Get paid for participating in an asthma clinical trial in London :-) Hiya, is there anyone that would want to participate in an asthma clinical trial in London. It is safe and it pays great. Message me. :-) It is an illness we should find a cure for or at least something to make it easier. If you are interested do no hesitate to contact me as I work in medical research. It is very hard to find volunteers as most fear its unsafe but working in the industry myself if I could I would do it but unfortunately I'm not allowed as I work there. If anyone is interested message me :-)12
think i have pneumonia looked at the nhs site and 'self diagnosed' myself and i have a the symptoms of it. :sick:
this does not bode well, as it means im gonna have to take time of work, whuch i cant do as i cant afford it.......FUCK:annoyed::annoyed:12
Difficult Psychology-type Topic for you all ;D Ok, so this one has always puzzled me.
So, we mostly all agree that mental health including day to day "normal" works on a spectrum of sort, and generally ill mental health is a step too far in on direction of the lines that make our characteristics...
So, with this still in mind. We allow certain types of behaviour to go unnoticed, or at least can justify them to a point where the person is not judged for that behaviour. For example, someone is angry, often take this as out of character, because their brain at the time is working under a different "mode" as it were.
So lets stretch this out a little. A person has a more permanent characteristic. A good exaggerated example would be a child who was bullied by their parent/s, and is now an adult. There can be lots of outcomes, but a common one can be anger. Quick to defend themselves from being belittled in most situations which others might be so sensitive in. Remembering this is a theoretical person not a stereotype.
In these cases, people who knew this person would justify their actions because of their past. It's not their fault.
So im getting a little closer to the point here. :weee:
We are all driven by our minds of course. How much control do we really actually have? Sure it's affected by variables, but we don't control those. Maybe to some extent. Alot of people's bad characteristics are results of just being that person at that time. That bullied person didn't want to be bullied, but now suffers anger problems when faced with possible humility. Except it's nothing too drastic in his case. Most of us have similar problems, maybe from a lesser cause though.
So going down the spectrum a bit more. Murders. What drove them to that place? Them? Their mind? Are they 2 different things? How can a person control themselves if we are all just a set of rolling dice waiting to bounce of the sides.
It kind of shows how primitive we all still are in our understanding of everything. Despite me thinking about this, I will still get angered by lots of crimes or people. And I will still be blamed for doing what I do as we all are. Being responsible.
Responsible for what!?
That's the confusing part now, because of course we have lived like this forever. Having the illusion of control. Which we do, we do. To some extent.
So who deserved to be hung or imprisoned. I know no one should, but how would we define ourselves or control the world without these things? Paedophiles. What I was mainly getting at. The most extreme example I have thought about. Just another man who got bullied? Just an example of course. To get our full set of characteristics we have now, we've had to go through alot of seconds. Each containing life changing experiences, at least when added together...
--
Always wanted to bring this up, I've thought about it alot (busy bored mind lol). Although considering to some people it may look like I am justifying Paedos I hadn't bothered.
Im not really making any conclusions really. I don't think I'm literally able to!
Man hospitalised after DIY circumcision OUCH! What a silly billy, So many questions here, wtf was this person thinking! :laugh_at:
The Comet - Man hospitalised after DIY circumcision
Not much on the story but fuck me that would welllll hurt! :laugh_at: :hopeless:
schizo..
Campaign out to challenge peoples perception of mental illness out today, heres one of the films released:
heard about it on the way home from work this morning on the radio, so thought I'd look it up
....
Schizo the Movie
Fresh evidence has emerged of the stigma surrounding mental health problems.
A poll by YouGov suggests that more than one in three of the public think people with schizophrenia are likely to be violent.
Two short films that challenge this misconception have been released.
They can be viewed online and will soon be screened in cinemas.
The opening frames create a mood of menace and tension -- with shifting shadows, eyes twitching, a jarring soundtrack, and the flashing banner "Schizo".
Bit by bit the camera edges closer to white creaky door.....
And then, behind it, there is Stuart - pouring a cup of tea, and talking about his life with schizophrenia.
"Hi there. I'm sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting a lunatic with a knife and some sort of rampage," he says.
He explains he was diagnosed with the condition 12 years ago.
Full life
He says many people with mental illness face prejudice, but that he had family and friends to help him lead a full life.
The film's director, Jonathan Pearson, says he wants to make people confront their own attitudes about mental illness and violence.
"It challenges it by using the typical conventions of a horror movie, and then half way through the film we change," he said.
"All the lights change from a horror section to a very inviting comfortable environment.
"So it has taken what you think, flipped it and used it against you."
The film is part of a wider campaign - called time to change - that has been set up to tackle the stigma surrounding mental health.
BBC NEWS | Health | Schizophrenia: the horror movie
mmm, great idea but must say I'm a little dissapointed in the actual film, however dont know why or what I was actually expecting, but if it brings about discussion it can only be a good thing I guess.
any views?
Natural Selection May Have Purpose for Schizophrenia Clinical & Research News
Natural Selection May Have Purpose for Schizophrenia
Mark Moran "The mechanisms connecting schizotypal cognition and creativity with [natural selection] are unclear, but may include... creative and artistic skills or general benefits from insight problem solving."
One thing about diversity in natural species that is well understood by evolutionary biologists," said Nobel Prize—winning mathematician John Nash, "is that the natural phenomenon of mutations serves to prepare a species for adaptation to changing conditions or for improved adaptation to an existing level of environmental circumstances.
"So a possible, but perhaps questionable, inference is that humans are notably subject to mental illness because there was a need for diversity in the patterns of human mental functions."
Nash, who has schizophrenia, was speaking at APA's 2007 annual meeting in San Diego, where he presented the William C. Menninger MemorialLecture. The speech, delivered to a packed auditorium at the Convocation of Fellows, was a theoretical meditation on a paradox that has long intrigued schizophrenia researchers: though the disease negatively impacts reproductive capacity, it persists at a prevalence of about 1 percent in all human cultures.
Compounding the curiosity is the occasional nexus—of which Nash himself is a prime example—between psychosis and genius.
Applying his specialized understanding of "game theory" to an analysis of mental illness and his own experience with psychosis, Nash suggested during his address that severe mental illness exists in nature as a consequence of the diversification of species and that it may serve the needs of adaptation by its not infrequent association with genius.
Now, genetic researchers have published evidence that Nash's theory may be on the money. A study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences reports the results of two separate tests looking at the likelihood of evolutionary selection for 76 genes believed to be linked to schizophrenia. The study is currently posted online and will appear in print in the November 22 issue.
The researchers found that both tests showed that positive selection was evident using one or both methods for 28 of the 76 genes, including DISC1, DTNBP1, and NRG1, which exhibit especially strong and well-replicated functional and genetic links to schizophrenia.
The lead author of the study was Bernard Crespi, Ph.D., of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
Exactly why these genes—which carry a high risk for such a deleterious and maladaptive disease—should be naturally selected over generations is unclear. But Crespi and colleagues suggested that cognitive creativity—of the sort exhibited by John Nash—may be part of it.
"The mechanisms connecting schizotypal cognition and creativity with [natural selection] are unclear, but may include sexual selection, creative and artistic skills, or general benefits from insight problem solving," they wrote. "These processes could potentially help to explain the paradoxical high heritability and persistence of schizophrenia...."
Ping-I Lin, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of genetics and genomic medicine at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, and Gunvant Thaker, M.D., chief of the Schizophrenia Related Disorders Program there, reviewed the report for Psychiatric News and said the authors have found evidence of positive selection for many of the genes that are thought to be associated with schizophrenia liability.
Lin explained that one of the tests involved examining relatively large blocks of DNA containing schizophrenia-associated genes in recent human evolution. Using this test, the researchers found that the schizophrenia genes are conserved and more frequently transmitted to succeeding generations than expected.
A second analysis was aimed at inferring the evidence for positive selection by comparing, in a human lineage, the ratio of DNA sequence changes that cause protein structural changes with DNA sequence changes that do not affect the protein structure.
"The higher the ratio is, the more likely that positive selection for protein-coding sequence changes may have occurred," Lin explained.
The positive selection for DNA sequence changes causing protein structural changes in a number of schizophrenia-associated genes was found specific to the human lineage, he explained.
In primate evolution the authors also found accelerated DNA sequence changes in the protein coding regions in one of the genes (DISC1) that is implicated in schizophrenia.
"These tests suggest that during the recent evolution, certain variations in the genome were positively selected, and some of these overlap with the genes implicated in schizophrenia," Lin said.
Thaker said the observations are not surprising since schizophrenia is such a uniquely human disease, and evolutionary forces that have endowed individuals with specialized cognitive and social skills may also make them vulnerable to insults that can result in maladaptive behaviors.
"The intriguing part of their findings is that the same genetic variations that lead to devastating illness such as schizophrenia, an illness with serious impairments in cognition and in social and motivational drive, may also provide some advantage," Thaker told Psychiatric News.
"To understand this apparent contradiction, one needs to understand that schizophrenia is multifactorial, with several genes in various combinations interacting with the environment, resulting in the overt illness," he said. "Certain patterns of allelic variations across a number of genes may be devastating, but variation in an individual gene by itself may provide advantage."
Thaker noted that Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Institute of Mental Health recently found that the same allelic variation in the DARPP-32 gene—which is associated with schizophrenia—is important for better cognitive performance.
"A larger proportion of relatives of schizophrenia patients are likely to have partial genetic loading than the general population, and schizotypal personality styles are common in this group that are associated with unique cognitive styles, some disadvantageous, but others leading to creativity," Thaker added.
Original artical here
Flu pandemic anyone else heard about this ?
there has been a lot of talk about where I work over the last few months, and 'emergency' planning being put into place for when it come to the uk. For example: where my friend works planning areas to be used for morgues, quarrantine etc,
we have been told to expect it to come next year, with the possibility of killing hundreds of thousands
Only friends of mine that work in health care have heard about it, so I was wondering if it is common knowledge?
There seems to be alot on the net about it, it seems that this 'threat' has been banded about since atleast 2003, with the main consern being the H5N1 strain connected to bird flu
Quote:
According to the World Health Organization, to date there have been 382 people sickened and 245 deaths caused by the H5N1 bird flu strain, mostly in people in close contract with poultry in southern Asia and Africa. Public health experts believe the world is due sooner or later for another influenza pandemic, with human-to-human transmission, which could be caused by any influenza strain to which people don't have immunity.
There's alot to read:
from the department of health national framework 2008
Quote:
Influenza pandemics are natural phenomena which occurred three times in the last century. Their severity has ranged from something similar to seasonal influenza to a major threat, with many millions of people worldwide becoming ill and a proportion of these dying. No country can expect to escape the impact of a pandemic entirely, and when it arrives most people are likely to be exposed to an increased risk of catching the virus at some point. Influenza pandemics therefore pose a unique international and national challenge. As well as their potential to cause serious harm to human health, they threaten wider social and economic damage and disruption. Measures to prevent, detect and control them require coordinated international effort and cooperation, with one country’s action – or inaction – potentially affecting many others.
Although it is highly likely that another influenza pandemic will occur at some time, it is impossible to forecast its exact timing or the precise nature of its impact. This uncertainty is one of the main challenges for policy makers and planners. Even if – as seems likely – a pandemic originates abroad, it will probably affect the UK within two to four weeks of becoming an epidemic in its country of origin, and could then take only one or two more weeks to spread to all major population centres here.
Quote:
Given the limited scope to avoid the increased risk of infection when the pandemic is in the UK, the framework advises that in most circumstances the public should carry on with their daily lives for as long and as far as that is possible within the constraints the pandemic will impose, whilst adhering to government advice, taking sensible personal precautions and adopting good hygiene measures.
Quote:
Flu Pandemic May Cost World Economy Up to $3 Trillion (Update3)
By Jason Gale
Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- A flu pandemic could kill 71 million people worldwide and push the global economy into a ``major global recession'' costing more than $3 trillion, according to raised estimates by the world bank of a worst-case scenario.
A slump in tourism, transportation and retail sales, as well as workplace absenteeism and lower productivity caused by a ``severe'' outbreak, may cut global gross domestic product by 4.8 percent, the Washington-based bank said in an internal report updated last month and obtained by Bloomberg News today. Economic modeling by the bank in June 2006 estimated GDP would drop by 3.1 percent, or about $2 trillion.
The spread of the H5N1 avian-influenza strain across Asia, Africa and Europe prompted the development of vaccines and the slaughter of poultry from Indonesia to the U.K. Measures to avoid infection would generate most of the costs, said the report, which used simulations to underline the importance of global preparations for a pandemic sparked by bird flu. Human cases of H5N1 infection have fallen by half this year as controls of outbreaks in poultry improve.
``Even with such efforts, an eventual human pandemic at some unknown point in the future is virtually inevitable,'' Andrew Burns, Dominique van der Mensbrugghe and hans timmer, economists at the bank, wrote in the report.
Pandemic Threat
The threat of a flu pandemic, raised by the World Health Organization in 2003, persists because the H5N1 virus is entrenched in parts of Asia and Africa, the World Bank said. Such a contagion would start when a novel influenza A-type virus, to which almost no one has natural immunity, emerges and begins spreading. Experts believe that the so-called 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which may have killed as many as 50 million people, began when an avian flu virus jumped to people.
``Because such a pandemic would spread very quickly, substantial efforts need to be put into place to develop effective strategies and contingency plans that could be enacted at short notice,'' the economists said. ``Much more research and coordination at the global level are required.''
The World Bank, which funds projects to alleviate poverty, is working with developing countries to improve hospitals and laboratories, enabling better surveillance and management of avian flu, and to prepare for a possible pandemic
At least 387 people in 15 countries have been infected with the H5N1 virus since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. Almost two of every three cases were fatal. So far this year, 36 cases have been reported, down from 74 in the first 10 months of 2007.
Eliminating Disease
More than 50 of the 61 countries that have experienced an H5N1 outbreak in poultry in the past five years have successfully eliminated the disease, according to the United Nations.
In Vietnam, one in eight domestic fowl died from the disease or were culled to prevent its spread in 2004. If the virus were to become as entrenched in poultry flocks globally, it would trim 0.1 percent from global GDP and as much as 0.7 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the World Bank report.
World leaders will be asked to donate about $500 million -- the amount required annually to fund bird flu control efforts and prepare for a pandemic -- when they meet Oct. 24 a UN official said.
`Massive' Cost
``The potential cost of a human pandemic is massive compared with the quite modest sums required to ensure pandemic preparedness,'' said david nabarro UN senior coordinator for avian and pandemic influenza, in a telephone interview from Geneva today. The funds ``must be coupled with political commitment to ensure that all parts of government, civil society and the private sector are prepared to keep functioning in the event of a pandemic.''
A ``mild'' pandemic, similar to the Hong Kong flu of 1968- 69, could kill about 1.4 million people and cut global GDP by 0.7 percent in the first year, according to the World Bank's latest estimates.
Seasonal Flu epidemics result in 250,000 to 500,000 deaths annually, mostly among those older than 65 years, according to the World Health Organization.
A ``moderate'' pandemic characteristic of the 1957 Asian flu could kill 14.2 million people and shave 2 percent from the global economy in the first year, the bank said. Some forecasts have estimated deaths during a ``severe'' pandemic at as high as 180 million to 260 million, the report said.
Changed Behavior
Changed behavior by individuals in the face of a pandemic, such as reduced air travel in order to avoid infection in the enclosed space of a plane, avoiding travel to infected destinations and spurning restaurants and mass transport, could account for 60 percent of costs during a pandemic, the bank said.
``People's efforts to avoid infection are five times more important than mortality and more than twice as important as illness'' in terms of economic impact, the authors said. In the worst-case, they assumed that air travel would slump by 20 percent for the whole year, and that tourism, restaurant meals, and use of mass transportation would decline by the same amount.
``Given the tremendous uncertainties surrounding the possibility and eventual nature of a pandemic inflation, these simulations must be viewed as purely illustrative,'' the report said. ``They provide a sense of the overall magnitude of potential costs. Actual costs, both in terms of human lives and economic losses, may be very different.''
Last Updated: October 17, 2008 07:08 EDT
Quote:
British Government officials, policy makers and academics have been meeting to
Decide how best to combat the threats to public safety and security from climate change.
They have been gathering at the Royal United Services Institute in London this week to discuss the UK’s contribution to resilience against these increasingly complex challenges.
SCRIPT:
Like many countries the UK is facing a series of challenges to protect public safety in light of challenges from increasing episodes of extreme weather, natural disasters, food and energy insecurity and terrorism.
These are global challenges which seriously impact world geo-politics –threatening security.
Experts say building a capacity to adapt both physically and socially to climate change is key.
SOT: (English Speech) super: Dr Chris West, Director of UK Climate Impacts Programme
“It changes not only the frequency of things we know about, like flooding, like coastal sea level rise and perhaps heat waves but introduces the prospect of very much greater, nastier impacts that may originate outside the United Kingdom, maybe the result of population movement elsewhere in the world and we are increasingly venerable because we are less tolerant of extreme weather events and they cost money and lives. Outside the UK, I think that the greatest threat is around food production where climate change will effect where in the world food can be grown, change the flow of money and those can have big effects on people’s lives.”
Pandemics are another major threat. In the latest figures from the UK’s Cabinet Office, an influenza outbreak is the top risk for Britons.
SOT: (English Speech) super: Professor John Oxford, Professor of Virology
“The difference about influenza, compared to some of these other threats is that it is global. We are all on this little globe together, so we expect influenza to break out in places like the Far East but we know that people are travelling through the Far East to London everyday. So wherever it starts it will be here in half a day. We can do a lot against diseases. A lot already has been done against the influenza virus. I have been very impressed with the UK developments which has seen stockpiles of vaccines, stockpiles of anti-viral drugs, a plan and not only is there a plan but it has been tested almost like in action so all of this add ups to quite a good protective glass wall.”
So anyone heard about this?
whats your take on it? 123
Sun Beds? Hi gang! I want to use a sun bed soon but am afraid that I'll get cancer and die. Does anyone use sun beds and would you recommend their use? :wink:
Mental illness now ‘last taboo’ It has been described as the last taboo. Significant mental distress will affect one in four of us in our lifetime. One in six of the population is suffering at any time - the vast majority enduring depression, stress and anxiety.
And yet the evidence is that stigma and discrimination are rife in the workplace - even among those with mild to moderate problems.
While 75% of adults are in work and 65% of people with physical health problems, among those with mental health problems the figure is 20%.
Airbrushed out
Diane Hackney was marked out as a city high-flyer, destined to be the first woman on the board of a multinational company based in London.
Then depression struck and three months later she returned to work to find her job and her career had been airbrushed out.
"Their response was - we can't have people like you in that position in our company", she says. "I had no work. I sat at my desk and realised this wasn't going to change. I eventually asked for redundancy and they were happy I had asked."
It is a familiar story. A third of people with mental health problems say they have been sacked or forced to resign because of their condition.
About 40% say they have been denied a job because of their history of psychiatric treatment and 95% reckon their mental health problems have had considerable negative effects on their employment
There was no medical reason why Diane could not hold down a top job. Indeed, she carved out a new career as an advisor and consultant in the voluntary sector - becoming the chief executive of a mental health charity.
'Extremely painful'
Eventually she was headhunted by the NHS who asked her to be patient representative on the board of one of a mental health trust.
But then Diane had another episode of depression - and the trust was far from understanding.
"It was extremely painful", she says. "More distressing than any of my mental health issues. It is still distressing to think about it now."
The relationship with the trust worsened and they asked her to resign. Eventually, she says she was forced out.
"I think people thought I would lose insight, would be psychotic, unable to do my job."
Could that be true? "No, not according to my medical records no."
Thirty per cent of workers will have a mental health problem in any one year, and yet many employers deny they have any workers with such problems.
Today Diane is fighting against stigma and prejudice - working with the Department of Health and voluntary groups trying to counter the ignorance and fear which blights the lives of people suffering even mild mental distress.
Employees 'fearful'
How does she rate British employers? "Terrible, truly terrible", she says. "My story is far from unique."
Diane points to what she sees as the Catch 22 problem for people with mental health issues.
"People don't realise that in order to be protected by the Discrimination Act they must inform their employers of their condition. But people don't because they fear the consequences." Are they right to be fearful? "Yes, they are."
The proportion of employers who say they won't recruit people with mental health problems? 63%.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6038570.stm
12
mental health while i think that there are probably a lot of creative activities which may be theraputic for some people with mental-health problems, i'm not sure about this one
http://www.do-it.org.uk/cgi-bin/do-it/display.pl?mode=details&vacid=741728
while i would hope people could enjoy spending a day learning to mix.... i don't really get where this is going...long-term mental health patients going raving? :confused:
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