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A new virus thought to be carried by ticks or other insects has been discovered following the death of a southeast Kansas resident during the summer, public health officials said Monday. The new virus is called Bourbon virus, after Bourbon County, home of the patient who died. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment said the patient's symptoms, including fever and fatigue, were similar to symptoms from other tick-borne diseases. The Kansas health department said testing by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that the patient had a virus not previously identified. Health department spokeswoman Aimee Rosenow...

A bug can turn you into a vegetarian, or at least make you swear off red meat. Doctors across the nation are seeing a surge of sudden meat allergies in people bitten by a certain kind of tick. This bizarre problem was only discovered a few years ago but is growing as the ticks spread from the Southwest and the East to more parts of the United States. In some cases, eating a burger or a steak has landed people in the hospital with severe allergic reactions. Few patients seem aware of the risk, and even doctors are slow to...

More than nine out of every ten employees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are considered "non-essential" and have been furloughed in the federal government's shutdown. Reuters obtained an EPA guidance in which the agency said it would "classify 1,069 employees, out of 16,205, as essential,"...

U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina has gone to the hospital because of an extended fever. Wilson's office said in a short statement Wednesday that the Republican was admitted. He is best known for being rebuked by the House for shouting, "You lie!" at President Barack Obama in 2009. Wilson later apologized. The statement contained no other details, including when the congressman was admitted, if he remained in the hospital, or the name of the hospital. Wilson's office said last week that he was taking antibiotics to treat symptoms of Lyme disease. Previously a little-known lawmaker, after the remark,...

Among the weird findings: Pulling a tick off the wrong way can lead to meat allergy. An Australian doctor found the link while studying rising cases of the allergy among people who live on Sydney's tick-prone northern beaches. "I now tell everybody I see who lives anywhere near ticks to use `Aerostart' (spray-on engine cleaner) or another high-alcohol substance," said Dr Sheryl van Nunen. "Stun the tick before you scrape it out and it can't inject what it injects." The first US case of "cannabinoid hyperemesis" was recorded in the medical literature. The syndrome was first described in 2004 in...

Lingering Bacteria Don't Indicate Chronic Lyme Disease ScienceDaily (Apr. 3, 2008) — The bacteria that cause Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne illness in the United States, can linger in mouse tissues long after a full round of antibiotic treatment is completed, report researchers from the University of California, Davis. The scientists caution that the discovery does not suggest the presence of chronic disease, nor does it support extended use of antibiotics to treat Lyme disease in humans. Their findings are reported in the March issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. However, they say, the results of this...

Time marches on, but Earth is falling behind. The solution again this year is to add a "leap second" as 2005 ticks away, so Earth can catch up with the atomic clocks that have defined time since their unerring accuracy trumped the heavens three decades ago. This will be the first leap second in seven years, and its arrival will be closely watched by physicists and astronomers enmeshed in a prolonged debate over the future of time in a world increasingly dominated by technology. Some experts think the leap second should be abolished because the periodic, but random, adjustment of...

In his riveting new film, “Paradise Now,” Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad paints an ugly picture of Israeli occupation and the harsh consequences he believes flow from it, namely suicide bombers. The movie, which won the Blue Angel Award for best European film at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, explores the friendship between Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman), and their transformation from unremarkable auto mechanics into would-be bombers. Underlying Abu-Assad’s movie is a chilling but powerful message: Decades of illegal and brutal Israeli rule, he argues, have wiped out hope among young Palestinians and created a growing pool of...

This is for all the naysayers on Roberts and others who like to read the misleading headlines of the AP about Roberts and his confirmation hearing so far. First off, he never said he actually respected Roe v. Wade or that it deserves respect or anything directly about Roe. What he did do was talk generally about stare decisis and the ideas of precedent. He said that any case (including Roe) that has been decided by the Supreme COurt deserves respect in that it is a precedent of the court. Being in my first year of law school, we have...

Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick Thu Dec 30, 7:00 PM ET Ibd It 's been nearly 3 1/2 months since former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and retired Associated Press chief executive Louis D. Boccardi were named to an independent panel to investigate the "60 Minutes" story that used forged documents to allege Bush shirked his duties when in the Texas Air National Guard in the 1960s and 1970s. The panel was named Sept. 22, 14 days after the story aired and two days after Rather finally stopped denying that the documents were bogus and admitted the story was a mistake....

Remarks at the U.S. Institute of Peace Richard L. Armitage, Deputy Secretary Of State Washington, DC January 21, 2003 DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Richard, thank you very much. It's a great delight for me to be back with you. It's also a delight to see so many friends from the diplomatic community and friends from past assignments here today. However, having said that, I must say that this is a very different audience from one I addressed last week. Last week, I spoke at the U.S. Naval Academy. And while you are not a bad-looking crowd -- there is nothing quite...

Statement by the Press Secretary PRESIDENT BUSH TO MEET WITH PRIME MINISTER BLAIR (White House Press Release) President Bush will welcome British Prime Minister Blair to Camp David on January 31, 2003. The United Kingdom is one of America's closest allies and a strong and valuable partner in the war on terrorism and the effort to eliminate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. They will discuss a range of issues in a meeting and an informal working dinner.