New AIDS?

Yahoo News- Chagas, a tropical disease spread by insects, is causing some fresh concern following an editorial—published earlier this week in a medical journal—that called it "the new AIDS of the Americas."

More than 8 million people have been infected by Chagas, most of them in Latin and Central America. But more than 300,000 live in the United States.
The editorial, published by the Public Library of Science's Neglected Tropical Diseases, said the spread of the disease is reminiscent of the early years of HIV.
"There are a number of striking similarities between people living with Chagas disease and people living with HIV/AIDS," the authors wrote, "particularly for those with HIV/AIDS who contracted the disease in the first two decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic."

Both diseases disproportionately affect people living in poverty, both are chronic conditions requiring prolonged, expensive treatment, and as with patients in the first two decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, "most patients with Chagas disease do not have access to health care facilities."

Unlike HIV, Chagas is not a sexually-transmitted disease: it's "caused by parasites transmitted to humans by blood-sucking insects," as the New York Times put it. "It likes to bite you on the face," CNN reported.

"It's called the kissing bug. When it ingests your blood, it excretes the parasite at the same time. When you wake up and scratch the itch, the parasite moves into the wound and you're infected."

"Gaaah," Cassie Murdoch wrote on Jezebel.com, summing up the sentiment of everyone who read the journal's report.

Chagas, also known as American trypanosomiasis, kills about 20,000 people per year, the journal said.

And while just 20 percent of those infected with Chagas develop a life-threatening form of the disease, Chagas is "hard or impossible to cure," the Times reports:
The disease can be transmitted from mother to child or by blood transfusion. About a quarter of its victims eventually will develop enlarged hearts or intestines, which can fail or burst, causing sudden death. Treatment involves harsh drugs taken for up to three months and works only if the disease is caught early.

"The problem is once the heart symptoms start, which is the most dreaded complication—the Chagas cardiomyopathy—the medicines no longer work very well," Dr. Peter Hotez, a researcher at Baylor College of Medicine and one of the editorial's authors, told CNN. "Problem No. 2: the medicines are extremely toxic."
And 11 percent of pregnant women in Latin America are infected with Chagas, the journal said.

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wtf?

Man Fingered For Biting Off Doctor's Digit

Dumb Criminals- "When Gregory S. Powell, pictured, was denied a prescription by his 65-year-old physician, Dr. Paul Arnold, Powell did something that in hindsight seems rather moronic and regrettable.

He bit off the good doctor's finger in anger, according to police in Cape Coral, FL. The medic's fingertip was recovered at the scene of the crime and he was treated at a nearby hospital.

Powell, 45, is being sought by cops on a charge of aggravated battery on a person age 65 or older. "

Are Urban Tapeworms On the Rise?

Scientific American - Anthony Franz says an undercooked salmon salad gave him a 9-foot-tapeworm, and in August he sued the Chicago restaurant that served it to him.

If Franz’s tapeworm tale holds water – and the Chicago Sun-Times reports that the restaurant disputes his account – then it’s just one more data point to add to a growing urban tapeworm problem.

Once the bane of rural Japanese villagers, a paper in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases reports on the spread of the the salmon tapeworm Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense. The parasite, which can reach lengths of 39 feet (12 meters), has been steadily increasing its global distribution and prevalence – mostly among yuppies with a hankering for sashimi and ceviche.

One hospital in Japan reported 14 cases last year, up from 3 cases in 2000. And starting in 2006, the tapeworm has been popping up for the first time in North America and Europe. Meanwhile, farm-raised salmon from South America have been plagued by a closely related tapeworm that normally infects perch and other freshwater fish.

More parasite news comes from a recent study in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases which reports that the fox tapeworm, already serious public health issue in Asia, has been expanding in Europe since the 1990s along with the urban fox population. The fox tapeworm is spread to humans in canine feces and can cause a fatal disease of the liver known as alveolar echinococcosis. In the recent study, scientists used genetics to piece together the spread of the infection from its home base in the Alps out to Poland, Slovakia, and Lithuania.

So how do you keep a clean bill of health in the age of tapeworms? Since tapeworms live in the fish muscle and are destroyed by heat, it’s best to eat only fully cooked salmon. If you have to order sushi or ceviche, stick with critters like tuna that don’t spend time in rivers. (Japan’s new farm-raised tuna may be an ecological boon, but it doesn’t bode well for parasite propagation.) As for the fox tapeworm: be sure to wash your hands (and food) if they come in contact with canine poop.

Breastfeeding Man

"After researching the idea on the internet, Georgia, 27, expresses her breastmilk as often as she can for her father to drink.

He has the milk on his bowl of cornflakes every morning. It’s been his daily routine for the past six months and Tim believes the milk has given him a boost."

[article here]

"Oh That's Nassssty, Quagmirrrreeee..."

"However, Mr Manit and his colleagues at the IUN were extremely surprised when a 31-year old British born man presented at their clinic for treatment recently for gross abnormality of the penis and ulceration as a result of injecting oils under his skin.

"This was the first case we had seen. It was a very interesting case. "
"The man had used a high-pressure pneumatic grease gun to inject his penis. "
"But the girth of the man's penis continued to grow and he was no longer able to achieve an erection. "
"He needed urgent treatment for both problems."

The man was treated by careful removal of dead tissue under the skin of the penis by surgery.

(He was also offered psychological counselling. )

[contnd. from this article]

Doctors Remove Tree Growing in Lung

A fir tree has been found growing inside a man's lung by surgeons who were operating on him for suspected cancer.

The tree, measuring 5cm, was discovered by Russian doctors when they opened up Artyom Sidorkin, 28, to remove what they thought was a tumour.

Medical staff believe that Mr Sidorkin somehow inhaled a seed, which later sprouted into a small fir tree inside his lung.

The patient had complained of extreme pain in his chest and had been coughing up blood. Doctors were convinced he had cancer.

'We were 100 per cent sure,' said surgeon Vladimir Kamashev from Izhevsk in the Urals. 'We did X-rays and found what looked exactly like a tumour. I had seen hundreds before, so we decided on surgery.'

Before removing the major part of the man's lung, the surgeon investigated the tissue taken in a biopsy.
'I thought I was hallucinating,' said Dr Kamashev. 'I asked my assistant to have a look: "Come and see this - we've got a fir tree here".
'He nodded in shock. I blinked three times as I was sure I was seeing things.'

They believed the coughing of blood was caused by the tiny pine needles piercing blood capillaries. 'It was very painful. But to be honest I did not feel any foreign object inside me,' said Mr Sidorkin. 'I'm so relieved it's not cancer.'
The report appeared in popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Gazeta, and was picked up by Russian news service Novosti.