North America is about to enter cold and flu season. Covid is on the uptick and may spread to millions of people this winter depending on how many people get a booster and how well the boosters work. Every year the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has to decide in the winter to spring which four flu strains are most likely to hit the United States next year. Strains circulating in Asia are often the ones that infect Americans, Canadians and Mexicans in the coming Winter. Thus, the flu vaccine is a cocktail of the four flu strains likely during following flu season.
Author: Devon Herrick
Officials Use a Mosquito Factory to Control Mosquito-Borne Diseases
My wife is a mosquito magnet. It seems like she complains of getting bit every time she goes out to hand water plants during the summer. For millions of people around the world, a mosquito bite isn’t just an irritation that is itchy for a day and then forgotten. I have a close relative that went camping years ago and caught West Nile Virus from a mosquito bite. About half of people who have had West Nile suffer from long-term problems due to the infection. Mosquitoes are the mostly deadly living thing that preys on humans.
Indiana Employer Initiative to Rein-in Hospital Prices Spreading to Other States
Former White House official Al Hubbard and employer groups began lobbying Indiana legislators to make hospital prices more transparent, and more affordable. A recent analysis by RAND found that Indiana’s hospital prices are among the top of the nation. Hoosiers are paying about three times the fees Medicare pays for the same service. The news has employers steaming.
When Sachdev, a pharmacist by training who is now 54, became CEO of the Employers’ Forum of Indiana, she was shocked that her members often didn’t know what prices they were paying for surgeries or other medical services, because hospitals and insurers kept them secret.
The New York Times (and the FDA) Does a Hatchet Job on Regenerative Medicine
The New York Times did a hatchet job on regenerative medicine. A visiting researcher at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and other surgeons had performed numerous surgeries using BioBurst, a processed umbilical cord fluid, to help fuse together bones in minimally invasive surgeries. The fluid was administered to reduce healing time and reduce the need for more invasive back surgery.