Informed citizens need to look beyond traditional media sources to get the full story.Press censorship belittles readers’ intelligence.

The pillars of the American democracy are the three branches of government: Executive, Legislative and Judicial, which ensures a separation of powers and facilitates checks and balances. Freedom of the press has been perceived as a fourth branch of the American democratic system. However, this soft power that the press has enjoyed has not had any check and balance structure to ensure that all viewpoints are heard. The press bias has become more real, and has been geared more towards sensationalism instead of true and checked reporting of facts. Partiality can never be eliminated completely because we are all human and do hold our own preferences. Fortunately, technological advancements such as the internet and social media networks have given ordinary people the ability to convey their views and voices.

Let me recount my experience dealing with the local media, the Star-Telegram and the Fort Worth Business Press. The local papers have bought into the propaganda and the figures presented in the business plan for a proposed second medical school, UNTMD, at the University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC). The Star-Telegram endorsed the UNTMD business plan without studying the feasibility and the merits of the plan:

Le Figaro: The first "drug baby" was born French

These children are conceived in the hope of a cure of their elders suffering from a rare disease. An acceptable practice since 2004.

It's a boy, and one imagines his parents doubly happy. The small-Umut Talha, born January 26 Antoine Beclere hospital in Clamart, is not only an infant in "good health", weighing 3.650 kg at birth. His arrival in the world should also allow to treat one of his older siblings suffering from a serious illness, officials said professors René Frydman and Arnold Munnich.

As the bioethics law authorizes in France since 2004, parents of Umut-Talha ("our hope" in Turkish), whose previous children are suffering from a blood disease, beta-thalassemia, have decided to design a "drug baby" or "double hope baby." For this, they have resorted to IVF , with a dual diagnosis for preimplantation embryo retain a healthy, genetically compatible with their sick children.

The doctors were able to ensure that the unborn child would not have the same disease as his elders and would be a match with the child or children to care. At birth, the umbilical cord connecting Umut-Talha to his mother, rich in stem cells, was collected. These stem cells that give rise to blood cells, will be retained for a subsequent transplant to her brother or sister.

This practice, first in France, is very rare in the world. It is subject in France to the agreement of the agency of biomedicine , which issues licenses on a case by case basis.

Via Le Figaro: Le premier 'bebe medicament" francais est ne

Necessity is the Mother of Inventions: Rats to be used to detect Tuberculosis

The animals’ sensitivity — that is, their ability to detect the presence of tuberculosis — ranged as high as 86.6 percent, and their specificity, or ability to detect the absence of the germ, was over 93 percent.

In another test that compared the rats’ success to microscopy, the rats picked up 44 percent more positive cases.

Necessity is the mother of inventions. Developping countries cannot afford expensive medical devices and have enough trained medical personel to tend care to their patients. The preliminary results of rats' performance are quite promising.

Via New York Times: Detecting Tuberculosis: No Microscopes, Just Rats

New Device Detecting Tuberculosis in lesss than 2 hours

The World Health Organization is endorsing a new tuberculosis testing apparatus that does not need trained laboratory technicians and takes less than two hours.

Cephid is a new device to make diagnosis of tuberculosis within 2 hours and does not require trained personnel to perform the task. Considering it may take up to 3 months to see if the bacterium is resistant to the most common TB drug, rifampicin. This device is only approved to be used in the third world countries as there are severe shortage of qualified professionals. If this device was approved to be used in the USA, it would have relieve the burden of long wait to see resistance to TB drugs.

Via The New York Times-Tuberculosis: World Health Organization Endorses a Device for Quicker Diagnosis