Safe use of sharps

Safe use of sharps: If a sharp is found in the community, follow these instructions:

  • Do not walk while holding the sharp object.
  • Bring a puncture-proof, hard-sided, leak-proof container with a lid, such as a pickle jar or bleach container, to the area where the sharp was found.
  • Do not recap, bend, break the needle or manipulate it by hand in any way
  • Place the object in the container.
  • Use tongs if available. If tongs are not available pick up the needle/sharp from the blunt end and secure the lid.
  • Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water.
  • Label the container “hazardous waste”.

Six ways to help protect children from indoor air pollution (WHO)

  1. Don’t smoke indoors or near children, but ensure they remain supervised.
  2. Use cleaner fuels and technologies to cook, heat and light your home – choose electricity, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, biogas or solar stoves or ovens.
  3. Use ultra-low emission stoves with processed solid fuels (wood pellets) if cleaner options are not available.
  4. Always cook in a well-ventilated area, or outside if it’s hard to ventilate your kitchen or cooking area.
  5. Avoid using kerosene lamps or stoves for cooking or lighting.
  6. Don’t burn candles or use air fresheners, which add toxic chemicals to the air.

BreatheLife – a global campaign for clean air, headed by WHO, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, and UN Environment – is mobilizing communities to reduce the impact of air pollution in cities, regions and countries, currently reaching around 97 million people.

Sitting is NOT the new smoking, contrary to popular myth. In the latest issue of the American Journal of Public Health, researchers from Canada, the US and Australia say that while research does suggest excessive sitting (roughly more than eight hours a day) increases the risk of premature death and some chronic diseases by 10-20%, this pales in comparison to the risks associated with smoking, which increases the risk of premature death from any cause by approximately 180%.

The simple fact is, smoking is one of the greatest public health disasters of the past century. Sitting is not, and you can’t really compare the two,” says University of South Australia epidemiologist Dr Terry Boyle, one of nine researchers involved in the evaluation. “Unlike smoking, sitting is neither an addiction nor a danger to others. Equating the risk of sitting with smoking is clearly unwarranted and misleading, and only serves to trivialize the risks associated with smoking,” he added further.

Radiation and cancer. The US FDA has contradicted colleagues within the National Institutes of Health after they claimed that a study they conducted into the effects of radio frequency radiation (RFR) showed “clear evidence” of an association with a form of heart cancer. Scientists from the National Toxicology Program (NTP), part of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences within the National Institutes of Health, issued a report on November 1 in which they said that their study clearly showed that male rats exposed to high levels of RFR developed heart schwannomas, a form of cancer that is very rare in humans. They also said that there was some evidence to suggest that exposed male rats were at increased risk of developing tumors in the brain and adrenal glands. Rats and mice received radio frequency radiation across their whole bodies. By contrast, people are mostly exposed in specific local tissues close to where they hold the phone.”

More than 200 cases of polio-like illness under investigation in the US, with 80 confirmed cases of the polio-like illness known as acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) in 25 states this year as of Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. In addition, there are 219 cases under investigation. The CDC noted an increase in reports of patients under investigation who began experiencing symptoms in August, September and October. It has not identified the 25 states with confirmed illnesses, nor has it said how many states are reporting cases under investigation… (CNN).

Corporal punishment or the use of spanking as a disciplinary tool increases aggression in young children in the long run and is ineffective in teaching a child responsibility and self-control. New evidence suggests that it may cause harm to the child by affecting normal brain development. The harm associated with verbal punishment, such as shaming or humiliation are discussed in an updated policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published online Nov. 5, 2018 in the journal Pediatrics.

A new high-tech bracelet, called Nightwatch can detect 85% of all serious epilepsy seizures and 96% of the most severe ones (tonic-clonic seizures), and reduce unexpected night-time fatalities (SUDEP or sudden unexpected death in epilepsy) in these patients, says a study reported in the journal Neurology.

Video to watch: TEDx Video: Doctor-patient relationship www.youtube(dot)com/ watch?v=i9ml1vKK2DQ

Dr KK Aggarwal