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Top 10 Health Stories of 2008

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April-August. The spring and summer of 2008 were filled with fears over salmonella. In early June, both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers about tainted tomatoes. A month later, concerns turned to raw jalapeno and serrano peppers from Mexico, in what was the largest outbreak of foodborne illness in a decade. By the end of August, the government announced the outbreak was finally over, although the exact source may never be known, partly because of shortcomings in the nation's food safety system. In the end, more than 1,400 hundred people in 43 states were sickened.
In June, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first 5 in 1 vaccine. The vaccine, called Pentacel, immunizes against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and haemophilus influenzae type B. The vaccine combo means children get fewer shots and parents spend less money on vaccinations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend 23 vaccine injections for kids by the time they turn 2 years old. Using Pentacel would reduce the number of shots required by seven so children would need just 16 shots.
June 24: In order to determine if a child has Down syndrome before birth, doctors often perform the invasive procedure called an amniocentesis, which uses a needle to remove a sample of the amniotic fluid surrounding a fetus. It's a dangerous procedure that can result in miscarriage. But doctors in Hong Kong developed an experimental test that can detect Down syndrome from the blood of pregnant women. In small trials, it has been shown to diagnose 90 percent of Down syndrome cases, while also correctly identifying 97 percent of fetuses that do not have the condition. With more testing, doctors are hopeful it will transform prenatal testing for the syndrome.
In July, the CDC announced that the measles made a comeback. It was reported that at least 127 people in 15 states had come down with the infection - the biggest outbreak in the United States in more than 10 years. Cases started springing up in May, when more than 70 people in a dozen states became ill. According to federal health officials, most of the victims were not vaccinated against the highly contagious virus. In a statement, the CDC said the outbreak was traced to travelers who became sick overseas, returned to the United States and infected others.
Also in July, a German farmer who lost his arms in an accident underwent a life-changing surgery. Karl Merk, 54, was successfully fitted with two new limbs in what is believed to be the first double arm transplant. It took five teams of medical professionals and more than 15 hours to carry out the operation at the Munich University Clinic in Germany. Merk said that when he first woke up, he could not believe it had been carried off successfully. "It was really overwhelming when I saw that I had arms again," he said. So far, Merk can perform simple tasks with his new arms and hands - using them to open doors and turn lights on and off. It could take up to two years before his hands become totally usable.
On Aug. 7, Harvard scientists said they created stems cells for 10 genetic disorders, which will allow researchers to watch the diseases develop in a lab dish and could speed up efforts to find treatments for some of the most perplexing diseases such as treatments for Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases and Down syndrome.
In September, China was thrust into headlines over tainted baby milk formula. In the beginning thousands of babies were sickened by the powdered formula, which was found to contain the industrial chemical melamine. By December, those numbers had grown drastically with the government announcing that at least six babies were killed and nearly 300,000 other were sickened after consuming the milk products. "Most of the sickened children received outpatient treatment only for small amounts of sand-like kidney stones found in their urinary systems, while a part of the patients had to be hospitalized for the illness," a government statement said. Since the outbreak, thousands of parents have been asking for compensation for their sickened and dead children. The chemical was later found in the U.S. in chocolate bars and baby formula that had been made in China.
In November, a potential breakthrough was reported in the fight against AIDS. Doctors of a man who suffered from AIDS said he appeared to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia. Dr. Gero Huetter said his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than a decade. But after undergoing a transplant of genetically selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus. While researchers, and the doctors themselves, caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.
Also in November, a major medical breakthrough in Spain was made when a woman received the world's first tailor-made trachea transplant using her own stem cells. Thirty-year-old Claudia Castillo had a collapsed lung from battling tuberculosis. At first, doctors wanted to remove the entire lung, but they figured out a way to save the organ by replacing part of the windpipe. By using her own stem cells, doctors dramatically cut the chance of her body rejecting the transplant. "This technique has great promise," said Dr. Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. If successful, the procedure could become a new standard of treatment, said Genden.
With 2008 winding down, U.S. doctors ended the year with a bang when they performed the nation's first near-total face transplant at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow and a team of other specialists replaced 80 percent of the woman's face with that of a female cadaver in a bold and controversial operation. The patient's name and age were not released, and the hospital said her family wanted the reason for her transplant to remain confidential. The transplant was the fourth worldwide; two have been done in France, and one was performed in China.