Outbreak

CHICAGO -- There are lots of theories on how to succeed in business. But here's one that never occurred to me: Poison your customers. This strategy sounds counterintuitive, since the dead don't do much buying, but some people think it accounts for periodic outbreaks of food-borne illness. They say you can't trust the private sector to keep pathogens out of our food, making it incumbent on the federal government to protect us. The recent episode of lethal pet food is Exhibit A in this case.

Maryland hospitals have not seen any illnesses stemming from West Nile virus, which recently sparked an epidemic in New York and was detected in a dead crow found in downtown Baltimore this month, health officials said yesterday.Despite this, state Health Secretary Georges Benjamin said he asked his department to investigate every case of encephalitis that has occurred since July -- a month before the New York outbreak -- to make sure that none was related to West Nile."We're going to look at every case of encephalitis in the state," Benjamin said.

WASHINGTON -- The recovery of Maryland's seafood industry from the scare caused by an outbreak of toxic Pfiesteria piscicida two years ago is only tentative, and the industry could easily be threated by another occurrence, according to a University of Delaware survey released yesterday.The survey, conducted in fall 1998, shows that nearly two-thirds of the residents of the mid-Atlantic region believe that seafood is unsafe to eat because of Pfiesteria outbreaks, and that more than half said they would cut their consumption of local seafood if an outbreak occurred in their state's waters.

Scientists have detected the presence of the parasite that caused the largest outbreak of water-borne illness in U.S. history in oysters taken from commercially harvested beds in Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.The oysters containing Cryptosporidium, which can cause vomiting and severe diarrhea, were taken from beds in the Wicomico, Nanticoke, Potomac and Patuxent rivers, Fishing Bay and Tangier Sound in the fall of 1997 and winter and fall of last year, the scientists reported.The scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration laboratory at Oxford on the Eastern Shore, the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta reported their findings in the September/October issue of the CDC's journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases.

There's an algal bloom just downstream from Shelltown on the Pocomoke River. And there are plenty of menhaden, the fish Pfiesteria feast on. State biologists even found the deadly microorganism, albeit in a benign state, in water taken from the river late last month.These conditions resemble the summer of 1997, the year an outbreak of Pfiesteria piscicida killed fish and sickened people along three rivers on Maryland's lower Eastern Shore. But that doesn't necessarily mean Shore waters are in for another outbreak of lesioned fish circling crazily near the surface before they expire or of people suffering memory loss and disorientation.

The virus that caused the outbreak of West Nile encephalitis in the New York City region this summer is very similar to one isolated last year in Israel, scientists reported yesterday.The finding, reported in the Dec. 4 issue of the Lancet, a journal published in London, does not unravel other mysteries, such as how and when the virus entered the United States. But it is the strongest evidence yet that the virus that killed seven people and infected 52 others in the metropolitan region originated in the Middle East.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration vowed yesterday to respond swiftly to any outbreak of Pfiesteria on the East Coast and to work with state agencies on long-term strategies for cleaning up coastal and inland waters.At a White House news conference, federal officials warned that outbreaks of Pfiesteria are especially likely this year in the wake of the El Nino weather pattern. The mild winter and early spring along the Eastern seaboard left behind warm, nutrient-rich water ideal for the proliferation of harmful algae, said D. James Baker of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

State and local health officials have concluded that a sick employee who was handling food transmitted a virus to more than 350 guests who dined at Turf Valley Resort and Conference Center in Ellicott City last month.The determination closed a three-week investigation into an outbreak of a Norwalk-like virus that caused vomiting and diarrhea, officials said."This was your common, garden-variety virus that can cause flu-like conditions," said Tori Leonard, state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene spokeswoman.

As medical detectives searched a Southeast Baltimore plastics factory yesterday for a microscopic killer, Maryland health officials confirmed three cases of Legionnaires' disease among the plant's workers, including a 51-year-old jazz singer who died last week.Six more workers at the Poly-Seal Corp. suffered respiratory illness, including three who had pneumonia, but tests to confirm that they were infected with the Legionella pneumophila bacteria are not complete, said Dr. Diane Dwyer, chief epidemiologist for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Persistent outbreaks of syphilis have given Baltimore the unwelcome distinction of being tops in the nation in the rate of reported cases of the sexually transmitted disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Unlike most cities around the country, which are reporting fewer cases of syphilis, the recently released statistics show that Baltimore more than tripled in 1996 its rate of reported cases in 1990.City health officials say that the syphilis outbreak is linked to drug use."

City and state officials are scrambling for clues to what caused an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease at a senior living facility on the former site of Memorial Stadium, leaving one person dead and four others sickened. Officials at the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Baltimore Health Department were interviewing those who have fallen ill and planning to test water sources to try to determine the origin of the outbreak at Stadium Place, a retirement community built 10 years ago. Authorities also were informing residents about symptoms so any new cases can be caught early.

There is now little doubt the nation will experience a widespread -and perhaps severe - outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, traditionally the flu season in the Northern Hemisphere. Experts are still uncertain how virulent this particular flu strain, which has been circulating through the Southern Hemisphere in recent months, will be when it comes back our way, and they are monitoring it carefully for mutations that might render it more deadly. So far, there's no indication of that; according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although H1N1 does spread easily, it remains a relatively mild strain of influenza.

Question: : I had severe leg cramps and read about putting a bar of soap under the sheet. I tried this and found it stopped them immediately. Even more astonishing, it also banished my intermittent erectile dysfunction. I checked out the ingredients of Ivory soap and found it contains magnesium sulfate. Paramedics use this compound to treat heart attacks or asthma because it relaxes smooth muscle fibers found in blood vessels and airways. I wonder if magnesium is absorbed from the soap through the skin of the legs and feet, increasing blood flow.

Outbreaks of swine flu continued to be confirmed around the world Tuesday, with new cases reported in Canada, Israel, France, New Zealand, Costa Rica and South Korea, and the White House asked Congress for an additional $1.5 billion to fight the outbreak. President Barack Obama, in a letter to Congress, asked for the funds with "maximum flexibility to allow us to address this emerging situation." The letter said the money could go toward stockpiling anti-viral medicine, vaccine development, disease monitoring and diagnosis, and assisting international efforts to limit its spread.

Officials advised Monday against most travel to Mexico, the center of an outbreak of swine flu suspected of killing almost 150 people there and sickening at least 50 through its spread to the United States. The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said cases of the virus in the U.S. have been mild - none has been reported in Maryland - but warned that more serious cases could emerge. "I wouldn't rest on the fact that we have only seen cases in this country that are less severe," Dr. Richard Besser told reporters.

As Mexico City closed schools and began taking other measures to contain the spread of a swine flu outbreak that might have infected hundreds of people and killed as many as 60, U.S. officials said Friday they had found one new case in San Diego, bringing the total number of U.S. cases to eight. The most recent victim, a child, has recovered fully - as did all of the other seven victims - said Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Six of the eight U.S. cases occurred in California's San Diego and Imperial counties and two in Guadeloupe County, Texas.

Measles, long a scourge of childhood before the development of effective vaccines, has practically disappeared in the United States. Today, most Americans either were vaccinated as children or got the disease before they entered school and are now immune. That's not the case for people who weren't born in this country, however, many of whom remain vulnerable. That's why health department officials are taking urgent steps to contain an outbreak of measles in Montgomery County, where four cases were reported this year.

WASHINGTON - The salmonella outbreak that has killed as many as nine people and sickened hundreds nationwide has created what advocates say is an unprecedented opportunity to reform the way America safeguards its food supply. "You've had the consumer community, the expert community clamoring for this for over a decade," said Michael R. Taylor, a former deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. "What's happened with this outbreak is it has just elevated the intensity of the political focus and the demand or expectation that something be done."

Two Baltimore children are among eight Marylanders reportedly sickened by salmonella contamination that federal authorities have traced to peanut butter products from a plant in Georgia. Baltimore's health commissioner, Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, confirmed that the children, ages 1 and 9, were among three Baltimore residents sickened late last year. The third was a 20-year-old. All have recovered. The eight Maryland cases identified so far are among 475 salmonella infections in 43 states linked by DNA analysis to the outbreak that began last fall.

WASHINGTON - The outbreak of salmonella poisoning that sickened more than 1,300 people across the country and cost American tomato growers more than $300 million has been traced to peppers grown on a farm in Mexico, federal officials said yesterday. "Now we have a smoking gun, it appears," said Lonnie King, who directs investigations of food-borne illnesses at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. David Acheson, the head of food safety at the Food and Drug Administration, said the strain of Salmonella Saintpaul that caused the nationwide outbreak has been found in irrigation water and serrano peppers on a Mexican farm.