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Manuka honey may kill bacteria by destroying key bacterial proteins. Dr Rowena Jenkins and colleagues from the University of Wales Institute - Cardiff investigated the mechanisms of manuka honey action and found that its anti-bacterial properties were not due solely to the sugars present in the honey. The work was presented this week (7-10 September), at the Society for General Microbiology's meeting at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was grown in the laboratory and treated with and without manuka honey for four hours. The experiment was repeated with sugar syrup to determine if the effects seen were...

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Public health officials are investigating the death of a University of Chicago researcher who studied plague bacteria and was found to have the microbe in his blood, university officials said on Monday. Malcolm Casadaban, who died on September 13, was researching a weakened strain of the plague bacteria Yersinia pestis. Because it is missing key proteins, the strain is not normally harmful to people. Medical center spokesman John Easton said Casadaban had the laboratory strain of Yersinia pestis in his blood, suggesting he had a form of the infection known as septicemic plague, which can kill even...

A hilarious new Republican anti-tax YouTube video shows that, finally, Democrats and their lackeys (read: Jon Stewart) no longer own the Web. When I heard this week about a new pro-Republican, anti-tax video on YouTube, I was expecting something along the lines of the cringe-worthy “Young Conservative Rappers” featured everywhere from Mike Huckabee’s show on Fox to Bill Maher.

Subject: Flu Update from Dr. Gitterle After I returned from a public health meeting yesterday with community leaders and school officials in Comal County , Heather suggested I send an update to everyone, because what we are hearing privately from the CDC and Health Department is so different from what you are hearing in the media. Some of you know some or maybe all of this, but I will just list what facts I know.. - The virus is infectious for about 2 days prior to symptom onset - Virus sheds more than 7 days after symptom onset (possibly as...

The West Virginia Senate passed a bill on Friday that would protect gay men and lesbians from discrimination in the areas of employment, housing and public accommodations, reports The Charleston Gazette. Senate Bill 238 was introduced by state Senator Brooks McCabe, a Democrat from Kanawha, on February 12. The bill now heads to the House for approval. A final vote tally was unavailable from the West Virgina Legislature's website, but sources indicate 7 Republicans and 3 Democrats opposed the bill. If all senators voted, the legislation passed by a 24 to 10 vote. The bill defines sexual orientation as the...

WEDNESDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists report that a common germ-killing compound prevented transmission of an HIV-like virus in five female monkeys, an encouraging sign that it might also work in humans. The research is still in its early stages. However, the researchers said the compound could eventually make its way into sexual lubricants that women could use to avoid infection with the virus that causes AIDS. "It's a promising lead that we're on to something that's a different way to approach the problem of prevention," said study co-author Dr. Ashley T. Haase, head of the Department of Microbiology...

She went to a Brooklyn emergency room suffering from what she thought was just a kidney stone, but a medical nightmare left her partly blind and a quadruple amputee. Tabitha Mullings claims doctors at Brooklyn Hospital Center failed to diagnose an infection that has literally eaten her alive. RELATED: BOY WITH GIANT LIMB GIVEN $200G FIXUP "Sometimes I can't believe it's me laying here," the mother of three told the Daily News Wednesday from her bed in the very hospital she blames for her ravaged body.  Wiping tears with a bandaged stump, Mullings struggled to explain how in a...

There's an argument out there that oral sex is not sex. For some grown-ups, it's a way to deny that they're cheating. To some young people, oral sex preserves virginity—technically speaking—and allows for what is perceived as risk-free sexual intimacy. From a medical perspective, however, this is sex—and generally, as practiced, it's unsafe. People seem clueless that sexually transmitted diseases such as herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and human papillomavirus can take hold in parts of the oral cavity during sex with infected partners and that the oral contact can infect the genitals, too. HPV is a particularly scurrilous threat, since it...

The number of deaths linked with hospital superbug Clostridium difficile has soared in England and Wales, figures from the Office for National Statistics show. Between 2005 and 2006 the number of death certificates which mentioned the infection rose by 72 per cent to 6,480. Elderly people were most at risk from the bacteria, which caused more than 55,000 infections in NHS hospitals last year. It is thought that some of the increase may be due to more complete reporting on death certificates, but there has been a fiftyfold increase in C. difficile infections since 1990. Deaths citing C. difficile as...

"It's why I lost my leg, so it sucks." The assessment, from a 22-year-old Marine toughing out physical therapy on two prosthetic limbs, is laconic, matter-of-fact. Sgt. David Emery lost one leg in February 2007 when a suicide bomber assaulted the checkpoint near Haditha, Iraq, where he and fellow Marines stood guard. Military surgeons were forced to remove his remaining leg when it became infected with acinetobacter baumannii-a strain of highly resistant bacteria that since U.S. forces began fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has threatened the lives, limbs, and organs of hundreds wounded in combat. "They could have saved it,"...

Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology (GIVI) and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have found that therapy can be used to stimulate the production of vital immune cells, called “T- cells,” in adults with HIV infection. HIV disease destroys T-cells, leading to collapse of the immune system and severe infection. The thymus gland, which produces T-cells, gradually loses function over time (a process called “involution”) and becomes mostly inactive during adulthood. Because the thymus gland does not function well in adults, it is difficult for HIV-infected adults to make new T-cells. Thus, therapies that stimulate...

Cranberries Help Combat Urinary Tract Infections In Women, Researcher Finds ScienceDaily (Jan. 14, 2008) — Cranberry juice, long dissed as a mere folk remedy for relieving urinary tract infections in women, is finally getting some respect. Thanks to Prof. Itzhak Ofek, a researcher at Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, the world now knows that science supports the folklore. Prof. Ofek's research on the tart berry over the past two decades shows that its juice indeed combats urinary tract infections. And, he’s discovered, the refreshing red beverage has additional medicinal qualities as well. Prof. Ofek has found that cranberry...

Research into the way antibiotics work could make them more effective weapons in the battle against bacteria. Researchers have learned that all three major classes of antibiotics kill bugs by boosting levels of free radicals, destructive molecules which damage DNA and cell membranes. The new findings could aid the development of new anti-bacterial drugs, and help scientists overcome resistance to existing antibiotics. One way bacteria become drug resistant appears to be through their in-built DNA repair mechanism, which kicks in after exposure to free radicals. "Our findings suggest that if you could shut off the bacteria's repair response, you might...

Jokin de Irala | Wednesday, 22 August 2007 Abstinence education: are we asking the right questions? Research findings seem to show that abstinence only education "doesn't work". Surely that means we have to make it better, not just give up. Teenagers can tend to live dangerously and society today gives them plenty of opportunities to do so. As a result, we are seeing epidemics of youthful drunkenness, drug-induced mental illness and sexually transmitted diseases, to mention only three of the excesses young people seem prone to. This week in Britain there are calls for the legal drinking age to be...

Staph superbug may be infecting patients June 25, 2007 02:04:50 PM PST A dangerous, drug-resistant staph germ may be infecting as many as 5 percent of hospital and nursing home patients, according to a comprehensive study. At least 30,000 U.S. hospital patients may have the superbug at any given time, according to a survey released Monday by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. The estimate is about 10 times the rate that some health officials had previously estimated. Some federal health officials said they had not seen the study and could not comment on its methodology or...

Superbug emerging across Canada Sharon Kirkey, CanWest News Service Published: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 A superbug that causes infections from large, boil-like lesions to hemorrhagic pneumonia and, in rare cases, ''flesh-eating'' disease is poised to ''emerge in force'' across Canada, a new report warns. While the prospect of a flu pandemic has governments scrambling to develop emergency plans, an epidemic of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or CA-MRSA, is already raging in the U.S. and beginning to entrench itself here, infectious disease experts report today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. In the U.S., clusters have been reported in groups from...

The Antibiotic VitaminDeficiency in vitamin D may predispose people to infection Janet Raloff In April 2005, a virulent strain of influenza hit a maximum-security forensic psychiatric hospital for men that's midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. John J. Cannell, a psychiatrist there, observed with increasing curiosity as one infected ward after another was quarantined to limit the outbreak. Although 10 percent of the facility's 1,200 patients ultimately developed the flu's fever and debilitating muscle aches, none did in the ward that he supervised. WINTER WOES. Cold-weather wear and the sun's angle in the winter sky limit how much ultraviolet...

Statins defend against fungus-caused sepsis Nathan Seppa From San Francisco, at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy When a blood infection causes an inflammatory reaction that attacks the entire circulatory system, the result is a condition called sepsis that's fatal about 40 percent of the time. A new study suggests that sepsis brought on by a fungal infection is less lethal in people taking cholesterol-lowering pills called statins than in those not getting the drugs. Physician Graeme Forrest of the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore says that he noticed reports suggesting that statins improve the survival...

· Technique renders pathogens benign· Crop and animal diseases could also be targeted Scientists have taken a big step towards a new generation of antibiotics by designing compounds that stop bacteria "talking to each other", thwarting their ability to spread infection. The revolutionary approach renders bacteria benign rather than killing them off, and comes as many antibiotics are losing their potency against pathogens which have developed drug resistance.Tests showed the compounds actively blocked the spread of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common bacterium which causes fatal lung infections in people with cystic fibrosis and leads to life-threatening blood infections in patients with...

Health experts are to hold an emergency meeting in Johannesburg this week, following the discovery of a deadly new strain of tuberculosis. The strain - known as extreme drug-resistant TB - has horrified World Health Organisation doctors. In one outbreak in South Africa, 52 of 53 patients died within weeks of becoming infected. 'This new strain leaves us facing a nightmare,' said Paul Nunn, coordinator of the WHO's drug-resistance unit. 'It is resistant to nearly every drug in our arsenal. We are now on the threshold of the appearance of a strain of TB that is resistant to every medicine...

EVANSTON, Ill. -- A recent Northwestern University study found that a new treatment using stem cells might extend the lives of patients with lupus. Stem cell treatments could help patients with severe cases who have not responded to other options, according to a study published in the Feb. 1 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. Lupus is a disease that causes patients' immune systems to become unable to distinguish between foreign substances and normal parts of the body. This causes the immune system to attack the patient's own cells and tissues instead of protecting them. Researchers, including...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A person who has reason to believe he or she has HIV may be sued by sexual partners if they become infected, the California Supreme Court ruled on Monday, broadening the state's view of when liability arises from the disease. Knowingly passing along HIV, which leads to AIDS, is already illegal in California and people who do so may be sued for damages in state court. The California Supreme Court's decision widens the scope for law suits against sexual partners over negligent transmission. In their decision, a majority of the court's justices held that they "cannot...

A superbug that first targeted vulnerable carriers such as prison inmates and intravenous drug users is now sweeping across Canada, sickening healthy adults and children in a number of Canadian provinces. Researchers at the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported the development Tuesday in a number of articles that were rushed to print in order to raise awareness. Forms of the drug-resistant bug known as community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- or CA-MRSA -- are causing skin and soft-tissue infections which are often difficult to treat, along with weeping wounds that don't heal. "People have flu-like symptoms, but often it won't present...

Don't worry, the doctor told Brian Lykins' parents, as he prepared to use cartilage from a cadaver to fix their son's knee. A million people a year have operations that use tissue from donated dead bodies. The nation's largest tissue bank had supplied this cartilage. It was disinfected and perfectly safe, he assured them. But it wasn't. Four days after this routine, elective surgery, Lykins — a healthy, 23-year-old student from Minnesota — died of a raging infection. He died because the cartilage came from a corpse that had sat unrefrigerated for 19 hours — a corpse that had been...

Julie and Chris LeMoult were excited parents-to-be. Did a hospital infection turn the happiest day of their lives into a nightmare?

If diseases like AIDS and bird flu scare you, wait until you hear what's next. Doctors are trying to find out what is causing a bizarre and mysterious infection that's surfaced in South Texas. Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible. "These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients. Patients get lesions that never heal. "Sometimes little black specks that...

The senior intelligence analyst who was fired Thursday by the CIA is a supporter of Democratic congressional candidate Joseph Sestak, which U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon’s campaign charged is further evidence that the former Navy admiral cannot be trusted on national security issues. Mary McCarthy was dismissed for leaking classified information about the CIA’s secret overseas prisons to The Washington Post, several media organizations reported Saturday. Sestak, who served as director for defense policy on Bill Clinton’s National Security Council, received two donations from McCarthy last month totaling $350. McCarthy also contributed $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Weldon’s...

The doctors discovered that Candace has "gram positive cocci infection" originating on the bone and spread throughout the soft tissue in her body. although the Surgery went well, her right thigh has increased with Infection. Candace has had a feeding tube inserted today to nourish her very weak body. Today they will be undergoing an emergency procedure called "hyperbaric-oxygen-therapy" she will be put in a oxygen chamber in Shands hospital donated by Nasa in order to kill the anaerobic Infection. Please pray for the success of this

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 — The federal government has called an unusual scientific conference to look into two related bacterial infections, one that killed four California women who took an abortion pill and the other that has caused outbreaks of diarrhea and colitis in hospitals and nursing homes across the nation. Fifteen to 20 scientists who have studied the two bacteria have been asked to present their research at the conference, scheduled for May 11, an official at the Food and Drug Administration said Friday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the abortion pill, Mifeprex or RU-486, is...

TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey is among the states seeing an increase in deaths from an intestinal bacterial infection that most often strikes older hospital patients who have taken antibiotics. National occurrences are up as well because, officials say, an overuse of antibiotics for other ailments is killing off the "good" bacteria that used to control the growth of Clostridium difficile bacterium. In the Garden State, the number of deaths attributed to the infection has doubled since 1997. State hospital discharge data reviewed by The Record of Bergen County found the infection has sickened 10,000 New Jerseyans a year, killing...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Sanford mother says she will never be able to hold her newborn because an Orlando hospital performed a life-altering surgery and, she claims, the hospital refuses to explain why they left her as a multiple amputee. The woman filed a complaint against Orlando Regional Healthcare Systems, she said, because they won't tell her exactly what happened. The hospital maintains the woman wants to know information that would violate other patients' rights. Claudia Mejia gave birth eight and a half months ago at Orlando Regional South Seminole. She was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando...

Source: Yale University Date: 2006-01-11 URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060110231737.htm Yale Study Explains Complex Infection Fighting Mechanism Yale School of Medicine researchers report in Nature Immunology how infection fighting mechanisms in the body can distinguish between a virus and the healthy body, shedding new light on auto immune disorders. The infection fighters in question, toll-like receptors (TLRs), function by recognizing viral, bacterial or fungal pathogens and then sending signals throughout the immune system announcing that an infection has occurred. Viruses change features to avoid being recognized, thereby triggering the immune response. But TLRs recognize the highly conserved features of pathogens, features that...

Last month brought fresh evidence that while small, bacteria can certainly look out for themselves. Clostridium difficile, a microbe that can cause serious digestive illness and death in vulnerable patients in hospitals and nursing homes but rarely bothers healthy adults outside healthcare settings, was blamed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for doing just that in four states. Like many other germs, it apparently had mutated, under pressure from antibiotics, into a toxic new strain. ~snip~ Military service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan increasingly are coming home with Acinetobacter baumannii, a potent microbe that causes pneumonia...

Baby Susan Torres Dies From Infection After Miraculous Birth Arlington, VA (LifeNews.com) -- Little baby Susan Torres died last night after battling a severe infection. She became the subject of international attention after her father decided to allow her mother to remain alive to give birth following a tragic car accident rather than letting both mother and baby die. In an email provided to LifeNews.com, Justin Torres, baby Susan's uncle, said she passed away following an infection. An emergency surgery was unsuccessful. "I am saddened to have to report that, following emergency surgery that we had hoped would correct a...

Two children died Friday after being infected with a parasite associated with swimming in stagnant water, health officials said. The children, aged 9 and 7, died after being infected with Naegleria, an amoeba that lives in warm water and can cause a deadly inflammation of the brain, the Tulsa Health Department said. The boys, who live in the Tulsa area, came to doctors with symptoms of fever, hallucinations and headaches, health department spokesman Melanie Christian said. The boys did not know each other and appear to have contracted the disease independently. The 9-year-old died Friday morning. The 7-year-old succumbed about...

Forbes.com http://www.forbes.com/ The Iraq Infection Matthew Herper, 08.02.05 NEW YORK - ; doctors are fighting to contain an outbreak of a potentially deadly drug-resistant bacteria that apparently originated in the Iraqi soil. So far at least 280 people, mostly soldiers returning from the battlefield, have been infected, a number of whom contracted the illness while in U.S. military hospitals. Most of the victims are relatively young troops who were injured by the land mines, mortars and suicide bombs that have permeated the Iraq conflict. No active-duty soldiers have died from the infections, but five extremely sick patients who were in...

FDA Issues Health Advisory for Mifepristone Citing Four Sepsis-Related Deaths Among Users; Drug Labeling To Be Updated 21 Jul 2005 FDA on Tuesday issued a... public health advisory warning physicians to watch for any signs of sepsis or other infection among women who have taken Danco Laboratories' Mifeprex -- known generically as mifepristone -- which when taken with misoprostol can cause a medical abortion, the AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. The agency is investigating four sepsis-related deaths among women who took the drug, including two cases reported to FDA in April and June (Neergaard, AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7/20). Physicians have identified the bacterium...

Whooping Cough Outbreak Communities throughout the U.S. are experiencing whooping cough (pertussis) outbreaks - the worst in 40 years. If the school nurse or the health department informs you that there is a pertussis outbreak in your school or community, you may need to call your pediatrician. The school or health department will tell you if your child was directly exposed and requires antibiotics. Health departments across the country are acting quickly to prevent the spread of pertussis, so your cooperation in contacting your pediatrician is crucial. Please follow the instruction of the health department. The care of children in...

....unless you could be the type of person to be concerned about trifles like cancer, death from inhalation problems and the odd birth defect (to name a few). Latex is a natural rubber or is not in the slightest elastic (high modulus) until it undergoes a process called vulcanization. This requires a large number of additives. Latex even in its natural form has proteins known to cause allergic reactions (Types I, II and IV -fatal). The additives in vulcanization include: - Benzene - Short term exposure to benzene may cause irritation to the nose, throat and lungs. It can also...

A SUPERFIT Royal Marine collapsed and died within days of scratching his leg on a bush while on a training run — victim of a mutated superbug one doctor described as the worst she had ever seen. Richard Campbell-Smith, 18, fell victim to pneumonia caused by a rare strain of bacteria that produces a lethal toxin that kills white blood cells. A microbiologist who gave evidence at the inquest into his death yesterday said that she had come across two such cases since December but none in the previous 15 years. Marina Morgan, of the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital,...

Computer keyboards are havens for some nasty superbugs that can live nestled in among the keys for at least 24 hours, a new study finds. The study led by epidemologist Dr. Gary Noskin finds that keyboards get easily contaminated by germs. And that's especially bad news for hospitals. There, these germs can take the form of antibiotic-resistant germs that can contaminate the hands of nurses or doctors and then are passed on to patients. Noskin carried out his study at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He says hospitals are increasing their investment in technology, and there's an emerging trend to have...

A 13-year-old boy declared brain dead after the spread of an infection following a dental procedure was taken off a ventilator on Thursday, and his heart and other organs stopped soon after, a hospital spokeswoman said. The mechanical ventilator for Teron Francis was turned off at the request of his family shortly before 5 p.m., Montefiore Children's Hospital spokeswoman Pamela Adkins said. The boy's heart and other organs stopped by 5:05 p.m. ``Our hearts go out to the family, and we hope they will be allowed to find peace,'' the hospital said in a statement. Teron was declared brain dead...

FREDERICTON - A Fredericton hospital is being criticized for removing all Bibles from its patients' bedside tables in a quest to control infections. "We have disinfection processes to disinfect other surfaces, but we don't have anything to disinfect books," said Jane Stafford, a spokeswoman for the River Valley Health Authority, which operates the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital. "The influenza virus, when you cough or sneeze, can live on hard surfaces for 48 hours." Stafford said the Fredericton hospital isn't the first in Canada to take away the Bible in the interest of good hygiene. Many hospitals in western Canada...

TORONTO - A HIV-positive woman has been charged for allegedly having unprotected sex with a soldier at a southern Ontario military base without telling him she carried the virus that causes AIDS. The case has sparked fear at CFB Borden, about 100 kilometres north of Toronto, as a number of other soldiers have surfaced with similar accusations against the woman. Military police said they received their first complaint from a soldier at the base on March 2. The man, who's waiting for the results of a blood test, alleges that the woman didn't tell him she had the virus when...

'Turf Burns' Seen Linked to NFL Skin Infections 1 hour, 34 minutes ago Health - Reuters By Gene Emery BOSTON (Reuters) - Turf burns, the scrapes caused by playing on artificial turf, probably helped spread a stubborn skin infection among St. Louis Rams football players during the 2003 NFL season, researchers said on Wednesday. The infections, which sidelined three players for a total of 17 days, apparently spread to an unnamed visiting team, prompting team officials to call for help in tracking down the source. In all, five Rams players developed large wounds that had to be surgically drained and...

NOW BIRD FLU ...Feb 02, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.comby Tim BrownIs “bird flu” the next SARS? The fear of so-called bird flu is growing in Southeast Asia. Thailand and Cambodia in addition to Vietnam have had cases of bird flu in humans. Flights between Hong Kong and Vietnam are broadcasting warnings of bird flu to passengers aboard the flight. It is rumored that China has cordoned off a strip along the Vietnam border as a buffer against the virus. The SARS virus debilitated the Asian economy. Business travel and exhibitions were cancelled. Many airlines cancelled service to and from Asian destinations....

Researchers have confirmed two cases of human-to-human transmission of the killer bird flu virus, a stark reminder that the world could be just a few viral mutations away from the start of the next deadly worldwide flu pandemic. The bird flu, so-called H5N1, has top epidemiologists across the world on edge because of its potential to mutate into a new strain that no one would be immune to and that could easily spread among humans. Since first emerging in 1997 in Hong Kong, the bird flu has spread across poultry flocks in nine East Asian countries. It has killed 34...

An emailed New Year photo of naked people contains a nasty shock - a worm that will turn off security protection and harvest email addresses Antivirus companies have unearthed a computer worm that hides behind an image of naked people. According to antivirus company Sophos, the naughty New Year photo message contains a mass-mailing worm, dubbed Wurmark-D, that is programmed to disable security software on host computers and send itself to email addresses stored there. "Once activated, this worm will harvest your computer hunting for other email addresses to send itself to and try and turn off antivirus software," said...

Internet security experts have warned of a new virulent email worm particularly successful in infecting computers as it is disguised as a multilingual electronic Christmas card. "We think this worm will be big because of its timing and the fact that it comes in 15 different European languages," said Mikko Hyppoenen, head of anti-virus research at Finnish firm F-Secure. The virus, dubbed Zafi D, is a traditional Internet worm infecting computers by email and distributes itself by using email lists on contaminated personal computers. Its Christmas greeting is in the language of the recipient, decided by the country code -...

November 30, 2004 -- The number of sexually transmitted chlamydia infections reported in the United States rose more than 5 percent last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. Total cases of the disease numbered 877,478 in 2003, compared to 834,555 cases in 2002.