Category Archives: healthcare

Texas reports first local Zika case of 2017 | CIDRAP- Drip, drip, drip – pandemic start?

Texas health officials today announced the state’s first probable local Zika infection of the year, which also appears to be the first local case reported in the United States for 2017.The patient is a Hildago County resident who had not traveled outside the area or had any other risk factors, the Texas Department of State Health Services (TSDHS) said in a press release. Hildago County, located in the Rio Grande Valley, is in far southern Texas on the border with Mexico.The virus was probably transmitted by a mosquito bite in South Texas some time in the last few months, and lab tests show that the person is no longer at risk of spreading Zika to mosquitoes.In April the TDSHS expanded its recommendations for testing pregnant women and people with Zika infections in six South Texas counties, which led to thousands of tests being conducted and to the identification of the newly identified case.

Source: Texas reports first local Zika case of 2017 | CIDRAP

Julie Negrin Will Die If the ACA is Repealed | Dame Magazine

You probably don’t know Julie Negrin’s name or her story, but if Trumpcare passes the Senate, she’s likely to become a viral sensation. The 45-year old nutritionist isn’t exaggerating when she says she will die if the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is repealed and replaced by Trumpcare. She’s been saying that since the GOP announced its replacement health care plan; after all, without insurance, or with substandard insurance, her body’s already compromised systems will collapse. Over the past week, however, she’s been saying she’ll die under Trumpcare for a different reason. Negrin has made a big, life-changing decision. If Trumpcare passes, she vows to become a martyr for the health care cause by suspending all medical treatment and, as she put it in a Facebook post, “leverag[ing] the fuck out of my slow, sad, suffering, death.” Her hope? “To activate a movement to restore our healthcare system.”It takes thousands of dollars each month to keep Negrin alive, and with her current ACA plan through Blue Shield*, insurance covers most of her medical expenses, even mental health appointments (“There’s a lot of trauma with having organs cut out”) and some naturopathic services. Without ACA coverage and under Trumpcare, her pre-existing conditions will most certainly mean she won’t be able to obtain insurance – not any she can afford, anyway. And there’s no way she can pay out of pocket for the dozens of monthly medical appointments and costly treatments, as well as the check-ups she needs to make sure her multiple cancers remain in remission and that her body hasn’t been invaded by new ones.

Source: Julie Negrin Will Die If the ACA is Repealed | Dame Magazine

When Health Law Isn’t Enough, the Desperate Line Up at Tents – The New York Times

 

Anthony Marino, 54, reached into his car trunk to show a pair of needle-nosed pliers like the ones he used to yank out a rotting tooth. Shirley Akers, 58, clutched a list of 20 medications she takes, before settling down to a sleepless night in the cab of a pickup truck.Robin Neal, 40, tried to inject herself with a used-up insulin pen, but it broke, and her blood sugar began to skyrocket.As the sun set in the mountains of southwest Virginia, hundreds of hurting souls were camped out or huddled in vehicles, eager for an early place in line when the gates swung open at 5 a.m. for the nation’s largest pop-up free clinic.

Senate Parliamentarian Challenges Key Provisions of Health Bill – The New York Times

One provision questioned by the parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, and cherished by conservatives would cut off federal funds for Planned Parenthood for one year. Another would prohibit use of federal subsidies to buy insurance that includes coverage for abortions.A third provision would penalize people who go without health insurance by requiring them to wait six months before their coverage could begin. Insurers would generally be required to impose the waiting period on people who lacked coverage for more than about two months in the prior year.If formally challenged, the provisions could survive only with 60 votes, a near-impossibility in the partisan, narrowly divided Senate. The abortion-related provisions are important to many conservatives, not just in the Senate but also in the House.

High levels of resistant E coli found in Indian poultry | CIDRAP

In the study, published yesterday in Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers collected samples from 530 birds on 18 large commercial chicken farms in Punjab, India. Susceptibility testing of 1,556 Escherichia coli isolates to 11 different antibiotics used in human health showed resistance to 10 of them, with particularly high levels of resistance to nalidixic acid (86%), tetracycline (47%), ampicillin (43%), co-trimoxazole (42%), and ciprofloxacin (39%).More than half of the E coli isolates tested were multidrug resistant (MDR), and nearly 60% were found to harbor extended-spectrum beta lactamase (ESBL), an enzyme that confers resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics.

Source: High levels of resistant E coli found in Indian poultry | CIDRAP

3 GOP women were left out of the Senate’s Obamacare repeal effort. They just tanked it. – Vox ROTFLMAO!

It’s notable that the three women who had the final say, vocal in their positions on health care policy, were all cut out of the Senate’s initial working group to draft the Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill — a group of 13 men.

Source: 3 GOP women were left out of the Senate’s Obamacare repeal effort. They just tanked it. – Vox

Avian Flu Diary: H2N2: Everything Old Is Flu Again – “This was a flu that put me and my classmates down for an average of 3 to 4 weeks. 10,000 died in LA County. It came around for a second round in 1958-1959 and was called Hong Kong Flu.”

it was 60 years ago this summer when the first U.S. pandemic H2N2 cases were reported, with the initial wave eventually peaking in October.   Dubbed the `Asian Flu’, H2N2 was the first subtype change in seasonal flu in nearly 4 decades, and while milder than the 1918 H1N1 pandemic, it still claimed 70,000 lives in the United States (at a time when the U.S. population was 45% lower than today).

Source: Avian Flu Diary: H2N2: Everything Old Is Flu Again

Governors From Both Parties Denounce Senate Obamacare Repeal Bill – The New York Times “Pence proves he does not have a clue about who expanded Medicaid is serving. Working poor who do not earn enough to buy insurance and would either be sick or jamming up ER rooms and driving healthcare up again – Preventive care would be gone and dummy – people get sicker and miss work or cannot work!”

Mr. Pence, who as Indiana’s governor accepted federal funding to expand Medicaid, also acknowledged that the proposal would significantly change the population that receives health care coverage through the program. He insisted that the bill would hold Medicaid to its “original purpose” of covering the most severely vulnerable people and said too many “able-bodied adults” rely on the program.The shift, he said, was aimed at “ensuring for the long run that Medicaid will be there for the neediest.”

When Gaza has no power, we all swim in sewage | +972 Magazine

the raw sewage flowing into the sea from Gaza’s incapacitated wastewater treatment plant has become a health hazard for Palestinians and Israelis alike. Unlike Gaza’s sewage treatment plant, which lacks the electricity necessary to function, Israel’s desalination plants have all the power they need. But the sewage flowing north in the Mediterranean from Gaza has become a practical problem for Israel, polluting the sea water meant for desalination.The shot of the two men grinning on the beach was a poetic, tragicomic testament to the extent of Israel’s repression and dream world. Our neighbors are Gazans, not Indians. Our desalination plants are firmly dug into the Mediterranean coast, not attached to four-wheel drive vehicles. And when Gaza has no power, we all swim in refuse. But Netanyahu is banking on Indian support to continue controlling the Palestinians without paying the price internationally. Even if he is successful, will that change the fact that our fates are inseparably entwined with that of the Palestinians?

Source: When Gaza has no power, we all swim in sewage | +972 Magazine