Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Cancers can vanish without treatment
NYTIMES
Call it the arrow of cancer. Like the arrow of time, it was supposed to point in one direction. Cancers grew and worsened.
But as a paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted last week, data from more than two decades of screening for breast and prostate cancer call that view into question. Besides finding tumors that would be lethal if left untreated, screening appears to be finding many small tumors that would not be a problem if they were left alone, undiscovered by screening. They were destined to stop growing on their own or shrink, or even, at least in the case of some breast cancers, disappear.
“The old view is that cancer is a linear process,” said Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health.
“A cell acquired a mutation, and little by little it acquired more and more mutations. Mutations are not supposed to revert spontaneously.”[...]
Call it the arrow of cancer. Like the arrow of time, it was supposed to point in one direction. Cancers grew and worsened.
But as a paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted last week, data from more than two decades of screening for breast and prostate cancer call that view into question. Besides finding tumors that would be lethal if left untreated, screening appears to be finding many small tumors that would not be a problem if they were left alone, undiscovered by screening. They were destined to stop growing on their own or shrink, or even, at least in the case of some breast cancers, disappear.
“The old view is that cancer is a linear process,” said Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health.
“A cell acquired a mutation, and little by little it acquired more and more mutations. Mutations are not supposed to revert spontaneously.”[...]
Abuse: Elior Chen extradited to Israel
JPOST
Elior Chen, the self-styled rabbi who allegedly influenced some of his followers to abuse their children in order to "correct their corrupt souls," was extradited to Israel overnight Tuesday.
Police are expected to request a remand extension on Wednesday morning.
The 29-year-old Beitar Ilit resident fled to Brazil more than a year ago after a terrifying affair of child abuse in a haredi family in Jerusalem was exposed. [...]
Elior Chen, the self-styled rabbi who allegedly influenced some of his followers to abuse their children in order to "correct their corrupt souls," was extradited to Israel overnight Tuesday.
Police are expected to request a remand extension on Wednesday morning.
The 29-year-old Beitar Ilit resident fled to Brazil more than a year ago after a terrifying affair of child abuse in a haredi family in Jerusalem was exposed. [...]
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
From Judaism to Islam & back again
JPOST
Sometimes embracing a faith is easier than living with the people who profess that faith.
This was a lesson well-learned by "X," a young woman who was born a Jew, converted to Islam but last week stood before a rabbinical court in Jerusalem and declared her fidelity to Judaism.
Once she had made the decision to embrace Islam, it was easy enough for X to make the shahada: "There is only one God and He is Allah and Muhammad is his messenger."
But it was altogether a different story when it came to living with Muslims. The cultural differences were impossible to bridge. [...]
Sometimes embracing a faith is easier than living with the people who profess that faith.
This was a lesson well-learned by "X," a young woman who was born a Jew, converted to Islam but last week stood before a rabbinical court in Jerusalem and declared her fidelity to Judaism.
Once she had made the decision to embrace Islam, it was easy enough for X to make the shahada: "There is only one God and He is Allah and Muhammad is his messenger."
But it was altogether a different story when it came to living with Muslims. The cultural differences were impossible to bridge. [...]
Monday, October 26, 2009
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