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A new study of domestic and hospital drinking water systems found Legionella in 41% of samples—with Flinders University researchers making a key connection between the pathogen's co-existence with a "host" microorganism in all samples tested. The study found Legionella bacteria "infect the amoeba host and then once inside these hosts are protected from disinfection strategies," says Harriet Whiley. Researchers tested for Legionella and its likely amoebae hosts in 140 samples of water or biofilm (the slime found on showerheads and end of faucets) to understand how the potentially dangerous bacterium colonizes and proliferates in both domestic and hospital plumbing and...

The Southern Nevada Health District is investigating two cases of Legionnaire’s Disease recently discovered at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. Two guests were found to have had the bacteria while staying at the hotel in the months of March and April. In a statement posted on their website June 9, the Southern Nevada Health District says, “The hotel is assisting in the investigation and taking steps to provide information to past and current guests of the property.” Once the guests’ illnesses were confirmed, the Rio then inspected its water system. Results came back positive for the bacteria, Legionella, according...

There’s something very odd about the diagnosis that Dr. Lisa Bardack has presented for her patient Secretary Hillary Clinton, it’s doesn’t exist. As you can see from the two-page letter presented today by Hillary Clinton’s doctor, she has been diagnosed with “mild non-contagious bacterial pneumonia“. However, there’s a problem…. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD), an ObamaCare standard, is designed code all medical diagnostics. According to ICD-9 codes, and the more current ICD-10 coding, there’s no such diagnosis as “non contagious bacterial pneumonia“. Dr. Bardack apparently made it up. Dr. Milton Wolf was the first to notice the issue:

Five more cases of Legionnaires' disease have been added to the Bronx outbreak that has claimed seven lives and sickened more than six dozen people in the last three weeks, Mayor de Blasio said Tuesday. The number of those killed stands at seven. The mayor's briefing comes a day after the city announced an increase in the death toll and the number of cases at a packed town hall meeting at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, where hundreds of residents gathered to hear what state, city and local officials had to say about the deadly outbreak. Eighty-six cases of...

New York (CNN)—The number of deaths in the New York City Legionnaires' disease outbreak is up to four. Seventy-one cases of the flu-like disease have been reported since mid-July in the South Bronx, up from 31 on Thursday, the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Sunday.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is promoting an administrator who advised against publicly disclosing a deadly Legionnaires' outbreak at its Pittsburgh hospital system, the agency told Congress. David Cord, deputy director of VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System since June 2012, will become director of the Erie VA Medical Center within 60 days, the VA informed Congress. The VA disclosed the Legionnaires' outbreak that killed at least six and sickened at least 16 others on Nov. 16, 2012 — two days after Cord told a VA spokesman not to alert the public about it, according to an internal email from the spokesman...

Editor's note: This story is the second of two parts. A high-ranking official with Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System wanted the agency to keep quiet about a deadly Legionnaires' disease outbreak rather than warn the public, internal emails indicate. ... The email is among nearly 7,000 pages of internal VA emails and documents the Tribune-Review obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Douglas Main, Popular Science May 20, 2014, 12:40 PM Washing fluid can carry the bacterium responsible for Legionnaires' disease. That which cleans your windshield is not exactly clean itself: A new study found that windshield washing fluid can harbor the bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease, a severe type of pneumonia that hospitalizes as many as 18,000 Americans every year. Scientists already knew that there was a link between Legionnaires' and riding in automobiles, but didn't know why--and the fluid may be the reason. In the study, presented today (May 19) at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology,...

An unknown number of U.S. military veterans are dead within 30 days of contracting Legionnaires' disease in a Veterans Affairs hospital in Pittsburgh. Aside from their family members, few people seem to be outraged. If that doesn't grab your attention, perhaps this will: VA officials in charge when those men were dying from a preventable illness received more than $100,000 in performance bonuses. The same bureaucrats who were paid handsomely for negligence and incompetence also refuse to answer reporters' questions about whether they've removed the deadly Legionella bacteria from hospitals that were built to heal, protect and serve those who...

So you’ve decided to run away and join the French Foreign Legion? Here’s how. It's Earth's version of taking the Black and heading for the Wall, the way Jon Snow does in Game of Thrones. Joining the French Foreign Legion granted men a safe haven for many for decades. But what does it actually take to join the French Foreign Legion? • Joining the Legion The Foreign Legion, unfortunately, is portrayed in pop culture as packed mercenaries and vagrants — even Jean-Claude Van Damme takes up the cause in one film. A safe haven for men looking for a new...

Health officials identified legionella bacteria in a whirlpool spa at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles during an investigation in February that began when people were sickened after attending a fundraiser. A number of people came down with a respiratory illness after DomainFest's Feb. 1-3 conference, which culminated in a fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles. Officials investigated to see if legionellosis was at fault; the more severe version of that illness is known as Legionnaires' disease, while a milder version is called Pontiac fever.

Can the Playboy Mansion make you ill? Hugh Hefner's iconic bachelor pad is under investigation after more than 80 guests at a conference and party there became sick with a suspected strain of Legionnaires' disease. Scores of attendees at the Domainfest conference in Santa Monica, held Feb. 1 to 3, came down with symptoms including fever, respiratory infections and violent headaches. Four Swedish guests were diagnosed with Legionellosis or pontiac fever -- a milder form of Legionnaires' caused by bacteria that thrives in warm air-conditioning systems.

Archbishop Velasio de Paolis at a recent conference in the Pontifical Urban University. Vatican City, Jul 9, 2010 / 10:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, C.S., as the of the Pontifical Delegate to the Legion of Christ. Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi told journalists Friday that "as soon as possible" he will personally meet with the Legion's superiors to discuss the scope of his role.The archbishop's appointment, announced precisely at noon on Friday, confirms well-informed Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli's prediction from June 21 that the delegate would be the president of the...

Bishop Ricardo Blázquez, Bishop Giuseppe Versaldi, Archbishop Ricardo Ezzatti, Archbishop Charles Chaput and Bishop Ricardo Watti (top to bottom, left to right) Rome, Italy, Jul 1, 2009 / 02:45 pm (CNA).- After the announcement on March 31 that Pope Benedict XVI had ordered an Apostolic Visitation of the Legionaries of Christ, many wondered when it would begin. Vatican watcher Sandro Magister has answered the question by  reporting it will begin on July 15 and that five bishops have been charged with the task. Magister states that the visitors will be Bishop Ricardo Watti Urquidi of Tepic, Mexico; Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver,...

A hotel located in the tourist corridor of Orlando voluntarily closed its doors on Friday after two guests contracted Legionnaires' disease, a respiratory illness that can be fatal. Guests at the Quality Suites, located at 7400 Canada Ave. near International Drive in Orlando, have been relocated because of the incident, although Orange County Health Department spokesman Dane Weister said there are no further reported cases of the disease. The hotel may be closed for about two weeks. No information about the two guests, including names, ages and whether they are related, was released. The health department is conducting an investigation...

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2007 – President Bush today praised the troops defending the United States and the veterans who set a powerful example and continue to support them. Bush traveled to American Legion Post 177 in Fairfax, Va., to recognize the spirit of service and volunteerism he said makes the United States a shining example for the rest of the world. “There’s something to be said for a country where people serve something greater than themselves, where people in this era volunteer in the face of danger to defend” it, he said. The president said it’s difficult facing the...

Mankind's existence is always being threatened, or so it seems. The number of societal-threatening events that have occurred in roughly the last thirty years is nothing short of amazing. In 1976, hundreds of people became sick and dozens died at a convention in Philadelphia from what later became known as "Legionnaire's Disease." The illness was initially unrecognized, and it was feared that this "mystery" disease might break out into the general population with catastrophic results. In the late 1970's, Newsweek cited several scientific climactic studies that pointed to an unmistakable cooling trend in the Earth's weather pattern, one that might...

TORONTO (CP) - A mysterious outbreak at a nursing home that claimed 16 lives and stoked international fears about the safety of Canada's largest city was likely caused by legionnaires' disease, a form of pneumonia, public health officials said Thursday. Autopsy results showed at least three of the deaths at the Seven Oaks Home for the Aged were directly linked to the disease, said infectious disease expert Dr. Donald Low, who gave briefings almost daily during Toronto's 2003 SARS crisis. "We'll continue to look for other possibilities, but we feel pretty confident . . .we're dealing with legionnaires' disease," Low...

TORONTO Toronto health officials on Thursday said Legionnaires' disease was likely the cause of 16 deaths at a Toronto nursing home and warned that more deaths were possible before the bacteria was fully contained. Dr. David McKeown, the chief medical officer for Public Health Toronto, said there had been no new deaths since Wednesday, when six more elderly people residing at the Seven Oaks Home for the Aged succumbed to the bacteria. "We have a lot of sick people in hospital still, so I'm not going to make any more predictions about deaths," he said. In all, 70 residents, 13...

Three people are dead and scores have been admitted to hospital in southern Norway after doctors confirmed an outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease over the weekend. At least 24 are confirmed to be infected, with many of them in critical condition.Health authorities, meanwhile, remained unable on Monday to pinpoint the source of the disease. Cooling towers for air conditioning systems, where the bacteria is known to appear, were being checked and disinfected, especially in the Fredrikstad-Sarpsborg area.That's where the first cases started being diagnosed late last week. Health officials in Fredrikstad, just north of the Swedish border, feared an epidemic like...