Many of us think we know what electronic waste is because we wonder what to do with devices we no longer want or need.
It’s the old cellphone and its charger stuffed in the drawer.
It’s that old laptop, monitor or printer packed behind the door or in the basement.
It’s also all those things we throw out that are exported overseas, and picked over by people who are either desperate for work, despite the health and environmental risks, or at the forefront of a new green economy, depending on the narrative you hear.
If someone tells you to go suck an egg, you might want to think twice about it if you live on the east coast. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last month that a Salmonella outbreak affecting hundreds of millions of eggs had been traced back to a farm in Hyde County, North Carolina. Public health officials have traced consumers’ illnesses in nine different states to the outbreak. Last week, the CDC released a map showing the outbreak’s spread.
Rose Acre Farms, the company responsible for the outbreak, distributes eggs all over the US, to both grocery stores and restaurants. As a result of contamination on the North Carolina farm, over 206 million eggs were exposed to Salmonella braenderup, a bacteria that causes severe diarrhea. The outbreak began in mid-April and appears to be slowing down, but in a multi-state outbreak like this, officials at the CDC may not hear about people getting sick right away. Therefore, the data on the case continues to evolve as reports roll in. The most recent numbers count 35 illnesses, 11 hospitalizations, and no deaths. Here’s a map of the outbreak’s current extent:
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In a paper published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers demonstrated that the virus could infect human cells as well as the cells of cats and chickens. Even though PDCoV appears to be limited to pigs at the moment, scientists suspect that its sudden appearance in 2012 occurred as a result of a rapid “host switching” event in which the virus adapted to infect pigs, possibly from birds. It causes diarrhea and vomiting in pigs and can be fatal, especially in nursing young. The virus’s probable history, coupled with some specific aspects of how it infects cells, has scientists worried that it could become a threat to human health.
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This is important because “the go-to treatment for many cases of depression is medication…this treatment option can cause as many issues as the problem it is trying to solve. Antidepressants can put residents at greater risk of falls, negative health complications and other poor conditions…studies indicate that antidepressants may not be effective for most older Americans. (Additionally) Medication adherence is another significant challenge.”
___ Why technology — not medication — is the future of treating older adults with depression (McKnight’s Long-term Care News): “The go-to treatment for many cases of depression is medication. Unfortunately, this treatment option can cause as many issues as the problem it is trying to solve. Antidepressants can put.
The World Health Organization is preparing for the “worst-case scenario” as it continues to respond to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Peter Salama, deputy director-general of emergency preparedness and response at the WHO, said in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday that it’s “going to be tough and it’s going to be costly to stamp out this outbreak.”
There have been 34 cases of Ebola virus disease reported during the past five weeks, the WHO said Friday. Of those, two have been confirmed using laboratory tests, 14 are suspected, and 18 — who are deceased — are considered probable for the disease. Three of the patients are health care workers.
