Free Republic

WASHINGTON (CBS / AP) — Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer asked the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday to initiate a formal investigation into what has caused polio-like paralysis in about 20 children in California over the past 18 months. Boxer said “we need answers” in her letter to CDC Director Thomas Frieden. In particular, she wants the agency to look into whether the illness can be traced to a virus or environmental factors. She also wants to know whether the agency is aware of similar reports of paralysis nationwide...

Hundreds of children have been hospitalized across several states with a respiratory illness that seems like a cold but can grow far worse, CNN reports. Colorado, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and Oklahoma have already called the CDC for help in tackling an enterovirus that appears to be EV-D68. The current hospitalizations may be "just the tip of the iceberg in terms of severe cases," says a CDC director. "We're in the middle of looking into this. We don't have all the answers yet." The virus itself resembles a bad cold (nasty summer colds are often...

The virus causes symptoms like a cold, except worse, and is prompting up to 30 children a day to seek care at one Kansas City hospital, where about 15% of the youngsters were placed in intensive care, officials said. In a sign of a possible regional outbreak, Colorado, Illinois and Ohio are reporting cases with symptoms similar to the same virus and are awaiting testing results, according to officials and CNN affiliates in those states. In Kansas City, about 450 children were recently treated at Children’s Mercy Hospital, and at least 60 of them received intensive hospitalization, spokesman Jake Jacobson...

Unusually high levels of respiratory illness have been reported this week in Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s emergency department, and samples are being sent out for testing to see whether a rare virus might be to blame. “Obviously, it’s a concern,” Dr. Mysheika Williams Roberts, medical director and assistant commissioner at Columbus Public Health, said of the volume of respiratory cases. “What we are experiencing is unusual for us this time of year.” Last week, respiratory symptoms were the chief complaint of an average of 52 patients per day in the hospital’s emergency department. From Sunday through Tuesday of this week, respiratory...