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First U.S. Death by Vampire Bat: Should We Worry?

Vampire Bat
© Ltshears | Wikimedia

Earlier today (Aug. 12), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first known case of a person dying in the United States as a result of a vampire bat bite. Which raises the question: Are the rest of us at risk?

No, not really, says one expert, and for two good reasons.

First of all, the person who died, a 19-year-old from Mexico, wasn't actually bitten in the U.S.; he was bitten in Michoacán, Mexico, and died a few weeks later during a trip to Louisiana (this all happened last August). Also, he didn't die from the bite itself, but from the rabies virus that the bat infected him with.

These are key distinctions, said Gerald Carter, a Ph. D. biology candidate at the University of Maryland and an expert on vampire bat behavior.

First of all - and probably most importantly - vampire bats don't live in the U.S. They exist only in Central and South America - from central Mexico down to around Brazil - where they parasitize cattle and horses, Carter said. There is some research that speculates that as the climate continues to get warmer, vampire bats will extend their range into the United States. Currently, though, there is little to no reason to believe that the bats have already done so.

Syringe

Superdrug takes out common cold, other viruses

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© CC WikimediaThe Dengue Fever virus in action (the cluster of dark dots near the center).

Scientists at MIT say they've developed a promising new drug that appears to not only be able to attack the common cold, but just about any other virus as well.

The drug goes by the name DRACO (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer--uh, I'll stick with the acronym) and is made using the defense mechanism of living cells. The drug reportedly attacks cells that have been infected with a virus, without harming healthy cells. DRACO attaches itself to virus-tainted cells and contains a protein that initiates a process by which the infected cells kill themselves. If DRACO encounters a healthy cell along the way, it simply waves hello and leaves it alone.

The idea of a one-size-fits-all approach to creating antiviral drugs has the potential for huge implications. Until now, drugmakers have had to design a new drug to fight each individual virus strain, and because viruses like to be sneaky and mutate often, it's been an ongoing battle to keep up with them.

Magnify

US: Florida Teen Critical After Suffering Rare Brain Infection Likely Caused By Amoeba

Ameoba
© Science/NASA
A Brevard County teen was hospitalized after an amoeba is believed to have infected her brain while she was swimming in a local river.

The young girl, identified in numerous reports as 16-year-old Courtney Nash, is currently listed in critical condition, officials said.

Barry Inman, an epidemiologist with the Brevard County Health Department, told CBS Tampa that the very rare infection, known as amoebic meningoencephalitis, has not yet been confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control, but that officials believe a positive test will be returned any day.

"We got a result from the hospital in Orlando and they did a spinal tap on her, and they looked on the cerebral spinal fluid and they saw the amoeba. So we're confident that this is a hospital that has some experience with this organism, and we're confident about what the diagnosis is," he said.

Inman said there are typically fewer than five cases a year in the entire country, and that only one person has survived the infection since the 1970s. Doctors treat it with anti-fungal medications and antibiotics.

Cheeseburger

Stating the Obvious: Food Allergies May Be Cause of Unexplained Migraines

For people who suffer occasional migraine headaches that seem to have no trigger, one potential cause may be an unknown food allergy.

One Mayo Clinic researcher and one of the institute's neurologists said in a news site, that some migraine sufferers might be experiencing symptoms from a mild, undiagnosed food allergy. He noted that more research needed to be done in the area of the link between migraines and food allergies. Pointing to a recent study published in the journal Cephalalgia, he explains that a migraine headache may be a immunological response.

Attention

Mental illness is not 'all in the mind'

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© Unknown
Psychiatry is a profession supposedly there to help people with mental health issues such as anxiety, depression and schizophrenia. That's the idea anyway. I say this because, in reality, it's not the most effective of disciplines, I think. The drugs often don't work too well, and usually come with significant side effects too. If I had my time again, there's no way in the world I would choose to be a conventionally practising psychiatrist.

In my view, one of the major deficiencies of psychiatry is how it views almost all mental illness as a problem which originates in the brain. The psychiatric model of illness is generally based on the idea that brain function goes awry when brain chemicals (neurochemicals) become imbalanced. For example, depression is seen very often as a result of not having enough serotonin. So, drugs that elevate levels of serotonin then become the mainstay treatment for this condition.

Bad Guys

Intensely Sexualized Images Of Women On The Rise?

Magazines
© redOrbitUB sociologists Erin Hatton and Mary Nell Trautner are the authors of Equal Opportunity Objectification?, which examines 43 years of Rolling Stone magazine covers.
Popular media's hypersexualization of women may be worse than you think.

A study by University at Buffalo sociologists has found that the portrayal of women in the popular media over the last several decades has become increasingly sexualized, even "pornified." The same is not true of the portrayal of men.

These findings may be cause for concern, the researchers say, because previous research has found sexualized images of women to have far-reaching negative consequences for both men and women.

Erin Hatton, PhD, and Mary Nell Trautner, PhD, assistant professors in the UB Department of Sociology, are the authors of Equal Opportunity Objectification? The Sexualization of Men and Women on the Cover of Rolling Stone, which examines the covers of Rolling Stone magazine from 1967 to 2009 to measure changes in the sexualization of men and women in popular media over time.

The study will be published in the September issue of the journal Sexuality & Culture and is available here.

Info

Autism and ADHD Share Genetic Similarities

Test Tube DNA
© Dreamstime

Similar genetic changes found in some people with ADHD and in some with autism may help explain why children with the hyperactivity disorder often have symptoms of other developmental disorders, a new study reports.

The study identified several genetic changes that are present in a small portion of both attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) patients and autism patients, and that are absent in people without these disorders.

Although it has been known that some autism and ADHD patients have certain rare genes in common, this is the first study "to compare the two conditions head to head, in an identical way," said study researcher Russell Schachar, senior scientist of psychiatry at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

In addition to finding a genetic overlap between the conditions, the study identified several genes not previously known to be involved in ADHD.

The research was published online today (Aug. 10) in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Health

Tattoos Linked to Hard-to-Treat Bacterial Infection

Tattoo
© Dreamstime
A rare but difficult-to-treat bacterial infection that usually strikes people with impaired immune systems is showing up for the first time in healthy individuals getting tattoos, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

Two cases of skin infections caused by this bacterium, called Mycobacterium haemophilum, have occurred in individuals receiving tattoos in the Seattle area, the CDC said.

These bacteria are in the same family as those that cause tuberculosis and leprosy. Symptoms of the infection include small bumps at the site of infection, in addition to redness, pain, swelling and discharge, the researchers said.

The infection is not responsive to traditional antibiotic treatments, and even with the right drugs, can take months to heal.

Because of the rarity of the infections, tattoo aficionados shouldn't be too worried, the researchers say.

But the researchers want to increase awareness of these infections so doctors know to look for them, said study researcher Meagan Kay, a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the public health department in Seattle and King County.

"Clinicians should consider this bacterium as a potential cause of skin infections in persons who have recently received a tattoo," Kay said.

Health

Medicating your kids for peace and quiet: Is it ever OK?

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© Unknown
Every mom wants a little peace and quiet. But some moms are taking drastic measures to get it.

In our TODAY Moms and Parenting.com poll of more than 26,000 mothers, one in five admitted to giving their children medicine such as Benadryl or Dramamine to get through a big event, like a long car ride or plane trip.

More disturbing: One in 12 moms confessed to regularly dosing their kids with sleep-inducing medication, just to get some peace and quiet on a normal night.

Moms wrote to us anonymously:
"I give my younger daughter Benadryl and Tylenol almost every night - she loves the taste and begs for it."

"I gave my child Benadryl to go to sleep - years later now, I am still embarrassed to admit it."

"I gave my child Benadryl when he was mildly congested to guarantee he would fall asleep on time so I could get to bed at a decent hour."
"I suspect that one in five is low," said Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC's chief medical editor, who says parents should talk to their pediatricians about proper dosage. (She adds that every doctor she knows who's also a parent has tried this trick at some point, so don't feel shy about telling your doctor.)

A hit of Benadryl before a long trip is pretty standard practice, though it may not win you Mother of the Year award (except maybe from your fellow passengers on a cross-country flight).

Dollar

Upper-Class People Less Empathetic than Lower-Class People: Study

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© Unknown
People from different economic classes have fundamentally different ways of thinking about the world, according to research recently published in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

The authors of the study said the findings have important, but overlooked, implications for public policy.

"Americans, although this is shifting a bit, kind of think class is irrelevant," said Dacher Keltner of the University of California-Berkeley, who cowrote the article with Michael W. Kraus of UC-San Francisco and Paul K. Piff of UC-Berkeley.

"I think our studies are saying the opposite: This is a profound part of who we are."

A study published in Psychological Science in November, for instance, found that people of upper-class status have trouble recognizing the emotions other people are feeling. People of lower-class status do a much better job.

"What I think is really interesting about that is, it kind of shows there's all this strength to the lower class identity: greater empathy, more altruism, and finer attunement to other people," Keltner said.