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October 31, 2007
Does China make anything that isn't chock full of lead anymore? The US Product Safety Commission announced today that 43,000 Chinese-made fake teeth are being recalled because of very high levels of lead paint. The "Ugly Teeth" party favor retails for about two bucks and has been sold throughout the country since 2006. Consumers are asked to return the fake teeth to wherever they purchased them for a full refund. Lead paint ingestion is particularly... [continue]
| October 30, 2007
Last week, the I.S. 211 in Canarsie told parents that 7th grader Omar Rivera had died from the antibiotic-resistant staph infection MRSA. Now his mother is suing the city and Kings County Hospital for $25 million over the mistreatment of the 12-year-old. On October 11, Aileen Rivera took him to a clinic to examine a pus-filled sores on his back. The Flatlands clinic gave him Motrin and a mild antibiotic, but since it didn't clear... [continue]
October 25, 2007
More and more cases of methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), more commonly referred to as a staph infection, are being reported in New York State - four more were reported on Long Island yesterday. Senator Schumer is asking the President not to veto $5 million in emergency legislation to help stop the staph superbug and local health departments are urging people to exercise better hygiene habits. Staph infections have become more common outside of... [continue]
October 23, 2007
A welcome break from the "what is this growing on my [insert body part here]" type of questions we're used to, Gothamist Health is happy to answer what all of our friends have been asking us for weeks: "Do I need a flu shot?" For most people, the answer is no, you don't need one. But the Department of Health released a statement yesterday suggesting that ALL New Yorkers go right ahead and take the... [continue]
October 18, 2007
With Halloween right around the dark, dank corner, the minds of small children are populated with blood thirsty vampires, hairy knuckled werewolves, and nebulous bogeymen. But as they try to sleep and shudder with thoughts of what's hiding in their closet and lurking under their beds, real monsters are on the loose: drug-resistant bacteria! And these so-called "superbugs" - including a bacterium linked to childhood ear infections that is resistant to up to 18 antibiotics... [continue]
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October 4, 2007
A Long Island woman is suing a medical lab in Rye Brook after her tissue sample was mislabeled, she mistakenly diagnosed with cancer and had a double mastectomy on her healthy breasts. Darrie Eason tells after she was told, post-mastectomy, that she never had cancer, Newsday, "I didn't know what to believe. They told me I had cancer and now they're telling me I didn't. I didn't know if the next day they were going... [continue]
October 2, 2007
Far from just being unhealthy for you, eating a hamburger these days just might kill you. The Health Department is asking New Yorkers to toss any ground beef burgers manufactured by the Topps company because of possible contamination with a particularly dangerous strain of E.coli. A bacteria normally found populating the guts of cows and the humans that love them, the 0157:H7 variety of E. coli is associated with more than just the nuisance of... [continue]