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Bl. Fr. Damien de Veuster Honolulu, Hawaii, Sep 26, 2009 / 01:08 pm (CNA).- Eleven elderly leprosy patients from Hawaii will travel to the Vatican for the canonization ceremony of Fr. Damien de Veuster, the heroic priest who cared for leprosy patients in Hawaii and died of the disease. The patients’ attending doctor called Fr. Damien their “personal saint.”The Belgian-born priest is a hero in Hawaii for caring for those victims banished to the isolated Kalaupapa peninsula. Native Hawaiians were devastated by leprosy, which appeared after the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1778.About 90 percent of the approximately...

An ancient fossil crocodile coated in armadillo-like body armor was unveiled yesterday at an environmental museum in Brazil. Dubbed Armadillosuchus arrudai, the newly described species of crocodile roamed the arid interior of Brazil about 90 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous period, scientists said. It was 6.6 feet (2 meters) long, weighed about 265 pounds (120 kilograms), and had a relatively wide head with a narrow, toothy snout.

Catholic, Crusader, Leper and King: The Life of Baldwin IV and the Triumph of the Cross By MichaModern society obsessively avoids suffering, risk and danger.  It secures everything with seatbelts and safety rails, air conditions the summer heat, prints warnings on coffee cups and advises that that safety glasses should be used while working with hammers.  Certainly such precautions have prevented misfortune.  However, since heroism and excellence are born from confronting rather than avoiding suffering and peril, the mania for safeguards has also diminished the notion of these qualities.  This is unfortunate since only those intrepid souls who confront danger,...

Baldwin IV (Baldwin the Leper), c.1161–1185, Latin king of Jerusalem (1174–85), son and successor of Amalric I. Raymond, count of Tripoli, was regent from 1174 to 1176. Baldwin was constantly engaged, except for a truce (1180–82), in defending his kingdom against Saladin. In 1183 his leprosy began to spread very rapidly; he appointed Guy of Lusignan as his regent, but in the same year he withdrew the commission and had his five-year-old nephew crowned king as Baldwin V (d. 1186). Raymond was regent for Baldwin V, who was succeeded as king by Guy of Lusignan. Minority Baldwin spent his youth...

A biological anthropologist from Appalachian State University working with an undergraduate student from Appalachian, an evolutionary biologist from UNC Greensboro, and a team of archaeologists from Deccan College (Pune, India) recently reported analysis of a 4000-year-old skeleton from India bearing evidence of leprosy. This skeleton represents both the earliest archaeological evidence for human infection with Mycobacterium leprae in the world and the first evidence for the disease in prehistoric India. The study, published in the journal PLoS One, demonstrates that leprosy was present in human populations in India by the end of the mature phase of the Indus Civilization (2000...

M. D. Anderson scientists use genetic fingerprint to nail 'killing organism' This release is available in Spanish. IMAGE: Xiang-Yang Han, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor in Laboratory Medicine at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. HOUSTON - A new species of bacterium that causes leprosy has been identified through intensive genetic analysis of a pair of lethal infections, a research team reports in the December issue of the American Journal of Clinical Pathology. All cases of leprosy, an ancient disease that still maims and kills in the developing world, previously had been thought to be caused by a...

A Mexican citizen with a potentially deadly form of tuberculosis was allowed to cross the border into El Paso, Texas at least 20 times last year due to poor communication between government agencies, the El Paso Times reported. According to a report from the U.S. General Accountability Office, Customs and Border Protection officials at the Bridge of Americas waited 14 days to notify Department of Homeland Security senior officials that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requested the CBP's assistance in the 2007 TB case. The delay allowed the Mexican citizen, who was under treatment for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, to...

"The lepers lived in a ghetto leper colony. The lepers were segregated from everybody else." "They go into the enemy's camp. They find food. They find shelter. They find gold. They find silver. They even find some drink in the enemy's camp. They find gin and juice in the enemy's camp." "Even though they were trying to destroy you, they end up blessing this small congregation of people with a skin condition." 4/6/08: Barack Obama's incoming Senior Pastor Otis Moss III delivers Hour of Power sermon, "We Have Nothing To Lose," at Trinity United Church of Christ.

In an emergency room in Arkansas, the patient exhibits dark red boils, her skin numb. Another case of leprosy in America. Not far away, a tuberculosis-infected illegal immigrant coughs while on break at the local chicken processing plant – spreading his infectious germs across the break room table. His children, also carrying the disease, which had been all but eradicated from the United States years ago, join hundreds of children at the local public school. Crossing the Mexican border, in a pickup truck filled with “migrant workers” coming to “do the jobs Americans don’t do” in our fields and food...

The medical community is warning the public: a leprosy outbreak in Springdale could blossom into an epidemic, if something isn't done soon. Doctors say at least nine cases of leprosy have been confirmed in Springdale. Local doctors say they would be shocked by even one case of leprosy in their entire career, so they say something must be done soon, in order to stop leprosy's spread. Springdale MD Jennifer Bingham says, "my initial response was: I am shocked. I am shocked we are seeing this. It's a true reason to be very worried." Medical specialists say the Marshall Islands have...

SPRINGDALE - The Arkansas Department of Health in Little Rock says some Northwest Arkansas doctors have wrong information that's leading them to fears of leprosy cases

SPRINGDALE - The medical community is warning the public: a leprosy outbreak in Springdale could blossom into an epidemic, if something isn't done soon. Doctors say at least nine cases of leprosy have been confirmed in Springdale. Local doctors say they would be shocked by even one case of leprosy in their entire career...

LITTLE ROCK -- The people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands are among the unhealthiest people in the world. An estimated 6,000-8,000 Marshallese immigrants live in Springdale, AR. and the surrounding areas, of whom 867 are children enrolled in the Springdale School District, Pritchard told the House and Senate Interim Committees on Public Health, Welfare and Labor.Deputy State Health Officer Dr. Joe Bates testified that between 2000 and 2005, Northwest Arkansas had nine cases of congenital syphilis, six of which involved Marshallese; 38 people with infectious syphilis, 21 of whom were Marshallese; and nine cases of leprosy, all Marshallese....

(BEIJING) — China sees 1,600 new cases of leprosy each year and greater efforts are needed to completely eradicate the disfiguring disease, state media reported on Friday. China has made great progress against the disease in recent decades, cutting the number of patients with active leprosy to just 6,300 today from around half a million in 1949, the China Daily quoted the Health Ministry as saying. But the infectious disease is still present in more remote parts of the country, it quoted Pan Chunzhi, secretary general of the China Leprosy Association as saying. "Despite the progress made, leprosy has yet...

Immigration Department Failed To Check On Immigrants With TB, Report Says A report released on Wednesday by the Australian National Audit Office found that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship knowingly allowed more than 100,000 people with tuberculosis to enter Australia but frequently failed to check up on whether they sought medical treatment, The Australian reports. People with inactive TB or who have a history of the disease sometimes are permitted to enter Australia if they sign an agreement stating they will be examined by a doctor after they enter the country, according to the AAP/Sydney Morning Herald. 'DIAC has...

With affordable AIDS drugs arriving in many poor countries, experts say a startling and worrisome side effect has emerged: in some patients, the treatment uncovers a hidden leprosy infection. No one knows how widespread the problem is. Only about a dozen cases have been described in medical literature since the first one was found, in London in 2003. But AIDS specialists in Brazil, India, Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere are reporting that some patients on life-saving antiretroviral drugs are developing painful facial ulcers or losing feeling in their fingers and toes. And in the third world, where 300,000 new cases...

Almost two centuries ago, a small band of national patriots joined Texans to launch a battle for freedom and sent a unifying rallying cry through out our nation "Remember The Alamo!" Our nation is being threatened by a new Alamo, and the army is between 12 million and 20 million strong. The army is one that is creeping, walking, swimming and being driven in shadowy caravans across our nation's state borders. Instead of being armed with weapons of violence, this army is simply overwhelming American health care, education, and justice systems by refusing to enter our country legally. But the...

Collect:Father, help us to seek the values that will bring us eternal joy in this changing world. In our desire for what you promise make us one in mind and heart. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Recipes: » Haupia » Potato-Mac Salad» Slow Cooker Kalua Pig Activities: » Ave Maria Dear» Beautiful, Glorious» Mary Garden» May, the Month of Marymore » Salve Regina» Stella Matutina» 'Tis Said of Our Dear Ladyless Prayers: » Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven)» May...

Ahmedabad (AsiaNews/UCAN) – The nationalist Hindu government of Gujarat has decided to stop sisters from working in a hospital for lepers, terminating a contract that has lasted for more than 60 years.But the decision has been opposed by patients. Many of the sick people said they will follow the sisters wherever they go. “They are everything for us,” Babban Sitapur. "Not even our family members take such care of us." The Salesian Missionaries of Mary Immaculate took up the administration of the Leprosy Hospital in 1949. Gujarat then was part of Bombay state, which was later divided into Maharashtra and...

'Leprosy drug in Milosevic's blood'Traces of a drug used to treat leprosy and tuberculosis were found in a blood sample taken in recent months from former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, a news report has said.The report came hours after Milosevic's legal adviser revealed a letter the late Serb leader wrote on Friday, one day before his body was discovered in prison, alleging that he was being poisoned. In the report by state broadcaster NOS, a lawyer and commentator for the channel, Heikelina Verrijn Stuart, said she had confirmation that doctors first noticed the medicine in his blood in January. Stuart...

Update 14: Report: Drug Traces Found in Milosevic AP 03.12.2006, 01:46 PM Traces of a drug used to treat leprosy and tuberculosis were found in a blood sample taken in recent months from former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, a Dutch news report said, citing an unidentified "adviser" to the U.N. war crimes tribunal. The report came hours after Milosevic's legal adviser showed journalists a letter the late Serb leader wrote Friday, one day before his body was discovered in prison, alleging that he was being poisoned. The report was on the text service of the Dutch state broadcaster, NOS. It...

"Americans should be told that diseases long eradicated in this country — tuberculosis, leprosy, polio, for example — and other extremely contagious diseases have been linked directly to" illegal immigrants, Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) told the Business Journal of Phoenix last month.

A rise in diseases such as whooping cough, tuberculosis, malaria, measles and even leprosy are creating public health concerns and could hit hospitals and health care systems already financially burdened by indigent illegals flooding emergency rooms and urgent care centers.

Leprosy, the contagious skin disease evoking thoughts of biblical and Medieval times, is now making its mark in the United States, and many believe the influx of illegal aliens is a main factor. "Americans should be told that diseases long eradicated in this country – tuberculosis, leprosy, polio, for example – and other extremely contagious diseases have been linked directly to illegals," Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., told the Business Journal of Phoenix. "For example, in 40 years, only 900 persons were afflicted by leprosy in the U.S.; in the past three years, more than 7,000 cases have been presented." "This...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leprosy, a disease widely believed to have been spread out of India, in fact appears to have originated in Africa or the Near East, scientists said on Thursday. "The disease seems to have originated in Eastern Africa or the Near East and spread with successive human migrations," researchers reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science. This is not what historians had believed. "Leprosy is believed to have originated in the Indian subcontinent and to have been introduced into Europe by Greek soldiers returning from the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great. From Greece, the disease is...

Illegals Face a Gauntlet of Doom: The Border Patrol Faces Dopers, Terrorists, and the Desperate Victims of Coyotes. The 2,100 mile southern border of the U.S., with its treacherous mountain ranges, canyons, rivers and deserts, has become an uncontrollable stretch of violence, death, rape and exploitation. Over a decade ago, SOF rode with Border Patrol Agents in Arizona when the situation already seemed out of hand. One of those agents, now retired, recently contacted SOF with a disturbing and frustrated update, reflecting the deterioration of the Mexico-United States border. "In my career, spanning three decades, many of my friends and...

When Dr. Paul Brand met his first leprosy patients, he was told, "Nothing can be done with hands -- or feet -- like this. It's just leprosy." Translation: Deformed limbs are part of the disease; we can't fight it. But as Eddie Askew of Leprosy Mission International observed in a funeral tribute to Brand last month, "just leprosy" wasn't part of Paul Brand's vocabulary. He discovered that leprosy deformities could be corrected, performed surgeries on thousands, and taught his skills to others who carry on today. Part of Dr. Brand's success stems from the fact that he didn't merely treat...

Tuesday, 5 November, 2002, 16:28 GMT Bones raise leprosy doubts The bones were found in East Lothian Leprosy may have arrived in Britain 1,500 years earlier than first thought, according to evidence taken from an ancient grave in Scotland. The evidence was taken from bones which were found near Dunbar in East Lothian and which belonged to a child who lived 3,500 years ago. Julie Roberts, a biological anthropologist with Glasgow University's archaeological research division made the diagnosis. This find may be one of the earliest cases of leprosy in the world so far identified. Rod McCullagh, Historic Scotland She...