Public Health
Company-listed size for kid’s shoes seldom correct
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When it comes to children’s shoes, the size listed by the manufacturer is rarely the true size, new research indicates. In nearly all cases, the manufacturers overstate the size, according to findings presented this week at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) annual meeting in Las Vegas.
“The most striking finding of our study was that the majority of outdoor shoes and slippers of children were too small,” study chief Dr. Norman Espinosa, from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, told Reuters Health. “Interestingly, the shoe sizes given by the manufacturers almost never matched with the true sizes measured by us.”
Children wearing shoes that are too small may be at risk for developing foot deformities, the researchers warn.
Best Treatments for Post-Burn Itching
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Jim Mashburn felt his legs cook.
Mr. Mashburn, a worker at a paper-recycling plant, fell through a loose grate and into a sump pit in September 2008 as he was preparing to inspect a steam valve. Super hot condensate, at a temperature of at least 140 degrees Fahrenheit, enveloped his legs instantly, searing skin up to his thighs.
A co-worker was able to pull Mr. Mashburn out of the pit within 30 seconds, sparing him a worse fate, but he was left with first-, second- and third-degree burns on both legs.
“Once I got out and pulled my pants and my boots off, I remember just watching the skin peel away like you were taking a ladies stocking off. That’s how fast the skin went away,” he recalled.
Bringing Hope and Surgical Cures to the World’s Children
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The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) presented the 2009 Humanitarian Award to David P. Roye, Jr., MD, on February 26th at its 2009 Annual Meeting. This award honors Fellows of the Academy who have distinguished themselves by providing outstanding musculoskeletal care, both in the United States and abroad. In addition, this award recognizes those orthopaedic surgeons who help to improve the human condition by alleviating suffering and supporting and contributing to the basic human dignity of those in need. “I am truly humbled to receive this honor,” said Dr. Roye. “I consider myself fortunate to be able to provide orthopaedic care to children who have no other resources.”
Dr. Roye is currently chief of the pediatric orthopaedic service and the St. Giles Professor of Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, Columbia University Medical Center. He has been a member of the faculty at Columbia since completing his fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Roye continues to commit himself to caring for underserved children with orthopaedic conditions, as well as teaching other orthopaedic surgeons, and conducting research on musculoskeletal problems in children.
Dr. Roye became an integral member of the Children of China Pediatrics Foundation (CCPF), in 1999, providing orthopaedic surgical services to special needs Chinese orphans. He became the foundation’s executive medical director in 2002.
Americans welcome healthcare reform, but skeptical
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Americans greeted President Barack Obama’s pledge to reform healthcare with enthusiasm tinged by skepticism Wednesday, saying changes in the country’s expensive and often inaccessible health system are overdue—but hard to achieve.
“I’m sick and tired of hearing about it with what seems to be little if any reform,” said Steve Kissing, a 45-year-old advertising professional, as he read the morning newspaper at a Cincinnati coffee shop. “I just hope he can muster the support to make some progress.”
In towns and cities across the country, ordinary Americans said they were desperate for some kind of change in the U.S. healthcare system, under which 46 million people have no insurance coverage to pay for medical costs.
China illegal additives still blight food: official
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Chinese dairy products, flour, meat and other foods remain dangerously tainted with illegal additives despite a crackdown, the country’s health ministry said Tuesday.
Vice Minister of Health, Chen Xiaohong, told a video conference for officials some food and liquor makers continued to use banned additives, and high-tech lawbreakers were “challenging the oversight and administration capacities of law enforcement agencies,” the Xinhua news agency reported.
“Some food businesses still lack a grasp of the harmfulness and severity of illegal additives,” Chen said. “Their commitment to correcting this is not high.”
More patient information may not lead to best care
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Colon cancer patients who seek out more information about their care are more likely to be prescribed cutting-edge, expensive medications that aren’t necessarily the best drugs for them, new research shows.
Bevacizumab, sold as Avastin, and cetuximab, brand name Erbitux, are U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved for treating advanced colon cancer. They are known as targeted therapies; Avastin prevents the development of new blood vessels to tumors, while Erbitux shuts down a protein that regulates cell growth. While both drugs are the standard of care for patients with disease that has spread beyond the colon, or metastasized, they are not approved for use in patients with earlier-stage cancer.
Dr. Stacy W. Gray from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and associates surveyed 633 colon cancer patients to see if information-seeking behavior was related to whether the patients had heard of these drugs and whether they were taking them.
China needs better bird flu surveillance -experts
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China needs to improve its surveillance of the bird flu virus after a recent rise in human cases, but there are no signs the country is on the verge of an epidemic, U.N. experts said on Wednesday.
China reported eight human cases of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in January, five of whom died, which appeared independent of any known case in birds.
Hans Treason, the World Health Organisation’s China representative, said their risk assessment had not changed following the new cases as it was normal during the winter months.
Youth mental illness costs U.S. billions
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Mental illness, substance abuse and behavioral problems among children and young adults, costs the United States $247 billion a year in treatment and lost productivity alone, an expert panel said on Friday.
The panel set up by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine which advise U.S. policymakers urged the White House to set prevention goals and coordinate government action to attack the problem.
The panel looked at the financial toll from mental illnesses including depression, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia, as well as drug and alcohol abuse and behavioral problems by people up to age 24.
When it comes to elephant love calls, the answer lies in a bone-shaking triangle
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Many a love-besotted soul has declared they would move the world for their true love, but how many actually accomplish that task in their quest to unite with a lover?
Poets and romantics may argue the point, but research has shown that elephants issuing calls, including those of love—more precisely, females in estrus—produce not only audible sounds, but also low-frequency seismic vibrations that can travel through the near-surface soils for distances up to several kilometers.
And though we humans may claim to feel our lover’s call in our heart, soul or other organs of either physical or philosophical origin, most of us need said love call to caress the hair cells of our inner ears for it to register in what is arguably our most important love/sex organ—our brain.
Elephants, however, have two highly developed additional sensory systems at their disposal, both of which can be used for detecting the potential mate’s seismic signals (humans have both, too, just not tuned to using vibrations as communication). One system is bone conduction, in which the vibrations travel from the toe tips into the foot bones, then up the leg and into the middle ear. The other, somatosensory reception, involves vibration-sensitive cells in the bottom of the foot that send signals to the brain via nerves.
Berlusconi accuses rivals over coma woman’s death
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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, jumping into an emotional right-to-die debate over a comatose woman, said she had been killed and accused the leftist president of being among those responsible.
The centre-left opposition accused Berlusconi of trying to reap political capital from the case of Eluana Englaro, who died after 17 years in a coma amid a row over her right to die that has riveted Italy and angered the Vatican.
“Eluana did not die a natural death, she was killed,” Berlusconi told Libero newspaper, blaming President Giorgio Napolitano for rejecting an emergency decree that would have forced doctors to resume feeding her.
Vietnam has new human bird flu case: paper
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A 23-year-old man has tested positive for the deadly H5N1 virus in northern Vietnam, a state-run newspaper reported on Saturday.
The online Lao Dong newspaper (http://www.laodong.com.vn) quoted health officials as saying the man from Dam Ha district in the northern province of Quang Ninh, about 150 km (93 miles) from Hanoi had fallen ill and tests showed he carried the bird flu virus.
The report quoted doctors as saying the man had high fever and severe respiratory problem.
Booklet helps cancer patients navigate costly care
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The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has released a guide to help cancer patients and their doctors communicate more effectively about the costs associated with their treatment and care.
The booklet, available online at http://www.cancer.net/managingcostofcare, provides a summary of the costs associated with treatment and a list of financial resources for patients who need help paying for their treatment and care.
According to ASCO, the cost of treating cancer is increasing at a rate of 15 percent per year—nearly three times the rate of increase of overall health care costs in the country. The latest cancer drugs often cost thousands of dollars per month, putting a strain on many families’ finances, the agency notes.
Moderate drinking may cut seniors’ disability risk
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Healthy older adults who have up to one or two drinks per day may be less likely to develop physical disabilities over time, a new study suggests.
The study, which followed nearly 4,300 older U.S. adults, found that healthy, moderate drinkers were less likely to develop problems with walking, daily chores and other physical tasks over five years.
The benefit was not seen, however, among men and women who were in poorer health at the study’s start.
Dutch report 3rd death from human form of mad cow
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A third person has died in the Netherlands from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human form of mad cow disease, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) said.
The RIVM said late on Monday the patient died at the beginning of January and investigations were underway to assess whether other people could have been infected, although the chances were small.
Two other deaths from the human form of the disease were confirmed in the Netherlands in 2005 and 2006.
Cholera under-reported, infects millions a year
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Cholera infects millions of people each year, 10 times the number of cases reported by countries who fear losing tourist or trade income by acknowledging the real scale of an outbreak, experts at the World Health Organization said Monday.
Claire-Lise Chaignat, cholera coordinator at the WHO, said the diarrheal disease that is spreading fast in Zimbabwe is also under-reported because the stigma attached to it means people often fail to seek treatment.
“People see it as a dirty disease,” she said in the latest WHO Bulletin. “People don’t want to talk about it. They think it’s normal to have diarrhea. Quite often, nobody is interested in providing the minimal support needed for prevention.”
