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Hand sanitizers may increase norovirus risk
Of the 45 facilities that reported preferential use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers in a recent survey, 53% experienced a confirmed outbreak of norovirus, compared with 18% of the 17 facilities that used hand sanitizers less often than soap and water.
Alcohol-based hand sanitizers may not be the panacea for hand hygiene they were once supposed, as mounting research indicates they may not be effective substitutes for soap and water, and in some cases may actually increase the risk for outbreaks of highly contagious viruses in health care settings.
Public health experts, however, say more rigorous investigations will be necessary to trump the convenience of using hand sanitizers, among other benefits, or substantially alter existing recommendations that strongly encourage their use by health care professionals.
It’s widely recognized that improper use of antibiotics contributes greatly to the development and spread of super bugs in health care settings, but the link between hand sanitizers and Read more…
Monsanto’s Roundup linked to deadly diseases and birth defects, most people have no idea
A recent report put together by various professors, scholars and researchers affiliated with Earth Open Source, a collaboration group devoted to food issues, cites in great deal the multitude of peer-reviewed scientific studies which show that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide (glyphosate), which is applied to many genetically-modified (GM) crops, is responsible for causing birth defects, endocrine disruption, DNA damage, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and cancer — and yet government agencies around the world continue to ignore this crucial information, and withhold it from the public, as they push for its approval or expanded use.
One of the main studies highlighted in the report was published in the August 2010 edition of Chemical Research in Toxicology, and it showed that Roundup causes malformations in frog and chicken embryos at levels much lower than those used on agricultural crops. And since Roundup-ready GM crops are designed to tolerate the herbicide, not resist it, they literally absorb Roundup, which is then passed on in much higher levels to humans that eat the tainted crops.
Another study conducted as part of the Read more…
New concerns over Lyme disease
Ted Simons can’t remember the content of a recent phone conversation. When he reads, an activity he has always enjoyed, he has trouble understanding and retaining what he’s read.
Yet Simons, a performer and composer of music, can still play the piano and remember thousands of songs. The 78-year-old Westport resident and his wife Jean don’t know exactly what’s wrong with him.
Tests have shown it’s unlikely he has Alzheimer’s disease, though he shows signs of dementia. The couple have tried various therapies, but nothing has worked for long. In talking to doctors, the Simons have developed a possible, unexpected cause for Ted’s confusion and memory problems: Lyme disease.
The illness, spread by tick bites, can affect different organ systems, including Read more…
Haiti’s cholera epidemic twice as bad as predicted, say researchers
Haiti’s cholera epidemic may be twice as bad as health officials originally thought.
The number of people affected with the disease may be nearly 800,000, double what U.N. officials predicted, BBC reports.
The bacterial disease causes severe diarrhea and vomiting and can be life-threatening if left untreated as it can lead to severe dehydration. It is spread from person-to-person through contaminated food and water.
About 150,000 people contracted cholera and 3,500 died in Haiti between October and December 2010. U.N. health officials expected the number of infected at this time to be about 400,000. But researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, say the number is likely to be double that.
The new calculations take into consideration factors such as Read more…
Air travelers may have been exposed to measles
WASHINGTON (AP) — Public health officials are warning travelers and workers present at four U.S. airports on two recent days that they may have been exposed to measles from a traveler arriving from London.
Authorities said Saturday that a New Mexico woman later confirmed to have measles arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport late in the afternoon of Feb. 20. Two days later, the measles-infected traveler departed from BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport near Baltimore on an evening flight to Denver, Colo., and then on to Albuquerque, N.M.
The traveler became sick and was subsequently diagnosed with measles in New Mexico, said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said Saturday night that authorities in those states are trying to notify Read more…
AP IMPACT: Past medical testing on humans revealed
In this June 25, 1945 picture, army doctors expose patients to malaria-carrying mosquitoes in the malaria ward at Stateville Penitentiary in Crest Hill, Ill. Around the time of World War II, prisoners were enlisted to help the war effort by participating in studies that could help the troops. A series of malaria studies at Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois and two other penitentiaries were designed to test antimalarial drugs that could help soldiers fighting in the Pacific. Shocking as it may seem, government doctors once thought it was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates.
By MIKE STOBBE,
ATLANTA – Shocking as it may seem, U.S. government doctors once thought it was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates. Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.
Much of this horrific history is 40 to 80 years old, but it is the backdrop for a meeting in Washington this week by a presidential bioethics commission. The meeting was triggered by the government’s apology last fall for federal doctors infecting prisoners and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago.
U.S. officials also acknowledged there had been dozens of similar experiments in the United States — studies that often involved making healthy people sick.
An exhaustive review by The Associated Press of medical journal reports and decades-old press clippings found more than 40 such studies. At best, these were a search for lifesaving treatments; at worst, some amounted to curiosity-satisfying experiments that hurt people but provided no useful results.
Inevitably, they will be compared to the well-known Tuskegee syphilis study. In that episode, U.S. health officials tracked 600 black men in Alabama who already had syphilis but didn’t give them adequate treatment even after penicillin became available.
These studies were worse in at least one respect — they violated the Read more…
Wikileaks: GMO conspiracy reaches highest levels of US Government
Recent Wikileaks cables are typically associated with information leaks related to U.S. war strategy, and foreign policy, which has led some people to conclude that leaked information of this nature is a possible threat to national security.
But in this case, Wikileaks cables leaked information regarding global food policy as it relates to U.S. officials — in the highest levels of government — that involves a conspiracy with Monsanto to force the global sale and use of genetically-modified foods.
In 2007, then-U.S. ambassador to France Craig Stapleton conspired to retaliate against European countries for their anti-biotech policies. U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal the Bush administration formulated battle plans to extract revenge against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds.
In the leaked cable, Stapleton writes: “Europe is Read more…
BABY DOLPHINS ARE WASHING UP DEAD ALONG THE GULF
HORN ISLAND — The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies has confirmed that a fourth baby dolphin has washed ashore on Horn Island,
The island, one of the longest in the chain that comprises the Gulf Islands National Seashore Park, is about 12 miles south of Ocean Springs.
Three baby dolphins were pinpointed Monday and a fourth was reported today by National Resource Advisory employees who are working with BP cleanup crews on the island.
Global warming could increase diseases originating from water sources
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Climate change could increase exposure to water-borne diseases originating in oceans, lakes and coastal ecosystems, and the impact could be felt within 10 years, US scientists told a conference in Washington on Saturday.
Several studies have shown that shifts brought about by climate change make ocean and freshwater environments more susceptible to toxic algae blooms and allow harmful microbes and bacteria to proliferate, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
In one study, NOAA scientists modeled future ocean and weather patterns to predict the effect on blooms of Alexandrium catenella, or the toxic “red tide,” which can accumulate in shellfish and cause symptoms, including paralysis, and can sometimes be deadly to humans who eat the Read more…
Biodefense Scientists Fight Lassa Fever
Scientists are at work in Sierra Leone studying the rat-carried Lassa fever with the aim of developing a speedy and uncomplicated process for diagnosing the virus in the event of a bioterrorism attack, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 23, 2010).
A laboratory in Sierra Leone’s southeast is conducting U.S.-funded research on Lassa fever, which is classified as a “category A” pathogen, a designation given to biological agents such as botulism and anthrax that can produce significant health threats.
The disease is found in a particular species of rat that is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and regularly consumed for Read more…
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