As we approach this year’s holiday season, and in light of the seemingly weekly reports of food borne illnesses outbreaks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Consumer Health Information Web page is offering some suggestions.

The FDA notes that food poisoning generally appears in the form stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea, the onset of which traditionally occurs a few days after ingesting tainted food or drink.  While the symptoms of food poisoning generally tend to pass rather quickly in healthy people, for the elderly, children and infants, pregnant woman, and people suffering from compromised immune systems, food poisoning can be severe, sometimes fatal.  The FDA says to Clean, Separate, Cook, Chill to help combat food poisoning this holiday season. (more…)

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a press release today announcing that IKEA North America Services, LLC has agreed to pay the government a $500,000 civil penalty involving defective outdoor candles.  This, following a recall last week involving blinds also sold by IKEA.

The CPSC provisionally accepted the penalty, settling claims that IKEA neglected to report incidents about involving the candles in a timely manner.  Apparently, the candles could unexpectedly flare up when consumers attempted to extinguish the IKEA candles by blowing them out.  The CPSC announced that the IKEA candles pose fire and burn injury hazards to consumers.  Federal Law requires manufacturers, distributors and retailers to report to the CPSC immediately after receiving information that reasonably supports that a product contains a defect and that that defect could create a substantial product hazard or create an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death.  Although IKEA agreed to settle the allegations, it denies that it knowingly violated federal law. (more…)

A  study of children who lived in  travel trailers following Hurricane Katrina has revealed that many of them are still suffering from health problems.    According to an article in USA Today, the 261 children in the study lived in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at Renaissance Village in Baton Rouge until it closed this past summer.  Many of them are suffering from problems that could be linked to the toxic FEMA trailers’ formaldehyde contamination, but other are indicative of the instability these kids have had to deal with, the report said.

In 2005, thousands of people in Mississippi and Louisiana were given FEMA trailers as temporary housing following hurricanes Katrina and Rita. But by 2006 FEMA was getting reports from field workers along the Gulf Coast that residents of FEMA trailers where getting sick from the air in the toxic trailers. The first suspect was formaldehyde, which is used in the manufacture of the trailers. Despite the reports, e-mails uncovered last summer during a congressional investigation into the trailers showed that FEMA lawyers told the agency to drag its feet on air quality testing. FEMA’s Office of General Council also advised the agency not to test the trailers because doing so “would imply FEMA’s ownership of the issue”. (more…)

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (Democrat-California) issued a press release Friday urging the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to follow through on implementing the Consumer Product Safety Commission Improvement Act of 2008 requiring the CPSC to protect America’s children from the toxic chemical, phthalates.

According to the release, the Act contained a provision written by two Democratic Senators from California—Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer—that requires the CPSC to remove toys and children’s products containing phthalates from store shelves by February 10, 2009.  The release explains that phthalate exposure can harm the development of reproductive organs and discusses how experts believe exposure to multiple phthalates presents a risk to developing fetuses and young children. (more…)

A Class I recall has been issued for battery caps included with some varieties of Animas insulin pumps.  According to Animas Corp, the defective battery caps could cause the pumps to stop administering insulin, putting patients at risk of hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia.

The products involved in this recall include:  

• All Animas 2020 Insulin Pumps shipped between June 16, 2008 through July 19, 2008
• All Animas IR 1200 and IR 1250 Insulin Pumps shipped between June 16, 2008 through August 1, 2008
• All OneTouch Ping Glucose Management Systems shipped prior to August 1, 2008
• All Battery caps shipped between June 16, 2008 through July 19, 2008

According to the Animas Corp. recall notice, some battery caps on these devices do not maintain contact with the pump’s battery compartment. When the cap loses contact with the battery compartment, the insulin pump will temporarily lose power.  A power loss can cause the device to stop administering insulin, which could result in an excess level of glucose in the blood (hyperglycemia). Additionally, this failure may lead to user confusion in the amount of insulin administered, contributing to errors in future doses, which may result in lower than normal level of glucose in the blood (hypoglycemia).

Beginning in August, Animus began notifying insulin pump users of this recall.  In order to ensure the safe operation of the pump, and avoid any potential power loss related to this battery cap issue, users of the affected Animas insulin pumps were told to:

• Immediately replace the battery cap on the Animas insulin pump with the battery cap enclosed with the recall notice.
• Discard and do not use the defective  battery cap from their Animas insulin pump.

Class 1 recalls are the Food & Drug Administration’s most serious type of recall and involve situations in which there is a reasonable probability that use of these products will cause serious injury or death.

Users of Animas insulin pumps who need more information on this recall can call the company at 1-866-423-4087, Monday through Friday  from 8:00 a.m. until 7:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Canadian health authorities are warning that MabCampath, a drug used to treat leukemia, has been linked to infection-related deaths.  According to Health Canada, researchers conducting  a clinical trial in the United States have reported six such deaths among MabCampath patients.

MabCampath, marketed by Bayer HealthCare and Genzyme,  is used after other drugs to treat  B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia have been unsuccessful.  It is one of  a new group of cancer drugs known as monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies recognize certain proteins that are found on the surface of some types of cancer cells. This may then trigger the body’s immune system to attack the cancer cells and cause the cells to destroy themselves. (more…)

USA Today is confirming what many have long suspected — that despite the recent consumer protection act banning phthalates in toys effective February 10, the ban does not apply to those toys manufactured prior to the effective date.  The law was passed over the summer.

This means that toys with dangerous and hormone-mimicking chemicals can continue to be sold.  This is  according to a letter written this week by the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) general counsel, Cheryl Falvey, in which she states that the new law does not contain, “a clear statement of ambiguous intent,” reports USA Today. (more…)

The overuse of antibiotics is making the news again.  This time, a newly released study is indicating that not only does the antibiotic commonly known as Cipro upset the bacterial balance in the digestive system, but those effects seem to be more long-lasting that first believed, reports The Canadian Press.

“You don’t want to be giving readers the impression that we shouldn’t be using antibiotics (when needed),” Dr. David Relman, senior author of the study told the Canadian Press.  However, his study found that digestive effects from Cipro, and the negative symptoms of those effects, were still present in healthy patients six months after cessation of antibiotic treatment. (more…)

China has been making headlines in recent months over  seemingly endless scandals regarding food contamination, specifically with the industrial chemical melamine.  Now, the NY Times’ edition of the International Herald Tribune is reporting that China just announced plans to implement a variety of health reforms, specifically concerning the dairy industry.

The International Herald Tribune states that China’s State Council—China’s cabinet—released regulations for the dairy industry that begin with breeding, include feed, and end with the packaging and sale of milk.  The sweeping move is being made following the melamine scandal that broke in September—but that was covered up for some time prior—in which 54,000 children were sickened and at least four infants died.  Chinese-produced milk formula powder tainted with melamine turned out to be responsible for the deaths and illnesses.  According to Reuters, China’s Health Ministry confirmed yesterday that over 1,000 infants are  still “hospitalized with kidney damage.” (more…)

A prominent lawmaker says financial derivatives like credit default swaps need to be regulated.  Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said yesterday that he plans on introducing new legislation that would force such derivatives onto futures exchanges.

The unregulated derivatives market has shouldered much of the blame for the current global financial crisis.  Derivatives are financial instruments whose value is based on an underlying assets, such as commodities, stocks, residential mortgages, commercial real estate loans, bonds, interest rates, exchange rates, or indices (such as a stock market index or the consumer price index ). (more…)