Surgeon general warns of link between alcohol consumption and cancer risk
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(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory on Friday warning of a link between alcohol consumption and cancer risk.
Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after tobacco and obesity, according to the Surgeon General’s advisory.
For some cancers, including breast, mouth, and throat cancers, the risk of developing cancer may increase with one or fewer drinks per day, the advisory states.
Despite a growing body of evidence, fewer than half of Americans recognize alcohol consumption as a risk factor for cancer, according to the advisory.
A person’s risk of developing cancer due to alcohol consumption is also determined by other factors, including biological, economic, environmental and social, the advisory says.
“Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States – greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the U.S. – yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk,” U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said in a statement. “This Advisory lays out steps we can all take to increase awareness of alcohol’s cancer risk and minimize harm.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(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.”
The label for a ready-to-eat product by Yu Shang Food, Inc. that is part of a recall. Image via U.S. Department of Agriculture
(NEW YORK) — An infant has died in a listeria outbreak linked to a brand of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products, federal authorities said Friday.
As of Friday, 11 people have been infected in four states in the outbreak, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among them, nine people have been hospitalized and an infant from California has died, the CDC said.
The infections have been linked to recalled ready-to-eat meat and poultry products by Yu Shang Food, based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, according to the CDC. The recalled products include pork hock, chicken feet, pork feet, duck neck, beef shank and pork tongue.
Most of the cases — seven — were in California, while two were in Illinois and one each in New York and New Jersey, according to the CDC. Those infected ranged in age from under 1 to 86, with a median age of 64, according to the CDC.
The infant who died and his pregnant mother were both infected in the outbreak, according to the CDC. The infant had a twin who also died, though listeria was not found in the other twin’s sample and the case is not included in the outbreak, the CDC said.
One other listeria illness was reported in an infant who recovered, the CDC said.
“We did not receive any reported illness from the group of 11 illness,” Yu Shang Food told ABC News. “Those 11 cases are collected by CDC from 2021 to 2024. Among of these 11 illnesses, there are 9 people only mentioned they had visited Asian stores before they got sick, but not mention they purchased YUSHANG brand products or ate YUSHANG brand products. There was 1 infant dead, but no evidence showed the mother ate Yushang brand products to get sick, only mentioned she ate Yushang brand products before got sick.”
“The true number of sick people in this outbreak is likely higher than the number reported, and the outbreak may not be limited to the states with known illnesses,” the CDC said.
Yu Shang Food has recalled approximately 72,240 pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products due to possible listeria contamination, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said on Thursday.
The recalled foods include products made before Oct. 28, the CDC said. The products subject to recall have the number “P-46684” or “EST. M46684” inside the USDA mark of inspection. They were shipped to retail locations nationwide and were sold online.
The full list of recalled items can be viewed here. Anyone with the products is advised to throw them away or return them to the place of purchase, and surfaces should be thoroughly cleaned. Listeria can survive in the refrigerator at cooler temperatures and easily contaminate other foods.
“FSIS is concerned that some product may be in consumers’ refrigerators/freezers,” the agency said.
The FSIS said the problem was discovered when a finished food product produced by Yu Shang Food tested positive for listeria on Oct. 21. Listeria was detected in additional testing of product and environmental samples collected by the FSIS, it said.
“Working in conjunction with public health partners, FSIS determined that there is a link between the [ready-to-eat] meat and poultry products from Yu Shang Food, Inc. and an illness cluster,” the FSIS said.
The company initially issued a recall on Nov. 9 that was expanded on Thursday.
People aged 65 and older, pregnant women and those with weakened immune systems are more at risk of serious illness due to listeria, according to the CDC.
Symptoms usually start within two weeks of eating food contaminated with listeria and can include fever, muscle aches, headache, tiredness, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and seizures, according to the CDC.
The CDC advises contacting a health care provider right away if symptoms develop.
(NEW YORK) — The FDA has expanded the approval of Eli Lilly’s obesity medication Zepbound to include treating moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea for people with obesity — the first medication approved for the condition.
The new, expanded Zepbound approval means that insurance providers, including Medicare, will likely cover the medication for people with sleep apnea and obesity. Some insurance providers, including Medicare, do not offer reimbursement to treat obesity alone.
The new approval is for people with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea who are also living with obesity. Eli Lilly estimates that is about 15-20 million adults in the U.S.
Obstructive sleep apnea isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s a serious medical condition that impairs breathing and sleep quality. Obesity and obstructive sleep apnea are linked. People tend to see their obstructive sleep apnea get better when they lose a significant amount of weight. It’s likely the weight loss associated with the medication is helping improve the sleep apnea.
Right now, there is no medicine to treat obstructive sleep apnea — it’s only treated with a positive airway pressure device.
In a study, people who took Zepbound had at least 25 fewer breathing interruptions per hour while they slept. They also lost an average of 20% of their body weight.
The study also followed people over a year, and found that up to half of the adults taking Zepbound no longer had obstructive sleep apnea symptoms at the end of the year.
Obstructive sleep apnea is more common in men than women. Up to 34% of U.S. men have OSA compared to 17% of U.S. women, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Common signs of sleep apnea include heavy snoring at night, long pauses in breathing while sleeping as well as excessive daytime sleepiness, forgetfulness and morning headaches. The symptoms of the disorder can lead to significant medical problems.
