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Hepatitis A outbreak linked to frozen berry mix sickens 87

WASHINGTON – & The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says an outbreak of hepatitis A linked to a frozen berry mix sold at Costco has grown to 87 people with illnesses in eight states. The CDC said Tuesday that illnesses have been reported in Arizona, California Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Washington. Townsend Farms of Fairview, Ore., last week recalled its frozen Organic Antioxidant Blend, packaged under the Townsend Farms label at Costco and under the Harris Teeter brand at those stores. So far the illnesses have only been linked to the berries sold at Costco. Craig Wilson, director of food safety at Costco, said the store is providing vaccinations for people who ate the berries within the last two weeks and is reimbursing others who have gotten the vaccine outside the store. The store has contacted about 240,000 people who purchased the berries at one of their stores, Wilson said. The company knows who bought the berries because purchases are linked to a membership card that customers present when they check out. The Food and Drug Administration is investigating the cause of the outbreak. The CDC said the strain of hepatitis is rarely seen in North or South America but is found in the North Africa and Middle East regions. Townsend Farms has said the frozen organic blend bag includes pomegranate seeds from Turkey. Hepatitis A is a contagious liver disease that can last from a few weeks to a several months. People often contract it when an infected food handler prepares food without appropriate hand hygiene. The CDC said that food already contaminated with the virus can also cause outbreaks, as is suspected in this case. Illnesses occur within 15 to 50 days of exposure to the hepatitis A virus, CDC said. Symptoms include fatigue, abdominal pain, jaundice, abnormal liver tests, dark urine and pale stool. Vaccination can prevent illness if given within two weeks of exposure, and those who have already been vaccinated are unlikely to become ill. CDC said the illnesses date back to mid-March. The same genotype of hepatitis A was identified in an outbreak in Europe linked to frozen berries this year, the CDC said, as well as a 2012 outbreak in British Columbia related to a frozen berry blend with pomegranate seeds from Egypt. The agency said there is no evidence the outbreaks are related. Lawsuits have already been filed against Townsend Farms in California, Colorado, Hawaii and Washington state, with more expected in the other affected states, said a spokeswoman for Seattle-based food safety lawyer Bill Marler. The class action lawsuits ask for compensation for the treatment and also reimbursement for the vaccines.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/12/hepatitis-linked-to-frozen-berries-sickens-87/

Heat-related deaths may increase with climate change

Heat-related deaths in New York City's borough of Manhattan may rise about 20 percent over the next decade, according to a new study. Researchers at Columbia University in New York analyzed the relationship between daily temperatures and temperature-related deaths across all seasons between 1982 and 1999 in Manhattan, which comprises the most densely populated county in the United States. The findings were published online May 19 in the journal Nature Climate Change. Using projections from 16 global climate models, the scientists found that the number of heat-related deaths in the city could increase by 20 percent by the 2020s, and in some worst-case scenarios, could rise by 90 percent or more by the 2080s, said study co-author Patrick Kinney, an environmental scientist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. [Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming] To make their estimates, Kinney and his colleagues used the 1980s as a baseline, during which about 370 Manhattan residents died yearly from overheating. With this figure as a reference, a 20 percent increase could mean 74 additional yearly heat-related fatalities in Manhattan by the 2020s. “What we found was that there could be some benefits, in terms of reduced fatalities in the wintertime because of warmer temperatures, but our analysis suggests that those benefits are outweighed by extra fatalities that will occur in the hotter times of the year,” Kinney said. Mercury rising Daily readings in Manhattan's Central Park demonstrate that average monthly temperatures have increased 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) between 1901 and 2000. Last year was the warmest year on record in Manhattan, and projections predict rising temperatures over the next six decades, the researchers said. In 2011, 206 people died due to extreme heat in the United States. “The warming that's anticipated from climate change is happening throughout the year, so the months that are already hot like June, July and August are going to get hotter, but months that are more moderate, like May and September, may become uncomfortably hot or fatally hot,” Kinney explained. In their study, Kinney and his colleagues applied climate models to two scenarios: one that assumed rapid global population growth with limited efforts to control emissions, and another that assumed slower population growth combined with technological advances to decrease emissions by the year 2040. The researchers found that both projections pointed to increases in temperature-related fatalities. “It was a little surprising that no matter which climate model we used, and which scenario of greenhouse gases we used, they all consistently showed this effect of increasing fatality risk in the future,” Kinney said. More of the same And Manhattan is not alone, Kinney added. The trend toward more fatalities is also expected for other cities, particularly in the northern United States. “Climate models of future temperatures do vary a bit from place to place, but generally the story is pretty much the same,” Kinney said. The effects are not limited to cities, but heat waves are typically more severely felt in densely populated areas. This is because cities tend to concentrate heat, with buildings and pavement surfaces soaking up heat during the day and releasing it at night, the researchers said. “This serves as a reminder that heat events are one of the greatest hazards faced by urban populations around the globe,” study co-author Radley Horton, a climate scientist at Columbia University, said in a statement. The way of the future The researchers acknowledge uncertainties in their projections, including that heat's effects could be made better or worse with changing demographics, and how fatalities may be prevented with better infrastructure or public policies. Still, the findings suggest that cities and governments need to do more to address the potential dangers posed by heat waves, said Richard Keller, an associate professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved with the study. “We have needed to rethink the dangers of heat for years,” Keller said. “The Chicago heat wave of 1995, and especially the European heat wave of 2003 both caused catastrophic excess mortality.” Major federal programs provide heating assistance in the winter, but there is no concomitant program for cooling assistance in the summer, Keller said. Kinney said that to combat the effects of deadly heat waves, cities can open community cooling centers, plant trees or construct “green” roofs. The new findings demonstrate the importance of developing strategies to adapt to future higher temperatures. “Heat is a major and often underestimated killer,” Keller said. “While we evacuate in the face of hurricanes and floods, we tend to ignore extreme heat, with deadly consequences. The 2003 heat wave killed nearly 15,000 people in France alone eight times the mortality associated with Hurricane Katrina.” Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/23/heat-related-deaths-in-nyc-may-increase-with-climate-change/

Doctors should ask patients about alcohol misuse, panel says

Primary care doctors should ask adults how much and how often they drink alcohol and counsel those with risky and dangerous drinking habits, a government-backed panel said today. Based on a review of studies conducted since 1985, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) determined there is good enough evidence both that screening can accurately detect alcohol misuse and that counseling can reduce heavy drinking in people age 18 and older. Screening “takes hardly any time at all, and it works pretty well,” said Dr. Michael LeFevre, co-vice chair of the Task Force and a family medicine doctor at the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia. “From my point of view as a family physician, the shorter and easier the better,” he said. Risky drinking is defined by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism as more than four drinks in a single day or 14 drinks per week for men and more than three drinks in a day or seven in a week for women. Research suggests about one third of U.S. adults misuse alcohol. Asking men the last time they had five drinks in one sitting, and women the last time they had four, is a good start, according to LeFevre. “If they can name a time, that means we should be talking to them more about what their alcohol consumption looks like,” he said. If that time was for the patient's birthday, and the only time in years the patient had binge drank, it's probably not a big deal. But if that happens on a regular basis, he said, that would point toward alcohol misuse. The review behind the new recommendations included 23 trials that randomly assigned risky drinkers to behavioral counseling or normal care. Overall, counseling interventions led to a 12 percent absolute increase in the proportion of people who reported no heavy drinking episodes one year later, and an average reduction in weekly drinks from 23 to 19. Brief counseling sessions, the USPSTF noted, are more likely to help people who have a few too many drinks on occasion than those who abuse or are dependent on alcohol. People with a serious drinking problem may need more specialty treatment, according to the Task Force, which published its recommendations Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “A brief intervention as applied by, say, a primary care physician in practice is probably not going to be adequate intervention for people on the alcohol dependence end of the spectrum,” LeFevre said. The USPSTF said there weren't enough data for it to weigh the possible benefits and harms of asking younger teenagers about their alcohol use. “The Task Force felt that it would be inappropriate to assume that what we have learned about the best ways to screen and manage adults (is) in fact applicable to adolescents,” LeFevre said. However, he added, that's not a recommendation against asking teens about their alcohol use - it's just a call for more studies to figure out the most effective way to do that. Dr. Sharon Levy said she hoped doctors didn't choose not to talk to teens about alcohol based on the new recommendations. “We recognize that there's not a lot of data, but we also recognize that alcohol use is one of the most significant contributors to (illness) and mortality in adolescents,” said Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at Children's Hospital Boston. “There's no question that alcohol use is a serious problem for this age group,” she said. Levy, who wasn't involved in drafting the new guidelines, co-authored a statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics recommending that doctors screen adolescents for drug and alcohol use. She said the type of brief interventions recommended for adults who drink too much are also “developmentally appropriate” for teens. “They work with adults and they seem really adaptable,” Levy said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/14/doctors-should-ask-patients-about-alcohol-misuse-panel-says/