The Change Mariner: Category: Theme - 'The New Age of Germs'

May 27, 2004

Breakthrough in Superbug Battle

HealthandAge: A new way of applying antibiotic treatment helps to keep superbugs away from critically ill patients. Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a greatly feared bacterial infection, because it is resistant to most known antibiotics - including vancomycin. Researchers in...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 3:00 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

March 14, 2004

Biotech: A Risky Bet on Antibiotics?

BusinessWeek: Forget genomics. Forget original drug research. Many biotech companies have. Eager for reliable revenue streams, biotechs are increasingly looking to an area that the pharmaceutical industry has long overlooked -- antibacterial drugs, better knows as antibiotics. The trend of...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 7:32 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

March 13, 2004

Vietnam's Bird Flu Battle

Asia Times: Mere months after the successful containment of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the last thing the Vietnamese government wanted was another dramatic public-health crisis. Unfortunately, as the world now knows, another crisis is exactly what it got. Vietnam's...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 5:46 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

March 10, 2004

A Breakthrough in Artificial Blood

The Herald (UK): Scientists may have solved the problem of creating artificial blood, a potential breakthrough that could relieve shortages and prevent patients from being infected by contaminated supplies. It could also stop the potential spread of the human form...

Posted by Bob King at 7:51 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

March 8, 2004

Bird Flu Is Found on Two More U.S. Farms

New York Times: Hundreds of thousands of chickens on two commercial farms in Maryland are being slaughtered after a case of avian influenza was found there, officials said Sunday. A total of 328,000 birds were ordered slaughtered, nearly four times...

Posted by Bob King at 9:09 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 24, 2004

Genetic Map Of Bird Flu Complete

China Daily: Chinese experts have completed the genetic map of the killer H5N1 bird flu virus and their next step will be looking at how the virus mutates. The mapping result was achieved by an avian disease research lab at...

Posted by Bob King at 2:08 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 17, 2004

Research in Italy Turns Up a New Form of Mad Cow Disease

New York Times: A new form of mad cow disease has been found in Italy, according to a study released yesterday, and scientists believe that it may be the cause of some cases of human brain-wasting disease. While the strain...

Posted by Bob King at 1:00 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 12, 2004

WHO probes viral deaths in Bangladesh

Washington Times: World Health Organization officials said Thursday they were investigating an outbreak of a Nipah-like virus in Bangladesh that has led to 14 deaths. Nipah virus, first identified in Malaysia in 1999, is thought to be carried by an...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 11:35 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 11, 2004

Bird Flu Found At Second Delaware Site

Mercury News: Officials responded to a new discovery of bird flu Tuesday by ordering a quarantine of 80 farms and the slaughter of 72,000 more chickens. The swift action was aimed at averting more bans on U.S. exports. The second...

Posted by Bob King at 8:35 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 4, 2004

Death Toll From Bird Flu Hits 16

Financial Times: The death toll from the bird flu epidemic sweeping across Asia rose to 16 on Thursday after a 16-year-old girl in Vietnam died from the disease, making it the country's 11th fatality from the outbreak. Vietnamese health officials...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 11:51 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

February 2, 2004

Deadly bird flu strikes Indonesia

BBC NEWS: The World Health Organization (WHO), which is taking part in the Rome meeting, has called for strong collaborative efforts to control the virus, which has hit poultry flocks in 10 Asian countries. "Things are still in the box....

Posted by Bob King at 9:14 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

January 26, 2004

Asia Bird Flu Spreads, Claims 7th Victim

Yahoo! News: A 6-year-old Thai boy became Asia's seventh confirmed bird flu fatality, and the government said Monday it was awaiting lab results to determine whether the disease killed four other people in a northern province. The World Health Organization...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 9:36 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

January 24, 2004

Experts: Bird Flu Could Become Epidemic

Yahoo! News: With luck, the world will escape the latest outbreak of bird flu with no more than the six human deaths already blamed on it and the loss of millions of chickens. But public health experts worry of a...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 9:10 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

January 6, 2004

Mad Cow Forces Beef Industry to Change Course

New York Times: Jeffrey Behling, a dairy farmer in Washington State, used to burn the carcasses of his hobbled "downer" cattle until he found there was a market for their meat. Even so, selling damaged cows for human consumption never...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 12:18 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

December 27, 2003

U.S.: 'Mad Cow' Came From Canada

Reuters: The U.S. Agriculture Department says it believes a dairy cow infected with mad cow disease was imported from Canada in 2001. Ron DeHaven, the USDA's chief veterinarian, told reporters on Saturday the cow was one of 74 cattle imported...

Posted by Bob King at 9:19 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

December 24, 2003

Import Bans Turn Tables on U.S. Industry

San Francisco Chronicle: The apparent discovery of mad cow disease in a lone cow from Washington state poses no immediate health concerns, but it could deliver a body blow to the entire nation's beef industry. It remains to be seen...

Posted by Bob King at 10:07 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

November 12, 2003

Botswana's Brain Drain Cripples War on AIDS

New York Times: As the Bush administration shapes its plan to combat AIDS in Africa, Botswana's president, Festus G. Mogae, said Wednesday that one of the biggest obstacles to a rapid expansion of treatment for people with AIDS in his...

Posted by Norm M. Wada at 10:32 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

September 19, 2003

Cases of West Nile Soaring

Washington Post: The United States is headed for another record number of West Nile virus cases this year, with the total rising by more than a third in the past week alone, officials said today. Nationwide, 4,137 human cases had...

Posted by Jennifer King at 3:50 PM | See the full story

September 16, 2003

Toronto: A City of Hand Washers

Tornoto Star: You may have noticed someone in the airport washroom, grooming with one eye on the mirror, another on you. When you leave, they jot down a note: Did you wash your hands? Researchers for the American Society of...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 7:16 PM | See the full story

September 12, 2003

FDA Approves First-In-Class Antibiotic

Forbes: The Food and Drug Administration approved the first antibiotic in a new class since the approval of Pfizer's Zyvox in 2000. Zyvox then represented the first new class in 35 years. The injectable medicine, called daptomycin and sold under...

Posted by Jennifer King at 5:57 PM | See the full story

August 13, 2003

WHO Says No to Farm Antibiotics

Wired Farmers worldwide should reduce the use of antibiotics in their livestock to help curb the growth of drug-resistant bacteria in humans, the World Health Organization reported. High-profile scares over the transmission of resistant forms of bacteria have become increasingly...

Posted by Norm M. Wada at 2:34 PM | See the full story

July 23, 2003

Post office unveils anthrax detector

SunSpot.net As technical challenges go, it's a doozy: With 202 billion pieces of mail posted each year, design a machine that will detect a single letter containing anthrax spores so tiny that thousands could be piled on the period at...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 5:58 PM | See the full story

June 21, 2003

Isolation, an Old Medical Tool, Has SARS Fading

New York Times: Three months ago, SARS appeared poised to sweep the world, a mysterious new disease racing out of southern for which there was no vaccine, cure or diagnostic test. Today, SARS is disappearing almost as fast, and almost...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 1:26 PM | See the full story

June 20, 2003

McDonald's Asks Meat Industry to Cut Use of Antibiotics

New York Times: Responding to public health concerns about the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals, the McDonald's Corporation said today that it would ask its meat suppliers around the world to reduce their dependence on antibiotics. ... McDonald's said...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 5:13 PM | See the full story

June 19, 2003

Panel Urges Caution on Smallpox Inoculation

Washington Post: A panel of medical experts overseeing the Bush administration's smallpox immunization campaign advised yesterday against expanding the effort to millions of emergency response workers, saying a series of unexpected heart complications raises concerns about the safety of the...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 10:12 PM | See the full story

June 17, 2003

SARS 'Stopped Dead In Its Tracks

CNN.com: The World Health Organization says the worst is over in the fight against SARS less than three months after a global alert triggered an unprecedented worldwide response. The pneumonia-like disease that spanned to Canada has killed about 800 people...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 10:35 PM | See the full story

June 16, 2003

WHO: Stay on the lookout

The Star (Malaysia): The World Health Organisation (WHO) has strongly advised countries to strengthen their surveillance efforts even though the SARS situation worldwide appears to be improving, as there is still a lack of information on the deadly virus. WHO...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 8:58 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Canadian researchers make significant breakthrough in SARS reseach

CTV Newsnet: Researchers from Alberta's Suffield military base are celebrating a major breakthrough in the struggle to crack the SARS virus -- they have become the first ever to snag fragments of the deadly disease from the air. While the...

Posted by Bob King at 10:07 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

June 15, 2003

Animal-to-human infections on rise?

MSNBC: It happens again and again. Strange and frightening new infections seem to appear out of nowhere, such as Lyme disease, Ebola and, of course, AIDS. With monkeypox coming on the heels of SARS, which emerged not long after West...

Posted by Bob King at 1:42 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

June 14, 2003

WHO Expert: Proven SARS Cure Unlikely Soon

ABCNEWS.com: A cure for SARS is unlikely soon, a World Health Organization official said Saturday at a conference that failed to agree on how to treat the deadly virus....

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 9:47 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Humans blamed for US spread of monkeypox

The Telegraph (UK): An outbreak of monkeypox, a highly infectious virus related to smallpox, has swept through four American states in the first recorded cases in the western hemisphere. The US government is scrambling to contain the epidemic, which escalated...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 6:49 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Licorice May Help Against SARS

Discovery Health: A major ingredient in licorice has proven remarkably successful at combatting the SARS virus in lab-dish tests, according to a German study reported on Saturday in the British weekly journal The Lancet. Glycyrrhizin, a compound extracted from licorice...

Posted by Bob King at 7:18 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

CDC director calls West Nile, SARS "the new normal''

San Francisco Chronicle: Emerging infectious diseases such as West Nile virus, SARS and monkeypox are "the new normal," the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday, adding that the national public health system must change its...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 12:15 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

June 12, 2003

HIV's complex family history unravelled

New Scientist The parent of the HIV virus was the product of a union between two monkey viruses, genetic detective work has revealed. This genetic mixing occurred in a chimpanzee at least one million years ago, although it is thought...

Posted by Bob King at 4:31 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Wisconsin Health Worker May Have Monkeypox

Washington Post: A Wisconsin nurse may have contracted monkeypox from a patient in what would be the first known case of the disease spreading from one person to another in the United States, officials said Thursday. Wisconsin state epidemiologist Jeff...

Posted by Bob King at 4:29 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Monkeypox forces rodent-import ban

OrlandoSentinel.com: Prairie dogs, a symbol of the American West, of wide-open spaces and home on the range, this week became something else: outlaws. The federal government Wednesday banned the sale of prairie dogs and other rodents possibly linked to a...

Posted by Bob King at 5:40 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

June 9, 2003

Less Lethal Cousin of Smallpox Arrives in U.S.

New York Times: Monkeypox, a viral disease related to smallpox but less infectious and less deadly, has been detected for the first time in the Americas, with at least 23 cases reported in three Midwestern states, the Centers for Disease...

Posted by Bob King at 11:56 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

June 5, 2003

SARS Genome Update: Animal Origins?

BioSpace.com: As health officials from Toronto to Taiwan struggle to contain SARS through measures like quarantines and the prohibition of spitting in public places, scientists are piecing together clues about the virus, its genome, and its origins....

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 1:32 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

SARS epidemic 'has peaked'

BBC NEWS: The Sars outbreak has peaked in countries around the world - including China, the worst hit by the pneumonia-like disease, a World Health Organization official has said. "It's fair to say that the Sars epidemic is over its...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 9:43 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

Help Africa's 11 million AIDS orphans - activists

Reuters Health Information: Leading campaigners in the fight against AIDS urged the United States and Europe on Tuesday to devote more funds to help an estimated 11 million children orphaned in Africa by the disease. "If nothing is done to...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 9:35 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

USDA issues new rules to prevent listeria in meat

Reuters Health Information: The U.S. Agriculture Department on Wednesday announced new rules for meat plants to help keep potentially deadly listeria bacteria from hot dogs, deli meats and sausage. The USDA stepped up its fight against the bacteria after being...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 9:33 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

June 4, 2003

No New SARS Deaths Reported for 1st Time in 2 Months

Washington Post: For the first time in more than two months, no new deaths were reported yesterday from SARS, the latest indication that the epidemic is subsiding, the World Health Organization said. The cumulative number of SARS cases worldwide hit...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 9:36 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

June 3, 2003

New Respiratory Virus Found in U.S. Kids

Yahoo! News: A new virus continues to show up wherever investigators look for it -- and it isn't SARS. It's the human metapneumovirus (hMPV), which has now been discovered in American children. Researchers at the Yale University School of Medicine...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 11:29 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

June 2, 2003

Vaccine For Mad Cow Disease In Testing; CJD Treatment Possible

Sci-Fi Today: Research at the University of Toronto has led to an experimental vaccine in lab animals that halts further infections by prions, the cause of various neurological diseases including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) , commonly known as Mad Cow...

Posted by Bob King at 4:56 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

June 1, 2003

Rare Day for China: No SARS Deaths

Rapid City Journal: Trade ministers of Asia-Pacific countries are set to endorse an emergency SARS recovery plan, while China reported no deaths for the first time in seven weeks. The plan to revive Asia's tourism industry and other businesses comes...

Posted by Bob King at 8:54 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

May 29, 2003

SARS Makes Beijing Combat an Old but Unsanitary Habit

SARS Makes Beijing Combat an Old but Unsanitary Habit As Mr. Liu sped along the path at Bei Hai Park here, the rumbling in his throat became louder and more intense. A restaurant cleaner, Mr. Liu had a dollop of...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 12:04 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

May 28, 2003

Two suspected SARS patients quarantined in L.A.

Forbes.com: Two passengers aboard a Cathay Pacific Airlines flight that originated in Hong Kong were quarantined upon arriving in Los Angeles Sunday after exhibiting symptoms associated with the deadly SARS virus, health officials said Wednesday....

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 7:13 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

May 27, 2003

Bush signs $15 billion law to fight Aids

SABCnews (South Africa): George W. Bush, the US president, has signed legislation that launches a $15 billion emergency plan to fight HIV/Aids in parts of Africa, including South Africa and the Caribbean. Bush says the US has a "moral duty"...

Posted by Timothy Fredel at 11:07 PM | See the full story | TrackBack

Unprecendented Drop in Airline Travel

Mercury News: World air passenger traffic plunged 18.5 percent in April against the same month last year and by 44.8 percent in the Asia-Pacific region, the global airlines body IATA said Friday....

Posted by Bob King at 11:52 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

Smallpox may help give immune system edge over malaria

CBC News: A new vaccine approach may deliver a one-two punch against malaria by boosting the immune system, researchers say. The two-pronged method uses DNA from the malaria parasite as well as a booster from a modified smallpox virus...

Posted by Bob King at 8:29 AM | See the full story | TrackBack

The Change Mariner Theme - 'The New Age of Germs'