#public-health

#public-health

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine features a striking Art Deco frieze of gilded bronze animal figures sculpted into its iron balconies, each symbolizing a threat to human health. These ten animals-mostly insects and arthropods like fleas, mosquitoes, and ticks-are known for living close to humans and thriving on the food and shelter we provide. Eight of them are disease vectors, earning the nickname "gilded vectors of disease," though the cobra and bedbug are exceptions.

Men in this country are dying prematurely at a rate 40pc higher than women, despite advancements in longevity. Many of these deaths are preventable, according to experts. So what's going wrong?

Experiments show that the bacterial component of fine particulate matter has a highly potent inflammatory effect.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned in a report this week that between 2019 and 2023, bacterial infections caused by a "super bug" bacteria dubbed NDM-producing carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (NDM-CRE) surged by more than 460% in the U.S. The NDM-CRE is a type of bacteria with a special gene that can break down powerful antibiotics rendering most drug treatments ineffective, said Shruti Gohil, associate professor of infectious diseases at UC Irvine School of Medicine.

Americans are receiving medical guidance from President Trump and top health officials like Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that runs counter to mainstream medicine. For example, this week Trump linked Tylenol to autism despite little medical evidence. How are Americans meant to make important decisions about their health at this confusing moment?

Barack Obama has admitted he has been digging himself out of a hole with his wife Michelle for years. The former United States president, 64, revealed he is on level ground with his partner, 61, eight years after leaving the White House. He made the comments during the London leg of his European speaking tour, in which he also criticised Donald Trump's recent comments about autism and the decision to shut schools during lockdown.

The Public Health Agency of Canada says the number of people confirmed sickened in a salmonella outbreak linked to pistachios has risen to 105. The outbreak update issued Wednesday reports 26 new cases since the last count earlier this month. It says 16 people have been hospitalized an increase of five since people started getting sick in early March. Illnesses continued into early September.

In Europe, temperatures were 1.54°C (2.7°F) above the 1991-2020 long term average - triggering dangerously hot conditions for residents. Now, scientists reveal exactly how many people died due to the heat, which can trigger conditions such as heat exhaustion and heart failure. In the UK, there were 573 heat-related deaths in summer 2024, according to the experts at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).

In Florida, state law dictates vaccine requirements for polio, diphtheria, measles, rubella, pertussis or whooping cough, mumps, tetanus "and other communicable diseases as determined by rules of the Department of Health." Florida is one of several states that allow children an exemption based on religious grounds. Ladapo, who in his role oversees the Florida Department of Health, said in his public remarks that the agency has rules for certain vaccine requirements that it can remove and that others will require legislative action.

Before I started, I visited my father in his nursing home. He was a cardiologist. Quiet, kind, and a man of few words. Parkinson's disease had silenced him almost completely. I sat at his bedside, holding his hand, and told him about my new role. "Dad," I said, "I want to be the best health commissioner." He looked at me and softly spoke last words he would ever speak to me: "How would you know?"

The Anxious Generation (2024), the run-away best seller by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, argues in no uncertain terms that the "phone-based childhood," which has replaced the "play-based childhood" and is dominated by immersion in social media, is "the major cause of the international epidemic of adolescent mental illness" (p. 139).

Don't take fentanyl - because if you do, you'll be dead like me,