Health Insurance Marketplaces Under the Affordable Care Act Open Today in Every State
Health insurance marketplaces, also known as health insurance exchanges, open today in every state under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law three years ago. Coverage obtained through the exchanges gives purchasers guaranteed access to health care and a range of preventive services, including cancer screenings; vaccinations; care for managing chronic diseases; and mental health and substance use services. “Most importantly…coverage will translate into more opportunities to live longer, healthier and fuller lives,” saidRisa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has launched a comprehensive resource site to help individuals, families and small businesses learn about coverage options available to them, and enroll. Read more on the Affordable Care Act.

2010 California Pertussis Outbreak Linked to ‘Personal Belief Exemptions’ to Vaccines
Researchers have linked the 2010 California pertussis—or “whopping cough”—outbreak to parents who refused to have their children vaccinated for other than medical reasons. During the outbreak, 9,120 people became sick and 10 infants died. The study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, looked at both outbreaks and filed personal belief exemptions, finding that people who lived in areas with high rates of such exemptions were about 2.5 times more likely to live in an area with many cases of pertussis. Approximately 95 percent of a population must be vaccinated in order for it to maintain herd immunity. Read more on vaccines.

Study: Against Medical Advice, 14 Percent of Infants Sleep in the Same Bed as Parents, Caregivers
Despite the associated risks, many infants still sleep in the same bed as parents, other adults and or children, according to a new study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. The rate has more than doubled since the early 1990s and now stands at about 14 percent. Such sleeping arrangements increase the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) or death from other sleep-related causes. Study co-author Marian Willinger, special assistant for SIDS at the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said it is important for doctors to discuss proper sleep-time habits with new parents; the study found that parents who receive advice against sleeping in the same bed as infants are 34 percent less likely to do so. Read more on maternal and infant health.

New NIH Study to Look at House-to-House HIV Testing, Other Measures, to Reduce HIV Burden in Africa
A study in South Africa and Zambia is assessing whether house-to-house voluntary HIV testing and prompt treatment of HIV infection, along with other proven HIV prevention measures, can substantially reduce the number of new HIV infections across communities. The trial is funded primarily by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), administered by the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator. “Through this new study, we aim to learn whether the treatment of HIV-infected individuals as a form of HIV prevention, an approach previously tested in roughly 1,800 heterosexual couples where one partner was infected, will be just as effective when implemented across an entire adult population,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, MD. “The study also will tell us whether this method of delivering population-wide HIV treatment as prevention is feasible and cost-effective.” The trial is being conducted in South Africa and Zambia because the HIV prevalence in those countries is among the highest in the world. An estimated 12.5 percent of adults in Zambia and 17.3 percent of adults in South Africa are infected. The study team will measure the impact of the two HIV prevention packages by determining the number of new HIV infections among a representative sample of 52,500 adults drawn from the 21 study communities and followed for three years. The study is expected to end in 2019. Read more on AIDS.

Study: Better Awareness Likely Reason for Increase in ER Visits for Youth Concussions
Improved awareness of the signs and symptoms of traumatic brain injuries (TMI)—such as concussions—is likely the cause of a noticeable increase in TMI-related emergency department visits by children, according to a new study from doctors at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. The study appeared in the journal pediatrics. Visits for these types of injuries climbed about 92 percent from 2002 to 2011, while the overall severity of the injuries decreased and the hospitalization rate remained at around 10 percent. "We are doing a better job at educating ourselves and educating the public about concussion," said Dr. Holly Hanson, lead study author and an emergency medicine fellow. "People and doctors are recognizing sports-related concussions more. People are recognizing the signs and symptoms. People are more aware of the complications. So people are coming in more." According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevent, each year TMI accounts for about 630,000 emergency department visits, 67,000 hospitalizations and 6,100 deaths in children and teens annually. Read more on injury prevention.

HHS Developing New Burn Treatments to Improve Disaster Response, Daily Care
Through its Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HUD) is working to develop five new types of burn treatments for disaster response and daily emergency medical care. The thermal burn medical countermeasures—which could take the form of drugs, vaccines or medical products—will be for chemical, radiological or nuclear incidents. Developing new measures is critical, because with only 127 burn centers in the country, a mass casualty event could quickly overwhelm the public health response. “Sustainability of these medical countermeasures for thermal burns is critical for their availability when they are needed most,” said BARDA Director Robin Robinson, PhD. “Our repurposing and multi-purpose strategy facilitates development, ensures availability, and reduces overall costs for thermal burn medical countermeasures.” Read more on disasters.

Even Healthy Weight Adults with High Body Fat at Increased Risk of Heart Disease
Even older adults with healthy body weights can be at increased risk of cardiovascular diseases if they have high percentages of body fat, according to a new study The American Journal of Cardiology. "Just because someone has a normal BMI does not necessarily mean they are metabolically normal," said lead researcher Dr. John Batsis, a geriatrician at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire. The study found that women with excess body fat (above 35 percent) were 57 percent more likely to die from heart-related causes within 11 years than were women with healthy body fat levels. Javier Salvador, MD, an endocrinologist at the University Clinic of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, who was not involved in the study, said the findings demonstrate the limits of body mass index (BMI), which measures weight in relation to height. Read more on heart health.

‘Image Discrepancies’ of Job Roles Can Hurt Job Satisfaction, Performance and Pay
The lack of client understanding of the actual job roles of nurse practitioners and other professionals can negatively impact job satisfaction, performance and pay, according to a recent study in the Academy of Management Journal. "If people don't understand what you do, they tend to devalue what you do," study co-author Michael Pratt, a professor of management and organization at Boston College. "They don't understand why you're making all this money—'Why should I pay you all this money?' is a common question these professionals keep hearing." The study looked at “image discrepancies” in four professions—nurse practitioners, architects, litigation attorneys and certified public accountants—finding a noticeable and negative lack of understanding by clients for each. For example, many patients don’t realize that nurse practitioners can examine patients and prescribe medicine, and instead insist on seeing a doctor. "I assumed professionals would actually get over it, that there would be frustration, it would be an interpersonal problem, and that would be the extent of it," Pratt said. "I didn't think it would have such a big impact on how they did their job, how it affected their pay and how they performed. I was surprised at the depth of how this affected job performance. It's not simply annoying -- it has real impact.” Read more on mental health.

CDC Emphasizing Electronic Laboratory Reporting to Improve Public Health’s Response to Disease Outbreaks
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) emphasis on the widespread adoption of electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) has helped improve public health’s response to dangerous infections, according to data from CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). ELRs enable labs to report disease outbreak information quickly and in a usable format. The number of labs that utilize ELRs has more than doubled since 2005, and CDC has helped fund their increased use since 2010 in 57 state, local and territorial health departments. Current estimates are that about 62 percent of lab reports were received electronically. “Electronic laboratory reporting can give health officials better, more timely and complete information on emerging infections and outbreaks than they have ever received before,” said Robert Pinner, MD, associate director for surveillance, programs and informatics in CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases. “Implementing these systems is a complex task that requires substantial investment, but ELR will provide health departments the tools they need to quickly identify and respond to disease threats and monitor disease trends now and in the future.” Read more on technology.

Average Monthly Cost of Mid-tier Insurance Under Affordable Care Act Estimated at $328
The average monthly cost of a mid-tier health insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act will be $328, and government subsidies will also help reduce that cost for most Americans, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The health exchanges open for enrollment next week and the federal government hopes to enroll as many as 7 million people within the first year. The cost varies from state to state, with Minnesota projected to have the least expensive plan at $192 per month and Wyoming projected to have the highest at $516. Read more on access to health care.

NIH Initiative Will Help Move Science from the Laboratories to the Commercial Sector
The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $31.5 million in grants to establish three inaugural NIH Centers for Accelerated Innovations that will work to improve how basic science discoveries move from laboratories to commercial products. The Centers are funded by NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and will focus on technologies to improve the diagnosis, treatment, management and prevention of heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders and diseases. “These centers essentially will offer a one-stop shop to accelerate the translation of early-stage technologies for further development by the private sector and ultimate commercialization,” said Gary H. Gibbons, MD, director of NHLBI. As a result, the public will gain access sooner to new biomedical products that improve human health while also benefiting from the economic growth associated with the creation of new companies and the expansion of existing ones.” Read more on research.

‘Cycling’ Drugs Could Help Combat Antibiotic-resistant Bacteria
“Cycling” between antibiotics may extend their life and effectiveness, while also enabling doctors to stay ahead of drug-resistant bacteria, according to a new study in the journal Science Translational Medicine. "You cycle between drugs that have reciprocal sensitivities," said study co-author Morten Sommer, a lead researcher with the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability at the Technical University of Denmark. "If you become resistant to drug A, you will become more sensitive to drug B. That way, you can cycle between drug A and drug B without increasing resistance in the long term.” With the increased use—and overuse—of antibiotics, antibiotic-resistant bacteria are becoming an increasingly serious public health problem, leading researchers and health care professionals in search of new ways to combat the problem. More than 2 million people are made ill and more than 23,000 people die every year in the United States due to antibiotic-resistant infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read more on prescription drugs.

State AGs Urge FDA to Adopt New Regulations Covering E-cigarettes
The Attorneys General of 41 states are urging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to follow through on a pledge to issue regulations that would expand its oversight to include e-cigarettes. In a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, they asked “the FDA to move quickly to ensure that all tobacco products are tested and regulated to ensure that companies do not continue to sell or advertise to our nation's youth.” The FDA was given authority to regulate cigarettes, cigarette tobacco and roll-your-own tobacco in 2009, as well as the authority to expand its authority after it issued new regulations. Last week a similar plea related to FDA authority was made to President Obama by the American Academy of Pediatrics and 14 other public health organizations, including the American Lung Association and American Heart Association. E-cigarettes continue to increase in sales (a projected $1.7 million in 2013) even while dropping in price. At the same time, there are no advertising restrictions for e-cigarettes. "Consumers are led to believe that e-cigarettes are a safe alternative to cigarettes, despite the fact that they are addictive, and there is no regulatory oversight ensuring the safety of the ingredients in e-cigarettes,” according to the Attorneys General’s letter. Read more on tobacco.

Expert: People Should Get Now-available Flu Vaccine As Soon As Possible
This season’s influenza vaccine is now available and people shouldn’t hesitate to go ahead and get it, according to Stephen Russell, MD, associated professor in the general internal medicine division at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a lead physician at the university’s Medicine Moody Clinic. This year’s vaccine protects against four types of flu viruses (as opposed to the three of previous vaccines) and comes as either a traditional shot or a nasal spray. "Contrary to some beliefs, getting the flu shot in September is a good thing and will offer protection for the entirety of the flu season," he said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the vaccine for people ages 6 months and older, particularly for seniors, pregnant women, caregivers and people with chronic medical conditions. "Many people will say they do not need the vaccine, as they have never had the flu before, but that is like saying you don't need to wear your seatbelt because you have never had a wreck," Russell said. "You may have been fine in the past, but that should not offer security or protection for future exposures to the flu." Read more on influenza.

Study: Losing 10 Percent of Weight Can Greatly Reduce Arthritic Knee Pain, Put Off Knee Replacement
Losing just 10 percent of their weight could go a long way toward easing the knee pain from osteoarthritis in overweight and obese people ages 55 and older, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That would mean better knee function, improved mobility, enhanced quality of life…and reducing the odds of needed a knee replacement. "We've had a 162 percent increase in knee replacements over the last 20 years in people 65 and over, at a cost of $5 billion a year," said lead author Stephen Messier. "From our standpoint, we think this would be at least a good way to delay knee replacements and possibly prevent some knee replacements." The study tracked 454 overweight and obese people in three groups—diet-only, exercise-only and a combination—finding that people who did the combination were the most successful at losing weight and thus reducing knee pain. "We're not talking about people getting down to ideal body weight," said Patience White, MD, the Arthritis Foundation’s vice president of public policy and advocacy. "They just have to lose 10 percent of their total weight. Someone who is 300 pounds only needs to lose 30 pounds. I think that's within reach for people." Read more on obesity.

Study: 40 Percent of Antibiotics Released from 1980-2009 Withdrawn from Market
Safety concerns, lack of effectiveness when compared to existing drugs and weak sales led more than 40 percent of the antibiotics released between 1980 and 2009 to be withdrawn from the market, according to a new study in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics. The rate was three times as high as that for any other type of drug. “This study raises the question whether or not money would be better spent on higher quality antibiotics, rather than a larger quantity” and whether “approving a flood of new lower-quality antibiotics might actually trigger much higher levels of resistance,” said author Kevin Outterson, JD, LLM, professor at Boston University School of Law and co-director of the Boston University Health Law Program. Antibiotic use can lead to bacteria becoming resistant to a strain. A recent report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that as many as 50 percent of prescriptions for antibiotics are either not needed or prescribed inappropriately. Antibiotic-resistant infections sicken more than two million Americans each year, killing more than 23,000 in the process. Read more on prescription drugs.

Locations of Drinking Can Influence Types of Partner Violence
Where and when a person drinks can affect the type of partner violence that can follow, according to a new study from the journal Addiction. The study looked at six drinking locations: restaurants, bars, parties at someone else's home, quiet evenings at home, with friends in one's own home and in parks/other public places. Researchers from the Prevention Research Center in California and Arizona State University found that men drinking in bars and at partners away from home and women drinking in parks/other public places were linked with an increased rate of male-to-female violence. They also found that men drinking during quiet evenings at home was associated with increased female-to-male violence. The findings could help prevent partner violence by encouraging people in risky relationships not to drink in particular places/situations, which could prove more effective than counseling people simply to drink less. Read more on alcohol.

Multiple Myeloma Group Hopes Opening Records to Hundreds of Patients Will Advance Research
The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation's (MMRF) Researcher Gateway is opening global online access to genetic and research data on hundreds of patients in an effort to help identify biological targets for future treatments, improve enrollment in studies by pairing them with the right patients and enhance researcher collaboration. The MMRF Research Gateway is a $40-million program funding by the foundation and drug company partners. The main component of the effort will be the Commpass study which will enroll 1,000 new multiple myeloma patients and monitor them throughout the course of the disease; cancer tissue banks typically include only one sample per patient. "There is going to be new information generated there that you would never get unless you followed patients through first relapse and second relapse and beyond," said George Mulligan, director of translational medicine for Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.’s oncology unit, which is one of the co-sponsors. "The size of it in patient numbers and the breadth and richness of it on a biological level, it's going to grow over time and mushroom into something that's going to be really special.” About 86,000 people are diagnosed with multiple myeloma each year, with about 20,000 of those from the United States. Read more on research.

CDC: ‘Tips From Former Smokers’ Campaign Created Spikes in Quitline Calls, Website Visits
An additional 150,000 U.S. smokers called the tobacco cessation helpline 1-800-QUIT NOW as a direct result of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) 2013 “Tips From Former Smokers” campaign, which ran for 16 weeks, according to CDC’s latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. That’s an increase of about 75 percent. It also generated approximately 2.8 million visits to the campaign website, or a nearly 38-fold increase. "The TIPS campaign continues to be a huge success, saving tens of thousands of lives and millions of dollars; I wish we had the resources to run it all year long," said CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH. "Most Americans who have ever smoked have already quit, and most people who still smoke want to quit. If you smoke, quitting is the single most important thing you can do for your health – and you can succeed!" A recent study in The Lancet concluded that the campaign helped as many as 100,000 people quit smoking permanently. Read more on tobacco.

FDA, NIH Award as Much as $53M for 14 Tobacco Regulation Research Centers
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have joined together to award as much as $53 million in funding to create 14 Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS). The first-of-its-kind program will bring together a diverse array of scientists, public health experts, communications veterans and marketing experts to generate research to inform the regulation of tobacco products to protect public health. “While we’ve made tremendous strides in reducing the use of tobacco products in the U.S., smoking still accounts for one in five deaths each year, which is far too many,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD. “FDA/NIH partnerships like the Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science keep us focused on reducing the burden and devastation of preventable disease caused by tobacco use.” Read more on research.

Overweight, Underweight Pregnant Women See More Complications and Longer Hospital Stays
Pregnant women who are either too thing or too heavy as measured by body-mass index (BMI) are at increased risk for complications and additional hospitalization, according to a new study in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Women with higher BMIs saw increased complications; severely obese women were three times as likely as normal weight women to have high blood pressure and gestational diabetes, as well as longer overall hospitalizations. Lower-weight women also had higher rates of additional hospitalization (8 percent) compared to normal-weight women, though not as high as the rates for overweight and obese women. The findings indicate the need to fine and implement new approaches to combating obesity. "Longer-term benefits of reducing maternal obesity will show improvements, not only in the health outcomes of mothers and their babies, but the workload and cost to current maternity services," said study co-author Fiona Denison, MD, of Queens's Medical Research Institute in Edinburgh. Read more on maternal and infant health.

Confusing ‘Sell-by’ and ‘Best-before’ Labeling Leads to Billions of Pounds of Wasted Food
Inconsistent “sell-by” and “best-before” dates on package labels lead Americans to needlessly discard billions of pounds of food every year, according to a new study by Harvard Law School and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The labels are meant to inform retailers about a food product’s peak freshness. "The labeling system is aimed at helping consumers understand freshness, but it fails—they think it's about safety. And (consumers) are wasting money and wasting food because of this misunderstanding," said co-author Emily Broad Lieb, who led the report from the Harvard Law School's Food Law and Policy Clinic. The study recommends that “sell-by” dates be reconfigured so as to be invisible to consumers, that a uniform label system is created and that technology-based “smart labels” be used more often. "Under the current patchwork of state and federal laws, consumers are left in the lurch, forced to decipher the differences between 'sell-by' and 'best if used by,' and too often food is either thrown out prematurely, or families wind up consuming dangerous or spoiled food," said Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY), in a release. Read more on food safety.

Study: Hospitals that Perform the Most Surgeries Also Have Lowest Readmission Rates
A new study from the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that the higher quality of care during a surgical procedure, the lower the likelihood of the patient being readmitted for additional surgery. It also found that hospitals that performed the most procedures also, on average, delivered a higher quality of care. In a review of about 480,000 patients discharged from more than 3,000 U.S. hospitals, the researchers found that one in seven were readmitted within 30 days, with the hospitals that did the most procedures having both the lowest readmission rates and the lowest death rates. Hospitals with the most surgeries had readmission rates of about 12.7 percent, compared to 16.8 percent for hospitals with the fewest procedures. "If hospitals performing very few surgeries do not have the volume required to create highly reliable care systems despite their best quality-improvement efforts, perhaps they should not be performing them," said Don Goldmann, MD, chief medical and scientific officer of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston, who was not involved in the study. "This is a provocative suggestion and deserves careful consideration before being implemented." Read more on access to health care.

HHS ‘Meaningful Consent’ Website to Help Providers, Patients Understands EHR Sharing
As electronic health records (EHRs) become more common, a new website from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will help health care providers and patients determine exactly how they want their electronic patient health information shared. Meaningful Consent will address issues such as the laws and policies related to the health information exchange (HIE). It also includes strategies and tools for providers, certain health information organizations and other implementers of health information technology. The site also provides background, lessons learned, videos and customizable tools from the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s eConsent pilot project, which tested the use of tablet computers to provide patients with better information on EHRs. Read more on technology.

Report: U.S. Poverty, Uninsured Rates Remain Stagnant
Despite an improving economy that included the creation of more than 2 million jobs last year, the U.S. poverty rate in 2012 remained relatively equal to the previous year, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2012. About 46.5 million people lived at or below the poverty line in 2012, or about 15 percent of the nation. That’s about 2.5 percentage points higher than 2007, right before the economic recession. About 48 million people were without health insurance in 2012, only slightly lower than the 48.6 million in 2011. While the recession seems to have leveled out, the fact that poverty rates have yet to truly rebound has many experts concerned. “We’re supposed to be in recovery,” said Austin Nichols, a researcher at the Urban Institute. “Poverty rates should be falling because long-term unemployment is falling. And they're not.” Read more on poverty.

Economic, Mental Toll of Economic Crisis Likely Responsible for Global Jump in Men’s Suicide Rates
The economic and mental toll of the 2008 global economic crisis was likely a major contributor to the surprising increase in the U.S. and global male suicide rates in 2009, according to a new study in the journal BMJ. There were about 5,000 more suicides than expected that year. The male suicide rate in the United States climbed almost 9 percent in the United States in 2009; the overall global rate climbed 3.3 percent, with the largest increases seen in the European Union and North and South American countries. Depression and stress can lead to increased alcohol and drug abuse, which are also suicide risk factors. The study concluded that immediate action, such as job-creation programs, may help prevent a continued increase in suicides. "Unemployment appears to lead to an increase in anxiety and depression -- two psychiatric symptoms that might be intermediate steps toward suicide," said Robert Dicker, MD, associate director of the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at North Shore-LIJ, in New Hyde Park, N.Y., who was not a part of the study. "More unemployment, more family distress, more losses [of status and friends] also most likely are involved." Read more on mental health.

Study: Two Simple Questions on Mobility Can Help Assess, Treat Older Adults’ Physical Declines
Two simple questions about mobility could help doctors more accurately assess and treat an older adult’s physical decline, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association:

• For health or physical reasons, do you have difficulty climbing up 10 steps or walking a quarter of a mile?
• Because of underlying health or physical reasons, have you modified the way you climb 10 steps or walk a quarter of a mile?

The answers could help determine whether physical therapy or mobility-assistance devices are needed. The findings emphasize the importance of increased physical activity and exercise in health aging, according to Cynthia Brown, MD, of the division of gerontology, geriatrics and palliative care at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "With an increasing older population in the United States, it is incumbent on us to find ways to help older Americans continue to live well and independently,” she said. “The major barriers—lack of physical activity, obesity and smoking—are all risk factors that can be successfully overcome with appropriate treatment and assistance." Read more on aging.

Antibiotic-resistant Infections on the Rise; Threat Called "Urgent"
Antibiotic-resistant infections sicken more than two million Americans each year, killing more than 23,000 in the process, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report ranked the threats according to seven factors, including health impact, economic impact, how common the infection is and how easily it is spread. It classified carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), drug-resistant gonorrhea, and Clostridium difficile as “urgent." C. difficile alone causes about 250,000 hospitalizations and at least 14,000 deaths each year. Excessive antibiotic use is the number one cause of the increase in antibiotic-resistant infections, with as many as 50 percent of prescriptions either not needed or prescribed inappropriately. “Every time antibiotics are used in any setting, bacteria evolve by developing resistance. This process can happen with alarming speed,” said Steve Solomon, MD, director of CDC’s Office of Antimicrobial Resistance. “These drugs are a precious, limited resource—the more we use antibiotics today, the less likely we are to have effective antibiotics tomorrow.” Antibiotic-resistant infections also add as much as $20 billion in excess direct health care costs and account for as much as $35 billion in lost economic productivity. Read more on prescription drugs.

Survey: Nearly 80 Percent of College Students Oppose Concealed Handguns on Campus
Nearly 80 percent of the students in 15 Midwestern colleges and universities oppose allowing concealed handguns on their campuses, according to a new study in the Journal of American College Health. Ball State University researchers surveyed 1,649 undergraduate students, finding 78 percent were against the handguns and would not apply for a permit if they were legal. “Firearm morbidity and mortality are major public health problems that significantly impact our society,” said study co-author Jagdish Khubchandani, a member of Ball State’s Global Health Institute and a community health education professor in the university's Department of Physiology and Health Science. “The issue of allowing people to carry concealed weapons at universities and colleges around the U.S. has been raised several times in recent years. This is in spite of the fact that almost four of every five students are not in favor of allowing guns on campus.”

The study also found that:

• About 16 percent of undergraduate students own a firearm and 20 percent witnessed a crime on their campus that involved firearms
• About 79 percent of students would not feel safe if faculty, students and visitors carried concealed handguns on campus
• About 66 percent did not feel that carrying a gun would make them less likely to be troubled by others
• Most students also believed that allowing concealed carry guns would increase the rate of fatal suicides and homicides on campus

Read more on violence.

‘Bath Salts’ Drugs Led to 23,000 ER Visits in 2011
The use of “bath salts” drugs accounted for almost 23,000 emergency department visits in the United States in 2011, according to a new report from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The report is the first national study to analyze the link between the street drugs and emergency department visits. "Although bath salts drugs are sometimes claimed to be 'legal highs' or are promoted with labels to mask their real purpose, they can be extremely dangerous when used," said Elinore McCance-Katz, MD, SAMHSA's chief medical officer. The drugs can cause heart problems, high blood pressure, seizures, addiction, suicidal thoughts, psychosis and even death. About two-thirds of the visits also involved at least one other drug, with 15 percent of the visits also being linked to marijuana or synthetic forms of marijuana. There were approximately 2.5 million U.S. emergency department visits linked to drug misuse or abuse in 2011. Read more on substance abuse.