Health & WellnessS


Health

More in New York, New Jersey infected with chikungunya virus: CDC

Daniel Kelley
Yahoo! News
Thu, 31 Jul 2014 21:48 UTC
Cases of chikungunya virus, a painful, mosquito-borne disease that has spread rapidly through the Caribbean in recent months, spiked higher in New York and New Jersey in the past week, according to new federal data.

The number of cases in New Jersey more than doubled to 25, while New York has recorded 44 cases, the highest number outside Florida, where the disease first established a toehold in the United States, according to data released late Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Officials in New Jersey and New York do not believe any of the cases originated in their state. Summary
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Health

A map for eye disease: Most detailed molecular map of eye region associated with vision loss


ScienceDaily
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 16:06 UTC
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© Vinit Mahajan labUniversity of Iowa researchers have created the most detailed map to date of the abundance of thousands of proteins in the choroid, a region of the human eye long associated with blinding diseases. By seeing differences in protein abundance, the researchers can begin to figure out which proteins may be the critical actors in vision loss and eye disease.
Understanding eye diseases is tricky enough. Knowing what causes them at the molecular level is even more confounding.

Now, University of Iowa researchers have created the most detailed map to date of a region of the human eye long associated with blinding diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration. The high-resolution molecular map catalogs thousands of proteins in the choroid, which supplies blood and oxygen to the outer retina, itself critical in vision. By seeing differences in the abundance of proteins in different areas of the choroid, the researchers can begin to figure out which proteins may be the critical actors in vision loss and eye disease.

"This molecular map now gives us clues why certain areas of the choroid are more sensitive to certain diseases, as well as where to target therapies and why," says Vinit Mahajan, assistant professor in ophthalmology at the UI and corresponding author on the paper, published in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology. "Before this, we just didn't know what was where."

What vision specialists know is many eye diseases, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), are caused by inflammation that damages the choroid and the accompanying cellular network known as the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Yet they've been vexed by the anatomy: Why does it seem that some areas of the choroid-RPE are more susceptible to disease than others, and what is happening at the molecular level? The researchers set about to answer that question with non-diseased eye tissue donated by three deceased older individuals through the Iowa Lions Eye Bank. From there, Mahajan and Jessica Skeie, a post-doctoral researcher in ophthalmology at the UI, created a map that catalogs more than 4,000 unique proteins in each of the three areas of the choroid-RPE: the fovea, macula, and the periphery.
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Cheeseburger

A supersized idea! Russia considering mandatory warnings and threatening pictures for fast food packaging


RT
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 09:58 UTC
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If a group of Russian MPs has it their way, soon hamburgers, French fries and soda drinks sold in the country would have mandatory warning of the diverse effects that fast food can have on health, just like on cigarette packs.

The legislation that would put fast food on par with tobacco in Russia is yet to be submitted to the parliament, but the three sponsors of the potential bill say it's necessary.

"Our consumers have to be informed about the harmful ingredients in products, similar to the measures taken towards cigarettes," the three MPs told Izvestia newspaper. "Excessive consumption of such products leads to obesity, harms lungs, heart, kidneys and liver."

"Packaging of such products should have threatening pictures showing the diseases that can be caused by overconsumption of fast food."

McDonald's, one of the largest fast food chains in Russia, declined to comment on the possible requirement to put less-than-appetizing pictures on big-mag wraps for the newspaper, saying the company would need to study the actual bill first. But their competitors from the Burger Club chain said the measure would be overkill.

"We are firmly against any warnings and threatening pictures," said Ksenia Danderya, spokeswoman for the chain's development department.

Comment: While America continues poisoning their citizens with fake, toxic food, Russia is paving the way for organic gardening, self dependency, GMO-free foods, and now they're cracking down on fast food.

See related:

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Health

American infected with Ebola in West Africa outbreak to be treated in Atlanta hospital


RT
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 11:18 UTC
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© AFP Photo/Cellou Binani
One of the two infected US humanitarian workers who contracted Ebola while working in West Africa will be treated in an Atlanta hospital. The patient, who is reportedly in a "grave" condition, is expected to arrive within the next several days.

Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, is planning to admit the infected patient "within the next several days," the university said in a statement. The institution, however, didn't reveal the name of the patient and the exact time of his/her arrival.

"Emory University Hospital has a specially built isolation unit set up in collaboration with the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] to treat patients who are exposed to certain serious infectious diseases,"said the hospital.

The patient will be treated in a high-security ward in a special isolated unit which was set up in collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"[The isolation unit] is physically separate from other patient areas and has unique equipment and infrastructure that provide an extraordinarily high level of clinical isolation. It is one of only four such facilities in the country," the statement said.

Comment: For more updates see:

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Video

Nina Teicholz: The Big Fat Surprise! (Video)

TEDx Talks
Youtube
Wed, 07 May 2014 08:03 UTC
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Nina Teicholz is the author of the book The Big Fat Surprise (Simon & Schuster 2014), which makes the argument that modern nutrition science, over the past 60 years, has been wrong about dietary fat. She argues that eating fat is essential to good health, and that the saturated fats, as found in meat, organs and eggs, are the whole fats in whole foods that are essential for good heath.

Teicholz has a background in food, science, and investigative reporting. She wrote on nutrition science for Men's Health Magazine and broke the trans-fat story in the US for Gourmet magazine. She studied biology at Yale and Stanford Universities and was a health analyst for Lewin/ICF, a consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

Teicholz has written on food, as a regular contributor to Gourmet magazine and for New York magazine and Time Out New York. She has also contributed, on a variety of topics, to the New Yorker, the Economist, the Washington Post, The New York Times, and Salon, among other publications. She was an on-air reporter for NPR for five years, including two years based in Rio de Janeiro, covering South America. She was the associate director for the Center for Globalization and Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

She lives in New York with her husband and their two sons.


Comment: Before reaching out for that cheese, read Why Milk Is So Evil.

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Health

U.S. flight leaves for Africa to evacuate Americans with Ebola

Tim Funk
charlotteobserver.com
Thu, 31 Jul 2014 06:46 UTC
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© CNNThe ABCS is a tentlike device that can be installed in a modified Gulfstream III aircraft.
CNN reported Thursday that a U.S.-contracted medical charter flight had left Cartersville, Ga., to evacuate Charlotte missionary Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly of Boone-based Samaritan's Purse - two Americans in Liberia who have contracted the deadly Ebola virus.

CNN and other TV networks also reported that at least one of the two patients will be taken to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, near the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It was unclear which of the two Americans would be taken to Emory and where the other one would be taken and treated. Writebol and her husband, David, are members of Calvary Church in Charlotte; Brantly and his family live in Texas.

Reached Thursday, Samaritan's Purse President Franklin Graham said he couldn't comment on the CNN report.

"We are going to be issuing a statement (Friday)," he told the Observer. "We're dealing with people's lives here."

Earlier Thursday, Fox News reported that Graham had told the network that he expected a specially equipped aircraft to bring Writebol and Brantly back to the United States in the next few days.


Comment: Hopefully these experimental treatments may provide some help, but with a mutating virus your best bet for protection is prevention by strengthening your own immune system. Populations who ate grain and carb based diets in the past were often hit the hardest with plagues that show similarities to ebola. A ketogenic diet may very likely be one of the best means of staying in the clear:

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Health

Liberia shuts schools, considers quarantine to curb Ebola

David Lewis and Emma Farge
Yahoo! News
Wed, 30 Jul 2014 20:22 UTC
liberia_ebola
© AFP PhotoFact file on the Ebola virus that has killed more than 670 people in an ongoing outbreak in West Africa
Liberia will close schools and consider quarantining some communities, it said on Wednesday, announcing the toughest measures yet imposed by a West African government to halt the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

Security forces in Liberia were ordered to enforce the steps, part of an action plan that includes placing all non-essential government workers on 30-day compulsory leave.

Ebola has been blamed for 672 deaths in Liberia, neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone, according to World Health Organisation figures, as under-funded healthcare systems have struggled to cope with the epidemic. Liberia accounted for just under one-fifth of those deaths.

"This is a major public health emergency. It's fierce, deadly and many of our countrymen are dying and we need to act to stop the spread," Lewis Brown, Liberia's information minister, told Reuters.
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Syringe

Forced quarantine and isolation: This is what is going to happen if Ebola hits the U.S.

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
Wed, 30 Jul 2014 19:22 UTC
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If the worst Ebola outbreak in recorded history reaches the United States, federal law permits "the apprehension and examination of any individual reasonably believed to be infected with a communicable disease". These individuals can be "detained for such time and in such manner as may be reasonably necessary". In other words, the federal government already has the authority to round people up against their will, take them to detention facilities and hold them there for as long as they feel it is "reasonably necessary".

In addition, as you will read about below, the federal government has the authority "to separate and restrict the movement of well persons who may have been exposed to a communicable disease to see if they become ill". If you want to look at these laws in the broadest sense, they pretty much give the federal government the power to do almost anything that they want with us in the event of a major pandemic. Of course such a scenario probably would not be called "martial law", but it would probably feel a lot like it.

If Ebola comes to America and starts spreading, one of the first things that would happen would be for the CDC to issue "a federal isolation or quarantine order". The following is what the CDC website says about what could happen under such an order...
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Health

World Health Org announces joint emergency response plan to counter Ebola epidemic


BBC News Africa
Thu, 31 Jul 2014 15:49 UTC
samaritains purse medical worker
A Samaritan's Purse medical worker demonstrates personal protective equipment to educate team members on the Ebola virus in Liberia
The head of the World Health Organization and leaders of West African nations affected by the Ebola outbreak are to announce a joint $100m (£59m; 75m euro) response plan.

They will meet in Guinea on Friday to launch the initiative aimed at tackling a virus which has claimed 729 lives.

Sierra Leone's president has declared a public health emergency over the outbreak after 233 people died there.

Ebola spreads through human contact with a sufferer's bodily fluids.

Initial flu-like symptoms can lead to external haemorrhaging from areas like eyes and gums, and internal bleeding which can lead to organ failure.

Ebola kills up to 90% of those infected, with patients having a better chance of survival if they receive early treatment.

Comment: The WHO finally decides to take action, now that the epidemic appears to be out of control in Africa and threatens the West.

Ebola - What you're not being told
Fear of the ebola virus: outbreak or epidemic?
Ebola may have spread to Asia now
Ebola outbreak 'most challenging' ever: 90% fatality, no vaccine, cure or treatment

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Vader

If Ebola hits the U.S., expect the Feds to implement draconian measures on the public

Paul Joseph Watson
Intellihub
Wed, 30 Jul 2014 15:57 UTC
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Federal health authorities could exercise authoritarian powers to control an Ebola outbreak if the deadly disease hits the United States under the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, legislation passed in the wake of 9/11 which attracted controversy at the time for its draconian scope.

With the Ebola outbreak in West Africa having been declared the worst in history by the World Health Organization, concerns are mounting that the disease could spread via international air travel. Asked whether the virus could arrive in the United States, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said, "It's going to happen at some point."

The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, drafted during the 2001 anthrax attacks, has since been adopted in whole or in part by 33 states. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons warned that the legislation "could turn governors into dictators," while constitutional lawyer Phyllis Schlafly labeled it "an unprecedented assault on the constitutional rights of the American people."
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