DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

The Additional Chief Secretary, G. Anupama, said in a text message, "Enquiry is underway" and directed Reuters to the health minister for Haryana state, Anil Vij, for further details. Its chief minister and health minister, to whom Yashpal also sent his complaint, did not respond to requests for comment. Naresh Kumar Goyal, the founder of Maiden Pharmaceuticals, told Reuters in December his company did nothing wrong in the production of the cough syrup. The bribery allegation was one of about half a dozen claims of corruption by Yashpal against Taneja in the letter. Yashpal told Reuters he did not comply, because he did not feel comfortable bringing such details to the deputy of someone he had accused of corruption.

Persons: Sagnia, Edward McAllister, Yashpal, Manmohan Taneja, Taneja, Maiden, Yashpal –, –, Shatrujeet Kapur, Kapur, Anupama, Anil Vij, Vij, Naresh Kumar Goyal, Goyal, Narendra Modi, Taneja's, Lalit Kumar Goel, Goel, Krishna N, Jennifer Rigby, Sara Ledwith, Michele Gershberg Organizations: REUTERS, World Health Organization, WHO, Reuters, Corruption Bureau, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, pharma, Corruption, Taneja, EG, Thomson Locations: Yundum, Gambia, DELHI, Haryana, New Delhi, Vietnam, India, London

☆ N95 Masks Helped Protect Against the Coronavirus. They Also Work Against Wildfire Smoke.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Claire Moses | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As smoke from wildfires in Canada drifts over large parts of the United States, the best thing to do to prevent breathing in pollutants on Wednesday is to stay indoors. So if you do have to brave the outdoors, putting on a mask is the next best thing. But beware, not all masks work equally well. N95 masks can filter tiny particles that are less than 0.3 micrometers. Instead, use N95 face masks (you may still have some of those left from the pandemic), or respirator masks, which you can find in hardware stores or online.

Locations: Canada, United States

REUTERS/Francis MascarenhasBALASORE, India, June 7 (Reuters) - Indian authorities made fervent appeals to families on Tuesday to help identify over 100 unclaimed bodies kept in hospitals and mortuaries after 275 people were killed in the country's deadliest rail crash in over two decades. Following non-stop efforts to rescue survivors and clear and repair the track, trains resumed running over that section of the line on Sunday night. Till Monday evening around 100 bodies were yet to be identified, a senior state health department official told Reuters. Bijay Kumar Mohapatra, health director of Odisha, said authorities were trying to source iced containers to help preserve the bodies. "Unless they are identified, a post mortem cannot be done," Mohapatra said, explaining that under Odisha state regulations no autopsy can be conducted on an unclaimed body until 96 hours has passed.

Persons: Dilip Kumar Sabar, Jyotilal Sabar, Francis Mascarenhas BALASORE, Bijay Kumar Mohapatra, Odisha, Mohapatra, A.M, Chowdhary, Jatindra Dash, Krishn Kaushik, Sudipto Ganguly, Simon Cameron, Moore Organizations: REUTERS, Reuters, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India's Railway, federal Central Bureau of Investigation, CBI, Railway, Express, Thomson Locations: Balasore, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, Bhubaneswar's, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chennai, Kolkata, Howrah

☆ A Baltimore restaurant was temporarily shut down by city officials after a TikTok showing a 'rodent infestation' went viral
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A TikToker said she spotted "five, six mice" in the dining room of a restaurant in Baltimore. The city's health department then temporarily closed the restaurant because of a "rodent infestation." The caption on the video reads: "'hey siri: call the health department it's giving infestation." Baltimore City Health Department said that the restaurant had been shut down on Thursday – two days after Lynn's visit – because of a "rodent infestation" and needed to correct the violations and pass a reinspection to reopen. According to a page on the department's website, the restaurant was approved to reopen the next day.

Persons: —, Chloe Lynn, Lynn, siri, Lynn's Organizations: Service, Baltimore, Baltimore City Health Department Locations: Baltimore, Blackwall, Baltimore City

☆ Washington State Woman Is Arrested After Refusing TB Treatment
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Fariha Rahman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A Washington State woman who for over a year refused a court order to receive treatment for tuberculosis was taken into custody on Thursday, more than three months after a civil warrant was issued for her arrest, the authorities said. The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department said in a statement that the woman, who has been identified in court documents only by the initials V.N., had been taken to the Pierce County Jail, where she would be housed in a room that is “specially equipped for isolation, testing and treatment.”“We are hopeful she will choose to get the lifesaving treatment she needs to treat her tuberculosis,” the statement said. Darren Moss, a spokesman the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, said in an email on Friday that the woman was taken into custody without incident at her home on Thursday and was transported to the jail in a specially equipped vehicle that allowed her to remain isolated for the duration of the trip. He declined to say where the woman lived.

Persons: Darren Moss Organizations: Washington State, Pierce, Pierce County Health Department, Sheriff’s Department Locations: Tacoma, Pierce County, Pierce

☆ Was mass hysteria behind the mysterious case of 227 middle school students fainting last fall?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Lillian Perlmutter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +22 min

On September 23, 2022, 12-year-old Esmeralda walked out of the girls' bathroom at her middle school in Tapachula, Mexico, and fainted. Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador began including regular updates on the government's investigation into the fainting episodes in his daily press conferences. Dr. Carlos Alberto Pantoja Meléndez, one of Mexico's few field epidemiologists, had taken an interest in the fainting episodes. News of the initial fainting episodes had been shared there, the epidemiologist, who asked to remain anonymous, told Pantoja-Melendez. Both believe that the fainting episodes in Mexico were examples of something new and alarming: mass hysteria spreading online.

Persons: Esmeralda, Diala, Gladys, Esmeralda's, convulsing, Esmeralda Eva Alicia Lépiz, —, Esmerelda, Mami, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, Gladys didn't, Bochil, Luis Villagrán, bristled, Susanna, Tapachula, Diala's, José Eduardo Morales Montes, they'd, Eva Alicia Lépiz, Hidalgo —, I've, Carlos Alberto Pantoja Meléndez, Pantoja Meléndez, Meléndez, Robert Bartholomew, Bartholomew, Lopez Obrador, busily, Simon Wessley, schoolgirls, twitching, we'll, Pantoja, Melendez, Bartholomew said, we're, We've, who's Organizations: Federal, Central America, Journalists, Mexico City —, Mexico City, Universidad Autónoma Nacional, University of Auckland, Roswell, Kings College, New York, Health Department, Pantoja Locations: Tapachula, Mexico, Bochil, Mexican, Chiapas, Mexico City, El Pais, Chiapas —, Central, Esmeralda, Mexico City — Tlaxcala, Hidalgo, México, University of Auckland , New Zealand, Veracruz, London, Southern Mexico, Kanshasa, Tanzania, Blackburn , England, Sweden, Pyuthan, Nepal, Leroy , New York, Tapachula .

☆ See the 19-slide presentation that got the former Louisiana health chief $15 million to care for families at home
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A former Louisiana secretary of health is building a startup to get families primary care at home. Nest Health landed $15 million in seed funding in May from 8VC and Blue Venture Fund. Check out the pitch deck that Nest used to get funds for its expansion in New Orleans and beyond. For four years, Dr. Rebekah Gee served as the secretary of the Louisiana health department. Here's the pitch deck Nest Health used to land $15 million.

Persons: Rebekah Gee, Gee, 8VC, Annie E, she's Organizations: Health, Blue Venture, Blue Venture Fund, Casey Foundation Locations: Louisiana, 8VC, New Orleans, Gee

☆ With Mpox at Risk of Flaring, Health Officials Advise, ‘Get Vaccinated’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Sharon Otterman | Liam Stack | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Late last year, with cases at a trickle, New York City wound down its mpox emergency response. Health officials stopped posting updates about cases. Since peaking in the city late last July at almost 100 cases a day, the disease has continued to circulate at much lower levels. Health officials stopped posting case information on the city’s website at the end of last year. The health department said there had been at least 39 mpox cases in New York so far this year, including 20 in January and two in the past month.

☆ As South Carolina governor signs new law, abortion restrictions strain providers in U.S. South
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The South Carolina House of Representatives is called back by Gov. "This is a great day for life in South Carolina, but the fight is not over. We stand ready to defend this legislation against any challenges and are confident we will succeed," Republican South Carolina Gov. The new law signed by South Carolina governor's will change that status, according to Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College. Over the past two months, Republican officials in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida have pushed Virginia closer to being a regional outlier as a place with relatively permissive access.

☆ Cholera outbreak claims ten more lives in South Africa
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

JOHANNESBURG, May 21 (Reuters) - The provincial health department in the South African province of Gauteng on Sunday announced 19 new cases of Cholera in Hammanskraal, including 10 deaths. South Africa reported its first cholera death in February, after the virus arrived in the country from Malawi. It was unclear how many cholera cases there was nationally as of Sunday, but the most populous province of Gauteng, where Johannesburg and Pretoria are situated, has been hardest hit. Cholera can cause acute diarrhoea, vomiting and weakness and is mainly spread by contaminated food or water. The last outbreak in South Africa was in 2008/2009 when about 12,000 cases were reported following an outbreak in neighbouring Zimbabwe, which led to a surge of imported cases and subsequent local transmission.

☆ Here's why Covid vaccines will still be free for uninsured Americans as public health emergency ends
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Annika Kim Constantino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Vanessa Leroy | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesBut the vast majority of Americans will not have to pay out of pocket for Covid vaccines even after the federal government's stockpile runs out. Insured Americans will be able to access Covid shots as part of their coverage, without having to pay out of pocket. Under the arrangement, the CDC will continue to purchase Covid vaccines at a discount and distribute them through 64 state and local health departments. That HHS effort will leverage the "public commitments" by drug manufacturers to provide free Covid vaccines and treatments to uninsured people. Pfizer and Moderna have not said whether they would supply free shots to pharmacies.

☆ Americans in most states will no longer receive Covid exposure notifications on phones
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Annika Kim Constantino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Americans in most states will no longer receive Covid exposure notifications on their smartphones now that the U.S. public health emergency has ended. On Thursday, the organization said "the majority of states" stopped using the exposure notification system after the Biden administration ended the public health emergency on May 11. There is no clear tally of how many Americans activated the exposure notification feature on their phones or downloaded apps over the past three years. Despite these benefits, some Americans have been skeptical of the Covid exposure notification tools. State decisions to end Covid exposure notifications are part of a broader shift in how the country responds to the pandemic.

☆ What Does the End of the Covid Health Emergency Mean for New York City?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Sharon Otterman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The official end of the nation’s Covid public health emergency on Thursday means that the country will begin to treat Covid-19 like any other transmissible disease, meaning the end of federal funds for free testing and treatment for all. In New York City, the rollback of the public health response has been underway for months. The city will keep distributing free home tests at libraries and other locations until its supply from the federal government runs out. The city’s public hospitals and clinics will continue indefinitely to provide low-cost or free care to the estimated 200,000 uninsured people in the city, as it does for other illnesses. “Covid-related health care is going to start looking a lot more like all the other health care we receive, which involves health insurance for people who have it, and turning to our safety-net health care system for people who don’t,” said Rima Oken, director of policy for the New York City Health Department’s disease control division, at a panel hosted last week by the Pandemic Response Institute.

[1/5] Swiss army soldiers take part in a live ammo exercise during the LUX 23 exercise in Les Pradieres, Switzerland May 4, 2023. The drills, involving 4,000 troops and spread across four cantons over nine days, took place as the country's role in European defence has come into focus amid calls for it to assist Ukraine in fighting the Russian invasion. The LUX 23 drills, planned since 2021, were not organised in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February last year, but the Swiss military said it made the exercise all the more relevant. "This, of course, is directly linked [to the war in Ukraine]." Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Denis Balibouse; Editing by Angus MacSwanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Alabama Discriminated Against Black Residents Over Sewage, Justice Dept. Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Linda Qiu | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Justice Department said it had reached an interim agreement with the health departments of Alabama and one of its rural counties over practices found to discriminate against generations of Black residents. Under the agreement announced Thursday, the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Lowndes County Health Department said they would improve wastewater infrastructure, measure the health risks associated with raw sewage exposure, and stop penalizing residents who cannot afford adequate treatment systems. The agreement represents “a new chapter for Black residents of Lowndes County, Ala., who have endured health dangers, indignities and racial injustice for far too long,” said Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Catherine Coleman Flowers, an environmental activist who grew up in Lowndes, said that residents of the county, like those in many other rural communities, use wastewater systems installed on the grounds of homes and businesses rather than a centralized sewage treatment plant operated by a local government. But the county stood alone in penalizing residents for sanitation issues that were outside their control, she added.

☆ Dental Coverage to Expand for 5 Million Low-Income New Yorkers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Matthew Adinolfi, who has no top teeth and had no love life for over a decade, will be able to get implants so that he can kiss a woman without fear of his dentures falling out. Blanca Coreas, who can’t eat anything firmer than mashed potatoes without her gums bleeding, will be able to take a bite of grilled meat. Lillian Velazquez has now gotten the root canal that was denied for nearly five years. A class-action suit that was settled on Monday will bring about a change that is as potentially transformative as it is mundane: coverage of common but costly dental procedures for the 5 million adults in New York State who are on Medicaid, including implants, root canals and replacement dentures. The suit, filed in 2018 in federal court against the State Health Department, which oversees Medicaid in New York, charged the state with denying thousands of low-income New Yorkers medically necessary treatment.

Governments were able to tailor their data reporting so it could be aggregated. Pulling the data closest to the outbreaks allowed us to publish nearly real-time information as the pandemic spread. Politicized rhetoric about vaccines also drove decisions in some parts of the country to end data reporting. As of this spring, only seven states continued to publish data on cases and deaths more than once a week. There is still much to do to fix the hodgepodge of antiquated, disconnected surveillance data systems that exist across governments.

☆ UK set to curb nurses' strike after union does not defend legal action
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Toby MelvilleLONDON, April 27 (Reuters) - The British government on Thursday looked set to limit the length of an upcoming strike by nurses, after their trade union did not send lawyers to defend legal action it has brought over the dispute. However, Britain's health department says that industrial action on May 2 would be unlawful because a vote to strike is only valid for six months after a ballot of trade union members. Lawyers representing health minister Steve Barclay told London's High Court on Thursday that, as the RCN ballot closed on Nov. 2 last year, a strike on May 2 would be "clearly unlawful action". Lawyer Andrew Burns, representing the government, said the union had performed "a significant U-turn" and was no longer contesting the bid to have the final day of its strike action declared unlawful. "We have ended up in a very regrettable situation where a major – and, one would hope, responsible – trade union has been publicly saying that its members can take lawful strike action on May 2," Burns said.

☆ West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is running for Joe Manchin's pivotal Senate seat
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Kevin Breuninger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice (R) and US Senator Joe Manchin (L), Democrat of West Virginia, attend a roundtable discussion on the opioid epidemic with local and state officials at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department in Huntington, West Virginia, July 8, 2019. West Virginia's Republican governor, Jim Justice, filed official paperwork to kick off a 2024 campaign for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by incumbent Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. If Manchin decides not to run for a third term, Democrats are widely expected to lose the seat to whichever Republican nominee emerges from West Virginia's Senate primary. A Trump campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. With his seat under threat, Manchin has appeared increasingly critical of President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats.

☆ GOP Gov. Jim Justice set to launch bid for Joe Manchin's Senate seat in West Virginia this week
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Kevin Breuninger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice (R) and US Senator Joe Manchin (L), Democrat of West Virginia, attend a roundtable discussion on the opioid epidemic with local and state officials at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department in Huntington, West Virginia, July 8, 2019. West Virginia offers the GOP perhaps its best chance to flip a Democratic seat next year. Justice's team believes a Senate bid by the governor could make Manchin less likely to seek reelection, the GOP source told CNBC last month. Former President Donald Trump, who is deeply popular in West Virginia, backed Mooney in his most recent House election. Justice is set to announce his Senate bid at his own resort, furthering intermingling the governor's business and politics.

☆ New York and California are stockpiling alternative abortion pill misoprostol
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Pills of Misoprostol, used to terminate early pregnancies, are displayed in a pharmacy in Provo, Utah, May 12, 2022. New York and California are stockpiling massive quantities of an alternative abortion medication in case a federal judge's order suspending the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the main drug mifepristone goes into effect later this week. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday ordered the state health department to immediately start purchasing 150,000 doses of misoprostol, a five-year supply of the pill. Gavin Newsom said California has secured 2 million pills of misoprostol. The second pill is used as a standalone abortion medication in parts of the world.

☆ Fact Check-Alkaline hydrolysis, or liquid cremation, does not mean human remains are ‘fed to the living'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Alkaline hydrolysis is a form of flameless cremation where a human body can be liquified and turned into wastewater after death. An alkaline hydrolysis machine is used to perform a “bio-cremation,” (also known as aquamation or water cremation) (here). The video shows Fisher explaining how the alkaline hydrolysis machine called the Resomator works. The NFDA’s model guidelines for states to base laws governing alkaline hydrolysis can be seen (here). Experts say liquid from alkaline hydrolysis is sterilized with no trace of human DNA and is then treated at water treatment facilities before entering common households.

☆ Some pregnant people in Philadelphia are about to get $1,000 a month in what the mayor is calling a 'pro-life' program
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Jason Lalljee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Philadelphia is launching a guaranteed income program for pregnant people. The city has the highest infant mortality rate of the top ten most populated cities in the US. The city's health department announced it will oversee a trial program beginning next year to provide 250 pregnant people with $1,000 a month. Called the Philly Joy Bank, the Philadelphia program will offer no-strings-attached funding in the vein of other guaranteed income programs. "We know that being able to better support pregnant people and new parents helps keep babies alive.

☆ A church fired a worker who raised concerns after finding rats and spiders in the kitchen of its childcare center, the Labor Department said
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A Texas church fired a worker who spoke to health authorities about pests in its daycare center, per OSHA. The worker said he'd spotted rats, roaches, and spiders in the facility's kitchen and cafeteria. OSHA ordered New Mount Zion Baptist Church to rehire him and pay him $31,000 in back wages and damages. The next day, the worker was told he was being terminated based on a vote by the church's board, per OSHA. In a preliminary order, OSHA told the church to reinstate the worker and pay him more than $11,000 in back wages and $20,000 in damages.

☆ I got my first TV writing job at 55. It was hard being the oldest person in the room — but I'm glad I never gave up.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Eboni Boykin-Patterson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Writing what he knew and making personal connections ultimately led to his first TV job at age 55. I've been working towards a TV writing job for a few years, but I've always wanted to write for the screen. I got the job sort of out of the blueThe way I got my first writing job was through a 20-year-old relationship. She was really, really complimentary. As we were taking the class, they were going around the room and each person said what scared them the most about being a TV writer.

Search resuls for: "Health Department"

25 mentions found