What if there was a way to get rid of that unwanted fat without going under the knife? How convenient it would be to stop by a clinic during your lunch hour, get a few injections and dissolve away your trouble spots of extra fat.
A hot new fat-reducing procedure can have dangerous side effects.That's what appealed to 45-year-old Sheila Yee of Riverbank, Calif. A third-degree black belt and martial arts instructor, she works out six days a week and is about as fit as a woman can be.
But like a lot of women her age, she couldn't seem to get rid of the pouch around her belly. "Who wants to take martial arts from someone who doesn't look like they're in shape?" she said.
Yee was intrigued by the local advertisements for a new procedure commonly called by the trade name Lipodissolve, which claims to melt away fat with a simple injection of drugs. To avoid surgical liposuction, Yee thought she'd found the answer.
"I just knew that there was no cutting, there was no blood. There's no stitches," Yee said.
'Lunchtime Lipo'
Marketed as quick and easy "lunchtime lipo" at doctor's offices and spas around the country, it was enticing to many women who wanted a quick fix, women like Annette Clark and Paige Tate. The two 30-something moms were slim, like Yee, but fighting pesky unwanted stomach flab. "I thought it seemed like a miracle wonder and I was elated and couldn't wait to start," Clark said. All of the women, each from different states, said they were told by different spas that they were perfect candidates for Lipodissolve. The hefty price tag didn't deter them: Clark paid $2,400 and the other women paid $3,000 to $4,000 for a series of injections. Almost immediately after her first injections, Clark said she knew something was wrong. "They gave me about six injections across my abdomen and within a matter of minutes I started having severe burning. By the time I got home, about an hour later, I looked like I was eight months pregnant."
Open Wounds and Staph Infections
Gigi Hinton, 30, was thrilled at the thought of trimming her thighs and knees. Hinton said her nightmare began after a second round of nearly 20 injections to her knee. "After it scabbed over, maybe after a week or two, it really felt like something started to eat away at the skin beneath. And I was left with an open wound on my right knee," she said. "Even the nurses in the spa said they had never seen anything like that before."
But if Hinton had simply looked on the Internet, she would have found plenty of horror stories. One posting was from Tate, who, after two treatments, wrote: "I was feeling constant headache, diarrhea … and the swelling would not go away."
Tate said she has been sick ever since and now has degenerative disk disease. "None of my health issues began until the day I started those injections," she said. "I have degenerative disk disease in the lower part of my back, exactly where there are two nodules that are between my muscle and my skin."
Yee said she also found a nodule in her stomach the size of a tennis ball and went back to the spa. She said she was stunned by the nurse's reaction.
"She looks at it and she's telling me 'oh my goodness that is so wonderful. All your fat cells have all congregated into one area. If all of our patients were like this, we'd be out of business because you know that fat's just going. You're the perfect person for this.'"
Disaster struck a few days later when that mass in her stomach nearly doubled to the size of a grapefruit. She had a life-threatening staph infection that required emergency surgery to remove a mass of dead tissue. Sheila says she could have died. "I contemplated going the next day. I might have died the next day. I might not have lived," she said. "They don't realize how serious this is and what they're doing to people. It's dangerous."
Doctors Warn Against Lipodissolve
Dr. Alan Gold, a member of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, warned against Lipodissolve. "The two primary chemicals within this are called PC and DC: phosphatidylcholine and deoxycholate," he explained. "There's no standardized formula and other things may be added to those mixtures. At the present time, it is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration."
By HELAINE TABACOFF and DEIRDRE COHEN
Source - http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4636585&page=1
Friday, April 11, 2008
Dalai Lama opens 'compassion conference' in Seattle
SEATTLE (AFP) — The Dalai Lama opened a conference on compassion here Friday, but avoided mentioning the situation in Tibet on his first foreign trip since China's crackdown in the Himalayan territory.
The exiled 72-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader spoke before a crowd of around 8,000 people at the University of Washington on the first day of the "Seeds of Compassion" conference.
The saffron-clad leader told a rapt audience that the purpose of the five day conference was to promote peace and "fostering a society with a healthy mind."
"No one want problems, but problems happen due to our wrong views and wrong action," he said. "In the next few days, we are discussing about these things. It is a learning opportunity for all of us."
The only apparent reference to Tibet came from conference organizer Dan Kranzler, who remarked: "May I say personally, the world knows the truth ... The world knows."
Although conference officials have said the purpose of the Dalai Lama's visit is non-political, groups close to him have not ruled out meetings with US politicians and discussions during the trip.
The US House of Representatives and Senate on Wednesday passed separate resolutions condemning Beijing's actions in Tibet and calling on the Chinese government to begin a dialogue directly with the Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, will leave Seattle Tuesday for conferences at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor on April 19-20 and at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, on April 22.
On a stopover at the Tokyo Narita airport on Thursday, he renewed his support for the Beijing Olympics in August and said he had urged the Tibetan community to respect the protest-plagued Olympic torch relay.
Tibet last month saw the biggest protests in years against China's controversial rule, on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising that sent the Dalai Lama fleeing into exile in India.
Beijing has accused him of instigating the deadly violence and of seeking to split the province from China.
Source - http://afp.google.com
The exiled 72-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader spoke before a crowd of around 8,000 people at the University of Washington on the first day of the "Seeds of Compassion" conference.
The saffron-clad leader told a rapt audience that the purpose of the five day conference was to promote peace and "fostering a society with a healthy mind."
"No one want problems, but problems happen due to our wrong views and wrong action," he said. "In the next few days, we are discussing about these things. It is a learning opportunity for all of us."
The only apparent reference to Tibet came from conference organizer Dan Kranzler, who remarked: "May I say personally, the world knows the truth ... The world knows."
Although conference officials have said the purpose of the Dalai Lama's visit is non-political, groups close to him have not ruled out meetings with US politicians and discussions during the trip.
The US House of Representatives and Senate on Wednesday passed separate resolutions condemning Beijing's actions in Tibet and calling on the Chinese government to begin a dialogue directly with the Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, will leave Seattle Tuesday for conferences at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor on April 19-20 and at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, on April 22.
On a stopover at the Tokyo Narita airport on Thursday, he renewed his support for the Beijing Olympics in August and said he had urged the Tibetan community to respect the protest-plagued Olympic torch relay.
Tibet last month saw the biggest protests in years against China's controversial rule, on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising that sent the Dalai Lama fleeing into exile in India.
Beijing has accused him of instigating the deadly violence and of seeking to split the province from China.
Source - http://afp.google.com
Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus
A Whitman woman is suing PetSmart Inc., a nationwide pet store chain, claiming her husband’s death resulted from an infection that can be traced to a pet hamster.
Thomas Magee, 54, died nearly a month after receiving a liver transplant. The suit claims Magee and two other transplant recipients died after receiving organs from a donor who was infected with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus. The suit alleges the organ donor became infected after purchasing a pet hamster from the Warwick, R.I., PetSmart.
Nancy Magee, 51, is claiming negligence in her complaint filed in Boston District Court.
Magee, reached at her home, referred all calls to her attorney, Robert Bickelman.
“Our first obligation is to our client and her legal interests,” Bickelman said. “We don’t believe her interests are served in commenting at this time.”
Lymphocytic choriomeningitis is a disease commonly found in the common house mouse and is occasionally transferred to pet rodents at a breeding site or pet store, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
It can be transferred to a human if a person comes in contact with fecal droppings, urine, saliva or nesting materials.
While the infection cannot be transferred from human to human, the CDC is currently investigating a number of complaints of the infection being transferred during organ transplants, according to the CDC Web site.
According to published reports, Thomas Magee received the liver transplant on April 10, 2005, at Massachusetts General Hospital and began to experience symptoms, including a high fever and a rise in blood pressure, less than five days later.
The CDC states symptoms, which begin to show eight to 13 days after an infection, include fever, headache, nausea and an increase in liver enzymes. There is a less than 1 percent fatality rate.
Magee died on May 7, 2005. He was the father of two children.
By Paula M. Donnelly
Source - http://www.enterprisenews.com/news/x577337759
Thomas Magee, 54, died nearly a month after receiving a liver transplant. The suit claims Magee and two other transplant recipients died after receiving organs from a donor who was infected with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus. The suit alleges the organ donor became infected after purchasing a pet hamster from the Warwick, R.I., PetSmart.
Nancy Magee, 51, is claiming negligence in her complaint filed in Boston District Court.
Magee, reached at her home, referred all calls to her attorney, Robert Bickelman.
“Our first obligation is to our client and her legal interests,” Bickelman said. “We don’t believe her interests are served in commenting at this time.”
Lymphocytic choriomeningitis is a disease commonly found in the common house mouse and is occasionally transferred to pet rodents at a breeding site or pet store, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
It can be transferred to a human if a person comes in contact with fecal droppings, urine, saliva or nesting materials.
While the infection cannot be transferred from human to human, the CDC is currently investigating a number of complaints of the infection being transferred during organ transplants, according to the CDC Web site.
According to published reports, Thomas Magee received the liver transplant on April 10, 2005, at Massachusetts General Hospital and began to experience symptoms, including a high fever and a rise in blood pressure, less than five days later.
The CDC states symptoms, which begin to show eight to 13 days after an infection, include fever, headache, nausea and an increase in liver enzymes. There is a less than 1 percent fatality rate.
Magee died on May 7, 2005. He was the father of two children.
By Paula M. Donnelly
Source - http://www.enterprisenews.com/news/x577337759
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