The Centers for Disease Control has released a report that says children who are raised in the biological home of their mother and father have much less trauma than children in one-parent homes or in foster care.
The study looked at a variety of traumatic experiences including divorce, death of a parent, alcohol or drug problems or suffered racial discrimination.
The report shows that 70 percent of children raised in the home of their biological parents had no adverse family experiences compared to 21.7 percent of single parent homes and 18.7 of those raised by no biological parents.
The information from the National Survey of Children’s Health shows that of the children who experienced trauma, those in the homes of biological parents saw much less extremes.
In the case of drug or alcohol problems, only 4 percent of children with their mother and father saw that problem compared to 18.9 percent in single parent homes and 42.2 percent in foster care.
What doctors feared could happen in the Caribbean with the chikungunya virus has become a reality: the disease has obtained a foothold.
Doctors across the Caribbean are reporting over 4,000 cases of the mosquito-borne virus that causes high fever and intense joint pain. While 4,000 cases have been confirmed, there have been at least 31,000 other cases that have not been laboratory confirmed.
The painful illness is mostly found in Asia and Africa. The first case in the Caribbean was detected in December in St. Martin in a resident who have traveled back home from Africa.
The disease, while rarely fatal, causes severe joint pain that can last for months or years. In some cases, the pain is so significant that it leaves the patients unable to walk.
Doctors say the virus has no vaccine.
Doctors with the CDC are monitoring the situation where they say the virus is spreading in an “uncontrolled” manner. They advise anyone travelling to the Caribbean to make sure to wear heavy amounts of mosquito repellant and to make sure they refresh that protect on a regular basis.
Health officials in the region say that once a virus becomes entrenched in a region, it is extremely difficult to eradicate it. The area’s wet season is also coming up when it sees a major rise in the mosquito population.
The outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa is growing into more of a concern for world leaders.
Mali reported their first possible cases of Ebola since the beginning of an outbreak in neighboring Guinea. Government officials have isolated three people in Mali as they await confirmation testing from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Guinea reported their 90th death from the outbreak leading Doctors Without Borders to say this could become an unprecedented epidemic in a region that has extremely poor health care systems.
The outbreak has reached a point that foreign mining companies in Guinea have closed their operations and pulled their employees to their home nations. French officials say they are preparing screening at the airports for travels from the former French colonies.
In addition to Guinea, confirmed cases have been found in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Liberia confirmed three new deaths in the last 24 hours bringing their total to four.
DWB officials are concerned with the dense living conditions in cities where the virus has been found because it will be hard to stop the virus should it break out in a crowded living area.
The most recent Abortion Surveillance report has been released by the Centers for Disease Control and is showing a very disturbing trend among women in Georgia who are choosing to end the lives of their babies via abortion.
The data, from 2010, is the latest available from the CDC and shows that 53.6% of the babies killed via abortion in Georgia are black. That number is 2.5 times larger than the number of white babies who die via abortion during the data year.
The reason the percentage of black babies to white babies killed is shocking is because the population of the state is almost 63% white. Only 31% of Georgia’s 2012 population is black.
The study also showed that while the number of abortions for all racial demographics were down in 2010, the decrease was significantly less for black women than any other racial group.
However, critics of the report note that the study cannot be truly representative of the entire nation as California, one of the country’s largest states and one of the largest abortion providing states, refuses to report their data for the official CDC abortion survey.
The H1N1 virus, which killed over 14,000 people in a 2009 global pandemic, has returned with a vengeance in the 2013-14 flu season.
The Centers for Disease Control says that for the first time since that 2009 outbreak, H1N1 has been killing victims at an epidemic level.
The CDC says that the death toll is only a fraction of the 2009 outbreak but that levels are significantly higher than previous years. With six weeks to go in the flu season, some states have seen more than a nine-fold increase in deaths. California has 243 deaths this year compared to 26 at this time last year.
Some California hospitals have been so overrun with flu patients that they have set up triage units in their parking lots to keep infected patients away from potentially immunosuppressed patients in the main hospital building.
Many Californians rushed to get flu shots after a woman who worked for Sacramento’s ABC TV affiliate died from H1N1 within four days of feeling ill.
The CDC also says that surveillance reports in Virginia and Maryland show a wide outbreak of H1N1 but they along with the District of Columbia do not record deaths from the flu.
Duke University Medical Center reported a disturbing trend in that most hospitalized flu patients were younger, an average age of 28.5, and had more significant complications than in previous H1N1 outbreaks.
A hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina is apologizing for potentially exposing 18 patients to a rare and fatal disease.
Officials with Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center said Monday at a press conference that brain surgery patients have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease which kills 90 percent of patients within a year of showing symptoms.
“While the CDC categorizes such risks [of transmission] as ‘very low’, any risk of transmission is simply unacceptable,” Jeff Lindsay, president of the hospital, told reporters. “On behalf of the entire team, I apologize to the patients and their families for this anxiety.”
The instruments used in the brain surgery were sterilized using normal sterilization techniques but not the specialized procedures used for Cruetzfeldt-Jakob.
Amanda Morin, who had back surgery at the hospital and is one of the 18 potentally infected, told Fox News that she was “very, very angry something so little could cost me my life.”
The state Department of Health and Human Services said they are monitoring the situation.
The Centers for Disease Control is noticing a disturbing trend in the current flu season.
The CDC says that significantly more adults between 18 and 64 have been hospitalized because of the flu than in previous years. According to their weekly survey of the flu, more than 61.5 percent of hospitalized patients were between the 18 to 64 age group, an 80 percent increase from last year.
Almost 2,500 specimens sent to the CDC for testing that showed positive for the flu. Of that group, almost 96% tested positive for the H1N1 swine flu.
The alarm from the CDC is echoing among medical providers who are seeing deaths among previously healthy young adults. Last week a 29-year-old mother of three died just a few days after exhibiting flu symptoms. A 41-year-old man also died from the flu.
The CDC says the country has not yet reached epidemic level but the number of states showing widespread influenza rose from 25 to 35 last week.
A report from the Centers for Disease Control says that in 2012 just over 40% of babies were born to unwed mothers.
The news was included in a report that showed the United States’ birth rate fell to a record low in 2012. The number of births per 1,000 women aged 15-44 was 63.0, down from 63.2 in 2011, the previous record low.
The number of babies born to unwed mothers was 40.7 percent, down from 2009 when it peaked at 41.0 percent.
The percentage of American children born to unmarried mothers has more than doubled since the 1980s. In 1980, the same report showed that only 18.4 percent of babies were born to unmarried mothers.
The Centers for Disease Control is focusing on a hospital in the Chicago suburbs were an outbreak of a deadly bacteria seems to be spreading.
The bacterium, called a “nightmare bacteria” by doctors, contains a special rare enzyme that allows it to break down antibiotics.
The bacteria is known as carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae. The superbug lives in the intestines and can be spread by fecal matter.
The CDC reports they have only been able to document 97 cases of infection by the bacteria since 2009…but 44 have been connected over the last year to this one Chicago area hospital.
Officials say that as many as 250 patients were potentially exposed to the bacteria during an endoscopy procedure. Only 114 of the patients returned to be tested for the disease.
The Centers for Disease Control has released a report showing that over 38 million Americans drink too much alcohol on a regular basis.
The report says that most Americans who fall into the category of too much alcohol consumption are not actually alcoholics. They classify the people as “problem drinkers” who will binge drink or drink on specific days of the week.
The CDC also cited healthcare providers as providing poor information regarding the impact that alcohol can have on a person’s health and well being over time. Excessive alcohol consumption has been shown to enhance or cause liver disease, infections and cancer risks.
The CDC recommends anyone who consumes alcohol have an “honest chat” with their doctors regarding the impact of alcohol to their health.
