Capital Newspaper Publications
PATHOGENS AND PEOPLE: Mom's teeth and baby's health
Capital (Annapolis); May 2, 2010; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words I don't like talking to my dentists. It's not that they are bad or uninteresting people. It's just that I can't really keep up my end of the conversation with a pair of latex-covered hands in my mouth waving around sharp, stainless-steel tools and a suction hose. After my last appointment, and a
Pathogens and people: Bacteriophage: The invisible microbe
Capital (Annapolis); July 5, 2009; EDWARD MCSWEEGAN For The Capital; 700+ words If antibiotics disappeared tomorrow, would we be at the mercy of every stray germ? Would every cut and scratch be a potential death sentence? Would life become little more than survival of the immunologically fittest? No, but life would be different, and perhaps more complicated. Decades before
Pathogens and People: A look at the other swine infection
Capital (Annapolis); June 7, 2009; EDWARD McSWEEGAN For The Capital; 700+ words Swine flu has been making headlines all over the world, curtailing travel and trade, and killing a small number of people in several countries. Eventually, it could become a global menace or, like bird flu, continue to percolate in distant pockets of the globe. No one knows what will happen or
Pathogens and people: The travel bug can be infectious
Capital (Annapolis); May 3, 2009; EDWARD McSWEEGAN For The Capital; 700+ words Summer is approaching and that means it's time to start planning vacations to the far side of the Chesapeake Bay, and the far side of the world. Travel is a seasonal migration worth $1.6 trillion to the U.S. travel and tourism industry. Worldwide, some 2 million people cross international borders
Pathogens and people: A tick virus with a dangerous bite
Capital (Annapolis); April 5, 2009; EDWARD McSWEEGAN For The Capital; 700+ words Across much of Europe and Russia, various tick species regularly transmit a serious infection called tick-borne encephalitis. It is a viral infection with long-term neurological complications and a mortality rate of about 20 percent. Fortunately, there are very effective vaccines against this
Pathogens and people: Tumors and viruses: What's the connection?
Capital (Annapolis); March 1, 2009; EDWARD McSWEEGAN For The Capital; 700+ words Whatever your political persuasion, I think you would have to agree that Sen. Ted Kennedy is a lucky man. He has survived decades of ruthless national politics, endless family tragedies, personal legal problems, and, most recently, a deadly form of brain cancer. He's a survivor in every sense of
Pathogens and people: RSV vaccine a challenge for scientists
Capital (Annapolis); February 1, 2009; EDWARD McSWEEGAN For The Capital; 700+ words The cold and flu season is here so it seems an appropriate time to discuss another "common cold" virus whose seasonal appearance may wander from mid-October in some states to early July in others. This errant pathogen is called the Respiratory Syncytial Virus or RSV. It belongs to the same viral
Pathogens and People: Agony and mystery of Crohn's Disease
Capital (Annapolis); January 4, 2009; EDWARD McSWEEGAN For The Capital; 700+ words About 75 years ago, an American physician described a gastrointestinal disorder that was similar to intestinal tuberculosis. Today, that disorder is known as Crohn's disease. Unfortunately, after 75 years, there are still many unanswered questions about this disease, including the cause. There also
Pathogens and people: Do these 4 things and you might avoid the common cold
Capital (Annapolis); December 7, 2008; EDWARD MCSWEEGAN For The Capital; 700+ words The cold and flu season is almost upon us. We worry about the flu and many of us will take the annual vaccine and try to avoid people who may have the flu. Colds, on the other hand, are viewed as mild irritants. Colds are just a few days of scratchy throats, running noses, coughs and maybe some
Mosquitoes and 'break bone fever'
Capital (Annapolis); November 2, 2008; EDWARD MCSWEEGAN For The capital; 700+ words I went to India last week. Aside from the usual packing and planning for a long trip, I also had to run over to the clinic for tetanus and typhoid booster shots, azithromycin for bacterial infections, loperamide for gastrointestinal problems and atovaquone / proguanil for malaria. India is not
Pathogens, as with people, come in all shapes and sizes
Capital (Annapolis); October 5, 2008; EDWARD McSWEEGAN For the Capital; 700+ words So, naturalists observe, a flea Has smaller fleas that on him prey;And these have smaller still to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum. These lines from Jonathan Swift's classic poem, "a Rhapsody," about how the little are eaten by the big and the big by the bigger is a rule of nature that also
West Nile virus: Another successful immigrant story
Capital (Annapolis); September 7, 2008; EDWARD MCSWEEGAN For the Capital; 700+ words In June 2007, the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats met in Colorado to discuss the ecology of vector-borne diseases. Colorado is a good place for such a meeting. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has laboratories in Fort Collins. There's the majestic backdrop of the
Lyme disease: The good, the bad and the silly
Capital (Annapolis); August 3, 2008; EDWARD McSWEEGAN for The Capital; 700+ words Summer is here with its annual flurry of news reports about Lyme disease and tick bites. This year's news is a lot like a newspaper; there's good news, bad news, comics and movie reviews. First, the good news. Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed a slow-release
Pathogens & People: Will global warming create new 'hot zones'? Maybe
Capital (Annapolis); June 29, 2008; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Summer began with a heat wave, violent thunderstorms and a tornado or two. Tornadoes tore up the Midwest. Fires burned in California. Record flooding covered parts of Iowa. Is it all another sign of global climate change? Maybe. Will a warmer world also lead to more infectious diseases? Yes and
Pathogens & People: Lengthy treatment needed to treat Whipple's disease
Capital (Annapolis); April 27, 2008; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words The actor who played George Whipple the fretful grocer died last fall, and I was reminded not of his Charmin toilet paper commercials, but of Whipple's disease. The disease is not named for George Whipple, television icon, but for Dr. George Whipple, professor at Johns Hopkins University.In 1907,
Pathogens & People: Long-term hazards associated with eating
Capital (Annapolis); March 30, 2008; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words In February, the Department of Agriculture issued a nationwide recall of 144 million pounds of suspect beef. It was the largest recall in U.S. history. Apparently, some of the beef had been prepared from sick or "downer" cattle and much of the meat had been shipped to federal food assistance
Pathogens & People: Fleas playing important role in Cat Scratch Disease
Capital (Annapolis); March 2, 2008; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Cat Scratch Disease seems fairly self-explanatory. A cat scratches you and you get a disease. Maybe this is why dogs are man's best friend: except for the occasional "mad dog" episode they don't have many infectious agents that are passed readily to humans. Cats, on the other hand, won't come when
Pathogens & People: Smallpox: Virus has touched pharaohs and cooks
Capital (Annapolis); January 27, 2008; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Most people probably will not know the name Ali Mao Maalin. No, he's not a terrorist. He was a hospital cook in Somalia, and on October 27, 1977, he came down with the last natural case of smallpox. He was easy to find. An international army of 200,000 public health officials and volunteers had
Pathogens & People: Leprosy: Alive and well in the U.S.
Capital (Annapolis); December 30, 2007; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Recently, I heard MSNBC's Keith Olbermann mention Lou Dobbs and leprosy in the same sentence. That caught my attention. However, I missed the full story. Curious, I pecked around the Web and found a New York Times article that shed some light on Mr. Dobbs and the disease that still sends chills
Pathogens & People: Are we too clean for our own health? It's possible
Capital (Annapolis); December 2, 2007; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Did Charlie Brown's friend, Pigpen, know something the rest of the Peanuts' gang didn't know? Pigpen may have repelled his friends with his personal dust cloud, but that dirty shield also may have protected him from allergies and asthma. Without realizing it, Pigpen may have been demonstrating an
Pathogens & People: Hospitals, antibiotics help create a dangerous epidemic
Capital (Annapolis); October 28, 2007; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Thirty years ago, I worked as a research assistant in a Boston hospital. Each morning on my way up to my lab, I passed another where an infection called "antibiotic-associated psueodmembranous colitis" was being studied. It sounded exotic, and the lab's complex culture media, gas cylinders and
Pathogens & People: Injected in banishes wrinkles, ingested it can cause death
Capital (Annapolis); September 30, 2007; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Botulism toxin is a curious molecule. It is the most poisonous substance known and is responsible for many deadly cases of food poisoning. On the other hand, many people have the toxin regularly injected into themselves to banish wrinkles or ease chronic pain. Still others worry that the toxin
Pathogens & People: Raw shellfish and vibrios: It's best to avoid both
Capital (Annapolis); August 26, 2007; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Jorge Serpa, a Portuguese national and old grad school friend, is enjoying a plate of cold Chesapeake oysters. He picks up another half shell, waves it in front of me, and asks, "Want some vibrios?" It's an old joke. He knows I won't eat raw shellfish; I know what might be lurking in some of them.
Pathogens & People: Chagas: Disease rising with immigration numbers
Capital (Annapolis); July 29, 2007; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words This spring, Congress and the White House again failed to pass any new laws on immigration, and therefore, the problems of illegal immigrants and porous borders will continue. Most of the illegal immigrants apparently come from South and Central America, and Mexico. Many of these poor people
Pathogens & People: Internet helps spread delusion that Morgellons a disease
Capital (Annapolis); July 1, 2007; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words I thought the following might be an interesting experiment: Invent a disease and a set of vague symptoms. Build a Web site and start a tax-exempt charity for the disease. Send out press releases about the newly discovered disease and its disturbing symptoms and provide a link to the Web site. Then
Pathogens & People: Yellow fever: Long forgotten, but not gone
Capital (Annapolis); June 3, 2007; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words The latest news about Walter Reed Army Medical Center is that it will close in 2011: a little more than a century after it was named for Army Major Walter Reed. Reed has been dead for more than 100 years, having died from surgical complications just two years after solving the riddle of yellow
Pathogens & People: Avian flu: It's out of spotlight, we're not out of danger
Capital (Annapolis); March 11, 2007; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words The traditional November-March flu season is coming to a close. This season was noteworthy for its apparent mildness and an adequate supply of vaccine. Also, there seems to be less talk and less news about that viral bogeyman, Bird Flu. Can we relax now and watch for spring? No. Avian influenza is
Pathogens & People: Parasite that may have shaped world
Capital (Annapolis); January 28, 2007; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Imagine a tiny, singled-cell parasite that causes brain infections in people. Imagine there is no treatment. Imagine this parasite can affect your behavior. Imagine, too, it has infected so many people it might be responsible for some aspects of human culture. If this sounds like some Andromeda
Pathogens & People: Another mosquito virus slips into U.S.
Capital (Annapolis); December 24, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words I may have been wrong. In an August 2005 column, I suggested the Rift Valley Fever virus might become the next immigrant virus to follow in the footsteps of West Nile virus and settle in the U.S. Instead, that dubious honor may go to another once obscure African virus: Chikungunya. (If the name
Pathogens & People: TB common and uncommonly difficult to treat
Capital (Annapolis); November 26, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words The isolation ward appeared to be empty. But then a nurse emerged from one of the patient rooms, turned her masked face in our direction and waved. A few of us on the other side of the flimsy glass and wood doors waved back. In the U.S., the nurse probably would have been wearing a N95 respirator,
Pathogens & People: Lassa fever and the first 'hot zone'
Capital (Annapolis); October 29, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Long before anyone ever heard of Ebola virus or nervously read Richard Preston's gripping 1995 account of Ebola outbreaks in darkest Africa and nearby Virginia, there was Lassa fever, and dead missionaries, and dying Yale scientists and a dramatic book called "Fever: The Hunt For a New Killer
Pathogens & People: A tick bite can give you a malaria-like ailment
Capital (Annapolis); October 1, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words I have to go to India in a few days so I've started taking two drugs called proguanil and atovaquone. The drugs are used to treat, or in this case, prevent malaria. There are plenty of malaria-carrying mosquitoes in downtown New Delhi so a daily dose of anti-malarial meds is a good idea for
Pathogens & People: Bats' reputation: From bad to worse
Capital (Annapolis); August 27, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Most people don't like bats, even if they've never seen one. Ancient myths, horror movies and the very idea of furry-faced creatures with teeth gliding silently through the night are enough to make people happy never to see one.Despite the bad press, bats play an important role in controlling
Pathogens & People: Hot summer months bring threat of mosquitoes, viruses
Capital (Annapolis); July 30, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words For decades in the United States, the mosquito has been little more than a summertime pest. Deadly mosquito-borne yellow fever disappeared from the South over a hundred years ago. Malaria was officially eradicated in 1949. But the sudden appearance of West Nile Virus, first in New York in 1999 and
Pathogens & people: Uptick in cases of rodent virus
Capital (Annapolis); July 2, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words In June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported an increase in the number of cases of a rare but frequently fatal infection called Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome. Between January and March, nine cases were reported in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, North Dakota and Washington. Nine
Germs cropping up in the most mundane places
Maryland Gazette; June 3, 2006; Dr. Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Germophobes and hypochondriacs should stop reading right here because this is a Cook's tour of the many mundane places where pathogens and other disgusting bugs may be found. Some of them are in your home. Consider the lowly shower curtain. A San Diego State University study discovered a variety of
Pathogens & People: Germs: They crop up in the most mundane places
Capital (Annapolis); May 28, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Germophobes and hypochondriacs should stop reading right here because today's column is a Cook's tour of the many mundane places where pathogens and other disgusting bugs may be found. Some of them are in your home. Consider the lowly shower curtain. A San Diego State University study discovered a
Pathogens & People: Chickenpox has a one-two punch
Capital (Annapolis); April 2, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words It began as a slight itch in the center of my back. After a few days, a small red rash appeared and the itch became harder to ignore. I had one or two basal cell carcinomas removed in the recent past and I wondered if this might be something similar. I went to my doctor to find out. One look at the
Pathogens & People: Giving the fight against whooping cough a boost
Capital (Annapolis); February 26, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words If you go to a Web site called www.whoopingcough.net you can listen to the awful, inhalational whine that is characteristic of whooping cough. It doesn't sound anything like whooping cranes. It sounds like a small pair of lungs struggling for air. Once upon a time, when there were roughly 200,000
Maryland Gazette; February 1, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Polio a persistent, perplexing pathogen Most baby boomers share a common memory of being herded into lines at school in order to receive a shot or a sugar cube containing a vaccine against poliovirus.I remember a sugar cube in a tiny paper cup. The schoolhouse lines and mass vaccinations have since
Pathogens & People: Polio a persistent, perplexing pathogen
Capital (Annapolis); January 29, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Most baby boomers share a common memory of being herded into lines at school in order to receive a shot or a sugar cube containing a vaccine against poliovirus. I remember a sugar cube in a tiny paper cup. The schoolhouse lines and mass vaccinations have since disappeared, and polio has more or
Pathogens & People Strep throat and PANDAS
Capital (Annapolis); January 1, 2006; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Your daughter complains of a sore throat. A few days later she begins acting as if she's Jack Nicholson's irrational character in the movie, "As Good As it Gets." Suddenly she becomes obsessive-compulsive, with fears of contamination, ritual hand washing, counting, eye blinking and the facial tics
Pathogens & People: Getting the flu vaccine: Erring on the side of caution
Capital (Annapolis); December 4, 2005; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words I'm standing in line at work waiting for my annual flu shot and thinking about numbers. About 36,000 Americans die each year from flu. With a national population of 288 million, my chances of dying from flu are about 1 in 10,000. Actually, my chances are even less because 90 percent of flu deaths
Pathogens & People: Q Fever one nasty illness
Capital (Annapolis); October 30, 2005; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words The hazards of police work are many. There are uncooperative bad guys with guns and knives, high-speed car chases and physical assaults. Sometimes the crime scene itself presents physical dangers in the form of backyard bomb factories and trailer park meth labs. But who would suspect a dirty house
Pathogens and People: Bubonic plague still instills fear
Capital (Annapolis); October 2, 2005; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Every now and then I run into bubonic plague. When I was in graduate school the guy in the lab next door was growing gallons of Yersinia pestis, the agent of plague, for his thesis. Years later, in Colorado, I watched from behind the relative safety of gloves and respirator as my CDC colleagues
Pathogens and People: Is Rift Valley Fever the next West Nile virus?
Capital (Annapolis); August 28, 2005; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Two years ago, researchers from Johns Hopkins and the Centers for Disease Control published a study about how a small community might react to a bioterrorist attack. They imagined a scenario in which an infectious agent was sprayed in a semi-rural community in the southern United States. Then they
Pathogens & People: On your college to-do list: Shop, pack, get this shot
Capital (Annapolis); July 31, 2005; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words A Seinfeld character who needed to act out the symptoms of bacterial meningitis declared, "It's the Hamlet of diseases. Severe pain, nausea, delusions it's got everything." Hamlet, unlike Seinfeld, is a tragedy and so too is the sudden appearance of Neisseria meningitidis, one the microbial world's
Pathogens & People: Web full of bad information on Lyme disease
Capital (Annapolis); June 26, 2005; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words When I was checking some information for last month's column on hepatitis, I came across the Borland-Groover Clinic Web site. A large banner at the top of their page read, "Web Warning: We have found most hepatitis discussion sites on the Web to be a waste of time, or worse." That's a warning that
Pathogens and People: Hepatitis A: Common but preventable
Capital (Annapolis); May 29, 2005; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words It must have been a strange anniversary party. Last December, public health officials gathered in Vienna, Va., for the one-year anniversary of the largest Hepatitis A outbreak in U.S. history. Occurring near Pittsburgh, 600 people contracted the infection from contaminated restaurant food. Three of
Pathogens and People: SARS outbreak caught scientists by surprise
Capital (Annapolis); February 27, 2005; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Nature is full of surprises. Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, plagues, hurricanes and vast forest fires are just some of the many sources of global surprise. What's so surprising about these chaotic events is that we are always surprised by them. That was the initial response to the
Pathogens & People: Trench diseases get foothold on mean streets
Capital (Annapolis); August 29, 2004; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words I expect everyone has heard of the trench coat. Probably quite a few people also have heard of trench foot, trench knife, trench mouth, trench tool and trench fever. All of these have origins in the brutal trench warfare of World War I. Except for the trench coat, you probably would not expect to
Pathogens & People: A doozy of an excuse for not mowing yard
Capital (Annapolis); August 1, 2004; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words It's a hot summer day and you need an excuse not to mow the lawn. How about: "Honey, it could start an epidemic." Or maybe: "Dad, we could be arrested as bioterrorists under the Patriot Act."Now they are really novel excuses. Here's why they might work. There's an unusual infectious disease that
Pathogens and People: Red `bulls-eye' telltale sign of Lyme disease
Capital (Annapolis); May 30, 2004; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Just before bedtime one night, my wife called me into our son's room. "Look at these red splotches on his legs," she said. The splotches were flat, ring-shaped rashes scattered around his skinny legs. One look and I said, "Oh, he's got Lyme disease. He's presenting with multiple erthyema migrans."
Pathogens and People: Legionella not always dangerous
Capital (Annapolis); May 2, 2004; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words Last October, Johns Hopkins Hospital staff reported finding trace amounts of Legionnaires' disease bacteria in the hospital's water supply. Was that a serious problem? Yes and no. Yes, if you were a hospital patient suffering from a chronic lung disease or your immune system had been undermined by
Pathogens and People: may not want to be what you eat
Capital (Annapolis); February 29, 2004; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words If the old saying, "you are what you eat," is true, then some of us might become patients, cripples or corpses. Throughout much of history, finding food was an uncertain proposition. So was eating what you found. It still is. In the U.S. each year, there are an estimated 76 million cases of
Pathogens & People: Deadly flu season one of discontent for doctors
Capital (Annapolis); February 1, 2004; Edward McSweegan; 700+ words For flu specialists, this is the winter of their discontent. The influenza virus not only arrived earlier than expected, it also arrived violently, killing 93 children since October.News of the deaths sent people rushing to their doctors for the vaccine, causing a temporary shortage.