Herpes, hepatitis A, swine flu -- beer pong transmits disease?
No beer pong? What is college life without beer pong?
Last year, some publication at the University of California at Los Angeles – UCLA – warned students that beer pong, a communal drinking game, could be a source of infectious disease like herpes.
The N.Y Times reports tomorrow that students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., are being asked to refrain from playing beer pong after an outbreak of illness that officials feared might be swine flu.
The story notes that what used to be O.K. is not anymore, as the flu has ushered in new standards of etiquette that can be, in turns, mundane, absurd and heartbreaking.
Heartbreaking and beer pong. College life is tragic.
Lizard droppings may have poisoned Bangladesh students
Lizard droppings or similar contamination may have been the cause for scores of students falling ill after eating at a girls' hostel of Bagerhat Government PC College, civil surgeon Subhash Kumar Saha said on Sunday.
Saha was making an inspection of the hostel's kitchen after 63 students, who had taken lunch there on Saturday, underwent treatment for food poisoning at Bagerhat Sadar Hospital.
Of them, 31 were admitted in critical condition, said doctors, but all were treated and out of danger.
NC juveniles accused of urinating in ice machine
You can pee on the ice, but not in an ice machine.
Four juveniles are facing several charges after security cameras showed them urinating into a cafeteria ice machine at a Chapel Hill,North Carolina middle school.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Tuesday the boys range in age from 12 to 15, and are charged with breaking and entering, larceny and vandalism to a public building. Because they are under 16, their names are being withheld.
Police said the vandalism occurred Dec. 15 at Smith Middle School in Chapel Hill. School officials said the ice machine was used on the following three days.
But all the machine's ice and containers were removed when school officials learned of the incident.
Public health officials instructed the school staff on how to clean and disinfect the surfaces and equipment before using them again.
Hope College in Michigan closed in light of Norovirous outbreak
Ottawa County Health Department officials closed Hope College on Friday after a four-day Norovirous outbreak that has left more than 400 staff and students sick.
“Earlier Sunday, the college said the number of reported cases of the flu-like illness causing vomiting and diarrhea for 24 to 48 hours climbed to 180, but many students felt those numbers self-reported to the health department are low.”
A Facebook page for the campus community called "Hope College: The Great Plague of 2008," was created by a freshman student to find out how many people have been affected by the sickness. About a third of the campus community registered at the site, 14% of who said they are sick or had been.
Health officials strongly urged students to remain on campus, but not to congregate, to help stop the spread of infection. However many students chose to leave campus once the closure was announced. At the earliest, campus is scheduled to reopen on Wednesday. During the closure, a campus cleaning crew will be sanitizing common surfaces.
Norovirous is highly contagious virus that is the leading cause of gastroenteritis in the United States.
No specific treatment is available for Norovirus. In most healthy people, the illness usually is self-limiting and resolves in a few days.
The CDC recommends frequent handwashing, especially after using the bathroom or before preparing food. Contaminated surfaces and materials should be thoroughly disinfected. Infected individual should not prepare food while they have symptoms and for 3 days after they recover from their illness.
10 Michigan State students sickened with persistent bloody diarrhea; 7 still in hospital, doc says it 'isn't serious'
Six weeks after an outbreak of E. coli O157 associated with food service at the University of Guelph – will a report ever be issued – Michigan State University officials were told on Monday Sept. 15, 2008, that 10 students had become ill and sought help over the past several days for persistent symptoms of bloody diarrhea.
University Physician Beth Alexander said the illness was likely caused by a certain strain of E. coli and that although only two of the cases have been linked to the same strain of bacteria, the remaining eight cases could be linked within the week..jpg)
Alexander added,
“Generally, the infection isn’t serious. It’s usually caused by food or water that has been contaminated with that bacteria.”
I’m not sure at what point shiga-toxin producing E. coli and its tell-tale bloody diarrhea isn’t serious. The people of Locust Grove, OK, with their 314 illnesses, including 65 children, and one death, related to an outbreak of E. coli O111 probably think it is serious. So do the kids with blood coming out of their asses in Michigan.
Investigators are determining where and when the students ate based on swipes of their MSU ID cards in campus cafeterias and eateries. That information should be available today and will help determine whether something exists in the food supply that may still be a threat.
Food safety information: rapid, reliable, repeated and relevant
Dr. Carol Byrd-Bredbenner of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and colleagues reported in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association that many college students engaged in eating behaviors that could make them sick.
.jpg)
Based on surveys of 4,343 students at 21 colleges and universities across the U.S., 53 percent reported eating raw homemade cookie dough (which contains uncooked eggs), 33 percent said they ate fried eggs with soft or runny yolks, 29 percent ate sushi, and 28 percent consumed raw sprouts. Eleven percent said they ate raw oysters, clams or mussels, and 7 percent said they ate pink hamburger.
I won't begin to get into all the faults with these kinds of measures or the near futility of drawing any meaningful conclusions from self-reported surveys.
Even so, the authors figured that,
"current food safety education efforts may not provide the information and/or motivation needed to compel individuals to change their consumption levels of risky foods. … Health professionals should focus creative efforts on developing safe food consumption behaviors in this group and thereby help safeguard the health of this population and enable them to fulfill the role of protecting the health of their future families."
Don't eat poop.
Villanova students have upset stomachs, basketball team gets upset
Officials also say that they don't think a common food vehicle is involved as ill students live both on campus and off. Maybe noro was one of the reasons for the No. 18 team's loss at home to Notre Dame yesterday: no fan support because everybody was on the toilet?
