Public Health

Camden County and state officials said yesterday that a common type of water bacteria was responsible for killing dozens of fish in Haddon Lake. The bacteria, called Aeromonos, attacked gizzard shad and black crappies, two of the six species of fish in the lake, which is sandwiched between Audubon and Mount Ephraim. "What they caught was a common bacteria," said Phil DiMartino, director of Camden County Parks, "and it whacked 'em. " The bacteria do not pose a public health risk, he said.

A bacteria that can devour human flesh at the rate of a square inch an hour was present in both a man and a woman who died in the last week at two hospitals run by the same system, the New Jersey Department of Health said yesterday. The man, Edward Michael Layton, 56, of Mount Laurel, a union electrician who appeared in good health as recently as Friday night, died at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday at West Jersey Health Systems' Marlton division, according to his son, Michael Jr. An unidentified 70-year-old woman, whose hometown and date of death were not available, died at the system's Voorhees hospital, Dana Sullivan, a spokesman for the state Department of Health, said.

Aided by thousands of studies each year, scientists seemingly know everything there is to know about the health of Americans. They know that 2.4 million young people ages 12 to 17 used illegal drugs in the last month. They know that 25.5 percent of American adults smoke, 18 percent of them only occasionally. The result of all this information, the experts say, is smarter public health decisions, leading to longer lives and less disease. The problem is, much of the information is based on people's reports of their own behavior.

Have you seen much public health lately? I don't mean public payment for health care for the poor, but classic public health: actions taken on behalf of the community to prevent epidemics, protect against environmental hazards, prevent injury, promote healthy behavior, respond to emergencies, and ensure the quality and availability of care. A public-health nurse at the school to help parents and children manage asthma? An outreach program for young mothers to encourage healthy pregnancy and infant development?

His coffee consumption level hasn't changed. Nor has his sleep schedule. But Michael McTigue feels a lot more energetic at work these days, perhaps because he stands most of the time. Sitting at a traditional office desk, "I ended up exhausted at the end of the day," said McTigue, director of digital media for pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. "There was nothing stimulating me. " About a year ago, Glaxo set up a pilot program in which employees could work at adjustable-height desks, among a slew of other workplace design changes in preparation for the company's move from its Center City offices to the Navy Yard on Monday.

The concrete outside the Pine Street apartment of Penn student Anne Ryan had been freshly laid. Four friends paused there yesterday to memorialize her, drawing tiny hearts and initials with bare fingers. Ryan, 19, a sophomore, died of meningococcal meningitis Sunday morning after being hospitalized Saturday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Penn health officials are investigating whom Ryan was in contact with over the last 10 days and how she contracted the illness, said Jeff Moran, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

Christopher J. Conners, 51, an attending physician in diagnostic radiology at Lankenau Hospital from June 1992 to March 2001, drowned Tuesday, July 3, in a boating accident off the Danish island of Mon. Since 2009, he had been an attending physician in teleradiology service for NightHawk Radiology Services, with headquarters in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Dr. Conners worked for the firm most recently from its offices in Sydney, Australia, and Zurich, Switzerland, his sister, Anne, said.

The arrest of West Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell on charges of murdering a patient and seven newborn infants has thrown an unusual spotlight on Pennsylvania regulators who, a Philadelphia grand jury concluded, "should have shut him down long ago. " But Pennsylvania's system of oversight - or lack of it, in the grand jury's view - may not be unusual. For five months last year, New Jersey regulators received complaints that abortion doctor Steven Brigham, 54, was running a secret, cash-only, late-term abortion business using a risky interstate scheme - one for which he was disciplined in the 1990s.

Delaware state officials yesterday suspended the license of an internationally-known pediatrician accused of "waterboarding" his 11-year-old daughter. Melvin Morse, 58, poses a "clear and immediate danger to the public health," declared a filing published on the website of the Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline. Morse, who has written several best-sellers about near-death experiences and appeared on numerous TV talk shows, was arrested Tuesday at his Georgetown home after his daughter told investigators Morse waterboarded her as a punishment.

Delaware County officials announced Tuesday that they had hired a family-practice physician as a medical adviser for the county. The adviser, George K. Avetian of Radnor, will help coordinate public-health efforts in the county. The position was added in response to a study by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released last year that found the county's public-health system lacking in leadership and coordination. Avetian has a medical practice in Upper Darby and is on staff at Delaware County Memorial Hospital.