HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

December 27, 2018 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• Audit divides blame for San Diego's Hep A crisis (San Diego Reader)
• Hospital Prices: Full Cost Lists Must Be Published From January 1, New Federal Rule Says (Newsweek)
• Is chemotherapy on the way out?  (Healthline)
• Health benefits of gold, frankincense and myrrh (Medical News Today)
• Certain antibiotics may cause aortic aneurysm, FDA warns (CNN)

SCIENCE & TECH

• The Tech That Was Fixed in 2018 and the Tech That Still Needs Fixing (NY Times)
• Climate change: Huge costs of warming impacts in 2018 (BBC)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

HEALTH

Audit divides blame for San Diego's Hep A crisis (San Diego Reader)

Bureaucratic foot-dragging cited for devastating downtown epidemic: A report by state auditor Elaine Howle released December 20 blames both city and county for the severity of last year's deadly Hepatitis A breakout in downtown San Diego.

Hospital Prices: Full Cost Lists Must Be Published From January 1, New Federal Rule Says (Newsweek)

Hospitals across the country have geared up to publish online price lists for all the medical services they provide, as a federal law takes effect on January 1. The new law, which was announced in April, should also make it easier for patients to get access to their medical records, according to officials… Currently, under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals must release public price lists, but from the start of 2019 they will be required to post these prices online in a format that can be downloaded to computers.

Is chemotherapy on the way out?  (Healthline)

New, less toxic cancer treatments are emerging, but don’t expect chemo to disappear anytime soon.

Health benefits of gold, frankincense and myrrh (Medical News Today)

Three compounds, connected by their mention in the story of Jesus' birth, may provide benefits beyond their gift of seasonal joy. Here, we investigate their healing powers.

Certain antibiotics may cause aortic aneurysm, FDA warns (CNN)

The US Food and Drug Administration warned that the benefits of fluoroquinolone antibiotics do not outweigh the risks — which include aortic aneurysm — for certain patients. These drugs are under the names ciprofloxacin (Cipro), gemifloxacin (Factive), levofloxacin (Levaquin), moxifloxacin (Avelox), norfloxacin (Noroxin) and ofloxacin (Floxin).

SCIENCE & TECH

The Tech That Was Fixed in 2018 and the Tech That Still Needs Fixing (NY Times)

From Facebook to creepy online ads, the worst tech of the year made the internet feel like an unsafe place to hang out. Yet there were some products that were fixed, our personal tech critic writes.

Climate change: Huge costs of warming impacts in 2018 (BBC)

Extreme weather events linked to climate change cost thousands of lives and caused huge damage throughout the world in 2018, say Christian Aid. The charity's report identified ten events that cost more than $1bn each, with four costing more than $7bn each.