The eight-second scan that can detect breast cancer... using anti-landmine technology

By Jenny Hope

British scientists have created a revolutionary breast-screening system using anti-landmine technology that can detect cancer in seconds.

The pain-free radio-wave scanner is safer than traditional mammogram X-rays, which carry a radiation risk and are used on hundreds of thousands of women every year.

Experts believe the new device, which is also cheaper, can be used on women of any age, unlike current technology.

Clean sweep: The Maria system can detect tumours in just eight seconds

It is expected the system, called Maria, will be in widespread use within five years in GPs’ surgeries and clinics.

Women under 50 are not routinely screened for breast cancer partly because of the risks from regular doses of ionising radiation from an early age. They also have denser breast tissue, which makes it harder to detect tumours using X-rays.

Using radio waves makes it easier to find problems in all tissue.

But the most appealing aspect for women is pain-free examinations, with an end to having the breast squeezed between two X-ray plates.

Instead, the breast is held in a ceramic cup-shaped scanner while data are transferred to a computer within eight seconds to produce a 3D image.

Conventional screening uses low-dose X-rays and two scans are taken of the breast, during which the technician has to shelter from the radiation.

It takes an average of one minute for a radiologist to examine a case, but this can be more than doubled if another opinion is sought or the X-ray is difficult to interpret. Women are usually informed of the result within two weeks.

Developed by Micrima, a company that began at Bristol University, the Maria technology is based on a landmine-detection project that was able to locate non-metallic explosives in soil.

In the same way, the Maria system can find dangerous ‘hot spots’ in breasts using scanning signals from radio waves.

They register differences between normal breast tissue and a collection of blood and water contained in a tumour.

In pilot studies on 200 women, the system picked up about 80 per cent of tumours – a success rate close to existing techniques.

The latest phase of tests on Maria (Multistatic Array Processing for Radiowave Image Acquisition) took place at Frenchay Hospital’s Breast Care Centre in Bristol, and the city’s Southmead Hospital.

Two scans of the same woman with a small tumor in her breast: The scan on the left is a traditional x-ray scan where the tumor is not visible, the scan on the right is using new technology where the tumor appears in blue

Dr Mike Shere, breast specialist at Southmead Hospital, said: ‘We are very excited about the potential of this completely new method of breast imaging.

‘It has none of the disadvantages of the current methods – ultrasound, mammography and MRI. It is quick, safe, comfortable and cheap, and is already producing good images with high sensitivity. This technology uses radio waves which are almost exactly the same as mobile phone frequency – and less energy. It is completely safe, unlike mammography, where there is an increasing cancer risk when women have more X-rays.

‘And it’s much more comfortable for women, some of whom may be deterred from screening at present because they find it painful.’

The women in the pilot study, who had already been diagnosed with breast cancer through X-rays, ultrasound or detection of a lump, were double-checked using the new system. In four out of five cases, the tumour was identified and clinicians expect the rate to increase to 90 per cent.

The technique uses an innovative radar system developed by a team at Bristol University, led by Professor Ian Craddock and Professor Alan Preece.

The new system has none of the drawbacks of mammogram scans, where there is an increasing cancer risk due to the use of X-rays

Cancer fears over 50,000 women in Britain who have had breast implant surgery

Alert follows death of French woman who had implants with silicone gel 'made for mattresses'

By Fiona Macrae

Tens of thousands of women with breast implants are being urged to have medical check-ups amid fears they are at heightened risk of cancer.

The safety alert follows the death of a French woman who had implants filled with silicone gel believed to have been made for mattresses.

Up to 50,000 British women – including some breast cancer survivors – have the French-made implants, which are fragile and more likely to leak than other brands.

Edwige Ligoneche was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer two years after having breast surgery using a French-made silicone gel. (See box below)

Fears about the safety of Poly Implants Prothèses – or PIPs – which were among the cheapest implants on the market, first surfaced 18 months ago.

However, they receded after tests failed to find any firm evidence that the implants could trigger cancer.

Now, the death of 53-year-old Edwige Ligoneche, in a Marseille cancer clinic, from a rare form of cancer, has reignited concern.

Although the link with the implants hasn’t been established, it is feared that the gel leaked out of her breasts and into her system.

The French Society of Reconstructive and Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons says the gel could have been an ‘aggravating factor’ in the cancer.
It is reviewing its policy on the implants.

Their British counterparts have urged women not to worry – but say that patients who have, or suspect they have these implants, should have regular scans to check for flaws and cracks.

If there are signs of damage, implants on both sides should be removed.

Some GPs may be happy to refer women for an ultrasound, otherwise they will have to pay for it privately.

The NHS does take out damaged implants but won’t pay for new ones to be put in, meaning patients could be left with a bill that runs into thousands of pounds – as well as the trauma of additional surgery.

The alarm was first raised in France after surgeons noticed that PIP implants were rupturing much more quickly than other more expensive brands.

An inquiry ordered by the French health watchdog reported ‘serious’ irregularities in the implants last summer.

Among other things, when the gel’s manufacturer was asked for studies on its safety, it said it did not have any – because it believed it was to be used in the manufacture of mattresses.

In 2009, the French government agency responsible for medical equipment safety standards, Afssaps, received a number of complaints about the PIP implants.

An inquiry ordered by the French health watchdog reported 'serious' irregularities in the implants last summer (posed by models)

Japan Nuclear Meltdown: Maybe Worse than Thought?

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Tokyo - Molten nuclear fuel at Japan's Fukushima plant might have eaten two thirds of the way through a concrete containment base, its operator said, citing a new simulation of the extent of the March disaster.

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said their latest calculations showed the fuel inside the No. 1 reactor at the tsunami-hit plant could have melted entirely, dropping through its inner casing and eroding a concrete base.

In the worst-case scenario, the molten fuel could have reached as far as 65 centimetres (2 feet) through the concrete, leaving it only 37 centimetres short of the outer steel casing, the report, released Wednesday, said.

Until now, TEPCO had said some fuel melted through the inner pressure vessel and dropped to the containment vessel, without saying how much and what it did to the concrete, citing a lack of data.

"Almost no fuel remains at its original position," TEPCO said in the report.

Two other reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant also went into meltdown when the tsunami knocked out cooling systems at the plant.

However, only about 60 percent of their fuel dropped through to the concrete floor and caused less damage, the report projected.

The molten fuel in the three reactors is believed to have stayed cool and stable because water has been injected into the vessels, the utility said.

TEPCO added, however, that it has yet to closely study many areas of the damaged reactors due to high level of radiation and stressed its findings were based on modelling.

The exact position of the fuel believed to have eaten its way through the concrete and to what extent it is being exposed to the cooling water is not known.

"Uncertainly involved in the analysis is significant due to the uncertain nature of the original conditions and data used," the report said.

"Using (realistically assumed) conditions for the evaluation, the concrete could have been penetrated, but (the fuel) stayed inside the casing," it said.

Fukushima Daiichi has spewed radioactive materials across eastern Japan since it was inundated by the huge waves of March 11.

The world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986 has not directly claimed any lives, but has left tens of thousands of people displaced and rendered tracts of land uninhabitable, possibly for decades.

TEPCO and the Japanese government have pledged to bring all the plant's reactors to a state of cold shutdown by the end of 2011.

Cancer: the Forbidden Cures - Full Documentary from Jason Greenwood on Vimeo.

Two babies have already died from the E.Coli bug at Singleton Hospital

A third baby at a hospital where two babies died in an E.coli outbreak is also suspected of having contracted the deadly infection.

The maternity unit at Singleton Hospital, in Swansea, South Wales, continues to be restricted to full-term babies following the deaths.

Hopes that it could reopen in full to all pregnancies on Friday have now been put on hold.

The latest case is a baby who is carrying the bacteria without any signs of infection, health chiefs confirmed

"A third case of ESBL E.coli cross infection is unfortunately suspected at the maternity/neonatal unit at Singleton Hospital," a spokeswoman said.

"The baby has been a patient in the neonatal unit at the hospital within the past month. Further tests are now under way to confirm the cross infection."

Abertawe Bro Morgannwg (ABM) University Health Board, which runs the hospital, announced that two babies had died from an ESBL E.coli infection, on November 22.

Hope Erin Evans, described as "very premature" by hospital officials, died of the ESBL E.coli infection after being born at the unit.

The second case involved a baby whose mother is suspected of contracting the infection at the hospital.

Health chiefs have stressed that ESBL E.coli is not the same as E.coli O157 which causes food poisoning.

In most people, ESBL E.coli does not cause harm but in vulnerable individuals, such as premature babies and the elderly, it can cause serious infections.

An investigation into how the bug was transmitted is continuing.

It is looking at a total of five ESBL E.coli infections, three among adults. Of the five cases, three were contracted outside the hospital.

An independent investigation, reviewing the hospital's response to the outbreak, is to be carried out by Healthcare Inspectorate Wales.

Extra precautions have been put in place at the hospital's maternity unit and checks of equipment and the environment in the maternity and neonatal unit have all been negative for the bug.

"We are also taking additional precautions, including restricting visitors to the maternity unit, and we are continuing to ask visitors to wash their hands and use hand hygiene gel," a health board spokeswoman said.

"Despite stringent hygiene controls these cross infection incidents have occurred, which we very much regret.

"We would like to again reassure mothers-to-be that the maternity unit remains open as usual for full-term births."

French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, second left, Bill Gates spouse Melinda, third right sitting, and executive director of the U.N.-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS Michel Kazatchkine, the hospital "Auberge de l'Amour Redempteur" , Wednesday Jan. 27, 2010, in Dangbo, Benin. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is an ambassador of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. (AP Photo)

GENEVA - The world's biggest financier in the fight against three killer diseases says it has run out of money to pay for new grant programs for the next two years — a situation likely to hit poor AIDS patients around the world.

An official with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said Thursday that they have been forced to cease giving new grants until 2014 because of global economic woes brought on by debt crises in the United States and Europe.

An independent panel recommended in September that the fund must adopt tougher financial safeguards after it weathered a storm of criticism and doubts among some of its biggest donors.

The fund created the panel — chaired by former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt and ex Botswana President Festus Mogae — in March to address concern among donors after Associated Press articles in January about the loss of tens of millions of dollars in grant money because of mismanagement and alleged fraud.

Germany, the European Commission and Denmark withheld hundreds of millions of euros in funding pending reviews of the fund's internal controls. Germany — the fund's fourth-largest donor- has since restored its funding.

The Geneva-based fund was set up in 2002 as a new way to coordinate world efforts against the diseases and to speed up emergency funds from wealthy nations and donors to the places hardest hit.

Since its creation, the fund, which is strictly a financing tool, has disbursed some $15 billion for programs — $2.8 billion this year alone, including to pay for treatment for around half the developing world's AIDS sufferers. With donations harder to come by, the fund says it can only afford to keep existing AIDS programs going, but not expand its services or add new patients.

"We're not cutting back — we're not expanding," the fund's board chairman, Simon Bland, told The Associated Press from Accra, Ghana, where the board has been meeting this week.

The fund had to make some "tough decisions to protect some of the gains that have already been delivered," he added.

Among those decisions were that hundreds of millions of dollars in grants planned for China, Brazil, Mexico and Russia will now be used for other purposes, fund officials said.

"It is deeply worrisome that inadvertently the millions of people fighting with deadly diseases are in danger of paying the price for the global financial crisis," the fund's executive director, Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, said in a statement.

The board has also decided to create a new general manager position after the panel found unhealthy friction between Kazatchkine and the fund's internal watchdog, Inspector General John Parsons's office, whose teams of auditors and investigators have been documenting losses.

The fund released 12 reports on its website earlier this month that turned up an additional $20 million of mismanagement, alleged fraud and misspending. Earlier probes had detected about $53 million in losses, according to fund documents.

Some of the reports have led to criminal cases, and some countries — mirroring the fund's own efforts — say they have begun putting new financial safeguards in place.

20 suffer carbon monoxide poisoning from indoor grill

Twenty people suffered carbon monoxide poisoning at a Thanksgiving party in the Kilbourn Park neighborhood after someone used a charcoal grill inside a home Thursday night, a spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department said.

Seven people were transported in good-to-fair and fair-to-serious conditions to area hospitals from the single-family home on the 4300 block of West Roscoe Street, said Larry Langford, a spokesman for the department.

The victims were transported to West Suburban Medical Center and Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center, he said.

Thirteen others were treated at the scene, Langford said. The incident happened before 11 p.m.

Successful Use of Homeopathy In Over 2.5 Million People Reported From Cuba

A remarkable successful use of homeopathic prophylaxis was reported from a Cuban conference. Of course, the exact numbers and results are still to be published. Cuba has its own vaccine production and instead of using a conventional medical vaccine homeopathic remedies were distributed to prevent the usual Leptospirosis outbreak after tropical flooding. The results were phenomenally excellent!

The CDC describes Leptospirosis as:

“Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease that affects humans and animals. It is caused by bacteria of the genus Leptospira. In humans it causes a wide range of symptoms, and some infected persons may have no symptoms at all. Symptoms of leptospirosis include high fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches, and vomiting, and may include jaundice (yellow skin and eyes), red eyes, abdominal pain, diarrhea, or a rash. If the disease is not treated, the patient could develop kidney damage, meningitis (inflammation of the membrane around the brain and spinal cord), liver failure, and respiratory distress.”

Here is a report from an attendee of a recent conference in Cuba:

A historical and inspiring event took place 10-12 December 2008 in Havana Cuba that I had the honour to attend. There, the Carlos J Finlay Institute under the guidance of its director-general, Dra. Conception Campa Huergo and Dr. Gustavo Bravo and others hosted NOSODES 2008, an International Meeting on Homeoprophilaxis, Homeopathic Immunization and Nosodes against Epidemics.

Homeopaths from Cuba, S America, Canada, Australia, UK, and Kenya (yours truly) made presentations on the wide varieties of successful disease prevention using homeopathy and more specifically, nosodes.

Each presentation was more amazing than the previous. All were very remarkable and notable in the field of research and science. Some of the topics included Childhood Disease Prevention, Homeopathic prophylaxis as an aspect of gov’tal programs, Nosodes Genus Epidemicus and Compexes, Homeoprophylaxis on Agronomy, Homeoprophylaxis on Veternary, Homeoprophylaxis in TB, Homeoprophylaxis in Chagas disease, Homeoprophylaxis in hepatitis, Homeoprophylaxis in Malaria (yours truly, again) and the list of presentations goes on.

(I am sorry for my lack of variety of adjectives for this email – “remarkable”, “awesome” and “amazing” will be repeated often because I have no other way to express my opinion of this conference)

THE PREVENTION OF EPIDEMIC LEPTOSPIROSIS IN CUBA
But none of these remarkable speakers, each presenting their amazing work in disease prevention and use of nosodes could not hold a candle to the historical accomplishment of the Cubans in their presentation of controlling the local endemic-epidemic disease of Leptospirosis.

Now, the Finlay Institute is primarily the Cuban research institute that produces allopathic vaccinations for their country. Since Cuba is outcasted by the USA government, they have come to depend on themselves for the making of medicines, health care programs, etc. And since the Cuba is not under the yoke of the international pharmaceutical juggernaut, they are not held back from adopting homeopathy and other alternative medicines wholeheartedly into their national health programmes. The Finlay director-general herself is very pro-homeopathy (not to mention, besides, a macrobiotic vegetarian).

To put it simply, what they presented is this:

Cuba goes through a yearly cycle of Leptospirosis epidemic, especially after the hurricanes flood the countryside and water pollution reaches its height. (Leptospirosis: infectious disease caused by the spirochaete Leptospira transmitted to humans from rats, giving jaundice and kidney damage. Can cause death)

Annually the population is exposed to the disease, most especially after hurricanes.

Until Aug 2007, the Finlay Institute (a part of the Ministry of Public Health, Cuba) has been distributing its own allopathic Lepto vaccination. August is the height of the hurricane season. Annually, many are left homeless, flooded out and under the stress of disaster situation. There is a sharp rise in the lepto epidemic.

The usual expectacy of infection even with allopathic vaccination would have been around a few thousands, with some deaths included.

Part of the reason for this is that the high cost of vaccination prevents putting but the most at-risk populations (ie children, pregnant women, elderly) on vaccination. The cost of such limited vaccination is about US$3,000.000.

But in Aug 2007, Finlay put approximately [2,500,000] people (yes! 5 million doses!) in 2 provinces on homoepathic nosode prophylaxis at the cost of about only US$ 200,000.

That figure represents the entire population of the 2 provinces. The prophylaxis consisted of 2 single doses about 2 weeks apart. Included in the dose was the Lepto nosode + some Bach flower remedies to address the mental distress of the disaster situation.

How very amazing it was to watch this presentation being made. Up to the point, the presenters were showing us graph after graph of the usual rise of the epidemic, year after year, even with the use of allopathic vaccination. Each year the graphs would edge higher and higher towards the year-end, reaching up to the thousands of infected.

But this time, within 2 weeks after Aug 2007, the rising lines literally dropped off the chart to ZERO-Ten infections only! Yes. Near-zero infections, zero deaths from leptospirosis after Aug 2007. And in 2008, no deaths, infections less than 10 a month.

HISTORY MADE for Homeopathy
This mass treatment of 2.5 million people with homeopathy, I don’t believe, has been done anywhere else in the world, not even in India, where homeopathy enjoys the shelter of the government.

And the awesome results of going from hundreds of infected to near-zero in the period of a few weeks, also is historical. My jaw dropped as I watched the graphs demonstrate their success.

The Cuban team readily admits that they have not invented anything new as far as homeopathic philosophy or application. They have simply followed what we homeopaths know to work. And since they have no pharmaceutical multi-nationals to stop them, they were able to do it on a massive scale unknown in the history of homeopathy.

What is remarkable is their application to such a large population, and its dramatic success, with full scientific verification. The results are incontrovertible and undeniable even by the most rabid of anti-homeopaths.

=======
As a word or two about Dra Heurgo, Dr. Bravo and the rest of the Cuban team. Truly remarkable people. “Concita” as Dra Heurgo is lovingly known by the people of Cuba, is well known and loved as a woman who has done remarkable work to improve the health of the population. I found her to be a remarkable person – untiring, passionate about her work and compassionate in her motivation to serve her fellow human beings.

I should like to nominate her for the Nobel Prize.

[This post was edited to show and correct that there were 5 million doses and to 2.5 million people]