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BEND, Ore. (AP) -- Health officials have confirmed that an Oregon man has the plague after he was bitten while trying to take a dead rodent from the mouth of a stray cat. The unidentified man, who is in his 50s, remained in critical condition Friday at a Bend hospital.

An Oregon man is at death's door in a hospital battling a rare case of the infamous “Black Death” plague, health officials said. The unidentified man, who is in his 50s, was bitten on the hand while trying to pull a mouse away from a stray cat on June 2 and got sick several days later, doctors at St. Charles Medical Center-Bend told The Oregonian newspaper. The man was thought to be suffering from septicemic plague — meaning the ruthless bacteria was spreading in his bloodstream — and was in critical condition on Tuesday, doctors said. Karen Yeargain, the county...

An Oregon man is at death's door in a hospital battling a rare case of the infamous “Black Death” plague, health officials said. The unidentified man, who is in his 50s, was bitten on the hand while trying to pull a mouse away from a stray cat on June 2 and got sick several days later, doctors at St. Charles Medical Center-Bend told The Oregonian newspaper. The man was thought to be suffering from septicemic plague — meaning the ruthless bacteria was spreading in his bloodstream — and was in critical condition on Tuesday, doctors said. Karen Yeargain, the county...

Crook County Health Officials Say He Was Bitten by Sick CatCrook County health officials said Monday they are investigating a probable case of human plague involving a man in his 50s who is being treated at a local hospital. Contacts with the individual have been notified and are receiving preventive antibiotics, officials said. The man reported contact with a sick cat in his neighborhood, they added. Crook County officials did not identify the man, citing patient confidentiality regulations, but a family member contacted NewsChannel 21, which then learned the Prineville-area man remained in critical condition Tuesday at St. Charles Medical...

(Santa Fe) -- The New Mexico Department of Health confirmed today a case of plague in a 78-year-old man from Torrance County who is currently hospitalized in stable condition. This is the first human case of plague in New Mexico this year and in the United States. An environmental investigation will take place at the man’s home to look for ongoing risk to others in the surrounding area. “The Department of Health takes action when a plague case occurs to ensure the safety of the immediate family, neighbors, and health care providers,” said Department of Health Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Catherine...

Dead man in Salt Lake City... Tuberculosis in Atlanta... 'Zuccotti Lung' on Wall Street... Suicide in Vermont... Murder in Oakland...

Multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis (TB) are spreading at an alarming rate in Europe and will kill thousands unless health authorities halt the pandemic... "TB is an old disease that never went away, and now it is evolving with a vengeance," said Zsuzsanna Jakab, the WHO's Regional Director for Europe... TB is currently a worldwide pandemic that kills around 1.7 million people a year. The infection is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis and destroys patients' lung tissue, causing them to cough up the bacteria, which then spreads through the air and can be inhaled by others. Cases...

Liberals like to describe themselves as the most compassionate ones, the ones that believe like Hubert Humphrey did that the moral test of a society is how it treats its vulnerable citizens in the dawn and the twilight of life. That's not the party line at the Daily Kos. Jon Stafford bluntly wrote on Wednesday night that "I often describe myself as 'Not Pro-Choice, Pro-Abortion. There are too many goddam people already.' And while this is meant to be facetious, nevertheless there is a seed of truth in it, because I believe that the world is wildly overpopulated and that...

Officials in Boulder County, Colo., announced last week that a pet cat and a dead squirrel tested positive for the bubonic plague. The cat’s owner took it to the Humane Society of Boulder Valley to be checked by veterinarians, and it was there that the presence of the bacteria was confirmed. A dead squirrel also tested positive for the plague. Jennifer Bolser, chief veterinarian at the Humane Society clinic, said that the cat brought the dead squirrel home and likely became infected from it. The bubonic plague is caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. It begins its life cycle...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Tuesday that it plans to ban the sale of “the most toxic rat and mouse poisons, as well as most loose bait and pellet products” to residential customers. The goal is to better protect children, pets and wildlife. “These changes are essential to reduce the thousands of accidental exposures of children that occur every year from rat and mouse control products and also to protect household pets,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. The EPA also will require that all rat and mouse poisons

The joke that's going around is that the Mayans got it wrong: The world is ending this year, not 2012. Here's the lates sign of that. A superbug is spreading around America, and has hit Southern California. LA Times: A dangerous drug-resistant bacterium has spread to patients in Southern California, according to a study by Los Angeles County public health officials. More than 350 cases of the Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, or CRKP, have been reported at healthcare facilities in Los Angeles County, mostly among elderly patients at skilled-nursing and long-term care facilities, according to a study by Dr. Dawn Terashita,...

We see evidence of the Plague all around us. A recent book called Ruins of Detroit by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre illustrates evidence of the Plague quite well. Far from being a voice alone in the wilderness, though, I find prophets of Doom all around me. There was a band out a few years back called Rage against the Machine “I’ll give ya a dose But it’ll never come close To the rage built up inside of me Fist in the air, in the land of hypocrisy” They seem to have a sense of the Plague but who are...

BROOMFIELD, Colo. - Broomfield health officials have closed an area of open space after an entire colony of prairie dogs has died. "We believe the die-off was caused by the infection of plague," health department official Jeff Stoll said. The department has posted signs, warning people to stay out of areas south and west of the First Bank Center. They've also dusted the area for fleas. The concern is the fleas that once lived on the prairie dogs can carry the disease. The area is popular with dog walkers like Mallory Clark.

BEIJING – Chinese authorities say five people have been sickened with pneumonic plague in Tibet and that the deadly disease has killed one of them.

Scientist found with suspicious item at airport did prison time for plague sample flap -- A world-renowned Texas scientist specializing in infectious diseases who was once charged with smuggling dangerous samples of plague bacteria into the U.S. was questioned by authorities after a suspicious item found in his luggage caused a massive evacuation at Miami International Airport Thursday night. Dr. Thomas C. Butler, 70, was questioned by agents with the FBI and Miami-Dade police Friday after a suspicious item was found in his checked luggage by a MIA baggage screener Thursday night, sources told NBC Miami.... Friday, it was learned...

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru's health minister says an outbreak of plague has killed a 14-year-old boy and infected at least 31 people in a northern coastal province. Health Minister Oscar Ugarte says authorities are screening sugar and fish meal exports from Ascope province, which is south of the city of Trujillo and home of the popular Chicama beach.

An outbreak of plague, which is considerd a potential bioweapon, among the Syrian military may be raising more questions than answers. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recently ordered the shutdown of all Syrian military exercises due to a plague that currently affects a large number of military personnel, according to Examiner.com. The Syrian president has told Syrian news sources that food and drinking water in military bases, coupled with one of the country’s worst droughts in over 40 years, are responsible for the outbreak of plague. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are experiencing food shortages, nearly 60,000 small livestock owners have...

Los Angeles County public health and U.S. Forest Service officials have closed the Los Alamos Campground in the Angeles National Forest after a California ground squirrel captured two weeks ago tested positive for plague. The camp, between Gorman and Pyramid Lake, was closed Saturday afternoon and will remain closed for at least 10 days, said Jonathan Fielding, the county's public health director. Squirrel burrows in the area will be dusted for fleas, and further testing will be conducted before the campground is reopened. "We're fortunate to have caught this," Fielding said. "This case now is about prevention." Plague is a...

Rat plague threatens grasslands in China's Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia English.news.cn 2010-05-08 16:44:48 BEIJING, May 8 (Xinhua) -- A plague of rats is threatening more than 10 million hectares of grassland in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, local authorities said Saturday. In Inner Mongolia, 5.82 million hectares of grazing land have been overwhelmed by the burrowing rodents, said Zhang Zhuoran from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regional Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. In worst-hit Urad Prairie in Bayannur League, burrows pocked the bare, yellowish-brown earth after rats chewed through a large areas of grass....

A new study authored by UW-Madison virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka warns there is the potential for avian H5N1 influenza and human seasonal flu viruses to interact and form a new flu strain which could be both highly contagious and deadly. Since the H5N1 influenza outbreak in Asian poultry in 2003, forms of this virus have spread to wild birds and poultry on several continents. However, since the H5N1 virus lacks the ability to transmit efficiently among humans, there have been only 442 confirmed human cases -- although 59 percent (262) of those infected have died. The new findings -- which appear...