#was on antibiotics for a kidney infection. and when i turned 27 and one of my wisdom teeth tried to emerge
Text
As The Coronavirus Spreads, Americans Lose Ground Against Other Health Threats
For much of the 20th century, medical progress seemed limitless.
Antibiotics revolutionized the care of infections. Vaccines turned deadly childhood diseases into distant memories. Americans lived longer, healthier lives than their parents.
Yet today, some of the greatest success stories in public health are unraveling.
Even as the world struggles to control a mysterious new virus known as COVID-19, U.S. health officials are refighting battles they thought they had won, such as halting measles outbreaks, reducing deaths from heart disease and protecting young people from tobacco. These hard-fought victories are at risk as parents avoid vaccinating children, obesity rates climb, and vaping spreads like wildfire among teens.
Email Sign-Up
Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.
Sign Up
Please confirm your email address below:
Sign Up
Things looked promising for American health in 2014, when life expectancy hit 78.9 years. Then, life expectancy declined for three straight years — the longest sustained drop since the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed about 675,000 Americans and 50 million people worldwide, said Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Although life expectancy inched up slightly in 2018, it hasn’t yet regained the lost ground, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“These trends show we’re going backwards,” said Dr. Sadiya Khan, an assistant professor of cardiology and epidemiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
While the reasons for the backsliding are complex, many public health problems could have been avoided, experts say, through stronger action by federal regulators and more attention to prevention.
“We’ve had an overwhelming investment in doctors and medicine,” said Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health. “We need to invest in prevention — safe housing, good schools, living wages, clean air and water.”
The country has split into two states of health, often living side by side, but with vastly different life expectancies. Americans in the fittest neighborhoods are living longer and better — hoping to live to 100 and beyond — while residents of the sickest communities are dying from preventable causes decades earlier, which pulls down life expectancy overall.
Superbugs — resistant to even the strongest antibiotics — threaten to turn back the clock on the treatment of infectious diseases. Resistance occurs when bacteria and fungi evolve in ways that let them survive and flourish, in spite of treatment with the best available drugs. Each year, resistant organisms cause more than 2.8 million infections and kill more than 35,000 people in the U.S.
With deadly new types of bacteria and fungi ever emerging, Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC director, said the world has entered a “post-antibiotic era.” Half of all new gonorrhea infections, for example, are resistant to at least one type of antibiotic, and the CDC warns that “little now stands between us and untreatable gonorrhea.”
That news comes as the CDC also reports a record number of combined cases of gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia, which were once so easily treated that they seemed like minor threats compared with HIV.
The United States has seen a resurgence of congenital syphilis, a scourge of the 19th century, which increases the risk of miscarriage, permanent disabilities and infant death. Although women and babies can be protected with early prenatal care, 1,306 newborns were born with congenital syphilis in 2018 and 94 of them died, according to the CDC.
Those numbers illustrate the “failure of American public health,” said Dr. Cornelius “Neil” Clancy, a spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “It should be a global embarrassment.”
The proliferation of resistant microbes has been fueled by overuse, by doctors who write unnecessary prescriptions as well as farmers who give the drugs to livestock, said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
Although new medications are urgently needed, drug companies are reluctant to develop antibiotics because of the financial risk, said Clancy, noting that two developers of antibiotics recently went out of business. The federal government needs to do more to make sure patients have access to effective treatments, he said. “The antibiotic market is on life support,” Clancy said. “That shows the real perversion in how the health care system is set up.”
A Slow Decline
A closer look at the data shows that American health was beginning to suffer 30 years ago. Increases in life expectancy slowed as manufacturing jobs moved overseas and factory towns deteriorated, Woolf said.
By the 1990s, life expectancy in the United States was falling behind that of other developed countries.
The obesity epidemic, which began in the 1980s, is taking a toll on Americans in midlife, leading to diabetes and other chronic illnesses that deprive them of decades of life. Although novel drugs for cancer and other serious diseases give some patients additional months or even years, Khan said, “the gains we’re making at the tail end of life cannot make up for what’s happening in midlife.”
Progress against overall heart disease has stalled since 2010. Deaths from heart failure — which can be caused by high blood pressure and blocked arteries around the heart — are rising among middle-aged people. Deaths from high blood pressure, which can lead to kidney failure, also have increased since 1999.
“It’s not that we don’t have good blood pressure drugs,” Khan said. “But those drugs don’t do any good if people don’t have access to them.”
Addicting A New Generation
While the United States never declared victory over alcohol or drug addiction, the country has made enormous progress against tobacco. Just a few years ago, anti-smoking activists were optimistic enough to talk about the “tobacco endgame.”
Today, vaping has largely replaced smoking among teens, said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Although cigarette use among high school students fell from 36% in 1997 to 5.8% today, studies show 31% of seniors used electronic cigarettes in the previous month.
FDA officials say they’ve taken “vigorous enforcement actions aimed at ensuring e-cigarettes and other tobacco products aren’t being marketed or sold to kids.” But Myers said FDA officials were slow to recognize the threat to children.
With more than 5 million teens using e-cigarettes, Myers said, “more kids are addicted to nicotine today than at any time in the past 20 years. If that trend isn’t reversed rapidly and dynamically, it threatens to undermine 40 years of progress.”
Ignoring Science
Where children live has long determined their risk of infectious disease. Around the world, children in the poorest countries often lack access to lifesaving vaccines.
Yet in the United States — where a federal program provides free vaccines — some of the lowest vaccination rates are in affluent communities, where some parents disregard the medical evidence that vaccinating kids is safe.
Studies show that vaccination rates are drastically lower in some private schools and “holistic kindergartens” than in public schools.
It could be argued that vaccines have been a victim of their own success.
Before the development of a vaccine in the 1960s, measles infected an estimated 4 million Americans a year, hospitalizing 48,000, causing brain inflammation in about 1,000 and killing 500, according to the CDC.
By 2000, measles cases had fallen to 86, and the United States declared that year that it had eliminated the routine spread of measles.
“Now, mothers say, ‘I don’t see any measles. Why do we have to keep vaccinating?’” Schaffner said. “When you don’t fear the disease, it becomes very hard to value the vaccine.”
Last year, a measles outbreak in New York communities with low vaccination rates spread to almost 1,300 people — the most in 25 years — and nearly cost the country its measles elimination status. “Measles is still out there,” Schaffner said. “It is our obligation to understand how fragile our victory is.”
Health-Wealth Disparities
To be sure, some aspects of American health are getting better.
Cancer death rates have fallen 27% in the past 25 years, according to the American Cancer Society. The teen birth rate is at an all-time low; teen pregnancy rates have dropped by half since 1991, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. And HIV, which was once a death sentence, can now be controlled with a single daily pill. With treatment, people with HIV can live into old age.
“It’s important to highlight the enormous successes,” Redfield said. “We’re on the verge of ending the HIV epidemic in the U.S. in the next 10 years.”
Yet the health gap has grown wider in recent years. Life expectancy in some regions of the country grew by four years from 2001 to 2014, while it shrank by two years in others, according to a 2016 study in JAMA.
The gap in life expectancy is strongly linked to income: The richest 1% of American men live 15 years longer than the poorest 1%; the richest women live 10 years longer than the poorest, according to the JAMA study.
“We’re not going to erase that difference by telling people to eat right and exercise,” said Dr. Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the CDC. “Personal choices are part of it. But the choices people make depend on the choices they’re given. For far too many people, their choices are extremely limited.”
The infant mortality rate of black babies is twice as high as that of white newborns, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Babies born to well-educated, middle-class black mothers are more likely to die before their 1st birthday than babies born to poor white mothers with less than a high school education, according to a report from the Brookings Institution.
In trying to improve American health, policymakers in recent years have focused largely on expanding access to medical care and encouraging healthy lifestyles. Today, many advocate taking a broader approach, calling for systemic change to lift families out of the poverty that erodes mental and physical health.
“So many of the changes in life expectancy are related to changes in opportunity,” Besser said. “Economic opportunity and health go hand in hand.”
Several policies have been shown to improve health.
Children who receive early childhood education, for example, have lower rates of obesity, child abuse and neglect, youth violence and emergency department visits, according to the CDC.
And earned income tax credits — which provide refunds to lower-income people — have been credited with keeping more families and children above the poverty line than any other federal, state or local program, according to the CDC. Among families who receive these tax credits, mothers have better mental health and babies have lower rates of infant mortality and weigh more at birth, a sign of health.
Improving a person’s environment has the potential to help them far more than writing a prescription, said John Auerbach, president and CEO of the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health.
“If we think we can treat our way out of this, we will never solve the problem,” Auerbach said. “We need to look upstream at the underlying causes of poor health.”
As The Coronavirus Spreads, Americans Lose Ground Against Other Health Threats published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/
0 notes
Text
As The Coronavirus Spreads, Americans Lose Ground Against Other Health Threats
For much of the 20th century, medical progress seemed limitless.
Antibiotics revolutionized the care of infections. Vaccines turned deadly childhood diseases into distant memories. Americans lived longer, healthier lives than their parents.
Yet today, some of the greatest success stories in public health are unraveling.
Even as the world struggles to control a mysterious new virus known as COVID-19, U.S. health officials are refighting battles they thought they had won, such as halting measles outbreaks, reducing deaths from heart disease and protecting young people from tobacco. These hard-fought victories are at risk as parents avoid vaccinating children, obesity rates climb, and vaping spreads like wildfire among teens.
Email Sign-Up
Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.
Sign Up
Please confirm your email address below:
Sign Up
Things looked promising for American health in 2014, when life expectancy hit 78.9 years. Then, life expectancy declined for three straight years — the longest sustained drop since the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed about 675,000 Americans and 50 million people worldwide, said Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Although life expectancy inched up slightly in 2018, it hasn’t yet regained the lost ground, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“These trends show we’re going backwards,” said Dr. Sadiya Khan, an assistant professor of cardiology and epidemiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
While the reasons for the backsliding are complex, many public health problems could have been avoided, experts say, through stronger action by federal regulators and more attention to prevention.
“We’ve had an overwhelming investment in doctors and medicine,” said Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health. “We need to invest in prevention — safe housing, good schools, living wages, clean air and water.”
The country has split into two states of health, often living side by side, but with vastly different life expectancies. Americans in the fittest neighborhoods are living longer and better — hoping to live to 100 and beyond — while residents of the sickest communities are dying from preventable causes decades earlier, which pulls down life expectancy overall.
Superbugs — resistant to even the strongest antibiotics — threaten to turn back the clock on the treatment of infectious diseases. Resistance occurs when bacteria and fungi evolve in ways that let them survive and flourish, in spite of treatment with the best available drugs. Each year, resistant organisms cause more than 2.8 million infections and kill more than 35,000 people in the U.S.
With deadly new types of bacteria and fungi ever emerging, Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC director, said the world has entered a “post-antibiotic era.” Half of all new gonorrhea infections, for example, are resistant to at least one type of antibiotic, and the CDC warns that “little now stands between us and untreatable gonorrhea.”
That news comes as the CDC also reports a record number of combined cases of gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia, which were once so easily treated that they seemed like minor threats compared with HIV.
The United States has seen a resurgence of congenital syphilis, a scourge of the 19th century, which increases the risk of miscarriage, permanent disabilities and infant death. Although women and babies can be protected with early prenatal care, 1,306 newborns were born with congenital syphilis in 2018 and 94 of them died, according to the CDC.
Those numbers illustrate the “failure of American public health,” said Dr. Cornelius “Neil” Clancy, a spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “It should be a global embarrassment.”
The proliferation of resistant microbes has been fueled by overuse, by doctors who write unnecessary prescriptions as well as farmers who give the drugs to livestock, said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
Although new medications are urgently needed, drug companies are reluctant to develop antibiotics because of the financial risk, said Clancy, noting that two developers of antibiotics recently went out of business. The federal government needs to do more to make sure patients have access to effective treatments, he said. “The antibiotic market is on life support,” Clancy said. “That shows the real perversion in how the health care system is set up.”
A Slow Decline
A closer look at the data shows that American health was beginning to suffer 30 years ago. Increases in life expectancy slowed as manufacturing jobs moved overseas and factory towns deteriorated, Woolf said.
By the 1990s, life expectancy in the United States was falling behind that of other developed countries.
The obesity epidemic, which began in the 1980s, is taking a toll on Americans in midlife, leading to diabetes and other chronic illnesses that deprive them of decades of life. Although novel drugs for cancer and other serious diseases give some patients additional months or even years, Khan said, “the gains we’re making at the tail end of life cannot make up for what’s happening in midlife.”
Progress against overall heart disease has stalled since 2010. Deaths from heart failure — which can be caused by high blood pressure and blocked arteries around the heart — are rising among middle-aged people. Deaths from high blood pressure, which can lead to kidney failure, also have increased since 1999.
“It’s not that we don’t have good blood pressure drugs,” Khan said. “But those drugs don’t do any good if people don’t have access to them.”
Addicting A New Generation
While the United States never declared victory over alcohol or drug addiction, the country has made enormous progress against tobacco. Just a few years ago, anti-smoking activists were optimistic enough to talk about the “tobacco endgame.”
Today, vaping has largely replaced smoking among teens, said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Although cigarette use among high school students fell from 36% in 1997 to 5.8% today, studies show 31% of seniors used electronic cigarettes in the previous month.
FDA officials say they’ve taken “vigorous enforcement actions aimed at ensuring e-cigarettes and other tobacco products aren’t being marketed or sold to kids.” But Myers said FDA officials were slow to recognize the threat to children.
With more than 5 million teens using e-cigarettes, Myers said, “more kids are addicted to nicotine today than at any time in the past 20 years. If that trend isn’t reversed rapidly and dynamically, it threatens to undermine 40 years of progress.”
Ignoring Science
Where children live has long determined their risk of infectious disease. Around the world, children in the poorest countries often lack access to lifesaving vaccines.
Yet in the United States — where a federal program provides free vaccines — some of the lowest vaccination rates are in affluent communities, where some parents disregard the medical evidence that vaccinating kids is safe.
Studies show that vaccination rates are drastically lower in some private schools and “holistic kindergartens” than in public schools.
It could be argued that vaccines have been a victim of their own success.
Before the development of a vaccine in the 1960s, measles infected an estimated 4 million Americans a year, hospitalizing 48,000, causing brain inflammation in about 1,000 and killing 500, according to the CDC.
By 2000, measles cases had fallen to 86, and the United States declared that year that it had eliminated the routine spread of measles.
“Now, mothers say, ‘I don’t see any measles. Why do we have to keep vaccinating?’” Schaffner said. “When you don’t fear the disease, it becomes very hard to value the vaccine.”
Last year, a measles outbreak in New York communities with low vaccination rates spread to almost 1,300 people — the most in 25 years — and nearly cost the country its measles elimination status. “Measles is still out there,” Schaffner said. “It is our obligation to understand how fragile our victory is.”
Health-Wealth Disparities
To be sure, some aspects of American health are getting better.
Cancer death rates have fallen 27% in the past 25 years, according to the American Cancer Society. The teen birth rate is at an all-time low; teen pregnancy rates have dropped by half since 1991, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. And HIV, which was once a death sentence, can now be controlled with a single daily pill. With treatment, people with HIV can live into old age.
“It’s important to highlight the enormous successes,” Redfield said. “We’re on the verge of ending the HIV epidemic in the U.S. in the next 10 years.”
Yet the health gap has grown wider in recent years. Life expectancy in some regions of the country grew by four years from 2001 to 2014, while it shrank by two years in others, according to a 2016 study in JAMA.
The gap in life expectancy is strongly linked to income: The richest 1% of American men live 15 years longer than the poorest 1%; the richest women live 10 years longer than the poorest, according to the JAMA study.
“We’re not going to erase that difference by telling people to eat right and exercise,” said Dr. Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the CDC. “Personal choices are part of it. But the choices people make depend on the choices they’re given. For far too many people, their choices are extremely limited.”
The infant mortality rate of black babies is twice as high as that of white newborns, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Babies born to well-educated, middle-class black mothers are more likely to die before their 1st birthday than babies born to poor white mothers with less than a high school education, according to a report from the Brookings Institution.
In trying to improve American health, policymakers in recent years have focused largely on expanding access to medical care and encouraging healthy lifestyles. Today, many advocate taking a broader approach, calling for systemic change to lift families out of the poverty that erodes mental and physical health.
“So many of the changes in life expectancy are related to changes in opportunity,” Besser said. “Economic opportunity and health go hand in hand.”
Several policies have been shown to improve health.
Children who receive early childhood education, for example, have lower rates of obesity, child abuse and neglect, youth violence and emergency department visits, according to the CDC.
And earned income tax credits — which provide refunds to lower-income people — have been credited with keeping more families and children above the poverty line than any other federal, state or local program, according to the CDC. Among families who receive these tax credits, mothers have better mental health and babies have lower rates of infant mortality and weigh more at birth, a sign of health.
Improving a person’s environment has the potential to help them far more than writing a prescription, said John Auerbach, president and CEO of the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health.
“If we think we can treat our way out of this, we will never solve the problem,” Auerbach said. “We need to look upstream at the underlying causes of poor health.”
from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/as-the-coronavirus-spreads-americans-lose-ground-against-other-health-threats/
0 notes
Text
As The Coronavirus Spreads, Americans Lose Ground Against Other Health Threats
For much of the 20th century, medical progress seemed limitless.
Antibiotics revolutionized the care of infections. Vaccines turned deadly childhood diseases into distant memories. Americans lived longer, healthier lives than their parents.
Yet today, some of the greatest success stories in public health are unraveling.
Even as the world struggles to control a mysterious new virus known as COVID-19, U.S. health officials are refighting battles they thought they had won, such as halting measles outbreaks, reducing deaths from heart disease and protecting young people from tobacco. These hard-fought victories are at risk as parents avoid vaccinating children, obesity rates climb, and vaping spreads like wildfire among teens.
Email Sign-Up
Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.
Sign Up
Please confirm your email address below:
Sign Up
Things looked promising for American health in 2014, when life expectancy hit 78.9 years. Then, life expectancy declined for three straight years — the longest sustained drop since the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed about 675,000 Americans and 50 million people worldwide, said Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Although life expectancy inched up slightly in 2018, it hasn’t yet regained the lost ground, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“These trends show we’re going backwards,” said Dr. Sadiya Khan, an assistant professor of cardiology and epidemiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
While the reasons for the backsliding are complex, many public health problems could have been avoided, experts say, through stronger action by federal regulators and more attention to prevention.
“We’ve had an overwhelming investment in doctors and medicine,” said Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health. “We need to invest in prevention — safe housing, good schools, living wages, clean air and water.”
The country has split into two states of health, often living side by side, but with vastly different life expectancies. Americans in the fittest neighborhoods are living longer and better — hoping to live to 100 and beyond — while residents of the sickest communities are dying from preventable causes decades earlier, which pulls down life expectancy overall.
Superbugs — resistant to even the strongest antibiotics — threaten to turn back the clock on the treatment of infectious diseases. Resistance occurs when bacteria and fungi evolve in ways that let them survive and flourish, in spite of treatment with the best available drugs. Each year, resistant organisms cause more than 2.8 million infections and kill more than 35,000 people in the U.S.
With deadly new types of bacteria and fungi ever emerging, Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC director, said the world has entered a “post-antibiotic era.” Half of all new gonorrhea infections, for example, are resistant to at least one type of antibiotic, and the CDC warns that “little now stands between us and untreatable gonorrhea.”
That news comes as the CDC also reports a record number of combined cases of gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia, which were once so easily treated that they seemed like minor threats compared with HIV.
The United States has seen a resurgence of congenital syphilis, a scourge of the 19th century, which increases the risk of miscarriage, permanent disabilities and infant death. Although women and babies can be protected with early prenatal care, 1,306 newborns were born with congenital syphilis in 2018 and 94 of them died, according to the CDC.
Those numbers illustrate the “failure of American public health,” said Dr. Cornelius “Neil” Clancy, a spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “It should be a global embarrassment.”
The proliferation of resistant microbes has been fueled by overuse, by doctors who write unnecessary prescriptions as well as farmers who give the drugs to livestock, said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
Although new medications are urgently needed, drug companies are reluctant to develop antibiotics because of the financial risk, said Clancy, noting that two developers of antibiotics recently went out of business. The federal government needs to do more to make sure patients have access to effective treatments, he said. “The antibiotic market is on life support,” Clancy said. “That shows the real perversion in how the health care system is set up.”
A Slow Decline
A closer look at the data shows that American health was beginning to suffer 30 years ago. Increases in life expectancy slowed as manufacturing jobs moved overseas and factory towns deteriorated, Woolf said.
By the 1990s, life expectancy in the United States was falling behind that of other developed countries.
The obesity epidemic, which began in the 1980s, is taking a toll on Americans in midlife, leading to diabetes and other chronic illnesses that deprive them of decades of life. Although novel drugs for cancer and other serious diseases give some patients additional months or even years, Khan said, “the gains we’re making at the tail end of life cannot make up for what’s happening in midlife.”
Progress against overall heart disease has stalled since 2010. Deaths from heart failure — which can be caused by high blood pressure and blocked arteries around the heart — are rising among middle-aged people. Deaths from high blood pressure, which can lead to kidney failure, also have increased since 1999.
“It’s not that we don’t have good blood pressure drugs,” Khan said. “But those drugs don’t do any good if people don’t have access to them.”
Addicting A New Generation
While the United States never declared victory over alcohol or drug addiction, the country has made enormous progress against tobacco. Just a few years ago, anti-smoking activists were optimistic enough to talk about the “tobacco endgame.”
Today, vaping has largely replaced smoking among teens, said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Although cigarette use among high school students fell from 36% in 1997 to 5.8% today, studies show 31% of seniors used electronic cigarettes in the previous month.
FDA officials say they’ve taken “vigorous enforcement actions aimed at ensuring e-cigarettes and other tobacco products aren’t being marketed or sold to kids.” But Myers said FDA officials were slow to recognize the threat to children.
With more than 5 million teens using e-cigarettes, Myers said, “more kids are addicted to nicotine today than at any time in the past 20 years. If that trend isn’t reversed rapidly and dynamically, it threatens to undermine 40 years of progress.”
Ignoring Science
Where children live has long determined their risk of infectious disease. Around the world, children in the poorest countries often lack access to lifesaving vaccines.
Yet in the United States — where a federal program provides free vaccines — some of the lowest vaccination rates are in affluent communities, where some parents disregard the medical evidence that vaccinating kids is safe.
Studies show that vaccination rates are drastically lower in some private schools and “holistic kindergartens” than in public schools.
It could be argued that vaccines have been a victim of their own success.
Before the development of a vaccine in the 1960s, measles infected an estimated 4 million Americans a year, hospitalizing 48,000, causing brain inflammation in about 1,000 and killing 500, according to the CDC.
By 2000, measles cases had fallen to 86, and the United States declared that year that it had eliminated the routine spread of measles.
“Now, mothers say, ‘I don’t see any measles. Why do we have to keep vaccinating?’” Schaffner said. “When you don’t fear the disease, it becomes very hard to value the vaccine.”
Last year, a measles outbreak in New York communities with low vaccination rates spread to almost 1,300 people — the most in 25 years — and nearly cost the country its measles elimination status. “Measles is still out there,” Schaffner said. “It is our obligation to understand how fragile our victory is.”
Health-Wealth Disparities
To be sure, some aspects of American health are getting better.
Cancer death rates have fallen 27% in the past 25 years, according to the American Cancer Society. The teen birth rate is at an all-time low; teen pregnancy rates have dropped by half since 1991, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. And HIV, which was once a death sentence, can now be controlled with a single daily pill. With treatment, people with HIV can live into old age.
“It’s important to highlight the enormous successes,” Redfield said. “We’re on the verge of ending the HIV epidemic in the U.S. in the next 10 years.”
Yet the health gap has grown wider in recent years. Life expectancy in some regions of the country grew by four years from 2001 to 2014, while it shrank by two years in others, according to a 2016 study in JAMA.
The gap in life expectancy is strongly linked to income: The richest 1% of American men live 15 years longer than the poorest 1%; the richest women live 10 years longer than the poorest, according to the JAMA study.
“We’re not going to erase that difference by telling people to eat right and exercise,” said Dr. Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the CDC. “Personal choices are part of it. But the choices people make depend on the choices they’re given. For far too many people, their choices are extremely limited.”
The infant mortality rate of black babies is twice as high as that of white newborns, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Babies born to well-educated, middle-class black mothers are more likely to die before their 1st birthday than babies born to poor white mothers with less than a high school education, according to a report from the Brookings Institution.
In trying to improve American health, policymakers in recent years have focused largely on expanding access to medical care and encouraging healthy lifestyles. Today, many advocate taking a broader approach, calling for systemic change to lift families out of the poverty that erodes mental and physical health.
“So many of the changes in life expectancy are related to changes in opportunity,” Besser said. “Economic opportunity and health go hand in hand.”
Several policies have been shown to improve health.
Children who receive early childhood education, for example, have lower rates of obesity, child abuse and neglect, youth violence and emergency department visits, according to the CDC.
And earned income tax credits — which provide refunds to lower-income people — have been credited with keeping more families and children above the poverty line than any other federal, state or local program, according to the CDC. Among families who receive these tax credits, mothers have better mental health and babies have lower rates of infant mortality and weigh more at birth, a sign of health.
Improving a person’s environment has the potential to help them far more than writing a prescription, said John Auerbach, president and CEO of the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health.
“If we think we can treat our way out of this, we will never solve the problem,” Auerbach said. “We need to look upstream at the underlying causes of poor health.”
As The Coronavirus Spreads, Americans Lose Ground Against Other Health Threats published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/
0 notes
Text
farmers insurance get a quote phone number
"farmers insurance get a quote phone number
farmers insurance get a quote phone number
BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://saleinsurancequotes.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr
RELATED QUESTIONS:
How does car insurance work?
I have a brand new car that has a 3 foot long scratch on the driver side after being parked on the street. It starts over the left front tire and ends towards the driver side door. I am taking it tomorrow to see if it can be buffed out, but if not I am going to take it to an auto body shop. How do I find out how much it costs? Next to property damage, it says $317. Is this my deductible? And how much I would have to pay? Can someone please explain this to me?""
Do insurance companies cover a chiropractor after an accident?
i was rear ended and had to see a chiropractor because of severe whiplash. the insurance company of the girl who hit me is offering a settlement and almost half of it will be going to ...show more
Insurance same day proof?
i was pulled over on he 1-9-2008 the same day i received the insurance went to court thought it was done i recevied a paper from the bmv in ohio asked for my insurance sent it to them 2 weeks later was sent another letter insurance same day proof for my insurance company faxed that to them they faxed it back should i had insurance 1-9-2008-6-9-2008(changed insurance companies)my insurance company signed it i sent it to the bmv that apparently was not good now they on the paper which never asked for the time exactly and make and model of car shouldn't they just except what the insurance company sighned and gave them
What is the average time taken by an Insurance company to pay out on a car claim.?
I suppose it would depend on the nature of the damage to ones car and also who was at fault. However in my case, my car caught fire from what I believe may have been an electrical fault. It is now a total write off. I realise the insurance company has to carry out it's investigations but how long should this take and how soon would one expect to receive an offer. I made a claim 6 weeks ago and am still being fobbed off with the explanation that the investigations are on-going.""
Did ObamaCare make my insurance costs go down?
Alot of people say healthcare cost will raise when Obamacare goes into efftect. But my healthcare costs has dropped from $1200/month to $400/month for the same coverage. I find it really hard to believe that Obamacare is bad. Also, Obamacare has not been implemented yet - why has healthcare costs has gone down""
How much might they charge me for no insurance ticket in wyandot ks?
was following my boyfreind in my brothers car and I took a wrong exit near the speedway. I went down stateline rd looked for a gas station for directions. Found a gas station to ask for directions and the guy did not speak understandable english so tired and lost I took off down the road and forgot to turn my head lights on was puulled over and given a ticket for the lights and it turns out that my brother did not have insurance on the car and that I had forgot my purse way down in pittsburg. I am being told that I may have to pay a $1200 fine and get some weird insurance that cossts $300 or more a month and that it is possible htat they will take my liscense away. This can't be rite?!!? I have a clean driving record and only make $250 a month can't hardly pay rent. Sombody who knows awnser please!!!!!
Cheapest car and car insurance for an adult first time driver?
hi i just passed my driving tests and looking for a cheap, small and reliable car. i am 27 and a full time student. i live in small UK city. would like to how much to expect to pay for car and road tax. what other things to expect to sort out. god bless you""
Can I let somone drive my car who doesn't have insurance? [Ontario]?
So the law says you can let somone drive your car if they have a license. If they get into an accident the charges are on my insurance. Make sure that if you are loaning your car to someone else that you first verify their license or you may be without a car for 7 days while it is in impound. Ref: http://find-a-driving-school.ca/10-ontar But law also states that if you are driving you must have insurance ... right? So for example... can I let my bro drive my car even though he has his G2 and is not insured. What are the consequences? Thanks!
""In the state of New Jersey,how long does it take to get caught driving with no car insurance?""
My insurance lapse a month ago today.I am waiting on my workers comp settlement from a job related injury.Is there a way that cops can detect that my insurance has lapsed other than an accident?I have and legit insurance card till June,and registration.Can they suspend my registration?if so is there a warning?I will try to stay off the road till next month but i need to make my Dr.appointments etc.""
""I got into an accident using another person's car, do I get the insurance?""
I was using my friend's car with his permission. Somehow I got into a small accident, which I hit my friends car while taking reverse in a petrol pump. Do my or my friend's insurance company cover the expenses?""
Everything auto insurance will ask you?
I had a car accident, the other driver's insurance company called me, and I need to know all the questions they would ask me personal or not. I know they will ask about the facts of the accident, but I want to know what personal questions(like age, health insurance, education, etc.)""
What bike would be cheapest on insurance?
scooter?street+trail?chopper?crotchrocket? or anything?which bike out of all bikes street legal and able to achieve 50mph is the cheapest insurance wise
Hi a question about car insurance companies .thanks?
Hi how long do the car insurance companies keep record of the phone call because it is a good proof for the people who insure their car ? thanks
Car or bike insurance?
What is more expensive when you are 17, Car or bike insurance???""
What happens when you decide to change/cancel insurance before you sign the contract?
I had bought a motorcycle and got a quote from this company for the insurance. As it was a good rate, I accepted, they sent me the temporary insurance paper (3 months) until I paid the full amount. During this time I found someone who bought my bike from me so I no longer required the insurance and disregarded the agreement(contract) never returned it or anything. I assumed they would cancel it upon not receiving any contract and payment,but 6 months later, today, they called me claiming the full amount or they will take me to court/collections. They have no paper whatsoever signed from agreeing to their terms. What should I do ?""
Redlight violation?! Any way to lower the $381 fine and not raise insurance?
Help! This Saturday, I was in Fremont to pick up someone at the Bart station. I was on Mission and Mohave going straight towards the entrance to 880 when the light turned yellow. I started to stop but I felt that if I kept stopping I'd end up in the middle of the intersection so I pressed gas again and went through. I thought I made it on the yellow, but I saw the huge flash meaning the lovely camera took a picture of me. ): The fine is $381 according to http://www.fremontpolice.org/redlight/redlight.html plus a higher insurance, right? I'm freaking out. I'm a 17 year old high school student (I've had my license for over a year already) at a private Catholic school, straight A's in all my classes, super clean record, and I've never gotten a ticket before! I know I have to go to court but is there any way that the fine will be lowered and my insurance won't go up? If I go to traffic school will it be cheaper and keep my insurance down? Help please!""
Cheapest motorcycle insurance?
I'm looking forward to getting a motorcycle and I was wondering what's the cheapest insurance you can get. I'm not looking for companies at the moment, I just want to know what's the cheapest plan for almost any insurance company. .""
Looking for an insurance that will take my pre existing condition?
Hi, I have a double ureter in my left kidney causing me infection 4 times a year, I've been having this for almost 13 years and is painful and I can't have a normal life. No insurance wants to take me because this pre existing condition and if they do my monthly payment is between $300 to $400 monthly because of my condition, I've already applied for Medi-cal and I wasnt elegible. I tried so many antibiotics and I want to start a treatment and without insurance it is impossible, could anybody tell me if there is a insurance that will accept me without paying so much. I live in Southern California. I want a normal life. Thanks.""
No health insurance? need prenatal care and sonograms?
i don't have any health insurance and have become pregnant, what do i need to do until my health insurance can kick in or until i can have the baby then get affordable health ...show more""
Health Insurance....I need some...?
I live in Little Rock, Arkansas.....and i need some affordable insurance...any good ideas.""
Cheap Auto insurance?
I got my G2 about 3 weeks ago, and i am trying to find a insurance company in the GTA that offers insurance for a primary driver for a low price. I am a teen and I would be driving a 2001 volvo S80 2.9L""
""What is the best health care plan for student while attending medical school, like nursing?""
I'm a student nursing and ASAP need some health insurance, including Emergency Room coverage. Does anyone know any type of Health Insurance for medical student like that, affordable and reliable? Greatly appreciate and thanks to all
Will 1 Point on my drivers record increase my Insurance in California?
Will 1 Point on my drivers record increase my Insurance in California? I got a speed ticket for driving 12+ miles over the speed limit and was told I received 1 point and a speeding ticket.
Is $3000.00 for Car Insurance?
my 18 yr old son just bought a 2007 Chevolet Cobalt. .$3000.00 for insurance. that just make the whole family sick. we have the house and two other Vehicles with same insurance company. i don't even think we got a discount. $3000. 00 for the Cobalt plus the two trucks. that about $5500.00 for car insurance we all have clean driving records. 18- 24 yrs old male! How much do you paid for car insurance?
I own a car and am selling it to a guy. He is the only driver. He refuses to get insurance.?
I have given him 3 months to get insurance, but he hasnt gotten it yet. I have kept the vehicle on my insurance until he gets it, but he still hasnt gotten it. And now he is complaining that I should stop insuring it so that he doesnt have to reimburse me for it. My questions are: What would happen if i dropped the insurance and he got pulled over or in a wreck? Who would be responsible, me or him? Could my rates be raised? Could I personally get into trouble with the law for allowing an uninsured driver drive an uninsured car that I own? We're in the process of getting a temporary title for him so that I won't be responsible, but in the meantime I need to know the consequences. I live in Ohio.""
farmers insurance get a quote phone number
farmers insurance get a quote phone number
Who pays for the home insurance when you let your house?
I ask this question on behalf of my friend, who lives in Malaysia. He wants to know what the law in England will be in this case. My friend is gonna let his house to another, so that he can have some income. A question arises: They need to buy a home insurance in case there is an accident like fire. Apparently in Malaysia, a homeowner doesn't have to buy insurance for his house. So in this case, who should pay for the home insurance, the homeowner or the tenant? I mean, the rental period is 2 years, and the insurance, if paid, will cover for 2 years only.""
""Would something like an older, heavier car get me a better insurance rate? Any insurance lowering tips also?""
I'm a 16 year old teen guy (I know, I know) and I'm getting a car. Would an older, heavier model of car, like a large van or something, reduce my incredibly high rates? Looking an an out here. I don't have enough money to pay for it all. Any insurance lowering tips, besides drivers ed and good (already qualify) would be great.""
Accident in a WalMart parking lot and the other party's insurance denied my claim... any advice?
Hi everyone, I would appreciate your ideas regarding the following situation: My son had a car accident last week in a nearby WalMart parking lot (Dallas, Paulding County, GA). He was driving down a parking lane and hit a car which came out of nowhere cutting across the aisle. Both vehicles had extensive damage (front of the vehicle on our car, and driver side on the other car). There was a gentleman who saw everything and called 911. The sheriff's deputy arrived at the scene promptly. He explained there would be an accident report, but since this happened in a private parking lot, he was not in a position to state who was at fault. I got the report the other day and it states the facts about the accident and gives the contact information for the witness. I have spoken with the other driver's insurance company three times and I just found out that their claims rep has determined that my son was at fault, so they have denied my claim. The claim with them was actually originally filed by the other driver. I politely asked to speak with a supervisor and was advised that I should expect to receive a call from a supervisor soon. I did not get a chance to talk to my insurance rep after I found out the other insurance denied the claim, but I am not sure if there is anything my insurance can do for us, especially given the fact that we only have liablity coverage on this vehicle (no collision coverage either). I think it is really outrageous how they could claim my son was at fault, if all evidence points to the fact that their insured was driving across the parking lanes and obviously did not see our car. I cannot find anything online (like traffic regulations) that explicitly says that the driver cutting across the parking lanes is at fault if there is a collision, but I think it is common sense that this should be the responsible party! If anyone has had a similar experience, or has any suggestions, your help will be very much appreciated!""
Nationwide car insurance....?
So yea it was a snowy day in mississippi..... something that don't usually happen... I slided on ice and hit the guard rail... it was only 1 or maybe 2 bump... the car wasn't messed up that bad.... I mean there was a dent from the inital bump but what do you expect? The officer said when I asked them could they fix it he said probably... its not really bad at all.... and that the same thing I said... so I find out days later after they inspected it, they was gonna jump it and not fix it... so my question is why do we pay all these hundreds of dollars every month that when it comes to the company to their job, they don't do it? I think I was paying 240 every month for my 98 ford explorer... also do they suppose to pay me for the value of my car since they not fixing it? The reality of it that if I known this would have happen could I just save that money I was paying them these years and put the money in my pocket so when I crash I could take that money and buy me my own car instead of being carless when I was giving the money to the insurance company? I mean wuts the point of even paying them honestly?""
Cheapest auto insurance company?
Cheapest auto insurance company?
How much would I be looking to pay for car insurance?
Age: 17 Male GPA of 3.0 and scored 2010 on the SAT Never been in accident, violation, etc. nothing Car: Really old 1992 model http://newyork.craigslist.org/wch/cto/2315498170.html How much would I be looking to pay per month?""
What is the cheaptest car insurance company in Maryland.?
I am living in college park md, i am a college student who recently got my driver license, which car insurance company is the cheapest in Maryland.""
Car insurance issue(s). Please share your experience and help if you can. Thanks?
My car caught on fire due to some electrical wiring, im fully comp, and have never claimed before. But sneaky as they are, they have told me that they do not cover electrical wiring faults, which has caused the fire. But the AA who towed my car in has catergorised it as fire damage. Surely they must cover the fire damage. I took it to a repair centre near me, and have asked them to have a quick check, and they also say its fire damage and what not, this has been procrastinated for so long by the insurance company, (claims company rather) that i can't remember what the repair centre has stated. Surely, fully comp covers something like this? THEIR engineers have said that there was no further damage to the rest of the car, but can i trust THEIR engineers? A full check up costs a lot, as they would have to take apart the car ( i believe? ) When i rang up the lady at the claims centre, she had no idea what case i was on, she literally said 'give me a moment to read up on your case' for me, thats a bit pathetic. While speaking on the phone with her not only was she rude, almost shouting at me (as i pressed on further ) . She told me she would send the company policy booklet to show that electrical wiring is not covered, and a letter stating the case was closed and in detail what the whole case is about. A week and a half has gone by (she said couple of days) This is the most annoying thing. She was rude, unhelpful, unwilling to help, and just taking the pee with the whole thing. I just find it sketchy that the letter has not been made, and no further actions or anything has happened (i have also opened another case about another incident - no info .. still) . I think they are just hoping i'd give this up as they are so unwilling to pay out. This is the reason I have insurance. Whats the point otherwise? Sorry for the long read. I have no idea what to do now, can i take it to a small claims court or talk to someone in the city council to further my case? Thanks""
What is the cheapest car insurance company?
I am test driving a few used cars tomorrow afternoon and i am a first time buyer. What is the cheapest car insurance company in Louisiana area? keep in mind that the cars i am looking for are: pontiac g5 and g6 (used) chrysler crossfire (used) and the chrysler seebring. (used)
Best first cars? cheap to insure?
Best first cars? cheap to insure?
What is the cost of AAA car insurance monthly?
What is the cost of AAA car insurance monthly?
Getting my auto insurance rates down?
My wife and daughter just started driving, my daughter is a college student with a hi gpa and will be 18 soon. We have a 2008 Honda crv and a 2003 Honda Odyssey How can I get to pay the lowest premium with 100,000 300,000 my daughter only goes to school 4 days a week.Thanks John California""
Cheapest auto insurance for 18 year old?
i am 18 years old a female and i own a 1996 chevrolet s10 2wd pickup truck i have had my licence since i was 16 and i am wondering if any one knows of any cheap insurance i live in st.petersburg florida please help!!!
How much does it estimately cost for a car insurance?
Please don't give any stupid answers. All I want is to get an estimate because I have not got ANY ANY clue about it. You can just give a range like 100-200 pounds per [unit time]. Hint: I will get my car when I am 17 so roughly how much will it be annually/monthly? The most sensible and reliable answer gets 10 points for best answer.
""Once you get your license, do you have to have car insurance even if you don't own a car?""
Say you're over 18, you go for your license test and get your license. Six months later, you buy a car. During the six months before you buy the car, do you have to have car insurance, even if you're not driving during those six months at all?""
What is best landlord insurance policy or company?
what is best landlord insurance policy or company?
Flying insurance????????????
do u need insurance if you are flying in a private jet charter (like a private jet)
What is the cheapest car insurance?
What is the cheapest car insurance?
How much will I have to for car insurance?
I'm 19 and I just got my permit. So in 6 months I will have my license. By then, I will have car. Which insurance will be cheapest and how much would I have to pay a month? I know nobody can put an exact price on it, but maybe an estimation?""
Will speeding convictions affect my car insurance?
I have to speeding convictions, the first one a went to a speed awareness workshop so i didnt recieve any points but on my second one i recieved 3 points on my license. Will this show on my insurance renewal and will it bump up my insurance rates? I have been driving for a year.""
""What is the cheapest car insurance company, In Pa?""
I am looking to see what car insurance would be cheapest between, allstate, state farm, nationwide, geico, progressive, esurance, 21 century, unitrin Direct ???? HELP""
Insurance on a 2006 scion tc?
I'm a 20 year old male living in Washington state, 1 ticket in last 3 years (October 2011), 2 door automatic transmission, progressive insurance with minimum coverage REQUIRED TO ABTAIN A LOAN. Thanks! :)""
How much is insurance for a 2004 Nissan Maxima?
I'm 16 and this is my first car. I'm going to get liability and was wondering how much it's going to cost every month ? Thanks
What is the CHEAPEST CAR INSURANCE?
What is the CHEAPEST CAR INSURANCE?
What is the best dental insurance for a family in California?
What is the best dental insurance for a family in California?
farmers insurance get a quote phone number
farmers insurance get a quote phone number
Questions about health insurance?
I took my eye exam couple months ago, and now i need change my insurance company, so my question is can i take my eye exam again?""
What is the penalty for driving without insurance in california?
what is the penalty for driving without insurance in california?
Cheapest car insurance female driver full no claims?
low milage
What is the Cheapest Convertible To INSURE?
What Is the Cheapest Convertible for someone under 21 To Have Insurance For? I Always Wanted A convertible Don't Even Care if Has Sporty Engine, Just want a Car that roof can Fold I Once rode In won and always like having the hood down, but found a 1999 Convertible for 3,500 and the Allstate Car Quote Was $1,950 for 6 months and was shocked it was a 1999 Chrysler Sebring JXi. Is there a Convertible With CHEAPER INSURANCE??""
How much will my car insurance be?
I live in Dallas Texas, I'm 18 years old, I've had defensive driving school, which I've been told gives you at the most 10% off your rate...i own a 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, in REALLY good condition, car alarm...all the gadgets...but since I'm 18 who would be the best to go with...also I'm seeking FULL Coverage for the first 6 months of driving in Dallas, because people do not know how to drive and I want to make sure I'm covered...any help or advice??? THANX""
Any cheap car insurance in uk?
i have full uk licence and 2 years no claim bonus age 30 to 40 how can i buy the cheap car insurance.please
Where i can get very cheapest motorcycle insurance?
i bay a motorcycle and my dad don't agree to give some money for my insurence
Cheap motorcycle insurance for 18 year old?
Im 18 an looking to get a street bike this year but the insurance company my parents have(some local small insurance company) saids they cant even give insurance until ive had lisense for 5 years which is bullshit. Even after 5 years they said it would most likely be around 4 thousand a year which is rediculous! All i want to do is own a motorcycle an ride but damn insurance is too high! Any cheap insurance that gives full coverage to 18 year olds. Btw my driving record is clean with no accidents or tickets
Can I lose my job for not having insurance?
I have heard so many different things. But I called my job today and I found out that they are offering insurance but it is to high to buy for me because it would cost $30 per week. ...show more
What kind of insurance is needed for a varmint hunter?
need to know what kind or how much insurance is needed for a varmint hunter.I know trappers license is needed also buisness lincense .Looking for answer for insurance.What kind and how much?
Which is best health insurance company in india?
best health insurance company
Cheapest car to insure for a first time driver?
Does anyone know what type of car is cheapest to insure for a first time female driver? and how much on average would you say it would cost to insure a 17 year old female?
Rough estimate for Car Insurance Cost For Second Year?
Hi peeps. I Have a question about car insurance. I am basically looking for qualified guesses from people who have previous experience with this sort of thing. I am a first year driver. Im 21 and i passed my test in early August and was driving straight away because i had bought my car the month before hand. The car i own is a 1.4 Ford Fiesta Zetec 2002. I paid around 1250 for the year for insurance and i did it through Quinn Direct. My question is, does anybody know a rough figure of what it might be next year baring in mind i have never claimed? I have tried running new quotes on comparison websites but they are based on new customers and all come out at around 1500 to 4000 If anyone has used this company or even another company and situation was similar could you please tell me the rough figure of what it was reduced to/from just so i can maybe have an idea of what to expect Any help is greatly appreciated. Cheers :)""
Question about teenager insurance?
if i put my son on my insurance policy and he gets into an accident with his own car does my insurance go up. or does his when he turns 18. also how much? would it double?
What solutions would make health care treatment instead of health care insurance more affordable?
considering out of pocket expenses? and would this be a conservative approach to the health care issue?
How many people committed life insurance fraud on 911?
How many people committed life insurance fraud on 911?
How much will my car insurance rates go up if i turn my car accident into the insurance company?
I have full coverage and I'm 17. I currently pay 120 dollar a month for car insurance and I have good grades. I back into someone's car and dented it. Is it worth it to turn into the car insurance place?
Pulled over and had no car insurance?
I'm in the state of IL and I just moved here so I don't know their laws too well. I got pulled over a few days ago which really pissed me off because I make sure to do absolutely nothing wrong so I don't have to deal with cops. Well I got pulled over because my front license plate was in my front window instead of screwed to the front of my car (it won't fit there on my vehicle and where I come from you don't even need a front one). Pretty much the cop just wanted to waste time because he was bored....this is why i really dislike cops because I did nothing wrong and someone ran a stop sign right in front of me! lol Well anyway I had no insurance on the car unfortunately. I don't need a lecture because I know I have to have insurance. So he kept my drivers license and set up a court date for me. I'm getting car insurance this Friday. I've heard 2 different things. One is that as long as I get insurance before my court date nothing at all will probably happen. Another person and the cop said that I had to prove I had insurance the day I got pulled over or I could be fined or whatever. Does anyone know what penalties I face if I have insurance when I show up to court? Can my license be taken away? The car isn't even in my name if that matters.
I let my car insurance lapse....will i get in trouble?
my car insurance is lapsed right now. i know when you sign up for insurance they always ask its been lapsed. when i say yes, which i ll tell the truth cuz they ll find out anyways, what will they do? will i be in trouble?""
Do i have to pay insurance on a car if its not being driven?
my mom is buying me a car. I have my permit and I get my liscense in May but I want the car now. My mom says that she doesnt want to have to pay insurance on the car and just have it sit there, but I really want it so I can sit in it and show it off to my friends, who all have cars. if noone is driving the car, does there need to be insurance on it? she said that it does because what if someone were to hit it while it was parked on the street. also, does it have to have a liscense plate and can i get all that stuff without having to get insurance? i wanna get it now and then convince her to get insurance and let me drive it. it will be easier to convice her if i already have the car. the car i want is a manual but she wants me to practice in her automatic because thats the car im using for the test. im tired of driving her car and i want to drive my own, especially because its a stick.""
Why did geico increase my auto insurance rate for no reason?
My renewed 6-month policy has increased by $120 for seemingly no reason. Haven't had any wrecks or tickets. I called geico to inquire, and was told that all rates in Texas have increased. Have other insurance companies rates increased as well?""
What is the best car insurance to have?
Which is the best car insurance that is reliable and doesn't over charge. I need full coverage.
Insurance in Singapore?
I am an expat in Singapore and looking for insurance. Can I get insurance being an expat? I have a plan to stay here for next 10 years
Will buying a previously wrecked car drive up my insurance?
Im a new driver and my parents want to buy me an Acura TSX. I found one online and went to test drive it and found out it had been in a moderate car crash, but had been completely fixed and repaired. I went to the mechanic and he ok'd the car for me. We want to buy it, but is the fact that the previous owner crashed it going to drive up the cost to insure it?""
Insurance in Singapore?
I am an expat in Singapore and looking for insurance. Can I get insurance being an expat? I have a plan to stay here for next 10 years
farmers insurance get a quote phone number
farmers insurance get a quote phone number
Can auto insurance keep policy after being told to drop?
Switched insurance companies. the original insurance company WOULD NOT CANCEL the policy. Is this illegal?
Can I dispute my insurance adjuster's estimate of value of a totaled vehicle?
I have a vehicle which was totaled. Insurer is Progressive. I live in WA, so the adjuster is not allowed to use NADA or KBB to determine value. He's supposed to provide fair market value. He got two estimates, both of which seem very low to me--less than half the replacement cost of a vehicle from the same year in the same condition. I've asked whether I can submit Craigslist listings from my half of the US to prove the value is higher. He says any documentation must be from within 150 miles of my home, which puts me at a disadvantage since I live in a rural area. I'm wondering: 1) Is my insurance company obligated to accept competitive estimates of value in determining my vehicle's value if I can find local shops that determine that the value is higher? 2) What mechanisms are in place to ensure that value estimates made by dealers are accurate, and can a dealer's estimate of value be disputed? 3) What other options do I have if my adjuster refuses to budge on value?""
Which do you think is the cheapest car insurance company in chicago?
Which do you think is the cheapest car insurance company in chicago?
Cost to Insure a 2005 hyundai tiburon?
17 year old guy First car Blue exterior Automatic car 4-cylinder Allstate insurance
What's a cheap Car Insurance Company for a 18 Year old Male?
The car is a 106 1.1 Peugeot, does anyone know of any cheap or best ways to get the cheapest car insurance.""
About how much will my auto insurance be a month?
im about to turn 16 and im getting a 2010 camaro ss. and i dont care for yalls opinions u dont need a car that fast or ur spoiled just answer the question and i live in texas
Should I get student health insurance or health insurance through my job?
I'm a fulltime student and I also have a fulltime job. Which would benefit me the most? Health insurance for students or health insurance that my job offers? Also, If I take 1 semester off from school would I still be eligible for student health insurance?""
How much does a ticket cost for no proof insurance in ca?
I got a ticket for no proof of insurance at the time. But I have insurance. Does anyone know how much the ticket costs. Or what I can do to get it written off??
Geico Car Insurance Refund.?
My uncle purchase a car insurance on April 13th, 2010. Now he does not want to keep his car or his insurance anymore, can we get a full refund for two payments of Geico?""
How much will Car insurance cost me??? PLEASE HELP!?
I am a 20 year old female. I didn't complete high school, but I will get my GED and go to school next fall. I'm getting a car this Feb when taxes come back and I'm buying no more then a good decent $3000 car. I have a child too so I heard that helps bring the insurance down a little. Because the car will be under my name, & I am the ONLY driver in this house hold so there will be only 1 person on the insurance, how much do u think I could be paying a month??? Any guess for wage? I want full coverage but if its more then 300 a month i will go half. I've had my permit to since I was 17, no accidents. Please help.""
I'm roughly 14 weeks pregnant with no prenatal care or insurance. What are my options?
I'm assuming I'm around 14 maybe 15 weeks pregnant & I haven't had any prenatal care nor do I have health insurance. With my first pregnancy I qualified for Medicaid & left the HHS that day with it! This time they have been dragging me around since March, losing things, accidentally deleting files, denying me & then asking me to reapply. All of this over & over again, it's just been very unorganized & stressful. Not to mention I had a meltdown & told them that I NEEDED TO GO TO THE DOCTOR, so please let me know what to do! This was a month ago, they still say things are pending & I could expect to wait 30 more days. This is adding such a tremendous amount of stress to my pregnancy, I just want to see my baby. Are there any other insurance plans for pregnant women? I'm not married, but my fiance has a well paying job. Naturally though, I can't receive insurance through his job until we are officially married. We attempted to make an appointment & self pay, but during that one visit they demanded $600 up front, which we weren't prepared for. I refuse to go to a clinic simply because my last pregnancy was high risk & ended in an emergency C-Section & there were complications & I'm sure this one will be the same, since I ended up getting pregnant before the desired waiting time for a previous c-section. Not to mention, my OB/GYN has been my doctor since I was 13 & he is truly the best where I live. I just wouldn't be able to trust someone else. I live in Texas by the way. Do any of you have any ideas?""
Is it legal to have two different auto insurances on two different cars but are both in my name?
I have 2 cars, I just bought one cash. So I already have full coverage on one car and its paid for 6 months, and I want to add insurance on the other but with a different insurance company because it is cheaper and I will be getting only liability. Is it legal to be carrying different insurances or are they required to be both with the same company? I live in Texas!""
Why do so few people understand the Affordable Care Act?
Fact: You will be required beginning January 1st to pay upwards of $200 per month or more per individual if you do not presently have health insurance. The average estimated cost to you as an individual has been estimated to be $328 per month. This applies to all citizens of the United States. If you do not pay for health insurance, you will be fined $95 for the first year and subsequent years this fine will go up by hundreds of dollars per year. For those of you who think this is some kind of left-wing fact - Read A Newspaper. To me, $200 to $300 or more is a car payment or to put it another way - 2 weeks of groceries. How will you be able to afford this?""
How much do you pay for your car insurance if you are insured under your parent' policy?
im 19 yrs old
Slough car insurance at age 17?
I want to get: volkswagen golf 1.6 volkswagen golf 1.8 volkswagen golf 1.9 I dont mind any just want to know can i get insured on all of them and im only buying one not all three all im going to use the car for is to go college and back no where else and no intentions of driving fast, just need transport for college and also i dont want any idea's that leads to fraud i want my own policy and not any multi car insurance as it causes alot of hassle and no one in my familys drives so im all good. Everything i will do is legal not any lie or anything so how should i choose my insurance. I will be only taking the car to college I wont be taking the car out at night so college starts at nine and finish at 6 going to use it 4 days a week only""
California unemployment insurance?
what is the fraction of wages that is given for employment insurance? 40%? more? less?
What do u think if a young man married a woman 74yrs older than him. and its his frist marraige. and her 21st?
i herd this on the radio and i wanted other people's opinions!
Is there any Health insurance for a 4 year Marine Veteran (never deployed)?
I just got out of the military after my four year contract. It seems all Tricare military insurance is aimed at is current Active Duty and retirees. If not, what is a good insurance ...show more""
Why do insurance companies charge first and last?
I had a nice Allstate agent call me and discuss my insurance with me, give me a lower rate and then come pay time, tell me that they require first and last. When I asked her why the last, she could not provide a good answer. I know not all insurance companies do this, but what is the point? When asked when I would get the last back, she said when I cancel my policy some day!! What if I don't want to cancel..ever? This does not make sense to me at all. Why keep my money there for nothing? When one does cancel the policy, do they get the money back with interest on that? Once confronted with these questions, the agent was not so nice any more. Can someone please answer the above?""
Cna I get car insurance in America on British Licence?
Hi, Im moving to La and I was wondering would car insurance companies insure me on my british licence?""
Looking for good medical insurance?
I know blue cross/blue shield is good, but, what other insurance is out there? I need to insure myself, my son, and my fiance. I need to find some fairly cheap insurance as well. Know of any? And also, dental.""
2002 Toyota Corolla vs 2000 Honda Civic?
which one should I get and why? I am planning on getting one of these cars next year when I turn 18 to use just as a daily driver to get me home to school and work and every now and ...show more
Want free auto insurance?
Do what the libs do. Dont have insurance. Those that do pay will have to pay higher premiums to make up for uninsured accidents. When the premiums get too high, tax the people already paying for their own insurance to cover those that never paid.""
Estimate how much it cost to add an additional car to insurance plan?
For a teens car. I know it is about sixty extra dollars just to add a teen to my car insurance. Can you estimate price for putting a whole new car on our plan for my teen?
Do i need insurance to sell motobikes?
I am selling mini moto's and quad bikes online, do i need liability insurance to sell these?""
farmers insurance get a quote phone number
farmers insurance get a quote phone number
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tip-cheap-car-insurance-san-marcos-tx-george-morrison/"
0 notes
Link
This story was reprinted with permission of the Ole Miss Alumni Review.
Brittany Boolos (BSN 15) was in the hospital for two months, unable to talk, walk or feed herself. Decades later, she turned that situation into a defining moment.
“I was born at 27 weeks … three months early,” Boolos says. “I spent two months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. My passion for neonatal nursing was rooted in that. I tried to give every (career) a fair shot, but I wanted to give back for the care I got.”
The care Boolos received as a newborn helped give her a start with very few of the complications that premature babies typically encounter. Now as a registered nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Wiser Hospital for Women and Infants at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Boolos can name those common preemie complications from both work experience and her education foundation.
Born prematurely at 27 weeks, Brittany Boolos spent two months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Photo courtesy of Brittany Boolos
Preemies often have a low birth weight, and many suffer respiratory problems due to underdeveloped lungs. Sometimes they struggle with feeding issues. To help both preemies and full-term babies in a NICU, daily teamwork takes place at facilities throughout the country. Doctors, registered nurses, nurse practitioners, residents and a host of other hospital staff members must come up with care plans.
Birth of Neonatology
That big team is a far cry from the years when NICUs were in their infancy. Until the mid-to-late ’70s, an established blueprint for specific preemie care did not exist. The full development of neonatology as a specialty was still years away.
Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston was the rst hospital to treat pediatric respiratory failure with home mechanical ventilation. That development enabled at-home treatment instead of prolonged hospital care. The beginning of neonatology service followed.
“Back then is not that far back,” says Dr. Michael Speer, a neonatologist at Texas Children’s Hospital and a professor of pediatrics and medical ethics at Baylor College of Medicine. “The modern neonatology program was not established until about 1973. We didn’t have a ventilator for babies with lung disease until 1972. If a baby had lung disease, we had to use an incubator, and we didn’t have a ventilator to breathe for the baby.”
Some high-profile cases highlighted preemie health care needs, which contributed to care advances on a large scale. President John F. Kennedy’s son Patrick, who had been born premature, died in August 1963, just a few months before his father was assassinated. Patrick’s death put a spotlight on respiratory distress syndrome and other conditions common among premature babies. That spectrum includes babies born many weeks early and those who are nearly carried full term.
“The death of JFK’s baby Patrick … that baby was only about five weeks premature,” says Annie Rohan, an assistant professor and director of pediatric research at Stony Brook University’s School of Nursing in Stony Brook, New York. “There wasn’t a specialty of neonatology at that time. We learned that the use of oxygen is not always a good thing. (Musician) Stevie Wonder was exposed to too much oxygen.”
As funding for research and development increased, doctors gradually gained ground in the effort to improve preemie outcomes. The late Dr. Mary Ellen Avery’s pioneering research found that preemies often struggled with breathing due to lacking a lung protein called surfactant. Being able to supply that artificially in a NICU setting became a huge step forward. Other vital tools came into play as facilities were able to devote additional resources to address the nutritional needs of preemies.
“We had no formulas on hand in the early ’70s designed for premature babies,” Speer says. “We had no breast milk banking. We had primitive forms of nutrition [programs]. The mid-’70s was a hotbed of innovation and acquisition of knowledge.”
Whole New World
Boolos now works as a registered nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Wiser Hospital for Women and Infants at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
While doctors and nurses were making progress, another group still had plenty of catching up to do to become familiar with a typical NICU setting: the parents who were anxiously waiting to hear good news about their respective sons and daughters. Boolos has experienced the environment as a patient and as a nurse. She knows the visual aspects and the sounds of the NICU can be jarring for many new parents.
“One of the big things for me is to help the parents,” Boolos says. “For a lot of them, this is their first child. It can be very scary for them. There are a lot of cords and alarms in the NICU. Then teaching them how to care for a preemie — everything is so different.”
Boolos says her own parents, Todd and Tammy, were in that sort of situation when she was born in Vicksburg. The absence of a local NICU meant that 2-pound, 7-ounce Brittany had to be transferred to Methodist Medical Center in Jackson (now Merit Health Central).
“I always ask my parents questions about that NICU,” Boolos says. “My parents had hardly known about the NICU. Every baby is different. Babies of the same gestational age can have two totally different journeys.”
Prior cases and pattern recognition give doctors tools to recognize the illness process and the rigid science behind it. Sometimes the journey does not end as every patient and parent wants. Often, complications occur, and short-or long-term mental or physical impairments are possibilities.
“We have some babies who have medical conditions that we can address but not cure,” Speer says. “We sometimes are not able to do wondrous things.”
Sometimes the outcome is death.
“It is very gratifying to have the medical tools that we have,” Speer says. “But just because we can do something does not mean that we always should do something. Sometimes the best medicine is to say we cannot do anything for the baby, and we have to allow the baby to die with dignity and without suffering.”
Boolos witnesses many of the ups and downs experienced by babies and parents. Her reward often comes from seeing a baby that “you don’t think will make it through the night” hang in there and move closer to survival. When a patient is able to do things like switch to bottle feeding or start wearing clothes, those moments may not seem like a big deal on the surface. However, they are major milestones for preemies.
“It’s all part of it when you work in the NICU,” Boolos says. “It’s hard to see them fight for their lives. When you see their parents, it���s one of the hardest things.”
Answering the Call
Boolos witnesses many of the ups and downs experienced by babies and parents. Her reward o en comes from unexpected improvements in her patients. Seemingly minor advancements such as switching to bottle feeding are major milestones for preemies.
It is difficult logistically for organizations such as the National Association of Neonatal Nurses to track an exact figure representing the number of preemies who grow up to become medical professionals who work in a NICU. Rohan at Stony Brook estimates hundreds if not thousands of people have made that transition from being a patient to becoming a care provider.
“People have choices when they get out of a general nursing program,” Rohan says. “If you have emotional connections to that environment … preemies who have listened to stories about the NICU go into it.”
Once that decision is made, the process of getting accustomed to the ins and outs of a NICU begins. Students who are exposed to the new environment face linguistic challenges.
“There is a lot of new language at the NICU, and getting around the language is tricky,” Rohan says. “Sometimes younger students could be intimidated by the skills of a neonatal nurse practitioner, and they are challenged by the conversations. Sometimes the news is not interpreted by a family the way you want it to be.”
Preemies make up a fairly large portion of a NICU patient population, but many other full-term babies also are there who are dealing with setbacks such as infections or kidney issues. Many of those babies will have a few days or maybe a week on antibiotics and a relatively short-term hospital stay before heading home.
For those parents of preemies who face a longer path, they can find many examples of success, stretching from New York to Jackson to Houston. Rohan has some advice for them.
“Try to take your fear and sadness that this wasn’t the original plan, and put it on the back burner,” she says. “Try to hear what the care providers are telling you. There are a lot of resources in the NICU. Embrace those resources. Don’t be afraid to ask the same question to two different people. Sometimes an issue will be unclear. Be part of the care team for your infant.”
Video monitoring of preemies is a way to supplement cell phone calls and verbal communication.
“We don’t have the ability to transmit bedside monitoring to parents, but we can set up a TV monitor and Skype,” Speer says. “There is not the technology to transmit minute to minute, so we are still dependent on cell technology if parents can’t be at the hospital.”
The tense moments are not only part of the parents’ routine.
“When I started nursing school, I had no idea what I was getting into,” Boolos says. “I never thought about how attached you can get to a patient. When you realize how fragile these babies are, it’s a lot of emotional investment. I catch myself thinking about patients, and sometimes it’s hard to leave work at work.”
Boolos always sort of knew that she wanted to do something in the medical field, and the NICU allows her to experience a wide variety of cases.
“The NICU is a whole di erent world from the rest of the floors,” she says. “Most of what people know about hospital settings is dealing with other adults. We take care of very small preemies from 23 weeks up to older babies with chronic conditions.”
As treatment tools have improved, so have the odds of a good outcome for those smaller babies.
“We have technology that allows smaller and smaller babies to survive, go home and become contributing members of society,” Speer says. “Unless we have a major malformation or major catastrophic illness, more than 90 percent of babies should be very normal at 1,000 grams and 27 to 28 weeks of gestation. If you get down to 23, 24 or 25 weeks, a significant portion of those babies will not survive, or the survivors will have major disabilities in learning, vision or hearing that may last their entire lives.”
Boolos is in a unique position to keep the lines of communication open with parents who are anxious and looking for progress.
“If it’s appropriate, I tell them about my journey to give them hope.”
By Brian Hudgins. Photos by Joe Ellis.
This story was reprinted with permission from the Ole Miss Alumni Review. The Alumni Review is published quarterly for members of the Ole Miss Alumni Association. Join or renew your membership with the Alumni Association today, and don’t miss a single issue.
For questions, email us at [email protected].
Follow HottyToddy.com on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat @hottytoddynews. Like its Facebook page: If You Love Oxford and Ole Miss…
The post Baby Steps: Alumna Grows from Preemie to Neonatal Nurse appeared first on HottyToddy.com.
0 notes
Link
Pharmacies Miss Half of Dangerous Drug Combos Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola The average American adult took nearly 13 prescription drugs in 2015, according to Kaiser Family Foundation statistics. Seniors (aged 65 and over) took even more; the annual per capita prescription drugs filled at pharmacies was 27 among seniors in 2015, while even U.S. children took an average of 4 prescriptions each.1 The numbers are alarming not only because of the chronic and acute conditions driving such massive prescription drug usage but also because of the risks of the drugs themselves, particularly when taken in combination. In the U.S., 1 in 5 adults take three or more drugs and 1 in 10 takes five or more.2 Many people depend on their doctors and pharmacies to not prescribe or dispense potentially contraindicated drugs, but doctors are not always aware of all the medications their patients are taking (or their potentially dangerous interactions), and any fail-safes in place at pharmacies are also not measuring up. In a recent Chicago Tribune investigation of 255 U.S. pharmacies, it turned out that dangerous drug combinations are putting millions of Americans at risk, representing an "industrywide failure."3 More Than Half of U.S. Pharmacies Sold Dangerous Drug Combinations With No Warning Chicago Tribune reporters Sam Roe, Ray Long and Karisa King investigated just how often potentially dangerous drug combinations are dispensed at Chicago-area pharmacies without warning to patients. Fifty-two percent of the pharmacies investigated did just that, handing out drug combinations that could result in stroke, kidney failure, oxygen deprivation, unintended pregnancy, birth defects and other health risks.4 Among the individual pharmacy chains tested, CVS fared the worst, with 63 percent dispensing dangerous drug combinations with no warning to patients. Walgreens ranked the best, but at a 30 percent failure rate still had much room for improvement.5 Others, including Kmart and Costco pharmacies, had a 60 percent failure rate while Walmart failed to warn patients of dangerous drug interactions 43 percent of the time. Pharmacists Should Have Spotted the 'No Brainer' Dangers Perhaps worst of all, the dangerous drug combinations presented were "no-brainers," according to pharmacy professor John Horn of the University of Washington, who helped select the drug pairs to test. The drugs were not new to their market and their ability to cause serious health issues if taken together should have been common knowledge to pharmacists. The prescriptions were presented to pharmacists either together or a couple of days apart, and included dangerous drug combinations such as:6 Simvastatin (a cholesterol-lowering drug) and clarithromycin (an antibiotic), which can cause severe breakdown in muscle tissue, kidney failure and potentially death when taken together Tizanidine (a muscle relaxant) and ciprofloxacin (an antibiotic), which can cause heavy sedation, lower blood pressure and loss of consciousness An oral contraceptive and griseofulvin (an anti-fungal), which can lead to unplanned pregnancy as well as cause birth defects Clarithromycin and ergotamine (a migraine drug), which can cause potentially fatal gangrene or stroke Colchicine (a gout medication) and verapamil (for high blood pressure), which can lead to a potentially fatal breakdown of muscle tissue, loss of red and white blood cells and multiple organ failure The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation requires pharmacists to alert the prescribing doctor if a serious interaction risk is detected, to determine if the prescription is correct and whether an alternative is available. Pharmacists were considered to have "passed" the test if they either contacted the prescribing doctor or warned the reporter about the drug interactions, but in most cases this wasn't done. Simply stapling an informational sheet to the prescription was not deemed to provide sufficient warning, as many people simply throw the pamphlets away without reading them.7 Are Pharmacists Working Too Fast for Safety? Pharmacies are increasingly touting fast service, including drive-through windows, to customers, putting pressure on pharmacists to work fast, perhaps faster than can be safely done. It's not unusual for pharmacists to fill hundreds of prescriptions in every shift. In some cases, they may be filling one prescription every two minutes. In Illinois, drug safety reviews are required in which pharmacists are supposed to check the medication's dosage and whether it could interact with other drugs the patient is taking. But the investigation found many pharmacists were too rushed to complete the review. It's an issue that likely stretches beyond Illinois borders. The New Hampshire Board of Pharmacy previously found, for instance, that pharmacists spend about 80 seconds per prescription on safety checks. President Bob Stout told the Tribune, "They're cutting corners where they think they can cut … What happens, I found on the board, is people stop doing [safety] reviews. They're not going in looking at patient records."8 Pharmacies also use computer software designed to flag potential interactions, but the alerts may occur so often that pharmacists start to glaze over them and may miss some of the most important warnings, the Tribune reported. 'Every Prescription Is Timed' Adding to pharmacists' pressures to move fast are companywide "scorecards" that track pharmacists' performance based on filling prescriptions on time, responsiveness to voicemails and other tasks. Many pharmacies also guarantee short wait times and quick service, which is alluring but potentially dangerous to customers. Forty percent of pharmacists working at such stores said they'd made medication errors because they were rushing to fill prescriptions on time. Further, the Tribune reported on a national survey conducted by the nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices, which found two-thirds of pharmacists work at stores that track how long it takes them to fill prescriptions.9 Deepak Chande, a former head pharmacist at an Illinois CVS told the Tribune, "Every prescription is timed, and this is the worst of the pharmacist's nightmares." He also described a color-coded alert that would pop up on computer screens if pharmacists fell behind on prescriptions. "It's an unreal pressure," he continued. "Your mind is kind of frantically trying to obey it."10 Even at independent pharmacies, problems persisted, not so much via time pressures but due to pressures to stay afloat and compete with larger chains. Drug Interaction Leads to Stevens-Johnson Syndrome: One Woman's Story The Tribune also covered the story of Becki Conway, who developed Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) after being prescribed two medications, Lamictal and Depakote, despite a black box warning alerting doctors of the known risk. In SJS, the patient's immune system attacks their skin and mucous membranes. It begins with flu-like symptoms that progress into a painful purple or red rash that blisters and causes the top layer of your skin to slough off. This can lead to serious infections, blindness, damage to internal organs, permanent skin damage and even death. Conway was left legally blind and struggles with pain and a constant cough caused by lung injuries. Her case illustrated how fundamentally broken the system is, as she was failed at multiple points along the way, starting with the prescribing doctor and continuing with the pharmacist who dispensed the drugs and the multiple doctors and nurses who didn't connect her symptoms to the two medications she was taking. "It starts with a hospital or physician error, then there's a pharmacy error and diagnostic errors, and that becomes the perfect storm," Conway's attorney Andrea Dalton told the Tribune. "At the end of this is someone who has to live with it for the rest of their life."11 Will the Investigation Trigger Pharmacies to Clean Up Their Acts? In response to the Tribune investigation, CVS, Walgreens and Wal-Mart pharmacies announced they'd be taking steps to improve patient safety at their stores, including streamlining computer alerts so pharmacists see the most important warnings. The companies are also looking into changing the pharmacist's "offer to counsel," which is a legal requirement that some pharmacists meet simply by asking the patient if they have any questions during checkout. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, an association of pharmacy regulators, is calling on states to require more robust counseling from pharmacists, in addition to public disclosure of pharmacy medication errors. They also proposed setting minimum staffing levels to help ease pharmacists' workloads.12 Addressing the poor health of Americans leading to excessive medication use is an issue all its own. But if you're already on prescription drugs, drug safety needs to become a priority, not an afterthought, especially since the 21st Century Cures Act relaxes FDA standards and makes it easier for experimental drugs and vaccines to come to market without being adequately tested for safety. Doctors need better methods to prevent prescribing dangerous drug combinations, and pharmacies need stricter monitoring programs to prevent dangerous combinations from being distributed. Apps like Epocrates, which physicians can use to check for drug interactions, contraindications, black box warnings and more, should help to streamline the process and protect patients, but unfortunately, most dangerous drug interactions are discovered by accident and entirely too late — or are not discovered at all because people may not equate their symptoms to their medications. In some cases, deaths caused by drug interactions may be incorrectly attributed to old age or other underlying health conditions. Protecting Yourself From Dangerous Medication Errors Every time you take a medication, ask your doctor and your pharmacist about the side effects and whether it's safe to take with any other medications or supplements you're currently taking. Many common medications, including antibiotics, antidepressants and cholesterol and high blood pressure meds, can be dangerous if taken in the wrong combinations, so don't simply assume any combination of drugs is safe because your doctor or pharmacist prescribed and dispensed it. Make a point of asking if the drugs you're prescribed are safe when taken together, and remind both your doctor and the pharmacist about your other medications (including over-the-counter drugs). Ask, and then ask again, and if you experience any unusual symptoms after taking a new combination of drugs, ask your health care providers if the drug combination could be to blame. Ultimately, however, reducing your reliance on prescription and over-the-counter drugs is your best protection against drug interactions, and this is done foundationally, by leading a healthy lifestyle and taking control of your health.
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
dep21com
Đẹp 21
stacejulianna
stacejulianna.
soldierinadress
Don't let it break you
imoim36news
vn-news
kg-horrorhospital-au
Twisted Eye