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Stay Well
breaking health news & updates
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Needle Pain Is A Big Problem for Kids. One California Doctor Has A Plan | |
Almost all new parents go through it: the distress of hearing their child scream at the doctor’s office. They endure the emotional torture of having to hold their child down as the clinician sticks them with one vaccine after another.
“The first shots he got, I probably cried more than he did,” said Remy Anthes, who was pushing her 6-month-old son, Dorian, back and forth in his stroller in Oakland, California.
“The look in her eyes, it’s hard to take,” said Jill Lovitt, recalling how her infant daughter Jenna reacted to some recent vaccines. “Like, ‘What are you letting them do to me? Why?’”
Pain management research suggests that needle pokes may be children’s biggest source of pain in the health care system. The problem isn’t confined to childhood vaccinations either. Studies looking at sources of pediatric pain have included children who are being treated for serious illness, have undergone heart surgeries or bone marrow transplants, or have landed in the emergency room.
California Healthline Read more
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"Measles (rubeola) is highly contagious and is transmitted via direct contact with infectious droplets or by airborne spread when an infected person breathes, coughs, or sneezes. One person infected with measles can infect nine out of 10 unvaccinated individuals with whom they come into close contact.”
Alameda County Health Officials
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Possible Measles Exposure Reported At San Leandro Restaurant
The Alameda County Public Health Department reported on Tuesday that there was a possible measles exposure at a San Leandro restaurant.
The possible exposure was at Sons of Liberty Alehouse on the evening of Saturday, March 9. People who were at the restaurant between 4:45 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. may have been exposed to measles.
The health department issued specific guidelines to people who were at the restaurant in this timeframe and meet any of the following criteria:
- An infant 11 months of age or younger
- Not vaccinated for measles
- Unsure of your measles vaccination status
- Pregnant
- Immunocompromised (having a weakened immune system)
- A healthcare worker
- A childcare provider
Anyone who fits this description is asked to contact their healthcare provider and the Alameda County Public Health Department at (510) 267-3250.
KRON4 Read more
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With Demand For Food Assistance Sky-High, One Bay Area County Is Trying To Shake A Decade-Long Legacy Of Failing Residents In Need
When Jessica Rangel first moved to Berkeley, she knew she would need help to survive the costly Bay Area. Rent and food were expensive, and her budget as a master’s student at UC Berkeley only stretched so far. Soon after arriving in the region, Rangel visited an Alameda County website and filled out an application to access CalFresh, California’s rebranded version of food stamps. As a public health and nutrition student — and a former recipient of food stamps — she felt confident that she was able to access that aid. Rangel knew she qualified, and she hoped that maybe even within a few days she could stop worrying so much about buying groceries. But those days turned into weeks, and then a month. When she tried to check in on her application, she experienced delays and what she perceived as incompetent staff. After six weeks, she finally received the benefits — but only after she became convinced that the system was broken. Mercury News Read more
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How Disability Rights Advocates Are Making East Bay Parks More Accessible
California’s state and regional parks were created to be enjoyed by all, but ensuring everyone has equal access to outdoor recreation has been a struggle. According to the Pew Research Center’s analysis of 2021 U.S. Census data, around 42.5 million Americans, or 13% of the population, have some type of disability. Despite this, many people find it difficult to enjoy the outdoors because lots of parks are not easily accessible via transit, there aren’t enough amenities at a location, information on trail features is difficult to find or unavailable, and trails often are not designed to accommodate people with a range of disabilities. Oaklandside
Read more
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$13.2 Million Grant To Fund Wellness Centers In Santa Clara County Schools
Santa Clara County leaders and community partners Monday announced a $13.2 million grant to improve mental health resources at local schools. The Wellness Center Expansion Program seeks to expand wellness centers at schools throughout Santa Clara County. It will fund 28 new wellness centers and upgrade 12 existing centers at 40 middle schools and high schools.
Valley Health Foundation, a nonprofit, partnered with the County of Santa Clara Behavioral Health Services Department to administer the grant program. The program is part of Santa Clara County’s mission to invest in increased access to mental health resources. It’s a central component of a county initiative -- Children’s Roadmap to Recovery. Susan Ellenberg, president of the County of Santa Clara Board of Supervisors, is the driving force behind the initiative, which began in April 2023. NBC Bay Area Read more
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Nurses Union Presses UCSF For Patient Care Details Amid $100 Million Purchase Of Two S.F. Hospitals
Nurses at UCSF, St. Mary’s Medical Center and St. Francis Memorial Hospital are pressing UCSF — which is slated to complete a $100 million acquisition of the two community hospitals by June — for detailed answers to their questions about how UCSF will maintain critical patient services and preserve staffing once the deal is complete. UCSF has committed to keeping staff and medical services at the two hospitals at current levels or above. But nurses at all three facilities, who are represented by the California Nurses Association, say they have been largely shut out for months when they’ve requested information from UCSF about how the deal will affect the community — particularly indigent and underserved patients who rely on the hospitals for care. SF Chronicle Read more
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In A Pandemic Milestone, The NIH Ends Regular Guidance On COVID Treatment - Leaves It Up To Specialty Doctors Groups
These days, if you're sick with COVID-19 and you're at risk of getting worse, you could take pills like Paxlovid or get an antiviral infusion. By now, these drugs have a track record of doing pretty well at keeping people with mild to moderate COVID-19 out of the hospital. The availability of COVID-19 treatments has evolved over the past four years, pushed forward by the rapid accumulation of data and by scientists and doctors who pored over every new piece of information to create evidence-based guidance on how to best care for COVID-19 patients.
One very influential set of guidelines — viewed more than 50 million times and used by doctors around the world — is the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The last version of the NIH's COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines was issued in February. The archives of the guidance — available online until August — document how scientific understanding and technological progress evolved during the pandemic. CapRadio Read more
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COVID Isn’t Over For Disabled And Older Adults
Four years into the COVID-19 pandemic, few Americans are especially concerned about catching the disease. A recent poll from Pew found that only 20 percent of Americans consider the virus to be a major health threat. Only 10 percent are concerned about becoming very ill or hospitalized. Less than a third have received an updated COVID-19 vaccine. Pew did not ask how many people still wear masks. But for many with disabilities and chronic illnesses, t is impossible to move on. Although vaccination and medications like Paxlovid have helped reduce the number of deaths, disabled people and older adults are still at higher risk. Life expectancy in the United States has dropped, and COVID-19 is the third leading cause of death. Long COVID, the complex and poorly understood constellation of symptoms that linger long after an active infection ends, impacts an estimated 6.8 percent of Americans, or 17.6 million people. The 19th Read more
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COVID-19 Is Waning But Respiratory and Stomach Viruses Are Still Hanging Around As We Head Into Early Spring
As the country begins to thaw out in preparation for spring, COVID-19 cases are finally
waning although other viruses are on the rise. Data from WastewaterSCAN, a network run by Stanford and Emory University that monitors sewage for signs of disease, shows concentrations of the virus have ranged from low to medium in sites across the U.S. and evidence of infections is declining. “We’re seeing a downward trend, which is fantastic,” said Marlene Wolfe,
assistant professor of environmental health at Emory University and program director for WastewaterSCAN. “Hopefully, that pattern continues as we enjoy some warmer weather and longer daylight.” Unlike testing surveillance, which relies on patients visiting doctors who report positive results, wastewater surveillance passively picks up genetic material of viruses from people's waste to create a picture of how prevalent the disease is throughout the country. While the wastewater data suggests COVID-19 is easing up, it also reveals other respiratory and stomach viruses are picking up. Experts say these viruses appear to be sticking around as the U.S. approaches warmer months. USA Today Read more
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Health Workers Fear It's Profits Before Protection As CDC Revisits Airborne Transmission Of COVID
Four years after hospitals in New York City overflowed with COVID patients, emergency physician Dr. Sonya Stokes remains shaken by how unprepared and misguided the American health system was. Hospital leadership instructed health workers to forgo protective N95 masks in the early months of 2020, as COVID cases mounted. “We were watching patients die,” Stokes said, “and being told we didn’t need a high level of protection from people who were not taking these risks.” Droves of front-line workers fell sick as they tried to save lives without proper face masks and other protective measures. More than 3,600 died in the first year. “Nurses were going home to their elderly parents, transmitting COVID to their families,” Stokes recalled. “It was awful.” NBC News Read more
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State/National/International News | | |
Online Orders Begin For First Over-The-Counter Birth Control Pill In The U.S.
The rollout is underway for Opill, the first over-the-counter birth control pill approved in the United States, and online sales began Monday morning. Consumers can start ordering Opill online Monday, and orders will be fulfilled within a day or two, Sara Young, senior vice president and chief consumer officer at Perrigo, said in an email. So far, the product will be available at Opill.com and Amazon. “Because privacy is important to Perrigo, Opill orders will be sent in plain, unbranded boxes,” Young wrote. Opill has a suggested retail price of $19.99 for a one-month supply, $49.99 for a three-month supply, and at Opill.com, a six-month supply will be available for $89.99. Earlier this month, the first shipments of Opill were sent to distributors, major drug stores and pharmacies — but as those shipments make their way through the distribution pipeline, it can take days to weeks before customers are able to get their hands on the product. CNN Read more
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EPA Bans Remaining Uses Of Cancer-Causing Asbestos In The U.S.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a United States ban on the ongoing use of chrysotile asbestos - a carcinogen that the agency estimates is linked to more than 40,000 U.S. deaths each year. The announcement comes as part of President Joe Biden's Cancer Moonshot initiative, which is using federal resources to make progress on cancer research and treatment. "While the use of asbestos in the United States has been declining for decades, the use of chrysotile asbestos has continued to this day. Because of its resistance to heat, fire and electrical conduction, it has remained in use for a variety of construction and industrial products," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a Monday press call.
ABC News Read more
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Intermittent Fasting Linked To Higher Risk Of Cardiovascular Death, Research Suggests
Intermittent fasting, a diet pattern that involves alternating between periods of fasting and eating, can lower blood pressure and help some people lose weight, past research has indicated. But an analysis presented Monday at the American Heart Association’s scientific sessions in Chicago challenges the notion that intermittent fasting is good for heart health. Instead, researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in China found that people who restricted food consumption to less than eight hours per day had a 91% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease over a median period of eight years, relative to people who ate across 12 to 16 hours. NBC News Read more
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Finding A Doctor Who Specializes In Senior Care Is Hard. Here’s Why
Pat Early, 66, has lived with the autoimmune disease Sjogren’s syndrome since her 30s. She must rely on a stable of specialists — a rheumatologist, gastroenterologist, endocrinologist, ophthalmologist and the like — to manage the fatigue, muscle pain and other complications of the disease, all helmed by her longtime primary-care doctor. When that doctor started cutting back his staff, she began searching for someone new and stumbled across a medical practice of geriatricians — doctors who specialize in patients over age 65. Early didn’t consider herself old, so “it never even crossed my mind that that’s something I should be looking at,” she said. But she’s grateful for the switch. People over 65 use more health care than other age groups and make up nearly half of hospital admissions. But there are just 7,300 board-certified geriatricians in the United States, which is fewer than 1 percent of all physicians, according to the American Geriatrics Society. Washington Post Read more
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Growing Market For Glucose Monitoring Fueled By Nondiabetics
One of the fastest-growing trends in health and wellness circles was once seen solely as the domain of diabetics: watching your blood sugar. The weight-loss drug boom and online health influencers' attention on regulating blood sugar are helping fuel interest in real-time glucose tracking among nondiabetic patients, even as doctors say the benefits are uncertain for this group. Glucose monitoring tech could become even more widely used by nondiabetics after the Food and Drug Administration recently approved the first over-the-counter device. The device, expected to become available this summer, is meant for people with Type 2 diabetes not taking insulin, as well as nondiabetic patients who want to better understand how diet and exercise may impact blood sugar levels, the FDA said. Axios Read more
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Digital Stethoscope Uses Artificial Intelligence To Help Doctors Detect Heart Valve Problems
There is encouraging news about the role of artificial intelligence in health care. A new, digital stethoscope uses AI to help doctors detect heart valve problems. Normally, blood flows from one heart chamber to another, passing through little doors called valves that open and close. But, if there is a problem with one of the valves, blood flow becomes turbulent, causing a whooshing or raspy sound called a murmur. Only about 40-percent of murmurs can be detected during a physical exam by a clinician with a regular stethoscope. But this new stethoscope, developed by EKO Health, and the new technology with it are changing that. The AI-enhanced stethoscope transmits sounds from the patient's heart to an iPad or smartphone.
CBS News Read more
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More Homeless People Likely To Be Sent Out of S.F. As City Expands Homeward Bound Program
A program that offers unhoused people a fully paid trip home could soon become a permanent part of the city’s strategy for combating homelessness. San Francisco supervisors on Tuesday approved legislation to expand access to its Homeward Bound program among people in the city’s network of shelters and permanent supportive housing, an effort to revive the relocation program after it has languished with little use since the pandemic. Traditionally the program has worked like this: A city worker contacts the participant’s family or friends, buys the person a bus ticket and meal, and then drives them to the Transbay transit center to ensure they leave. It costs nearly $400 for one Homeward Bound client versus building new permanent supportive housing, which can cost up to $1.2 million per unit in San Francisco. SF Chronicle Read more
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An Experiment In Preventing Homelessness Through Cash Aid
In California’s Santa Clara County, home to one of the most expensive housing markets in the U.S., an experiment in preventing homelessness through direct cash assistance is paying off. The program offers stipends with no strings attached to people at risk of losing their homes, letting them decide how to use the money. Some 95% of families that used the service remained in stable homes, and for every $1 spent, the community saw more than double in benefits, according to a recent study. The program is part of a growing family of interventions predicated on the notion that the cheapest way to address homelessness is by keeping struggling tenants from being turned out on the streets in the first place, writes contributor Patrick Sisson. Bloomberg Read more
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Officials, Civil-Rights Groups Back Expanding Mental Health Emergency Program In San Jose
A push to create an additional community-based response team for mental-health emergencies in San Jose has gotten a co-sign from three city councilmembers ahead of the council’s major budget hearing Tuesday. The Trusted Response Urgent Support Team, or TRUST, fields three-person teams consisting of a medic, behavioral-health professional and a peer-support advocate to respond to nonviolent psychiatric emergencies throughout Santa Clara County, which oversees the program. Currently, there are four teams covering quadrants of the county: San Jose, Gilroy, the West Valley and North County. Architects and major supporters of the program, led by Silicon Valley De-Bug and including Showing Up for Racial Justice at Sacred Heart Community Service, have urged for the strategic expansion of the program.
Mercury News Read more
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"Boys Are Disappearing" From Mental Health Care As Signs Of Depression Go Undetected
Teenage boys are drowning in just as much of the depression and anxiety that’s been well documented in girls. Experts warn that many young men struggling with their mental health are left undetected and without the help they need. “We are right to be concerned about girls,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of the Division of Adolescent and School Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But I don’t ever want us to lose sight of the fact that boys aren’t doing well, either.” Depression in boys may go unnoticed, Ethier and other experts said, because boys usually don’t show it through signs of melancholy typically found in girls. NBC News
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The Whole Person: Why Mental Health Matters In Addiction Recovery
Our society has weathered several addiction-related crises. From crack cocaine to Oxycontin to the current Fentanyl crisis, the United States is no stranger to the issues of addiction. As we grapple with the multifaceted challenges of addiction as a country, a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of substance abuse has begun to enter the spotlight: mental health. Increasingly, recovery experts, doctors, and counselors are calling attention to the delicate dance that occurs between substance abuse and mental well-being. This symbiotic relationship is one that Nick Padlo knows well. Padlo is the founder of Sophros Recovery, a growing recovery center based in Jacksonville, Florida that takes a holistic approach to substance abuse treatment.
USA Today Read more
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Fentanyl Crisis/Drug Trends | | |
Blinken Warns Deadly Fentanyl Crisis Will Spread Globally
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on Friday that countries around the world will soon face the kind of fentanyl drug crisis that's killing tens of thousands of people each year in the U.S. Blinken spoke at a United Nations conference in Vienna, Austria, focused on the spread of narcotics and synthetic street drugs. "In many ways we've been a canary in the coal mine, particularly when it comes to fentanyl, Blinken said. "It hit us hard, it hit us first, but unfortunately not last. And we can see its ravages taking hold in other countries." Experts say fentanyl spread fastest in the U.S. because of powerful Mexican cartels, trafficking the substance across the southern border. NPR Read more
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California Prosecutors Filing Murder Charges In More Fentanyl Deaths
Just about every state in America has cracked down on fentanyl distribution, by stepping up arrests and increasing prison sentences. But few places are as aggressive as Riverside County, Calif., in prosecuting people who supply fatal doses of fentanyl. Since late 2021, the Riverside County district attorney, Mike Hestrin, has charged 34 suspected fentanyl suppliers with murder and is said to be the first prosecutor in California to achieve a guilty verdict from a jury in a fentanyl-related homicide trial. “People are being devastated by this drug,” said Mr. Hestrin, who has been the district attorney in Riverside County, a sprawling area east of Los Angeles, for nine years. NY Times Read more
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New Non-Opioid Pain Meds Hold Promise, But Face Clinical Development And Insurer Challenges
Vertex Pharmaceuticals recently released late-stage trial results for an investigational
non-opioid pain medication showing it was safe and efficacious while offering
modest pain relief. Pain impacts tens of millions of Americans on a daily basis. Opioid medications remain a common treatment for pain despite decreases in the number of opioid prescriptions after 2012. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that in 2020 approximately 143 million opioid prescriptions were dispensed from pharmacies in the U.S. Prescription opioids are effective at relieving pain and now that so many of the medications are generic they’re cheap, too. Moreover, contrary to public perception, the problem of misuse, abuse, and diversion of prescription opioids has been much less of a factor in the opioid crisis in recent years than illicit opioids. Heroin and illegally made fentanyl account for the vast majority of drug overdose-related fatalities, with fentanyl being far and away the biggest driver, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that prescription opioids can be misused, abused, and diverted. And so, given these risks, there’s a desire for novel non-opioid treatments. Forbes Read more
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"Dirty Dozen" 2024 List Of Foods With Most Pesticides
Approximately 95% of nonorganic strawberries, leafy greens such as spinach and kale, collard and mustard greens, grapes, peaches and pears tested by the United States government contained detectable levels of pesticides, according to the 2024 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce. Nectarines, apples, bell and hot peppers, cherries, blueberries and green beans rounded out the list of the 12 most contaminated samples of produce. It’s dubbed the “Dirty Dozen” by the Environmental Working Group, or EWG, an environmental and health advocacy organization that has produced the annual report since 2004. CNN Read more
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About Eden Health District | | |
The Eden Health District Board of Directors are Chair Pam Russo, Vice Chair Ed Hernandez, Secretary/Treasurer Roxann Lewis, Mariellen Faria and Surlene Grant. The Chief Executive Officer is Mark Friedman.
The Eden Health District is committed to ensuring that policy makers and community members receive accurate and timely information to help make the best policy and personal choices to meet and overcome the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as other health issues.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor Lisa Mahoney.
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