Public Health

As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza -- at least in its current form -- isn't shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.

Rates of the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia are climbing in the U.S., and rates of syphilis -- once on the verge of elimination -- rose for the seventh consecutive year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in its annual report on STDs. Gonorrhea rates did not increase, but they ceased falling a few years ago, frustrating goals set by public health leaders. Chlamydia infections in the United States now top 1.

A state-mandated warning urging Downey residents to boil their tap water has ended, four days after officials announced that coliform bacteria had been detected in the water supply. The order had been lifted for most of the city Sunday, but a small area in southeast Downey wasn't cleared until late Monday evening, said Stefan Cajina of the state Department of Public Health. The source of the bacteria has not been determined, and city, county and state health officials are studying the test results that led to the state's order to see if the findings were erroneous, Cajina said.

Making broad pronouncements about the need to protect the health of children in their care, the Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday restricted the district's ability to build schools near freeways and other sources of air pollution.

Responding to concerns about antibiotic-resistant "superbug" staph infections, California will now require local health departments to report all severe infections originating outside healthcare facilities, but not cases contracted in hospitals or nursing homes.

Popular health and beauty products sold on Internet auction sites could be stolen, tainted and possibly dangerous, according to a warning issued today by the National Retail Federation. Advil, Visine, baby formula, diabetic testing strips and other goods are being stolen from stores, warehouses and cargo trailers and peddled on EBay and other online auction sites, said Joseph LaRocca, the group's vice president of loss prevention.

Over the objections of environmental, public health and labor organizations, the Long Beach harbor commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved a clean-air plan that continues to place the burden of owning and maintaining diesel big rigs on drivers rather than on shipping companies that hire them. Port authorities called the move a "victory for clean air" and a final element of a clean trucks program that will replace and modernize the entire fleet of trucks serving the Long Beach ports.

When California officials announced this month that they would begin tracking virulent "superbug" infections in gyms, schools and other community settings, they billed it as a major advance in public health. But the plan would capture just a fraction of drug-resistant infections, leaving the vast majority unreported to the state and unknown to the public, according to experts and consumer advocates.

The two-decade search for an AIDS vaccine is in crisis after two field tests of the most promising contender not only did not protect people from the virus but may have put them at increased risk of becoming infected. The trials, which enrolled volunteers on four continents, have spurred intense scientific inquiry and unprecedented soul-searching as researchers try to make sense of what happened and assess whether they should have seen it coming.

A preschool-age child in Los Angeles County has been hospitalized with measles, and public health officials Monday urged parents and physicians to be on alert for the highly contagious disease. It is the first case reported in the county since 2006. The child had not been vaccinated against measles, said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, the county's public health director. The virus is spread by sneezing and coughing. Symptoms include a rash, coughing, a runny nose and red, watery eyes.