23 Jul, 2010 in
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Boosting Selenium Intake May Lower Bladder Cancer Risk, Particularly in WomenBy
Kelli Miller Stacy
WebMD Health News
Reviewed By
Laura J. Martin, MD
Aug. 31, 2010 -- Adding more selenium to your diet may lower your[...]
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6 Infant Deaths in California; South Carolina As well as Sees Cases Rise By Reviewed By July 21, 2010 — Six infants possess died in California in what looks similar the state’s worst whooping cough epidemic in 50 years. To date, the CDC says South Carolina is the only other state where whooping cough cases possess exceeded the “epidemic threshold” — a statistical measure that means there are significantly more cases than usual for the time of year. After declaring an official epidemic of pertussis, the health examination term for whooping cough, California health officials announced a broadened vaccination campaign for teens as well as adults of all ages. Anyone who comes into contact with babies is particularly urged to get the vaccine — even pregnant women as well as the elderly. “Teens as well as adults should be vaccinated, especially anyone who is going to possess contact with infants who are too immature for vaccinations,” CDC epidemiologist Stacey Martin, MSc, tells WebMD. “Those California deaths were all in infants less than 3 months aged. They don’t possess the benefit of vaccination yet, so we possess to vaccinate around them.” Infants get three doses of the vaccine but are not fully protected until after they are 6 months aged. Neither the pertussis vaccine nor common infection gives a person lifelong immunity to whooping cough. Outbreaks tend to occur in five-year cycles, suggesting that immunity wanes within that time. Pertussis is one of the diseases covered by the three-way DTaP (diphtheria/tetanus/acellular pertussis) vaccine for kids under age 7 years as well as by the three-way booster Tdap vaccine for older kids, teens, as well as adults. There is no standalone pertussis vaccine. Although a person needs a tetanus vaccination only once every 10 years, it’s not a problem to get the Tdap vaccine at shorter intervals. Adults who get the tetanus as well as Tdap shots within two years may have more redness as well as soreness at the place the needle went in, but no significant safety issues.
Whooping Cough: A Humorless DiseasePertussis is a bacterial infection. It’s named whooping cough for the “whooping” sound a person with the disease makes while trying to catch a breath between coughing fits. The cough can be so very bad that it causes destroyed blood vessels in the face, eyes, as well as even in the brain. But the main risk to tiny kids is suffocation, said Dean Blumberg, MD, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California, Davis, who has treated infants with whooping cough. “Pertussis is a horrible disease at any age, but most very bad in the youngest infants,” Blumberg said at a Monday news teleconference. “The reason is their airways are so tiny. When they get pertussis they cough, cough, cough, as well as keep coughing. The air goes out but nothing comes in, so they suffocate.” The California vaccination effort may yet head off the epidemic. As of July 17, there were about 1,500 reported cases in the state. But time may be running out. July, August, as well as September tend to be peak months for whooping cough. Vaccine Refusal Driving Whooping Cough Epidemic?There’s indirect evidence that people who refuse to vaccinate their kids may be playing a role in the whooping cough epidemic, suggested Gilberto Chavez, MD, essential of the California Department of Health’s infectious disease center. Chavez noted that most whooping cough cases tend to occur in areas where the most parents exempt their kids from routine vaccination — a choice that California state law permits the parents of school kids. “We possess noticed that to some degree [the epidemic pattern] matches counties where there is a higher percent of kids not immunized because of personal-belief exemptions [to school-required vaccination],” he said at the news conference. For example, Marin County north of San Francisco has a relatively high rate of vaccine refusal. Marin County has the highest number of whooping cough cases, Chavez said. That fits with a 2008 study that matched whooping cough outbreaks in Michigan with geographic pockets of families that exempted their kids from school immunization requirements. SOURCES: Stacey Martin, MSc, epidemiologist, CDC, Atlanta. |
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