A Kansas man who fell sick after a tick bite and died 11 days later was killed by a newly discovered virus that has never before been seen in America.

The man, who was previously healthy and in his 50s, became ill after receiving a tick bite while doing work on his property outdoors. Although he was treated with antibiotics, his organs eventually failed and he lost the ability to breathe on his own.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated the man's blood and found he had been infected by a previously unidentified virus that belonged to the thogotoviruses group, which had never before caused human illness in the U.S.

The CDC has named the virus 'Bourbon', after the man's county, according to USA Today.

Before the Kansas man, there had only been eight incidents in which a strain of the thogotovirus had caused symptoms in humans - and they all occurred in Europe, Asia or Africa.

This is the first time the CDC has seen a thogotovirus affect blood cells.

When he was initially tested, the Kansas man's symptoms were similar to a bacterial illness transmitted by ticks. His white blood cells and platelets, which respectively fight infections and help the blood clot, were in decline.

In contrast, thogotoviruses are known to cause meningitis.

A spike in cases of a deadly bat virus in some parts of Australia's north has sparked concern, with dying animals being found in the streets close to schools and childcare centres.

Australian bat lyssavirus is similar to rabies, causing a rapid death if passed from an animal to a human. In recent months, it has been detected in 11 bats in the West Australian town of Broome in the Kimberley region. Prior to that, there had been only two cases identified in Western Australia in a decade. There has also been an increase in sick bats being found in Queensland.


Senior Public Health nurse Ashley Eastwood is based in Broome and has been monitoring the numbers. "In 2014, we became aware that something was happening in the bat colony with these cases popping up," she said.

"We don't know exactly what's caused it. There are investigations going on through the Department of Parks and Wildlife, and the Department of Agriculture, wondering what's actually going on in the colony. There's been speculation perhaps lots of fires around last year, there's a particularly hot season, and that could be disturbing that colony."

Human infections occurred in Australia in 1996, 1998, and 2013 and proved fatal.

Doctors are doling Klonopin out like candy, causing a surge of hellish withdrawals, overdoses and deaths.

You could argue that the deadliest "drug" in the world is the venom from a jellyfish known as the Sea Wasp, whose sting can kill a human being in four minutes—up to 100 humans at a time. Potassium chloride, which is used to trigger cardiac arrest and death in the 38 states of the U.S. that enforce the death penalty is also pretty deadly . But when it comes to prescription drugs that are not only able to kill you but can drag out the final reckoning for years on end, with worsening misery at every step of the way, it is hard to top the benzodiazepines. And no "benzo" has been more lethal to millions of Americans than a popular prescription drug called Klonopin.

Klonopin is the brand name for the pill known as clonazepam, which was originally brought to market in 1975 as a medication for epileptic seizures. Since then, Klonopin, along with the other drugs in this class, has become a prescription of choice for drug abusers from Hollywood to Wall Street. In the process, these Schedule III and IV substances have also earned the dubious distinction of being second only to opioid painkillers like OxyContin as our nation's most widely abused class of drug.

Hell hath no fury like a vaccine zealot during a disease outbreak, with this latest Disneyland measles fiasco a perfect case-in-point. While the corporate media foams violently at the mouth over a few children, some vaccinated, who allegedly contracted measles at Disneyland because not everyone chooses to vaccinate — one hate-filled report from a major news outlet has actually called for parents who oppose vaccinations to be jailed — the level-headed, rational segments of society will recall that many earlier measles outbreaks occurred among fully vaccinated groups of people, debunking the official myth that vaccines provide protection against disease.

In 1987, for example, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) documented a measles outbreak that occurred in Corpus Christi, Texas, in the spring of 1985. Fourteen adolescent-age students, all of whom had been vaccinated for measles, contracted the disease despite having been injected with the MMR vaccine. Researchers noted that more than 99 percent of students at the school — basically all of them — had also been vaccinated, with more than 95 percent of them showing detectable antibodies to measles.

Fat does not make you fat, and other interesting facts about long-vilified foods.

Fat is back! Non-fat, low-fat and quasi-fat products have been substituted in our food for so long, it's sometimes hard to remember what fat actually tastes like. Studies have shown that eating fat does not in fact, make a person fat. In her 2014 book The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese belong in a Healthy Diet, journalist Nina Teicholz argues that carbohydrates and sugar are the most dangerous ingredients in the modern American diet, causing obesity.

Think you're a fat expert? Here are five things you should know about fat.

U.S. HHS is Going for More Vaccinations during Pregnancy, Employer-enforced adult vaccination requirements, and, probably, Faith-based groups to uptake vaccinations

The U.S. Health and Human Services published a 46-page draft proposal and notice in the Federal Register recently regarding more mandated vaccines for adults, and especially pregnant females; employer-enforced adult vaccinations; and probably for getting faith-based groups to uptake and not oppose vaccines/vaccinations.

There is an open public comment period that ends March 9, 2015, for consumers to register their comments, etc. per instructions at this website.

The federal committee responsible for nutrition guidelines is calling for the adoption of "plant-based" diets, taxes on dessert, trained obesity "interventionists" at worksites, and electronic monitoring of how long Americans sit in front of the television.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) released its far-reaching 571-page report of recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Thursday, which detailed its plans to "transform the food system."

The report is open for public comment for 45 days, and will be used as the basis by the government agencies to develop the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The guidelines are used as the basis for government food assistance programs, nutrition education efforts, and for making "decisions about national health objectives."

DGAC proposed a variety of solutions to address obesity, and its promotion of what it calls the "culture of health."

"The persistent high levels of overweight and obesity require urgent population- and individual-level strategies across multiple settings, including health care, communities, schools, worksites, and families," they said.

At least two people have died and a further seven exposed to a deadly strain of drug-resistant superbug bacteria at a hospital on the UCLA campus. Authorities are notifying 179 more people that have potentially been exposed.

The enterobacteriaceae (CRE) can be fatal in as many as half of all cases if the bacteria reach the bloodstream.

The university discovered the outbreak last month, while running tests on a patient. It will now test the other 179 people it believes to be infected. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention are currently assisting the LA County Department of Public Health in investigating further effects.

Doctors at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center, where the outbreak occurred, believe the moment of infection happened "during complex endoscopic procedures that took place between October 2014 and January 2015," according to CBS.

"These outbreaks at UCLA and other hospitals could collectively be the most significant instance of disease transmission ever linked to a contaminated reusable medical instrument," believes Larence Muscarella, a safety consultant at Ronald Reagan.

Although the scopes were sterilized in accordance with standard procedure, their very construction carries with it a risk of bacterial buildup. It turns out the scope could have transmitted the infection during a procedure "to diagnose and treat pancreaticobiliary diseases," at least that is the working theory at this time.

Over 500,000 people annually have scopes inserted into their bodies to treat infections and diseases occurring in the digestive system. The clinic is receiving high praise for spotting the infection early and enabling treatment. But there is ongoing debate about proper disinfection of the scopes, with some saying that conventional techniques aren't suited to the scopes' design.

A new paper challenges the prevailing opinion that depression is related to low levels of serotonin in the gaps between nerve cells in the brain.

This theory has predominated for nearly 50 years and has led to the development of the commonly prescribed anti-depressant medications called selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. But it has never been proven.

The science behind many anti-depressant medications appears to be backwards, say the authors of a paper posted by the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

SSRIs keep the neurotransmitter's (serotonin) levels high by blocking its re-absorption into the cells that release it.

But those serotonin-boosting medications actually make it harder for patients to recover, especially in the short term, said lead author Paul Andrews, an assistant professor of psychology, neuroscience & behavior at McMaster University in Canada.

"It's time we rethink what we are doing," Andrews says. "We are taking people who are suffering from the most common forms of depression, and instead of helping them, it appears we are putting an obstacle in their path to recovery."

Are you drinking beverages out of antifreeze containers and chewing on horse meat in your pre-packaged 'hamburgers?' As it turns out, new evidence from an Interpol investigation reveals that many 'brand-name' food items may actually be comprised of some very different ingredients than advertised. All in all, the food investigators seized a whopping 2,500 tons of fake food from within the food supply.

The reports are hitting the media from the UK to Thailand, which are two of the nations included in new operations through which government officials are cracking down on entire factories churning out phony food items. In the U.K., for example, there exists a major issue in which producers were selling fake 'brand-name vodka' in antifreeze containers that had been chemically treated to remove the repulsive smell. Unsurprisingly, alcohol was actually the most highly counterfeited substance of them all.

Others included:

• Seafood
• Mineral water
• Dietary supplements
• Mozzarella
• Pharmaceutical drugs
• Eggs
• Dried fruit
• Cooking oil

And that's just a partial list of items seized from over 47 different countries by a joint operation conducted by Interpol and Europol over a two month period. And according to Time magazine's take on the results, we are still dealing with several thousand tons of fake items on the market — ranging from common grocery items to extravagant imports.