A round-up of today's health news in brief
Spain claims first full face transplant
A team of surgeons has carried out the world’s first full-face transplant on a young Spanish farmer.The man has been unable to breathe or eat on his own since accidentally shooting himself in the face five years ago.
It was the most extensive operation of this type yet and the 11th known face transplant worldwide.
Transplant experts hailed the surgery, carried out late last month at Barcelona’s Vall d’Hebron Hospital, as a significant advance.
Sligo to host Ireland's first drink and drug free festival
IRELAND’S FIRST alcohol- and drug-free festival, offering a combination of music, performance and debate in an entirely sober setting, will take place this summer in Sligo. Performers include Liam Lawton and Jack Lukeman, and there will also be puppet shows, comedy and acoustic sessions.
Many events at the Lovin’ Life festival will be held in cafes and outdoor venues, where alcohol will not be served. The weekend festival will host a “shared platform conference”, drawing participants from various addiction support groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Daily counselling sessions and debate with medical professionals and others on the impact of addiction will also take place.
The event is the brainchild of Sean Cunningham and Aubrey Melville, founder of the Bill W Club, which aims to establish a network of non-residential after-care centres nationally for persons in addiction recovery.
Festival director Máire Garvey said organisers expect up to 3,000 people to attend the event. Local cafes will stay open late to facilitate the sober revellers. Many of the events will be free.
“Really what we’re trying to do is to show people it is possible to have a good time and fun in life without the inclusion of mood-altering substances,” said Ms Garvey.
Outdoor activities such as kayaking and kite boarding will be available and there will be also be a festival parade.
The Lovin’ Life festival runs from July 1st-4th, see lovinlife.ie
Cork cancer research centre in major expansion
THE CORK Cancer Research Unit is set to double the number of researchers, making it the biggest facility of its kind in the State.
It will also move to a purpose-built premises in a new health campus at University College Cork.
The CCRC will be one of a number of research groups from across the life sciences located in the new health campus and collaborating on the development of new treatments.
Cancer research will represent 609sq m of laboratory and clinical space within the health campus.
With Government and private funding, the CCRC will move from its current location, where it has exceeded the research space it needs.
This move will allow the centre to expand the number of research programmes focused on developing new cancer treatments and attract senior level principal investigators to join the team.
It will also provide space to house the new technology needed for its research and ensure the optimum translation of research activities to early stage clinical trials.
An independent research centre focused on developing new treatments for secondary cancer, the CCRC has grown significantly over the past five years.
New research from the centre, published in the journal Molecular Therapy this month, has shown that bifidobacteria, commonly found in probiotic yoghurts, is a safe and effective way to deliver gene therapies to treat cancer.
Food poisoning linked to duck eggs
AN INVESTIGATION has been launched into an outbreak of salmonella linked to duck eggs. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) is looking for the source of the eggs after six cases were confirmed in recent months.
“The FSAI is advising consumers to only consume duck eggs that have been thoroughly cooked and to cease using raw duck eggs in any dishes that will not be cooked prior to eating,” a spokeswoman said, adding that good hygiene practices should be followed.
US teenagers recieve and send up to 100 texts daily
US HIGH school girls typically send and receive 100 text messages a day, according to a study, which found that cheaper mobile phone bills have boosted the technology’s popularity among young people.
Fifty-four per cent of Americans aged 12-17 used text messaging to contact friends daily last year, double the figure in 2006, according to a study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet American Life Project. The growth rate outpaced the increase in daily use of e-mail and wireless calls.
The surge in the use of text messages bodes well for mobile phone makers because teenagers tend to become reliant on their wireless devices without realising it, said Scott Campbell, one of the study’s co-authors.
Texting teenagers are 42 per cent more likely to leave their phones on or near their beds when they go to sleep than those who don’t send texts, the study found.
“They say that if a friend texts them in the night they want to wake up and answer it,” said Mr Campbell, an assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan.
“Nothing really seems to bother them about their dependence on the technology.”
Three-quarters of American teenagers have mobile phones, up from 45 per cent in 2004, the researchers found.
Of those with the devices, 83 per cent use them to take pictures, 60 per cent listen to music and 46 per cent play games.
Teenagers who go online with their phones represented 27 per cent of all device owners.
Older people subjected to 'latent agesim' by media
MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS of older people carry a latent ageism and a tendency to portray them as frail and dependent on the State, according to new research.
Terms such as “grannies and grandads”, “little old ladies” and “older folk” were found to be widely used when referring to older people in two national daily newspapers at the time of the medical card controversy in late 2008.
While there was an intense media focus on, and media solidarity with, older people at that time, it was short lived and served only to illustrate media images of older people as frail, infirm and dependent on the State, said one of the study authors, Prof Gerard Fealy, from the National Centre for the Protection of Older People at the UCD School of Nursing.
Prof Fealy said that while the study focused on the Irish Independentand the Irish Daily Star, the overall reportage of the protest march by older people carried images of them marching with Zimmer frames and walking sticks.
“All older people were characterised as being the same. There was no sense that they had a previous productive life and the idea that older people might be healthy and self-reliant was largely absent,” he said.
The study’s authors suggest that media literacy training would promote the use of less discriminatory and ageist language.
Prof Fealy and Imogen Lyons will speak about public perceptions and media representations of older people at a public lecture at 5.30pm today in the UCD School of Nursing, Belfield, Dublin 4.
