RFK Jr. and Trade Deal Put How US Food Is Made in Spotlight
In the US, cows are treated with growth hormones to help them beef up faster and chicken meat is washed in chlorine to remove harmful bacteria.
But both are on the list of practices banned in the European Union and UK, which take a more precautionary approach to regulating how food is produced. They also prohibit certain pesticides and animal-rearing practices that are allowed in the US.
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CBS News
12 minutes ago
- CBS News
UC Davis breakthrough lets ALS patient speak using only his thoughts
Allowing people with disabilities to talk by just thinking about a word, that's what UC Davis researchers hope to accomplish with new cutting-edge technology. It can be a breakthrough for people with ALS and other nonverbal conditions. One UC Davis Health patient has been diagnosed with ALS, a neurological disease that makes it impossible to speak out loud. Scientists have now directly wired his brain into a computer, allowing him to speak through it using only his thoughts. "It has been very exciting to see the system work," said Maitreyee Wairagkar, a UC Davis neuroprosthetics lab project scientist. The technology involves surgically implanting small electrodes. Artificial intelligence can then translate the neural activity into words. UC Davis researchers say it took the patient, who's not being publicly named, very little time to learn the technology. "Within 30 minutes, he was able to use this system to speak with a restricted vocabulary," Wairagkar said. It takes just milliseconds for brain waves to be interpreted by the computer, making it possible to hold a real-time conversation. "[The patient] has said that the voice that is synthesized with the system sounds like his own voice and that makes him happy," Wairagkar said. And it's not just words. The technology can even be used to sing. "These are just very simple melodies that we designed to see whether the system can capture his intention to change the pitch," Wairagkar said. Previously, ALS patients would use muscle or eye movements to type on a computer and generate a synthesized voice. That's how physicist Stephen Hawking, who also had ALS, was able to slowly speak. This new technology is faster but has only been used on one patient so far. Now, there's hope that these microchip implants could one day help other people with spinal cord and brain stem injuries. "There are millions of people around the world who live with speech disabilities," Wairagkar said. The UC Davis scientific study was just published in the journal "Nature," and researchers are looking for other volunteers to participate in the program.
Medscape
42 minutes ago
- Medscape
Home Is the New Hospital: Nurses Rethink Where Patients Heal
Hospitals are struggling with long emergency room (ER) wait times, capacity issues, and staffing shortages. A growing number of patients with cellulitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, pneumonia, and other chronic conditions are being asked to skip hospital stays and return home. Hospital at Home models may be the answer. The explosion of Hospital at Home programs now makes it possible to provide acute level care at home. Today, 378 hospitals in 140 health systems and 39 states have been approved to provide healthcare at home. And a recent report found that 71% of health systems planned to launch Hospital at Home models. 'Digital care is the way of the future,' said Melissa Meier, MSN, RN, manager of Digital Care for OSF OnCall, the Digital Health Division for OSF HealthCare in Peoria, Illinois. 'We're always looking at ways to help reach more patients [and] always being on the cutting edge to reach our patients wherever they are is super important…[Hospital at Home] is certainly an answer for that.' About Medscape Data Medscape continually surveys physicians and other medical professionals about key practice challenges and current issues, creating high-impact analyses. For example, Medscape's Nurse Career Satisfaction Report 2024 found that Only 3% of surveyed nurses work in a home health/visiting nurse capacity. Advanced Practice Registered Nurses are more likely to work for medical groups. About 9% of nurses said the worst part of the job was not enough time with patients. A New Model of Care In 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the Acute Hospital Care at Home initiative that made it possible for Medicare-certified hospitals to provide inpatient-level care at home. The COVID-era waiver was designed to address capacity issues during the pandemic but has proven popular as a long-term solution. Mass General Brigham is among the hospitals that launched programs to offer inpatient care in patient homes. Since the 2017 pilot, the Boston-based hospital has served more than 6000 patients and unlocked 30,000 bed days through its Healthcare at Home program. 'Patients absolutely love this service,' said Stephen Dorner, MD, MPH, emergency physician and chief clinical and innovation officer at Mass General Brigham Healthcare at Home. 'The experience is unmatched.' Hospital at Home is best suited to patients with infectious diseases or respiratory, circulatory, or renal conditions. Patients receive in-home visits from providers at least twice a day, continuous monitoring of vital signs, portable ultrasounds, blood work, and other diagnostics, and access to medications and other therapeutics. The programs also include 24-hour access to virtual care teams. Mass General Brigham begins screening for eligibility for Healthcare at Home in the emergency room based on clinical criteria, distance from the hospital, and payer coverage. In Renton, Washington, Providence takes a similar approach to screening patients who are eligible for its Hospital at Home program before initiating a conversation with patients to assess their interest in receiving care at home. 'Unsurprisingly, it's not right for everyone,' explains Christopher Dale, MD, MPH, medical director, Clinical Innovation at Providence. 'It could be that they [patients] don't want other people in their home…and there's a segment of people who feel more comfortable getting care in the hospital, thinking that the nurses and doctors are right there all the time…and they feel safer that way.' However, there can be significant benefits for patients who receive acute care at home. Studies have linked Hospital at Home programs to reduced hospital-acquired infections, less time spent in skilled nursing facilities, fewer hospital readmissions, and lower mortality rates; there are revenue benefits, too. Hospital at Home programs at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, saved 19%-30% compared to in-hospital care. 'It's a way to create capacity in the system,' said Dale. 'We all know about [issues with] boarding in the emergency department and how long it takes to get a bed…and we don't want that…and this creates capacity so that hospitals can stay available for the sickest of the sick.' Providers have embraced the model. Physicians and registered nurses providing acute in-home care reported lower burnout, higher job satisfaction, healthier work environments, and a feeling that their professional values were well-aligned with the program in a home hospital pilot program. 'We know that healthcare is hard, and this has provided another model of care for nurses, physicians…to still have that in-person care component and be able to provide hands-on care in a different setting that really helps them to focus on one patient at a time,' Meier added. 'It really has helped to remind them [nurses] why they got into healthcare in the first place.' Charting the Challenges The model might be successful, but Hospital at Home is not without its challenges. The logistics are complicated. Mass General Brigham manages a dedicated Healthcare at Home team, schedules home visits, provides access to 24-hour virtual patient care, and ensures that healthcare providers have the right supplies to provide patient care. To facilitate communication, OSF HealthCare does (virtual) interdisciplinary rounds every morning to bring the whole care team together. 'The coordination of ensuring you've got the right people with the right supplies at the right place in a remote location gets very complicated very quickly,' Dorner said. Launching a successful Hospital at Home program requires a strong commitment from leadership. It touches multiple hospital departments, from providers to revenue, accreditation, and food services, and, as an initiative still in its adolescence, Dale cites the importance of working with leadership to adjust as needed. Health systems are always concerned about navigating the logistics; they are considering the long-term viability of Hospital at Home. CMS has extended the Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver, initially set to expire at the end of 2024 and now extended through 2026 — but the future is uncertain. Reimbursement remains challenging. Under the waiver, Medicare-certified hospitals can provide inpatient-level care at home, but most private payers have not followed suit. The lack of reimbursement coupled with uncertainty about waiver extensions has made some hospitals reluctant to launch Hospital at Home programs. Dorner believes that making Hospital at Home a permanent option for patients is critical to the future of healthcare and plays a critical role in alleviating burnout, reducing wait times, and providing safe, effective, value-based care. 'We're not going to be able to exclusively build our way out of the capacity crisis…and so we have to find new ways to support that growing demand,' he said. 'It's hard to look at the landscape of what can be afforded through home hospital care delivery from a quality perspective, an experience perspective, a capacity perspective, a financial perspective and think, 'No, we don't want to do that.''
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Dangerously high levels of E. coli in Burnet Woods prompt closure of section of park
Dangerously high levels of a bacteria that can cause vomiting, diarrhea and in rare cases, death, were detected in a public park near the University of Cincinnati. Researchers discovered E. coli in both dry and wet soil samples from Burnet Woods, a 90-acre public park that extends into Corryville, CUF and Clifton. E. coli levels ranged between 18 to over 600 times the U.S. Environment Protection Agency's limit for allowing swimming in the Ohio River, said Bob Hyland, an associate professor-educator in the School of Environment and Sustainability at UC, who oversaw the student-led research. On June 8, Cincy VegFest, a plant-based food festival, was hosted in Burnet Woods not far from where the E. coli was found. And three days later, on June 11, Cincinnati Parks staff cordoned off the area the researchers sampled, just a few dozen yards from parents dropping their kids off at summer camp and college students going on jogs. "Based upon what we've found over the last week or two," said Hyland, "we're concerned that this could be a public health risk that has not been taken seriously enough.' Sewer pipes that run under the wooded area of the park have led to periodic overflows during heavy rains, bringing bacteria such as E. coli, which is normally found in human feces, to the surface. But the fact that his team was able to find E. coli in the absence of a sewer overflow is especially worrying, said Hyland, who said he wants to know the reason why there's so much E. coli in the park. In a joint emailed statement issued with Cincinnati Parks, Deb Leonard, the spokesperson for the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati, said the "limited" sampling "confirms" the presence of E. coli in the park. The city has been in contact with the University of Cincinnati "to better understand the situation," said Leonard, and test the area. "The city manager's office, MSD, parks, and health will take immediate steps to conduct additional tests and investigate the source of potential contamination within the surrounding park," she said. While the soil and standing water samples were compared to the EPA's limits for recreational water, which would not apply to the forested area, Leonard said, "the city encourages the public to continue to exercise caution when exploring the area and follow directions on park signage." E. coli is a group of bacteria that usually lives in the gut of healthy people and animals. Normally, the kind in your gut doesn't harm you, but when ingested, some strains of the bacteria can make you sick with a gastrointestinal illness, pneumonia or a urinary tract infection. The U.S. EPA considers E. coli an indicator organism, or a way for officials monitoring water quality to identify fecal contamination of freshwater and the presence of disease-causing bacteria and viruses. Symptoms of an E. coli infection include abdominal pain, dehydration, watery diarrhea, vomiting and a fever. And though they're rare, certain strains of E. coli can be life-threatening, according to Dr. Andrew Beck, a pediatrician at Cincinnati Children's, due to the toxins they release – usually identifiable by bloody diarrhea. Common ways of contracting E. coli include eating infected food, such as undercooked ground beef or unpasteurized milk, or from contact with another person, known as the "oral-fecal" route, where the bacteria travels from the feces of one person to the mouth of another, usually due to someone failing to wash their hands properly. Beck's research shows that children may be contracting gastrointestinal illnesses from sewer overflows. In 2017, he co-authored a study that found that sewer overflows in Cincinnati were associated with a 16% increase in Cincinnati Children's emergency department visits for gastrointestinal illnesses among children who lived within 500 meters of the sewer. Researchers' primary hypothesis for how the children contracted the GI illnesses was that they were "playing in contaminated water" and dirtying their hands, said Beck. Student researchers first found E. coli in Burnet Woods in the fall of 2024, according to Hyland. Similarly to the preliminary research released in June, they found elevated levels of E. coli despite there being no overflow of the sewer pipes. "We were perplexed," said Hyland. "What we now are feeling more confident about, but want to do more research to build our confidence is that the pipe is probably compromised." Hyland believes the pipes are leaking sewage to the surface of the park because of their aging infrastructure and the presence of sinkholes in Burnet Woods, which can be a sign that piping is damaged. The Enquirer confirmed that there are at least two sinkholes in the area near where the E. coli was found. Leonard confirmed that some pipe segments running underneath Burnet Woods were installed in the late 1800s, while newer segments were installed in the 1990s. "All the segments are inspected regularly and are in good condition with no structural issues," she said. Government records and neighborhood meeting notes indicate that residents living near Burnet Woods were affected by a sewage overflow more than once in the past year. Burnet Woods saw a sewage overflow once this year and twice in 2024 during heavy rains, according to Leonard. When that happens, she said that Cincinnati Parks, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Sewer District, installs signage notifying park visitors of the potential contamination. The meeting minutes for the Corryville Community Council, a membership organization for residents of the neighborhood, mention sewer overflow or the smell of sewage at least four times between January 2024 and now. The most recent finding of E. coli in Burnet Woods follows a sewage leak at Winton Lake in May, which resulted in officials suspending recreational activities at the lake. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Part of Cincinnati park roped off after E. coli found
