Flesh and Stone

Journal reports teenager nearly blinded following vaccination against HPV virus

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:58:00 -0700

A 16-year-old girl developed near complete visual loss after being immunized against human papilloma virus (HPV), according to a case report published in the March issue of the Journal of Child Neurology.

Report authors Mirna Hajjar, MD, a neurologist, Thomas Ciesielski, MD, a pathologist, both of Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Conn., and pediatrician Francis DiMario, Jr., MD, with Connecticut Children's Medical Center, described the injury as chiasmal neuritis (inflammed nerves) with a tumefactive (swollen) demyelinating lesion that were observed through brain biopsy and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

The vision loss occurred about 10 days after the girl had received the second of three courses of the Gardasil vaccine.

The previously healthy girl had gone to the emergency room after experiencing progressive acute vision loss and a gradually worsening headache over a 48-hour period. She had no other symptoms and no family history of demyelinating disease, collagen-vascular disease, or rheumatological disorders. The authors wrote: “It is tempting to speculate whether there may be a specific immune mechanism initiated with human papilloma virus not yet identified, which resulted in not only acute demyelinating encephalomyelitis but also in an unusual clinical course that resulted in persistent visual loss.”

Eighteen months after her initial symptoms the girl continued to experience “persistent profound visual impairment” but had no additional neurological problems, according to the authors.

The authors noted that only four other cases showing an association between central nervous system demyelination and the HPV vaccine have been published and that larger epidemiologic studies are needed to confirm HPV virus immunization plays a role in demyelinating disease.

Source:

Francis J. DiMario, Jr, Mirna Hajjar and Thomas Ciesielski
J Child Neurol 2010; 25; 321
DOI: 10.1177/0883073809349322

WHO calls avoidable maternal deaths ‘shameful’

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:36:00 -0700

The World Health Organization (WHO) today labeled as "shameful" the fact that 90 percent of maternal deaths in the Western Pacific Region could be avoided if a woman’s right to good health would be properly met.

WHO said that more than 100 women in the region die from pregnancy-related deaths each day and, unless drastic measures are taken, the number of tragedies of this kind will continue to rise. The WHO figures singled out Cambodia and the Lao People's Democratic Republic

"It is shameful that despite the Region's rapid economic growth, a large—and growing—number of women are still excluded from the fruits of this progress," said Dr. Shin Young-soo, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific, in a written statement. "Good health is a universal right, not a privilege. Taking on this issue will be at the top of our agenda in the Western Pacific."

Numerous obstacles, including societal discrimination and limited access to health services, combine to deprive women of this right. A further challenge is the low level of education provided to women on average despite the fact that improved education for women has been found to produce better health outcomes for themselves and the generations that follow.

Scientists develop worldwide food alert system

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:44:00 -0700

Countries producing food containing harmful bacteria and toxins could be named and shamed more quickly using a worldwide alert system devised by a team of scientists from London’s Kingston University.

Professor Declan Naughton, a biochemist, led a team that developed a computer tool for tracking and monitoring contaminated food products. The goal is to prevent the products from reaching store shelves.

Food safety and security is a worldwide priority issue. In accordance with the Beijing Declaration, all signatory countries have agreed to develop comprehensive programs for monitoring food safety and security on behalf of their citizens. -- PLos ONEThousands of alerts about contaminated food are produced each year, particularly by developed countries, but there is no single international system for monitoring food safety. This prompted Naughton and his colleagues, from the School of Life Sciences, to develop a program to analyze alerts and produce a global picture of the countries that trade and detect contaminated food that can be deadly or cause health problems from food poisoning to long term degenerative diseases. Naughton recently presented a summary of the team’s findings at a conference organized by the European Food Security Authority, the EU’s food safety and security watchdog.

Naughton said the program provides complex information “in a snapshot form.” He said it could be particularly helpful to developing countries that are new to food testing because information is easy to access and available in minutes. The program could also be applied to other global health hazards such as pest control or illegal animal or plant imports.

China, Iran, Turkey, the United States and Spain were the top five offenders when it came to producing contaminated food, according to an analysis of data from 2003-2008. Over the same five-year period, Italy, Germany, the UK, Spain and the Netherlands were the countries that reported the largest number of contaminated products from other countries. Toxins in pistachio nuts from Iran, food recalled by major supermarket chains and imported products stopped by border agencies were among the alerts included in the analysis.

Naughton said the program could provide profiles of individual countries that had problems with food safety as well as identifying particular contaminants that needed investigating, such as high levels of mercury in fish.

“We’d like to develop the tool to create an international alert system that will provide real time information about emerging patterns and problems,” said Naughton. The program could also be used to help prepare for malicious or terrorist attempts to contaminate food, he added.

Source:

Kingston University

Several hospitalized after ingesting pot brownies

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:13:00 -0700

Several people got a trip they didn’t expect after eating pot brownies purchased at a medical marijuana clinic in Huntington Beach, California. Instead they got a trip to the hospital.

Instead of the expected high or relief from pain, they found themselves in a world of hurt, enough to call paramedics to assist them at a restaurant where they went after making their medical marijuana purchases, authorities said.

Their complaints ranged from difficulty in breathing to hallucinations, said Huntington Beach Police Lt. Craig Bryant. He added that because they all had medical marijuana cards, their cases were considered to be the result of an illness and not a criminal matter.

According to the National Institutes of Health, eating marijuana can produce reactions that are more unpleasant than those a user can get from inhaling pot smoke.

Smoking pot has and instantaneous effect, whereas ill effects from ingesting it can take from 30 minutes to an hours to appear.

If adverse side effects are felt while inhaling, the person simply has to stop smoking, but that isn’t the case when marijuana is ingested.

According to the Institute’s Web site: "These effects add up and last longer, making unpleasant reactions more likely."

SCOTUS ruling: Is Clean Water Act only valid for navigable waters?

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:29:00 -0700

The interim goal of the Clean Water Act (CWA) was swimmable and fishable waters by 1983 and the final goal was the elimination of all water pollution by 1985.

"One would think that open waters used as urinals are not swimmable and that discharging wastewater containing toxic compounds, carcinogens, oils, pesticides, herbicides, and industrial waste, to name a few, would fall under the category of “water pollution.” But again, now the Supreme Court is claiming that the CWA is valid only for navigable waters and not for streams one cannot navigate a boat in." Peter Maier

The following paragraph was used in a 1997 lawsuit against the EPA heard before the federal Court of Appeals in Denver. The lawsuit stemmed from the EPA’s refusal to address the pollution caused by nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste in its definition of “secondary treatment.”

“First always, is the question whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.”

The suit stated that, due to an incorrect water pollution test application, the EPA had excluded nitrogenous waste from treatment. Besides exerting an oxygen demand (just like fecal waste), this urine and protein waste is also a fertilizer for algae and thus is causing eutrophication, often resulting in dead zones.

Maybe not for those working in our judicial system, but the intent of the CWA was unambiguously clear, as explained by Sen. Edmund Muskie, who, speaking from the Senate floor, stated: “This Act simply means that we cannot use our open waters to treat our sewage any longer.”

One would think that open waters used as urinals are not swimmable and that discharging wastewater containing toxic compounds, carcinogens, oils, pesticides, herbicides, and industrial waste, to name a few, would fall under the category of “water pollution.” But again, now the Supreme Court is claiming that the CWA is valid only for navigable waters and not for streams one cannot navigate a boat in.

One has to wonder why the people that wrote the CWA even used this wording, since it obviously is violating the intent of the CWA legislation and that obviously those non-navigable streams eventually will discharge into navigable waters.

The legal fight will now likely erupt over whether the discharge was meant to be directly or indirectly discharged into navigable waters. It will keep the courts busy for decades, while the water quality in our open waters suffers further deterioration and the real intent of the CWA is again ignored by our legal system.

Maier received a doctoral degree in civil engineering from the University of Delft in Holland, and has professional engineering licenses in New York and Utah. He worked for the State of New York, a large engineering consulting firm in Holland and an equipment manufacturing firm in Utah. He was involved in the design and R&D of municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants in Europe, Brazil, Mexico and the United States. He can be reached at pmaier@petermaier.net.

Farewell, Mikael the Mime

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:56:00 -0700

Mikael Rudolph, a mime, actor, dancer, teacher and political activist, passed away Fri., Feb. 26, at his home in Minneapolis. He was 51.

I first met Mikael several years ago through his social activism (he co-founded Impeach for Peace) and only later did I come to know him for his creative talents. He won his first battle with cancer and made it the subject of his soulful, funny one-man play, "Cancer My Ass!" which debuted -- or “de-butted” as Mikael called it -- in Minneapolis one year ago.

For Mikael, “All the world’s a stage” was more than a line from Shakespeare. It was his approach to life. “That’s who I am,”
he told me last year, then looking as fit as a fiddle. “I always process my own issues and problems through friends. I don’t isolate.”

The second time cancer reared its ugly head six months ago, this time in the form of therapy-related acute myelogenous leukemia, he fought it with the support of loving friends and both traditional and alternative healers. When I visited him in the hospital I sensed him searching our faces as if looking in a mirror to see how he was doing. Mikael lived not to simply act, but to interact.

His friend Angela, who lived Mikael’s ups and downs these past months, said he was not afraid to die and “knew it was his time...He wanted to go and we all know when Mikael decides, that's what is going to happen.”

Thank you, Mikael, for your unwavering compassion for the people of Iraq and those in need in this country and everywhere. http://www.mikaelthemime.com/

States will usher in health care reform

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:25:00 -0700

Forget Congressional action on meaningful health care reform. It’s clear that whatever national health care legislation is passed, its main intent will be the preservation of a for-profit system.

Actual delivery of health care to all Americans who need it remains a lesser priority than keeping the system profitable. The federal plan will protect the insurance CEOs’ eight- and nine-figure salaries and the system of monthly premiums, which with promised rate hikes, will soon equal or exceed our monthly housing payments. Individuals will continue to fund the insurance industry’s marketing and bureaucracy through taxes and premiums. As an added bonus for the industry, citizens could be fined if they refuse to purchase its insurance.

The real reform action is taking place in the states.

David Sawnson (“Daybreak,” 2009, After Downing Street) is keeping a running tab on state health reform efforts. His analysis includes talking with the lead sponsors of state legislation, many of whom believe theirs will become a model for the nation. Below are excerpts.

Single-payer healthcare coming to Minnesota and Maryland

California keeps passing bills for state single-payer healthcare, but Ahhhnold won't sign em, and Jerry Brown who wants to be governor doesn't seem to want it badly enough to make a commitment on healthcare. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania is encouraged that their current governor has said he probably will sign a single-payer healthcare bill, and the legislature just might pass one. But Minnesota has an angle neither of these other states can claim: a serious candidate for governor who is the state's leading advocate for single-payer. More

Pennsylvania likely to get healthcare before rest of U.S.

I've been writing about various states just beginning campaigns for single-payer healthcare. Pennsylvania is on the cusp of completing one.

They claim to have the best legislation, which will provide everyone with healthcare, pay for it, and in fact save people and businesses money, as well as getting around the federal restrictions Congressman Dennis Kucinich has attempted unsuccessfully thus far to waive for states. In Pennsylvania they have Democratic and Republican cosponsors. Imagine that in Washington, D.C.! And they have a governor ready to sign the bill into law. More

Colorado could see single-payer healthcare

Now, let me tell you about Colorado. Mark Mehringer is a candidate for the Colorado State House from District 7 (Denver). His website at has an issues page and a video on the home page that both put a Medicare-for-All healthcare solution at the top of his agenda. More

Single-payer healthcare coming to Missouri

Byron DeLear, whom I have known and learned from for years, said on Monday: "If elected, I will sponsor the 'Melanie-Care for All Act', providing a simple plan to get all of our Missourian families the coverage, protection and care we deserve." DeLear, is a state rep. candidate in the 79th District of Missouri. (See http://www.ByronDeLear.org )

DeLear is proposing to accomplish something, however, that neither Obama nor Reid will even entertain any discussion of: taking the profit-motive out of healthcare coverage. "If Melanie had access to affordable healthcare," DeLear says, "her untimely death might have been prevented. Seeing a doctor was simply too expensive, just as it is for tens of thousands of Missourians, whose fear of skyrocketing healthcare costs are justified. Health insurance premiums in Missouri have risen 82.5% in the last decade, consequently, the vast majority of all personal bankruptcies are due to medical costs, for both the insured and uninsured alike. This creates a specter of fear for families all across our state. Melanie's death is one of thousands of needless lives lost due to our current broken and inhumane healthcare insurance system." More

Candidate for North Carolina House commits to introducing state single-payer healthcare

Now North Carolina house candidate Marcus Brandon has pledged to introduce a bill to create single-payer healthcare in that state. Brandon, whom I know and like and who worked for Congressman Dennis Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign, is a candidate in North Carolina House District 60. That's near Greensboro, where I can just picture Marcus sitting at a lunch counter and refusing to be provoked. More

Pennsylvania Democrats unanimously endorse single payer Senate bill 400 and House bill 1660

Lancaster – The Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee today unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for passage of single payer healthcare, Senate Bill 400 and House Bill 1660, also known as the "Family and Business Healthcare Security Act."

Given the healthcare reform deadlock in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania’s nation-leading status in the battle for state-based “Medicare for All,” is all the more significant.

“Not only does Pennsylvania now have the Democratic Party on board with the Single Payer healthcare for all,” said Healthcare for All PA executive director Chuck Pennacchio, “we also have the promised signature of our governor and the active support of Republican and Democratic leaders in both the State Senate and State House.” More

de Rothschild will sail to the 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' in catamaran made of soda bottles

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:45:00 -0700

David de Rothschild’s his name, trash talkin’s his game.

Love of planet Earth and returning its oceans to as near pristine as possible is what drove de Rothschild to build his catamaran, the Plastiki, made of soda bottles, and to make plans to set sail this month.

His destination: The enormous floating island of garbage known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Eastern Garbage Patch, is located in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii.

Based in Sausalito, Calif., de Rothschild’s goal is to educate as many people as possible on the dangers of polluting the ocean with all manner of trash, by navigating and blogging his way to the ever-growing sea of garbage that covers an area bigger than the surface land mass of Texas, which is 268,581 square miles.

"There were 25 billion Styrofoam cups used last year. How do you even get your head around what 25 billion Styrofoam cups looks like?" he told the LA Times. "Eighty-odd percent of what's purchased by Americans is thrown out within six months."

The floating mass of trash carried on ocean currents was first identified in the 1950, and has steadily grown.

De Rothschild, 31, heir to the British Rothschild banking fortune, has been referred to as an “eco-adventurer,” a “billionaire eco-warrior,” an "eco-playboy" and “eco-toff,” which is British slang for a rich boy.

De Rothschild prefers to call himself an educator and “environmental storyteller” and abhors the idea that he’s an eco celebrity.

“(The) idea of the celebrity eco thing makes me want to puke. . . . It belittles the severity of the issues that we've got to tackle. Unfortunately, we're in a society that loves labels and loves celebrities," is a frequent mantra of his.

The March garbage patch tour will end in Australia, and will have a dedicated educational punch to it as all his eco-adventures have had in the past. While en route de Rothschild will be blogging about the “evils of plastic and a consumer society.”

No stranger to education or eco-warrior trips, de Rothschild signed on for an expedition to trek across Antarctica, where he and the party he was traveling with endured temperatures of minus 30 degrees.

Before embarking on that expedition, de Rothschild placed an ad in a New Zealand teaching publication, not only imploring students to learn about their frosty southern neighbor, but also showed teachers how to guide students on their own virtual expeditions.

De Rothschild said when he returned home his message was so successful that he was "bombarded by messages from teachers."

Six months later, he established Adventure Ecology, an organization that combines eco-treks and technology to teach schoolchildren about the environment.

After that he was off to the North Pole. That expedition had to be aborted mid-trip, because it was too warm, and the snow was melting too quickly to ski and travel by dogsled.

"There I was in my tent wearing merino long johns, cooking my dinner and sweating away," he said of an April night near the North Pole. "It doesn't take a scientist to realize that something's amiss."

Another purpose of the trash trip is to extol the virtues of Plastiki's innovations, such as the glue that he used to hold it together is made from sugar and cashew hulls, which he said could be marketed today, and that would “take epoxies -- horrible, noxious stuff -- off the shelf straightaway."

World famous explorer Thor Heyerdahl who sailed his boat, Kon-Tiki, which was made from wood, reeds and bamboo across the Pacific Ocean in 1947, was the inspiration for de Rothschild naming his catamaran the Plastiki.

"The boat (Plastiki) had to carry six people across the Pacific," said naval architect Andrew Dovell, who built Plastiki. "The vessel had to derive its primary flotation from two-liter drink bottles. They had to be visible."

Dovell thought Plastiki would be the strongest and most buoyant if built in the framework of a catamaran with its framework made of plantation-grown plywood. De Rothschild thought it would be better to build it entirely of plastic, either recyclable or recycled, so the craft could live up to his name.

It was a matter of trial and error, but eventually their goal for the craft’s construction of strong, recyclable self-reinforced polyethylene terephthalate that forms the superstructure was completed.

One problem remains, except for test runs, the materials are untested for durable seagoing.

When asked what he’d do if the catamaran hit a storm that's severe enough to pop the soda bottles out of the twin hulls, de Rothschild said, "Well, I put earplugs in. I put my eye blinds on. I listen to Led Zeppelin."

‘Medicare Meltdown’

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:27:00 -0700

A 21 percent reduction in Medicare fees to physicians treating patients relying on Medicare and military personnel enrolled in the TRICARE program for their health care took effect March 1.

While the House of Representatives passed a bill repealing the Medicare sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula which called for the cut, the Senate’s attempt to pass a companion bill Feb. 26 failed following a two-day filibuster by a lone senator, Jim Bunning (R-KY). Bunning said he refused to support the bill, part of a $10 billion package that would also extend unemployment benefits, COBRA, and transportation projects, unless the provisions were paid for from unused stimulus funds.

"This drastic cut will hurt our senior, disabled, and military patients, as well as baby boomers who start entering the Medicare program next year," said American Medical Association (AMA) President J. James Rohack in a statement. The steep cuts are forcing physicians to scale back on the number of Medicare patients they treat or drop out of the program entirely, according to the AMA, which called the cut a “Medicare meltdown.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) anticipated after the bill’s failure that a deal could still be worked out that would lessen the blow.

If Congress can’t resolve the impasse, some doctors may stop taking Medicare patients since costs will be unrecoverable, and millions of unemployed workers will lose their health insurance and benefits.

Mysterious pelican deaths and illnesses may be solved

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:45:00 -0700

Animal scientists and wildlife officials believe they’ve found the cause of the deaths of hundreds of pelicans and some other sea birds that have been washing up on the shores of Oregon and California this winter: El Nino.

Fish and game officials said the mysterious malady that left hundreds of sick, dying and dead birds stranded on the shores is caused by a combination of bad weather and shortages of fish for them to eat -- both of which are caused by the El Nino effects.

Live-stranded birds are responding quickly to feeding at rehabilitation facilities, the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) announced in a press release. The DFG has donated frozen trout to the rehabilitation centers to assist the rehabilitation effort. Unfortunately, the bird sanctuaries "have been overwhelmed at the sheer magnitude of birds stranding along the coast," according to the DFG.

The El Nino conclusion came after officials ruled out all other causes including disease, environmental hazards and toxins.

Scientists from the DGF coordinated with the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center, Sea World San Diego and the International Bird Rescue Research Center to determine why so many brown pelicans are stranding. “Unfortunately, we are looking primarily at a cyclical event driven largely by weather and oceanographic conditions," said state wildlife veterinarian Melissa Miller. "Food shortage coupled with bad weather have taken a toll on the pelicans.”

Many of the birds have been rescued, but authorities said about one-third of them died after being rescued.

There was also speculation that because the starving pelicans rescued over the last two months were covered with a dirty residue, that runoff from heavy costal rains may have washed away their natural protective waterproofing.

A mass stranding situation occurred last year due to lack of food but it was nothing like the magnitude of this year's.

Paul Kelway, spokesman for the International Bird Rescue Research Center, said "at least one rescued pelican in San Pedro bore a tag that suggested it had survived a decade along the coast before the stranding, suggesting its survival skills were not impaired."

The good news is that as of last week the number of calls to rescue centers sharply dropped, and officials hope the worst is over.