People who wear contact lenses are often warned to properly clean their reusable contacts. A new study published Friday provides a sober reminder of why those warnings exist. Since 2011, it found, an outbreak of a rare infection that can cause blindness has been spreading among contact lens wearers in England, often…
The initially mysterious illness that prompted Emirates Airlines Flight 203 to be quarantined upon its arrival to JFK International Airport in New York Wednesday is likely just a bad case of the flu and cold, health officials said Thursday.
Public health experts have been warning people since June to stay away from Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal, as it can possibly give you a nasty case of salmonella poisoning. But people are still eating the frog-branded cereal, and they are unfortunately getting sick.
Sexually transmitted diseases are running rampant across the U.S., according to a new preliminary report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It found there were more than 2 million cases of the three most commonly reported STDs—syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea—in 2017, making for the…
The bacteria that cause urinary tract infections are not only becoming more resistant to antibiotics, suggests a recent study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, but they’re starting to spread outside of hospitals. Even worse than that, doctors might be losing their ability to predict when someone has a…
A disease that often causes no symptoms, but which can suddenly become fatal years after a person was infected, is receiving a big spotlight from the American Heart Association (AHA). On Monday, the organization published a scientific statement in its journal Circulation, urging heart doctors in the U.S. to start…
A mysterious outbreak that seemingly sickened hundreds of Chipotle customers in Ohio might finally have a known culprit. On Thursday, health officials reported that traces of a common foodborne bug called Clostridium perfringens had been found in some of the victims’ stool samples. It’s likely the outbreak was spread…
As worrying as new invasive species of parasitic ticks might be, a recent report released by the lab testing company Quest Diagnostics should remind us of the more pressing dangers these eight-legged bugs can cause. It suggests that not only have cases of the tick-borne Lyme disease substantially risen in the past few…
Ticks and insects in general are steadily spreading across the United States and causing more disease, aided by an ever-cozier climate. If that’s not bad enough, though, it’s almost certain that an invasive species of tick, newly discovered last year, has firmly established America as its home. And this tick is…
Chipotle’s years-long redemption tour might have hit a snag. Throughout this week, health officials in Ohio have reported hearing from hundreds of people in connection to an outbreak of sickness that appears to be linked to one of the chain’s locations in Delaware county.
Bacteria are steadily winning the war against even our strongest antibiotics, stoking fears of a future that resembles Victorian-era England in all the worst ways. A new study published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine is sure to add to this existential terror: It suggests that at least some hospital-spread…
Late last week, certain lots of popular snack foods such as Ritz Cracker Sandwiches and Pepperidge Farm’s Goldfish crackers were recalled over concerns they might contain disease-causing Salmonella bacteria. But the worst may yet be to come. On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration warned that more recalls of…
A disease spread by sandflies seen as an exotic nuisance in the U.S. might not be solely a traveler’s disease after all. A new study published Wednesday in JAMA Dermatology suggests that most American cases of leishmaniasis are actually spread by native bugs, not caught while traveling. And thanks to climate change,…
Getting a stomach bug is bad enough. But a new outbreak of salmonella bacteria spread by raw turkey that has sickened nearly 100 people across several states has an troubling wrinkle to it: The germ at fault is likely also resistant to multiple antibiotics.
A tapeworm that normally infects barn animals and dogs came as a literal shock for one 35-year-old French woman, according to a case report published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine. The woman learned her three-month ordeal of worsening muscle weakness and electrical zaps in both legs was ultimately…
Even under the best of circumstances, ordering salad at McDonald’s is a dicey endeavor. But now an outbreak of the foodborne parasite cyclospora has sickened over 100 people in Iowa and Illinois since May, and several cases are tied to salads purchased at the fast food giant.
For decades, the idea that a bacteria or virus could help cause Alzheimer’s disease was dismissed as a fringe theory. But not so much anymore. On Wednesday, a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School reported in the journal Neuron the latest bit of evidence suggesting herpesviruses can spark the cascade of…
One of the world’s deadliest diseases—tuberculosis—made a rare stateside appearance Thursday. This afternoon, the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland reported that a small amount of the infectious germ was potentially released in its facilities while being transported. The incident initially prompted the…
A woman’s selfies helped her monitor the movements of an unwelcome guest: a roving parasitic worm living in her face. Thankfully, doctors were able to get the pesky pest—which she likely caught overseas from a mosquito—out of her body without any problems.
A mosquito-borne virus discovered over a half century ago has been found in humans for the first time ever, likely having caused a case of severe rash and fever in a Florida teenager in 2016. But despite the recent reveal, it’s likely the germ has been making people sick for quite some time.
