Contaminated Childhood: The Chronic Lead Poisoning of Low-Income Children and Communities of Color in the United States
The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, revealed systemic government malfeasance that exposed an entire city population to lead-contaminated water. It also alerted the nation to the fact that lead poisoning remains endemic and threatens the livelihood of children across the country. The problem extends beyond Flint—a recent report identified more than 2,600 areas in the United States that have lead poisoning rates at least double those recorded during the peak of the Flint crisis.
According to the American Healthy Homes Survey, conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), more 23 million homes in ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - August 8, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Emily A. Benfer Tags: Featured Health Equity Population Health Public Health civil rights Lead poisoning racial inequity Social Determinants of Health social justice Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 196
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog
Just when you thought your brain could unwind on a Friday, you realise that it would rather be challenged with some good old fashioned medical trivia FFFF…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 196.
Question 1
What happens if you swallow chewing gum?
http://roalddahl.wikia.com/wiki/Violet_Beauregarde
+ Reveal the Funtabulous Answer
expand(document.getElementById('ddet864489204'));expand(document.getElementById('ddetlink864489204'))
Not a lot, most people p...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - July 6, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Neil Long Tags: Frivolous Friday Five catatumbo chewing gum children Constipation drowning growth lightning pancreatitis Schaltenbrand syndrome scorpion bite spontaneous cerebrospinal fluid leak Source Type: blogs
Beyond “ Repeal and Replace ”
BY DANIEL STONE, MD
The toxic polarization of Washington politics might lead even the most stubborn optimist to abandon any hope for bipartisanship on healthcare. Despite endemic pessimism, the flagging efforts to forge a Republican consensus on “repeal and replace” might set the stage for overdue efforts at compromise. Congress will be tempted to move on to more promising areas such as tax reform and infrastructure funding. That temptation should be resisted. The threat to the nation posed by the current state of American healthcare calls for Congress to resurrect the long lost spirit of bold bipartisanship.
Before c...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 5, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized ACA CBO Daniel Stone Medicare Medicare Advantage Repeal Replace Source Type: blogs
Vericred Offers Industry First Provider-Network Notification Service (Interview)
When providers transition amongst coverage networks, the results can be unexpected out-of-network bills to patients and an administrative burden on healthcare businesses managing coverage. Representing an important step forward in the trend towards increased transparency in healthcare, today, Vericred, based in New York City, is releasing a new offering in the form of provider-network notifications. Vericred, a healthcare data services company begun in 2014, made the announcement at this year’s AHIP Institute and EXPO event in New York City. The new capability provides value throughout “the lifecycle of a m...
Source: Medgadget - June 9, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Michael Batista Tags: Exclusive Source Type: blogs
Travel-Related African Trypanosomiasis
During January 1970 to May 2017, 138 case reports of travel-related trypanosomiasis were published in the medical literature. In 49 cases (36%) the patients were identified as Europeans, and in 49 (37%) the disease was acquired in Tanzania. A chronology of these events follows below [1].
African Trypanosomiasis – A Chronology of Travel-Related Cases
Year Patient From Infected In Cases (#)
1970
Switzerland
multiple **
1
1970
United States
multiple
2
1975
Sweden
Gambia
1
1977
Switzerland
multiple
...
Source: GIDEON blog - May 18, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Dr. Stephen Berger Tags: Epidemiology Graphs Source Type: blogs
Interview: International Trachoma Initiative and Pfizer On Par To Eliminate Trachoma-caused Blindness
Thanks to advances in science and technology, the world is now on the cusp of eliminating several debilitating diseases that affect the world’s most disadvantaged populations. Many experts who have dedicated their careers to ending trachoma recently attended an international summit in Geneva (April 19-22, 2017) to discuss the progress to date. There a total of 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) of the 18 identified by the World Health Organization being targeted by these international organizations and partnerships.
Trachoma is a leading infectious cause of blindness currently threatening about 185 million people ...
Source: Medgadget - May 2, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Alice Ferng Tags: Exclusive Public Health Source Type: blogs
Interview: International Trachoma Initiative and Pfizer On Par To Eliminate and Eradicate Trachoma-caused Blindness
Thanks to advances in science and technology, the world is now on the cusp of eliminating several debilitating diseases that affect the world’s most disadvantaged populations. Many experts who have dedicated their careers to ending trachoma recently attended an international summit in Geneva (April 19-22, 2017) to discuss the progress to date. There a total of 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) of the 18 identified by the World Health Organization being targeted by these international organizations and partnerships.
Trachoma is a leading infectious cause of blindness currently threatening about 185 million people ...
Source: Medgadget - May 2, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Alice Ferng Tags: Exclusive Public Health Source Type: blogs
Interview: International Trachoma Initiative and Pfizer On Par To Eliminate and Eradicate Trachoma-caused Blindness
Thanks to advances in science and technology, the world is now on the cusp of eliminating several debilitating diseases that affect the world’s most disadvantaged populations. Many experts who have dedicated their careers to ending trachoma recently attended an international summit in Geneva (April 19-22, 2017) to discuss the progress to date. There a total of 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) of the 18 identified by the World Health Organization being targeted by these international organizations and partnerships.
Trachoma is a leading infectious cause of blindness currently threatening about 185 million people ...
Source: Medgadget - May 2, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Alice Ferng Tags: Exclusive Public Health Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 443
Answer:LeishmaniaamastigotesThis case shows the characteristic morphology of amastigotes within a macrophage. The arrow below highlights an amastigote in which the nucleus and kinetoplast can both be seen.One of the most important teaching points about this case is that the patient acquired infection in Italy - a country that many physicians (especially in the United States) do not realize is endemic forLeishmania infantum. Of note,Leishmania infantumis nearly identical toL. chagasi,a pathogen found in the Americas, and some consider them to be the same organism (in which caseL. infantumwould have preference). (Source: Cre...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - April 22, 2017 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
New York Times Article Misleads on British Rail Privatization
British commentator Owen Jones was published yesterday by the New York Times, with a piece entitled “Why Britain ’s Trains Don’t Run on Time: Capitalism. ” I’ve learned through experience not to judge articles by headlines, but this one seems especially curious, given89.1 per cent of trains were, in fact, on time in 2015/16 —a figure thathas improved somewhat since 1997, just a couple of years after some of British Rail was part-privatized.Yet aside from the bizarre opening assertion we might judge the state of a nation by how the railways run, the purpose of the article and headline soon becomes clear: to push...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 5, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Ryan Bourne Source Type: blogs
The Child Sexual Abuse Conspiracy
BY DAVID INTROCASO
(After this essay was submitted to THCB the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on March 28th titled, “Protecting Young Athletes From Sexual Abuse.” USA Gymnastics refused to appear and provide testimony likely, in part, because USA Gymnastics’ President, Steve Penny, was forced to resign on March 16th. The issue was framed by Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley as a “heinous crime,” no health care or public health expert testified and the hearing and was reported in sports pages of the The New York Times and The Washington Post.)
If you do not read the sports page you ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 31, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
What Experts in Law and Medicine Have to Say About the Cost of Drugs
By ANDY ORAM
Pharmaceutical drug costs impinge heavily on consumers’ consciousness, often on a monthly basis, and have become such a stress on the public that they came up repeatedly among both major parties during the U.S. presidential campaign–and remain a bipartisan rallying cry. A good deal of the recent conference named Health Law Year in P/Review, at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, covered issues with a bearing on drug costs. It’s interesting to take the academic expertise from that conference–and combine it with a bit of commo...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 2, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Andy Oram Drug Pricing Pharma Source Type: blogs
The World ’s Most – And Least – Miserable Countries in 2016
In what follows, I update my annual Misery Index calculations. A Misery Index was first constructed by economist Art Okun as a way to provide President Lyndon Johnson with a snapshot of the economy. The original Misery Index was just a simple sum of a nation ’s annual inflation rate and its unemployment rate. The Misery Index has been modified several times, first by Robert Barro of Harvard and then by myself. My modified Misery Index is the sum of the unemployment, inflation, and bank lending rates, minus the percentage change in real GDP per capita. A higher Misery Index score reflects higher levels of “misery,” ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 17, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
$360,000 Given or Pledged to SENS Rejuvenation Research at the End of 2016
The last SENS rejuvenation research fundraiser of 2016 ended a couple of days ago, with the donations from hundreds of supporters going to the SENS Research Foundation in order to support ongoing scientific programs aimed at bringing an end to aging. Aging is a medical condition with root causes, just like any other, and effectively addressing those causes will allow degenerative aging to brought under control, halted, and reversed. That is the difference between the medicine of yesterday, which didn't have any great impact on the causes of aging, and the medicine of tomorrow, which will. Still, it isn't a sure thing for a...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 2, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs
LITFL Review 263
Welcome to the 263rd LITFL Review! Your regular and reliable source for the highest highlights, sneakiest sneak peeks and loudest shout-outs from the webbed world of emergency medicine and critical care. Each week the LITFL team casts the spotlight on the blogosphere’s best and brightest and deliver a bite-sized chunk of FOAM.
The Most Fair Dinkum Ripper Beauts of the Week
A well-written NY Times essay on how social isolation is killing us made the Internet rounds over the holidays, penned by a medical resident.
The Best of #FOAMed Emergency Medicine
A very interesting and thought provoking post by Josh Fa...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - January 1, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Marjorie Lazoff, MD Tags: Education LITFL review Source Type: blogs
