Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Good Sense, Best Intentions, and a Revision
A US District judge has placed an injunction on the federal government's enforcement of part of the "global gag rule" on HIV/AIDS funding. Not the whole war won, but a significant victory; I don't have much confidence in our rather packed Supreme Court to do the right thing with this. There are some good judges left, it seems.
In a move that sounds like an excellent idea, the CDC will recommend that HIV testing become a routine part of care for all teens and adults. I say sounds like an excellent idea because it's not clear that the result won't be disaster. People may start avoiding care to avoid testing. False positives may cause some serious panic, and decreased faith in the tests. They're rare, but with vastly increased test rates, error numbers will likely increase as well...which the Scare-o-Vision news media will play up all over the place. Not really sure how I feel about this move.
It appears that all the research into ghrelin as an obesity treatment may have been barking up the wrong tree. Baylor researchers suggest that it may be involved in glucose homeostasis, and diabetes type 2, but not directly in weight gain/loss. Interesting, given its postulated role in memory: insulin is also tied to long-term recall.
In a move that sounds like an excellent idea, the CDC will recommend that HIV testing become a routine part of care for all teens and adults. I say sounds like an excellent idea because it's not clear that the result won't be disaster. People may start avoiding care to avoid testing. False positives may cause some serious panic, and decreased faith in the tests. They're rare, but with vastly increased test rates, error numbers will likely increase as well...which the Scare-o-Vision news media will play up all over the place. Not really sure how I feel about this move.
It appears that all the research into ghrelin as an obesity treatment may have been barking up the wrong tree. Baylor researchers suggest that it may be involved in glucose homeostasis, and diabetes type 2, but not directly in weight gain/loss. Interesting, given its postulated role in memory: insulin is also tied to long-term recall.
