What’s the latest in health care, May 15

Some health care updates coming up…

What’s on?

May 10 to 16 is National Women’s Health Week
This week is US National Women’s Health Week and the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has prepared a radio podcast for this occasion. The AHRQ has also prepared a checklist on Screening Tests for Women: What You Need and When which includes

• Get recommended screening tests.
• Be tobacco free.
• Be physically active.
• Eat a healthy diet.
• Stay at a healthy weight.
• Take preventive medicines if you need them.

 Recreational Water Illness Prevention, 2009: Charting a Course through Stormy Waters
As we look forward to swimming outdoors come summer time, we should be aware that recreational waters are source of infectious agents and environmental pollutants that can cause Illnesses. This illnesses are spread by swallowing, breathing, or having contact with contaminated water from swimming pools, water parks, interactive fountains, spas, lakes, rivers, or oceans. Next week (May 18 to 24) is Recreational Water Illness Prevention Week in the US. The week-long observance highlights the importance of healthy swimming, healthy swimming behaviors, and recreational water illness prevention.

What’s new?

FDA to allow morning-after pill over the counter for 17-year-olds
The US FDA has decided to grant over-the-counter (OTC) access of the so-called “morning after” birth control pill to 17-year olds. The pill was only previously available OTC to those 18 and older. This reduction in the age limit is characterized from two fronts. Pro-life activists believe this is not acceptable on ethical grounds. Pro-choice advocates are happy with this small victory but still feel the age limit should even be lowered. This is after a federal court has ruled that the pill, marketed as Plan B “be made available over the counter to those 17 and older.

Debating the Wisdom of ‘Swine Flu Parties’
There are parties and there are parties. But this one is designed to make you sick  -literally. Based on the principle of “having it now mild or having it later serious”, people are thinking that catching the swine flu now will protect them from the more virulent form feared to be coming in the not so distant future. This is based on anecdotal evidence from the 1918 pandemic flu. However, health authorities are not too keen on the idea, as The New York Times reports. According to Dr. Anne Moscona, a flu specialist at Weill Medical College of Cornell University “I think it’s totally nuts. I can’t believe people are really thinking of doing it. I understand the thinking, but I just fear we don’t know enough about how this virus would react in every individual. This is like the Middle Ages, when people deliberately infected themselves with smallpox. It’s vigilante vaccination – you know, taking immunity into your own hands.”

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