Post-Holiday News Roundup

Shopping:
Okay, y'all can just use Medgadget as a shopping guide for me, given all the interesting devices they describe.

Via Medgadget, "Cuddly Dolls Offer Honest Answers About Anatomy." Key info: anatomically correct. More at Women's eNews, and the product website, which provides this info: "These cuddly cloth dolls are great for playtime and can also be used as sex education props when explaining the human reproductive cycle to boys and girls ages 3 to 9. Amamanta Family doll sets can help guide you on sex education topics such as conception and birth of babies, breastfeeding, and demonstrating appropriate versus inappropriate touching."

Also via Medgadget, the vaginal molecular condom, a "fluid substance to be inserted by a woman vaginally, that becomes a gel at body temperature and at the vaginal fluid pH of 4.2, and then in the presence of sperm with a pH of 7.7, it become a liquid again, only to release an antiviral drug load to block infection by the HIV."

Last on the list is the home yeast infection detection kit.

Amusement:

Comparative Sex-Specific Body Mass Index in the Marvel Universe and the "Real" World.

BMJ's (a medical journal) traditionally goofy Christmas issue is available for free online.

For The Home:

This domestic violence guideline includes a detailed list of risk factors and warning signs for domestic violence.

The New York Times has a piece on self breast exams, "Self-Exams Are Passé? Believers Beg to Differ."

Money:

The CDC has grants available for Understanding Risk and Protective Factors for Sexual Violence Perpetration and the Overlap with Bullying Behavior. They list "independent school districts" as the eligible applicants; there is an award ceiling of $300,000, and the closing date for applications is 2/21/07. See the full announcement.

Gossip:

From the FDA: Randall Lutter Appointed Acting Deputy Commissioner for Policy. According to the release, "Before joining FDA Lutter was a resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute and fellow with the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies. From 1991 to 1997 he served at the Office of Management and Budget in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and from 1997 to 1998 he was senior economist for regulation and the environment at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers." Also, "he will be a senior advisor to Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Lester M. Crawford on all major agency matters including regulations, policy and administrative programs. In particular, Dr. Lutter's office will assess the public policy implications of FDA's regulatory and administrative activities."
As Associate Commissioner for Policy and Planning, Lutter [an economist] authored the June 2006 letter [PDF] denying the (2001) petition of family planning and health organizations for exemption of Plan B from prescription requirements (related news item). Lutter had previously been in the news related to his FDA work most often for his remarks on counterfeit drugs and RFID technologies.

Family, Or, In Praise of Medical Librarians:

Congrats to fellow medical librarian blogger the Krafty Librarian, who had her second son on Monday, and had blogged that fact by Wednesday.

Another medlib blogger, Dean Giustini, has an (free full-text online) editorial in BMJ, "How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine."