HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

May 6, 2025 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• This Infectious Disease Has Increased 1,500% Nationwide: See CA Data (Patch.com)
• The Vietnam War ended 50 years ago, but the battle with Agent Orange continues (AP)
• US Justice Department unit for drug and food safety cases being disbanded (Reuters)
• USDA withdraws a plan to limit salmonella levels in raw poultry (AP)

SCIENCE AND TECH

• Amazon launches Project Kuiper satellites designed to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX (CNN)
• New proposed law would require Apple and Google to verify your age before letting you into their app stores (CNN)  
• Where EV batteries go to die—and be reborn (BBC)
• After CalMatters investigation, LinkedIn and Google face lawsuit alleging improper access to health data (Cal Matters)

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

HEALTH

This Infectious Disease Has Increased 1,500% Nationwide: See CA Data (Patch.com)

...Spiking rates of pertussis — or whooping cough rates, coupled with lower vaccine coverage — are another bellwether of a return of childhood illnesses, the ProPublica report said... Of the 35,435 reported pertussis cases last year, 1,775 were in California...

The Vietnam War ended 50 years ago, but the battle with Agent Orange continues (AP)

(AP) — The Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975, when the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to Communist forces. But millions of people still face daily battles with its chemical legacy.

US Justice Department unit for drug and food safety cases being disbanded (Reuters)

Justice Department unit that handles criminal and civil enforcement of U.S. food and drug safety laws is being disbanded as part of an ongoing cost-cutting campaign by President Donald Trump's administration, according to three people familiar with the matter.

USDA withdraws a plan to limit salmonella levels in raw poultry (AP)

The Agriculture Department will not require poultry companies to limit salmonella bacteria in their products, halting a Biden Administration effort to prevent food poisoning from contaminated meat... The plan aimed to reduce an estimated 125,000 salmonella infections from chicken and 43,000 from turkey each year, according to USDA. Overall, salmonella causes 1.35 million infections a year, most through food, and about 420 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

SCIENCE AND TECH

Amazon launches Project Kuiper satellites designed to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX (CNN)

A batch of Amazon satellites hitched a ride to low-Earth orbit, marking the biggest stride yet in the tech giant’s efforts to join a race to blanket the planet in connectivity beamed from space.

New proposed law would require Apple and Google to verify your age before letting you into their app stores (CNN)

... The proposed law could make it easier, in theory, for tech platforms to provide safe experiences for kids. But app store operators and privacy experts have noted that the approach could raise legal and practical questions, including how to verify the ages of young users without government IDs.

Where EV batteries go to die—and be reborn (BBC)

Batteries for electric vehicles are notoriously difficult to recycle, but growing demand for the rare metals they contain is leading to innovative new ways of retrieving them from used power cells.

After CalMatters investigation, LinkedIn and Google face lawsuit alleging improper access to health data (Cal Matters)

 One day after an investigation by CalMatters and The Markup, LinkedIn and Google were hit with a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging they improperly received confidential data from trackers on California’s health insurance exchange website. A California congressman, citing the investigation, then called on the federal Health and Human Services Department to investigate the exchange’s sharing of data to LinkedIn.