Recognizing the highly integrated nature of patient sharing between institutions, the Centers for Disease Control rightly aims to make a dent in healthcare-associated infection deaths by using a regional, nuanced approach. Thank you.
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It's one thing to read countless stories about pain patients being subjected to indescribable suffering, thanks to a thoroughly misguided, foolish CDC attempt to "address" the opioid overdose epidemic. It's quite another to actually speak with one of them, whose story is haunting and profoundly upsetting.
Many Americans hold beliefs about the flu vaccine that are at odds with the best available scientific evidence. For example, a recent study found that 43 percent of Americans believe that the seasonal flu vaccine can give us the flu. Scientific research strongly suggests that this is not true. Because most modern flu shots do not contain a live virus, the shot itself simply cannot get us sick.
According to the CDC, the percentage of children who have ever had chickenpox has fallen dramatically since a vaccine was licensed for use in the U.S. in 1995. But because fewer kids have chickenpox, there is less virus circulating among the public. It's thought that exposure to the virus helps keep shingles in check, which is normally associated with older folks.
Financial conflicts of interest are of increasing concern. And when this occurs, the response from medical leadership, authors and publishers must be disclosure. Here we shed some sunlight on how well we adhere to our self-imposed standards.
It's dangerous being livestock. If you aren't being fattened up to be turned into a Happy Meal, you're wandering the fields, gobbling up plants that appear tasty and innocent – but are actually toxic. Plant poisonings cost the livestock industry more than $500 million every year.
Infectious disease remains a national and global security threat. With the ease in which people can travel around the world, we should expect other exotic diseases to arrive in America. Ebola, Lassa, and Zika have already done so, and yet-to-be-identified microbes are also likely to be imported.
Just because a current smoker first started with e-cigarettes does not mean that e-cigarettes caused that person to smoke. It's probably true that teenage tobacco users also consume alcohol and caffeine. According to the CDC's faulty logic, therefore, we could also conclude that beer and soda are gateway drugs.
Protecting foreign service members is one of the most important responsibilities of the U.S. State Department. So, reducing the number of American diplomats in Cuba – as well as expelling Cuban diplomats from Washington, to emphasize the situation's gravity – is entirely appropriate, especially since we still have no idea what actually happened.
ACSH Director of Medicine Dr. Jamie Wells traveled to Washington, DC to spend the afternoon with White House Physician to the President Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson.
As the first physician to serve three administrations AND be the appointed Physician to the President for two presidents, Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson is a historical figure. Find out here: Are presidents difficult patients? Can his team operate on Air Force One? How does he feel about his recent press conference over President Trump's physical or the politicizing of a candidate's health, in general? And more...
Rather than rehash the disclosure of conflicts that led to the downfall of the now-former Chief Medical Officer at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, consider how this episode reflects a more common problem of "entitled" powerful people. Here are two remedies that don't require investigations and can possibly help correct medical research's vacillating integrity dilemma.
In a move steeped in nonsense, Dr. Mehmet Oz has been appointed by Donald Trump to the President's Council on Sport, Fitness and Nutrition. Since his views on health and medicine are so lacking in scientific evidence, we have no idea why anyone is still listening to him at all anymore.
Diabetes + High Deductibles = Delays in Care A study tries to show that this is true, but the evidence is unconvincing
Disparities in physicians, based on gender, make the news when women appear better than men. This study runs counter to the popular narrative – and it's just as flawed as the other studies. Why didn't it make bigger headlines?
Ever wonder why orange juice tastes to bitter after brushing your teeth? It's science.
Ever wonder why brushing your teeth may suppress or open up your appetite? That's science-y.
Tularemia is caused by the bacterium Francisella tularensis. Because it naturally infects rabbits and rodents, there isn't much we can do to eradicate it. Roughly 125 Americans are diagnosed with tularemia annually.
What if malaria, which affects hundreds of millions worldwide annually, could be sniffed out before it began delivering its debilitating, flu-like effects? Well, that is what's literally happening, with researchers utilizing dogs' keen sense of smell in a recent study to determine malaria's presence in humans.
Would knowing more about one's genetic makeup help select the best type of diet for weight loss? Apparently not, since researchers found that information about a person's DNA doesn't help when choosing between low-fat and low-carb diets.
As if hospitals aren't bad enough, a really dangerous bug called Clostridium difficile is all over the place. And this bug, more commonly known as (C. diff), is not so easy to kill. Researchers looked at what happens when you wash contaminated sheets. The expression "it call comes out in the wash" does not apply.
New legislation might be the key to bringing opposing political parties together in this Pacific Northwest state. The state penalizes drivers — which bicycle commuters cheered. But now officials have created a special tax on cyclists, too, and that has united the left and right in mutual outrage.
Did the North Korean regime hire former Soviet scientists to build a biological weapons program? Given what we know about both countries, the possibility cannot be ruled out.
This method uses revolutionary “dipstick” technology. The protocol involves a tissue sample that's ground up and the dipstick, made of wax-coated filter paper, is inserted, almost immediately capturing the DNA and RNA.
Pancreatic cancer is the most aggressive, least treatable form of the disease, and in a large majority of cases it reduces the victim's life expectancy to a matter of months. German researchers say they've discovered why it's so ravenous, and they've traced the cancer's aggressiveness to a key factor in its earliest growth and composition.
Oftentimes eye drops do not end up where they are needed. Now, purchasers of eye expensive drops like those used to treat glaucoma – as well as the companies that make them – are now turning their collective gaze towards the U.S. Supreme Court, for a different kind of solution.
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