Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Trench Fever Risk Grows For The Unhoused And Transplant Patients, CDC Says
A rare disease spread by body lice poses a danger to people experiencing homelessness and others who have received organ transplants from the infected, according to three papers released Wednesday by investigators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bacterial infection, known as Bartonella quintana, or trench fever as it was called during World War I, lives in the feces of body lice and can cause skin lesions, fever and bone pain. However, severe cases can lead to a potentially fatal infection of the heart valves. (Johnson and Malhi, 11/20)
Also 鈥
Melinda Pratt had been buying the same brand of organic carrots for years: Bunny Luv by Grimmway Farms. ... After she ate them, she said, she began experiencing bloody diarrhea and stomach pain that felt like 鈥渟omebody getting stabbed in the stomach repeatedly and not stopping.鈥 Her symptoms also included nausea and vomiting, Pratt said, adding that she was the only one in her household who ate the carrots. 鈥淚 genuinely thought at some point that I was slowly dying,鈥 she said. (Richardson, 11/20)
The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that the U.S. food supply is still "one of the safest in the world," in the wake of a number of foodborne disease outbreaks affecting items ranging from organic carrots to deli meats to McDonald's Quarter Pounders. E. coli, listeria and other contaminants have sickened thousands of people and forced a number of recalls in recent months. But despite those high-profile examples, data cited by the FDA suggest recalls were not unusually high this past year.聽(Tin, 11/20)
Roughly a quarter of Americans say they suffer from chronic pain and nearly 1 in 10 say it's bad enough to regularly limit their life or work, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Reed, 11/21)
An Australian teenager has died after drinking tainted alcohol in Vang Vieng, Laos, in what Australia鈥檚 prime minister on Thursday called every parent鈥檚 nightmare, and the U.S. State Department confirmed an American also died in the same party town, bringing the death toll to four. (Rising and Saksornchai, 11/21)
