Biomedical subjects
Brendan Healy
Publications and source records attributed to Brendan Healy.
Q fever outbreak in industrial setting.
An outbreak of Q fever occurred in South Wales, United Kingdom, from July 15 through September 30, 2002. To investigate the outbreak a cohort and nested case-control study of persons who had worked at a cardboard manufacturing plant was conducted. The cohort included 282 employees and subcontractors, of whom 253 (90%) provided blood samples and 214 (76%) completed questionnaires. Ninety-five cases of acute Q fever were identified. The epidemic curve and other data suggested an outbreak source likely occurred August 5-9, 2002. Employees in the factory's offices were at greatest risk for infection (odds ratio 3.46; 95% confidence interval 1.38-9.06). The offices were undergoing renovation work around the time of likely exposure and contained straw board that had repeatedly been drilled. The outbreak may have been caused by aerosolization of Coxiella burnetii spore-like forms during drilling into contaminated straw board.
Investigation and analysis of ferrous sulfate polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) gel dosimeter.
Ferrous sulfate (Fe(SO4)2) PVA gels were investigated for a range of absorbed doses up to 20 Gy using both magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectrophotometry to determine R1 and optical density (OD) dose responses and G values. It was found that R1- and OD-dose sensitivities increased with O2 saturation or by the introduction of a freeze-thaw cycle during preparation of the PVA gel. The storage temperature of the Fe(SO4)2 PVA gel at -18 degrees C increased R1-dose sensitivity above that of gels stored at 5 degrees C. The addition of sucrose to the formulation was found to result in the largest increase in both R1- and OD-dose sensitivities. Fe(SO4)2 PVA gel with and without the addition of xylenol orange was demonstrated to have a G value of approximately 20 ions/100 eV and with sucrose approximately 24 ions/100 eV.