iab-healthcare industry – Zittrex Store

May 26, 2023

Autism Fast Facts | CNN

Post By zittrexstore Health autism, brand safety-nsf health issues, brand safety-nsf sensitive, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children, cnn fast facts, communicable disease control, demographic groups, developmental disabilities, diseases and disorders, domestic alerts, domestic-health and science, families and children, family members and relatives, government organizations - us, health and medical, iab-business and finance, iab-children's health, iab-diseases and conditions, iab-family and relationships, iab-healthcare industry, iab-healthy living, iab-industries, iab-medical health, iab-vaccines, international alerts, international-health and science, population and demographics, Public health, society, us department of health and human services, us federal departments and agencies, vaccination and immunization No Comments

CNN
—

Here is a look at autism.

Autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) incorporates a group of neurodevelopmental disorders causing impaired communication skills and social skills. ASD generally starts before three years of age and lasts a lifetime, but early intervention plays a role in treatment and progress.

ASD is about four times more common among boys than girls, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

ASD can be found among all races, ethnicities and socioeconomic groups.

The prevalence of ASD in the United States is about one in 36 8-year-olds, according to a 2023 CDC report.

Health care costs for children with autism are four to six times greater than medical costs for children without autism, according to research published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

April 2 is World Autism Day.

There is no definitive medical test to diagnose autism. Instead, the disorder is diagnosed by observing a child’s development.

According to the CDC, signs of autism may include deficits in social communication and interaction in a variety of contexts, difficulty engaging in back-and-forth conversation and an absence of interest in forming friendships with peers.

The debate over whether autism spectrum disorders are caused by vaccines started in 1998 when the medical journal The Lancet published a now-retracted study by researcher Andrew Wakefield linking the MMR vaccine to autism.

Most of Wakefield’s co-authors withdrew their names from the study when they learned he had been compensated by a law firm intending to sue manufacturers of the vaccine in question. In 2010, Wakefield lost his medical license. In 2011, the Lancet retracted the study after an investigation found Wakefield altered or misrepresented information on the 12 children who were the basis for the conclusion of the study.

Other researchers have not been able to replicate Wakefield’s findings. Several subsequent studies trying to reproduce the results have found no link between vaccines and autism, including several reviews by the Institute of Medicine.

Early 1900s – Autistic characteristics are studied as symptoms of schizophrenia.

1938 – Donald Gray Triplett of Mississippi is first examined by child psychiatrist Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins Hospital and later becomes the first person diagnosed with autism symptoms.

1943 – Triplett is identified as “Donald T.” in the paper “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact” by Kanner. The paper elaborates on the idea that autism is related to lack of parental warmth; this is later dubbed the “refrigerator mother” theory.

1944 – Hans Asperger, an Austrian physician, publishes a paper about autistic syndrome. The paper gains wider recognition when it is translated into English in the early 1990s.

1964 – Bernard Rimland, a research psychologist, publishes “Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior,” which contradicts the “refrigerator mother” hypothesis. Kanner is the author of the foreword.

1965 – Rimland founds the National Society for Autistic Children (now the Autism Society). He later establishes the Autism Research Institute.

1980 – Autism is classified separately from schizophrenia in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III).

December 18, 2007 – The United Nations adopts a resolution declaring April 2 World Autism Awareness Day.

October 29, 2014 – The medical journal Nature reports that scientists have identified 60 genes with a greater than 90% chance of increasing a child’s autism risk.

December 17, 2015 – Scientists at Harvard and MIT announce they have found, for the first time, a link between autistic behavior and reduced activity of a key neurotransmitter, a type of brain chemical that enables the transmission of signals across neurons, allowing the brain to communicate with other organs.

April 21, 2016 – The Simons Foundation announces that it is launching an autism research project called SPARK. The study, which involves scientists at 21 hospitals and university clinics, will focus on the possible connection between genetics and autism. Parents of children with autism are invited to sign up online and participate in the study. The group also works with Autism Speaks and the Autism Science Foundation to run the Autism BrainNet network, which is an autism brain bank that collects postmortem donations.

February 2017 – Researchers find that monitoring MRI brain scans of infants may help predict whether they will develop autism, according to a study published in the journal, Nature. The researchers found a possible link between brain enlargement during the first year of life and an autism diagnosis at age 2. This builds on previous similar research.

March 19, 2017 – CBS News’ “60 Minutes” profiles “Sesame Street’s” newest Muppet character, a girl named Julia who has autism.

April 11, 2017 – A study published in the American Journal of Public Health finds that people with autism are three times more likely than the general population to die because of preventable injuries, and children and young teens with autism are 40 times more likely to die from preventable injury than the general child population. Suffocation, asphyxiation and drowning are the leading causes of fatal injuries among people with autism.

March 26, 2018 – According to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics, children with autism spectrum disorder and their younger siblings are less likely to be fully vaccinated than children unaffected by autism.

March 4, 2019 – A study of over 650,000 children published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine shows that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine does not increase the risk of autism and does not trigger autism in children who are at risk.

April 29, 2019 – A study published in JAMA Pediatrics suggests that children can be screened for autism spectrum disorder at 14 months of age with high accuracy (instead of 18 to 24 months of age, as is currently recommended).

January 23, 2020 – A study in the journal Cell identifies 102 genes that are associated with an autism risk. Previously, researchers were only aware of 65.

May 10, 2020 – In a report published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, the CDC estimates that 2.2% of Americans adults have autism spectrum disorder. The report, which is the first US study of autism in adults, indicates that up to 5.4 million people age 18 and older, or about 1 in 45 people, have an autism spectrum condition.

February 14, 2022 – A meta-analysis published in JAMA Pediatrics finds that early mortality, due to natural or unnatural causes, is more than two times more likely for people with autism spectrum disorder than the general population.

Source link

#Autism #Fast #Facts #CNN

May 24, 2023

Sleep apnea raises risk of long Covid by up to 75% for some, study says | CNN

Post By zittrexstore Health behavior and cognition, brand safety-nsf health issues, brand safety-nsf sensitive, business, business and industry sectors, coronavirus, diseases and disorders, domestic alerts, domestic-coronavirus, domestic-health and science, economy and trade, health and medical, Health Care, health care information, iab-business and finance, iab-diseases and conditions, iab-healthcare industry, iab-industries, iab-infectious diseases, iab-lung and respiratory health, iab-medical health, iab-science, iab-sleep disorders, Infectious Diseases, international alerts, international-coronavirus, international-health and science, life forms, microscopic life, respiratory diseases, science, sleep, sleep disorders, viruses No Comments

CNN
—

Adults who have obstructive sleep apnea have up to an 75% increased risk, on average, of developing long Covid after a SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with people without sleep apnea, a new study found.

Women with obstructive sleep apnea had up to an 89% increased risk, while men had a 59% higher risk, according to the analysis of electronic health data on nearly 1.8 million people.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a potentially dangerous disorder in which breathing stops for about 10 seconds multiple times during the night due to a blockage of the airways by heavy or relaxed soft tissues in the mouth and throat.

A second analysis of medical records of a smaller group of 330,000 adults found the risk to be only 12%, according to the study, which is part of RECOVER, or Researching Covid to Enhance Recovery. RECOVER is a National Institutes of Health initiative dedicated to understanding why some people develop long Covid and how best to detect, treat, and prevent the condition.

Why the huge difference in numbers? People in the larger study had additional health concerns, or comorbidities, such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, said senior study author Lorna Thorpe, co-lead of the RECOVER Clinical Science Core at NYU Langone Health.

“The range of 12% to 75% is likely due to a combination of different study populations and different levels of comorbidities, but also different definitions of long Covid,” she said. “We didn’t even have a diagnostic code for long Covid until October 2021.

“I believe the risk is likely to be in the middle, but we will need additional studies to tease that out,” added Thorpe, a professor and director of the division of epidemiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

A third analysis of medical records of 102,000 children with sleep apnea found no correlation between sleep apnea and long Covid after the various confounding health conditions were factored out, “which, of course, is great news,” Thorpe said.

“By using three very large networks of electronic health records, we were able to do this study three times, which is one of the strengths of the research,” she added. “This study is the first collaboration of this focus and scale to find that adults with sleep apnea are at greater risk for long Covid.”

This is an “important study” on long Covid, said Dr. Sairam Parthasarathy, a principal investigator of the University of Arizona Health Sciences RECOVER Adult Study and professor of medicine.

“Research needs to be done in a prospective study to verify this association, and if found to be true these findings have implications for treatment of long Covid,” said Parthasarathy, who was not involved in the study.

“It is important to note that some of the symptoms of long Covid such as fatigue may be related to obstructive sleep apnea, and that the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea may improve such long Covid-related symptoms,” he added.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Sleep, is one of a several studies released since Congress allocated $1.15 billion to NIH in January 2021, to study the long-term effects of Covid over a four-year period. To date, the agency says it has used about $811 million to fund research.

Researchers wanted to investigate the role of sleep apnea in long Covid due to the well-known association between the condition and poorer outcomes after a Covid infection.

“People with sleep apnea are at higher risk for a more severe case of Covid-19, admission to intensive care at the hospital and for mortality,” Thorpe said.

“Obstructive sleep apnea can result in increased inflammation, potentially disrupted sleep leading to an increased propensity to develop infections and reduced immunity,” said Dr. Bhanu Prakash Kolla, a sleep medicine specialist in the Center for Sleep Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

“This could potentially explain the pathway by which obstructive sleep apnea leads to an increased risk of having Covid and also … (long Covid),” said Kolla, who was not involved in the study.

Sleep apnea is an underdiagnosed condition regardless of gender, said the University of Arizona’s Parthasarathy.

“It is conservatively estimated that 80% of patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are not diagnosed,” he said. In addition, “an assumption with these analyses is that patients with OSA are likely to be treated. However, nearly half of them are not using the treatment.”

Why would women have up to an 89% higher risk compared with 59% in men? The study did not address that issue.

However, “one can postulate this difference may be based on what we know about sex differences in sleep and immune responses,” said Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Zee, who was not involved with the new research, coauthored one of the first published studies on the link between sleep apnea and serious Covid infection.

“Women typically have stronger immune responses to viral infections, and thus also vulnerability for post-infection inflammation,” Zee said. “Women in general have more insomnia and with long Covid tend to present with fatigue and insomnia symptoms, which are also common symptoms of long Covid.”

Another reason could be that sleep apnea has historically been considered a male disease, Thorpe said, which could mean that by the time a woman is diagnosed her apnea is more advanced.

“It could be that the women who are documented in electronic health records have more severe sleep apnea because physicians more often look for sleep apnea among men,” she said.

As scientists continue to learn more about long Covid, further information will become available, Thorpe said. In the meantime, people who have sleep apnea — or who snore, snort and stop breathing at night, which are all signs of the condition — should be exceedingly careful when they contact Covid.

“People with sleep apnea who get infected with Covid should seek early treatment and consider getting Paxlovid, the oral medication prescribed to reduce risk of severe outcomes,” Thorpe said. “They should also keep up with their vaccinations to lower the risk of infection in the first place.”

Source link

#Sleep #apnea #raises #risk #long #Covid #study #CNN

May 20, 2023

Conjoined Twins Fast Facts | CNN

Post By zittrexstore Health brand safety-nsf health issues, brand safety-nsf sensitive, business, business and industry sectors, california, children, children's health, children's hospitals, cnn fast facts, continents and regions, demographic groups, domestic alerts, domestic-health and science, domestic-us news, economy and trade, families and children, family members and relatives, health and health care (by demographic group), health and medical, Health Care, health care facilities, hospitals, iab-business and finance, iab-children's health, iab-family and relationships, iab-healthcare industry, iab-healthy living, iab-industries, iab-medical health, iab-surgery, international alerts, international-health and science, international-us news, maternal and child health, medical fields and specialties, medical treatments and procedures, North America, Pediatrics, population and demographics, society, southwestern united states, surgery, the americas, twins and multiple births, United States No Comments

CNN
—

Here’s a look at conjoined twins.

Conjoined twins are physically connected to one another at some point on their bodies.

Conjoined twins occur once every 200,000 live births, according to the University of Minnesota.

About 70% of conjoined twins are female.

Conjoined twins are identical – they are the same sex.

According to the Mayo Clinic, conjoined twins may be joined at any of these areas: chest, abdomen, spine, pelvis, trunk or head.

Scientists believe that conjoined twins develop from a single fertilized egg that fails to separate completely as it divides.

The term “Siamese twins” originated with Eng and Chang Bunker, a set of conjoined twins who were born in Siam (now Thailand) in 1811. They lived to age 63 and appeared in traveling exhibitions. Chang and Eng both married and fathered a total of 21 children between them.

In 1955, neurosurgeon Dr. Harold Voris of Mercy Hospital in Chicago performed the first successful procedure separating conjoined twins.

Lea and Tabea Block
Born August 9, 2003, in Lemgo, Germany, to Peter and Nelly Block. They are joined at the head. On September 16, 2004, the girls are separated. Tabea dies shortly thereafter.

Jade and Erin Buckles
Born February 26, 2004, to Melissa and Kevin Buckles at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. They share a liver. On June 19, 2004, they are successfully separated.

Tatiana and Anastasia Dogaru
Born January 13, 2004, in Rome to Romanian parents Claudia and Alin Dogaru. They are connected at the head. In August 2007, doctors at University Hospital’s Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland announce that they will not perform a separation of the girls because the surgery is too risky.

Abbigail and Isabelle Carlsen
Born November 29, 2005, in Fargo, North Dakota, to Amy and Jesse Carlsen. They are joined at the abdomen and chest. On May 12, 2006, a team of 30 people, including 18 surgeons from various specialties at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, perform a successful operation to separate the girls.

Regina and Renata Salinas Fierros
Born August 2, 2005, in Los Angeles to Sonia Fierros and Federico Salinas. Born facing each other and joined from the lower chest to the pelvis, they are fused in several places including the liver and genitals, and they share a large intestine. Regina is born with one kidney. On June 14, 2006, the twins are separated during a day-long surgery at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

Abygail and Madysen Fitterer
Born August 8, 2006, to Stacy and Suzy Fitterer from Bismarck, North Dakota. They are born joined at the abdomen and share a liver. On January 3, 2007, they are separated in a surgery at the Mayo Clinic.

Preslee Faith and Kylee Hope Wells
Born October 25, 2008, in Oklahoma City to Stevie Stewart and Kylie Wells. They are attached at the chest and are believed to be the first Native American conjoined twins. On January 19, 2009, they are separated at Children’s Hospital at OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City. On February 19, 2011, Preslee Faith dies.

Arthur and Heitor Rocha Brandao
Born April 2009 in Bahia, Brazil, to Eliane and Delson Rocha. They are joined at the hip and share a bladder, intestines, liver and genitals. The twins only have three legs between them. On February 24, 2015, the five-year-old twins undergo a 15-hour separation surgery after months of preparation. Arthur dies three days later after he suffers cardiac arrest.

Angelica and Angelina Sabuco
Born August 2009 in the Philippines to Fidel and Ginady Sabuco. They are joined at the chest and abdomen. On November 1, 2011, they are successfully separated after a 10-hour surgery at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in San Jose, California.

Hassan and Hussein Benhaffaf
Born December 2, 2009, in London to Angie and Azzedine Benhaffaf from East Cork, Ireland. They are attached at the chest but share no major organs. On April 8, 2010, they undergo a 14-hour separation surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Both survive.

Maria and Teresa Tapia
Born April 8, 2010, in the Dominican Republic to Lisandra Sanatis and Marino Tapia. They are joined at the lower chest and abdomen and share a liver, pancreatic glands, and part of their small intestine. On November 8, 2011, they are successfully separated following a 20-hour procedure.

Joshua and Jacob Spates
Born January 24, 2011, in Memphis, Tennessee, to Adrienne Spates. They are joined back to back at the pelvis and lower spine, each with separate hearts, heads and limbs. On August 29, 2011, they are successfully separated after a 13-hour surgery. In October 2013, Jacob passes away.

Rital and Ritag Gaboura
Born September 22, 2010, in Khartoum, Sudan, to Abdelmajeed and Enas Gaboura. They are joined at the head. On August 15, 2011, they are successfully separated after a four-stage operation. Two operations took place in May, one in July and the final operation in August.

Allison June and Amelia Lee Tucker
Born March 1, 2012, to Shellie and Greg Tucker. They are attached at the lower chest and abdomen and share their chest wall, diaphragm, pericardium and liver. On November 7, 2012, they are successfully separated after a seven-hour surgery at Children’s Hospital Philadelphia.

A’zhari and A’zhiah Lawrence
Born October 10, 2012, in Virginia to Nachell Jones and Carlos Lawrence. They are joined from the chest to the abdomen and have a conjoined liver. On April 22, 2013, they are successfully separated following 14 hours of surgery. On October 14, 2013, A’zhari passes away.

Emmett and Owen Ezell
Born July 15, 2013, in Dallas to Jenni and Dave Ezell. They are joined at the liver and the intestine. On August 24, 2013, they are successfully separated.

Knatalye Hope and Adeline Faith Mata
Born April 11, 2014, in Houston to Elysse and John Matta. They are joined at the chest, sharing a liver, heart lining, diaphragm, intestines and colon. On February 17, 2015, a team of 12 surgeons separate the twins during a 26-hour procedure.

Erika and Eva Sandoval
Born August 10, 2014, in California to Aida and Arturo Sandoval. They are joined at the lower chest and upper abdomen and share a liver, bladder, two kidneys and three legs. On December 6-7, 2016, they are successfully separated after 17 hours of surgery at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford in California.

Acen and Apio Akello
Born September 23, 2014, in Uganda to Ester Akello. They are joined at the hip and pelvis. On September 3, 2015, more than 30 medical specialists help separate the twins’ spinal cord during a 16-hour surgery at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio. To prepare for the surgery, medical specialists used 3-D printing to create anatomies similar to the girls.

Carter and Conner Mirabal
Born December 12, 2014, in Jacksonville, Florida, to Michelle Brantley and Bryan Mirabal. They are joined at the sternum and abdomen and share a liver and part of their small intestines. On May 7, 2015, the twins are successfully separated after 12 hours of surgery at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Florida.

Scarlett and Ximena Torres
Born May 16, 2015, in Corpus Christi, Texas, to Silvia Hernandez and Raul Torres. Scarlett and Ximena are connected below the waist, sharing a colon and a bladder. On April 12, 2016, the twins are separated during a 12-hour procedure at the Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Texas.

Anias and Jadon McDonald
Born on September 9, 2015, in Chicago to Nicole and Christian McDonald. They are joined at the head. On October 13-14, 2016, Anias and Jadon are successfully separated after 27 hours of surgery at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in New York.

Dawa and Nima Pelden
Born on July 13, 2017, in Bhutan to Bhumchu Zangmo. They are joined at the abdomen. On November 9, 2018, Dawa and Nima are successfully separated after a six-hour surgery at Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital in Australia.

Safa and Marwa Ullah
Born January 7, 2017, in Pakistan to Zainab Bibi. They are joined at the head. On February 11, 2019, Safa and Marwa are successfully separated after 50 hours of surgery, that took place over a four month period, at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Ervina and Prefina Bangalo
Born June 29, 2018, in the Central African Republic to Ermine Nzutto. They share a skull and a majority of blood vessels. On June 5, 2020, the twins are successfully separated during an operation in Vatican City lasting 18 hours and involving 30 doctors and nurses.

Abigail and Micaela Bachinskiy
Born December 30, 2019, in Sacramento, California. The twins are joined at the head. On October 23-24, 2020, the twins are successfully separated during a 24-hour operation at UC Davis Children’s Hospital in Sacramento, California.

Siphosethu and Amahle Tyhalisi
Born January 30, 2021, in South Africa to Ntombikayise Tyhalisi. They are joined at the head. On February 24, 2021, the twins are successfully separated during an operation at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town.

Hassana and Hasina
Born in January 12, 2022 in Kaduna, Nigeria to Omar Rayano. They share an abdomen, pelvis, liver, intestines, urinary and reproductive system, and pelvic bones. On May 18, 2023 the twins are successfully separated during an operation at King Abdullah Specialized Children’s Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Source link

#Conjoined #Twins #Fast #Facts #CNN

May 20, 2023

Opioid Crisis Fast Facts | CNN

Post By zittrexstore Health brand safety-nsf crime, brand safety-nsf death, brand safety-nsf drugs negative, brand safety-nsf health issues, brand safety-nsf sensitive, business, business and industry sectors, cnn fast facts, Companies, continents and regions, controlled substances, Death and dying, deaths and fatalities, domestic alerts, domestic-business, domestic-health and science, domestic-us news, domestic-us politics, donald trump, drug overdoses, drugs and society, economy and trade, epidemics and outbreaks, government and public administration, government bodies and offices, health and medical, Health Care, heroin, iab-advertising industry, iab-bereavement, iab-business, iab-business and finance, iab-crime, iab-diseases and conditions, iab-family and relationships, iab-healthcare industry, iab-industries, iab-law, iab-marketing and advertising, iab-medical health, iab-pharmaceutical drugs, iab-pharmaceutical industry, iab-politics, iab-substance abuse, illegal drugs, insolvency and bankruptcy courts, international alerts, international-business, international-health and science, international-us news, international-us politics, law and legal system, law courts and tribunals, lawsuits and claims, marketing and advertising, medical treatments and procedures, North America, opioid epidemic, opioids, opium, pain management, pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceuticals, pharmaceuticals and prescription drugs, political figures - us, politics, prescription drug abuse, Public health, purdue pharma, settlements and compromises, society, substance abuse, the americas, trial and procedure, United States, us federal government, White House No Comments

CNN
—

Here’s a look at the opioid crisis.

Experts say the United States is in the throes of an opioid epidemic. An estimated 9.2 million Americans aged 12 and older misused opioids in 2021, including 8.7 million prescription pain reliever abusers and 1.1 million heroin users.

Opioids are drugs formulated to replicate the pain-reducing properties of opium. Prescription painkillers like morphine, oxycodone and hydrocodone are opioids. Illegal drugs like heroin and illicitly made fentanyl are also opioids. The word “opioid” is derived from the word “opium.”

Nearly 110,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2022, and more than two-thirds of those deaths involved a synthetic opioid.

Overdose deaths have been on the rise for years in the United States, but surged amid the Covid-19 pandemic: Annual deaths were nearly 50% higher in 2021 than in 2019, CDC data shows.

Prescription opioid volumes peaked in 2011, with the equivalent of 240 billion milligrams of morphine prescribed, according to the market research firm, IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science.

Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee had the highest opioid dispensing rates in 2020.

Opioids such as morphine and codeine are naturally derived from opium poppy plants more commonly grown in Asia, Central America and South America. Heroin is an illegal drug synthesized from morphine.

Hydrocodone and oxycodone are semi-synthetic opioids, manufactured in labs with natural and synthetic ingredients.

Fentanyl is a fully synthetic opioid, originally developed as a powerful anesthetic for surgery. It is also administered to alleviate severe pain associated with terminal illnesses like cancer. The drug is up to 100 times more powerful than morphine. Just a small dose can be deadly. Illicitly produced fentanyl has been a driving factor in the number of overdose deaths in recent years.

Methadone is another fully synthetic opioid. It is commonly dispensed to recovering heroin addicts to relieve the symptoms of withdrawal.

Opioids bind to receptors in the brain and spinal cord, disrupting pain signals. They also activate the reward areas of the brain by releasing the hormone dopamine, creating a feeling of euphoria or a “high.”

Opioid use disorder is the clinical term for opioid addiction or abuse.

People who become dependent on opioids may experience withdrawal symptoms when they stop using the medication. Dependence is often coupled with tolerance, meaning that users need to take increasingly larger doses for the same effect.

A drug called naloxone, available as an injection or a nasal spray, is used as a treatment for overdoses. It blocks or reverses the effects of opioids and is often carried by first responders.

More data on overdose deaths

The 21st Century Cures Act, passed in 2016, allocated $1 billion over two years in opioid crisis grants to states, providing funding for expanded treatment and prevention programs. In April 2017, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price announced the distribution of the first round of $485 million in grants to all 50 states and US territories.

In August 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the launch of an Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit within the Department of Justice. The unit’s mission is to prosecute individuals who commit opioid-related health care fraud. The DOJ is also appointing US attorneys who will specialize in opioid health care fraud cases as part of a three-year pilot program in 12 jurisdictions nationwide.

On October 24, 2018, President Donald Trump signed opioid legislation into law. The SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act includes provisions aimed at promoting research to find new drugs for pain management that will not be addictive. It also expands access to treatment for substance use disorders for Medicaid patients.

State legislatures have also introduced measures to regulate pain clinics and limit the quantity of opioids that doctors can dispense.

1861-1865 – During the Civil War, medics use morphine as a battlefield anesthetic. Many soldiers become dependent on the drug.

1898 – Heroin is first produced commercially by the Bayer Company. At the time, heroin is believed to be less habit-forming than morphine, so it is dispensed to individuals who are addicted to morphine.

1914 – Congress passes the Harrison Narcotics Act, which requires that doctors write prescriptions for narcotic drugs like opioids and cocaine. Importers, manufacturers and distributors of narcotics must register with the Treasury Department and pay taxes on products

1924 – The Anti-Heroin Act bans the production and sale of heroin in the United States.

1970 – The Controlled Substances Act becomes law. It creates groupings (or schedules) of drugs based on the potential for abuse. Heroin is a Schedule I drug while morphine, fentanyl, oxycodone (Percocet) and methadone are Schedule II. Hydrocodone (Vicodin) is originally a Schedule III medication. It is later recategorized as a Schedule II drug.

January 10, 1980 – A letter titled “Addiction Rare in Patients Treated with Narcotics” is published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It looks at incidences of painkiller addiction in a very specific population of hospitalized patients who were closely monitored. It becomes widely cited as proof that narcotics are a safe treatment for chronic pain.

1995 – OxyContin, a long-acting version of oxycodone that slowly releases the drug over 12 hours, is introduced and aggressively marketed as a safer pain pill by manufacturer, Purdue Pharma.

May 10, 2007 – Purdue Pharma pleads guilty for misleadingly advertising OxyContin as safer and less addictive than other opioids. The company and three executives are charged with “misleading and defrauding physicians and consumers.” Purdue and the executives agree to pay $634.5 million in criminal and civil fines.

2010 – FDA approves an “abuse-deterrent” formulation of OxyContin, to help curb abuse. However, people still find ways to abuse it.

May 20, 2015 – The DEA announces that it has arrested 280 people, including 22 doctors and pharmacists, after a 15-month sting operation centered on health care providers who dispense large amounts of opioids. The sting, dubbed Operation Pilluted, is the largest prescription drug bust in the history of the DEA.

March 18, 2016 – The CDC publishes guidelines for prescribing opioids for patients with chronic pain. Recommendations include prescribing over-the-counter pain relievers like acetaminophen and ibuprofen in lieu of opioids. Doctors are encouraged to promote exercise and behavioral treatments to help patients cope with pain.

March 29, 2017 – Trump signs an executive order calling for the establishment of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is selected as the chairman of the group, with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as an adviser.

July 31, 2017 – After a delay, the White House panel examining the nation’s opioid epidemic releases its interim report, asking Trump to declare a national public health emergency to combat the ongoing crisis

September 22, 2017 – The pharmacy chain CVS announces that it will implement new restrictions on filling prescriptions for opioids, dispensing a limited seven-day supply to patients who are new to pain therapy.

November 1, 2017 – The opioid commission releases its final report. Its 56 recommendations include a proposal to establish nationwide drug courts that would place opioid addicts in treatment facilities rather than prison.

February 9, 2018 – A budget agreement signed by Trump authorizes $6 billion for opioid programs, with $3 billion allocated for 2018 and $3 billion allocated for 2019.

February 27, 2018 – Sessions announces a new opioid initiative: The Prescription Interdiction & Litigation (PIL) Task Force. The mission of the task force is to support local jurisdictions that have filed lawsuits against prescription drugmakers and distributors.

March 19, 2018 – The Trump administration outlines an initiative to stop opioid abuse. The three areas of concentration are law enforcement and interdiction; prevention and education via an ad campaign; and job-seeking assistance for individuals fighting addiction.

April 9, 2018 – The US surgeon general issues an advisory recommending that Americans carry the opioid overdose-reversing drug, naloxone. A surgeon general advisory is a rarely used tool to convey an urgent message. The last advisory issued by the surgeon general, more than a decade ago, focused on drinking during pregnancy.

May 1, 2018 – The Journal of the American Medical Association publishes a study that finds synthetic opioids like fentanyl caused about 46% of opioid deaths in 2016. That’s a three-fold increase compared with 2010, when synthetic opioids were involved in about 14% of opioid overdose deaths. It’s the first time that synthetic opioids surpassed prescription opioids and heroin as the primary cause of overdose fatalities.

May 30, 2018 – The journal Medical Care publishes a study that estimates the cost of medical care and substance abuse treatment for opioid addiction was $78.5 billion in 2013.

June 7, 2018 – The White House announces a new multimillion dollar public awareness advertising campaign to combat opioid addiction. The first four ads of the campaign are all based on true stories illustrating the extreme lengths young adults have gone to obtain the powerful drugs.

December 12, 2018 – According to the National Center for Health Statistics, fentanyl is now the most commonly used drug involved in drug overdoses. The rate of drug overdoses involving the synthetic opioid skyrocketed by about 113% each year from 2013 through 2016.

January 14, 2019 – The National Safety Council finds that, for the first time on record, the odds of dying from an opioid overdose in the United States are now greater than those of dying in a vehicle crash.

March 26, 2019 – Purdue Pharma agrees to pay a $270 million settlement to settle a historic lawsuit brought by the Oklahoma attorney general. The settlement will be used to fund addiction research and help cities and counties with the opioid crisis.

July 17, 2019 – The CDC releases preliminary data showing a 5.1% decline in drug overdoses during 2018. If the preliminary number is accurate, it would mark the first annual drop in overdose deaths in more than two decades.

August 26, 2019 – Oklahoma wins its case against Johnson & Johnson in the first major opioid lawsuit trial to be held in the United States. Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman orders Johnson & Johnson to pay $572 million for its role in the state’s opioid crisis. The penalty is later reduced to $465 million, due to a mathematical error made when calculating the judgment. In November 2021, the Oklahoma Supreme Court reverses the decision.

September 15, 2019 – Purdue files for bankruptcy as part of a $10 billion agreement to settle opioid lawsuits. According to a statement from the chair of Purdue’s board of directors, the money will be allocated to communities nationwide struggling to address the crisis.

September 30, 2019 – The FDA and DEA announce that they sent warnings to four online networks, operating a total of 10 websites, which the agencies said are illegally marketing unapproved and misbranded versions of opioid medicines, including tramadol.

February 25, 2020 – Mallinckrodt, a large opioid manufacturer, reaches a settlement agreement in principle worth $1.6 billion. Mallinckrodt says the proposed deal will resolve all opioid-related claims against the company and its subsidiaries if it moves forward. Plaintiffs would receive payments over an eight-year period to cover the costs of opioid-addition treatments and other needs.

October 21, 2020 – The Justice Department announces that Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has agreed to plead guilty to three federal criminal charges for its role in creating the nation’s opioid crisis. They agree to pay more than $8 billion and close down the company. The money will go to opioid treatment and abatement programs. The Justice Department also reached a separate $225 million civil settlement with the former owners of Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family. In November 2020, Purdue Pharma board chairman Steve Miller formally pleads guilty on behalf of the company.

March 15, 2021 – According to court documents, Purdue files a restructuring plan to dissolve itself and establish a new company dedicated to programs designed to combat the opioid crisis. As part of the proposed plan, the Sackler family agrees to pay an additional $4.2 billion over the next nine years to resolve various civil claims.

September 1, 2021 – In federal bankruptcy court, Judge Robert Drain rules that Purdue Pharma will be dissolved. The settlement agreement resolves all civil litigation against the Sackler family members, Purdue Pharma and other related parties and entities, and awards them broad legal protection against future civil litigation. The Sacklers will relinquish control of family foundations with over $175 million in assets to the trustees of a National Opioid Abatement Trust. On December 16, 2021, a federal judge overturns the settlement.

February 25, 2022 – Johnson & Johnson and the three largest US drug distributors – McKesson Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and AmerisourceBergen Corp – finalize a $26 billion nationwide opioid settlement.

March 3, 2022 – The Sackler families reaches a settlement with a group of states the first week of March, according to court filings. The settlement, ordered through court-ordered mediation that began in January, requires the Sacklers to pay out as much as $6 billion to states, individual claimants and opioid crisis abatement, if approved by a federal bankruptcy court judge.

November 2, 2022 – CVS and Walgreens agree to pay a combined $10 billion, over 10 and 15 years, to settle lawsuits brought by states and local governments alleging the retailers mishandled prescriptions of opioid painkillers.

November 15, 2022 – Walmart agrees to the framework of a $3.1 billion settlement, which resolves allegations from multiple states’ attorneys general that the company failed to regulate opioid prescriptions contributing to the nationwide opioid crisis.

Source link

#Opioid #Crisis #Fast #Facts #CNN

May 18, 2023

When older parents resist help or advice, use these tips to cope | CNN

Post By zittrexstore Health behavior and cognition, brand safety-nsf death, brand safety-nsf sensitive, Death and dying, deaths and fatalities, domestic alerts, domestic-health and science, families and children, iab-bereavement, iab-business and finance, iab-diseases and conditions, iab-family and relationships, iab-healthcare industry, iab-industries, iab-medical health, iab-mental health, iab-parenting, iab-science, intelligence and cognition, international alerts, international-health and science, parents and parenting, science, society No Comments

KFF Health News
—

It was a regrettable mistake. But Kim Sylvester thought she was doing the right thing at the time.

Her 80-year-old mother, Harriet Burkel, had fallen at her home in Raleigh, North Carolina, fractured her pelvis and gone to a rehabilitation center to recover. It was only days after the death of Burkel’s husband, 82, who had moved into a memory care facility three years earlier.

With growing distress, Sylvester had watched her mother, who had emphysema and peripheral artery disease, become increasingly frail and isolated. “I would say, ‘Can I help you?’ And my mother would say, ‘No, I can do this myself. I don’t need anything. I can handle it,’ ” Sylvester told me.

Now, Sylvester had a chance to get some more information. She let herself into her mother’s home and went through all the paperwork she could find. “It was a shambles — completely disorganized, bills everywhere,” she said. “It was clear things were out of control.”

Sylvester sprang into action, terminating her mother’s orders for anti-aging supplements, canceling two car warranty insurance policies (Burkel wasn’t driving at that point), ending a yearlong contract for knee injections with a chiropractor and throwing out donation requests from dozens of organizations. When her mother found out, she was furious.

“I was trying to save my mother, but I became someone she couldn’t trust — the enemy,” Sylvester said. “I really messed up.”

Dealing with an older parent who stubbornly resists offers of help isn’t easy. But the solution isn’t to make an older person feel like you’re steamrolling them and taking over their affairs. What’s needed instead are respect, empathy and appreciation of the older person’s autonomy.

“It’s hard when you see an older person making poor choices and decisions. But if that person is cognitively intact, you can’t force them to do what you think they should do,” said Anne Sansevero, president of the board of directors of the Aging Life Care Association, a national organization of care managers who work with older adults and their families. “They have a right to make choices for themselves.”

That doesn’t mean adult children concerned about an older parent should step aside or agree to everything the parent proposes. Rather, a different set of skills is needed.

Cheryl Woodson, an author and retired physician based in the Chicago area, learned this firsthand when her mother — whom Woodson described as a “very powerful” woman — developed mild cognitive impairment. She started getting lost while driving and would buy things she didn’t need, then give them away.

Chastising her mother wasn’t going to work. “You can’t push people like my mother or try to take control,” Woodson said. “You don’t tell them, ‘No, you’re wrong,’ because they changed your diapers and they’ll always be your mom.”

Instead, Woodson learned to appeal to her mother’s pride in being the family matriarch. “Whenever she got upset, I’d ask her, ‘Mother, what year was it that Aunt Terri got married?’ or ‘Mother, I don’t remember how to make macaroni. How much cheese do you put in?’ And she’d forget what she was worked up about, and we’d just go on from there.”

Woodson, author of “To Survive Caregiving: A Daughter’s Experience, a Doctor’s Advice,” also learned to apply a “does it really matter to safety or health?” standard to her mother’s behavior. It helped Woodson let go of her sometimes unreasonable expectations.

One example she related: “My mother used to shake hot sauce on pancakes. It would drive my brother nuts, but she was eating, and that was good.”

“You don’t want to rub their nose into their incapacity,” said Woodson, whose mother died in 2003.

Barry Jacobs, a clinical psychologist and family therapist, sounded similar themes in describing a psychiatrist in his late 70s who didn’t like to bend to authority. After his wife died, the older man stopped shaving and changing his clothes regularly. Though he had diabetes, he didn’t want to see a physician and instead prescribed medicine for himself. Even after several strokes compromised his vision, he insisted on driving.

An adult child needs to show empathy and respect for the autonomy of an aging parent.

Jacobs’ take: “You don’t want to go toe-to-toe with someone like this, because you will lose. They’re almost daring you to tell them what to do so they can show you they won’t follow your advice.”

What’s the alternative? “I would employ empathy and appeal to this person’s pride as a basis for handling adversity or change,” Jacobs said. “I might say something along the lines of, ‘I know you don’t want to stop driving and that this will be very painful for you. But I know you have faced difficult, painful changes before and you’ll find your way through this.’ “

“You’re appealing to their ideal self rather than treating them as if they don’t have the right to make their own decisions anymore,” he said. In the older psychiatrist’s case, conflict with his four children was constant, but he eventually stopped driving.

Another strategy that can be useful: “Show up, but do it in a way that’s face-saving,” Jacobs said. Instead of asking your father if you can check in on him, “Go to his house and say, ‘The kids really wanted to see you. I hope you don’t mind.’ Or ‘We made too much food. I hope you don’t mind my bringing it over.’ Or ‘I wanted to stop by. I hope you can give me some advice about this issue that’s on my mind.’ “

This psychiatrist didn’t have any cognitive problems, though he wasn’t as sharp as he used to be. But encroaching cognitive impairment often colors difficult family interactions.

If you think this might be a factor with your parents, instead of trying to persuade them to accept more help at home, try to get them medically evaluated, said Leslie Kernisan, author of “When Your Aging Parent Needs Help: A Geriatrician’s Step-by-Step Guide to Memory Loss, Resistance, Safety Worries, and More.”

“Decreased brain function can affect an older adult’s insight and judgment and ability to understand the risks of certain actions or situations while also making people suspicious and defensive,” she noted.

This doesn’t mean you should give up on talking to an older parent with mild cognitive impairment or early-stage dementia, however. “You always want to give the older adult a chance to weigh in and talk about what’s important to them and their feelings and concerns,” Kernisan said.

“If you frame your suggestions as a way of helping your parent achieve a goal they’ve said was important, they tend to be much more receptive to it,” she said.

A turning point for Sylvester and her mother came when the older woman, who developed dementia, went to a nursing home at the end of 2021. Her mother, who at first didn’t realize the move was permanent, was furious, and Sylvester waited two months before visiting. When she finally walked into Burkel’s room, bearing a Valentine’s Day wreath, Burkel hugged her and said, “I’m so glad to see you,” before pulling away. “But I’m so mad at my other daughter.”

Sylvester, who doesn’t have a sister, responded, “I know, Mom. She meant well, but she didn’t handle things properly.” She learned the value of what she calls a “therapeutic fiblet” from Kernisan, who ran a family caregiver group Sylvester attended between 2019 and 2021.

After that visit, Sylvester saw her mother often, and all was well between the two women up until Burkel’s death. “If something was upsetting my mother, I would just go, ‘Interesting,’ or ‘That’s a thought.’ You have to give yourself time to remember this is not the person you used to know and create the person you need to be your parent, who’s changed so much.”

Source link

#older #parents #resist #advice #tips #cope #CNN

May 18, 2023

Concern grows around US health-care workforce shortage: ‘We don’t have enough doctors’ | CNN

Post By zittrexstore Health Bernie Sanders, brand safety-nsf health issues, brand safety-nsf sensitive, business, business and industry sectors, continents and regions, curricula, doctor shortage, domestic alerts, domestic-business, domestic-health and science, domestic-us news, domestic-us politics, economic conditions, economy and economic indicators, economy and trade, education, education systems and institutions, epidemics and outbreaks, graduate and professional schools, health and medical, Health Care, health care professionals, higher education, iab-business and finance, iab-college education, iab-economy, iab-education, iab-education industry, iab-healthcare industry, iab-industries, iab-medical health, iab-politics, iab-postgraduate education, iab-professional school, international alerts, international-business, international-health and science, international-us news, international-us politics, labor and employment, medical education, medical staff, North America, physicians and surgeons, political figures - us, Public health, the americas, United States, workers and professionals No Comments

CNN
—

There is mounting concern among some US lawmakers about the nation’s ongoing shortage of health-care workers, and the leaders of historically Black medical schools are calling for more funding to train a more diverse workforce.

As of Monday, in areas where a health workforce shortage has been identified, the United States needs more than 17,000 additional primary care practitioners, 12,000 dental health practitioners and 8,200 mental health practitioners, according to data from the Health Resources & Services Administration. Those numbers are based on data that HRSA receives from state offices and health departments.

“We have nowhere near the kind of workforce, health-care workforce, that we need,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders told CNN on Friday. “We don’t have enough doctors. We don’t have enough nurses. We don’t have enough psychologists or counselors for addiction. We don’t have enough pharmacists.”

The heads of historically Black medical schools met with Sanders in a roundtable at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta on Friday to discuss the nation’s health-care workforce shortage.

The health-care workforce shortage is “more acute” in Black and brown communities; the Black community constitutes 13% of the US population, but only 5.7% of US physicians are Black, said Sanders, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

“What we’re trying to do in this committee – in our Health, Education, Labor Committee – is grow the health-care workforce and put a special emphasis on the needs to grow more Black doctors, nurses, psychologists, et cetera,” Sanders said.

At Friday’s roundtable, the leaders of the Morehouse School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Howard University and Charles R. Drew University called for more resources and opportunities to be allocated to their institutions to help grow the nation’s incoming health-care workforce.

“Allocating resources and opportunities matter for us to increase capacity and scholarships and programming to help support these students as they matriculate through,” Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, president of the Morehouse School of Medicine, told CNN.

“But also, the other 150-plus medical schools, beyond our four historically Black medical schools, owe it to the country to increase the diversity of the students that they train,” Rice said, adding that having a health-care workforce that reflects the communities served helps reduce the health inequities seen in the United States.

Historically Black medical schools are “the backbone for training Black doctors in this country,” Dr. Hugh Mighty, senior vice president for health affairs at Howard University, said at Friday’s event. “As the problem of Black physician shortages rise, within the general context of the physician workforce shortage, many communities of need will continue to be underserved.”

A new study commissioned by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities estimates that the economic burden of health inequities in the United States has cost the nation billions of dollars. Such inequities are illustrated in how Black and brown communities tend to have higher rates of serious health outcomes such as maternal deaths, certain chronic diseases and infectious diseases.

The researchers, from Johns Hopkins University and other institutions, analyzed excess medical care expenditures, death records and other US data from 2016 through 2019. They took a close look at health inequities in the cost of medical care, differences in premature deaths and the amount of labor market productivity that has been lost due to health reasons.

The researchers found that, in 2018, the economic burden of health inequities for racial and ethnic minority communities in the United States was up to $451 billion, and the economic burden of health inequities for adults without a four-year college degree was up to $978 billion.

“These findings provide a clear and important message to health care leaders, public health officials, and state and federal policy makers – the economic magnitude of health inequities in the US is startlingly high,” Drs. Rishi Wadhera and Issa Dahabreh, both of Harvard University, wrote in an editorial that accompanied the new study in the journal JAMA.

The Covid-19 pandemic “pulled the curtain back” on health inequities, such as premature death and others, Rice said, and “we saw a disproportionate burden” on some communities.

“We saw a higher death rate in Black and brown communities because of access and fear and a whole bunch of other factors, including what we recognize as racism and unconscious bias,” Rice said.

“We needed more physicians, more health-care providers. So, we already know when we project out to 2050, we have a significant physician shortage based on the fact that we cannot educate and train enough health care professionals fast enough,” she said. “We can’t just rely on physicians. We have to rely on a team approach.”

She added that the nation’s shortage of health-care workers leaves the country ill-prepared to respond to future pandemics.

The United States is projected to face a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2034 as the demand outpaces supply, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

The workforce shortage means “we’re really not prepared” for another pandemic, Sanders said.

“We don’t have the public health infrastructure that we need state by state. We surely don’t have the doctors and the nurses that we need,” Sanders said. “So what we are trying to do now is to bring forth legislation, which will create more doctors and more nurses, more dentists, because dental care is a major crisis in America.”

In March, Bill McBride, executive director of the National Governors Association, wrote a letter to Sanders and Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy detailing the “root causes” of the health-care workforce shortage and potential ways some states are hoping to tackle the crisis.

“Governors have taken innovative steps to address the healthcare workforce shortage facing their states and territories by boosting recruitment efforts, loosening licensing requirements, expanding training programs and raising providers’ pay,” McBride wrote.

“Shortages in healthcare workers is not a new challenge but has only worsened in the past three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Burnout and stress have only exacerbated this issue,” he wrote. “The retirement and aging of an entire generation is front and center of the healthcare workforce shortage, particularly impacting rural communities.”

Source link

#Concern #grows #healthcare #workforce #shortage #dont #doctors #CNN

May 16, 2023

Don’t use sugar substitutes for weight loss, World Health Organization advises | CNN

Post By zittrexstore Health artificial sweeteners, beverages, brand safety-nsf health issues, brand safety-nsf products and consumers negative, brand safety-nsf sensitive, business, business and industry sectors, chronic diseases, Consumer Products, diabetes, diet, diet and nutrition, dietitians and nutritionists, diseases and disorders, domestic alerts, domestic-health and science, economy and trade, endocrine system disorders, Food and drink, food products, fruit, fruits and vegetables, health and medical, Health Care, health care professionals, iab-business and finance, iab-desserts and baking, iab-diabetes, iab-diseases and conditions, iab-endocrine and metabolic diseases, iab-food & drink, iab-healthcare industry, iab-healthy cooking and eating, iab-healthy living, iab-heart and cardiovascular diseases, iab-industries, iab-medical health, iab-non-alcoholic beverages, iab-non-profit organizations, iab-nutrition, iab-weight loss, international alerts, international-health and science, kinds of foods and beverages, lisa drayer, misc people, non-profit and ngo organizations, nutrition, nutrition and fitness, obesity, Public health, soft drinks, Sugar, sweeteners, sweets and desserts, weight loss diets, World Health Organization No Comments

CNN
—

Don’t use sugar substitutes if you are trying to lose weight, according to new guidance from the World Health Organization.

The global health body said a systematic review of the available evidence suggests the use of non-sugar sweeteners, or NSS, “does not confer any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children.”

“Replacing free sugars with non-sugar sweeteners does not help people control their weight long-term,” said Francesco Branca, director of WHO’s department of nutrition and food safety. “We did see a mild reduction of body weight in the short term, but it’s not going to be sustained.”

The guidance applies to all people except those with preexisting diabetes, Branca said. Why? Simply because none of the studies in the review included people with diabetes, and an assessment could not be made, he said.

The review also indicated that there might be “potential undesirable effects” from the long-term use of sugar substitutes such as a mildly increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

However, “this recommendation is not meant to comment on safety of consumption,” Branca said. “What this guideline says is that if we’re looking for reduction of obesity, weight control or risk of noncommunicable diseases, that is unfortunately something science been unable to demonstrate,” he said. “It’s not going to produce the positive health effects that some people might be looking for.”

Non-sugar sweeteners are widely used as an ingredient in prepackaged foods and beverages and are also sometimes added to food and drinks directly by consumers. WHO issued guidelines on sugar intake in 2015, recommending that adults and children reduce their daily intake of free sugars to less than 10% of their total energy intake. Following that recommendation, interest in sugar alternatives intensified, the review said.

“This new guideline is based on a thorough assessment of the latest scientific literature, and it emphasises that the use of artificial sweeteners is not a good strategy for achieving weight loss by reducing dietary energy intake,” said nutrition researcher Ian Johnson, emeritus fellow at Quadram Institute Bioscience, formerly the Institute of Food Research, in Norwich, United Kingdom.

“However, this should not be interpreted as an indication that sugar intake has no relevance to weight-control,” Johnson said in a statement.

Instead, one should cut back on using sugar-sweetened drinks, and try to use “raw or lightly processed fruit as a source of sweetness,” Johnson added.

Dr. Keith Ayoob, scientific adviser for the Calorie Control Council, an international association representing the low-calorie food and beverage industry, told CNN via email the WHO’s “insistence on focusing only on prevention of unhealthy ‎weight gain and non-communicable diseases is at the very least, misguided.”

Robert Rankin, president of the Calorie Control Council, said “low- and no-calorie sweeteners are a critical tool that can help consumers manage body weight and reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases.”

The guidance is meant for government health organizations in countries who may wish to use the scientific analysis to implement policy changes for their citizens, Branca said.

“That will likely depend on the way that which sweeteners are consumed in a specific country,” he said. “For example, in a country where consumption patterns are high, those countries might decide to take action in a way or another.”

A total of 283 studies were included in the review. Both randomized controlled trials, considered the gold standard of research, and observational studies were included. Observational studies can only show an association, not direct cause and effect.

Results from randomized trials found the use of non-sugar sweeteners had a “low” impact on reducing body weight and calorie intake when compared with sugar, and no change in Intermediate markers of diabetes such as glucose and insulin, according to the report.

Observational studies also found a low impact on body weight and fat tissue, but no change in calorie intake. However, those studies found a low increase in risk for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease and death from heart disease, the report noted. A very low risk was also found for bladder cancer and an early death from any cause.

WHO said that the recommendation was “conditional” because the identified link between sweeteners and disease outcomes might be confounded by complicated patterns of sweetener use and the characteristics of the study participants.

In an emailed statement, the International Sweeteners Association, an industry assocation, said “it is a disservice to not recognise the public health benefits of low/no calorie sweeteners and is disappointed that the WHO’s conclusions are largely based on low certainty evidence from observational studies, which are at high risk of reverse causality.”

However, observational studies that follow people over time are important, Branca said. “To show that overweight people can reduce their body weight requires a long-term study. And we’re not seeing that impact from the research we have.”

The recommendation included low or no calorie synthetic sweeteners and natural extracts, which may or may not be chemically modified, such as acesulfame K, aspartame, advantame, cyclamates, neotame, saccharin, sucralose, stevia and stevia derivatives and monkfruit, the report said.

“Stevia and monkfruit are newer sweeteners so so there’s less published research in the scientific literature,” Branca said. “However they probably work in the body with a similar physiological mechanism as other sweeteners. We cannot say they are different from the others based on the data we have — they play the same role.”

Many people consider stevia products to be more “natural,” since they are derived from the stevia plant. Some natural and artificial sweeteners add bulking sugars to their products to cut their sweetness and add bulk to the product for baking.

A recent study by researchers at the US-based Cleveland Clinic found erythritol — used to add bulk or sweeten stevia, monkfruit and keto reduced-sugar products — was linked to blood clotting, stroke, heart attack and early death.

People with existing risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes, were twice as likely to experience a heart attack or stroke if they had the highest levels of erythritol in their blood, the study found.

Just as many people have learned to eat and cook without salt, they can learn to reduce their dependence on free sugars and non-nutritive sweetners, Branca said.

“We need to target children in early life,” he said. “For example, why do parents typically use sweeteners as a reward for children and after almost every meal? We need to recommend to parents to avoid building that sweetness Interest in young children — that’s a very important action to take.”

Even if you are a true sugar “addict,” the good news is that you can tame your sweet tooth, registered dietitian Lisa Drayer said in an article for CNN. She provides the following steps:

Train your taste buds. If you gradually cut back on sugar — including artificial sweeteners — and include more protein and fiber-rich foods in your diet, that can help you crave less sugar, Drayer said.

“When we consume protein and fiber, it slows the rise in blood sugar if we consume it with a sugar-containing food. It can help satisfy us and help us reduce our sugar intake as well,” she said in a previous interview.

Choose no-sugar-added foods and avoid all sugar-sweetened drinks. For example, choose whole-grain cereal or Greek yogurt with no sweeteners. The sugar-sweetened drinks to take off your grocery list should include sodas, energy drinks, sports drinks and fruit punch. Choose water instead.

“If you like sweet carbonated beverages, add a splash of cranberry or orange juice to seltzer or try flavored seltzers. You can also flavor your own waters with fruit slices for natural sweetness or try herbal fruit teas,” Drayer said.

Drink coffee and tea with no or fewer sugars. Be careful at coffee shops, Drayer suggested. All those lattes and flavored coffees can have as much sugar as a can of soda, or more.

Enjoy fruit for dessert. Try cinnamon baked apples, berries or grilled peaches instead of cookies, cake, ice cream, pastries and other sweet treats, Drayer said.

Watch for stealth sugars. Added sugars are often present in foods that you might not think of as “sweet,” like sauces, breads, condiments and salad dressings, Drayer said.

“Pre-packaged sauces — like ketchup, BBQ sauce and tomato sauce — tend to be some of the biggest offenders of hidden added sugars in the diet,” Kristi King, senior pediatric dietitian at Texas Children’s Hospital and a national spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, told Drayer in a prior interview.

Check nutrition facts labels. All foods and beverages must list the amount and kind of sugar on the label.

Added sugars can go by other names such as “agave, brown sugar, corn sweetener, corn syrup, dextrose, evaporated cane juice, fructose, fruit juice concentrate, fruit nectar, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, invert sugar, lactose, malt syrup, maltose, molasses, maple syrups, raw sugar, sucrose, trehalose and turbinado sugar,” Drayer said.

The higher up these added sugars are on the ingredients list, the greater the amount of added sugar in the product, she said.

Source link

#Dont #sugar #substitutes #weight #loss #World #Health #Organization #advises #CNN

May 14, 2023

How the nursing shortage may lead to gaps in sexual assault care | CNN

Post By zittrexstore Health brand safety-nsf crime, brand safety-nsf health issues, brand safety-nsf mature, brand safety-nsf sensitive, brand safety-nsf violence, business, business and industry sectors, continents and regions, crime, crimes against persons, criminal offenses, domestic alerts, domestic-health and science, domestic-us news, economy and trade, health and medical, Health Care, health care professionals, iab-business and finance, iab-crime, iab-healthcare industry, iab-industries, iab-medical health, international alerts, international-health and science, international-us news, law enforcement and corrections, Montana, North America, northwestern united states, nurses and nursing, Sex Crimes, sexual assault, sexual misconduct, societal issues, society, the americas, United States, violence in society No Comments

Missoula, Montana
KFF Health News
—

Jacqueline Towarnicki got a text as she finished her day shift at a local clinic. She had a new case, a patient covered in bruises who couldn’t remember how the injuries got there.

Towarnicki’s breath caught, a familiar feeling after four years of working night shifts as a sexual assault nurse examiner in this northwestern Montana city.

“You almost want to curse,” Towarnicki, 38, said. “You’re like, ‘Oh, no, it’s happening.’”

These nights on duty are Towarnicki’s second job. She’s on call once a week and a weekend a month. A survivor may need protection against sexually transmitted infections, medicine to avoid getting pregnant, or evidence collected to prosecute their attacker. Or all the above.

When her phone rings, it’s typically in the middle of the night. Towarnicki tiptoes down the stairs of her home to avoid waking her young son, as her half-asleep husband whispers encouragement into the dark.

Her breath is steady by the time she changes into the clothes she laid out close to her back door before going to bed. She grabs her nurse’s badge and drives to First Step Resource Center, a clinic that offers round-the-clock care for people who have been assaulted.

She wants her patients to know they’re out of danger.

“You meet people in some of their most horrifying, darkest, terrifying times,” Towarnicki said. “Being with them and then seeing who they are when they leave, you don’t get that doing any other job in health care.”

A former travel nurse who lived out of a van for years, Towarnicki is OK with the uncertainty that comes with being a sexual assault nurse examiner.

Most examiners work on-call shifts in addition to full-time jobs. They often work alone and at odd hours. They can collect evidence that could be used in court, are trained to recognize and respond to trauma, and provide care to protect their patients’ bodies from lasting effects of sexual assault.

But their numbers are few.

As many as 80% of U.S. hospitals don’t have sexual assault nurse examiners, often because they either can’t find them or can’t afford them. Nurses struggle to find time for shifts, especially when staffing shortages mean covering long hours. Sexual assault survivors may have to leave their town or even their state to see an examiner.

Gaps in sexual assault care can span hundreds of miles in rural areas. A program in Glendive, Montana — a town of nearly 5,000 residents 35 miles from the North Dakota border — stopped taking patients for examinations this spring. It didn’t have enough nurses to respond to cases.

“These are the same nurses working in the ER, where a heart attack patient could come in,” said Teresea Olson, 56, who is the town’s part-time mayor and also picked up on-call shifts. “The staff was exhausted.”

The next closest option is 75 miles away in Miles City, adding at least an hour to the travel time for patients, some of whom already had to travel hours to reach Glendive.

Nationwide, policymakers have been slow to offer training, funding, and support for the work. Some states and health facilities are trying to expand access to sexual assault response programs.

Oklahoma lawmakers are considering a bill to hire a statewide sexual assault coordinator tasked with expanding training and recruiting workers. A Montana law that takes effect July 1 will create a sexual assault response network within the Montana Department of Justice. The new program aims to set standards for that care, provide in-state training, and connect examiners statewide. It will also look at telehealth to fill in gaps, following the example of hospitals in South Dakota and Colorado.

There’s no national tally of where nurses have been trained to respond to sexual assaults, meaning a survivor may not know they have to travel for treatment until they’re sitting in an emergency room or police department.

Sarah Wangerin, a nursing instructor with Montana State University and former examiner, said patients reeling from an attack may instead just go home. For some, leaving town isn’t an option.

This spring, Wangerin called county hospitals and sheriff’s offices to map where sexual assault nurse examiners operate in Montana. She found only 55. More than half of the 45 counties that responded didn’t have any examiners. Just seven counties reported they had nurses trained to respond to cases that involve children.

“We’re failing people,” Wangerin said. “We’re re-traumatizing them by not knowing what to do.”

First Step, in Missoula, is one of the few full-time sexual assault response programs in the state. It’s operated by Providence St. Patrick Hospital but is separate from the main building.

The clinic’s walls are adorned with drawings by kids and mountain landscapes. The staff doesn’t turn on the harsh overhead fluorescent lights, choosing instead to light the space with softer lamps. The lobby includes couches and a rocking chair. There are always heated blankets and snacks on hand.

Kate Harrison turns on her pager at the start of her night shift as a sexual assualt nurse examiner.

First Step stands out for having nurses who stay. Kate Harrison waited roughly a year to join the clinic and is still there three years later, in part because of the staff support.

The specially trained team works together so no one carries too heavy a load. While being on night shift means opening the clinic alone, staffers can debrief tough cases together. They attend group therapy for secondhand trauma.

Harrison is a cardiac hospital nurse during the day, a job that sometimes feels a little too stuck to a clock.

At First Step, she can shift into whatever role her patient needs for as long as they need. Once, that meant sitting for hours on a floor in the lobby of the clinic as a patient cried and talked. Another time, Harrison doubled as a DJ for a nervous patient during an exam, picking music off her cellphone.

“It’s in the middle of the night, she just had this sexual assault happen, and we were just laughing and singing to Shaggy,” Harrison said. “You have this freedom and grace to do that.”

When the solo work is overwhelming or she’s had back-to-back cases and needs a break, she knows a co-worker would be willing to help.

“This work can take you to the undercurrents and the underbelly of society sometimes,” Harrison said. “It takes a team.”

That includes co-workers like Towarnicki, who dropped her work hours at her day job after having her son to keep working as a sexual assault nurse examiner. That meant adding three years to her student loan repayment schedule. Now, pregnant with her second child, the work still feels worth it, she said.

On a recent night, Towarnicki was alone in the clinic, clicking through photos she took of her last patient. The patient opted against filing a police report but asked Towarnicki to log all the evidence just in case.

Towarnicki quietly counted out loud the number of bruises, their sizes and locations, as she took notes. She tells patients who have gaps in their memories that she can’t speculate how each mark got there or give them all the answers they deserve.

But as she sat in the blue light of her computer screen long after her patient left, it was hard to keep from ruminating.

“Totally looks like a hand mark,” Towarnicki said, suddenly loud, as she shook her head.

All the evidence and her patient’s story were sealed and locked away, just feet from a wall of thank-you cards from patients and sticky notes of encouragement among nurses.

On the harder evenings, Towarnicki takes a moment to unwind with a pudding cup from the clinic’s snacks. Most often, she can let go of her patient’s story as she closes the clinic. Part of her healing is “seeing the light returned to people’s eyes, seeing them be able to breathe deeper,” which she said happens 19 out of 20 times.

“There is that one out of 20 where I go home and I am spinning,” Towarnicki said. In those cases, it takes hearing her son’s voice, and time to process, to pull her back. “I feel like if it’s not hard sometimes, maybe you shouldn’t be doing this work.”

It was a little after 11 p.m. as Towarnicki headed home, an early night. She knew her phone could go off again.

Eight more hours on call.

Source link

#nursing #shortage #lead #gaps #sexual #assault #care #CNN

May 12, 2023

FDA advisers vote unanimously in support of over-the-counter birth-control pill | CNN

Post By zittrexstore Health brand safety-nsf health issues, brand safety-nsf mature, brand safety-nsf sensitive, business, business and industry sectors, continents and regions, contraception, demographic groups, domestic alerts, domestic-health and science, domestic-us news, economy and trade, females (demographic group), government organizations - us, health and health care (by demographic group), health and medical, iab-birth control, iab-business and finance, iab-diseases and conditions, iab-healthcare industry, iab-healthy living, iab-industries, iab-medical health, iab-pharmaceutical drugs, iab-pharmaceutical industry, iab-reproductive health, iab-sexual health, iab-women's health, international alerts, international-health and science, international-us news, North America, pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceuticals, pharmaceuticals and prescription drugs, population and demographics, sexual and reproductive health, society, the americas, United States, us department of health and human services, us federal departments and agencies, us food and drug administration, womens health No Comments

CNN
—

Advisers for the US Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Wednesday in support of making the birth-control pill Opill available over-the-counter, saying the benefits outweigh the risks.

Two FDA advisory panels agreed that people would use Opill safely and effectively and said groups such as adolescents and those with limited literacy would be able to take the pill at the same time every day without help from a health care worker.

The advisers were asked to vote on whether people were likely to use the tablet properly so that the benefits would exceed the risks. Seventeen voted yes. Zero voted no or abstained.

Opill manufacturer Perrigo hailed the vote as a “groundbreaking” move for women’s health.

“Perrigo is proud to lead the way in making contraception more accessible to women in the U.S.,” Murray Kessler, Perrigo’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “We are motivated by the millions of people who need easy access to safe and effective contraception.”

The FDA doesn’t have to follow its advisers’ advice, but it often does. It is expected to decide whether to approve the over-the-counter pill this summer.

If it’s approved, this will be the first birth-control pill available over the counter in the United States. Opill is a “mini-pill” that uses only the hormone progestin.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Dr. Margery Gass of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine thanked the FDA for its consideration of switching Opill to an over-the-counter product.

“I think this represents a landmark in our history of women’s health. Unwanted pregnancies can really derail a woman’s life, and especially an adolescent’s life,” she said.

The FDA has faced pressure to allow Opill to go over-the-counter from lawmakers as well as health care providers.

Unwanted pregnancies are a public health issue in the US, where almost half of all pregnancies are unintended, and rates are especially high among lower-income women, Black women and those who haven’t completed high school.

In March 2022, 59 members of Congress wrote a letter to FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf about OTC contraception.

“This is a critical issue for reproductive health, rights, and justice. Despite decades of proven safety and effectiveness, people still face immense barriers to getting birth control due to systemic inequities in our healthcare system,” the lawmakers wrote.

A recent study showed that it’s become harder for women to access reproductive health care services more broadly – such as routine screenings and birth control – in recent years.

About 45% of women experienced at least one barrier to reproductive health care services in 2021, up 10% from 2017. Nearly 19% reported at least three barriers in 2021, up from 16% in 2017.

Increasing reproductive access for women and adolescents was a resounding theme among the FDA advisers.

“We can take this opportunity to increase access, reduce disparities and, most importantly, increase the reproductive autonomy of the women of our nation,” said Dr. Jolie Haun of the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital and the University of Utah.

Dr. Karen Murray, deputy director of the FDA’s Office of Nonprescription Drugs, said the agency understands the importance of “increased access to effective contraception” but hinted that the FDA would need more data from the manufacturer.

Some of the advisers and FDA scientists expressed concern that some of Perrigo’s data was unreliable due to overreporting of “improbable dosing.”

Murray said the lack of sufficient information from the study poses challenges for approval.

“It would have been a much easier time for the agency if the applicant had submitted a development program and an actual use study that was very easy to interpret and did not have so many challenges. But that was not what happened for us. And so the FDA has been put in a very difficult position of trying to determine whether it is likely that women will use this product safely and effectively in the nonprescription setting,” she said. “But I wanted to again emphasize that FDA does realize how very important women’s health is and how important it is to try to increase access to effective contraception for US women.”

Ultimately, the advisers said, they don’t want further studies of Opill to delay the availability of the product in an over-the-counter setting.

“I just wanted to say that the improbable dosing issue is important, and I don’t think it’s been adequately addressed and certainly leads to some uncertainty in the findings. But despite this, I would not recommend another actual use study this time, and I think we can make a decision on the totality of the evidence,” said Kate Curtis of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Curtis said she voted yes because “Opill has the potential to have a huge positive public health impact.”

Earlier in the discussion, Dr. Leslie Walker-Harding of the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital said the pill is just as safe as many other medications available on store shelves.

“The safety profile is so good that we would need to take every other medicine off the market like Benadryl, ibuprofen, Tylenol, which causes deaths and people can get any amount of that without any oversight. And this is extremely safe, much safer than all three of those medications, and incorrect use still doesn’t appear to have problematic issues,” she said.

Dr. Katalin Roth of the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences also emphasized the safety of the pill over the 50 years it has been approved as a prescription drug in the US.

“The risks to women of an unintended pregnancy are much greater than any of the things we were discussing as risks of putting this pill out out over-the-counter,” she said. “The history of women’s contraception is a struggle for women’s control over their reproduction, and we need to trust women.”

Source link

#FDA #advisers #vote #unanimously #support #overthecounter #birthcontrol #pill #CNN

May 9, 2023

Covid-19 Pandemic Timeline Fast Facts | CNN

Post By zittrexstore Health Asia, biontech, brand safety-nsf death, brand safety-nsf health issues, brand safety-nsf products and consumers negative, brand safety-nsf sensitive, business, business and industry sectors, california, Celebrities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, central china, children, children's health, China, clinical trials, cnn fast facts, communicable disease control, Companies, continents and regions, coronavirus, Coronavirus Pandemic, cruises, Death and dying, deaths and fatalities, demographic groups, diseases and disorders, domestic alerts, domestic-coronavirus, domestic-entertainment, domestic-health and science, domestic-international news, domestic-us news, domestic-us politics, donald trump, East Asia, eastern europe, economy and trade, epidemics and outbreaks, Europe, European Union, families and children, family members and relatives, government and public administration, government bodies and offices, government departments and authorities, government organizations - intl, government organizations - us, health and health care (by demographic group), health and medical, health departments, hubei province, iab-bereavement, iab-business and finance, iab-children's health, iab-cruises, iab-diseases and conditions, iab-family and relationships, iab-healthcare industry, iab-healthy living, iab-industries, iab-infectious diseases, iab-lung and respiratory health, iab-medical health, iab-non-profit organizations, iab-pharmaceutical drugs, iab-pharmaceutical industry, iab-politics, iab-science, iab-travel, iab-travel type, iab-vaccines, Infectious Diseases, international alerts, international-coronavirus, international-entertainment, international-health and science, international-us news, international-us politics, life forms, maternal and child health, medical fields and specialties, medical research, medical treatments and procedures, melania trump, microscopic life, moderna, national institutes of health, non-profit and ngo organizations, North America, northwestern united states, pediatric vaccinations, Pfizer Inc, pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceuticals, pharmaceuticals and prescription drugs, political figures - intl, political figures - us, politics, population and demographics, Public health, public health administration, respiratory diseases, Russia, science, scientific institutions, society, southwestern united states, the americas, tourism, travel and tourism, United States, us department of health and human services, us federal departments and agencies, us federal government, us food and drug administration, vaccination and immunization, viruses, washington state, White House, World Health Organization, wuhan, xi jinping No Comments

CNN
—

Here’s a look at the coronavirus outbreak, declared a worldwide pandemic by the World Health Organization. The coronavirus, called Covid-19 by WHO, originated in China and is the cousin of the SARS virus.

Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses that are common among animals. The viruses can make people sick, usually with a mild to moderate upper respiratory tract illness, similar to a common cold. Coronavirus symptoms include a runny nose, cough, sore throat, possibly a headache and maybe a fever, which can last for a couple of days.

WHO Situation Reports

Coronavirus Map

CNN’s early reporting on the coronavirus

December 31, 2019 – Cases of pneumonia detected in Wuhan, China, are first reported to WHO. During this reported period, the virus is unknown. The cases occur between December 12 and December 29, according to Wuhan Municipal Health.

January 1, 2020 – Chinese health authorities close the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market after it is discovered that wild animals sold there may be the source of the virus.

January 5, 2020 – China announces that the unknown pneumonia cases in Wuhan are not SARS or MERS. In a statement, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission says a retrospective probe into the outbreak has been initiated.

January 7, 2020 – Chinese authorities confirm that they have identified the virus as a novel coronavirus, initially named 2019-nCoV by WHO.

January 11, 2020 – The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission announces the first death caused by the coronavirus. A 61-year-old man, exposed to the virus at the seafood market, died on January 9 after respiratory failure caused by severe pneumonia.

January 17, 2020 – Chinese health officials confirm that a second person has died in China. The United States responds to the outbreak by implementing screenings for symptoms at airports in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.

January 20, 2020 – China reports 139 new cases of the sickness, including a third death. On the same day, WHO’s first situation report confirms cases in Japan, South Korea and Thailand.

January 20, 2020 – The National Institutes of Health announces that it is working on a vaccine against the coronavirus. “The NIH is in the process of taking the first steps towards the development of a vaccine,” says Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

January 21, 2020 – Officials in Washington state confirm the first case on US soil.

January 23, 2020 – At an emergency committee, WHO says that the coronavirus does not yet constitute a public health emergency of international concern.

January 23, 2020 – The Beijing Culture and Tourism Bureau cancels all large-scale Lunar New Year celebrations in an effort to contain the growing spread of coronavirus. On the same day, Chinese authorities enforce a partial lockdown of transport in and out of Wuhan. Authorities in the nearby cities of Huanggang and Ezhou Huanggang announce a series of similar measures.

January 28, 2020 – Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom in Beijing. At the meeting, Xi and WHO agree to send a team of international experts, including US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff, to China to investigate the coronavirus outbreak.

January 29, 2020 – The White House announces the formation of a new task force that will help monitor and contain the spread of the virus, and ensure Americans have accurate and up-to-date health and travel information, it says.

January 30, 2020 – The United States reports its first confirmed case of person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus. On the same day, WHO determines that the outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

January 31, 2020 – The Donald Trump administration announces it will deny entry to foreign nationals who have traveled in China in the last 14 days.

February 2, 2020 – A man in the Philippines dies from the coronavirus – the first time a death has been reported outside mainland China since the outbreak began.

February 3, 2020 – China’s Foreign Ministry accuses the US government of inappropriately reacting to the outbreak and spreading fear by enforcing travel restrictions.

February 4, 2020 – The Japanese Health Ministry announces that ten people aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship moored in Yokohama Bay are confirmed to have the coronavirus. The ship, which is carrying more than 3,700 people, is placed under quarantine scheduled to end on February 19.

February 6, 2020 – First Covid-19 death in the United States: A person in California’s Santa Clara County dies of coronavirus, but the link is not confirmed until April 21.

February 7, 2020 – Li Wenliang, a Wuhan doctor who was targeted by police for trying to sound the alarm on a “SARS-like” virus in December, dies of the coronavirus. Following news of Li’s death, the topics “Wuhan government owes Dr. Li Wenliang an apology,” and “We want freedom of speech,” trend on China’s Twitter-like platform, Weibo, before disappearing from the heavily censored platform.

February 8, 2020 – The US Embassy in Beijing confirms that a 60-year-old US national died in Wuhan on February 6, marking the first confirmed death of a foreigner.

February 10, 2020 – Xi inspects efforts to contain the coronavirus in Beijing, the first time he has appeared on the front lines of the fight against the outbreak. On the same day, a team of international experts from WHO arrive in China to assist with containing the coronavirus outbreak.

February 10, 2020 – The Anthem of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, sets sail from Bayonne, New Jersey, after a coronavirus scare had kept it docked and its passengers waiting for days.

February 11, 2020 – WHO names the coronavirus Covid-19.

February 13, 2020 – China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency announces that Shanghai mayor Ying Yong will be replacing Jiang Chaoliang amid the outbreak. Wuhan Communist Party chief Ma Guoqiang has also been replaced by Wang Zhonglin, party chief of Jinan city in Shandong province, according to Xinhua.

February 14, 2020 – A Chinese tourist who tested positive for the virus dies in France, becoming the first person to die in the outbreak in Europe. On the same day, Egypt announces its first case of coronavirus, marking the first case in Africa.

February 15, 2020 – The official Communist Party journal Qiushi publishes the transcript of a speech made on February 3 by Xi in which he “issued requirements for the prevention and control of the new coronavirus” on January 7, revealing Xi knew about and was directing the response to the virus on almost two weeks before he commented on it publicly.

February 17, 2020 – A second person in California’s Santa Clara County dies of coronavirus, but the link is not confirmed until April 21.

February 18, 2020 – Xi says in a phone call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that China’s measures to prevent and control the epidemic “are achieving visible progress,” according to state news Xinhua.

February 21, 2020 – The CDC changes criteria for counting confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in the United States and begins tracking two separate and distinct groups: those repatriated by the US Department of State and those identified by the US public health network.

February 25, 2020 – The NIH announces that a clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the antiviral drug remdesivir in adults diagnosed with coronavirus has started at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. The first participant is an American who was evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan.

February 25, 2020 – In an effort to contain the largest outbreak in Europe, Italy’s Lombardy region press office issues a list of towns and villages that are in complete lockdown. Around 100,000 people are affected by the travel restrictions.

February 26, 2020 – CDC officials say that a California patient being treated for novel coronavirus is the first US case of unknown origin. The patient, who didn’t have any relevant travel history nor exposure to another known patient, is the first possible US case of “community spread.”

February 26, 2020 – Trump places Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the US government response to the novel coronavirus, amid growing criticism of the White House’s handling of the outbreak.

February 29, 2020 – A patient dies of coronavirus in Washington state. For almost two months, this is considered the first death due to the virus in the United States, until autopsy results announced April 21 reveal two earlier deaths in California.

March 3, 2020 – The Federal Reserve slashes interest rates by half a percentage point in an attempt to give the US economy a jolt in the face of concerns about the coronavirus outbreak. It is the first unscheduled, emergency rate cut since 2008, and it also marks the biggest one-time cut since then.

March 3, 2020 – Officials announce that Iran will temporarily release 54,000 people from prisons and deploy hundreds of thousands of health workers as officials announced a slew of measures to contain the world’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak outside China. It is also announced that 23 members of Iran’s parliament tested positive for the virus.

March 4, 2020 – The CDC formally removes earlier restrictions that limited coronavirus testing of the general public to people in the hospital, unless they had close contact with confirmed coronavirus cases. According to the CDC, clinicians should now “use their judgment to determine if a patient has signs and symptoms compatible with COVID-19 and whether the patient should be tested.”

March 8, 2020 – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte signs a decree placing travel restrictions on the entire Lombardy region and 14 other provinces, restricting the movements of more than 10 million people in the northern part of the country.

March 9, 2020 – Conte announces that the whole country of Italy is on lockdown.

March 11, 2020 – WHO declares the novel coronavirus outbreak to be a pandemic. WHO says the outbreak is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus. In an Oval Office address, Trump announces that he is restricting travel from Europe to the United States for 30 days in an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus. The ban, which applies to the 26 countries in the Schengen Area, applies only to foreign nationals and not American citizens and permanent residents who’d be screened before entering the country.

March 13, 2020 – Trump declares a national emergency to free up $50 billion in federal resources to combat coronavirus.

March 18, 2020 – Trump signs into law a coronavirus relief package that includes provisions for free testing for Covid-19 and paid emergency leave.

March 19, 2020 – At a news conference, officials from China’s National Health Commission report no new locally transmitted coronavirus cases for the first time since the pandemic began.

March 23, 2020 – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres calls for an immediate global ceasefire amid the pandemic to fight “the common enemy.”

March 24, 2020 – Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach agree to postpone the Olympics until 2021 amid the outbreak.

March 25, 2020 – The White House and Senate leaders reach an agreement on a $2 trillion stimulus deal to offset the economic damage of coronavirus, producing one of the most expensive and far-reaching measures in the history of Congress.

March 27, 2020 – Trump signs the stimulus package into law.

April 2, 2020 – According to the Department of Labor, 6.6 million US workers file for their first week of unemployment benefits in the week ending March 28, the highest number of initial claims in history. Globally, the total number of coronavirus cases surpasses 1 million, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally.

April 3, 2020 – Trump says his administration is now recommending Americans wear “non-medical cloth” face coverings, a reversal of previous guidance that suggested masks were unnecessary for people who weren’t sick.

April 8, 2020 – China reopens Wuhan after a 76-day lockdown.

April 14, 2020 – Trump announces he is halting funding to WHO while a review is conducted, saying the review will cover WHO’s “role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of coronavirus.”

April 20, 2020 – Chilean health officials announce that Chile will begin issuing the world’s first digital immunity cards to people who have recovered from coronavirus, saying the cards will help identify individuals who no longer pose a health risk to others.

April 21, 2020 – California’s Santa Clara County announces autopsy results that show two Californians died of novel coronavirus in early and mid-February – up to three weeks before the previously known first US death from the virus.

April 28, 2020 – The United States passes one million confirmed cases of the virus, according to Johns Hopkins.

May 1, 2020 – The US Food and Drug Administration issues an emergency-use authorization for remdesivir in hospitalized patients with severe Covid-19. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn says remdesivir is the first authorized therapy drug for Covid-19.

May 4, 2020 – During a virtual pledging conference co-hosted by the European Union, world leaders pledge a total of $8 billion for the development and deployment of diagnostics, treatments and vaccines against the novel coronavirus.

May 11, 2020 – Trump and his administration announce that the federal government is sending $11 billion to states to expand coronavirus testing capabilities. The relief package signed on April 24 includes $25 billion for testing, with $11 billion for states, localities, territories and tribes.

May 13, 2020 – Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, warns that the coronavirus may never go away and may just join the mix of viruses that kill people around the world every year.

May 19, 2020 – WHO agrees to hold an inquiry into the global response to the coronavirus pandemic. WHO member states adopt the proposal with no objections during the World Health Assembly meeting, after the European Union and Australia led calls for an investigation.

May 23, 2020 – China reports no new symptomatic coronavirus cases, the first time since the beginning of the outbreak in December.

May 27, 2020 – Data collected by Johns Hopkins University reports that the coronavirus has killed more than 100,000 people across the US, meaning that an average of almost 900 Americans died each day since the first known coronavirus-related death was reported nearly four months earlier.

June 2, 2020 – Wuhan’s Health Commission announces that it has completed coronavirus tests on 9.9 million of its residents with no new confirmed cases found.

June 8, 2020 – New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces that almost all coronavirus restrictions in New Zealand will be lifted after the country reported no active cases.

June 11, 2020 – The United States passes 2 million confirmed cases of the virus, according to Johns Hopkins.

June 16, 2020 – University of Oxford scientists leading the Recovery Trial, a large UK-based trial investigating potential Covid-19 treatments, announce that a low-dose regimen of dexamethasone for 10 days was found to reduce the risk of death by a third among hospitalized patients requiring ventilation in the trial.

June 20, 2020 – The NIH announces that it has halted a clinical trial evaluating the safety and effectiveness of drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus. “A data and safety monitoring board met late Friday and determined that while there was no harm, the study drug was very unlikely to be beneficial to hospitalized patients with Covid-19,” the NIH says in a statement.

June 26, 2020 – During a virtual media briefing, WHO announces that it plans to deliver about 2 billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine to people across the globe. One billion of those doses will be purchased for low- and middle-income countries, according to WHO.

July 1, 2020 – The European Union announces it will allow travelers from 14 countries outside the bloc to visit EU countries, months after it shut its external borders in response to the pandemic. The list does not include the US, which doesn’t meet the criteria set by the EU for it to be considered a “safe country.”

July 6, 2020 – In an open letter published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, 239 scientists from around the world urge WHO and other health agencies to be more forthright in explaining the potential airborne transmission of coronavirus. In the letter, scientists write that studies “have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that viruses are released during exhalation, talking, and coughing in microdroplets small enough to remain aloft in air and pose a risk of exposure at distances beyond 1 to 2 meters (yards) from an infected individual.”

July 7, 2020 – The Trump administration notifies Congress and the United Nations that the United States is formally withdrawing from WHO. The withdrawal goes into effect on July 6, 2021.

July 21, 2020 – European leaders agree to create a €750 billion ($858 billion) recovery fund to rebuild EU economies ravaged by the coronavirus.

July 27, 2020 – A vaccine being developed by the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in partnership with the biotechnology company Moderna, enters Phase 3 testing. The trial is expected to enroll about 30,000 adult volunteers and evaluates the safety of the vaccine and whether it can prevent symptomatic Covid-19 after two doses, among other outcomes.

August 11, 2020 – In a live teleconference, Russian President Vladimir Putin announces that Russia has approved a coronavirus vaccine for public use before completion of Phase 3 trials, which usually precedes approval. The vaccine, which is named Sputnik-V, is developed by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute with funding from the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).

August 15, 2020 – Russia begins production on Sputnik-V, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

August 23, 2020 – The FDA issues an emergency use authorization for the use of convalescent plasma to treat Covid-19. It is made using the blood of people who have recovered from coronavirus infections.

August 27, 2020 – The CDC notifies public health officials around the United States to prepare to distribute a potential coronavirus vaccine as soon as late October. In the documents, posted by The New York Times, the CDC provides planning scenarios to help states prepare and advises on who should get vaccinated first – healthcare professionals, essential workers, national security “populations” and long-term care facility residents and staff.

September 4, 2020 – The first peer-reviewed results of Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials of Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine are published in the medical journal The Lancet. The results “have a good safety profile” and the vaccine induced antibody responses in all participants, The Lancet says.

October 2, 2020 – Trump announces that he and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for Covid-19. He spends three nights at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center receiving treatment before returning to the White House.

October 12, 2020 – Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson announces it has paused the advanced clinical trial of its experimental coronavirus vaccine because of an unexplained illness in one of the volunteers.”Following our guidelines, the participant’s illness is being reviewed and evaluated by the ENSEMBLE independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) as well as our internal clinical and safety physicians,” the company said in a statement. ENSEMBLE is the name of the study. The trial resumes later in the month.

December 10, 2020 – Vaccine advisers to the FDA vote to recommend the agency grant emergency use authorization to Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine.

December 14, 2020 – US officials announce the first doses of the FDA authorized Pfizer vaccine have been delivered to all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

December 18, 2020 – The FDA authorizes a second coronavirus vaccine made by Moderna for emergency use. “The emergency use authorization allows the vaccine to be distributed in the U.S. for use in individuals 18 years and older,” the FDA said in a tweet.

January 14, 2021 – The WHO team tasked with investigating the origins of the outbreak in Wuhan arrive in China.

January 20, 2021 – Newly elected US President Joe Biden halts the United States’ withdrawal from WHO.

February 22, 2021 – The death toll from Covid-19 exceeds 500,000 in the United States.

February 27, 2021 – The FDA grants emergency use authorization to Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, the first single dose Covid-19 vaccine available in the US.

March 30, 2021 – According to a 120-page report from WHO, the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 probably spread to people through an animal, and probably started spreading among humans no more than a month or two before it was noticed in December of 2019. The report says a scenario where it spread via an intermediate animal host, possibly a wild animal captured and then raised on a farm, is “very likely.”

April 17, 2021 – The global tally of deaths from Covid-19 surpasses 3 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins.

August 3, 2021 – According to figures published by the CDC, the more contagious Delta variant accounts for an estimated 93.4% of coronavirus circulating in the United States during the last two weeks of July. The figures show a rapid increase over the past two months, up from around 3% in the two weeks ending May 22.

August 12, 2021 – The FDA authorizes an additional Covid-19 vaccine dose for certain immunocompromised people.

August 23, 2021 – The FDA grants full approval to the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for people age 16 and older, making it the first coronavirus vaccine approved by the FDA.

September 24, 2021 – CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky diverges from the agency’s independent vaccine advisers to recommend boosters for a broader group of people – those ages 18 to 64 who are at increased risk of Covid-19 because of their workplaces or institutional settings – in addition to older adults, long-term care facility residents and some people with underlying health conditions.

November 2, 2021 – Walensky says she is endorsing a recommendation to vaccinate children ages 5-11 against Covid-19, clearing the way for immediate vaccination of the youngest age group yet in the US.

November 19, 2021 – The FDA authorizes boosters of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines for all adults. The same day, the CDC also endorses boosters for all adults.

December 16, 2021 – The CDC changes its recommendations for Covid-19 vaccines to make clear that shots made by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech are preferred over Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine.

December 22, 2021 – The FDA authorizes Pfizer’s antiviral pill, Paxlovid, to treat Covid-19, the first antiviral Covid-19 pill authorized in the United States for ill people to take at home, before they get sick enough to be hospitalized. The following day, the FDA authorizes Merck’s antiviral pill, molnupiravir.

December 27, 2021 – The CDC shortens the recommended times that people should isolate when they’ve tested positive for Covid-19 from 10 days to five days if they don’t have symptoms – and if they wear a mask around others for at least five more days. The CDC also shortens the recommended time for people to quarantine if they are exposed to the virus to a similar five days if they are vaccinated.

January 31, 2022 – The FDA grants full approval to Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine for those ages 18 and older. This is the second coronavirus vaccine given full approval by the FDA.

March 29, 2022 – The FDA authorizes a second booster of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines for adults 50 and older. That same day, the CDC also endorses a second booster for the same age group.

April 25, 2022 – The FDA expands approval of the drug remdesivir to treat patients as young as 28 days and weighing about seven pounds.

May 17, 2022 – The FDA authorizes a booster dose of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 at least five months after completion of the primary vaccine series. On May 19, the CDC also endorses a booster dose for the same age group.

June 18, 2022 – The CDC recommends Covid-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months.

August 31, 2022 – The FDA authorizes updated Covid-19 vaccine booster shots from Moderna and Pfizer. Both are bivalent vaccines that combine the companies’ original vaccine with one that targets the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron sublineages. The CDC signs off on the updated booster shots the following day.

May 5, 2023 – The WHO says Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency.

Source link

#Covid19 #Pandemic #Timeline #Fast #Facts #CNN