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N.F.L. Great Ken Stabler Had Brain Disease C.T.E
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/sports/football/ken-stabler-nfl-cte-brain-disease.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
"Shortly before he died last July, the former N.F.L. quarterback Ken Stabler was rushed away by doctors, desperate to save him, in a Mississippi hospital. His longtime partner followed the scrum to the elevator, holding his hand. She told him that she loved him. Stabler said that he loved her, too.
“I turned my head to wipe the tears away,” his partner, Kim Bush, said recently. “And when I looked back, he looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘I’m tired.’ ”
They were the last words anyone in Stabler’s family heard him speak.
“I knew that was it,” Bush said. “I knew that he had gone the distance. Because Kenny Stabler was never tired.”
The day after Stabler died on July 8, a victim of colon cancer at age 69, his brain was removed during an autopsy and ferried to scientists in Massachusetts. It weighed 1,318 grams, or just under three pounds. Over several months, it was dissected for clues, as Stabler had wished, to help those left behind understand why his mind seemed to slip so precipitously in his final years.
On a scale of 1 to 4, Stabler had high Stage 3 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head, according to researchers at Boston University. The relationship between concussions and brain degeneration is still poorly understood, and some experts caution that other factors, like unrelated mood problems or dementia, might contribute to symptoms experienced by those later found to have had C.T.E.
Stabler, well known by his nickname, the Snake (“He’d run 200 yards to score from 20 yards out,” Stabler’s junior high school coach told Sports Illustrated in 1977), is one of the highest-profile football players to have had C.T.E. The list, now well over 100, includes at least seven members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, including Junior Seau, Mike Webster and Frank Gifford.
Few, if any, had the free-spirited charisma of Stabler, a longhaired, left-handed quarterback from Alabama who personified the renegade Oakland Raiders in the 1970s. Stabler was the N.F.L.’s most valuable player in 1974 and led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl title two seasons later. He ended his 15-year N.F.L. career with the New Orleans Saints in 1984.
“He had moderately severe disease,” said Dr. Ann McKee, chief of neuropathology at the V.A. Boston Healthcare System and a professor of neurology and pathology at Boston University School of Medicine, who conducted the examination. “Pretty classic. It may be surprising since he was a quarterback, but certainly the lesions were widespread, and they were quite severe, affecting many regions of the brain.”
Quarterbacks are provided more protection from hits than most football players. An offensive line’s purpose is, in part, to protect the quarterback, and leagues like the N.F.L. have special rules to discourage severe blows to players in the most important position on the field.
But Stabler’s diagnosis further suggests that no position in football, except perhaps kicker, is immune from progressive brain damage linked to hits to the head, both concussive and subconcussive.
Stabler is the seventh former N.F.L. quarterback to be found to have had C.T.E. by Boston University, which has found C.T.E. in 90 of the 94 former N.F.L. players it has examined, including the former Giants safety Tyler Sash, who died in September at age 27 and whose diagnosis was made public last week.
Because C.T.E. can be diagnosed only posthumously, and most brains are not examined for the disease, incidence rates among athletes and nonathletes are difficult to ascertain. A study by the Mayo Clinic, released last fall, found C.T.E. in 21 of 66 men who played contact sports (mostly football), but found no traces of the disease in 198 other brains of men who had no exposure to contact sports.
Scientists are quick to note that they do not understand why some football players get C.T.E. and others do not.
But the disease, once thought to mostly afflict boxers, has been found in recent years in deceased athletes who have played soccer, rugby and even baseball.
Most brains are donated by families hoping to understand why their loved one’s cognitive functions declined in later years. Symptoms of C.T.E. are similar to those of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, including memory loss, confusion, impulsiveness and depression.
“On some days, when he wasn’t feeling extremely bad, things were kind of normal,” Bush said. “But on other days it was intense. I think Kenny’s head rattled for about 10 years.”
For decades, the N.F.L. refuted research by independent experts that connect brain trauma to long-term cognitive impairment. Only in recent years, long after Stabler’s career ended, has the league begun to publicly acknowledge it has a problem.
Stabler is a finalist for this year’s Pro Football Hall of Fame class, to be voted upon by sportswriters and announced on Saturday, the day before Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara, Calif.
He was a finalist three times before, the last in 2003, and his nomination regularly led to sturdy debate. This time, Stabler was selected posthumously as a senior finalist, along with Dick Stanfel, an offensive lineman who died in June at age 87.
Like that of other famous players, Stabler’s long career may have bolstered his case for the Hall, but also made him more susceptible to long-term brain disease.
“The very severity of the disease, at least that we’re seeing in American football players, seems to correlate with the duration of play,” McKee said. “The longer they play, the more severe we see it. But it’s also the years since retirement, to the age of death — not only the longer you play, but the longer you live after you stop playing.”
After retiring from football, Stabler worked as a broadcast analyst for the N.F.L. and for the University of Alabama, where he played quarterback under Coach Bear Bryant. His damaged knees became such a problem in the past 10 years that he rarely ventured out.
It was not until the final few years that his family recognized a rapid decline in his cognitive functions, too. Several symptoms of C.T.E. began to show themselves quickly, beginning with Stabler’s complaints of a high-pitched ringing in his head. In his final year, he once grit his teeth so hard that he broke a bridge in his mouth and had to get dental implants.
“There were days when I walked in the door and looked at his face, and I could tell,” Bush said. “He was sitting in his chair, because he was always waiting for me, and the news was on and whatnot, and he had his head laid back, and his eyes just scrunched up so tight that I used to think that would give you a headache in itself, just the pure pressure of squinting like that.”
Noise and bright lights became enemies. A lifelong lover of music, Stabler stopped listening to the radio in the car, choosing to drive hours in silence. He increasingly complained about the clanging of kitchen dishes and the volume of the television.
Family and friends found him repeating himself, sharing stories privately or during public events that he had told just minutes before. He lost his sense of direction, pointing north when he spoke about the coast just a few miles south of his home in Gulfport, Miss. Driving, he became flustered at four-way stop signs.
In the fall of 2014, he moved to Arizona to be closer to his oldest daughter, Kendra Stabler Moyes, 45, and her twin sons, 17-year-old Justin and Jack, who play high school football.
“I remember them calling me and saying, ‘Mom, Papa keeps stopping at green lights,’ ” Stabler Moyes said.
Stabler recognized his decline, but it was not his personality to talk about his problems. He did not tell his daughters as he battled prostate cancer for three years, harking to what John Madden, Stabler’s coach in Oakland, described after Stabler’s death — a player who would not go into the training room until he was sure everyone else was gone.
“His vision of what a leader is, what a strong person is, is someone who did not show signs of weakness,” said Alexa Stabler, 29, the second of Stabler’s three grown daughters. “Because it would affect the people he relied on and the people he cared about, whether that was his family or his teammates.”
In his later years, Stabler worried about the risk of concussions to his grandsons, a sign of his growing ambivalence toward football. The boys lived with Stabler for a time, and he drove them to school and went to all their practices and games. Both are now juniors in high school, and neither is a quarterback, but Justin wears his grandfather’s No. 12 on the field.
“One year one of my boys wasn’t sure he was going to play, and my dad was almost superexcited about it,” Stabler Moyes said. “He said: ‘I think that’s great. He can focus on his studies.’ He loved that they played, he loved watching them, but he was so worried about concussions. He was worried about their brains.”
Stabler wondered about his own mind years before he died. He and Bush talked about it after the 2002 death of the longtime Oakland center Dave Dalby, who mysteriously crashed his car into a tree in a parking lot. It came up again after an event where Stabler saw a struggling John Mackey, the Hall of Fame tight end. Mackey died in 2011; he was found to have had C.T.E.
“I remember Kenny looking at me and saying, ‘You ready to deal with that?’ ” Bush said.
More and more of his peers had their brains examined and were found to have C.T.E., too. And when Seau, the former linebacker, shot himself in the chest in 2012 and was later found to have had C.T.E., Stabler vowed his brain for research.
“I asked him, point blank: ‘Are you willing to participate in the study? Is that something you want to do?’ ” Bush said. “He said: ‘Yeah, I want to do that. I should definitely do that.’ ”
Stabler added his name to a class-action lawsuit brought by former players against the N.F.L., seeking damages from decades of concussions. The suit was settled last April and is under appeal. Under the current deal, though, Stabler’s family would not be eligible for compensation because Stabler’s C.T.E. was diagnosed after the April 2015 cutoff.
“He played 15 seasons in the N.F.L., gave up his body and, apparently, now his mind,” Alexa Stabler said as she fought back tears. “And to see the state that he was in physically and mentally when he died, and to learn that despite all the energy and time and resources he gave to football — and not that he played the game for free, he made money, too — without the knowledge that this is where he would end up, physically and cognitively, and for the settlement to say you get nothing? It’s hard not to be angry.”
The day after last year’s Super Bowl, shortly before scheduled surgery to replace his aching knees, Stabler learned he had Stage 4 colon cancer.
“The cancer took him away, but his mind was definitely in a pretty quick downward spiral,” Stabler Moyes said. “I’m grateful that he was still so present, still so there. Because I definitely don’t think he would have been in even three more years.”
McKee found widespread damage and the buildup of abnormal tau proteins throughout Stabler’s brain, consistent with the symptoms that Stabler tried to disguise, mostly with his sense of humor, from all but his closest friends and family.
“His changes were extremely severe in parts of the brain like the hippocampus and amygdala, and those are the big learning and memory centers,” McKee said. “And when you see that kind of damage in those areas, usually people are demented. So if he was still functioning reasonably well, he was compensating, but I don’t think that compensation would have lasted much longer.”
To N.F.L. fans, it can be hard to separate the swashbuckling image of the Snake from the man his family knew — a constant presence, a willing chauffeur, a not-so-great cook.
“Certainly my friends thought it was a cool thing to have a famous father,” Marissa Stabler, 27, said. “But to them he was just Mr. Kenny, our chauffeur and our chef. He’d drive us to Alabama games. He always took the time for any fan or any person. It didn’t matter if we were out to dinner, he always set his fork down and took time for a conversation or an autograph. That’s just the person who he was, his Southern roots.”
When Stabler was 31, a 1977 Sports Illustrated feature story detailed his penchant for honky-tonks and marinas, usually with a drink in one hand and a pretty woman in the other. Already married twice, he married again before he spent 16 years in a relationship with Bush. He pondered what he might do after football. Open a honky-tonk himself, he thought.
“My lifestyle is too rough — too much booze and babes and cigarettes — to be a high school coach,” Stabler said. “I’d hardly be a shining example to the young athletes of the future.”
His family hopes that the most powerful lesson he provides is the one delivered after he was gone.
Highlights from todays's article :
- "The first thing that needs to be done before anything else is diagnosis without an autopsy. Without diagnosis during life, there can be no treatment. Aethlon Medical Inc. (AEMD) has taken the lead on that front, partnered with Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) subsidiary Avid Radiopharmaceuticals."
- Aethlon's Exosome Sciences is conducting Alzheimer's and CTE diagnostic tests. The company has just completed a phase 2 study of its experimental biomarker, TauSome, to investigate its efficacy as a blood based test to diagnose CTE. The trial was conducted in collaboration with the Boston University CTE research center, which recently completed a separate study in which it investigated CTE prevalence in the brains of 91 former NFL players post mortem. The study found CTE in 96% of brains tested - 87 out of the 91 - suggesting CTE has a much higher incidence rate among NFL players than previously thought.
- We are yet to hear full topline data, but the trial is completed. A good hint of what we'll see with the full data comes from lead physician Dr. Robert Stern who is conducting the trial. He has stated that the tausome level is much higher in the former NFL group than the control group, and that the level of tau present correlates with the severity of memory loss.
- Since there is no current diagnosis tool available for CTE, if Exosome can get its candidate approved, it would be the only player in a large market of retired athletes. Going forward, this could bode well for Aethlon, making the latter an intriguing exposure especially given that a pivotal phase 2 trial is already completed.
This would actually be good news and add more credibility to the whole project. JMHO
sewer182,
Most of the posts from the day before were press articles from around Oct/Nov last year and I did make a note pointing to that fact for most of them. I had posted a lot of these when they were released last year, on the Yahoo boards and I tried to do so again a few days back, but for some reason the Yahoo boards kept on deleting the posts instantly! Sorry about the confusion though.
My reason for reposting these articles is because they are even more relevant now after the FDA
approval and they do a good job outlining the advantages of INVOcell. Also, besides showing that INVO already has an international reach, the press coverage also highlights why it has a potential to reach many areas of the world where traditional IVF cannot, esp. the "mobile INVO" idea. I have to assume that there is a big subset of the international population for which traditional IVF is unaffordable and/or difficult to access. Depending on how the company plans, INVO may have a bigger international presence then in the US.
INVOCELL MEDICAL DEVICE: AN INCUBATOR WITHIN A WOMAN’S BODY (From Canada)
http://lotusclinics.eu/uncategorized/invocell-medical-device-an-incubator-within-a-womans-body/
The IVF postcode lottery that' stopping women from becoming mums
http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/ivf-postcode-lottery-that-stopping-4532868
Excerpts :
"Here are some of developments that could make IVF more affordable:
INVOcell
This tiny plastic mini-incubator nurtures embryos inside a woman’s body and could have the potential to halve the cost of IVF by removing the need for lab incubators. In a pilot study, women using INVOcell were just as likely to become pregnant as women on standard IVF. The device is placed inside the vagina – which is the ideal temperature for embryo development. After five days, the device is removed and the best embryos transferred to the womb."
If you need IVF, you shouldn’t have to check your postcode first (From UK)
Kate Brian
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/03/fertility-ivf-uk-treatment-nhs
Another clinic from India -
http://www.best-hospital-infertility.com/advanced-treatments/invo-cell/
For many people, the problems of infertility treatment stems from the fact that, in-vitro fertilization procedures are expensive. The cost of IVF procedures can make infertility treatment intangible. INVO cell fertility treatment offers an alternative to couples who have difficulties in financing expensive IVF treatments and for women who want to avoid the use of heavy fertility drugs.
Also, the participation of the patient in the process of fertilisation and early embryo development is a psychological benefit that creates a high level of acceptance for INVOcell.
Importantly, INVOcell can also be used in remote areas in India, where the electric supply is erratic. It can replace the CO2 incubator which is dependent on constant electric supply and is the heart of a standard IVF unit.
Mini ‘body incubator’ may halve cost of IVF (Nov, 2014)
http://beta.iol.co.za/lifestyle/parenting/mini-body-incubator-may-halve-cost-of-ivf-1775120
"Almost half of the 50 000 women who have IVF in Britain each year, for example, pay for it themselves, spending as much as £15 000 (R264 000) a session.
South Africans seeking help with infertility can also find the costs sky-rocketing."
Intravaginal Incubation of Embryos is Safe and Effective and Could Save Patients Money (FROM 2014)
https://www.asrm.org/Intravaginal_Incubation_of_Embryos_is_Safe_and_Effective_and_Could_Save_Patients_Money/
“In vitro fertilization is the most effective treatment for infertility and the only one that is suitable for many. IVF is also resource-intensive and its expense can put it out of reach of many patients who would benefit from it. These studies show how innovative technology may be able to reduce some of the laboratory costs and lead to wider availability of treatment,” noted Charles Coddington, MD, President of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology.
The mini incubator that could halve cost of IVF: 'Champagne cork' device may give thousands of women chance of motherhood (From 2014)
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2802476/the-mini-incubator-halve-cost-ivf-champagne-cork-device-thousands-women-chance-motherhood.html#ixzz3r0TDXouj
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Excerpts
‘We are trying to simplify the whole process – what we like to call effortless IVF.’
In a conventional IVF lab, fledgling embryos are kept in expensive incubators for up to five days before the best ones are put into the woman’s body.
This is costly. The incubators cost tens of thousands of pounds each and have to be constantly monitored to make sure they are working properly, are at the right temperature and contain the right mix of gases for the delicate embryos to grow.
The INVOcell technique lowers costs by doing away with the incubators and the need for constant monitoring.
The early-stage embryos are instead nurtured inside a clear plastic device of roughly the same size and shape as a champagne bottle cork.
This is placed inside the woman’s vagina, which is at the right temperature and contains the right mix of carbon dioxide and oxygen for growth.
Nine babies have so far been born using the new, cheaper, IVF technique.
After three to five days, it is removed and the best embryos transferred to the woman’s womb as usual.
Costs are also cut by giving lower doses of the powerful drugs used to boost egg production ahead of IVF.
Lower doses also mean that a woman needs to make fewer visits to the IVF clinic to check the drugs are working properly.
So rather than taking time off work for ten trips to her doctor, she only needs three appointments.
In a study of 33 infertile women, pregnancy rates were the same among those who used INVOcell as those whose embryos were nurtured in incubators.
Dr Doody, of the Center for Assisted Reproduction in Bedford, Texas, said: ‘We are amazed that we could grow beautiful, top-quality embryos without the complexity of an incubator.’
His wife, Dr Kathleen Doody, said: ‘We definitely had feedback from patients that it seemed more natural to them.’
It is hoped that by simplifying the process, it will be possible to provide IVF from mobile units, making it more accessible for those who don’t live in big towns and cities.
Dr Doody, who has shares in the device’s manufacturer, Massachusetts-based INVO Bioscience, said that while it won’t be suitable for all women, it could help up to two-thirds of patients.
The device may also make IVF more acceptable to the Catholic Church, which disapproves of IVF because fertilisation takes place outside the body and in a dish.
With INVOcell, fertilisation takes place once the device is inside the woman’s body.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2802476/the-mini-incubator-halve-cost-ivf-champagne-cork-device-thousands-women-chance-motherhood.html#ixzz3r0TDXouj
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Vivo Culture System Using the INVOcell Device Shows Similar Pregnancy and Implantation Rates to Those Obtained from In Vivo Culture System in ICSI Procedures (Jun 2015)
http://www.la-press.com/in-vivo-culture-system-using-the-invocell-device-shows-similar-pregnan-article-a4894
Fertility clinic first in Canada to allow IVF patients to ‘incubate’ embryos inside their bodies
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/fertility-clinic-first-in-canada-to-allow-ivf-patients-to-incubate-embryos-inside-their-bodies
Experimental Infertility Treatment Seems Effective, Cheaper (From 2014)
"My impression is wow, this is really interesting stuff," said Dr. Timothy Hickman, chief of reproductive endocrinology at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas. "IVF tends to be a highly complex process ... and here's a novel way to try to provide something for a certain population that can benefit. This is never going to replace an IVF lab, but maybe for a certain population it may work out right."
A second study on the INVOcell device presented at the reproductive medicine meeting indicated that the technique is also effective when eggs need to be manually injected with sperm to achieve fertilization, a procedure called intracytoplasmic sperm injection.
Dr. Elkin Lucena, scientific director and founder of Colombian Fertility and Sterility Center in Bogota, led research on couples who underwent 172 cycles of IVF in which their embryos were incubated in the INVOcell device for three days, with an average of two embryos transferred into the uterus afterward. Pregnancy resulted in 40 percent of embryo transfers -- roughly the same rate as conventional IVF.
"Especially from a psychological impact, couples feel they're participating in conception too and carrying their own [offspring] inside of them instead of in a lab," Lucena said. "And the cost is lowered a lot, which is making it easier for people to access these techniques."
INVO- AFFORDABLE IVF - Bodycheck international clinic
http://www.bodycheckclinic.com/index.php/news-events
The INVO cell is a small capsule that is designed for the incubation of eggs and sperm for embryo development in infertility treatments. Unlike conventional infertility treatment, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), the INVO cell utilizes the woman’s vaginal as a natural incubator to support embryo development. This novel INVO cell technology offers patients a more personal approach to achieving pregnancy.
For many couple who struggle with infertility, access to treatment is not always possible. Financial challenges, limited availability of specialized medical care, and social or cultural road blocks are all examples of what can prevent hopeful parents from realizing their dream of giving birth to a baby of their own.
The INVO procedure can provide more and more patients with the possibility of receiving safe, effective and Affordable infertility treatment. The INVO procedure enables the fertilization of the egg to occur in a woman’s vaginal cavity and not on a laboratory bench. This makes infertility treatments a more personal and natural experience.
At Cecolfes infertility clinic in Bogota, Colombia, Dr. Elkin Lucena and his team have been using this techniques since 2008 with good results. Achieving an avarege pregnancy rate of 50% and above. Similar success rates have been achieved in the USA by Dr Doody in Texas with up to 68% success rates. Now, at BodyCheck International Clinic ,we happy to announce the availability of this ground breaking form of IVF.
With INVO, we are happy to make IVF more affordable with good results. In June/July 2014, our team of physicians underwent clinical fellowship training in Bogota under Dr Elkin Lucena and returned to start the INVO-IVF program. For more enquiries and consultations call 2348033454006,2348036722783.
INVO IS A SIMPLE ,SUCCESSFUL, LOW COST REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY THAT WILL ALLOW INFERTILE COUPLES TO ACHIEVE THEIR DREAM .
Nigeria Opens the First INVO Unit in Africa
From 2014 -
http://www.bodycheckclinic.com/index.php/news-events/13-news/33-nigeria-opens-the-first-invo-unit-in-africa
Some other sports where CTE should be looked into :
Boxing - Professional and Amateur
Hockey
MMA
Wrestling
Martial Arts
Thank you.
Craig2, we have a lot of moderators, so you are correct. We do not need more moderators. But someone has to update the iBox to reflect the current events with AEMD. This would help all of us in the long run.
Craig2, Hooserfan, Andy....I have a request - Can one of you become the moderator and work on the ibox. Each of you has been sincerely involved in AEMD for many years, knows what is going on, sees the big picture and brings a lot to this board. AEMD has much more to offer than just what is in the news currently. A lot has happened in the past couple of years and the momentum for the company has changed. AEMD is strongly involved in a lot of different fields - HIV, HCV, Ebola, Sepsis with DARPA/Batelle, exosome research with the major cancer institutions in the country and also the NFL, etc., An ibox update would give new investors a better picture of the company on one site.
For the moderators, please update the inbox with the latest headlines from the company, article from Time, Fox etc., This would be good for new serious investors researching the stock.
Alzheimer’s Test Detects Disease Decade Ahead of Onset
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-16/alzheimer-s-blood-test-may-detect-disease-decade-before-onset.html?cmpid=yhoo
Liquid Biopsies - New Cancer Detection Technique Has Enormous Potential for Life Science Stocks
(This aspect of AEMD has taken a backstage recently).This is repost
Read more: New Cancer Detection Technique Has Enormous Potential for Life Science Stocks - Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/healthcare-business/2014/11/11/new-cancer-detection-technique-has-enormous-potential-for-life-science-stocks/#ixzz3Inn1RpYM
Follow us: @247wallst on Twitter | 247wallst on Facebook
China facing cancer 'epidemic -(Another liquid biopsy market for AEMD)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-30076937
bkbbk5 - I echo your thoughts. I wonder if the involved German Hospital would order more filters as they seem to be one of German go to centers for Ebola. They may even approach AEMD for doing clinical trials. This is just my take from the TIME article.
"While puling viruses out of infected individuals has never been tried before, Geiger believes it will be an important strategy for treating not just Ebola but other vial infections as well, including HIV, hepatitis and even influenza. “It’s a very interesting concept. The big advantage is that the plasma is filtered, and only the virus is removed and the other plasma components like immune cells go back to the patient. That’s important because with viral infections, the patient is in a reduced immune situation.”
Ebola Flaring Anew In Africa: Red Cross
Posted: 11/17/2014 11:50 am EST Updated: 1 hour ago
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/17/ebola-africa_n_6172010.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
"Meanwhile, Birte Hald of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies told reporters in Brussels that the virus "is flaring up in new villages, in new locations."
She said: "It is absolutely premature to start being optimistic.""
bkbk5,
Thank you for your kind words.
The reason I wrote that yesterday was because currently the only accepted standard is the viral load. I did try to find about the total viral numbers in a person as a gauge to response to treatment but could find anything. I remember JJ saying that the FDA had asked if AEMD could extract the virus from the HP after the treatment they had conducted in India. JJ did mentioned that it was unprecedented but they got it done. They showed that they could extract billions of the HCV after each treatment. Considering that currently there is no scientific way to use that information, I just take it as a fact - an impressive fact which to me says yes the HP does work fast, is efficient and potent both, and probably faster than any possible treatment for whichever applications it has.
Thank you again.
World Bank Funds Ebola Hub That May Spur Security Corps
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-30/world-bank-funds-ebola-hub-that-may-spur-security-corps.html
"If the virus continues to surge in the three worst-affected countries and spreads to neighboring nations, the two-year regional financial impact could reach $32.6 billion by the end of 2015, the bank said on Oct. 8."
Ebola Treatment Is Very Expensive
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-30/treatment-for-ebola-can-cost-up-to-500-000
"Based on a two-week confinement, Lockton estimates that the minimum expense for an intensive care unit alone at any hospital would reach $100,000. Experimental medication expenses or care in a specialized biocontainment facility could easily push costs to $500,000 or more. That doesn’t account for potential complications like loss of hearing or vision, bringing disability or long-term health care costs into play."
A single HP treatment would go a long way in bringing down the above mentioned costs.
World Bank May Help Indemnify Ebola Vaccine Makers, WHO Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-13/world-bank-may-help-indemnify-ebola-vaccine-makers-who-says.html
Someone needs to let the WB know about the HP.
bkbbk5,
I have to thank you for your opinions on the AEMD board. You got me doing some internet research.
Here it goes :
- Blood volume :It is unlikely to be 5000 cvs as when the treatment was started, the doc. was already very sick. There is unceasing diarrhea in Ebola which means that a person becomes dehydrated resulting in a significantly low blood volume - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehydration. So his blood volume would not be 5000. After reading a few online article about diarrhea, I am assuming it would be significantly decreased.
Also, blood volume is combination of red cells and plasma - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_volume
- Plasma volume is about 55% of the total blood volume (which would be decreased in someone dehydrated) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_plasma
Viral load is measured in the Plasma not in the total blood volume - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_load.
Considering all this, your equation needs to be modified (I say this respectfully).
The most important fact is the viral load as per Dr. Geiger. According to him,“We did not know if it was possible to retract viruses from the blood,” says Geiger. “But we knew from earlier data that viral load is directly correlated to the outcome of the patient. We thought if we could reduce the viral load through some kind of intervention, then it would be positive for the patient.” It did go down from 400,000 to 1000 per cc of plasma and did not go up after that. More importantly he was in multiorgan failure and unconscious before the use of the HP and improved rapidly after its use. See post 8522.
I completely agree that by reducing the viral load, the overwhelming burden on the immune system is decreased (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_load).
By JJ - The Ebola, Dengue, Enterovirus, and Chikungunya Outbreaks - (Repost from Sept 2014)
See more at: http://www.thechairmansblog.com/aethlon-medical/james-joyce/ebola-dengue-enterovirus-chickungunya-outbreaks/#sthash.ok6SuplB.dpuf
From the TIME article -
Dr. Helmut Geiger and his colleagues knew they had a challenge on their hands. They made sure the patient, a Ugandan pediatrician who had been treating Ebola patients, was hydrated and received the proper nutrients. They also tried several experimental therapies, but despite their efforts, the patient quickly deteriorated. He needed a ventilator to breathe, and as the virus ravaged his body, several of his organs, including his kidneys, failed. The medical team placed him on dialysis and hoped for the best.
“We did not know if it was possible to retract viruses from the blood,” says Geiger. “But we knew from earlier data that viral load is directly correlated to the outcome of the patient. We thought if we could reduce the viral load through some kind of intervention, then it would be positive for the patient.”
Their hunch paid off. The device, called the Hemopurifier, was attached to the dialysis machine that was already filtering the patient’s blood. The specially designed filter is made of a protein that acts as glue for proteins found on the Ebola virus’s surface. Over a period of 6.5 hours, the filter extracted the virus from the blood that flows through. While most dialysis filters can pull out molecules that are less than 4 nanometers in diameter, the virus filter boasts a mesh that’s able to filter out larger viral particles that are less than 250 nanometers. That means only the virus is pulled out, and the immune cells remain in the blood, ready to fight off any remaining viral invaders.
“We had no [idea] about how much [virus] would be extracted, because this was the first patient, but I was very surprised because the drop in viral load was deeper than I expected,” says Geiger. Before the filtration began, the patient’s virus count was about 400,000 per mL blood. After the session it had dropped to 1,000 copies/mL.
Freed from that viral burden, the patient soon began to improve rapidly. His own immune system began fighting off the remaining virus, and he no longer needs dialysis or a ventilator.
While puling viruses out of infected individuals has never been tried before, Geiger believes it will be an important strategy for treating not just Ebola but other vial infections as well, including HIV, hepatitis and even influenza. “It’s a very interesting concept. The big advantage is that the plasma is filtered, and only the virus is removed and the other plasma components like immune cells go back to the patient. That’s important because with viral infections, the patient is in a reduced immune situation.”
From Fox News (Apologize, in case has been posted already)- on front page of Yahoo news
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/11/14/patient-cured-ebola-in-germany-treated-with-bio-filtration-device/
From KCTV5 (11/14/14)
http://www.kctv5.com/story/27386959/aethlon-medicals-hemopurifier-used-in-successful-treatment-of-patient-with-advanced-ebola-infection
"At the time of Hemopurifier® administration, Dr. Geiger reported that the Ebola patient was unconscious and suffering from multiple organ failure, which required mechanical ventilation, continuous dialysis and the administration of vasopressor medications."