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Students at risk of viruses

A GROUP of southern Tasmanian high school students have undergone tests for possible blood-borne viruses after a teacher decided to take blood tests from a class a month ago.

Eighteen Grade 9 and 10 students were attempting to test the PH levels of their blood in the class experiment.

The science teacher made an attempt to sterilise the needle with methylated spirits between tests.

Dr Roscoe Taylor, Director of Public Health said methylated spirits would not prevent the transmission of HIV or Hepatitis B or C.

"The risk of transmission is extremely low in this age group, but it is always a risk to share needles," he said.

"This is an incident that should not have happened."

Were you affected or know someone who was affected?
Call our news desk on 6230 0732.

Education Minister Lin Thorp said the full cost of testing the children for viruses will be covered by the Education Department.

"While the risks of the students getting infected with a blood-borne virus is considered to be minimal, it is important that all students who took part in the testing undergo blood tests," Ms Thorp said.

Ms Thorp has also demanded a full investigation into how the testing was allowed to take place in the first place and why it too so long for the department to be advised.

Ms Thorp has not ruled out any disciplinary action against the teacher involved.

Dr Taylor has urged parents of 18 students at a Southern Tasmanian High School to take advantage of free precautionary tests for blood-borne viruses.

Dr Taylor said the students had been in a science class on August 9 in which multiple blood samples were taken by finger-pricking with a single instrument.

"Whenever blood is drawn, a freshly sterilised instrument should be used for each individual," Dr Taylor said.

"This did not happen in this case.

"While the risks are probably extremely low, the possibility of transmission of a blood-borne virus such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C or HIV cannot be ruled out, if any one of those whose blood was drawn was carrying an infection.

"Public Health was not notified of the situation until last week so we haven't been able to give public health advice as promptly as we would have liked.

"However we understand that the principal did contact parents within days as soon as he was made aware of the situation.

"We are strongly recommending precautionary testing and follow-up."

Dr Taylor said the Education Department was contacting each of the families concerned to provide them with a letter containing advice from the Deputy Director of Public Health.

"We have arranged for the testing to be carried out either by a specified doctor in the area or by the family's own GP," he said.

"In both cases the costs will be fully covered. There will be no charge to the family."

Two blood tests will be required, six months apart. In each case the laboratory results should be available to the GP about a week after the sample is taken.

Dr Taylor said students who were not directly involved in the blood sampling on August 9 are not at risk and do not need to be tested.

"I have not identified the school because we are always concerned to ensure the current and future confidentiality of the health information of the individuals involved," he said.

"This incident highlights the importance of being aware of the risks for the transmission of blood-borne viruses.

"Sharing of needles in any circumstance carries a risk.

"In addition this incident highlights the importance of vaccination against Hepatitis B."

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Dog Saves Man's Life by Biting Off Toe: Jerry Douthett Has Best Hangover Ever

(CBS) A Michigan man says he has his dog to thank for saving his life by chewing off his infected big toe as he lay in a drunken stupor.

For months, Jerry Douthett had refused to see a doctor for the festering digit, in spite of his wife's pleas and her suspicion that he had out of control diabetes.

About two weeks ago the couple went to a bar, where Douthett told the Grand Rapids Press that he drank four or five beers.

"Jerry had had all these Margaritas, so I just let him sleep," his wife Rosee, a registered nurse, told the paper. "But then I heard these screams coming from the bedroom, and he was yelling, 'My toe's gone, my toe's gone!'"

Kiko, the family dog, had suddenly become a surgeon.

"It wasn't an aggressive attack. He pretty much just ate the infection, so he saved my life," Jerry Douthett said.

He was treated at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids where physicians said he had type 2 diabetes and was suffering from a dangerous toe infection. Surgeons amputated what was left of the digit.

"Maybe he thought it was not part of Jerry's body," Rosie told the Grand Rapids television station WOOD-TV, "that it was a dead animal laying on the bed. But he chewed off the infected part so he knew when to stop, which was great."

Jerry Douthett says Kiko, a white terrier with brown ears, is a hero. Now that he knows he is diabetic, he has given up drinking.

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The Grand Design" (Random House, $28), by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow: Cosmologists, the people who study the entire cosmos, will want to read British physicist and mathematician Stephen Hawking's new book.

"The Grand Design" may sharpen appetites for answers to questions like "Why is there something rather than nothing?" and "Why do we exist?" — questions that have troubled thinking people at least as far back as the ancient Greeks.

Hawking likes the tale of the old lady who accused a lecturing cosmologist of talking nonsense: She knew for a fact that the whole universe lies on a flat plate, borne on the back of an enormous turtle.

"What does the turtle stand on?" the lecturer asked.

"Another turtle," she replied. "It's turtles all the way down."

For some readers, the answer from Hawking, known for his work on black holes and author of the bestselling "A Brief History of Time," and physicist Leonard Mlodinow, may not be much more satisfying.

The "grand design," says Hawking, is to be found in M-theory, an idea launched in the mid-1990s.

Annoyingly, there's no agreement on what the "M'' stands for. The authors suggest "master," ''miracle" or "mystery." Others have also been proposed, but none of these names offers the layman much help in answering the basic questions.

"According to M-theory, ours is not the only universe. Instead, M-theory predicts that a great many universes were created out of nothing. Their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god," the book says. "Rather, these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law."

This idea may trouble anyone who was fair at high school math but didn't major in the subject in college.

"M-theory has solutions," the book says later, "that allow for many different internal spaces, perhaps as many as 10 (followed by 500 zeros), which means it allows for 10 (followed by 500 zeros) different universes, each with its own laws."

A layman may wonder if one of those multitudinous laws might furnish a simple explanation of why something exists instead of nothing — and also wonder if there might be no such law in any of the possible universes.

Hawking writes that M-theory is a unified "theory of everything" that Albert Einstein was looking for but never found.

"If the theory is confirmed by observation, it will be the successful conclusion of a search going back more than 3,000 years. We will have found the grand design."

http://www.hawking.org.uk/

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