An Old War Revisited From Lung Cancer To Cardiovascular, Pulmonary and Neurological Diseases

Healthday

"Over time, this imbalance can play a significant role in causing certain illnesses including cardiovascular, pulmonary and neurological diseases, as well as cancer."

"We were surprised by the gravity of the effect that one vaping session can have on healthy young people."

"This brief vaping session [the basis of the research study] was not dissimilar to what they [study subjects] may experience at a party, yet the effects were dramatic."

"While there’s a perception that e-cigarettes are safer than tobacco cigarettes, these findings show clearly and definitively that there is no safe level of vaping. The results are clear, unambiguous and concerning."

Holly Middlekauff, professor of cardiology and physiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA

Oxidative stress levels as much as quadrupled after nonsmokers used an e-cigarette for just a half-hour, scientists found.   Shutterstock/Pavel Kant

New research published in JAMA Pediatrics concludes that a mere 30 minutes of vaping can result in an imbalance between free radicals (molecules which damage cells) and antioxidants (compounds which inhibit free radicals), elevating cellular oxidative stress. The result is the potential for a significant increase in cellular oxidative stress level, leading to the creation of an internal environment which can result in a range of illness, including cancer, over time.

Popularly considered to represent a safer method of consuming tobacco, e-cigarettes or vape pens, it would appear, are anything but. Detrimental developments in the body foreshadowing serious health issues result from the use of these devices meant to deliver nicotine and other chemicals in vapour form rather than smoke. 

The test devised by researchers led by Dr.Middlekauff at UCLA saw researchers recruiting 32 men and women between ages 21 and 33, divided into three groups. The groups were represented by 11 non-smokers, nine regular tobacco smokers, and a dozen e-cigarette smokers. Oxidative stress was measured by the research team through the collection of immune cells prior to and following the three groups having engaged in a 30-minute vaping period.

The researchers found that oxidative stress levels in non-smokers were two to four times higher than prior to the test, after the test subjects had vaped for 30 minutes. A similar increase was not seen in the other two groups, the theory being that the other study subjects had started from a higher baseline of oxidative stress stemming from their prior exposure as smokers and e-vapers which led to a less notable increase.

These findings sound the alarm respecting the safety of vaping, given the reality that vaping has become extremely popular among the young globally. In Canada, roughly15 percent of youth between the ages of 15 and 19 claimed to have vaped within a 30-day period, with 87 percent specifying a nicotine product. And while another 36 percent said they had initiated use of the devices on a casual basis, of those who had reported vaping, one-third owned to habitually vaping on a daily basis.

Researchers say the results suggest there is no safe level of vaping, Getty

Russian Roulette by Any Other Means

 Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images files

"There will always be a market for people who wouldn't necessarily have access to that medicine and wanted to protect themselves and their families."

"There will be, certainly globally, a lot of money that can be made by criminals."

Amy Shortman, pharmaceutical logistics expert, Overhaul, supply chain security

"We need to tell people at the vaccine centres that they carry gold."

"Criminals don't see a vaccine load, they see money."

Thorsten Neumann, head, Tapa, European arm supply chain security association

"Pharmaceutical manufacturers are already spending a lot of time to make sure their products and their supply chain is secure."

"I don't think there is any other industry on the globe that is as prepared for something like this."

Chuck Forsaith, head, Pharmaceutical Cargo Security Coalition, industry association

"We have seen very targeted (cyber) attacks related to the vaccine. The health sector is not very mature in terms of cyber-security", according to Evangelos Ouzounis, head of the secure infrastructure unit at Enisa, the EU Agency for Cyber-security. One opinion based on experience and the reality of the situation, the other quick to run to defence of the industry's capability of protecting their products from the grasp of a criminal element. So, which is it? where is the biased assurance and where the reality-based acknowledgement?

 

The most secure government and their agencies sites for whom a firewall of restricted entry has been relied upon for its assurances of being impervious to cyberattacks has most recently been stunned by the revelation that they have been infiltrated by ingenious, determined and malicious state actors and have been oblivious to the fact that high security data of all kinds have been siphoned away for the scrutiny of unauthorized actors putting the lie to their presumed attention to securing high-value data away from hostile eyes.

 

Yet where there is a market there will be painstaking efforts to satisfy the demands of that market, if not legally, then by illegal means in the great interests of profiteers. An expert points out the lapse in security within the health sector, yet even elite government agencies for whom secrecy is of the highest order have failed, spectacularly, to prevent infiltration through cyberleak safety. While those within society deemed at highest risk of succumbing to COV-19 are fast-tracked for vaccine relief, other sectors of society feeling equally at risk, will seek any means by which they too can be prioritized for inoculation, even if through their own resourcefulness.

 

And for many, in what they regard obviously as a life-or-death situation, compelled by a need to protect themselves and their loved ones, it is worthwhile to seek out any method even illegitimate and potentially harmful means, for the legitimate desire to arm themselves against a dread disease playing havoc in the global community of humanity. 

The dark web may seem like a sinister place to many, where traffic in the worst passions of a segment of sociopathic tendencies can be satisfied. But it is also a place of last resort for the desperate who will recklessly seek a source to supply them with forbidden elements of human gratification, from child porn to illicit recreational drugs and now to a new drug formula that will act as a vaccine against COVID-19. 

 

Seller's Advertisement on Deep Paste

 

Cybersecurity groups have tracked offers on the dark web for such vaccines in response to the anxiety of the public fearful of contracting the disease. Shipping costs and methods are suggested, with "stealth" delivery and special packaging. Vendors claiming their product is derived from known sources, safe and effective. Many of the vaccines purportedly for sale on the dark web, according to experts are fake to begin with, and the product, once paid for, may never be delivered.

The issue is also that people suffering from a high degree of anxiety over personal safety, hoping to avoid infection will go to any ends to acquire what they believe will help to save their lives. Without due consideration with respect to what exactly it is they're hoping to receive and achieve. There are no guarantees that the 'vaccine' they plan to use is either effective or safe for human use. It is also an unknown whether vendors have somehow gained access to authentic products.

What experts in the field do agree upon, however, is that these underground offers for the sale of purported COVID vaccines will proliferate the longer the world community has to wait for mass inoculation. Vaccine shortages, accidents in delivery and distribution, handling and storage will all add to the massive work involved in administering the vaccine to the general public once the initial vaccines have been utilized in inoculating the identified high-risk candidates.

In December, Interpol and Europol gave warning of a likely "onslaught" of criminal activity with links to COVID-19 vaccines, citing online fraud and cyber crime, to theft and the sale of fake or substandard doses. Illegally refilled empty vaccine vials could be offered by vendors whose object is to gain profit, not ensure that safe substances will be injected intra-muscularly in desperate people hoping to avoid COVID-19. This is a public health threat of significant proportions "ineffective at best, toxic at worst".

 

The arrival of coronavirus vaccines means people have started hawking so-called "vaccines" on the Dark Web. CHRIS JACKSON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Pride Before a Fall 

Paul Almasy/Corbis/Getty  Accidental Cliff Dive

A Polish couple's two young children watched as their parents climbed over the safety barrier and fell to their deaths while taking a selfie on a cliff in Cabo da Roca, Portugal. Once they took a step backwards to angle their shot, they tumbled off of the edge and into the perilous Atlantic Ocean below. Both bodies were not recovered until a day later, as dangerous weather and sea levels prevented their rescue. The traumatized children, ages five and six, were put into the care of Polish diplomats after witnessing the horrifying scene.

"My behaviour on this front ['travel photo addiction'] has been out of control for some time."
"I pre-visualize holiday outfits on social media posts. And you know it's getting ridiculous when you and your friends take exactly the same group selfies on holiday, swapping between each others' camera phones -- then like each other's identical Facebook posts."
Sherelle Jacobs, assistant comment editor, Daily Telegraph

"[...The thinking behind Facebook social network was always how to consume as much of the public's time and attention as possible.] And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever."
"And that's going to get you to contribute more content."
Sean Parker, founding president, Facebook

"When you see an advertisement someone is pushing at you, it makes you reluctant to accept it. But what social media influencers have is the pull factor."
"[As a follower] you're pulling that information, no one is forcing  you to see it. You've selected who you're aligned to."
Dimitrios Buhalis, head, tourism and hospitality department, Bournemouth University

Getty  “Ultimate Selfie” Gone Wrong

A teenage Romanian girl had attempted to take the special selfie on top of a train in the northern town of Iasi, Romania. According to a friend, 18-year-old Anna Urso was planning to post this "ultimate selfie" on Facebook. Urso decided to lie down on the roof of the stationary train car, but when she reached up with one of her legs to pose, but she hit an overhead live wire that shocked her with 27,000 volts. The young girl immediately burst into flames and was pronounced dead at the hospital after suffering burns on over half her of her body.

The irresistible draw of fame and fortune. The impulse and actual compulsion to be noticed. To be viewed as someone really on top of the world, a bold, smart, intriguing character eliciting the admiration of those who would like to do what you do and in the process of following and liking what you do, compelling you to ever more incautiously fascinating adventures, and the proof is right there, in the selfies you take of your smiling, audacious face, a phenomenal natural background framing your face as you achieve a micro-celebrity status, transitory, but pride-inducing.

Getty  A Deadly Current

Chezka Agas, a 17-year-old engineering student from the Philippines, was swept into a deadly wave on the beach on Bangui Bay during a birthday gathering. She was part of a group of engineering students in attendance that posed for a celebratory photo-op in front of the scenic Bangui windmills when the group became caught in the overpowering ocean current. Several of the party guests were injured, but only Agas drowned in the wave.

Last July you were Gavin Zimmerman, 19, focused on taking selfies while standing on a New South Wales, Australia cliff, when pride and incaution catapulted you to imbalance and death. Then in September you were Tomer Frankfurter, 18, whose spectacular fall of 250 metres in Yosemite National Park in California made another victim of selfie fame. Manuela Da Costa Macedo, another selfie-famer who in October fell from a 27th-floor balcony in Panama City, all the while clutching her selfie stick.

Among the most common causes of death were drowning and transport accidents, and then there's animal attacks, electrocution, fire and firearms adding up to 259 documented deaths attributable to "taking a selfie", even while those in the know believe that number is not the true reflection of selfie-induced deaths. Those who carefully plan their travel escapades with a view to capitalizing on exotic, strange, exciting, unusual or dangerous backgrounds, smugly happy face in the foreground represents an "ego travel" phenomenon.

Getty   Deadly Walrus 

A Chinese businessman named Jia Lijun tried to take a selfie with a one-and-a-half-ton walrus at a zoo in Liaoning province, China. Apparently, the man was a big fan of this particular walrus, having previously sent photos and videos of it to his friends and family along with the message, "so strong, so big.

Tour company Thomas Cook in its 2018 holiday report posits that over half of 18 to 24 vacationers visualize how their choice of vacation spot will appear on their social media posts before making the final decision of where they will stay and where they plan to travel. Older travellers too involve themselves in the same way with 15 percent of over-55 vacationers considering what to share online "to make their friends jealous", while deciding where they will book.

Getty      Accidental Explosion

Two Russian soldiers in the Urals region west of Siberia were posing for a selfie with a live grenade. The handheld explosive detonated unexpectedly and, going off in their faces. Only the phone with the photo survived.

The quest for extreme selfies led to the immediate deaths of 259 people, between the years 2011 and 2017, according to researchers at the U.S. National Library of Medicine last year, in their global study. For some of those involved, the recognition they crave goes beyond the social status they assume, but extends to the money they can attract as well. On Instagram "travel influencers" whose large followings influence tour operators and hotels to cash in, create a collaboration promoting ads.

More likes and followers are attracted to more extreme posts, all of this eventually racking up and converting to considerable income. It is the "pull factor" identified by Mr. Buhalis that businesses respond to, with social media content becoming more useful than conventional marketing. To that end, some in the travel business have introduced Instagram "butler" services, staff helpful in aiding clients to take the perfect selfies for their social media feed.

Night thunder storm lightning in sky.  Getty     Selfie Stick Lightning Rod

In July 2015, an unnamed English hiker was struck by lightning while trekking through the Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales. The fatal bolt was suspected to have hit the extended metal rod of a selfie stick and electrocuted the young man.

 Risking Death for Pleasure

"We are living in a virtual, confused, hyper-technological, postmodern world where we're all looking for real experiences."
Orin Starn, professor, Duke University, North Carolina

"You are 100 percent in the moment, hyper-aware of everything and focused on just that job and nothing else."
"It's addictive, that feeling of fear and the reward when you control your fear and land safe. And then you want to go up, like, right away and do it again."
"It's a way for people to burn away these worries about the world that occupy their mind."
"It gives you this rush and that rush makes you feel like you are alive and free and the happiness is that moment makes you think, 'Well, I don't mind if I don't have any more days of life because what I just did, it was so good, I could die right now'."
Carlos Pedro Briceno, 43, DeLand Florida

Hang Gliding

"Efforts to eliminate risk are an obsession in the Western World. We have to make playgrounds and public spaces perfectly safe and there's all this litigation around physical and mental injuries in relation to all kinds of activities."
"That sterile environment is frustrating and makes people crave stimulation and excitement."
Dr. Erik Monasterio, psychiatrist, University of Otago, New Zealand

Carlos Briceno is, if not addicted, then certainly strenuously inclined toward his passion, the sport of wingsuit proximity flying. He is so inclined to repeat the wonderfully pleasurable feeling that overcomes his senses that he is prepared to do that, and little else, making this leisure pursuit the purpose of his life. Assuredly the landscape he is drawn to is majestic and awe-inspiring; not just to view and to indulge in summitting impossible mountain heights but leaping off them.

And nor are other landscape prominences, natural or manmade ignored, cellphone towers would do as well, and the opportunity to glide close to geological massifs and cliffs, challenging and tempting fate adds to the emotions that pervade his senses; fear, ecstasy, triumph. You use the skills you have acquired, and you know that your fortitude, energy and fortune will dictate in the final analysis whether you will have the opportunity to repeat that triumph, or whether circumstances you can no longer control triumph.

You skirt danger and you deploy that parachute. Or not. All the same. The glory is experienced, and sometimes the penalty.

Delaware North, a company managing event concessions commissioned a market analysis that concluded extreme sport participation now demands a larger slice of the personal sport market than conventional types. By 2020, according to the company's forecast, extreme sports will present a challenge to professional and collegiate sports, rating as the most audience-enrapturing category of sports content. Video uploaded constantly to the Internet that leaves viewers agape is partially responsible.

The world's premier jumping, diving, surfing and climbing hotspots located in Switzerland, France, Norway, Australia, Nepal and Brazil have seen a notable increase in destination travel for a singular purpose. The question of why it is and who it is that is attracted to these extreme sports has puzzled psychologists wanting to categorize and group people into neat little challenge boxes. Theories include a genetic predisposition to risk-taking, psycho-pathology involvement, even chemical imbalances (as in low levels of neurotransmitter dopamine) to explain the irresistibility to some.

All of which may play a role in attracting people to extreme sports, but the picture still lacks completion. Research tends to suggest that extreme-sports enthusiasts come from various backgrounds, have diverse biological characteristics and personalities, so all together these variants and propensities may represent as good a sketch of the types that are draw to thrills and dangers as any. And then there are those analysts who feel cultural and sociological factors rate as additional motivators.

As for people like Carlos Pedro Briceno, driven to their sport, just as mountain climbers are driven to theirs, he found his inspiration by viewing YouTube videos of others experiencing first parachuting and then proximity flying. He was a star, alongside his friend Alexander Polli, 32, in a proximity flying (BASE jumping) film released in 2017. The year before that Mr. Polli died, clipping a tree during a proximity flight, following on the death of another base jumper who had crashed into a granite rock formation in Yosemite National Park the year before that.


Despite which, experts maintain that the guiding motivation of adventurous spirits is the wish to feel alive, not a desire to court death. They are committed to channelling their energies and their spirit into an experience that enlivens them, allows them to have experiences that can only be achieved by setting aside concerns for safety. And in so doing, and undergoing that incomparable experience and living to repeat it again and again they find purpose in their lives.


B.A.S.E. JUMPING
BASE jumping is without doubt an extreme sport which uses a parachute to jump from a fixed position. There are 4 categories of fixed object -
Building
Antenna (an uninhabited tower such as an aerial mast),
Span (a bridge, arch or dome),
Earth (a cliff or other natural formation)
- hence the name. 

Facial Fillers -- Not Cupcakes

"All injectors need to be aware of complications, should be able to recognize them when they occur and know how to manage them properly."
Report, American and Canadian dermatologists

"What we're trying to do with this paper is provide our colleagues with awareness about complications and the tool box to deal with them, should they be confronted with them."
"We know there is very high patient satisfaction with these treatments."
Dr. Vince Bertucci, past-president, Canadian Dermatology Association

"Those [clinics where nurses inject facial fillers with no physician supervision] are on the edge of what may be acceptable, or not acceptable by law."
"It's not the best, and it's not something I would endorse."
Nowell Solish, assistant professor of dermatology, University of Toronto

Examine Medical Credentials Before Considering Injectable Fillers

Dermal fillers are an important tool in the armamentarium of an aesthetic dermatologist in the management of ageing skin. A surge in the use of fillers has been witnessed due to increasing awareness among people, easy availability of fillers and increased enthusiasm amongst the dermatologists and plastic surgeons to use this modality. In this era of evidence-based medicine and litigations against doctors, Dermatologists should be vigilant about different acts of omission and commission in the use of fillers. 
M. Vedamurthy, Journal of Cutaneous and Aesthetic Surgery 

As people age, losing the dewy fullness and softness of complexion and skin begins to crease and pucker, those unwilling to surrender to the natural process of aging look for ways that modern cosmetic surgery can plump up the surfaces and return them to the magical transformation of reversing aging to resemble a renewal of youth. The solutions seem simple enough; add a substance that will emulate the fullness and freshness of youth to aging skin. And there are always doctors willing to lend themselves to the enterprise for whom scruples are not too professionally rigid.

Dr. Solish had a recent referral, a patient whose "rejuvenation" had been accomplished by having "fillers" injected into her face at a hair salon, by an accommodating nurse. His services were sought out by the patient who required amelioration of an ensuing condition. These wrinkle fillers are not without their side-effects; not in everyone granted, but they do occur, and they can be fairly serious health conditions brought about by an imperfect understanding and application of the fillers.

"Overcorrections" of aging skin can lead to infections, abscesses, necrosis (death) of tissue, blindness and stroke. Compelling reasons to proceed with caution. And it was the need to address this very situation that led American and Canadian dermatologists to produce a report, published in a recent issue of Facial Plastic Surgery. Celebrity photographs of botched facial procedures such as the March confession by Khloe Kardashian that fillers "f--cked" up her face requiring her to "go and get this whole thing, like, dissolved" aside, people shrug off warnings, feeling nothing untoward will happen.

Padding and plumping the face with synthetic forms of hyaluronic acid (HA), has become extremely popular. HA is the most common filler, a substance produced by the body naturally, its synthetic cousin binding with water to fill in sunken, aging skin. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (inclusive of Canadian doctors), in 2014, 2.4-million procedures were undertaken with soft-tissue fillers; an increase of 274 percent since 2000.

The soft sell from dermatologists is that fillers present little risk and errors can readily be reversed with injection of an enzyme that acts like an antidote to swiftly break down any excess material in the face. They don't speak of technical mistakes leading to "suboptimal outcomes" that can be serious, write researchers of the report in Facial Plastic Surgery who describe cases where deep bruising, swelling or blue tinged skin results from the use of too much or too little filler.

They write of too much filler resulting "in an unnatural look many patients fear", of "lumps and bumps" which linger for weeks and months or years following the procedure. But it is the most serious complications that can occur when those fillers are mistakenly injected into blood vessels effectively cutting off blood supply to tissues that represent a nightmare scenario. The filler is capable of migrating to other  areas in the body and rarely, blindness, stroke and death of the skin can result.

Since January of 2000 Health Canada received 132 reports revolving around facial fillers, 51 of which were deemed to be serious in outcome though "None of these reports had fatal outcomes". It is a medical requirement in Canada that a doctor or a nurse under the direct instructions of a physician inject such fillers. Even so a casual attitude can prevail and as Dr. Solish noted, there are instances he is aware of where unauthorized personnel, not physicians, apply fillers.

Cosmetic injections

The issue

Many Canadians are choosing injectable cosmetic treatments to reduce facial wrinkles and attempt to restore their skin to a smoother appearance. However, consumers should be aware of the potential for adverse reactions that are possible with the use of these products.

Injectable dermal fillers

Dermal fillers are popular and widely used. Both health professionals and consumers should be aware of reported adverse reactions listed on the product labels. These are some of the adverse reaction reports that Health Canada has received for dermal fillers:

• pain
• bruising
• redness
• swelling or edema
• nodules (raised bumps)
• abscesses (sores)
• infection
• skin discoloration or hyper-pigmentation
• allergic reaction
• improper placement of the material

Many of these adverse reactions are generally temporary, but some could last several months and may require additional treatment and/or procedures to correct. Some of the procedures used to correct an adverse reaction may lead to scars and other skin reactions. A few dermal fillers are intended to be permanently inserted at the site of injection. Since the polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) microparticles used in these dermal fillers are intended to be permanent, the treatment of potential side effects from these injections is more difficult and surgical removal may be the only solution. Health Canada