Health News
- Kentucky Has Recorded 26 Flu-related Deaths, Mostly Seniors, And 64 Outbreaks At Long-term-care Facilities; Get Vaccinated!
Kentucky has reported 26 influenza-related deaths and 64 flu outbreaks in long-term care facilities as of Jan. 8 after five consecutive weeks of widespread flu activity, and is only halfway through the flu season, which runs from October through May,...
- Less Than 60% Of Kentuckians Say They Visited A Dentist In The Past Year, Ranking The State 43rd In The Nation
Kentucky ranked 43rd among the 50 states in percentage of people who told pollsters that they had visited a dentist in the past 12 months. The rankings in the annual Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index appeared to be driven largely by income and insurance....
- Measles Is Still Around; Rate In 2011 Was Highest In 15 Years
Measles virus (Photo by Scott Camazine/CDC/Getty Images)In 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared measles had been eliminated in the United States. But last year, the nation had the most cases of the infectious disease since 1997....
- Avoiding Immunizations On Religious Grounds Is Risky: Bill Moyers
The movie "Contagion" has veteran journalist and commentator Bill Moyers thinking about how fast a deadly disease outbreak can spread, something that can be further propagated by children whose parents have declined to get them immunized on religious...
- Beware Of Sprouts!
by Dr. Madelyn Fernstrom "Sprouts? (the nutrient dense version of new plant shoots from the seeds of beans, alfalfa, and radishes) go hand in hand with the term "healthy food." But with new cases of food-borne illness linked to sprouts of all kinds, we...
Health News
Kentucky gets an 'F' for how it handles food-borne illnesses
Kentucky is one of 13 states to receive an "F" for the way it handles food-borne illnesses, the Lexington Herald-Leader's Mary Meehan reports.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest report looked at data from the Centers for Disease and Prevention from 1998 to 2007. Ironically, the report gave the highest letter grades to the states that had the highest incidences of food-borne illness. "Those states are the most likely to have robust detection and reporting systems," the CSPI concluded.
"States that aggressively investigate outbreaks and report them to CDC can help nail down the foods that are responsible for making people sick," said CSPI Food Safety Director Caroline Smith DeWaal. "But when states aren't detecting outbreaks, interviewing victims, identifying suspect food sources, or connecting with federal officials, outbreaks can grow larger and more frequent."
During the period of study, Kentucky only reported 25 outbreaks, resulting in 193 people getting ill. Of those outbreaks, 75 percent involved 26 to 50 people, Meehan reports.
Dr. William Hacker, commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health, said sizable changes have been made in the past five years, including hiring 18 epidemiologists to help prevent and study outbreaks. "I believe the report doesn't actively reflect what is happening in Kentucky," he said.
Seven states, including Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming, were given "A" grades. Kentucky, Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia all received failing grades. The study noted the states with the lowest grades are in climates "conducive to pathogen growth." (Read more)
For a fact sheet on new legislation that addresses gaps in outbreak reporting, click here.
- Kentucky Has Recorded 26 Flu-related Deaths, Mostly Seniors, And 64 Outbreaks At Long-term-care Facilities; Get Vaccinated!
Kentucky has reported 26 influenza-related deaths and 64 flu outbreaks in long-term care facilities as of Jan. 8 after five consecutive weeks of widespread flu activity, and is only halfway through the flu season, which runs from October through May,...
- Less Than 60% Of Kentuckians Say They Visited A Dentist In The Past Year, Ranking The State 43rd In The Nation
Kentucky ranked 43rd among the 50 states in percentage of people who told pollsters that they had visited a dentist in the past 12 months. The rankings in the annual Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index appeared to be driven largely by income and insurance....
- Measles Is Still Around; Rate In 2011 Was Highest In 15 Years
Measles virus (Photo by Scott Camazine/CDC/Getty Images)In 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared measles had been eliminated in the United States. But last year, the nation had the most cases of the infectious disease since 1997....
- Avoiding Immunizations On Religious Grounds Is Risky: Bill Moyers
The movie "Contagion" has veteran journalist and commentator Bill Moyers thinking about how fast a deadly disease outbreak can spread, something that can be further propagated by children whose parents have declined to get them immunized on religious...
- Beware Of Sprouts!
by Dr. Madelyn Fernstrom "Sprouts? (the nutrient dense version of new plant shoots from the seeds of beans, alfalfa, and radishes) go hand in hand with the term "healthy food." But with new cases of food-borne illness linked to sprouts of all kinds, we...