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He's
got a bun in the oven
BEND, OREGON —
"I'm a person and I have the right to have my own biological
child," Thomas Beatie told Oprah in early April as he
held his five-months-pregnant belly. Mr Beatie, a transgender
man from Bend, Oregon, kept his female reproductive
organs after undergoing chest reconstruction and testosterone
therapy eight years ago and got pregnant using a home
insemination kit. "Who hires a surrogate if they are
capable of carrying their own child?" he asked the television
star.
Alpacas
barred from hospitals
TORONTO —
Keep those monkeys, prairie dogs, hedgehogs and alpacas
out of the hospital, urges a recently released set of
recommendations for pet visits. Published in March's
American Journal of Infection Control by a team
of researchers from Ontario and the United States, the
list also warns against giving animals access to patient
bathrooms to make sure they don't drink from the toilet
bowl and end up spreading more than love.
US
gov't court concedes vaccine-autism link
ROCKVILLE, MD
— An American court set up to compensate
victims of vaccine injuries decided early last month
that an autistic girl contracted her disease as an indirect
result of being vaccinated. Vaccination critics welcomed
the decision as a vindication of their struggle, but
others — including the girl's father, a neurologist
who's published on the subject — point out that
the court made clear the girl's "underlying mitochondrial
disorder" was central to the beginning of her autism.
Dr
Death goes to Washington
DETROIT —
After being released from jail last year, assisted-suicide
advocate Jack Kevorkian is planning to run as an independent
for a Congressional seat representing Detroit's suburbs
in this November's elections. Prosecutor Dave Gorcyca,
whose office was responsible for sending "Dr Death"
to prison, dismissed the bid as a publicity stunt. "To
call attention to himself is standard protocol for Jack
when he doesn't have the limelight focused on him."
Pay
more, suffer less
DURHAM, NC —
Want to heal patients' pain? Charge them more money
for their drugs, suggests a research letter published
last month in JAMA. Researchers from MIT and
Duke University zapped a group of patients with a jolt
of electricity, then told half of them that a new painkiller
cost $2.50 a pop, and the other half that the drug had
been marked down to just a dime per pill. Patients who
paid more, it turned out, felt less pain.
Ratty
stench halts op
LONDON, UK —
When 19-year-old Andrew Crowper entered a London
hospital's OR recently, the smell was overwhelming.
The odour was unmistakably dead rat. A brief search
commenced and the staff realized there was, in fact,
a dead rodent in the ceiling. The surgeon wanted to
go ahead anyhow, Mr Cowper told Reuters. "I asked him:
'If you were me, would you have the operation?' He looked
at me and said 'No.'"
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