Interesting Links for 20-03-2024

[andrewducker]

1. 10% of people think they're allergic to penicillin. Testing found that 97% of them were wrong.

(tags:antibiotics allergies )

2. The degree to which the Acropolis Museum is designed to shame the British Museum is spectacular

(tags:museums history Greece UK theft )

3. Can you stab things with an arrow? And should you?

(tags:weapons video )

4. The first 'cyberflasher' is convicted under England's new law and gets more than 5 years in prison

(tags:sex abuse UK law prison )

5. Long-term leisure computer use linked to increased erectile dysfunction risk

(tags:penis sex computers genetics )

6. Is this the worst economic inheritance since WW2?

(tags:politics labour economics history )

7. Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells

(tags:alzheimers fat brain )

8. Cars are secretly spying on drivers and upping their insurance rates

(tags:surveillance cars insurance )

Comments

[cmcmck]

1. My father was very definitely allergic which is why they've never used it on me as it seems the allergy can be inherited.

The view was that it was best not to take the risk as there are other antibiotics as I found during my recovery from a certain major piece of surgery back in the day.

[redbird]

1. I wonder what level of informed consent is involved with "you probably aren't allergic, we want to test this by giving you the drug in question with "immediate access to resuscitation facilities if needed."

My chart now says that I am allergic to cephalosporins and probably to Bactrim (a sulfa antibiotic), after I saw an allergist. He tested me for the cephalosporin allergy, a test that involveed sitting in a waiting room in case I did show symptoms. He also told me that there is no test for whether a person is allergic to Bactrim, and that given what I told him, I need to avoid Bactrim, and if a future doctor wants to give me any other drug in that class I should have the first dose in his or another allergist's office.

The last time they wanted to give me an antibiotic, I told the doctor about the above allergies and added that "I do well on tetracycline," so she prescribed the related doxycycline. I volunteered the information about tetracycline, and don't know what she would have prescribed if I hadn't mentioned it.

[andrewducker]

The "resuscitation" part is certainly worrying. Although looking at the symptoms, it looks like most people wouldn't need anything that extreme.

[movingfinger]

Antibiotic allergies can take a few years and exposures to manifest, so the correct answer to the people who fall into the 97% the researchers say are not allergic, is "not yet." If there is an antibiotic allergy in your family, you are far more likely to have one, and the price of being careful and never finding out is really, really, really low for the individual.

(Latex allergy is a very common one that is often misdiagnosed or ignored.)

[cmcmck]

Like egg allergy (which I have). It's the second most common after nuts and almost entirely ignored because as we all know, everyone loves eggs, don't they?

[bens_dad]

5. "Lesuire computing" - does that mean that the computer is more likely to be on top of the lap, rather than on top of the desk ?
If so that is a plausible risk factor.

[channelpenguin]

Ooh. Yeah. Heat in that area not good for male fertility.

Sunshine and being outdoors is, though.

5

[channelpenguin]

Perhaps it's effect not cause. Perhaps the guys with naturally higher testosterone simply favour different hobbies, more active ones - sports and the like, rather than sitting at a computer...

Also curious that they say "leisure use". Maybe it's far too hard these days to find a control group that doesn't have heavy use at work :-). Or maybe bens_dad is right and it's the "lap" part of "laptop" that's the issue - because of the heat, definitely not good for the 'nads.

Re: 5

[armiphlage]

I read that initially as "bens_nads"

Re: 5

[channelpenguin]

ROFL!

[bens_dad]

8 might be fair if the insurance people reduce the premiums for as many people as they increase it.
OK, that is holding the median fixed, not the mean, but something in that line.
... except that if they had perfect forecasts *everyone* would pay more every year (assuming they cover their costs).

2. The degree to which the Acropolis Museum is designed to shame the British Museum is spectacular

[anef]

The Acropolis museum is lovely, and would be even lovelier with the Elgin marbles restored.

One of the things that I liked the most is that you can see the hairstyles of the Caryatids (the ladies supporting the pediment of the Erechtheum porch on their heads). I had never seen them from behind and they have very beautiful plaits.

The museum also displays the statues from the Archaic temples that were previously on the Acropolis before the Persian invasion, and which were buried in pits on the site.