Childrens Health :Hand Washing Your Dishes Better For Kids' Health ♦ Baby formula poses higher arsenic ♦ Breastfeeding, shape immune system early in life

Hand Washing Your Dishes Could Be Better For Kids' Health   Doing dishes the old-fashioned way -- by hand -- might help curb a modern-day problem: Rising rates of childhood allergies, a new study suggests.Researchers in Sweden found that children living in families that hand-washed their dishes were about 40 percent less likely to develop allergies compared with kids in homes that used a dishwasher Continue Reading

Baby formula poses higher arsenic risk to newborns than breast milk  In the first US study of urinary arsenic in babies, researchers found that formula-fed infants had higher arsenic levels than breast-fed infants, and that breast milk itself contained very low arsenic concentrations Continue Reading

Experimenting preteens may have different brain processes   Preteens who experiment or explore new things may have brain processes that work differently than those of preteens who do not, according to a new study. Continue Reading

Teens from single-parent families leave school earlier   Individuals who live in single-parent families as teens received fewer years of schooling and are less likely to attain a bachelor's degree than those from two-parent families, a study concludes. Continue Reading

Breastfeeding, other factors help shape immune system early in life Researchers say that breastfeeding and other factors influence a baby's immune system development and susceptibility to allergies and asthma by what's in their gut.Continue Reading

9/1/14 Health News: When food kills: The peanut butter case ♦ Raw and risky: do rewards outweigh risks?♦ Should kids be allowed to wash hands at school? Or is sanitizer enough?

Should kids be allowed to wash hands at school? Or is sanitizer enough?

Someone wrote me this morning and said at their U.S. elementary school, the 5th graders are not permitted to wash hands after mandatory bathroom times and the teacher stands outside of the bathroom with hand sanitizer squirting it as each child leaves the bathroom. Continue Reading

Raw and risky: do rewards outweigh risks?

U.S. President Obama may want to think again about those burger outings he does. Obama likes Five Brothers Burgers and Fries, where, “kitchen rules include no timers in the kitchen (because good cooks know when food is done).” Maybe use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer? Misti Crane of The Columbus Dispatch writes that those who run kitchens commonly run afoul of food-safety sticklers when it comes time to eat. Continue Reading

When food kills: The peanut butter case

When food kills When food kills When food kills When food kills When food kills STORY HIGHLIGHTS Nine people died, more than 700 were sickened in a 2008 salmonella outbreak Health officials traced the outbreak to peanut butter produced in south Georgia Company executives are now on trial, accused of deliberately shipping tainted food Government says the company covered up positive … continue reading

Hospital-Acquired Infections Rack Up $9.8 billion a Year

At least 15 people may have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from neurosurgery instruments that had first been used at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, N.H.

This is one example of our  nation's hospitals, nursing homes and outpatient clinics continue to fall short when it comes to performing necessary steps to prevent the spread of infection that can cause illness or death, new data from the Joint Commission show.

Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) cost $9.8 billion per year, with surgical site infections alone accounting for one-third of those costs, followed closely by ventilator-associated pneumonia at devices and supplies. Among ambulatory care operators, such as outpatient surgery centers, 37% failed to meet the same standard.  One out of five long-term care providers and one out of four home care providers did not meet guidelines for hand hygiene.

The Joint Commission accredits the quality and safety of healthcare operators. It released its ranking of standards that proved most problematic for healthcare companies in the first six months of 2013.   Preventing infection and hand washing were standards where ambulatory care, hospital and long-term-care providers struggled. There had been no improvement over the previous two years.

47% of hospitals did not comply with processes to reduce the risk of infections associated with medical equipment, devices and supplies. Among ambulatory care operators, such as outpatient surgery centers, 37% failed to meet the same standard.

Infections spread by medical devices or health care providers have long been identified as a major source of cost, illness and death. A growing body of research has sought to pinpoint the cost and harm from healthcare-associated infections and ways to prevent their spread.

Hand washing ranks highly as a way to prevent patients from acquiring infections in healthcare facilities, but compliance remains a stubborn problem among healthcare providers. Reasons for the lack of progress are unrealistic and inflated appraisal by providers of their own performance. Also time pressures on the staff or floor plans that tuck sinks in out-of-the-way locations.

Some organizations now deploy staff to secretly observe adherence and provide feedback to the organization or problematic individuals.

That type of accountability is necessary to improve performance, said Patricia McGaffigan, a nurse, chief operating officer and senior vice president of the National Patient Safety Foundation. “A true culture of safety will not tolerate these misses in hand hygiene and they will hold people accountable for not practicing their hand hygiene appropriately,” many organizations now deploy staff to secretly observe adherence and provide feedback to the organization—or problematic individuals.

One Company has come out with a badge for caregivers to wear. By using GPS the badge rings if the caregiver goes to a patient without stopping by the sink to wash their hands.

Australia 17 Infected with E.Coli in Petting Zoo

Four days ago a woman and 3 children were infected with E. coli after petting animals at the Ekka show in Brisbane. The state's chief health officer Dr Jeanette Young says a 33-year-old Brisbane woman and 3 children, aged 6, 11, and 12, are being treated, but are not in hospital. "They've obtained this infection and we know it is a very serious infection and potentially can cause significant problems," she told reporters. "It can cause severe bloody diarrhoea and there is a risk it can cause severe complications."

as of today there are 17 sick from shiga-toxin producing E. coli linked to the animal area at the Queensland state fair (EKKA}, neighboring Gold Coast says they’re boosting hygiene for their fair that starts Friday.

But it probably isn't enough, Queensland Health today confirmed that eight people have tested positive and another nine have reported symptoms.Gold Coast

“This year in keeping with the guidelines from Queensland Health we have actually put in more wash stations than Queensland Health has advised, in an effort to ensure the same unfortunate occurrence does not happen at our show,”  show marketing manager Leisa Martin said.

“So of course after you have been near the animals use one of the hand sanitiser stations that are nearby.”

The U.K. and many scientists say hand sanitizers are mostly useless in the presence of an organic matter.The recommended procedure is handwashing with soap and vigorously running water, followed by drying with paper towel is recommended procedure.

But bacterial can be present on many surfaces or even aerosolized so hand washing isn't always the answer. Maybe those guidelines should be updated.

Dr Young  “urged anyone who had been to the show and petted the animals to be cautious, especially people who work in childcare or in the food industry. "Anyone who's been to the Ekka, who went into the animal petting area along animal boulevard, and then developed persistent or bloody diarrhoea, should go and be checked out, particularly if the symptoms continue," she said.

Enterohemorrhagic E. coli is a very serious, very infectious type of bacteria and can spread easily from person to person without proper hygienic practices. In rare cases it can develop into a haemolytic-uremic syndrome, which affects the kidneys, and in some cases can be fatal.

Queensland Health is working with Biosecurity Queensland, the Ekka organizers, and their contractors to find the animals potentially carrying the bacterium.

Iit cannot be overstressed that all visitors to petting zoos, especially children, must wash their hands after exposure to animals.

A list of past petting zoo E. coli infections

. My feeling is that petting zoos should be banned. They are not worth a single child's death. You can’t depend on all children washing their hands no matter how many hand washing stations you put up.