Honey On a Dummy Could Have Killed Tot
By Myra Philp, The Sun (UK), 11/4/2009
The baby fighting for his life with botulism could have caught it from sucking a dummy which had been dipped in honey, it emerged last night.
Little Logan Douglas was left paralysed by a potentially deadly toxin - one of the most poisonous known to man.
It can be caught from food including honey - often used to soothe kids - which has carried a health warning since 1978 saying it should not be given to tots under a year old.
Last night Logan was on a ventilator in Edinburgh Sick Kids hospital where he was taken after being admitted to hospital in Kirkcaldy six weeks ago…
Botulism is extremely rare and medics at first failed to spot the reason for Logan's paralysis…
It can be contracted in food and in wounds or it can form and release a toxin in the gut of babies.
Infant botulism was discovered in 1976. There have been just six cases in the UK - one where a baby was fed honey in water - but none in Scotland until now.
The Health Protection Agency Scotland said there have been no food cases since their records started in 1983 and only one where a wound was involved.
The last recorded case of infant botulism in the UK was in England in 2001.
A baby girl, aged just four months, contracted the disease on holiday in Spain. It took over a month for her to be taken off a ventilator.
Since 1976, over 1,000 cases of infant botulism have been reported worldwide, most of them in America…
Thursday, November 05, 2009
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3 comments:
Botulism spore is on and in everything. It is basically harmless until its environment is anarobic (no oxygen) where it thrives. Since honey creates a hydrogen peroxide (oxygenating)like reaction when in contact with the mucosa, it is unlikely the source of the botulism problem was because of honey. The spore may have been ingested from anything including his own fingers,mothers nipple,bottle nipple, virtually anything. Before honey is blamed for this case of botulism poisoning, intense investigation needs to rule out all other possibilities. BEE healthy, BEE happy
Reyah Carlson, apitherapist
Botulism toxin is ubiquitous in our environment - and it is in many different foods. Honey is the usual scapegoat but necessarily the true cause.
we have to wonder if it is a real honey hygenically processed or just labelled as honey
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