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Concerns over the Zika virus have focused on pregnant women due to mounting evidence that it causes brain abnormalities in developing fetuses. However, new research in mice from scientists at The Rockefeller University and La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology suggests that certain adult brain cells may be vulnerable to infection as well. Among these are populations of cells that serve to replace lost or damaged neurons throughout adulthood, and are also thought to be critical to learning and memory. "This is the first study looking at the effect of Zika infection on the adult brain," says Joseph Gleeson,...

Nearly 500 New Yorkers — including 49 pregnant women — have tested positive for the Zika ­virus, a more than tenfold increase since April, city officials said ­Tuesday. Five of the 483 victims contracted the virus through sex. The others are believed to have been infected from mosquito bites while traveling outside the United States — a majority in the Dominican Republic.

Military conventional wisdom, in addition to ACSH President (and former Army officer) Hank Campbell, likes to remind us, “Governments are always fighting the last war.” They have a good point. Fifteen years after 9/11, we still ban non-ticketed passengers from entering airport terminals. Ten years after a failed attack in 2006, we cannot bring more than 3.4 oz of liquids onto an airplane, a policy that has resulted in TSA confiscating gigantic piles of 4-oz cups of applesauce. We continue to remove our shoes 15 years after the Shoe Bomber, but thankfully the Underwear Bomber didn’t provoke a similar “remove...

Areas of Miami, Florida, are now being sprayed with the insecticide naled in an attempt to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito — carrier of the zika virus. Naled, a potent neurotoxin that kills mosquitoes on contact, is perfectly safe, or so the Environmental Protection Agency insists, despite Puerto Rico’s rejection of its use to combat the spread of zika there — due to concerns about its safety.To keep naled airborne where it would be most effective, the agent is sprayed in very fine aerosol droplets — about two tablespoons can be dispersed to cover an area the equivalent of...

Ronald Reagan famously said, “One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine.” He believed that government programs ostensibly meant to address public health crises would inevitably chip away at our personal liberties. For evidence that Reagan was right, one need look no further than Obamacare’s mandate requiring all Americans to buy government-approved insurance. The pretext for that travesty involved the alleged menace to public health posed by the uninsured. This year’s Democrat Party Platform has identified another public health threat against which the government must take action — gun...

he rate at which Colorado children were exposed to marijuana began increasing in 2009, when the U.S. government first announced it would not prosecute residents who complied with the state's new medical marijuana laws. Dr. Genie E. Roosevelt, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Denver Health Medical Center, expected that rate to go up even more when Colorado voters decided to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in 2012, the Times reports — but she never could have predicted the rate would increase as much as it did. Since 2014 (when...

This date marks the fourth time since the start of the epidemic 2 years ago that Liberia has reported zero cases for at least 42 days. Sierra Leone declared the end of Ebola human-to-human transmission on 17 March 2016 and Guinea on 1 June 2016 following the last flare ups.

A partial federal ban on gay men donating blood is "discriminatory" and hurtful in that it turned away potential donors after the June 12 massacre that killed 49 men and women at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, 24 U.S. Senators said in a letter Monday. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., were among 23 Democrats and one Republican -- Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois -- who signed the letter to U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Robert Califf. ... "Yet, some of those most touched by this tragedy -- members of the LGBT community, who are especially eager...

... Blood supply experts say the FDA will need to determine whether the move to a one-year waiting period for gay and bisexual men made the blood supply less, more or just as safe. That effort will take several years, and only then would the agency be able to consider relaxing its restrictions further, said Brian Custer, who has led a number of studies on the nation's blood supply and is associate director of the Blood Systems Research Institute (BSRI) in San Francisco. Removing the waiting period altogether would also likely require a large-scale study that tested blood samples of...

A Newport News mom says her child has a severe case of impetigo after swimming at Huntington Beach on Saturday. Nicole Sullivan says her daughter, six-year-old Bella, had a scratch on her face when she went swimming. Sullivan says she progressively started to develop some redness and swelling. By Tuesday, it turned into a painful, itchy infection. ... When she took her to the doctor, Sullivan says Bella was diagnosed with impetigo due to the bacteria from the water getting inside of her cut. ... Environmental Health Manager for the Peninsula District, Gary Hagy, says the water levels tested below...

The organization is making lobbying for gun control a top priority. The AMA, the country's largest doctor group, also vowed to lobby Congress to overturn a decades-old ban on gun violence research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "With approximately 30,000 men, women and children dying each year at the barrel of a gun in elementary schools, movie theaters, workplaces, houses of worship and on live television, the United States faces a public health crisis of gun violence," AMA president Dr. Steven Stack said in a statement. "Even as America faces a crisis unrivaled in any other developed...

Summer is here. This means warmer, muggier months, especially in the Sunshine State. It means fun at the beach, swimming, grilling, and enjoying the outdoors. But it also means dealing with pesky mosquitos.This year in particular, these annoying bugs are a major concern. This year, we are faced with the Zika virus.Zika, in part, is still a mystery we’re gradually learning about. We’re gathering details about where this comes from, how it’s dangerous, and what we can do to prevent an outbreak.My district in Florida has seen at least 4 confirmed cases in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. The Florida Department...

Federal health officials today said they believe "thousands" of people may have contracted the Zika virus before returning to the U.S. as they remain concerned that the virus might start to have ongoing transmission in the U.S. Speaking at a panel at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the Zika virus remains "pretty concerning" for experts as they learn how it affects pregnant women. "The reality is one bite, and if you’re pregnant, your baby might be harmed," Schuchat said at the panel today....

One of every five refugees resettled in Minnesota by the federal government tested positive for latent tuberculosis in 2014, ... More than 70,000 refugees have been resettled in the United States annually for the past three decades by the federal government. It’s not just tuberculosis being brought in by these resettled refugees. Measles, whooping cough, diptheria, and other diseases that were on their way to eradication are also coming in across the borders of the United States. A recent outbreak of measles in Memphis, Tennessee, a center for refugee resettlement, began at a local mosque, ... The alarming public health...

A deadly disease is rampant in Metro Atlanta, and scientists are calling it an epidemic. Channel 2's Dave Huddleston spoke with researchers and doctors who said Atlanta is the epicenter of that epidemic, comparing some neighborhoods to developing African countries.

Rates of gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease, are rising sharply in California, especially among gay and bisexual men, according to new state health data. The gonorrhea rate among California men aged 15 to 44 shot up 54 percent between 2011 and 2014, according to recently released data from the California Department of Public Health. Among women in the same age group, it rose 35 percent. An average of 34,000 gonorrhea cases among 15-to-44 year-olds was reported in California each year between 2012 and 2014, most of them among men. By contrast, the national gonorrhea rate, calculated slightly differently than California’s,...

Pope Francis hinted that the use of contraceptives may be morally acceptable as a response to the Zika epidemic, during an question-and-answer session on February 18. Speaking to reporters who accompanied him on his return flight to Rome, after a visit to Mexico, the Pope said that "avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil." While abortion cannot ever be justified, he suggested, avoiding pregnancy could be a "lesser evil" in light of the alleged dangers of birth defects. During an interview session that proved controversial even by the standards of this pontificate, the Pope said: * US presidential candidate Donald...

(English translation) In the wake of scores of [Zika] cases that have been reported in eastern Puerto Rico and due to fears that it will spread to other municipalities, Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO) Secretary Nery Adames announced that the agency added condoms to the list of price freezes related to Zika-virus prevention due to the alleged relationship to sexual transmission. "Because of the causal relationship that has been established between a mosquito bite and the probability of sexual transmission, a price freeze on prophylactics and/or preservatives has been ordered. Therefore, every store, service station, place, or business that sells...

(English translation) The tourism industry in Puerto Rico has begun to feel the impact of [the] Zika [virus]. Hotel & Tourism Association President Clarisa Jimenez told the newspaper El Vocero that some hotels have reported cancellations after the island was included among scores of countries under the World Health Organization alert declaring the disease a global public-health emergency. The cancellations have been mainly for trips related to so-called destination weddings since guests have included pregnant women, a population for whom public-health authorities have recommended special caution. According to Jimenez, it is still too difficult to estimate the economic impact of...

Following the mysterious death of seven cattle near an oil field in Kansas, public health authorities are investigating whether oil drilling could be the cause. In late December, seven dead cattle were found near an oil field in the Cimarron National Grassland, Kansas, and authorities believe that cows inhaled something toxic, prompting them to deny public access to the 2,500-acre Cimarron National Grassland until at least May. Six of the cattle were discovered together in a low-lying area, while a seventh was found a short distance away, with local veterinarians identifying the ingestion or inhalation of something toxic leading to...