Journalist and Author
A new coronavirus that emerged last summer in the Middle East has been causing concern to international health authorities. Wired Science blogger Maryn McKenna discusses additional cases, additional deaths, and new lab evidence that is more than a little concerning.
The Food and Drug Administration is warning the country of the possibility of health care infections caused by the antiseptics used to disinfect skin before health care procedures — that is, to prevent infections. They consider it a serious enough problem that they have scheduled a two-day hearing about it next week.
There’s been an extraordinary outbreak going on over the past few months here in the United States: cases of fungal meningitis, a rare illness, primarily caused by Exserohilum rostratum, a plant pathogen that is equally rare as a cause of human infections. Since the beginning of October, 541 people have been made ill by the […]
Bad news today from an investigation conducted by Consumers Union that was released on the web and will be published in the January issue of the nonprofit’s magazine, Consumer Reports. Tests on pork chops and ground pork, bought in six cities under a variety of labels, showed high rates of contamination with a range of bacteria, many of which were antibiotic-resistant — and also showed evidence of a drug so controversial that it is banned in some other countries.
Today the World Health Organization announced four new cases of the novel coronavirus that caused a great deal of worry in September.
On a day when we all think about food, I want to revisit, and update, my favorite food-related story of the year. Constant readers may remember, from back in June, the story of 9-year-old Martha Payne of Scotland. Her blog “Never Seconds,” featuring photographs of her unhealthy school lunches, caused so much embarrassment in her […]
The CDC puts the annual incidence of foodborne illness at almost 48 million cases, with almost 128,000 hospitalizations and more than 3,000 deaths. And though no public health agency assigns any percentage of those cases to big Thanksgiving meals featuring lots of food sitting around for hours, it’s clear they’re worried about it: The CDC, FDA and USDA all publish lengthy food-handling advice this time of year. Here is some advice on how to avoid getting sick this holiday.
Tuesday marked the start of the United States’ Get Smart About Antibiotics Week, an annual observance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that tries to direct attention to the root causes of antibiotic resistance and possible fixes. (It is also European Antibiotic Awareness Day, and also the first day of Australia’s Antibiotic Awareness […]
It is now routine for the bodies of US military members to be subjected to CT scan or X-ray before they are released for burial or cremation. The technique has been dubbed “virtual autopsy,” and while it is not yet widely used, it is gaining ground in civilian death-investigation, and clinical pathology as well.
I’ve been offline not just for deadlines (as usual), but also because I was preparing for the annual conference of the National Association of Science Writers; I am a member and was a presenter on a couple of panels. The NASW meeting is twinned every year with a second meeting hosted by the nonprofit Council […]
Have we dodged a bullet? Or is the other shoe yet to drop? The uncertainty over the novel coronavirus which was recognized last month is captured in a research report and editorial just released this evening by the New England Journal of Medicine.
One morning, our health blogger Maryn McKenna woke up feeling thirsty, kind of chilled and sluggish, and with no appetite. As it turns out, she got something that 48 million people in the United States get every year: a foodborne illness. Here’s how she became a part of story around the recent outbreak and recall of Trader Joe’s peanut butter.
n Feb. 21, 2003, a 65-year-old physician who lived in the Chinese province that abuts Hong Kong crossed into the territory surrounding the city and checked into a hotel in Kowloon. He was given a room on the ninth floor. Sometime during his stay — no one has ever fully traced his path — he encountered roughly a dozen other people; most of them were hotel guests whose rooms were on the same floor, but some were staying on other floors, and some were visitors to events there. The physician had been sick for a week with symptoms that had started like the flu, but were turning into pneumonia, and the next day, he checked out of the hotel and went to a Hong Kong hospital. Before the end of the day, he died.
I’m cheating a bit here, since summer ended before dawn yesterday. But for the last entry in Superbug Summer Books, I wanted to leave you with something recent, and something rich, and today’s pick qualifies twice over: It was released just last week, and it is full — stuffed — with excellent science writing, more […]
News, via the Washington Post‘s hard-working health reporter Brian Vastag: After 6 months with no cases, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella has surfaced again at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health, and has killed a boy from Minnesota who came to the specialty hospital after a bone-marrow transplant meant to address an immune deficiency. This […]
I confess: It can get lonely sometimes, being Scary Disease Girl. The universe of people who are deeply invested disease geeks is passionate (thank you, constant readers) but it isn’t that large. And let’s face it, keen interest in things that could bring an end to civilization as we know it — hitherto-unknown pathogens, rampant antimicrobial […]
Could supermarket food be reservoir for antibiotic-resistant superbugs? A lot of research says it already is.
The “Indian superbug” NDM-1 — actually a gene which encodes an enzyme which confers resistance to almost all known antibiotics — has been found for the first time in a pet, somewhere in the United States. When you consider the close contact we have with our pets — letting them lick us, smooching them on the head, allowing them to sleep on the bed — you’ll understand why this could be such bad news.
Infections with multi-drug resistant E. coli — known by the acronym ESBL for “extended spectrum beta-lactamase,” indicating resistance to penicillins and cephalosporins — have been assumed to be a hospital phenomenon. But an analysis by Yohei Doi of the University of Pittsburgh and a multi-national team showed that, out of 291 drug-resistant E. coli infections, 37 percent had been acquired before entering a hospital.
Scientists at a microbiology conference are reporting that tick-related illnesses are even more common than they appear.