<img alt=“Appendix.jpg” src=“https://blogs.nature.com/nm/spoonful/Appendix.jpg” width=“250” height=“197” align=“right” border=0 hspace=“10px”/>
— All eyes remain on Haiti as the 7.0 earthquake becomes a continued public health emergency. Infectious diseases including cholera, typhus, and malaria are all major concerns, but you can add to the list mental illness, the seeds of which are developing in the tragedy’s wake. Help is pouring in, often in unexpected ways: Containers to Clinics, a startup nonprofit, is looking to send its modified shipping containers to Port-au-Prince. Meanwhile, Oxford evolutionist Richard Dawkins has set up a website called ‘Non-Believers Giving Aid’—“a religion-free way to help disaster victims,” according to the site. The pharmaceutical industry’s Drug Information Association is also offering to match donations.
— A study suggests that appendicitis may be caused at times by viral infection, making removal unnecessary. Comparing rates of incidence, researchers ruled out several intestinal diseases, as well as influenza—although both flu and inflamed vestigial organs seem to share similar underlying viral culprits. (ScienceDaily)
— Members of the pharmaceutical industry are lobbying against Peter Sawicki, the founding director of Germany’s Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care whose contract goes up for renewal later this year. Considered unfriendly to the industry, Sawicki is also facing ethics charges for improperly claiming €1100 ($1570) in private costs. (ScienceInsider)
— The US Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday that it would be putting $30 million in stimulus funding toward animal and human studies of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used in plastics that has been linked to heart disease and other problems. For a look at the reproductive effects of BPA, check out this News and Views article from the November 2008 issue of Nature Medicine. (Reuters)
Image by Thomas Roche via Flickr Creative Commons