Category Archives: healthcare

Whooping cough: ‘Anti-vaxxers’ target Brisbane woman following viral Facebook plea for parents to vaccinate – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Whooping cough is a highly contagious respiratory infection.The infection causes severe coughing fits followed by a whooping sound on inhaling and, often, vomiting.It is particularly serious for children aged up to two years of age, but especially infants less than six months where it can be fatal.In this age range, between 0.5 and 1 per cent of children who catch whooping cough die from the disease, but the outlook improves in older children.”I don’t care whether you want to try and prove to me that vaccinations and herd immunities don’t work,” Ms Harreman said.”I don’t care that vaccinations have side effects, because every person in this world reacts differently to all types of food, products and medicines.”I could not care less, even if it is ever proven one day that they don’t work.”Because at least at the end of the day I tried to do something to prevent this and not sit there and say ‘oh well, vaccinations don’t work so I’ll just sit here and do nothing’ … because doing nothing goes against every cell in my body as a mother.”Doing nothing is just wrong.

Source: Whooping cough: ‘Anti-vaxxers’ target Brisbane woman following viral Facebook plea for parents to vaccinate – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A Baby Dies at Day Care, and a Mother Asks Why She Had to Leave Him So Soon – The New York Times

I wasn’t just up against the end of my parental leave. I was up against an entire culture that places very little value on caring for infants and small children. Parental leave reduces infant death, gives us healthier, more well-adjusted adults and helps women stay in the workforce. If we truly valued the 47 percent of the work force who are women, and the value of our families, things would look different. Mothers could go back to work after taking time off to recover physically from birth and bond with their young children. Health care could be available to bridge that return to work so that our children could get their wellness checkups and vaccinations.Yes, it’s possible that even in a different system, Karl still might not have lived a day longer, but had he had been with me, where I wanted him, I wouldn’t be sitting here, living with the nearly incapacitating anguish of a question that has no answer.There are plenty of good examples of how to create a national parental leave system that works. Our children can’t afford lobbyists. It’s up to us parents to demand more.

Source: A Baby Dies at Day Care, and a Mother Asks Why She Had to Leave Him So Soon – The New York Times

This is about the time I chose not to die. — Medium

Depression runs in my family. It was never acknowledged. Or spoken of. My father wasn’t a man to talk about his feelings. And the closest my mother ever came to happiness was denying it to others. Beyond them, the limbs on the family tree did some heavy lifting every few generations. They are part of a culture that doesn’t admit to depression. It’s a weakness. And immigrants don’t get depressed. It gets in the way of work. This is how I grew up. This is how a ton of people grow up.

Source: This is about the time I chose not to die. — Medium

Universal flu vaccine could end need for annual injections – Telegraph

Olga Pleguezuelos, the lead immunologist at Seek, told the Sunday Times: “We are confident this will protect people from any new strain of flu and we are hoping it will be fast-tracked through the regulatory process.”The vaccine is made using chemistry, not cells, [so] it can be cheaply produced and stored indefinitely at room temperature. The hope is that it will confer many years of immunity from flu.”

Source: Universal flu vaccine could end need for annual injections – Telegraph

#FOMO leading to higher levels of depression, anxiety for heavy social media users – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The fear of missing out (or FOMO) generated by high levels of social media use can lead to depression and anxiety, according to a new report looking at the way social media impacts wellbeing.The fifth annual National Stress and Wellbeing in Australia Survey has found Australians are faring worse than they were when the survey began, with higher levels of stress, depression and anxiety being reported.This year was the first time the study explored the impact of social media on behaviour and wellbeing.It found that social media dominated the lives of many teenagers, with over half (53 per cent) of Australian teens reporting that they used social networking sites for 15 minutes before bed every night.

Source: #FOMO leading to higher levels of depression, anxiety for heavy social media users – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

NorCal Man’s Headache Was Actually Worm Eggs In His Brain: SFist

Well, here’s nightmare fodder for pretty much ever. Sacramento State senior Luis Ortiz just thought he had an awful headache, but when he sought medical attention, he learned that things were much, much worse. Wormy worse.According to CBS5, the Napa man was rushed to the hospital after the pain in his head worsened. Once he was there, doctors made a gruesome discovery: Ortiz had a tapeworm in his head. It laid eggs. And those eggs caused a cyst that was preventing blood from circulating, which doctors say means he would have died in the next 30 minutes without medical attention.

Source: NorCal Man’s Headache Was Actually Worm Eggs In His Brain: SFist

Mortality Rates Rising Among Middle-Aged White Americans, Study Finds | News | PND

Ellen Meara and Jonathan S. Skinner noted that the least educated also faced the most financial distress. Increases in mortality rates for middle-aged whites rose in parallel with increases in indicators of pain, poor health, and distress, said Deaton, which provided the rationale for the increase in deaths from substance abuse and suicides.In their commentary, Meara and Skinner considered a variety of explanations for the trend — including a pronounced racial difference in the prescription of opioid drugs and their misuse, and a more pessimistic outlook among middle-aged whites about their financial futures — but said they could not fully account for the effect. “It is difficult,” they wrote, “to find modern settings with survival losses of this magnitude.”

Source: Mortality Rates Rising Among Middle-Aged White Americans, Study Finds | News | PND

Report shows countless birds dying from West Nile virus | Vaccine News “Uh oh!”

The study demonstrated that millions of birds die in just one year when they are exposed to the virus. “These populations are getting hammered — over five years, they’re losing a third of their population,” Harrigan said. “They’re getting infected every year. In some species, this has gone on five or six years after the disease hit, so the idea that the populations have not recovered since then is a bit scary.”

Source: Report shows countless birds dying from West Nile virus | Vaccine News

Quote of the Day: No mother wants her daughter to have fewer rights than she did

Yesterday, Glamour named Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, a Woman of the Year. And damn — that woman has seriously had a year. Speaking about the attacks on Planned Parenthood, TRAP laws passed in conservative states to shut down clinics, and the pressures of her job, Richards said: There’s not a mother in the world who wants her daughter to have fewer rights than she did—and for me, it’s the 2.7 million people Planned Parenthood serves each year who make everything I advocate for possible. Women, men, and young people deserve quality health care and fundamental rights. I will do this job every day to protect them.We’re all so grateful that she does.

Source: Quote of the Day: No mother wants her daughter to have fewer rights than she did

Deforestation ‘may have started west Africa’s Ebola outbreak’

Environment ministers from all over the world attend one-day conference on deforestation and climate change in London

Source: Deforestation ‘may have started west Africa’s Ebola outbreak’

Deforestation may have triggered the recent Ebola outbreak in west Africa, France’s environment minister Ségolène Royal told a London summit hosted by the Prince of Wales ahead of next month’s Cop21 conference.

Royal said researchers believe the destruction of forest habitat brought bats, known to carry the virus, into greater contact with humans.

“They had to clear the forest to begin subsistence agriculture and the deforestation has also been caused by mining activity and large-scale logging for export,” she told the high-level meeting at Lancaster House.

“This destruction of the natural habitat of fruit-eating bats drove the animals to approach human settlements to find food and the virus may have been transmitted during this increased contact resulting from deforestation,” she said.

{I have thought this had to have been the cause of many outbreaks in the past, or we would have heard about it for more than 100 years but it took generations before too much of the forest was cut and drove bats into closer contact with humans and other primates.}