The Health News USA March 8 2018

• New federal CDC data reveal that opioid overdoses continue to increase among men and women, most age groups, across all regions and in most states. CDC’s latest Vital Signs report found that in just over a year, emergency department visits for suspected opioid overdoses increased  30% in all parts of the U.S. The most dramatic increase was in the Midwest, which saw a 70% jump in opioid overdoses.
• A proposal that would require doctors to inform women seeking medical abortions that drug-induced abortions may be halted halfway through is on its way to the Idaho House.
  Proponents of the idea say doctors can give a woman the hormone progesterone to stop an abortion after she has taken the first of two medications needed to complete the abortion.  Critics, like the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, counter that there is no medically accepted evidence that a drug-induced abortion can be interrupted.
• The new study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looks carefully not just at the number of vaccines, but at the number of antigens — the molecules that actually stimulate immune response. From 1980 to 2000, the immunization schedule’s total number of antigens decreased by approximately 96%. A 2005 Danish study found no evidence of vaccine overload, but the hypothesis had not been tested in U.S. kids given the current U.S. vaccine schedule.
  

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 8th of March 2018. Read by Tabetha Moreto.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/03/07/acting-cdc-chief-drug-overdose-deaths-are-highest-ever-in-us-here-s-what-must-do-now.html

New federal Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) data reveal that opioid overdoses continue to increase among men and women, most age groups, across all regions and in most states. CDC’s latest Vital Signs report found that in just over a year, emergency department visits for suspected opioid overdoses increased thirty percent in all parts of the U.S. The most dramatic increase was in the Midwest, which saw a seventy percent jump in opioid overdoses.

In addition, the report revealed rate increases in every demographic group, including: men (thirty percent); women (twenty four percent); people between the ages of twenty five and thirty four (thirty one percent); thirty five to fifty four year-olds (thirty six percent); and those fifty five and older (thirty two percent). And the increases weren’t limited to small towns or rural areas. Opioid overdoses in large metropolitan areas rose by fifty four percent.

These statistics are a clear signal that America’s complex and fast-moving opioid overdose epidemic isn’t slowing down anytime soon. However, the Vital Signs report also highlights some opportunities for progress, and reveals how timely data can potentially save some lives. Although CDC typically analyzes deaths from opioids, this report looked at recent emergency department visits for suspected opioid overdoses, most of which were nonfatal.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/7/so-called-abortion-reversal-bill-headed-to-idaho-h/

A proposal that would require doctors to inform women seeking medical abortions that drug-induced abortions may be halted halfway through is on its way to the Idaho House.
Proponents of the idea say doctors can give a woman the hormone progesterone to stop an abortion after she has taken the first of two medications needed to complete the abortion.

Critics, like the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, counter that there is no medically accepted evidence that a drug-induced abortion can be interrupted. Utah, Arkansas and South Dakota have already enacted such requirements.

Republicans on the House State Affairs Committee agreed to send SB one two four three to the full House for debate on Wednesday with just two Democratic members opposing. The proposal has already cleared the Senate.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vaccines-don-t-overload-babies-immune-systems-study-finds-n854161

The new study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looks carefully not just at the number of vaccines, but at the number of antigens — the molecules that actually stimulate immune response.
….

The team wrote: “In the past three decades, the routine childhood immunization schedule in the first two years of life expanded from three vaccines against seven diseases to ten vaccines against fourteen diseases.” Babies are vaccinated against diphtheria and tetanus, whooping cough, measles, mumps and rubella, chickenpox, polio, hepatitis and bugs that cause meningitis, pneumonia and diarrhea.
….
Several studies have shown this is not the case, and a two thousand thirteen report by the Institute of Medicine, now the National Academy of Medicine, found no evidence that the childhood immunization schedule is not safe.
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From nineteen eighty to two thousand, the immunization schedule’s total number of antigens decreased by approximately ninety six percent.  A two thousand five Danish study found no evidence of vaccine overload, but the hypothesis had not been tested in U.S. kids given the current U.S. vaccine schedule.

Jason Glanz of the Institute for Health Research at Kaiser Permanente Colorado and this team did that, studying nine hundred forty four kids aged two to four who caught infections covered by vaccines as well as those not targeted by vaccines, including respiratory and gastrointestinal infections. For instance, many causes of colds and flu-like symptoms are not covered by vaccines, nor is norovirus, the most common cause of “stomach flu”.