Public Health in the News – June 21, 2014

Global

• As Ebola continues to ravage West Africa, with over 330 deaths so far, Doctors Without Borders is calling for increased assistance from the international community.
• The White House announced that the US will impose visa restrictions on Ugandans it believes have been involved in human rights violations, including gay rights.

National

• Dr. Arnold S. Relman, longtime outspoken editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, passed away this week at 91 years old.
• The CDC reports that 75 employees were exposed to live anthrax bacteria that they’d believed was deactivated.  So far, none of the employees have reported any reaction.
• The Labor Department issued a proposed rule stating that any employee is eligible for leave to care for a same-sex spouse under the Family and Medical Leave Act, according to White House officials, regardless of whether they live in a state that recognizes their marital status.
• Microsoft, after years of development, may be coming out with a health focused smart watch using it’s HealthVault health data platform, which uses light to measure the biometrics of the user.

Illinois

• After plastic particles were found in Lake Michigan, Illinois became the first state to ban microbeads, a common ingredient in facial and hand cleansers.
• After difficulties reconciling different electronic records systems, Alexian Brothers Health Systems, out of Arlington Heights, has suspended its effort to launch a new Medicare system.

Northwestern

• Professor Teresa Woodruff’s groundbreaking work on the importance of gender in medical research, is explored in a recent article in the Chicago Sun Times.
• In a disturbing new study, Professor Linda Teplin found that delinquent children are much more likely than their nondelinquent peers to die violently later in life. Worse are girls who end up in juvenile detention, dying at nearly five times the rate of the general population.

Cover Photo by TookAPic via Pexels: Creative Commons