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			Tuesday, July 7, 2009 News Clipping Archives *Maryland / Regional* $725,000 sought to provide employment services to mentally ill (Frederick News-Post) Job program aimed at people with mental illness (Hagerstown Herald-Mail) Senator Endorses Program to Create Jobs for People With Mental Illness (NBC25 Hagerstown) Major appointment at UMMC (Daily Record) Workforce program begins at Frederick's Way Station (The Gazette) Bay pollution called human peril (Baltimore Sun) Five businesses fined for selling alcohol to underage police cadet (The Aegis) Patient pavilion nearly finished (Baltimore Sun) *National / International* Patients fret over proposed Tylenol restrictions (Baltimore Sun) Celiac disease is on the rise (Baltimore Sun) An atlas of HIV/AIDS across the U.S. (Baltimore Sun) HIV Positive..So Why Don't They Get AIDS? (Washington Post) Darvon, Similar Drugs to Carry Stronger Warnings (Washington Post) Even Doctors Avoid Talking About Stillbirth (Washington Post) 1 death and more swine flu in central Florida (examiner.com) San Quentin won't accept new inmates, citing flu (The Associated Press) Mixed Marks for Swine Flu Updates (U.S. News & World Report) New H1N1 Flu Strain From Pig Farm Found in Canada (Bloomberg News) *Opinion* --- *Maryland / Regional* $725,000 sought to provide employment services to mentally ill By Meg Tully Frederick News-Post Tuesday, July 7, 2009 U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski will take the stories of Frederick residents back to Washington in the hopes of securing $725,000 in federal funding. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, announced Monday at the Way Station in Frederick that she is seeking the money to help fund a program to assist low-income, mentally ill people find and maintain work. "When I looked at this project, I thought, 'Oh wow, this is exactly what President Obama and all of us want to do,'" Mikulski said. "We want to have people back to work. We want to lower that unemployment number." The three-year pilot program will take place in Frederick County, five other Maryland counties and Baltimore City. In place since September, the program's goal is to help 500 people with severe mental illness each year. The nonprofit mental health organization Way Station, in Frederick, has served 180 people since the program began. The total project cost is $9 million; 72 percent of the funding comes from the state; 20 percent from a grant from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. The remaining 8 percent is proposed federal spending through the Senate Committee on Health, Education and Labor. "I came here today, to not only to learn the facts and the figures, which I could get through a memo, but to talk to the people who are the most affected and the people who effect change," Mikulski said. "So I'm fired up and rarin' to go, and hope to have a successful announcement by Labor Day." The program's goal is to employ up to 75 percent of the participants, compared the national average for the severely mentally ill population of 10 percent to 15 percent, said Steven Sharfstein, president and CEO of the Sheppard Pratt Health System. The program will use new practices to do that, including customized employment, employment counseling and self-employment. Frederick County resident Daniel Anderson spoke about the impact the program made on him. He served in the Maryland National Guard for 10 years and was honorably discharged in 2000. He chose not to re-enlist because of his mental illness. He was originally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and is diagnosed as having a schizo-effective disorder. He suffers from mood swings and panic attacks and lost his corporate security job because of the illness, he said. After several lengthy hospital stays, he was about to be discharged as homeless but Way Station provided him housing and rehabilitation services. He was able to continue his education at Frederick Community College and works 15 hours a week for Frederick electronic recycling company, e-End. Anderson said the program's job counselor helped him build a sum, gave feedback from his employer and provided emotional support when he became stressed. He plans to pursue a bachelor's degree in electronic media and film, with the goal of eventually becoming an assistant for a media station and later an independent director and producer. "I served my country for 10 years and now serve my community, and who knows Senator, one day I may be serving you coffee on the TV set of Fox News," Anderson said. Copyright 1997-09 Randall Family, LLC. Job program aimed at people with mental illness By Andrew Schotz Hagerstown Herald-Mail Tuesday, July 7, 2009 MARYLAND - A new initiative aims to place more low-income people with mental illness into jobs in Maryland. The three-year pilot program is being tried at eight vocational rehabilitation sites, including one that Way Station Inc., a nonprofit organization, runs in Hagerstown. Until now, the conventional wisdom has been to wait for mental illness symptoms to subside before letting people get public jobs, said Scott Rose, Way Station’s president. Under a more modern philosophy, people with mental illness can work in the community if they want to, with accommodations. Rose said jobs often have a medicinal value. “Work can create psychiatric stability in and of itself,” he said. The program could lead to about $1 million less in hospital care per year, he added. On Monday, U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., announced that she will push for federal funding to help the work-force program, which is expected to cost $9 million over three years. Two Maryland state agencies have committed 72 percent. The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation has pledged another 20 percent, contingent on a match for the remaining 8 percent. Mikulski is asking for that 8 percent, or $725,000, in the fiscal year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education funding bill, according to a news release her office issued. The Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider the bill this month before sending it to the full Senate for a vote, the news release says. Nationwide, 10 percent to 15 percent of people with mental illness have jobs, 23 percent if they get vocational training, Rose said. Under an “evidence-based” system that encourages people to work in the community and gives them on-the-job support, the percentage is about 60, Rose said. The Maryland pilot program is shooting for 75 percent employment by customizing jobs to fit people’s capabilities; gradually - not suddenly - reducing government assistance to people who work; and finding ways people can be self-employed. Way Station and three other nonprofit Sheppard Pratt Health System affiliates will administer the program at eight locations. Rose said they hope to help about 500 people during the pilot program. Since the project started about a year ago, 68 people in Hagerstown have participated, according to Rose. He said many businesses in the Hagerstown area are involved, including Martin’s grocery stores, Burger King, Food Lion, Arby’s, Jiffy Lube, McDonald’s, Kohl’s, Subway, Walmart, Best Buy, Friendly’s, Pizza Hut and The Plamondon Cos., which operate hotels and Roy Rogers restaurants. Copyright 2009 The Hagerstown Herald-Mail. Senator Endorses Program to Create Jobs for People With Mental Illness By Jackie Cutler NBC25 Hagerstown Monday, July 6, 2009 FREDERICK, MD - A new initiative in Maryland will create hundreds of jobs for those with mental illnesses. It's a program spearheaded by Senator Barbara Mikulski. Centers like the Way Station of Frederick will provide job placement and counseling as well as emotional support. Once in place, the program will provide 500 jobs for those living with mental illnesses. Mikulski said, "When I looked at this project I thought, 'Oh wow, this is exactly what President Obama and all of us want to do. We want to have people back to work.'" The program will be piloted for the next three years at eight Maryland site, one of which is located in Hagerstown and another in Frederick. Copyright (c) 1998 - 2009 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. Major appointment at UMMC Staff and Wire Reports Daily Record Tuesday, July 7, 2009 The University of Maryland Medical Center announced the appointment of Dr. Jonathan E. Gottlieb as its senior vice president and chief medical officer. Gottlieb has more than 30 years of experience working in academic medical centers. Before joining UMMC, he was the chief medical officer at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, where he also served as a professor of medicine and the assistant vice chancellor for clinical affairs at Washington University School of Medicine. Gottlieb begins his new role at UMMC in Baltimore this month. Gottlieb's wife, Dr. Valerie Omicioli, will join the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine as a specialist in gynecology. Copyright 2009 Daily Record. Workforce program begins at Frederick's Way Station Sen. Mikulski requests funding for statewide job program for people who are mentally ill By Erica L. Green The Gazette Tuesday, July 7, 2009 The Way Station of Frederick County hosted Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski on Monday as she announced that she will seek $720,000 for a program that would help at least 1,500 mentally ill people enter into the workforce in the next three years. Mikulski made the announcement before a spirited crowd at the Way Station in downtown Frederick, where she introduced the program as an innovative way to address health care reform, economic stimulus, and the most successful of social programs: jobs. "This is exactly what President Obama and Congress wants to do. We want people back to work," Mikulski said. "We want to make sure we have insurance for depression and diabetes … schizophrenia and surgery. I think we'll do a better job because of what we're doing here," she concluded. The three-year, $3 million-a-year initiative is a public-private partnership between the federal government, private donors and mental health organizations. Its mission is to employ more than 500 people a year who suffer from mental illness, and as a consequence unemployment in of Maryland, through customized job creation, coaching, and counseling. The goal is to reach thousands more by creating a model in Frederick, and in six neighboring jurisdictions, from which other states can develop their own program. The program has been under way for about a year in Frederick, Howard, Carroll, Montgomery, Baltimore and Washington counties, and in Baltimore City. The program is funded by the Maryland (72 percent), the Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Foundation (20 percent). The Weinberg grant, on which the program has been operating for a year, is conditioned upon securing the final 8 percent. The final 8 percent of the funding is contingent upon Mikulski's requests for the $725,000 approval from Congress' health committee. She said she hopes to have an announcement by Labor Day. Mental health professionals, employers, donors and beneficiaries of the program joined Mikulski in promoting the initiative, and attested to its effectiveness. Dr. Steve S. Sharfstein, president of Sheppard Pratt Health System, a leading in-and-out patient psychiatric hospital in Maryland, outlined the medical benefits of the program. "It was always thought that you treat the mental illness, and then you get a job," Sharfstein said. "But I have found that even if they may still be hearing voices, they can go to work. Having the structure of work, the self-esteem of work - that's therapy." Sharfstein said preliminary assessments of the program show a 60 percent employment rate, compared with a 10 percent to 15 percent national average for the mentally ill population. It also stands to save taxpayers by curbing publicly funded mental healthcare costs, Sharfstein said. Hospital care can run about $500 per day; a one-month episode can run $15,000. And not only are hospital stints expensive, they're "the most horrible experiences - ever," said Daniel Anderson, a Way Station resident and beneficiary of the new workforce program. Anderson, 40, a military veteran who suffered for years from paranoid schizophrenia, is now working at E-End, a technology disposal company in Frederick. It was a move that encouraged him to get his illness, his treatment and life under control. "I served my country for 10 years, and now I serve my community," Anderson testified to Mikulski. Anderson is also continuing his education, studying to become a producer for a media outlet. "Who knows, Ms. Senator, maybe I'll be serving you coffee on the set of Fox news," he concluded with a smile. Scott Rose, president of Way Station, said the program will be a great asset. "We're excited because this is truly a win-win," he said. "Frederick County can be proud because we are launching a national demonstration project." Copyright 2009 gazette.net. Bay pollution called human peril Bacteria, contaminants reported sickening people as well as fish By Timothy B. Wheeler Baltimore Sun Tuesday, July 7, 2009 The same pollution afflicting the Chesapeake Bay's fish and shellfish poses human health risks to people in the region, from bacteria and harmful algae in the water to contaminants in fish and drinking water, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation says. In a report released today, the Annapolis-based environmental group said the incidents of infection and illness among people who swim and wade in the bay's waters warrant greater government action to protect the public from pollution. "Dirty water doesn't only have an economic impact, it's got a human health impact as well," said William C. Baker, foundation president. "People are getting sick, and in some cases severely so." The group sued the Environmental Protection Agency in January, accusing the federal government of failing to enforce the Clean Water Act in not taking a stronger hand in the 26-year bay cleanup effort. Baker said the group has been unable so far to negotiate an acceptable settlement with agency officials. The report quotes scientists saying that the same nutrient pollution turning much of the bay into an oxygen-starved "dead zone" for fish is a factor in the growth of dangerous bacteria, such as Vibrio and Cryptosporidium, as well as harmful blooms of blue-green algae. The number of Vibrio infections in Maryland has increased from 18 in 2001 to 33 in 2008, the report says, but the increase may stem in part from a change in reporting requirements. Vibrio are a class of bacteria found naturally in most water, but certain species can cause skin ulcers and blood infections in people with exposed cuts, or severe gastrointestinal illness in people who eat contaminated shellfish. Bacteria and disease-causing organisms from animal or human waste pose another threat to those who come in contact with bay waters, the report says. Reported infections from one type of bacteria, Mycobacterium marinum, commonly called "fish handler's disease," have increased from nine in 1998 to 25 last year in Anne Arundel County, the foundation says. Bernie Voith of Crownsville contracted a life-threatening blood infection four years ago from a different bacteria after swimming by his house on a tributary of the Severn River. Voith, 81, says a scrape on his leg developed into a nasty, open wound, and he spent two weeks in the hospital. He says he hasn't been back in the water at Arden on the Severn since. Richard Eskin, director of science services for the Maryland Department of the Environment, says officials lack enough information to tell whether such water-related illnesses and harmful algae blooms are increasing or decreasing. But he noted there has never been a documented case of Vibrio from eating Maryland shellfish. And the number of days when state beaches are closed to swimming because of bacteria in the water has fallen by half since 2006. Dr. Thaddeus Graczyk, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins' public health school, said that while the state generally does "an excellent job" of checking beach waters, he believes it should test certain beaches for Cryptosporidium, which has caused fatal illness in some people with weakened immune systems. Eskin defended the state's beach monitoring, saying it is done in accordance with standards set by the EPA. He acknowledged that testing could be done more quickly - it now takes laboratories two days to analyze the water samples. Health risks should decline, Eskin added, as new state rules take effect to limit pollution from storm water runoff and to require upgrades of septic tanks near the water. One significant source of fecal contamination not regulated, though, is pet waste, which contributed 69 percent of the E. coli bacteria found in the Severn near Voith's home, according to a state study. About 40 percent of dog owners in the area admitted they generally did not pick up after their animals, the study said. Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun. Five businesses fined for selling alcohol to underage police cadet Four fined $1,000, fifth fined $2,000 By Bryna Zumer The Aegis Tuesday, July 7, 2009 The Harford County Liquor Control Board fined five businesses last Wednesday for selling alcohol to an underage police cadet during a May 28 sting operation involving 30 businesses. Chief Inspector Charles Robbins said the level of compliance was an improvement from the previous sting operation, which netted 14 violating businesses. Scotto's Cafe and Bertucci's, both in Bel Air, Saubel's Market in Whiteford and Cafe Italia in Fallston were each fined $1,000. New Fallston Liquors in Fallston received a $2,000 fine. All the business owners and employees of the various offending businesses who came before the board July 1 admitted to violations. Besides issuing fines, the liquor control board also approved Thomas Brettschneider, at Chili's of Bel Air, and Anastacia Chryssos, at Basta Pasta of Fallston, as new liquor license holders for those establishments. Copyright 2009 The Aegis. Patient pavilion nearly finished New 5-level building is part of $105 million expansion project By Olivia Bobrowsky Baltimore Sun Sunday, July 5, 2009 As the population grows and baby boomers age, Howard County General Hospital is bracing for an influx of patients, armed with a new, five-level patient pavilion. Its 90 private rooms, centralized outpatient center and enhanced support services should add up to a "dramatic reduction" in emergency room wait times by next year, president and CEO Victor Broccolino said. Two departments are already operating in the space and others are moving in this week, but patient rooms won't be ready until early August. Then, the hospital will boast a net increase of 18 beds, while it incrementally converts the rest of its semi-private rooms to private ones. By July 2010, the $105 million project should be mostly finished and the net gain in beds should jump to 44, Broccolino said. The hospital is celebrating the first phase of the opening Friday and Saturday. "Patient safety and community expectations were the two main drivers," he said, stressing that private rooms are critical to preventing infections, disturbances and human error such as a patient's medication accidentally being given to a roommate. "Community expectations" includes physicians who needed more advanced operating rooms, as well as Howard County residents who rallied for shorter ER wait times. Stuart Kohn, a retired North Laurel resident who has lived in the community for 26 years, said his father-in-law was forced to go to far-away hospitals when the one closest to him ran out of open beds. "I'm a concerned citizen. I believe in quality of life to the fullest," he said. Kohn started an ER committee in the Howard County Citizens Association in April and testified before the County Council about the issue June 15. He referenced data from the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems that calculated how often Howard County ambulances were diverted to other hospitals because of space issues - a status called "yellow alert." As of July 1, Howard County General was on yellow alert 41 percent of the time in 2009, said John New, the director of information technology and quality management at the institute. That's a 10 percent increase from last year. Still, New said although that means the hospital tells ambulances not to come, ambulances with Priority 1 patients are exempt from the rule. "It's directly attributable to not having enough beds," said Broccolino, who expects the yellow-alert status to lower to 15 percent by the beginning of 2010. Bridget Mugane, the president of the citizens association, said she's not sure the 44 additional beds will have a big enough impact. "That is likely not to adequately address the ER problem," she said. "We think this could be part of the executive initiative to improve health services in the county." Mugane and her team want the county to consider health services before development is authorized. Currently, Howard County monitors only the adequacy of roads and schools before signing off on new projects, she said. So far, the ER committee is focused solely on researching the issue, especially considering the 5,500 new homes planned in Columbia and development around Fort Meade. Barbara Russell, chairwoman of the 10-person ER committee, said once they have sufficient data they will suggest a course of action. And in the meantime, they're not trying to point fingers. "I've been very grateful that we've had a hospital here and very grateful that we've had an ER," said Russell, a longtime Columbia resident. "My personal intention serving on this committee is not to be a critic but to be someone who tries to help improve the service of the hospital, and it's of major importance to the community." Although Broccolino went before the County Council to clarify the numbers Kohn quoted, he said he still values everyone's input. "I'm in this community a lot, and people are not shy about coming up to me and telling me about their experiences, good and bad, so I hope to hear less of the bad once we open the pavilion," he said. Beyond the ER dispute, Mugane called the overall expansion a "wonderful improvement," even though she hasn't seen the new wing. The addition features sleep sofas in every room, nurse stations between each pair of rooms and ledge-free bathrooms. The rehabilitation facilities on the first floor feature modern equipment, a walking track and television and sound systems. All of those features used evidence-based design to improve quality of care - Broccolino's first goal. "Patient safety is really the big thing," he said. "When you're in any kind of leadership position and you know that what happened with your institution caused either death or disability, that really is discouraging if you care about the patient. And that sometimes haunts you." Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun. *National / International* Patients fret over proposed Tylenol restrictions Associated Press By Lindsey Tanner Baltimore Sun Tuesday, July 7, 2009 CHICAGO - Proposed limits on Tylenol, a painkiller as common as pain itself, have left many consumers fearful, confused and wondering where to turn for relief. The potential government crackdown on acetaminophen, Tylenol's main ingredient, would affect everyone from occasional pill poppers to chronic pain sufferers who rely on daily doses to make their lives more bearable. If adopted by the Food and Drug Administration, the changes would lower the maximum over-the-counter Tylenol dose and would ban two narcotic painkillers, Vicodin and Percocet, which also contain acetaminophen. Yet another painkiller, propoxyphene, was the target of FDA action on Tuesday. Also sold as Darvon and in an acetaminophen combination called Darvocet, it has been linked to accidental overdoses and suicides. The prescription medication will now come with a pamphlet describing the risk. Sharon Waldrop, a mother of two young boys in Royal Oak, Mich., takes Tylenol regularly for severe muscle pain. She knows about liver damage risks but says she "could not get by" with the proposed lower doses. Karen Palmer of Cincinnati takes Percocet for debilitating rheumatoid arthritis and says it took five years to find medicine that really helps. "I don't want to have to go through that all over again," said the 46-year-old hotel worker, on disability because of the disease. Dr. Ronnie Mandal, an internist at Chicago's Swedish Covenant Hospital, says he's gotten calls from worried elderly patients who saw the news on TV last week. "Most of them are wondering, is it safe for me to use," he said. For those on Tylenol, the short answer -- from Mandal and other physicians -- is yes, if used judiciously. Doctors say there's no reason to switch to other pain relievers, which can cause different problems. But avoiding an acetaminophen overdose requires reading medicine bottles scrupulously and doing a little math because acetaminophen is often a hidden ingredient. Popping a few extra pills or mixing Tylenol with other medicines can quickly add up to too much. So can taking any of these drugs while drinking alcohol, which aggravates effects on the liver. For users of the proposed banned narcotic drugs, which one liver expert likened to candy mixed with poison, options would be more limited, particularly given other recent clampdowns on narcotic painkillers. "If these drugs were not available to our patients, there would be a stampede toward the doctor to try to figure out an alternative treatment for them because they're such widely used drugs," said Dr. Gil Fanciullo of the American Pain Society. The results could be undertreatment of pain, or putting patients on even stronger narcotics. Better labeling of medicines that have acetaminophen is the answer, rather than making them less available, said Fanciullo, a pain management specialist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. Dave Duhrkoop, a retired marketing manager in Troutdale, Ore., has taken Vicodin and Percocet for severe back pain. He's now on a different drug but thinks banning the other two would be overkill. It could lead chronic pain sufferers to turn to street drugs "because people don't want to hurt." According to the FDA, prescription acetaminophen combination drugs were prescribed 200 million times last year. Tylenol's maker says nearly 50 million U.S. adults and children take acetaminophen in any given week. The panel's proposals, announced June 30, were prompted by concerns over acetaminophen overdoses, which are the leading cause of liver failure. They sicken more than 50,000 people and cause at least 200 deaths each year nationwide. Poisoning is not believed to be a risk for long-term users of recommended Tylenol doses, and they do not need liver tests, said Dr. William M. Lee, a liver disease specialist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Liver problems associated with excessive use of Tylenol and other forms of the drug tend to occur suddenly. They typically show up within about three days of taking extra doses, Lee said, and even a few extra pills over a few days can cause problems. That's why the FDA panel recommended making the current maximum single dose of Tylenol, 1,000 milligrams, available by prescription only. The new maximum single dose would be 650 mgs. The total daily limit would be cut from 4 grams, about 12 regular-strength Tylenol pills, to an unspecified lower dose. Symptoms of liver problems include nausea, vomiting, upper abdominal pain and jaundice. With immediate treatment, permanent liver damage can be prevented. The recommendations led Tylenol's manufacturer to run full-page ads in major newspapers Friday declaring the medicine is safe when used as directed. The ads also say never take more than recommend doses, and don't use two products containing acetaminophen at the same time. That includes over-the-counter cold medicines such as Nyquil and Theraflu, and prescription medicines also containing the drug. The Arthritis Foundation issued a statement supporting the limits, saying that arthritis patients "must be made aware of potential side effects of drugs so they can decide about the level of risk they are willing to accept." Lee, the Dallas liver specialist, also supports the proposed limits. He provided data on acetaminophen poisoning to the FDA advisory panel. The full FDA is considering the recommendations, but any final decisions are months away. The proposed ban on Vicodin and Percocet is justified because they're so easy to abuse, Lee said. The narcotics in these drugs are addictive and can lead users to take increasingly higher doses -- but that also means increasingly higher amounts of acetaminophen. Quoting a colleague, Lee said it makes no sense to combine a highly addictive drug with a "dose-related poison. It's like putting poison and candy together." Oxycodone, the narcotic in Percocet, can be prescribed separately. But Vicodin's narcotic ingredient is hydrocodone, which isn't available alone. The risks for liver failure justify the restrictions, Lee said. On the Net: FDA on acetaminophen and liver damage: http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm168830.htm American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases: http://www.aasld.org Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. Celiac disease is on the rise By Judith Graham Baltimore Sun Wednesday, July 1, 2009 Celiac disease is a little known auto-immune disease involving an adverse reaction to gluten -- a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. Once this condition was thought to be rare. But new research shows it's more common than previously thought and rising sharply. Dr. Joseph Murray, a professor of medicine and immunology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., documents the upward trend in research published today in the journal Gastroenterology. For the study, the physician examined blood samples gathered from people at Wyoming's Warren Air Force Base between 1948 and 1954 and compared them with samples taken recently from residents of Olmsted County, Minn. He then matched the two databases by an individual's age. Murray's analysis showed that young people today are 4.5 more likely to have celiac disease than they were in the 1950s. "Celiac disease has become much more common in the last 50 years and we don't know why," Murray said. The illness now affects about one in a hundred people. Auto-immune disease in general are increasing, and some scientists hypothesize that's because hygiene has improved considerably, exposing people to fewer germs and leading their immune systems to become less robust. Also, the nature of wheat itself (the varieties grown) has changed in the past half century, as have methods for processing grains, Murray noted. "Something has changed in our environment to make [celiac disease] much more common," he said. Often, this illness, which has a broad array of vague symptoms, goes undiagnosed. Symptoms include diarrhea (especially stinky, gray colored stools), anemia, fatigue, excess gas, bloating, skin rashes, mouth sores, Vitamin D deficiency, tingling in the hands or feet, and unexplained infertility, Murray said. His study found that people with celiac disease that went undiagnosed were four times more likely to die than those without the condition over 45 years of follow-up. The results convince Murray that testing for celiac disease should become more widespread. People who should be tested include those with a family history of gluten intolerance, people with Type 1 diabetes or a family history of Type 1 diabetes, patients with irritable bowel syndrome (which is often mistaken for celiac disase), women and men with early onset osteoporosis, and people with anemia, he said. A simple blood test is over 90 percent accurate, but it needs to be followed up with an endoscopy to draw a sample from the small intestine. With celiac disease, fingerlike projections in the small intestine become damaged and less able to absorb nutrients. Treatment consists of a gluten free diet, and symptom relief can begin in as little as a week. Usually, the condition is reversable with a proper diet within six months to a year, Murray said. Copyright 2009 Baltimore Sun. An atlas of HIV/AIDS across the U.S. TRIAGE – Making sense of health care By Judith Graham Baltimore Sun Tuesday, June 30, 2009 Data about HIV/AIDS in every U.S. county is now represented graphically at a new online atlas published by the National Minority Quality Forum. To see a copy of the atlas, click here and register. (There is no charge for doing so.) You won't get precise HIV and AIDS prevalence rates for each county; instead, you'll discover whether prevalence rates -- the number of cases per 100,000 people -- are high, medium or low. (There are seven gradations for prevalence rates represented by seven colors, from deep red for "extremely high" to kelly green for "extremely low.") When you click on the Illinois map for HIV (non-AIDS) cases, you'll see that most of the state is green or yellow -- on the low side in terms of HIV penetration. (HIV is the virus that can cause AIDS.) Cook County is orange, signifying a large number of HIV cases. And other Illinois areas that you might not expect are orange as well: Brown, Fayette, Johnson, Livingston, Logan, and Montgomery counties. A map makes it easy to visualize where public health problems are surfacing and where resources may need to be directed. As for AIDS, the new atlas shows surprising results in Illinois. Cook County isn't the area with the highest prevalence of people with AIDS; Brown, Johnson and Livingston counties have that distinction. In fact, the three counties are among 72 in the nation that have the highest concentration of residents with AIDS. (Keep in mind these are non-urban counties with a relatively small population to begin with.) I wonder what services for people with AIDS look like in those counties. That's the subject for another post, but if you have thoughts to share, please do so here. Copyright 2009 Baltimore Sun. HIV Positive..So Why Don't They Get AIDS? Researchers Hope 'Elite' Group Holds Clues for Others By Charles Slack Washington Post Tuesday, July 7, 2009 At first Karen Pancheau figured her son Tyler's nasty rash came from friction on the mats at judo class. But when the rash began dissolving layers of flesh, his father took the teenager for tests, which revealed he had HIV. Karen, too, tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, which she'd apparently acquired from a blood transfusion in June 1982 and to which she'd exposed Tyler during childbirth and breast-feeding. Yet as Tyler's HIV slowly progressed to AIDS, Karen remained healthy. Various drug cocktails kept AIDS from killing Tyler, but they left him constantly fatigued, and on Nov. 11, 2005, the 23-year-old committed suicide. Remarkably, 27 years after receiving HIV-tainted blood, Karen Pancheau of Portland, Ore., has yet to develop AIDS. She isn't alone. Bruce Walker, who now directs the Partners AIDS Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Center for AIDS Research at Harvard University, first became aware in 1992 that some people seemed somehow protected from AIDS. He learned about the phenomenon from Susan Buchbinder, an epidemiologist in San Francisco who was analyzing blood from homosexual men whose samples showed they had been infected with HIV in the late 1970s; many had died, but some weren't even sick. Then, in 1994, Walker met a hemophiliac in Boston named Bob Massie, who had become infected with HIV through a blood transfusion in 1978 -- three years before AIDS was identified. "People keep telling me I'm going to die, and I keep living," Massie told Walker. A few years later, speaking before several hundred doctors at an AIDS conference in New York, Walker asked how many had run across similar patients. When at least half the audience raised their hands, Walker realized that people like Massie represented a real opportunity for research. Walker also understood why these rare individuals -- no more than one in every 300 cases, or perhaps 5,000 of the more than 1 million infected Americans -- had remained so well hidden: "They weren't sick. They weren't coming to the hospital." Those protected few came to be called "elite controllers" because their ability to combat the virus puts them in exceptional company among infected individuals. Their existence injects a note of hope into a field of research that has become accustomed to failure and disappointment. Since HIV was identified in 1981, AIDS has claimed more than 25 million lives, and today some 33 million people worldwide are infected with HIV. Although pharmaceutical advances have greatly increased how long many patients survive, those innovations have merely commuted what once seemed an automatic death sentence to a lifetime of battling a chronic disease. AIDS medications are expensive and must be taken daily, creating a logistical nightmare for reaching the poorer parts of the world, in which AIDS proliferates. Many scientists have openly questioned whether truly conquering AIDS, with a vaccine or a cure, is even possible. Against that gloomy outlook stands the relative handful of elite controllers. No one knows how their bodies keep AIDS at bay. Are their immune systems exceptionally strong and effective? Do they possess some genetic trait that protects them? Or does a combination of still-unknown factors set them apart? As more and more elite controllers emerge -- some 500 in the United States have so far volunteered for testing -- scientists hope they will be able to uncover what shields these rare few from AIDS. And perhaps in the process they'll find a way to safeguard everyone else as well. Like many other viruses, the human immunodeficiency virus does its damage by entering healthy cells, reproducing and releasing copies of itself that then infiltrate other cells. The immune system fights back with several mechanisms, including B cells, which produce antibodies that coat invading viruses, preventing them from entering other cells; and T cells, which find and destroy infected cells. In the typical progression of HIV, a patient's viral load -- the number of viral copies per milliliter of blood -- creeps higher while the number of T cells declines. When a patient's T cell count falls to about 200 per milliliter and an "opportunistic" infection (often pneumocystic pneumonia or Kaposi's sarcoma) takes hold, the patient is considered to have progressed to AIDS. People with AIDS may have viral loads of several hundred thousand copies per milliliter. In contrast, the viral loads of elite controllers range from a scant 50 down to levels so small that even the most sensitive tests can't detect them. Doctors know these people have the virus only because separate tests have revealed the presence of antibodies to HIV in their systems. In other words, elite controllers aren't HIV-free; they may still be able to pass the virus to others, in whom it may be deadly. Two characteristics of HIV make the infection an immense challenge for the body -- and for vaccines -- to combat. Most viruses attack particular parts of the body, with, for example, the common cold virus going after the nasal passages and hepatitis infecting the liver. But HIV targets T cells themselves, weakening the very system needed to fight disease. What's more, unlike most other viruses, HIV can mutate rapidly, making it extremely difficult to develop an effective vaccine. "This isn't just one virus," says Dennis Burton, an immunologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. "You're talking about tens of thousands of different viruses." Even worse, neutralizing one HIV variant simply creates a niche for other mutations to fill. Early on, researchers discovered that elite controllers aren't infected with a less virulent strain of the disease. But little else about their condition is certain. Since 2006, Walker and his colleagues have been organizing an international contingent of more than 250 researchers and more than 200 physicians who have elite controllers as patients. Initially funded by a gift from the Mark and Lisa Schwartz Foundation and recently boosted by a $22 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the International HIV Controllers Study is working to identify elite controllers, collect samples of their blood and DNA, and distribute the samples to labs for analysis. Some blood samples have made their way to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where scientists versed in nanotechnology -- the study of very small structures -- are examining how the immune system fights off disease.. The immune system uses an array of defenses -- broadly classified into innate and adaptive immunity -- to fight off viruses, bacteria and other invaders. Innate immunity refers to defenses humans are born with; the skin and mucous membranes, for example, help keep out most attackers. But it's adaptive immunity that is compromised in AIDS. That subsystem depends on B cell antibodies and killer T cells that not only seek out and destroy intruders but also remember them the next time they attempt to invade. Vaccines normally work by introducing a dead or harmless piece of virus that stimulates the adaptive immune system to attack. In that way, the body builds defenses capable of destroying the real virus. But AIDS has resisted every effort to develop a vaccine. The MIT team wants to know whether the T cells in elite controllers have special properties. The answer will require a much more detailed understanding of how T cells function. So the team has developed a system to trap a single T cell along with a single cell infected with HIV. That allows researchers to watch T cells attacking infected cells and to compare the action of elite controllers' cells with those of patients whose HIV has progressed into AIDS. One clue may already have emerged. In the Dec. 19 issue of the journal Immunity, researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases concluded that the killer T cells of elite controllers killed 68 percent of infected cells in an hour, compared with just 8.1 percent for those with AIDS. One theory about elite controllers holds that they possess special genetic traits, beyond any differences in their immune systems, that better equip them to battle AIDS. Geneticist Paul de Bakker of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston is combing through the human genome to find those characteristics. It's a daunting endeavor. The genome comprises 3 billion coded pieces of information that determine who a person is. Some 99.9 percent of these pieces are the same in all people, but there are points of difference known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, pronounced "snips"). In his search for SNPs along the 3-billion-link chain, de Bakker isn't looking for an AIDS-causing gene but for something more subtle, a predisposition that empowers controllers to keep HIV from taking hold. To conduct his experiments, de Bakker uses powerful DNA scanners. Researchers deposit DNA samples on a "SNP chip" and insert it into a machine that produces color-coded maps of a person's DNA. Researchers can now examine as many as a million SNPs at once, but de Bakker thinks that within five years scanners will be able to compare the entire code of thousands of people. Somewhere in there, he thinks, will be clues to how elite controllers fend off AIDS. Controllers themselves are as mystified as anyone about what makes their bodies special. For many, including Karen Pancheau, survival is bittersweet: Their own good health is counterbalanced by the pain of having lost friends or family members to the disease. "I have my glass-half-empty days, but I try not to dwell on those," Pancheau says. She thinks that an answer to the disease, an answer derived in a way from her own blood, would be a fitting tribute to the son she lost: "That's why I do this." A longer version of this story ran in Proto, a quarterly biomedical magazine published by Massachusetts General Hospital. Comments: health@washpost.com. Copyright 2009 Washington Post. Darvon, Similar Drugs to Carry Stronger Warnings By David Brown Washington Post Tuesday, July 7, 2009 The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it will require stricter labeling of drugs containing propoxyphene, a mild opioid painkiller that the European Union's FDA-equivalent decided last month to phase out of use. The trade name of the drug is Darvon. Combined with acetaminophen -- a non-addictive painkiller that FDA issued a warning about last week -- it is sold as Darvocet. The activist organization Public Citizen in 2006 petitioned the FDA to ban propoxyphene. In January, a committee of experts advising the agency voted 14 to 12 that the drug should be withdrawn. On June 25, the European Medicines Agency announced the drug would be phased out of use. In its decision Tuesday, however, the FDA concluded that propoxyphene is useful enough to remain on the market, at least for now. Propoxyphene has been on the market since 1957. From 1969 through 2005, 91 deaths attributed to the drug have been reported to the FDA, although that is assumed to be only a small fraction of the total fatalities. Some of the deaths may have occurred because of an effect on the heart called "QT prolongation," which can lead to a deadly arrhythmia. The drug will now carry a "boxed warning" and pharmacists will be required to give patients information stressing the hazards of taking higher-than-prescribed doses. The FDA will also ask the Medicare program and the Veterans Health Administration for their records on the safety of propoxyphene in the elderly. About 22 million prescriptions for propoxyphene-containing painkillers are written each year. (In comparison, the most popular prescription painkiller, a hydrocodone and acetaminophen combination sold as Vicodin, sells 120 million prescriptions.) Nearly 40 percent of Darvon and Darvon-like drugs are used by people 65 and older. Copyright 2009 Washington Post. Even Doctors Avoid Talking About Stillbirth By Alan Goldenbach Washington Post Tuesday, July 7, 2009 About a month after our son died, my wife and I made our first visit back to her obstetrician's office hoping to get answers to some of the questions that haunted us. We had already learned why he died a day before he was supposed to be born; an autopsy showed his umbilical cord had become knotted. What we were left with was a helpless feeling, exacerbated by the fact that our son's death blindsided us. Over the previous year, we had absorbed countless pieces of pregnancy literature and fiercely adhered to our obstetrician's guidelines for a healthy pregnancy. While we knew that stillbirth is possible in every pregnancy, no book nor our doctor ever mentioned the term. So we asked our doctor: "Why not?" "Pregnancy is a happy time," she told us sheepishly, from behind her desk. "Nobody wants to hear anything about something bad, much less death." We left her office with a sense of betrayal and frustration. We had done a little homework since our son's death and were stunned to find how common cases like ours are -- yet how rarely people talk about them. There are about 26,000 stillbirths annually in the United States -- one in about every 160 pregnancies, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is 10 times the number of deaths attributed to sudden infant death syndrome, which has been identified as a key public health issue, and four times the incidence rate of Down syndrome, for which prenatal testing has become almost ritual. Domestically, there are 2 1/2 times more stillbirths annually than deaths from AIDS. Several doctors told us that they don't see any point in discussing stillbirth, that it's a catch-all term for an event, and one that is frequently unexplained. If doctors knew the causes of stillbirth or its telltale signs, they say, they'd warn parents -- and take preventive action. But if you don't talk about an issue, you'll never learn more about it. Take SIDS: Awareness campaigns triggered research that showed babies were suffocating when they slept facedown. Consequently, such measures as ensuring that babies sleep on their backs and on firm mattresses have become fundamental orders for parents of newborns. What if similar research had been done on stillbirths? Might increased fetal monitoring during the final trimester have spotted my son's tangled umbilical cord? While we marvel at sonograms and their ability to show a fetal heart beating, they are as yet unable to detect an umbilical cord in utero. We can't know if improved technology or more stringent standards of monitoring can lower stillbirth rates unless we do the research. "It's the trade-off -- you are going to frighten a lot of people" by discussing stillbirth, said Ruth C. Fretts, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Harvard Medical School and chair of the scientific committee for the International Stillbirth Alliance, a nonprofit collaborative that seeks to increase the understanding and prevention of stillbirth. "It seems like a lot of intervention. We spend about an hour during the first visit talking about screening for Down syndrome. We don't spend any time at the end talking about [stillbirth] . . . . We haven't framed the question appropriately enough to draw attention to stillbirth. People didn't count them [as deaths] for so long." Jason Collins, a Louisiana obstetrician who heads the nonprofit Pregnancy Institute, which promotes improved fetal monitoring for full-term births, says there's little talk about stillbirth "because doctors are afraid of the repercussions." According to Fretts's research, the leading cause of fetal death after 28 weeks is an unexplained source, dwarfing such culprits as fetal malnutrition and placental abruption. In other words, the most common result after a stillbirth is a doctor telling grieving parents, "I don't have an answer for you." Several doctors told us privately that many OB-GYNs fear charges of malpractice following a stillbirth, leading them to avoid citing a cause of death. Discussing stillbirth is made all the more difficult by the term's lack of clarity. While the clinical definition in the United States for stillbirth is the death of a fetus after 20 weeks of gestation or weighing 350 grams or more if the age is unknown, I can't count the number of times I heard my son's death referred to as a miscarriage, which is usually defined as occurring before 20 weeks and seemed to us to diminish the loss of a baby at full term. According to the World Health Organization, stillbirth rates in the United States are greater than those of every European nation, Canada, Australia, Japan and Singapore, yet some experts say it is inappropriate to compare them because there is no single definition of the term. For example, in Sweden, a stillbirth is a fetal death after 28 weeks. Other nations use a 16-week definition. "You really can't compare stillbirth rates in certain countries," said Wes Duke, a CDC medical officer who has spearheaded a program in metropolitan Atlanta to improve data collection of stillbirths for the purpose of determining causes. "It's really apples and oranges." While there is disagreement over the meaning of the term "stillbirth" at the administrative level, a few people at the grass-roots level are determined to raise awareness by talking about it. Jeanine McGrath, a registered nurse at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring who has been serving on the hospital's Perinatal Loss Committee for 12 years, remembers meeting a woman who had twins. One was stillborn, and the woman's inability to come to terms with her situation inspired McGrath. "She told me, 'I don't know how to feel,' " McGrath said. " 'Everyone says I should be happy because I have a baby, but I also have a baby who died.' " In January 2006, McGrath launched a weekly perinatal loss support group at Holy Cross. She said that each group averages about a half-dozen families and that by the end of an eight-to-10-week session, people want to discuss the death of their baby. "I start and end the group the same way every time [by telling everyone that] you are very brave," McGrath said. "Why in the heck would you want to cry in front of strangers?" McGrath has not had trouble filling each session. She said there are about 125 to 150 stillbirths annually just at Holy Cross. She said she also mails invitations to families who suffer stillbirths at other Washington area hospitals. "As a society, we're told just to deal," McGrath said. "There's this idea that you can just have another one, that they're disposable. "We have a very limited ritual around death. In this country, it's 'Have funeral and get it over with and move on.' But when it's a baby, we don't even have a word for what to call it." McGrath said she has heard countless times in her support group from parents who received no guidance from their doctors about stillbirth. One woman, she said, told a story about receiving a hand-written note from her veterinarian following the death of her dog. "But when her baby died, the woman heard nothing from her doctor," McGrath said. There was another woman who called her obstetrician's office after the stillbirth of her daughter and heard the following prompts: "Press 1 to make an appointment, press 2 to make a payment, press 3 for prescriptions." "I have a dead baby," the woman told McGrath's support group. "Which button do I push?" McGrath said part of the problem stems from large obstetrics practices, which encourage women to visit each doctor in case that one is on call the day of delivery. It becomes a classic case of groupthink, where none of the doctors wants to deviate from the tried-and-true workflow. "For many of the [medical] groups, they're huge," McGrath said. "It's seven or eight doctors and they all want to see you. Where is it in the prenatal plan? Somebody is going to talk about it, but they just expect someone else to do it." Now someone is trying to talk about stillbirth, and it's a most unlikely source: Congress. Last June, then-Sen. Barack Obama introduced the Preventing Stillbirth and SUID Act of 2008, but it was unable to gain much traction. ("SUID" stands for "sudden unexpected infant death.") Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) has picked up the cause and is crafting similar legislation that, according to sources familiar with the bill, will be brought to the Senate floor before the August recess. "We need to know more about stillbirths to help increase awareness and prevention," Lautenberg said. "We are crafting legislation to improve data collection so we can better understand what's causing stillbirths and help parents looking for answers." The bill, which is more policy- and data-oriented than research-driven, will expand upon registries of stillbirths already in place in Iowa and metropolitan Atlanta. Lautenberg and the bill's other sponsors hope to have as many as a dozen states participating in the registry and providing a standard protocol for data collection following each stillbirth. Among the bill's other provisions is a campaign to increase public awareness and grief support services. "This bill will at least raise the awareness," said Fretts, who has consulted with Lautenberg's staff on this bill, "and that's a big start." My wife and I could have used that. Copyright 2009 Washington Post. 1 death and more swine flu in central Florida Examiner.com Tuesday, July 7, 2009 Orange county health department officials reported the death of a sixth person with A/H1N1 swine flu in Florida today. The 19-year-old woman, who was visiting central Florida from Pennsylvania, had an undisclosed pre-existing medical condition and died within 24 hours of her hospital admission. Health officials indicated the cause of death was still being determined, although it was believed to be related to the swine flu. County and hospital officials did not say whether the woman who died had visited any local tourist attractions, adding that it was "not relevant." Because the woman was not a Florida resident, her death is being added to Pennsylvania's swine flu related death count. At least 10 students at the University of Central Florida (UCF) who tested positive for swine flu are recovered or recovering. Another 16 have tested positive for influenza A and are awaiting state lab results to see if the strain is A/H1N1 swine flu. According to school officials, there is no common link between the infected students, only two of whom have a class together. CDC officials continue to advise anyone with flu-like symptoms to stay home from work or school to avoid spreading infections. They recommend avoiding close contact with people who appear ill, washing hands frequently, and covering nose and mouth when sneezing. All students at UCF have received an e-mail reminding them of these common sense guidelines. According to the CDC’s updates as of Friday, July 3, statewide in Florida there are 1302 confirmed cases including five other deaths related to swine flu. Three deaths were in Miami-Dade County, one was in Broward County and another one was in Seminole County in the Orlando area. All four state health laboratories are actively testing samples to confirm A/H1N1 swine flu and the department continues enhanced surveillance and outreach to physicians, hospitals and other health care professionals. The surveillance system consists of sentinel physicians reporting influenza activity, health department laboratories receiving specimens from physicians, hospitals and emergency rooms, as well as monitoring over-the-counter drug sales. The World Health Organization (WHO) alert level is at Phase 6 "pandemic” which is based on geographic distribution and not the severity of swine flu. Copyright 2009 examiner.com. San Quentin won't accept new inmates, citing flu The Associated Press Tuesday, July 7, 2009 SACRAMENTO, Calif.—San Quentin State Prison will stop accepting inmates from 19 Northern California counties Wednesday because of swine flu fears, corrections officials said Tuesday. Nearly half the 5,200 inmates in the prison north of San Francisco are being quarantined. Luis Patino, a spokesman for the federal receiver who oversees prison medical care, said tests show four inmates likely have the H1N1 virus, and 47 inmates are showing symptoms. Inmates aren't being shipped to other prisons for fear they could spread the pandemic flu. That means there's no room for the roughly 250 new inmates who would normally be shipped in from county jails each week. Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said the department is arranging with counties to bring incoming inmates to other prisons for processing as early as Wednesday. He said San Quentin will soon be able to accept some new inmates as others are paroled. About 105 inmates each week are normally paroled from San Quentin. "No one's getting early release, nothing like that," Hidalgo said. He said the department has routinely faced similar problems with other contagious diseases. Copyright 2009 Associated Press. Mixed Marks for Swine Flu Updates Study finds wide variations in Web reports by states and municipalities US News & World Report Posted July 7, 2009 TUESDAY, July 7 (HealthDay News) -- State and local health departments in the United States get mixed marks for their use of Web sites to inform the public about the swine flu outbreak, a new study shows. After the U.S. government declared a public health emergency in April, 46 of 50 state health departments posted some information about the H1N1 outbreak within 24 hours of the federal announcement, according to Rand Corp. researchers. However, only a third of the 153 local health departments included in the study posted information on their Web sites within 24 hours of the federal announcement. The researchers also found wide differences in performance among local health departments in the five states with confirmed swine flu cases at the start of the outbreak -- California, Kansas, New York, Ohio and Texas. About 73 percent of counties in California quickly provided some information on their Web sites, compared with 18 percent of counties in Texas and eight percent of counties in Kansas. The study also found that content posted by most state health departments was of high quality. Forty-three of 47 state health departments provided information about how people could protect themselves or their family, 36 of 47 offered information about when to seek treatment and 27 of 47 explained who should take antiviral drugs. Among the other findings: * 30 states provided information for health-care providers, with 14 posting their own information and 16 linking to information posted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. * Just over half of state health departments posted a news release, and nine provided information in languages other than English. * Of the 34 percent of local health departments that posted information on their Web site within 24 hours of the federal announcement of a public health emergency, 54 percent did this by linking to the CDC or their state health department Web site. "We found that the capability to conduct basic crisis and emergency risk communication is quite good at the state level, but there remains significant variation at the local level," the study's lead author, Jeanne Ringel, a senior economist at Rand, said in a news release. "We concluded there is room for improvement at all levels, particularly in the area of providing information in languages other than English." The study appears online in the journal Health Affairs. The Rand Corp. is a nonprofit research organization. Copyright © 2009 U.S.News & World Report LP. New H1N1 Flu Strain From Pig Farm Found in Canada By Tom Randall Bloomberg News Tuesday, July 7, 2009 July 7 (Bloomberg) -- A new strain of H1N1 flu sickened at least two workers at a pig farm in Saskatchewan, Canadian health officials said. Tests found the strain is different from the pandemic swine flu circulating the globe. The two people recovered from mild illness, and a third case is under investigation, according to a government statement. Pigs from the farm tested positive for a common version of swine flu and didn’t carry the new human version found in the workers. The risk of the virus is considered low, though disease trackers are testing other workers and continuing to monitor herds, the government said. Health officials worldwide are on heightened alert after a human swine flu virus, identified in April, flashed across the globe infecting at least 1 million people in the U.S. alone, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Preliminary results indicate the risk to public health is low,” said Leona Aglukkaq, Canada’s health minister, in the statement. “Canadians who have been vaccinated against the regular, seasonal flu should have some immunity to this new flu strain.” The new Canada strain is made up of genes from human seasonal flu and genes from swine flu viruses, according to the statement from the Public Health Agency of Canada. To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net. Copyright 2009 Bloomberg News. *Opinion* --- BACK TO TOP


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