Another child has died from a rare deadly lake amoeba in Texas. There have been ten cases in Texas in the last ten years - all fatal. 7-year-old Kyle Lewis died just days after contracting the amoeba after swimming in a river during a family camping trip. The CDC says the amoeba, called Naegleria, resides in warm waters with a still current. The amoeba causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). It enters the body through the nose and makes its way to the spinal cord. It then enters the brain and destroys brain tissue. Symptoms include severe headaches, vomiting and high fevers. Confusion, seizures and lack of balance may result as the condition worsens. People can die within a week of being exposed to the amoeba. You can read a fact sheet from the CDC here. Take a look:
A 14-year-old Colorado girl survived a lightning strike. She was washing the family car when a lightning bolt hit the ground nearby and traveled through the water she was standing in. The girl said she felt "tingling" and a pain in her elbow. She said it felt like her bones were crunching. She checked out okay at the local hospital and just has "minor nerve stuff" still bothering her. Washing the car when thunderstorms are around is obviously something to avoid. Take a look:
BBC Newsreports that a new study in the Archives of Dermatology links women beer drinkers with an increased psoriasis risk. The study followed 82,000 female nurses. The study found women who drank five or more beers a week doubled their risk of psoriasis.
In the study, researchers said they observed a 72% increased risk of psoriasis in women who drank more than 2.3 alcoholic drinks per week compared with non-drinkers.
For women who drank five glasses of beer per week their risk of developing psoriasis was 1.8 times higher again.
This was a large study so the connection between women beer drinkers and psoriasis could be significant. The Boston Globereports that women who drank full-calorie beer were more likely to develop psoriasis than those who drank light beer, wine or other alcoholic beverages. You can read more about psoriasis here on the Mayo Clinic's website.
A teenage boy had a maggot inside his eye that was eating his retina. The event happened five years ago and is being documented an Animal Network show called Monsters Inside Me. A gnat landed in the boy's eye when he was walking to school and doctors believe the gnat must have laid an egg, which grew into a maggot. Doctors killed the maggot by cutting it in half with a laser. This seems like a very rare event. Take a look:
CNN's Elizabeth Cohen reports on a study that suggests taking calcium supplements can increase a person's risk of having a heart attack. The study found taking the supplements can give a person a 30% increase risk of having a heart attack. Take a look:
A Spanish man who underwent the first full face transplant in the world appeared before TV cameras for the first time today. The man thanked his doctors and the family of the face donor. The man is described as a 31-year-old man. The Guardianreports that the had the surgery after accidentally shooting himself in the face several years ago. The surgery last 24 hours.
During the 24-hour surgery, doctors lifted an entire face, including jaw, nose, cheekbones, muscles, teeth and eyelids, and placed it mask-like on to the man. He has been described as a farmer who was unable to breathe or eat on his own after accidentally shooting himself in the face five years ago. The head of the 30-strong surgical team, Dr Joan Pere Barret, said the man would need at least a year of physiotherapy and was likely to regain up to 90% of his facial functions.
His face does not look normal, but it looks great considering the extensive surgery. It still looks very swollen. The video is not in English. Take a look:
Reuters reports that at least 1,000 people have been exposed to dengue in Key West, Florida. The CDC estimates that at least 5% of the population has been exposed. Scientists are concerned dengue could regain a foothold in Florida and travel to other U.S. cities.
"We're concerned that if dengue gains a foothold in Key West, it will travel to other southern cities where the mosquito that transmits dengue is present, like Miami," said Harold Margolis, chief of the dengue branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"These cases represent the reemergence of dengue fever in Florida and elsewhere in the United States after 75 years," Margolis said in a statement.
Dengue is spread to humans by an infected mosquito. The CDC says the primary symptoms include high fever, severe headache, severe pain behind the eyes, joint pain, muscle and bone pain, rash, and mild bleeding (e.g., nose or gums bleed, easy bruising).
The CDC has a dengue website and a Dengue fact page here. They have also provided a detailed article here about locally acquired dengue in Key West, Florida.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned against using the malaria drug Qualaquin (quinine sulfate) to treat night time leg cramps. The FDA says the use of the drug in this manner has resulted in serious side effects and prompted the manufacturer to develop a risk management plan aimed at educating health care professionals and patients about the potential risks.
A review of reports submitted to the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) between April 2005 and Oct. 1, 2008, found 38 U.S. cases of serious side effects associated with the use of quinine, the active drug in Qualaquin.
Quinine use resulted in serious and life-threatening reactions in 24 cases, including low level of platelets in the blood (thrombocytopenia), and hemolytic uremic syndrome/thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, a blood disorder that results in clots in small blood vessels around the body that can be accompanied by kidney impairment. Two patients died. Most of those reporting serious side effects took the drug to prevent or treat leg cramps or restless leg syndrome.
"Health care professionals and patients should be aware that FDA has not approved the use of Qualaquin for the treatment or prevention of night time leg cramps," said Edward Cox, M.D., M.P.H., director, Office of Antimicrobial Products in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "FDA has received reports that some patients have developed serious side effects when taking quinine for night time leg cramps."
Qualaquin was approved by the FDA in August 2005 to treat uncomplicated malaria caused by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum, an infection that can be life-threatening if untreated. About 1,500 cases of malaria are diagnosed in the United States each year, primarily resulting from travel abroad. Qualaquin is marketed by Philadelphia-based AR Scientific.
A Michigan woman shot herself in an effort to get treatment for her painful shoulder injury. She doesn't have health insurance and was desperate to stop the pain. The woman's effort failed. Her injury was not considered serious enough for her to get treatment. She could also face charges for firing the weapon within city limits. Take a look:
Scientists are reporting new evidence that capsaicin, the stuff that makes chili peppers hot, may cause weight loss and fight fat buildup. The scientists believe the capsaicin triggers certain beneficial protein changes in the body. The new study appears here in the ACS' monthly Journal of Proteome Research.
Laboratory studies have hinted that capsaicin may help fight obesity by decreasing calorie intake, shrinking fat tissue, and lowering fat levels in the blood. Nobody, however, yet knows exactly how capsaicin might trigger such beneficial effects.
In an effort to find out, the scientists fed high-fat diets with or without capsaicin to lab rats used to study obesity. The capsaicin-treated rats lost 8 percent of their body weight and showed changes in levels of at least 20 key proteins found in fat. The altered proteins work to break down fats.
"These changes provide valuable new molecular insights into the mechanism of the antiobesity effects of capsaicin," the scientists say.
Capsaicin is already used in capsaicin creams, which help fight arthritis pain. The latest research could potentially lead to new drugs to fight obesity.
Reuters reports that major drug manufacturers have agreed to share clinical trial data to help speed up the development of medicines that may help cure diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The database the drugmakers will share include information from over 4,000 patients who went through clinical trials.
The database, a public/private partnership to be announced on Friday, will give academic and industry researchers worldwide access to information from more than 4,000 patients with neurodegenerative diseases.
Bringing the data together, rather than keeping pieces of it within each drug company, will give scientists a larger amount of information on how the diseases progress and how they differ in various patients.
Backers hope the approach will jump start research into treatments for some of the toughest and most common brain disorders.
The database is being coordinated by the Coalition Against Major Diseases. Some of the drugmakers in the CAMD include Pfizer Inc, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi-Aventis.
The Huffington Postreports that Pfizer's lung cancer drug called crizotinib is showing promise at shrinking tumors in early testing. Some sick patients who did not respond well to other drugs are reportedly responding to the new drug.
More than 90 percent of the 82 patients in a study saw their tumors shrink after two months on the drug, Pfizer Inc.'s crizotinib, (crih-ZAH-tin-ib), researchers reported.
Doctors had expected only about 10 percent of these very sick patients to respond to the drug, according to one of the study's leaders, Dr. Yung-Jue Bang of the Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea.
Yung-Jue Bang of the Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea says the drug is being rushed into late-stage testing. The drug target a gene found only in a small amount of lung cancers (4%) but it could be helpful for these cancer patients if future trials also prove sucessful. Reuters also has an article about crizotinib.
Reuters reports that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Prolia, a new osteoporosis drug from Amgen, Inc. The drug is designed to prvent fractures in post-menopausal women. Reuters says the drug just received European approval days ago.
"Denosumab is the most potent agent ever introduced into clinical practice that blocks bone degradation," Roger Perlmutter, Amgen's research chief, said in a telephone interview.
Analysts estimate the product could see annual global sales of $3.3 billion in 2014 for the world's biggest biotechnology company, according to Thomson Reuters data.
"Most of us certainly expected this drug to be approved," said Cowen and Co analyst Eric Schmidt, adding it was "a surprise that it happened before" July 25.
WedMD reports that Prolia is meant for three types of patients.
Postmenopausal women with osteoporosis and high risk of fracture (that is, previous fracture due to osteoporosis or multiple fracture risk factors).
Patients with osteoporosis for whom other osteoporosis treatments have failed.
Patients who cannot tolerate other osteoporosis treatments.
WebMD also says Prolia's approval followed three years of clinical trials that showed postmenopausal women taking the drug increased bone density and had fewer fractures.
The drug requires one injection every six months. Prolioa costs $825 per injection, which is $1,650 per year. The drug is expected to be available as early as next week.
Fox Newsreports that a teenager had to have his testicle amputated following a stupid game called sack tapping. In sack tapping kids reportedly take turns trying to punch each other in the privates.
David's mother, Christy Gibbons, said it wasn't until hours later that they realized something was wrong.
"One o'clock in the morning he woke me up and told me he was in excruciating pain," she said.
David was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital in Brainerd, Minn. where surgeons removed his right testicle.
ABC Newssays that game involves boys trying to "slap or flick the groin of another boy to inflict discomfort or pain." You can read another article about sack tapping here.
New York is now publishing all cancer cases on an online map available on the Department of Health website. Residents can search the online map by address to see how many people in the area have been diagnosed with cancer. The data on the map also indicates what types of cancer are prominent in each area. A faq about the map is available here. Take a look:
Scientists are reporting new evidence that capsaicin, the stuff that makes chili peppers hot, may cause weight loss and fight fat buildup. The scientists believe the capsaicin triggers certain beneficial protein changes in the body. The new study appears 
