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Posted by Kristal Roberts
As antibiotic resistance continues to become a growing problem for public health, new research finds that that may be a taller task than health officials originally thought.
A recent study found that as much as 30 percent of all antibiotics were prescribed unnecessarily in physician offices and clinics.
It was discovered that patients were are often prescribed antibiotics for mild health issues in cases where it was clearly unnecessary.
For example, some patients were prescribed antibiotics for the common cold, which is a virus that can be treated differently.
More than 184,000 patient visits to doctors and clinics in 2010 and 2011 were reviewed for the study. It was determined that for 506 prescriptions written for every 1,000 people, 353 were appropriate. In sum, that's an estimated 47 million prescriptions each year that are unnecessarily prescribed.
However, the reason, in part, for this is attributed to physicians feeling that patients expect t...
Posted by Kristal Roberts
If you’re unfamiliar with the term Xenotransplantation, it is the transplantation of organs, living cells, or tissues from one species to another.
In the last couple of years, the Cardiothoracic Surgery Research Program of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) had success keeping genetically engineered piglet hearts inside the abdomens of baboons for over a year.
This research caused a lot of controversy and was called a nightmare by some, but xenotransplantation is a credible science led by widely successful and respected scientists from various organizations ranging from NHLBI, and the Mayo Clinic, as well as other large pharmaceutical companies such as Novartis.
Some might question, why should we transplant animal organs to humans? Simple.
The very limited supply of organs from human donors cannot make up for the demand of hospital patients needing healthy organs for transplant.
The statistics have a way of showing us a clear...