Thursday, February 12, 2009

An article in the February 12 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reports on an unusual cause for an outbreak of low blood sugar among men in Singapore: illegal use of sexual performance enhancement drugs that were contaminated with a diabetes drug.

Between January and May 2008, 149 men and one woman between 19 and 97 (mean age 51) were admitted to five public hospitals for unexplained low blood sugar. Similar cases were reported in media reports from Hong Kong. Seven Singaporean patients remained in a coma because of prolonged sugar starvation of the brain, and four subsequently died. The diabetes drug glyburide was found in blood and/or urine samples in 85% of cases; 30% admitted having used illegal sexual performance enhancers.

The contaminated products were a counterfeit version of the drug Cialis (meant for the treatment of genuine erectile dysfunction), and three purported herbal preparation (the affected brands included Power 1 Walnut and Santi Bovine Penis Erecting Capsule). All four preparations additionally contained Viagra in varying concentrations. Two herbal products contained traces of the weight loss drug sibutramine, a compound related to amphetamines.

The drug packaging mentioned names of non-existent overseas production facilities, so the source of the contamination with the diabetes drug could not be established.

The authors underline the risks that is known to be associated with purchasing drugs from unreliable providers or from online resellers. The clandestine use of impotence drugs as sexual performance enhancers seems to have provided a good illustration of this problem. They further call for more efforts by national and international health and law enforcement agencies to curb the manufacturing, international transport and sales of untrustworthy medication.

Monday, September 6, 2010

President Alvaro Colom says torrential downpours causing flooding and landslides have undone the country’s reconstruction from Tropical Storm Agatha in May. Up to eighteen people are reported killed in rain-related incidents across the country as weather systems in both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific batter the region, and forecasters expect another 48 hours of precipitation. At least ten people were killed, 20 rescued, when a landslide buried a bus as it traveled on the Inter-American highway in the worst single-incident.

Sources

• “Heavy rains devastate Guatemala” — BBC, September 4, 2010
• Reuters. “Torrential rains kill 18 in Guatemala” — Toronto Star, September 4, 2010

Five people are dead, 39 injured after a suicide bombing in the Dagestan Republic of the North Caucasus. The information is still unfolding, and earlier reports had three killed, 26 injured. The attack occurred at 00:30 local time (20:30 UTC) when a Zhiguli car packed with explosives drove into the gates of a military base near Buynaksk. AFP reports a second explosion nearby on a nearby highway, but with no injuries.

Sources

• “Death toll in N.Caucasus suicide bombing rises to five (Update 1)” — Ria Novosti, September 5, 2010
• “5 killed, 39 injured in Dagestan suicide bombing” — AFP, September 5, 2010

The Arizona Cardinals US football team has released Heisman trophy-winner Matt Leinart after being unable to find a favorable trade. Leinart had been unable to break out of the back-up quarterback role with the team after early injuries kept him on the sideline for a couple years, and expressed his frustration publicly on Monday. The Cardinals, forced to trim their team roster to 53 players, cut Leinart leaving him without a team.

Sources

• Bob Baum. “Arizona Cardinals release quarterback Matt Leinart” — Cape Cod Times, September 4, 2010
• Judy Batista. “Leinart, With Career Full of Disappointment, Is Now Without Team” — New York Times, September 4, 2010

After driving away from police, a thirteen-year-old driver struck a pole, plowed through a couple of fences, and bumped a parked car into the house before coming to a rest at the front door. Police spokesperson Ros Wetherall reported officers attempted to stop the Holden Commodore around 1 a.m. local time (5 p.m. UTC), but had to search for the vehicle which they found crashed into the home on Grovelands Drive, Camillo. The driver and one other youth in the car were uninjured. The young man will appear in court on charges of reckless driving, failing to stop and not having a driver’s licence.

Sources

• AAP. “Boy charged after car meets house” — TheAge.com, September 5, 2010
• “Car crashes into house: 13-year-old charged” — Australian Broadcasting Corporation, September 5, 2010

Friday, October 5, 2007

The widow and five children of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet have been arrested in Chile on embezzlement charges. They are accused of illegally transferring USD27 million to foreign bank accounts during Pinochet’s rule from 1973 to 1990. Seventeen of Pinochet’s former associates, including his former personal secretary and three retired army generals, were also arrested.

Pinochet had been charged with tax evasion, fraud, and embezzlement following a 2004 U.S. Senate investigation. In December 2006, he died without having been brought to trial. However, Chilean Judge Carlos Cerda said there were “solid indications” that Pinochet’s family and associates had also “participated in the misuse of fiscal funds”.

Jose Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch called the decision “an extremely important development for Chile’s democracy and the rule of law. Going after the relatives of the powerful and the fortunes they amassed used to be considered off limits,” he said.

Pinochet family lawyer Pablo Rodriguez said he was “astonished by this illegal and abusive decision by the judge”, and that he was “sure that it will be reversed by the Court of Appeals.”

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Professor PZ Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota Morris in the United States, has been receiving email threats for a post made on his Pharyngula blog in support of a University of Central Florida student who took a consecrated host from a Catholic Mass in protest of the church activities. The student began receiving death threats and response, Myers said it was just a “cracker” and if any of his readers could acquire some consecrated Eucharistic hosts he would treat the wafers “with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web.” The criticism was fed in part by a press release by the Catholic League and its President Bill Donohue.

“It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ. We look to those who have oversight responsibility to act quickly and decisively,” Donuhue said in the press release. After consecration, the wafers become the Body of Christ, in the view of Catholics, through a process known as transubstantiation.

After the press release, Myers started receiving death threats. In response to the large number of threats, Myers began posting the entire emails, including IP information. One email in particular was sent from the work account of Melanie Kroll at 1-800-Flowers in Brookhaven, New York that told Myers: “[Y]ou can quit your job for the good of the children. Or you can get your brains beat in.”

Posters on his blog contacted the company alerting them to the threat. Subsequently, after an investigation the company fired Kroll. It was later revealed that it was not her, but Charles (Chuck) Kroll, her husband, who sent the email from the default address on her computer.

Greg Laden of ScienceBlogs says that he received an email, which he believes is from Chuck Kroll. In it, Chuck confirms that Melanie was fired. He regrets sending a “moronic” email and explains how he accidentally sent it from the work account of his wife instead of his own home account, both of which are on the same computer. Chuck also accused Myers of unfairly targeting Christianity without the same critique of Islam and blames Myers for his wife’s firing.

According to IDG News Service, Myers said: “This was not my intent to get somebody fired.” He continued, “She apparently did something stupid, which I don’t have sympathy for. I would just rather not see people getting fired over an e-mail message.”

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

A woman, one of three people who recently died of flu like symptoms, in Lagos, Nigeria, has tested positive for the H5N1 strain of Avian influenza.

It is the first bird flu in Nigeria since the strain arrived in Nigeria a year ago. H5N1 was confirmed in blood samples tested in Rome and London from the three recent deaths.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations stated that while the threat from avian flu has decreased from last year, there still remains flare-ups around the world, urging countries to “remain vigilant and fully cooperate with international organizations”.

Bird flu is spread by wild birds for whom the virus is a stomach disease and, generally, not fatal.

Although the disease has killed 164 people, it has only been out of 269 cases, this gives the disease around a 60% fatality rate compared to the 1918 ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic which had a mortality rate of around 5%.

The outer coat of the virus particle is characterised by two types of glyco-proteins, neurominidase and haemagglutinin, both of which interact with sialic acid.

Haemagglutinin has sixteen forms, H1 to H16, and binds to sialic acid on the target cell, facilitating the entry of the virus.

Neurominidase is found in nine forms, N1 to N9, this protein allows the progeny viri to escape the infected cell by cleaving sialic acid.

The two main drugs against bird flu currently on the market, Tamiflu^® and Relenza^®, both target the sialic acid binding pocket of neurominidase. Neither of these drugs will cure the disease, but will stop its spread through the body. As such they have to be administered within 48 hours of symptoms appearing. In all 9 sub types of neurominidase, the structure of the target area for the drugs is the same. There is also a flu vaccine but the current flu vaccine does not protect against H5N1.

Human to human transmission is very rare, at the moment bird flu can only be caught from prolonged exposure to infected birds, specifically their droppings from which the bird flu virus has been crystallized and parts of the structure solved.

Unlike diseases such as smallpox and measles, for which their are effectively protecting vaccines, the flu virus constantly mutates. Each year the virus is slightly different from the last, this is the genetic drift of the virus – small point mutations on the surface, causing an evasion of our immune system. Many of the problems arise when there is a major shift of the surface proteins, for instance when a different subtype appears, such as H5.

There are three strains of human influenza circulating around the globe; H1N1 first isolated in 1933, H2N2 first isolated in 1957 and H3N2 first isolated in 1968. Other than humans; pigs, seals and horses have various strains of influenza, however only wild birds have all the known subtypes of haemagglutinin and neurominidase. Of the 144 combinations of N(1-9) and H(1-16) we have had three.

Saturday, April 30, 2005

The British Food Standards Agency (FSA) has announced a recall of foods containing banned dyes which increase the risk of cancer. The food products were sold at the Tesco, Waitrose, and Somerfield supermarkets.

A Bristol company called “Barts Spices” found the illegal Para Red substance in their Barts Ground Paprika, which was sold in 48g and 46g jars with a “Co-op” label. The batch codes on the affected products are 5032 and 5089 (expiration Dec 2007), and 5075 (expiration February 2007).

Tesco also found that their 130g package of BBQ rice cakes (expiration November and December 2005) contained both Para Red and Sudan I.

“It would be very prudent to assume that it could be a genotoxic carcinogen,” FSA scientific advisers told reporters.

“As a company committed to supplying only the very finest quality food ingredients, we took the immediate decision to withdraw our ground paprika spice from all outlets selling the product and advertised a product recall in the national press,” a Barts Spices spokesman said in a statement.

Sudan I is only authorized for industrial use to colorize petroleum products, such as shoe polish. Para Red and Sudan I are banned under the British Colours in Food Regulations of 1995.

Britain last went through a major food recall in February, when Worcester Sauce was found to contain chili powder dyed with Sudan 1.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

A dog fell off an Interstate 96 overpass in Livonia, Michigan killing 81 year-old Charles G. Jetchick.

Jetchick and a passenger, who police would not identify, were transported to St. Mary’s Hospital where Jetchick died from his injuries. The passenger suffered only minor injuries.

Police say that the 60 to 70 pound (27-32 kilograms) dog was not thrown off the overpass, but “probably fell by accident while trying to avoid a car,” Sgt. Michael A. Shaw of the Michigan State Police said. “We don’t know and thats why we are looking for witnesses.”

The dog, which fell about 16 feet (5 metres) also died due to its injuries.

Shaw has been with the State Police for 11 years and has never encountered a similar incident. “We’ve had rocks and other stuff like that fall off of overpasses. This would be the first dog we’ve had,” said Shaw.