether or not you’re eating fish.  Oh, and your snapper may be a catfish that was labeled as grouper.  Just when you were ready to stick a fork in it the U.S.D.A. flambéed the food pyramid and cooked up a plate.  We’re going back to Gummi Bears.

Pssst:  I need drugs.  In an age that seems to have a clinical diagnosis for everything (and a corresponding television commercial), we have seen some scary drug shortages.  Drug manufacturers spend a great deal of time and money on research to come up with amazing medicines.  They then spend a great deal of time and money marketing these cures and fixes.  The Food and Drug Administration can regulate where they come from and how they are made, but not how much.  The past year has seen dangerous shortages in drugs to treat cancer, heart disease, depression, and others.  In some cases the shortage compromised the care of a patient!  We have no shortage of cell phones or Justin Bieber sightings, but chemotherapy?  Pretty important stuff.

Lastly (drumroll, please), we’re still here.  We still open our doors and our hearts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year.  Christmas?  We were here.  New Year’s Eve?  We were here.  Five Wednesday’s ago?  Here.  While some of the stories listed here are scary things, some of them (like Congresswoman Giffords!) offer hope.  It costs a great deal of money to combat disease and to conduct research.  Treating illness isn’t free, either.  But hope?  That’s free.  We hand it out every day at our front desk.