Month: February 2018

Bethany Edwards and her co-workers spend a lot of time with pregnancy tests. “We all peed on a lot of different things,” Edwards says, laughing. “So that’s been fun and interesting.” Edwards is the co-founder and CEO of Lia Diagnostics. Together with co-founder Anna Simpson, Edwards and her team have created a new-and-improved pregnancy test called Lia. Lia works like traditional, over-the-counter pregnancy tests, detecting the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in urine. But unlike traditional tests, Lia is made of paper instead of plastic and is 100 percent biodegradable in 12 weeks, its creators say. “We’re really bringing together a solution that is better for women but also better for the planet,” Edwards said. Flushable, biodegradable Born out of research conducted during their graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Lia’s creators say it’s the first flushable and biodegradable pregnancy test developed. The product recently obtained clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Lia breaks down like toilet paper and can be flushed in standard-flow sewer or septic systems. Creating a paper test that could hold up long enough to test urine samples but eventually disintegrate after flushing was a major challenge. “We really had to develop our own coatings, proprietary coatings, to allow the paper and the materials that we’re using to hold up in use but also be able to break down quickly after you’re done,” Edwards said. “It’s kind of a very counterintuitive sort of thing,” she added. “You want something that has …

Taking an at-home pregnancy test is stressful enough, but users also have to contend with how to discretely dispose of the test and its results. Now there’s Lia, a pregnancy test that can safely disappear with the flush of a toilet. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports. …

A new exhibit showcases gadgets and inventions by designers striving to make disabled people’s lives easier — in style. Faith Lapidus reports. …

The British government has suspended new funding to the aid organization Oxfam following allegations that some of its staff had paid for sex with prostitutes in Haiti after the country’s 2010 earthquake. British Development Minister Penny Mordaunt said the group has agreed not to bid for any new funding from Britain’s government until London is satisfied the aid organization meets its “high standards.”  In a statement, the British-based aid group said, “We are committed to proving that we deserve the confidence of the U.K. public.”  The aid group has been rocked by allegations of sexually exploiting people in crisis zones, including using prostitutes and downloading pornography in Haiti after the country’s 2010 earthquake.  Oxfam, one of the world’s biggest disaster relief organizations, said it investigated the case in 2011 and fired four staff members and allowed three others to resign. However, the British government has criticized the group’s lack of transparency.  Earlier on Friday, Oxfam said it would create an independent commission to review the group’s practices and culture. Oxfam International’s executive director, Winnie Byanyima, told BBC Friday, “What happened in Haiti and afterwards is a stain on Oxfam that will shame us for years, and rightly so.” “From the bottom of my heart, I am asking for forgiveness,” Byanyima said, adding she wants all victims of abuse to come forward. Mordaunt said the British government had asked Oxfam and other recipients of aid funding to provide assurances by February 26 that they effectively safeguarded people they helped, and reported any breaches …

A disputed case of euthanasia in Belgium, involving the death of a dementia patient who never formally asked to die, has again raised concerns about weak oversight in a country with some of the world’s most liberal euthanasia laws. The case was described in a letter provided to The Associated Press, written by a doctor who resigned from Belgium’s euthanasia commission in protest over the group’s actions on this and other cases. Some experts say the case as documented in the letter amounts to murder; the patient lacked the mental capacity to ask for euthanasia and the request for the bedridden patient to be euthanized came from family members. The co-chairs of the commission say the doctor mistakenly reported the death as euthanasia. Although euthanasia has been legal in Belgium since 2002 and has overwhelming public support, critics have raised concerns in recent months about certain practices, including how quickly some doctors approve requests to die from psychiatric patients. Dispute revealed The AP revealed a rift last year between Dr. Willem Distelmans, co-chair of the euthanasia commission, and Dr. Lieve Thienpont, an advocate of euthanasia for the mentally ill. Distelmans suggested some of Thienpont’s patients might have been killed without meeting all the legal requirements. Prompted by the AP’s reporting, more than 360 doctors, academics and others have signed a petition calling for tighter controls on euthanasia for psychiatric patients. Euthanasia — when doctors kill patients at their request — can be granted in Belgium to people with both physical …

This nasty flu season, which has been worsening for months, may finally be leveling off. Health officials on Friday said about 1 of every 13 visits to the doctor last week was for fever, cough and other flu symptoms. That’s still nearly as high as it’s been in a decade, but it’s no worse than last week. It had been increasing each week since November. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the number of states reporting heavy flu patient traffic also held steady at 43. This season started early and has been driven by a formidable type of flu that tends to put more people in the hospital and cause more deaths. This year’s flu vaccine is estimated to be only 25 percent effective against that type. …

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says 84 children have died in this year’s flu season, one of the most intense flu seasons since the swine flu pandemic in 2009. In Friday’s report from the nation’s public health agency, experts said this year’s unusually hardy flu strain is still widespread in 48 of the 50 U.S. states, with only the Pacific Island state of Hawaii and the northwestern state of Oregon excepted. Friday’s report also said for the week ending January 27, nearly 10 percent of U.S. death certificates listed flu or pneumonia as the cause. The report noted that about one of every 13 doctor visits during that time was due to flu symptoms — no worse than the previous report, which means a steady increase in that total late last year and early this year has leveled off. In a separate report Thursday, CDC experts reported that this year’s flu vaccine is only about 25 percent effective at preventing this year’s dominant flu strain, although success rates are higher among young children. The CDC said most of the child deaths from this year’s flu and in past seasons were among children who had not been vaccinated. And on Thursday, acting CDC director Anne Schuchat told reporters that the U.S. flu season this year, which she called “challenging and intense,” is expected to last several more weeks. …

Spacewalking astronauts stepped out Friday to wrap up months of repair work on the International Space Station’s big robot arm. NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Japan’s Norishige Kanai emerged from the orbiting complex as the sun rose over Peru’s western coast, 250 miles below. The 58-foot robot arm had both of its aging mechanical hands replaced on spacewalks conducted in October and January. Friday’s work involved bringing one of those old hands inside so it can be returned to Earth for a tuneup and then flown back up, and moving the other gripper to a long-term storage location outside. This last spacewalk in the series should have been completed by now, but was postponed because of complications with the robotic hand that was installed last month. Further delays were caused by this week’s late arrival of a Russian supply ship. It was the first spacewalk for Kanai, a surgeon and former diving medical officer who arrived at the space station in December. For Vande Hei, it was spacewalk No. 4. He returns to Earth at the end of the month. Four other men currently live at the space station. …

The World Health Organization (WHO) warns healthy pregnant women are undergoing unnecessary medical interventions at an alarming rate. Given the trend, WHO is launching new recommendations aimed at reducing potentially harmful interventions. The organization reports most of the estimated 140 million annual births occur without complications. Yet, it says over the past 20 years there has been a significant rise in medical interventions previously used to avoid risks. These include oxytocin infusion to speed up labor and caesarean sections. WHO says health providers tend to intervene medically when the rate of labor appears to be slower than what is considered normal. This is based on a long-held benchmark for cervical dilation to occur at a rate of one centimeter per hour. Olufemi Oladapo, a medical officer in WHO’s department of Reproductive Health and Research, says every labor and childbirth is unique, and it is perfectly normal for some women to be slower than the prescribed rate of cervical dilation. He says WHO has set another boundary for cervical dilation of up to five centimeters per hour during the first stage of labor until the woman is ready to push out the baby. “It should not be longer than 12 hours in first-time mothers. And it should not be longer than 10 hours in subsequent labors…. So, as long as a woman is making some progress within that time frame, and the condition of the mother as well as the baby are reassuring, then there should be no reason for intervening,” …

The first blood test to help doctors diagnose traumatic brain injuries has won U.S. government approval. The move means Banyan Biomarkers can commercialize its test, giving the company an early lead in the biotech industry’s race to find a way to diagnose concussions. The test doesn’t detect concussions and the approval won’t immediately change how patients with suspected concussions or other brain trauma are treated. But Wednesday’s green light by the Food and Drug Administration “is a big deal because then it opens the door and accelerates technology,” said Michael McCrea, a brain injury expert at Medical College of Wisconsin. The test detects two proteins present in brain cells that can leak into the bloodstream following a blow to the head. Banyan’s research shows the test can detect them up within 12 hours of injury. It’s designed to help doctors quickly determine which patients with suspected concussions may have brain bleeding or other brain injury. Patients with a positive test would need a CT scan to confirm the results and determine if surgery or other treatment is needed. The test will first be used in emergency rooms, possibly as soon as later this year, but Banyan’s hope is that it will eventually be used on battlefields and football fields. FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said the test fits with the agency’s goals for delivering new technologies to patients and reducing unnecessary radiation exposure. The test “sets the stage for a more modernized standard of care for testing of suspected cases,” …

A Texas elementary school teacher who died almost a week after getting sick from the flu became a talking point online after her husband said she didn’t immediately fill her prescription for an antiviral drug after deeming the $116 insurance co-pay too high. While her husband told the Wall Street Journal that he picked up the prescription the day after she refused it and she then started taking the medication, Heather Holland, 38, died three days later on Feb. 4.  Doctors told The Associated Press that while it’s ideal to start taking antiviral medication as quickly as possible, it’s no guarantee that one’s condition will not drastically worsen. Antivirals make it “not zero, but less likely” that complications will develop, said Dr. William Schaffner, infectious diseases specialist at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, who added, “antivirals are not a magic potion.” Frank Holland of Willow Park, just west of Fort Worth, told the newspaper that his wife, a second-grade teacher, came home feeling a bit sick Jan. 29. The mother of two went to work in nearby Weatherford on Jan. 30 but by evening had a fever.  She went to the doctor on Jan. 31. Frank Holland said a rapid flu test was positive for influenza B. The doctor wrote her a prescription for oseltamivir phosphate, a generic form of the antiviral medication Tamiflu. Frank Holland told the Wall Street Journal that they had the money, but she was frugal and didn’t want to fill it.  She …