Pain, Pus, and Poison - Dr Michael Mosely

[Ernest2]

Wondered if anyone saw last episode "Poison" on Tues 22nd Oct of Dr Michael Mosely's series, "Pain Pus and Poison":

bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01f53b9

Includes a good explanation of how Chemotherapy got started.

At the end of "Poison" he starts to talk about personalized medicine.

Would be great to see him do a program on CLL and all the new drugs, as an example of the new kinds of treatments coming online in healthcare.

Ernest

[sparkler]

Ernie.

Yes, I did see the program and I thought it was fascinating- well worth watching. I also saw last night's 'Tonight' program 'The drugs don't work', about how much resistance there is now, to antibiotics, and how we are going to run out of any that will work, quite soon really.......very scary. Did anyone see that?

sparkler x

[Myrddin]

Not surprising Chemo is an agressive treatment considering it is based on mustard gas. The United States is required by treaty to destroy its chemical weapons. The destruction process is projected to be completed by 2021. Expect Syria will be cleaned up much faster. Nasty stuff as it can be absorbed by the skin.

As always Dr Mosley presented an excellent program easy to follow and well worth watching. Showing how the study of poisons and how they act led to many treatments.

[AussieNeil Administrator]

Further on mustard gas and the United States, I hadn't realised until reading the book "Emperor of all Maladies" that during WWII, over 80 US sailors and likely an even greater number of civilians died from US manufactured mustard gas when the U.S. Liberty ship John Harvey, which had been carrying a secret cargo of 2,000 mustard gas bombs, was sunk in a German air raid on the Italian port of Bari in 1943. Over 600 sailors were treated for what was mustard gas poisoning, but the secret nature of the John Harvey's cargo plus the great loss of life of that ship's crew, delayed the identification of the cause.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_r...

uh.edu/engines/epi1190.htm

Autopsies on some of the poisoned sailors identified the impact mustard gas had on white blood cells and eventually led to the development of Bendamustine.