Let’s round up the health news from this week. Expert studies on social media and #ADHD and new expert recommendations on #supplements were published – and what about the #moneypox, #polio in London, and #cholera in Spain? And WHAT just happened in the US today? Ok, let’s break this down.
1. It should be absolutely NO shock that much health information online is misleading or unreliable. A group of Canadian psychiatrists looked at just TikTok, focusing just on videos that discussed ADHD. Only 21% of the videos had useful information, more than half were misleading. Take-away: always double check health information from social media with a registered health professional. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07067437221082854
2. An expert group in the US has recommended against the use of supplements, except when recommended from deficiency or specific indication** (such as folic acid in pregnancy is always recommended). If you’ve followed me for a while, you know that like many docs, I stress the importance of healthy food. This can’t be replaced by pills or powders (that ironically always say “natural” on the label). Do you need a supplement? Quick check: is it prescribed or recommended by your doctor such as Vit D, B12, or iron, depending on your needs/health? Or is the person recommending it also selling it? Supplements are a multi-billion € industry.https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/sites/default/files/file/supporting_documents/vitamins-multivitamins-mineral-suppl-cvd-cancer-prev-bulletin.pdf
3. #polio in London? Sewage surveillance (yes, sewage is screened for infective diseases to give early warning of outbreaks) found polio. Experts think that this is from someone who migrated into London from abroad. Polio had been getting close to being globally eradicated prior to the Pandemic. However, in areas in developed countries are still at risk. There, OPV (oral live polio vaccines are used) because they are cheap, effective, and dont’ require syringes (we don’t use these in Ireland or UK anymore). However, they can shed some virus short termwhich is what public health experts think they have detected. Fully vaccinated – which includes most children – are protected.https://polioeradication.org/news-post/vaccine-derived-poliovirus-type-2-vdpv2-detected-in-environmental-samples-in-london-uk/ And a look back to Ireland before polio vaccination https://www.historyireland.com/the-1956-polio-epidemic-in-cork/
4. #Cholera in spain? Spain says no. The single patient in Toledo did have gastroenteritis from a vibrio cholerae species – but says its not from the subtypes that cause outbreaks.https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/spain-detects-first-local-infection-with-cholera-since-1979-2022-06-22/
5. #monkeypox outbreak continues globally. We have had 28 cases in Ireland, all in men who identify as men who have sex wtih men. While it is not a sexually transmitted disease, it is spread through close contact – which includes household members and healthcare workers. https://www.hpsc.ie/news/title-22106-en.html
6. #Covid – it hasn’t gone away. Even with vaccine protection from severe disease, covid infection can put you at risk of complications, such as #longcovid. Get your booster if you are due, and consider masking up on public transport or crowded indoor spaces. Isolate if you are unwell. While not yet established, there is interest in whether Covid is connected to the hepatitis of unknown origin in children. https://www.hpsc.ie/news/title-22079-en.html and why we are looking at Covid? https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(22)00166-2/fulltext
7. Lastly, you may have heard that there was a landmark ruling earlier today in the US that removed the legal protections for women’s right to access to termination of pregnancy services that had been in place since a case called “Roe v. Wade” decades earlier. The decision more worryingly stated that the court should also consider revisiting the related cases (all due to something called the 14th Amendment) including those that legalised access to contraception and decriminalised same sex relationships. It not only reminds us of ourlong journey to protect all people here in Ireland today – but how precarious the rights and freedoms that protect our health are. For an overview of the legal case, try https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-decision-overturn If you are interested in just the medical – not political or religious – reasons that doctors are afraid of restrictive abortion laws, I recommend reading Dr. Jen Gunter, Canadian Ob/Gyn and fierce women’s health advocate. She is a brilliant and prolific writer, and I will expect wonderful response from her later, but to catch up, you could try starting with https://vajenda.substack.com/p/stop-talking-about-coat-hangers-and:
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