Category Archives: Cancer

200 reported sick in salmonella outbreak

The owner of a Las Vegas eatery at the center of a Salmonella outbreak said Friday he does not plan to reopen the restaurant at its current location. Firefly restaurant owner John Simmons said in a statement that he will move forward with plans to move the eatery from 3900 Paradise Road to 3824 Paradise by the end of the month. “We are optimistic that the combination of moving to this new location that has a kitchen as large as the entire original Firefly restaurant and the recommended retraining on operations and procedures will help us regain the confidence of the community,” Simmons said in a statement released Friday. Simmons' announcement came shortly after health officials updated the number of people affected in the Salmonella outbreak to 200. The Southern Nevada Health District released the updated number as part of a second interim report in the health inspection of Firefly restaurant on Paradise Road. An initial report put the number of people affected by the outbreak to 89. The new number comprises 196 patrons and four employees. SNHD said the people stricken with foodborne illness dined at the restaurant during a period of time including April 21-26. Health inspectors cited the restaurant for 44 demerits connected to improperly stored food in inadequate temperatures, according to the report. Click for more from Fox 5 Las Vegas. source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/13/200-reported-sick-in-vegas-salmonella-outbreak/

200 reported sick in Vegas salmonella outbreak

The owner of a Las Vegas eatery at the center of a Salmonella outbreak said Friday he does not plan to reopen the restaurant at its current location. Firefly restaurant owner John Simmons said in a statement that he will move forward with plans to move the eatery from 3900 Paradise Road to 3824 Paradise by the end of the month. “We are optimistic that the combination of moving to this new location that has a kitchen as large as the entire original Firefly restaurant and the recommended retraining on operations and procedures will help us regain the confidence of the community,” Simmons said in a statement released Friday. Simmons' announcement came shortly after health officials updated the number of people affected in the Salmonella outbreak to 200. The Southern Nevada Health District released the updated number as part of a second interim report in the health inspection of Firefly restaurant on Paradise Road. An initial report put the number of people affected by the outbreak to 89. The new number comprises 196 patrons and four employees. SNHD said the people stricken with foodborne illness dined at the restaurant during a period of time including April 21-26. Health inspectors cited the restaurant for 44 demerits connected to improperly stored food in inadequate temperatures, according to the report. Click for more from Fox 5 Las Vegas. source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/13/200-reported-sick-in-vegas-salmonella-outbreak/

Student with cerebral palsy named prom queen

In many ways, Desaray Carroll is a typical high school teenager. She texts nonstop, hangs out with her friends, goes to the movies and out to eat. The 19-year-old Coahulla Creek High School student is surrounded with a family and friends who love and support her, so much so they campaigned for the student body to elect her prom queen a few weeks ago. Everyone except Carroll seemed sure she would win. But after a lifetime of being picked on for being different, she never thought she could be the same as those around her. “At my old school, I got made fun of,” she said. “I didn't want to go to school. It was really hard. At one point I quit school, but I came back.” Carroll has cerebral palsy, a disorder that affects muscle tone, movement and posture. People with cerebral palsy can have exaggerated movements, rigidity of the limbs, involuntary movements, unsteadiness while walking or any combination of those symptoms. She struggles with her speech — though after a few minutes with her, she becomes easier to understand — and movements on the right side of her body. So going from the person being picked on to the point of quitting school to being given a title that comes with such an implication of popularity seemed like a stretch for her. When her name was called out on prom night announcing she had been named prom queen, Carroll was naturally and genuinely shocked. “I didn't believe it,” she said. “I really like it here. They don't look at me like I have cerebral palsy.” Carroll's friends and her teachers said they believe it is a great testimony to the student body at Coahulla Creek. “Their heart is in the right place,” said Josh Swiney, Carroll's math inclusion teacher. “They've been around her and wanted that for her. She's awesome.” Andy Toth, a sign language interpreter of the school and adviser to the sign language club, of which Carroll is a member, said he knew the student body was rallying for Carroll. “I prayed all weekend she'd get it since I couldn't vote,” Toth said. “She is a perfect pick for it. We've got a good student body. They're not caught up in stereotypes. We realize what's real.” As a very young girl, Carroll fit in with other children, including her foster family. “She was accepted by them, and they love her,” said Jennie Byars, Carroll's foster mother, who became her legal guardian in 1997. Byars had four children naturally, has adopted several and has even more that refer to her as “mom,” including Carroll. “I didn't want her when they first called me,” Byars said. “Then I thought, 'Why am I doing this if I can't help the ones that really need it?' When they brought her to me (when Carroll was 16 months old), I saw a handicapped child. But then I saw a girl with a lot of determination. She bonded with us quickly. After a couple of weeks, I didn't see her as handicapped.” Byars and her late husband, Slim, encouraged Carroll's independence from an early age. “I tried to let her do what she could,” Byars said. “They wanted to give her a walker, and I said, 'No. She doesn't need one.' They wanted to give her a board to talk for her, but I wouldn't let them. We treated her like one of the kids. I tried not to limit her. You have a tendency to want to coddle her, but she didn't want you helping her.” Byars spent many hours taking Carroll to physical therapy and working with her to make sure she could walk and talk and live a normal life. Byars believed in her daughter, pushed her where she needed to be pushed, and comforted her when she needed to be comforted. “Her therapist said she was stubborn, but I said she was determined,” she said. “If she hadn't been determined, she wouldn't be where she is now.” As a child, Carroll could only walk on flat surfaces, not inclines. But she used a mulch pile to learn to walk on an incline. “She was determined, struggled, but she climbed that mountain — in more ways than one,” said family friend Nancy Reynolds. Carroll says many things in her life have been hard. “But it could be worse,” she said. “It's hard talking, but when people get to know me, they understand me better.” She can't even pull her hair back in a ponytail because she doesn't have full use of her right hand. She knows she's made it as far as she has because of the support from her foster parents. “They've been there for me,” Carroll said. “I'm lucky to have them.” When Carroll hit middle school, she faced bullying. Her friends sat at her side talking about how they were all bullied throughout middle school and into their early high school years. Zenaida Torres remembers other students being especially mean to Carroll. The two became friends passing each other in the counselor's office where they went to talk through the problems they each faced. Three years ago Slim Byars died. Jennie Byars was diagnosed with stomach cancer soon after. (She recently had a PET scan, which came back clean of cancer.) Carroll hit a really hard time facing so many trials in just a few years. “She was really a daddy's girl,” Byars said. “These last two years (when she enrolled at Coahulla Creek), she has really come out of her shell. The kids are great. They're more accepting here.” Carroll said she changed her outlook on life and those who were mean to her after her dad died. That's when she found a strong faith in God. “I know God won't put me in anything I can't go through,” she said. Now if a student picks on her or if she's having an especially hard day, she simply “doesn't let it bother” her. She has been inspired by Nick Vujicic, a motivational speaker and author who has no limbs. He is a reminder to Carroll that she is not the only one who faces struggles or who is different. Her hope and positive outlook serves as an inspiration to not only the student body and faculty at Coahulla Creek, but to many who have met her. “Today I had a bad day,” Torres said. “She sends me excerpts from Nick Vujicic's book. It helps me a lot. Even though she had a bad day, she never got sad.” Carroll is someone Savannah McCraw looks up to and thinks more people should become friends with. “We had some classes together,” she said. “A lot of people are too shy to talk to her. I decided I wanted to get to know her. She's really an awesome friend. She always knows how to make me feel better.” Even if Carroll is having a terrible day, she is sweet and kind to everyone. “I never hear her say anything mean about anyone,” McCraw said. “You can never tell if she's having a bad day.” Carroll may struggle with some everyday tasks, but she possesses many traits her friends don't. “She's able to do stuff we're not able to,” Torres said. “She stays strong. She has people here that love her and support her.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/13/student-with-cerebral-palsy-named-prom-queen/

Man brought back to life after being clinically dead for 40 minutes

An Australian man who was clinically dead for 40 minutes has been brought back to life by a brand new resuscitation technique. Colin Fiedler, 39 from Victoria, was one of three cardiac arrest patients brought back to life after being dead for between 40 and 60 minutes at The Alfred hospital in Melbourne, using two new techniques in the emergency department. The Alfred is testing a mechanical CPR machine, which performs constant chest compressions, and a portable heart-lung machine -- normally used in theatre -- to keep oxygen and blood flowing to the patient's brain and vital organs. Fiedler had a heart attack and was clinically dead for 40 minutes before being revived last June. “I'm so grateful, more than I could ever say,” he told the Herald Sun. So far, seven cardiac arrest patients have been treated with the AutoPulse machine and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. It allows doctors to diagnose the cause of the cardiac arrest and treat it, but keep blood and oxygen flowing to the vital organs and brain, which reduces the risk of permanent disability. Fiedler is one of the three patients who were revived and returned home without disability. In the ambulance, paramedics had given him a choice of two hospitals. “For some reason, I said The Alfred, which is pretty lucky, because they are the only one that has it,” he said. The system is available only at The Alfred, but senior intensive care physician Professor Stephen Bernard said the results from the first two years of the trial were exciting, and he hopes to eventually expand the system across Melbourne. Click for more from news.com.au.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/13/man-brought-back-to-life-after-being-clinically-dead-for-40-minutes/

Teens who text and drive also likelier to take other risks in car

Teenagers who text while driving are also more likely to engage in other risky activities, such as riding with an intoxicated driver or not wearing a seatbelt, a new study suggests. Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found four in every nine high school students had sent or received texts while driving in the past month. “Considering it's against the law for teens to be texting while driving in 45 states, it's a little concerning,” said Emily Olsen, a health statistician in the CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health and the report's lead author. Past studies conducted in single states have found anywhere from one quarter to almost three quarters of teenagers text while driving, the study team wrote Monday in Pediatrics. To get a more nationally representative picture, Olsen and her colleagues analyzed responses to the CDC's annual youth risk survey. On the 2011 survey, conducted in public and private schools across the country, 8,505 high school students ages 16 and older were asked about potentially dangerous driving behaviors they had engaged in over the past month. Just under 45 percent had texted while driving at least once during that span, and close to 12 percent of teens said they texted behind the wheel every day. Although the study team didn't measure how cell phone use may have affected safety in the car, past research shows that texting while driving can slow reaction times and impair a driver's ability to stay in one lane. The more frequently students reported texting and driving, the more likely they were to also answer “yes” to other risky behaviors, the researchers found. For example, 3 percent of teens who didn't text at the wheel had recently driven after drinking alcohol. That compared to 19 percent who reported texting and driving at least once in the past month and 34 percent who said they texted in the car daily. Likewise, 19 percent of non-texters had ridden in a car with another driver who had been drinking, versus 33 percent of high school students who reported texting and driving themselves. “It's concerning that kids are participating in these multiple behaviors, either while they're driving or while they're a passenger,” Olsen said. “Each one of these things is quite dangerous (on its own).” Jessica Mirman, who has studied teen motor vehicle cell phone use at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Center for Injury Research and Prevention, agreed. “That just really highlighted that as far as prevention goes, we really need something comprehensive,” Mirman, who wasn't involved in the new research, said. “It's not just about texting. It's not just about drinking.” Olsen said parents have the best chance of being able to curb unsafe activities in the car by continuing to talk with their children about safe driving even after they have their license. Teens, she pointed out, are already more likely to get into - and have trouble getting out of - dangerous situations on the road, due to their inexperience. “Anything that takes their attention away from the task of driving, it can wait,” she said. Parents who are worried about their teens' driving behavior should reach out to their pediatrician or a school counselor, Mirman advised, as that risk-taking might reflect other underlying problems.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/13/teen-texting-at-wheel-tied-to-more-driving-risks/

Vietnam War chemical tied to aggressive prostate cancer risk

Men who were exposed to Agent Orange chemicals used during the Vietnam War are at higher risk for life-threatening prostate cancer than unexposed veterans, researchers have found. What's more, those who served where the herbicide was used were diagnosed with cancer about five years earlier than other men, on average, in the new study. “This is a very, very strong predictor of lethal cancer,” said urologist Dr. Mark Garzotto, who worked on the study at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Oregon. “If you're a person who's otherwise healthy and you've been exposed to Agent Orange, that has important implications for whether you should be screened or not screened,” he told Reuters Health. But one researcher not involved in the new study said it's hard to take much away from it, given the imprecise way it measured exposure. Agent Orange - named after the giant orange drums in which the chemicals were stored - was used by the U.S. military to destroy foliage, mainly in southern Vietnam. The herbicide was often contaminated with a type of dioxin, a potently carcinogenic chemical. The Vietnam Red Cross Society has estimated that up to one million Vietnamese suffered disabilities or health problems as a result of Agent Orange, including children born with birth defects years after their parents were exposed. Past research has also suggested that U.S. veterans who served where Agent Orange was used are at an increased risk of lymphoma and certain other cancers, including prostate cancer. For the new study, researchers wanted to see whether exposure was more closely linked to slow-growing prostate cancers or aggressive tumors. They analyzed medical records belonging to 2,720 veterans who were referred to the Portland VA for a prostate biopsy. About one in 13 of those men had been exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, according to their VA intake interviews. One third of all men in the study were diagnosed with prostate cancer, about half of which were high-grade cancers - the more aggressive and fast-growing type. When the researchers took men's age, race, weight and family history of cancer into account, they found those with Agent Orange exposure were 52 percent more likely than unexposed men to have any form of prostate cancer. Separating out different types of tumors showed the herbicide was not linked to an increased risk of slower-growing, low-grade cancer. But it was tied to a 75 percent higher risk of being diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer, the study team reported Monday in the journal Cancer. “The increase in the rate of cancers was almost exclusively driven by the potentially lethal cancers,” said Garzotto, also from Oregon Health & Science University. More research is needed to figure out exactly why that is, he said. In the meantime, Garzotto said veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange should discuss that with their doctors. But Dr. Arnold Schecter, from the University of Texas School of Public Health's Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Program in Dallas, said there's a “big problem” with just asking veterans if they were exposed to Agent Orange or served in an area where it was sprayed. “Of those most heavily exposed in the military as best we know, only a relatively small percentage of them had elevated dioxin from Agent Orange in their blood when tested by (the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention),” he told Reuters Health. Schecter said that in Vietnam, people who have high levels of that type of dioxin in their blood live in places where the chemical has become integrated into the food supply - or were sprayed directly with Agent Orange. Another researcher who has studied the effects of Agent Orange agreed that not having blood dioxin levels is a drawback, but said the findings are consistent with past research and general thinking about the chemical. “Almost all studies have implicated that men with Agent Orange (exposure) either have higher-grade prostate cancer or a more aggressive clinical course,” said Dr. Gregory Merrick, head of Wheeling Hospital's Schiffler Cancer Center in West Virginia, who also wasn't involved in the new research. But, he added, as long as men are getting into the VA system and getting regular evaluations and treatment for cancer, Agent Orange exposure “is not a death sentence by any means.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/13/vietnam-war-chemical-tied-to-aggressive-prostate-cancer-risk/

6-year-old boy suffers over 100 bee stings on hiking trail

A 6-year old boy was hospitalized Sunday morning after suffering extensive bee stings on a popular hiking trail, Pima County Sheriff's deputy Tom Peine told Tucson News Now. Peine said the boy is stable as of Sunday evening at 5:30 p.m. He was stung more than a hundred times. “Three of the victims were sitting on a rock... the father had the 6-year-old in his lap, trying to protect his face from the bees,” said Robert Raterink, a Pima County Sheriff's Search and Rescue spokesman. Golder Ranch Fire and Rescue spokesman Will Seeley said rescuers assisted four other victims just off the Linda Vista Trail east of Calle Concordia and Oracle Road. The other four hikers all were stung more than 100 times, Seeley said. Three of the victims were taken to the hospital by ambulance. Two others did not want medical treatment. A caller to 9-1-1 reported a prolonged attack and that the boy and another hiker were going into shock. Seeley said the bees were extremely aggressive and also strung rescue personnel. Click here for more from Tuscon News Now. source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/13/6-year-old-boy-suffers-extensive-bee-stings-on-hiking-trail/

New fitness centers cater to aging baby boomers

Baby boomers, the generation that vowed to stay forever young, are getting older, designing senior-friendly gyms and becoming their own personal trainers. In exercise havens for the over-50 set, the cardio machines are typically low impact, the resistance training is mainly air-powered and some group fitness classes are taken sitting down. At Welcyon gyms, founded by husband-and-wife boomers Suzy and Tom Boerboom, the average age of members is 62. “The environment is really designed for those 50 and over,” said Suzy Boerboom. The couple created Welcyon, which has locations in Minnesota and South Dakota, in 2009. It has no tread-mills and no free weights and workouts are customized to members' levels of fitness. A smart card sets resistance, counts repetitions and adjusts workouts. An important attraction for many boomers: background music is a combination of '40s, '50s and '60s tunes played at a much lower volume than in traditional gyms. “It was something I could manage,” said 66-year-old Bill Zortman, one of an estimated 78 million baby boomers, defined as the group born between 1946 and 1964, who make up about 26 percent of the U.S. population, according to U.S. Census reports. His thrice-weekly workouts at a Welcyon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, consists of riding a bicycle or using air-powered resistance machines to strengthen his legs, arms and back. “They make sure I'm not overdoing it,” Zortman said of the staff, who Boerboom said are often boomers themselves. The absence of clanging free weights also cuts down on the racket, Boerboom said, noting that many people over 50 prefer a quieter gym. Group fitness classes for boomers are also modified. “We're just beginning to develop a group fitness interval training program,” Boerboom said. “It will be four to six people and low impact.” The American Council on Exercise says many of their fitness professionals are baby boomers who specialize in working with older adults. “People in their early 60's are becoming personal trainers and group fitness instructors,” said Todd Galati, ACE's director of credentialing. But they are far from the majority, as the average age of ACE's 50,000 certified fitness professionals is 42, and more than 37 percent are 40. “Every year I talk to newly certified personal trainers, retired from their career in another field, who want to help people their age become more fit,” Galati said. A recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine showed that a sample of baby boomers had higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, obesity and high cholesterol than their parents' generation. “There is a big bad myth about the boomer generation being more fit,” said Dr. Sheldon S. Zinberg, founder of Nifty after Fifty fitness centers for older adults. “In fact, the boomer generation is less fit than their parents were at same age.” The chain has locations in Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Virginia and New York. Its programs target muscle power, muscle strength, reaction time, balance and cognitive skills, he said. “At age 40 people lose 0.8 to 1 percent muscle mass each year. By age 60 this accelerates to 1.5 percent,” Zinberg said. At Nifty after Fifty, group fitness classes range from yoga and Zumba to seated volleyball and cane fu, a self-defense class in which participants use a cane. As with Welcyon, there are no tread-mills. “We used to use tread-mills, but we had people falling off,” Zinberg said. “We use recumbent stair steppers, among other exercisers.” He advises people to get fit in their 40s and 50s, “and when you do become older, enjoy a supervised, customized program.” Boerboom said Welcyon plans to open more gyms later this year. “There are over 70 million of us boomers,” she said, “and we have to take care of ourselves.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/13/new-fitness-centers-cater-to-aging-baby-boomers/

Teen who text and drive also likelier to take other risks in car

Teenagers who text while driving are also more likely to engage in other risky activities, such as riding with an intoxicated driver or not wearing a seatbelt, a new study suggests. Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found four in every nine high school students had sent or received texts while driving in the past month. “Considering it's against the law for teens to be texting while driving in 45 states, it's a little concerning,” said Emily Olsen, a health statistician in the CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health and the report's lead author. Past studies conducted in single states have found anywhere from one quarter to almost three quarters of teenagers text while driving, the study team wrote Monday in Pediatrics. To get a more nationally representative picture, Olsen and her colleagues analyzed responses to the CDC's annual youth risk survey. On the 2011 survey, conducted in public and private schools across the country, 8,505 high school students ages 16 and older were asked about potentially dangerous driving behaviors they had engaged in over the past month. Just under 45 percent had texted while driving at least once during that span, and close to 12 percent of teens said they texted behind the wheel every day. Although the study team didn't measure how cell phone use may have affected safety in the car, past research shows that texting while driving can slow reaction times and impair a driver's ability to stay in one lane. The more frequently students reported texting and driving, the more likely they were to also answer “yes” to other risky behaviors, the researchers found. For example, 3 percent of teens who didn't text at the wheel had recently driven after drinking alcohol. That compared to 19 percent who reported texting and driving at least once in the past month and 34 percent who said they texted in the car daily. Likewise, 19 percent of non-texters had ridden in a car with another driver who had been drinking, versus 33 percent of high school students who reported texting and driving themselves. “It's concerning that kids are participating in these multiple behaviors, either while they're driving or while they're a passenger,” Olsen said. “Each one of these things is quite dangerous (on its own).” Jessica Mirman, who has studied teen motor vehicle cell phone use at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Center for Injury Research and Prevention, agreed. “That just really highlighted that as far as prevention goes, we really need something comprehensive,” Mirman, who wasn't involved in the new research, said. “It's not just about texting. It's not just about drinking.” Olsen said parents have the best chance of being able to curb unsafe activities in the car by continuing to talk with their children about safe driving even after they have their license. Teens, she pointed out, are already more likely to get into - and have trouble getting out of - dangerous situations on the road, due to their inexperience. “Anything that takes their attention away from the task of driving, it can wait,” she said. Parents who are worried about their teens' driving behavior should reach out to their pediatrician or a school counselor, Mirman advised, as that risk-taking might reflect other underlying problems.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/13/teen-texting-at-wheel-tied-to-more-driving-risks/