Is There Really A Safer Football Helmet? Probably Not, And Trying To Create It Might Bring On More Harm
Football is the most popular sport in the U.S., but worries over brain injuries are spurring a flurry of designs for a safe helmet. “You can make whatever changes you want, but in the end it’s all physics,” one researcher said. “Talking of new and better buffers is like Goldilocks and the three foams.” News about public health issues is on food safety, a new approach to amputations, sexual abuse in juvenile detention centers, the men behind a menstrual cycle myth, mental health help for construction workers, a gene variant alert for black people, sleep-linked stroke risks, quality blood transfusions and lessons on making health care promises to loved one, as well.
The New York Times:
This Helmet Will Save Football. Actually, Probably Not.
Walk between a colonnade of palm trees and push through a door at Stanford University and find a sorcerer’s apprentice lab where prospective Ph.D. sorts beaver away at bioengineering programs. This is CamLab, where David Camarillo, a nationally respected bioengineer and former college football tight end, and his students are in pursuit of that American El Dorado: They seek a helmet that will make it safe to play tackle football. Dr. Camarillo, 40, insisted they could soon crack the case. (Powell, 12/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
E. Coli Outbreaks In Lettuce Point To Gaps In Food Safety
E. coli illnesses linked to romaine lettuce show how U.S. regulators continue to struggle with identifying which farms spark an outbreak and stopping it from spreading. An outbreak involving a romaine-based salad kit has sickened at least eight people in three states, health officials said this week. Those cases could be connected to an outbreak in romaine last month that sickened more than 100 people in 23 states even though the strains of E. coli are different, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Gasparro, 12/11)
Stat:
Surgeons Test-Drive The Amputation Of The Future
More than 20 patients have now undergone the new leg operation — named the Ewing amputation after the first patient — and the early results have been “much better than we ever thought it would be,” [plastic surgeon Dr. Matthew Carty of Brigham and Women’s Hospital] said in an interview. Based on that experience, the Pentagon has awarded the Brigham, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Walter Reed almost $3 million to come up with something similar for the arm, with 10 procedures planned at the Boston and Washington hospitals. (Gil, 12/12)
The Associated Press:
Fewer Kids Report Sex Abuse In US Juvenile Detention Centers
A new federal report has found the number of kids who say they have been sexually victimized in juvenile detention centers has dropped across the U.S. compared with past years. But remarkably high rates of sexual abuse persist in 12 facilities stretching from Oregon to Florida, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report released Wednesday. The report analyzed data collected during more than 6,000 anonymous interviews last year at nearly 330 juvenile detention facilities. (12/11)
The New York Times:
Why Women On The Pill Still ‘Need’ To Have Their Periods
In the 1960s, manufacturers of the new birth-control pill imagined their ideal user as feminine, maternal and forgetful. She wanted discretion. She was married. And she wanted visible proof that her monthly cycle was normal and that she wasn’t pregnant. In 2019, the user of the pill is perceived as an altogether different person. She’s unwed, probably would prefer to skip her period and is more forthright about when it’s that time of the month. As such, many birth-control brands now come in brightly colored rectangular packs that make no effort to be concealed. (Gross, 12/11)
NPR:
In Construction, Suicide Prevention Becomes Part Of The Toolbox
It has been five years, but the memory still haunts construction superintendent Michelle Brown. A co-worker ended his workday by giving away his personal cache of hand tools to his colleagues. It was a generous but odd gesture; no one intending to return to work would do such a thing. The man went home and killed himself. He was found shortly afterward by co-workers who belatedly realized the significance of his gifts. (Noguchi, 12/12)
The Washington Post:
A Genetic Mutation Is Associated With Increased Risk Of Heart Failure In Black People, Study Finds
An underdiagnosed genetic mutation in people of African descent carries an increased risk for heart failure, according to a study. When present in those patients, a genetic variant, TTR V122I, could lead to a higher risk of hereditary transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy — a potentially fatal disease caused by a protein buildup in the heart. (Beachum, 12/11)
The New York Times:
Sleeping 9 Hours A Night May Raise Stroke Risk
Sleeping a lot may increase the risk for stroke, a new study has found. Chinese researchers followed 31,750 men and women whose average age was 62 for an average of six years, using physical examinations and self-reported data on sleep. They found that compared with sleeping (or being in bed trying to sleep) seven to eight hours a night, sleeping nine or more hours increased the relative risk for stroke by 23 percent. Sleeping less than six hours a night had no effect on stroke incidence. (Bakalar, 12/11)
The New York Times:
Questioning ‘The Newer The Better’ For Blood Transfusions
For critically ill children, fresh blood transfusions may be no better than blood that has been stored for several weeks. Transfusions in seriously ill children are usually given to improve oxygen delivery and prevent organ failure, and some studies have suggested that newer blood is better. Now a blinded, randomized trial has found it is not. (Bakalar, 12/11)
Kaiser Health News:
The Health Care Promises We Cannot Keep
It was a promise Matt Perrin wasn’t able to keep. “I’ll never take away your independence,” he’d told his mother, Rosemary, then 71, who lived alone on Cape Cod, Mass., in a much-loved cottage. That was before Rosemary started calling Perrin and his brother, confused and disoriented, when she was out driving. Her Alzheimer’s disease was progressing. (Graham, 12/12)
