A new report says that “systemic failures” in the U.S. food safety system have led to a sharp increase in recalls of contaminated foods since 2013.
How Safe is Our Food?, from U.S. Public Interest Research Groups’ (PIRG) Education Fund, found that many types of food recalls have increased since the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in 2011.
Workers in New York State who’ve been affected by the impact of the opioid crisis are getting some help from the U.S. Department of Labor, in the form of funding for disaster relief jobs and employment services.
The Dislocated Worker Grant (DWG) award to the New York State Department of Labor will assist eligible individuals in New York counties impacted by the health and economic effects of widespread opioid use, addiction, and overdose.
An environmentally friendly diet proposed by scientists that would radically transform food production and the types of food we eat; how the shutdown is affecting federal workers’ mental health and a look back at one of the strangest and deadliest industrial disasters in U.S. history. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed an appropriations bill to fund the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Included in this bill is funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), school meals, and other critical nutrition programs, which were set to lose funding next month due to the partial government shutdown.
A steady, 25-year decline has resulted in a 27% drop in the overall cancer death rate in the United States, translating to approximately 2.6 million fewer cancer deaths between 1991 and 2016. The data come from Cancer Statistics, 2019, the American Cancer Society’s widely-quoted annual report on cancer rates and trends. The article appears early online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, and is accompanied by a consumer version, Cancer Facts & Figures 2019.
For the first time in nearly a decade, the number of uninsured children in the United States increased, according to a report released by the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. Data from the institute’s Center for Children and Families shows an estimated 276,000 more children were uninsured in 2017 than in 2016. No state (except for the District of Columbia) experienced a significant decline in the number of uninsured children in 2017.
A new study looking at the share of cancers related to obesity finds an at least 1.5-fold difference between states with the highest and lowest proportions. The proportion of cancer cases that could be attributable to excess body weight ranged from a high of 8.3% in the District of Columbia to a low of 5.9% in Hawaii, reflecting variations in obesity rates in the states.
The ongoing federal government shutdown is posing a threat to public health, according to the American Public Health Association (APHA).
The organization’s executive director, Georges C. Benjamin, identified the Indian Health Service, Food and Drug Administration, parts of the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture as funding losers due to the shutdown.
A drinking fountain in Cleveland Hopkins International Airport may be the culprit behind a half dozen passengers falling ill on a Cleveland-to-Tampa flight yesterday.
News sources say six people on a Frontier Airlines flight became sick en route to their destination. Health officials boarded the plane when it landed at Tampa International Airport.
If you have cancer now or have had cancer in the past, you are at higher risk for complications from the flu. The CDC urges everyone six months of age and older to get a flu vaccine every season – especially those with cancer or a history of cancer because they are at high risk of developing serious flu complications.
