medicalcondition:ms

  • Can we treat MS by increasing thyroid hormone levels?
    https://massivesci.com/notes/can-we-treat-ms-by-increasing-thyroid-hormone-levels

    In multiple sclerosis (MS), the fatty sheath that wraps around axons, called myelin, is damaged. However, there are currently no approved treatments for Multiple sclerosis patients that focus specifically on myelin repair, and current treatments only...

  • Briefing With Acting Assistant Secretary David M. Satterfield
    Special Briefing David M. Satterfield,Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Press Briefing Room, Washington, DC,
    December 7, 2017
    http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/12/276349.htm

    (...) QUESTION: My name is Said Arikat. I just want to follow up on East Jerusalem because it is really – it’s not clear at all. Not in my mind. So what happens to the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem? Do they now become automatically Israeli citizens, would have full rights, and so on? What happens to 300,000 Palestinians?

    AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: Said, the President’s proclamation yesterday, his decision, have no impact on those issues. He is recognizing a practical reality. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. And all of the other aspects – boundaries of sovereignty – we’re not taking a position. It’s for the sides to resolve.

    QUESTION: So if you’ll just bear with me for a second. So why not say West Jerusalem? I mean, the Russians have done that. It did not cause any problem and so on. Or why don’t you say that this part, East Jerusalem, as been negotiated as you yourself have been involved for so many years, this portion is designated to become the capital of the Palestinian state?

    AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: Said, the President’s decision speaks for itself. There are many words that are in his statement, in his remarks; there are words that aren’t. We recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel. He didn’t go beyond that, and I’m not going to go beyond that.

    QUESTION: Can you – can you share with us —

    MS NAUERT: We need to move on (inaudible).

    QUESTION: — just one last thing?

    MS NAUERT: Said, (inaudible).

    QUESTION: Could you share with us, sir —

    MS NAUERT: Said, (inaudible).

    QUESTION: — one national security interest of the United States that this recognition has served? Can you identify one national security interest of the United States that this recognition has identified?

    AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: The President is committed to advancing a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. In his view upon reflection, this step, he believes, assists in that process. Full stop.

    MS NAUERT: Nick, go right ahead.

    QUESTION: Can you explain that further, because —

    QUESTION: Can I just ask, Mr. —

    QUESTION: — that’s exactly what we’re trying to – or what I’m trying to figure out is —

    MS NAUERT: Nick, go right ahead. Hold on, Dave.

    QUESTION: Can you – just to Matt’s point, can you explain why a decision-making process needs to be made about maps and things like that, and consular services? I mean, you said yourself, the President declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Why does there need to be a further decision-making process on those other issues?

    AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: It’s a very simple answer, and it’s wholly technical. What phrasing do you place upon government-issued maps? There are different word choices that can be used. To be clear, there will be a decision made. When the decision is made, you’ll have it and you’ll have the maps.

    QUESTION: And can you just explain why now? Why did he make this decision now?

    AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: Because December 4th was the trigger date for the next waiver required under the Jerusalem Act of ’95. That was the proximate timing issue. Full stop.

    QUESTION: So there was no strategic – this – it was solely based on —

    AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: The President had to make a decision. He did. But he’s —

    QUESTION: Why didn’t he do it on the 4th?

    AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: That’s the legal requirement of the act. Every six months —

    QUESTION: No, but he —

    QUESTION: But he didn’t.

    QUESTION: But he didn’t.

    AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: — a waiver has to be issued.

    QUESTION: He didn’t do it on the 4th. He did it on the 6th.

    AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: We believe – and I believe the White House has spoken to this – technically, we were in compliance. We’ll leave it to the Hill on whether 48 hours constituted a problem or not. But the 4th was the trigger date.

    QUESTION: Wow. I wish my editors had your sense of deadline. (Laughter.)

    QUESTION: Michelle with CNN. Thanks. Can you just say how – how this furthers the peace process?

    AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: The President believes taking this issue – that is the fact of U.S. recognition, acknowledgement of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – an issue that’s been pending out there since ’95, since the act was initially passed – was appropriate to make and that it helps in the process to no longer have that issue, which is the U.S. acknowledgement of the simple fact that Jerusalem is the location of the supreme court, the Knesset, the president and the prime minister’s residences, that that is a useful clearing of an issue that has been part of, grown as part of, this process for many decades.

    QUESTION: So it’s setting us up for what? To – if you’re saying that that gets that out of the way and it’s been a reality, how does that set the stage?

    AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: The President and his peace team have been engaged, as you all know, for many months now in discussions with the two parties, with regional states, with other key actors, to try to advance a peace. This is not an easy process; it’s a difficult one. But he believes this step assists in that process. I am not going to elaborate on that further.
    (...)
    QUESTION: Et une autre question. Considérez-vous les parties de Jérusalem-Est occupées par Israël en 1967 comme des territoires occupés?

    AMBASSADEUR SATTERFIELD: La décision du Président est de reconnaître Jérusalem comme la capitale de l’Etat d’Israël. Le Président a déclaré que cette décision ne touche pas aux questions de frontières, de souveraineté ou de frontières géographiques. Arrêt complet.

    QUESTION: Donc, il est encore territoire occupé, à votre avis?

    AMBASSADEUR SATTERFIELD: J’ai déclaré ce que la décision du président fait et ne fait pas.(...)

  • This was MS 25 anniversary party
    http://www.radiopanik.org/emissions/moacrealsloa/this-was-ms-25-anniversary-party

    Tonight 2 hours with live recordings of the 25th anniversary show at les ateliers claus, Saturday 11 March 2017

    Playlist :

    Kohier : live part 1 at les ateliers claus

    Baleine 3000 : live part 1 at les ateliers claus

    The Lama Home Band : live part 1 at les ateliers claus

    Maoupa Mazzocchetti : live part 1 at les ateliers claus

    Kohier : live part 2 at les ateliers claus

    Baleine 3000 : live part 2 at les ateliers claus

    The Lama Home Band : live part 2 at les ateliers claus

    Maoupa Mazzocchetti : live part 2 at les ateliers claus

    http://www.radiopanik.org/media/sounds/moacrealsloa/this-was-ms-25-anniversary-party_03420__1.mp3

  • Le site n’est pas du tout sexy, mais j’ai l’impression que les recherches sont de bonne qualité et il y a plein de données...
    http://www.fooddeserts.org
    Avec une carte ici :
    www.fooddeserts.org/images/FoodDesertFinder.tif
    Une carte sur l’obésité à #Londres :

    #food_desert #supermarchés #alimentation #UK #Angleterre #cartographie #visualisation #obésité

    J’ai découvert le site via la mailing-list Crit geo forum, avec ce commentaire :

    Those interested in food and social justice may see a nice irony in comparing these two maps.

    1) Map of the best quality agricultural soil in the UK, the best, Grade One, is heavily present around The Wash area of Eastern England

    http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/6172638548328448 and click on pdf link

    2) MSOA level obesity map, extract for East Anglia, Wash, Lincolnshire area. Available at www.fooddeserts.org, section 8, bottom of page. Red is the most obese decile, followed by pink, orange, yellow.... Silver is the least obese declie, followed by purple, dark blue, light blue, green....

    In other words, the areas where the UK’s fruit and veg industry is most productive is where there is most obesity. We don’t pay the people who actually produce our 5-a-day enough to benefit from the health effects of 5-a-day. Nor do we pay the people who sell them to us enough to benefit from them, in the towns. To have a good diet you need to live in the areas where fresh produce is largely neither produced nor sold, the wealthy peri-urban regions just outside the main urban areas.

  • Roche says flexible pricing ready for cancer, not MS drugs | Reuters
    http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-roche-novartis-pricing-ms-idUKKBN132159

    new data-driven flexible pricing schemes the Swiss drugmaker and others in the industry are pushing to replace today’s “pay-per-pill” approach are well advanced in cancer treatment (…)

    Such schemes foresee drug pricing based on measurable benefits for a patient or health care systems, an approach seen as becoming more important as aging populations and chronic disease put the squeeze on health care systems.

    Roche has introduced flexible pricing for cancer drugs in about a dozen European countries, including Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Switzerland and Austria. For instance, it already prices drugs like Avastin differently in some markets depending on the cancer being targeted.

    #cancer #pharma #prix_à_la_tête_du_patient

  • 1 in 5 scientific papers on genes contain errors because of Excel

    The spreadsheet software Microsoft Excel, when used with default settings, is known to convert gene names to dates and floating-point numbers. A programmatic scan of leading genomics journals reveals that approximately one-fifth of papers with supplementary Excel gene lists contain erroneous gene name conversions.

    The problem is that there are some gene names/acronyms like SEPT2 and MARCH1, which Excel then converts to dates “2-Sep” and “1-Mar”

    Copy-pasting large data sets hid the errors for years. Researches would probably have noticed if they entered the data one Excel cell at a time.

    Gene name errors are widespread in the scientific literature

    http://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-016-1044-7

    The problem of Excel software inadvertently converting gene symbols to dates and floating-point numbers was originally described in 2004 [1]. For example, gene symbols such as SEPT2 (Septin 2) and MARCH1 [Membrane-Associated Ring Finger (C3HC4) 1, E3 Ubiquitin Protein Ligase] are converted by default to ‘2-Sep’ and ‘1-Mar’, respectively. Furthermore, RIKEN identifiers were described to be automatically converted to floating point numbers (i.e. from accession ‘2310009E13’ to ‘2.31E+13’). Since that report, we have uncovered further instances where gene symbols were converted to dates in supplementary data of recently published papers (e.g. ‘SEPT2’ converted to ‘2006/09/02’). This suggests that gene name errors continue to be a problem in supplementary files accompanying articles. Inadvertent gene symbol conversion is problematic because these supplementary files are an important resource in the genomics community that are frequently reused. Our aim here is to raise awareness of the problem.

    [...]

    To date, there is no way to permanently deactivate automatic conversion to dates in MS Excel and other spreadsheet software such as LibreOffice Calc or Apache OpenOffice Calc. We note, however, that the spreadsheet program Google Sheets did not convert any gene names to dates or numbers when typed or pasted; notably, when these sheets were later reopened with Excel, LibreOffice Calc or OpenOffice Calc, gene symbols such as SEPT1 and MARCH1 were protected from date conversion.

    [...]

    In conclusion, we show that inadvertent gene name conversion errors persist in the scientific literature, but these should be easy to avoid if researchers, reviewers, editorial staff and database curators remain vigilant.

  • Curing multiple sclerosis
    http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21688848-stem-cells-are-starting-prove-their-value-medical-treatments-cur

    Un exemple objectif (et potentiellement très dangereux comme expliqué plus bas) d’une #vulgarisation scientifique erronée.

    Stem Cell Transplant in Multiple Sclerosis : Next Steps
    http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/859546

    Benjamin Segal, MD, the Holtom-Garrett Professor of Neurology and director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, added in an interview with Medscape Medical News, “Every time I’m in clinic I am asked about stem cells. There are private companies out there that exploit desperate people.”

    “One of my patients with progressive MS went to Germany to get some type of intrathecal embryonic stem cell injection,” Dr Segal said. “A few months later, her husband informed me that she developed meningitis as a complication, and she died.”

  • The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب : U.S. position on overthrow of Yemeni president vs. Ukrainian president
    http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2015/02/us-position-on-overthrow-of-yemeni.html

    Question posée à la porte-parole du Département d’Etat étasunien http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/02/237795.htm

    “QUESTION: Frankly, I had another subject. On #Yemen, how come if this president when he left his capital is still technically president in his country?

    MS. PSAKI: That’s —

    QUESTION: How come the Ukrainian president was not in the same position?

    MS. PSAKI: That’s the Yemeni constitution and what the Yemeni constitution says, so I encourage you to take a look at the Yemeni constitution if you’re interested.

    QUESTION: And the Ukrainian constitution said the same thing.

    MS. PSAKI: Well, I think —”

    #Ukraine #Etats-Unis

  • Les Etats-Unis ont diffusé samedi des images de #satellites censées montrer des armements et déploiements de forces russes. Mais ce n’est pas d’une très grande précision tout ça…

    Ukraine : « We are confident these are Russian military, not separatist systems »
    -- US Mission to NATO (@USNATO) 14 Février 2015
    https://twitter.com/USNATO/status/566531726357188608/photo/1

    QUESTION: Let’s – there’s a lot going on, but let’s start with Ukraine.

    MS. PSAKI: Okay.

    QUESTION: So the ceasefire is not supposed to take effect until midnight Saturday.

    MS. PSAKI: Yes.

    QUESTION: But it does not appear that the run-up to this is that – since the deal was done and ahead of the ceasefire, it looks like things are just getting worse, and I’m just wondering what the Administration thinks. Is this a harbinger of doom, or do you still think that this is – that this will work, that the agreement will work?

    MS. PSAKI: Well, we are very concerned about continued fighting along and beyond the line of contact, including in heavily populated civilian areas, and reports of additional resupplies of tanks and missile systems coming across the border from Russia in the past few days, and I have a little more detail of that I just want to go into for a moment here. The Russian military has deployed a large amount of artillery and multiple rocket launcher systems around Debaltseve where it is shelling Ukrainian positions. We are confident these are Russian military, not separatist systems. The Russian military also has air defense systems deployed near Debaltseve. We are also confident these are Russian military, not separatist systems.

    Russian units along the border with Ukraine are preparing a large shipment of supplies to pro-Russian forces fighting in eastern Ukraine. This is clearly not in the spirit of this week’s agreement. All parties must show complete restraint in the run-up to the Sunday ceasefire, including an immediate halt to the Russian and separatist assault on Debaltseve and other Ukrainian towns. Clearly, the same options that have been on the table remain on the table, and obviously we’ll be watching closely to see what happens over the course of the coming days.

    QUESTION: On those – where the information on the Russian equipment is coming from. It’s not coming from Senator Inhofe’s office I hope.

    MS. PSAKI: No, it’s coming from our own internal information we were able to make public.

    QUESTION: U.S. information, not Ukrainian information?

    MS. PSAKI: Correct.

    Daily Press Briefing - February 13, 2015
    http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/02/237501.htm#UKRAINE

    • Pour Molodyi Shakhtar (littéralement le Jeune Mineur (de charbon)), situé à 20 km au SSO de Debaltseve, il y a en effet peu de doute que des lance-roquettes multiples ont tiré en direction de Debaltseve.

      Pour le reste, j’imagine que c’est en lisant les marques des pneus imprimés dans la terre qu’ils ont pu déterminer qu’ils étaient russes…

    • Inhofe est l’un des parlementaires les plus conservateurs du Congrès, plus choqué par les photos des abus à la prison d’Abu Ghraib en Irak que par les tortures elles-mêmes commises par des soldats américains.

      Il est également connu pour être l’un des plus inconditionnels partisans de l’État d’Israël. En mars 2002, il prononce un discours au Sénat américain dans lequel il n’hésite pas à qualifier les attentats du 11 septembre 2001 comme une punition divine contre l’Amérique pour ne pas suffisamment soutenir Israël "One of the reasons I believe the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America is that the policy of our Government has been to ask the Israelis, and demand it with pressure, not to retaliate in a significant way against the terrorist strikes that have been launched against them."

      Il est également connu pour son opposition à la ratification du protocole de Kyoto par les États-Unis, au nom de l’idée que le réchauffement climatique n’a pas de cause humaine. Citation connue : "Se pourrait-il bien que l’hypothèse d’une cause humaine du réchauffement climatique soit une des pires blagues perpétrées à l’encontre du peuple américain ? Il semble bien que oui." - Sénat américain juillet 2003.

      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Inhofe

  • The free market is an impossible utopia
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/07/18/the-free-market-is-an-impossible-utopia

    FB & MS – By putting government and politics into the center of economic analysis, Polanyi makes it clear that today’s vexing economic problems are almost entirely political problems. This can effectively change the terms of modern political debate: Both left and right today focus on “deregulation”—for the right it is a rallying cry against the impediments of government; for the left it is the scourge behind our current economic inequities. While they differ dramatically on its desirability, both positions assume the possibility of a “non-regulated” or “non-political” market. Taking Polanyi seriously means rejecting the illusion of a “deregulated” economy. What happened in the name of “deregulation” has actually been “#reregulation,” this time by rules and policies that are radically different from those of the New Deal and Great Society decades. Although compromised by racism, those older regulations laid the groundwork for greater equality and a flourishing middle class. Government continues to regulate, but instead of acting to protect workers, consumers, and citizens, it devised new policies aimed to help giant corporate and financial institutions maximize their returns through revised anti-trust laws, seemingly bottomless bank bailouts, and increased impediments to unionization.

    #économie #politique

  • How Much Are the NSA and CIA Front Running Markets? « naked capitalism
    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/06/how-much-are-the-nsa-and-cia-front-running-markets.html

    A 2008 paper by Arindrajit Dube, Ethan Kaplan, and Suresh Naidu (hat tip MS) found evidence that the CIA and/or members of the Executive branch either disclosed or acted on information about top-secret authorizations of coups. Stocks in “highly exposed” firms rose more in the pre-coup authorization phase than they did when the coup was actually launched.

    ...

    Their conclusions:

    Covert operations organized and abetted by foreign governments have played a sub- stantial role in the political and economic development of poorer countries around the world. We look at CIA-backed coups against governments which had nationalized a considerable amount of foreign investment. Using an event-study methodology, we find that private information regarding coup authorizations and planning by the U.S. government increased the stock prices of expropriated multinationals that stood to benefit from the regime change. The presence of these abnormal returns suggests that there were leaks from the CIA or others in the executive branch of government to asset traders or that government officials with access to this information themselves traded upon it. Consistent with theories of asset price determination under private information, this information took some time to be fully reflected in the stock price. Moreover, the evidence we find suggests that coup authorization information was only present in large, politically connected companies which were also highly exposed.

    We find that coup authorizations, on net, contributed more to stock price rises of highly exposed and well connected companies than the coup events themselves. These price changes reflect sizeable shifts in beliefs about the probability of coup occurrence.

    Our results are robust across countries, except Cuba, as well as to a variety of controls for alternate sources of information, including public events and newspaper articles. The anomalous results for Cuba are consistent with the information leaks and inad- equate organization that surrounded that particular coup attempt.

    Now sports fans, given the fact that there’s reason to believe that people in the intelligence with access to privileged information weren’t above leaking it to people who could take advantage of it, why should we expect things to be different now? And given what has already been revealed about the NSA’s data gathering, if you were a clever trader and had access to this information, how would you mine it? How would you go about finding patterns or events to exploit?

  • MUltiple Sclerosis and Extract of #Cannabis: results of the MUSEC trial — Zajicek et al. 83 (11): 1125 — Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry
    http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/83/11/1125.full

    The study met its primary objective to demonstrate the superiority of CE over placebo in the treatment of muscle stiffness in MS. This was supported by results for secondary efficacy variables. Adverse events in participants treated with CE were consistent with the known side effects of cannabinoids. No new safety concerns were observed.

  • How the #West de-democratised the #Middle_East

    Rather than promote democracy in the Middle East, the West has a long history of doing the exact opposite.
    Melbourne, Australia - With the momentous convulsion in the Middle East sparked by Mohamed Bouazizi’s martyrdom in January 2011, it is time to ask what happened to the question which for long dominated Western discourse on the Middle East: Is Islam compatible with democracy? The predominant answer for many years was “no”. Among others, Elie Kedourie, MS Lipset, and Huntington advocated such a position. Bernard Lewis, “the most influential postwar historian of Islam and the Middle East”, who offered “the intellectual ammunition for the Iraq War”, was most vociferous in upholding this position. Their main argument was that, unlike Christianity, Islam was unique in not differentiating religion from the state and hence democracy was impossible in Muslim polities. Against this doxa, I make three arguments.

    First, the position that Islam is incompatible with democracy was false from the beginning, because it served imperial ambitions of the West and violated Muslims’ self-perception that, not only is Islam compatible with democracy, it was one of the engines of democratic empowerment.

    Second, I argue that the West’s discourse of democratisation of the Middle East is dubious because it hides how the West actually de-democratised the Middle East. My contention is that, from the 1940s onwards, democratic experiments were well in place and the West subverted them to advance its own interests. I offer three examples of de-democratisation: The reportedly CIA-engineered coup against the elected government of Syria in 1949, the coup orchestrated by the US and UK against the democratic Iran in 1953 and subversion of Bahrain’s democracy in the 1970s. I also touch on the West’s recent de-democratisation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Third, I explain that the Middle East was de-democratised because the West rarely saw it as a collection of people with dynamic, rich social-cultural textures. The Western power elites viewed the Middle East as no more than a region of multiple resources and strategic interests; hence their aim was to keep it “stable” and “manageable”. To Ernest Bevin, foreign secretary (1945-51) of imperial Britain, without “its oil and other potential resources” there was “no hope of our being able to achieve the standard of life at which we [are] aiming in Great Britain”.

    http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/201232710543250236.html

    #democracy