Flesh-Eating Bacteria Victim Refuses Morphine

Story first appeared in USA Today.
A Georgia woman fighting a flesh-eating disease is refusing to take pain medications during some procedures, partly because of her personal convictions, her father said.

The patient despises the use of morphine in her treatment, despite its effectiveness at blocking her pain, her father said in a Friday online update on his daughter's condition. Her graduate-school study of holistic pain management techniques leads her to feel she's a "traitor to her convictions" when she uses drugs to manage her pain.

He also said the morphine has been making his daughter groggy, confused and has given her unpleasant hallucinatory episodes.

She developed necrotizing fasciitis after cutting her leg in a fall May 1 from a homemade zip line over a west Georgia river. Her left leg, other foot and both hands have been amputated.

On Tuesday, her condition was upgraded from critical to serious, which is seen as a major victory that cannot and should not be diminished. The development came shortly after she had her first successful skin graft.

The nurse who completed Aimee's dressing change was astonished at the patient's insistence to avoid morphine during the procedure, as was her mother and father.

The bacteria that attacked her wound releases a toxin that destroys skin, muscle and a layer of tissue below the skin known as fascia.

Despite the painful skin grafts, she has crossed several milestones in recent weeks. She can breathe on her own, she no longer needs dialysis and she's now able to eat on her own, her father wrote. Although her major organs are all functioning well, the patient still needs supplemental nutrition through a stomach tube.

For more Health News, visit the Healthcare and Medical News blog.

For more national and worldwide Business News, visit the Peak News Room blog.

For more local and state of Michigan Business News, visit the Michigan Business News blog.

For more Electronics News, visit the Electronics America blog.

For more Real Estate News, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.

For more Law News, visit the Nation of Law blog.

For more Advertising News, visit the Advertising, Marketing and Media blog.

For more Environmental News, visit the Environmental Responsibility News blog.

For information on website optimization or for the latest SEO News, visit the SEO Done Right blog.

Healthcare Law Threatens Medical Device Makers and Suppliers

Story first appeared in MarketWatch.

In the battles to come for health-care companies and their stocks, the future is about so much more than the Supreme Court.

No matter how the high court rules in coming days on the industry’s landmark legal overhaul, analysts say, the nation already has locked itself into a do-or-die mission to rein in the skyrocketing cost of care.

And the way those efforts are unfolding, the sector’s medical-gear suppliers — providers of everything from implantable heart defibrillators to tongue depressors — could end up paying the price for decades of out-of-control inflation.

Doctors, hospitals, insurers, and even patients, have all taken up the cause at a time when health-care inflation outstrips overall cost-of-living increases by 3 to 1.

The consumer is emerging as a force now that insurers and employers are forcing them to shoulder more of the costs.

For many years, industry analysts say, health-care inflation ran amok partly because neither consumers nor doctors had much incentive to consider costs. After all, third-party insurers were footing the bill, leaving those who administered or used health care with little skin in the game.

Now, however, doctors and patients are minding the costs with greater scrutiny. That means medical-device makers and suppliers of health-care equipment — which feasted for a decade and nearly doubled their margins — will end up being the target of the rush to rein in costs.

That trend seems unlikely to alter course, regardless of how justices rule on the 2010 overhaul to the health-care system, analysts say.

It is considered remotely possible that the high court will throw out the entire 2,000-plus-page law. But the biggest steps they are likely to take is to repeal the mandate that all individuals obtain insurance while also striking down the requirement that carriers cover everyone, regardless of past medical histories, analysts say.

Expected to remain intact in the law is the 2.3% excise tax on makers of medical devices and suppliers of equipment. It was included as many companies in the sector saw their profits jump sixfold in the decade before the health law was passed.

The list of companies in this realm covers a broad array of manufacturers of products used every day in all U.S. hospitals and private medical practices. It includes giant conglomerates such as Johnson & Johnson JNJ, on down to specialized firms such as Medtronic Inc., St. Jude Medical Inc., Boston Scientific Corp., Stryker Corp. and Edwards Lifesciences Corp.   

For more Health News, visit the Healthcare and Medical News blog.

For more national and worldwide Business News, visit the Peak News Room blog.

For more local and state of Michigan Business News, visit the Michigan Business News blog.

For more Electronics News, visit the Electronics America blog.

For more Real Estate News, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.

For more Law News, visit the Nation of Law blog.

For more Advertising News, visit the Advertising, Marketing and Media blog.

For more Environmental News, visit the Environmental Responsibility News blog.

For information on website optimization or for the latest SEO News, visit the SEO Done Right blog.

Soot Causes Uproar

Story first appeared on Fox News.
The presidential administration is proposing new air quality standards to lower the amount of soot that can be released into the air, risking an election-year backlash from Republicans.

The move, to be announced Friday, is likely to win support from environmental groups and public health advocates but exposes the president to potential criticism from congressional Republicans and industry officials that the rules are overly strict and could hurt economic growth and cause job losses in political swing states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Perhaps wary of the rule's political risk, the administration had sought to delay the new soot standards until after the November elections. But a federal judge ordered officials to act after 11 states filed a lawsuit seeking a decision this year by the Environmental Protection Agency.

An administration official said the new rule was based on a rigorous scientific review. Virtually all counties in the United States would meet the proposed standard with no additional actions needed beyond compliance with current and impending rules set by the EPA, the official said. Administration officials described the rule to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because it has yet to be announced.

Soot, made up of microscopic particles released from smokestacks, diesel trucks and buses, wood-burning stoves and other sources, contributes to haze and can burrow into lungs. Breathing in soot can cause lung and heart problems.

The science is clear, and overwhelming evidence shows that particle pollution at levels currently labeled as officially `safe' causes heart attacks, strokes and asthma attacks.

Eleven states, including New York and California, filed suit earlier this year to force a decision. The states and the American Lung Association say current standards jeopardize public health. Soot has been linked to thousands of premature deaths each year, as well as aggravation of respiratory illnesses, heart attacks and strokes.

More than a dozen states, along with environmental groups, sued the EPA several years ago, contending that the Bush administration had ignored science and its own experts when it decided in 2006 not to lower the nearly decade-old annual standard for soot. The agency's own analysis found a lower standard recommended by scientific advisers would have prevented almost 2,000 premature deaths each year.

The EPA initially promised it would review recent science and issue a decision in 2011. After months of inaction, states led by New York filed suit to force a decision. The lung association and the National Parks Conservation Association filed a similar suit.

A federal court eventually ordered the EPA to propose a new rule by Thursday. A final rule is due in December after a public comment period.

The new rule would set the maximum allowable standard for soot in a range of 12 to 13 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The current annual standard is 15 micrograms per cubic meter.

Administration officials said the proposed changes are consistent with advice from independent scientists and are based on extensive research showing negative health impacts from soot at lower levels than previously understood. The agency will solicit comments from the public, as well as industry, public health groups and other interested groups to help determine the final standard.

Besides California and New York, states joining in the lawsuit forcing an EPA decision were Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

For more Health News, visit the Healthcare and Medical News blog.

For more national and worldwide Business News, visit the Peak News Room blog.

For more local and state of Michigan Business News, visit the Michigan Business News blog.

For more Electronics News, visit the Electronics America blog.

For more Real Estate News, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.

For more Law News, visit the Nation of Law blog.

For more Advertising News, visit the Advertising, Marketing and Media blog.

For more Environmental News, visit the Environmental Responsibility News blog.

For information on website optimization or for the latest SEO News, visit the SEO Done Right blog.

Less Sleep Attributed to Stroke Risk

Story first appeared on Heartwire.

Routinely sleeping less than six hours a night significantly increases the risk of stroke or having stroke symptoms in middle-aged adults who are not overweight and have a low risk of sleep-disordered breathing, a new study suggests.

Health providers and their patients should increase their awareness of the impact of sleep on the development of stroke.

It may be important for healthcare providers to ask their patients about their sleep, particularly the patients who have few traditional risk factors for stroke such as obesity or obstructive sleep apnea.

The findings are based on 5666 working adults aged 45 and older enrolled in the well-known Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study. All were free of stroke, transient ischemic attack, stroke symptoms, or sleep-disordered breathing at baseline.

The study was different from previous studies on the association between sleep and stroke because experts examined only participants who did not have a high risk for obstructive sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea is known to be associated with stroke events; therefore, in previous studies, the presence of obstructive sleep apnea may have actually explained the association between extremes in sleep duration and stroke.

In a fully adjusted model including adults with normal body-mass index, a nightly sleep duration of less than six hours was strongly associated with a greater incidence of stroke symptoms.

It's estimated that 30% of working adults get less than six hours of sleep each night. Short sleep duration is a precursor to other traditional stroke risk factors, and once these traditional stroke risk factors are present, then perhaps they become stronger risk factors than sleep duration alone.

Sleep and sleep-related behaviors are highly modifiable with cognitive-behavioral therapy approaches and/or pharmaceutical interventions. These results may serve as a preliminary basis for using sleep treatments to prevent the development of stroke.


Doctors should be applying this sort of information by telling patients if they are undercutting their sleep requirements and they are capable of more sleep, there are emerging data to suggest that that may be a risk factor for cardiovascular problems like stroke.

For more Health News, visit the Healthcare and Medical News blog.

For more national and worldwide Business News, visit the Peak News Room blog.

For more local and state of Michigan Business News, visit the Michigan Business News blog.

For more Electronics News, visit the Electronics America blog.

For more Real Estate News, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.

For more Law News, visit the Nation of Law blog.

For more Advertising News, visit the Advertising, Marketing and Media blog.

For more Environmental News, visit the Environmental Responsibility News blog.

For information on website optimization or for the latest SEO News, visit the SEO Done Right blog.

Norwegian Swimmer Died of Heart Disease

Story first appeared in Reuters.

It was confirmed that the Norwegian world 100 meters breaststroke champion, died of hereditary heart disease, an Arizona medical examiner said on Tuesday.

He had been considered one of his country's best hopes for a medal at this year's Summer Olympic Games in London, before he collapsed at a training camp in Flagstaff in northern Arizona on April 30 and was later pronounced dead. He was 26.

A first autopsy in early May into the swimmer's death proved inconclusive. The results of a second set of tests released Tuesday by the Coconino County Public Health Services District found he died of atherosclerotic coronary artery disease.

The condition is essentially a hardening of the arteries caused by plaque buildup that narrows and makes the arterial passages stiffer. The condition makes it harder for blood to flow through arteries and is a common cause of heart attack.

Based on the autopsy findings and the investigative history that is available, it is the medical examiner's opinion that the deceased died of atherosclerotic coronary artery disease.

The second tests revealed "severe atherosclerotic disease of the coronary arteries" supplying blood to the heart, and found that the left descending artery was "occluded" by "atherosclerotic plaque."

The decedent's only known risk factor for heart disease was familial. One of his grandfathers died suddenly of heart disease at age 42. Given the decedent's young age and significant atherosclerotic disease, a follow-up and evaluation of family members is recommended.

The deceased was found lying partially in a bath tub at the training facility after a day of light training and a game of golf. His teammates broke into the bathroom after noticing he had spent a long time inside.

A team doctor and paramedics tried unsuccessfully to revive him.

He became a national hero in Norway last year when he won the 100 meters breaststroke at the world championships in Shanghai.

For more Health News, visit the Healthcare and Medical News blog.

For more national and worldwide Business News, visit the Peak News Room blog.

For more local and state of Michigan Business News, visit the Michigan Business News blog.

For more Electronics News, visit the Electronics America blog.

For more Real Estate News, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.

For more Law News, visit the Nation of Law blog.

For more Advertising News, visit the Advertising, Marketing and Media blog.

For more Environmental News, visit the Environmental Responsibility News blog.

For information on website optimization or for the latest SEO News, visit the SEO Done Right blog.