The Health News USA October 19 2017

• About one in nine American men is infected with the oral form of human papillomavirus (HPV), according to a new study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. According to the researchers, the nationwide rates for oral HPV infections are 11.5% of men and 3.2% of women: 11 million men, compared with 3.2 million women.
• Johnson & Johnson won the reversal of a $72 million verdict in favor of the family of a woman whose death from ovarian cancer they claimed stemmed from her use of the company’s talc-based products like Johnson’s Baby Powder.
• President Donald Trump said congressional Republicans would take another shot at repealing and replacing the nation’s health care law after they passed tax cuts, presumably extending the Obamacare debate into 2018. Republicans have set a goal of passing significant tax rate reductions by the end of the year, but Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled Monday that ultimate passage could creep into the following year.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 19th of  October 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health News

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/16/health/oral-hpv-infections-men-study/index.html

About one in nine American men is infected with the oral form of human papillomavirus or HPV, according to a new study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. According to the researchers, the nationwide rates for oral HPV infections are eleven point five percent of men and  three point two percent of women: eleven million men, compared with three point two million women. An infection with this common virus, which is transmitted through intimate skin-to-skin contact, can cause cancer in several areas of the body, including the throat, anus, penis and vagina. Nearly all men and women will become infected with at least one type of HPV, a group of one hundred fifty related viruses, at some point in their lives, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
….
Annually, an average of thirty eight thousand seven hundred ninety three cases of HPV-related cancer — fifty nine percent of them in women and forty one percent in men — were diagnosed in the United States between two thousand eight and two thousand twelve. It is the most common of all the HPV-related cancers, and its incidence among men or seven point eight per one hundred thousand now surpasses incidence rates of cervical cancer among women or seven point four per one hundred thousand. Cervical cancer is known to be caused by HPV. An HPV vaccine is available for both men and women and can protect against infection, yet many men are over the eligibility age of twenty six, and younger men have low vaccination rates. The CDC recommends the vaccination for adolescents.

Men who have had multiple sex partners, men who reported having sex with men, and men with genital HPV infections were found to have the highest rates of oral HPV, the study indicated.
HPV infections overall and high-risk HPV oral infections in particular were “significantly associated” with cigarette and marijuana use, the researchers found.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/17/missouri-appeals-court-overturns-72-million-verdict-against-johnson-johnson-over-talc-cancer-risks.html

Johnson and Johnson on Tuesday won the reversal of a seventy two million dollar verdict in favor of the family of a woman whose death from ovarian cancer they claimed stemmed from her use of the company’s talc-based products like Johnson’s Baby Powder. The Missouri Court of Appeals for the Eastern District said that given a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited where injury lawsuits could be filed, the case over Alabama resident Jacqueline Fox’s death should not have been tried in Saint Louis. Lawyers for the plaintiffs had no immediate comment. J and J did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The February two thousand sixteen verdict for Fox’s family was the first of four jury awards totaling three hundred seven million dollars in state court in Saint Louis to plaintiffs who accused J and J of not adequately warning consumers about the cancer risks of its talc-based products. J and J, which won one Missouri trial, says it faces lawsuits by four thousand eight hundred plaintiffs nationally asserting similar claims over its talc-based products. It also faces cases in California, where in August a jury awarded a woman four hundred seventeen million dollars.  The Missouri cases, which have largely been brought by out-of-state plaintiffs, have faced jurisdictional questions after the Supreme Court issued a ruling in June that limited
where personal injury lawsuits could be filed.

Lawyers for Fox’s family say the Alabama resident died in two thousand fifteen at age of sixty two after using J and J’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower for more than thirty five years.  

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-10-17/trump-another-obamacare-repeal-attempt-after-tax-cuts

President Donald Trump said Tuesday congressional Republicans would take another shot at repealing and replacing the nation’s health care law after they passed tax cuts, presumably extending the Obamacare debate into two thousand eighteen. Once again declaring Obamacare “virtually dead,” the president indicated during a Rose Garden press conference with the prime minister of Greece he hadn’t given up on his months-long struggle to quash the Affordable Care Act, saying he believed Republicans now had the votes to approve a plan to provide block grants to states to provide health care.

While there’s no evidence Senate Republicans have suddenly acquired the votes to repeal Obamacare, a bipartisan tandem at the helm of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee announced it had reached a short-term agreement to help stabilize health care markets. Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a Republican, said the agreement with Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, would resume payments to health insurers that Trump had blocked through an executive order. Alexander told reporters on Capitol Hill the deal included “cost sharing payments as well as meaningful flexibility.” Murray said the short-term fix was needed in order to rid the health insurance system of “uncertainty and dysfunction” caused by the president’s zeal to nullify the law. Without the subsidies, insurers warned of dramatic premium spikes. Trump appeared to back the pact, which would require a full vote from the Senate.

Republicans have set a goal of passing significant tax rate reductions by the end of the year, but Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled Monday that ultimate passage could creep into next year.