Monday, Feb 02nd
Last update09:33:59 AM GMT
Health Glance
A new review paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that a growing body of empirical evidence shows how presidential elections can have effects on physical and mental health, and can influence behavior.
Specifically, they found evidence that suggests that the campaign and subsequent election of Donald Trump has had a negative effect on the mental well-being of Americans, and in particular those in marginalized groups who are vulnerable to discrimination.
Lawmakers in Texas largely failed to take significant action to address the state’s skyrocketing rate of pregnancy-related deaths just months after researchers found it to be the highest in not only the U.S., but the developed world.
Legislators introduced proposals to address the issue after a University of Maryland-led study found that Texas’ maternal mortality rate doubled between 2010 and 2012. But several key measures didn’t even make it to a legislative vote, falling victim to Republican infighting over other issues.
President Donald Trump’s administration announced the details Monday of the president’s unprecedented international anti-abortion policy, which drastically expands the “global gag rule” that past Republican presidents have placed on U.S. health assistance funds.
The gag rule, also known as the Mexico City policy, blocks international family planning assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development to any groups or programs that provide or even mention abortions to women, or speak out about abortion laws in their own countries. It was last implemented by President George W. Bush and then was repealed by President Barack Obama.
If you're sniffling and sneezing a lot more lately, you're hardly alone. Climate change is making seasonal allergies worse, an expert says.
"With the combination of increased temperature and carbon dioxide, we are seeing a dramatic change, and allergy sufferers can probably feel that change," said Dr. Richard Weber, president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.
About half of U.S. doctors received payments from the pharmaceutical and medical device industries in 2015, amounting to $2.4 billion, a new study reports.
Those payments and gifts very likely encourage doctors to prescribe pricey brand-name drugs and devices pushed by sales representatives, a second study argues.
Doctors at academic medical centers were more likely to prescribe cheaper generic drugs than expensive brand-name drugs after their hospitals adopted rules that restricted pharmaceutical sales visits, the researchers said.
Research shows that areas of the United States where there are high numbers of unregistered automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, also have an increased failure rate of those AEDs.
Researchers at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Kentucky have found significant variability exists in how AEDs are registered and maintained causing concern about failure rates of the medical devices. Currently, there are no national standards for the maintenance and registration of AEDs.
Public access AEDs are now commonly found in schools, community centers, government buildings and workplaces as a way to give potentially life-saving treatment for cardiac arrest.
Nearly half of American men and women under 60 are infected with the human papillomavirus, or HPV, putting them at risk for certain cancers, federal health officials reported Thursday.
More than 45 percent of men were infected with genital HPV in 2013-2014, while 25 percent were infected with high-risk genital HPV. At the same time, about 40 percent of women carried genital HPV, while almost 20 percent had high-risk genital HPV, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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