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Richard Franki is the associate editor who writes and creates graphs. He started with the company in 1987, when it was known as the International Medical News Group. In his years as a journalist, Richard has worked for Cap Cities/ABC, Disney, Harcourt, Elsevier, Quadrant, Frontline, and Internet Brands. In the 1990s, he was a contributor to the ill-fated Indications column, predecessor of Livin' on the MDedge.
Action on HealthCare.gov picked up during week 5
Activity during week 5 of open enrollment on HealthCare.gov was up by more than 50% over the previous week, but the total number of plans selected for the 2019 coverage year remains lower than it was last year, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The 773,000 plans selected during week 5 (Nov. 25 – Dec. 1) of the 2019 open enrollment season were an increase of 54% over week 4, CMS data show for the 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform, with the cumulative total now at 3.2 million. By comparison, week-5 selections in last year’s open enrollment totaled 823,000, and the cumulative figure was 3.6 million.
The deadline for applying for 2019 coverage on HealthCare.gov is Dec. 15.
Activity during week 5 of open enrollment on HealthCare.gov was up by more than 50% over the previous week, but the total number of plans selected for the 2019 coverage year remains lower than it was last year, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The 773,000 plans selected during week 5 (Nov. 25 – Dec. 1) of the 2019 open enrollment season were an increase of 54% over week 4, CMS data show for the 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform, with the cumulative total now at 3.2 million. By comparison, week-5 selections in last year’s open enrollment totaled 823,000, and the cumulative figure was 3.6 million.
The deadline for applying for 2019 coverage on HealthCare.gov is Dec. 15.
Activity during week 5 of open enrollment on HealthCare.gov was up by more than 50% over the previous week, but the total number of plans selected for the 2019 coverage year remains lower than it was last year, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The 773,000 plans selected during week 5 (Nov. 25 – Dec. 1) of the 2019 open enrollment season were an increase of 54% over week 4, CMS data show for the 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform, with the cumulative total now at 3.2 million. By comparison, week-5 selections in last year’s open enrollment totaled 823,000, and the cumulative figure was 3.6 million.
The deadline for applying for 2019 coverage on HealthCare.gov is Dec. 15.
Potty pathogens in space, fundus photos, and ethnic microbiomes
The earth is not enough
Earthly competitors have proved to be unworthy, so this week, Bacteria vs. the World visits the International Space Station, which – and we double-checked this – is in space. It’s a pretty exclusive location, and admission is by invitation only. Unless, of, course, you happen to be the ultimate hitchhiker. Four samples taken from the toilet of the ISS (and one from a piece of exercise equipment) were found to contain unknown strains of antibiotic-resistant Enterobacter bugandensis, investigators reported (BMC Microbiol. 2018 Nov 23;18[1]:175).
These bacterial stowaways were not virulent, lead author Nitin Singh, PhD, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a separate statement. But an analysis conducted by the team “reveals that the ISS isolates have a 79% probability of being a human pathogen.”
So, what does this mean for future space exploration? Cue the “Star Trek” music: “Space … the final frontier. These are the voyages of the bacterial transport ship Enterprise.”
Putting the FUN in fundus photos
You just got even more dependent on your phone: The American Academy of Opthalmology has published guidelines on how to use smartphones to take fundus photography, a.k.a. photographs of the back of the eye.
Advancement in smartphone optical quality has turned them into an important clinical tool, especially for specialists in low-funded or rural areas who don’t have access to imaging systems. Doctors can purchase special lenses and phone software to take these photos and then can easily upload the images to their Instagram accounts. (Even doctors need likes.)
An eye hospital in India has taken fundus accessibility a step further and posted a video on YouTube showing how to make a functional fundus camera that costs only 100 rupees. All you need in some cardboard, a water bottle, and a lens. “MacGyver: Chennai Edition.”
I feel it in my gut
Whoever said “inside, we’re all the same” clearly wasn’t considering the gut. A study from Vanderbilt University comprising 1,700 American subjects found that differences in gut microbiomes are most consistently linked with ethnicity. Vanderbilt biologist Seth Bordenstein emphasized how changing the gut microbiome can lead to curing illness but that it’s imperative that medical professionals understand how the gut differs across ethnicities.
Researchers found 12 types of bacteria that vary in abundancy by ethnicity. No comment on whether this was linked to differences in cuisine, but this writer fervently hopes new research arrives proving that tacos produce the healthiest gut microbiome.
F-bombing blood cancer
Call it a tale of two Toms.
TV newsman Tom Brokaw, who has multiple myeloma, says he’s become the “poster boy” for blood cancer. At first, though, he kept his diagnosis secret from just about everyone. But occasionally he let his emotions get the best of him. Especially when he’d see a Manhattan bus stop ad spotlighting the chiseled body of another Tom: the quarterback named Brady.
As he explained in a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, he found it harder to get around because of back problems, which are common in multiple myeloma. As a result, he couldn’t manage to get to the office.
Still, “every day I’d force myself to leave the walker at home,” he recalled. “In that cold and sleety fall, I’d walk half a block to the coffee shop to get a bagel. There was this enormous new bus stop, with an animated advertisement board. Looking right at me was Tom Brady, advertising Ugg boots. I’d look down 79th Street at every inch of Tom Brady, and all the little old ladies were mooning over him as they were getting on the bus.”
Brokaw knew just what to do to make himself feel better. “I’d hobble over and look at him and drop the F-bomb on him every morning. Frankly, it was therapeutic for me.”
Later, he met the New England Patriots quarterback and told him the story, replacing “F-bomb” with the real word. “He had this little posse with him, and they roared. They said nobody talks to Tom like that.”
Brokaw still resists pleas to slow down from concerned loved ones, such as his emergency physician daughter. “My birth certificate says I’m 78 years old,” he said, “but I still think I’m 38 anchoring the news.” And still tossing tight-spiral F-bombs at cancer and gridiron G.O.A.T.s alike.
The earth is not enough
Earthly competitors have proved to be unworthy, so this week, Bacteria vs. the World visits the International Space Station, which – and we double-checked this – is in space. It’s a pretty exclusive location, and admission is by invitation only. Unless, of, course, you happen to be the ultimate hitchhiker. Four samples taken from the toilet of the ISS (and one from a piece of exercise equipment) were found to contain unknown strains of antibiotic-resistant Enterobacter bugandensis, investigators reported (BMC Microbiol. 2018 Nov 23;18[1]:175).
These bacterial stowaways were not virulent, lead author Nitin Singh, PhD, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a separate statement. But an analysis conducted by the team “reveals that the ISS isolates have a 79% probability of being a human pathogen.”
So, what does this mean for future space exploration? Cue the “Star Trek” music: “Space … the final frontier. These are the voyages of the bacterial transport ship Enterprise.”
Putting the FUN in fundus photos
You just got even more dependent on your phone: The American Academy of Opthalmology has published guidelines on how to use smartphones to take fundus photography, a.k.a. photographs of the back of the eye.
Advancement in smartphone optical quality has turned them into an important clinical tool, especially for specialists in low-funded or rural areas who don’t have access to imaging systems. Doctors can purchase special lenses and phone software to take these photos and then can easily upload the images to their Instagram accounts. (Even doctors need likes.)
An eye hospital in India has taken fundus accessibility a step further and posted a video on YouTube showing how to make a functional fundus camera that costs only 100 rupees. All you need in some cardboard, a water bottle, and a lens. “MacGyver: Chennai Edition.”
I feel it in my gut
Whoever said “inside, we’re all the same” clearly wasn’t considering the gut. A study from Vanderbilt University comprising 1,700 American subjects found that differences in gut microbiomes are most consistently linked with ethnicity. Vanderbilt biologist Seth Bordenstein emphasized how changing the gut microbiome can lead to curing illness but that it’s imperative that medical professionals understand how the gut differs across ethnicities.
Researchers found 12 types of bacteria that vary in abundancy by ethnicity. No comment on whether this was linked to differences in cuisine, but this writer fervently hopes new research arrives proving that tacos produce the healthiest gut microbiome.
F-bombing blood cancer
Call it a tale of two Toms.
TV newsman Tom Brokaw, who has multiple myeloma, says he’s become the “poster boy” for blood cancer. At first, though, he kept his diagnosis secret from just about everyone. But occasionally he let his emotions get the best of him. Especially when he’d see a Manhattan bus stop ad spotlighting the chiseled body of another Tom: the quarterback named Brady.
As he explained in a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, he found it harder to get around because of back problems, which are common in multiple myeloma. As a result, he couldn’t manage to get to the office.
Still, “every day I’d force myself to leave the walker at home,” he recalled. “In that cold and sleety fall, I’d walk half a block to the coffee shop to get a bagel. There was this enormous new bus stop, with an animated advertisement board. Looking right at me was Tom Brady, advertising Ugg boots. I’d look down 79th Street at every inch of Tom Brady, and all the little old ladies were mooning over him as they were getting on the bus.”
Brokaw knew just what to do to make himself feel better. “I’d hobble over and look at him and drop the F-bomb on him every morning. Frankly, it was therapeutic for me.”
Later, he met the New England Patriots quarterback and told him the story, replacing “F-bomb” with the real word. “He had this little posse with him, and they roared. They said nobody talks to Tom like that.”
Brokaw still resists pleas to slow down from concerned loved ones, such as his emergency physician daughter. “My birth certificate says I’m 78 years old,” he said, “but I still think I’m 38 anchoring the news.” And still tossing tight-spiral F-bombs at cancer and gridiron G.O.A.T.s alike.
The earth is not enough
Earthly competitors have proved to be unworthy, so this week, Bacteria vs. the World visits the International Space Station, which – and we double-checked this – is in space. It’s a pretty exclusive location, and admission is by invitation only. Unless, of, course, you happen to be the ultimate hitchhiker. Four samples taken from the toilet of the ISS (and one from a piece of exercise equipment) were found to contain unknown strains of antibiotic-resistant Enterobacter bugandensis, investigators reported (BMC Microbiol. 2018 Nov 23;18[1]:175).
These bacterial stowaways were not virulent, lead author Nitin Singh, PhD, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a separate statement. But an analysis conducted by the team “reveals that the ISS isolates have a 79% probability of being a human pathogen.”
So, what does this mean for future space exploration? Cue the “Star Trek” music: “Space … the final frontier. These are the voyages of the bacterial transport ship Enterprise.”
Putting the FUN in fundus photos
You just got even more dependent on your phone: The American Academy of Opthalmology has published guidelines on how to use smartphones to take fundus photography, a.k.a. photographs of the back of the eye.
Advancement in smartphone optical quality has turned them into an important clinical tool, especially for specialists in low-funded or rural areas who don’t have access to imaging systems. Doctors can purchase special lenses and phone software to take these photos and then can easily upload the images to their Instagram accounts. (Even doctors need likes.)
An eye hospital in India has taken fundus accessibility a step further and posted a video on YouTube showing how to make a functional fundus camera that costs only 100 rupees. All you need in some cardboard, a water bottle, and a lens. “MacGyver: Chennai Edition.”
I feel it in my gut
Whoever said “inside, we’re all the same” clearly wasn’t considering the gut. A study from Vanderbilt University comprising 1,700 American subjects found that differences in gut microbiomes are most consistently linked with ethnicity. Vanderbilt biologist Seth Bordenstein emphasized how changing the gut microbiome can lead to curing illness but that it’s imperative that medical professionals understand how the gut differs across ethnicities.
Researchers found 12 types of bacteria that vary in abundancy by ethnicity. No comment on whether this was linked to differences in cuisine, but this writer fervently hopes new research arrives proving that tacos produce the healthiest gut microbiome.
F-bombing blood cancer
Call it a tale of two Toms.
TV newsman Tom Brokaw, who has multiple myeloma, says he’s become the “poster boy” for blood cancer. At first, though, he kept his diagnosis secret from just about everyone. But occasionally he let his emotions get the best of him. Especially when he’d see a Manhattan bus stop ad spotlighting the chiseled body of another Tom: the quarterback named Brady.
As he explained in a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, he found it harder to get around because of back problems, which are common in multiple myeloma. As a result, he couldn’t manage to get to the office.
Still, “every day I’d force myself to leave the walker at home,” he recalled. “In that cold and sleety fall, I’d walk half a block to the coffee shop to get a bagel. There was this enormous new bus stop, with an animated advertisement board. Looking right at me was Tom Brady, advertising Ugg boots. I’d look down 79th Street at every inch of Tom Brady, and all the little old ladies were mooning over him as they were getting on the bus.”
Brokaw knew just what to do to make himself feel better. “I’d hobble over and look at him and drop the F-bomb on him every morning. Frankly, it was therapeutic for me.”
Later, he met the New England Patriots quarterback and told him the story, replacing “F-bomb” with the real word. “He had this little posse with him, and they roared. They said nobody talks to Tom like that.”
Brokaw still resists pleas to slow down from concerned loved ones, such as his emergency physician daughter. “My birth certificate says I’m 78 years old,” he said, “but I still think I’m 38 anchoring the news.” And still tossing tight-spiral F-bombs at cancer and gridiron G.O.A.T.s alike.
CDC: Acute flaccid myelitis on the decline for 2018
, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Through Nov. 30, 134 cases of AFM in 33 states have been confirmed out of the 299 reported to the CDC. That represents “an increase of 18 confirmed cases from the previous week, but most of the latest confirmed AFM cases occurred in September and October,” the CDC reported Dec. 3.
There has been a pattern of increased AFM cases every other year for the previous 4 years: 120 cases in 2014, 22 cases in 2015, 149 cases in 2016, and 33 cases in 2017. “Most cases are reported between August and October, and a marked reduction in cases is seen in November. That pattern appears to be repeating in 2018 because states have reported fewer [persons under investigation] over the past couple of weeks. CDC expects this decline to continue,” the statement said.
The 16 confirmed cases in Texas are the most for any state this year, followed by Colorado with 15; Ohio with 10; and Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington with 9 each. California and Florida have not had any confirmed cases as of Nov. 30. Since 2014, over 90% of all confirmed AFM cases have occurred in children, the CDC noted.
More information on AFM is available at a CDC website for health care professionals.
, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Through Nov. 30, 134 cases of AFM in 33 states have been confirmed out of the 299 reported to the CDC. That represents “an increase of 18 confirmed cases from the previous week, but most of the latest confirmed AFM cases occurred in September and October,” the CDC reported Dec. 3.
There has been a pattern of increased AFM cases every other year for the previous 4 years: 120 cases in 2014, 22 cases in 2015, 149 cases in 2016, and 33 cases in 2017. “Most cases are reported between August and October, and a marked reduction in cases is seen in November. That pattern appears to be repeating in 2018 because states have reported fewer [persons under investigation] over the past couple of weeks. CDC expects this decline to continue,” the statement said.
The 16 confirmed cases in Texas are the most for any state this year, followed by Colorado with 15; Ohio with 10; and Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington with 9 each. California and Florida have not had any confirmed cases as of Nov. 30. Since 2014, over 90% of all confirmed AFM cases have occurred in children, the CDC noted.
More information on AFM is available at a CDC website for health care professionals.
, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Through Nov. 30, 134 cases of AFM in 33 states have been confirmed out of the 299 reported to the CDC. That represents “an increase of 18 confirmed cases from the previous week, but most of the latest confirmed AFM cases occurred in September and October,” the CDC reported Dec. 3.
There has been a pattern of increased AFM cases every other year for the previous 4 years: 120 cases in 2014, 22 cases in 2015, 149 cases in 2016, and 33 cases in 2017. “Most cases are reported between August and October, and a marked reduction in cases is seen in November. That pattern appears to be repeating in 2018 because states have reported fewer [persons under investigation] over the past couple of weeks. CDC expects this decline to continue,” the statement said.
The 16 confirmed cases in Texas are the most for any state this year, followed by Colorado with 15; Ohio with 10; and Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington with 9 each. California and Florida have not had any confirmed cases as of Nov. 30. Since 2014, over 90% of all confirmed AFM cases have occurred in children, the CDC noted.
More information on AFM is available at a CDC website for health care professionals.
HIV prevention: Mandating insurance coverage of PrEP
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV is valuable enough for the federal government to mandate insurance coverage, a group of experts told the personal finance website WalletHub, but individuals who are at risk for infection may be missing out for other reasons.
The effectiveness of PrEP is clear, those experts said, but 34% of primary care physicians and nurses in the United States are unaware of the preventive regimen, according to the WalletHub report, which also noted that the majority of Americans with AIDS (61%) are not seeing a specialist.
“Even among [men who have sex with men] in the U.S., coverage is only about 10%, which is abysmal. We can and need to do better. If we don’t pay now, we’ll pay later,” Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, associate dean of global health sciences and Harold Simon Professor at the University of California, San Diego, told WalletHub.
Those taking PrEP have a 90% chance of avoiding HIV infection, the report noted.
“Making PrEP available to all is a giant step forward in the fight against HIV. Mandating this critical prevention be covered by all insurance plans makes it part of mainstream medicine and will only increase its use and help prevent HIV acquisition in exposed populations. I can’t think of other low-risk, high-reward prophylaxis for a lifelong disease,” said Sharon Nachman, MD, professor of pediatrics and associate dean for research at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
To get PrEP covered, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force needs to act, explained Gerald M. Oppenheimer, PhD, MPH, of the department of health policy and management at the City University of New York.
“Under the Affordable Care Act, if the [USPSTF] finds that PrEP serves as an effective prevention to disease and gives it a grade of A or B, all insurers must offer it free. That, of course, may lead to an increase in premiums. This is another example of pharmaceutical companies charging high prices in the U.S., compared to what other countries pay, and cries out for an amendment to Medicare Part D, allowing the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices,” he said.
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV is valuable enough for the federal government to mandate insurance coverage, a group of experts told the personal finance website WalletHub, but individuals who are at risk for infection may be missing out for other reasons.
The effectiveness of PrEP is clear, those experts said, but 34% of primary care physicians and nurses in the United States are unaware of the preventive regimen, according to the WalletHub report, which also noted that the majority of Americans with AIDS (61%) are not seeing a specialist.
“Even among [men who have sex with men] in the U.S., coverage is only about 10%, which is abysmal. We can and need to do better. If we don’t pay now, we’ll pay later,” Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, associate dean of global health sciences and Harold Simon Professor at the University of California, San Diego, told WalletHub.
Those taking PrEP have a 90% chance of avoiding HIV infection, the report noted.
“Making PrEP available to all is a giant step forward in the fight against HIV. Mandating this critical prevention be covered by all insurance plans makes it part of mainstream medicine and will only increase its use and help prevent HIV acquisition in exposed populations. I can’t think of other low-risk, high-reward prophylaxis for a lifelong disease,” said Sharon Nachman, MD, professor of pediatrics and associate dean for research at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
To get PrEP covered, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force needs to act, explained Gerald M. Oppenheimer, PhD, MPH, of the department of health policy and management at the City University of New York.
“Under the Affordable Care Act, if the [USPSTF] finds that PrEP serves as an effective prevention to disease and gives it a grade of A or B, all insurers must offer it free. That, of course, may lead to an increase in premiums. This is another example of pharmaceutical companies charging high prices in the U.S., compared to what other countries pay, and cries out for an amendment to Medicare Part D, allowing the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices,” he said.
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV is valuable enough for the federal government to mandate insurance coverage, a group of experts told the personal finance website WalletHub, but individuals who are at risk for infection may be missing out for other reasons.
The effectiveness of PrEP is clear, those experts said, but 34% of primary care physicians and nurses in the United States are unaware of the preventive regimen, according to the WalletHub report, which also noted that the majority of Americans with AIDS (61%) are not seeing a specialist.
“Even among [men who have sex with men] in the U.S., coverage is only about 10%, which is abysmal. We can and need to do better. If we don’t pay now, we’ll pay later,” Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, associate dean of global health sciences and Harold Simon Professor at the University of California, San Diego, told WalletHub.
Those taking PrEP have a 90% chance of avoiding HIV infection, the report noted.
“Making PrEP available to all is a giant step forward in the fight against HIV. Mandating this critical prevention be covered by all insurance plans makes it part of mainstream medicine and will only increase its use and help prevent HIV acquisition in exposed populations. I can’t think of other low-risk, high-reward prophylaxis for a lifelong disease,” said Sharon Nachman, MD, professor of pediatrics and associate dean for research at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
To get PrEP covered, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force needs to act, explained Gerald M. Oppenheimer, PhD, MPH, of the department of health policy and management at the City University of New York.
“Under the Affordable Care Act, if the [USPSTF] finds that PrEP serves as an effective prevention to disease and gives it a grade of A or B, all insurers must offer it free. That, of course, may lead to an increase in premiums. This is another example of pharmaceutical companies charging high prices in the U.S., compared to what other countries pay, and cries out for an amendment to Medicare Part D, allowing the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices,” he said.
Open enrollment: Weekly volume down again
Plan selections at HealthCare.gov fell for the second week in a row as overall volume for open enrollment 2019 continues to lag behind last year, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Just over 500,000 plans – 369,000 renewals and 131,000 new applications – were selected during week 4 (Nov. 18-24) for the 2019 coverage year in the 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform, which is down from 748,000 for week 3 and 805,000 for week 2. A similar pattern of decreases in weeks 3 and 4 was seen during last year’s open-enrollment period.
For the entire open enrollment so far this year, a little over 2.42 million plans have been selected, which is down by 12.8% from last year’s 4-week total of 2.78 million selections, the CMS data show.
Plan selections at HealthCare.gov fell for the second week in a row as overall volume for open enrollment 2019 continues to lag behind last year, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Just over 500,000 plans – 369,000 renewals and 131,000 new applications – were selected during week 4 (Nov. 18-24) for the 2019 coverage year in the 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform, which is down from 748,000 for week 3 and 805,000 for week 2. A similar pattern of decreases in weeks 3 and 4 was seen during last year’s open-enrollment period.
For the entire open enrollment so far this year, a little over 2.42 million plans have been selected, which is down by 12.8% from last year’s 4-week total of 2.78 million selections, the CMS data show.
Plan selections at HealthCare.gov fell for the second week in a row as overall volume for open enrollment 2019 continues to lag behind last year, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Just over 500,000 plans – 369,000 renewals and 131,000 new applications – were selected during week 4 (Nov. 18-24) for the 2019 coverage year in the 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform, which is down from 748,000 for week 3 and 805,000 for week 2. A similar pattern of decreases in weeks 3 and 4 was seen during last year’s open-enrollment period.
For the entire open enrollment so far this year, a little over 2.42 million plans have been selected, which is down by 12.8% from last year’s 4-week total of 2.78 million selections, the CMS data show.
Infant mortality generally unchanged in 2016
Infant mortality in the United Sates dropped very slightly from 2015 to 2016 and has not changed significantly since 2011, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
Overall infant mortality was 5.87 per 1,000 live births in 2016, which was not significantly less than the 2015 rate of 5.90 per 1,000 or the rate of 6.07 per 1,000 recorded in 2011, the NCHS said in a recent Data Brief. The rate for 2016 works out to 3.88 per 1,000 for the neonatal period (0-27 days) and 1.99 per 1,000 during the postneonatal period (28-364 days).
The rate was lowest for mothers aged 30-34 years (4.86 per 1,000) and highest for those under 20 years (8.69). All overall rates by maternal age were significantly different from each other, except for those of mothers aged 20-24 years (7.13) and those aged 40 years and over (7.27). Neonatal mortality was highest for the under-20 group and the 40-and-over group at 5.32 per 1,000, with the difference between them coming during the postneonatal period: 3.36 for those under 20 and 1.95 for the 40-and-overs, the NCHS investigators reported based on data from the National Vital Statistics System.
The leading cause of death during the neonatal period in 2016 was low birth weight at 98 per 1,000 live births, with congenital malformations second at 86 per 1,000. The leading cause of death in the postneonatal period was congenital malformations at 36 per 1,000, followed by sudden infant death syndrome (35 per 1,000), unintentional injuries (27 per 1,000), diseases of the circulatory system (9 per 1,000), and homicide (6 per 1,000), they added.
Infant mortality in the United Sates dropped very slightly from 2015 to 2016 and has not changed significantly since 2011, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
Overall infant mortality was 5.87 per 1,000 live births in 2016, which was not significantly less than the 2015 rate of 5.90 per 1,000 or the rate of 6.07 per 1,000 recorded in 2011, the NCHS said in a recent Data Brief. The rate for 2016 works out to 3.88 per 1,000 for the neonatal period (0-27 days) and 1.99 per 1,000 during the postneonatal period (28-364 days).
The rate was lowest for mothers aged 30-34 years (4.86 per 1,000) and highest for those under 20 years (8.69). All overall rates by maternal age were significantly different from each other, except for those of mothers aged 20-24 years (7.13) and those aged 40 years and over (7.27). Neonatal mortality was highest for the under-20 group and the 40-and-over group at 5.32 per 1,000, with the difference between them coming during the postneonatal period: 3.36 for those under 20 and 1.95 for the 40-and-overs, the NCHS investigators reported based on data from the National Vital Statistics System.
The leading cause of death during the neonatal period in 2016 was low birth weight at 98 per 1,000 live births, with congenital malformations second at 86 per 1,000. The leading cause of death in the postneonatal period was congenital malformations at 36 per 1,000, followed by sudden infant death syndrome (35 per 1,000), unintentional injuries (27 per 1,000), diseases of the circulatory system (9 per 1,000), and homicide (6 per 1,000), they added.
Infant mortality in the United Sates dropped very slightly from 2015 to 2016 and has not changed significantly since 2011, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
Overall infant mortality was 5.87 per 1,000 live births in 2016, which was not significantly less than the 2015 rate of 5.90 per 1,000 or the rate of 6.07 per 1,000 recorded in 2011, the NCHS said in a recent Data Brief. The rate for 2016 works out to 3.88 per 1,000 for the neonatal period (0-27 days) and 1.99 per 1,000 during the postneonatal period (28-364 days).
The rate was lowest for mothers aged 30-34 years (4.86 per 1,000) and highest for those under 20 years (8.69). All overall rates by maternal age were significantly different from each other, except for those of mothers aged 20-24 years (7.13) and those aged 40 years and over (7.27). Neonatal mortality was highest for the under-20 group and the 40-and-over group at 5.32 per 1,000, with the difference between them coming during the postneonatal period: 3.36 for those under 20 and 1.95 for the 40-and-overs, the NCHS investigators reported based on data from the National Vital Statistics System.
The leading cause of death during the neonatal period in 2016 was low birth weight at 98 per 1,000 live births, with congenital malformations second at 86 per 1,000. The leading cause of death in the postneonatal period was congenital malformations at 36 per 1,000, followed by sudden infant death syndrome (35 per 1,000), unintentional injuries (27 per 1,000), diseases of the circulatory system (9 per 1,000), and homicide (6 per 1,000), they added.
Legos for lunch, saliva-sterilized pacifiers, and a healthy personality
Legos for lunch
As any parent, teacher, or teenage babysitter knows, children try to eat everything. Six intrepid researchers from Australia and the United Kingdom decided to put their lives – or, at least, their intestines – on the line by swallowing Lego pieces to determine “typical transit times” for the commonly ingested toy. The things people do in the name of science.
The study participants first measured their bowel habits by the Stool Hardness and Transit (SHAT) score, and then measured the Found and Retrieved Time (FART) score once the Lego was ... expelled. The researchers found that the average FART score was 1.71 days.
At this point, all involved stopped to have a hearty laugh and a round of high-fives. Parents can rest assured that their little progeny who swallow Legos are safe. Everything is awesome.
Don’t wash that pacifier!
If you want to clean your child’s pacifier, you should consider passing on the sink and pop it into your own mouth instead. That’s the story from research presented at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.
In a survey of 128 mothers over an 18-month period, 41% of those whose child was currently using a pacifier reported cleaning by sterilization, and 72% reported hand washing their child’s pacifier. (We will henceforth refer to these mothers as “normal people.”) Just over 10% of mothers reported cleaning through parental pacifier sucking.
Before you cringe too much, the children of these mothers had significantly lower IgE levels than the children of normal people, indicating they were at a lower risk of developing allergies or asthma.
The study authors hypothesized that exposure to adult saliva may transfer healthy microorganisms to their children, and they advocated for further study into the subject. We suggest getting the pediatricians from the Lego study involved – they’ll eat anything for science.
One camel latte, please
An unlikely partnership between a Saudi entrepreneur and Amish farmers might lead to a brand-new dairy market in the United States. Walid Abdul-Wahub is on a mission to put camel milk on the shelves of every grocery store in America.
Middle Eastern residents have been drinking camel milk for centuries, so it’s only a matter of time until some hipster coffee shop co-opts it and starts selling camel milk lattes for $9. On the plus side, camel milk has a different protein than cow milk, making it more similar to human milk than bovine milk. This could be a godsend for people with milk allergies and need alternatives to that god-awful almond milk. One camel milkshake, coming right up.
How healthy is your personality?
It’s a question bipedal hominins have pondered since our days scrounging for snacks in the Olduvai Gorge: Is my personality why no one wants to hunt and gather with me?
Homo sapiens researchers from the University of California, Davis, and elsewhere believe they have the answer. In fact, it is your personality that leaves you scavenging for baobab alone.
What’s a healthy personality? The Scientia sapiens split personality into five factors: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience. They then surveyed scientists and college students to construct the consensus Dream Date – er, healthy personality: low levels of neuroticism, sprinkled with lots of agreeable straightforwardness, openness to feelings, positive emotions, and warmth. It wouldn’t hurt to ease up on the Old Spice, either.
The taste of deprivation
At one time or another, you’ve probably seen someone who was pretty much physically attached to his or her phone and wondered about the owner’s personal priorities and where the phone fit into them.
Wonder no more.
In a study conducted at the University at Buffalo (N.Y.), 76 students were deprived of food for 3 hours and their smartphones for 2 hours, and then given a computer task that would earn them a serving of their favorite snack or use of their phone. To make things more interesting, the amount of work needed to earn food or phone time increased as the subjects completed their tasks.
“We knew that students would be motivated to gain access to their phones, but we were surprised that, despite modest food deprivation, smartphone reinforcement far exceeded food reinforcement,” lead investigator Sara O’Donnell said in a written statement.
Recruiting subjects for the next step in this line of research – choosing between phones and breathing – could get a little tricky. But we have to admire the creative solution that got one participant disqualified from the current study: He tried to eat his phone.
Legos for lunch
As any parent, teacher, or teenage babysitter knows, children try to eat everything. Six intrepid researchers from Australia and the United Kingdom decided to put their lives – or, at least, their intestines – on the line by swallowing Lego pieces to determine “typical transit times” for the commonly ingested toy. The things people do in the name of science.
The study participants first measured their bowel habits by the Stool Hardness and Transit (SHAT) score, and then measured the Found and Retrieved Time (FART) score once the Lego was ... expelled. The researchers found that the average FART score was 1.71 days.
At this point, all involved stopped to have a hearty laugh and a round of high-fives. Parents can rest assured that their little progeny who swallow Legos are safe. Everything is awesome.
Don’t wash that pacifier!
If you want to clean your child’s pacifier, you should consider passing on the sink and pop it into your own mouth instead. That’s the story from research presented at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.
In a survey of 128 mothers over an 18-month period, 41% of those whose child was currently using a pacifier reported cleaning by sterilization, and 72% reported hand washing their child’s pacifier. (We will henceforth refer to these mothers as “normal people.”) Just over 10% of mothers reported cleaning through parental pacifier sucking.
Before you cringe too much, the children of these mothers had significantly lower IgE levels than the children of normal people, indicating they were at a lower risk of developing allergies or asthma.
The study authors hypothesized that exposure to adult saliva may transfer healthy microorganisms to their children, and they advocated for further study into the subject. We suggest getting the pediatricians from the Lego study involved – they’ll eat anything for science.
One camel latte, please
An unlikely partnership between a Saudi entrepreneur and Amish farmers might lead to a brand-new dairy market in the United States. Walid Abdul-Wahub is on a mission to put camel milk on the shelves of every grocery store in America.
Middle Eastern residents have been drinking camel milk for centuries, so it’s only a matter of time until some hipster coffee shop co-opts it and starts selling camel milk lattes for $9. On the plus side, camel milk has a different protein than cow milk, making it more similar to human milk than bovine milk. This could be a godsend for people with milk allergies and need alternatives to that god-awful almond milk. One camel milkshake, coming right up.
How healthy is your personality?
It’s a question bipedal hominins have pondered since our days scrounging for snacks in the Olduvai Gorge: Is my personality why no one wants to hunt and gather with me?
Homo sapiens researchers from the University of California, Davis, and elsewhere believe they have the answer. In fact, it is your personality that leaves you scavenging for baobab alone.
What’s a healthy personality? The Scientia sapiens split personality into five factors: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience. They then surveyed scientists and college students to construct the consensus Dream Date – er, healthy personality: low levels of neuroticism, sprinkled with lots of agreeable straightforwardness, openness to feelings, positive emotions, and warmth. It wouldn’t hurt to ease up on the Old Spice, either.
The taste of deprivation
At one time or another, you’ve probably seen someone who was pretty much physically attached to his or her phone and wondered about the owner’s personal priorities and where the phone fit into them.
Wonder no more.
In a study conducted at the University at Buffalo (N.Y.), 76 students were deprived of food for 3 hours and their smartphones for 2 hours, and then given a computer task that would earn them a serving of their favorite snack or use of their phone. To make things more interesting, the amount of work needed to earn food or phone time increased as the subjects completed their tasks.
“We knew that students would be motivated to gain access to their phones, but we were surprised that, despite modest food deprivation, smartphone reinforcement far exceeded food reinforcement,” lead investigator Sara O’Donnell said in a written statement.
Recruiting subjects for the next step in this line of research – choosing between phones and breathing – could get a little tricky. But we have to admire the creative solution that got one participant disqualified from the current study: He tried to eat his phone.
Legos for lunch
As any parent, teacher, or teenage babysitter knows, children try to eat everything. Six intrepid researchers from Australia and the United Kingdom decided to put their lives – or, at least, their intestines – on the line by swallowing Lego pieces to determine “typical transit times” for the commonly ingested toy. The things people do in the name of science.
The study participants first measured their bowel habits by the Stool Hardness and Transit (SHAT) score, and then measured the Found and Retrieved Time (FART) score once the Lego was ... expelled. The researchers found that the average FART score was 1.71 days.
At this point, all involved stopped to have a hearty laugh and a round of high-fives. Parents can rest assured that their little progeny who swallow Legos are safe. Everything is awesome.
Don’t wash that pacifier!
If you want to clean your child’s pacifier, you should consider passing on the sink and pop it into your own mouth instead. That’s the story from research presented at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.
In a survey of 128 mothers over an 18-month period, 41% of those whose child was currently using a pacifier reported cleaning by sterilization, and 72% reported hand washing their child’s pacifier. (We will henceforth refer to these mothers as “normal people.”) Just over 10% of mothers reported cleaning through parental pacifier sucking.
Before you cringe too much, the children of these mothers had significantly lower IgE levels than the children of normal people, indicating they were at a lower risk of developing allergies or asthma.
The study authors hypothesized that exposure to adult saliva may transfer healthy microorganisms to their children, and they advocated for further study into the subject. We suggest getting the pediatricians from the Lego study involved – they’ll eat anything for science.
One camel latte, please
An unlikely partnership between a Saudi entrepreneur and Amish farmers might lead to a brand-new dairy market in the United States. Walid Abdul-Wahub is on a mission to put camel milk on the shelves of every grocery store in America.
Middle Eastern residents have been drinking camel milk for centuries, so it’s only a matter of time until some hipster coffee shop co-opts it and starts selling camel milk lattes for $9. On the plus side, camel milk has a different protein than cow milk, making it more similar to human milk than bovine milk. This could be a godsend for people with milk allergies and need alternatives to that god-awful almond milk. One camel milkshake, coming right up.
How healthy is your personality?
It’s a question bipedal hominins have pondered since our days scrounging for snacks in the Olduvai Gorge: Is my personality why no one wants to hunt and gather with me?
Homo sapiens researchers from the University of California, Davis, and elsewhere believe they have the answer. In fact, it is your personality that leaves you scavenging for baobab alone.
What’s a healthy personality? The Scientia sapiens split personality into five factors: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience. They then surveyed scientists and college students to construct the consensus Dream Date – er, healthy personality: low levels of neuroticism, sprinkled with lots of agreeable straightforwardness, openness to feelings, positive emotions, and warmth. It wouldn’t hurt to ease up on the Old Spice, either.
The taste of deprivation
At one time or another, you’ve probably seen someone who was pretty much physically attached to his or her phone and wondered about the owner’s personal priorities and where the phone fit into them.
Wonder no more.
In a study conducted at the University at Buffalo (N.Y.), 76 students were deprived of food for 3 hours and their smartphones for 2 hours, and then given a computer task that would earn them a serving of their favorite snack or use of their phone. To make things more interesting, the amount of work needed to earn food or phone time increased as the subjects completed their tasks.
“We knew that students would be motivated to gain access to their phones, but we were surprised that, despite modest food deprivation, smartphone reinforcement far exceeded food reinforcement,” lead investigator Sara O’Donnell said in a written statement.
Recruiting subjects for the next step in this line of research – choosing between phones and breathing – could get a little tricky. But we have to admire the creative solution that got one participant disqualified from the current study: He tried to eat his phone.
Tested: U.S. News & World Report hospital rankings
Do the U.S. News & World Report “Best Hospitals” rankings stand up to scrutiny? When it comes to cardiovascular care, the answer is yes … and no.
The hospitals that were ranked as the Top 50 for “cardiology and heart surgery” had lower 30-day mortality for acute MI, heart failure, and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), compared with 3,502 nonranked hospitals, when David E. Wang, MD, and his associates at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston looked at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital Compare website.
The Top 50 hospitals also had higher patient satisfaction scores (3.9 vs. 3.3 on a scale of 1-5), based on the CMS Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems star ratings, the investigators said Nov. 28 in JAMA Cardiology.
A clear endorsement for the rankings, it would seem, but another run through the Hospital Compare data – this time for 30-day readmission rates – managed to muddy things up. The nonranked hospitals equaled the ranked hospitals in readmission rates for acute MI and CABG and were actually lower for heart failure, Dr. Wang and his associates said.
“In recent years, financial incentives for hospitals to reduce readmissions … have been 10- to 15-fold greater than incentives to improve mortality rates and have resulted in significant declines in cardiovascular readmissions. Our finding that top-ranked hospitals have lower mortality rates than nonranked hospitals but have generally similar readmission rates might reflect these incentives,” they wrote.
SOURCE: Wang DE et al. JAMA Cardiol. 2018 Nov 28. doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2018.3951.
.
Do the U.S. News & World Report “Best Hospitals” rankings stand up to scrutiny? When it comes to cardiovascular care, the answer is yes … and no.
The hospitals that were ranked as the Top 50 for “cardiology and heart surgery” had lower 30-day mortality for acute MI, heart failure, and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), compared with 3,502 nonranked hospitals, when David E. Wang, MD, and his associates at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston looked at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital Compare website.
The Top 50 hospitals also had higher patient satisfaction scores (3.9 vs. 3.3 on a scale of 1-5), based on the CMS Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems star ratings, the investigators said Nov. 28 in JAMA Cardiology.
A clear endorsement for the rankings, it would seem, but another run through the Hospital Compare data – this time for 30-day readmission rates – managed to muddy things up. The nonranked hospitals equaled the ranked hospitals in readmission rates for acute MI and CABG and were actually lower for heart failure, Dr. Wang and his associates said.
“In recent years, financial incentives for hospitals to reduce readmissions … have been 10- to 15-fold greater than incentives to improve mortality rates and have resulted in significant declines in cardiovascular readmissions. Our finding that top-ranked hospitals have lower mortality rates than nonranked hospitals but have generally similar readmission rates might reflect these incentives,” they wrote.
SOURCE: Wang DE et al. JAMA Cardiol. 2018 Nov 28. doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2018.3951.
.
Do the U.S. News & World Report “Best Hospitals” rankings stand up to scrutiny? When it comes to cardiovascular care, the answer is yes … and no.
The hospitals that were ranked as the Top 50 for “cardiology and heart surgery” had lower 30-day mortality for acute MI, heart failure, and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), compared with 3,502 nonranked hospitals, when David E. Wang, MD, and his associates at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston looked at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital Compare website.
The Top 50 hospitals also had higher patient satisfaction scores (3.9 vs. 3.3 on a scale of 1-5), based on the CMS Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems star ratings, the investigators said Nov. 28 in JAMA Cardiology.
A clear endorsement for the rankings, it would seem, but another run through the Hospital Compare data – this time for 30-day readmission rates – managed to muddy things up. The nonranked hospitals equaled the ranked hospitals in readmission rates for acute MI and CABG and were actually lower for heart failure, Dr. Wang and his associates said.
“In recent years, financial incentives for hospitals to reduce readmissions … have been 10- to 15-fold greater than incentives to improve mortality rates and have resulted in significant declines in cardiovascular readmissions. Our finding that top-ranked hospitals have lower mortality rates than nonranked hospitals but have generally similar readmission rates might reflect these incentives,” they wrote.
SOURCE: Wang DE et al. JAMA Cardiol. 2018 Nov 28. doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2018.3951.
.
FROM JAMA CARDIOLOGY
Abortion measures continue to fall
Three important national measures of abortion dropped by at least 19% from 2006 to 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Surgical and medical abortions reported to the CDC dropped by 24%, going from almost 843,000 in 2006 to 638,000 in 2015, with declines occurring every year, Tara C. Jatlaoui, MD, and her associates at the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Atlanta, reported in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Surveillance Summaries.
Over that same time period, the abortion rate fell from 15.9 per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years to 11.8 per 1,000 – a decline of 26%. Abortion ratio – the number of abortions per 1,000 live births within a given population – declined by 19%, dropping from 233 abortions per 1,000 live births in 2006 to 188 abortions per 1,000 live births in 2015, the investigators reported. The findings were based on data from 49 areas that continuously reported over the study period (excludes California, Maryland, and New Hampshire but includes the District of Columbia and New York City).
Abortion rates were highest for women aged 20-29 years for the study period, and this age group accounted for the largest share among the 44 reporting areas that provided data by maternal age each year. Those under age 15 years had the largest drops by age in total number of abortions (40%) and abortion rate (58%) but had the highest, by far, abortion ratio for each year of the study (700 per 1,000 live births in that age group in 2015. The abortion ratio for 15- to 19-year-olds was 289 per 1,000 live births).
The percentage of abortions performed before 14 weeks’ gestation changed little, going from 91.5% in 2006 to 91% in 2015, but “a shift occurred toward earlier gestational ages,” they noted. The percentage of abortions performed before or at 8 weeks increased 3% and those done at 9-13 weeks dropped almost 9% among the 33 areas that reported gestational age every year. Abortions done after 13 weeks gestation represented 9% of all abortions during the study period, with an increase of 7% occurring from 2006 to 2015, Dr. Jatlaoui and her associates said.
Removing barriers such as cost, “insufficient provider reimbursement and training, inadequate client-centered counseling, lack of youth-friendly services, and low client awareness ... might help improve contraceptive use, potentially reducing the number of unintended pregnancies and the number of abortions performed in the United States,” the researchers wrote.
SOURCE: Jatlaoui TC et al. MMWR Surveill Summ. 2018 Nov 23(13):1-45.
Three important national measures of abortion dropped by at least 19% from 2006 to 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Surgical and medical abortions reported to the CDC dropped by 24%, going from almost 843,000 in 2006 to 638,000 in 2015, with declines occurring every year, Tara C. Jatlaoui, MD, and her associates at the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Atlanta, reported in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Surveillance Summaries.
Over that same time period, the abortion rate fell from 15.9 per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years to 11.8 per 1,000 – a decline of 26%. Abortion ratio – the number of abortions per 1,000 live births within a given population – declined by 19%, dropping from 233 abortions per 1,000 live births in 2006 to 188 abortions per 1,000 live births in 2015, the investigators reported. The findings were based on data from 49 areas that continuously reported over the study period (excludes California, Maryland, and New Hampshire but includes the District of Columbia and New York City).
Abortion rates were highest for women aged 20-29 years for the study period, and this age group accounted for the largest share among the 44 reporting areas that provided data by maternal age each year. Those under age 15 years had the largest drops by age in total number of abortions (40%) and abortion rate (58%) but had the highest, by far, abortion ratio for each year of the study (700 per 1,000 live births in that age group in 2015. The abortion ratio for 15- to 19-year-olds was 289 per 1,000 live births).
The percentage of abortions performed before 14 weeks’ gestation changed little, going from 91.5% in 2006 to 91% in 2015, but “a shift occurred toward earlier gestational ages,” they noted. The percentage of abortions performed before or at 8 weeks increased 3% and those done at 9-13 weeks dropped almost 9% among the 33 areas that reported gestational age every year. Abortions done after 13 weeks gestation represented 9% of all abortions during the study period, with an increase of 7% occurring from 2006 to 2015, Dr. Jatlaoui and her associates said.
Removing barriers such as cost, “insufficient provider reimbursement and training, inadequate client-centered counseling, lack of youth-friendly services, and low client awareness ... might help improve contraceptive use, potentially reducing the number of unintended pregnancies and the number of abortions performed in the United States,” the researchers wrote.
SOURCE: Jatlaoui TC et al. MMWR Surveill Summ. 2018 Nov 23(13):1-45.
Three important national measures of abortion dropped by at least 19% from 2006 to 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Surgical and medical abortions reported to the CDC dropped by 24%, going from almost 843,000 in 2006 to 638,000 in 2015, with declines occurring every year, Tara C. Jatlaoui, MD, and her associates at the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Atlanta, reported in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Surveillance Summaries.
Over that same time period, the abortion rate fell from 15.9 per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years to 11.8 per 1,000 – a decline of 26%. Abortion ratio – the number of abortions per 1,000 live births within a given population – declined by 19%, dropping from 233 abortions per 1,000 live births in 2006 to 188 abortions per 1,000 live births in 2015, the investigators reported. The findings were based on data from 49 areas that continuously reported over the study period (excludes California, Maryland, and New Hampshire but includes the District of Columbia and New York City).
Abortion rates were highest for women aged 20-29 years for the study period, and this age group accounted for the largest share among the 44 reporting areas that provided data by maternal age each year. Those under age 15 years had the largest drops by age in total number of abortions (40%) and abortion rate (58%) but had the highest, by far, abortion ratio for each year of the study (700 per 1,000 live births in that age group in 2015. The abortion ratio for 15- to 19-year-olds was 289 per 1,000 live births).
The percentage of abortions performed before 14 weeks’ gestation changed little, going from 91.5% in 2006 to 91% in 2015, but “a shift occurred toward earlier gestational ages,” they noted. The percentage of abortions performed before or at 8 weeks increased 3% and those done at 9-13 weeks dropped almost 9% among the 33 areas that reported gestational age every year. Abortions done after 13 weeks gestation represented 9% of all abortions during the study period, with an increase of 7% occurring from 2006 to 2015, Dr. Jatlaoui and her associates said.
Removing barriers such as cost, “insufficient provider reimbursement and training, inadequate client-centered counseling, lack of youth-friendly services, and low client awareness ... might help improve contraceptive use, potentially reducing the number of unintended pregnancies and the number of abortions performed in the United States,” the researchers wrote.
SOURCE: Jatlaoui TC et al. MMWR Surveill Summ. 2018 Nov 23(13):1-45.
FROM MMWR SURVEILLANCE SUMMARIES
Probative pee, Pilgrim obesity, and med school baked bribes
He tweets, he (doesn’t) score!
We all know that less sleep equals poor job performance. Up way too late on a Sunday night means you might fall face first into your keyboard the next morning and accidentally send an email that ends with “hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” So, yeah, sleep is important.
It’s especially important when you are a professional athlete and your entire livelihood depends on you being in tip-top shape. Researchers from the State University of New York at Stony Brook studied the performance of NBA players in relation to their late-night Twitter binges. Unsurprisingly, tweeting in the wee hours correlated with fewer points and fewer rebounds in the next day’s game. We’re sure coaches are just thrilled to hear about their players spending precious night hours @-ing random trolls on Twitter. Does this mean less tweeting and more sleep means anyone can be the next LeBron? Or, um, the next @KingJames? Probably not … but give it a try.
Poppy seeds and probative pee
As you tuck into your Thanksgiving leftovers, give a thought to a valiant physician who ate and drank – and peed – for science. Not just once, but twice.
At the recent Pain Care for Primary Care symposium in San Diego, Mount Sinai Beth Israel addiction specialist Edwin Salsitz, MD, gave a presentation about drug screening and mentioned his own homegrown investigation into two reputed sources of false positives.
A few years ago, a patient tested positive for opiates and, like many before him, blamed his fondness for poppy-seed bagels. Dr. Salsitz asked the patient to buy him a poppy bagel from his usual source, then the doctor went home and ate it on a Sunday prior to collecting his own pee. The doctor’s subsequent urine test was positive for opiates, and the patient was off the hook. (For more about the poppy-seed menace to accurate opiate testing, check this clinical update from the Aegis testing company.)
Later, it was time to check another possible urban legend. Dr. Salsitz got some mate de coca tea from a friend who’d returned from South America. Again, he took time out of a Sunday, this time to enjoy a hot beverage, mate de coca style, and collect his own pee. The urine test was positive this time, too – for cocaine.
The moral of the story? If you have a drug test looming, be safe and just stick to a croissant and coffee.
Psst … want a cookie?
In medical school, the best and brightest sacrifice their bodies and social lives to absorb knowledge like human sponges. Or maybe it’s where they absorb cookies in exchange for positive end-of-course evaluations.
Investigators from the University of Münster (Germany) decided to give 118 of the school’s third-year medical students a little test. During a course on emergency medicine, some groups were given access to free chocolate cookies (Discus deliciosum spp.) in their sessions, and some groups were not. When it came time to fill out their “student evaluations of teaching” at the end of the semester, the “cookie group” was more generous in its ratings of the course material and gave significantly higher scores to the teachers and to the course overall, compared with the control group (Med Educ. 2018 Oct;52[10]:1064-72).
This all seemed a little suspicious, so we did a little digging. Turns out that the cookie group – the one that provided all that warm, chocolatey positive reinforcement – was chock full of the usual suspects: Ernie the elf, Mrs. Fields, Famous Amos, and Mr. Big himself, Cookie Monster.
Why Myles Standish wasn’t fat
In the autumn of 1621, obesity didn’t dine with the 53 Pilgrims who gave culinary thanks for surviving their first disappointing Boston Bruins season. Er, for their first harvest after a brutal New England winter. Why was that first Thanksgiving such a svelte affair, free of the high-BMI epidemic that afflicts so many Bruins faithful nearly 4 centuries later? Was it the free-range turkey? The lean venison? The Wampanoag guests’ demands for a DASH-diet dinner?
A modern study may help reveal the historical truth: 17th century Plymouth Plantation wasn’t yet bisected by the 21st century Cape Cod traffic snarling the Pilgrims Highway, a.k.a. Massachusetts Route 3.
It was Spanish researchers, not English Puritans, who unbuckled the portly puzzle’s Pilgrim hat. Investigators with the Barcelona Institute for Global Health examined the link between traffic noise exposure and obesity markers among a group of Swiss adults. The verdict? Those exposed to the highest levels of traffic noise ran the greatest risk of becoming obese. Specifically, every 10-decibel rise in road noise packed on another 17% increase in obesity. Seems tractor-trailer downshifts and honking horns may disturb sleep, gridlocking glucose metabolism and diverting everyone to the nearest drive-thru.
Next on the Spaniards’ research to-do list: Can your New England uncle’s annual Turkey Day tales of Red Sox triumphs trigger psychosis among familial Yankees fans?
He tweets, he (doesn’t) score!
We all know that less sleep equals poor job performance. Up way too late on a Sunday night means you might fall face first into your keyboard the next morning and accidentally send an email that ends with “hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” So, yeah, sleep is important.
It’s especially important when you are a professional athlete and your entire livelihood depends on you being in tip-top shape. Researchers from the State University of New York at Stony Brook studied the performance of NBA players in relation to their late-night Twitter binges. Unsurprisingly, tweeting in the wee hours correlated with fewer points and fewer rebounds in the next day’s game. We’re sure coaches are just thrilled to hear about their players spending precious night hours @-ing random trolls on Twitter. Does this mean less tweeting and more sleep means anyone can be the next LeBron? Or, um, the next @KingJames? Probably not … but give it a try.
Poppy seeds and probative pee
As you tuck into your Thanksgiving leftovers, give a thought to a valiant physician who ate and drank – and peed – for science. Not just once, but twice.
At the recent Pain Care for Primary Care symposium in San Diego, Mount Sinai Beth Israel addiction specialist Edwin Salsitz, MD, gave a presentation about drug screening and mentioned his own homegrown investigation into two reputed sources of false positives.
A few years ago, a patient tested positive for opiates and, like many before him, blamed his fondness for poppy-seed bagels. Dr. Salsitz asked the patient to buy him a poppy bagel from his usual source, then the doctor went home and ate it on a Sunday prior to collecting his own pee. The doctor’s subsequent urine test was positive for opiates, and the patient was off the hook. (For more about the poppy-seed menace to accurate opiate testing, check this clinical update from the Aegis testing company.)
Later, it was time to check another possible urban legend. Dr. Salsitz got some mate de coca tea from a friend who’d returned from South America. Again, he took time out of a Sunday, this time to enjoy a hot beverage, mate de coca style, and collect his own pee. The urine test was positive this time, too – for cocaine.
The moral of the story? If you have a drug test looming, be safe and just stick to a croissant and coffee.
Psst … want a cookie?
In medical school, the best and brightest sacrifice their bodies and social lives to absorb knowledge like human sponges. Or maybe it’s where they absorb cookies in exchange for positive end-of-course evaluations.
Investigators from the University of Münster (Germany) decided to give 118 of the school’s third-year medical students a little test. During a course on emergency medicine, some groups were given access to free chocolate cookies (Discus deliciosum spp.) in their sessions, and some groups were not. When it came time to fill out their “student evaluations of teaching” at the end of the semester, the “cookie group” was more generous in its ratings of the course material and gave significantly higher scores to the teachers and to the course overall, compared with the control group (Med Educ. 2018 Oct;52[10]:1064-72).
This all seemed a little suspicious, so we did a little digging. Turns out that the cookie group – the one that provided all that warm, chocolatey positive reinforcement – was chock full of the usual suspects: Ernie the elf, Mrs. Fields, Famous Amos, and Mr. Big himself, Cookie Monster.
Why Myles Standish wasn’t fat
In the autumn of 1621, obesity didn’t dine with the 53 Pilgrims who gave culinary thanks for surviving their first disappointing Boston Bruins season. Er, for their first harvest after a brutal New England winter. Why was that first Thanksgiving such a svelte affair, free of the high-BMI epidemic that afflicts so many Bruins faithful nearly 4 centuries later? Was it the free-range turkey? The lean venison? The Wampanoag guests’ demands for a DASH-diet dinner?
A modern study may help reveal the historical truth: 17th century Plymouth Plantation wasn’t yet bisected by the 21st century Cape Cod traffic snarling the Pilgrims Highway, a.k.a. Massachusetts Route 3.
It was Spanish researchers, not English Puritans, who unbuckled the portly puzzle’s Pilgrim hat. Investigators with the Barcelona Institute for Global Health examined the link between traffic noise exposure and obesity markers among a group of Swiss adults. The verdict? Those exposed to the highest levels of traffic noise ran the greatest risk of becoming obese. Specifically, every 10-decibel rise in road noise packed on another 17% increase in obesity. Seems tractor-trailer downshifts and honking horns may disturb sleep, gridlocking glucose metabolism and diverting everyone to the nearest drive-thru.
Next on the Spaniards’ research to-do list: Can your New England uncle’s annual Turkey Day tales of Red Sox triumphs trigger psychosis among familial Yankees fans?
He tweets, he (doesn’t) score!
We all know that less sleep equals poor job performance. Up way too late on a Sunday night means you might fall face first into your keyboard the next morning and accidentally send an email that ends with “hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” So, yeah, sleep is important.
It’s especially important when you are a professional athlete and your entire livelihood depends on you being in tip-top shape. Researchers from the State University of New York at Stony Brook studied the performance of NBA players in relation to their late-night Twitter binges. Unsurprisingly, tweeting in the wee hours correlated with fewer points and fewer rebounds in the next day’s game. We’re sure coaches are just thrilled to hear about their players spending precious night hours @-ing random trolls on Twitter. Does this mean less tweeting and more sleep means anyone can be the next LeBron? Or, um, the next @KingJames? Probably not … but give it a try.
Poppy seeds and probative pee
As you tuck into your Thanksgiving leftovers, give a thought to a valiant physician who ate and drank – and peed – for science. Not just once, but twice.
At the recent Pain Care for Primary Care symposium in San Diego, Mount Sinai Beth Israel addiction specialist Edwin Salsitz, MD, gave a presentation about drug screening and mentioned his own homegrown investigation into two reputed sources of false positives.
A few years ago, a patient tested positive for opiates and, like many before him, blamed his fondness for poppy-seed bagels. Dr. Salsitz asked the patient to buy him a poppy bagel from his usual source, then the doctor went home and ate it on a Sunday prior to collecting his own pee. The doctor’s subsequent urine test was positive for opiates, and the patient was off the hook. (For more about the poppy-seed menace to accurate opiate testing, check this clinical update from the Aegis testing company.)
Later, it was time to check another possible urban legend. Dr. Salsitz got some mate de coca tea from a friend who’d returned from South America. Again, he took time out of a Sunday, this time to enjoy a hot beverage, mate de coca style, and collect his own pee. The urine test was positive this time, too – for cocaine.
The moral of the story? If you have a drug test looming, be safe and just stick to a croissant and coffee.
Psst … want a cookie?
In medical school, the best and brightest sacrifice their bodies and social lives to absorb knowledge like human sponges. Or maybe it’s where they absorb cookies in exchange for positive end-of-course evaluations.
Investigators from the University of Münster (Germany) decided to give 118 of the school’s third-year medical students a little test. During a course on emergency medicine, some groups were given access to free chocolate cookies (Discus deliciosum spp.) in their sessions, and some groups were not. When it came time to fill out their “student evaluations of teaching” at the end of the semester, the “cookie group” was more generous in its ratings of the course material and gave significantly higher scores to the teachers and to the course overall, compared with the control group (Med Educ. 2018 Oct;52[10]:1064-72).
This all seemed a little suspicious, so we did a little digging. Turns out that the cookie group – the one that provided all that warm, chocolatey positive reinforcement – was chock full of the usual suspects: Ernie the elf, Mrs. Fields, Famous Amos, and Mr. Big himself, Cookie Monster.
Why Myles Standish wasn’t fat
In the autumn of 1621, obesity didn’t dine with the 53 Pilgrims who gave culinary thanks for surviving their first disappointing Boston Bruins season. Er, for their first harvest after a brutal New England winter. Why was that first Thanksgiving such a svelte affair, free of the high-BMI epidemic that afflicts so many Bruins faithful nearly 4 centuries later? Was it the free-range turkey? The lean venison? The Wampanoag guests’ demands for a DASH-diet dinner?
A modern study may help reveal the historical truth: 17th century Plymouth Plantation wasn’t yet bisected by the 21st century Cape Cod traffic snarling the Pilgrims Highway, a.k.a. Massachusetts Route 3.
It was Spanish researchers, not English Puritans, who unbuckled the portly puzzle’s Pilgrim hat. Investigators with the Barcelona Institute for Global Health examined the link between traffic noise exposure and obesity markers among a group of Swiss adults. The verdict? Those exposed to the highest levels of traffic noise ran the greatest risk of becoming obese. Specifically, every 10-decibel rise in road noise packed on another 17% increase in obesity. Seems tractor-trailer downshifts and honking horns may disturb sleep, gridlocking glucose metabolism and diverting everyone to the nearest drive-thru.
Next on the Spaniards’ research to-do list: Can your New England uncle’s annual Turkey Day tales of Red Sox triumphs trigger psychosis among familial Yankees fans?