Karl's Weird News

New Jersey Women Hospitalized After Bogus Butt Enhancements

At least six women in New Jersey who hoped to plump up their backsides have ended up hospitalized with infections, after a bogus doctor injected their derrieres with a mixture of silicone, petroleum jelly and, perhaps most hazardous, household caulk.

 New Jersey health officials said the dangerous mixture had seriously damaging effects.

“What we’ve been hearing from the hospitals is that these women are presented with deep tissue infections and skin infections,” New Jersey Health Department epidemiologist Dr. Tina Tan told the New York Post.

“Abscesses form in some cases.”

Mengele stole my kidney: Auschwitz survivor reveals why he avoided doctors for 64 years :

Heart specialists have saved the life of an Israeli man who refused to visit a doctor for 64 years – and learned the terrible secret of his mistrust of the medical profession.

When Yitzchak Ganon, 85, came around from the anaesthetic at the hospital near Tel Aviv he was informed he only had one kidney.

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘The last time I saw the other one it was pulsating in the hand of a man called Josef Mengele. He was a doctor too.’

Mr Ganon revealed to his stunned family why he never visited a doctor since he was freed from the death camp of Auschwitz in January 1945.

None of them knew of his suffering there at the hands of the infamous Mengele.

Rare Disease Turning Girl, 5, to Crystal

A 5-year-old girl from the U.K. must take a daily cocktail of drugs to avoid the cells in her body from turning to crystal, the Daily Mail reported.

Lillie Sutcliffe from Castleford, West Yorkshire in England suffers from a rare condition called cystinosis. The condition causes an amino acid, cystine, to accumulate in various organs of the body including the kidney, eyes, liver, muscles, pancreas, brain and white blood cells. It primarily affects children and without specific treatment, kids with the disease will develop end stage kidney failure at approximately age 9, according to the Cystinosis Research Network.

The condition is so rare, it is estimated that only about 2,000 people worldwide suffer from it, although the numbers are unclear because the conditions is often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. Doctors discovered Lillie had cystinosis after scanning her eyes and finding crystals, the Mail reported.

Op for new kidney transforms plumber Gary into gifted artist

A PLUMBER has turned into an artist after getting a new kidney – which he believes came from a gifted painter.

Gary Leighton, 44, discovered his new skill after a life-saving transplant.

He had never painted before and believed he had no artistic talent. But Gary got a sudden urge to pick up a brush and canvas – and is now good enough to start selling paintings for £1,000.

He is convinced he must have inherited talent from his donor. And he may find out – after writing to the donor’s family.
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A third of transplant patients believe they have taken aspects of the donor’s character, studies have revealed.

Report: Michael Jackson’s Prosthetic Nose Is Missing

Michael Jackson wore a prosthetic nose, according a report — and it was missing from his surgically mangled face as he lay in an LA morgue. Left behind was a small, dark hole surrounded by bits of cartilage, Rolling Stone magazine said, citing witnesses who saw the King of Pop’s body on the autopsy table.

Jackson, who was notoriously shy about his appearance, wore the prosthetic to mask the effects of decades of plastic surgery, according to the magazine, due to hit newsstands today. Meanwhile, a Texas search warrant unsealed yesterday indicates that Jacko’s doctor, Conrad Murray, is the target of a manslaughter probe into the singer’s death.

Cancer Medication Causes Man’s Fingerprints to Vanish

Patients undergoing a common treatment for cancer are being warned to carry medical documentation when traveling abroad because the drug can make their fingerprints disappear.

A cancer sufferer was detained at an airport in the United States when immigration officials were unable to take a print from his fingers, his doctor has revealed.

The patient, only referred to as Mr. S, was taking the drug capecitabine, which is sold under the brand name Xeloda and can result in several side-effects.

One of them is chronic inflammation of the palms or soles of the feet. Known as hand-foot syndrome, it can result in peeling of the skin, bleeding and development of ulcers or blisters.

Immigration officials held the patient for several hours before they allowed him to enter the country.

Another Octuplet Mom in LA?:

The doctor who helped Nadya Suleman get pregnant with octuplets has reportedly transferred at least seven embryos to another patient.

According to the Los Angeles Times , a woman in her late 40s went to Dr. Michael Kamrava hoping to become pregnant with one baby. The Times now says she is 5-months pregnant with quadruplets and hospitalized.

The paper adds that the woman has no insurance so she was transferred to a county hospital where she will stay until the births which might not be for two or three months.

Czechs criticised over castration:

The Czech Republic has been strongly criticised by Europe’s leading human rights body for continuing to surgically castrate male sex offenders.

The Council of Europe said castrations had sometimes been performed without warnings of side effects and on men not capable of making an informed decision.

Those requesting castration feared life in jail if they did not do so, it said.

Tiny foot, other body parts removed from tumor in newborn’s brain:

A pediatric neurosurgeon says a tumor he removed from the brain of a Colorado Springs infant contained a tiny foot and other partially formed body parts. Dr. Paul Grabb said he operated on Sam Esquibel at Memorial Hospital for Children after an MRI showed a microscopic tumor on the newborn’s brain. Sam was 3 days old and otherwise healthy. Grabb said that while removing the growth, he discovered it contained a nearly perfect foot and the formation of another foot, a hand and a thigh. “It looked like the breach delivery of a baby, coming out of the brain,” Grabb said. “To find a perfectly formed structure (like this) is extremely unique, unusual, borderline unheard of.”

Hat tip to Kara!

First Trial against an American Surgeon for Killing a Patient to Harvest Organs Begins:

A San Francisco surgeon is undergoing trial for allegedly hastening the death of a terminally ill patient to harvest his vital organs.

The case against Hootan Roozrokh is believed to be the first of its kind brought against an American transplant surgeon.

Rosa Navarro, the patient?s mother, successfully filed suit against the hospital where the patient died and received $250,000 in compensation. Now the District Attorney?s office is pressing charges against the 34-year-old surgeon for ?dependent adult abuse, administering a harmful substance and prescribing controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose.?

Roozrokh is also being charged with giving the 25-year old Ruben Navarro an antiseptic called Betadine, normally administered to an organ donor after death, via feeding tube to the stomach. Some commentators suggest the antiseptic was ultimately responsible for the patient?s death.

French plastic surgeon on trial for dozens of ‘mutilations’

A French doctor who told investigators he was one of the world’s best cosmetic surgeons went on trial Monday accused of mutilating and endangering the lives of dozens of men and women.

Michel Maure is facing 97 charges of misleading advertising, aggravated deceit, endangering lives, and involuntary injury between 2000 and 2004 in the trial in the southern port of Marseille set to last two weeks.

The 59-year-old, who has been struck off the medical register, is also accused of not declaring workers in his clinic and of threatening a victim to stop her from making a complaint about him.

Maure denies any wrongdoing and insists he is the “victim of a plot” by competitors who wanted to close down his business.

“People were never hurt,” he told reporters on Monday. “The witnesses are people who refused to pay for their operation, they are simply thieves.”

One of his former patients, who said she was given a botched facelift by Maure in 1999, said he “must be punished.”

Woman Goes for Leg Operation, Gets New Anus Instead

A German retiree is taking a hospital to court after she went in for a leg operation and got a new anus instead, the Daily Telegraph is reporting.

The woman woke up to find she had been mixed up with another patient suffering from incontinence who was to have surgery on her sphincter.

Surgically alters thumbs to better use iPhone

Thomas Martel, 28, of Bonnie Brae is a big guy. So he has a hard time using the features on ever-shrinking user interfaces on devices like his new iPhone. At least, he did, until he had his thumbs surgically altered in a revolutionary new surgical technique known as “whittling.”

“From my old Treo, to my Blackberry, to this new iPhone, I had a hard time hitting the right buttons, and I always lost those little styluses,” explains Martel. “Sure, the procedure was expensive, but when I think of all the time I save by being able to use modern handhelds so much faster, I really think the surgery will pay for itself in ten to fifteen years. And what it’s saving me in frustration – that’s priceless.”

“This is really, on the edge sort of stuff,” explains Dr. Robert Fox Spars, who worked on developing the procedure. “We’re turning plastic surgery from something that people use in service of vanity, to a real tool for improving workplace efficiency.”

Mahjong game ‘can cause epilepsy’

A study by doctors in Hong Kong has concluded that epilepsy can be induced by the Chinese tile game of mahjong.

The findings, publish in the Hong Kong Medical Journal, were based on 23 cases of people who had suffered mahjong-induced seizures.

The report’s four authors, from Hong Kong’s Queen Mary Hospital, said the best prevention – and cure – was to avoid playing mahjong.

Patient bleeds dark green blood

A team of Canadian surgeons got a shock when the patient they were operating on began shedding dark greenish-black blood, the Lancet reports.

The man emulated Star Trek’s Mr Spock – the Enterprise’s science officer who supposedly had green Vulcan blood.

Oregon Boy Had Spiders Walking on his Eardrums

An Albany boy who has been complaining about the “sound of Rice Krispies” in his ears has two new souvenirs; spiders that Oregon doctors removed by flushing the boy’s ears. Jesse Courtney has been pestering his mother by complaining about the noise and constant earache. The sounds remained a mystery until the doctors removed the spiders, one of which was still alive.

Woman’s 11-stone legs may be lost:

A woman is campaigning to raise awareness of a rare condition which has left her with 11 stone (70kg) legs. Mandy Sellars, 32, from Lancashire, suffers from Proteus syndrome, a condition also thought to have affected the “Elephant Man”, Joseph Merrick. Although she was born with abnormally large legs and feet – which continue to grow – her body is of average size. Doctors may have to amputate in the future, but Ms Sellars says she wants to raise awareness before it happens.

Man Jailed for Having Deadly TB

Behind the county hospital’s tall cinderblock walls, a 27-year-old tuberculosis patient sits in a jail cell equipped with a ventilation system that keeps germs from escaping. Robert Daniels has been locked up indefinitely, perhaps for the rest of his life, since last July. But he has not been charged with a crime. Instead, he suffers from an extensively drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis, or XDR-TB. It is considered virtually untreatable.

Toddler critical after dad’s smallpox shot:

The 2-year-old son of a soldier deployed to Iraq is in critical condition after developing a reaction to his father’s smallpox vaccination, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday.

The child, being treated in a Chicago hospital, has a rare but very serious reaction to the vaccination site called Eczema vaccinatum, the CDC said. It is the first such case since vaccination against smallpox resumed in 2002, said CDC pox virus expert Dr. Inger Damon.

The toddler’s father is a soldier vaccinated while on deployment to Iraq. The father was unexpectedly furloughed and evidently his wife and son touched the vaccine site and became infected, the CDC said.

Pay-out for bum-sucked dancer

A German belly dancer has been given twice as much compensation as she asked for – after a plastic surgeon accidentally sucked away one of her buttocks instead of reducing the size of her thighs.

Belly dancer Julia ‘Cleopatra’ Meyer, 38, from Munich, wanted slimmer thighs – but instead ended up with half her bottom missing.

Florida teenager’s hiccups return:

A Florida teenager’s intractable hiccups are back, just when she thought it was safe to return to school after the almost uninterrupted diaphragm spasm that had plagued her for five weeks subsided.

On her second day back at school since the unusual condition started on January 15, Jennifer Mee had to leave class again, as her nose started to bleed and the almost non-stop hiccups set in again, the St Petersburg Times newspaper reported on Friday.

 ”I’m at my wit’s end,” said Rachel Robidoux, the girl’s mother, adding that her daughter is upset, discouraged and in pain.

Tooth implant ‘to release drugs’:

Forgetting to take medicine may be a thing of the past as researchers close in on creating an artificial tooth which automatically releases medicine. The Intellidrug device is small enough to fit inside two artificial molars in the jaw, the Engineer journal said.

Nursing home ‘kept disabled man in cage’

A JAPANESE nursing home is being investigated over a claim that staff tied residents to their beds and kept a disabled man in a cage, officials said today.

The residents, many suffering from dementia, were regularly tied to their beds with ropes and handcuffs by caregivers, the Mainichi newspaper said in the latest case of abuse towards the elderly in a rapidly greying society.

Quoting a former employee at the nursing home, the paper said a disabled man in his 30s was locked in a cage designed for pets and kept there for at least three months.

Scalpel left in body for 23 years

A Brazilian woman is set to sue a hospital after discovering the cause of her 23-year-old stomach ache was a scalpel left in her body. The 5cm scalpel was found in Maria Abadia Dias’ lower abdomen after doctors took an X-ray.

Surgeons’ lame excuse:

Surgeons trying to correct the limp of a five-year-old boy in China has apologised after lengthening the wrong leg. They say the mistake was down to the boy being anaesthetised on his back but then operated on while lying on his stomach.

Science Finding Ways to Regrow Fingers:

Researchers are trying to find ways to regrow fingers _ and someday, even limbs _ with tricks that sound like magic spells from a Harry Potter novel.

There’s the guy who sliced off a fingertip but grew it back, after he treated the wound with an extract of pig bladder. And the scientists who grow extra arms on salamanders. And the laboratory mice with the eerie ability to heal themselves.

This summer, scientists are planning to see whether the powdered pig extract can help injured soldiers regrow parts of their fingers. And a large federally funded project is trying to unlock the secrets of how some animals regrow body parts so well, with hopes of applying the the lessons to humans.

Fla. Teen Hiccuping for Over 3 Weeks:

Jennifer Mee can’t stop hiccuping. For more than three weeks now, the 15-year-old St. Petersburg teen has hiccuped close to 50 times a minute _ despite the best efforts of doctors and home remedies.

She’s had blood tests, a CT scan and an MRI. Drugs haven’t worked. Neither has holding her breath, putting sugar under her tongue, sipping pickle juice, breathing into a paper bag and drinking out of the wrong side of a glass.

And, yes, people have tried to scare them out of her.

Russian shock at ‘gagged’ babies:

Russian prosecutors are investigating allegations that hospital staff in Yekaterinburg gagged babies because they did not want to hear them crying. The patient at the hospital in the southern Urals who reported the case heard the children’s muffled cries. She used her mobile phone to film a baby lying in a cot with his mouth taped, while others had dummies taped to their mouths. They are all orphans.

Oils May Cause Breast Growth in Boys:

Lavender and tea tree oils found in some shampoos, soaps and lotions can temporarily leave boys with enlarged breasts in rare cases, apparently by disrupting their hormonal balance, a preliminary study suggests.

93 Pound Tumor Removed From Woman:

A 32-year-old woman, who was repeatedly told she needed to lose weight, soon discovered why years of dieting simply didn’t work; she was carrying around a 93 pound growth on her ovary. Taquela Hilton said she struggled with weight for 12 years and during that time, the cyst was never diagnosed.

Sour puss sweetened by a dose of Prozac

It was a classic case of clinical depression. The patient would not go out for fear of being bullied, moped around the house and sought comfort in eating. Eventually there was nothing for it. Twiglet the cat had to be put on Prozac.

15 years for injecting cooking oil

“Vasquez had charged clients up to $1,400 for each injection of Mazola corn oil, claiming the “French polymer” treatment would reduce wrinkles, prosecutors said. Maria Olivia Castillo, 46, of Castroville died in November 2005 of multiple organ failure caused by a fat blockage brought about by a cooking oil injection, prosecutors said. Similar injections caused medical complications for others and put one patient into a coma, prosecutors said.”

 Fantastic Voyage: Departure 2009:

An international team of scientists is developing what they say will be the world’s first microrobot — as wide as two human hairs — that can swim through the arteries and digestive system. The scientists are designing the 250-micron device to transmit images and deliver microscopic payloads to parts of the body outside the reach of existing catheter technology.

First U.S. Uterus Transplant Planned

First came kidney, liver and heart transplants. Then a few doctors started transplanting hands. French surgeons even did a face.

Now, doctors are planning the first womb transplant in the United States.

A team based in Manhattan has begun screening women left barren by cancer, injuries or other problems who want a chance to bear their own children.

Treatment keeps girl child-sized

Parents of a severely disabled girl in the US have revealed that they are keeping her child-sized in order to give her a better life.
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Along with hormone doses to limit her growth, Ashley’s parents also opted for surgery to block breast growth and had her uterus and appendix removed.

They say the treatment will help to improve her quality of life.

World’s Oldest Mom Bears Twins at 67

The woman, whose identity has not been revealed by Sant Pau hospital, gave birth by caesarian section on Saturday having previously undergone in vitro fertilization in the United States, according to the national news agency EFE.

“Silent” Speech Device May Aid Divers, Firefighters, Cell Phone Users:

NASA scientists are developing a speech recognition system that can understand and relay words that haven’t been said out loud.

The system uses electrodes attached to the throat to detect biological signals that occur as a person reads or talks to him- or herself. The signals can then be converted into text or synthesized speech.

Double hand transplant ’success’:

A woman who became the first in the world to receive a double hand transplant has left hospital. A team of surgeons at Hospital La Fe in Valencia carried out the pioneering operation. Alba Lucia, 47, originally from Columbia, who had the 10-hour operation on November 30, said she was “very happy and enormously satisfied”. Both her original hands were amputated after an explosion in her student chemistry lab nearly 30 years ago.

Who needs a heart when you have a continuous flow pump?

A 65-year-old Quebec man who received a new long-term mechanical heart last month is being described as the only living Canadian without a pulse. Dr. Renzo Cecere implanted the “Heartmate II” mechanical heart into Gerard Langevin in an three-hour operation Nov. 23. Officials at the McGill University Health Centre say the device, which is about the size of a flashlight battery, could last up to 10 years.