Weekly Health Digest: Obamacare, Measles, and Climate Change

Reminder: Deadline to Sign Up for Obamacare Is December 15

Cathy Cassata

Despite the many changes that the Trump Administration has made to the Affordable Care Act, the law is still in place. The December 15th deadline to enroll in healthcare coverage or change your coverage for 2019 is swiftly approaching.

Study Warns of Cascading Health Risks From the Changing Climate

Somini Sengupta and Kendra Pierre-Louis

On November 28, a groundbreaking study in The Lancet showed that climate change has already had disastrous effects on human health. Climate change puts populations at risk of heat exhaustion, infectious diseases, natural disasters, and famine. If immediate and comprehensive action is not taken, the report warns, the situation could become even worse.

Ex-drug company executive pleads guilty to bribing doctors

Alex Johnson

Last Wednesday, the former head of sales for Insys Therapeutics Inc., an Arizona-based drug company, pleaded guilty to bribing doctors to prescribe a highly addictive and potentially fatal fentanyl-based drug when it wasn’t necessary. Federal prosecutors claim these bribes were an effort to boost sales and defraud insurers. Fentanyl is an opioid that is 25 to 50 times more powerful, according to the DEA.

Images in Clinical Medicine: Cast of the Right Bronchial Tree

Gavitt A. Woodard,, M.D., and George M. Wieselthaler, M.D.

The New England Journal of Medicine profiled a fascinating case in which a 36-year-old man was admitted to the intensive care unit with an acute exacerbation of chronic heart failure, and, quite literally, coughed up a lung. After receiving a ventricular assist, the man had an extreme bought of coughing and coughed up a 6 inch wide case of the right bronchial tree.

Measles cases spike globally due to gaps in vaccination coverage

The WHO

In 2017, there was an estimated 110,000 measles related deaths across the globe. Updated disease modeling data analyzed measles cases from the past 17 years and showed last year there was a 30% increase over previous years. The greatest rise in rates occurred in places where disease eradication was close, including The Americas, Europe, and the Eastern Mediterranean Region.