The Health News USA September 18 2017

Overview

• Whole Woman’s Health, a reproductive health care organization, in collaboration with other groups, is offering free abortions to women affected by Hurricane Harvey.
• As millions of Florida residents remain without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, experts are warning them to take precautions against food poisoning.
• Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a technology that could allow childhood vaccines—for everything from polio to measles, mumps, and rubella—to be combined into a single injection.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 18th of  September 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health News

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/09/15/free-abortions-offered-to-women-affected-by-hurricane-harvey.html

Whole Woman’s Health, a reproductive health care organization, in collaboration with other groups, is offering free abortions to women affected by Hurricane Harvey. At least seventy four women have already taken the organization up on the offer, or have scheduled an appointment for the procedure, the Dallas Morning News reported. The group said the price will be fully covered, as will the cost of transportation and accommodations. But Texas Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, argued against the notion of a free abortion, claiming that “there is always a cost.”

Melissa Conway, director of external relations for Texas Right to Life, told Baptist Press that

the promotion of this heinous no-cost service is riddled with misconceptions because abortion is never free. She added: “There is always a cost to abortion. Women are not free from the emotional toll that ensues after abortion and the child is certainly not free to live another day.’’ The clinic, which also offered free abortions following hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike, has already raised fifteen thousand dollars for one woman’s procedure and travel, and aims to raise a total of forty thousand dollars to cover the expenses of other patients. The clinic has been involved in numerous legal disputes in Texas, the Texas Tribune reported. For example, it recently sued the state over a law that would have banned a second-trimester abortion procedure.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-irma-power-outages-florida-food-safety/

As millions of Florida residents remain without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, experts are warning them to take precautions against food poisoning. Health officials in Broward County issued an advisory Thursday about the risk of foodborne illness. The statement reads: “Due to the number of households still without electrical power, the Florida Department of Health in Broward County (DOH-Broward) reminds everyone that it is important to take careful precautions to ensure food safety.

When the power goes out for an extended period of time and refrigerators and ovens are inoperable, the risk of food poisoning is heightened. People should throw away any perishable food that has been at room temperature for two hours or more or any food that has an unusual odor, color, or texture. Additionally, people should discard any food that has come in contact with floodwater, even those that are wrapped or packaged in plastic.

“There could be microbreaks in the plastic,” Doctor Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told CBS News. “There’s no way to know if it’s been compromised.”

DOH-Broward offers the following guidelines to encourage safe food handling and reduce the risk of food-borne illness: Always keep a thermometer in your refrigerator. The temperature should read 41 degrees Fahrenheit (F) or below;  Thawed food can usually be eaten if it is still “refrigerator cold’’;  Hands should be washed before preparing or eating food, after using the bathroom or changing a diaper, after handling uncooked food, after playing with a pet, after handling garbage, after tending to someone who is sick or injured, after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing, after participating in flood cleanup activities, and after handling articles contaminated with floodwater or sewage;  Avoid cross-contamination, which is the transfer of harmful bacteria from one food to another. Never place any type of food on a plate, cutting  board or utensil that previously held raw meat, poultry or seafood; Use sanitized food and water bowls for your pets and be sure that they do not drink from flood-contaminated surfaces;
Never taste food to determine its safety.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/09/15/one-shot-for-all-vaccines-study-holds-promise.html

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a technology that could allow childhood vaccines—for everything from polio to measles, mumps, and rubella—to be combined into a single injection, reports the BBC. The idea is that one shot would inject microscopic capsules of vaccine into a person, and those capsules would be designed to break down and release their contents at different times, per the Science study. A simpler application would be to deliver one vaccine and its necessary booster shots at one time. In tests on mice, researchers were able to time the release of the booster doses to exactly nine, twenty, and forty one days after the initial shot.The concept has not been tested in humans yet.

“For the first time, we can create a library of tiny, encased vaccine particles, each programmed to release at a precise, predictable time, so that people could potentially receive a single injection that, in effect, would have multiple boosters already built into it,” MIT’s Robert Langer says in a release. In the developing world especially, this “might be the difference between not getting vaccinated and receiving all of your vaccines in one shot,” adds study author Kevin McHugh, whose research was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Much work remains: For one thing, scientists would need to figure out how to keep the doses, normally refrigerated, stable in a warm body, per the Guardian. They also are trying to further shrink the capsules so they can be injected directly into muscle, per New Scientist.