Wildfire Smoke and your Health

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Here are a few tips for your health as the southern peninsula gets more smoke from the Swan Lake fire:

The biggest health threat from smoke is from fine particles. These microscopic particles can get into your eyes and respiratory system, where they can cause health problems such as burning eyes, runny nose, and illnesses such as bronchitis. Fine particles also can aggravate chronic heart and lung diseases.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, these populations are at greatest risk from wildfire smoke:

  • People who have heart or lung diseases, like heart disease, chest pain, lung disease, or asthma, are at higher risk from wildfire smoke.
  • Older adults are more likely to be affected by smoke. This may be due to their increased risk of heart and lung diseases.
  • Children are more likely to be affected by health threats from smoke as children’s airways are still developing and they breathe more air per pound of body weight than adults do.

If you are healthy, you’re usually not at a major risk from short-term exposures to smoke. Still, it is a good idea to avoid breathing smoke if you can help it and use common sense. If it looks smoky outside, it’s probably not a good time to mow the lawn or go for a run. And it’s probably not a good time for your children to play outdoors.

Use these links for additional health information related to smoke:

Here are some smoke prediction sites to help with planning activities and decision making:

Sports Physicals Day at Homer Medical Center

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Homer Medical Center is offering free sports physicals at a one-day clinic on Saturday, July 20, 2019 for high school students who need a physical for participation in school sanctioned activities.  Appointments are not required, and exams are offered from 10am-4pm at the Homer Medical Center clinic on Bartlett Street.  Exams are offered free of charge by providers from Homer Medical Center.

Parents are asked to complete the History Form and if applicable the Special Needs Supplemental form and bring this entire document with them to the clinic.
Pre-participation exam form (PDF)

All students must bring or wear loose fitting shorts for the screening.

If students are unable to attend, they can make an appointment for an annual wellness exam and a sports physical form will be filled out as part of the wellness exam. In most cases this will be at no cost to a patient with insurance.  Those without insurance and who do not make the free sports physical day can make a sports physical appointment on a regular clinic day at a cost of $52.00 less a 25% discount for a total of $39.00 to be paid at time of service.

Please contact Homer Medical Center at (907) 235-8586 for additional information.

Measles in Homer is Preventable

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The following editorial was written by SPH Chief of Staff  Giulia Tortora, MD and originally published in the Homer News on  June 5, 2019.

In 1989, I spent two months working in a hospital in Tanzania, Africa. While I worked in that small village, where no vaccines were available and care options were limited, I was shocked to discover that the main disease that killed children was measles. Not malaria. Not malnutrition. Measles. Watching any child die of a preventable disease is heartbreaking.

Measles vaccination rates have declined, and the outbreak in the U.S. is both serious and terrifying. The likelihood of seeing it in Alaska is very high, and we need to prepare to face the consequences of this public health nightmare.

There is a great deal of controversy about vaccinations, mostly due to misinformation that started with a study in 1998 by Anthony Wakefield that postulated a connection between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. It has since been proven both falsified and inaccurate. There have been many studies since then that disprove that link. But misinformation is rampant, and this causes people to make unfortunate decisions — decisions that will cause deaths in our community.

Here are the facts: getting two doses of measles vaccination confers 97% immunity. Any adult born before 1957 is considered immune. If there is no laboratory evidence of immunity in adults, a booster should be given.

Children should routinely be vaccinated with the MMR initially at 12 to 15 months of age, with a second between age 4 and 6.

There are different Centers for Disease Control recommendations for travel, and for any outbreak, with infants being vaccinated earlier, and adults receiving boosters.

Measles is one of the most infectious viruses known. With exposure, nine out of 10 unimmunized people will contract the disease, by way of droplet contact. The virus remains infectious for two hours after a person is in an area. That means that if you enter an elevator 2 hours after someone with measles sneezed in that elevator, you can get the disease.

Measles starts with a high fever (as high as 105 degrees), then feeling sick, coughing, having a runny nose and getting red eyes. After that there are spots that occur in the mouth, and then a rash, which comes on about 14 days after exposure. It is a spotty rash, and it spreads from the head to the trunk, then to the lower extremities. A person is infectious for the four days before the rash starts. There are rare cases in which the rash does not appear.

The people who are most at risk for complications are children under age 5, adults over age 20 and pregnant women. There is no effective treatment, but getting immunoglobulin infusions can decrease the complication and death rate. If exposed, vaccination as soon as possible can decrease your risks, preferably within 3 days of exposure.

There is one other little known aspect to measles infection: it has been shown that a measles infection changes your prior ability to fight infection for up to three years. That means that the immunity that you have built up from prior exposures or immunizations is no longer present. It is a side effect that is only seen with measles.

My hope is that we move towards better immunization coverage to protect our community. Additional reliable information on Measles is available on the CDC website. You can look into this in any of the medical clinics in town, and at the public health department. If we can keep one person from getting sick from this, it will be worthwhile. If we can keep one person from dying, that will be a victory.

– Giulia Tortora, MD

Media advisory on measles from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services National Institutes of Health