Tumors Can Grow Faster Than You Think

Reuters reported last week that Natalie Morton, the teenage girl who died shortly after receiving an HPV vaccination, was definitely not killed by the vaccine. Instead, Morton was the victim of a large, fast-growing and previously undetected tumor in her chest cavity.

These kinds of tumors are very rare, and we don't know much about Morton's case. However, the Daily Mail has a heart-wrenching (and medically fascinating) interview with the parents of another teen who suffered a similar fate...

Inside George's chest cavity was an aggressive and rapidly growing tumour the size of a small football. In the few hours after George had gone to bed, the tumour had grown around his windpipe, cutting off his oxygen and causing irreparable damage to his brain. The tumour, which had started in an organ called the thymus gland in the chest cavity, was also crushing his heart and lungs and constricting the vital arteries supplying his body with blood.

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Maggie Koerth-Baker

I do the Twitter, the Google+, and (to a much lesser extent) the Facebook.

Books
Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us, my book about the future of energy in the United States, will be published April 10th.

Upcoming Appearances
• February 20 at British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association — Vancouver. 7:00 pm
• February 29 at University of Minnesota: Frontiers in the Environment seminar
• March 1 at Huge Theater, Minneapolis: The Theater of Public Policy
• March 12 at University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign
• March 27 at Penn State Institutes on Energy and the Environment
• March 29-31 at York College of Pennsylvania: Writer in residence
• April 2 at MIT: The New GeekSpeak: Science Journalists' New Toolbox, with Eli Kintisch and John Bohannon — Maseeh Hall, 4:00 pm
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs
• April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins — 4:00 pm
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum

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