Outrage in China over thousands of faulty vaccines for children

(CNN)Hundreds of thousands of vaccines provided for Chinese children have been found to be faulty, inciting widespread fury and prompting the country’s President, Xi Jinping, to describe the incident as “vile and shocking.”

China’s Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) has launched an investigation into vaccine manufacturer Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology, revoking its license for human rabies vaccines and beginning a recall of all unused vaccines produced by the company.

Five senior executives of the company, including the chairwoman, were taken into custody for questioning by Changchun police, who announced they had begun an official criminal investigation into the company.

In Chinese, the term Changsheng is a play on words meaning “long life.”

Chinese company sold 250K faulty vaccines

Online message boards have been inundated with hundreds of thousands of comments since the news broke Sunday, with parents and consumers using the hashtag “#Changsheng bio-tech vaccine incident,” to post reactions on Weibo, a Chinese platform likened to Twitter.
“My home country, how can I trust you? You just let me down again and again,” one user said. “Our trust has been overdrawn again and again, it’s so irresponsible for everyone’s life,” said another.

Many of the defective vaccines were already on the market and being given to Chinese children, as part of the mandatory national vaccination program. A number have now been recalled, but there is no information at this stage as to how they could affect the health of those children who have already been injected.

One mother, surnamed Zhen from Baoding, Hebei province, told CNN she had…

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Cigarette use declines among U.S. young women, but marijuana blunt use rises

(Reuters Health) – Cigarette use decreased among young women – including pregnant women – during the past decade in the U.S., according to a new study. But, researchers found, use of marijuana blunts rose.

A blunt is a cigar that’s been hollowed out and filled with marijuana. Although researchers aren’t sure about the health implications of the increase, they want to know more given the rapid changes in state marijuana laws, the study authors wrote in the American Journal of Public Health.

“Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. Everyone knows that women should not smoke while pregnant,” said lead study author Victoria Coleman-Cowger of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, in an email to Reuters Health. “But until recently, research in this area has focused primarily on the prevalence and impact of smoking tobacco cigarettes during pregnancy. We now recognize that use of tobacco products and multiple substances is not uncommon, and pregnant women who smoke tobacco cigarettes are often using other tobacco products as well.”

Coleman-Cowger and colleagues analyzed data from the 2006-2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health to understand how women of reproductive age used cigarettes, cigars, and marijuana blunts during the past month. Altogether, they had survey responses from about 8,700 pregnant women and 162,000 nonpregnant women, ages 18 to 44.

When a DNA Test Shatters Your Identity

The number of people who have mailed in their saliva for genetic insights doubled during 2017, reaching a total of more than 12 million. Most people are curious where their ancestors came from. A few are interested in health. Some are adoptees or children conceived from sperm donation who are explicitly looking for their biological parents. DNA testing companies like 23andMe and AncestryDNA regularly tout happy reunions on their websites.

But not all biological parents want to be found. In conversations and correspondence with more than two dozen people for this story, I heard of DNA tests that unearthed affairs, secret pregnancies, quietly buried incidents of rape and incest, and fertility doctors using their own sperm to inseminate patients. These secrets otherwise would have—or even did—go the grave. “It’s getting harder and harder to keep secrets in our society,” says CeCe Moore, a prominent genetic genealogist who consults for the television show Finding Your Roots. “If people haven’t come to that realization, they probably should.”

Read the entire story @ The atlantic

U.K. Supermarket to Have ‘Quieter Hour’ for People With Autism

By Ceylan Yeginsu

LONDON — Dim the lights. Silence the piped-in music. Turn down the checkout beeps. For an hour on Saturdays, a British supermarket chain is introducing a weekly “quieter hour” aimed at helping people with autism have a better shopping experience by easing sensory overload.

The move by the supermarket, Morrisons, which begins on Saturday and runs from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., has been welcomed by the National Autistic Society, which says that even small changes can make a big difference in the lives of people with autism and their families.

“Around 700,000 people are on the autism spectrum in the U.K.,” Tom Purser, of the National Autistic Society, said in an email. “This means they see, hear and feel the world differently to other people, often in a more intense way, which can make shopping a real struggle.”

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how people communicate and relate to others and how they experience the world around them. More than 60 percent of people with autism avoid shops, and 79 percent say they feel socially isolated, according to figures published by the society.

If You See This Plant, Don’t Touch It—Seriously

There’s a new invasive species that’s been spreading across the United States. It sounds like an evil creature straight out of a fairytale—and trust us, you should avoid it just the same.

This dangerous plant is called the giant hogweed and it’s been classified by the government as a noxious weed. It grows to about 14 feet tall and has a thick green, hairy stem with large leaves at the top and white flowers. The reason you should avoid touching it at all costs: It’s covered in toxic sap that can cause painful burns, scarring, and potential blindness. Make sure you’re also watching out for these other summer health dangers.

Giant hogweed is originally from the Caucasus mountain region of Eurasia and was brought over to the United States in the early 1900s through birds and waterways. Because of its large size, it produces about 20,000 seeds that can travel by wind and water thus making it very easy for it to take over. The non-native plant has now been identified in Virginia, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Maryland, Washington, and Oregon.

‘People judge me’: Woman with lupus scars denied a manicure due to her inflamed skin

Jeniffer Dreyer Brown, 47, posted an emotional video on her Facebook on July 6 detailing a heartbreaking experience she had at a Laguna Niguel, Calif., nail salon.

Brown said that a manicurist at Happy Nails and Spa denied her a manicure due to the appearance of the inflamed skin on her hands and arms, which is a symptom of lupus.

Lupus is an autoimmune disease, which means that a person’s immune system attacks healthy cells by mistake. It can affect a person’s joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart, and lungs. Often, UV rays can cause lupus symptoms to worsen.

Do not eat this cereal’: As Honey Smacks outbreak expands, recalled cereal still sold in stores

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not mince words when it issued a health warning about Honey Smacks cereal on Thursday: ”Do not eat this cereal.”

A salmonella outbreak caused by the popular Kellogg’s breakfast cereal has grown since it was first reported in June, and has now infected 100 people in 33 states — with at least 30 people hospitalized due to the foodborne illness.

The Food and Drug Administration reported that despite a voluntary recall by the Kellogg Company in mid-June, recalled boxes of Honey Smacks cereal are still being offered for sale. “Retailers cannot legally offer the cereal for sale and consumers should not purchase Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal,” the agency stated on Thursday.

The CDC confirmed that it detected salmonella in samples of Honey Smacks. “Do not eat recalled Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal in any size packaging,” the agency stated. “Check your home for the recalled cereal and throw it away, or return it to the place of purchase for a refund.”

Nurse accused of tampering with drips at hospital, killing dozens of people

A Japanese nurse is accused of tampering with the medical devices of dozens of near-death patients in order to kill them while she was off duty — all so she could avoid delivering the news to the patients’ grieving families.

Ayumi Kuboki, 31, was arrested Saturday in connection with the death of Sozo Nishikawa, 88, who was poisoned in 2016 at the Oguchi Hospital located in Yokohama, the Japan Times reported.

Kubo told investigators she did not like the responsibility of telling a patient’s family a loved one had passed away. She allegedly targeted patients who were close to death by tampering with their intravenous drips so another nurse on duty would have to ….

Tears flow as Thai boys and parents see each other for first time since cave rescue

July 11–CHIANG RAI, Thailand — Thai authorities aired the first footage Wednesday of the Thai boys rescued with their coach after being stranded in a flooded cave complex for days, in a tightly controlled event designed to protect the children from media attention and showcase pristine hospital facilities.

The boys, rescued in three groups from the Tham Luang Nang Non caves in northern Thailand, were in good health mentally and physically, according to doctors, with only one showing signs of a lung infection. They had lost weight — an average of 4 1/2 pounds each — but were hungry and largely unharmed from their ordeal.

Another boy who earlier showed signs of a lung infection has recovered, doctors said.
Video showed the boys wearing masks while resting in beds in Chiang Rai Prachanukroh Hospital in the city of Chiang Rai near the rescue site. Several flashed a victory sign.

Some parents wept as they gazed excitedly at their children through a window looking onto the hospital, some waving. All wore yellow shirts in celebration of the birth month of Thailand’s King Rama X.

Some families were allowed in the ward, although they had to remain six feet from the boys and no hugging was allowed, doctors said.
Rear Admiral Apakorn Youkongkaew, chief of the Thai Navy SEALS, said there had been no choice but to bring the group out of the cave swiftly, because oxygen levels were depleting rapidly and they would not have survived much longer.

Tuberculosis scare forces evacuations at Johns Hopkins Hospital

Two buildings on the campus of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore were evacuated because of a tuberculosis contamination.

Kim Hoppe, a spokeswoman with Johns Hopkins Medicine, told The Associated Press a small sample of frozen tuberculosis was “inadvertently released” in an internal bridge between two cancer research buildings. However, Hoppe said there was “no risk” of infection to any one on campus.

According to The Baltimore Sun, there were employees nearby when the contamination happened, but officials believe no one was exposed to the bacteria.

Dr. Landon King, executive vice dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told the Sun the sample was equal to a few drops.

Both buildings were closed for about four hours as firefighters and public safety officials checked to confirm it was safe to return.

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