New York says it has reached a "milestone" in halting the measles outbreak that started in October 2018, and U.S. public health officials now believe the country has retained its measles elimination status — just barely meeting the year deadline, a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
Yes, but: Recent cases reported from returning international travelers demonstrate the danger of new outbreaks when there are still pockets of communities with low vaccination rates. Despite measles being mostly preventable, the combination of the anti-vaccination movement and vaccine hesitancy places several communities at risk.
The rate of pregnant women with Hepatitis C was 5 times higher in 2015 than in 2000 due to the substantial level of opioid abuse in the U.S., according to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released Thursday.
The big picture: 68% of pregnant women with Hepatitis C have opioid use disorder. Overall cases of the virus almost tripled in the past few years, an effect of the opioid crisis and the unsanitary use of needles by drug users, CDC previously reported.
Lung injuries from vaping are "most likely" caused by direct toxicity or tissue damage from noxious chemical fumes, the Mayo Clinic said in a statement Wednesday announcing new findings. But the researchers cautioned the study is in its early stages and based on a small sample size.
Why it matters: Scientists are trying to determine the cause of the vaping-associated lung disease, which has led to at least 17 deaths, more than 800 reported injuries in almost all U.S. states, and bans on various vaping and tobacco products.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, and urged California Gov. Gavin Newsom to enact a statewide vaping ban, per City News Service via L.A. Times.
2020 contender Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign announced Wednesday that he underwent a medical procedure to insert two stents after blockage was found in an artery.
Why it matters: Senior adviser Jeff Weaver said the 78-year-old candidate would be canceling all campaign events "until further notice," but noted that Sanders was "conversing and in good spirits." The news comes one day after the campaign announced a $25.3 million fundraising haul for Q3, the biggest yet among the wide Democratic field.
The House Ways and Means Committee is considering banning surprise medical bills and forcing the administration to decide how providers get paid for out-of-network care, according to a letter sent by Chairman Richard Neal to Democratic members.
The big picture: Payment resolution has sparked an intense fighting among insurers, hospitals and doctors.
The Obama-era FDA tried to ban flavored vaping products in order to protect kids, but White House officials blocked the plan following aggressive lobbying from the vaping industry, according to hundreds of documents obtained by the LA Times.
Why it matters: The evidence suggesting that flavors could have a significant impact on youth vaping was essentially covered up.
Northwell Health, one of the biggest not-for-profit hospital systems in the country, is planning to develop its own system for electronic medical records, with the ultimate goal of selling the technology to other hospitals and clinics.
Why it matters: Physicians, nurses and others generally dislike most of the existing electronic health record systems. But this is an unusually proactive effort from a hospital system to actually solve those problems.
Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday that it has reached a $20.4 million settlement with 2 Ohio counties ahead of a massive opioid trial, under what the Washington Post describes as a "tentative" deal.
The big picture: These Ohio counties — Cuyahoga and Summit County — were set to be one of the first cases to go to trial from lawsuits brought by over 2,500 counties, cities, Native American tribes and others against nearly 2 dozen pharmacies, drug manufacturers, and distributors for their role in the U.S. opioid epidemic, the Post reports.
