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A team of researchers led by UCSF scientists has found strong evidence that recent, alarming clusters of sudden-onset paralysis cases — most of them in California and Colorado — were caused by the same virus that was also responsible for hundreds of severe respiratory infections in U.S. children last year. Particularly worrisome is that the enterovirus identified in the research is a new strain that appears to have mutated to become more polio-like, raising the prospects of future outbreaks of the disease, scientists said in a paper published Monday. “The changes were always in the direction to make it more...

West Coast docks are paralyzed as employers and longshoremen continued to spat about contracts and congestion problems. There are plenty of losers. Exporters, like farmers and ranchers, can't get their perishables to Asian markets during the Lunar New Year when demand for fruit and meat is particularly high. And importers large and small are beginning to report shipment delays and inventory shortages. Are there winners? Kind of … Air Freight. Some importers, like electronics dealers and luxury retailers, can afford to put their cargo on planes, despite at least a ten-fold increase in shipping costs. ... East Coast/Gulf Coast ports....

http://img.medicalxpress.com/newman/gfx/news/hires/2015/54aed437e8f45.jpg New therapies are on the horizon for individuals paralyzed following spinal cord injury. The e-Dura implant developed by EPFL scientists can be applied directly to the spinal cord without causing damage and inflammation. The device is described in an article appearing online Jan. 8, 2015, in Science magazine.EPFL scientists have managed to get rats walking on their own again using a combination of electrical and chemical stimulation. But applying this method to humans would require multifunctional implants that could be installed for long periods of time on the spinal cord without causing any tissue damage. This is precisely what...

[For me, these kinds of stories are inspirational and show what human beings are capable of!] Paralysed patients have been given new hope of recovery after rats with severe spinal injuries walked again through a ‘groundbreaking’ new cyborg-style implant. In technology which could have come straight out of a science fiction novel or Hollwood movie, French scientists have created a thin prosthetic ribbon, embedded with electrodes, which lies along the spinal cord and delivers electrical impulses and drugs. The prosthetic, described by British experts as ‘quite remarkable’, is soft enough to bend with tissue surrounding the backbone to avoid discomfort....

FULL TITLE: FDA Approves Merck's HPV Vaccine, GARDASIL®9, to Prevent Cancers and Other Diseases Caused by Nine HPV types – Including Types that Cause About 90% of Cervical Cancer Cases KENILWORTH, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Merck (NYSE:MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved GARDASIL®9 (Human Papillomavirus 9-valent Vaccine, Recombinant), Merck’s 9-valent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, for use in girls and young women 9 to 26 years of age for the prevention of cervical, vulvar, vaginal, and anal cancers caused by HPV types 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52 and...

In the span of four months, at least 94 children in 33 U.S. states have developed a devastating form of paralysis with symptoms similar to polio. Some require a ventilator to breathe. And some of the greatest government health minds in the country say they have no idea what’s causing it. At the same time, during the past four months, at least 12 children have died after falling ill with a respiratory virus called Enterovirus D-68 (EV-D68). Again, federal health officials are at a loss to explain the origin of the epidemic. Are the mysterious outbreaks linked? The Centers for...

Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) is one of over 100 non-polio enteroviruses, according to the CDC. For most people infected, it causes flu-like symptoms, mild to severe. It spreads just like the common cold virus, through coughing, sneezing, handshakes, or touching a surface touched by someone with the infection. Over this past summer and fall, the United States, “has experienced a nationwide outbreak of enterovirus D68,” according to the CDC. For most infected persons, it’s just another cold. But “more severe infections can lead to hypoxia, meningitis, eye problems, heart involvement, and rarely paralysis.” This sudden surge in EV-D68 cases is perplexing...

The U.S. death toll from the mysterious Enterovirus D-68, which primarily strikes young children, has reached twelve. But as the number of livest lost increases, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that most states over the last five weeks have indicated “reduced EV-D68-like illness activity.” The latest CDC update on the current outbreak of the polio-like Enterovirus D-68 states that it has now been detected “in specimens from twelve patients who died and had samples submitted for testing.” That’s one more death than was disclosed in last week’s update. The CDC account does not provide information as to where...

<p>Obama is sneering at the Republicans again, telling them to "pass a bill" regarding immigration. The Democrats are taunting the Republicans and daring them to do something.</p> <p>It appears that there doesn't need to be another "bill" passed, as this ACT is supposed to prevent Obama from doing exactly what he is doing.</p>

<p>An unexplained, polio-like illness has now affected 75 children across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</p> <p>The first cases were reported in August in Colorado, around the same time that children began going to the emergency room with breathing problems related to enterovirus D68, according to the CDC. The CDC reports 1,116 cases of the enterovirus in 47 states and Washington, D.C., in recent months, almost all in children. Twelve children with the virus have died.</p>

The deadly EV-D68 enterovirus epidemic, which struck thousands of kids this fall, was likely propelled through America by President Barack ObamaÂ’s decision to allow tens of thousands of Central Americans across the Texas border, according to a growing body of genetic and statistical evidence. The evidence includes admissions from top health officials that the epidemic included multiple strains of the virus, and that it appeared simultaneously in multiple independent locations. The question can be settled if federal researchers study the genetic fingerprint of the EV-D68 viruses that first hit kids in Colorado, Missouri and Illinois to see if they are...

SEABROOK — A 13-year-old Seabrook boy has been hospitalized for roughly a week in Boston due to paralysis and other symptoms his doctors believe may be connected to enterovirus D68, severe cases of which have been reported across the country since August. Patrick Dugan said his son Dan was brought last week to an intensive care unit at Tufts Medical Center after Dan’s legs gave out multiple times following weeks of headaches, coughing, vomiting, weakness and double vision. Those symptoms were followed by paralysis in Dan’s lower extremities and left shoulder as well as indications of spinal cord nerve damage,...

The number of children treated in Colorado for limb weakness or paralysis-like symptoms after coming down with a respiratory virus has risen to 11, a hospital official said on Friday. Melissa Vizcarra, spokeswoman for Children's Hospital Colorado, said the child in the latest case is suffering from muscle weakness but tests have not conclusively linked it to a nationwide outbreak of Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68).

NEW YORK (AP) -- Health officials are investigating nine cases of muscle weakness or paralysis in Colorado children and whether the culprit might be a virus causing severe respiratory illness across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday sent doctors an alert about the polio-like cases and said the germ - enterovirus 68 - was detected in four out of eight of the sick children who had a certain medical test. The status of the ninth case is unclear. The virus can cause paralysis but other germs can, too. Health officials don't know whether the virus...

Cristina Simoes was watching television with her son Camron when their apartment complex caught on fire. At first she went to the front door only to realize that a heavy smoke was filling the hallways, blocking their escape.While waiting for First Responders, she finally realized she had no choice but to jump with her baby. The superhuman mom said of her choice: “It’s so worth it because he’s okay.”  WATCH:

ur men paralyzed after bad spinal cord injuries can all move their legs again, thanks to an electrical stimulator. Astonished researchers say they’d hoped for some result, but nothing like what they got. They think the stimulator is retraining the mens’ nerves to work with the brain again, despite the terrible damage. “This is wonderful news. Spinal cord injury need no longer be a lifelong sentence of paralysis,” said Dr. Roderic Pettigrew, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, one of the National Institutes of Health. “It is just downright marvelous.” Rob Summers, now 28, was the...

Doctors in California say as many as 25 children are suffering from a mysterious, poliolike virus that is leaving them with paralyzed limbs... The cause of most of these cases is not known, health officials say. The average age of the children is 12.

Dr. Keith Van Haren, a pediatric neurologist at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital who has worked with Glaser’s team, will present the cases of five of the children at the American Academy of Neurology’s upcoming annual meeting. He said all five patients had paralysis in one or more arms or legs that reached its full severity within two days. None had recovered limb function after six months. “We know definitively that it isn’t polio,” Van Haren added, noting that all had been vaccinated against that disease. Glaser wouldn’t provide the number of illnesses. Van Haren said he was aware...

A 24 year old man, Ali Al-Khawahir,reportedly has been sentenced to being surgically paralyzed in Saudi Arabia. When he was 14, Al-Khawahir stabbed a friend, who was paralyzed as a result. He’s spent 10 years in prison for the assault according to U.S. News and World Report, but now the victim is seeking “blood money” of about $270,000. If he doesn’t receive it, Al-Khawahir is to be paralyzed. Al-Khawahir’s family is trying to raise money to make the payment.

Paralyzed rats learned to walk, run and spring deftly over obstacles after they were put on a physical training regimen that included electrical and chemical stimulation of their broken spinal columns and a “robotic postural interface,” a new study reveals. The study, published Thursday in Science, suggests that for humans with spinal cord injury, the trick to regaining lost movement may lie not in regeneration of the severed spinal cord, but in inducing the brain and spinal cord to forge wholly new paths toward each other. The Swiss authors liken that process to the way that infants, their nervous systems...