The pathogen that we are talking about is called streptococcus pneumoniae. That is a fairly common bacteria and if you did a nasal swab you would find that quite a lot of people have this bacterium living in their nasal passages.
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After a crash inspection program, federal regulators said Thursday that they had found numerous unsafe practices at about 30 compounding pharmacies, the same type of facility responsible for the tainted drug that caused a deadly meningitis outbreak last year (Pollack, 4/12).
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Today's headlines include reports about a new study measuring how the health law has expanded young adults access to care.
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Hospital owner Pacific Health Corp. said it will close its three remaining Southern California hospitals, citing the fallout from a federal fraud case last year in which the company admitted paying to recruit homeless people off skid row in Los Angeles and billing the government for unnecessary care (Terhune, 4/3).
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Kaiser Health News staff writer Julie Appleby, working in collaboration with USA Today, reports: "It's not just sore throats and flu shots anymore. Walgreens today became the first retail store chain to expand its health care services to include diagnosing and treating patients for chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes and high cholesterol. The move is the retail industry's boldest push yet into an area long controlled by physicians, and comes amid continuing concerns about health care costs and a potential shortage of primary care doctors" (Appleby, 4/4).
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The head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed charging compounding pharmacies fees to pay for the oversight needed to prevent a recurrence of the meningitis outbreak that killed 50 people and sickened hundreds more.
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A selection of health policy stories from California, Oregon, Michigan, Kansas, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
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The routine use of steroids to treat tuberculosis may help reduce deaths from all types of the disease, according to a new review of existing research.
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Antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli (E. coli) continues to proliferate, driven largely by expansion of a strain of E. coli know as sequence type ST131. A new study points to hospitals and long-term care facilities (LTCF) as settings in which this antibiotic-resistant strain is increasingly found.
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A team of interventional neuroradiologists and neurosurgeons at Johns Hopkins reports wide success with a new procedure to treat pseudotumor cerebri, a rare but potentially blinding condition marked by excessive pressure inside the skull, caused by a dangerous narrowing of a vein located at the base of the brain.
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A more rapid laboratory test for pregnant women to detect potentially deadly Group B strep (GBS) has been successful at identifying GBS colonization in six and a half hours, according to the results of a study from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
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Pfizer Inc. presented today the results from a Phase 3 study demonstrating the immunogenicity, tolerability and safety of Prevnar 13 (Pneumococcal 13-valent Conjugate Vaccine Diphtheria CRM197 Protein)in adults infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
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Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated the company's late-stage antibiotic candidate, ceftolozane/tazobactam, as a Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP) for the indications of Hospital-Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia (HABP)/Ventilator-Associated Bacterial Pneumonia (VABP) and Complicated Urinary Tract Infections (cUTI).
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Scientists at the University of Southampton have taken a significant and important step in keeping people safe from the most common form of meningitis in the UK.
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Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, today announced the launch of Brilliance GBS Agar for the testing of Group B streptococci (GBS) during pregnancy.
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One of the key reasons why children are missed by immunization programs, particularly in developing countries where Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) works, is that the products that we currently have in their present formulation are not well-suited to the places that have the most un-immunized children. These are the most challenging contexts to work in.
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Survivors of those who died from opioid overdoses urge changes in the drugs' labels, but some patients express concerns that they might have trouble getting the drugs.
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Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about Marilyn Tavenner's nomination to run Medicare and the Catholic bishops' rejection of the Obama administration's contraception plan announced last week.
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California's court-run prison health care program is missing out on tens of millions of dollars a year in federal funds because of disagreement with counties and software problems, a new legislative report states. The legislative analyst's office found increasing numbers of prison inmates who, because of their low income status, are eligible for the state's Medicaid program.
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Children who present with acute-onset esodeviation should be investigated for underlying central nervous system disorders, study findings indicate.
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