TB Patient Spends Nine Months In Lockdown

Runaway lawyer's disease less dangerous than initially thought

(NEWSER) - TB patient Andrew Speaker is not quite as sick as planeloads of people feared, Reuters reports. A doctor from Speaker's Denver hospital says the Atlanta lawyer, who flew to Europe despite warnings that he was highly contagious, doesn't have XDR—or extensively drug-resistant—tuberculosis, but rather the more treatable multi-drug-resistant strain. More»

Finger-pointing over TB patient's travels spreads across two continents

(NEWSER) - The Atlanta lawyer whose honeymoon baggage included a dangerous strain of TB is at the center of a contentious international public-health dispute. The Times reports on the conflicting accounts of warnings issued to Andrew Speaker and the governments of the countries he visited. Meanwhile, other American passengers on his flights have tested negative for TB. More»

People who live near vegetation suffer fewer diseases

(NEWSER) - People who live close to parks or other “green spaces” are likely to be healthier, a new study suggests. Dutch researchers scoured the health records of 345,000 people, comparing their health status to the amount of green space in the surrounding area, from a half-mile to 2-mile radius. Of 24 health conditions—including cardiovascular, respiratory, and neurological diseases—people living in purely urban areas suffered higher instances of 15 of them, notes HealthDay. More»

Purell abounds; symptomatic kids sent home

(NEWSER) - With a swine flu resurgence expected in the fall—before an H1N1 vaccine is available—schools are getting a head start on fighting the disease, the Los Angeles Times reports. The scene at summer camps may provide a preview: Hundreds of youngsters in Southern California alone have been sent home to recover from symptoms, and kids are arriving armed with Tamiflu as administrators try to make schools as flu-proof as possible. More»

(NEWSER) - More than two dozen British schoolchildren on a school holiday were booted out of France after some came down with swine flu—but not before they were quarantined by medics in anti-contamination suits and insulted by locals. "It was as if we were dangerous criminals," said one of the visitors, who said one person in the town in Normandy told them, "Go back to your disease-ridden country." More»