Public Health Roundup: Disparities In Stroke Treatment; Prostrate Cancer Survival; Flu Shot Timing

Los Angeles Times: Women And Minorities Are Less Likely To Get Key Stroke Treatment, Even When They're Eligible, Study Says
If you’re having an ischemic stroke, it’s crucial that you get to a hospital fast so you can be treated with a clot-busting medicine. And to improve your odds of getting that medicine, it helps to be a white man. A new analysis of more than 60,000 stroke patients from around the country found that women were less likely than men to receive an infusion of tissue plasminogen activator, the drug that’s considered the gold standard in stroke treatment. The analysis also showed that racial minorities were less likely to get the drug than whites. (Kaplan, 9/14)

The Washington Post: Almost All Men With Early Prostate Cancer Survive 10 Years, Regardless Of Treatment
The survival rate for early-stage prostate cancer is 99 percent after 10 years, regardless of whether men undergo surgery, radiation or are "actively monitored," according to studies published Wednesday. Researchers hailed the results as good news, saying they had been expecting a survival rate of 90 percent. The two new studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also illustrated the complicated treatment equations facing men with early-stage prostate cancer, and they immediately set off a debate among physicians about how to interpret the results. (McGinley, 9/14)

Kaiser Health News: The Ads Say ‘Get Your Flu Shot Today,’ But It May Be Wiser To Wait
The start of flu season is still weeks — if not months — away. Yet marketing of the vaccine has become an almost year-round effort, beginning when the shots become available in August and hyped as long as the supply lasts, often into April or May. Not that long ago, most flu-shot campaigns started as the leaves began to turn in October. But the rise of retail medical clinics inside drug stores over the past decade — and state laws allowing pharmacists to give vaccinations — has stretched the flu-shot season. (Appleby, 9/15)

NPR: Sugar Shocked? The Rest Of Food Industry Pays For Lots Of Research, Too : The Salt : NPR
Sugar shocked. That describes the reaction of many Americans this week following revelations that, 50 years ago, the sugar industry paid Harvard scientists for research that shifted the focus away from sugar's role in heart disease — and put the spotlight squarely on dietary fat. What might surprise consumers is just how many present-day nutrition studies are still funded by the food industry. (Godoy, 9/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Greater Share Of U.S. Workers Testing Positive For Illicit Drugs
The share of U.S. workers testing positive for illicit drug use reached its highest level in a decade, according to data from millions of workplace drug tests administered by Quest Diagnostics Inc., one of the nation’s largest medical-screening laboratories. Detection of illicit drugs—from marijuana to heroin to methamphetamine—increased slightly both for the general workforce and the “safety-sensitive” workforce, which includes millions of truck drivers, pilots, ship captains, subway engineers, and other transportation workers. (Weber, 9/14)

NPR: Doctors Studied 42 Infants In Brazil With Microcephaly And The News Isn't Good
"These babies do not catch up as they grow," says Dr. Antonia Augusto Moura da Silva of the Federal University of Maranhao, Sao Luis, Brazil. He's describing the findings from a study of 48 babies whose mothers were believed to have been infected with the Zika virus. Forty-two of the children were diagnosed with microcephaly. The study, on the early neurological growth pattern of the infants, will be published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases in November but was released early online. (Brink, 9/14)

The Washington Post: How Tens Of Thousands Of Patients Who Weren’t Actually Dying Wound Up On Hospice Care
Hospice patients are expected to die. The service, after all, is intended for the terminally ill. But over the past decade, as a 2014 Washington Post investigation found, the number of patients who outlived hospice care in the United States has risen dramatically, in part because hospice companies earn more by recruiting patients who aren’t actually dying. Now government inspectors have turned up information about how that happens. (Whoriskey, 9/14)