Man blind in one eye because of novelty lens

Novelty coloured contact lenses have left a 24-year-old man living in Auckland, New Zealand with one blind eye.

The unnamed man wore the novelty lenses for three days, after which he sought medical advice. At that time his cornea was already damaged.

It has been reported that the man, who did not previously require contact lenses, had an infected cornea after wearing the novelty lens. The patient underwent two emergency corneal transplant surgeries to fix his eye and regain vision. The man did not follow instructions given to him to minimize the risk of rejection, and consequently his cornea was destroyed by bacteria.

Doctor Trevor Gray, corneal specialist and president of the Cornea and Contact Lens Society, said: "He's now got an opaque cornea that he can't see out of at all, and has this big white-looking eye like they've got in science fiction movies."

Eye specialists have called for clear instructions to be provided to those buying novelty contact lenses. They also called for regulation and restrictions to be placed on their sale.

A loophole in the Medicines Regulations Act means that a person requiring contact lenses to correct their vision must receive clear information on how to use the contacts, but the law does not apply to novelty contacts. Dr Gray said some novelty lenses do come with good information on how to use them, but others do not. Australia, the United States, and Canada all have laws requiring that proper information be given out with novelty lenses.

Cambodian girl found after 19 years life in jungle

January 18, 2007

A woman who disappeared in the jungles of Cambodia at the age of 8, has been found after having lived as a feral child for 19 years. She is identified as Rochom P'ngieng, who disappeared in 1988, when tending buffalos in a remote part of the jungles of north-eastern Cambodia.

Her parents had given up all hope of finding her since it was so long ago that she disappeared. The father of the girl is convinced that the woman is his daughter based on a distinct scar on her back and facial features. Authorities have asked for a DNA test to confirm the girl's identity. Rochom P'ngieng would be 27 years old.

The woman speaks no comprehensible language and thus it is difficult to confirm what has happened to her. She was discovered when a villager noticed that food had disappeared from a lunchbox he had left nearby his home, so he decided to watch the area, discovering the naked woman when she came again for some rice, according to the chief of police, Mao San in Oyado. "It is as if she's part human and part animal", said Mao San. A group of villagers were called together to catch the woman. The woman has had a hard time adjusting to normal life.

"She is strange. She sleeps in the day and wakes in the night," said Mao San.

New Zealand doctor starts smoking in protest

A New Zealand doctor has taken a "stupid step" as he has started smoking in protest of a three-day strike being held by radiographers.

Doctor Chris Wynne, clinical director of radiation oncology at Christchurch Hospital and a senior cancer treatment specialist, has described his actions as stupid but has said that this was the only action he could take to highlight that around 250 cancer patients are going to suffer during the strikes. Dr Wynne said: "I've tried everything sensible so now I am doing something stupid. Appealing to common sense hasn't solved these strikes."

The national secretary of the radiation therapists union sympathises with Dr Wynne. Deborah Powell, said: "I agree with him [Dr Wynne] that this situation is stupid and I can understand his feelings of frustration because we are frustrated too."

The strike is over pay disputes and is due for January 9, 2007 and will last for three days. But Dr Wynne disagrees that the strikes are over pay because: "The doctors have said if they tell us what the difference is in the money we will make it up, so it isn't even about the money any more." Dr Wynne said that no one responded to the offer.

Ms Powell said: "However, the problem is the DHBs [District Health Boards] and their offer. We are losing staff to Australia because pay and working conditions are better and we need to change that. If this doctor [Dr Wynne] wants to help he should be sitting on Gordon Davies' [chief executive of the Canterbury DHB and national DHB spokesman] doorstep and asking him about money."

"The union and management are so close but they don't seem to be able to resolve this," Dr Wynne said.

Dr Wynne said that he had smoked as a teenager. But despite that he is still going to smoke until the pay disputes are over, "as long as it takes."

Sneha Paul, spokeswoman for Action on Smoking and Health, said: "Smoking is the single largest cause of preventable deaths, so we would recommend he found another way to express his concern. Every cigarette does you damage."

Australians need bigger toilets

Standards Australia, the non-government standards setting organisation in Australia has indicated that it is reviewing the weight limit for toilet seats as they need to accomodate the "increasing size of humans".

Obesity levels have been rising for years in Australia. Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that the percentage of Australian men who are overweight or obsese rose 10 percent in the last ten years to 62 percent. The number of females who are considered overweight or obese rose 8 percent to 45 percent. Standards Australia is considering recommending strengthening loos for larger users. They say experts will examine the seats "from the perspective that people are getting bigger."

Standards Australia says as the community's weight increases, and many more Australians are in the heavier categories, toilet regulations have to be updated. General manager of standards development Colin Blair says toilets are currently required to meet a rigidity test of 45 kilograms (99 lbs) - which accommodates most people's weight in a seated position.

He says a committee including manufacturers and consumers will assess whether that is still adequate. "They will re-look at what the statistics are on weights of people, they will re-look at that rigidity load and then that document will go to public comment, so obviously the experts out there will have an opportunity to re-look and see whether that load is appropriate," said Colin Blair.

Standards Australia review committee member Steve Cummings, head of research and development for toilet manufacturer Caroma Dorf, said toilet seats currently only had to withstand a 45kg load. "We are bringing it in to line with the weight of a heavy Australian," he said.

The draft seat standard is due to be issued for public comment mid-this year and set for release by the end of 2006.

Health economist Paul Gross recently said the price of obesity for the community was about $11 billion a year.

First penis transplant reversed after two weeks

September 22, 2006

Two weeks after Chinese surgeons successfully transplanted a donated penis onto an unidentified 44-year-old man, they were requested to remove it. Despite functioning perfectly and having been physically accepted by the body, the patient and his wife asked for the penis to be amputated, due to the severe psychological trauma they had both suffered.

A team of surgeons led by Dr Hu Weilie took 15 hours to attach the penis, which was donated by the family of a 22-year-old brain-dead patient. Doctors have successfully re-attached patients' own severed members in the past, but this was the first use of a second-party penis.

The psychological rejection of the penis is not unusual from a medical point of view; in 2001 surgeons removed the world's first transplanted hand from donee Clint Hallam, who wanted the "hideous and withered" hand to be removed because he had become "mentally detached" from it. The team that led the transplant have since performed the world's first double arm transplant.