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Mayor Eric Adams directed the police and emergency medical workers to hospitalize people who appear to be severely mentally ill, even if they pose no threat to others.
Beijing — The draconian “zero-COVID” policy that China has long touted as a scientific and effective countermeasure against the global coronavirus pandemic seems to be failing. Authorities reported record high COVID-19 case numbers in mainland China for the second consecutive day Friday.
32,695 new infections were recorded on Thursday, the highest figure since the virus was first detected in central China’s Wuhan province at the end of 2019. The surging caseload has prompted new and spreading residential lockdowns, and business shutdowns in multiple major cities.
While the soaring infections raise serious questions about the success of the measures implemented by the ruling Communist Party, with the stated goal of eradicating the disease completely, the number is dwarfed by cases in many other developed nations.
The U.S. logged 36,030 new cases on Thursday, with a population only around a quarter the size of China’s.
But Beijing is sticking to its guns. Rather than accepting higher infection rates while relying on vaccines to keep hospitalizations and serious cases down, like the U.S. and other major economies, authorities in China are bolstering attempts to stamp out the virus entirely.
China reinforces relentless “zero-COVID” policy despite rising cases, economic issues
05:47
Even as the efforts increasingly appear futile, officials in cities across the vast nation have been touting plans to build more isolation facilities.
Under the tenets of zero-COVID, which has become the signature policy of President Xi Jinping, anyone who’s infected and even their close contacts are forced into isolation in a bid to eliminate any spread of the highly infectious virus.
The approach has been difficult for locked-down residents — and shuttered businesses — in China to bear, especially as other countries seem to be co-existing with the disease.
Americans return to Thanksgiving traditions
02:01
Japanese financial service firm Nomura estimates that areas currently under lockdown have historically produced more than a fifth of China’s gross domestic product (GDP).
The refusal of China’s leaders to significantly adjust their approach to the pandemic has drawn a mounting public pushback — something which in itself is uncommon in the tightly-controlled society.
People in personal protective equipment (PPE) and residents wait to be swabbed for the COVID-19 at a testing site in Beijing, China, November 25, 2022.
JADE GAO/AFP/Getty
Although censored inside the country, videos have made it onto foreign social media networks and messaging apps, revealing a rise of defiant voices.
A resident in Chongqing, a megacity in western China where residents have suffered weeks of on-and-off lockdowns in different areas, is seen in one video shouting: “Give me liberty, or give me death!” in a passionate speech quoting one of America’s founding fathers outside what appears to be one of the city’s residential compounds.
In Guangzhou, where lockdowns have been in place since the beginning of November, fed-up locals were seen (above) throwing bars torn off the flimsy metal barricades set up to keep them from moving around their own community.
In the far-western part of the country, a fire killed 10 people in a residential building in the city of Urumqi, where partial lockdowns have been in place for more than 100 days. Social media videos showed fire trucks struggling to enter the compound as fences set up to keep residents in, kept the fire crews out for hours.
After the late night announcement on Monday, Nov. 21, that the MetroHealth board of trustees had fired Dr. Akram Boutros, the hospital system’s president and CEO, Boutros has responded that he believes the decision is vindicative and that he plans to “take legal action.”‘
In a statement issued by his attorney, Jason R. Bristol, Boutros said the statement by the hospital’s board was “full of misinformation and outright lies.”
“The MetroHealth Board’s actions yesterday are the latest of a series of retaliatory acts against Dr. Boutros after he raised the issue of the unauthorized hiring of the new CEO,” the statement, issued Tuesday, Nov. 22, read.
The statement went on to say that Boutros “uncovered that the board members were participating in serial deliberation outside of public meetings and that the chair signed agreements and authorized payments without board approval. The chair led a retaliatory charge against him for blowing the whistle on these practices. She targeted him for receiving bonuses that were also received by all eligible employees.”
Boutros was terminated, according to a statement from MetroHealth board chair Vanessa Whiting, due to additional compensation of more than $1.9 million that Boutros approved for himself between 2018 and 2022. The additional compensation was brought to the board’s attention by outside counsel during the preparation for Boutros’ departure as CEO.
In the Monday evening statement, the MetroHealth board said Boutros “established specific metrics, conducted self-assessments of his performance under those metrics, and authorized payment to himself of more than $1,900,000 in supplemental bonuses based on those self-evaluations between.”
“We know of no organization permitting its CEO to self-evaluate and determine their entitlement to an additional bonus and at what amount, as Dr. Boutros has done,” the statement read.
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Boutros repaid the hospital system more than $2.1 million on Oct. 31, which included interest on the bonus money. He reported the violation to the Ohio Ethics Commission on Nov. 1.
The “demand” for repayment, according to the statement from Boutros’ attorney, “is evidence of the board’s discriminatory treatment as he is the only employee forced to repay bonuses. The board of trustees took this action to divert attention from their own gross negligence.”
The MetroHealth budget is scheduled to have a hearing in front of the Cuyahoga County Council on Tuesday, according to the council agenda.
A spokesperson from County Executive Armond Budish said that in the wake of Boutros’ statement threatening legal action, Budish had no comment on the matter.
Dr. Nabil Chehade will serve as interim MetroHealth CEO until Steed assumes the job on Dec. 5.
Los Angeles — Attorneys asked a jury Monday to award $55 million to the widow of a former USC football player in a landmark case accusing the NCAA of failing to protect him from repetitive head trauma that led to his death.
In a photo provided by USC Athletics, former Southern California player Matthew Gee takes part in an NCAA football game.
USC Athletics via AP
Matthew Gee, a hard-hitting linebacker who was on the 1990 Rose Bowl-winning squad, endured countless blows that caused permanent brain damage and led to cocaine and alcohol abuse that eventually killed him at age 49, his lawyers said in closing arguments. His widow, Alana Gee, was in the courtroom Monday.
In the first case of its kind to go to a jury, the attorneys told Los Angeles Superior Court jurors that the NCAA, the governing body of college athletics in the U.S., had known about the effects of head trauma in sports since the 1930s but failed for decades to notify players of the risks or put rules in place to protect players.
“You cannot bring Matt back but you can say what the NCAA did to him was wrong,” attorney Bill Horton said. “Put this on the NCAA’s radar. … This is the only way they will ever listen.”
A lawyer for the NCAA said Gee experienced a sudden cardiac death brought on by long-standing hypertension and acute cocaine toxicity. He discussed a raft of Gee’s other serious health problems, which he said weren’t related to football.
“The NCAA had nothing to do with the things that tragically took Mr. Gee’s life,” attorney Will Stute said.
The issue of concussions in sports, and football in particular, has been front and center in recent years as research has discovered more about the long-term effects of repeated head trauma, such as problems ranging from headaches to depression and, sometimes, early onset Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease.
The monthlong trial is one of hundreds of wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits brought by college football players against the NCAA in the past decade.
But Gee’s is only the second case to go to trial with allegations that hits to the head led to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease. A 2018 case in Texas settled a few days into the trial.
Gee was one of five linebackers on the 1989 Trojans squad who died before turning 50. As with teammate and NFL star Junior Seau, who killed himself in 2012, Gee’s brain was examined posthumously at Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center and found to have CTE.
CTE is associated with memory loss, depression and progressive dementia. It can only be diagnosed after death.
Boston University has found CTE in the brains of 110 of 111 deceased former NFL players and 48 of 53 former college players, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Hall of Famers diagnosed after death include Ken Stabler and Mike Webster.
In his senior year, Gee was team captain and led USC in tackles, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries.
Gee married Alana, his college sweetheart, after graduating in 1992, and they lived a normal life for 20 years. They raised three children as he ran a successful insurance company in Southern California.
But things took a turn around 2013, when he began to lose control of his emotions, according to the lawsuit. He became angry, confused and depressed. He drank heavily. He told a doctor he forgot entire days.
Attorneys for Gee said CTE, which is found in athletes and military veterans who suffered repetitive brain injuries, was an indirect cause of death because head trauma has been shown to promote substance abuse.
Stute said the wrongful death case was about what caused Gee’s death and not whether CTE exists, which he said is still a hypothesis.
After years of denials, the NFL acknowledged in 2016 that BU’s research showed a link between football and CTE. The league agreed to settle head injury cases covering 20,000 retired players providing up to $4 million for a death involving CTE. It’s expected to exceed $1.4 billion in payouts over 65 years for six qualifying conditions.
In 2016, the NCAA agreed to settle a class-action concussion lawsuit, paying $70 million to monitor former college athletes’ medical conditions, $5 million toward medical research, and payments of up to $5,000 toward individual players claiming injuries.
Gee never reported having a concussion and he said in an application to play with the Raiders after graduating that he had never been knocked unconscious, Stute said.
He said the NCAA was being placed in a position of having to defend itself from allegations it was unaware of at the time, noting that CTE had not been discovered until 2005. He said nothing the NCAA could have done would have kept Gee alive today.
“You can’t hold the NCAA responsible for something 40 years later that nobody ever reported,” Stute said. “The plaintiffs want you in a time travel machine. We don’t have one … at the NCAA. It’s not fair.”
A former NFL official who reviewed all available tapes of Gee’s USC games said he was tackled in a safe manner without using his head, and there were no signs of head injuries, Stute said.
Horton countered that at the time Gee played, the NCAA didn’t share what it knew about medical risks of repetitive head injuries, didn’t prevent players from returning to the field after injuries, and didn’t limit the number of practices despite recommendations to do so, Horton said.
As he showed photos of Gee at his wedding and holding his young daughter in a pink tutu, Horton choked up, noting that Tuesday would have been Gee’s birthday.
“Deliver a verdict … so he didn’t die for nothing,” Horton said. “So every 18-year-old kid who plays football will know the dangers of the game they’re playing.”
Hospital-at-home care is an increasingly common option, and it is often a safer one for older adults. But the future of the approach depends on federal action.
Nursing homes continue to administer psychotropic drugs to a high percentage of residents more than a decade after regulators began scrutinizing how the medicines are used, the Health and Human Services Department Office of Inspector General reported Monday.
Eight out of 10 Medicare long-stay nursing home residents received psychotropic drugs from 2011-2019, the HHS OIG found in a review of Medicare data. Residents of facilities with low staff ratios and with high shares of low-income people are more likely to receive psychotropic medicines.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tackled antipsychotic drug use in nursing homes following a critical OIG report published in 2011. Oversight varied between the administrations of presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The OIG also determined that nursing homes’s accounting of how many patients have schizophrenia didn’t align with Medicare claims for drugs to treat the mental illness from 2015 to 2019. Unsupported schizophrenia diagnoses actually rose in 2019, the most recent year the OIG analyzed, but the increase was concentrated in 99 facilities.
CMS’ tracking of antipsychotic drug use in nursing homes excludes residents with schizophrenia, which may allow nursing homes to misreport diagnoses while still prescribing the medications and achieve higher quality ratings, the independent federal watchdog reports.
One five-star nursing home reported 36 residents with schizophrenia in 2019, but only three patients had associated Medicare claims supporting the diagnosis. Twenty-nine of them were prescribed antipsychotics, according to the OIG report.
The Office of Inspector General recommends CMS further evaluate the use of psychotropics in nursing homes, determine what facilities use these drugs the most and collect diagnoses data on Medicare Part D claims.
Biden has vowed to intensify nursing home oversight, spurred in part by the large numbers of COVID-19 cases and fatalities in long-term care facilities.
The former CEO and founder of online mental health care giant Cerebral sent a letter to the company Friday demanding access to “books and records” that he says could reveal whether the startup violated the law, setting the stage for a potential lawsuit.
Kyle Robertson was ousted from the company in May as scrutiny increased over Cerebral’s prescribing of stimulants like Adderall, which is used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and is considered a controlled substance. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice launched an investigation of allegations it over-prescribed controlled substances.
In the letter obtained by CBS News, Robertson says he was pressured by the company’s investors to “sell more stimulants” and believes his ouster was an effort to “scapegoat” him as these investigations arose.
In an emailed statement to CBS News, a Cerebral spokesperson said: “These claims against Cerebral and its board, are categorically untrue, defamatory, and baseless in law and in fact. We will defend ourselves vigorously against these meritless allegations.”
In his letter, Robertson says one board member told him “the easier you make it for people to get stimulants, the better for the business and its customers.” And an investor allegedly told Robertson’s partner the company’s “ADHD business is crushing and it’s a cash cow … Kyle’s got to push this thing further.”
According to the letter, Cerebral did not initially prescribe controlled substances — which are tightly controlled by the Drug Enforcement Administration due to their addictive nature — and only did so at the urging of investors, not Robertson. He claims that the Cerebral board “sought to capitalize” on the pandemic’s temporary pause of the Ryan Haight Act, which waives an in-person requirement to prescribe controlled substances.
While the Ryan Haight Act will continue to be paused as long as the Pandemic Health Emergency remains in place, Cerebral stopped prescribing controlled substances to new patients earlier this year.
After Robertson’s removal, the company’s chief medical officer Dr. David Mou was elevated to CEO by the board even though, according to the letter, Mou was “responsible for the very prescription policies the government is currently investigating.”
In an exclusive interview this June, Mou told CBS News’ Anna Werner he was “confident that our clinical programs are very, very good. And if anything, they’re above standard of care.”
Documents obtained by CBS News show Cerebral leadership knew last fall about numerous risks facing the company, ranging from “clinical safety issues,” “hires (who) may not … meet our hiring standards,” and staff “practicing with expired (or) suspended license(s).” The document also noted that “duplicate accounts” created a “patient safety issue” because it meant “multiple controlled substances (could) be overprescribed to the same individual.”
Asked about the risks outlined in that document, Mou said, “I rest by the fact that I really trust our clinical program. As chief medical officer, I came in with the mandate of bringing in quality and safety, and I did just that.”
Robertson’s letter also alleges that during his time as CEO he was “subject to several instances of anti-LGBT and homophobic remarks and communications from Directors, Observers and current officers.”
In their statement, a Cerebral spokesperson said, “The specific claims being made against our executives and board run counter to our culture of championing diversity and inclusion, and are the antithesis of what we stand for as a company.”
CBS News reached out to investors Access Industries, WestCap Group, Softbank and Oak HC/FT, whose employees were named in the letter. Spokespeople from WestCap Group and Access Industries told CBS News they had no comment beyond the statement issued by Cerebral which is reflective of their views. Softbank and Oak HC/FT did not respond to CBS News’ request for comment.
Theresa Harrison’s approach to getting old never gets old. At 64, her energy is impressive, as are her skills: “I’ve become more innovative. I’ve become more creative. I’ve become more curious”
The Baltimore-based technology company she founded, Green Street Services, handles cybersecurity for the Department of Defense. And she started the company when she was in her 50s.
Speaking of startup entrepreneurs, correspondent Susan Spencer said, “The stereotype is of the hotshot 19-year-old in the garage, right?”
“That is me – just add another 30 years,” Harrison said.
But in the tech world, those 30 years often draw unwelcome questions: “I’ve been asked my age, I’ve been asked, ‘How long are you going to work? Aren’t you getting tired? Are you going to stick around?'”
“Do you feel like this has had an impact on, say, getting a contract?” Spencer asked.
“I think it does, unfortunately.”
It’s a sign of what University of Oklahoma professor Julie Ober Allen calls it “everyday ageism.”
“Can you imagine someone in their twenties or thirties or even their forties being asked those same questions?” Allen said. “And yet, for some reason, it’s socially acceptable to say those same types of things to a woman in her sixties.
“Everyday ageism refers to those sort of minor comments, interactions, exposures that suggest that aging is undesirable. It’s things like, you know, all the birthday cards making jokes about wrinkles and walkers. It’s interactions where someone assumes that an older adult can’t use their phone or other forms of technology. And it’s also when older adults tend to believe some of these assumptions and prejudices about older adults themselves.”
And everyday ageism is everywhere, said Allen, who conducted a large-scale nationwide survey to assess just how pervasive it really is. She found that more than 93% of older Americans between the ages of 50 and 80 frequently experience everyday ageism interactions and experiences.
Author Ashton Applewhite said, “We live in a culture that bombards us from childhood on, starting with children’s books, about how awful it’s gonna be to get old, how tragic to encounter any kind of incapacity. And unless we stop to question those messages, they become part of our identity.”
Getting that word out is Applewhite’s singular mission. Her book, “This Chair Rocks,” argues for fighting back.
Celadon Books
She told Spencer, “My goal is to help catalyze a grassroots movement, like the women’s movement, to raise awareness of ageism, what it is, what it looks like, what it smells like, and what we can do to dismantle it.”
Applewhite noted an example of ageism as jokes about appearance (“It takes twice as long to look half as good”). “Anything that equates youth with better is inherently ageist,” she said.
Anti-aging products, too, like wrinkle creams. “Absolutely. I mean, it’s a multi-million-gazillion-dollar industry really designed to, frankly, encourage all of us to think that the appearance of older adults isn’t attractive.”
Spencer asked, “How do you answer when somebody says, ‘Aw, you look great for your age’?”
“Well, the only snappy answer I’ve come up with in all this time, you say, ‘You look great for your age, too!'” Applewhite laughed. “And let that sit there. Because a lot of age-based comments are often well-intended. That is intended as a compliment. But I can’t accept that compliment. It suggests that there’s a certain way you look at a certain age. And there’s no such thing.”
Even the President of the United States, who is 79, is not immune for jokes about his age. “When our president falls off his bike, because of the age group that he represents, it’s assumed to have something to do with that,” said professor Allen. “People across the country fall off their bikes all the time. But if they aren’t in that older age group, the reasoning that is sort of provided for why it happened is typically very different.”
“So, it’s very well to say, ‘Well, we have to get rid of these attitudes.’ How do you do it?” Spencer asked.
“I think the first step is increasing awareness, and it’s sort of a prerequisite,” Allen replied. “But also to really start to make the case that ageism is bad for health – and it is harmful.”
That’s right: ageism is bad for us, mentally AND physically. As a source of chronic stress, it can lead to increased risk for a broad spectrum of different chronic diseases. “We’ve also found that ageism is associated with premature mortality; people who experience more ageism are much more likely to die at a younger age,” Allen said.
Conversely, according to one study, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, people with an upbeat take on getting older actually live longer – an average of seven-and-a-half years longer. And there is research that shows positive attitudes can have positive health benefits.
Theresa Harrison believes that; she says a positive mindset can yield unbelievable results, and that she and her booming business prove it. But contrary to our preconceptions about aging, it turns out she’s not unique.
Professor J. Daniel Kim, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School, recently conducted a massive study of successful entrepreneurs, and found they are not a kid in a garage. The average age of a successful entrepreneur? 42.
Spencer asked, “Statistically, if I’m 50 and I think about having a startup tech company, I’m more likely to succeed than if I’m 30?”
“Absolutely,” Kim replied. “Vera Wang, she was 40 years old when she founded her fashion company. Sam Walton of Walmart was 44. Bernie Marcus at Home Depot was 51 years old.”
Meanwhile, Theresa Harrison just keeps on keeping on, she says, because of her age, not in spite of it.
“You’re inspirational,” Spencer told her. “And if I ever get older, I’ll take all this to heart.”
“Please do!” Harrison laughed. “It keeps me young!”
For more info:
Story produced by Amiel Weisfogel. Editor: Mike Levine.
Dr. Anthony Fauci may be stepping down from his role as chief medical advisor to the president in December, but the immunologist says he’s “not even close” to completely retiring.
“I don’t know precisely what I’m going to do because I really can’t negotiate a post-government job while I’m in government,” he said. “My broad general theme, even though I don’t know the venue in which it’s going to happen, would be to continue to stay in the arena of science, medicine and public health.”
Fauci has served under seven different presidents, covering health crises from Ebola to the AIDS epidemic. Over the course of his five-decade career, the physician has faced both criticism and accolades from officials and the public.
He said that he “never ever wanted to hurt anybody, including President Trump,” who made several comments about Fauci during the height of the COVID pandemic. Fauci’s response to the virus, he said, led him to become “the boogeyman of the far right.”
“We are living now in an era, I believe, where there is so much distortion of reality, conspiracy theory and untruths,” he said.
The physician has even received death threats for his work, but says he doesn’t focus on them.
“The hate and the people who want to kill me is not real,” he said. “It’s unrealistic.”
Despite the backlash, he says he stayed in the position for all this time because “it was clear that if we walked away from telling the truth in an environment of untruths, then there would be nobody there telling the truth.”
“When you’re dealing with an outbreak involving the country and the world, you generally think of the country as your patient,” he said. “And when things get tough, you don’t walk away from it.”
He reflected on the work of his career, and what the nation has learned over the years, noting that the response to AIDS informed the country on the COVID-19 vaccine development.
“We made major investments in science for decades prior to COVID, and within 11 months [to] have a vaccine that went through massive clinical trials, that is beyond unprecedented,” he said. “We will never be able to prevent the emergency of a new infection. What you can do is prevent that emergence from becoming a pandemic.”
He’s lead the National Institutes of Health for about as long as he’s been married to world renown bioethicist and nurse Dr. Christine Grady. He got emotional talking about his wife and said he couldn’t have done his job without her.
“She’s just solid,” he said. “She was working 18 hours a day by working, raising three children, getting a PhD and doing a job that’s an important job.”
Last weekend, Fauci was honored with the lifetime achievement award at the ninth annual Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards.
“I gave it everything I had,” he said when reflecting on his life and career. “I didn’t leave anything on the field.”
Michelle Miller
Michelle Miller is the co-host of “CBS This Morning: Saturday.” As an award-winning correspondent based in New York City, she has reported for all CBS News broadcasts and platforms. She joined CBS News in 2004.
As hospitals and emergency rooms fill up amid a surge of flu cases, doctors are warning people to get vaccinated for that and COVID-19, especially ahead of the holiday season. The flu is already hitting hard, with 22 states and Washington, D.C., reporting high levels of activity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC also said the hospitalization rate for flu is at the highest for this early in the season in a decade.
Dr. Daniel Guzman, of Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, said the one-two punch of RSV — a respiratory illness common in children — and flu cases has filled up his emergency room. He added that the rate of cases in the hospital nearly doubled in the last week from 172 to almost 338 flu patients.
It’s why doctors are urging people to get vaccinated. Andrew Talbot, a Massachusetts teacher, said he got his COVID-19 booster before he travels to see his immunocompromised mother for the holidays.
“I’m aware of the fact that there is, you know, COVID that comes and goes in waves,” he told CBS News. “And especially with her being on immunosuppression drugs, I didn’t want to risk bringing anything home.”
But, only 10% of people age 5 and older have received the updated COVID-19 vaccine and just 21% of adults say they’ve been vaccinated against the flu, according to the CDC.
“You’re protecting your entire bubble of your family members,” Guzman said about getting vaccinated. “You know, those that are really old to those that are really young. And so it’s really important that we do as much as we can to help protect them.”
To stay safe this holiday season, experts advise to get vaccinated, consider a “mini-quarantine” the week before traveling, testing before gathering and staying home if you feel sick.
“Never too late to get a flu shot,” Guzman said. “I think we have to stress it’s an important thing to help protect yourself as well as everyone around you, that everyone goes out and get a flu shot.”
Omar Villafranca
Omar Villafranca is a CBS News correspondent based in Dallas.
Some people should not eat any meat or cheese from any deli counters due to an ongoing outbreak of listeria in the U.S. that has killed one person, sickened more than a dozen others and caused a lost pregnancy, federal health officials say.
“You are at higher risk for severe listeria illness if you are pregnant, aged 65 or older, or have a weakened immune system due to to certain medical conditions or treatments,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday in an alert posted on the agency’s website.
“If you are in any of these groups, do not eat meat or cheese from any deli counter, unless it is reheated to an internal temperature of 165°F or until steaming hot.”
Six states affected
The warning comes as the CDC investigates a listeria outbreak that sickened 16 people, one of whom died, in six states: California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. “Deli meat and cheese purchased at deli counters in multiple states are the likely sources of this outbreak,” the CDC stated.
Among seven people stricken in New York, five bought sliced deli meat or cheese from at least one location of NetCost Market, but investigators believe contaminated food was sold at delis elsewhere.
NetCost Market temporarily closed its deli in Brooklyn for a deep cleaning, but the outbreak strain was found there again in September. Additional tests did not find the bacteria after an additional cleaning, according to the agency.
About 1,600 Americans get listeriosis each year and about 260 die, with young people, the elderly, and those who are pregnant or with weakened immune systems the most vulnerable to infection, according to the CDC.
An overwhelming majority of those cases come from deli meat, which account for more than 90% of listeriosis cases in the U.S., according to recently released findings from the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota.
The remainder stems from ready-to-eat salads, cheeses and frozen vegetables, the researchers found.
Cases of the potentially fatal foodborne illness are likely to rise as Americans eat more prepared food, they predicted in an analysis to be published in the December edition of the International Journal of Food Microbiology.
Elevance Health will pay an undisclosed sum to acquire specialty pharmacy company BioPlus, the company announced Wednesday.
The health insurer, which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in 14 states, will buy the company from CarepathRx, which provides pharmacy services to hospitals and is owned by Nautic Partners, a private equity firm. Elevance plans to incorporate BioPlus’ specialty services into its IngenioRx pharmacy benefit manager.
“We’re very focused on, as it relates to IngenioRx, upselling additional products and services, so things like cost-relief programs, specialty condition management programs and digital adherence programs,” Elevance Health Executive Vice President Peter Haytaian told investors during the company’s third-quarter earnings call last month. The company, formerly known as Anthem, did not immediately respond to an interview request.
IngenioRx’s revenue grew 10.7% year-over-year to $7.2 billion during the quarter. The PBM accounted for 18% of Elevance’s $39.6 billion in revenue. More than 60% of the company’s revenue comes from its government health plan business.
Elevance Health expects the BioPlus acquisition to close during the first half of next year. The deal will not have a material impact on adjusted earnings per share next year, according to the company.
BioPlus provides pharmacy care to patients living with chronic conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and hepatitis C, and operates Centers of Excellence that help oncology and multiple sclerosis patients receive medications and navigate treatments. Elevance Health plans to expand the Centers of Excellence to new treatment areas.
Eventually, the insurer aims to link BioPlus’ pharmacy services to its care delivery arm. If BioPlus’ team identifies a patient who may benefit from home care, for example, the company would refer them to Elevance providers.
The research looked at patients who qualified for the antiviral through age or health conditions. Those who took it shortly after infection were 26 percent less likely to have symptoms 90 days later.
Kaiser Permanente reported a $1.5 billion net loss in the third quarter, as market conditions still weigh heavily upon financial performance. A year ago, the health system generated $1.6 billion in net income.
Operating revenue increased 4.7% to $24.3 billion, but expenses rose 5.2%. Kaiser Permanente, a nonprofit integrated health system based in Oakland, California, posted a $75 million operating loss in the third quarter, compared with $38 million in operating income in last year’s third quarter. Kaiser’s operating margin was -0.3%.
The third-quarter results follow a rough start to the year. Kaiser reported a combined net loss of well over $2 billion in the first half of 2022. CEO Greg Adams attributes this year’s losses to higher costs, supply chain issues, labor shortages and ongoing impact from COVID-19.
Kaiser reported less capital spending in the third quarter: $820 million compared with $878 million the prior year. Tom Meier, corporate treasurer, said the system is not pulling back from its overall capital spending plan.
Apart from financial woes, Kaiser has also clashed with union workers this year. Thousands of mental health workers went on strike over months-long patient wait times from August until mid-October, when the two sides reached an agreement. A year ago, Kaiser narrowly avoided another strike as workers raised concerns about pay and staffing.
Daylight saving time arrives this weekend, which means it’s once again time to move the clocks ahead an hour. The change, which takes effect at 2 a.m. this Sunday, will cost millions of Americans an hour of sleep and leave many of us feeling extra groggy. Health experts say there can also be some more serious consequences.
“The main impact of daylight savings time is the loss of sleep and the need to ‘shift’ the timing of sleep after the clocks change. This has two consequences,” Dr. M. Safwan Badr, a pulmonologist atDMC’s Detroit Receiving Hospital, told CBS News. “First, missing an hour of sleep makes people sleepy, especially if their sleep time is already short the week before. Furthermore, It takes most people several nights to shift their circadian rhythms and get their sleep back on track.”
The disruption in sleep patterns can have a number of effects on your health.
Mood, memory, and concentration
Perhaps the most common and noticeable way the loss of sleep affects people is through changes in mood and productivity. On average, Americans lose 40 minutes of sleep when we set the clocks ahead in the spring. Increased irritability is common
Sleep disruptions can also affect memory, performance and concentration levels. A 2012 study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that shifts related to daylight saving time led to a dramatic increase in “cyber loafing” — killing time on the internet instead of working.
Workplace injuries and car crashes
Additionally, sleep deprivation can lead to more workplace injuries and car crashes. One study looking at data on over 500,000 mining injuries from 1983 to 2006 found a 5.7 percent increase on the Monday following the time change. Even more worrisome, the injuries were more severe, leading to a 68 percent increase in the number of days of work missed.
According to research from AAA, drivers who miss two hours of the recommended amount of sleep in a 24-hour period can nearly double their risk for a crash.
Heart attacks and stroke
Perhaps most concerning, research has found that setting the clocks ahead an hour can take a toll on your heart. A study published last year found daylight saving time transitions may be tied to an increased risk of a common type of stroke.
Researchers analyzed over a decade of stroke data and found that the overall rate of ischemic stroke — which accounts for the majority of stroke cases and is caused by a clot blocking blood flow to the brain — was 8 percent higher during the first two days after a daylight saving time transition.
Another study published in 2014 found that the time change was also associated with higher short-term risk of a heart attack.
Tips for adjusting to daylight saving time
Badr notes that the daylight saving time adjustment can be harder on some people than on others.
“The time changes can be particularly difficult for people with sleep disorders such as insomnia or for people who are shift workers and already struggle to protect enough time for sleep,” he said. “The spring time changes is especially difficult for teenagers, who struggle to get up early for school and have a hard time advancing their sleep schedule to an earlier time.”
But there are some steps you can take to help.
“Plan ahead. Allow time to adjust. Stick to healthy sleep habits. Reset your clocks Saturday afternoon, and if you are sleepy, go to bed a little early Saturday evening,” Badr said.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends the following tips to reduce the health effects of daylight saving time:
Get at least seven hours of sleep (for adults) or eight hours of sleep (for teens) each night in the days before and after the clocks move ahead.
Gradually adjust your sleep and wake times beginning two to three nights before the time change by shifting your bedtime 15 or 20 minutes earlier each night.
For a few days before the clocks move ahead, begin to adjust the timing of other daily routines that are “time cues” for your body. This could mean starting dinner a little earlier each night.
Head outdoors for some early morning sunlight on Sunday. The bright light will help set your internal clock, which regulates sleep and alertness.
Go to bed early enough on Sunday night to get plenty of sleep before the week begins on Monday.
Ashley Welch
Ashley Welch covers health and wellness for CBSNews.com
Christina Applegate has opened up about the difficulties of living with multiple sclerosis, and the signs of illness — such as numbness and a tingling sensation in her limbs — that arose years before her formal diagnosis.
“I wish I had paid attention,” she said during an interview with the New York Times published Tuesday, “But who was I to know?”
Applegate recalls feeling off-balance while filming her Emmy-nominated Netflix series, “Dead To Me,” and struggling during a tennis match before receiving an official diagnosis while on the set of her show. Production shut down for nearly five months as she began treatment for the disease, according to the Times.
“There was the sense of, ‘Well, let’s get her some medicine so she can get better,'” the actress said. “And there is no better. But it was good for me. I needed to process my loss of my life, my loss of that part of me.”
Moderator Alyssa Mastromonaco, Christina Applegate, Linda Cardellini and creator Liz Feldman attend Dead To Me” #NETFLIXFYSEE For Your Consideration panel discussion at Netflix FYSEE on June 03, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
Amy Sussman via Getty Images
While there was a question as to whether filming of “Dead To Me” would be able to resume, Applegate insisted on pushing through by using a wheelchair to get to set and having a friend occasionally hold her legs off-camera. Some changes were even made to the script to accommodate energy and stamina levels during filming.
“I put on 40 pounds; I can’t walk without a cane. I want people to know that I am very aware of all of that,” said Applegate.
MS affects nearly 1 million adults in the U.S., and can be disabling. Most people receive an MS diagnosis between the ages of 20 and 40 and the disease is more common in women than men, according to the Cleveland Clinic, a nonprofit academic medical center. Symptoms can include numbness or weakness in the limbs, electric-shock sensations that occur with neck movements, or tremors. MS can also affect vision and speech, cause dizziness and fatigue, and in cases like Applegate’s, impact one’s general mobility.
There is no known cure for the disease. But according to Mayo Clinic, treatments can help to speed recovery after attacks.
Applegate has been transparent on Twitter about her difficulties living with MS, showing photos of the assistive devices she uses to walk, chronicling the insomnia that’s accompanied her diagnosis, and even showing love to a fellow Hollywood star Selma Blair, who was diagnosed with the disease in 2018.
Blair, who was a contestant on the current season of “Dancing with the Stars,” said that recent MRI results prompted her to leave the show, citing “bone trauma and inflammation among rips and tears” that could worsen with continued movement. Blair published a memoir that delves into her illness, titled “Mean Baby,” earlier this year.
In 2021, Blair starred in a documentary that chronicled her worsening health after her diagnosis, “Introducing, Selma Blair.” Applegate lauded Blair for her transparency, writing on Twitter, “My girl Selma Blair documented the first year. Which is hard.”
“Being technically disabled is what it is,” Applegate tweeted. “I didn’t know what MS was before I had it. My life is changed forever.”
Caitlin O’Kane contributed reporting.
C Mandler
C Mandler is a social media producer and trending content writer in New York, focusing on LGBTQ+ issues.
One in three women of reproductive age in the U.S. now live over an hour away from the closest abortion clinic, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Tuesday. Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, the average travel time to a clinic was less than 30 minutes.
The peer reviewed study, which appeared in JAMA’s latest issue, “Health Care Access and Reproductive Rights,” used census data from nearly 64 million women between 15 and 44 years of age in 48 states — excluding Alaska and Hawaii. Data found that the average woman’s travel time has more than tripled, and that abortion seekers now travel for more than 100 minutes on average to reach a legal clinic.
In the three-month span between the Supreme Court’s June 24 decision and Sept. 30, which the study’s authors defined as the “post-Dobbs” period, over a dozen states had enacted total or near-total abortion bans. The “pre-Dobbs” data was taken from January to December 2021.
“Estimated travel time to abortion facilities in the US was significantly greater in the post-Dobbs period after accounting for the closure of abortion facilities in states with total or 6-week abortion bans compared with the pre-Dobbs period, during which all facilities providing abortions in 2021 were considered active,” the authors of the study wrote.
This issue of JAMA includes original research and 8 scholarly Viewpoints that provide data and perspective about abortion care and the larger context of evidence-based health care. https://t.co/rHQHX8BVMa
The data also showed that women who lived more than an hour away from an abortion facility were more likely to be without health insurance or a high school diploma, have lower average incomes, and be Black, Hispanic, and Native American. While this remained true prior to the end of Roe, these inequalities widened even further following the Supreme Court’s decision.
“These groups have historically worse pregnancy-related mortality outcomes than nonminority populations,” the study read, citing data from the Commonwealth Fund on maternal mortality in the U.S.
Amy Cox, Democratic candidate for Ohio State Representative, wears a shirt in support of Roe V Wade while canvassing in Trenton, Ohio, on October 23, 2022.
MEGAN JELINGER/AFP via Getty Images
With only a week until Election Day, abortion access has not only become a widely-debated issue between Democrats and Republicans, it will also be on the ballot in five states. Voters in three states — California, Michigan and Vermont — will decide whether to protect abortion rights in their state constitutions, and two other states — Kentucky and Montana — will have proposals on the ballot that seek to limit abortions.
However, new polling shows that the importance of reproductive rights has lessened, as economic issues arising from inflation take precedence. Even so, President Biden has vowed that if Democrats are able to pick up seats in the midterms, the first bill he will send to Congress will codify Roe v. Wade and legalize abortion access across the country.
C Mandler
C Mandler is a social media producer and trending content writer in New York, focusing on LGBTQ+ issues.
UnitedHealthcare is the largest insurer in both the commercial and Medicare Advantage markets with 51.3 million members, while Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies collectively have the largest geographic footprint.
Elevance Health, formerly Anthem, is the largest insurer by market share in 82 of 383 metro areas, according to the study. Health Care Service Corp.. which sells Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, is the second-largest and Florida Blue came in third.
None of the insurers immediately responded to interview requests except UnitedHealthcare, which referred questions to the health insurance trade group AHIP, which did not respond to an interview request.
Although the health insurance exchanges were the least competitive overall, market share has varied the most in this product line over time, and smaller insurers have enticed significant numbers of members away from larger carriers.
Elevance Health’s exchanges market share dropped from 14% in 2014 to 4% in 2021 as it went from being the largest player by membership to the sixth-largest. Insurtechs Bright Health Group and Oscar Health, meanwhile, cracked the top 10 the first time last year, although both plan to shrink their exchange footprints for 2023.
New research shows vaccinating pregnant women helped protect their newborns from the common but scary respiratory virus called RSV that fills hospitals with wheezing babies each fall. The preliminary results buoy hope that after decades of failure and frustration, vaccines against RSV may finally be getting close.
Pfizer announced Tuesday that a large international study found vaccinating moms-to-be was nearly 82% effective at preventing severe cases of RSV in their babies’ most vulnerable first 90 days of life. At age 6 months, the vaccine still was proving 69% effective against serious illness – and there were no signs of safety problems in mothers or babies.
“Moms are always giving their antibodies to their baby,” said virologist Kena Swanson, Pfizer’s vice president of viral vaccines. “The vaccine just puts them in that much better position” to form and pass on RSV-fighting antibodies.
The vaccine quest isn’t just to protect infants. RSV is dangerous for older adults, too, and both Pfizer and rival GSK recently announced that their competing shots also proved protective for seniors.
None of the findings will help this year when an early RSV surge already is crowding children’s hospitals. But they raise the prospect that one or more vaccines might become available before next fall’s RSV season.
“My fingers are crossed,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. “We’re making inroads.”
Tuesday’s data was reported in a press release and hasn’t been vetted by independent experts.
Cases of RSV are rising quickly in young children, who typically contract the virus by the time they’re three, but who were shielded from it and other viruses during COVID-19 lockdown periods.
“Pediatric ICUs around the country, many parts of it, are full,” said CBS News medical contributor Dr. David Agus. Most hospitalizations now are related to influenza and RSV, not COVID-19, he added.
The simultaneous increase in cases of three distinct viruses comes as more professionals are leaving the health care field for work that either pays better or is less physically and emotionally draining, which could further threaten the nation’s strained health care system.
“I’m concerned that hospitals, health care providers are going to be overwhelmed,” said CBS News medical contributor and Kaiser Health News editor-at-large Dr. Celine Gounder. “We’re looking at very high rates of both flu and RSV, so probably something around like 35,000 hospitalizations per week just from those two conditions.”
Here’s a look at the long quest for RSV vaccines.
What is RSV?
For most healthy people, RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a cold-like nuisance. But for the very young, the elderly and people with certain health problems, it can be serious, even life-threatening. The virus can infect deep in the lungs, causing pneumonia, and in babies it can impede breathing by inflaming tiny airways.
In the U.S., about 58,000 children younger than 5 are hospitalized for RSV each year and several hundred die. Among adults 65 and older, about 177,000 are hospitalized with RSV and 14,000 die annually.
Worldwide, RSV kills about 100,000 children a year, mostly in poor countries.
Why is there no vaccine?
A tragedy in the 1960s set back the whole field. Using the approach that led to the first polio vaccine, scientists made an experimental RSV vaccine by growing the virus in a lab and killing it. But testing in children found not only was the vaccine not protective, youngsters who caught RSV after vaccination fared worse. Two died.
“For a period of 20 years, even though science was advancing, nobody wanted to go near development of an RSV vaccine,” Schaffner said.
Even today’s modern RSV vaccine candidates were tested first in older adults, not children, he noted.
What got development back on track?
Modern vaccines tend to target the outer surface of a virus, what the immune system sees when a germ invades. For RSV, that target is the so-called F protein that helps the virus latch onto human cells. Again there was a hurdle: That protein is a shape-shifter, rearranging its form before and after it “fuses” to cells.
It turns out that the immune system only forms effective RSV-fighting antibodies when it spots what’s called the pre-fusion version of that protein, explained structural biologist Jason McLellan of the University of Texas at Austin.
In 2013, McLellan and virologist Barney Graham were working at the National Institutes of Health when they homed in on the correct shape and figured out how to freeze it in that form. That finding opened the way to today’s development of a variety of experimental RSV vaccine candidates.
(That same discovery was key to the hugely successful COVID-19 vaccines, as the coronavirus also is cloaked in a shape-shifting surface protein.)
What’s in the pipeline?
Several companies are creating RSV vaccines but Pfizer and rival GSK are furthest along. Both companies recently reported final-stage testing in older adults. The competing vaccines are made somewhat differently but each proved strongly effective, especially against serious disease. Both companies plan to seek regulatory approval in the U.S. by the end of the year, as well as in other countries.
The older-adult data “looks fantastic,” said McLellan, who has closely followed the vaccine development. “I think we’re on the right track.”
And if vaccinating pregnant women pans out, it could be “a win for two individuals instead of just one,” by offering protection to both mom-to-be and baby, said Dr. Wilbur Chen of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Pfizer’s maternal vaccine is the same recipe that it tested successfully in older adults – and it also plans to seek Food and Drug Administration approval for those vaccinations by year’s end.
The new study included 7,400 pregnant women in 18 countries, including the U.S., and spanned multiple RSV seasons. Preliminary results reported Tuesday show the vaccine was most effective against severe disease. For milder illness, effectiveness was 51% to 57% — short of the study’s statistical requirements but a result that Pfizer still called clinically meaningful because it could mean fewer trips to the doctor’s office.
