Tweet An African sauce manufactured and sold in Vancouver has been recalled because it may contain botulism-causing bacteria. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency warns that Shitor sauce, sold only at the Africana General Market store at 3542 Kingsway Avenue, could be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum. The product was sold in 500 ml and 250 ml [...]

Tweet A new drug-resistant superbug that can render common infections like E. coli untreatable recently appeared in Vancouver. Referred to in the medical community as NDM-1, the superbug is not itself a bacteria but, perhaps more dangerously, it is a gene common to and transferrable among many different bacteria, making them resistant to antibiotics, according [...]

Tweet Vancouver researchers have tailored cancer treatment to the genetic makeup of a particular tumour, in what’s being called a medical first. After genetically decoding an aggressive tongue tumour, researchers were able to recommend a previously unconsidered treatment that stabilized the cancer for several months. Molecular biologist Steven Jones said the breakthrough will cause a [...]

Tweet Vancouver‘s St. Paul’s Hospital is setting up its own version of the “foundling wheel,” an idea first used in medieval Europe so mothers could leave unwanted babies at convents. The wheels were wooden cylinders in the walls of convents where babies could be placed. The mother rotated the wheel, placing the child inside the [...]

Tweet Beware, measles is spreading from Vancouver to the rest of B.C. The B.C. Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) said Wednesday there are 26 confirmed cases of the infectious disease — up from 10 cases last week. Anyone who is worried about contracting measles, which kills one out of every 3,000 people it infects, is [...]

Tweet A number of Lower Mainland residents have gone to hospitals with measles virus symptoms in the past month, public health officials said Tuesday. “Several have been hospitalized and more assessed in emergency rooms or by their primary-care physician,” said public health official Dr. Monika Naus, without being specific about the number and location of [...]