Gale Scott

Family practice has a reputation for being a low-tech, hands-on specialty. But speaking in a keynote address at the American Academy of Family Physicians Assembly Oct. 26 , Eric Topol, MD told his audience they would do well to use more technologically sophisticated devices.

The US military is quarantining troops returning from West Africa for 21 days. But in a sign of continuing disagreement between public health experts, state governors, and the Obama administration, the military isn't calling it a quarantine. The official military term is "controlled monitoring." Four states now have enacted quarantines for people returning to the US after caring for Ebola patients: New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and most recently Connecticut. Meanwhile, Dallas nurse Amber Vinson is pronounced free of the Ebola virus and released from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, GA.

A nurse from Maine who treated Ebola patients in West Africa and has been quarantined since Friday at University Hospital in Newark, NJ is on her way home. Kaci Hickox was released and allowed to return to Fort Kent, ME, after doctors at University Hospital determined she does not have an active case of Ebola. Her quarantine will continue at home. Her release, announced by the office of NJ Gov. Chris Christie ends an embarrassing episode but does not settle debate about whether the mandatory quarantines for those returning from treating patients in the Ebola hot zone is necessary.

New York and New Jersey health officials announced today that all health care workers returning from caring for patients in Ebola hot zones in West Africa will have to go into quarantine for 21 days. The new policy is stricter than the current one recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that calls for health monitoring for 21 days. It was that policy that allowed Craig Spencer, MD to be out and about a day before he was diagnosed with Ebola Thursday and rushed to city-run Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan.

New York City officials Said Craig Spencer MD, the emergency physician is being treated for Ebola treating patients with the virus in Guinea, African is in stable condition. Meanwhile in Bethesa, MD, Nina Pham, the Dallas nurse who was the first person to contract the disease on US soil, was released from a National Institutes of Health hospital after being declared free of the virus.

Silent coronary artery disease is often diagnosed too late to prevent a cardiac event. But in a case history involving twin brothers, a team from Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, Liverpool, UK shows that investigative imaging of an otherwise healthy man paid off.

New York City has its first case of Ebola, confirmed tonight in Craig Spencer, MD, an emergency medicine specialist who recently returned from a volunteer stint caring for Ebola patients in Guinea, Africa for Doctors Without Borders. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene released a statement earlier today that Spencer, who works at New York Hospital/Columbia-Presbyterian in Manhattan had been rushed to Bellevue Hospital Center after he became ill with a high fever and gastro-intestinal symptoms. Mayor Bill Blasio provided further details at a news conference this evening.

Heart patients who have bouts of hypotension while hospitalized for acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) have an increased risk of an adverse outcome within 30 days, a multi-institutional study found. Priyesh Patel, MD, and colleagues, writing in Circulation reported on their analysis of results of the ASCEND-HF study.

Stress cardiomyopathy is a unique cardiac syndrome in which transient left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction mimics acute myocardial infarction (AMI). It is usually brought on by acute emotional or physical stress (or both) and has 3 distinctive features: acute LV wall dysfunction, absence of significant obstructive coronary artery disease, and rapid improvement of LV systolic function within days or weeks.

In what could be New York City's first case of Ebola, a doctor identified by the NY Post as Craig Spencer, 33, MD an emergency medicine physician at New York Hospital/Columbia-Presbyterian was rushed to a special Ebola unit at city-run Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan. Spencer returned 10 days ago from a stint as a volunteer with Doctors without Borders, caring for Ebola victims in Guinea, one of three West African nations with major outbreaks.

The immune system is the new focus of much work on traumatic brain injury (TBI). In a challenge to the paradigm that the blood brain barrier prevents harmful leukocytes from entering the brain, a Texas team tried to neutralize the impact of these cells. Peripheral lymphocytes are activated after TBI. They may then act as potential antigen presenting cells and get into the brain, causing cells there to degenerate.

The CDC announces monitoring for all passengers from 3 Ebola-stricken nations, part of increased surveillance efforts as new Ebola czar Ron Klain starts firs day of work. Meanwhile, Bentley, the dog confined because his owner Dallas nurse Nina Pham has the virus, is cleared to go home. NBC medical editor Nancy Snyderman released from her Princeton, NJ home quarantine, and the NBC cameraman stricken with the disease is now Ebola-free.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will begin limiting the airports through which travelers from Ebola-stricken countries may enter the US. Starting tomorrow, all these passengers will be forced to fly through 5 US airports: JFK International in New York, Newark Liberty International in Newark, NJ, Washington Dulles International in Dulles, VA, Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta, GA, and Chicago O'Hare International in Chicago, Ill.

Immune system proteins play a role in regulating the number of neural synapses, a research team from Princeton University and the University of California-San Diego report. The finding could mean that one of these proteins-known as major histocompatibility complex class I (MHCI) could play a significant role in Alzheimer's disease, type II diabetes and autism.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) may have more in common with Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease than previously thought, a bi-coastal team of chemists reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The fate of Bentley, the pet dog of hospitalized Dallas Ebola victim Nina Pham has been of great interest to animal lovers. But scientists are also paying attention. No one expects the dog to get sick, but many are curious whether he will show signs of being infected. Dogs can apparently carry the Ebola virus without getting the illness. The question is whether they can transmit it to people.

Could portable perfusion devices be a game-changer for organ transplants? The machines keep organs "alive" for days at warm temperatures. That prolongs cell life, slowing the race against the damage that can set in within hours when donor organs are kept on ice in coolers. Manufacturer TransMedics, based in Andover, MA, makes devices for the lung, heart, and liver Researchers and clinicians express growing excitement-along with some skepticism-at the prospect that these medical devices could dramatically increase the viability of donor organs.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Genzyme's application to include new information about its multiple sclerosis drug teriflunomide (Aubagio) on its label. The new labeling content is efficacy and safety data from two Phase III trials of the drug.

As the Ebola crisis in West Africa worsens and fears spread about a potential major outbreak in the US, physicians are looking for information-not just about the disease but how to protect themselves and their workers. In a series of video-taped discussions Alfred DeLuca, Jr., MD, an internist and infectious disease specialist in Manalapan, NJ and Peter Salgo, MD a professor of medicine and anesthesiology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, NY offered advice and shared their insights on the growing threat posed by the lethal virus. "It's scary--Let's talk about scary," Salgo said.

Breaking ranks with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Director Thomas Frieden, 3 doctors at 2 of the nation's 4 bio containment care facilities and a fourth at a military hospital said allowing community hospitals to care for patients with Ebola and similar pathogens is too risky. They call for creating a new system of regional facilities fully equipped and staffed with workers trained to safely handle such cases.

Despite the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) repeated statements that the Ebola virus cannot be transmitted in the air, two University of Illinois professors warn that the virus could spread that way. In a commentary published last month by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy of the University of Minnesota, Lisa Brosseau, ScD and Rachael Jones, PhD, argue that the virus "has the potential be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients."

After meeting with his cabinet last night President Barack Obama pledged to step up the federal response to Ebola. That includes sending in a special US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "SWAT" team should future cases be confirmed.

News that a nurse at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas diagnosed with Ebola had earlier made a round trip to Cleveland, OH raised questions about whether voluntary isolation agreements enforced by local health authorities are adequate to protect the public from the virus. President Barack Obama canceled travel plans to hold an Ebola meeting with his cabinet and a new report found the virus could spread through respiratory secretions--contrary to what the feds have been saying.

In a development that could help clear its backlog of specimens awaiting testing, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced it has developed a faster test for Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68).

A third patient has been diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas, TX. The unidentified woman is the second Texas Presbyterian Health worker to get the disease after caring for deceased Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan, local officials said in an early morning news conference. The patient, like nurse Nina Pham, is in isolation at Texas Presbyterian Health. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) along with Texas health officials are monitoring 75 people who had contact with Duncan, the visitor from Liberia who died of the disease Oct. 8.

NBC medical editor Nancy Snyderman, MD, apologized yesterday for breaking her agreement to stay home-sort of. Snyderman did not acknowledge that since she had contact with a cameraman who accompanied her to West Africa to report on Ebola--and who is now hospitalized with the virus-- she may have put the public's health at risk. She maintained she had done nothing wrong. But she said she was sorry everyone was worried by seeing her around town in the Princeton, NJ area.

Can pets pose an Ebola risk? According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US Department of Agriculture and the American Veterinary Medical Association the State, the answer is "maybe." Making good on CDC Director Thomas Frieden, MD's promise to come up with guidelines for such cases, the CDC did so Oct. 13 in the form of a Q&A posted on its website.

The nurse who contracted Ebola after caring for deceased Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan at a Dallas, TX hospital has been identified as Nina Pham, 26, a critical care specialist at Texas Presbyterian Health Hospital. The Dallas Morning News said the woman's identification has been confirmed by her family. Animal lovers are concerned also about the fate of her dog.

As concern mounts about the possibility of Ebola spreading throughout the US, hospitals are increasingly vigilant. At a news briefing Oct.13, CDC director Thomas Frieden, MD, said the agency has not changed its mind about not restricting travel to and from West Africa, and is focused on tightening infection control measures to "break the chain of infection." The CDC still has not learned how a nurse who cared for Dallas, TX, Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan got infected, but perhaps it was her gloves, Frieden suggested. Testing takes time, doctors elsewhere report.

Nancy Snyderman, MD, a medical editor for NBC news is under a New Jersey State Department of Health quarantine after www.PlanetPrinceton.com reported that she was violating an agreement to stay at home. Snyderman, a Princeton, NJ resident, may have been exposed to Ebola during a trip to Liberia. Celebrity watching in Princeton, NJ is usually a low-key affair. Not this time, Snyderman learned.