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Health Care Tag

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 29, 2017 21 Comments
A measles outbreak in Minnesota is widening as the state's public health and emergency preparedness officials scramble to stop the spread.
As of Thursday afternoon, April 27, the Minnesota Department of Health had confirmed 28 cases in Hennepin County and one in Stearns County. All were among children under age 5, most of them unvaccinated. "Measles is very contagious and can spread very quickly," said Denise Kragenbring, public health supervisor with Kandiyohi County Public Health.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 26, 2017 34 Comments
In honor of the recent "March for Science", I have decided to review a scientific assertion that is completely settled. Salt is bad for you because it raises blood pressure. A sample of this consensus is on the website for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, focused on salt safety:
Most Americans Should Consume Less Sodium Most of the sodium we consume is in the form of salt, and the vast majority of sodium we consume is in processed and restaurant foods. Your body needs a small amount of sodium to work properly, but too much sodium is bad for your health. Excess sodium can increase your blood pressure and your risk for a heart disease and stroke. Together, heart disease and stroke kill more Americans each year than any other cause.

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 18, 2017 9 Comments
As the nation's opioid crisis continues to grow, some cities are taking dramatic steps to deal with its associated problems. Las Vegas has actually introduced vending machines which dispense clean syringes for free. The Daily Caller reports:
Syringe Vending Machines Hit Las Vegas Amid Heroin Crisis Las Vegas will get the nation’s first vending machine for drug syringes to combat spiking heroin deaths in the state and reduce the transmission of HIV.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 06, 2017 3 Comments
As the weather gets warmer, public health officials are bracing for more outbreaks of Zika virus infections in this country. Cooler weather temporarily stemmed the spread of the virus, which hit over 5100 Americans in 2016. However, in the interim since my last report on this topic in November, researchers have made a troubling discovery. Based on reports from South America, the pathogen is believed to cause a wide array of neurological birth defects when women become infected when pregnant. Now, reports from women in this country who have given birth after infection confirm the potential health impact.

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 29, 2017 5 Comments
Elizabeth Warren's opinion on healthcare and the single payer option seems to shift with political convenience. It's hard to believe, isn't it? Back in 2012, when being a good Democrat meant defending Obamacare at all costs, she abandoned her prior support for a single payer plan. She got caught in an interview with liberal Boston radio host Jim Braude. Here's a transcript of their conversation via the Weekly Standard:
Elizabeth Warren Supported Single-Payer Before She Opposed It HOST: If you were the tsarina, something like single-payer, government run health care, far lower administrative costs, that sort of thing, would be the Senator Warren prescription, would it not? ELIZABETH WARREN: I think right now what we have to do--I’m serious about this--I think you’ve got to stay with what’s possible. And I think what we’re doing–and look at the dust-up around this–we really need to consolidate our gains around what we’ve got on the table.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 25, 2017 8 Comments
Last year, I noted that once vanquished diseases were emerging across America, in part because of the steady stream of infected immigrants crossing the border. These included the tuberculosis, the historic killer that once once responsive to the antibiotics our medical professionals prepared. However, the influx of refugees with resistant strains of this pathogen is now threatening the quality of our nation's health.
The rise of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) threatens to derail decades of progress in the fight against the disease, experts warn in a new report published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. TB kills more people worldwide every year than any other infectious disease, including HIV/AIDS. In 2015 alone, researchers estimate TB killed 1.8 million people.

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 01, 2017 8 Comments
New Jersey Governor gave his 2018 Budget Address on Monday and asked the state's largest health insurance company, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, to set up a charitable fund to help provide funds to treat those with opiate addiction:
“I am confident Horizon will embrace this opportunity and partner with us to establish this permanent, sustainable fund,” Christie said, prompting laughter from the crowd packed into the State House Assembly chamber. “They will not turn their back on the people of New Jersey who pay their salaries and, as the people’s representatives, we will partner with them to make sure it happens by June 30,” he added.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on February 20, 2017 37 Comments
Despite the fact that I hold no medical degree, I don't think I am going out on a limb when I diagnose California's political class as being certifiably insane. The Golden State's legislators are bracing for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare by proposing a single-payer, government-run health care plan that includes illegal aliens.
“We’ve reached this pivotal moment and I thought to myself: ‘Look, now more than ever is the time to talk about universal health care,’” one of Senate Bill 562’s authors, Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, said in an interview Friday.
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