Health & WellnessS


Syringe

Somalis, Health Department at odds over autism, vaccines

Distrust of vaccines and the mystery behind autism's causes have created a public health problem in Minnesota.

Somali parents of children with autism and the Minnesota Department of Health are at a standoff over vaccines. The parents suspect vaccines have caused autism in their children, while the Health Department says there's no evidence of a link.

This dispute comes as fewer people overall are getting their children vaccinated and diseases once controlled by vaccines are making a comeback. Measles was once almost wiped out in Minnesota, but so far this year 23 cases have been reported -- a third of them among Somalis.

Somali parents say they understand that the Health Department wants to prevent the spread of dangerous diseases like measles. But they argue that it's not enough for them to be told that vaccines don't cause autism.

Info

Fears Mount Over Mysterious Pneumonia-Linked Virus

Fears are mounting over a mysterious virus that left seven pregnant women hospitalized with pneumonia and caused the death of one of them on Tuesday. Health officials say they have been unable to identify the pathogen that is causing the illness and are trying their best to trace the cause.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has mobilized epidemiologists and other experts to find the cause of the disease, saying the simultaneous onset of acute pneumonia in several pregnant women is unprecedented.

Magnify

Bedbugs Can Carry Drug-Resistant Bacteria: Study

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© Agence France-Presse/Getty/Jewel SamadBedbugs in a container on display at the National Bedbug Conference in Washington, Feb. 2, 2011. A new report suggests that the hard-to-tackle pests can carry methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- better known as the "superbug" MRSA.
Bedbugs, the apple seed-sized critters checking in to mattresses nationwide, may be traveling with some risky baggage. A new report suggests that hard-to-tackle pests whose deep bites leave itchy welts can carry drug-resistant bacteria -- better known as "superbugs."

Canadian researchers found methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE) on bedbugs collected from three hospitalized patients, according to the report published today in Emerging Infectious Diseases -- the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's journal.

But whether the bugs can actually infect a person remains unclear.

Family

Parents' Fighting Can Even Affect Infants: Study

parents fighting
© Unknown
Infants whose parents had more relationship 'instability' slept more poorly at 18 months old

Infants' sleep patterns can be disrupted if their parents have severe relationship problems and are constantly arguing, a new study finds.

In addition, infants who heard regular blow-ups between parents when they were 9 months old continued to have troubled sleep patterns -- marked by problems getting to sleep and staying asleep -- even when they were 18-month-old toddlers.

The researchers found, however, that infants' sleep patterns had no effect on parents' relationships.

The findings were from a study by an international team of researchers, who analyzed data from more than 300 U.S. children and parents. All of the children were adopted at birth, which let researchers focus on how family relationships -- without the influence of genetics -- might affect the infants' sleep patterns.

"Regulated sleep is essential during infancy for healthy brain and physical development. Disrupted sleep patterns early in life have serious implications for children's long-term development," study co-author Gordon Harold, chair in behavioral genetics and developmental psychopathology at the University of Leicester, U.K., said in a university news release.

People

Environmental Illness in Kids Costs Billions

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© Unknown
Washington -- Childhood diseases thought to be linked to environmental causes cost the nation nearly $77 billion in medical costs and lost productivity in 2008 alone, a new analysis found.

Building on a 2002 analysis, investigators estimated how much of a role environmental factors play in causing such conditions as childhood cancers, asthma, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and then attached a dollar figure to the medical treatment and lost productivity expected to occur because of the preventable disease or disorder.

The study was published in the May issue of Health Affairs, which is devoted entirely to examining the link between the environment and health -- an issue that often gets short shrift in health policy and medical circles, although a recent congressional hearing focused on disease clusters and their environmental causes.

Cow

US: Feds Abandon Extra Radiation Monitoring of Milk, Water

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© Creative Commons/David BaronA dairy in the Sunol Regional Wilderness. Radiation can accumulate in milk after cows eat tainted grass.
Routine measurements will resume; nuclear expert calls decision "staggering"

The U.S. government has abandoned efforts to monitor elevated levels of radiation that infiltrated the nation's water and milk in the wake of a nuclear catastrophe in Japan.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has faced stiff criticism for its slow and spotty monitoring of radioactive iodine, cesium and other materials that were ejected into the atmosphere after the Fukushima nuclear power plant was struck by a tsunami in early March. The material fell on the United States in rainwater and was ingested by cows, which passed it through into their milk.

Radiation levels in some milk and rain samples have exceeded normal long-term federal drinking water standards, but EPA officials have described the levels as almost completely safe. Anti-nuclear power activists have accused the federal government of downplaying the health risks in an effort to protect the nuclear power industry and predicted that the radioactive isotopes will lead to a rash of cancers.

Now, less than two months after the nuclear disaster began to unfold, the EPA is abandoning most of its additional radiation monitoring activities. Recent monitoring has continued to detect the radiation in the North American environment, though at declining levels.

Health

Methane Gas Is Contaminating Drinking Water

Tap Water
© redOrbit
A report released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday reveals that a controversial natural gas production technique, which is key to a century of U.S. domestic supply, is causing contamination of drinking water.

Scientists from Duke University collected 68 drinking water samples that showed potentially harmful levels of methane in drinking water near drilling sites in Pennsylvania and New York.

"In aquifers overlying the Marcellus and Utica shale formations of northeastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York, we document systematic evidence for methane contamination of drinking water associated with shale gas extraction," the report said.

Fracking involves releasing natural gas trapped in shale formations by blasting a mix of water, sand and chemicals into the rock. It has helped find water supplies in the U.S. for 100 years, though environmentalists believe it can contaminate water supplies.

The report said methane concentrations were detected in 51 of 60 drinking-water wells across the region, regardless of gas industry operations, but concentrations were much higher closer to natural-gas wells.

According to the report, levels were 17-times higher on average in shallow wells from active drilling areas than in wells from nonactive areas.

Attention

GMO Foods Pose Higher Risks for Children

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© foodconsumer.org
Higher Risks for Children

Children face the greatest risk from the potential dangers of GM foods:
  • Young, fast-developing bodies are influenced most
  • Children are more susceptible to allergies
  • Children are more susceptible to problems with milk
  • Children are more susceptible to nutritional problems
  • Children are in danger from antibiotic resistant diseases
Fast-developing bodies are influenced most

Children's bodies develop at a fast pace and are more likely to be influenced and show the effects of genetically modified (GM) foods. That is why independent scientists used young adolescent rats in their GM feeding studies. The rats showed significant health damage after only 10 days, including damaged immune systems and digestive function, smaller brains, livers, and testicles, partial atrophy of the liver, and potentially pre-cancerous cell growth in the intestines.

Health

Morgellons: A hidden epidemic or mass hysteria?

Morgellons
© Vitaly Citovsky/Suny at Stony Brook Optical image of what sufferers are adamant are morgellons fibres in skin samples - are they made up of alien ­matter, or are ­everyday materials the more likely explanation?
It's a mysterious condition that affects tens of thousands worldwide. But what is it?

It all started in August 2007, on a family holiday in New England. Paul had been watching Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix with his wife and two sons, and he had started to itch. His legs, his arms, his torso - it was everywhere. It must be fleas in the seat, he decided.

But the 55-year-old IT executive from Birmingham has been itching ever since, and the mystery of what is wrong with him has only deepened. When Paul rubbed his fingertips over the pimples that dotted his skin, he felt spines. Weird, alien things, like splinters. Then, in 2008, his wife was soothing his back with surgical spirit when the cotton swab she was using gathered a curious blue-black haze from his skin. Paul went out, bought a £40 microscope and examined the cotton. What were those curling, coloured fibres? He Googled the words: "Fibres. Itch. Sting. Skin." And there was his answer. It must be: all the symptoms fitted. He had a new disease called morgellons. The fibres were the product of mysterious creatures that burrow and breed in the body. As he read on, he had no idea that morgellons would turn out to be the worst kind of answer imaginable.

Morgellons was named in 2001 by an American called Mary Leitao, whose son complained of sores around his mouth and the sensation of "bugs". Examining him with a toy microscope, Leitao found him to be covered in unexplained red, blue, black and white fibres. Since then, workers at her Morgellons Research Foundation say they have been contacted by more than 12,000 affected families. Campaign group the Charles E Holman Foundation states there are sufferers in "every continent except Antarctica". Thousands have written to Congress demanding action. In response, more than 40 senators, including Hillary Clinton, John McCain and a pre-presidential Barack Obama, pressured the Centres For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) to investigate; in 2006, it formed a special taskforce, setting aside $1m to study the condition. Sufferers include folk singer Joni Mitchell, who has complained of "this weird incurable disease that seems like it's from outer space... Fibres in a variety of colours protrude out of my skin: they cannot be forensically identified as animal, vegetable or mineral. Morgellons is a slow, unpredictable killer - a terrorist disease. It will blow up one of your organs, leaving you in bed for a year."

Comment: For more information on morgellons, check these articles:

Morgellons Disease May Be Linked to Genetically Modified Food
GM Files: Horrifying New Disease Contains Identical Material to GM "Food"
The Facts Behind The Medical Mystery Of Morgellons


Cow

Meat Glue: Or How to Make a Filet Mignon out of Stew Meat

meat
© Unknown
It has recently come to my attention that a substance called transglutaminase (i.e. meat glue) has been used in the food industry for many years in order to trick us into thinking the food we eat is of a better quality.

According to Wiki, meat glue "...is produced by Streptoverticillium mobaraense fermentation in commercial quantities or extracted from animal blood, and is used in a variety of processes, including the production of processed meat and fish products. It can be used as a binding agent to improve the texture of protein-rich foods such as surimi or ham." (Surimi is a fish used to make imitation crab meat. Surprise! There's animal blood extract in your crab!)