Tag Archives: health

Shivering at Work? Could Be Sexism.

by ChunYpaqsdyoyze Posted on August 7, 2015

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Shivering at Work? Could Be Sexism.

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Jeb Bush: "I’m Not Sure We Need Half a Billion Dollars" for Women’s Health

by gammak Posted on August 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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When he was governor of Florida, Jeb Bush vetoed state funding for Planned Parenthood. He thinks the next president should do the same—at the federal level.

That’s what Bush said Tuesday at the Send North America conference, one of America’s largest evangelical gatherings. He wasn’t done talking about women’s health care, though:

You could take dollar for dollar—although I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars—for women’s health issues, but if you took dollar for dollar, there are many extraordinarily fine community health organizations that exist to provide quality care for women on a wide variety of health issues. But abortion should not be funded by the government.

Reminder: This is what happens when Planned Parenthood is defunded.

UPDATE, Tuesday, August 4, 3:30 p.m. PT (Becca Andrews): Bush later issued a statement that he “misspoke.” It reads: “There are countless community health centers, rural clinics, and other women’s health organizations that need to be fully funded. They provide critical services to all, but particularly low-income women who don’t have the access they need.” He goes on to say that the “half a billion dollars” line only referred to Planned Parenthood.

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Jeb Bush: "I’m Not Sure We Need Half a Billion Dollars" for Women’s Health

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The HPV Vaccine Prevents Cancer. So Why Aren’t Most Teens Getting It?

by ElviaChuter92 Posted on July 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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According to latest National Immunization Survey, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday, around 60 percent of teenage girls and 78 percent of teenage boys haven’t received all three of the recommended doses of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which helps prevent reproductive cancers and genital warts caused by the virus.

Administered through three shots over a six month period, the vaccine protects against the most common types of the highly contagious virus, which is spread through sexual contact. Health officials recommend that adolescents receive the shots between the ages of 11 and 12 to boost the chances for immunity prior to any sexual activity, but the survey showed that 40 percent of girls and 60 percent of boys ages 13 to 17 hadn’t received even the first dose.

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease—most people will contract one of the 40 strains at some point in their lives. Seventy-nine million people in the United States have HPV, and an additional 14 million people are infected annually. Many people don’t even know they have the virus, and it often goes away on its own.

But not everyone is so lucky: One in every 100 will develop genital warts and 23,000 are diagnosed with HPV-caused cancers each year. According to the CDC, the vaccine prevents almost all pre-cancers and warts caused by the virus in both males and females. Since the first HPV vaccine was developed in 2006, the vaccine has helped reduce HPV infections among teenage girls by 56 percent—even with vaccination rates as low as they are.

Still, many parents are deciding to pass. A study published in Pediatrics in 2013 showed that the reasons most cited included unwarranted fears about vaccine safety and disbelief that their kids would be sexually active. Despite it’s proven safety and effectiveness, the vaccine has become a politically divisive issue. In 2011, Texas Governor Rick Perry was the first in the country to order a mandate, sparking outrage from the religious right. During a 2011 debate, Michele Bachmann claimed that the vaccine was “very dangerous” and caused “mental retardation,” and Rick Santorum called vaccine mandates, “just wrong.”

HPV vaccine uptake has not kept pace with that of other adolescent vaccines and has stalled in the past few years. In 2012, only about one-third of 13- to 17-year-old girls received all three recommended doses. These levels fall considerably short of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Healthy People 2020 goal of having 80 percent of 13- to 15-year-old girls fully vaccinated against HPV. Immunization rates for U.S. boys are even lower than for girls. Less than 7 percent of boys ages 13 to 17 completed the series in 2012. This low rate is in large part because the ACIP recommendation for routine vaccination of boys was not made until 2011. However, it is even lower than what was observed for girls in 2007—the first year following the recommendation for females—suggesting that concerted efforts are needed to promote HPV vaccination of males. – See more at: http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/advisory/pcp/annualReports/HPV/ExecutiveSummary.htm#sthash.R6gsTr6L.dpuf

The National Cancer Institute has called for an “urgency of action” in closing vaccination gaps , citing that current vaccine rates are falling short of the US Department of Health and Human Services Goal for 80 percent coverage among 13 to 15 year old girls by 2020.

Though the focus is more often on girls, men are at also risk for HPV-caused cancers, including throat cancer, which may soon replace cervical cancer as the most common caused by the virus.

The survey did show there had been big gains in some parts of the country—Illinois, Montana, North Carolina and Utah all averaged increases of roughly 20 percent—which health officials say is an encouraging sign.

“The large increases in these diverse parts of the country show us it is possible to do much better at protecting our nation’s youth from cancers caused by HPV infections,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, assistant surgeon general and director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a statement released with the report. “We are missing crucial opportunities to protect the next generation from cancers caused by HPV.”

More here – 

The HPV Vaccine Prevents Cancer. So Why Aren’t Most Teens Getting It?

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Health Care Spending Growth Will Rise a Bit Over the Next Decade, But Only a Bit

by silvermega-1959 Posted on July 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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By coincidence, a new article in Health Affairs confirms an offhand guess I made a few days ago. I wrote, “I happen to think the slowdown in medical costs is real, and will continue for some time (though not at the extremely low rates of the past few years).” The Health Affairs researchers write: “Recent historically low growth rates in the use of medical goods and services, as well as medical prices, are expected to gradually increase. However, in part because of the impact of continued cost-sharing increases that are anticipated among health plans, the acceleration of these growth rates is expected to be modest.”

As the Wall Street Journal notes, this is is similar to what Medicare actuaries have been saying for a while:

The actuaries again Tuesday pointed to the stronger economy and aging population as the main factors in shaping Medicare’s future spending.

Prescription-drug spending, long a target of warnings from the insurance industry, drew particular attention from the actuaries, who pointed to a big rise in spending growth there as costly new specialty drugs such as Sovaldi, for hepatitis C, came on the market in 2014. Spending growth on pharmaceutical products jumped by 12.6% in 2014, up from 2.5% in 2013….In all, health care will comprise about a fifth of the U.S. economy by 2024, and the growth rate will exceed the expected average growth in gross domestic product by 1.1 percentage points.

So: good news or bad news? The bad news is that health care spending keeps increasing steadily. It’s currently about 17 percent of GDP and will increase to about 20 percent of GDP over the next decade. The good news is that this is slow growth: only about 1.1 percent higher than overall economic growth. Any other time in the past 30 years we would have killed for a growth rate that low.

There’s probably no way to avoid health care costs growing at least a little faster than the rest of the economy. We keep making advances, and our revealed preferences are pretty clear on at least one point: we value health care highly and are willing to pay more for it even at the expense of other items. That probably won’t be true forever, but it’s true for now.

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Health Care Spending Growth Will Rise a Bit Over the Next Decade, But Only a Bit

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Soon You Might Actually Be Able to Tell How Much Added Sugar Is in Your Food

by DemetriIra Posted on July 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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When the popular news quiz show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! hosted the country’s Surgeon General, Vicek Murthy, last weekend, he was confronted with the question: What’s your one weakness? “Sweets,” he answered, “I like bread pudding and cheesecake, in particular.”

Many of us can identify with the hankering for the occasional piece of cheesecake after dinner. But lots of the added sugar you inhale probably doesn’t come in the form of dessert. Rather, Americans get much of their sweetening in the form of beverages—especially soda—and packaged foods that at first glance seem snacky or savory (yep, one serving of hoisin sauce has two whole teaspoons; barbecue sauce one and a half). While the World Health Organization has suggested that adults should get no more than 5 percent of their daily calories from added sweeteners—that’s about 6 teaspoons—the average American ingests roughly five times that amount every day.

For decades, researchers and doctors have been sounding the alarm about the negative health risks associated with a diet too rich in added sugars—from obesity, poor nutrition, diabetes, and even heart disease. But as I’ve written about in the past, even if you’re concerned about your levels of added sugar intake, it’s nearly impossible to tell how much you might be eating: Current food labels don’t require added sugar to be listed. There’s even indication that food companies have gone to great lengths to keep that information hidden from the public’s eyes. The US Department of Agriculture used to list added sugars for popular products in online, but the database was removed in 2012 after companies claimed that added sugar amounts should be considered trade secrets.

So in March, the Food and Drug Administration proposed revising nutrition labels to include added sugars on packaged foods. And on Friday, the agency went even further by proposing to require that packaged food companies must also include a percent daily value of added sugar on the nutrition label. (The daily value would be based on the recommendation that added sugar not exceed 10 percent of total calories, or roughly 12 teaspoons of sugar a day).

The FDA has already received pushback from industry groups about the attempt to make added sugar quantities more transparent; the Corn Refiner’s Association questioned the agency’s “statutory authority to do so” and complained of a lack of “credible scientific evidence.” Meanwhile, Kellogg argued that the proposal “to distinguish added sugars…may confuse consumers.” Of course, Kellogg happens to be the world’s “second largest producer of cookies, crackers, and savory snacks.”

Original source – 

Soon You Might Actually Be Able to Tell How Much Added Sugar Is in Your Food

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No, Smartphones Aren’t Responsible for the Drop in Teen Sex

by RussByrumlqsg Posted on July 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Over at Wonkblog, we learn that American teenagers are having less sex than they used to. But why?

Crotchety adults may joke: Maybe they’re too busy messing with their iPhones.

That’s actually a decent theory, said Dr. Brooke Bokor, an Adolescent Medicine Specialist at the Children’s National Health System. More teenagers than ever have smartphones….Many are more comfortable searching in private for credible information about sexual health….They could be better educated about the risks.”

….Another possible driver of the sexual slowdown is the growing popularity of the HPV vaccine, which is now widely offered to boys and girls as young as 11. The shots, of course, come with an educational conversation. Kids learn earlier about the prevalence of STIs and how they’re spread.

Alert readers will understand immediately not only why these aren’t decent theories, but why they’re ridiculous ones. In case you need a hint, it’s in the chart on the right.

As you can see, the percentage of teens who report ever having intercourse has been dropping since the late 80s, and dropped especially sharply during the 90s. There were no smartphones in the 90s. There was no HPV vaccine in the 90s. No matter how appealing these theories might be at first glance, neither is even remotely credible as an explanation for the decline in teen sexual activity.

So what’s the answer? How about video games? Or hip hop? Or energy drinks? I have no evidence for any of these, and clean-living adults might be scandalized at the idea that any of them could have tangible benefits, but they’re all better theories than smartphones or the HPV vaccine. At least the timing fits decently.

These provocations aside, I suppose you’re now expecting me to get serious and suggest that the decline in childhood lead exposure is responsible for the drop in teen sex. Maybe! There is, after all, some evidence that reduced lead exposure is associated with the drop in teen pregnancy over the past few decades, and it’s reasonable to suspect that less teen pregnancy might be the result of less teen sex. But there are at least two problems with this. First, pregnancy rates can go down even if sex doesn’t, simply due to more widespread use of birth control. Second, the data on teen sex comes from the CDC, and their cohort breakdown doesn’t seem to fit the lead theory. In particular, the percentage of ninth graders reporting sexual experience didn’t start dropping until 2001, and if lead is responsible you’d expect the youngest cohort to drop earlier than older cohorts. At first glance, then, I’m not sure lead explains what’s going on. But it might. I’d just need to see more and better data to be sure.

In other words: we don’t really know for sure why teen sex is down. What we do know is that on a whole range of measures—crime rates, pregnancy, drug and alcohol use, cigarette smoking, math and reading proficiency, high school completion—teenagers have become better behaved over the past couple of decades. They just aren’t as scary as they used to be. That’s a little hard to take if you’re a social conservative who’s convinced that liberal values are destroying America, but it’s true nonetheless. And good news too.

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No, Smartphones Aren’t Responsible for the Drop in Teen Sex

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This Chart Shows How Many People in Your State Are Eating Enough Fruits and Vegetables

by Felipa6408 Posted on July 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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Bring out the carrots! According to a new report from the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only about 13 percent of Americans eat enough fruit, and 9 percent eat enough vegetables.

Researchers analyzed data from a 2013 study of nearly 400,000 adults across the country, and compared their answers to the US Department of Agriculture’s daily intake recommendations. The guidelines suggest that adults who work out less than 30 minutes per day eat about 1.5 to 2 cups of fruit per day and 2 to 3 cups of vegetables. (A cup of fruit is equivalent to a small apple, a cup of vegetables is about a dozen baby carrots.)

The vast majority of Americans didn’t make the cut, though answers did vary state by state. States in the South tended to have the lowest level of consumption, with only 5.5 percent of adults in Mississippi meeting veggie recommendations and 7.5 percent of adults in Tennessee eating enough fruits. States on the coast fared slightly better, with California topping both lists.

Latetia Moore, the lead author, says that in order to improve the rates, fruits and vegetables must be more affordable and convenient to buy. “Fruits and vegetables need to be competitively priced, strategically placed, and creatively promoted wherever we obtain our food,” she wrote in an email. Particularly important to target, she said, are child care facilities, schools, and work sites.

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This Chart Shows How Many People in Your State Are Eating Enough Fruits and Vegetables

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9 Ways Climate Change is Making Us Sick

by EmoryMorehouse6 Posted on July 20, 2015

Original source – 

9 Ways Climate Change is Making Us Sick

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Are You Eating Hidden PFASs? Why You Need to Stop ASAP.

by SangLpktxijhxag Posted on July 18, 2015

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Are You Eating Hidden PFASs? Why You Need to Stop ASAP.

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Your Guide to July’s Freshest Produce

by ChasityZ74 Posted on July 18, 2015

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Your Guide to July’s Freshest Produce

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