Gear « Weekly Gravy

Federal regulators are warning consumers to stop using eyedrops and gels from several major brands after finding unsanitary conditions in a manufacturing plant. Twenty-six eye care products are part of the alert. Contaminated products have the potential to cause eye infection and blindness because drugs applied to the eye can bypass some of the body’s defenses. Those concerning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are branded CVS Health, Leader (Cardinal Health), Rugby (Cardinal Health), Rite Aid, Target Up & Up and Velocity Pharma. The FDA urged the manufacturer to recall all lots of these products. CVS, Rite Aid and Target are pulling products from shelves and websites. Although there were no reports of infection, bacterial tests were positive in critical drug product areas of the plant. The FDA’s list of eye products to avoid is here. Patients and providers should report any issues to the FDA. Consumers should discard products involved in the recall at a drug take-back site. They can also check the FDA’s flush list to see if they can be safely discarded at home, the New York Times reported. Certain products — those branded Leader, Rugby and Velocity — may still be available for purchase in stores and online. Don’t buy them, the FDA advised. Rite Aid is removing “applicable Rite Aid branded products” from store shelves, a spokeswoman said. CVS “immediately… read on > read on >

Telehealth may be a powerful way to get people with opioid use disorder to take — and stay on — medication to treat their addiction. Researchers report that those who started buprenorphine treatment via telehealth had an increased likelihood of staying in treatment longer compared to those who started the treatment in another setting. “This study suggests that telehealth may increase treatment access and retention, strengthening the evidence that receiving addiction care through telehealth is to be safe and beneficial, and that it should be made available to those who need it,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). “To quell the unprecedented loss of life from the overdose crisis, we must continue to prioritize both increasing access to treatment and providing the care and support people need to stay in treatment after they have started,” Volkow said in an agency news release. The research was part of the HEALing Communities Study, which is a large addiction prevention and treatment implementation study supported by NIDA. Before 2020, people with opioid use disorder were required to meet in person with a health care provider to start buprenorphine treatment, but during the pandemic the U.S. government allowed more prescribing flexibility to improve access. Clinicians could then prescribe the medication without examining patients in person. Payment for these appointments was also expanded.… read on > read on >

E-bikes, e-scooters and hoverboards are everywhere — and injuries related to their use are soaring. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a new report on Tuesday showing that injuries associated with these so-called micro-mobility devices increased nearly 21% in 2022 alone, compared to 2021. Injury estimates were based on data collected between 2017 and 2022 from a nationally representative sample of U.S. hospitals. About 46% of all estimated e-bike injuries from 2017 to 2022 occurred in 2022 alone. Hoverboard injuries were the only type to go against trend, decreasing 26% from 2021 to 2022. Between 2017 and 2022, 233 deaths were associated with these devices, according to the CPSC, although reporting is not yet complete. Kids were a big portion of those injured, with children 14 and younger accounting for 36% of e-bike, e-scooter and hoverboard injuries during those years. That’s double the 18% proportion of the U.S. population that kids comprise. Black consumers represented 29% of injuries on these electric devices, a significantly higher proportion than their 13% of the U.S. population. Additionally, more than 360,000 emergency department visits were related to these devices from 2017 through 2022. Fractures and bruises/scrapes were the two most common injuries. The upper and lower limbs and the head and neck were most frequently injured. Another significant hazard associated with these devices was fires. The CPSC… read on > read on >

When your teen gets a driver’s license, you’ll likely have mixed emotions. While you’re off the hook for carpools, it’s scary to think about your baby behind the wheel. Now, a new video game technology that exposes drivers to the most common serious crash scenarios and sees how they react may help predict what type of driver your teen will be. It can also highlight any potential problems, a new study suggests. “Not only is the virtual driving assessment a great resource for young drivers to get feedback on their driving going beyond just pass or fail results, but it can also be a helpful resource for parents to determine if their child is ready to drive safely [and] know what types of driving skills they should focus on when taking their teens out to practice,” said study author Elizabeth Walshe. She’s a research scientist and leader of the Neuroscience of Driving Program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Center for Injury Research and Prevention. Walshe is also an investor in the new video technology called Ready Assess by Diagnostic Driving, Inc. The virtual driving assessment is a fully immersive 15-minute, self-guided simulated drive that measures a person’s ability to drive safely and avoid crashes. Drivers use a steering wheel, pedals and headphones while following the course on a computer screen. It measures more than 100… read on > read on >

The ability to detect skin cancer using artificial intelligence (AI) software has rapidly improved. New research presented Wednesday at a medical conference in Berlin shows that this AI technology now has a 100% detection rate for melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer. In this study, researchers assessed more than 22,000 patients with suspected skin cancers over 2-1/2 years. Besides detecting all 59 cases of melanoma, the new software was 99.5% accurate in detecting all skin cancers, missing 1 of 190. It was 92.5% effective at identifying pre-cancerous lesions. “This study has demonstrated how AI is rapidly improving and learning, with the high accuracy directly attributable to improvements in AI training techniques and the quality of data used to train the AI,” lead author Dr. Kashini Andrew, specialist registrar at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom, said in a news release from the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology. “The latest version of the software has saved over 1,000 face-to-face consultations in the secondary care setting between April 2022 and January 2023, freeing up more time for patients that need urgent attention,” Andrew added. This is the third version of this AI software. The first was tested in 2021, detecting nearly 86% of melanomas, 84% of all skin cancers and 54% of pre-cancerous lesions at that time. Still, the researchers… read on > read on >

While studies of ADHD and driving usually target teens, a new one focused on seniors found they have a significantly higher risk of car crashes. Older adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were also more likely to slam on the brakes and get traffic tickets, the study found. “Little is known about ADHD in seniors,” said senior author Dr. Guohua Li, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City, explaining the motivations for studying this issue. “Secondly, the population has been aging and continues to grow older, and there are more and more older adult drivers on the road.” The United States has about 48 million older drivers, a number that could reach 63 million within seven years, he noted. This study included more than 2,800 drivers between 65 and 79 years of age. About 2.6% had ADHD. The researchers linked ADHD to a 74% increased risk of crashes, a 102% increased risk in self-reported traffic tickets and a 7% increased risk of hard braking events. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition that is often diagnosed during childhood and can persist throughout life. About 8% of adults aged 18 to 44 are known to have ADHD, the researchers said in background notes, as are 9% to 13% of children under 18. ADHD symptoms that might contribute to driving challenges include… read on > read on >

The ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI) program could grow into a source of accurate and comprehensive medical information, but it’s not quite ready for prime time yet, a new study reports. ChatGPT’s responses to more than 280 medical questions across diverse specialties averaged between mostly to almost completely correct, according to a report published online Oct. 2 in JAMA Network Open. “Overall, it performed fairly well as far as both accuracy and completions,” said senior researcher Dr. Douglas Johnson, director of the Melanoma Clinical Research Program at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tenn. “Certainly, it was not perfect. It was not completely reliable,” Johnson continued. “But at the time we were entering the questions, it was actually pretty accurate and provided, relatively speaking, reliable information.” Accuracy improved even more if a second AI program was brought in to review the answer provided by the first, the results showed. Johnson and his colleagues set out to test ChatGPT by peppering the AI with health questions between January and May 2023, shortly after it came online. People and doctors already lean on search engines like Google and Bing for answers to health questions, Johnson said. It makes sense that AI programs like ChatGPT will be the next frontier for researching medical issues. Such AI programs “provide almost an answer engine for many types of questions across different fields,… read on > read on >

Some common medications — including antidepressants, sleep aids and painkillers — may dull the driving skills of seniors, a new study finds. Many different medication classes have been linked to the risk of driving impairment, as anyone who has ever read the label warning “do not operate heavy machinery” might have guessed. But the new study took a particularly rigorous approach to investigating the issue — following older adults for up to 10 years and testing their driving skills with annual road tests. And it turned out that those using certain classes of medications were at greater risk of failing the road test at some point. When older folks were taking either antidepressants, sedative/hypnotics (sleep medications) or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), they were nearly three times more likely to get a failing or “marginal” grade than non-users. The findings do not prove the medications are to blame, said lead researcher Dr. David Carr, a specialist in geriatric medicine at Washington University’s School of Medicine in St. Louis. It can be hard, he said, to draw a direct line between a particular medication and diminished driving skills: Is it that drug, or the medical condition it’s treating or another medication an older adult is taking? In this study, though, Carr and his colleagues were able to account for many factors, including participants’ medical conditions, memory and… read on > read on >

A popular type of off-road vehicle known as a “side-by-side” has been linked to high rates of severe hand injuries, according to a new study. Side-by-sides are utility terrain vehicles (UTVs) designed to carry more than one passenger and heavy loads. All-terrain vehicles (ATVs) are usually made for one driver going off-road. “Our study finds much higher rates of mutilating hand injuries and amputations associated with side-by-side UTVs, compared to ATVs,” said lead author Dr. Shaun Mendenhall, of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, in Philadelphia. Mendenhall worked on the study with colleagues at his former school, the University of Utah. The report was published in the October issue of the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. “We believe hand surgeons can play a key role in increasing awareness and prevention of ATV-related hand injuries,” Mendenhall said in a journal news release. Utility terrain vehicles have side-by-side passenger seating, safety belts and a rollover protection system, but the American Society of Plastic Surgeons suggests this may create a false illusion that UTVs are safer than ATVs. ATVs have straddle seating, no safety belt and no rollover protection. The study developed after University of Utah hand surgeons began seeing more hand, arm and shoulder injuries in UTV riders. Between 2010 and 2021, they treated 87 patients who were injured in ATV accidents and 67 who… read on > read on >

TUESDAY, Sept. 26, 2023 (HealthDay News) – The lax enforcement of age limits by many online marijuana dispensaries makes it easier for minors to buy weed, claims new research that looked at online weed sales in 32 states. “It is imperative to require strict age-verification procedures prior to cannabis purchases online and to establish stringent surveillance of online marijuana dispensaries to protect youth,” wrote the authors of the new study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. The authors looked at age-verification policies and other practices of 80 online dispensaries. About 18.8% of dispensaries “required no formal age verification at any stage of the purchasing process,” according to the study. Meanwhile, more than 80% accepted “non-traceable” payment methods such as pre-paid cards or cash. These polices are “enabling youth to hide their transactions,” the authors noted. The issue, in addition to the law, is about what impact marijuana has on the developing brain, especially as potency of products has increased, the researchers noted. The pandemic saw a drop in marijuana use by minors, possibly because it was harder to get and use the drugs without notice, the New York Times reported. The new study also found that nearly one-third of online dispensaries allowed delivery across state lines. Among those that did, 95% would deliver to states that had different laws than the states they were… read on > read on >