Tag Archives: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

U.S. officials say tainted romaine lettuce appears to be from California

FILE PHOTO: Romaine lettuce has been taken off the shelf for fear of an E. coli outbreak at this grocery store in Toronto, Ontario, Canada November 21, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Monday that the source of an E.coli outbreak in the United States and Canada that has been associated with romaine lettuce appeared to be growers in the Central Coast region of California.

At least 43 people in 12 states and 22 people in Canada have been sickened in the outbreak. Last week the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a blanket warning to avoid all romaine and advised consumers, restaurants and markets to destroy any on hand.

The FDA said on Monday that all romaine lettuce entering the market should now be labeled with a harvest location and date and that consumers should not buy or eat it if that information is missing.

The agency said that going forward romaine lettuce grown in the Central Coast region of California should be discarded, while product from elsewhere was no longer subject to a warning.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb)

Emirates plane quarantined in New York with sick passengers: airline

The emergency services are seen, after the passengers were taken ill on a flight from New York to Dubai, on JFK Airport, New York, U.S., September 05, 2018 in this still image obtained from from social media. Larry Coben/via REUTERS

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An Emirates airline flight from Dubai was quarantined at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday morning after passengers became ill during the flight, the airline and New York news media said.

Emirates flight 203, a double-deck Airbus A388 carrying about 500 passengers, landed shortly after 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT), according to an airlines spokeswoman.

The emergency services are seen, after the passengers were taken ill on a flight from New York to Dubai, on JFK Airport, New York, U.S., September 05, 2018 in this still image obtained from from social media. Larry Coben/via REUTERS

The emergency services are seen, after the passengers were taken ill on a flight from New York to Dubai, on JFK Airport, New York, U.S., September 05, 2018 in this still image obtained from from social media. Larry Coben/via REUTERS

The spokeswoman said 10 passengers fell ill on the flight from Dubai to New York. New York media outlets had earlier put the number at about 100 passengers.

“Emirates can confirm that about 10 passengers on board flight EK203 from Dubai to New York were taken ill,” the spokeswoman said. “On arrival at JFK, as a precaution, they were immediately checked by local health authorities and those needing medical attention will be attended to.” She said all other passengers would be allowed to leave the plane shortly.

Officials from the Port Authority Police Department and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were on scene, according to news station WNBC, but did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The mayor’s office also did not respond to requests for comment.

Larry Cohen, who identified himself as one of the passengers aboard the plane, uploaded photos on Twitter showing dozens of police and emergency vehicles waiting outside the plane on the tarmac.

“All we have been told is that there are some sick passengers and that we need to remain on board,” Cohen told Reuters via Twitter messaging.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus and Alexander Cornwell in Dubai; editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. charges hundreds in major healthcare fraud, opioid crackdown

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions addresses a news conference to announce a nation-wide health care fraud and opioid enforcement action, at the Justice Department in Washington, U.S. June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced charges against 601 people including doctors for taking part in healthcare frauds that resulted in over $2 billion in losses and contributed to the nation’s opioid epidemic in some cases.

The arrests came as part of what the department said was the largest healthcare fraud takedown in U.S. history and included 162 doctors and other suspects charged for their roles in prescribing and distributing addictive opioid painkillers.

“Some of our most trusted medical professionals look at their patients – vulnerable people suffering from addiction – and they see dollar signs,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said.

The arrests came as part of an annual fraud takedown overseen by the Justice Department. The crackdown resulted in authorities bringing dozens of unrelated cases involving alleged frauds that cost government healthcare programs and insurers more than $2 billion.

Officials sought in the latest crackdown to emphasize their efforts to combat the nation’s opioid epidemic. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the epidemic caused more than 42,000 deaths from opioid overdoses in the United States in 2016.

In a report released on Thursday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General said about 460,000 patients covered by Medicare received high amounts of opioids in 2017 and 71,000 were at risk of misuse or overdose.

Those figures were slightly down from 2016, but the report said the high level of opioid use remained a concern. The report said almost 300 prescribers had “questionable prescribing” that warranted further scrutiny.

Many of the criminal cases announced on Thursday involved charges against medical professionals who authorities said had contributed to the country’s opioid epidemic by participating in the unlawful distribution of prescription painkillers.

The cases included charges in Texas against a pharmacy chain owner and two other people accused of using fraudulent prescriptions to fill bulk orders for over 1 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills that were sold to drug couriers.

“The perpetrators really are despicable and greedy people,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said at a press conference.

The Justice Department also announced other cases unrelated to opioids, including schemes to bill the government healthcare programs Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare as well as private insurers for medically unnecessary prescription drugs and compounded medications.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Tom Brown)

Walmart to restrict opioid dispensing at its pharmacies

The Walmart logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 1, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

(Reuters) – Walmart Inc said on Monday it would restrict initial acute opioid prescriptions to no more than a seven-day supply as the retailer aims to curb an opioid epidemic that has plagued the United States.

The supply limit will begin within the next 60 days, the company said.

In January , Walmart said it would provide its customers filling prescriptions for opioids with a packet of powder that would help them dispose of leftover medication.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 115 Americans die on average every day from an opioid overdose.

The company also said on Monday that from Jan. 1, 2020 it would require e-prescriptions for controlled substances, noting that these prescriptions are proven to be less prone to errors and cannot be altered or copied.

The initiatives apply to all the pharmacies of Walmart and its Sam’s Club unit in the United States and Puerto Rico.

(This story has been corrected to add dropped words “initial acute” in first paragraph)

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

Infection experts warn of more U.S. superbug cases

Colonies of E. coli bacteria grown on a Hektoen enteric (HE) agar plate are seen in a microscopic image courtesy of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control

By Ransdell Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) – After two confirmed U.S. cases of a superbug that thwarts a last-resort antibiotic, infectious disease experts say they expect more cases in coming months because the bacterial gene behind it is likely far more widespread than previously believed.

Army scientists in May reported finding E. coli bacteria that harbor a gene which renders the antibiotic colistin useless. The gene, called mcr-1, was found in a urine sample of a Pennsylvania woman being treated for a urinary tract infection.

On Monday, researchers confirmed preliminary findings that E. coli carrying the same mcr-1 gene were found in a stored bacterial sample of a New York patient who had been treated for an infection last year, as well as in patient samples from nine other countries.

The report came from a global effort called the SENTRY Antimicrobial Surveillance Program, led by Mariana Castanheira of JMI Laboratories based in North Liberty, Iowa.

The mcr-1 superbug has been identified over the past six months in farm animals and people in about 20 countries, including China, Germany and Italy.

The bacteria can be transmitted by fecal contact and poor hygiene, which suggests a far wider likely presence than the documented cases so far, according to leading infectious disease experts.

Health officials fear the mcr-1 gene, carried by a highly mobile piece of DNA called a plasmid, will soon be found in bacteria already resistant to all or virtually all other types of antibiotics, potentially making infections untreatable.

“You can be sure (mcr-1) is already in the guts of people throughout the United States and will continue to spread,” said Dr. Brad Spellberg, professor of medicine at the University of Southern California.

Dr. David Van Duin, an infectious disease expert at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said he expects more documented U.S. cases of mcr-1 in coming months because it is already here and will spread from abroad. “We will see a lot more of this gene.”

Colistin causes kidney damage, but doctors have opted for it as other antibiotics increasingly fail. Its overuse, especially in overseas farm animals, has allowed bacteria to develop resistance to it.

PAST AND PRESENT INFECTIONS

To track the mcr-1 gene, U.S. hospitals are working together with state and federal agencies to test bacteria samples of patients that have recently been treated for infections. Many of the largest research hospitals are examining samples of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that have long been stored in their freezers.

Gautam Dantas, associate professor of pathology at Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis, has tested hundreds of U.S. samples of archived bacteria in recent months and has not yet detected mcr-1. But he expects dozens of confirmed cases of the gene will be documented by next year in the country, mostly among current patients.

The concern of many disease experts is that mcr-1 could soon show up in bacteria also resistant to carbapenems, one of the few remaining dependable classes of antibiotics. In that event, with colistin no longer a last-ditch option, some patients would have to rely on their immune systems to fight off infection.

“Within the next two to three years, it’s going to be fairly routine for infections to occur in the United States for which we have no (effective) drugs available,” Dantas said.

Castanheira also believes mcr-1 will find its way into carbapenem-resistant bacteria, formally known as carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE).

In an interview, she said the resulting virtually impervious bacterium would likely spread slowly inside the United States because CRE themselves are not yet widespread in the country, giving drugmakers some time to create new antibiotics.

Beginning in August, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will use $21 million to expand surveillance at laboratories operated by all 50 state health departments and seven larger regional labs. The federal funding will help pay for more-sensitive equipment to test for antibiotic resistance in bacteria samples provided by hospitals.

Jean Patel, deputy director of the CDC’s Office of Antimicrobial Resistance, said the effort will provide the CDC improved national surveillance of antibiotic-resistance trends, including any spread of mcr-1.

“This is data for action,” she said, adding that special procedures to prevent infections from spreading in hospitals could be taken once a patient is identified with mcr-1 related infections or with multidrug-resistant bacteria.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson; Editing by Marguerita Choy)