A Duchesne County man died of hantavirus, the first confirmed case in Utah since 2004.
Public health authorities say the 28-year-old man died Sept. 3, a day after he checked into a hospital.
People typically get infected while sweeping up rodent droppings without a mask, and the Utah Department of Health attributed the man's death to that activity.
Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza and Justin Pritchard
Associated PressSun, 14 Sep 2008 20:05 UTC
U.S. hospitals and long-term care facilities annually flush millions of pounds of unused pharmaceuticals down the drain, pumping contaminants into America's drinking water, according to an ongoing Associated Press investigation.
These discarded medications are expired, spoiled, over-prescribed or unneeded. Some are simply unused because patients refuse to take them, can't tolerate them or die with nearly full 90-day supplies of multiple prescriptions on their nightstands.
Few of the country's 5,700 hospitals and 45,000 long-term care homes keep data on the pharmaceutical waste they generate. Based on a small sample, though, the AP was able to project an annual national estimate of at least 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging, with no way to separate out the drug volume.
Sharon Kirkey
CanwestSun, 14 Sep 2008 14:25 UTC
Seeks power over others. Has fantasies of unlimited success. Fears rejection and abandonment.
Psychologists have drawn a new composite sketch of narcissistic personality disorder just as some of the most narcissistic among us are vying for our affection: politicians.
Paul Offit is the Philadelphia cream cheese of the autism debate -- he smears so effortlessly. It was on page 149 that I finally had enough of his latest smear-fest,
Autism's False Prophets. I put the book down and thought of attorney Joseph Welch's famous rejoinder to Sen. Joe McCarthy at the Army-McCarthy hearings:
"Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness. ... Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
Cases of asthma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are rampant among people who experienced the 9/11 terrorist attacks first-hand, according to data from the World Trade Center Health Registry, released on Wednesday by the New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
The report, published in the Journal of Urban Health, is based on an analysis of health of 71,437 individuals who experienced the coordinated suicide attacks. Their health will be followed for another 20 years, The Associated Press wrote on its Web site.
Patients could soon be swallowing microchips in their tablets. The chips would then report when treatments had been taken and what effect they had on the patient.
Other microchips could also be placed under the skin to deliver drugs ranging from pain medication to chemotherapy. These chips, in the advanced stages of trials, are designed with tiny compartments loaded with multiple drugs and covered with caps. Applying an electrical signal dissolves the caps and releases the medication.
The "smart" delivery systems are being pioneered by Robert Langer, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He said several smart pills that can release drugs for days, months or years were being tested.
Separately, a Silicon Valley company called Proteus Biomedical is developing what it calls the Raisin system of microchipped pills to help to tackle the problems of patients forgetting or refusing to take medicines.
What's the worst that could happen after eating a slice of pepperoni pizza? A little heartburn, for most people.
But for up to a million women in the U.S., enjoying that piece of pizza has painful consequences. They have a chronic bladder condition that causes pelvic pain. Spicy food -- as well as citrus, caffeine, tomatoes and alcohol-- can cause a flare in their symptoms and intensify the pain. Researchers had long believed the spike in their symptoms was triggered when digesting the foods produced chemicals in the urine that irritated the bladder.
A surprising new discovery from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine reveals the symptoms -- pain and an urgent need to frequently urinate -- are actually being provoked a surprise perpetrator. It's the colon, irritated by the spicy food, that's responsible. The finding provides an explanation for how the body actually "hears" pelvic pain.
A woman has died from a rare disease after she was scratched by a rat that she was trying to free from her garden bird feeder.
Carol Colburn, 56, ignored pleas from her husband to wear gloves and suffered scratches and cuts to her fingers as she struggled to free the rodent from the wire feeder. Four days later she developed flu-like symptoms, and within 48 hours she was dead. An inquest heard she had contracted Weil's disease, a severe form of leptospirosis, which is caused by bacteria found in the urine of wild animals.
Women experience significantly more nightmares than men and have more emotional dreams, research suggests. In a study of 170 volunteers asked to record their most recent dream, 19% of men reported a nightmare compared with 30% of women.
Researcher Dr Jennifer Parker of the University of the West of England said there was no difference in the overall number of dreams reported. Other research has shown women tend to have more disturbed sleep than men. One factor which has been linked to this is changes in a woman's body temperature during her monthly cycle.
Melbourne - Leading scientists in Australia have warned that a drug-resistant superbug that attacks healthy teenagers, and can be fatal is posing threat to the country.
The global health threat posed by resistant staphylococcal infections, also known as MRSA superbugs, was discussed at a summit of 350 international microbiologists in Cairns on Saturday.
The experts said that the concern was mainly because of a new virulent form of the flesh-eating bug that can lead to a severe form of pneumonia, which causes death in up to 50 per cent of cases.
