Rise of the superbugs: When drugs don’t work – Health – Infectious diseases – msnbc.com

March 31, 2011 at 2:01 pm (Global Events, Health and wellness)
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Rise of the superbugs: When drugs don’t work – Health – Infectious diseases – msnbc.com.

New wave of superbugs: When the drugs don’t work

Despite spread of powerful germ strains, the pharmaceutical industry is backing away from developing stronger antibiotics

David Livermore

Suzanne Plunkett /  REUTERS

David Livermore, director of the Antibiotic Resistance Monitoring & Reference Laboratory at the Health Protection Agency, holds a plate which was coated with the antibiotic-resistant bacteria called Klebsiella with a mutation called NDM 1 and then exposed to various antibiotics, in his laboratory in north London.
By Kate Kelland and Ben Hirschler
Reuters
updated 3/31/2011 11:37:10 AM ET 2011-03-31T15:37:10

LONDON — David Livermore is in a race against evolution. In his north London lab, he holds up an evil-smelling culture plate smeared with bacteria. This creamy-yellow growth is the enemy: a new strain of germs resistant to the most powerful antibiotics yet devised by humankind.

Out on the streets, Steve Owen is running the same race — physically pounding the pavements to draw attention to the problem of drug-resistant infections.

Owen’s father Donald died four years ago of multiple organ failure in a British hospital. He had checked in for a knee operation. But what he got was methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA, a so-called “superbug” that all the drugs his doctors prescribed couldn’t beat. After almost 18 months of severe pain, the infection got into his blood, overpowered his vital organs and killed him.

Owen and his wife Jules have pledged to run 12 big races in as many months, to raise funds for a charity that is working to fight MRSA. “It just shouldn’t have happened,” says Jules, as the pair nurse their own aching limbs after running a half-marathon. “It was his knee — that’s not something he should have died from.”

  1. Don’t miss these Health stories

Welcome to a world where the drugs don’t work  (Read Full Article)

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Cosmic Log – How radiation affects the fish

March 31, 2011 at 10:11 am (Food and drink, Global Events, Health and wellness, News and politics)
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Cosmic Log – How radiation affects the fish.

How radiation affects the fish

Sukree Sukplang / Reuters

An official from Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration takes a sample from a shipment of frozen fish imported from Japan to test for possible radiation contamination at a customs station in Bangkok today.

By Alan Boyle

Experts say that fish and other marine species shouldn’t be as affected by Japan’s nuclear crisis as species on land, in part because of differences in the ways radiation is dispersed.

But that doesn’t mean authorities can ease up on monitoring the sea and its bounty for contamination. To the contrary: Inspectors around the world are keeping a close eye on food imports from Japan, and some countries have ordered special inspections or even outright bans on fish coming from areas near the plant.

Twenty days after Japan’s earthquake and tsunami touched off a breakdown and partial meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, some radiation experts are still struggling to get an accurate read on the situation.

“My basic feeling is that they’re going to come to grips with this, and at the end of the day, it’s not going to be as bad as people fear,” said Florida State University oceanographer William Burnett, an expert on the environmental effects of radioactivity. “Having said that, trying to follow this story has been difficult. I see almost no real data.”

The most reliable measurements have been coming from the International Atomic Energy’s daily updates on the situation, said Andrew Maidment, a professor of radiology and chief of the physics section at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. So get ready for some real data.   (Click Here For  Full Article/Data)

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Japan’s Nuclear Rescuers: ‘Inevitable Some of Them May Die Within Weeks’ – FoxNews.com

March 31, 2011 at 9:54 am (Food and drink, Global Events, Health and wellness, News and politics)

Japan’s Nuclear Rescuers: ‘Inevitable Some of Them May Die Within Weeks’ – FoxNews.com.

Japan’s Nuclear Rescuers: ‘Inevitable Some of Them May Die Within Weeks’

By Dominic Di-Natale

Published March 31, 2011 | FoxNews.com


 

 

Fukushima Sacrafice

"We Who Are About to Die...!"

Workers at the disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan say they expect to die from radiation sickness as a result of their efforts to bring the reactors under control, the mother of one of the men tells Fox News.

The so-called Fukushima 50, the team of brave plant workers struggling to prevent a meltdown to four reactors critically damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, are being repeatedly exposed to dangerously high radioactive levels as they attempt to bring vital cooling systems back online.

Speaking tearfully through an interpreter by phone, the mother of a 32-year-old worker said: “My son and his colleagues have discussed it at length and they have committed themselves to die if necessary to save the nation.

“He told me they have accepted they will all probably die from radiation sickness in the short term or cancer in the long-term.”

The woman spoke to Fox News on the condition of anonymity because, she said, plant workers had been asked by management not to communicate with the media or share details with family members in order to minimize public panic.

She could not confirm if her son or other workers were already suffering from radiation sickness. But she added: “They have concluded between themselves that it is inevitable some of them may die within weeks or months. They know it is impossible for them not to have been exposed to lethal doses of radiation.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/31/japans-nuclear-rescuers-inevitable-die-weeks/#ixzz1ICFe5Iby

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Garden As If Your Life Depended On It, Because It Does | Food | AlterNet

March 31, 2011 at 2:55 am (Food and drink, Global Events, Health and wellness, News and politics)
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Garden As If Your Life Depended On It, Because It Does | Food | AlterNet.

FOOD
AlterNet / By Ellen LaConte
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Garden As If Your Life Depended On It, Because It Does

There are at least five reasons why more of us should take up the spade, make some compost, and start gardening with a vengeance.
March 29, 2011 |

Photo Credit: di the huntress
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Spring has sprung — at least south of the northern tier of states where snow still has a ban on it — and the grass has ‘riz. And so has the price of most foods, which is particularly devastating just now when so many Americans are unemployed, underemployed, retired or retiring, on declining or fixed incomes and are having to choose between paying their mortgages, credit card bills, car payments, and medical and utility bills and eating enough and healthily. Many are eating more fast food, prepared foods, junk food — all of which are also becoming more expensive — or less food.   (Read more)

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Know The Ingredients in your Personal Care Products – Health Tips from EWG | Environmental Working Group

March 31, 2011 at 2:47 am (Health and wellness, News and politics)
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Know The Ingredients in your Personal Care Products – Health Tips from EWG | Environmental Working Group.

Know the ingredients in your personal care products

Better products are truthful in their marketing claims and free of potentially worrisome ingredients. Some products might make claims like “gentle” or “natural,” but since the government does not require safety testing, personal care product manufacturers can use almost any chemical they want, regardless of risks.

How to read a label
Every personal care product must list its ingredients. Here’s how to navigate the label:

  • Start at the end, with preservatives. Avoid:
    • Words ending in “paraben”
    • DMDM hydantoin
    • Imidazolidinyl urea
    • Methylchloroisothiazolinone
    • Methylisothiazolinone
    • Triclosan
    • Triclocarban
    • Triethanolamine (or “TEA”)
  • Check the beginning of the ingredients lists, where soaps, surfactants, and lubricants show up. Try to avoid ingredients that start with “PEG” or have an “-eth” in the middle (e.g., sodium laureth sulfate).
  • Read the ingredients in the middle. Look for these words: “FRAGRANCE,” “FD&C,” or “D&C.”

For grown-ups
Many parents pay more attention to their kids’ environmental health than their own, but adult bodies can be affected by toxic chemicals, too. EWG’s Safer Shopping List has nine common-sense tips to reduce everyone’s exposures. For instance, buy fragrance-free, skip the nail polish and use fewer products.

Just for kids
Extra caution is in order for kids because, pound for pound, they are exposed to more contaminants in everyday products than adults. Their immature metabolism and organ systems are typically less capable of fending off chemical assaults. Even subtle damage to young bodies can lead to disease later in life.

Follow EWG’s top five tips for kids:

     

  1. Use fewer products and use them less often.
  2. Don’t trust ad hype. Check ingredients.
  3. Buy fragrance-free products.
  4. Avoid the use of baby powder.
  5. Always avoid EWG’s top six chemicals of concern for kids:
    • 2-Bromo-2-Nitropropane-1,3 Diol
    • BHA
    • Boric acid and sodium borate
    • DMDM Hydantoin
    • Oxybenzone
    • Triclosan

LEARN MORE about our Healthy Home Tip series.

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March 29, 2011 at 11:20 pm (Food and drink, Global Events, Health and wellness, News and politics, Observances)
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aluminum foil

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HUMAN HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT FOR ALUMINIUM,
ALUMINIUM OXIDE, AND ALUMINIUM HYDROXIDE
Daniel Krewski1,2, Robert A Yokel3, Evert Nieboer4, David Borchelt5, Joshua Cohen6, Jean Harry7, Sam Kacew2,8, Joan Lindsay9, Amal M Mahfouz10, and Virginie Rondeau11

1 Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa,  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

2 McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

3 College of Pharmacy and Graduate Center for Toxicology, University of Kentucky Medical Center, Kentucky, USA

4 Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and Institute of Community Medicine, University of Tromsø, Norway

5 SantaFe Health Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Department of Neuroscience, McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, USA

6Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies, Tufts-New England Medical Center, USA

7National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA

8Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

9Aging-Related Diseases Section, Surveillance Division, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

10United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC, USA
11INSERM E0338 (Biostatistic), Université Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2, Bordeaux, France

Keywords
aluminium; aluminium oxide; aluminium hydroxide; speciation; human health; neurotoxicity; exposure; toxicokinetics; toxicology; epidemiology; Alzheimer’s disease; risk assessment  (Read Full Report)

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Workers at Japan Nuke Plant ‘Lost the Race’ to Save Reactor, Expert Says – FoxNews.com

March 29, 2011 at 2:20 pm (Food and drink, Global Events, Health and wellness, News and politics, Uncategorized)
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Workers at Japan Nuke Plant ‘Lost the Race’ to Save Reactor, Expert Says – FoxNews.com.

Workers at Japan Nuke Plant ‘Lost the Race’ to Save Reactor, Expert Says

Published March 29, 2011

| FoxNews.com

Workers at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant appeared to have “lost the race” to save one of the reactors, a U.S. expert told the Guardian.

Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at the Japan plant, says the radioactive core in the Unit 2 reactor appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on a concrete floor.

“The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell,” Lahey told the paper.

Lahey did add there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.

Japan was hit by another earthquake Wednesday after a magnitude-5.5 earthquake struck off the east coast of Honshu, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/29/workers-japan-nuke-plant-lost-race-save-reactor-expert-says/#ixzz1I1dMY2tr
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/29/workers-japan-nuke-plant-lost-race-save-reactor-expert-says/#ixzz1I1dFfRp2

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Preserving Biodiversity, Promoting Local Foods: An Interview with Slow Food USA’s Gordon Jenkins

March 29, 2011 at 1:35 am (Uncategorized)
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Preserving Biodiversity, Promoting Local Foods: An Interview with Slow Food USA’s Gordon Jenkins.

Preserving Biodiversity, Promoting Local Foods: An Interview with Slow Food USA’s Gordon Jenkins

Danielle Nierenberg Agriculture, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Diet, Education, Environment, Food, Food Security, Health, Hunger, Income, Indigenous, Indigenous Vegetables, Investment, Local, Nutrition, organic, Policy, Poverty 2011-03-18

By Janeen Madan

Gordon Jenkins is the Network Engagement Manager with Slow Food USA.  Gordon joined Slow Food in 2009 to help organize the Time for Lunch campaign. He grew up in Berkeley, CA, eating McDonald’s Happy Meals and boneless skinless chicken breasts. In college, he worked as a student farmer at the Yale Farm, where he began to see food activism as a very local, personal solution to the world’s many crises. He has worked in Alice Waters’ Office at Chez Panisse and as Content Coordinator for Slow Food Nation, which took place over Labor Day 2008 in San Francisco.

Why is it important to preserve America’s food traditions and safeguard food biodiversity? How does Slow Food-USA work to achieve this goal through its network of local chapters?

preserving-biodiversity-promoting-local-foods-gordon-jenkins-interview-slow-food-USA

The Slow Food chapter in Memphis started a farmer’s market in a neighborhood without many healthy food options. (Photo credit: Slow Food Memphis)

We live in an era where a single pest can wipe out an entire region’s harvest, because that region is only growing one or two types of crops. Our food traditions are not only a big part of our identity,  they also provide the diversity that is integral to healthy, resilient ecosystems. They’re the foods we enjoy the most, and they’re also the environmental solutions that are going to shape the future.

I love that in my community I can buy hand-made tortillas, heirloom apples and heritage pork–these foods are all more delicious than the standardized processed foods I can find in any supermarket. And when I buy those foods, I help farmers build healthier ecosystems. As an organization, Slow Food works to preserve biodiversity by helping people find local foods in their region. Across the country, Slow Food chapters organize food meet-ups and workshops and help producers get access to new seeds and ingredients.

(Read Full Article)

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FDA Formula Probe Is Good News for Mothers, Babies | Womens eNews

March 29, 2011 at 12:06 am (Food and drink, Health and wellness, News and politics)
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FDA Formula Probe Is Good News for Mothers, Babies | Womens eNews.

FDA Formula Probe Is Good News for Mothers, Babies

By Kimberly Seals Allers  Editorial director, Black Maternal Health

Monday, March 28, 2011

The Food and Drug Administration will be looking into the health claims of infant formulas. Kimberly Seals Allers says it’s about time, since these deceptive claims often mislead moms into thinking formula is just as good as breast milk.

Kimberly Seals Allers

(WOMENSENEWS)–The Food and Drug Administration announced earlier this month that it is planning to look into the health claims of infant formulas. I couldn’t be happier.

One of the biggest, or should I say latest, of the formula industry’s misleading claims is related to omega-3 fatty acids–DHA, in particular–which misleads mothers into thinking formula is just as good as breast milk.

Specifically, the FDA says it wants to: “assess women’s understanding of and response to various statements on infant formula labels. The study results will be used to help the agency to understand the role that certain types of statements on infant formula labels have in influencing formula choice . . . The study will focus on purchase choice, perceived similarity of the formula to breast milk and perceived likelihood that the formula has certain health benefits.”

(Read Full Article)

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Candy Dynamics Recalls Toxic Waste Short Circuits Bubble Gum Because of Elevated Levels of Lead

March 28, 2011 at 9:09 pm (Food and drink, Health and wellness)
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Candy Dynamics Recalls Toxic Waste Short Circuits Bubble Gum Because of Elevated Levels of Lead.

Candy Dynamics Recalls Toxic Waste Short Circuits Bubble Gum Because of Elevated Levels of Lead

March 28, 2011

Circle City Marketing and Distributing, doing business as Candy Dynamics, is issuing a voluntary recall of Toxic Waste® Short Circuits™ Bubble Gum, 3.2 oz (90 g) size, Lot #15070SC12. The product is imported from Pakistan.

A recent test performed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has indicated that Lot #15070SC12 of the 3.2 oz. (90 g) size of the above-listed product contains elevated levels of lead (0.189 parts per million; the FDA tolerance is 0.1 ppm) that potentially could cause health problems, particularly for infants, small children, and pregnant women.

Out of abundance of caution, the company has determined to recall Lot #15070SC12, which was distributed from January 4, 2011 until March 18, 2011.

The product is identified as: Toxic Waste® Short Circuits™ Bubble Gum, (UPC 0 89894 31001 3), 3.2 oz (90 g) size, Lot #15070SC12 (the Lot # is located along the left side of the bag).

No other “Toxic Waste®” brand product or “Short Circuits™ Bubble Gum”, besides Lot #15070SC12 is affected by this recall.

No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with this problem.

The recalled Short Circuits™ Bubble Gum product was distributed nationwide in retail stores and through mail orders. The product was also distributed in limited quantities into Canada and Switzerland.

The company will continue to sell Short Circuits™ Bubble Gum products in the U.S.

Candy Dynamics is sending recall notices to its direct customers. Anyone in possession of the recalled product should telephone the company for information on destruction of the product. Please call Eileen O’Neal at 317-228-5012 (Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm EST) for further information.

Were you affected? Click Here for a free case evaluation!

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