From the CDC.
From watching calf roping at the rodeo to petting lambs at the county fair, there are many ways to explore the animal world this spring and summer. Exhibits such as petting zoos and fairs allow children of all ages to have the thrilling experience of coming face to face with animals. This interaction allows people to learn more about animals and helps to build an important human-animal bond.

Unfortunately, many people become sick every year because of a visit to an animal exhibit. It is important to remember that animals sometimes carry germs that are harmful to humans. When people forget to wash their hands after petting an animal or bring food into an area where animals are being housed, they are at risk for becoming ill.
Let’s make this spring and summer healthier seasons! Below are some tips to help you prevent illness when visiting animal exhibits.

Click to read more info from the CDC

Handwashing Station

If you are visiting an animal exhibit:
Hand-washing stations

* Find out where hand-washing stations are located.
* Always wash your hands after petting animals or touching the animal enclosure, especially before eating and drinking.
* Running water and soap are best. Use hand gels if running water and soap are not available.

handwashing station

Food and drinks

* Keep food and drinks out of animal areas.
* Do not share your food with animals.
* Do not eat or drink raw (unpasteurized) dairy products.

Children

* Children younger than 5 years old need supervision
* Never allow children to put their hands or objects (For example: pacifiers) in their mouth while interacting with animals.
* Hand washing should be supervised.

Elderly persons or others who might have a difficult time fighting off infections should use special precautions. Click here to find out more.

If you manage an animal exhibit:

Facility design

• Design the exhibit so that animal areas are separate from areas where people may eat food.
• Use signs to state where the animal and food areas are.
• Install hand washing stations at the exit for the animal exhibit. Make sure that some of the hand-washing stations are low enough for children to reach!

Lambs at the Fair

Education/information

• Educate visitors to wash their hands after handling animals.
• Do not allow visitors to kiss or otherwise allow their mouths to come into contact with animals or their enclosures.
• Train staff and educate visitors about preventing disease transmission from animals to humans.
• Use a variety of methods to provide information to
  the public. For example, use brochures, signs, and verbal instructions.

From Medscape Medical News
July 15, 2009 — US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released new data today from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample, the largest all-payer emergency department (ED) database in the country, showing that a disproportionate number of visits were made by uninsured or low-income patients.

There were nearly 120 million ED visits in 2006, according to the HHS’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Nearly one fifth were made by patients without health insurance, Secretary Sebelius said, and one fifth were made by residents of rural areas. One third of ED visits were made by low-income patients.

“Our healthcare system has forced too many uninsured, rural, and low-income Americans to depend on the emergency room for the care they need,” Secretary Sebelius said in an HHS release announcing the new findings. “We cannot wait for reform that gives all Americans the high-quality, affordable care they need and helps prevent illnesses from turning into emergencies.”

The Nationwide Emergency Department Sample contains 26 million records from ED visits to approximately 1000 community hospitals nationwide, or approximately 20% of all US EDs.Read Article

Pretty In Pink Foundation

RALEIGH, N.C., July 16/PRNewswire/ — Capital Bank President and CEO B. Grant Yarber will appear in an upcoming segment on the TODAY Show scheduled to air Monday, July 20. A producer, NBC News’ correspondent Anne Thompson and crew from the TODAY Show visited Raleigh earlier this month to highlight Pretty In Pink, a foundation providing treatment, education and support for uninsured and underinsured women with breast cancer, and Capital Bank’s support of the organization. Thompson, a breast cancer survivor herself, interviewed Yarber for the segment. The TODAY Show is broadcast regionally on WNCN-TV (NBC 17). This story will air during the 8 to 9 a.m. hour and will also be online at http://today.msnbc.msn.com/.

“Our mission as a community bank is to make a difference in the lives of those in the communities we serve,” said Yarber. “We supported Pretty In Pink in its early years after becoming aware of the need for a different type of support for women with cancer. Unlike organizations that fund cancer research, Pretty In Pink provides funding for critical treatment for underinsured women.”

Capital Bank continues to support Pretty In Pink as the growing foundation strives toward its vision of having a presence in each state in the country by 2020. The bank also awarded Pretty In Pink its first Pink Promise Corporate Donation of 2009.

“Capital Bank helped Pretty In Pink Foundation move closer to our mission and we are deeply appreciative of both their financial commitment and their spirit of community,” remarked Dr. Lisa Tolnitch, founder of Pretty In Pink Foundation. “When Capital Bank committed to be a Pink Promise contributor earlier this year, the entire Pretty In Pink Foundation staff was moved with gratitude. Their contribution helps us provide immediate and necessary financial assistance to breast cancer patients when they need it most. We will always be grateful for Capital Bank’s compassion and support.”

“I encourage others to support the wonderful service this organization is providing,” added Yarber. “The need to assist those in North Carolina is great, yet we are confident in Pretty In Pink’s efforts to eliminate financial barriers to cancer treatment in our own state and beyond.”

About Capital Bank

Capital Bank Corporation CBKN, headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., with approximately $1.7 billion in total assets, offers a broad range of financial services. Capital Bank operates 32 banking offices in Asheville (4), Burlington (4), Cary, Clayton, Fayetteville (3), Graham (2), Hickory, Mebane, Morrisville, Oxford, Parkton, Pittsboro, Raleigh (5), Sanford (3), Siler City, Wake Forest, and Zebulon. Capital Bank plans to open offices this summer in Holly Springs and west Cary. The company’s website is www.capitalbank-nc.com.
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Cabin FeverTrying to stop the spread of swine flu at summer camp.
By Marc SiegelPosted Friday, July 10, 2009, at 9:27 AM ET
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Can swine flu be contained at summer camps? Click image to expand.Can swine flu be contained at summer camps?For three summers, my 12-year-old son, Joshua, has attended Camp Modin, a beautiful camp in rural Maine. This year, when we dropped him off at the northbound bus, something was different: The counselors were taking children’s temperatures before letting them onboard. It seemed a wise precaution, as the new influenza A H1N1 swine flu strain continues to spread and the weather in Maine in June was cool this year, which would facilitate an outbreak of the virus. But as a physician who has studied the flu for many years, I was still worried. An infected person can be contagious even if he doesn’t have a fever.

My concern was justified. Three days after camp started, I called the camp director, Howard Salzburg, and discovered that he was beside himself. One of the parents, another physician, had used Tylenol to deliberately suppress his child’s fever so he wouldn’t be held back. There were already 16 cases of the flu, confirmed by the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention to be the H1N1 swine flu strain. Desperate to contain the infection, Howard had created a quarantine bunk for the sick and was having all the bunks cleaned with hospital-grade disinfectant. One other tool could help stem the spread of infection—but using it would go against CDC protocol.
Related in Slate
Christopher Beam answered the questions you probably had about swine flu. Michelle Tsai explained why we don’t have a comprehensive flu vaccine—it would be dangerous!—and Jon Cohen cautioned that surgical masks probably won’t save you either. Emily Bazelon asked why we’re sending tiny children to sleep-away camp anyway.

The Centers for Disease Control has a national policy to reserve the anti-flu drug Tamiflu, which works by blocking the flu virus from detaching from one human cell and spreading to the next one, for only severe cases. But with the new pandemic strain circling the globe and more than 1 million people already infected, it seemed to me it was time for our public health authorities to employ a more aggressive strategy. Clinical trials have shown that Tamiflu, when taken within 48 hours of exposure, is 92 percent effective at preventing flu in adults and 82 percent effective in children. Since we don’t yet have a vaccine, it was clear that the best strategy was to use the drug, which decreases the severity and the duration of the illness and helps prevent people who are in contact with flu patients from getting sick themselves. I e-mailed the camp parents to let them know that Tamiflu is well-tolerated and safe and that I was starting my son on a 10-day course of it; it would be wise, I recommended, for them to do the same. Prescriptions were soon flooding the camp’s fax machine; out of the 350 campers, 250 campers were started on the drug, as were more than 100 staffers.

CBS Video of Swine Flu at Camp

Avoiding Swine Flu At Camp
From CBS
July 13, 2009 4:20 PM

Now that the H1N1 virus is spreading, many kids’ summer camps are taking precautions. Dr. Jennifer Ashton reports that campers and counselors are especially vulnerable.

Donor heart removed 10 years after toddler’s piggyback heart transplant
n an unprecedented procedure reported online Monday in the medical journal Lancet, a donor heart was removed from a British girl, Hannah Clark, 10 years after it was grafted in a piggyback heart transplant. The procedure, known as a heterotopic heart transplant, was performed by Dr. Magdi Yacoub of Imperial College London and Harefield Hospital and involved grafting the donor heart, obtained from a five month-old baby, parallel to Hannah’s own heart.

Following the surgery, doctors found that Hannah’s heart had miraculously healed itself. Though they cannot explain how the regeneration happened, some researchers speculate that a small number of stem cells in the heart may have somehow been triggered in the crisis situation to heal the damaged tissue. If a treatment could be developed one day from this phenomenon many cardiac patients could be benefit.

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