• Everybody has seen a segment on the local news about dirty kitchens, but how many people think their kitchen at home could pass an inspection? According to this article in Prevention Magazine, the CDC reports that 25% of foodborne illness comes from home cooked meals. I’ll tell you what - I certainly don’t count to 20 when washing my hands, nor do I own a meat thermometer, but I’ve never thought about it even though I know better! Cooking at home gives you a false sense of security.
• According to TIME Healthland, 30% of American workers are sleep deprived. Scary, because sleep deprivation is a major cause of car crashes!
• The New York Times reports that an FDA advisory panel is voting to decide whether an HIV drug should be prescribed to those who are at high risk of contracting the disease. One of the downsides: if a person does not take the drug faithfully, they are at risk of developing a drug resistant strain of the virus.  There are 50,000 new cases of HIV in the United States every year. You can also read this story in TIME Healthland.
• The CDC Public Health Matters Blog has a great entry about Public Health preparedness and how money allotted to states from the CDC is being used to save lives, using examples from the state of Oregon.
• The Pump Handle, a great website for articles about Occupational Health, recently posted about the metabolic benefits of breaking up sedentary time during your work day.

• The Center for Global Development’s Global Health blog is talking about the President’s budget request for 2013. What they are concerned with is the part that reduces the amount allocated for GHI and PEPFAR but increases funds for GAVI, IDA, The Asian Development Fund and the African Development Fund. What’s the difference? GAVI and the like are sources of multilateral aid, which has been shown to be more effective. 
• Health News Review reminds us that correlation does not equal causation in this article critiquing news coverage of the link between sleeping pills and death.
• For the first time, the FDA has approved an influenza vaccine that protects against 4 different strains instead of the usual 3 strains. The vaccine is delivered via nasal spray.
• The Center for Science in the Public Interest is suggesting that a component in your dark soda will increase your risk for cancer, according to TIME.com Healthland. The chemical in question is called 4-methylimidazole (4-MI).The FDA and the American Beverage Association don’t believe the levels of 4-MI are high enough to cause concern. Pepsi, however, is switching to a caramel coloring that does not contain this chemical.
• Speaking of cancer, apparently, 40% of British people would not report early signs of cancer for fear of being diagnosed. Additionally, most people don’t even know the early signs of cancer. This is terrible, considering early detection is important for treatment and survival.

HealthNewsReview.org is a website dedicated to “improving the accuracy of news stories about medical treatments, tests, products and procedures” and “helping consumers evaluate the evidence for and against new ideas in health care,” and I really enjoy perusing their articles.

What I like most is that they call out members of “the media” who present imbalanced or sensational health news. Think about it: how often do you see a story on local news, for example, about the next big health thing that’s going to kill you/save your life? Working at a doctor’s office, I know that people pay attention to and get excited about these stories, which are sometimes inaccurate or overblown. 

Recently Health News Review posted an article putting news coverage of the possibility of an “exercise pill” into perspective.

I’m so glad that this site is around reminding us all to be critical of the health news we take in!

• Victoria Fan’s post on the Center for Global Development’s Global Health Policy blog congratulates India on achieving one year without Polio. She also urges that the country not forget other vaccine preventable diseases, like diphtheria and measles, whose numbers have stagnated or even increased.
• The Health News Review went in on ABC News for consistently providing unbalanced health news reports. Specifically, they mention instances where ABC has touted screening tests as lifesaving and cutting edge, even when scientific and medical organizations say different.
• The definition of Autism may soon be narrowed, which has left many to wonder if the more high functioning patients diagnosed within the Autism spectrum will lose support and services. Read about it in the New York Times Health section and TIME.com’s Healthland.
• China has reported 2 bird flu deaths in one month. Last week, there were bird flu deaths in Vietnam and Cambodia.

In 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was established by the World Health Assembly (decision making body of the World Health Organization). This campaign has brought together 200 countries, millions of volunteers, and billions of dollars, and has been largely successful. The number of Polio cases has decreased by more than 99% worldwide. 

This week, there were two Polio stories in the New York Times’ Health section. My friends, there is good news and bad news.

I’ll give you the good first: India has officially gone 1 year without a new case, a huge landmark in their progress toward eradication. The country was once one of the most problematic areas when it comes to Polio, and has spent $2 billion fighting it. Once 3 years go by without a Polio case, the country will be considered Polio-free.

The bad news is that nearby Afghanistan has seen an increase in Polio cases in the last year. There were 76 cases in 2011 compared with 25 in 2010. This is particularly alarming if you consider that for every 1 case reported, there are many more silent carriers. Many blame this increase on the political situation of the area, even President Hamid Karzai, who has made statements suggesting that the Taliban have not allowed vaccination teams to operate. According to the article, the WHO is going to declare these increases a global public health emergency.

• The Health News Review posted a story about health care fear mongering taking place on the radio. They referred to a clip from Mark Levin’s show in which someone claiming to be a brain surgeon called in and suggested that “Obama’s new health care plan” included “death panels” for people over the age of 70.
• Over 50% of the alcohol consumed by adults and 90% of the alcohol consumed by young people is consumed during a binge.
• A study of risk factors for cardiovascular disease looked at the lung function of over 5000 people over 20 years. It was found that marijuana use was as common as cigarette smoking. The lung function of marijuana smokers increased over the years, while that of cigarette smokers declined. There were a few hypotheses about why this happened, for example because smoking marijuana exercised the lungs (smokers generally take a long drag and hold it in as long as they can) or because a typical marijuana smoker lights up fewer times than a typical cigarette smoker.
• The US Food Safety blog posted about an Asian woman who was angry when she looked at her Papa Johns receipt and noticed that the cashier had entered “lady chinky eyes” as her name.
• Drug company Novartis recalled some popular over the counter medications because the bottles may contain stray pills from other medicines or broken pills.

After a orange juice company notified the FDA that they found trace amounts of carbendazim (a fungicide illegal to use in the U.S.) in their product, orange juice imports have been halted. Now, orange juice prices are predicted to rise, and people are wondering if it’s even safe to drink. You can read about it here and here.

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