Tag Archives: phoenix

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/

Metastatic breast cancer study shows success in finding new treatment

The Side-Out Foundation’s pilot study is part of a cutting-edge approach to personalized medicine that looks beyond genomic analysis alone to combine it with what some say is the next frontier in targeted therapy: proteomics. The pilot study is the first of its kind to utilize novel protein activation mapping technology along with the genomic fingerprint of cancer as a way to find the most effective treatment. The trial was announced at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and is expected to expand into phase two this month. Standard chemotherapy had failed the 25 women who participated in the 2.5-year pilot study, says study co-author Emanuel "Chip" Petricoin, co-director of George Mason’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM)…

Most travelers survive in-flight medical emergencies, study shows

Is there a doctor on board? Surprisingly often, there is - in half of in-flight medical emergencies - and sick airline passengers almost always survive, a new study finds. The research is the largest look yet at what happens to people who develop a medical problem on a commercial flight - about 44,000 of the 2.75 billion passengers worldwide each year, researchers estimate. Most cases don't require diverting a plane as the study's leader, Dr. Christian Martin-Gill, advised a pilot to do two years. He works for MD-STAT, a service at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center that advises about 20 major airlines on how to handle in-flight emergencies. Another large service is based in Phoenix. Martin-Gill handled a call when a passenger seemed to be having a heart attack on a flight from Europe to the U.S. The man's implanted defibrillator had shocked his heart five times to try to restore normal rhythm. “The aircraft was in the middle of its destination, flying over the Atlantic,” so he recommended landing at Newfoundland off the Canadian coast to get the man to the nearest hospital, Martin-Gill said. The federally funded study reviewed about 12,000 cases handled by the Pittsburgh center over nearly three years. Results are in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers found: -The odds of a medical emergency are 1 per 604 flights, or 16 per 1 million passengers. -Planes had to be diverted for emergency help in only 7 percent of cases. -Doctors were on board and volunteered to help in 48 percent of cases; nurses and other health workers were available in another 28 percent. Only one-third of cases had to be handled by flight attendants alone. -The most common problems: Dizziness or passing out (37 percent of cases); trouble breathing (12 percent) and nausea or vomiting (10 percent). -About one-fourth of passengers were evaluated at a hospital after landing and 9 percent were admitted, usually with stroke, respiratory or cardiac symptoms. -Out of nearly 12,000 cases, a defibrillator was applied 137 times, including in 24 cases of cardiac arrest, where the heart had stopped. (Sometimes defibrillators are used to analyze an irregular heart rhythm to help doctors figure out what to do, not necessarily to deliver a shock.) -Of the cases in this study, only 36 deaths occurred, 30 of them during the flight and the others after landing. -Pregnancy-related problems were generally rare - 61 cases, in this study - and two-thirds of them involved women less than 24 weeks along with possible miscarriages. Air travel is considered safe up to the 36th week, or the last month, of pregnancy. Only three cases of women in labor beyond 24 weeks of pregnancy led to a plane being diverted. Dr. Lisa Rosenbaum, a University of Pennsylvania cardiologist, helped in a case like that in 2007, on a flight from Boston to Portland, Ore. The passenger was three months from her due date but was having contractions every minute - something that can often be stopped with drugs and treatment at a hospital but not in midair. “It was clear to me that labor was imminent and that we needed to land the plane,” so, on her advice, the pilot diverted to upstate New York, Rosenbaum said. “It was one of the scariest experiences of my life. It's not like taking care of a patient in the hospital.” Dr. David Rogers, a pediatric surgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, felt that fear five years ago when an elderly woman had trouble breathing during a flight to Atlanta from Toledo, Ohio. Being a specialist at treating children rather than adults, “my first reaction was to look around and hope there would be somebody else” more qualified to help, he said. Luckily, a flight attendant had already given the woman an oxygen mask and she seemed to be improving, so he felt the plane could continue to Atlanta, the woman's home. Trying to determine whether to divert a plane was a tough call, he said. “I'm making a decision that's going to affect a plane full of people,” not just the patient, Rogers said. Some passengers may fear liability if they help in such situations, but a Good Samaritan law protects those who do so, the study notes. And although health workers are not legally obliged to help, they have a moral obligation to do so, the authors write. And you never know what kind of help will be requested. Martin-Gill said a partner once was consulted when a dog suffered a cardiac arrest during a flight. He didn't know how things turned out.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/30/most-travelers-survive-in-flight-medical-emergencies-study-shows/