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Casey Finnerty

Rare Fungal Meningitis Outbreak Spreads To Six States : Shots - Health Blog : NPR - 0 views

  • The drug was contaminated with the spores of a common leaf mold — nobody knows how.
  • Five patients have died.
    • Casey Finnerty
       
      As of 2012-10-15, 203 cases, 15 deaths.
  • Compounding pharmacies, which provide up to 10 percent of U.S. pharmaceuticals, are more loosely regulated than traditional drug companies. As is common, NECC is licensed by a state pharmacy board, which doesn't have the staff to conduct regular inspections. The company has been cited for contamination problems in the past, as the Boston Globe reports.
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  • Surprisingly, the FDA says it has no idea how many doses of the tainted medicine have been shipped out.
  • methylprednisolone
  • The incubation period of fungal meningitis may be as long as four weeks.
  • Dr. April Pettit
  • People don't get Apergillus infections unless they have severely compromised immunity.
  • Pettit learned the man had gotten a spinal injection a couple of weeks earlier. She put two and two together and notified state health authorities.
  • There's one lucky aspect of this disaster: Unlike more common forms of meningitis, this type can't be passed from person to person.
Amy Jorgenson

In-package plasma process quickly, effectively kills bacteria - 0 views

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    If this is adapted for liquids, it could work wonders in areas with contaminated drinking water. However, the article also states that future research will examine food quality. My question is, why was that not researched before this article was released?
Amanda Bergstedt

Food safety and bioterrorism defense may benefit from improved nanotechnology detection... - 0 views

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    Numerous food scares have made global headlines in recent years, which instigated a study in which a professor from the University of Missouri developed a technique that may make food contamination testing more rapid and accurate. This could open so many doors by promoting public health!
Megan Rasmussen

Tumors Fall to Radioactive Bacteria | The Scientist Magazine® - 0 views

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    Researchers use bacteria to deliver radiation to shrink pancreatic tumors in mice. This is really cool because I work with Listeria to form biofilms. It is known for causing food poisoning outbreaks from contaminating ready to eat deli meats or soft cheeses in food processing plants, so it is interesting to see a different take on this bacteria!
Whitney Hopfauf

Electron-beam pasteurization of raw oysters may reduce viral food poisoning - 0 views

  • FDA already has approved the use of electron beam technology as a pathogen intervention strategy to control the naturally occurring Vibrio vulnificus bacterial pathogen in shellfish.
    • Whitney Hopfauf
       
      Good that it has already been approved by the FDA... step in the right direction
  • Praveen said she and the other researchers also chose the viral pathogens as opposed to bacterial as they were more difficult to treat and also require a host species.
  • if a serving size of 12 raw oysters were contaminated with approximately 100 hepatitis A and human noroviruses, an e-beam dose of 5 kGy (kilograys) would achieve a 91 percent reduction of hepatitis A infection risks and a 26 percent reduction of norovirus infection risks.
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    • Whitney Hopfauf
       
      Pretty significant except it still doesn't make me want to eat raw shellfish
  • how electron-beam pasteurization of raw oysters may reduce the possibility of food poisoning through virus.
  • results of this study will be published in the June
  • using a human norovirus surrogate called murine norovirus
  • uses commercial electricity
  • green technology because no chemicals are involved."
Casey Finnerty

Antiseptics Used to Prevent Health Care Infections Might Cause Them. Oops. | Wired Scie... - 0 views

  • pre-operative antiseptics have never been examined for infection risk. They were grandfathered into FDA approval because they were on the market long before the FDA began assessing such products, as a result of expert testimony that they would kill any microbes that contaminated them.  That assumption turns out to have been incorrect.
Casey Finnerty

First criminal trial in deadly fungal meningitis outbreak begins Monday - 0 views

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    "First criminal trial in deadly fungal meningitis outbreak begins Monday"
Casey Finnerty

Cruise Ship Illness: Why Are Ships So Prone to Norovirus Outbreaks? - 0 views

  • The industrial-size servings of food on a cruise ship with hundreds of passengers can be particularly worrisome, since once the virus enters the food it can spread rapidly. Food can also get more easily contaminated with the virus if it sits out for several hours, as is often the case with buffet-style meals.
  • And so many people being in one place eases the virus's spread. "In close quarters it doesn't get away, everything's concentrated," Zimring says.
  • The best defense against gastrointestinal disease, Zimring says, is to wash and sanitize your hands constantly
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  • try to be the first person there at the buffet
  • Don't eat tepid food.
  • avoid buffet meals entirely
Casey Finnerty

Meningitis From Tainted Drugs Puts Patients, Doctors In Quandary : Shots - Health News ... - 0 views

  • 14,000 Americans
  • alert to illness among patients who have received injections of hundreds of other products
  • the number must run into the tens of thousands.
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  • it was really a mini-pharmaceutical manufacturer, not the pharmacy it was licensed to be.
  • 1,200 different drugs
  • Apparently, all of this has been caused by contamination of drugs by a black mold called Exserohilum rostratum, which is common in the environment but almost unheard of as a cause of human disease.
  • For instance, on 13 occasions, they said, New England Compounding shipped out vials of drugs in three suspect lots before getting back results of their own tests confirming the drugs were sterile.
  • "indicated a failure ... to sterilize products for even the minimum amount of time necessary to ensure sterility,"
  • The firm's premises were not clean
  • medications were not labeled with individual patients' names
  • he may harbor a fungal infection that could kill him, there's no proof that he does — and there may never be.
  • many anxious patients are undergoing painful spinal taps and some are getting antifungal drugs that can damage the kidneys and liver.
  • The caution is warranted. This type of fungal infection can smolder for weeks and months before exploding into meningitis or causing massive strokes.
  • "It causes a quandary for the infectious disease doc to figure out, well, should this patient receive treatment at all?" O'Connell says. "Should they receive full-boat treatment, which would be an IV? Could they instead just be watched very closely with daily phone calls and visits to the office? We just don't know."
  • "Should we do lumbar punctures on those kinds of people so that we can anticipate those that are going to get symptomatic later and beat the fungus to it?" Schaffner wonders. "That is, initiate treatment much earlier, thus averting tissue damage, particularly those devastating strokes."
  • When to stop is also uncertain.
  • six months, maybe longer.
Casey Finnerty

Rights Advocates Suing U.N. Over the Spread of Cholera in Haiti - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Cholera has killed more than 8,300 Haitians and sickened more than 650,000 in the earthquake-ravaged country, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, since it first reappeared in October 2010.
  • Forensic studies, including one ordered by the United Nations, have identified the culprit bacteria as an Asian strain imported to Haiti by Nepalese members of the United Nations peacekeeping force, known as the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, which was first authorized in 2004 and maintains about 8,700 soldiers and police officers there, drawn from more than three dozen member states. The forensic studies have also linked the spread of the cholera to a flawed sanitation system at the Nepalese peacekeeper base, which contaminated a tributary that feeds Haiti’s largest river, used by Haitians for drinking and bathing.
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