Om/Time/Space/Atom: What's the deal?

An answer to an email question from a yogini friend:

Hi Nathen-

Since OM is the creator of time, space, atom- when we chant OM are we actively creating? And what are we creating?

Got me contemplating that from your book- Love ya, Cayenne

an infinite question, which would require infinite words to answer! so in the interest of time and space=]...here are a few angles to consider:

om isn't so much the creator of time/space/atom as it is the simultaneous expression of time/space/atom. once om has been vibrated by godd, time/space/atom HAVE to exist, and one doesnt precede the other. we discussed that part last year, but remind me if you want the explanation again as to why these biblical four beasts must occur simultaneously. it's also written up in the first draft of 'riding the four beasts'.

also, om is the only vibration that exists -- in not just the physical, but the also astral and causal worlds. all planets, beings, thoughts, photons, etc, are multifarious, infinite expressions of the original om vibration. so om (AKA the divine mother) has become us and creates through us, no matter whether we are aware of it or not. most creations on earth (amoebas, insects...) arent consciously aware of the om at all and yet still create constantly.

it's the same sort of unconsciousness with people, until the seeker decides to consciously tune in with om -- for enlightenment's sake at first and later for more altruistic reasons. that is what externally chanting om accomplishes: it allows the chanter to consciously connect with the creating that is always occurring through our bodyminds -- as again om, by definition, is the only vibration that comprises creation.

yogananda mentions that the 'real' chanting of om occurs when the seeker actually hears and feels the om vibrating through one or more chakras or one's entire body. then one is not only consciously connecting with om via silent or overt prayer, but is instead consciously experiencing the om pulsating throughout one's own organism. in 'the holy science', sri yukteswar mentions that this felt sense of om communion is a necessary step within the enlightenment process. and (not in 'the holy science') it usually proceeds the experience of being able to remain conscious 24/7 that is the last stage before the 'ordinary human' becomes a 'super human' who is always aware of living within their joyous, multi-colored halo of god wisdom. from 'superhuman' there are only 3 more steps: christ; master; and avatar (simply a master who agrees to return in a body to help others). these latter ideas are summarized in yogananda's 'ladder of consciousness', which you have.

thus we are always creating, whether or not we chant om, for godd has become us and is creating through us. in the larger sense, then, we create nothing, but we do alter the creation happening through us depending on the relative quality of our thoughts and actions (sattvic; rajasic; tamasic). chanting om helps us to remember this, and to eventually hear and feel the om flowing within and around us. the latter is 'the comforter' experience that jesus spoke of (says yogananda) 'But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost [AKA om, or divine mother], whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you', and that presages the seeker's ascent from 'ordinary human' to 'superhuman' and beyond.

happy thanksgiving!

Magic? No, just quickly effective...

For some strange, outdated, Christianized reason, an entire class of extremely potent medical substances have gone overlooked for several decades. This class is the entheogenic, or psychedelic, class of compounds that pre-modern cultures used for healing, learning, divination, and connection to the spiritual world. These practices continued unabated, until the followers of montheistic religions, especially Christians, decided that they were satanic in quality and that users of these plant remedies must be exterminated along with their plants.

Well worn is the story of how Albert Hofmann accidentally discovered the life-changing effects of LSD in his Swiss laboratory in the 1930s; and how psilocybin, 'magic' mushrooms were 'discovered' by two Americans observing the rituals of shaman Maria Sabina in Mexico in the 1950s; and how mescaline cacti has been used for thousands of years by native Americans in current day North and South America; and how there are hundreds of these psychedelic remedies throughout the world and known to individual cultures as their primary route to psychospiritual and physiological well being.

Despite scientific research in the 1950s and 60s regarding the effective use of psychedelics for a variety of mental illnesses, all research was extinguished in the US and Europe by 1970 in order to stop the recreational use of these normally ritually used materials. Only now are more and more studies being done again in research universities, proving what was already proven before: psychedelics are potent medicines.

In the forefront of psychedelic medicine is the anesthetic compound 'ketamine', also known as 'vitamin K' or 'Special K'. For decades psychonauts like physicist John Lilly (dolphin communicator and subject of movies "Day of the Dolphin" and "Altered States") used ketamine on a regular basis in order to experience life without body awareness. Because ketamine allows the user to have an increase in brain imagery with an absence of physical sensation, it is also described as the closest mimicry of the out-of-body state sought by Yogis. It therefore also allows the user to experience what an after death state might be like, when perhaps the consciousness expands when it leaves the body behind.

As so often occurs in medicine, the quick yet long lasting anti-depressant effect of ketamine was discovered quite by accidents by researchers testing the effectiveness of ketamine on a specific pain syndrome. Simply put, some of the research patients experienced significant, long term lessening of their depression symptoms after being intermuscularly injected with ketamine. The researchers announced this anti-depressant effect with quite a bit of fanfare, but nothing approaching a ketamine anti-depressant medication has resulted.

At first, ketamine anti-depressive effects were believed to result from blocking or stimulating certain glutamate-based (versus serotonin- or epinepherine-based) brain receptors. This may be partially true, but newer evidence suggests that there may be another, more revitalizing effect: 'synaptogenesis'. Regeneration of the connections between individual neurons is termed synaptogenesis, and from the slide photo you can view here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100819141913.htm

you can see the typical effect of ketamine on brain cells.

I don't expect that we will see any entheogen on the market anytime soon, despite ketamine and its effect on depression; MDMA (Ecstasy) and its effect on PTSD; LSD and psilocybin and their effect on the anxiety associated with terminal illness; ibogaine and its effect on seemingly intractable opiate and other addictions; and mescaline cacti; ayahuasca; and all of the above for providing the felt sense of a deep connection with the divine. What I do expect is that if enough persons speak of the importance of allowing entheogens to come out of the lab and into the lives of Everyman and Everywoman, the world will be a happier, healthier, more divinely connected place -- sooner than later.

New drug may protect against opioid overdose

This week researchers announced that a new drug, repinotan, has been produced.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101006132741.htm Repinotan allows an opiate user to receive the pain-relieving benefits of morphine, for example, without risking respiratory suppression since repinotan quickly increases the respiration rate which may be slowed by opiates. Repinotan is being trumpeted as a boon to the medical industry and patients alike since inadvertant, "permanent pain relief" can now be avoided when treating patients with opiates. This boon seems obviously true.

However, I wondered that nowhere in the announcement of repinotan was a mention of the potential boon to opiate addicts. It would seem to me that if an opiate addict takes repinotan before their fix, they will have much less chance of an overdose due to possible respiratory depression. This would be especially true when the addict is incorrect regarding the possibly lethal strength of the opiate dose they are using for any given fix.

My guess is that addicts are still so stigmatized by society in general that their protection is deemed far less important than for assumed non-addict patients in need of opioid pain relief. However, from a politically progressive or a spiritual point of view, every human's life is as valuable as the next. From this vantage point, the invention of repinotan is a potential boon to every mammalian (et al?) body that experiences a reduction of pain, as well as an increased likelihood of physical demise, when their receptor sites are exposed to opioids. My hope is that within my lifetime, all beneficiaries of an up and coming medical treatment such as repinotan will be mentioned along with the usual subjects!

Forgive this Dream

Forgiveness has been defined as 'the shifting of one's perception about one who might otherwise be perceived as one's adversary or antagonist, and instead recognizing the true holiness, even within such a one.' But what if the 'one' to be forgiven is the world itself, or creation as a whole? Many there are who dislike the majority of events they receive in life. Many others hold grudges for a lifetime against predictable individuals -- parents; teachers; lovers; spouses; children; bosses; politicians; gurus...

Yet according to the genius contributors at Wikipedia, and I hope you are one:

'Scientific polls have established that the need to forgive is widely recognized by the general population as an essential element of the healing process, however the exact means of attaining such a forgiveness is not well established. For example, in a large representative sampling of American people on various religious topics in 1988, the Gallup Organization found that 94% said it was important to forgive, but 85% said they needed some outside help to be able to forgive. However, not even regular prayer was found to be effective. The Gallup poll revealed that the only thing that was effective was "meditative prayer"'

So resentment is rife; forgiveness is the way to heal resentment; and meditation is acknowledged as the effective route to forgiveness. Yet how few meditate on a daily basis!

Hafez was a 14th century Persian mystic-poet, who included the importance of forgiveness within his works. Similar to the Yogic concept of 'Maya', or the dream-nature of reality, Hafez alludes to not merely forgiving individuals in one's life but also forgiving dream-creation as a whole. His poem 'Forgive the Dream' is an enduring classic, reminding us to forgive the storm of creation's maya, both once and for all -- and every ongoing day: Meditate!

All your images of winter
I see against your sky.

I understand the wounds
That have not healed in you.

They exist
Because God and Love
Have yet to become real enough

To allow you to forgive
The dream.

You still listen to an old alley song
That brings your body pain;

Now chain your ears
To His pacing drum and flute.

Fix your eyes upon
The magnificent arch of His brow

That supports
And allows this universe to expand.

Your hands, feet, and heart are wise
And want to know the warmth
Of a Perfect One's circle.

A true saint
Is an earth in eternal spring.

Inside the veins of a petal
On a blooming redbud tree

Are hidden worlds
Where Hafiz sometimes
Resides.

I will spread
A Persian carpet there
Woven with light.

We can drink wine
From a gourd I hollowed
And dried on the roof of my house.

I will bring bread I have kneaded
That contains my own
Divine genes

And cheese from a calf I raised.

My love for your Master is such
You can just lean back
And I will feed you
This truth:

Your wounds of love can only heal
When you can forgive
This dream

All hail insects

Having just started to reread Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" for the first time, it was a pleasure to read an article today on the potentially immense health benefits to be derived from the benign cockroach. Turns out the cockroach, locust, and likely other insects, have within their bodies a compound so toxic to bacteria that it kills ~90% of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) and Escherichia coli (E.coli). This is striking because MRSA kills ~20,000/year in the US alone, while E.coli kills 250 more Americans per year. Tens of thousands more are infected per year, of course, and the global impact of these two lethal-to-human organisms is very difficult to calculate.

Kafka's novel metamorphosis from human to amorphous (but very cockroach-like) insect represented his decision to leave the 'normal' world of humanity behind and to become a writer to the exclusion of almost all other activity. To Kafka, both insect and writer are destined to be reviled, isolated, and ultimately killed by mainstream humanity. Fulfilling his prophecy, Kafka died prematurely and in typical hermitic isolation -- from the effects Mycobacteria tuberculosis or one of the few other bacteria types that cause TB.

Tuberculosis we can treat with a rigorous antibiotic regime in our more modern times. But MRSA is a nemesis, and sometimes is resistant to every single antibiotic within our hospital arsenals. Hence MRSA patients are usually isolated and often hooked to last-resort IVs. Another insect is used for treatment when MRSA can begun to kill human skin tissue. Maggots are applied to the wound, as they ingest dead tissue and speed healing time significantly.

Within our lifetimes we may be saving human lives via insect power in many different ways. Maggots to eat dead tissue; cockroach/locust compounds to treat resistant bacterial infection; and whole insects, caught by massive nets and nicely disguised, as a way to help feed the 7+ billion folks on our ever more challenged planet. Saving graces often come from the most surprising places, and I look forward to what other insect remedies present themselves as I make my way through my own metamorphosis.

Lifestyle Medicine gets an allopathic nod

Percentage wise, there are few MDs putting their reputations on the line to stand up for integrative medicine. Mark Hyman is one of these few and far between, and here he reports on the American Council of Preventive Medicine (ACPM) Lifestyle Initiative Program.

"Lifestyle medicine is not just about preventing chronic diseases but also about treating them. It is often more effective and less expensive than relying exclusively on drugs and surgery. Nearly all the major medical societies recently joined in publishing a review of the scientific evidence for lifestyle medicine both for the prevention and TREATMENT of chronic disease. That report is called the ACPM Lifestyle Initiative..."

Within this initiative are the core competencies required for physicians to practice their trades while prescribing the appropriate amount of lifestyle changes for each patient. This increase in lifestyle change prescription will be huge for most doctors, as most of our doctors are MDs and most MDs dont learn the connection between diet, exercise, stress reduction, sleep, interpersonal relations, environmental toxins, spiritual practice, etc, during their lengthy course of study. Naturopathic Doctors (NDs) do, but they are only licensed in ~13 states, and most residents of these states don't know we exist because most insurance doesn't adequately cover our services.

Thus, despite the overwhelming evidence-based reasoning for using lifestyle medicine in the treatment of every acute and chronic disease, now approved by the conservative Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), many millions of people in the USA suffer or die unnecessarily because our doctors don't know how to fully doctor.

The title of Hyman's article on this topic is,

"Millions Die Due to Withheld Medical Treatment" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/millions-die-due-to-withh_b_705114.html , though Hyman acknowledges that most doctors don't have enough awareness of lifestyle medicine to prescribe it in the first place. They aren't withholding treatment, since they're not holding this knowledge in the first place. Yet our MDs make 6 figures yearly, on average, while our NDs barely make 5 figures on average -- when they try to be NDs. Instead, they involuntarily withhold their knowledge as most end up paying their bills via work as UPS drivers, nurses, cooks, massage therapists, et al. A modern day tragedy, affecting the well being of every human, every day...

An excellent idea

In a bit of promising news, we now have packing material that grows itself!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100727121933.htm

Named 'Mycobond', this new invention allows mushrooms to grow upon sterilized cotton dregs or wood pulp. This growth occurs within plastic molds of customizable shapes, and is stopped via heat treatment once the mold (pun intended!) has been filled. The final product looks and acts quite like synthetic packing foam, but takes only about 1/8 of the energy to create.

Upcoming changes in the sterilization process, from steam heat to essential oil application, are expected to lower that fraction to only 1/40 of the energy needed to make a comparable amount of petro-based plastic packaging. Quite the astronomical savings...plus the essential oil treatment will allow companies to grow their own packaging via a kit supplied by the company, Ecovative, that is responsible for all of these impressive improvements in the way we protect what we ship.

When the packaging is no longer needed for protecting shipments, it is best thrown into the compost. There it returns to nourish the soil, and perhaps to grow more mushrooms or cotton in a near perfect cycle. Hail human ingenuity; now to spread it from here to China.

Gluten News

Today researchers from announced that the trio of protein fragments partially composing the protein called gluten had finally been determined. As this article states:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100721141840.htm

gluten can cause coeliac disease and the skin ailment, dermititis herpetiformis, in those whose immune system reacts excessively to especially the three specific protein fragments discovered by the team of Dr Bob Anderson, head of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute's (Australia) coeliac research laboratory. Coeliac disease impacts an estimated 0.25% of the US population, and it's digestive impact is severe due to inflammation of the small intestine due to the excessive immune response to gluten's "toxic trio."

However, a much higher percentage of individuals are allergic or sensitive to gluten in a manner that does not produce the severe diarrhea of coeliac sprue or the specific skin rash of dermatitis herpetiformis. For these individuals, who make up approximately 5% of Americans (about 15% purportedly have an immune reaction to at least one food), nausea, hives, eczema, mental sluggishness, autoimmunune rheumatoid arthritis, migraines, and respiratory difficulties (anaphyaxis is rare) are the common symptoms.

The proclivity toward gluten sensitivity is genetically linked, and it can be lessened by waiting a full year before feeding a newborn infant any gluten products. Waiting in this way apparently gives the newborn digestive tract a chance to fully develop, and to not allow as many undigested (and therefore perceived by the immune system as foreign) gluten particles to attract babies' antibodies.

Currently little can be done for all of these gluten-related patients unless gluten from wheat, rye, barley, and maybe oats (with oats' avedin being similar to gluten) is avoided. Anti-inflammatories, naturopathic and allopathic, are the most common attempts to control symptoms. In my own case I can eat gluten without getting eczema if I am relaxed and getting plenty of sun. The more stressed I feel, and the less sun I get, the more eczema appears. Before I found out I was gluten sensitive, ten large eczema rings wept down my left chest and left arm and mental sluggishness soon after eating could be extreme -- especially if the gluten came along with sugar in a dessert.

This symptomatic experience of mine is quite common, and if gluten sensitive folks refrain from gluten assiduously for a year or more it is often possible to continue eating moderate amounts of gluten throughout life with minimal reaction. But some, such as my mother and sister, can simply never eat gluten without experiencing some dreaded symptom. Desensitization, using the toxic trio, may be a godsend for them and others who want to relax more around food choices -- often filled with gluten in our grain loving culture.

So this is how it works

We current humans consume and pollute (soon we'll be like the fremen in 'dune' who live in perfect ecological harmony with their environs) and think that eco-disaster is just over the horizon. Then Gaia reveals yet another buffering system that keeps things together just enough that sheer apocalyptic horror never materializes. Gradually we as a species wisen up and become more fremen-like; and Gaia continues relatively unimpeded.

The latest evidence for this encouraging (though I wont get carried away) phenomenon is the bearded goby fish of Namibia. Who would have guessed that such an unprepossessing character could save an entire ecosystem almost singlehandedly? Yet just look what this fish can do, and does: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/bearded-goby/

The goby ignores toxic mud and a low-oxygen environment, feeds on overwhelmingly excessive jellyfish populations, and act as necessary food for other species that would die without them. Their presence is called "lucky" by one of the biologists quoted in the article above. Gaia may beg to differ; and perhaps humanity can assist the cause by breeding goby or similar creatures for other toxic sea areas around the world.

There's a lot of big bad news out there right now. Let's celebrate the little, lovable, lucky(?) goby.

Fat seems to mean lazy...sorry

In a helpful 'chicken or egg' research article regarding childhood obesity, it has been found that

treating obesity with physical activity doesnt work well since obese kids dont like physical activity. Nor does physical activity predict future childhood (and hence adult) obesity.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100707212127.htm

http://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2010/06/23/adc.2009.17592

So we now know to a greater extent that fatness produces physical inactivity, not the other way around. "EarlyBird [Diabetes Study] has already shown how the trajectory leading to obesity is established very early in life, long before children go to school, and how most childhood obesity is associated with obesity in the same-sex parent."

This trajectory seems to be caused by early feeding habits, especially excessively large portions in general and excess dietary fat and sugar in specific. As usual, eating a vegetable, fruit, and grain-based whole foods diet will solve much of this obesity issue in one fell swoop. But the childish ongoing food desires of adult humanity continue to worsen the obesity epidemic.

Recently it was reported http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html that in the US in 1991 the fattest state on average was Mississippi, with an obesity rate of ~16%. In 2008 the THINNEST state was Colorado, with a ~19% obesity rate. Such are the stats that nightmares are made of; and, yes, a lot of these same nightmares are caused by eating a mound of ice cream (with or without pickles) before bed!

So eat plants; and feed your kids plants. Our human suffering will decrease by a bit. Simple.

7

Expressing emotions with wisdom

Some say emotions are best unexpressed, since vented anger has been shown to increase blood pressure, heart rate, and the general length of time that a 'fight or flight' sympathetic nervous system response endures. Yet even stoic Gandhi said that one should express anger if one is angry...with the caveat that one should mature to the point that no anger is produced no matter what the provocation!

New research shows that overall emotional suppression is socially foolish, for it partitions us off as alien to the rest of our predictably emotive human species, and thus makes it more difficult for us to create and maintain friendships and friendly work relations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/health/06mind.html?src=me&ref=general

Ideally we keep emotions in our back pocket, to use when helpful (to paraphrase Swami Satchitananda). This does not mean we pretend to be emotional in order to manipulate others. Rather, it means that we are masters of these three emotional techniques -- as illustrated in the linked article above:

"Three components of regulation: concealing (i.e., suppression), adjusting (quickly calming anger, for instance) and tolerating (openly expressing emotion)."

Sometimes we will choose to suppress an emotion, so that we are not laughing at funerals, for example. At other times we will 'hiss' at an annoying one, for example, perhaps to keep a predator at bay. Then we will quickly calm ourselves when full safety has returned. And at still different times we may express our emotions fully, perhaps as at an aforementioned funeral; or raucous festive occasion; or loving relationship...

Like a dancer or musician or artist with a trillion potential creative actions at our beck and call, let us be expert emotional expressors creating a trillion variations from our emotional palette. Remember that emotional intelligence does not equal single-noted emotional rigidity. It equals trillion-noted emotional fluidity.

All this, in not quite 150 years

"On July 3, 1863, the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania ended after three days in a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated."

It is easy to complain about present day circumstances, especially since we don't yet have the virtual reality opportunity to experience the trevails of yesteryear. Let the following list of medical progress since the Civil War allow you some vicarious experience however. Celebrate this fourth of July by rejoicing in our recent independence from a host of perennial, disease aiding enemies. One hundred fifty years is an eyeblink compared to the 100,000 to 1,000,000+ years that humans in different versions have walked the Earth. We have made great progress, in a multitude of ways, within the last tenth to hundredth of a percent of our shared existence. Now it is our shared duty to keep up even better, wiser work, since our global biosphere is in real trouble. For now, however, the celebratory list:

Some Medical Progress since 1863, with this being a heavily allopathic list. Still, it seems to me we're way better off than if these advances had never occured:

• 1867 - Lister publishes Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery, based partly on Pasteur's work.
• 1870 - Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch establish the germ theory of disease
• 1879 - first vaccine for cholera
• 1881 - Louis Pasteur develops an anthrax vaccine
• 1882 - Louis Pasteur develops a rabies vaccine
• 1890 - Emil von Behring discovers antitoxins and uses them to develop tetanus and diphtheria vaccines
• 1895 - Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovers medical use of X-rays in medical imaging
• 1901 - Karl Landsteiner discovers the existence of different human blood types
• 1901 - Alois Alzheimer identifies the first case of what becomes known as Alzheimer's disease
• 1906 - Frederick Hopkins suggests the existence of vitamins and suggests that a lack of vitamins causes scurvy and rickets
• 1907 - Paul Ehrlich develops a chemotherapeutic cure for sleeping sickness
• 1908 - Victor Horsley and R. Clarke invents the stereotactic method
• 1909 - First Intrauterine device described by Richard Richter.^[17]
• 1917 - Julius Wagner-Jauregg discovers the malarial fever shock therapy for general paresis of the insane
• 1921 - Edward Mellanby discovers vitamin D and shows that its absence causes rickets
• 1921 - Frederick Banting and Charles Best discover insulin - important for the treatment of diabetes
• 1921 - Fidel Pagés pioneers epidural anesthesia
• 1923 - First vaccine for Diphtheria
• 1926 - First vaccine for Pertussis
• 1927 - First vaccine for Tuberculosis
• 1927 - First vaccine for Tetanus
• 1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
• 1929 - Hans Berger discovers human electroencephalography
• 1932 - Gerhard Domagk develops a chemotherapeutic cure for streptococcus
• 1933 - Manfred Sakel discovers insulin shock therapy
• 1935 - Ladislas J. Meduna discovers metrazol shock therapy
• 1935 - First vaccine for Yellow Fever
• 1936 - Egas Moniz discovers prefrontal lobotomy for treating mental diseases
• 1938 - Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini discover electroconvulsive therapy
• 1943 - Willem Kolff build the first dialysis machine
• 1949 - First implant of intraocular lens, by Sir Harold Ridley
• 1952 - Jonas Salk develops the first polio vaccine
• 1957 - William Grey Walter invents the brain EEG topography (toposcope)
• 1960 - Invention of Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
• 1960 - First combined oral contraceptive approved by the FDA^[17]
• 1962 - First Oral Polio Vaccine
• 1964 - First vaccine for Measles
• 1965 - Frank Pantridge installs the first portable defibrillator
• 1965 - First commercial ultrasound
• 1967 - First vaccine for Mumps
• 1967 - Christiaan Barnard performs first human heart transplant
• 1970 - First vaccine for Rubella
• 1971 - Sir Godfrey Hounsfield invents the first commercial CT scanner
• 1976 - First commercial PET scanner
• 1978 - Last fatal case of smallpox^[18]
• 1980 - Raymond Damadian builds first commercial MRI scanner
• 1981 - First vaccine for Hepatitis B
• 1987 - Ben Carson, leading a 70-member medical team in Germany, was the first to separate occipital craniopagus twins.
• 1992 - First vaccine for Hepatitis A available^[19]
• 2003 - Carlo Urbani, of Doctors without Borders alerted the World Health Organization to the threat of the SARS virus, triggering the most effective response to an epidemic in history. Urbani succumbs to the disease himself in less than a month.
• 2005 - Jean-Michel Dubernard performs the first partial face transplant
• 2006 - First HPV vaccine approved
• 2006 - Second rotavirus vaccine approved (first was withdrawn)
• 2008 - Laurent Lantieri performs the first full face transplant