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Hurricane Damage Causes Surgery Backlog Across the U.S.! 

Hurricane Damage Causes Surgery Backlog Across the U.S. Credit | Getty Images

United States: Many surgeries across the country might be delayed for several weeks because a factory that makes important IV and sterile fluids has to stay closed due to damage from a hurricane. 

Typically, people schedule non-emergency surgeries in the fall and early winter when their insurance helps pay more of the costs. However, health systems now need to save supplies for emergencies, so patients may have to wait longer for their planned surgeries. 

“It’s not great for patients; patients complain about it, but it’s kind of doing the best with what you have, “State leading pharmacy Erin Fox of the University of Utah Health. 

As reported by Associated Press, the federal government and medical suppliers have made some efforts to mitigate the supply shortage resultant from Hurricane Helene that shut down Baxter International’s North Carolina plant at the end of last month. 

But analysts have continued to argue that the supplies are still irregular something that will take some time to improve. Let’s try to take an even closer look to the following scenario. 

Hurricane Damage Causes Surgery Backlog Across the U.S. Credit | AP
Hurricane Damage Causes Surgery Backlog Across the U.S. Credit | AP

What did Hurricane Helene do? 

Each day, Baxter’s North Cove, North Carolina, facility produces about 60% of the intravenous solutions used across the United States, as per the American Hospital Association. It also makes fluids used by patients on home dialysis and the sterile water used to prepare patient surgery sites during operations. 

However, flooding resulting from the storm affected nearby bridges and in the factory; water entered and led to the closing down of the factory. According to Baxter, the site itself had no structural damage. 

How that impacted patient care? 

Health systems have been rationing fluids since the plant was shut down. Some Gatorade or water with the patients that passed from one ward, instead of putting an IV drip. 

Hospitals also have started delaying elective surgeries that can be safely delayed such as some hip replacement surgeries or cardiology procedures, added Dr Chris DeRienzo the chief physician executive at the American Hospital Association. 

Hurricane Damage Causes Surgery Backlog Across the U.S. Credit | AP
Hurricane Damage Causes Surgery Backlog Across the U.S. Credit | AP

Baxter has restricted the fluid products delivery to distributors and healthcare systems. The effects will vary for a patient by how dependent a hospital or a health system is with Baxter, according to Nancy Foster, a VP at the hospital. 

It is also important to know what is being done to enhance the supplies. 

From Baxter plants in this and other countries, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the temporary importation of fluids. 

The company has also begun to ease some of the restrictions it had put on the freedom of its consumers on supplies. 

Baxter rival B. Btaun Medical has increases production at its Daytona Beach which is located in the Florida Beach, and which escaped the damage from the another hurricane and at a location in the California.  

The FDA also issued new temporary guidelines designed to make it easier for compounding medicines to produce certain IV drugs which are in short supply. 

Will this help the IV fluids shortage? 

Supply experts are optimistic and positive that this situation will improve but they can’t say whether these moves will fill the void left by the plant shutdown. 

Fox said her health system is still dealing with the uncertainty because the amount Baxter has allocated to them isn’t always available through their distributor. 

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Painless Skin Patch Offers New Immunization Alternative 

Painless Skin Patch Offers New Immunization Alternative. Credit | Georgia Tech

United States: According to experts, children who dislike immunization needles may soon have a painless skin patch as an alternative. Following a single vaccination dosage via the patch, all 190 Gambian infants were protected against rubella and more than 90% of them were protected against measles, according to preliminary study data. 

According to experts, the patch has a variety of tiny needles that enter the skin gently and administer the vaccination. 

Potential Impact on Global Immunization Efforts 

“These are really encouraging results that have created a lot of enthusiasm, even if it’s early days. “They show for the first time that microarray patch technology can be used to safely and effectively administer vaccines to babies and young children,” said Ed Clarke, a researcher and head of infant immunology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia. 

“Vaccines against measles are the most important to administer using this method, but it is also now feasible to administer other vaccines using microarray patches,” stated Clarke. “Pay attention to this area.” 

Scaling Up Trials and Advancing Vaccine Delivery 

Painless Skin Patch Offers New Immunization Alternative. Credit | Georgia Tech
Painless Skin Patch Offers New Immunization Alternative. Credit | Georgia Tech

 According to experts, these patches may facilitate the expansion of immunization coverage in less developed nations. They don’t require a medical practitioner to give them, may be simpler to carry, and may not require cold storage. 
 
Speaking for the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Dr. Ikechukwu Adigweme stated, “We hope this is an important step in the march towards greater vaccine equity among disadvantaged populations.” 

 

Addressing Parental Concerns in Wealthy Nations 

According to academics, vaccination patches may be a more convenient and painless option for traditional jabs in wealthy nations like the US. 
 
According to them, providing a patch-based immunization might even persuade more parents to vaccinate their children. 
 
Due to parental vaccination hesitation, the United States has seen outbreaks of the extremely contagious and lethal virus throughout the previous several years, despite the measles being declared eliminated in 2000. 
 
The researchers noted that in order to validate these findings and offer further information, larger trials of the patches are currently being developed. 

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Climate Change Fuels Dangerous Germs in Our Food. 

United States: Experts are warning that warmer temperatures are affecting our food and making it less safe. Recently, there was an outbreak of E. coli linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders, which can make people sick. 

Scientists say that germs, like the bacteria that cause E. coli, are changing because of climate change. Pratik Banerjee, a food safety teacher at the University of Illinois, explains that these changes can be bad for our health. 

 Banerjee is at the moment employed to analyze the effects of climate on food production. 

As reported by Yahoo.com, “Again I said to her there is not a magic wand that can be there and the food would be absolutely safe, right?” he said. ‘Thus, it is to minimize the risk’. 

Comparable work is underway at the Institute for Food Safety in the Illinois Institute of Technology. 

‘This is probably disrupting a whole lot of the large context out there with regards to how microorganisms go about their day,’ IFSH’s Dr Alvin Lee adds. 

The FDA reports that the Slivered onions that are used to garnish on the Quarter Pounders are likely the cause of the E. coli to bring an outbreak at McDonalds. But, in a sense, if you talked to people with whom CBS News Chicago spoke to for this piece, the McDonald’s outbreak is as real as climate change. 

’Those that are skeptics, they will be believers after a while,” said attorney Bill Marler of Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm, ‘There are many more scientific papers out there that are coming out with reports that show that certain pathogens such as E.coli, salmonella and campylobacter are better suited for heat than we are.’ 

Marler has acted as a lawyer for victims of outbreaks across the country for more than three decades as a foodborne illness lawyer. He said that some of these pathogens which cause food to be contaminated are being found in the United States for the first-time courtesy of climate change. 

Some of the bugs you find here in United States countries we have never seen any. We do not usually used to see Cyclospora as bacterial or viral issue. Now, we are seeing it all the time in the United States, and that’s because temperatures are warming,” he said. Once in a while, it was more of a South American issue. Now, it’s a U.S. problem.” 

He said given that temperature affects pathogens that are in the food chain, there is need to adapt in the industry. 

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445 Million Adults at Risk from Gambling! 

445 Million Adults at Risk from Gambling! Credit | Getty Images

United States: A celebrity, for instance, Drake takes to Instagram to post photos of their victories in the online casinos. Sport betting is promoted through podcast advertisements. People, particularly friends, slip the word “parlay” into group chats nonchalantly. 

Gaming has grown to other heights globally. A new report by an international commission of 22 health and policy experts cautions that gambling poses particular dangers in the age of limitless immediate access online. 

As reported by the Yahoo News, “Our conclusion is clear: There is concern that gambling is becoming a public health issue,” wrote the team in a report presented Thursday in Lancet Public Health journal. Scientists from the World Health Organization and other organizations of five continents reported that the growth of this phenomena can be stopped only with „a substantial expansion and tightening of gambling industry regulation. “ 

445 Million Adults at Risk from Gambling! Credit | Alamy
445 Million Adults at Risk from Gambling! Credit | Alamy

Pathological gambling, or gambling disorder, is one of the most researched addictions throughout many decades. The factors are different than with other forms of addiction: Unlike other vices where a person gets to his or her worst, meaning overdoses for instance on drugs when he or she doesn’t have money to buy more, gambling offers you an opportunity to go on an on until you are literally cleaned out. 

And Las Vegas style slot machines and game day wagers, have never been more within reach. 

“The idea of having three-in-one electronic gadgets means that anyone with a mobile phone now has a casino in his/her pocket, ” the commission’s co-chair , Professor of gambling research and policy at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, Heather Wardle said. Of great concern, highly sophisticated marketing coupled with technology makes it easier to begin and very hard to quit gambling, while users are supposed to have ‘multiple and protracted contact’. 

Some 445m adults globally engage in what is termed ‘risky gambling’, that can affect money, mood, interactions and productivity, it said, in a survey of past research-based report. Gambling increases chances of performing actions that affect an individual and or his/her health says the report. Another 80 million people land at a more serious version known as gambling disorder or pathological gambling. 

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