A 2-year-old Pennsylvania boy with leukemia who served as the best man at his parents' wedding over the weekend has died. Christine Swidorsky wrote on her Facebook page late Monday that 2-year-old Logan "took his last breath in my arms" at 8:18 p.m. Swidorsky and Sean Stevenson, of Jeannette, Pa., had planned to marry next year but moved the ceremony to Saturday so Logan could be involved. "We want Logan in our family pictures, and we want him to see his mother and dad get married," Swidorsky told the Associated Press last week. The couple had recently learned that the boy would likely only live another few weeks. Logan had Fanconi anemia, a disease that often leads to cancer, and was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia when he was 14 months old. The couple's quickly planned wedding took place in their backyard in Jeannette, a small town in Westmoreland County, outside of Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that Logan wore a tan, pin-striped suit with an orange shirt, and held a favorite stuffed rabbit during the ceremony. "It's just going to be one of those things that you remember all your life," Stevenson told the newspaper. "It means the world to me. We're just blessed every day that he's here with us." After news organizations reported on the impromptu wedding, originally planned for July 2014, last week, the couple was flooded with donations of food, wine and photography services for the wedding. Swidorsky wrote Monday night that she was "in disbelief" but her son "is with angels and he's in no more pain." Read more at http://www.philly.com
Antioxidants do not appear to improve a woman’s chances of getting pregnant, contrary to previous beliefs, Medical News Today reported.
In a study published in The Cochrane Library, researchers from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, discovered that women who took oral antioxidants were no more likely to conceive than those who took a placebo or a folic acid supplement.
The researchers reached their conclusions based on a study of 3,548 women undergoing fertility treatments. A variety of antioxidants were taken by the women studied, including:
- OctatronR, - Multiple micronutrients and Fertility Blend - N-acetylcysteine - Melatonin - L-arginine - Vitamin E - Myo-inositol - Vitamin C - Vitamin D and Calcium - Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.
While the women taking antioxidants didn’t experience any more adverse effects compared to women not taking the supplements, researchers noted that there is limited information on the positive or negative effects of these types of pills.
HONG KONG — One of the world’s leading suppliers of dairy products said Saturday that a type of bacteria that could cause botulism had been found in tests of ingredients the company sells for use in infant formula and sports drinks, leading New Zealand officials to urge a recall.
The company, Fonterra, is based in New Zealand and is the world’s fourth-largest dairy company. It sells its milk products to other companies that make infant formula and said those companies would be responsible for any recalls. The New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries said that in addition to New Zealand, six countries were affected: Australia, China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Botulism is a rare but serious illness caused by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum. Even tiny amounts of this toxin can lead to severe poisoning.
“We are acting quickly,” the company’s chief executive, Theo Spierings, said in a statement. “Our focus is to get information out about potentially affected product as fast as possible so that it can be taken off supermarket shelves and, where it has already been purchased, can be returned.”
Infant formula from New Zealand is in huge demand in China, largely because of concerns about the quality of domestic formula there, particularly since milk formula tainted with melamine led to the deaths of several babies and sickened thousands more in 2008. Fonterra owned part of one of the companies involved in that scandal, but that company, Sanlu, has since been shut down.
After Fonterra raised alarms about the bacteria found in its milk products, the Chinese General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, which polices food safety, ordered importers in China to recall any products that might carry the bacteria, the group said on its Web site. China is a major buyer of New Zealand’s food products, especially infant formula and other dairy goods. The agency said it “promptly contacted the New Zealand Embassy to China and demanded that New Zealand take immediate measures to prevent problem products harming the health of Chinese consumers.”
This year, Fonterra began preparing to sell its own infant formula in China, including building an ultrahigh-temperature milk manufacturing plant there, aiming to sell a quarter-billion gallons of milk in the country by 2018, company officials told Chinese state news media in April.
At a news conference on Saturday, Fonterra officials said that Mr. Spierings had been sent to China to deal with the issue.
Fonterra officials said the problem involved three batches of a whey protein concentrate produced at a New Zealand manufacturing site in May 2012.
Officials first noticed a quality-control problem in March. The company then conducted more intensive tests, and on Wednesday workers found signs of the presence of Clostridium botulinum in a sample. Investigators have tied the problem to unsterilized pipes, which officials said had since been cleaned.
While Fonterra did not name the companies that it had alerted to the problem, the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries identified one product sold within the country: Nutricia Karicare follow-on formula products for children ages 6 months and older.
The ministry “has been advised that in the case of the Nutricia Karicare, five batches of follow-on formula were manufactured using the contaminated whey protein,” said Scott Gallacher, the ministry’s acting director, adding that parents using the product should instead “use infant formula for children aged 0-6 months, ready-made formulas or alternative brands.”
In a recent study conducted by Canadian Doctors, researchers it was found that Botox or cosmetic surgery or facelift claims of looking 10 years younger are pathetic.
In a study conducted at University of Toronto School of Medicine by Dr. Joshua Zimm and his fellow workers it was concluded that cosmetic surgeries help to a maximum of 3 years younger look.
Dr Joshua Zimm Said, they have studied nearly 50 patients who underwent cosmetic surgeries to look younger and took photographs of the patients for before and after comparison. Later on the photos which were taken later were presented in front of experts and researchers who were not familiar with the patient’s medical history.
The raters or subjects were asked to rate the photographs on a scale of 1 to 10 based on the attractiveness. However the photographs of the patients were blind folded to protect the privacy of the patient.
Surprisingly, the average age of the patients who were in the photographs predicted by raters was just 3 years younger to the patient’s original age.
The study was already published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Facial Plastic Surgery. This came as a bolt for those marketers and liposuction Doctors who claim Botox or cosmetic surgeries or liposuction gives them much younger look.
The study conducted was on the patients who were between the ages of 42 to 73. So this can be considered that it is not worth for the patients who are 73 and would like to go under the knife just for the sake of looking 70 years old.
Plastic surgery on your face may not make you look more attractive or younger to others, a new study has revealed.
Researchers asked 50 strangers to guess the age of 49 patients before and after they underwent facial surgical procedures. Then, the strangers were asked to assign the patient a number from 1 to 10 based on their attractiveness.
The researchers discovered while plastic surgery did take off a few years from the patient's perceived age, it did not make them any more attractive to observers.
"When we're doing this kind of surgery I'm telling patients that they'll look fresher, more energetic and less tired, and we have some data in the literature that indicates you will look younger, as we found," Dr. Joshua Zimm, an attending surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital and Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Institute of North Shore-LIJ Health System in New York City, told HealthDay. "But clearly I cannot say that they will look more attractive," added Zimm, the lead author of the new study.
According to the 2012 Plastic Surgery Statistics Report by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, eyelid surgery and facelifts are the third and fifth most popular cosmetic surgical procedures, respectively. About 204,000 people had their eyelids retouched in 2012, up four percent from 2011. Facelifts went up 6 percent from the previous year, with about 126,000 people going under the knife to tighten the skin on their face.
The patients involved in the study had a facelift, neck lift, upper or lower eyelid lift and/or brow lift completed at a Toronto private-practice between 2006 and 2010. Their ages ranged from 42 to 73 years old.
Photos were taken before the surgery and during a six-month follow-up period after the procedure. The patients were not allowed to wear makeup, jewelry or have additional cosmetic procedures (like Botox or laser skin resurfacing) done during the time they were being photographed.
Randomly enrolled strangers either saw pre or post-surgery photos of the patients. They based their judgments on attractiveness solely on their personal preference. Most of the subjects scored between a 4 and 6 on the 10-point scale.
On average, subjects though patients were 2.1 years younger than their actual age before surgery and 5.2 years younger after their procedures, for an average of about three years younger than their perceived age.
Zimm noted some study limitations, like asking the subjects to guess the age and attractiveness of a person may have created a "subconscious attractiveness bias." He also would like to revisit the study with a larger sample group and focus on attractiveness only to see if that would make a difference in the results.
Dr. James M. Stuzin, a Miami plastic surgeon who specializes in face-lifts who was not involved in the study, pointed out to the New York Times that the study was flawed because it didn't specify how skilled the surgeons were or what techniques were used.
"Definitely technique and a surgeon's skill level influences results," he said.
JACKSON, Miss. — If a girl younger than 16 gives birth and won’t name the father, a new Mississippi law — likely the first of its kind in the country — says authorities must collect umbilical cord blood and run DNA tests to prove paternity as a step toward prosecuting statutory rape cases.
Supporters say the law is intended to chip away at Mississippi’s teen pregnancy rate, which has long been one of the highest in the nation. But critics say that though the procedure is painless, it invades the medical privacy of the mother, father and baby. And questions abound: At roughly $1,000 a pop, who will pay for the DNA tests in the country’s poorest state? Even after test results arrive, can prosecutors compel a potential father to submit his own DNA and possibly implicate himself in a crime? How long will the state keep the DNA on file?
Republican Gov. Phil Bryant says the DNA tests could lead to prosecution of grown men who have sex with underage girls.
“It is to stop children from being raped,” said Bryant, who started his career as a deputy sheriff in the 1970s. “One of the things that go on in this state that’s always haunted me when I was a law-enforcement officer is seeing the 14- and 15-year-old girl that is raped by the neighbor next door and down the street.”
But Bear Atwood, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, said it’s an invasion of privacy to collect cord blood without consent of the mother, father and baby. She also said that an underage girl who doesn’t want to reveal the identity of her baby’s father might skip prenatal care: “Will she decide not to have the baby in a hospital where she can have a safe, happy, healthy delivery?”
The law took effect July 1 but hasn’t been used yet. Cord blood samples would have to be taken immediately after birth, and the state medical examiner is setting administrative rules for how the blood will be collected and stored. Megan Comlossy, health policy associate for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said she thinks Mississippi is the first state to enact a law authorizing the collection of blood from the umbilical cord — a painless procedure — to determine paternity.
Bryant’s staff says the idea for the law came from public meetings conducted by the governor’s teen pregnancy prevention task force — a group that focuses mostly on promoting abstinence.
Statistics put the state’s teen pregnancy rate among the highest in the country. In 2011 — the most recent year for which statistics are available — there were 50.2 live births in Mississippi per 1,000 females ages 15-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The nationwide rate was 31.3.
And more than half Mississippi’s 82 counties reported at least one pregnancy by a 10- to 14-year-old girl in 2011, according to an Associated Press analysis of state statistics.
The governor’s staff also said it heard disheartening information from Chancery Judge Janace Harvey Goree, whose district covers four counties in central Mississippi.
