In the year 2007 an HIV-positive American citizen named Timothy Ray Brown, who resides in Berlin, Germany underwent a stem cell transplant after being diagnosed with a particularly nasty form of cancer called acude myeloid leukemia. AML is a sufficiently specific syndrome that there are a couple of good treatment protocols for it, among them a stem cell transplant to replace the malfunctioning cells in the patient's bone marrow which manufacture defective blood cells. Now, here's where it gets interesting: the donor of the stem cells had a very specific genetic mutation which results in cells of the individual's immune …

As you may or may not be aware, insurance companies have some pretty manichean arbitrary criteria to decide whether or not a particular procedure, treatment, or medication are covered, or to what extent. To give you an idea of how they operate, I discovered the hard way a few months ago that my insurance company (no names or they'll probably turn around and drop Lyssa and I like a bad habit, knowing those fuckers) informed me that a particular treatment "should not" cost $190us, but "should," in fact, only cost $71us. They then informed me that they would pay only …

Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as Surgeon General of the United States of America between 2002 and 2006 has gone public with some of the problems he had after his appointment by the Bush administration, and it looks like censorship, control, and politicking were the driving force behind a lot of policies and not medical research and science. Dr. Carmona went before a committee in the House of Representatives yesterday, and went on the record in stating that he was censored in many ways by the current regime, including the editing of his speeches by aides who were idealogically closer …