Early Warning For Cancer?

In the article An Early Warning System For Cancer written by Jennifer Chu she discusses a new potential early warning system for cancer. The research consists of testing to see if there are autoantibodies in the bloodstream. Autoantibodies are agents in the bloodstream that attack the body itself found in cases when patients with tumors or have been recently diagnosed with cancer. There is however no strong link proven yet explains the author but the signs are there. The most interesting part about the use of marking autoantibodies is that none were found in healthy patients. However they were in about 20-30% of patients with cancer. This may not seem significant but with more research one may know that having autoantibodies in ones system could be a signal to get checked for cancer. The research is promising and even with not a significant percentage of cancer patients having the autoantibodies in them there is a few percent of people that can be saved because of it.

The author discusses how this test should be included with a yearly physical to let the person be aware if there are autoantibodies to go get checked out. I agree completely with her for the autoantibodies can be a first sign of cancer developing and by stopping it while it is starting would save many lives. This is also promising for it allows a marker that is find in people that have something wrong in their body know there is something wrong. There is also no evidence of there being auto antibodies in healthy individuals. So either way there may be cancer or something else wrong in either case the patient can get checked and potentially get cured before anything happens.

Never-Ending Plastic

In the article Polymers Are Forever, there is a shocking truth that no one seems to be concerned with. Since plastic production has begun the ocean waters have become filled with its byproducts. After WWII there was a rocket increase in plastics. The plastics over the last 50 years have not left us yet though. They are still around us in the forests and waters. They are attractants to toxic substances. One report found that the concentration of poison in a bird to be exponentially high. This could cause biological magnification, meaning the higher up on the food chain the more concentrated the toxins could be. If the waste of plastic is not controlled it could change how the world is structured and could cause drastic changes in the order of nature. One scientist does state that it will just take time for evolution to occur in microorganism to have the ability to better decompose the plastic. Only the future shall know the price of our advances in technology.

People in Long Term Comas Not Necessarily Brain Dead

After reading the article Brain Imaging Lets Vegetative Patient Communicate by Emily Singer, it has made me think about the ethics and handling of supposed brain dead patients. It has also made me realize how far our society has come in the medical field. In this case study by Singer she found that vegetative patients were able to answer yes or no questions by having the patient imagine if they were doing a motor task or a spatial task. Each of those tasks cause different parts of the brain to flare up. They monitored these flares using an MRI machine.

The problems with this are plenty however. The costs for tests are substantial and cannot always be reliable. Patients could have sever cognitive dysfunctions impairing them from having there will be shown appropriately. This also brings in the question of what defines the term alive and conscience. Whatever the answers may be the scientific and medical community will need to decide what would be the proper way of treating those in a vegetative state. Even though some patients may exhibit ability to actively control there mind they still may never wake up from the coma. There is no sure way yet to know how patients could wake up.