UNDER THE MICROSCOPE Recently, House Bill 8820, titled “An Act Promoting the Adequate Supply of Blood Plasma, Authorizing the Collection, Storage, and Commercial Distribution of Blood Plasma and for Other Purposes,” was filed in the House of Representatives, which will allow commercial...
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE Once again, we have sensational news, this time of a schoolboy dying 11 days after allegedly being slapped by his teacher. Media went to town, and law enforcement officials are all over the newspapers, radio, and TV, being interviewed and offering their take on the matter, all...
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE Rabies is the most dreaded zoonotic disease that kills its victims with 100 percent efficiency. The Philippines’ rabies death toll is 250–300 cases a year. Rabies patients suffer a most horrible death. The facts justify the intense fear that grip animal-bite victims...
Looks like Andrea Brillantes finally found a replacement for Ricci Rivero. No other than actress Ina Raymundo's hunky son, Jakob. Andrea made public her admiration for Jakob via her vlog recently. Playing the "Date Or Pass" game with some friends, she candidly admitted to being open to dating...
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE Now that the state of public health emergency has been lifted in the Philippines (a full two months after WHO declared an end to the Covid international health emergency), we can now heave a big sigh of relief. But not so fast, pardner! The next pandemic is just around the...
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE The recommendation of the Ombudsman review panel to file graft and technical malversation charges against former DOH Secretary and current Congressperson Dr. Janette Garin and four others for the purchase of Dengvaxia vaccines is truly puzzling and contradictory. The panel...
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE It has been three years since the Covid-19 pandemic started. Early on, there was a lot of fear, anxiety, and phobias about the disease because it was an unknown entity. Most persons who contracted it at the start succumbed to it or had a critical, lengthy stay in intensive care...
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE Pardon me if I’m politically incorrect when discussing obesity, but there are no ifs and buts about being overweight. No matter how you say it — fat, overweight, plump, ample, chubby, tubby, big, or plus-size — being over your ideal weight for height has health...
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE Ageism is defined as stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination against people on the basis of their age (WHO 2017). It is a fairly recent concept, coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors, patterned after the concept of sexism and...
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE Our esteemed lawmakers are at this time proposing to build more penal facilities. They cite extreme overcrowding in our jails and even quote the UN minimum standards for detention facilities and 1987 Constitution, which “vehemently opposes the use of substandard or...
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE Nitrous oxide is known as the laughing gas for its effect when inhaled in certain quantities. So I had to laugh when I read a front-page story last week that the PNP is considering to include it in its list of dangerous substances. Nitrous oxide is a gas that is used as an...
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE On May 5, 2023, the WHO declared an end to the Covid-19 health emergency. While this is reason to celebrate, having endured three years of various restrictions, we have to pause and consider the repercussions on the testing labs. To combat the pandemic, over 300 Covid-19...
