Infectious Madness

Infectious Madness PDF Author: Harriet A. Washington
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
ISBN: 0316277797
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
A groundbreaking look at the connection between germs and mental illness, and how we can protect ourselves. Is it possible to catch autism or OCD the same way we catch the flu? Can a child's contact with cat litter lead to schizophrenia? In her eye-opening new book, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Harriet Washington reveals that we can in fact "catch" mental illness. In Infectious Madness, Washington presents the new germ theory, which posits not only that many instances of Alzheimer's, OCD, and schizophrenia are caused by viruses, prions, and bacteria, but also that with antibiotics, vaccinations, and other strategies, these cases can be easily prevented or treated. Packed with cutting-edge research and tantalizing mysteries, Infectious Madness is rich in science, characters, and practical advice on how to protect yourself and your children from exposure to infectious threats that could sabotage your mental and physical health.

Infectious Madness

Infectious Madness PDF Author: Harriet A. Washington
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
ISBN: 0316277797
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Get Book

Book Description
A groundbreaking look at the connection between germs and mental illness, and how we can protect ourselves. Is it possible to catch autism or OCD the same way we catch the flu? Can a child's contact with cat litter lead to schizophrenia? In her eye-opening new book, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Harriet Washington reveals that we can in fact "catch" mental illness. In Infectious Madness, Washington presents the new germ theory, which posits not only that many instances of Alzheimer's, OCD, and schizophrenia are caused by viruses, prions, and bacteria, but also that with antibiotics, vaccinations, and other strategies, these cases can be easily prevented or treated. Packed with cutting-edge research and tantalizing mysteries, Infectious Madness is rich in science, characters, and practical advice on how to protect yourself and your children from exposure to infectious threats that could sabotage your mental and physical health.

Madness and Memory

Madness and Memory PDF Author: Stanley B. Prusiner
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300191146
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
The author, a 1997 recipient of the Noble Prize in medicine, describes the years he spent researching and demonstrating how the infectious proteins known as prions were responsible for brain diseases and how his theory has now become widely accepted in the science establishment.

Infectious Behavior

Infectious Behavior PDF Author: Paul H. Patterson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262297671
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
An examination of brain-immune system communication in autism, schizophrenia, and depression. In Infectious Behavior, neurobiologist Paul Patterson examines the involvement of the immune system in autism, schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder. Although genetic approaches to these diseases have garnered the lion's share of publicity and funding, scientists are uncovering evidence of the important avenues of communication between the brain and the immune system and their involvement in mental illness. Patterson focuses on this brain-immune crosstalk, exploring the possibility that it may help us understand the causes of these common, but still mysterious, diseases. The heart of this engaging book, accessible to nonscientists, concerns the involvement of the immune systems of the pregnant woman and her fetus, and a consideration of maternal infection as a risk factor for schizophrenia and autism. Patterson reports on research that may shed light on today's autism epidemic. He also outlines the risks and benefits of both maternal and postnatal vaccinations. In the course of his discussion, Patterson offers a short history of immune manipulation in treating mental illness (recounting some frightening but fascinating early experiments) and explains how the immune system influences behavior and how the brain regulates the immune system, looking in particular at stress and depression. He examines the prenatal origins of adult disease and evidence for immune involvement in autism, schizophrenia, and depression. Finally, he describes the promise shown by recent animal experiments that have led to early clinical trials of postnatal and adult treatments for patients with autism and related disorders.

A Terrible Thing to Waste

A Terrible Thing to Waste PDF Author: Harriet A. Washington
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
ISBN: 0316509426
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
A "powerful and indispensable" look at the devastating consequences of environmental racism (Gerald Markowitz) -- and what we can do to remedy its toxic effects on marginalized communities. Did you know... Middle-class African American households with incomes between $50,000 and $60,000 live in neighborhoods that are more polluted than those of very poor white households with incomes below $10,000. When swallowed, a lead-paint chip no larger than a fingernail can send a toddler into a coma -- one-tenth of that amount will lower his IQ. Nearly two of every five African American homes in Baltimore are plagued by lead-based paint. Almost all of the 37,500 Baltimore children who suffered lead poisoning between 2003 and 2015 were African American. From injuries caused by lead poisoning to the devastating effects of atmospheric pollution, infectious disease, and industrial waste, Americans of color are harmed by environmental hazards in staggeringly disproportionate numbers. This systemic onslaught of toxic exposure and institutional negligence causes irreparable physical harm to millions of people across the country-cutting lives tragically short and needlessly burdening our health care system. But these deadly environments create another insidious and often overlooked consequence: robbing communities of color, and America as a whole, of intellectual power. The 1994 publication of The Bell Curve and its controversial thesis catapulted the topic of genetic racial differences in IQ to the forefront of a renewed and heated debate. Now, in A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer Harriet A. Washington adds her incisive analysis to the fray, arguing that IQ is a biased and flawed metric, but that it is useful for tracking cognitive damage. She takes apart the spurious notion of intelligence as an inherited trait, using copious data that instead point to a different cause of the reported African American-white IQ gap: environmental racism - a confluence of racism and other institutional factors that relegate marginalized communities to living and working near sites of toxic waste, pollution, and insufficient sanitation services. She investigates heavy metals, neurotoxins, deficient prenatal care, bad nutrition, and even pathogens as chief agents influencing intelligence to explain why communities of color are disproportionately affected -- and what can be done to remedy this devastating problem. Featuring extensive scientific research and Washington's sharp, lively reporting, A Terrible Thing to Waste is sure to outrage, transform the conversation, and inspire debate.

The Age of Islands

The Age of Islands PDF Author: Alastair Bonnett
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781786498120
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description


Deadly Monopolies

Deadly Monopolies PDF Author: Harriet A. Washington
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0767931238
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
From the award-winning author of Medical Apartheid, an exposé of the rush to own and exploit the raw materials of life—including yours. Think your body is your own to control and dispose of as you wish? Think again. The United States Patent Office has granted at least 40,000 patents on genes controlling the most basic processes of human life, and more are pending. If you undergo surgery in many hospitals you must sign away ownership rights to your excised tissues, even if they turn out to have medical and fiscal value. Life itself is rapidly becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the medical-industrial complex. Deadly Monopolies is a powerful, disturbing, and deeply researched book that illuminates this “life patent” gold rush and its harmful, and even lethal, consequences for public health. Like the bestselling The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, it reveals in shocking detail just how far the profit motive has encroached in colonizing human life and compromising medical ethics.

Parasites, Pussycats and Psychosis

Parasites, Pussycats and Psychosis PDF Author: E. Fuller Torrey
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030868117
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
This open access book analyzes the evidence linking Toxoplasma gondii to the increasing incidence of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in the United States. Initially establishing that infectious agents are regularly transmitted from animals to humans, lead to human disease, and that infectious agents can cause psychosis, it then examines the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii in detail. Infecting 40 million Americans, Toxoplasma gondii is known to cause congenital infections, eye disease, and encephalitis for individuals who are immunosuppressed. It has also been shown to change the behavior of nonhuman mammals, as well as to alter some personality traits in humans. After discussing the clinical evidence linking Toxoplasma gondii to human psychosis, the book elucidates the epidemiological evidence further supporting this linkage; including the proportional increase in incidence of human psychosis as cats transitioned to domestication over 800 years. Finally, the book assesses the magnitude of the problem and suggests solutions. Parasites, Pussycats and Psychosis: The Unknown Dangers of Human Toxoplasmosis provides a comprehensive review of the evidence linking human psychosis in the United States to infections of Toxoplasma gondii. It will be of interest to infectious disease specialists, general practitioners, scientists, historians, and cat-lovers.

Marijuana and Madness

Marijuana and Madness PDF Author: David Castle
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139451659
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive overview of the psychiatry and neuroscience of Cannabis sativa (marijuana), with particular emphasis on psychotic disorders. It outlines developments in our understanding of the human cannabinoid system, and links this knowledge to clinical and epidemiological facts about the impact of cannabis on mental health. Clinically focused chapters review not only the direct psychomimetic properties of cannabis, but also the impact consumption has on the courses of evolving or established mental illness such as schizophrenia. A number of controversial issues are critically explored, including whether a discrete 'cannabis psychosis' exists, and whether cannabis can actually cause schizophrenia. Effects of cannabis on mood, notably depression, are reviewed, as are its effects on cognition. This book will be of interest to all members of the mental health team, as well as to neuroscientists and those involved in drug and alcohol research.

Another Kind of Madness

Another Kind of Madness PDF Author: Stephen Hinshaw
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250113369
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Parallel to An Unquiet Mind and The Glass Castle, a deeply personal memoir calling for the destigmatization of mental illness

The Parasitic Mind

The Parasitic Mind PDF Author: Gad Saad
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 162157993X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
"Read this book, strengthen your resolve, and help us all return to reason." —JORDAN PETERSON The West’s commitment to freedom, reason, and true liberalism have become endangered by a series of viral forces in our society today. Renowned host of the popular YouTube show “The SAAD Truth”, Dr. Gad Saad exposes how an epidemic of idea pathogens are spreading like a virus and killing common sense in the West. Serving as a powerful follow-up to Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life Dr. Saad unpacks what is really happening in progressive safe zones, why we need to be paying more attention to these trends, and what we must do to stop the spread of dangerous thinking. A professor at Concordia University who has witnessed this troubling epidemic first-hand, Dr. Saad dissects a multitude of these concerning forces (corrupt thought patterns, belief systems, attitudes, etc.) that have given rise to a stifling political correctness in our society and how these have created serious consequences that must be remedied–before it’s too late.