Links to CBS news comments

1st http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-100_162-4924835.html?assetTypeId=30
2nd http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-100_162-4937950.html?assetTypeId=30
3rd http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/15/tech/main4524768.shtml
4th http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/16/politics/main4949245.shtml
5 th http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/15/national/main4946080.shtml

1st comment on CBS news
They compared two groups the older drivers and the early-stage Alzheimer patients but they don´t mention the ages of the Alzheimer patients. It´s important to know it because there are people under fifty with Alzheimer diagnosis.

We conclude that we can´t measure the driving hazard of a person whether with the age or any diagnosis they´d have. This dementia bring down some cognitive abilities such as memory, learning, speaking and spatial vision yet not all of these happen in the same person or in the same time.

That´s why older people or any person with dementia must check-up their neuropsychological skills periodically otherwise, it would be an injustice to take away driving licenses to every aged people or Alzheimer patients.

2nd comment:
Recession is causing diabetic patients drop their medication and filling up ER units. But I think the truth is even before the crush in the economy started people already ignored to care about diabetes. The cost of complicated diabetes consequences in hospital is rising day by day. Diabetes is a serious problem to economy. That´s the reason why, with the intervention of the Public Health, we have come to know that PREVENTION is the key to stop this rising hits the sky.

Economy strategies must follow this objective, prevention; thereby we can avoid the deadly consequences of Diabetes. It isn´t new the issues of diabetics skimp on care since we have long history on fighting vision loss, diabetic foot, and heart and kidney failure. I do practices in a general hospital in Mexico where patients come back over and over as them can´t afford medication. They might begin with simple symptoms such as a terrible thirst, hunger, weakness, drowsiness. After they went through blindness, foot injures systemic infections, lung problems and more. The final and horrible consequences are heart stroke, brain stroke which ends in incapacity, limb amputation, and eternal dialysis for kidney failure. Unfortunately we have seen this process step by step from the very beginning to the last stages due to the insufficiency of the patient´s budget.

Mexico has miss achieved the universal health service, which means, Government supposed to bring health service to all people living in the country, but not only are people dying from treatable illness but also avoidable ones.
Diabetes can be prevented. All human beings must concern about it and start changing lifestyles. Diabetes is the first cause of death in the US and Mexico and each one of us has a vaccine we have only to decide when to use it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-100_162-4937950.html?assetTypeId=30

3rd comment:
Brain Plasticity; It is the ability of brain cells of making function and structure changes in order to get or restore activities. As the article said, we see this every day in the tennis player when he or she learns to swing. There are several studies witch show brain gets the shape regarding the owner´s activities. For example, a taxi driver in London who knows almost all the streets and routes would have an enormous memory area (hippocampus) yet it isn´t big in terms of size, since it has been told no more neurons can grow, but it is big using the surrounding brain cells, cells with different function within other people. What I want to say is that brain doesn´t obey our squared anatomy and physiology descriptions, each brain can adjust to new adversities.

Brain plasticity is slow and sometimes incomplete though; patients with important brain damage, caused during a brain stroke, can reach almost 100% of their ability such as understanding language, read, speak, move and feel in months or they can be condemned to have incapacity forever, nonetheless the last group of patients can improve some paralysis with help of the rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is to stimulate brain plasticity. I thinks this proposal is very interesting and useful because researchers want to increase brain plasticity stimulus many times fold using electronic special devices.

I hope, not too far in future, we can rehabilitate our patients with the classic exercises and electronic devices; both helping the brain to find out new tracts, to hire new neurons and, why not, to create new cells.

4th comment on cbs news:
We can get more united than separated; President Calderon has been fighting cartels in a way we hadn´t seen before. Some of us are scared about the number of human lives this war is taking away; however we know is it the only track to defeat drug trafficking organization. Mexico and the US can do more acting together. It is for our both interest to stop illegal drugs and weapons reach the hands of our people.

I hope Presidents Calderon and Obama make good decisions for the best of the people. There are many other issues both countries have to solve like Mexican immigrants, trades, education and sovereignty yet this is the beginning.

5th comment:
It´s not the obsession of being married and yell it everywhere but it is a step to go forward the complete integration. You may say gay people should be happy now we have some new rights and some acceptation but It won´t be never enough until we all be equals. This issue is far to be current as the whole human history is full of inequalities and injustices in order to maintain power and control among the ones who supposed to know what´s better for society.

I think the big problem lies on our difficulty of understand and then accept what´s different to us. The equality begins when we accept the right of everyone to be different. The benefit same sex marriage right will bring is that it would be easier for people to see homosexuals as normal persons.

Old tradition and old political and religious statements are not useful for nowadays social issues. Everything changes every day; It´s illogical that human leaders try to rule with old laws and morality. Political changes in behalf of minorities are a good prognostic factor to become a better society and better human beings.

Dear Amy

I´ve been dating this person for three months. We both were hitting on each other in a bar, we started talking, we liked each other. We decided to go on, but our free time is limited to Saturdays. Time has passed and this person wants to be in a formal relationship. My problem is I feel the same as I felt at the first day in the bar, should I try and commit to this relationship or is it time to move on?

An unusual necropsy

"Thank God this is the last one" said Dr Lancefield taking off his white robe. He was coming out of the Pathology Department when suddenly he saw four people; One of them was pushing a stretcher. Dr Lancefield glanced at the body covered with a blanket.
"Is this human?" Asked Dr Lancefield while he discovered what sort of men were around him. They all were alike dressing a dark blue uniform.
"We are not sure" answered one of them. "We are officers. We came from the Anthropology Department. Our scientists found out this corpse buried down and we need a professional".
Speechless, Dr Lancefield removed the blanket and observed it. Then, he stared at them, he was concerned. "Is this a joke?"
"Not at all. Look, we have no time. Some of us wanted to destroy it. We`re fleeing. If you´re interested in what or who this was you better start working. You only have 6 hours".
Dr Lancefield took the body into the autopsy room. "God, how could I start?" He took an empty sheet and his dissection instruments. He wrote: "male, age not calculable, 2.6 m height, 130 Kg weight" he stopped writing "It´s useless, how can I describe this sort of daemon with vestiges of wings and tail? The dissection might be more useful" He did all the procedures he knew, he observed tissues with the microscope, he mixed some chemicals and he ran several tests. Finally the men interrupted him.
"Time´s up. They´re coming. Give us what you have so far" the officer yelled.
"Impossible. What we have here, gentlemen, is not a human being. The information must be confidential until I......" violently one officer seized the file from his hand and they all ran away.
"God damned it. I supposed they´d do something similar" Dr Lancefield had shifted the documents; He sank them on formol and he threw them into the fire. "Now no one would ever know their secret".

Letter to a Canadien friend

Hello:
My name is Eduardo, I´m 20 years old. My major is Medicine. I was told you´re from Canada, where abouts in Canada do you come from? Is it still snowing? I don´t know how much time you´ve been here in Mexico City or where in Mexico you`ve been, but let me ask you, honestly, in your opinion what is the most unpleasant feature of Mexico? And what do you think about the pleasant features? It is always good to know the point of view from a visitor because it could be more accurate.
Let me tell you what I enjoy here in the city. Friday and Saturday night life is fun, you can find almost kind of entertainment you want. If you need to chill out there are bowling alleys, pools, bar lounges and karaoke bars. In front of Bellas Artes, above the Sears building there´s a very good cafe where you can see part of the downtown from the 6 floors height. Inside the Polifurum (located near the metrobus station Poliforum in Insurgentes) there´s a theatre, a 70, 80 and 90´s music disco and a bar.
If you have the chance to drive to the countryside (towns) near Mexico City, I really suggest you Monte Real town, which is in the state of Hidalgo. I went there last week with my family, we enjoyed it a lot and we noticed it´s a tourist destination. For a moment I felt I was at Mont Tremblant or Le Vieux Québec but in a Mexican style.
During the week, I try to be at home doing homework and avoid the stress and chaos of the city. The traffic and the crowded metro is catastrophic. Sometimes I wish I could leave Mexico City. Our lifestyle is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, our people are crazy to get their jobs, schools, home etc that they are totally inpatient.
A country of contrast, this shall be my last comment. It´s worth it to live the Mexico an experience. I hope you can enjoy the country. And I would be glad to share opinions and to know about you, Canada and your lifestyle

Have a good day,
Eduardo Vaquero

Eduardo´s expectations

Writing is not just another English language ability but a strong and permanent expression. Knowledge, feelings, thoughts and everything that´s within the human mind can be written down. In adittion, writting in more than one language provides me the chance to express my ideas in different ways, and also to have more readers.
Due to the reasons above, I always really wanted to take a serious writing course. My expectations for this course are related to my thoughts, for I expect I will be able to write with the correct structure, grammar, spelling, punctuation and vocabulary. I´d also like to write in different styles. Obviously I´m not expecting to become a professional writer but these 6 months could teach me to improve on my own
This course will be hard for me just as the other 2 before, on the other hand I love learning English here at CELE, that´s why I´ll do my best

Eduardo´s profile

I am Eduardo Vaquero. I´m 20 years old. I´ve been living in Mexico city for 5 years and a half. I live at my grandma´s house with my mom and brother. My mom is an elementary school teacher. My brother Armando is studying Marketing.
My major at UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) is medicine. I´m doing practices at the General Hospital of Mexico. I have just concluded Cardiology module and now I´m taking Neurology.
I really like to play Nintendo Wii, listen to music, read and watch movies. My favorite music is the folk and fusion music such as Lila Downs, Susana Harp, Gotan Project; also musicals, classic rock. I´m interested about themed movies of Psychiatry patients like A Beautiful Mind, epidemic infections , fantastic and apocalyptic movies. My favorite genre is the Fantastic Literature. I loved the Lord of the Rings, Narnia. I like to read the trilogy of His Dark Materials of Philip Pullman before going to bed, it´s hard to stop reading it.