Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
Woman With Flesh-Eating Disease Awake, Alert: Family
The 24-year-old Georgia woman who lost her left leg after contracting flesh-eating disease is awake and alert but remains in critical condition, her family says.
Aimee Copland, who developed the infection after a zip line injury, isn’t aware that her leg has been amputated and can’t recall the events that landed her in an Augusta hospital for the past 11 days, ABC News reported.
“They are giving her medication to help her forget the stress she’s under, so that explains her inability to recollect many things,” Copeland’s father, Andy Copeland, wrote in a blog detailing his daughter’s situation. “I tell her not to worry. I tell her to concentrate on breathing. I ask her to pray and meditate on healing.”
“The words I hear from the medical professionals to describe Aimee’s continued recovery are ‘astonishing,’ ‘incredible,’ ‘confounding,’ ‘mind boggling’ and ‘unbelievable,'” Andy Copeland wrote, ABC News reported. “All those are fitting words. My favorite word is ‘miracle.'”
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FDA Extends Deadline for Sunscreen Label Changes
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yielded to sunscreen makers’ requests for more time to clearly indicate to consumers how much sun protection is actually provided by their products.
Last summer, the FDA said sunscreen makers had until this June to make label changes that clearly identified brands that protected against both ultraviolet B and ultraviolet A rays, the Associated Press reported.
In addition, sunscreens could no longer be marketed as waterproof or sweatproof, only water- or sweat-resistant, a change meant to make people aware that they need to frequently reapply the sunscreens.
However, sunscreen manufacturers said they were having difficulty meeting the June deadline, so the FDA said Friday it would give large companies another six months to make the changes, while smaller companies have until December 2013, the AP reported.
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Salmonella Outbreak Tied to Dog Food Sickens 16: CDC
Fifteen people in 9 states, plus another person in Canada, have now been infected in an outbreak of Salmonella Infantis associated with dry dog food, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an investigation update released Friday.
Multiple brands of dry dog food made at a Diamond Pet Foods manufacturing facility in South Carolina have been linked with some of the human cases of salmonella.
The number of ill persons reported in each state is as follows: Alabama (1), Connecticut (1), Michigan (1), Missouri (3), North Carolina (3), New Jersey (1), Ohio (2), Pennsylvania (2), and Virginia (1), the CDC said.
Five patients have been hospitalized but there have been no deaths.
People who believe they may have become ill after contact with dry pet food or with an animal that has eaten dry pet food should see a health care provider, the CDC said.
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