It's National Leukemia Awareness Month, a disease that kills nearly 24,000 Americans every year. One Missouri man is beating the disease with a bit of help from his family.

"My daughter literally saved my life," survivor Jim Allin said.

It's a story that tells itself.

“To know my daughter is the one that did that, it's a pretty special thing," Allin said.

Allin was on vacation in Miami when he got sick, went to a hospital, and was told he had an advanced form of leukemia.

"We have no family history," Allin said.

With few options, his family flew back to Kansas City to keep his business going. Allin was forced to stay in Miami and desperately search for a bone marrow donor.

Jim spent 33 days in a Miami hospital, then returned to Kansas City with a list of six possible donors that got narrowed to just one, his daughter.

"It’s tough because you clearly don't want your daughter to bear any burden if something doesn't go well," Allin said.

A 96% match, his 11-year-old daughter Harper Allin was all in. She wanted to save her dad’s life. He’s grateful she dove in headfirst to help him.

"It was scary for her, and she admitted that. She said, ‘You know, dad, if I had to do it again for somebody else, I would,’" Allin said.

Jim has now been in remission for 18 months.

"She knows what she did, and she should be very proud of that for the rest of her life," Allin said.

Watch the video above for the full story.

Many times, the first we realize we're getting sick is when symptoms show up. New science research is making it possible for people to discover they're getting sick before symptoms appear, allowing for the possibility of faster treatment.

Alec Ford is the CEO of Karius, a life sciences company focused on advancing technology in the fight against infectious diseases. He says it's quite common for people battling cancer to die from a sickness instead of their cancer.

"Actually, more than half of all the people in the United States who die from cancer die from an infection," Ford said.

Ford says he knows from personal experience the threat of infectious disease on patients with cancer.

"To identify the cause of infection with someone in cancer. You might see anywhere from 15 to 17 different tests that are required, and it might take seven to 10 days of running those tests if ever they find the cause of your infection," Ford said.

He says with cancer, time is the enemy, but Karius has developed a rapid test that's been rolling out to hospitals across the country since 2017. Tim Blauwkamp is one of the innovators behind the technology.

"One of the challenges with the way that infectious diseases are diagnosed today is that almost all of the approaches still require a specimen that contains the actual pathogen itself," Blauwkamp said. "Things like bronchoalveolar lavage, where they wash your lungs or find needle aspirates, where they go in and try to find just a little piece of your lung tissue that has enough of the pathogen that they can identify it."

Using a blood sample, Tim Blauwkamp says the Karius test can detect more than a thousand different pathogens like pneumonia, fungal infections, or monkeypox.

"Any time you have an infection, there are fragments of the thing causing that infection that are shed into the bloodstream and we find those,” Ford said. "So, we take your blood, we look for those fragments of the things that are likely to be causing infection, and we tell your doctor why you're sick and what's causing your infection."

Mike Fahey, a monkeypox patient, says the early-detection Karius test would have made a huge difference for him.

"If I had caught it six days earlier, I think my entire prognosis would be different right now," Fahey said.

Fahey says his experience with monkeypox has been rare. He developed encephalitis which is inflammation of the brain. He's had numbness and pain in his hands ever since.

"It has been almost two full months," Fahey said. "To this day, I can't button my shirt, I can't tie my shoes. If I pick something up, I'm likely to drop it."

According to chief technology officer Sivan Bercovici, the Karius test would have detected monkeypox before he even had lesions and he would have been able to start treatment very early on.

"In a paper that we published several years ago, we identified the ability to detect bacterial infections several days before symptoms. In the case of fungal infection, now we can go several weeks before symptoms arise."

Bercovici says this technology is continuing to expand and he's hopeful they will reach a point where infectious disease is no longer a major threat to human health.

 

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Scientists at Northwestern University have developed a wearable device that can spot coronavirus symptoms before the person does.

The wireless sensor monitors coughs, fever and respiratory activity. The hope is that the data can help physicians better understand and treat COVID-19.

It looks like a small band-aid, but researchers say the little silicone patch can detect COVID-19 symptoms and record data right to your smartphone or tablet.

“It's a fully wireless battery-operated device that can communicate with any standard Bluetooth-enabled consumer gadget,” said John Rogers, Bioengineering and Neurological Surgery Professor at Northwestern.

The wireless, rechargeable battery-operated device sits just below the suprasternal notch at the base of the throat. From that location, it monitors coughing intensity, respiratory sounds, heartrate and body temperature.

“It's really that subtle motion of the surface of the skin,” said Rogers. “It's almost like a stethoscope in the way you can think about it, but fully digital and wireless in its operation and continuous, in terms of data collection.”

It can be worn 24/7 and produce continuous streams of data using artificial intelligence. All of that data transmits wirelessly to a HIPPA-protected cloud.

“We can determine not only when a cough occurred but whether that cough is a dry cough or a wet cough or whether you're having coughing fits,” said Rogers.

Scientists say the real-time data streaming from patients can give insights into their health not currently being captured or analyzed by traditional monitoring systems.

Another important feature is decontamination.

“Because it's entirely enclosed without any switches or data ports or any kind of openings, it allows us to do very rigorous sterilization, so we immerse these devices in hot alcohol,” said Rogers.

One thing it cannot do is measure blood oxygenation levels – a potentially important early indicator of the disease. But they say the they plan to add that capability to the next round of devices.

The ultimate goal is to be able to catch COVID-19 symptoms early, better understand its onset and progression, and hopefully save lives.

“What we've been able to do is create very thin lightweight soft device platforms that allow mounting on this very sensitive region of the body in a way that sends essentially physically imperceptible,” said Rogers. “So, you put it on and you kind of forget that it's there”

The next step is to find manufacturing partners to scale up production of the device. Rogers says that depending on volume, it could cost less than $100 per device.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data showing that nearly 1 in 5 Americans have a sexually transmitted infection.

The data comes from an analysis of information for 2018, the most recent year available. On any given day in 2018, about 68 million Americans had a sexually transmitted infection, or STI.

About 26 million of the total number who have an STI, acquired their infection in 2018. Of those new infections in 2018, about half were contracted by people between the ages of 15 and 24.

“At a time when STIs are at an all-time high, they have fallen out of the national conversation. Yet, STIs are a preventable and treatable national health threat with substantial personal and economic impact. There is an urgent need to reverse the trend of increasing STIs, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected many STI prevention services,” said Jonathan Mermin, M.D., M.P.H., director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.

The CDC estimates that those 26 million new infections in 2018 will result in nearly $16 billion in lifetime medical costs.

HIV infections are the costliest STI to treat, according to the CDC data, because of the need for lifetime treatment and the cost of that treatment. HPV infections are also costly because of the treatment for HPV-related cancers.

The CDC’s analysis showed ongoing disproportionate numbers of STI’s among certain racial and ethnic groups, in addition to more young adults and more women.

“At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating racial and ethnic health disparities, straining the public health infrastructure, and creating additional challenges to delivering healthcare services, new strategies for increasing access to quality sexual healthcare are critical,” the CDC states.

The agency suggests using strategies being adapted now for the COVID-19 pandemic to be applied to diagnosing and preventing STIs, including opening up new testing and access points like pharmacies and telehealth.

BALTIMORE, Md. — For nature’s flying, feathered friends, bird-friendly gardens, like the one in Patterson Park in Baltimore, can offer comfort and refuge. Lately, though, some wild birds are experiencing anything but that.

“They were showing symptoms, mostly having crusty eyes and neurological symptoms, too,” said David Curson, director of bird conservation for the Audubon Society’s mid-Atlantic chapter. “So, showing lethargy, twitchiness in their bodies, and disorientation.”

In pictures provided by the Blue Ridge Wildlife Center, which has been treating some of the sick birds, the symptoms can be obvious. Most of the ill birds die within days.

“It's a mystery illness,” Curson said. “There are wildlife disease labs around the country working on trying to figure out what the illness is. They have been analyzing corpses of dead birds that have been sent to them.”

Reports of the mystery bird illness first emerged in May in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. However, it appears to be spreading, with wildlife officials now finding similar sick birds in West Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Florida.

“So far, at least 1,000 birds have been affected,” Curson said. “And it's probably quite a few thousand when you consider the large geographic area.”

Scientists have ruled out West Nile virus and avian flu but otherwise remain stumped.

“The most common species that have been affected so far are common grackles, American robins, blue jays, and European starlings,” Curson said. “So, common birds that are likely to come to your feeder.”

That is why experts are now recommending everyone remove their bird feeders.

“Many people worry that the birds are depending on them. And what I would say is that it's midsummer and there was a huge amount of natural food around,” Curson said, “and these birds really don't need your human bird feeders at this time.”

By removing the bird feeders, it could prevent the potential spread to other places of the mystery disease among any birds that might congregate there.

“People who appreciate birds and love birds and like watching birds really need to be convincing the birds to socially distance right now,” said Tony Brusate, president of the Central Kentucky Audubon Society.

In addition to taking down bird feeders, experts also recommend:

• Cleaning bird feeders with a 10% bleach solution, to kill off any potential pathogen
• Don’t handle any dead birds or ones showing symptoms of the illness
• Wear rubber gloves if handling any sick birds
• Keep your pets away from birds showing symptoms
• Report sick birds to state fish and wildlife agencies

“I think the last year has told us that we need to think a lot more about diseases in general than we have been used to doing,” Curson said. “Disease pathogens evolve and mutations can create new versions of them. So, we don't want to be alarmist, but I think it's really important to take a precautionary approach.”

It’s an approach that could help ensure the sound of songbirds doesn’t fade away.