Giant Weed Can Cause Blisters, Even Blindness

Officials urge people to steer clear of the giant hogweed

Note**** This is a US post, but this weed IS present in Nova Scotia and the Halifax area... beware!!

THURSDAY, July 7 (HealthDay News) -- Call it the import that nobody wants.

Experts are urging residents of several states to beware of the "giant hogweed," a tall plant native to Central Asia with umbrella-size flowers containing toxic sap that can cause burns, blisters and, in some cases, even blindness.

"Avoid it at all cost," Jodi Holt, a professor of plant physiology at University of California, Riverside, toldABC News.

"The sap causes something called phytophotodermatitis when it touches humans," causing scars and potentially blindness if it comes into contact with the eyes, Holt said. Some cases of blindness occurred after children used the hollow stalks as telescopes.

Heracleum Mantegazzianum, as hogweed is botanically known, is already a concern in the Northeast and spreading fast. Patches of giant hogweed have also been sighted in the Pacific Northwest.

With white blossoms a foot or larger in diameter, giant hogweed towers up to 15 feet tall and thrives in wet, cool places. It is often spotted near homes, roadways, railroad beds and streams, ABC News said.

Crews in several states, including New York, have been charged with seeking out and destroying the invasive species. New York has also set up a giant hogweed hotline -- 845-256-3111-- for people to identify sightings.

Typically, large quantities of herbicides are needed to vanquish the plant when found in large patches. Smaller patches can be controlled by hand-cutting the roots, according to published reports.

Giant hogweed has been found and destroyed in three counties of Vermont -- Bennington, Washington and Windsor, state plant pathologists reported. And officials in Washington, D.C., are asking residents to be on the lookout for giant hogweed so they can weed out the botanical terrorist, according to news reports.

According to the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation, reactions can occur within 15 minutes when skin contact occurs in conjunction with sunlight. The sap contains a photosensitizing chemical that accelerates sun damage and can result in a serious sunburn. Perspiration can increase the reaction, officials said.

If you spot giant hogweed, don't try to remove it yourself, experts said. Instead, report the sighting to your state or local department of invasive species control.

"The importance of learning what the plant looks like cannot be overstated," Holt told ABC News.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has put the giant hogweed near the top of its Federal Noxious Weed list. The agency said the plant has been reported in Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and Vermont.

More information

To learn more about poisonous plants, visit the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

-- HealthDay staff

SOURCES: New York state Department of Environmental Conservation; ABC News

Last Updated: July 07, 2011

Copyright © 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Companies Developing Systems to Help the Blind See Again

From the Wall Street Journal

By Jonathan Matsey

While the phrase bionic retinas may conjure images of Steve Austin in “The Six Million Dollar Man” or Geordi La Forge in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” technology to create vision where none, or very little, exists, is not a television fantasy. Companies concentrating on damaged retinas look poised for success as the technology inches toward measurable achievement.

“We will be approved on the market in Europe this year,” said Bill Link, managing director at Versant Ventures, an investor in Second Sight Medical Products Inc.

Second Sight, based in Sylmar, Calif., is also looking at a U.S. Food and Drug Administration submission at the end of 2011, according to Link. The company has raised $16 million in venture capital.

Second Sight’s system uses a pair of glasses to send images to a receiver implanted on the retina. From there, the image is transmitted to the brain through the optic nerve. The device is targeted to patients who have lost most of their vision as a result of retinal degeneration and whose nerve connections are still intact.

A similar approach is being developed by Nano Retina Inc. of Herzliya Pituach, Israel, though Nano Retina aims for much greater visual clarity than Second Sight, it says. “We have a much higher resolution – about 1,000 pixels,” said Ra’anan Gefen, managing director of the company. “Second Sight is the most advanced (clinically) but on the other hand, it is really a limited device.”

According to Link, Second Sight’s first-generation device offers 16 pixels while a second-generation system will have 60. “They can read letters on a computer screen, they can tell light from dark, they can see a line on the ground,” said Link of people using Second Sight’s system.

Gefen, on the other hand, is more ambitious. “We will give them back vision so that they can see almost normally,” he said.

Gefen’s company was founded as a joint venture with nanotech company Zyvex Labs LLC of Richardson, Texas, and is backed by several million dollars from Rainbow Medical, an Israeli business accelerator, according to Rainbow Founding Partner Yossi Gross. Nano Retina is still a couple of years away from clinical studies, Gross said.

Costs for the two systems appear to be about the same. Link estimates Second Sight’s device will sell for $50,000 to $100,000 per system; Gefen says Nano Retina’s will cost around $60,000. Both companies said they expect much of that cost to be picked up by insurance companies. Link said his portfolio company is currently in discussion with potential payers.

Waiting in the wings is a third player – Optobionics Corp. – which had raised around $50 million from investors including Advanced Medical Optics Inc., Advanced Technology Ventures, Arch Venture Partners, Medtronic Inc. and Polaris Venture Partners and had taken its device through Phase II trials before hitting a snag in fund-raising for Phase III trials.

“There was no appetite to put in another $100 million,” said Alan Chow, chief executive of Optobionics. As a result, his company entered bankruptcy in 2007, recently relaunching after Chow bought the technology.

Unlike the other two companies, Optobionics is pursuing a trickier and more costly approach: restoring function to the damaged retina by using the device to stimulate the rods and cones, rather than using the system as an adjunct to the retina.

Chow said he is looking into ways to continue financing the Phase III development although he said it might not be through venture financing.

Despite the lengthy development times and funding challenges, those involved with the companies say they are motivated by the importance of their work. “Everybody says that this is a very ambitious project, but everybody admits that there is a real need here,” said Gross.

The laser that can halt blindness and offer hope for millions

By David DerbyshireLast updated at 8:00 AM on 06th July 2009

A revolutionary laser treatment could save the sight of millions, British experts claim.
The process is said to stop the onset of age-related macular degeneration, one of the commonest forms of blindness, which leaves victims unable to read, drive or live independently.
It can be carried out in just ten to 15 minutes by any ophthalmologist. While it does not cure sight loss, its creators say it could prevent a generation from having to put up with declining vision in old age.




A sight for sore eyes: Professor John Marshall announced a new laser technique which could prevent millions of older people from going blind







People with a family history of the disease could have pre-emptive treatment in their thirties.
The technique is said to be safe and painless and could save the NHS millions of pounds in treating age-related macular degeneration (AMD). It could even stop the disease getting worse in existing patients.
Medical charities welcomed the breakthrough but warned that it might not be available to the public for several years.
AMD is caused by damage to an area about 5mm across at the centre of the retina called the macula, which is responsible for our central vision.
The disease is the leading cause of blindness in the over- sixties, and around 200,000 Britons are registered as blind or partially sighted because of it.

























There is no treatment for the most common 'dry' form. The more aggressive 'wet' version, in which new blood vessels cause bleeding and scarring behind the retina, can be stabilised with drugs.
The technique is the brainchild of Professor John Marshall, an ophthalmologist at King's College London who pioneered laser surgery to correct shortsightedness.
Professor Marshall, who hopes the treatment could be available in a couple of years, said: 'It is really exciting news. It won't bring back damaged eyesight but it may prevent AMD.'
The technique rejuvenates the 'Bruch's membrane' - a thin layer that lies behind the retina.
This provides the retina's light-sensitive cells with nutrients and removes waste created as a by-product of the way retina cells renew themselves.
But the membrane's cells eventually lose the ability to take waste away, allowing deposits to build up.
It can then become so damaged that the retina's lightsensitive cells start to die off. In a trial involving more than 100 diabetics, Professor Marshall found that using a laser stimulated the membrane's tired, ageing cells into action.
After the cells were ' energised' by the laser, they began to clean up the waste again.
Patients also said the treatment led to a ' marked improvement' in their sight.
The non-invasive operation uses a laser modified to give pulses of light that do not damage the eye's light-sensitive cells or cause any dangerous heating of the target area.
Professor Marshall will now treat up to 200 people with AMD in one eye as part of a second trial. Such patients usually get the disease in the other eye within three years.
He wants to see if the laser prevents the good eye losing its sight. 'If you can delay the onset by three, four, six, seven or ten years, it's proof of the principle,' he said.
Tom Pey, of Guide Dogs for the Blind, which funded the research, said: 'This is potentially a huge breakthrough for millions. The science behind it is proven.'
The Macular Disease Society said: 'If this works, then it's very exciting. However, it will be years before this could be ready for use.'