Lana Kuykendall, a 36-year-old mother to newborn twins, is in critical condition as she fights off a flesh-eating bacteria, just days after a Georgia woman was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis. NBC’s Gabe Gutirrez reports.
With news reports of a second case of “flesh-eating bacteria” in less than a week, many Americans are beginning to worry about their own risk – and whether this type of rare infection is on the rise.
Just days after a Georgia woman was rushed to the hospital with a life-threatening infection that began in a wound she sustained in a zip-lining accident, Lana Kuykendall, a South Carolina mother of twins, sought help for a painful leg sore that turned out to be necrotizing fasciitis, the clinical name for flesh-eating bacteria.
It’s not clear yet how Kuykendall’s leg became infected. She had just returned home after giving birth to her twins when she noticed a spot on the back of her left leg. Thinking it might be a blood clot, Kuykendall, who is a paramedic, checked herself in to the hospital.
“Around 11:30 it was the size of her palm,” Kuykendall’s friend, Kayla Moon, told TODAY. “By the time she went in to surgery and they thought they knew what it was, it had consumed practically her whole leg.”
As it turns out, Kuykendall’s quick trip to the hospital may have made all the difference. Doctors think she will not lose any limbs. Amy Copeland, the Georgia woman, wasn’t so lucky. She’s already had a leg amputated and may also lose some fingers.
Experts say that the only protection against damage from necrotizing fasciitis is vigilance. Though there are only 500-1,000 cases a year, a good 25 percent are fatal, NBC health editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman told TODAY’s Matt Lauer.
“Most victims will lose body tissue [and end up with] a dent in the leg or the loss of an appendage,” Snyderman said.
NBC Chief Medial Editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman tells TODAY’s Matt Lauer about the importance of getting help immediately if you think you may have contracted the flesh-eating bacteria, called necrotizing fasciitis.
That’s because the only real treatment for necrotizing fasciitis is to remove all infected tissue, said Dr. William Pasculle, an associate professor of pathology, infectious disease and microbiology and director of microbiology at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center.
While patients will also receive antibiotics, the drugs can’t get to the fascia – the area of the body where the infection takes hold and from which it spreads.
“The fascia is the thin layer of tissue that lies between your muscles,” Pasculle explained. “They’re what allow the muscles to slide over each other. When you feel your bicep move over the other muscles in your arm, it’s the fascia between them that allows that to happen. What’s important to know is that the fascia has no blood supply.
“And when an organism gets down into that layer and multiplies and produces toxins, the white blood cells can’t get into those tissues because they’re carried by the blood. That’s why antibiotics don’t work. They are also delivered by the blood.”
The most scary thing about the infection is that it can speed so quickly along the super highway created by long stretches of fascia.
“And because there’s no blood supply, a person can be asymptomatic for a bit and by the time you know it’s there, it’s often rip-roaring,” Pasculle said.
The only way to deal with an infection of the fascia is to cut away all infected tissue – so the longer it takes before someone gets to the hospital, the more tissue will be lost.
Usually it takes a deep, penetrating wound for bacteria to get in to infect the fascia, Pasculle says. And while strep bacteria are the most common cause for necrotizing fasciitis, the deadly infection can arise from almost any of the bacteria so ubiquitous in our environment.
There’s no real protection against necrotizing fasciitis, Snyderman said. The only thing you can do is be on the lookout for symptoms.
“Everybody should treat every wound the same way, initially,” Snyderman said. “Wash it with soap and water, not hydrogen peroxide. Put on antibiotic ointment, then a bandage – and check the bandage often. If [the wound] gets red, puffy, and disproportionately painful, and/or if it looks like a bruise that is growing, you need to get to a hospital quickly.”
And make sure your doctor understands the level of your pain, Synderman said.
“Many times this is misdiagnosed by patients and doctors,” she added. “I teach residents that if a patient says it hurts like hell, don’t assume they are a wimp. Pay attention. Get the infectious disease people in there and call a surgeon.”
Though the two recent cases have drawn attention to necrotizing fasciitis, experts don’t think it’s on the rise.
“Necrotizing fasciitis has been known as long as there have been bows and arrows,” Pasculle said. “What’s required is inoculation of bacteria deep into the tissues.”
The pop music world was stunned Thursday by the death of Donna Summer, the original “Disco Queen” who over four decades proved that she and her music were stars, not fads.
She was 63 and reportedly had been suffering from lung cancer, although she had continued performing until recently.
Summer had a string of worldwide hits in the late 1970s, including “I Feel Love,” “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls,” “On the Radio, “MacArthur Park,” “No More Tears” and “Last Dance.”
She was labeled a disco artist and while she always resisted that term, her career cooled down when a disco backlash formed around 1979.
But her music endured and more than 30 years later is still played on dance and classic hits stations. She had been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — but not chosen, something pal Elton John raged against Thursday.
“Her records sound as good today as they ever did. That she has never been inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame is a total disgrace especially when I see the second-rate talent that has been inducted,” he said. “She is a great friend to me and to the Elton John AIDS Foundation and I will miss her greatly.”
“She was the face of the disco movement,” says Jeff Foxx, afternoon host on WBLS. “But she bridged dance music and R&B. It may have been called disco, but there was some funky stuff going on.
“You’ll still never find a better song than ‘Last Dance’ to end any concert. The chord progression, her singing – wow.”
“Even after that disco ‘backlash,’ Donna Summer’s music was huge,” says Joel Salkowitz, who programmed the original dance radio station Hot-103 and others. “We did a show at Roseland Ballroom with Paul Shaffer‘s orchestra backing her and she absolutely killed. They may have put a lot of production behind her music, but she could sing.
“This is a tremendous loss.”
“The ‘controversy’ of disco is now ancient, irrelevant history,” says long-time city radio host Famous Amos. “and what remains of Donna Summer is the memory of one of America’s (and the world’s) greatest recording artists.”
Joe Causi, who has been playing Summer’s music on the radio since the late 1970s, will be paying tribute Saturday night on his “Saturday Night ’70s” show over WCBS-FM (101.1).
“I’m still in shock,” says Causi. “Her music was magical. She was constantly reinventing herself with every album she made. She was a major part of my passion for dance music.”
Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, in New York City.
Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, in New York City. Photographer: Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Common Sense Media
Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook Inc. (FB)
co-founder who will become a billionaire tomorrow after the
world’s largest technology initial public offering, said he
never believed his $30,000 investment would go so far.
“Something I would’ve never imagined was when I put all my
life savings into the company, that it would have been an IPO at
this level,” Saverin said by phone from his home in Singapore.
“You never imagine that $30,000 accumulated through your life,
through gifts and birthday parties and other events, and
investing it in the company would create this type of returns.”
Saverin, 30, was part of a group of students at Harvard
University who in 2004 started the social-networking site now
used by more than 901 million users. He renounced U.S.
citizenship in September.
His stake may be worth $2.89 billion, based on the
company’s 1.9 billion total shares outstanding with the IPO.
Facebook boosted the offering’s price range to as much as $38 a
share this week, indicating a market value as high as $104
billion. The shares are set to price today and will begin
trading tomorrow under the symbol FB on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Saverin owns about 4 percent of the company, according to whoownsfacebook.com. He declined to discuss his percentage, the
valuation, or how much tax he will save by dropping U.S.
citizenship, which according to a Bloomberg analysis is at least
$67 million. Singapore has no capital gains tax and personal
income taxes are a maximum 20 percent.
When the opening bell rings on the Nasdaq, Saverin will be
celebrating at home with “some very close friends” and
speaking on the phone with his parents and two siblings who
still live in Miami, he said.
Saverin, who is a Brazilian national by birth and moved to
the U.S. as a child, became a U.S. citizen in 1998. He said he
relocated to Singapore in 2009 because it’s an easy place to
live, people speak English and it’s a travel hub at the heart of
rapidly growing Asia. The World Bank ranks Singapore as the
easiest place in the world to do business.
“I did not think once about my position related to tax
savings,” he said. “The whole idea that that was important to
me or part of my consideration is not accurate.”
Banking Hassles
Renouncing U.S. citizenship was about “simplicity of focus
so that my time and efforts can be spent on what matters to
me,” he said, including investing in new early-stage technology
startups, like Facebook, that emphasize people.
“If I chose to open a bank account locally in Singapore,
most of the banks would not accept me in having a fully
functional bank account,” he said, referring to new U.S. tax
rules that require banks to report all income and interest paid
to the account holders of U.S. origin to the U.S. Internal
Revenue Service.
The law, scheduled to go into effect in 2013, has caused
many banks to turn away business from Americans. U.S. tax laws
also require Americans to report all overseas accounts or
holdings of more than $10,000.
In Singapore, Saverin has invested in mobile applications
developer Anideo Pte, run by his friend Andrew Solimine with
whom Saverin said he first traveled to the Asian nation, and in Maiplay Pte, a developer of an application that helps users
collect loyalty points on a mobile device. Saverin’s U.S.
holdings include shares in Jumio Inc., an online payments
company, and ShopSavvy Inc., a price-comparison service.
Avoiding Paparazzi
Being an “extremely shy, private” person is also a
consideration, Saverin said. Singapore has little paparazzi
culture. Private nightclubs such as Mink and Filter, which
Saverin occasionally visits, cater to the wealthy in a city that
has built itself into a center for private banking.
Singapore is Asia’s largest wealth-management center, with
$512 billion in offshore assets in 2010, data compiled by the
Boston Consulting Group show.
Saverin fits the image of a billionaire playboy “in no way
whatsoever,” he said. “I am 30, and I’m not married. I go out
with my friends as a normal person would.”
“We do hang out here and there,” Phillip Poon, co-founder
of Mink and Filter, said in an interview. “He’s pretty much
like any normal guy, hanging out with his friends. The press
seems to mention that he’s partying non-stop, but he’s actively
involved in work.”
Lance Somerfeld is one of a growing number of stay-at-home dads.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Before Jessica and Lance Somerfeld had their baby, they decided it would make the most financial sense for one of them to stay home to raise him. Since Lance made a fraction of Jessica's earnings, he was the obvious choice.
With wages at a standstill and child care costs skyrocketing, Somerfeld is just one of a growing number of dads who are staying home with the kids.
Among fathers with a wife in the workforce, 32% took care of their kids at least one day a week in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which looked at families with children under 15 years old. That's up from 26% in 2002.
Of those with kids under the age of 5, 20% of dads in 2010 were the primary caretaker.
Not only has it become more necessary for men to pitch in at home, but fathers have also become more available to do so. "It's a combination of mothers going to work and fathers being out of work as a result of the recession,"said Lynda Laughlin, a family demographer at the Census Bureau.
Men were particularly hard hit by thesteep job losses during that time, losing 4 million jobs since 2007, while women lost just over 2 million during the same time period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While men have since gained backa majority of those jobs during the recovery, their unemployment rate– at 8.3% in March — is still above the national average of 8.2%.
Many find that having one parent at home does have its advantages, especially as child care costs continue to climb.
Couples do the math and realize that it makes more financial sense for one spouse to stay home with the kids. And while it's often the woman who decides to drop out of the workforce, more men are taking on the responsibility of child care as well.
A lot of that has to do with who makes the most money in the household. Even though the wage gap between the sexes persist, a growing number of women are out-earning their husbands.In 2008, 26% of women living in dual-income households had annual earnings that were at least 10 percentage points higher than their spouse, up from 15% in 1997, according to the Families and Work Institute's latest data.
As a New York City school teacher, Somerfeld said he made a fraction of his wife's salary. "She was probably making 80% of our household income and I was 20%," he said. Her career as a corporate actuary for an insurance company "was on a really good track and it made more sense for me to stay home."
But the decision they made wasn't strictly a financial one. "Too often, we hear that it's the economy that forces dads into these roles and that's certainly a part of it, but I would love to shatter that stereotype," Somerfeld said. "Being my son's primary caregiver is something I have truly cherished and embraced and never looked back."
Three years ago, Somerfeld started the NYC Dads group to connect with other fathers in a similar position. The group now has over 550 members.
"There are a lot of guys out there that had remote relationships with their own fathers and they don't want that with their kids," added Jeremy Adam Smith, a one-time stay-at-home dad and author of TheDaddy Shift. "It's not just stay-at-home dads — fathers in general are participating more in their children's lives."
Regardless of their employment status, nearly half of the men surveyed by Families and Work Institute said they take most or an equal share of child care responsibilities, up from 41% 20 years ago.
Just don't call them "Mr. Moms," said Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute. "Like it's a female task, I've never understood that."
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