Infant dead in listeria outbreak tied to Yu Shang Food ready-to-eat meat and poultry products: CDC

(NEW YORK) — A new study suggests that GLP-1 agonist medications like Ozempic, which are used for diabetes management and weight loss, may help reduce the risk of overdose and alcohol intoxication in people with substance use disorders.

“It helps to underline another significant benefit of this class of medication,” Dr. Angela Fitch, the co-founder, and chief medical officer of knownwell, a company that provides weight-inclusive health care, told ABC News.

The large study, published in the journal, Addiction, analyzed the health records of 1.3 million people from 136 U.S. hospitals for nearly nine years. That included the records of 500,000 people with opioid use and more than 800,000 with alcohol use disorder.

Those who took Ozempic or a similar drug had a 40% lower chance of overdosing on opioids and a 50% lower chance of getting drunk compared to those who didn’t take the medication, the study found.

“The existing medications for treating substance use disorder are underutilized and stigmatized,” said Fares Qeadan, associate professor of biostatistics at Loyola University in Chicago. “These medications intended for diabetes and weight loss can help addiction without the associated stigma, which will be a new window for how to deal with addiction.”

The protective effects were consistent and even applied to people with Type 2 diabetes, obesity, or both conditions.

Fitch expressed optimism about the study’s results.

“As clinicians, recognizing that people can get double benefits from something is always helpful and as more obesity medications enter the market, this can help personalize treatments,” she said.

GLP-1 drugs, such as Ozempic and the combination drug tirzepatide also included in the study, mimic a natural hormone known as glucagon-like peptide-1 to help regulate blood sugar and insulin levels. For managing obesity and diabetes, these medications work by slowing digestion, reducing appetite, and enhancing insulin release in response to meals.

Scientists don’t fully understand how these drugs work yet. Some studies indicate that they activate specific “reward” receptors in the brain that make high-calorie foods less gratifying, so users eat less.

This could also be the reason these drugs may reduce cravings for alcohol and opioids. For example, a previous study found that adding the GLP-1, exenatide, was effective at helping some people with obesity and alcohol use disorder drink less.

The Addiction study does not prove that GLP-1 medications directly lower the risks of opioid overdose and alcohol intoxication, only that people taking them seemed to be helped. And it only included hospitalizations so it’s not clear if they will work as well in less serious cases.

Prescribing the drugs to treat substance use, at least for now, isn’t possible because they aren’t approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for that purpose, Fitch pointed out.

“One of the challenges that we have as clinicians is we know that some of these benefits help patients. And not being able to get them access is very challenging,” she said.

People with substance use disorder keep using drugs or alcohol even though it causes problems in their life. According to the CDC, there are 178,000 annual deaths linked to excessive drinking. Over 75% of drug overdose deaths in 2022 involved opioids.

If you or someone you know is living with substance use disorder, free, confidential help is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by calling or texting the national lifeline at 988.

Dr. Faizah Shareef is an Internal Medicine Resident Physician and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.

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(NEW YORK) — Fury, anger and resentment toward the health care industry have exploded in the public rhetoric in the wake of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killing and one activist said that “volcanic” eruption of emotion has been boiling up for years.

People have been flooding social media posts with statements chastising UHC for its policies, bringing up times they were personally denied coverage or hit with huge bills for services.

In some instances, some users have even praised Thompson’s murder and the shooter, who is still on the lam and not been publicly identified as of Friday evening. UHC’s Facebook post memorializing Thompson was filled with “laughing” emojis and comments chastising the insurer before comments were shut off.

Derrick Crowe, a spokesman for the nonprofit People’s Action Institute, a social advocacy nonprofit that has protested UHC and other health care, told ABC News that he was horrified by Thompson’s shooting and offered his condolences to his loved ones.

However, he noted the anger online has been a long time coming.

“I think the reason that anger was pent up and it came out in such a volcanic way is that corporations have too much power in this country and they’re standing in the way of dealing with two big epidemics,” he told ABC News. “One is the epidemic of gun violence, which we saw an example of in Manhattan, and one is an epidemic of care denials across the country.”

Crowe said more than 250 million health claims are denied annually by health insurance companies. He claimed the UHC “by far leads the clear care denials of people’s claims when they’re seeking health care.”

He cited examples such as patients claiming they were denied coverage for a congenital defect or infant care.

“Many of the folks that we’ve talked to have had personal stories of needing acute health care quickly and have found that this company has been standing in their way,” he said.

When asked by ABC News about the increase in rhetoric against the healthcare industry following the shooting, a UHC spokesperson deferred to its latest statement about Thompson’s killing.

“While our hearts are broken, we have been touched by the huge outpouring of kindness and support in the hours since this horrific crime took place. So many patients, consumers, health care professionals, associations, government officials and other caring people have taken time out of their day to reach out. We are thankful, even as we grieve,” the statement said.

“Our priorities are, first and foremost, supporting Brian’s family; ensuring the safety of our employees; and working with law enforcement to bring the perpetrator to justice. We, at UnitedHealth Group, will continue to be there for those who depend upon us for their health care. We ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy as they mourn the loss of their husband, father, brother and friend,” the statement continued.

In the past, protests have been held against UHC in Minneapolis, where its headquarters are based, including one back in July.

Crowe said that his organization has led many movements to call out the insurance companies for their practices.

“The purpose of that action was to draw attention to the epidemic of claims, denials and care denials across the country, and to bring people who have had their health care directly affected by a care denial by this corporation to the place where the denial is coming from, and to demand that they stop putting profits over people’s lives,” he said.

Crowe reiterated that his group only supports non-violent and peaceful means of protesting the industry and condemned Thompson’s murder. However, he reiterated that the fight against greed in the health insurance industry needs to continue.

“We believe that in keeping with the principles behind the First Amendment, that there are democratic, powerful, nonviolent ways that we can take that private pain and turn it into public power when we bring people together. And we’re going to continue to do that. And we think that’s an essential part of making change in our democracy,” he said.

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(NEW YORK) — With the recent pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the environmental attorney’s views on vaccines have been thrust back into the spotlight.

Kennedy has been a prominent vaccine skeptic, arguing that more research of vaccines is needed, although he has claimed in interviews that he has “never been anti-vaccine.”

Vaccine researchers tell ABC News that his recent comments don’t align with his past campaigns and that, if confirmed, he could convince vaccine-hesitant parents to not vaccinate their children.

“He’s really not a vaccine skeptic; I’m a vaccine skeptic,” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center, an attending physician in the division of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, told ABC News.

“Everybody who sits around the table at the FDA vaccine advisory committee is a vaccine skeptic, right? Show us the data, prove that this vaccine is safe, prove that it’s effective, because then and only then will we authorize it, or recommend authorization or licensure,” he said.

Offit argued that Kennedy is a “vaccine cynic,” adding, “He thinks that we’re not getting the right information, that there’s an unholy alliance between the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA with the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] to hide the real data, and he’s going to find the real data, which is utter nonsense.”

Claims that vaccines cause autism

Kennedy has previously claimed that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine — a myth that was born out of a now-debunked paper from the U.K. in 1998.

The fraudulent paper has since been discredited by health experts, retracted from the journal in which it was published, and its primary author, Andrew Wakefield, lost his medical license. More than a dozen high-quality studies have since found no evidence of a link between childhood vaccines and autism.

Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said he’s worried that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy has spilled over into hesitancy towards childhood vaccines.

There have been more measles outbreaks this year than last year and a five-fold increase in whooping cough cases this year from the year before, according to CDC data, which Hotez says is a sign that more parents may be increasingly vaccine-hesitant.

According to the CDC, there have been a total of 277 measles cases reported in 30 states in 2024 — more than four times the amount last year — with 16 outbreaks this year compared to four outbreaks in 2023. An estimated 96% of measles cases this year were not fully vaccinated. Additionally, whooping cough cases are at the highest levels this year since 2014, according to CDC data.

This comes as vaccinations among kindergarteners dipped in the 2023-2024 school year for the fourth year in a row – failing to meet the 95% threshold goal aimed to prevent a single infection from sparking an outbreak. The last time that threshold was met was pre-pandemic, during the 2019-2020 school year.

“Now you put someone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s most prominent, well-known anti-vaccine activist at the top of the food chain, at the top of Health and Human Services,” Hotez said. “I don’t see how these things improve any. If anything, they could start to decline even further. …So, I worry about further erosion in the number of kids getting vaccinated in the U.S.”

Claims about the COVID-19 vaccine

Kennedy also spread vaccine misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic including claims that Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation were trying to profit off a COVID-19 vaccine.

During a December 2021 Louisiana House of Representatives meeting discussing a proposal to require schoolchildren to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, Kennedy falsely called the vaccine the “deadliest vaccine ever made.”

Health officials say COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective following clinical trials that involved tens of thousands of people, and have since helped save millions of lives.

Offit says he is worried that, as the head of the HHS, Kennedy would help select directors of the CDC, FDA and the National Institutes of Health who are not qualified, and could similarly espouse vaccine-skeptic views.

“My worry is that he is not going to pick technically competent people,” he said. “My worry is he’s going to have a role in selecting ideologues who are not well-educated about infectious diseases or vaccines, and maybe who lack government experience as well.”

Both Offit and Hotez said it will be important over the next four years for doctors to have conversations with vaccine-hesitant parents to educate them on the importance of vaccinating their children in case they are swayed by vaccine-skeptic rhetoric from Kennedy.

Offit said he is already getting emails from pediatricians about parents who are hesitant to vaccinate their children because of Kennedy’s past comments.

“Over the last few days, I’ve gotten emails from pediatricians, one particularly in Connecticut that comes to mind, where they’re saying, ‘Parents are coming in, and they’re saying they don’t want to get vaccines, in part because of what [Kennedy] said. What should we do?'” Offit said. “So, I think that’s where the rubber meets the road. It’s certainly a lot more work for clinicians than it used to be.”

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