Health

12newsnow.com - KBMT - by Rhyan Henson - April 10, 2015

Several people in Port Arthur are concerned about Valero's proposed plan to build a community garden and park.

This project would allow Valero to avoid paying part of their $200,000 fine that was issued to them in September 2013. . . .

. . . Given the area's air quality, some community activists fear any food grown will be unsafe to eat and they are struggling to see a benefit.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

QUARTZ  by Grace Dobush                                         March 13, 2015

AUSTIN, Texas—Perhaps the most surprising and important product debuting at SXSW Interactive this year is a personal protective equipment (PPE) prototype for health care workers dealing with Ebola, a tangible result of the U.S. government adapting the culture of innovation and design thinking so key in the startup world.

A team from the U.S. Agency for International Development demonstrated the traditional Ebola suit and the new suit in a preview for Quartz....

REUTERS      by Lisa Rapaport                                                                                Feb. 19, 2015

Effectively monitoring people exposed to Ebola requires more than just checking symptoms. A quarantine plan also needs to help people keep up with work and school and pay for essentials like housing and food, a U.S. report concludes.

To understand the challenges encountered by ordinary citizens exposed to Ebola, a team led by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed concerns raised by people monitored as part of an Ebola cluster in Dallas last year.

If yet-to-be-identified contacts notice that those who come forward as Ebola contacts are shunned from society and quarantined in their homes, with no way to provide for themselves and their families, they will be less likely to come forward," said lead study author Dr. Charnetta Smith, a CDC epidemic intelligence service officer.

Read complete story.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/19/us-cdc-quarantine-ebola-policy-idUSKBN0LN1HI20150219

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THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS  by Sue Ambrose                                     Dec. 27, 2014

DALLAS, Texas --When Ebola surfaced in the U.S., federal guidelines to protect medical workers here were weaker than the ones that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had in place 15 years earlier, The Dallas Morning News has found.

It’s not known exactly how nurse Nina Pham contracted Ebola while caring for patient Thomas Eric Duncan. Shown here at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, she was later successfully treated at a National Institutes of Health hospital in Maryland. Agence France-Presse

A review of CDC documents and archived Web pages shows that a 1998 protocol originally written for health care workers in Africa had more protective measures than the one for U.S. caregivers when Thomas Eric Duncan became the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in this country.

Two Dallas nurses were infected with the deadly virus while treating Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, where he died in early October....