Mad cow disease in California: Should humans be worried?

(Credit:CBS)

(CBS News) A cow's positive test for mad cow disease has prompted health officials to alert a concerned public that humans are not at risk for contracting the deadly human variant of the disease.

VIDEO: Mad cow disease discovered in Calif.
New case of mad cow disease discovered in California; First since 2006

A dairy cow in California tested positive for mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the first case since 2006, CBS News reported on Tuesday. If a human eats meat contaminated with BSE, they can contract a form of the degenerative brain disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) that rapidly decreases a person's mental health and movement ability. To date, there have not been confirmed human cases of this type of CJD in the U.S., but a massive outbreak of mad cow disease in the U.K. that peaked in 1993 was blamed for the deaths of 180,000 cattle and more than 150 people. CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports there have been three deaths in America tired to mad cow disease but all three victims had spent many years eating beef overseas.

Americans are not at risk from this latest positive BSE test since the cow was not bound for the nation's food supply, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who touted the agency's system for catching contaminants in food supply.

"The beef and dairy in the American food supply is safe and USDA remains confident in the health of U.S. cattle," Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement. The systems and safeguards in place to protect animal and human health worked as planned to identify this case quickly, and will ensure that it presents no risk to the food supply or to human health."

The infected cow, the fourth ever discovered in the U.S., was found as part a USDA testing program that tests about 40,000 cows a year for BSE.

The Associated Press reports the discovery was a "stroke of luck" since tests are only performed on a small portion of dead animals. This cow in particular was not showing outward symptoms of mad cow disease before it died, which for cattle include unsteadiness, lack of coordination, a drastic change in behavior or low milk production, officials told the AP.

Federal agriculture officials tried to ease any concerns, saying the cow had an "atypical" form of mad cow disease that was not caused from eating infected cattle feed.

It was "just a random mutation that can happen every once in a great while in an animal," Bruce Akey, director of the New York State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Cornell University, told the AP. "Random mutations go on in nature all the time."

"Are you worried about all of the meteors that passed the earth last night while you were sleeping? Of course not," BSE expert James Culler, director of the UC Davis Dairy Food Safety Laboratory in Calif., told the Associated Press. "Would you pay 90 percent of your salaries to set up all of the observatories on earth to watch for them? Of course not. It's the same thing."

The mad cow disease finding has also caused concern internationally in countries where U.S. beef is imported.

The British government's U.K. Food Standards Agency said "No extra precautions or bans are being enforced in the United Kingdom in response to the Mad Cow case that was discovered in America yesterday," spokesman Bradley Smythe told CBS News, saying there are already preventative measures in place for all beef imports to the EU.

In South Korea, two major grocery chains pulled U.S. beef from their stores. Home Plus and Lotte Mart said they halted beef sales because customers were worried, CBS News reported. Within hours Home Plus had resumed sales, citing a government announcement of increased inspections. South Korea is the world's fourth-largest importer of U.S. beef, buying 107,000 tons of the meat in 2011.

The National Institutes of Health has more on Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

Source : http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57420786-10391704/mad-cow-disease-in-california-should-humans-be-worried/

Drinking hand sanitizer sends Calif. teens to hospital drunk, doctors warn

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(CBS News) Would you drink hand sanitizer? The idea may sound repulsive to most people, but California doctors are warning parents of what may be a fast-growing dangerous trend after six local teenagers were hospitalized in separate incidents with alcohol poisoning from drinking the soapy stuff.

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The Los Angeles Times reported some of the teenagers used salt to separate the alcohol from the sanitizer using instructions found online. If a liquid hand sanitizer contains 62 percent ethyl alcohol, that means a "drink" can be as high as 120 proof, whereas a shot of hard liquor such as whiskey or vodka is typically 80 proof.

"All it takes is just a few swallows and you have a drunk teenager," Dr. Cyrus Rangan, director of the toxicology bureau for the county public health department and a medical toxicology consultant for Children's Hospital Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times. "There is no question that it is dangerous."

Teens who presented to the emergency room had symptoms such as slurred speech and a burning sensation in the stomach. Some teens were so drunk they needed to be monitored in the emergency room.

Rangan said although there have been only a handful of cases, the practice could become a nationwide problem since hand sanitizers are cheap and easily available, and teens can easily look up how to extract alcohol from a bottle. KTLA in Los Angeles reports there were no such cases last year, and the recent spate of cases in recent weeks is surprising.

"It is kind of scary that they go to that extent to get a shot of essentially hard liquor," Rangan said.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Department of Health told HealthPop there was no official city-wide warning or statement at this time.

Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said he has taken care of some teens out who had ingested hand sanitizers at school as a "dare," only to come to the ER drunk with dizziness, nausea and vomiting.

"They denied drinking any 'alcohol', had no smell of alcohol on their breath, but when their blood alcohol was quite elevated, they later admitted to drinking the hand sanitizer," Glatter told HealthPop.

Glatter said it's essential that warning labels be placed on hand sanitizers to educate parents and the public of potential risks.

"Officials in institutions where these products are available - including hospitals, schools, offices, heath clubs, and day care centers - have a duty to inform people about the alcohol content in these products, and subsequent dangers if ingested," he told HealthPop.

Doctors told the L.A. Times that parents should purchase foam hand sanitizers since they're harder to extract alcohol from compared with gel-based products, and they should monitor hand sanitizer bottles around the house as if they are liquor or medicine bottles.

"Over the years, they have ingested all sorts of things," Helen Arbogast, injury prevention coordinator in the trauma program at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, told the Times. "Cough syrup had reached a very sexy point where young people were using it.... We want to be sure this doesn't take on the same trend."

Source : http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57420106-10391704/drinking-hand-sanitizer-sends-calif-teens-to-hospital-drunk-doctors-warn/

Washington D.C. bus riders get meningitis scare: What is viral meningitis?

One of Washington Metropolitan Area Transporation Authorities' latest 7000 series New Flyer bus in service at Minnesota Avenue.

(Credit:Facebook/Metro Forward)

(CBS News) Washington D.C. residents are on alert after a bus operator came down with viral meningitis.

The bus driver last worked on Friday morning on a bus assigned to the 14th Street Line on Route 52 and 54, and it is not believed he went on any other bus during his shift, according to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Before that, he had been on vacation. The vehicles in question have been removed from service to be sanitized, and all 164 buses in the fleet were to be disinfected Monday night.

According to the New York State Department of Health (NYDOH), viral meningitis is an infection of the thin lining covering the brain and spinal cord known as the meninges. It normally occurs during the summer months and is caused by a virus, as the name would suggest, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The disease is most commonly caused by the spread of "enteroviruses", which often spread from person to person through contaminated feces or saliva and other bodily secretions of an infected person. Most people infected with enteroviruses will not develop meningitis as a complication of the illness, the CDC said.

Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, stiff neck, headache, irritability, low fever and an altered mental status. They normally appear 3 to 7 days after exposure and can last for 3 to 10 days. There are no medicines or antibiotics to treat the disease at this point, but it is less severe than other types of meningitis and normally goes away after rest and lots of fluids for people with normal immune systems. While it can affect anyone, infants younger than 1 year old and those with weaker immune systems are at risk.

Anyone experiencing symptoms of meningitis should contact a physician, according to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Outbreaks are fairly common, according to the NYDOH, with 500 to 700 cases reported in N.Y. state each year alone. Nationally statistics vary with estimates ranging from 25,000 to 50,000 cases of viral meningitis seen at U.S. hospitals each year, reports Everyday Health.

Precautions such as cleaning with disinfectants and not sharing drinks or kissing someone with the disease can help stop it's spread. Washing hands and controlling rat and mouse infestations can help as well. While there is no vaccine for viral meningitis, parents should make sure they and their child are vaccinated. Vaccinations included in the childhood vaccination schedule such as the MMR vaccine and chickenpox vaccine can protect children against some diseases that can lead to viral meningitis.

Source : http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57419970-10391704/washington-d.c-bus-riders-get-meningitis-scare-what-is-viral-meningitis/

Measles strategy misses targets

In 2010, 19 million infants did not get their measles vaccine

Global efforts to cut the number of deaths from measles have fallen short of World Health Organization (WHO) targets.

An analysis published in the Lancet said deaths had fallen by 74% between 2000 and 2010, but the target was 90%.

Outbreaks in Africa and delays in vaccination programmes in India have stalled progress, researchers say.

A new campaign to tackle the disease has been launched, which will combine measles and rubella jabs.

In 2000 there were 535,300 deaths from measles. This fell to 139,300 deaths in 2010, according to the analysis.

Outbreaks
The Measles and Rubella Initiative, a collaboration of international organisations including the WHO, said the decline in measles deaths was strong up to 2007, but measures "faltered" in 2008 and 2009.

This lead to outbreaks in Africa, Asia and even Europe.

Africa and India accounted for a combined total 79% of all deaths from measles between 2000 and 2010.

Anthony Lake - the executive director of the United Nations children's organisation Unicef, which is also part of the Measles and Rubella Initiative - said there were still 382 deaths from measles every day.

"Every one of them could have been saved by a vaccine," he said.

However, he said the 74% drop in deaths showed "vaccine campaigns can succeed even in the poorest countries and the remotest regions".

The next target is a 95% drop in deaths from their 2000 levels by 2015.

Dr Okwo-Bele, director of immunisation, vaccines and biologicals at the WHO, said: "We have reason to be optimistic that the 95% goal will be achieved by 2015."

The new campaign will see the introduction of a vaccine for both measles and rubella.

Dr Margaret Chan, the director general of the WHO, said: "A three-quarters drop in measles deaths worldwide shows just how effective well-run vaccination programmes can be.

"Now we need to take the next logical step and vaccinate children against rubella, too."

Source : http://bbc.co.uk/news/health-17815112