Amid an ongoing outbreak of bird flu in dairy cows, a fourth case of H5N1 avian flu has been confirmed in another dairy worker, U.S. health officials reported Wednesday. The latest case was reported in Colorado, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a news release. “As with previous cases, the person is a worker on a dairy farm where cows tested positive for A[H5N1] virus,” the CDC said. “The person reported eye symptoms only, received oseltamivir [Tamiflu] treatment, and has recovered.” The first two human bird flu cases — the first in Texas and a second in Michigan — also involved only a brief discomfort of the eyes, linked to conjunctivitis, or “pink eye.” Both patients recovered. However, a third case, also reported in Michigan, was the first to present with more typical respiratory symptoms, the CDC noted in a recent health update. That patient has been treated and has since recovered. So far, H5N1 has not been easily passed between people, and all four farm workers became infected after prolonged contact with dairy cows. Despite the fourth case of human bird flu, “this infection does not change CDC’s current H5N1 bird flu human health risk assessment for the U.S. general public, which the agency considers to be low,” the CDC said. “However, this development underscores the importance of recommended precautions…  read on >  read on >

A regulation allowing the use of brominated vegetable oil in food was revoked Tuesday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after the agency concluded the additive was unsafe for human consumption. Brominated vegetable oil (BVO) contains bromine, which is found in fire retardants. Small quantities of BVO have been used legally in some citrus-flavored drinks in the United States to keep the flavor evenly distributed, the FDA explained in a news release announcing the ban, which takes effect Aug. 2. The agency first proposed the ban in November. But BVO was banned in the U.K. in 1970, followed by India in 1990, the E.U. in 2008 and Japan in 2010, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. In 1970, the FDA concluded that its use in food was not generally recognized as safe because of toxicity concerns. Following that decision, the agency began regulating BVO as a food additive while also conducting safety studies, Reuters reported. The results of that research prompted the ban. Some experts said the ban was long overdue. “The FDA’s decision to ban brominated vegetable oil [BVO] in food is a victory for public health. But it’s disgraceful that it took decades of regulatory inaction to protect consumers from this dangerous chemical,” Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, said in a statement. …  read on >  read on >

Screening for chronic illnesses like diabetes or fatty liver disease could one day be as simple as checking the temperature of your nose, eyes or cheeks. The temperature of different parts of the face are associated with various chronic diseases, researchers reported July 2 in the journal Cell Metabolism. Armed with an AI-driven thermal camera, doctors could one day use this simple approach to detect diseases earlier in humans, researchers said. “Aging is a natural process,” researcher Jing-Dong Jackie Han with Peking University in Beijing, China, said in a news release. “But our tool has the potential to promote healthy aging and help people live disease-free.” The research team had previously used facial structure to estimate how slowly or quickly a person’s body is aging, relative to their actual age. For this effort, they analyzed facial temperatures of more than 2,800 Chinese people ages 21 to 88 to see if those readings could be used to judge their health. Researchers fed the people’s data into an AI program, which identified key facial regions where temperatures were significantly related to age and health. Metabolic disorders like diabetes and fatty liver disease cause higher eye area temperatures relative to healthy people, results show. Likewise, high blood pressure causes elevated cheek temperatures, researchers said. Researchers suspect this increase in temperature around the eyes and cheeks is caused by…  read on >  read on >

In a case that will test the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s authority to approve or reject new vaping products, the U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday it will weigh whether the agency was legally allowed to ban flavored e-cigarettes. In recent years, the FDA has declined to approve flavored vapes, saying they pose a health risk because they encourage young people to use e-cigarettes. But they remain widely available on the U.S. market. Meanwhile, vaping companies claim the agency got it wrong, arguing that their products can be used to help people stop smoking traditional cigarettes. E-cigarette makers have filed lawsuits around the country challenging the FDA’s decisions, NBC News reported. While the FDA has won most of those cases, it appealed to the Supreme Court after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a January ruling in favor of two vape companies seeking to have their products approved. That appeals court concluded that the FDA failed to correctly assess the companies’ requests in violation of a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act, NBC News reported. “The Supreme Court should overturn the Fifth Circuit decision because it is misguided and, if left to stand, would cause significant harm to public health and especially to the health of our kids,” Yolonda Richardson, president and CEO of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a statement.…  read on >  read on >

As bird flu continues to spread among U.S. dairy cows, reassuring new government research finds the pasteurization process widely used in the industry effectively kills all bird flu virus in milk. In a health update posted Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the results are the latest to show that pasteurized grocery store milk remains safe from the highly pathogenic avian virus H5N1.  “These results complement the FDA’s retail sampling study, in which all 297 samples of dairy products collected at retail locations were found to be negative for viable H5N1 HPAI virus,” the agency said in its update. “Collectively, these studies provide strong assurances that the commercial milk supply is safe.” The most recent research came about because scientists at the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) were trying to replicate the exact conditions under which milk is pasteurized in this country. “We had a lot of anecdotal evidence. But we wanted to have direct evidence about HPAI [H5N1] and bovine milk,” Dr. Don Prater, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told CBS News. “So, we began to build this custom instrument that replicates, on a pilot scale, commercial processing [of milk].” Earlier research had not been quite as convincing: Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that some bits of infectious bird flu virus were…  read on >  read on >

All Diamond Shruumz edibles have been recalled after the company found high levels of a mushroom toxin in them that may have sickened 39 people in 20 states. The recall includes Diamond Shruumz cones, chocolate bars and gummies “because such products contain muscimol, a chemical found in mushrooms of the genus amanita,” California-based Prophet Premium Blends stated in its announcement. “Muscimol could be a potential cause of symptoms consistent with those observed in persons who became ill after eating Diamond Shruumz products,” the company added. Reported symptoms include seizures, agitation, involuntary muscle contractions, loss of consciousness, confusion, sleepiness, nausea and vomiting, abnormal heart rates and high/low blood pressure.  Of the 39 illnesses reported so far, 23 patients had to be hospitalized, with the latest illness reported June 23, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. States with cases include Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee. The FDA first advised consumers not to eat Diamond Shruumz microdosing chocolate bars two weeks ago, warning that people in four states had fallen ill. Some had to be intubated. The recalled products were distributed nationwide through retail stores and mail order.  Back in late May, Prophet Premium received the first two complaints of people becoming ill after eating an entire chocolate…  read on >  read on >

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has sent a warning letter to one of America’s biggest bakeries, asking the company to stop claiming there are allergens such as sesame or nuts in products when in fact they are not there. In a statement released Tuesday, the FDA said that Bimbo Bakeries, which includes brands such as Sara Lee, Oroweat, Thomas’, Entenmann’s and Ball Park buns and rolls, has included known allergens such as sesame, walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts in their ‘Contains’ ingredients list — even though “those ingredients were not included in the product formulations,” as determined by FDA inspections conducted in late 2023. For example, Bimbo products such as Brownberry brand Whole Grains 12 Grains and Seeds RTE bread loaf product listed the three types of nuts as ingredients, even though they were not actually there. And Sara Lee brand Artesano Brioche, Delightful Multigrain, Artesano Golden Wheat and Artesano Smooth Multigrain all listed sesame as an ingredient, even though no sesame was present. Why would companies like Bimbo run erroneous ingredients lists? The FDA does require that food manufacturers list any potential allergens on packaging ingredients lists. However, properly separating known allergens such as nuts or sesame in one part of a baking plant from other areas can be labor-intensive and expensive. So, some companies work around the regulation by claiming the allergens are in most or…  read on >  read on >

The long-standing advice is that everyone should get more fiber in their diet, but a new study suggests some benefit more than others. A person’s gut microbiome appears to have some influence over the benefits a person derives from dietary fiber, researchers report in the journal Gut Microbes. Evidence from the study shows that each person has a unique response to eating a resistant starch, which is a form of dietary fiber found in bread, cereals, green bananas, whole-grain pasta, brown rice and potatoes. Some derive great benefit, while others experience little to no effect – and the difference appears to be tied to the diversity and composition of the microbes in their gut. The upshot is that people might do better if doctors gave personalized advice on what type of fiber to eat, based on their gut microbiome, researchers said. “Precision nutrition definitely has a use in determining what dietary fiber we should tell people to eat,” senior researcher Angela Poole, an assistant professor of molecular nutrition at Cornell University, said in a news release. “This is critical because we’ve had public messaging advising people to eat more dietary fiber for decades.” High-fiber diets can help people remain regular, feel fuller longer, reduce high blood pressure, lower cholesterol levels and stabilize blood sugar levels, prior research has shown. For the study, researchers recruited 59…  read on >  read on >