Nitrous oxide recreational use is linked to brain damage and sudden death − but ‘laughing gas’ is still sold all over the US
Nitrous oxide is often inhaled with a balloon. Matt Cardy/Getty Images News ~~~~~ The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning Americans about the ever-increasing and potentially deadly recreational use of nitrous oxide products, particularly among young people. Marketed with names like “Galaxy Gas” and “Miami Magic,” and often sold in steel cartridges known as “whippets,” these products are cheap and readily available at gas stations, convenience stores, smoke shops and major retail outlets, including Walmart. They’re also sold online. As an assistant professor of public health who studies these products, I’m aware of how dangerous they can be. Recreational and continued use of...
Five hospitals within Palm Beach Health Network file legal complaint against The Leapfrog Group
Delray Medical Center, Good Samaritan Medical Center, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, West Boca Medical Center, and St. Mary’s Medical Center, trusted leaders in healthcare and patient safety, announced on April 30th that they have filed a legal complaint against The Leapfrog Group (“Leapfrog”) alleging that the organization’s hospital patient safety ratings are inaccurate, corrupt, and misleading. The Palm Beach Health Network hospitals assert that these deceptive rankings not only harm their reputation but also misinform patients and the community about the quality of care provided at its facilities, putting lives at risk. The legal action comes after repeated efforts by the hospitals...
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California’s Primary Care Shortage Persists Despite Ambitious Moves To Close Gap
Sumana Reddy, a primary care physician, struggles on thin financial margins to run Acacia Family Medical Group, the small independent practice she founded 27 years ago in Salinas, a predominantly Latino city in an agricultural valley often called “the salad bowl of the world.” Reddy can’t match the salaries offered by larger health systems — a difficulty compounded by a widespread shortage of primary care doctors. The shortage is tied largely to the lower pay and relative lack of prestige associated with primary care, making recruitment difficult. “It certainly is challenging to expose medical students early in their careers to the joys of this kind of integrated health care,” Reddy said....
Trump Pick to Run DEA Could Challenge America’s Already Tense Relations With Mexico
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. In the spring of 2019, as a new Mexican government shut down most of its cooperation with the United States in the fight against drug trafficking, a small group of American drug agents decided to confront the problem in a different way. Sifting through databases and court files, they compiled dossiers on Mexican officials suspected of colluding with the mafias. Months later, federal prosecutors used the evidence to indict a former security minister, Genaro García Luna, the most important Mexican figure ever convicted on U.S. drug corruption...
