Health
A Woman's Skin Whitening Cream Gave Her Mercury Poisoning – Gizmodo
A woman’s years-long beauty regimen caused severe mercury poisoning and irreversible neurological damage, say her doctors in a recent case report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month.
The 47-year woman’s ordeal was detailed in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a clearing house for public health information collected by the CDC from state health departments and local doctors.
According to the report, the Sacramento, California resident sought medical care earlier this July when her arms developed involuntary muscle spasms and became extremely weak. Over the next two weeks, she deteriorated further and was unable to walk, speak and see normally, which led to her hospitalization. In the hospital, she experienced delirium, a state of serious mental confusion.
Two weeks into her hospitalization, blood test results showed that she had incredibly high mercury levels. Her blood contained more than 1,000 times the level of mercury compared to the average person. Interviews with her family soon after revealed that the Mexican American woman had been using skin whitening creams brought back from Mexico for at least seven years.
Mercury has long been popular as an ingredient in whitening creams because it can stop skin cells from producing melanin. But its toxicity eventually led countries across the world to ban or strictly restrict its use in cosmetic products, including the U.S. Yet companies in Mexico as well as many other countries still routinely add mercury to their skin creams.
The woman’s ordeal was all the more tragic, however, because her cream was found to have organic mercury, rather than the inorganic mercury typically added to these products. Organic mercury is more toxic to the human body in smaller doses, especially to the brain, and victims are much less likely to recover once neurological symptoms have appeared. These symptoms, as in the woman’s case, can take months to years of exposure to manifest.
That isn’t to say skin care products made with inorganic mercury are safe either. They’ve been linked to kidney damage, skin rashes, scarring, as well as depression and psychosis. But inorganic mercury is easier to clear through chelation therapy, a technique to pull out toxic metals like both organic and inorganic mercury from the body.
In this case, doctors began chelation as soon as they discovered mercury in her blood. But despite prolonged chelation therapy, the authors wrote, the woman hasn’t regained the ability to talk and she is unable to “care for herself, requiring ongoing tube feeding for nutritional support.”
According to the authors, this is the first case of organic mercury poisoning linked to skin whitening creams ever documented, and the first case of poisoning tied to a particular form of organic mercury called methylmercury seen in the U.S. in nearly a half century.
The original source of the organic mercury in the woman’s skin cream is still unknown, the authors wrote, but California health officials are testing samples of other skin whitening creams for mercury. They’re also “investigating the case of a family member with likely exposure but less severe illness.”
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Kate Hudson is stripping down for a great cause.
The 42-year-old actress took to Instagram on Tuesday to share a photo in her underwear, advocating for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, leaving fans blown away by her “ripped” abs.
“It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I’m stretching my quads before joining my friends at Kit Undergarments and Third Love as they kick it to cancer by donating 15% of sales from the Kits To Kick Cancer collection to Women’s Cancer Research Fund,” the mother-of-three wrote to her more than 14 million followers.
The Fabletics co-founder’s post was met with praise, not just for bringing attention to the worthy cause, but for her strong and toned figure.
Hudson’s post drew comparisons to fellow A-list celebrities like, Jennifer Lopez and Jennifer Aniston.
“OK, I had no idea she was this ripped,” one person commented, while another added, “Definitely thought that was J.Lo at first glance.”
“I thought you were Jennifer Aniston at first,” someone else chimed in. “Can you imagine being a mom and 42 and looking this good? I am in shock.”
“Girl, you are in crazy good shape,”another commented. “I hope I look like this when I’m in my 40s.”
“The hair is irrelevant when you’re a mom with a body that looks this great,” someone else added.
“Thank you for promoting Breast Cancer Awareness Month and thank you for being this freaking hot,” another fan praised. “Keep up the hard work, sis. I see those abs!”
It’s no secret that the “How to Lose A Guy In 10 Days” star works hard for her body. In an interview with Women’s Health in June, Hudson revealed that she works out three or four times per week with a personal trainer.
“I know I’m at my strongest is when I’m doing my Pilates because it never gets easier,” she said. “The more you do Pilates the harder the things you can do become. I love how flexible I feel and I like what it does to the shape of my body.”
Aside from pilates, Hudson prefers to keep her exercises as fun as possible.
“I like to do any kind of dance workout,” she added. “I have the Peloton Tread, I just got it and I love Peloton. I think they make it so easy to have ‘no excuse’ workouts.”
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The U.S. economy likely grew at its slowest pace in more than a year in the third quarter as COVID-19 infections flared up, further straining global supply chains and causing shortages of goods like automobiles that almost stifled consumer spending.
The Commerce Department‘s advance gross domestic product report on Thursday is also expected to show strong inflation, fueled by the economy-wide shortages and pandemic relief money from the government, cutting into growth. Ebbing fiscal stimulus and Hurricane Ida, which devastated U.S. offshore energy production at the end of August, also weighed on the economy.
But there are signs that economic activity picked up towards the end of the quarter amid declining coronavirus cases driven by the Delta variant.
“Delta is the biggest reason why we have this noticeable deceleration,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “We’re going to see growth re-accelerate in the fourth quarter and the first half of next year as the effect of the Delta variant begins to wane. It doesn’t mean that we won’t have future waves of COVID, but with each passing wave, the economic costs continue to diminish.”
GDP growth likely increased at a 2.7% annualized rate last quarter, according to a Reuters survey of economists. The poll was, however, conducted before the release of data on Wednesday showing a sharp widening in the goods trade deficit in September amid a slump in exports.
The biggest goods trade deficit on record prompted some Wall Street banks to cut their GDP growth estimate, including Goldman Sachs, which trimmed its forecast by half a percentage point to a 2.75% rate. The Atlanta Federal Reserve trimmed its already low forecast to a 0.2% pace from a 0.5% rate.
Regardless of the actual number on Thursday, the economy’s performance last quarter was probably the weakest since the second quarter of 2020, when it suffered a historic contraction in the wake of stringent mandatory measures to contain the first wave of COVID-19 infections. The economy grew at a 6.7% rate in the second quarter. The Delta variant worsened labor shortages at factories, mines and ports, gumming up the supply chain.
The anticipated meager growth is seen coming mostly from a moderate pace of inventory drawdown. Overall inventory accumulation likely remained weak owing to shortages, especially of motor vehicles. Outside the shutdown in spring 2020, September was the worst month for motor vehicle production since 2010 because of a global shortage of semiconductors.
“The largest boost to GDP should come from a slower drawdown of inventories compared to in the second quarter, as supply shortage issues initially presented through weaker inventories but now have become a constraint on consumption instead,” said Veronica Clark, an economist at Citigroup in New York.
Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, is forecast to have stalled after a robust 12% growth pace in the April-June quarter. Though automobiles will account for a chunk of the anticipated stagnation, the Delta variant also curbed spending on services like air travel and dining out.
GLIMMERS OF HOPE
Inflation, which overshot the Federal Reserve’s 2% flexible target, also reduced households’ spending power. Price pressures and the supply chain disruptions saw the International Monetary Fund this month cutting its 2021 growth estimate for the United States to 6.0% from 7.0% in July.
Slower growth will have no impact on the Fed’s plans to start reducing as soon as next month the amount of money it is pumping into the economy through monthly bond purchases.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel. The summer wave of COVID-19 infections is behind, with cases declining significantly in recent weeks. Vaccinations have also picked up. The improving public health helped to lift consumer confidence this month. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits has dropped to a 19-month low.
That declining trend is expected to be confirmed by a separate report from the Labor Department on Thursday.
According to a Reuters survey, initial claims for state unemployment benefits likely held at a seasonally adjusted 290,000 last week. That would mark the third straight week that claims remained below the 300,000 threshold.
Economists are split on whether business investment in equipment maintained its pace of double-digit growth last quarter. Data on Wednesday showed a surge in shipments of capital goods excluding aircraft in September.
While some economists saw this as an indication of strong equipment spending, others cautioned that high prices flattered the value of shipments. There are also concerns that the scarcity of motor vehicles hindered efforts by companies to replace or increase their auto fleet.
“Just as the collapse in motor vehicle sales is dragging down consumption, the corresponding collapse in fleet sales is also weighing on business equipment investment,” said Michael Pearce, a senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics in New York. “The sharp fall in auto and truck shipments means that, rather than a double-digit annualized gain, business equipment investment probably contracted slightly in the third quarter.”
Trade was likely a drag on GDP growth for a fifth straight quarter also following a sharp drop in industrial materials exports in September. Expensive building materials and soaring house prices likely weighed on the housing market again last quarter, while government spending probably rebounded.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
The province announced that COVID-19 booster shots will be available to every British Columbian ages 12 and up by the end of May 2o22.
The announcement came after months of health officials saying simply that they were studying the science of booster shots and who would need them.
So, what is the science?
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said that while two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine are absolutely effective in preventing hospitalization from the virus, some groups are starting to see breakthrough cases. This is most likely to happen in older individuals, the immunocompromised and Indigenous Peoples – and that’s why those groups are being prioritized. The immunocompromised – about 115,000 people – have already received an invitation to get their third dose, as have residents in long-term care and assisted living.
As time goes on, however, other people may also become vulnerable, especially those who got their vaccines in the winter and early spring. That includes many seniors, the clinically extremely vulnerable and Indigenous Peoples.
“Our vaccines are highly effective. However, we are starting to see a gradual decline in protection over time. As a result, we are taking the proactive step of expanding boosters to everyone in our province,” said Henry. “We’re starting with the people who need them most to continue to do all we can to keep people in B.C. safe from this virus and its variants.”
READ MORE: B.C. to offer third COVID-19 vaccine doses to everyone aged 12 and up
What shots will be offered as boosters?
Booster shots will be either Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines, including for individuals who received one or two doses of AstraZeneca. Health officials say it doesn’t matter which of the mRNA shots you get as a booster – they are interchangeable.
Do I have to get it?
No. Health officials say that for the purposes of the B.C. vaccine card program and for immunization mandates – such as for health care workers – two doses will be sufficient.
When will I be eligible?
That depends. In general, the goal is for everyone to get their booster shot six to eight months after they received their second dose. Long-term care residents and immunocompromised individuals are already eligible, but here’s who comes next:.
From now until the end of 2021:
- Seniors 70+
- Indigenous Peoples 12+
- Long-term care support clients
- Seniors in independent living
- Health care workers who got dose one and dose two in a shorter interval.
From January to May 2022
- Clinically extremely vulnerable (who are not immunosuppressed)
- Health care workers in acute care, long-term care and assisted living
- Health care workers in the community
- Everyone in B.C ages 12+.
How will I find out when I’m eligible?
Everyone will be contacted via the Get Vaccinated system, the same way you were likely contacted for your first two shots. If you’re not registered yet, you can do so at getvaccinated.gov.bc.ca or by calling 1-833-838-2323. If you are already registered from your first two shots, you don’t need to register again.
Where can I get the shot?
Booster shots will be available at community immunization clinics run by health authorities and pharmacies across the province. In small or remote communities, everyone may be vaccinated at the same time through a “whole of community system,” as happened in places such as Tofino and Prince Rupert for first and second doses.
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