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Who is Mr. Farthing and what does he have to do with Kate Middleton’s fertility?

Today, the magazine In Touch Weekly published a non-story entitled Will & Kate’s Baby Heartbreak. The article, based on anonymous “royal sources,” claims that stepmother Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall told a friend that “health complications from Kate’s adolescence raised red flags that may have an impact on her ability to conceive.” The article goes [...]

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Is Hillary Clinton shocked, or just allergic?

A photo President Barack Obama and other senior officials watching the operation live from the White House situation room has become one of the most striking images of the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is shown with her hand over her mouth.  It now [...]

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George Washington , Smallpox, and the American Revolution

In honor of Presidents’ Day, I thought it would be a good idea to talk briefly about the role that smallpox played in the life of our first president and it’s important role in the American Revolution. For those who would like to learn about this in greater detail, I would highly recommend the book, [...]

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Chopin May Have Had Epilepsy

Today we bring you a very interesting article thanks to our colleagues at MedpageToday. We reproduce it here with their permission. Chopin May Have Had Epilepsy By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today Published: January 24, 2011 Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The hallucinations of Polish [...]

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US mourns loss of Peace Corps founder Sargent Shriver

It was announced today that Peace Corps founder and director Sargent Shriver has died at the age of 95.  Shriver,  father of Maria Shriver and widower of Kennedy sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was also an unsuccessful Vice-Presidential candidate who ran with George McGovern in 1972. Shriver had suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease for the past 8 [...]

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Kate Middleton Mom’s Royal Wedding Diet

What do the mother of Prince William’s fiancée and The Price is Right host Drew Carey have in common? Carole Middleton and Drew are both on no carb/low carb diets. The so-called Dukan Diet, named for its inventor Dr. Pierre Dukan, seems like Atkins with a French accent or now, perhaps, South Beach on the [...]

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R U a slack-jawed yokel?

Dan Olds from Beaverton, Oregon has characterized those of us who are interested in popular culture as “slack-jawed yokels”  in a recent interview with Sharon Gaudin of Computerworld. Olds’ characterization was based on the fact that, in 2010, eight of the top 10 searches on Yahoo! were about celebrities or “pseudo celebs” such as Lady [...]

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Steve McQueen, alternative medicine and the beginnings of medical tourism

Steve McQueen (1930-1980) was the “king of cool,” academy award-winning, A-list actor of the 1960s and 1970s and, at one point, was the highest paid movie star in the world. Mr. McQueen got sick in 1979 while acting in and directing his the movie Tom Horn and was diagnosed with mesothioma. He died a year [...]

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Did chronic constipation kill The King? Could a colostomy have been his cure?

Fox News’ Hollie McKay claims that it was Elvis’ constipated colon that caused his last curtain to fall. McKay reports that, according to Elvis Presley’s now-retired personal physician, Dr. “Nick” Nichopoulos, The King’s autopsy revealed that his large intestine was twice the diameter and twice the length of a normal colon. The article speculates that something called “Hershberger’s disease” could have been the underlying cause (This is just a careless mistake because what Dr. Nick is referring to is Hirschsprung’s Disease, an unlikely explanation of Elvis’ constipation because this disease — also known as aganglionic megacolon — is a congenital disease of newborn children who, if untreated, die within a few weeks).

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When illness goes public: Celebrity Patients and How We Look at Medicine

In his book “When Illness Goes Public: Celebrity Patients and How We Look at Medicine,” Dr. Barron Lerner of Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, explores how celebrity patients have influenced public attitudes toward diseases and their treatments by analyzing 12 case studies between 1938 and 1992. Dr. Lerner describes how celebrity cases can educate the public, create advocates for research and patient care on behalf of other people with the same disease, and have even influenced aspects of doctors’ professional training.

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