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Stay Well
breaking health news & updates
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CDC Issues Health Alert For Bird Flu Infection In U.S. | |
The U.S. CDC last Friday issued a health alert to inform clinicians, state health departments and the public of a case of avian influenza in a person who had contact with dairy cows presumed to be infected with the virus.
The farm worker from Texas was reported to be infected on April 1, making it the second case of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, identified in a person in the United States.
It follows a 2022 case in Colorado, and comes as the virus is spreading to new mammals, including dairy cattle for the first time.
To prevent infection from the virus, the CDC recommends the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), testing, antiviral treatment, patient investigations and monitoring of persons exposed to sick or dead, wild and domesticated animals and livestock that may have been infected with the virus.
Last week, the CDC said the infection does not change the risk assessment for the U.S. general public from H5N1 bird flu, which it considers to be low. The Texas patient's only symptom was eye inflammation, according to the state's health department. Reuters Read more
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"Be careful not to share sensitive information over e-mail, text messages or other communication paths that might not be so secure.”
Errol Weiss, Chief Security Officer at the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center
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The Database You Don't Want To Need: Check To See If Your Health Data Was Hacked
More than 144 million Americans' medical information was stolen or exposed last year in a record-breaking number of health care data breaches, a USA TODAY analysis of Health and Human Services data found.
After breaking records in 2023, the most significant breach hit in February when a ransomware attack targeted Change Healthcare, the nation's largest health care payment system owned by UnitedHealth Group. The company handles a third of all patient records and processes 15 billion health care transactions a year, according to an HHS letter.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of remote and third-party technologies, making the health care ecosystem more interconnected and vulnerable to cyberattacks, said John Riggi, national advisor for cybersecurity and risk for the American Hospital Association. These technologies can help deliver care to patients wherever they are, but they also give hackers broader access to health care systems and records.
Federal law requires health care organizations to report to Health and Human Services any security breaches that expose patient information. Search by company name, breach type or company location to see if your health information has been compromised. Don’t see a searchable database? Click here. USA Today Read more
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It’s Peak Allergy Season In The Bay Area. Here’s Why You May Feel Worse This Year
If you’ve been sneezing, sniffling, coughing or feeling fatigued from allergies lately, you’re not alone. The Bay Area is in the midst of what has traditionally been considered peak allergy season, March and April. But climate change is leading to higher pollen counts earlier in the year, and prolonging those periods of high pollen, according to allergists and recent research — offering one potential explanation for why seasonal allergy sufferers may feel crummier than usual. “Even though the rain hasn’t quite stopped yet, we’ve already seen an increase in tree pollen starting in the last week or two of March,” said Dr. Jyothi Tirumalasetty, a clinical assistant professor of allergy and immunology at Stanford. SF Chronicle Read more
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Bay Area Startup Helps Women Nationwide Navigate Abortion Care In Post-Roe Landscape
A little more than 10 years ago, Rebecca Nall chose to have an abortion. Not long out of college and living in her native Texas, she found herself pregnant when she didn’t want to be. She reached out to her local Planned Parenthood, but the location didn’t offer the service. That set off a confusing, stressful, and seemingly endless series of Google searches and calls to try and find a nearby, affordable care provider. The experience was taxing even with the support of a partner and friends. Nall’s experience paved the way for her to launch ineedana.com in 2018. The Bay Area-based nonprofit startup is a one-stop shop for people looking for reliable information about reproductive health care and access to abortion. SF Chronicle Read more
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New Kaiser Genomics Lab Opens In San Jose Using Robots For Faster, Cheaper Routine Genetic Tests
An archway of blue and white balloons adorned the entrance of an otherwise unremarkable office building in San Jose this week, marking the grand opening of a new high-tech laboratory for Kaiser Permanente Northern California, which serves 4.5 million people in the region. The new lab is an effort to expand and streamline some common genetic testing routinely done by the insurer and health care provider, and a step towards increasing access to one of the next frontiers in tech and medicine, personalized “precision” treatment based on genome testing. “Genomics is the study of all the genes… in contrast to genetics… the study of a single condition or trait,” said Dr. Jason Rosenbaum, the director of the new lab, and a pathologist with Kaiser. Mercury News Read more
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San Mateo County To Commit $1 Million To Fight Loneliness
San Mateo County will commit to allocating at least $1 million to fight an epidemic of loneliness, Supervisor David Canepa said in a forum last Wednesday on the topic in Redwood City. This is the first financial commitment made by a county official to address loneliness as a public health concern two months after the Board of Supervisors declared it a public health emergency. “I’m here to announce that the County of San Mateo has committed to Peninsula Family Service $1 million. The bottom line is we cannot have our nonprofits doing the work if we don’t invest in the nonprofits,” Canepa said during the event, hosted by Peninsula Family Service, a nonprofit based in the city of San Mateo. “We are committed to doing that.” Canepa told this news organization at the sidelines of Peninsula Family Service’s forum “Overcoming the Epidemic of Loneliness: A Community Challenge” that the budget will be proposed and voted on by the board sometime in September. Mercury News Read more
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California COVID Hospitalizations And Deaths Hit Record Lows
California is witnessing a dramatic decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. Following a relatively subdued winter surge, the latest statistics released by the state provide a glimmer of hope as the pandemic enters its fifth year. The most recent California Department of Public Health data, published Friday, reveals that hospitalizations due to COVID-19 reached approximately 7 patients per 100,000 residents in early January, only to plummet to a historic low of 1.5 per 100,000 by March 30. To put this into perspective, during the peak of the pandemic in January 2021, California recorded a daily average of 54 COVID-19 hospitalizations per 100,000 residents. SF Chronicle Read more
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COVID-Sniffing Dogs Deployed In Alameda County
COVID-19 virus detecting dogs are being deployed into some Alameda County health centers. “Scarlett, a three-year-old yellow labrador and medical detection dog, along with her canine coworker Rizzo, were working their tails off and making friends recently at Park Bridge Rehabilitation & Wellness,” Alameda Health System officials wrote. The dynamic dog duo is part of a pilot program for identifying cases within the county’s health centers. The adorable dogs received warm reactions from clients and staff members who were sniffed at Park Bridge Rehabilitation & Wellness. “We were excited to partner with Early Alert Canines (EAC) for this pilot and our residents and staff loved the opportunity to pet and socialize with Scarlett and Rizzo after the testing,” said Luzviminda Lukban, an associate administrator at the rehab. The yellow labs are trained to sniff near an person’s feet, ankles, or lower leg. If they locate the COVID scent, Scarlett and Rizzo will alert their handler by quickly sitting down. KRON4 Read more
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No Need To Avoid Exercise With Long-COVID Diagnosis, Researchers Say
Recommendations that people with long COVID, or post-COVID condition (PCC), should avoid vigorous exercise are probably too strict, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open from researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Many long-COVID patients are told to avoid activities that exacerbate symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath, and pain, and many report exercise intolerance, or a "flare" in symptoms following exercise. The study was based on 31 patients with PCC but no other diagnoses. They were matched with healthy controls and monitored while performing three different training sessions of high-intensity interval training (HIIT), moderate-intensity continuous training, and strength training in a randomized order a few weeks apart. CIDRAP Read more
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State/National/International News | | |
City-Country Mortality Gap Widens Amid Persistent Holes In Rural Health Care Access
In Matthew Roach’s two years as vital statistics manager for the Arizona Department of Health Services, and 10 years previously in its epidemiology program, he has witnessed a trend in mortality rates that has rural health experts worried. As Roach tracked the health of Arizona residents, the gap between mortality rates of people living in rural areas and those of their urban peers was widening. The health disparities between rural and urban Americans have long been documented, but a recent report from the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service found the chasm has grown in recent decades. In their examination, USDA researchers found rural Americans from the ages of 25 to 54 die from natural causes, like chronic diseases and cancer, at wildly higher rates than the same age group living in urban areas. The analysis did not include external causes of death, such as suicide or accidental overdose.
KFF Health News Read more
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App May Pave Way To Treatments For No. 1 Dementia In Under-60s
A smartphone app could enable greater participation in clinical trials for people with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a devastating neurological disorder that often manifests in mid-life. Research into the condition has been hampered by problems with early diagnosis and difficulty tracking how people are responding to treatments that are only likely to be effective at the early stages of disease. To address this, a research team led by UC San Francisco deployed cognitive tests through a mobile app and found it could detect early signs of FTD in people who were genetically predisposed to get the disease but had not yet developed symptoms. These tests were at least as sensitive as neuropsychological evaluations done in the clinic. The study appeared in JAMA Network Open on April 1, 2024. UCSF Health News Read more
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New Liquid Biopsy Screening Test For Pancreatic Cancer Shows Promise In Early Data
For the vast majority of pancreatic cancer cases, the tumor grows undetected until it has already spread locally or to distant parts of the body. That means most patients, over 80% by some estimates, are diagnosed when it’s already too late to do surgery — depriving them of their best chance for a cure. “For the majority of patients, we cannot resect the tumor. That’s why we have such a high degree of mortality,” said Ajay Goel, a cancer researcher at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope. The key to saving more lives from pancreatic cancer will not just be from improving treatment but by discovering a better way to discover the cancer earlier, Goel said, and he’s getting closer to developing a new blood test that might do just that. At the American Association of Cancer Research annual meeting on Monday, Goel presented early data on the test, which looks for bits of RNA discharged by tumors, suggesting it might be able to detect pancreatic cancer at stage 1 or 2 with a sensitivity of over 90%. STAT Read more
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To Close Racial Gap In Maternal Health, Some States Take Aim At "Implicit Bias"
Countless times, Kenda Sutton-El, a Virginia doula, has witnessed her Black pregnant clients being dismissed or ignored by clinicians. One woman was told by doctors that swelling, pain and warmth in her leg was normal, despite warning the clinicians that she had a history of blood clots. Sutton-El urged her to visit the emergency room. Tests found the pregnant patient did indeed have a blood clot, a situation that can be deadly. Some clients were told they weren’t doing enough to lose weight. After another client was treated dismissively when she paid for a visit in cash, Sutton-El posed as a patient and got the same response, making her wonder how many other Black women had been treated the same way. “The biggest thing is that they’re not being listened to,” said Sutton-El, founder of Birth in Color, a nonprofit that offers doula services to expecting Virginians. Doulas support and advocate for pregnant patients. “They’re being dismissed or [clinicians] act as if the pain isn’t there, or act as if the issue is normal, when it’s not.” Stateline Read more
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Dietary Choices Are Linked To Higher Rates Of Preeclampsia Among Latinas
For pregnant Latinas, food choices could reduce the risk of preeclampsia, a dangerous type of high blood pressure, and a diet based on cultural food preferences, rather than on U.S. government benchmarks, is more likely to help ward off the illness, a new study shows. Researchers at the USC Keck School of Medicine found that a combination of solid fats, refined grains, and cheese was linked to higher rates of preeclampsia among a group of low-income Latinas in Los Angeles. By contrast, women who ate vegetables, fruits, and meals made with healthy oils were less likely to develop the illness. The combination of vegetables, fruits, and healthy oils, such as olive oil, showed a stronger correlation with lower rates of preeclampsia than did the Healthy Eating Index-2015, a list of dietary recommendations designed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services.
KFF Health News Read more
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They Work 80 Hours A Week For Low Pay. Now, California’s Early-Career Doctors Are Joining Unions
In some California hospitals, early-career doctors make as little as $16 per hour working 80-hour weeks. It’s training, known as residency, that every board-certified doctor must complete. The grueling schedules for little pay have been contentious in medicine for decades, and they’re increasingly driving medical residents to form unions. The national accrediting agency for residency programs limits the average work week to 80 hours. Last week, hundreds of resident physicians and fellows at Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California facilities became the latest to join the wave of medical trainees demanding better pay and working conditions. The Press Democrat
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Concerns About Eye Discomfort Appear To Rise After Solar Eclipse
Google searches about “hurt eyes” spiked Monday afternoon, just after many U.S. communities experienced the total solar eclipse. The searches suggest some people in the sun’s path were worried they’d glanced at it too long. It’s a valid concern, eye experts said. Looking at the sun without protective equipment can harm your vision, and complaints of eye issues have been documented after past eclipse events. However, cases of long-term damage after eclipses aren’t common. In addition, hurting eyes aren’t the best indicator of a severe problem: Injuries from “solar retinopathy,” when light injures retinas, occur without immediate pain. Two main types of injuries are possible from looking at the sun — a burn to the outside of the eye and damage to nerve tissue within.
NBC News Read more
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This Bay Area City Is Using AI To Detect Homeless Camps. Will Others Follow Suit?
Across the country, cities have begun experimenting with artificial intelligence to map potholes, reduce traffic and fight wildfires. In San Jose, officials are now harnessing the rapidly evolving technology with another goal in mind: detecting homeless encampments. Three times since December, a white city-owned Toyota sedan affixed with a half-dozen small cameras has cruised through South San Jose to collect footage of parked cars and RVs. The images were then fed into different AI systems developed by four private companies to determine whether people were living inside the vehicles. The open-ended pilot program, thought to be the first of its kind nationwide, may soon also seek to identify tent encampments and could one day expand to a permanent fleet of vehicles that crisscross the city. Mercury News Read more
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Bay Area Civil Rights Advocates Slam Newsom Over Support For Supreme Court Homeless Camp Appeal
Under recent federal court rulings, cities throughout the West Coast are expected to offer homeless people shelter or housing before clearing encampments. Bay Area civil rights groups are now urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the mandate in a case set for later this month that advocates worry could free officials to crack down harder on those living on the street. This week, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area filed a briefwith the high court that also accused state and local politicians — including Gov. Gavin Newsom — of throwing their support behind the appeal to deflect responsibility for their struggles solving a deepening homeless crisis. “This is political theatre,” advocates said in the filing. “Nothing stops California from investing in affordable housing and emergency shelter for thousands of its residents forced to sleep outside.” Mercury News Read more
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Where Biden, Trump And Kennedy Stand On Housing And Homelessness
California voters regularly tell pollsters that the housing crisis and homelessness are the most important issues to them. Tents on street corners is how most Californians understand the crisis, which is normally viewed as the domain of local politicians. The reality is that much of the funding to address homelessness or housing insecurity flows from the federal government. About 28% of the country’s homeless population, or about 180,000 people, live in California. Nationally, homelessness grew again in 2023 and the housing affordability crisis is at the forefront of voters’ minds this election season. The three most prominent presidential candidates — President Biden, former President Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — have all offered some insights to their views on the subject. LA Times Read more
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Gambling Addiction Hotlines Say Volume Is Up And Callers Are Younger As Online Sports Betting Booms
In state after state, centers for problem gambling are noticing an alarming rise in calls to their helplines. The circumstances reported are also getting more severe, according to the directors of five problem gambling centers, a gambling researcher and an addiction counselor. People are filing for bankruptcy or losing homes or relationships. At the same time, callers are skewing younger, the experts said — often men in their 20s and 30s. The directors say the mounting call volume has coincided with the legalization of sports betting and rising popularity of sports betting apps. NBC News Read more
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FDA Clears First Digital Treatment For Depression, But Experts Caution That Research Is Still Early
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is allowing the use of Rejoyn, the first prescription digital treatment for major depressive disorder. Rejoyn, made by Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Click Therapeutics, is a smartphone app intended for use alongside antidepressant medications for people 22 and older who have a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. It employs a six-week program that combines a new approach called cognitive-emotional training and cognitive behavioral therapy lessons, according to a news release. Since Rejoyn is classified as a low- to medium-risk medical device, it needed only to prove that it is "substantially equivalent" to another marketed device - meaning it is just as safe and effective - to gain FDA clearance. ABC7 News Read more
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Fentanyl Crisis/Drug Trends | | |
More Kids Are Dying Of Drug Overdoses. Could Pediatricians Do More To Help?
A 17-year-old boy with shaggy blond hair stepped onto the scale at Tri-River Family Health Center in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. After he was weighed, he headed for an exam room decorated with decals of planets and cartoon characters. A nurse checked his blood pressure. A pediatrician asked about school, home life, and his friendships. This seemed like a routine teen checkup, the kind that happens in thousands of pediatric practices across the U.S. every day — until the doctor popped his next question. “Any cravings for opioids at all?” asked pediatrician Safdar Medina. The patient shook his head. “None, not at all?” Medina said again, to confirm. KFF Health News Read more
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Almost No One Is Happy With Legal Weed
The legalization of cannabis in the United States — the biggest change in policy for an illegal substance since Prohibition ended — has been an unqualified success for approximately no one. True, the drug is widely available for commercial purchase, many marijuana-related charges have been dropped, and stoner culture has become more aligned with designer smoking paraphernalia featured on Goop than the bumbling spaciness of Cheech and Chong. But a significant part of the market is still underground, medical research is scant, and the aboveground market is not exactly thriving. Longtime marijuana activists are unhappy. Entrepreneurs are unhappy. So are people who buy weed, as well as those who think weed should never have been legal in the first place. The Atlantic Read more
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Switzerland Had A Drug Overdose Crisis. Then It Made Methadone Easy To Get
The lobby of this addiction clinic is unremarkable, really, except for the network of metal chutes and tubes that hug the walls as they snake downward from a pharmacy on the upper floors. Every few minutes, a new prescription comes clattering down, delivering a bottle full of powerful and effective pills used to treat opioid addiction to a waiting patient at the front desk. Sometimes, it’s methadone. Other patients prefer slow-release morphine. In rare cases, for those at high risk of overdose or infectious disease, this clinic even prescribes pharmaceutical-grade heroin. This scene is typical of a Monday afternoon in Switzerland. But in the United States, where opioid addiction medications remain controversial and highly stigmatized, it would be unthinkable. Just two medications are approved to treat opioid withdrawal symptoms in the U.S., and methadone, the more effective of the two, is kept under lock and key. Doctors cannot prescribe it except at specialized clinics. Pharmacies cannot dispense it. Instead, most patients seeking methadone treatment must attend their clinic each morning to receive a single dose. STAT Read more
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Best Cities In The World To Live For Your Health
If health is a top priority for you, especially when choosing where to live, you'll find this guide to the world's healthiest cities invaluable. Healthnews analyzed data from 40 of the world's largest and most famous cities, using 10 key metrics to compile its list:
- Happiness index (as recently released in 2024)
- Average weekly physical activity
- Sunshine hours
- Air quality index
- Cost of a fitness club membership for one adult
- Average sleep duration
- Obesity rates
- Total number of hospitals
- Average workweek length
- Price of bottled water
Securing a well-deserved top spot, Amsterdam has long been renowned for its cycling culture, with about 63% of its residents as daily bike riders. This dedication to clean transportation complements the city's increasing focus on personal health, wellness, and nutrition over recent years. San Francisco ranks 38th. Healthnews Read more
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About Eden Health District | | |
The Eden Health District Board of Directors are Chair Pam Russo, Vice Chair Ed Hernandez, Secretary/Treasurer Roxann Lewis, Mariellen Faria and Surlene Grant. The Chief Executive Officer is Mark Friedman.
The Eden Health District is committed to ensuring that policy makers and community members receive accurate and timely information to help make the best policy and personal choices to meet and overcome the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as other health issues.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor Lisa Mahoney.
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