A Naples-area woman has been confirmed as the first Floridian to contract cholera after visiting Haiti, and other potential cases in other areas also are being tested, state health officials said Wednesday.
But Department of Health doctors said the woman's infection poses virtually no risk to the public in Florida because U.S. sewer and water systems eliminate the bacteria from drinking water, which is primarily how it spreads.
"We don't anticipate we will see any transmission as a result of exposure in Haiti in Florida or anywhere else in the U.S. ... because our water and sanitiation system minimizes the risk," said Dr. Thomas Torok, a disease investigator with the health department.
The only real risk to Floridians would occur if they had direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person, including if the patient worked in a job with public contact, cholera experts said. The woman does not work in such a job.
Health & Wellness
Sepsis is caused by a bacterial infection that can begin anywhere in your body. Your immune system goes into overdrive, overwhelming normal processes in your blood. The result is that small blood clots form, blocking blood flow to vital organs. This can lead to organ failure. Babies, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems are most likely to get sepsis. But even healthy people can become deathly ill from the disease.
According to Dr. Tyml, a professor at Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, patients with severe sepsis have a high mortality rate, nearly 40 percent, because there is no effective treatment.
© iStock
An investigation by a Florida newspaper found high levels of lead in some of the reusable shopping bags it had tested.
An investigation by a Florida newspaper found high levels of lead in some of the reusable shopping bags it had tested.
Most of the two dozen bags tested by Thornton Laboratories, on behalf of the Tampa Tribune, had more than five parts per million (ppm) of lead, with some containing more than 100 ppm.
Health Canada says that most toy manufacturers voluntarily conform to European standards that limit the amount of extractable lead in toys to 90 ppm.
The only chain included that has outlets in Canada, Wal-Mart, tested below five ppm for the bags it sells. It's unknown whether any Canadian retailers are selling the same types of reusable bags that tested for higher concentrations of lead.
Thornton labs found that reusable bags with elaborate illustrations were more likely to contain higher levels of lead. Yellow and green paints tend to have higher levels of lead.
© PNAS
True locations of knuckles and tips of each finger (black dots) and subjects' judgements of where they are (white dots). Average hand shape is given as solid lines for the actual hand and as dotted lines for subjective judgements
True locations of knuckles and tips of each finger (black dots) and subjects' judgements of where they are (white dots). Average hand shape is given as solid lines for the actual hand and as dotted lines for subjective judgements
You may think you know the back of your hand like, well, the back of your hand. But think again. Scientists have found that our brains contain highly distorted representations of the size and shape of our hands, with a strong tendency to think of them as shorter and fatter than they really are.
The work could have implications for how the brain unconsciously perceives other parts of the body and may help explain the underpinnings of certain eating disorders in which people's body image becomes distorted.
In the study, neuroscientists at University College London asked more than 100 volunteers to place their left hand palm-down on a table. The researchers covered the volunteers' hands with a board and then asked them to indicate on it where they thought landmarks such as fingertips and knuckles lay underneath. This data was used to reconstruct the "brain's image" of the hand.
The results, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed a consistent overestimation of the width of the hand. Many of the volunteers estimated their hand was around 80% broader than it really was.
© AP Photo
MTV host Alexa Chung
MTV host Alexa Chung
Now, however, it's hard to think of a female celebrity who isn't that thin - not just models and actresses, but newsreaders and children's TV presenters. So much so that women and children not only view skeletal frames as normal, but as something they wish to emulate.
There has been an 80 per cent rise in young girls being hospitalised with anorexia in the past ten years. And body dissatisfaction is affecting younger and younger children.
In a recent study published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, almost half of the three to six-year-old girls surveyed said they worried about being fat.
Yet any serious correlation between visual media and the rise of eating disorders has largely been dismissed. Until now, so-called 'body politics' has been a cultural and psychological debate, owned by feminists and eating-disorder therapists. They dismissed blaming the visual media as too simplistic.
© U.S. Homeland Security Department image
A rendering of the U.S. National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility planned for Manhattan, Kansas. In a report issued yesterday, the National Research Council said a government safety evaluation for the proposed facility contained "several major shortcomings".
A rendering of the U.S. National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility planned for Manhattan, Kansas. In a report issued yesterday, the National Research Council said a government safety evaluation for the proposed facility contained "several major shortcomings".
This November 16 article should have stated that a calculation that there is a nearly 70 percent chance a pathogen could escape the planned Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Kansas was made by a National Research Council panel based on data from a U.S. Homeland Security Department risk assessment. The NRC panel also estimated economic losses of between $9 billion and $50 billion from a postulated foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.
Washington -- An expert panel said yesterday the U.S. Homeland Security Department has not adequately gauged the potential risks associated with a proposed multimillion-dollar infectious-disease research laboratory in Kansas (see GSN, May 20 ).
There are "several major shortcomings" in a department risk assessment of its planned National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility near Manhattan, Kansas, according to a report by the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. The proposed site is roughly 120 miles west of Kansas City.
The facility's construction is expected to cost between $500 million and $700 million. The 520,000-square-foot center, slated to begin construction in 2012, would study highly infectious animal-borne pathogens, some of which could pose a threat to humans. It would replace the Plum Island Disease Center located near Long Island, New York, which was established in 1937.
The new site would also be the world's third Biosafety-Level 4 Pathogen laboratory to work with large animals. The other two such facilities are in Australia and Canada.
© physorg.com
Professor Richard Deth
Professor Richard Deth
Deth also discovered a probable biological mechanism through which mercury can destroy neurological brain function in humans.
The findings were reported this month in a study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
The team of researchers conducted a literature review of more than 100 experimental and clinical studies on mercury exposure in cell models, animals and humans. They found that animals exposed to mercury exhibited many of the pathological changes associated with the Alzheimer's disease, including memory loss, poor cognitive performance and confusion.
Comment: To learn more about detoxing mercury for better health and wellness read the following:
Mercury: How to Get this Lethal Poison Out of Your Body
Chelation Detox Eliminates Mercury and Heavy Metals and Leads to Better Health
In addition read the extensive thread on the forum:
Detoxification: Heavy Metals, Mercury and how to get rid of them
© Unknown
In multiple experiments, people of high socioeconomic status (or people who perceived themselves to be well-off) were worse at judging other people's emotions than those of low socioeconomic status, both when looking at photographs and interacting with real people. The reason may be that people with low income or low education have to be more responsive to others to get by, said study author Michael Kraus, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at the University of California, San Francisco.
"You can see how being empathic provides a better ability to respond to social threats," Kraus told LiveScience. "It also gives you an opportunity to respond to social opportunities."
© unknown
"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."- Thomas Jefferson
Deception, manipulation, propaganda and profit: These words have become the basis of the American corporate and political landscape without any seeming concern or guilt over their promulgation. One company in particular, which seems to be the iconographic example of this is Monsanto or so go the claims today by the "conspiracy crowd" in reaction to the Genetically Modified (GM) food technology and its apparent governmental backing.
In order to understand the purpose of GM foods and the reasons stated for its implementation, the powers that be will tell us we need only look at the current global environment and the necessity of solutions to provide an adequate food supply to those in need in the global community. Farmable land and access to water, energy, and biological resources are not as plentiful in many countries as they are in many parts of America. These shortages equate to low crop yield which means certain death and starvation to many people around the world each year.
Comment: The Food Crisis is Not About a Shortage of Food
Hunger can have many contributing factors; natural disaster, discrimination, war, poor infrastructure. So why, regardless of the situation, is high tech agriculture always assumed to be the only the solution? This premise is put forward and supported by those who would benefit financially if their "solution" were implemented. Corporations peddle their high technology genetically engineered seed and chemical packages, their genetically altered animals, always with the "promise" of feeding the world.
...
Food shortages are seldom about a lack of food, there is plenty of food in the world, the shortages occur because of the inability to get food where it is needed and the inability of the hungry to afford it. These two problems are principally caused by, as Francis Moore Lappe' put it, a lack of justice. There are also ethical considerations, a higher value should be placed on people than on corporate profit, this must be at the forefront, not an afterthought.
Monsanto insists that its genetically modified crops are safe. Their history however includes the deaths of millions from Agent Orange...
This is a clip from the French documentary The World According to Monsanto. It summarizes the history of Agent Orange, a toxic herbicide produced by Monsanto, Dow Chemical, and other companies.
This is a clip from the French documentary The World According to Monsanto. It summarizes the history of Agent Orange, a toxic herbicide produced by Monsanto, Dow Chemical, and other companies.
Comment: Alternative medicine has already been saving lives with this treatment for the longest time. For more information, please read our forum discussion on Vitamin C.