February 18th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in News
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As an animal lover, I was saddened to read that little brown bats are dying in droves in New York State. It appears to be related to warmer temperatures, causing a fungal overgrowth in the caves, which is making them sick. In addition, the poor little creatures wake up from their hibernation early, only to find that there are no insects to eat yet. They burn through the last bits of winter fat looking for their first meal, and end up dying of starvation.
In our delicate ecosystem, the loss of the bat population is a boon for mosquitoes that can spread the West Nile Virus to humans. So although warmer winters may seem like a welcome change, there are other animals who don’t adapt so well. So this summer if the extra mosquito bites drive you batty – you’ll know why.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
February 4th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Medblogger Shout Outs, News
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I learned something interesting today from Dr. Benabio’s Derm Blog: bacteria love to grow in skin cream. He said that it was kind of like cream cheese – leaving it out at room temperature would cause it to go bad pretty quickly, were it not for the usual preservatives. He described an outbreak of a deadly bacterial infection in a hospital ICU – caused by nurses using “all natural” European (preservative-free) skin cream on their patients.
So there you have it folks – deadly bacteria are indeed “all natural.”This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
January 25th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in News
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I spent a year working in a vaccine research laboratory at the Mayo Clinic. My project involved analyzing the DNA of military personnel who had died of the measles in the early 20th century. Strangely enough, the military saved small pieces of their flesh embedded in paraffin wax (and frozen) for future study. I guess that “future study” was my research project.
I must admit that I felt a little bit creepy as I cut tiny slivers of tissue out of the waxy fossils. I wondered about the lives of the tissue’s original owners. Who were these soldiers? Did their families still think of them? Did they leave wives and children behind?
Well, as it turned out, most of the tissue samples had a little piece of DNA in common and it was pretty exciting to discover what may have been a genetic susceptibility to this particular virus. Figuring out why some people survive the measles while others are overcome and die from it can be the turning point in understanding how to protect future generations from its ravages.
Today I read about some new research linking susceptibility to the influenza virus to certain family lineages. This makes perfect sense, since our body’s ability to defend itself against disease is largely based on our genetic code. However, we’re only just beginning to unwrap the subtle role of each piece of DNA code in our immune function. The complex interactions of microscopic proteins and chemicals in our bodies is much more difficult to interpret and predict than we can even fathom. Nonetheless, it’s really exciting that we’re inching closer to being able to protect ourselves from scary viruses. We’ve won a few battles, but haven’t yet won the war.
And on another front, some researchers are working on modifying the ebola virus so as to render it harmless to humans. I’m not sure I’d want to sign up for THAT research project, frankly. I have a lot of respect for those who work in labs with such risky pathogens – but let’s just say I wouldn’t want to invite those folks out for a beer.
Let’s keep an eye on scientific discoveries in the field of virology. With the bird flu and other threats looming on the horizon, our lives may one day depend on it!This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
January 18th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in True Stories, Uncategorized
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A coworker (we’ll call her Tina) approached me yesterday for what she called “pseudo medical advice.” Apparently she had gone to a local sandwich shop with a friend, and purchased some bottled water to compliment her deli item. As the two sat down at a table and prepared to have a leisurely lunch, Tina twisted off the water top and took a big swig.
To her horror, she had taken a large gulp of what tasted like lemon soda instead. She checked the plastic bottle – it was marked as pure water. She instantly recalled that the bottle top had come off rather easily and she heard no characteristic suction noise as air first entered. She was gripped with fear – could this be a poisoning? Did someone tamper with the bottle to inflict harm on unsuspecting victims?
Tina’s friend advised her to call the Poison Control Center. The woman who answered asked if Tina was having any symptoms – nausea/vomiting, headache, dizziness, abdominal pain… She denied each of these, complaining only of some tingling around her mouth (probably because Tina was so worried that she was hyperventilating). The Poison Control Center recommended that she keep the bottle, call the water manufacturer, and go to the ER immediately if she experienced any symptoms.
Tina asked me if she had done the right thing and if I thought she might have been poisoned. I told her that calling the Poison Control Center was a good idea, and although the thought of drinking out of a stranger’s water bottle is fairly disgusting, here’s what I thought about her actual risk:
1. The most likely scenario is that someone was using the water bottle for their daily drink – refilling it with soda from home and taking it to work each day. They probably left it on a counter by accident and a clerk reshelved it in the cooler. I give this an 80% chance of being the cause of the SNAFU.
2. The second most likely scenario is that some kids wanted to pull a prank and intentionally filled the water bottle with soda to see what would happen when someone drank it. I give this a 19.99% likelihood.
3. The third potential explanation for what happened, which is very unlikely, is that a nefarious random killer is masking poison with Sprite or 7-Up in water bottles around the city. I give that a 0.0001% chance on the high side.
The reason why I don’t think Tina’s drama is consistent with a poisoning is three-fold:
1. Most poisonings are directed towards specific individuals – renegade spies, abusive spouses, unwanted kids, that sort of thing. It’s quite rare for people to bother to try to poison random individuals. In the rare cases where this has happened (take the Tylenol debacle of 1982 for example – where cyanide was carefully planted in non-tamper resistant bottles) the idea was to make the person think that the product they were taking was totally NORMAL. Otherwise, why would the person take the full dose? A water bottle filled with soda is a real red flag.
2. The most common deadly poisons are flavorless and odorless (cyanide and arsenic) so there would be no need to use lemon soda to cover the taste. Styrchnine is incredibly bitter and can’t be covered up easily – anthrax, ricin, and sarin have to be inhaled so they wouldn’t be as successful in a bottle form.
3. Tina had no immediate symptoms. Arsenic poisoning causes symptoms within 2-24 hours of exposure, with abdominal pain, headache, weakness, dizziness being the most common initial symptoms. They are followed by bloody urine, jaundice, and severe abdominal pain. For cyanide, the effects are very rapid – causing confusion, fainting, collapse and potential coma. Again, after 24 hours Tina was completely asymptomatic.
After discussing this with Tina she said she felt much better and she perked up nicely. Then tilted her head thoughtfully and asked, “could I catch an infectious disease from drinking out of someone else’s bottle? Like, could I get herpes?”
“Oh yes, that’s possible. Cold, flu, and herpes viruses can be transmitted from glasses and bottles.”
A look of horror crossed her face.
“Um… well (I tried to save all the reassuring I’d done about the poisoning) it’s probably unlikely… I uh, don’t know how long the bottle was sitting in the fridge, maybe the viruses dried up and died?”
“Well, thanks, Val. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
“Yep. You’ll probably be just fine. Did you have your flu shot this year?”
“Uh, no.”
“Oh, never mind.” I said.
And Tina turned around and left with about the same level of anxiety that she had arrived. We’d just switched poisoning for herpes or the flu. Oh well?This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
December 11th, 2007 by Dr. Val Jones in News
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I was troubled by an article that I read in the Washington Post today. Apparently a common cold virus (adenovirus) has mutated unexpectedly into a killer strain (with a death rate as high as 23% for those infected in Oregon). The CDC has been carefully tracking this virus over the past year, and has noted outbreaks in Oregon, Washington State, Texas, and New York. Genetic studies of this virus suggest that it is similar to adenovirus 14, first described in Holland in 1955, but has very recently mutated into a more virulent form.
The interesting (and frightening) thing about this virus is that it’s so strong that it can kill young, otherwise healthy people, rather than the usual “at risk” populations of the very young and the very old. There’s no way to know if this virus will spark an epidemic, or whether it will die down and disappear for now.
Those who have had the virus, and lived to tell about it, say that it came on like a usual cold but then instead of getting better at the usual 4-7 day point, their symptoms got worse, and high fevers, cough, and difficulty breathing ensued. Some folks have even required mechanical ventilation in the ICU setting to help them breathe.
This virus reminds me that we are very vulnerable to unexpected attacks from infectious diseases. All the while we docs had our eyes on bird flu and SARS, this little cold virus mutated into a killer. If you have a high fever with difficulty breathing, please see your doctor right away. Let’s hope this epidemic threat dissipates before it can gain a real foothold.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
