Unusual weather makes it difficult to predict allergy season
The unprecedented changes that have been taking place in the weather conditions around the world has made it difficult for health care experts to predict when the allergy season would arrive. 
This winter was remarkably slow to come almost through out the U.S. The winter season is now in full bloom but it has never been delayed to the extent that it was this year. The experts are uncertain as to what affects the weather changes will have on allergy sufferers.
The allergy season is always bound to come. With it the season brings coughing , wheezing, sneezing, itchy eyes, headaches and runny noses for a great many people.
There is not one single season that can be termed as an allergy season. In fact allergies pick up in several seasons. The summer and winter peaks are usually the seasons that allergy sufferers suffer the most. Mold is a one of the potential causes of allergies that is there pretty much the whole year round.
The role of the weather is what is making the allergy season extremely difficult to predict. Mike Tringale who works with the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America says “It’s a hard call to make, it’s not just pollination, but what the wind and the rains and the other weather patterns do to that pollen; whether it washes it away or blows it 500 miles to the next town or city is a very difficult thing to project.”
This winter hospitals have received an unusually large number of patients complaining of hay fever in the winter season. “There were people complaining this winter of itchy, watery eyes, which is something you don’t see until April or May,” said the hospital officials.
These complaints were reduced as the freeze kicked up the States. The out break of the cold season could actually delay the allergy season or give it a kick start. This depends on how close the trees are to releasing their pollen. Elm and cedar pollen count has increased due to the unseasonably warm temperatures experienced this winter.
All the doctors can say to the patients is to make use of preventive allergy medications ahead of the allergy season. The problem is that since the allergy season cannot be predicted patient’s having no idea when to get started with their preventive medication.
Outliers kept in isolation beyond what is allowed by law
Investigation into some of the mental institutions revealed that a large number of mental patients have been kept in isolation for years. Laws have long been in place that prevents such hospitalization of mental patients but the mental institutions seemed to have been ignoring the law.
In the Western State Hospital of Staunton a patient was kept in isolation for fifteen years before being made to shift in to a larger activity room with staff members.
The excuse put forward by the staff of the psychiatric hospitals has been their declaration that the patients were too dangerous to handle in any other manner. The medical terminology for patients in such conditions is outliers. These are people that are unpredictably violent and refuse to respond to any mode of treatment or medication. The advocates believe they are victims of the system that has lost the patience to treat the most difficult patients. 
The loopholes in the state laws have been used by the hospital staffs to keep themselves and other patients safe from the unpredictably violent patients. Some of the cases have however cost the institutions a lot of money in lawsuits.
Such cases have only been reported very rarely. This was until the Associated Press investigated the mental institutions around the country and found there to be numerous such cases that violate the law and hold the patients in solitary confinement. The AP has up till now been able to track twelve cases of patients that have been kept in seclusion for almost a year.
Charlie McCarthy who is an advocate with Disability Rights Montana said speaking to the press “I think it’s just a wink and a nod and some people are looking the other way.” He went further on to say “Everybody’s frustrated with what do you do with somebody like this? The patient has rights, but the other patients have rights to be safe and free from abuse.” This, according to him is what drives the mental institutions to work around the law.
Surgeons unearth revolutionary new technique to repair damaged lungs
Many lung patients have died due to the shortage of organ supply as they waited to have their lungs transplanted. Doctors have however made a revolutionary new discovery that allows them to repair damaged lungs in order for them to be transplanted into a patient. This discovery has come to the deliverance of patients in need of healthy organs needed for lung transplant.
Statistics show that 90% of the lungs that are donated to hospitals are unfit to be used for transplant operations because they are already damaged. The damaged lungs will be of no use even if they are transplanted in the patient. Generally lungs get damaged because of brain death during accidents or while they are being ventilated in an intensive care unit. This renders them completely useless for transplants.
Up until recently the only way in which donated lungs could be stored was by keeping them on ice. The frozen state however suppressed their cell metabolism which made them irreparable.
The renowned surgeons of the Toronto General Hospital have however discovered a new way to repair damaged lungs. The newly unearthed technique is being called as perfusion. It is this very hospital where a host of experimental lung transplants were conducted in the 1980s.
According to the new technique donated lungs are no longer stored on ice. Rather they are kept in a functioning state at body temperature using a ventilator and a bloodless solution. They have to be kept in this stage for up to eighteen hours. It is in this state that the damaged lungs can be subjected to perfusion. This is the name of the process of pumping a solution of oxygen and proteins along with other essential nutrients into the lungs.
This technique has allowed doctors to repair 55 percent of the damaged lungs that they have received. The technique has now given hope to the thousands of patients who die waiting for a healthy lung to be transplanted in them.