Tag Archives: disease

Woman claims berries bought at Costco gave her Hepatitis A, sues manufacturer

A woman is suing after she says she got Hepatitis A from eating Townsend Farms frozen berries she bought at Costco, according to My Fox Phoenix.  The lawsuit was filed against berry maker Townsend Farms on Thursday. The woman, who lives in Anthem, Ariz., can't remember which Costco she bought the berries at. She's worked at the same place for 10 years and says she's never called in sick. Now she's at risk of losing her job and her degree as her medical bills are mounting. “I mean if I don't have a job, I don't have a degree, what do I have? Hepatitis A,” said Karen Echard. Echard says she got Hepatitis A from eating Townsend Farms Organic Antioxidant Blend Frozen Berry and Pomegranate Mix she bought at Costco in April. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 79 people in eight states have Hepatitis A infections potentially associated with the frozen berry mix; 30 were hospitalized. Hepatitis A is a contagious liver disease that can last a few weeks to several months. “They said it's anywhere from six weeks to six months for recovery with as bad a case as I have,” said Echard. The CDC says Costco removed the item from its shelves.Townsend Farms voluntarily recalled the item. Click for more from My Fox Phoenix. source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/10/woman-claims-frozen-costco-berries-gave-her-hepatitis-sues-manufacturer/

Nearly 40 percent of designated drivers drink before driving, study suggests

Partygoers, beware.  Your designated sober driver may not always be alcohol-free. A new study, conducted in a Florida college town, found that two out of five designated drivers drink alcohol before getting behind the wheel, Medical Daily reported.  Of these inebriated drivers, half had a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .05 percent – enough to affect driving ability while still being under the legal limit. Researchers from the University of Florida spent three months observing more than 1,000 bar patrons as they left drinking establishments throughout the college town of Gainesville, Fla.  The team asked people if they had been deemed the designated driver and whether they would volunteer to take a breathalyzer test before leaving. Throughout the course of the study, 165 individuals identified themselves as designated drivers.  Of this group, 35 percent had at least one drink before leaving the bar, and around half of the drinkers had a BAC between .02 and .05 percent.  The other half had a BAC above .05 percent. According to the study’s researchers, social pressure to drink in combination with a legal BAC limit of .08 percent often leads to designated drivers having one or two drinks before hitting the road.  However, the scientists maintained that numerous studies have documented significant alcohol-related impairment at a BAC level of .05 percent. “Considering the low BAC levels at which driving-related abilities are negatively affected, these ï¬�ndings identify the need for consensus across researcher, layperson, and communication campaigns that a (designated driver) must be someone who abstains from drinking entirely,” the researchers wrote. Nearly one-third of all traffic-related deaths in the United Sates involve alcohol-impaired drivers, resulting in nearly 11,000 deaths each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  In an attempt to curb these deaths, the National Highway Transportation Safety Board has recommended that the legal BAC limit for driving be reduced from .08 percent to .05 percent. The University of Florida study will be published in the July issue of The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.  However, the average age of study participants was 28 and the individuals tested were not ethnically or racially diverse, meaning the results cannot be applied to the general American population. Click for more from Medical Daily.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/10/nearly-40-percent-designated-drivers-drink-before-driving-study-suggests/

Birth control pills tied to lower ovarian cancer risk

Women who use birth control pills are less likely to develop ovarian cancer later in life, a new analysis of past studies suggests. Researchers pooled data from 24 studies and found birth control pill users had a 27 percent lower risk of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. And longer use seemed to be tied to more protection. “It reinforces that there is a positive relationship between the use of oral contraceptives and ovarian cancer prevention in the general public,” said Dr. Laura Havrilesky, who led the study at the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina. “I think it adds some scientific weight to that relationship.” However, the review paper can't prove that using oral contraception lowers a woman's risk of disease - because there could have been other, unmeasured differences between women who took birth control pills and those who didn't, researchers noted. About one in 72 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer during her lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. The disease is often caught at an advanced stage, and the majority of women who are diagnosed will die from ovarian cancer. So researchers are eager to find ways to lower a woman's chance of developing it in the first place. Eating a healthy diet and maintaining a normal weight may be one way to do that. Some studies have suggested that using birth control pills - which contain the hormones estrogen and progestin or progestin only - may also lower a woman's risk over the long run. To clear up that picture, Havrilesky and her colleagues combined data from 24 studies that compared thousands of women who took birth control pills for various lengths of time, at a range of ages, with those who didn't use oral contraception. Any use of birth controls pill was linked to a lower risk of ovarian cancer, they found. Women who were on birth control pills for 10 years or longer were half as likely to develop the disease as those who didn't use them at all, the study team reported Wednesday in Obstetrics & Gynecology. If birth control pills themselves were responsible for that reduced risk, the researchers calculated that 185 women would have to use it for five years to prevent one case of ovarian cancer. But, because none of the studies randomly assigned women to take birth control pills or not - each woman made the decision with her own doctor - it's not clear that the contraceptives, themselves, explain the whole cancer difference. Use caution The researchers said there hasn't been enough time to study how the specific hormone formulations in contemporary birth control pills affect ovarian cancer risk decades down the line. Because of that and other limitations, women should use “considerable caution” when figuring the new findings into their own personal decisions about birth control, they wrote. What's more, other research suggests women who take birth control pills are at a higher risk of developing cervical cancer, said Eduardo Franco, head of cancer epidemiology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. “It is the sort of thing that requires a frank conversation between a woman and healthcare provider,” Franco, who wasn't involved in the new research, told Reuters Health. He said the findings are not surprising and that many doctors are convinced birth control pills do lower ovarian cancer risk. “I don't think there's a question of the link,” Franco said. What's important, he added, is “understanding the caveats that come with the reduced risk of ovarian cancer.” “What we've got right now may be the best evidence that we ever are able to have. I don't necessarily think that it is enough to tell a physician to have their patients use oral contraceptives solely for the purpose of preventing ovarian cancer,” Havrilesky told Reuters Health. “But I think it's enough to say this is a possible advantage in women who are considering use of oral contraceptives” for birth control or other medical reasons, she said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/07/birth-control-pills-tied-to-lower-ovarian-cancer-risk/

New vaccine drives Africa meningitis cases to lowest in decade

Case numbers in Africa's meningitis season this year were the lowest in 10 years thanks to a cheap new vaccine designed to treat a type of the disease common in the so-called meningitis belt, the World Health Organization said on Thursday. The vaccine, called MenAfriVac, was developed with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation specifically for use against meningitis A, a type which causes regular epidemics in Africa. Detailing data for January 1 to May 12, the United Nations health agency said that just under 9,250 meningitis cases, including 857 deaths, were reported in 18 of the 19 African countries under enhanced surveillance for meningitis. Epidemics of meningitis A occur regularly in Africa's “meningitis belt”, a band of 26 countries stretching from Senegal to Ethiopia, and are particularly devastating to children and young adults. Bacterial meningitis, known as meningococcal meningitis, is a serious infection of the thin lining surrounding the brain and spinal cord. It can cause severe brain damage and is fatal in 50 percent of cases if untreated. According to the non-profit Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP), which helped develop the MenAfriVac vaccine, the seasonal outbreak of meningitis across sub-Saharan Africa in 2009 infected at least 88,000 people and killed more than 5,000. The WHO said the falling numbers this year were due to the introduction of the newly developed vaccine. MenAfriVac costs just 50 U.S. cents a dose and has been progressively introduced in Africa since 2010, starting in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. “The introduction of this first meningococcal vaccine available for preventive purposes in Africa has enabled the immunization of over 100 million people from 10 countries in the meningitis belt in the past three years,” the WHO said. “The reduced case load and epidemic activity observed this year adds to the evidence on the impact...of this vaccine.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/07/new-vaccine-drives-africa-meningitis-cases-to-lowest-in-decade/

US births remain steady in 2012

The number of babies born yearly in the United States appears to be leveling off, after declining for the last few years, a new report says. In 2012, there were 3,958,000 babies born in the United States, according to early estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's about the same as the number of births in 2011, the report says. The number of U.S. births has been decline since 2007, when a record-breaking 4,316,233 babies were born —more births than at the height of the baby boom in the 1950s. But the downward trend slowed between 2010 and 2011, and “essentially flattened” between 2011 and 2012, the report says. The country's birth rate has followed a similar trend, peaking in 2007 at 69.3 births per 1,000 women, and declining until 2011, after which it stabilized. In 2012, there were 63.2 births per 1,000 women between ages 15 and 44, essentially the same as the rate in 2011, the report says. The report is published June 6 by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. 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/2013/06/06/us-births-remain-steady-in-2012/

Skipping shots at sick visits tied to vaccine delays

Kids who don't get vaccines when they see their pediatrician for a sick visit - despite being due for the shots - are more likely to fall behind on immunizations and routine check-ups, according to a new study. “It's pretty common that kids will come in (for a sick visit) at a time when they should be getting their shots,” said Steve Robison, the study's author and a researcher at the Oregon Immunization Program, part of the state's health department. Sometimes babies end up skipping those shots, perhaps because parents are concerned they could make a sick baby feel worse or doctors are worried that parents won't come back for a well-baby check-up if infants are already caught up on vaccines. “The challenge is, if they come in sick, are they going to come back and get shots and well-baby visits in a timely way?” Robison said. His findings suggest those babies end up worse off if doctors forgo shots until they're better. “It's very clear that vaccinating at sick visits improves the vaccination rate,” said Dr. Alexander Fiks, a pediatrician at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, who was not part of this study. “For parents, what I would say is, don't be afraid to get vaccines at sick visits because, for most kids with minor illnesses, it's really no problem. Medically, it's fine,” he added. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that babies receive at least 16 vaccine doses during their first six months. Those are spread across well-child visits. In an earlier study, Robison and his colleagues found a growing number of parents in Oregon are not sticking to the recommended vaccine schedule - so kids end up getting their shots late or not at all. This time, Robison looked at the immunization records of 1,060 children who went to the doctor for an ear infection around the time when a well-baby check-up should occur. All of the children had state-funded health insurance. About 8 percent of the sick babies received a diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP) vaccine at the sick visit itself, and another 57 percent had one within a few weeks. The others were late on their shots. Fiks said the findings support the results of other studies showing that when doctors skip shots at sick visits, kids are more likely to end up not following the immunization schedule. What's more, giving shots at sick visits did not seem to stop parents from bringing their baby back for well-child visits. Compared to babies who received their immunizations at routine check-ups, those who had their shots at sick visits had just as many well-baby visits by age two - about five, on average. And kids who skipped the shot at their sick visit, but had another visit within a few weeks, ended up receiving more routine check-ups compared to similar normally-vaccinated children, Robison reported in the medical journal Pediatrics. On the other hand, kids who didn't get a shot at the sick visit or within four weeks had slightly fewer routine visits over their first two years. Increasingly, children are becoming “under-vaccinated,” researchers said. A study earlier this year found that half of some 300,000 kids born between 2004 and 2008 had fallen behind on their immunizations at some point before age 2. The concern is that those children are vulnerable to the diseases that vaccines are designed to prevent. “The more kids within a given classroom who are unprotected, the more likely it is for there to be an outbreak,” said Fiks. The researchers agreed that a minor illness is not a reason to fall behind on routine shots. “If you want to keep the kids on schedule so that they're protected from disease, it's best to give the shot,” Robison said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/06/skipping-shots-at-sick-visits-tied-to-vaccine-delays/

California man fights hepatitis A after eating tainted berries

Geoff Soza was celebrating his 30th wedding anniversary in Yellowstone National Park when the 64-year-old man learned the hard way that his seemingly healthy breakfast habit of mixing thawed berries with Greek yogurt had exposed him to a national outbreak of hepatitis A. Dozens of illnesses have been reported, and federal officials have recalled a frozen berry mix sold by Costco and Harris Teeter in seven states. Soza, a semi-retired contractor, was resting at his Encinitas home this week after an ordeal that threatened to put him on a liver transplant list. He hadn't felt right in the weeks before leaving for Yellowstone on May 29 -- but his lack of appetite and disorientation didn't merit canceling the trip. “I thought, `I'm getting something. I'm coming down with something' and I thought I'd just ride it out and live with it,” he said. His wife, Rita, said he doesn't complain much as “a very active, tough kind of person,” but he seemed lethargic when they flew to Salt Lake City and rented a car to drive to the park. On the second night of their trip, the Sozas called paramedics who examined Geoff and recommended he visit St. John's Medical Center. They didn't think a medical evacuation was necessary. They thought they could wait until morning, but after a few hours, Rita drove three hours on dark rural roads to Jackson, Wyo. Doctors initially thought Geoff Soza's gall bladder needed to be removed after finding signs of inflammation and stones. But general surgeon Dr. Michael Rosenberg halted the surgery, scheduled for June 1, because of Soza's elevated liver enzymes. After more tests, Soza was diagnosed with hepatitis A, Rosenberg said. Soza could have suffered liver damage or excessive bleeding if the surgery had gone ahead as planned, Rosenberg said. Doctors told Soza they could treat him, but if it didn't go well, they would have him taken to a regional liver transplant center in Utah. “That's when it really struck me, like, `Really? Liver transplant?' ” Geoff Soza said. Luckily, such measures are rarely, if ever, necessary for hepatitis A, Rosenberg said. Hepatitis A can be spread by the ingestion of a microscopic amount of fecal matter from an infected person, typically a food worker who hasn't washed their hands. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, abdominal pain and jaundice -- a yellowing of the skin or eyes. There is no specific treatment. The ill can feel sick for weeks -- or up to six months -- as their body heals itself. Healthy and health-conscious, the Sozas always inspect their foods and select organic produce. They were surprised to learn that some of the fruit from Townsend Farms of Fairview, Ore., was from outside the United States. The Centers for Disease Control said the recalled berries included products from Argentina, Turkey and Chile, in addition to the United States. But the packaging convinced the Sozas the fruit was all-American because it bears the slogans “Grower. Processor. Distributor.” and “Field to Farm to Family, since 1906.” “It was our distinct impression that these are raised under U.S. standards, especially organic food standards,” Rita Soza said. Geoff Soza said he chose the berries to have for breakfast for about 6 months. The Sozas are fairly adventurous eaters who like to experiment with new foods. Frozen berries were the last thing he thought would make him sick. “I would have thought it would be from fish or something like that, but not ever from fruit, especially berries,” Soza said. Rita Soza said after she learned of the berries, she was upset by Costco's response, saying she unsuccessfully tried to call the number on her membership card for information -- but she couldn't get a live person on the phone. She returned home to find a message on her answering machine Tuesday. Costco Vice President for food safety Craig Wilson said the company contacted 240,000 members with information about the outbreak and received more than 10,000 calls over the weekend. Some of those sickened by the berries have filed lawsuits seeking medical costs and damages, and at least one suit filed in Los Angeles this week seeks class action status. The Sozas say they haven't decided to take legal action.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/06/california-man-fights-hepatitis-after-eating-tainted-berries/

Research for Her: Bridging the gender gap in health studies

Before Kelli Sargent’s mother, Nanci, was diagnosed with stage 3C ovarian cancer in 2000, she and her family knew little about the disease’s warning signs. Frustrated by the lack of research and awareness surrounding ovarian cancer, Sargent and her mother started a nonprofit called “Run for Her” in conjunction with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in 2005. The event, a 5,000-meter run held in Los Angeles, raises funds and spreads awareness about ovarian cancer. Though Nanci lost her battle with ovarian cancer five years ago, Run for Her is still dedicated to its mission. Now, a new program at Cedars-Sinai called Research for Her is collaborating with Run for Her to overcome another obstacle standing in the way of improved outcomes for ovarian cancer patients: the lack of women participating in clinical trials. Women are historically underrepresented in clinical trials and erasing this gender gap could help scientist’s develop better screening methods for diseases like ovarian cancer – something that Sargent believes could have saved her mother’s life. “If you catch ovarian cancer early…it’s basically curable. You have such an optimistic future,” Sargent told FoxNews.com. “But only less than 20 percent of cases are caught early.” Sign up, save lives While doctors are uncertain why fewer women choose to enroll in clinical trials, they know unequal gender representation in studies can have serious health implications. “If we don’t find out how drugs work in the real population, then they may simply not work as well as we hope that we do,” Dr. BJ Rimel, co-founder of Research for Her and a gynecologic oncologist in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Cedars-Sinai, told FoxNews.com. Furthermore, the lack of female research participants has slowed studies seeking to explore the basic causes and markers of diseases like ovarian cancer.  Understanding the basic mechanisms behind these disorders could help lead to earlier detection methods – and ultimately save lives. It wasn’t until Rimel began her career at Cedars-Sinai in 2011, with a dream of conducting clinical trials, that she understood the severity of the problem. “I realized the enrollment for clinical trials at Cedars was abysmal,” Rimel said. “We weren’t making a dent. We were offering all these great things, but nothing was happening.” Rimel eventually met Dr. Catherine Deng, associate director of the Wasserman Breast Cancer Risk Reduction Program and surgeon at the Saul and Joyce Brandman Breast Center at Cedars-Sinai, who was having difficulty getting women to sign up for her breast cancer registry. With help from the already established Run for Her, the two women joined forces and launched the Research for Her clinical trial online registry. Doctors suspect that women haven't signed up for clinical trails in the past because of a lack of information, or because of the difficult sign-up process. Previously, the registration process for clinical trials was cumbersome, done primarily in the doctor’s office and using pen and paper.   “Women aren’t going to seek out a clinical trial when they have 19 other things to do, just to figure out if they qualify,” Sargent said. But with Research for Her, the sign-up process is easy. It takes only about 10 minutes, can be done online and all medical information is confidential, according to Rimel. If a woman qualifies for a trial, a research coordinator will contact her personally with more information – though there is no obligation to participate. “We want to make this simple,” Rimel said. And they seem to be on to something. Since the program’s launch on March 18, Research for Her has succeeded in registering 160 women for clinical trials – a huge increase for the program. Promising research One exciting trial currently benefitting from the Research for Her registry seeks to pinpoint chemical markers in the blood that may act as early identifiers for ovarian cancer. “We are trying to enroll women in the study (that are) already at risk for ovary cancer. The general population has a low risk, but for women with a high risk, we don’t know how best to screen them,” Rimel said. Thanks to the registry, researchers have been able to connect with a larger pool of women eligible to participate in the trial. “This registry has allowed us to find these women and contact them and get people in the study…that we haven’t been able to fill before now,” Rimel said.   Ultimately, Rimel and Deng hope to register 2,000 women through Research for Her by the end of the year. But in the long term, Rimel hopes that the program will be used nationwide to boost participation in clinical trials and further the progress of medical research. “Right now, it’s a single institution, but we hope if this takes off that we can network with others to make it a real way to help people (get) in clinical trials,” Rimel said. “That is my dream for this.” Sargent hopes that getting the word out about registry will help improve detection and treatment methods for women’s cancers – and save other women battling the disease that their mothers fought. “There is so much to learn, especially as research is advancing,” Sargent said. “They need this information from women.” Click for more on Research for Her. source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/04/research-for-her-bridging-gender-gap-in-health-studies/

Elephant at Oregon Zoo diagnosed with tuberculosis

The Oregon Zoo has quarantined an elephant that tested positive for tuberculosis. “Rama,” an Asian elephant that was born at the Portland-based zoo in 1983, tested positive on Friday. He shows no symptoms of the disease, poses no threat to visitors and is expected to make a complete recovery, zoo staff said. “We're confident Rama is going to be fine,” zoo director Kim Smith told The Oregonian newspaper. “It's a very treatable disease. We've caught it early with Rama. We feel very good about this.” Treatment with drugs, however, is expensive, costing more than $50,000, the newspaper reported. None of the other elephants in the zoo's heard of eight Asian elephants are showing signs of tuberculosis, but they will be retested. The zoo tested some staff members Friday and will continue this week. It's unknown how Rama contracted the disease. Tuberculosis spreads among people and between people and animals through airborne bacteria carried in droplets. To become infected, you must be directly exposed to the bacteria while it's airborne. “In order to contact TB, you have to be in really close contact for hours at a stretch,” Smith said. The zoo has tested the herd annually for TB since 1999, based on guidelines developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Those guidelines stemmed from the 1996 deaths of two circus elephants touring in California. An estimated 3 percent of the elephants in the United States have the disease, according to a 2000 study published in the journal Zoo Biology. The zoo gets 1.6 million visitors a year and the elephant herd is a popular attraction. Rama is the smallest of its adult bull elephants, weighing 9,000 pounds.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/03/elephant-at-portland-zoo-has-tuberculosis/

Woman claims she contracted herpes from lipstick at a Rihanna concert

A Harlem woman is claiming she contracted herpes from a sample of RiRi Woo lipstick she tested at a Rihanna concert in Brooklyn on May 7, Medical Daily reported. Starkeema Greenidge, 28, has filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court against MAC Cosmetics, which manufactures the product.  According to Greenidge, she visited a pop-up shop at the singer’s Barclay’s Center show, where a Mac Cosmetics representative applied the RiRi Woo lipstick to Greenidge’s lips. Caused by the herpes simplex virus, herpes is a common sexually transmitted disease (STD) that affects 16.2 percent of Americans, or one out of every six people, between the ages of 14 and 49, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The disease is often contracted through sex, but it can also be transmitted through touching and kissing while an infected individual has a herpes “flare up.” Greenidge said in the suit that the MAC Cosmetics representative failed to warn her that the lipstick had been used by other concert attendees.  When Greenidge developed a cold sore two days later, she went to the doctor, where she was diagnosed with herpes. According to the lawsuit, Greenidge has suffered mental anguish and distress after contracting the STD, Medical Daily reported. A spokesperson for MAC Cosmetics issued a statement to the Daily Beast on Thursday about the incident: “Consumer safety is a top priority at MAC Cosmetics, and we take these matters very seriously. We are closely reviewing these claims.” Click for more from Medical Daily.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/31/woman-claims-contracted-herpes-from-lipstick-at-rihanna-concert/