Nearly 60 illnesses, including 30 hospitalizations, have now been linked to eating Diamond Shruumz edibles, U.S. health officials reported. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted in an update issued Tuesday that of the people who got sick after eating the recalled chocolate bars, cones and gummies, one patient has died. Those who fell ill reported seizures, agitation, abnormal heart rates and loss of consciousness. So far, 27 states have reported cases, but the CDC said it expects that number to grow. While the CDC hasn’t disclosed how many of the cases have involved youths, at least two children have been hospitalized in Arizona, a spokesperson for the Banner Health system told CBS News. Two more children were exposed to the product, but were deemed only “mild” cases. Banner Health was among the first to warn of the dangers posed by the Diamond Shruumz products, when patients were hospitalized after eating them, CBS News reported. “We’ve seen the same phenomenon of people eating the chocolate bar then seizing, losing consciousness and having to be intubated,” Steve Dudley, head of the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center, told CBS News. Late last month, the company that makes the edibles issued a full recall of all its products after discovering high levels of a mushroom toxin in the products. The recall was issued “because such products contain…  read on >  read on >

Few Americans understand the health risks of drinking raw milk, a new survey shows, so experts are redoubling efforts to get the word out on its dangers. The push dovetails with the discovery this spring of bird flu virus in milk from infected cows. The H5N1 virus is widespread in wild birds worldwide and causing outbreaks in poultry and U.S. dairy cows. As of June 21, four human cases of the H5N1 flu had been reported in the United States. “It is important that anyone planning to consume raw milk be aware that doing so can make you sick and that pasteurization reduces the risk of milk-borne illnesses,” said Patrick Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Health and Risk Communication Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. Milk from cows, sheep, goats and other animals that has not been pasteurized to kill harmful germs is called raw or unpasteurized. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says consuming unpasteurized milk and products made from it can expose people to germs such as E. coli, listeria and salmonella. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says the commercial milk supply — which is pasteurized — is safe from the H5N1 virus, raw milk is another story. In June, before the four human cases of bird flu were reported, the Annenberg Institute surveyed 1,031 American adults online and…  read on >  read on >

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 >