Ontario premier supports award to Henry Morgentaler

Premier McGuinty speaks up:

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday he supports the decision to award abortion crusader Dr. Henry Morgentaler with the Order of Canada.

McGuinty, himself a Catholic, appears to be the first premier to address the issue publicly. His stance opposes that of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has said he would have preferred to have seen the award bestowed on someone who unifies Canadians.

“I know that Dr. Morgentaler has been seen as a controversial figure, but I believe in a woman’s right to make a very difficult decision,” McGuinty said.

“And if she makes that difficult decision and chooses to have an abortion, I want her to be able to do that in a way that’s safe, in a way that’s publicly funded. So I know it’s divisive, but I think it’s important.”

Don’t scan RFIDs in the hospital!

Warning! Hospitals have tested radio-frequency ID devices in a scanner and found that too many of them interfere with hospital equipment up to 6 metres away. The Corpus Callosum reports:

Radio Frequency IDentification tags (RFIDs) are little devices that communicate with other devices, sending an identification signal. You’ve probably seen them on various items purched in stores. They commonly are used for inventory control and theft prevention. They are increasingly used in a wide variety of applications.

Now, they have been found to interfere with medical devices. This includes critical items such as mechanical ventilators and external pacemakers.

The study was published in JAMA ($ for full access).

Read the comments as well for useful info. Or semi-useful. It seems that manufacturers of hospital devices don’t bother to shield them against interference.

Henry Morgentaler gets Order of Canada

On the good side, bishops are outraged.

The CBC says,

Governor General Michaëlle Jean has named a leading abortion rights crusader as a Member of the Order of Canada, news that has outraged anti-abortion groups….

Morgentaler, a trained family physician, argued that access to abortion was a basic human right and women should not have to risk death at the hands of an untrained professional in order to end their pregnancies.

Morgentaler’s clinics were constantly raided by his opponents, and one in Toronto was firebombed. Morgentaler was arrested several times and spent months in jail as he fought his case at all court levels in Canada.

His victory came on Jan. 28, 1988, when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s abortion law. That law, which required a woman who wanted an abortion to appeal [have her doctor present her case: the woman never got to see them and there was no appealing their decision] to a three-doctor hospital abortion committee [available only if the hospital had one and if it ever met], was declared unconstitutional.

The old abortion committee system provided uneven and uncertain access to abortion for desperate women. Only about one-third of hospitals had working committees and some of those never approved an abortion.

And statistics are on our side:

In “BTC [Blog the controversy?]:Fine day for a debate“, Aaron Wherry writes

Angus Reid surveyed the Canadian public just a couple weeks ago. Here’s what they found.

Fully 46% of Canadians think abortion should be permitted in all cases. Another 19% think it should be permitted, but with unspecified restrictions, 22% would limit it to cases of rape, incest or in order to save a woman’s life, and seven percent would allow it only when a woman’s life is at stake.

If you put the question to Canadians in terms of legality, only five percent say abortion should be outlawed. Three percent aren’t sure. No less than 91% of Canadians think the law should allow abortion in at least some form.

Henry Morgentaler left regular medical practice because of the suffering he saw among unwillingly pregnant women. He made it known that he was doing abortions. He was acquitted by juries who agreed with his defence that he was preventing suffering among his patients. His acquittal was overturned by a judge and he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Morgentaler, a concentration camp survivor then in his fifties, suffered a heart attack in prison and completed his sentence under medical care.

He is a fighter. He defied the law in order to change it. His clinic was illegal not because he was doing abortions but because he didn’t have a hospital committee to approve his decisions. The law that allowed a judge to overturn a jury conviction was struck down and Morgentaler became the only person in Canada to have a constitutional amendment named after him.

The law requiring hospitals that did abortions to have committees to which doctors presented the cases of their patients was struck down in January, 1988. Abortion is now a decision between a woman and her doctor. The law governing abortion is now the Canada Health Act.

His opponents apparently live in blueprints instead of houses, since they equate a fertilized egg with a baby, apparently on religious grounds about “souls,” since logic certainly doesn’t do it. When he was in the news more often, his file of death threats per month was inches thick. (Canadian doctors have been shot at, shot, and murdered.) His Toronto clinic on Harbord Street was fire-bombed in 1992. Way to capture the high moral ground, folks!

Unlike Dr. Morgentaler, people who are fighting against all abortions all the time are struggling to make Canada a worse place.

Illegal abortion has consequences. Whole hospital wards were closed when victims of septic abortion stopped filling them. Studies of those days put it as the major cause of hospitalization and death in pre-menopausal women. (My mother, in for appendicitis, shared a room with a woman who died while the nurses treated her with contempt and told her to stop complaining about the pain.) The saddest tales from those days are of the children orphaned because their mother couldn’t afford one more mouth to feed.

New York Times, “The abortion orphans”

CLARA BELL DUVALL WAS A 32- YEAR-OLD MOTHER OF FIVE WHEN SHE DIED OF AN ILLEGAL ABORTION IN 1929.

“The image of her in her casket is seared in my brain,” said Linn Duvall Harwell, who had just turned 6 when her mother died.

The hospital listed the cause of death as “pneumonia.”

She used a knitting needle.

She had a son and four daughters.

“She was a beautiful mother,” says Mrs. Harwell. “That must be understood. She was loving and affectionate. We were poor and it was 1929 but we were cared for. The minute she died, it all changed.”

“I can’t help but think how my life would have been different,” says Gwendolyn Elliott, who is a commander in the Pittsburgh Police Department. She was 5 when Vivian Campbell, her mother, died in 1950; she and her brother were raised by their grandparents. When she was 18 and ready for college, she tried to cash in some bonds her mother had left her and was told she needed a death certificate. And there it was, under cause of death: the word “abortion,” followed by a question mark.

The abortion orphans may be the shadow of things to come. Those of us who believe that abortion must remain legal are flailing about for a way to make vivid what will happen if it is banned once more. We have had the right so long that we have forgotten what the wrong is. Meant to evoke bloodstained tables and covert phone calls, the term “back alley” does not resonate for women who grew up with clean clinics and licensed doctors.

I have read interviews with people whose families fell apart, where brothers and sisters were split up and sent to orphanages or foster care after their mothers died of illegal abortion. Thank God for Dr. Morgentaler!

Links:

• Time line from the Globe & Mail (leaves out the firebombing of his clinic)
  
• Henry Morgentaler bio from CBC
  
• Reflection from a young woman
• Secularism is a women’s issue
• Nicaragua’s abortion ban kills 110 women in less than 2 years

Stalin’s old Bomb lab still limps along

The original nuclear laboratories, where captive German scientists worked to create atomic bombs, are still in operation in Abkhazia in Georgia. here.

The Sukhumi Institute still exists, in a state of limbo. Limping along under semi-siege in Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia whose existence the rest of the world does not recognize, its Cold War past has been all but forgotten.

….Once, around 250 German specialists lived here with their families and built centrifuges to separate uranium isotopes. Now a money-making sideline for the few scientists who keep the institute’s research going is designing household heaters.

Deputy director Vladimir Kunitsky does have ambitious hopes for the institute, which was nearly wrecked by the separatist war that engulfed this region on the shores of the Black Sea after the Soviet Union collapsed.

He would like to turn part of the former bomb laboratory into a sanatorium, combining cutting-edge treatments using radioactive sources and a beautiful location a short walk from the Black Sea.

Paralyzed woman in Alberta launches suit against chiropractors

A woman in Alberta who suffered a stroke after neck manipulation by a chiropractor believes that it is the cause of her stroke.

Sandra Nette launched her suit on Thursday.

–CTV.ca News Staff

An Alberta woman is at the forefront of a landmark lawsuit after a neck adjustment she received from her chiropractor allegedly triggered a massive stroke that has left her paralyzed and disabled.

The class-action suit — filed by Sandra Nette and her husband David Nette on Thursday in Edmonton — is asking for more than $500 million in damages for the alleged victim, and for anyone in the province who alleges they have been treated or harmed by chiropractors who deliver “inappropriate and non-beneficial adjustments.”

The suit, the first of its kind in Canada, names:

• the couple’s chiropractor, Gregory John Stiles;
• The Alberta College and Association of Chiropractors; and
• The Alberta Ministry of Health and Wellness.

The Nettes charge that by allowing chiropractors to use “ineffective” and “dangerous” neck adjustments, the ministry has “placed an uncontrolled public health risk into the primary health care marketplace.” The statement of claim contains allegations that haven’t been proven in court. No statement of defence has been filed.

According to the suit, Sandra Nette had been going to her Edmonton-area chiropractor for several years, for what her husband described as preventative maintenance. She claimed she had no specific health complaints and was healthy at the time.

When driving home after her last appointment on Sept. 13, 2007, Nette recalled she felt dizzy and was experiencing vision loss. She pulled over to the side of the road and called her husband, who took her to Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital.

Doctors there determined she suffered multiple strokes as a result of a tear to both vertebral arteries in the upper part of her neck, according to the lawsuit. She required surgery and then was taken to the University of Alberta Hospital.

“The doctor at the time, I will never forget it, (looked) at me and the first words out of his mouth after doing the MRI results were simply: ‘chiropractor, right?’” Dave Nette told CTV News. “I was absolutely shocked. I had not put that together that there could be any connection.”

Dave Nette claims his wife, who was 40 at the time of her stroke, was in perfect health. “Never did drugs, a non smoker… Always maintained perfect weight,” he said. “From diet to fitness I would have to say that certainly my wife is and was … in better shape than myself.”

….She said she was never fully warned that a stroke could be a rare complication of neck adjustments….

Some studies, however, say the procedure is safe. The chiropractic community, including the Canadian Chiropractic Association, has always maintained the risk of stroke or serious injury from chiropractic neck manipulation is very small.

…. Nevertheless, neck adjustments have been under considerable scrutiny for over a decade, since the death of 22-year-old Laurie Mathiason, who suffered a fatal stroke after a chiropractic neck treatment in Saskatoon.

Pathologist refused to have cancer tests re-examined

In New Brunswick, about 108 people with cancer have died over the past few years because they got the wrong results for cancer tests. Either they were told that they didn’t have cancer when they did or they were told that they had a kind that didn’t respond to treatment when it would have, and sent home without treatment.

Now it turns out that the doctor making the mistakes refused to let the tests be randomly checked. It’s a standard quality-control thing: some pathology reports done by each of the hospital’s pathologists would be reviewed by another hospital (and presumably vice-versa). The doctor, who was the head of the pathology department, declared that their workload was too heavy to allow for testing.

It sounds as if people were beginning to wonder about both his accuracy and his turnaround time (how fast he returned results) but they were blocked.

Drinking too much and relapsing are reduced by new protein

New research shows that increasing the amount of a single brain protein can reduce the urge to drink too much alcohol. It not only cut down on drinking but also prevented relapses—in animal studies. Other pleasure-seeking urges were not affected. And there seem to be no side effects. Of course, there’s a slight hitch in using the treatment: it’s directly injected into the brain because of the notorious blood-brain barrier. So we need to find a medicine that will stimulate the brain to produce the protein itself. I suggest that we start by looking at the B-complex vitamins, since they are associated at least mildly with reduced cravings for alcohol.

The research by scientists at the UCSF-affiliated Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center builds on their earlier work. In 2005, they reported the first hints that increased levels of this brain protein, known as GDNF, cut down alcohol consumption. The new study established how quickly the effect kicks in, and shows for the first time that the chemical blocks relapse and does not interfere with normal cravings. The research also pinpointed the brain site where GDNF acts to control drinking.

“Alcoholism is a devastating and costly psychiatric disease with enormous socioeconomic impact,” said Dorit Ron, PhD, senior author on the paper and principal investigator at the Gallo Center. “There is a tremendous need for therapies to treat alcohol abuse.”

“Unfortunately, only three drugs are currently approved to treat excessive drinking, and all have serious limitations. Our findings open the door to a promising new strategy to combat alcohol abuse, addiction and especially relapse.” Ron is also associate professor of neurology at UCSF.

GDNF, or glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor, is already a focus of strong interest for treating Parkinson’s disease. A new orally-delivered, experimental drug has been shown to raise brain GDNF levels in rats, suggesting its promise against Parkinson’s. Research by Ron and her colleagues suggests such a drug might also treat alcoholism….

The Gallo Center scientists set out to test the actions of GDNF in a brain site known as the Ventral Tegmental Area, or VTA, a region of the brain thought to be strongly involved in drug-seeking behavior. The first part of the study was designed to model both human social and excessive drinking. Researchers first trained rats to seek alcohol for two months. GDNF was then injected into the VTA brain region, and their motivation to drink in both models dropped significantly within as little as 10 minutes. The effect lasted at least three hours, the scientists reported.

University of California - San Francisco (2008, June 12). Excessive Drinking And Relapse Rapidly Cut In New Approach. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 13, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/06/080609170806.htm

Dr. Sheela Basrur dies

Sheela Basrur, M.D., has died of a rare form of cancer. She was East York’s Medical Officer of Health and then Toronto’s. As such, she was responsible for public health. She is best known for being the voice of health authority during Toronto’s SARS crisis in 2003. She was appointed Chief Medical Office or Health for Ontario in 2004.

The Belleville Intelligencer said that her death was felt in Belleville:

Dr. Richard Schabas, medical officer of health for the Hastings and Prince Edward Counties Health Unit, said he not only knew Basrur, but they walked the same career paths….

“She was obviously very, very respected,” he said, and “passionate” about her job. “She believed passionately in public health.”

In March, Basrur sent word out to her friends that she did not expect to live much longer. Leiomyosarcoma, the disease that caused her to step down as medical officer of health for Ontario in December 2006, had quickly progressed to her spine, lungs and liver.

That same month, the new Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion was created, the province’s first arm’s-length public agency. It will be named the Sheela Basrur Centre, something that would have made her happy, Schabas said.

The Toronto Star says,

Cancer took her life, robbing Ontario of one of its most trusted and beloved medical authorities. When Toronto was in the grip of the SARS crisis, in 2003, Basrur rose to the challenge issuing protocols, advising governments and calming public fears with daily briefings.

As the first medical officer of health for an amalgamated Toronto, she brought frankness, compassion and humour to her work as well as cool expertise under pressure. It was what the city needed to defeat SARS and institute changes designed to ward off similar outbreaks.

Her success led her to the provincial level – she became Ontario’s chief medical officer in 2004. It was a post where she should have served many more years but in 2006 Basrur was diagnosed with a rare cancer afflicting the muscles and other soft tissue. She stepped down and bravely fought the disease before finally succumbing, at age 51, in the care of her father, radiation oncologist Dr. Vasanth Basrur.

As well as leading the battle against SARS, Basrur was instrumental in creating Toronto’s anti-smoking bylaw and, later, Ontario’s ban of smoking in enclosed public places. She also led the way in outlawing non-essential pesticide use, in fighting toxic air pollution, and in improving restaurant safety.

Her loss is a blow to all Ontarians. But Basrur’s contribution to the province endures, and so does her inspiring example of courage and good humour, even in the face of deadly illness.

Remembering polio

Iron Lung Ward of Ranchos Los Amigos Hospital circa 1953.
The victims were usually children.

There’s a discussion on the BookCrossing Chit-chat forum about polio, stimulated by a news story: a paralyzed woman died during a power failure after spending 57 years in an iron lung that did her breathing for her. Thanks to polio vaccines, the iron lungs are now more-or-less history. I think that anti-vaccinationists have forgotten what they would be bringing back.

She had been confined to the 7ft, 750lb metal tube – which mostly remained in the living room of her parents’ home 80 miles north-east of Memphis – since 1950, when she had fallen victim at the age of three to a severe case of “bulbo-spinal” polio.

This crippling disease, which has since been eradicated in the developed world through vaccination programmes, forced doctors to encase her in a sealed cylindrical metal container, which produced alternately positive and negative pressure that allowed her lungs to expand and contract. Although experts at the time gave her just a few years to live, Ms Odell remained lying on her back, with only her head extending from the mechanical device, for nearly six decades. [Italics mine.]

Some of the BookCrossing members chimed in with their own stories: remembering polio.

Doctors use robot to do brain surgery

Doctors in Calgary, Alberta, have made medical history: they used a robot to remove a tumor from a woman’s brain while they watched what they were doing with an MRI scanner. Here are Dr. Sutherland and Ms. Nickason with the machine.

“Doctors used remote controls and an imaging screen, similar to a video game, to guide the two-armed robot through Paige Nickason’s brain during the nine-hour surgery Monday.

“Surgical instruments acting as the hands of the robot -called NeuroArm - provided surgeons with the tools needed to successfully remove the egg-shaped tumour….

“‘Paige’s brain surgery represents a technical achievement in the use of image-guided robotic technology to remove a relatively complex brain tumour,’ said Dr. Garnette Sutherland, professor of neurosurgery at the University of Calgary faculty of medicine and NeuroArm team leader.

“NeuroArm has the distinct advantage of being able to move in smaller increments than a surgeon’s hand, Sutherland said.

“Typically, the human hand can steady itself and move in increments of one or two millimetres. NeuroArm can move in increments of 50 microns. [A micron is 1/1000 of a millimetre.]…

“NeuroArm can operate in the brain in a way that is less invasive and more delicate than a surgeon’s hands.”

You can read more about the NeuroArm here and here.

Abortion does not cause breast cancer

Surprise, surprise. After years of unfounded assertions and misrepresented studies, religiously-motivated anti-abortion activists have failed to demonstrate any link between abortion and breast cancer.

Sciencebloggers Orac and Marc Chu-Carroll tag team to produce the most authoritative takedown of the “abortion causes breast cancer” canard that I’ve yet seen. Short story: the study’s author simply dropped data that didn’t fit with his desired outcome, and he apparently can’t standard deviate his way out of a paper bag.

Red Cross cleared in blood scandal

A former Canadian Red Cross offical, three doctors, and officals of a New Jersey company were cleared of wrongdoing in the tainted blood scandal that caused 3 000 deaths. Thousands of Canadians were infected with HIV or hepatitis through inadequate blood screening.

Toronto Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto ruled that the defendants did not show conduct displaying wanton and reckless disregard in the use of the blood and that there was no marked departure from the standards of a reasonable person.

“The conduct examined in detail over one and a half years confirms reasonable and responsible and professional actions and responses during this difficult time,” she said. “The allegations of criminal conduct on the part of these men and this corporation were not only unsupported by the evidence, they were disproved. “The events here were tragic,” the judge said. “However, to assign blame where none exists is to compound the tragedy.”

John Plater of the Canadian Hemophilia Society expressed bewilderment at the verdict, questioning how the judge could suggest that the defendants’ actions “were somehow professional and reasonable.” “If you, on the one hand, have a study that says there’s a problem, and on the other hand have a study that says maybe there isn’t a problem, any reasonable person takes the product off the market. They didn’t. People were infected, and people died,” Plater said. “How that could be considered reasonable behavior is beyond us.”

The case involved blood products produced by New Jersey-based Armour Pharmaceutical Co. in the 1980s and early 1990s that turned out to be infected. Also charged were Dr. Roger Perrault of the Red Cross; Dr. John Furesz and Dr. Donald Wark Boucher, formerly of Canada’s Health Protection Branch, and Dr. Michael Rodell, a former vice president of Armour.

Canadian Red Cross fined
Perrault pleaded not guilty to criminal negligence causing bodily harm for allegedly giving hemophilia patients an HIV-infected blood-clotting product. The other doctors and the drug company also pleaded not guilty. Lawyers argued that prosecutors didn’t present enough evidence to prove its case.

A second trial for Perrault is set to begin later this year in Hamilton, Ontario, where he will face more criminal charges stemming from allegations that the Red Cross and its senior officials failed to take adequate measures to screen blood donors.

The Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty in 2005 to distributing blood tainted with HIV and hepatitis C and was fined $5,000 Canadian …. The Red Cross apologized and provided $1.5 million Canadian for a scholarship fund and research project aimed at reducing medical errors.

Responsibility for Canada’s blood supply for all provinces except Quebec was later transferred from the Canadian Red Cross to another entity, Canadian Blood Services. After a five-year investigation, police filed criminal charges.

Last year, the Canadian government announced a compensation package of 1 billion Canadian dollars for all those infected with hepatitis C from the tainted blood, expanding a previous program that excluded thousands of people.

I don’t know about this. Why is ignoring warnings about life-or-death issues not negligent?

C. difficile outbreak went unrecognized at Burlington hospital

Clostridium difficile has been linked to dozens of deaths at a hospital in Burlington, Ontario.

Ontario’s health minister plans to make it mandatory for hospitals to report cases of Clostridium difficile to the province after a Burlington hospital revealed that dozens of people had died in an outbreak of the bacteria.

George Smitherman made the announcement Wednesday after officials at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital released the results of an investigation into a 20-month outbreak.

The external study found that the bacteria killed 30 patients and contributed to the deaths of 46 others. Earlier, the hospital said 12 people had died of the bacteria.

“It first came to our attention in late January [2007] that we had something different happening here with C. difficile than we’d seen before,” hospital president and CEO Don Scott told CBC News.

In 2007, Burlington hospital had an overall rate of C. difficile of 2 infections per 200 patients, twice the rate of other Canadian hospitals.
…
The outbreak lasted from May 1, 2006, to Dec. 31, 2007. C. difficile causes swelling of the intestines and diarrhea, as well as fever and vomiting.

The hospital said it hasn’t had a new case of C. difficile since April 15, 2008. “The status at this time is certainly [thatC. difficile] is well under control,” said Scott.

Patient rooms are now wiped clean twice a day, and the hospital has spent $1 million to hire cleaning staff and switch to more effective disinfectants.

Dr. Michael Gardam, the head of infection control at the University Health Network who was brought in to help control the outbreak, said the bacteria went undetected for far too long and then wasn’t treated aggressively enough.

“In this particular case, several months went by before senior administration understood that they were in an outbreak,” said Gardam.

“My concern is there’s many hospitals that we have no idea what their rates are,” he added.

Look at reporting other superbugs, expert says

Following the results of the investigation, the health minister was asked whether C. difficile should be a reportable disease.

“Yes, and it will be. We’re working right now with the Ontario Hospital Association,” said Smitherman.

He said it’s a way of letting patients feel secure in the safety of their hospitals.

Dr. Michael Gardam, the head of infection control at the University Health Network, said hospitals should have to report outbreaks of other antibiotic-resistant bugs.

“They’re talking about other so-called superbugs, such as MRSA and VRE, in hospitals,” said Gardam. “I think those are well worth looking at, in addition to C. difficile.”

Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, can cause infection if it gets into the body through a cut or during surgery.

Vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE), a normally benign bacterium, lives in the intestine. Infections can occur in the urinary tract, in the blood and in wounds, including surgical wounds.

Here’s the one-page report (PDF file).

Techskeptic’s autism post

Techskeptic has taken on the task of debunking some of the commoner myths about the causes of autism. Here’s just one in a whole series of points:

Claim: Mercury in Thimerisol causes autism
Evidence: We have been vaccinating more people and the rate of autism has been rising.
Debunking: Here is a study that tries to make this very claim. But that data in the study conflicts with its own conclusions. It shows the rise in autism rates, but sadly for him, and David Kirby the head of the mercury militia, thimerisol is no longer added to vaccines in the US as of late 2002. Its now 2008 and the rates continue to rise in california, and in the entire US, without even a blip in the rate when the thimerisol was removed.

This is not surprising, Canada performed the very same study in 1998 with 27,000 kids in it, same result.

If you take out the thing they claimed to be causing autism and the rates continue to rise, then it wasnt that thing.

Read the rest.

Enterovirus 71 kills 20 children in China

Of course, we don’t know how much this is being understated. This is a higher fatality rate than in previous years. Enterovirus 71 is one of several enteroviruses that causes a disease in humans called Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease.

From Medbroadcast.com:

Provided by: The Canadian Press
Written by: Audra Ang, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIJING - Health officials in eastern China say a viral outbreak has killed 20 children and left almost 1,200 others ill.

The Enterovirus 71 infections were discovered in March in Fuyang, a city in Anhui province. But health officials say the malady may have gone undetected for a time because the symptoms are similar to other ailments common in children.

It was not immediately clear what triggered the outbreak, but the province’s health bureau said it is the season when the virus is prevalent.

Enterovirus 71 is characterized by fever, mouth sores and a rash with blisters. It is spread by direct contact with nose and throat discharges, saliva, fluid from blisters, or the stool of infected persons.

What that means is that it comes around about every ten years and older children have developed some immunity.

The official Xinhua news agency reported that most of the patients admitted to hospitals in Fuyang were under age two, and none was older than six.

There were 1,199 reported cases between early March and Sunday, 20 of which were fatal, the health bureau said in a statement on its website.

Maybe it comes around every few years. Here’s the CDC page on Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease.

HFMD caused by coxsackievirus A16 infection is a mild disease and nearly all patients recover without medical treatment in 7 to 10 days. Complications are uncommon. Rarely, the patient with coxsackievirus A16 infection may also develop “aseptic” or viral meningitis, in which the person has fever, headache, stiff neck, or back pain, and may need to be hospitalized for a few days. Another cause of HFMD, EV71 may also cause viral meningitis and, rarely, more serious diseases, such as encephalitis, or a poliomyelitis-like paralysis. EV71 encephalitis may be fatal. Cases of fatal encephalitis occurred during outbreaks of HFMD in Malaysia in 1997 and in Taiwan in 1998 [and China in 2008].

I didn’t know there were so many of them. Non-polio enterovirus infections:

Enteroviruses are small viruses that are made of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and protein. This group includes the polioviruses, coxsackieviruses, echoviruses, and other enteroviruses. [There are] 3 different polioviruses [and] 62 non-polio enteroviruses that can cause disease in humans:

• 23 Coxsackie A viruses,
• 6 Coxsackie B viruses,
• 28 echoviruses, and
• 5 other enteroviruses.

Enterovirus 71 was first isolated in 1969.