In A Pig's Eye

Not that any of you apparently missed it, but I couldn’t publish the last two weeks of updates due to work and the flu.    

Here are the absolute highlights from the 2 & 9 Nov editions of Army Public Health Weekly Updates. 

• The World Health Organization estimates that 93% of the world’s children breathe in air so polluted that it poses serious health and developmental risks – 600,000 die from acute respiratory infections caused by pollution, or put another way, 1 in every 10 deaths in children under the age of 5. 
• Back in 2011, doctors started urging teenage girls to get immunized against human papillomavirus (HPV).  Originally developed for cervical cancers, boys were not considered for vaccination.  Now, it looks as though oral cancer in men is on the rise, which appears to be the result of sexual activities between young people.  This one is worth a look -- you parents of boys should consult with your doctors. 
• “What’s In My Food?” this week: 
• Cornell University researchers have found traces of Monsanto’s Round-Up weed killer in all 28 oat-based breakfast cereals tested (26 of them above “safe” levels for children) and all 18 pet foods tested. Worst of the worst was Quaker’s Oatmeal Squares. A spokesman for Monsanto said, “don’t get all hysterical and stuff”. (Story provided courtesy of our ace cub reporter in Pulaski) 
• Salmonella in ground beef has sickened 30 folks in New Mexico – 4 taken to the hospital.  Their tacos came with an extra kick.
• Remember the outbreak of swine fever in Chinese pigs that they’d rather you didn’t know about?  Officials in Taiwan claim the virus has been found in sausage exported by China. Any of you remember that Smithfield Foods was sold to a Chinese company in 2013?  Hmmm…. 
• 45 in Canada have been sickened by cucumbers carrying Salmonella – 10 taken to the hospital. 
• Conagra cake mixes (Duncan Hines) may contain Salmonella
• The Africa Misery Index:  
• Children in the Congo are dying at record rates from Ebola, largely from poor sanitation at clinics 
• Yellow fever in the Ethiopia has killed 10 so far, but the rate will increase 
• I loved this headline:  “Anti-vaccine stupidity returns, as measles cases rise and California parents evade the law”.  I didn’t know that in 2015, California abolished all “personal belief exemptions” from child vaccination mandates. 
• Related story:  Islamic clerics in Indonesia have declared vaccines against measles-rubella (MR) to be “haram” (forbidden) because they contain pig components.  We all know who is going to suffer in the future as vaccination rates plummet. 
• If you’ve looked at hospital accreditation status to guide a decision on where to go for medical help, you may be surprised to learn there are no differences in patient outcomes (e.g., death) from accredited versus unaccredited hospitals.  
• You’ve likely heard of the caravan of South Americans marching to the US border.  Many are from Venezuela, where basic law and order have broken down, and food and medicine are scarce.  Those that still in the country face new outbreaks of measles and diphtheria. 
• A small-scale study in Britain found that artificial “machine learning” can identify and diagnose Alzheimer’s 6 years before regular doctors can.  Machine learning in this instance is defined as a computer able to teach itself patterns based on a set of 2,100 brain scans of 1,002 patients.  Don’t you wish these scans could also detect early-onset dumbassery?
• Study #1:  Exposure to excessive noise increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. 
• Study #2:  Older adults with untreated hearing loss have higher total health care costs compared to those who don’t have hearing loss.  Untreated hearing loss increases the risk of dementia and cognitive decline, falls, depression and lower quality of life. 
• So yea, turn down that awful television. 
• And finally, watch this short video of tiny robots swimming through a pig’s eyeball.In the not-too-distant future, doctors may be using microscopic bots to treat glaucoma and macular degeneration from diabetes.