Category «Health Care»

CFPB Finalizes Rule to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports

“Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a rule that will remove an estimated $49 billion in medical bills from the credit reports of about 15 million Americans. The CFPB’s action will ban the inclusion of medical bills on credit reports used by lenders and prohibit lenders from using medical information in their lending …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Health Care

EPA Report Finds That Formaldehyde Presents an “Unreasonable Risk” to Public Health

ProPublica: “A long-awaited report from the Environmental Protection Agency has found that formaldehyde presents an unreasonable risk to human health. But the report, released Thursday, downplayed the threat the chemical poses to people living near industrial plants that release large quantities of the carcinogen into the air.The health risk assessment was published weeks after a …

Subjects: Economy, Government Documents, Health Care

New resource available to help scientists better classify cancer subtypes

“A multi-institutional team of scientists has developed a free, publicly accessible resource to aid in classification of patient tumor samples based on distinct molecular features identified by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Network. The resource comprises classifier models that can accelerate the design of cancer subtype-specific test kits for use in clinical trials and cancer …

Subjects: Health Care, Knowledge Management, Medicine

The Changing Medical Debt Landscape in the United States

Urban.org: “Medical debt can intensify financial challenges, affect health care access, and potentially worsen health outcomes. Starting in 2022, the three nationwide credit reporting companies made significant changes to medical debt reporting. Paid medical collections were removed from credit reports, debt in collections would no longer be used in calculating Vantage credit scores, the grace …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Health Care, Medicine

77 Facts That Blew Our Minds in 2024

The Atlantic – Gift Article: “Over the past year, the writers on The Atlantic’s Science, Technology, and Health desk have investigated academic fraud, tracked infectious-disease outbreaks, studied the evolution of artificial intelligence, and chronicled extreme weather events. We’ve reported on the quirks of animal behavior and the latest in psychedelics research. Along the way, we …

Subjects: Climate Change, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Education, Health Care, Internet

24 Things That Made the World a Better Place in 2024

Wired [unpaywalled] : “Let’s face it—2024 has felt at times like a relentless conveyor belt of doom. The climate crisis is still gaining momentum, COP underlined the lack of consensus on what to do about it, and attempts to create a plastics treaty failed. Political violence rose to the surface in the US, and there …

Subjects: Education, Environmental Law, Health Care, Internet, Legal Research, Medicine

HHS launches campaign against vaccine misinformation

Beckers : “In response to declining childhood vaccinations and rising infection rates across the U.S., HHS haslaunched a vaccine education campaign, encouraging parents to make informed healthcare decisions for their children based on more balanced information. The Let’s Get Real campaign aims to “cut through the noise of misinformation” and “provide verifiable facts” to parents while also serving …

Subjects: Censorship, Government Documents, Health Care, Medicine

The Most Detailed Map of Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution in the US

ProPublica: “It’s not a secret that industrial facilities emit hazardous air pollution. A recent ProPublica analysis shows for the first time just how much toxic air pollution they emit — and how much the chemicals they unleash could be elevating cancer risk in their communities. ProPublica’s analysis of five years of modeled EPA data identified …

Subjects: Climate Change, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Health Care

Commercial tea bags release millions of microplastics, entering human intestinal cells

Gooya Banaei et al, Teabag-derived micro/nanoplastics (true-to-life MNPLs) as a surrogate for real-life exposure scenarios, Chemosphere (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2024.143736 – “UAB research has characterized in detail how polymer-based commercial tea bags release millions of nanoplastics and microplastics when infused. The study shows for the first time the capacity of these particles to be absorbed by …

Subjects: Energy, Food and Nutrition, Health Care

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 21, 2024

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 21, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Health Care, ID Theft, Internet, Privacy, Social Media

The Breachies 2024: The Worst, Weirdest, Most Impactful Data Breaches of the Year

EFF: “Every year, countless emails hit our inboxes telling us that our personal information was accessed, shared, or stolen in a data breach. In many cases, there is little we can do. Most of us can assume that at least our phone numbers, emails, addresses, credit card numbers, and social security numbers are all available …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Mail, E-Records, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Health Care, ID Theft, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy