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Enlarge / A Wendy's old-fashion burger. Romaine lettuce on Wendy's burgers is thought to be the cause of the outbreak. (credit: Getty | Francis Dean)
We will never know for certain what caused a large, multistate outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infections linked to Wendy's restaurants late last year, according to a new study led by investigators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study, highlighting weaknesses in our ability to respond to foodborne outbreaks, lands amid a separate report published by the CDC finding that, in general, we're also failing to prevent outbreaks. In fact, cases from some common foodborne pathogens have increased relative to pre-pandemic levels.
In the outbreak last year, which spanned from July to August, at least 109 people in six states fell ill, with 52 needing to be hospitalized. Eating at Wendy's was a clear link. But it wasn't enough to crack the case.
Enlarge / One of the medical clinics suspended by Mexican health authorities in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, on May 19, 2023. (credit: Getty | AFP)
Three more people in the US have died from fungal meningitis in an outbreak linked to tainted surgeries in Mexico, bringing the total deaths to seven, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.
The total case count remains unchanged from an update earlier this month, with 34 cases in the US: nine confirmed, 10 probable, and 15 suspected. Health officials are investigating 161 others who may have been exposed.
The outbreak is linked to cosmetic surgeries involving epidural anesthesia at two clinics in Matamoros, Mexico, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Mexican and US officials suspect that a component of the anesthetic was contaminated, resulting in the pathogenic fungus Fusarium solani being injected directly into people's spinal cords. The tainted surgeries are thought to have occurred between January 1, 2023, to May 13, 2023, around when the clinics were shut down by local health officials.
Enlarge / A person sits at the slot machines at a casino. (credit: Getty | Octavio Jones)
A Tacoma, Washington, woman who has refused court-ordered tuberculosis treatment for over a year is evading arrest and has reportedly taken public transit to go to a casino while on the lam.
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department has been trying to get the woman to comply with treatment since at least January 2022, when she received her first court order. Since then, she has received over a dozen court orders for treatment and isolation amid monthly court hearings and order renewals. Last month, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Sorensen finally found her in contempt and issued a warrant for her arrest and involuntary detention at the county jail for treatment and isolation.
"In each case like this, we are constantly balancing risk to the public and the civil liberties of the patient," the health department wrote in a blog post days before the arrest warrant was issued. "We are always hopeful a patient will choose to comply voluntarily. Seeking to enforce a court order through a civil arrest warrant is always our last resort."
Peeps' psychedelic pink color is the best thing about the marshmallow treat, but a spoilsport state lawmaker wants to ban erythrosine, a food coloring known as Red No. 3 that's used to give Peeps their vibrant hue.
Erythrosine is linked to cancer and was banned from makeup more than 30 years, ago, according to AP. — Read the rest
Cerebral, a telehealth startup that gained popularity during the early days of the pandemic, disclosed this week that it shared the personal data of more than 3.1 million US patients with social media companies and advertisers, including Google, Meta and TikTok. As first reported by TechCrunch (via The Verge), a recently uploaded notice on Cerebral’s website reveals the company had been using “pixels,” tracking scripts companies like Meta offer to third-party developers for advertising purposes, to collect user data since it began operating in October 2019.
Following a recent review of its software, Cerebral “determined that it had disclosed certain information that may be regulated as protected health information under [the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act].” Among the data Cerebral shared are names, phone numbers, birth dates and insurance information. In some instances, the company may have also exposed information it collected through the mental health self-assessment patients completed to schedule counseling appointments and access other services. According to Cerebral, it did not disclose social security numbers, bank information or credit card numbers.
After learning of the oversight, Cerebral says it “disabled, reconfigured, and/or removed” the tracking pixels that caused the data exposure. “In addition, we have enhanced our information security practices and technology vetting processes to further mitigate the risk of sharing such information in the future.” The US Department of Health and Human Services is investigating Cerebral. News of the data exposure comes after the Federal Trade Commission fined discount drug app GoodRx $1.5 million for sharing patient information with Meta and Google. Earlier this month, the agency announced a $7.8 million settlement with online counseling company BetterHelp and said it was seeking to ban the company from sharing health data for ad targeting.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mental-health-startup-cerebral-shared-private-patient-data-with-google-meta-and-tiktok-223806251.html?src=rss
Cerebral
Screenshot from Cerebral's website.
Enlarge / A microscope image of Streptococcus pyogenes, a common type of group A strep. (credit: Getty | BSIP)
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and amid a tall wave of respiratory viruses, health officials in Colorado and Minnesota documented an unusual spike in deadly, invasive infections from Streptococcus bacteria late last year, according to a study published this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The spike is yet another oddity of post-pandemic disease transmission, but one that points to a simple prevention strategy: flu shots.
The infections are invasive group A strep, or iGAS for short, which is caused by the same group of bacteria that cause relatively minor diseases, such as strep throat and scarlet fever. But iGAS occurs when the bacteria spread in the body and cause severe infection, such as necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease), toxic shock syndrome, or sepsis. These conditions can occur quickly and be deadly.
Sensitive information for members of Congress and their staff and family members has been exposed in a data breach, according to House leaders. The FBI was able to purchase leaked information from health insurance marketplace DC Health Link on the dark web, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in a letter.
The data included the names of enrollees' spouses, dependent children, social security numbers and home addresses, according to the letter. "This breach significantly increase the risk that members, staff and their families will experience identity theft, financial crimes and physical threats — already an ongoing concern," it reads.
McCarthy and Jeffires said the FBI hadn't yet determined the size and scope of the breach, though they indicated that the impact on "House customers could be extraordinary." They noted that thousands of House members and employees from throughout the country have signed up for health insurance through DC Health Link since 2014.
.@SpeakerMcCarthy & Minority Leader Jeffries' letter regarding the DC Health Link data breach: pic.twitter.com/v6H3VtdGX4
— Mark Bednar (@MarkBednar) March 9, 2023
“Fortunately, the individuals selling the information appear unaware of the high-level sensitivity of the confidential information in their possession, and its relation to Members of Congress,” the House leaders wrote. “This will certainly change as media reports more widely publicize the breach.”
“Currently, I do not know the size and scope of the breach, but have been informed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that account information and [personally identifiable information] of hundreds of Members and House staff were stolen,” Catherine L. Szpindor, the House of Representatives' chief administrative officer, wrote in a letter to colleagues. Reports suggest that the data also includes details on senators and their staff, but that information was seemingly limited to their names and those of family members.
NEW: The Chief Administrative Officer of the House just emailed staffers/members to say there’s be a significant data breach at DC Health Link - the health insurance for House members and staff: @DailyCallerpic.twitter.com/XP9Ehg1r0p
— Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) March 8, 2023
DC Health Link operator DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority said it has opened an investigation. "We are in the process of notifying impacted customers and will provide identity and credit monitoring services," it told NBC News in a statement. The FBI has confirmed it's aware of the incident, while Capitol Police are assisting the agency with its investigation.
A member of a dark web forum reportedly claimed this week that they had data on 170,000 DC Health Link customers and were willing to sell the information. They later said the information had been sold.
“We’re gonna continue to work on this issue in a bipartisan way, get to the bottom of what happened, figure out the implications of what has occurred,” Jeffries said at a press conference on Thursday. “And also we’re gonna need some real reassurance as to guardrails that are put in place to prevent this type of data breach from ever happening again.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/us-house-of-representatives-impacted-by-health-insurance-data-breach-212239163.html?src=rss
United States Capitol, Government in Washington, D.C., United States of America. Illuminated at night
United States Capitol, Government in Washington, D.C., United States of America. Illuminated at night
Enlarge / Hughes Memorial Auditorium, where the outpouring event was hosted, on Asbury University's campus in Wilmore, Kentucky. (credit: Asbury University)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday issued a health alert for doctors and health officials to be on the lookout for measles cases after a person with a confirmed, contagious case attended a massive religious event in Kentucky last month, potentially exposing an estimated 20,000 people to one of the most infectious viruses on the planet.
The event was a spontaneous "outpouring" at Asbury University, which drew tens of thousands of worshippers to the small, private Christian institution in Wilmore from February 8 to 23. Attendees came from around Kentucky, other US states, and other countries.
A case of measles was confirmed in an unvaccinated person who had recently traveled out of the country before attending Asbury University's outpouring. The person was at the event from February 17 to 18, the CDC reported. The university added that the person attended before developing symptoms, suggesting the person did not know they were infected. But the CDC notes that people with measles are contagious four days before measles' telltale rash develops, and state health officials said the person was contagious while they were in attendance.
A new Senate bill aims to expand protections for Americans' health and location data. It follows concerns that such information could be used to identify individuals seeking reproductive health care services after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion last year.
The Upholding Protections for Health and Online Location Data (UPHOLD) Privacy Act seeks to block companies from selling personally identifiable health data for advertising purposes and ban data brokers from buying and selling precise location data. Moreover, the proposed legislation would afford consumers more access to and ownership over their health data. It would also place more restrictions on companies’ use of personal health data without the explicit consent of a user.
The bill aims to prohibit the use of personally identifiable health data from any source for advertising. This includes data from users themselves, medical centers, fitness trackers and browser histories. The UPHOLD Privacy Act's restrictions wouldn't apply to public health campaigns.
The legislation was introduced by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and Mazie Hirono. “With Republicans working to ban and criminalize reproductive health care nationwide, it’s critical we safeguard the reproductive data privacy of everyone in our country,” Hirono said in a statement. “Everyone should be able to trust that personal data about their bodies and their health care will be protected. By restricting the sale and use of personally identifiable health data, this bill will give patients and providers the peace of mind that their private information is secure.”
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, legislators have not made much headway toward protecting consumer health data. Period-tracking apps have given some particular cause for concern. Developers of some of these apps have since introduced features and policies to help protect their users' data.
The Federal Trade Commission said soon after the Supreme Court ruling that it would clamp down on companies which misuse health and location data. This week, the agency moved to ban online counseling service BetterHelp from sharing consumers' health data for ad targeting without consent. The FTC found that the company shared users' email addresses, IPs and health questionnaire responses. BetterHelp says it has never shared clinical data from therapy sessions with advertisers, publishers or social media companies.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/new-senate-bill-aims-to-better-protect-health-data-after-roe-reversal-211457607.html?src=rss
Menstruation cycle application on smart phone touchscreen
Hand holding smart phone app menstruation cycle icon on touchscreen. Close-up selective focus shot.
Enlarge / WHO's COVID-19 technical lead, Maria Van Kerkhove, looks on during a press conference at the World Health Organization's headquarters in Geneva, on December 14, 2022. (credit: Getty | FABRICE COFFRINI)
While the World Health Organization says it's continuing to urge China to share data and cooperate with investigations into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the United Nations' health agency is calling out another country for lack of transparency—the United States.
WHO officials on Friday said that the US has not shared reports or data from federal agencies that have assessed how the COVID-19 pandemic began. That includes the latest report by the Department of Energy, which determined with "low confidence" that the pandemic likely began due to a laboratory accident.
"As of right now, we don't have access to those reports or the data that is underlying how those reports were generated," Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, said in a press briefing Friday. "Again, we reiterate, that any agency that has information on this, it remains vital that that information is shared so that scientific debate, that this discussion, can move forward. Without that, we are not able to move forward in our understanding."
Enlarge / Mycobacterium tuberculosis. (credit: Getty | NIH/NIAID)
A judge in Washington issued an arrest warrant Thursday for a Tacoma woman who has refused to have her active, contagious case of tuberculosis treated for over a year, violating numerous court orders. The judge also upheld an earlier order to have her jailed, where she can be tested and treated in isolation.
On Thursday, the woman attended the 17th court hearing on the matter and once again refused a court order to isolate or comply with testing and treatment—an order that originally dates back to January 19, 2022. Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Sorensen rejected her objections to being treated and upheld a finding of contempt. Though it remains unclear what her objections are, the woman's lawyer suggested it may be a problem with understanding, according to The News Tribune. The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, however, argued that she “knowingly, willfully, and contemptuously violated this court’s orders,” noting the lengthy process and numerous proceedings and discussions in which interpreters, translated documents, and speakers of her native language were made available.
Sorenson ordered a civil warrant for her arrest, to be enforced on or after March 3, and again ordered her to jail to undergo involuntary testing and treatment until health officials deem it safe to release her. The order also authorized the Pierce County Jail to place her in a facility equipped to handle her isolation, testing, and treatment.
Despite the repeated and audacious claims by its sometimes CEO, Elon Musk, the prospects of brain-computer interface (BCI) startup Neuralink bringing a product to market remain distant, according to a new report from Reuters. The BCI company was apparently denied authorization by the FDA in 2022 to conduct human trials using the same devices that killed all those pigs — namely on account of; pig killing.
"The agency’s major safety concerns involved the device’s lithium battery; the potential for the implant’s tiny wires to migrate to other areas of the brain; and questions over whether and how the device can be removed without damaging brain tissue," current and former Neuralink employees told Reuters.
The FDA's concerns regarding the battery system and its novel transdermal charging capabilities revolve around the the device's chances of failure. According to Reuters, the agency is seeking reassurances that the battery is "very unlikely to fail" because should it do so, the discharge of electrical current or heat energy from a ruptured pack could fry the surrounding tissue.
The FDA is also very concerned with potential problems should the device need to be removed wholesale, either for replacement or upgrades, due to the minuscule size of the electrical leads that extend into the patient's grey matter. Those leads are so small and delicate that they are at risk of breaking off during removal (or even during regular use) and then migrating to other parts of the brain where they might get lodged in something important.
During Neuralink's open house last November, Musk's confidently claimed the company would secure FDA approval "within six months," basically by this spring. That estimate is turning out to be as accurate as his guesses for when the Cybertruck might finally enter production. “He can’t appreciate that this is not a car,” one employee told Reuters. “This is a person’s brain. This is not a toy.” Neuralink did not respond to requests for comment.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fda-reportedly-denied-neuralinks-request-to-begin-human-trials-of-its-brain-implant-204454485.html?src=rss
Neuralink Photo Illustrations
Neuralink logo displayed on a phone screen, a silhouette of a paper in shape of a human face and a binary code displayed on a screen are seen in this multiple exposure illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 10, 2021. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The Federal Trade Commission has moved to block online counseling company BetterHelp from sharing health data, including mental health information, with the likes of Facebook and Snapchat for advertising. As part of a proposed order, BetterHelp has agreed to pay $7.8 million to consumers to settle charges that it shared sensitive data for advertising purposes after promising to keep the information private.
This marks the first time the agency has reached an agreement with a company to return money to consumers after their health data was allegedly compromised. The order will be subject to public comment for 30 days before the agency decides whether to finalize it.
If the order comes into effect, it will ban BetterHelp from sharing data from users (including those who accessed the company's website or app without signing up for its services) with select third parties for ad targeting. The FTC alleges that between 2017 and 2020, BetterHelp shared users' email addresses, IPs and health questionnaire responses with Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo and Pinterest. The agency said this allowed Facebook, for instance, to target similar users with BetterHelp ads, which helped to drive tens of thousands of paid users and millions of dollars in revenue to the counseling company.
The FTC claims BetterHelp didn't receive explicit consent from users before sharing their health data, which it pledged to keep private except for limited uses, such as counseling purposes. In its complaint (PDF), the agency also accused BetterHelp of not limiting the scope of how third-party companies could use the health data it shared with them.
"When a person struggling with mental health issues reaches out for help, they do so in a moment of vulnerability and with an expectation that professional counseling services will protect their privacy,” FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection director Samuel Levine said in a statement. "Instead, BetterHelp betrayed consumers’ most personal health information for profit. Let this proposed order be a stout reminder that the FTC will prioritize defending Americans’ sensitive data from illegal exploitation."
The proposed order, which FTC commissioners approved unanimously, will require BetterHelp to, among other things, obtain explicit consent from users before sharing their data with some third parties for any reason. The company will need to establish privacy protocols to protect user data and delete personal and health information after a certain period of time. Moreover, BetterHelp will have to instruct the companies it allegedly shared user health and personal data with to wipe such information from their servers.
Here's BetterHelp's statement in full:
We are deeply committed to the privacy of our members and we value the trust people put in us by using our services. Our technology, policies and procedures are designed to protect and secure our members' information so it is not used or shared without their approval and consent.
BetterHelp and the FTC have reached a settlement in regard to BetterHelp's advertising practices that were in effect between 2017 to 2020. The FTC alleged we used limited, encrypted information to optimize the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns so we could deliver more relevant ads and reach people who may be interested in our services. This industry-standard practice is routinely used by some of the largest health providers, health systems and healthcare brands. Nonetheless, we understand the FTC's desire to set new precedents around consumer marketing, and we are happy to settle this matter with the agency. This settlement, which is no admission of wrongdoing, allows us to continue to focus on our mission to help millions of people around the world get access to quality therapy.
To clarify, we do not share and have never shared with advertisers, publishers, social media platforms or any other similar third parties, private information such as members' names or clinical data from therapy sessions. In addition, we do not receive and have never received any payment from any third party for any kind of information about any of our members.
As part of our ongoing investment in privacy, betterhelp.com has recently been certified by HITRUST. This certification is the industry-recognized gold standard for providing the highest level of information protection and compliance assurance because of the comprehensiveness of control requirements, depth of quality review and consistency of oversight. In cooperation with the FTC, we will continue to make industry-leading investments in safeguarding the privacy of our members.
Update 3:27PM ET: Added BetterHelp's statement.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ftc-moves-to-ban-betterhelp-from-sharing-mental-health-data-for-ad-targeting-184605314.html?src=rss
Exhausted businessman sitting at desk in office at night
So-called "Havana Syndrome" is "very unlikely" to be a weapon or a foreign adversary, but an interpretation of pre-existing conditions and other everyday maladies. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence published its report on the subject.
— Read the restit is "very unlikely" a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs [anomalous health incidents].
Amazon's months-long effort to acquire One Medical is finished — for now, at least. The company has officially completed its $3.9 billion purchase, giving it a primary healthcare provider with in-person and virtual treatment as well as lab tests. The successful buyout isn't leading to any immediate changes in One Medical's services beyond a temporary $55 discount on a one-year membership (now $144), but Amazon said last July that it planned a "reinvention" of healthcare with the takeover.
The completion comes just a day after the Federal Trade Commission said it wouldn't contest the buyout. However, the regulator also says it's still investigating the deal to explore potential anti-competitive effects and privacy concerns raised by Amazon's access to health data. An FTC official toldCNN the agency will warn Amazon it's closing the purchase at its own risk, and might still face a government challenge later.
Amazon has spent years making deeper forays into healthcare. It bought PillPack in 2018 and used the provider to launch an in-house pharmacy service. The online shopping heavyweight also introduced an app-based health service for employees in 2019 that it later offered to other companies. In 2021, the company introduced a custom Alexa for healthcare. The One Medical move theoretically completes the picture by letting Amazon handle everything from minor doctor's appointments through to prescriptions.
Whether or not Amazon could endure an FTC challenge isn't clear. Commission chair Lina Khan is known to be wary of Big Tech, and her stance even prompted Amazon to ask for her recusal from antitrust cases. There's no certainty the FTC might succeed, though, and it recently lost an effort to block Meta's purchase of Within. One Medical is considerably larger than Within, though, and its healthcare focus brings up privacy concerns that aren't always present in tech acquisitions.
1LIFE-HEALTHCARE-M&A/AMAZON.COM
A stethoscope is placed on displayed Amazon.com and One Medical logos in this illustration taken July 26, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Horse paste has struck out again: even at high doses, ivermectin is "futile" as a treatment for Covid 19, according to a large double-blind trial published in JAMA.
— Read the restThe median time to sustained recovery was 11 days in both the ivermectin and placebo groups (hazard ratio [HR], 1.02).
Enlarge / A medical director in Germany sits in front of a monitor showing the real-time data of a patient with a heart attack. (credit: Getty | Arne Dedert)
A bout of COVID-19 is known to increase a person's long-term risks of having a major cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack or stroke. But being fully vaccinated or even partially vaccinated appears to bring that risk down, according to a study published this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The study, led by researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, drew on medical records from over 1.9 million patients who were infected with COVID-19 between March 2020 and February 2022. Of those 1.9 million patients, a "major adverse cardiac event," namely a heart attack, stroke, or another cardiac event, was identified in 13,948 patients, and 3,175 died following the event.
Overall, the researchers found that being vaccinated—fully or partially—was linked to fewer cardiac events in the six months following a case of COVID-19. After adjusting for demographics, comorbidities, and time since the pandemic began, the researchers found that being fully vaccinated reduced the risk of having a major cardiac event by about 41 percent, while being partially vaccinated reduced the risk by about 24 percent.
Enlarge / People queue for clean water on February 9, 2023, in Hatay, Turkey. (credit: Getty | Burak Kara)
Deaths from the massive earthquake and aftershocks that violently struck parts of southern Turkey and northern Syria in the early hours of Monday have now surpassed 20,000—a staggering toll of devastation.
As of Thursday, Turkey’s national emergency management agency reported more than 17,000 deaths, as well as over 70,000 injured. Syrian Ministry of Health, meanwhile, reported 1,347 deaths and 2,295 injured. Rescuers in rebel-held northwest areas of the country reported at least 2,030 deaths and at least 2,950 injured.
As heroic rescue crews continue sifting through the rubble of collapsed structures, concern is growing for those tens of thousands injured and countless others made more vulnerable by the crisis.
Plastic particles are in our bodies, ecosystems, and global waterways. They are passed on through breast milk and the human placenta – known as plasticenta. Plastic is as common as oxygen and water and as toxic as white supremacy, COVID-19, and QAnon conspiracy theories. — Read the rest
In case you haven't heard, there's a national Adderall shortage. There has in fact been a national Adderall shortage for quite some time now. And there is no fucking end in sight.
Now, in the grand scheme, I suppose that extended-release amphetamine salts are small potatoes compared to cancer, or COVID, or police brutality, or what have you. — Read the rest
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