Firefighter feels like a "normal guy" year after unprecedented full face transplant

A Mississippi firefighter who received the world’s most extensive face transplant after a burning building collapsed on him said Wednesday that he feels like “a normal guy” for the first time in 15 years.

Patrick Hardison, 42, said he can now eat, see, hear and breathe normally, thanks to last year’s surgery. He even has a full head of hair and hits the gym twice a week.

“Before the transplant, every day I had to wake up and get myself motivated to face the world,” Hardison told reporters at NYU Langone Medical Center. “Now I don’t worry about people pointing and staring or kids running away crying. I’m happy.”

Hardison was a volunteer firefighter in Senatobia, Mississippi, when a building collapsed on him in 2001. He had 71 reconstructive surgeries before the transplant.

While there have been nearly 40 face transplant surgeries since 2005, Hardison’s was the first to include a scalp and functioning eyelids. Doctors have since fixed up some features and removed his breathing and feeding tubes.

Hardison has no scars on his face, and although he resembles his old self, some of his features are different. His eyes are smaller and his face is rounder, but he still has sandy brown hair.

The divorced father of five said one of the best moments of his life was seeing his children for the first time after the August 2015 surgery. Four of his children attended the news conference.

His 21-year-old daughter, Allison, said she cried after seeing him because she was so relieved.

“After the injury he wasn’t normal on the inside. He was very unhappy,” she said. “Now he’s happy with himself and happy with life.”

Hardison can finally drive and live independently thanks to his new field of vision. Previously, Hardison could see only through “pinholes” because doctors had sewed his eyelids partially shut to protect his eyes, he said.

Eduardo Rodriguez, chairman of Langone’s plastic surgery department, said Hardison has not had any issues with transplant rejection, which is due to his medications, his children and his strength.

“He’s a remarkable individual,” Rodriguez said.

Hardison said he hopes to meet this fall with the family of his donor, a 26-year-old artist who died in a bike accident in Brooklyn.

“I’d like to say that I’m the same old Pat, but that would not give enough credit to the amazing journey I have gone through this past year,” Hardison said. “The road to recovery has been long and hard, but if I had to do it again, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

Firefighter feels like a "normal guy" year after unprecedented full face transplant

Florida mobilizes to control mosquitos causing "unprecedented" Zika outbreak

A 500 square foot area in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, Florida is now the epicenter of the US fight against Zika, as federal and state health officials said at least 15 people were infected with the virus by local mosquitoes.

Officials said more diagnoses could be made in the coming days. The cases represent the first Zika infections transmitted by mainland American mosquitoes. The city began aerial spraying against the mosquitoes, a technique whose effectiveness is hotly criticized.

Related: Scientists edge closer to creating effective Zika virus vaccine

“Zika is unprecedented,” said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr Tom Frieden, at a press conference Thursday with Florida governor Rick Scott and state health officials. “We’ve never before had a mosquito-borne disease that can cause birth defects.”

Frieden said his top priority is to lower mosquito populations in the area. The mosquito that transmits the disease, Aedes aegypti, lives in and around homes, and can breed in containers as tiny as a bottle cap.

“It’s not going to easy, this is a difficult mosquito to control,” said Frieden. “Coffee cup, paint can, bucket for collecting rainwater … trash that can support a little bit of water when it rains” all will need to be emptied, Frieden said, and “a major effort to clean that entire effort” will be undertaken.

“What we want to see is mosquito counts coming down,” he said.

Related: Houston’s mosquito hunters take on Zika: ‘We cannot spray our way out’

Scott also repeatedly emphasized that Florida is still “safe” for the roughly 110 million tourists that travel to the state each year, even as officials warned pregnant women not to visit the Wynwood neighborhood.

Zika is believed to cause microcephaly, or abnormally small heads and severe developmental problems, in babies whose mothers are infected with the disease.

There is no specific treatment for the virus, no vaccine and little is known about how it impacts children not born with apparent birth defects. It is also sexually transmitted and can cause an autoimmune disorder that can lead to paralysis called Guillain-Barré.

Already, Miami has the longest mosquito season of any major city in the country, according to a new analysis by Climate Central. On average, just 28 days per year are inhospitable to mosquitoes in Miami, an increase of 20 days since 1980.

And although the recent infections in Miami are the first to be transmitted by local mosquitoes, cases of Zika have entered the US for months now. The CDC confirmed more than 1,800 infections in people returning to from travel. In Puerto Rico, more than 5,500 people have been infected with the virus.

Despite ample warning from experts that Zika would reach, and likely infect, American mosquitoes, Congress was unable to pass any appropriations to combat the disease.

A bipartisan effort by Florida’s senators, Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Bill Nelson, to fund President Obama’s request for $ 1.9bn in Zika funding was quickly quashed. A Senate proposal for $ 1.1bn also failed, and a House proposal loaded with “poison pill” abortion politics riders also failed.

Instead, the Health and Human Services Administration raided other budgets to fund Zika vaccines and mosquito control efforts across the country, including monies originally allocated to fight Ebola. Already scarce dollars are expected to run out before the National Institutes of Health is able to begin the second phase of Zika vaccine clinical trials this fall.

“Now that the United States is in the height of mosquito season and with the progress in developing a Zika vaccine, the need for additional resources is critical,” HHS secretary Sylvia Burwell wrote in an 3 August letter requesting additional funding.

Public outcry has also hampered what some experts believe is one of the best answers to a complicated problem – aerial spraying. Local resistance in Puerto Rico has so far stopped fumigation with a CDC recommended chemical called naled.

The mosquito that carries Zika also carries a range of viruses, including Dengue fever and chikungunya. When Aedes mosquitoes spread Dengue fever through Puerto Rico in 1987, the pesticide naled was also used in a mass spraying campaign on the island.

The man who ran a study on that spraying, and the former head of the CDC’s dengue branch, Duane Gubler, told the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy that the mosquito’s habitat in trash cans, closets and indoors makes mass spraying challenging at best.

“Successful spraying against Aedes depends on too many factors. Do people have their windows open? What rate is the wind speed? What is the weather?” Gubler told CIDRAP in July. “Spraying doesn’t kill larvae, and naled isn’t a residual insecticide. You’d have to spray weekly to make an impact.”

Miami-Dade county mayor Carlos Gimenez told the Miami Herald that even he had heard conflicting accounts of using naled.

“Some say it’s effective. Some say it’s not that effective. But it’s been recommended by the state and the federal government and we’re going to do it,” Gimenez told the Miami Herald.

“If it has a success rate of 10%, 20%, 30%, then that’s 30% more than what we had before.”

Even the company that makes naled admitted potential drawbacks.

“Resistance is always a potential in a living ecosystem,” Jeff Alvis, a business manager at Amvac Chemical told Chemical & Engineering News in February, about its effectiveness.

In Florida, state officials have tested 2,400 people for Zika across several counties. Officials also said that at least one other case in south-west Florida is also being investigated, but called it “unrelated”.

“As long as there is Zika spreading anywhere, pregnant women should protect themselves against mosquito bites,” said Frieden.

Florida mobilizes to control mosquitos causing "unprecedented" Zika outbreak

ObamaCare Part Of "Unprecedented" Bounty For Insurers, So Far

Even though some well being insurers say they may get rid of income in the initial year supplying rewards under the Affordable Care Act, the most significant wellness ideas continue to be committed to the program with at least 1 saying this week it will be component of an “unprecedented” amount of company to the market.

A parade of fourth-quarter earnings from insurers such as Aetna (AET), Cigna (CI) and Humana (HUM) this week is the newest indication wellness insurance companies are going to be in a position to manage the initial 12 months of threat from newly insured clients buying subsidized private health programs through government-run exchanges. Underneath the law, hundreds of thousands of Americans can get a subsidy of up to $ five,000 to acquire an array of wellness program choices.

On Friday, Cigna chief executive officer David Cordani stated people signing up are a “little older combine relative to population.” Meanwhile,  Humana earlier this week explained much more and a lot more younger people are signing up as the enrollment time period continues. Americans have until finally March 31 to stay away from a penalty.

But the new company from the Reasonably priced Care Act, which includes an expanded Medicaid system and enhancements to the Medicare health insurance system for the elderly, implies robust growth ahead, insurers are telling Wall Street as they report their fourth-quarter and complete yr 2013 earnings.

“The income growth possibilities in front of us may possibly be unprecedented in the background of managed care and we feel our diversified portfolio positions us to capture our honest share and grow working revenues at double-digit rates,” Mark Bertolini, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Aetna stated earlier this week as the firm reported fourth-quarter income practically double the 12 months earlier period. “These possibilities include: private exchanges, the likely motion of industrial membership from self-insured to fully insured goods Medicare Benefit growth, as 11,000 infant boomers age into the Medicare system on a daily basis dual eligibles development, as up to $ 300 billion in annual commit migrates to managed care public exchange growth, which could expand to 25 million members by 2020 and Medicaid growth, as 15 million further people grow to be eligible for the plan beneath the ACA.”

English: Barack Obama signing the Patient Protection and Inexpensive Care Act at the White Residence (Photo credit score: Wikipedia)

Bertolini doesn’t sound like a CEO arranging to bail out on the Reasonably priced Care Act.

In truth, he and other executives have been telling Wall Street analysts and traders they assume to commence recouping the investments they have to make in administrative charges, regulatory and other expenditures to prepare for the Affordable Care Act by up coming year if not sooner.

“By 2016, we anticipate ACA-connected pressures will largely abate and longer-term revenue growth options will begin to mature,” Bertolini said. “As we stand here right now, we view 2016 as a yr when we can return to our lengthy-phrase growth dynamics. In 2015, ACA fees and taxes will be largely integrated into our baseline prices and premiums.”

Humana launched the most thorough picture of its enrollment growth from the exchanges and indicated younger men and women who the market needs to sign up are beginning to do so.

“While even now early, as we analyze the demographics of our exchange membership, we are seeing enrollees skewing a bit a lot more to the younger side,” Humana chief executive Bruce Broussard informed analysts on his company’s fourth-quarter earnings get in touch with earlier this week. “This is likely the outcome of premium-subsidized younger enrollees selecting the decrease deductibles provided with the larger metal tier plans. Around 82% of our new members are getting subsidies. This could potentially mitigate some of the adverse effect connected with the threat pool deterioration from our higher membership in non-ACA-compliant plans.”

ObamaCare Part Of "Unprecedented" Bounty For Insurers, So Far

Children"s mental wellness menaced by "unprecedented toxic climate"

Frankie Sandford (back row, centre), with the Saturdays. Photograph: Dave Hogan/Getty Images

Children and young people are growing up in an “unprecedented toxic climate” of tension and pressure, according to a survey.

Worry of failure, bullying, pressure to be thin and depression had been some of the issues complained of by the 2,000 youngsters, aged 11 to 25, who have been questioned in a poll commissioned for the national charity YoungMinds.

Above half of young children and young people believed they would be a failure if they did not get good grades at college or college half stated they had been bullied and a third explained they did not know in which to flip to get assist when they felt depressed or anxious.

In excess of half of eleven- to 14-yr-olds stated they had observed on-line pornography, with four out of 10 of people saying it had affected their relationships with other people of their age.

Frankie Sandford, of the group the Saturdays, and the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, are among individuals who are backing a campaign – YoungMinds Vs – launched at the houses of parliament – that calls for action on the troubles youthful individuals say are the largest issues.

“I get to speak to a great deal of youthful individuals and I know there are so a lot of who are genuinely struggling and struggling with daily life,” Sandford mentioned.

“Which is why I really help the YoungMinds Vs campaign, since it is raising awareness of the relevance of young men and women getting excellent mental health, and everything that can be accomplished to make that take place, like younger men and women receiving entry to support when they need to have it.

“I also believe it truly is excellent that the campaign is becoming led by youthful people: it’s all about their experiences, and their voices are at the heart of it. That’s why this campaign is various from other individuals, and which is why I help it.”

Miliband said: “YoungMinds’ survey exposes some of the pressures children are beneath in Britain today, from bullying and sexualisation to worries about occupation prospects. And when they come to feel depressed, as well a lot of young people are afraid to speak out, or discover a lack of assistance when they do.

“Good mental well being is important for young children to thrive and realize success. That’s why we must make sure all younger men and women have accessibility to the help and help they want, when they need it.

“Psychological health is the most significant unaddressed well being challenge of our age, and youthful people’s mental wellness have to be a top priority for Britain.”

The YoungMinds campaigns director, Lucie Russell, said: “Every single day we hear about the unprecedented toxic climate children and younger people face in a 24/seven online culture where they can by no means switch off.”

Children"s mental wellness menaced by "unprecedented toxic climate"