In the days when my daughter resisted wearing a bike helmet I tried to argue that if she did fall or get hit by a car that the thing most likely to kill her or cause her long-term harm was a head injury. Broken leg? It would heal. Really bad scrape? it would heal. Broken head? Probable death.

I figured I was entitled to the use of a parental scare tactic, but according to a study published this week in Pediatrics, I was pretty accurate.

In 1993 the government of Ontario, Canada passed a law requiring everyone under the age of 18 to wear a bicycle helmet. Under that law, parents of violators younger than 16 paid a fine. Those older than 16 have to pay their own fines. It became effective in 1995, but does not apply to those older than 18.

Canadian researchers decided to measure whether the law actually reduced the number of deaths among bike riding children.

Between 1991 and 1995, before the law was enacted, there were 13 deaths per year among children aged 1 to 15.  After 1995, the number of deaths among children was cut in half, to an average of 6 per year.

But among those older than 16 the number of deaths annually increased slightly from 21 to 22 per year, the researchers reported.

They concluded that the law should be extended to all adults. Hard to argue with that. But, hey, they’re Canadian.  Reason often prevails.

The nation-wide salmonella outbreak that was solved in part by Minnesota’s Team Diarrhea crack disease investigators appears to be over, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. No new cases have been confirmed since Aug. 12.

But over the course of the summer some 1,442 people became ill in 43 states, 286 were hospitalized, and 2 died. In the end, the CDC said that jalapeno peppers and serrano peppers were vehicles, and tomatoes were a possible vehicle for the infectious pathogen early in the outbreak.

You can read the entire CDC report here.

CDC investigators concluded that the jalapeno peppers first identified as the culprit by Minnesota Health Department investigators in July were the primary vehicle. MDH investigators figured that out after 27 people became ill after eating peppers at a Minnesota restaurant. “Contamination of produce items might have occurred on the farm or during processing or distribution; the mechanism of contamination has not been determined,” the CDC said. “These findings indicate that additional measures are needed to enhance food safety and reduce illnesses from produce that is consumed raw.”

The Minnesota Department of Health cracked the case with the help of Team Diarrhea, which consists mostly of public health graduate students whose job it is to interview victims. The health department and it’s rapid investigation system has since been held up as a model for how the federal government should handle food borne disease outbreaks.

You can read about the MDH’s role in the investigation here.

Sometimes doctors’ best advice turns out to be an old wives tale. Such is the case with the common medical belief that it’s best to avoid nuts and popcorn if you have the painful bowel condition called diverticulosis.  A massive new study this week has found that it just ain’t so.

About half of the over 40 set develop small, bulging pouches called diverticula in the digestive tract. Most occur in the large intestine, and sometimes they can become inflamed an infected, causing severe abdominal pain, fever, nausea. The worst cases of diverticulosis require hospitalization and surgery to remove the diseased section of the intestine.

For years doctors have said that people at risk for the disease should avoid seeds, nuts, popcorn and corn and other “high-residue foods” under the theory that partially digested bits lodge inside the divurticula and cause irritation. A survey of colorectal surgeons found that nearly half believed patients with diverticular disease should avoid those foods.

Researchers at the University of Washington and elsewhere thought it was time to test that belief. Nuts, after all, are now believed to be an important part of a healthy diet. Moreover, the aging baby boom generation is driving up the numbers of people who have the disease, so it is increasingly important to provide sound medical advice.  

The researcheres tracked 47,228 men and their diets between 1986 and 2004.  In a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) they found there was absolutely no connection between eating nuts etc. and the disease. In fact, they found that the more the men ate those kinds of foods, the less likely they were to have diverticulosis.

It is time, the researchers said, that the recommendation to avoid nuts, seeds and popcorn “should be reconsidered.”

So pass the word and the popcorn.
 

Our story earlier this week about a patient who was burned during surgery at Abbott Northwestern Hospital was one of the most emailed stories on our web site. After the story was published I got a call from Cathy Reuter, the founder of www.surgicalfire.org. It’s a web site and a organization dedicated to increasing awareness of surgical fires. She said her mother was burned during surgery, and died from complications of that burn. You find her story and others on the web site.

According to a national hospital safety and accreditation organization, there are about 100 surgical fires each year, resulting in up to 20 serious injuries and one or two patient deaths annually. An oxygen-enriched atmosphere was a contributing factor in 74 percent of all cases.

She is a one-woman awareness campaign on surgical fires. She said that her marketing effort consists primarily of magnets that she sells that people all over the world put on her cars. As a result, she said, she’s getting about 7,000 hits a month on her web site. Check it out.

Some readers have asked me about Batman, the dog. Last week he was the first patient to get an experimental therapy that researchers at the University of Minnesota hope will cure his brain cancer, a glioma, which is the same kind that Sen. Ted Kennedy has. If it works for Batman and other dogs, they say, it holds enormous promise as an effective treatment for people, too. You can read his story here.

His owner, Anna Brailovsky of Minneapolis, says he’s doing as well as any dog can do after massive brain surgery. He’s on steroids to reduce inflammation in his brain, and that’s a mixed blessing. Here’s her update.

Early this evening he chased a neighbor cat for a few feet. The neighbor’s family all stood around cheering him on. He basked in the attention and trotted up with tail wagging.

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