Thursday, Apr 26th
Last update05:20:13 AM GMT
Health Glance
Mississippi lawmakers celebrated International Women’s Day on Thursday by passing a bill that would ban abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy ― the strictest limit in the nation. Gov. Phil Bryant (R) has said he will sign the legislation into law.
“As I have repeatedly said, I want Mississippi to be the safest place in America for an unborn child,” Bryant tweeted. “House Bill 1510 will help us achieve that goal.”
A mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead has reopened a debate in Congress about loosening long-standing restrictions on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) research into gun violence.
Democrats have frequently railed against the restrictions, which were enacted in 1996 after fierce lobbying by outside groups like the National Rifle Association. But Republicans have been able to beat back Democratic attempts to restore the flow of federal research dollars to gun violence research.
British researchers believe they have developed the first blood and urine tests that can confirm autism spectrum disorders in children.
One in in 68 children have been identified with some form of ASD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2014. The wide spectrum of behavioral problems include difficulty communicating and interacting with others, repetitive behaviors and limited interests or activities.
Doctors diagnose ASD in the first two years of life by looking at a child's behavior and development but haven't had a blood or urine test to confirm their diagnoses.
A single-dose pill that can halt the flu virus within a day.
That's what Japanese drug maker Shionogi claims its new flu treatment can do, the Wall Street Journal reports, but the compound that could relieve one of the worst flu seasons in years wouldn't hit U.S. shelves until at least 2019.
It took a median time of 24 hours for Shionogi's experimental compound to kill the flu in American and Japanese patients during a late-stage trial, per the Journal, faster than any flu drug available. And it requires just a single dosage.
Compare that to Tamiflu, the popular anti-flu drug that requires twice-a-day doses for five days. In the above trial, Tamiflu took three times longer to kill the virus.
This week marks 25 years since Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, which gives US workers the right to unpaid time off to care for themselves and close family members.
It took another decade for some to win paid sick leave, when San Franciscans approved a ballot initiative in 2006 for private employees to earn an hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. Similar measures now benefit 14 million workers in 32 municipalities and nine states.
A total of 11.8 million people signed up for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act for 2018, according to a health care research group.
Total enrollment dropped 3.7 percent from 12.2 million in 2017, data released by the National Academy for State Health Policy Wednesday showed.
"For the first time we now have the full national picture of how the individual marketplaces did this year and it is a picture of remarkable stability," said NASHP executive director Trish Riley.
The 2018 ACA enrollment season was the first under President Donald Trump and featured a decreased marketing budget as well as an enrollment period half as long as previous years.
Republican lawmakers are threatening to cut off U.S. funding for the World Health Organization's cancer research program over its finding that the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup is probably carcinogenic to humans.
House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith said Tuesday that the 2015 conclusion by the International Agency for Research on Cancer was fundamentally flawed and relied on cherry-picked science. The Texas lawmaker said he has serious concerns about anti-industry bias and a lack of transparency within the program, which is based in Lyon, France.
A separate review by the Environmental Protection Agency concluded in December that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and other products, is not likely to cause cancer at typical levels of exposure.
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