Current Events

Perhaps you’ve been there: One hand on the steering wheel and the other on your smartphone, you steal glances at a screen in half-second increments. It’s not that you’re addicted to the latest gaming app – you’re working.

A recent online survey conducted by Harris Poll for Travelers insurance shows that more than four out of 10 drivers fessed up to performing work-related functions on smartphones while behind the wheel.

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A prominent vaginal mesh campaigner has died from sepsis which was triggered by her controversial implant, it has been reported.
Christina Brajcic, 42, from Ontario, Canada, passed away on Thursday following a four-year battle with persistent infections - as a result of her mesh.
During her final few months, she posted an array of videos detailing her struggle with the scandal-hit devices on her Facebook page.

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(Reuters Health) - Many bodybuilding products sold online are mislabeled and contain unapproved drugs and other ingredients that may not be safe, a new study suggests.

Researchers tested 44 products they bought online that were marketed as nonsteroidal selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs), which mimic the effect of testosterone and help build muscle.

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The third leading cause of death in the U.S. — just behind heart disease and cancer — is death by hospital error, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins' Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality.

If you’re older than 65, there’s more than a 14 percent chance your hospital visit will make you sicker.

And according to other patient safety research estimates, as many as 440,000 people die annually from preventable medical errors in U.
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Reckless Pokémon GO players may have racked up as much as $7.3 billion nationwide in costs related to car crashes, injuries and deaths last year, according to researchers.

The mobile game’s geeky devotees have made headlines for causing traffic injuries and fatalities, with players either plowing into pedestrians while driving, or getting hit themselves while chasing Pokemon Go’s virtual creatures into the street.

In a study entitled “Death By Pokémon GO,” Purdue University researchers estimated that players across the country caused anywhere between $2 billion and $7.3 billion in traffic-related damages, including lost potential income from persons injured and killed.
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The Joint Commission released its 2018 Ambulatory Health Care National Patient Safety Goals.

The organization has four main goals for ambulatory healthcare with a number of specialized goals related to each.

1. Identifying patients correctly

NPSG.01.
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Spoiler alert.

If you are already elbow-deep in holiday cake and cookie batter, you may just want to take your chances and stop reading here.

But to become wiser and safer, though indisputably annoyed, step away from that bowl and read on.

Tasting uncooked foods made with flour can make you dangerously ill, according to a study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. The report, which recounts the detective work that led to a recall of more than 10 million pounds of flour in the summer of 2016, confirms that a type of E.
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In April this year, Katie Herzog checked into a Boston teaching hospital for what turned out to be a nine-hour-long back surgery.

The 68-year-old consulting firm president left the hospital with a prescription for Dilaudid, an opioid used to treat severe pain, and instructions to take two pills every four hours as needed. Herzog took close to the full dose for about two weeks.

Then, worried about addiction, she began asking questions. "I said, 'How do I taper off this? I don't want to stay on this drug forever, you know? What do I do?' " Herzog says, recalling conversations with her various providers.
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DETROIT — A new report on recalls of potentially deadly Takata air bag inflators shows that automakers have replaced only 43 percent of the faulty parts even though recalls have been under way for more than 15 years.

The report, issued Friday by an independent monitor who is keeping tabs on the recalls, also shows that auto companies are only about halfway toward a Dec. 31 goal of 100 percent replacement of older and more dangerous inflators.

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Want a Nicki Minaj-sized butt?  Steer clear of silicone.

The FDA just released a warning against using injectable silicone for contouring, enhancement and plumping, cautioning that the polymer can cause serious damage.

“Silicone spreads and migrates easily inside the body, which may worsen adverse events and make surgical attempts to remove the silicone oil more difficult or impossible,” the FDA said in a statement.

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NTSB POUNDS AMTRAK SAFETY CULTURE: Amtrak had a “deficient” safety culture marked by a hyper-focus on following rules and marred by a silent acceptance of workarounds that enabled one of its trains to crash into an active work zone last year near Philadelphia, killing two track workers and injuring dozens, NTSB determined Tuesday. It was altogether a jarring assessment of the company’s safety posture at the time of the collision, with investigators discovering more than two dozen unsafe conditions revealing an inconsistent safety vision across layers of Amtrak’s corporate structure.

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