Monthly Archive for September, 2010

Weighing the Lives of Babies in Haiti

Published on September 29, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

DENNIS ROSEN, M.D., New York Times,  September 27, 2010

28case-articleinlineWe were 18 doctors, nurses and other health professionals from Children’s Hospital Boston, on a nine-day mission to the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince to work with a Haitian pediatric team.

It was the first week of May, almost four months after the earthquake, and the situation remained dire. Rubble was everywhere, many buildings were unusable, and all of the pediatric care was being given in tents. Supplies were sparse and unreliable.

The obstetricians at the General were on strike, and women in labor were being told to go elsewhere. But word had gotten out that there were American doctors at the hospital, and many patients simply refused to leave.

So it was on that rainy Sunday evening that there were six women in active labor in the emergency room. And soon one of them, in her late teens, gave birth to a tiny boy, just 2 pounds 3 ounces. A neonatologist on our team estimated that he was two months premature. (The mother claimed she hadn’t even known she was pregnant.)

Premature babies can get into a lot of trouble, and the smaller they are, the higher their risk of complications. They usually have difficulty maintaining a normal body temperature, losing heat to their surroundings faster than they can generate it. This is why they are kept in incubators until they are able to stay warm on their own. They are at high risk for infections, along with feeding and breathing problems.

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Child Nutrition Food Fight Bumps Up Against Political Reality

Published on September 25, 2010 in News. 0 Comments

APRIL FULTON, NPR, September 24, 2010

school-lunchIf Congress wants to put healthier food into school lunches, it may have to go with the bill the Senate passed last month, or risk rehashing the whole thing later and getting nothing.

That’s become the political reality. Even Ag Chief Tom Vilsack knows it.”What we don’t want to do is compromise what we can get today for what may or may not be available in 2013,” he told reporters this week on a conference call.

But it’s not very popular with people who say the bill cuts food stamp benefits, as NPR’s Pam Fessler points out in her story on Morning Edition Friday.

“It is wrong to take money from food stamps to finance child nutrition programs,” Edward M. Cooney, executive director of the Congressional Hunger Center told the New York Times.Technically, the food stamp money “cuts” are a repeal of promised future increases, a.k.a. not yet “real money.” But uncomfortably for President Obama, it pits school lunch advocates against people with no lunch.

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Health Care Overhaul Becomes Campaign Weapon

Published on September 25, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

by GREG ALLEN, NPR, September 25, 2010

47825691-08093143Since it was signed by President Obama and became law six months ago, a funny thing has happened to the health care overhaul: It’s lost support among the public.

Many polls now show more people oppose it than are in favor — and that’s having an impact on political races.

In Florida, the health care overhaul was a hot issue even before the campaign season began. And it helped launch Rick Scott, the Republican nominee for governor, into politics.

A former head of the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chain, Scott founded a group that ran ads opposing the president’s plan. Now, he’s using health care to attack his Democratic opponent, Alex Sink.

“Sink backed the government health care takeover, cutting $500 billion from Medicare,” one ad says.

Health care is also playing a big role in some Florida congressional races where Democrats are considered vulnerable.

The 60 Plus Association, a Virginia-based group that bills itself as a conservative alternative to AARP, is running ads in at least three Florida districts held by Democrats, including Suzanne Kosmas and Alan Grayson.

“Alan Grayson and Suzanne Kosmas are putting Nancy Pelosi’s liberal agenda ahead of Florida’s seniors,” one ad says. “They supported Pelosi’s health care bill, which cuts $500 billion from Medicare.”

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Health Danger of Parties Past

Published on September 21, 2010 in News. 0 Comments

Health Journal, Wall Street Journal, September 20. 2010

pj-ax085_health_d_20100920165045Most people think their wild-child past is just that—in the past. But some former party animals may be carrying a harmful reminder of their youth and not know it.

People who used intravenous drugs, snorted cocaine with a shared straw, or had an unsterile tattoo or body piercing could be infected with hepatitis C and not realize it. The virus, which spreads via blood-to-blood contact, can cause no symptoms for decades while silently destroying the liver.

Some people may have innocently been infected if they had a blood transfusion before 1992, when the blood supply began to be screened for the virus. Others may have contracted the virus simply by sharing a toothbrush or a razor. More than three million Americans have been diagnosed with hep C, and health experts say at least that many more are unaware that they have it.

“There’s a huge reservoir of people who made a few bad decisions many years ago. Now they’re successful business people, lawyers, doctors, school principals, and they don’t know they are carrying this,” says Joseph Galati, medical director of the Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation at Houston’s Methodist Hospital. In the meantime, he says, “they could be doing things like drinking alcohol that accelerate the disease or transmitting it to other people.”

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In Worries About Sweeteners, Think of All Sugars

Published on September 20, 2010 in News. 0 Comments

By TARA PARKER-POPE New York Times, September 20, 201021wellspan-blogspan

Are you worried about high-fructose corn syrup in your diet?

If you answered yes, you’re not alone. Today, about 55 percent of Americans list the infamous corn sweetener among their food-safety worries, right behind mad cow disease and mercury in seafood, according to the consumer research firm NPD Group.

As a result, food makers are reworking decades-old recipes, eliminating the corn syrup used to sweeten foods like ketchup and crackers, and replacing it with beet or cane sugar. To counter the backlash, the Corn Refiners Association last week suggested changing the name of the ingredient to “corn sugar,” hoping a new moniker would help rebuild the product’s image.

But most nutrition scientists say that consumer anxiety about the sweetener is misdirected. Only about half of the added sugar in the American diet comes from corn sources. All added sugars, they say, including those from sugar cane and beets, are cause for concern. Today, sugar calories now account for 16 percent of the calories Americans consume, a 50 percent increase from the 1970s. High sugar consumption has been linked to obesity and other health concerns.

“I think consumers have been misled into thinking that high-fructose corn syrup is particularly harmful,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. “Chemically it’s essentially the same as sugar. The bottom line is we should be consuming a lot less of both sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.”

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Brigadier General Wilmoth Speaks at Berkeley Health Conference

Published on September 20, 2010 in News. 1 Comment

Brigadier General Margaret Wilmoth will contribute a 30 minute plenary presentation at the International Conference on Health, Wellness and Society 20-22 January 2011 in Berkeley, CA., USA.

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Brigadier General Margaret Wilmoth, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, has a wealth of experience in the health and wellness field. She is the first woman in history to command an Army Reserve Medical Brigade. As a professor in the school of nursing at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the Assistant for Mobilization and Reserve Affairs at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, BG Wilmoth has had many speaking opportunities to share her expertise with valued audiences. Such speaking experience includes presentations at: the Reserve Officers Association, Military Health Research Forum and Defense Education Forum. As a Legion of Merit recipient, American Academy of Nursing inductee, award winning medical researcher, published medical research author and Army Reserve General Officer, BG Wilmoth represents excellence and dedication to the health field. She looks forward to sharing the Army Reserve’s commitment to a healthy force and nation.

Whooping Cough Data From State Show Babies Hardest Hit, Epidemic Worst Since 1955 [Updated]

Published on September 17, 2010 in News. 0 Comments

Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2010

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Babies have been hardest hit by whooping cough in California, according to new statistics released by the state Department of Public Health.

All nine deaths so far this year have been among infants under 3 months old. Among patients who are critically ill with the disease, babies have also been disproportionately hospitalized.

According to the data released late Wednesday, of 196 patients known to have been hospitalized with whooping cough in California, 74% were infants under 6 months old and most — 57% — were under 3 months old.

Whooping cough is often spread to babies by parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and grandparents and other adults. Because infants do not begin vaccinations until they are 2 months old, health officials for months have been pleading for anyone who expects to be in contact with babies — especially pregnant women — to get vaccinated.

“There are a lot of people who aren’t fully immunized,” said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. “People with respiratory conditions and cold-like conditions should not have contact with small infants.”

Whooping cough is spreading among adults too, but many of those cases aren’t reflected in the state’s numbers because the disease is often not diagnosed in adults.

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Precursor to H.I.V. Was in Monkeys for Millenniums

Published on September 17, 2010 in News. 0 Comments

DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., New York Times, September 16, 2010

16aidsmonkey-articleinlineIn a discovery that sheds new light on the history of AIDS, scientists have found evidence that the ancestor to the virus that causes the disease has been in monkeys and apes for at least 32,000 years — not just a few hundred years, as had been previously thought.

That means humans have presumably been exposed many times to S.I.V., the simian immunodeficiency virus, because people have been hunting monkeys for millenniums, risking infection every time they butcher one for food.

And that assumption in turn complicates a question that has bedeviled AIDS scientists for years: What happened in Africa in the early 20th century that let a mild monkey disease move into humans, mutate to become highly transmissible and then explode into one of history’s great killers, one that has claimed 25 million lives so far?

Among the theories different researchers have put forward are the growth of African cities and the proliferation of cheap syringes.

Confirming that the virus is very old also helps explain why it infects almost all African monkeys but does not sicken them. Over many generations, as any disease kills off vulnerable victims, the host adapts to it.

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The ‘Contagion’ of Social Networks

Published on September 12, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Eric Jaffe, Special to the Los Angeles Times, September 13, 2010

Peer groups might influence such behaviors as smoking and obesity. Studies haven’t been conclusive, however.

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The old folk concept that our personal health behaviors rub off on those around us has received a staggering amount of scientific support of late. Over the last few years, study after study has shown that weight gain, drug and alcohol use, even loneliness and depression aren’t islands unto themselves but are powerfully contagious — capable of spreading within our social networks just as germs scatter after a sneeze.

If your friends are smokers, you tend to light up too, studies show. If they’re overweight, then your belt also feels a bit tight. If they’re happy, chances are you’re smiling too. And on and on.

Many public health leaders now believe this growing science of social networks can be used to improve health and well-being on a broad, population-sized scale. Some see the approach as a promising new front against the day’s most urgent health problems, such as obesity, smoking and suicide.

“We’ve come to realize more and more that how people live and function in social networks is really important to health,” says Deborah Olster, acting director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the National Institutes of Health. What’s less clear, at least so far, is the best way to nudge people toward healthy habits and away from destructive ones. Results from experiments are mixed — some efforts work, others don’t. In March, the NIH issued a funding opportunity for scientists studying how to improve public health through social networks.

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The Surgeon’s Pact With the Patient

Published on September 12, 2010 in News. 0 Comments
DOCTOR AND PATIENT

PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D., New York Times, September 9, 2010

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The patient, in her late 50s with failing kidneys, had come to the hospital for what she and her doctors thought would be a simple procedure preparing her for dialysis. But instead of returning home the next day, the woman ended up in the hospital for nearly half of my internship. Her procedure went awry, she landed in the intensive care unit, and over the course of the next six months she returned at least a dozen more times to the operating room, all failed attempts to right what had gone so terribly wrong.

Her bed in the I.C.U. was in plain view to any doctor or nurse walking by. Even today, I can recall the sickeningly sweet odor of what had become chronic open wounds, the sounds of the bells and whistles of the small army of machines that kept her alive and the increasingly rancorous discussions between the lead surgeon and other clinicians as the months dragged on. The surgeon, ever more haggard, pressed on, convinced that one day he’d send her home. But the others — nurses, consultants and eventually the hospital ethics committee too — began demanding that her care plan be changed. They wanted to cease all life support interventions and begin comfort care.

One morning, I found the room empty; the woman had died. “She finally did it on her own, without any help from you-know-who,” one of the nurses said grimly, a look of disdain flashing across her face. “That’s the problem with surgeons,” she continued. “Sometimes you guys do the most amazing things for your patients, and sometimes you just won’t let them go.”

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