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Cuba: US Embassy issues health alert due to GI pathogens like norovirus, Shigella

The US Embassy in Havana issued a health alert last week after seeing a significant increase in diarrheal illness across Cuba, associated with the continuing degradation of the water and energy infrastructure. This degradation affects water supply, and food storage and temperature control. Recent cases have included E. coli, norovirus, Shigella, and other gastrointestinal pathogens. This comes after a health alert dated August 28 which noted that Cuba’s water delivery infrastructure is increasingly unstable. The Embassy is aware of reports of residential neighborhoods that have gone for long periods without receiving water from municipal or public sources. Dengue cases surge in the Tampa Bay area Prolonged and worsening water issues and power outages caused by the regime’s mismanagement of public infrastructure impact the entire island. Water often only flows to residences when city power is on for a sufficient amount of time. Media reports indicate wells are running dry across the country due to drought, aggravating the ability to supplement water delivery. The lack of water, coupled with power shortages that have disrupted cold chain networks, can present significant health and safety challenges. We remind U.S. citizens to be aware of the risks when traveling to Cuba and take precautions. Embassy officials offer the following precautions to prevent illnesses: Avoiding Foodborne Illness: Be cautious of meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy, and other perishable foods that may have been inadequately stored. Avoid foods that appear to have been sitting at room temperature for extended periods. Avoid raw or improperly washed vegetables. Be cautious of food cooked and then cooled, stored, or reheated, as improper temperature control can allow pathogens or toxins to develop. Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water before eating and after using the restroom. Hand sanitizer may be less effective against certain gastrointestinal pathogens, including norovirus. Outbreak News Today is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Water Safety: Use only water known to be safe for drinking, brushing teeth, making ice, and cooking. Use bottled or appropriately treated water; check that bottle seals are intact before opening. Avoid ice unless the water source is known to be safe. Do not use untreated tap water to prepare beverages or food. Be aware that contamination can occur when food, utensils, and surfaces are washed with contaminated water. If You Become Ill: Stay hydrated, especially with frequent diarrhea or vomiting. Most illnesses are self-limited and improve within several days. Seek medical attention for persistent or severe diarrhea, bloody stools, high fever, significant abdominal pain, repeated vomiting, signs of dehydration, or symptoms not improving. Common medications (e.g., acetaminophen, ibuprofen, antibiotics) are frequently unavailable in Cuba; consider bringing your own supply. If you like the reporting on Outbreak News Today, please consider a paid subscription for $5/month or $30 a year. Help support the cause of this niche journalism. It is appreciated.

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Sep 6 • 11:29 PM EDT • Health • outbreaknewstoday.substack.com
Barbara Eden abruptly cancels festival appearance after falling ill

Barbara Eden, who was scheduled to appear at the Cinecon Classic Film Festival, pulled out of the event due to a "sudden illness."

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Sep 6 • 12:50 PM EDT • Health • usatoday.com
Barbara Eden, 95, drops out of Cinecon Classic Film Festival due to ‘sudden illness’

The TV icon was scheduled to introduce a screening and receive an award at the Los Angeles event.

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Sep 6 • 11:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
Barbara Eden, 95, drops out of Cinecon Film Festical due to ‘sudden illness’

95-year-old ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ star Barbara Eden canceled a scheduled appearance at the Cinecon Classic Film Festival due to a ‘sudden illness.’

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Sep 6 • 11:30 AM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com
Why this diet could be the next tool in treating mental illness

The keto diet is a serious therapeutic approach for brain disorders dating back more than a century.

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Sep 6 • 5:02 AM EDT • Health • usatoday.com
Pa. GOP lawmakers explore increased public health reporting for tick-borne diseases

New legislation would require health care practitioners to report cases of babesiosis, a rare malaria-like disease that is spread by deer ticks, the same species responsible for most cases of Lyme disease.

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Sep 6 • 5:01 AM EDT • Health • phillyvoice.com
US embassy issues health alert for Cuba amid oil blockade, sanctions

The U.S. embassy in Havana issued a health alert for Cuba on Friday, warning travelers and residents of a spike in ​intestinal illnesses and diarrhea caused by failing water and electricity supply, even ‌as the Trump administration continued to hold back fuel shipments necessary for power generation on the island.

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Sep 4 • 10:30 PM EDT • Health • reuters.com
Cascadia Health opens 10-bed secure mental health treatment facility in Southeast Portland

A new secure residential treatment facility in Southeast Portland is now open, adding 10 beds for adults with serious mental illness as Oregon continues expandi

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Sep 4 • 8:18 PM EDT • Health • kval.com
U.S. Embassy in Havana issues health alert as sanctions limit imports to Cuba

The embassy issued a health alert Friday warning of a “significant increase in diarrheal illnesses across Cuba” caused by contaminated water and inadequate refrigeration.

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Sep 4 • 5:14 PM EDT • Health • washingtonpost.com
Lindsay Clancy mistrial: 7 postpartum mental health takeaways

From extra privacy restrictions to medication trial and error, the case offered a rare window into coping with mental illness.

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Sep 4 • 3:42 PM EDT • Health • bostonglobe.com
Latest Jackson County Health inspections: Garcia's Tacos, The Chicken Shanty, Dolly Varden's Cafe

Restaurants and food carts are inspected at least twice a year by Jackson County Health Department employees. Inspectors look for risk factors that could increase the potential for food-borne illness, […]

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Sep 4 • 3:30 PM EDT • Health • rv-times.com
Vin Cherwoo, longtime AP sports desk editor and union leader, dies at 56

Vin Cherwoo, a trusted editor and writer for The Associated Press sports desk for more than three decades and the president of the News Media Guild, has died. Cherwoo died early Friday in Tampa, Florida, following a long illness, said his wife, Stacy. Known affectionately as “Woo” by many colleagues and friends, Cherwoo was a reliable mainstay of the sports department’s night editing crew.

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Sep 4 • 1:31 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
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Florida Surgeon General Reminds Floridians to Take Precautions Against Dengue Ahead of Labor Day Weekend

State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo joined local officials in Hillsborough County to urge Floridians to take precautions against mosquito-borne illnesses as families prepare to spend more time outdoors over Labor Day weekend.

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Sep 4 • 12:38 PM EDT • Health • floridahealth.gov
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Postpartum depression linked to babies’ deaths—albeit by natural causes

Researchers made the finding after analyzing almost 415,000 infant mortalities that occurred well before Lindsay Clancy strangled her 8-month-old baby and two young children in 2023, forcing a spotlight on postpartum mental-illness risk.

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Sep 3 • 9:03 PM EDT • Health • healthexec.com
Cyclospora season ends but health officials still investigate cases

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — While the official U.S. Cyclospora season concluded on Aug. 31, federal and state health agencies are still actively identifying and investigating cases. This has been the largest Cyclospora outbreak ever recorded in the United States, with over 11,400 confirmed illnesses reported across at least 20 states. Dr. Angela Walla, a […]

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Sep 3 • 8:11 PM EDT • Health • ktsm.com
FDNY Pushing Feds to Add Cardiac, Cognitive Decline to List of 9/11 Illnesses

These diseases have increased over and above what you would expect in aging," said Dr. David Prezant, FDNY WTC Health Program director.

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Sep 1 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • firehouse.com
Los Alamos Health Council, Social Services Division Present Resources For Suicide Education And Prevention During September And October 2026

LOS ALAMOS HEALTH COUNCIL NEWS RELEASE September is National Suicide Prevention Month. Each September, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) recognizes Suicide Prevention Month as a time …

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Sep 1 • 12:51 AM EDT • Health • losalamosreporter.com
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Heat safety tips as students return to outdoor sports and activities

As students return to sports and outdoor activities, learn how to stay safe in the heat and recognize the warning signs of heat-related illness.

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Aug 31 • 4:00 AM EDT • Sports • uknow.uky.edu
9/11 volunteer creates film on Ground Zero health impacts

A 9/11 Ground Zero volunteer who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2017 says his illness stems from cleaning up the attack site, and he is now making a documentary to raise awareness.

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Aug 30 • 6:44 PM EDT • Health • fox5atlanta.com
North Carolina: Rabid baby goats at a mobile petting zoo prompts health warning

On Friday, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported confirmed multiple rabies cases in baby goats at a mobile petting zoo located in Iredell County. They were first notified of a potential rabies exposure among four baby goats at Farm Adventures in Harmony, North Carolina on August 27. The goats were most likely exposed to rabies by a skunk that had entered the pen where they were kept in late July. The NC State Laboratory of Public Health confirmed rabies viruses in three of the baby goats on August 28; a fourth goat was not tested but is also assumed to have been infected. Based on information gathered on August 28, it was determined that no other animals on the farm pose a risk of rabies exposure to people. Learn about rabies Anyone who had contact with baby goats from the Farm Adventures mobile petting zoo either at their location in Harmony, North Carolina, or at an off-site event, between July 28 and Aug. 27, 2026, may have been exposed while the animals were infectious. Impacted individuals should contact their local health department to determine whether medications are needed to prevent infection. Individuals are encouraged to call before visiting an emergency department or urgent care clinic to determine if treatment is needed and where it can be accessed. Known potential exposure dates and locations include: July 28: Jurney’s Assisted Living, 1942 Van Haven Drive, Statesville in Iredell County July 30: Private event in Mecklenburg County Aug. 1: Community Connections Back-to-School Bash, Breeden Amphitheater, 333 S. Main St., Lexington in Davidson County Aug. 6: Brookdale Peachtree, 2806 Peachtree Road, Statesville in Iredell County Aug. 8: Private event in Watauga County Aug. 9: Private event in Burke County Aug. 15: Masonic Picnic Grounds, 201 Poplar St., Mocksville in Davie County Aug. 16: Private event in Durham County Aug. 22: Private event in Iredell County Aug. 23: Private event in Durham County Rabies is a deadly disease that can spread from wild animals to pets and people, primarily through a bite, scratch or when infected saliva touches broken skin or mucous membranes. Human rabies infections are extremely rare in the United States. No human cases have been reported in North Carolina since 2011. Rabies is almost always fatal in mammals, including people, unless medications to prevent infections are given before symptoms develop. Symptoms can begin weeks to months after someone is exposed. Early symptoms are flu-like illness including weakness, fever or headache as well as a prickling or itching sensation where someone was bitten or exposed. In 2025, over 4,000 animals were submitted to the NC State Laboratory of Public Health for rabies testing, and of these, approximately 6% tested positive. In North Carolina the disease most often occurs in wild animals especially skunks, raccoons, bats and foxes. Outbreak News Today is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe

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Aug 30 • 2:52 PM EDT • Health • outbreaknewstoday.substack.com
Medicare's pilot GLP-1 discount program has a catch. Some sick patients don't qualify

Medicare launched a pilot program that could streamline the process to get GLP-1s, with some seniors paying just $50 a month. But many people with the most serious illnesses won't get that discount.

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Aug 30 • 5:00 AM EDT • Health • npr.org
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Health alerts issued as cases of painful illness typically found in tropical countries spreads across Florida

A mosquito-borne virus commonly reported in tropical countries has been reported in Florida, with county health departments issuing alerts for local transmission.

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Aug 29 • 1:30 PM EDT • Health • foxweather.com
As Maine reports more cyclosporiasis cases, health officials say outbreak may be slowing

The Maine CDC is reporting 49 cases of the illness, with 15 of those linked to the national outbreak.

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Aug 28 • 5:01 PM EDT • Health • pressherald.com
Massive lettuce-linked outbreak expands to 3 more states with over 11,000 illnesses

The FDA says the cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico has now spread to Georgia, Tennessee and Texas.

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Aug 28 • 3:06 AM EDT • Business • foxbusiness.com
Iceberg lettuce cyclospora outbreak linked to more states, health officials warn

Parasitic illness cases linked to recalled iceberg lettuce have now been confirmed in 20 states, federal health officials said Thursday.

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Aug 27 • 8:08 PM EDT • Health • kptv.com
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DOH-Orange Issues Mosquito-Borne Illness Advisory - Florida Department of Health in Orange County

DOH-Orange is issuing this advisory due to an increase in mosquito-borne disease activity in the county.

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Aug 27 • 11:49 AM EDT • Health • orange.floridahealth.gov
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Scottie Scheffler health update and why Si Woo Kim is paying for Remy's diapers

Scottie Scheffler didn’t reveal until the end of the BMW Championship that he was battling hand, foot and mouth disease, an illness that caused painful sores on his hands and throat.

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Aug 26 • 9:59 AM EDT • Health • golfchannel.com
Back-to-school health checklist: What parents can do to help kids start the school year strong

Help your child start the school year healthy and prepared. Learn about school physicals, vaccinations, illness prevention, healthy habits and convenient care options from MinuteClinic.

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Aug 26 • 2:00 AM EDT • Health • cvshealth.com
Two die of measles in Pennsylvania outbreak, health officials say

The deaths are the first measles-related fatalities in the U.S. this year. Both people had not been vaccinated against the illness.

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Aug 25 • 9:37 AM EDT • Health • nbcnews.com
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CT AHEC and Public Health Department Sanitarians Team Up With Teens for Workshop to Solve a Food Illness Outbreak

CT AHEC's Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) program in action.

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Aug 25 • 8:26 AM EDT • Health • today.uconn.edu
Cyclosporiasis cases are still being reported in N.C. Here’s what to know

New cases of the food-borne illness continue to be identified but not as many as during the June-July surge.

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Aug 23 • 3:53 PM EDT • Health • spectrumlocalnews.com
WHO RUNS MARYLAND POLITICS NOW?

ByThe Maryland Wire The Machine Didn’t Die — It Broke Apart Mike Miller is gone. Steny Hoyer is retiring. The two men who helped define Maryland political power for generations are disappearing from the map. Nobody has inherited all of what they controlled. Instead, Maryland power has fractured among Wes Moore, legislative leaders, county organizations, federal figures and a new generation fighting to connect the pieces. By The Maryland Wire For decades, there were two names in Maryland politics that required almost no explanation. Mike Miller. Steny Hoyer. You didn’t necessarily have to agree with them. You didn’t even have to like them. But everyone understood something: Not social-media power. Not cable-news power. Not the temporary power that comes from one big election. They possessed political infrastructure. Relationships. Institutional memory. Donors. Staff. Allies. County leaders. Lobbyists. Legislators. Operatives. And the ability to connect people who needed something with people capable of delivering it. Today one is gone. The other is preparing to leave Congress after more than four decades. And Maryland faces a question it hasn’t had to answer in generations: The answer may be: Nobody. At least not the way Miller once did. Maryland’s old machine wasn’t inherited by one person. It fragmented. And now several ambitious political networks are competing to assemble the pieces. Miller presided over the Maryland Senate for 33 years, becoming one of the longest-serving legislative leaders in American history. He stepped down as Senate president in 2019 and died in January 2021. (Behavioral and Social Sciences) But Miller’s real power wasn’t the title printed on his door. It was the accumulation of relationships behind it. Miller came from Maryland’s old Democratic organization and developed into an extraordinarily adaptable political operator, retaining authority even as the Senate around him became younger and more liberal. (The Washington Post) He understood something fundamental: politics is information. Who wants what? Who owes whom? Which senator needs help? Which county executive wants something in the budget? Which committee chairman can move a bill? Which lobbyist represents which client? Which candidate should receive support today because that candidate could be a senator ten years from now? Miller knew the answers because he’d spent decades collecting them. Miller’s influence wasn’t confined to elected officials. Former Miller aides became prominent Annapolis lobbyists. Maryland Matters noted figures such as Joseph Bryce and Timothy Perry among the high-profile lobbyists who had once served as top Miller aides. (Maryland Matters) That was one of Miller’s greatest political achievements. He didn’t merely accumulate power around himself. He produced alumni. Staffers became lobbyists. Legislators became committee chairs. Allies became power brokers. And decades of relationships reinforced one another. By the end, Mike Miller wasn’t simply a person. He was an ecosystem. Hoyer’s network was different. Miller’s power was rooted in Annapolis. Hoyer connected Maryland to Washington. He served in the Maryland Senate before winning election to Congress in 1981 and ultimately became one of the longest-serving members of the U.S. House and a longtime No. 2 in House Democratic leadership. In January 2026, Hoyer announced that he would retire rather than seek another term. (The Washington Post) His influence stretched through: Prince George’s County, Southern Maryland, Congress, federal agencies, donors, campaign organizations, and generations of Democratic candidates. And Hoyer had something machine builders value enormously: a succession network. That became obvious almost immediately. When Hoyer announced his retirement, Maryland’s 5th Congressional District exploded with candidates. Twenty-four Democrats entered the race. But when the votes were counted, the winner was Adrian Boafo, Hoyer’s former campaign manager. Boafo wasn’t running without establishment help. He was endorsed by Hoyer. He was endorsed by Governor Wes Moore. And he ultimately won the Democratic nomination. (AP News) In his victory speech, Boafo described the result as voters deciding it was time to “pass the torch to a new generation of leaders.” (AP News) That phrase captures the transition perfectly. Hoyer’s seat isn’t simply being vacated. Parts of his network are being transferred. But they aren’t being transferred to another Steny Hoyer. They’re being absorbed into a newer political constellation. And standing prominently inside that constellation is Wes Moore. If someone forces you to name the single person sitting nearest the center of Maryland Democratic politics today, the answer is Governor Wes Moore. The 2026 Democratic gubernatorial primary underscored the scale of his position. Moore won renomination overwhelmingly, receiving roughly 88% of the Democratic primary vote. (WBAL-TV) But raw votes tell only part of the story. Look at the party infrastructure. The Maryland Democratic Party says Steuart Pittman ran for state party chairman in 2025 “at the suggestion of Governor Wes Moore.” Pittman took office that July. (The Maryland Democratic Party) That’s important. Governors traditionally influence their state parties. But party leadership plus fundraising, endorsements, executive appointments and national relationships creates the beginning of something bigger: a political network that could survive the governor’s term. Moore also played a role in the Hoyer succession by backing Boafo. That’s how political organizations reproduce themselves. You support tomorrow’s politician today. And that’s the distinction that matters. Moore has enormous statewide visibility. Miller had decades of accumulated legislative control. Moore can endorse candidates. Miller could influence the environment in which legislators lived every day. Committee assignments. Leadership positions. Legislative priorities. Relationships that had been accumulating since before many current lawmakers entered politics. Moore may have a larger national profile than Miller ever possessed. But he doesn’t possess Miller’s half-century of Annapolis memory. Nobody does. Which is why the modern Maryland political structure looks less like a pyramid and more like several power centers connected by overlapping relationships. One of those centers belongs to Senate President Bill Ferguson. Ferguson controls an institution no governor can simply command. The Senate. Maryland’s official 2026 legislative records identify Ferguson as Senate President. (Maryland General Assembly) That means influence over: committee structure, Senate leadership, legislative priorities, confirmations, and negotiations with the House and governor. But Ferguson is not Mike Miller 2.0. Miller’s extraordinary longevity allowed him to become almost inseparable from the institution. Ferguson possesses the office. Miller possessed the office plus decades of political mythology and accumulated relationships. Those aren’t the same thing. The House now has its own new center of gravity. Official 2026 legislative records identify Joseline Peña-Melnyk as Speaker of the House of Delegates, alongside Ferguson as Senate President. (Maryland General Assembly) That makes the current Maryland governing triangle: Executive power. Senate power. House power. None fully controls the others. And that fact alone demonstrates how different modern Maryland is from the Miller era. The governor proposes. The legislature disposes. Committee leaders negotiate. County interests intervene. And political coalitions shift issue by issue. That’s not one machine. That’s a networked power structure. Then there’s U.S. Senator Angela Alsobrooks. Her significance isn’t that she is the new Hoyer. She isn’t. Hoyer spent decades constructing his network. Alsobrooks brings something different: Prince George’s County roots, a statewide electoral organization, a United States Senate platform, and relationships with national Democratic leaders. That makes her a critical bridge between Maryland and Washington at precisely the moment Hoyer leaves. Hoyer’s retirement therefore doesn’t necessarily weaken Prince George’s influence. It changes who carries it. Prince George’s itself is undergoing a dramatic generational transition. Official 2026 results show Aisha Braveboy winning the Democratic County Executive primary with 87,944 votes and 73.31% of the vote. (Maryland State Board of Elections) That’s political infrastructure. Prince George’s is one of Maryland’s central Democratic vote engines. A county executive with that level of primary support gains: appointments, budget influence, organizational relationships, donor access, and a platform for cultivating the next generation of political leadership. Braveboy therefore isn’t merely another person on the Maryland power map. She controls a place from which a political organization can be built. Boafo is particularly interesting because he sits almost perfectly at the intersection between the old and new worlds. He worked for Hoyer. Hoyer endorsed him. Moore endorsed him. Then Boafo beat an enormous Democratic field for Hoyer’s seat. (AP News) That doesn’t make him powerful on Hoyer’s scale. He’s just beginning. But it illustrates how power actually transfers: not through a ceremonial handoff, but through endorsements, donors, staff, relationships, and voter confidence. Boafo may become Hoyer’s congressional successor. He will not automatically inherit Hoyer’s 40-plus years of political capital. That part has to be rebuilt. This is the part that often gets overlooked. When a machine breaks apart, power doesn’t only move upward. Some people’s relationships become less valuable. Former Miller aides still know Annapolis. Former Miller allies still possess institutional memory. Veteran lobbyists don’t forget how legislation works. But something fundamental disappeared when Miller did: the common center. The person capable of connecting all of them instantly was gone. That changes the value of a political network. Imagine knowing everybody in Annapolis. Useful. Now imagine the person who introduced many of those people, appointed committee chairs, influenced Senate priorities and understood decades of relationships is simultaneously Senate President. Much more useful. Remove that person and the individual relationships remain. But the system becomes decentralized. First: Bill Ferguson. The Senate’s institutional relationships now run through his leadership rather than Miller’s. Second: the House leadership. With the Miller-Busch generation gone, today’s House leaders are building their own committee chairs, alliances and relationships. Third: Wes Moore. Moore became governor after Miller was gone. That distinction matters. Earlier governors had to operate with Miller sitting across State Circle. Moore entered office during a generational reset. Instead of negotiating with the old machine, he has the opportunity to help build the next network. Fourth: Angela Alsobrooks and the emerging Prince George’s generation. Hoyer is leaving. Miller is gone. The county’s political leadership now belongs to another generation. Fifth: politicians who were outside the old Miller organization. When someone dominates an institution for 33 years, inevitably some politicians develop within that organization and others outside it. Miller’s departure created room for people who may never have risen as quickly under the old structure. That’s the biggest point. If Mike Miller’s power had simply transferred to Bill Ferguson, Maryland would still have a machine. If Hoyer’s influence simply transferred to Boafo, Maryland would still have a machine. If every county leader simply took orders from Moore, Maryland would have a machine. None of those things happened. Instead: Moore controls the statewide executive platform. Ferguson controls the Senate. Peña-Melnyk controls the House. Alsobrooks has statewide and federal reach. Braveboy has Prince George’s executive power. Pittman leads the state Democratic Party after Moore encouraged him to seek the role. (The Maryland Democratic Party) Boafo represents the beginning of the post-Hoyer congressional generation. And Baltimore, Montgomery County, organized labor, donors and other county organizations maintain their own centers of influence. That’s not one machine. If you want to understand where Maryland power is moving, don’t simply watch office titles. Watch endorsements. Who does Moore support? Who does Alsobrooks support? Who gets Ferguson’s allies? Who gets House leadership? Who gets Hoyer’s blessing? Who gets labor? Who gets major donors? And most importantly: That is where the new Maryland network becomes visible. The Boafo race was a textbook example. Hoyer’s successor didn’t emerge randomly from 24 candidates. He had ties to the outgoing incumbent and support from the governor. The old network and the emerging one overlapped. And voters chose him. (AP News) Moore may ultimately become the most important person in determining whether Maryland develops another durable statewide political organization. But the test isn’t whether Moore himself remains popular. The test is what happens to the people he supports. Which delegates become senators? Which senators become committee chairs? Which county officials become executives? Which staffers become candidates? Which appointees become statewide leaders? Who gets his donor network? Who gets his political advisers? Who eventually gets his endorsement when Maryland faces a post-Moore gubernatorial succession fight? That’s how we’ll know whether Moore was merely a successful governor— or the founder of another generation of Maryland power. There’s another category worth watching: politicians who came from Miller’s Maryland but remain active in the new one. Dereck Davis is one. Anthony Brown is another. Veteran legislators and former officials throughout the state still possess old relationships that newer politicians don’t. These people can function as bridges. That’s important because political systems rarely reset completely. The new machine usually grows partly from pieces of the old one. Donors don’t disappear. Lobbyists don’t disappear. Operatives don’t disappear. Institutional memory doesn’t disappear. They find new centers of gravity. If you want one name: His overwhelming 2026 Democratic renomination, executive authority, national profile and influence within the Maryland Democratic Party make that difficult to dispute. (WBAL-TV) But saying Moore “runs Maryland” the way Miller once ran the Senate would oversimplify the reality. Maryland power today looks more like this: WES MOORE Statewide organization.Appointments.Fundraising.Executive government.National Democratic relationships. BILL FERGUSON The Senate.Committees.Confirmations.Legislative leverage. JOSELINE PEÑA-MELNYK The House.Committee leadership.Budget and legislative leverage. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS Statewide electoral organization.Federal platform.Prince George’s relationships.National Democratic connections. AISHA BRAVEBOY Prince George’s executive organization.County government.A major Democratic vote base. THE POST-HOYER GENERATION Boafo and the emerging political class that will have to rebuild Hoyer’s Washington-Maryland network rather than simply inherit it. It did something more interesting. Mike Miller’s influence was too personal, too old and too deeply rooted in his own relationships to be inherited whole. Hoyer’s network is too extensive and too intertwined with decades of congressional politics to fit neatly inside one successor. So the pieces are moving. Toward Moore. Toward Ferguson. Toward Peña-Melnyk. Toward Alsobrooks. Toward Braveboy. Toward younger candidates and new county organizations. And toward veteran political survivors who understand both eras. That’s the next chapter of Maryland politics. The person who eventually connects: Annapolis, Prince George’s, Montgomery County, Baltimore, labor, business, donors, the Maryland Democratic Party, and the congressional delegation will possess something Maryland hasn’t truly seen since Miller’s heyday. Not merely another elected official. And maybe that’s why searching for “the next Mike Miller” is the wrong exercise. There may never be another one. The more important question is: Miller spent half a century becoming that person. Hoyer spent decades becoming another version of it. Maryland’s current political leaders are still competing for the privilege. And until somebody actually connects all those pieces, the most accurate answer to the question “Who runs Maryland?” may be the most fascinating one of all: No one does. Not anymore. But there are plenty of people trying. Sources University of Maryland and Maryland Matters — Miller’s 33-year Senate presidency and political legacy. (Behavioral and Social Sciences) Washington Post historical reporting — Miller’s rise from Maryland machine politics and ability to retain power as the Senate evolved. (The Washington Post) Maryland Matters — former top Miller aides who moved into Annapolis lobbying and the changing Senate power structure. (Maryland Matters) Washington Post and Reuters — Hoyer’s January 2026 retirement announcement after more than four decades in Congress and his long Democratic leadership career. (The Washington Post) Associated Press — Adrian Boafo’s 2026 victory in the Democratic primary to succeed Hoyer, including Hoyer and Moore’s support and Boafo’s “pass the torch” remarks. (AP News) Maryland Democratic Party — Steuart Pittman’s official biography stating that he sought the state chairmanship at Moore’s suggestion. (The Maryland Democratic Party) Maryland General Assembly — official 2026 records identifying Bill Ferguson as Senate President and Joseline Peña-Melnyk as Speaker. (Maryland General Assembly) Maryland State Board of Elections — official 2026 Prince George’s County results showing Aisha Braveboy’s dominant County Executive primary victory. (Maryland State Board of Elections) 2026 election reporting — Moore’s overwhelming Democratic gubernatorial primary victory. (WBAL-TV)

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Aug 22 • 10:17 PM EDT • Politics • themarylandwire.substack.com
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Minnesota grower’s alfalfa sprouts linked to illnesses in 15 states, health officials say

U.S. health officials say a food-poisoning outbreak tied to alfalfa sprouts from Everything Sprouts involves multiple germs.

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Aug 22 • 8:29 PM EDT • Health • startribune.com
Montgomery County woman dies from West Nile virus, health officials confirm

A Montgomery County woman in her 90s has died from West Nile virus, marking the county’s first confirmed death from the mosquito-borne illness in 2026, health officials said.

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Aug 21 • 1:42 PM EDT • Health • click2houston.com
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A Celebrity Death and a Murder Trial Shine Light on Postpartum Mental Health

Hayden Panettiere and Lindsay Clancy are drawing heightened attention to maternal mental illnesses.

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Aug 21 • 12:55 PM EDT • Health • wsj.com
Health officials trace E. coli and salmonella outbreak to Minnesota alfalfa grower

Twenty-three E. coli and salmonella illnesses in Minnesota were linked to produce grown by Everything Sprouts and sold under the Calco and Everything Sprouts brands.

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Aug 20 • 5:15 PM EDT • Health • startribune.com
A look at where mosquito health alerts are in effect across Florida

Health alerts are in effect for several counties in Florida as officials monitor mosquito-borne illnesses after heavy rainfall.

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Aug 20 • 2:27 AM EDT • Health • wusf.org
Loneliness Is A Health Crisis, But Doctors Alone Can't Cure It, Analysis Argues

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, Aug. 18, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Loneliness is contributing to illness, but it’s a fool’s errand to expect doctors alone to cure this particular ailment, a new study says. Social isolation — whether it be from loss, health problems or other factors that ...

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Aug 18 • 10:00 AM EDT • Health • usnews.com
NAMI-SELA's Nick Richard honored for mental-health advocacy

Just more than two years ago, the St. Tammany chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness officially assumed duties of the NAMI group in New Orleans. Merging the groups

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Aug 17 • 7:15 AM EDT • Health • nola.com
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Fourteen foodborne parasites still drive 171 million illnesses worldwide, analysis finds

Recent Cyclospora outbreaks have renewed public attention to foodborne parasites, but they also highlight a broader reality: These diseases continue to affect millions of people around the world and remain ...

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Aug 16 • 2:00 PM EDT • Health • medicalxpress.com
Outbreaks threaten HHS ‘real food’ agenda

Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. wants America to “eat real food” as a solution to the chronic disease epidemic, but that message is being lost amid outbreaks of foodborne illness and a health…

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Aug 16 • 12:00 PM EDT • Health • thehill.com
Doctors and women who've had it call for more attention on postpartum psychosis

The high-profile murder trial of Lindsay Clancy's has put the condition in the spotlight. Women who have had it call for more research and understanding of a difficult mental illness.

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Aug 16 • 5:00 AM EDT • Health • npr.org
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More than 3,100 cyclosporiasis infections reported in last week: health officials

The illness is linked to iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico and recalled by Taylor Farms.

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Aug 14 • 1:39 PM EDT • Health • 6abc.com
Hazmat incident at Hudson business sends 16 people to hospitals

Sixteen people were hospitalized at an industrial business in Hudson, Massachusetts, on Thursday, fire officials said. A chemical process is believed to have contributed to what happened, according to the Hudson Fire Department, which called in a Hazardous Materials team to help respond to the incident, reported about 8:47 a.m. on Parmenter Road. Employees at the business reported serious illnesses,…

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Aug 13 • 1:50 PM EDT • Business • nbcboston.com
Michigan cyclosporiasis outbreak tops 13,900 cases; 35 additional hospitalizations in past week

An additional 35 Michigan residents have required hospital care for cyclosporiasis as an outbreak continues to be tracked, state health officials said on Thursday.

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Aug 13 • 1:10 PM EDT • Health • cbsnews.com
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It’s not just a gut feeling: Foodborne illness outbreaks are especially bad this summer

Federal data suggests that this is a particularly bad summer for foodborne illness outbreaks in the US.

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Aug 13 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • cnn.com
The Lindsay Clancy case shows the limits of postpartum psychiatry

“Our understanding and treatment of postpartum psychiatric illnesses remain profoundly inadequate,” experts write.

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Aug 12 • 10:51 AM EDT • Science • statnews.com
The Lindsay Clancy case shows the limits of postpartum psychiatry

“Our understanding and treatment of postpartum psychiatric illnesses remain profoundly inadequate,” experts write.

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Aug 12 • 10:51 AM EDT • Health • statnews.com
Beloved bald eagle Jackie dies after health battle and 'critical' illness

Jackie, the internet-famous bald eagle of Big Bear Valley, has died after a weekslong health battle.

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Aug 10 • 4:04 PM EDT • Health • usatoday.com
Opinion | How We Talk About Mental Health Challenges

The National Alliance on Mental Illness responds to an Opinion guest essay. Also: President Trump’s arch; a retreat on vaccines; Mr. Trump and Canada.

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Aug 10 • 12:26 PM EDT • Health • nytimes.com
This Idaho health expert has some advice on preventing food illness

this season, the U.S. has seen the biggest outbreak of the parasite cyclospora in history.

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Aug 10 • 9:20 AM EDT • Health • boisestatepublicradio.org
Lionel Messi misses Inter Miami defeat after father’s death as team-mate pays touching tribute

Jorge Messi, who was a hugely influential figure during his son’s career, died on Friday night after battling long-term illness

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Aug 9 • 5:20 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Md. health officials report record-breaking 50 heat-related deaths this summer

The number of heat-related deaths soared in July, with 43 deaths reported just last month, according to a Wednesday update to the state’s weather-related illness dashboard.

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Aug 8 • 7:26 PM EDT • Health • wtop.com
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Health Watch: Watch what you eat during food illness outbreaks; GLP-1s may help with dementia
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Aug 6 • 5:52 PM EDT • Health • cbsnews.com
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Nurses chase cyclospora, aided by interviews, fast-food receipts

More than 900 people in Washtenaw County, Michigan, have been sickened with cyclosporiasis since mid-June. Linda Kim, a public health nurse, has called more than 100 of them. Almost everyone has said the same thing: It’s excruciating, and one of the worst illnesses they’ve experienced.

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Aug 5 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • cnn.com
The Beauty Of Settled Science

Commenters convinced me I made a subtle mis-step in my framing of Psychology Research Is Mostly Fine. My framing emphasized that social priming studies had failed to replicate, but that many other subfields of psychology hadn’t. This naturally led commenters to point to failed replications in other subfields. Although none of these were as bad as social priming, few or none were entirely problem-free. Instead of emphasizing the difference between social priming and other subfields, I should have emphasized the difference between settled science and novel research. Here are some of my favorite psychology findings: The brain is sculpted by reinforcement learning, and a key driver of this learning is a prediction-error-based algorithm located in the nucleus accumbens and implemented through dopamine. Psychedelic drugs exert their effects through 5-HT2A receptors, pointing to a role for these receptors in some sort of construct like the balance between priors and new evidence. Certain cognitive functions are localized to certain brain areas (for example, impulse control to the frontal lobes; linguistic structure to Broca’s area, linguistic meaning to Wernicke’s area. But injure one of these areas, or render a certain function useless (eg a blind person having no more use for their visual cortex), and these mappings can gradually shift - suggesting that neurons are general-purpose compute whose specialization is a contingent fact about convenience and efficiency rather than a necessity. Most personality traits and general capabilities are about 50% genetic and 50% random, with little role for family environment or childhood history, with a few notable exceptions like partisan preference. Recent research complicates this story, but the further you go from this basic picture, the gnarlier the chains of indirect causation you require. Neurons fire together in “brain waves”, whose exact frequency corresponds with the character of consciousness; These divide neurons into natural subpopulations and linked graphs. The gamma rhythm corresponds surprisingly well to items in conscious awareness. GABA receptors seem to be involved in something like relaxation. By hitting different GABA receptors in different ways, you can modulate the exact type of relaxation you produce. Hitting GABA-A directly is too powerful and can cause dangerous levels of sedation, but allosteric modulation of GABA is an incredibly fruitful strategy that underlies drugs from benzos to barbituates to alcohol. If you know your GABA-A subunits, you can target specific subtypes of relaxation; for example, Ambien hits GABA-A1 and induces sleep. Memory divides somewhat fuzzily into bins of immediate-sensory, short-term, and long-term, with separate retrieval and storage functions, and separate systems for declarative vs. procedural learning. These can be harmed selectively, usually by hippocampal injury, so that some patients can remember their life stories but not form new long-term memories, or learn new skills like bike-riding but not new facts. The exact substrate of memory is unclear but seems to involve new synaptic connections between neurons in at least some way. The ability of modern psychology and psychiatry to treat mental illness is real but limited. SSRIs work for half or slightly fewer than half of patients; antipsychotics work with extreme side effects; benzodiazpines work but produce addiction and tolerance in many (not all) people. Most supplements are stuck in Poor Quality Study Replication Crisis Hell, but melatonin and l-theanine stand out as especially promising. Psychotherapy works with moderate effect size, but (with a few exceptions) seems to be more about the relationship with the provider than the details of the therapy itself. Mental hospitalization can sometimes defuse immediate crises but work less well than mental hospitals would like, with some studies showing overall negative effects. Schizophrenia is mostly genetic, but risk also increases with prenatal infection (especially rubella) and obstetric complications; there is suggestive evidence for roles of social stress and drug use (with psychedelics and marijuana making things worse, and nicotine if anything making things better). Bipolar and schizophrenia are so closely linked on a pathophysiological level that it seems like they might be the same disease; on the clinical level, they do seem to follow two separate courses/prognoses but can sometimes surprise clinicians by eg someone who seemed condemned to permanent schizophrenia unexpectedly recovering. The brain’s native reinforcement learning algorithms cash out in the phenomena of classical and operant conditioning; different reinforcement schedules reinforce at different levels, which can be exploited by bad actors to make especially compelling products (eg slot machines). None of these are immune to doubt. A few are speculative; one or two are genuinely unorthodox. But they’re all a step above one p = 0.049 paper that might not replicate. If they get overturned, they’ll be overturned by the same sort of genuine scientific shift that replaced Ptolemy with Copernicus or Lamarck with Darwin, not some sort of sordid discovery about someone entering random numbers into a spreadsheet. In 2008, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about The Beauty Of Settled Science: If you only care about scientific issues that are controversial, you will end up with a head stuffed full of garbage. The media thinks that only the cutting edge of science is worth reporting on. How often do you see headlines like “General Relativity still governing planetary orbits” or “Phlogiston theory remains false”? So, by the time anything is solid science, it is no longer a breaking headline. “Newsworthy” science is often based on the thinnest of evidence and wrong half the time—if it were not on the uttermost fringes of the scientific frontier, it would not be breaking news. Scientific controversies are problems so difficult that even people who’ve spent years mastering the field can still fool themselves. That’s what makes for the heated arguments that attract all the media attention. Worse, if you aren’t in the field and part of the game, controversies aren’t even fun. Don’t be embarrassed to read elementary science textbooks, either. If you want to pretend to be sophisticated, go find a play to sneer at. If you just want to have fun, remember that simplicity is at the core of scientific beauty [...] A steady diet of science news is bad for you: You are what you eat, and if you eat only science reporting on fluid situations, without a solid textbook now and then, your brain will turn to liquid. Psychology isn’t centrally the new paper in Annals Of Recently-Breaking News saying that an n=5 study showing that large portion sizes increase support for terrorism. Psychology is centrally ideas like brain waves, GABA receptors, reinforcement learning, twin studies, and connectionism. People who think differently are worrying too much about BREAKING NEWS!!!, and should stop. The key distinction isn’t “recent research in social psychology” vs. “recent research in cognitive/bio/behavioral psychology”, as my essay last week unfortunately implied. It’s recent research in general vs. the deposit of settled science, battle-tested hypotheses, and carefully-earmarked speculation. And part of the reason social priming in particular was such a disaster was that it defied that heuristic, building itself up over hundreds of studies until it approached or even entered the pantheon of settled science - before collapsing (5-HTTLPR was also sort of like this). This isn’t a claim that settled science is always right - Freud was “settled science” for a long time - just that there’s an intuitive distinction between the level of credence you should have in the existence of power posing vs. the existence of Broca’s Area. (I compounded this error by calling the last post “Psychology Research Is Mostly Fine”, which suggested I was talking about the new research rather than the settled science. I actually meant to distinguish between research-psychology-the-field vs. clinical-psychology-aka-therapy, but this framing unintentionally pushed against the point I wanted to make) Some commenters on the previous article understood this point, but challenged its weight. It’s very cool, they said, to know how many neurons are in which brain lobe, but the main way that Psychology affected their lives was through bad clickbait studies used to buttress dumb policies; some p = 0.049 study says that exposure to microaggressions makes minorities’ brains shrivel into raisins, and now their company has to implement punitive DEI or be sued for hazardous work conditions. I won’t dispute this as an accurate description of how the sausage gets made, but it’s worth examining the trains of thought that connect this observation to a campaign against psychology in general: The dumb woke psychology was wrong and bad, and I don’t have good heuristics for distinguishing dumb woke psychology from other psychology, so I’m going to assume it’s all wrong and bad. The dumb woke psychology was wrong and bad; it seems useful to punish/discredit psychology as a whole to assist my campaign against it, so for propaganda purposes I will try to discredit psychology as a whole. To people in the first camp, my response is: come on, your heuristics aren’t that bad. “Microaggressions makes minorities’ brains shrivel up like raisins” is in the woke category; “the hippocampal theta rhythm seems to be associated with both memory and pathfinding, suggesting an unexpected yet surprisingly compelling relationship between the two” is in the not-woke category, don’t play dumb here. To people in the second camp, my response is: deliberately exaggerated propaganda campaigns are bad and this is a confession, not an excuse. Inability to view science through anything but a political lens was what got us into this problem; doubling down on it is a temporary solution but a recipe for permanent disaster. If you pronounce entire fields of science to be acceptable collateral damage in your campaign against bad political actors, you will alienate not just scientists but patients, clinicians, and general lovers of truth. Instead, you can say the thing you mean - that woke partisans shouldn’t try to occupy and exploit the otherwise-noble science of psychology for their own political gain - and wage the same campaign with a halo rather than a comic-book-villain goatee. From the font of oracular wisdom that is Weird Sun Twitter: [ Vessel Of Spirit@VesselOfSpirit i love you all conditionally but i love the good part of you unconditionally. even if it becomes a very small part 2:11 AM · Jan 22, 2015 1 Reply · 5 Reposts · 29 Likes ](https://x.com/VesselOfSpirit/status/558084551772471298) This is how I feel about psychology1, too, but with a touch more optimism. The good part of psychology is enormous, a hoard of endless treasures. You just have to look past the headlines! 1 To play devil’s advocate - should one always be so magnamious? Astrology? Phrenology? These seem different in that their entire orientation was flawed from the start; they didn’t simply fail to find the correct constellation-personality connections, the whole project of searching for connections between constellations and personality was doomed from the start. More difficult might be asking the same question about education research, which is notoriously bad. I don’t know enough about education research to know if there’s some settled science of correct and enlightening results lurking in the background beyond the day-to-day froth of poorly-conducted and politically-motivated studies. I think if it’s 90% bad, 10% good, it’s correct to call it bad as a compact way of communicating a useful truth; I think psychology is better than that, but admit it’s a tough judgment call.

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Aug 4 • 5:33 PM EDT • Science • astralcodexten.com
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Aaron Rodgers had undisclosed illness before playoff loss to Texans
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Aug 4 • 3:24 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
LA County says a program meant to help people with serious mental illness is gaining traction

Gov. Gavin Newsom's mental health court is gaining more participants in Los Angeles County. CARE Court treats people with serious mental health conditions.

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Aug 4 • 1:44 PM EDT • Health • calmatters.org
Michigan reports first 2 U.S. deaths in outbreak of cyclospora

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said both people had underlying health conditions that may have been impacted by the intestinal illness and dehydration.

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Aug 3 • 12:46 PM EDT • Health • pbs.org
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Michigan reports two deaths in cyclosporiasis outbreak

More than 11,000 cases of the foodborne illness have been confirmed in the state and 193 people have been hospitalized since early May.

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Aug 3 • 12:15 PM EDT • Health • nbcnews.com
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How Friendships Can Benefit the Health of Your Mind and Body

Strong friendships have many benefits for the mind and body, including reducing the risk of chronic illness, so board-certified psychiatrist and author Sue Varma stops by TODAY to share her expert tips for making friends. She explains that it can take “50 hours to make a regular, casual friend” and up to “200 hours to make a bestie,” so she recommends showing up to places consistently, making small plans, being vulnerable, and focusing on “being interested versus interesting.”

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Aug 3 • 10:00 AM EDT • Health • today.com
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DOH-Miami-Dade Issues Mosquito-Borne Illness Alert - Florida Department of Health in Miami-Dade County

The alert is in response to a confirmed case of locally-acquired dengue.

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Aug 3 • 8:56 AM EDT • Health • miamidade.floridahealth.gov
Johnson County Criminal Mental Health Court would offer treatment plans instead of jail time

Johnson County is considering adding a criminal mental health court program aimed at helping repeat offenders with serious mental illness.

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Aug 2 • 3:26 PM EDT • Health • kcrg.com
Cyclospora confusion? Four questions about the parasite in Minnesota, answered

Minnesotans can be reassured that the large multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis infections, a gastrointestinal illness caused by cyclospora, has not yet reached the state.

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Jul 31 • 8:30 AM EDT • Health • mprnews.org
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It’s getting more dangerous for kids to play summer sports » Yale Climate Connections

As the climate warms, young athletes face growing risks of heat illness – especially in communities without air-conditioned practice spaces.

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Jul 31 • 7:00 AM EDT • Sports • yaleclimateconnections.org
Does public health *need* MAHA?

Last week, our friend Dr. Craig Spencer sparked an ongoing volatile discussion with his Atlantic article “Public Health Needs MAHA.” Some have come out in strong dissent, others are cheering, and others are simply lamenting that we find ourselves in such a divided world to begin with. We will dare to dip our toes in these controversial waters, too. Does public health need MAHA? We think in some ways yes, and in other ways, no. MAHA leaders versus the everyday MAHA supporter The vitriol in this debate mostly comes from one collapsed distinction: the leadership of MAHA is not necessarily the same as the people who support it. Say “MAHA” and most people picture RFK Jr. Fair enough, as he coined the term and holds most of the power. And, yes, some MAHA followers treat Kennedy as something close to a saint. But talk to the grassroots, and it’s not a monolith. They’re Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. People who distrust vaccines and vaccine supporters. It’s a wide, eclectic coalition. The data backs this too: 4 in 10 Americans support the movement—that’s a lot of people! But according to polls, vaccines and medical choice (the issues most tied to Kennedy personally) are cited by only 4% as their reason for supporting the movement. For many, the motivations are much broader. Many MAHA supporters are signing up for the idea that “something needs to change” with health in this country. They’re asking good-faith questions about corporate influence on our health systems, health care costs, nutrition, chemicals, and clean air and water. These are all questions that plenty of public health professionals recognize as legitimate and also care about very deeply. Blurring the lines between the leadership and grassroots does real damage in two important ways: It hands the 4 in 10 exactly the narrative already fed—that the health ecosystem doesn’t listen, doesn’t care, and paints every critic with the same brush. It gives the actual bad actor more power. RFK Jr. has done irreparable damage and can’t be trusted. What the MAHA movement gets right A healthy population is something the public health field was literally built on, and many of these topics are things we have dedicated our lives to. Yet the MAHA movement has captivated nearly half the country in a way the public health establishment has failed to achieve. So that means MAHA is doing something right. Some of it may be timing (after a Covid-19 pandemic and deep frustration and mistrust with institutions). The movement also does three other things really well: 1. It gives a new, louder voice to system failures. While MAHA is not a monolith, one theme stays consistent across their stories: the system failed them. For some, it was the system that flooded their communities with opioids and then walked away. For others, it was the system that let their business collapse during Covid with no safety net in sight. For others still, it was the system that failed to help them manage a complex chronic illness, bouncing them from physician to physician without any real answers. And in many ways, our health ecosystems are failing Americans. Why are medical bills so incomprehensible? Why do some kids get a healthy school lunch and others don’t? Why do an epidemiologist and a MD/PhD student have to start newsletters in the middle of the biggest public health emergency in a century, just so people can get straight information? Because the systems failed. This deep-seated frustration driving many Americans to search for solutions elsewhere needs to be recognized. 2. MAHA has brilliant comms central to their efforts. MAHA figured out something most health institutions still have not: the information landscape changed. It’s participatory now, not top-down; influence runs through many nodes in a community, not one institution; and storytelling and telling audiences “what you really think” moves people more than data dumps do. MAHA goes where audiences are listening, using podcasts, social media, and memes in ways most health institutions would scoff at—but it works. 3. They are very good at organizing. A MAHA meeting feels like a rally: energy, speakers, music, and most importantly, an action for everyone. Someone’s writing the next policy brief, someone’s seeding a narrative, someone knows the next legislative deadline, someone’s sending the text messages for a campaign. None of this is new (ask the civil rights movement), but MAHA knows it works and has capitalized on it. What MAHA gets wrong This list could be much longer, and this newsletter has spent a lot of time covering it, but here are a few things: Poor use of scientific evidence. This is the fundamental problem with many MAHA policies: the hype outpaces the science, and experts are often villainized for pointing this out. MAHA leadership has traded real solutions for cheap wins. For example, instead of taking on the powerful food industry and passing real reforms, it has celebrated french fries made of beef tallow and taken out artificial dyes from still very sugary children’s cereal. These changes won’t move the needle on America’s diet. MAHA leadership has tried to dismantle vaccine access in the U.S. While many MAHA supporters emphasize other issues, the effort to change vaccine policy has become MAHA’s signature effort. This is not surprising given RFK Jr.’s extensive track record campaigning against vaccines. It has rallied behind the wrong leader. RFK Jr. has a decades-long track record of villifying doctors, scientists, and public health workers, well before he became HHS secretary. He is known for his decades-long work sowing distrust in vaccines as well as life-saving treatments like antiretroviral therapy for HIV. This is not a serious person who can move the needle on health in the U.S, and he has already done serious damage. Public health needs more than defense Defending the evidence is absolutely necessary so health in the U.S. doesn’t move further backward. The public health establishment is very good at defense. The problem is this defense often sounds like defending the status quo, which has failed many people. Public health needs to offer an alternative to RFK Jr.’s MAHA—one that is rooted in evidence, truly listens to and addresses people’s frustrations, and has innovative solutions and the courage to change the systems. How do we get there? Find common ground. Do you know what most people care most about? The abysmal cost of healthcare. Start there. Fight for the human loudly. Too often, communications and engagement center on science with a capital S, funding mechanisms, or the CDC/FDA/NIH. Not the person. So the public doesn’t see themselves in it. Instead, they see people fighting for the very powerful systems that they feel negatively impact their health and well-being. Let the public feel and hear that you see their frustrations, you get it, and you’re fighting for them within the system. Recognize when pro-science messages are alienating people. Facts absolutely matter, but angrily venting only alienates people further. Our friend Elisabeth Marnik recently wrote a New York Times article about her experience growing up unvaccinated and how listening and empathetic conversation are the only ways to reach people that really work (a position backed by communication science). Her comments section was full of hateful comments from pro-vaccine individuals attacking her for daring to suggest we approach vaccine-hesitant individuals with empathy. It is possible to both stand firm behind scientific evidence and empathize with people who don’t trust it. Lean into politics smartly. Often, public health has shied away from politics: Don’t touch it, lest you get burned. But this fails to recognize that the third rail is what fuels the train: who is elected determines our budgets, our priorities, and our authority. Being political means being very savvy in strategy on both sides of the aisle, knowing your audience, and recognizing that political capital is as scarce as financial resources and needs to be allocated accordingly. Bottom line So does public health need MAHA? That’s not really the right question. Public health has a responsibility not to dismiss 40% of the country who feel heard by this movement and are frustrated that the system has failed them. And it has a responsibility to stick to the evidence and recognize MAHA leadership for what it is: a danger to our nation’s health. Both can, and should, be done. Love, YLE and KP A big thanks to Craig Spencer, who had the courage to put his neck out there to start a much-needed discussion at such a critical moment—one that is determining the identity of an entire field. Kristen Panthagani, MD, PhD is completing an emergency medicine residency and research fellowship focusing on health literacy and communication. In her free time, she writes the newsletters You Can Know Things debunking health myths and rumors and The Public Health Roundup. Views expressed belong to KP, not her employer. Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) comprises a team of experts, ranging from physicians to immunologists to epidemiologists to nutritionists, working together with one goal: to “translate” ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. The YLE suite of newsletters reaches over 475,000 people across more than 132 countries. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, subscribe or upgrade below: Subscribe

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Jul 31 • 6:30 AM EDT • Health • yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com
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Countries urged to strengthen breastfeeding support and health systems to give every child a healthy start in life

Too many mothers and families around the world still lack access to services and interventions that enable and support breastfeeding. Yet breastfeeding is one of the simplest and most powerful ways to protect a child’s health. It provides infants and young children with essential nutrition, increases immunity, helps protect against serious illness, and supports cognitive development.

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Jul 30 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • who.int
Explosive diarrhea parasite cases rise by thousands, now in 45 states

There have been 6,707 laboratory-confirmed cases of the explosive diarrhea illness since May 1, the CDC said July 28.

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Jul 29 • 10:30 AM EDT • Health • usatoday.com
AI's latest casualty? The health of the people building it.

Lilian Weng of Thinking Machines Lab is the only the latest tech executive to resign due to stress and illness.

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Jul 29 • 6:44 AM EDT • Health • businessinsider.com
Michigan cyclospora outbreak shows signs of improvement as new cases slow

Nationwide, there are more than 18,000 confirmed or suspected cases of cyclosporiasis, the illness caused by a parasite found in human feces, the CDC said Tuesday.

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Jul 28 • 7:55 PM EDT • Health • nbcnews.com
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Bears DE Montez Sweat lands on non-football illness list
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Jul 28 • 4:17 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Cyclospora Boosts Fears That Deadlier Foodborne Outbreaks Are Ahead

By Kate Wells and Stephanie Armour | KFF Health News The next foodborne illness outbreak could be much worse. That’s the concern of food safety leaders across the U.S. who are raising alarms over federal cuts they say have made it harder to detect and stop the spread of foodborne illnesses, such as ...

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Jul 28 • 2:37 PM EDT • Health • usnews.com
Thinking Machines Lab cofounder steps down, citing stress and illness

Lilian Weng said repeated illness and the pressure of building an AI startup had become physically unsustainable.

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Jul 28 • 6:33 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Health officials warn of heat-related illnesses as heat wave continues across Iowa

The Polk County Health Department says folks need to take a break if they start seeing signs of dizziness, nausea and heavy sweating.

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Jul 27 • 7:29 PM EDT • Health • kcci.com
Madison St. Mary’s Hospital staffing spurs burnout, nurses say

SSM Health’s St. Mary’s is the only Madison hospital that doesn’t staff nurses based on patient illness levels. Nurses say it’s a problem.

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Jul 27 • 6:00 AM EDT • Health • captimes.com
Germany's sick-note crackdown may be treating the symptoms, not the disease

Germany's plans to tighten sick-note rules may be mistaking the symptoms of rising absenteeism for the underlying illness, researchers say, pointing to mental health strains and deteriorating working conditions in sectors such ​as healthcare and education.

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Jul 27 • 1:12 AM EDT • Health • reuters.com
Q&A: Professor Gail Wyatt discusses mental health advocacy in marginalized communities

July is the Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. The month honors Campbell, an advocate and author who co-founded the National Alliance on Mental Illness Urban Los Angeles to help people from marginalized backgrounds seek mental health services.

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Jul 26 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • dailybruin.com
Letters -- Mosques, Dallas council members, mental health

Readers enjoyed the story on the open houses at area mosques, criticize Dallas council members, defend Democratic socialism and discuss mental illness.

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Jul 26 • 5:30 AM EDT • Health • dallasnews.com
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Cyclospora outbreak dubbed "lettuce-gate" as concerns over parasitic illness spread across U.S.

Americans say they aren't convinced the cyclospora outbreak is under control as confirmed cases near 2,000.

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Jul 25 • 8:58 PM EDT • Health • cbsnews.com
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Advocates fight against Lyme disease and for funding

Advocates for people with Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses are urging Congress to reauthorize key legislation that helps fund research

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Jul 24 • 5:00 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumlocalnews.com
U.S. health officials investigate new outbreak of parasite cyclospora

The Food and Drug Administration has not yet identified which products are linked to the illnesses.

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Jul 23 • 3:42 PM EDT • Health • pbs.org
Kayla Jordan reflects on gratitude for Maynard Children’s Hospital 14 years later

An unprecedented illness that started with stomach pain and spiraled into stay at Maynard Children's Hospital for Kayla Jordan.

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Jul 22 • 9:55 AM EDT • Health • ecuhealth.org
Why Did This Man Avoid Alzheimer’s? Scientists Reveal Their Astonishing Theory - Futura-Sciences

A Family Plagued by Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Doug Whitney inherited a rare genetic mutation that’s devastated much of his family: many relatives experienced significant cognitive decline as early as their 50s. Yet Doug himself has stayed mentally alert well past the age at which illness struck in the family. According to...

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Jul 22 • 9:00 AM EDT • Science • futura-sciences.com
Fifth Legionnaires’ death confirmed as dozens of NYC buildings found with live bacteria

Tuesday marked the fifth consecutive day a death had been reported by NYC health officials. A total of 82 people have been sickened by the illness.

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Jul 22 • 3:42 AM EDT • Health • nbcnews.com
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Congressman Crow reveals new info about Aurora ICE detainee conditions; medical advocate sounds alarm on heat & illness
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Jul 21 • 10:19 PM EDT • Health • cbsnews.com
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US says more than 1,400 infected by parasitic Cyclospora illness outbreak

US officials claim evidence points to lettuce grown in Mexico, which Mexico's Health Ministry disputes.

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Jul 21 • 10:01 PM EDT • Health • aljazeera.com
Summer safety: Heat and your heart health

In eastern North Carolina, soaring temperatures and humidity put residents at risk of heat-related illnesses, especially for people with a heart condition.

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Jul 21 • 2:14 PM EDT • Health • ecuhealth.org
Health officials urge food safety as cyclosporiasis cases rise in North Carolina

Cyclosporiasis, a parasitic illness that can cause diarrhea, vomiting and other symptoms, is rising across North Carolina and the U.S., health officials say.

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Jul 21 • 8:16 AM EDT • Health • cleveland19.com
What Allegheny County’s new court-ordered mental health treatment program can and can’t do

Allegheny County can now order treatment for people with serious mental illness. But what’s driving results – the order itself or the services behind it?

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Jul 20 • 8:28 AM EDT • Health • theconversation.com
Leading oncologist reveals 6 habits that could promote longevity and reduce your risk of chronic illness

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel says dinner parties combine healthy food, mental activity, social life and exercise into one simple longevity strategy.

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Jul 18 • 6:13 PM EDT • Health • foxnews.com
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Common antidepressant may ease long COVID’s crushing fatigue

A low-cost antidepressant may offer new hope for people struggling with long COVID fatigue. In a randomized clinical trial involving 399 adults, fluvoxamine significantly reduced fatigue and improved quality of life compared with a placebo, making it one of the first medications to show meaningful benefits for this disabling condition.

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Jul 18 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
Health officials investigate foods potentially linked to cyclosporiasis in North Carolina

North Carolina health officials continue to investigate amid a surge in cases of cyclosporiasis, an intestinal illness that can cause "explosive" diarrhea.

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Jul 17 • 5:59 PM EDT • Health • wlos.com
Health officials investigate foods potentially linked to cyclosporiasis in North Carolina

North Carolina health officials continue to investigate amid a surge in cases of cyclosporiasis, an intestinal illness that can cause "explosive" diarrhea.

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Jul 17 • 5:59 PM EDT • Health • newschannel9.com
Residential facility for severe mental illness opens in Salem

The facility, called the Ruth Marie House, aims to expand housing and treatment options for adults with persistent mental illness in Marion County.

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Jul 17 • 5:01 PM EDT • Health • statesmanjournal.com
How health officials are racing to track foods behind cyclosporiasis outbreak in over 27 states

Shredded lettuce is one possible culprit, although it’s highly likely there are other sources of the foodborne illnesses making people sick across the U.S.

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Jul 17 • 2:17 PM EDT • Health • nbcnews.com
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Foodborne illnesses at restaurant chains are rare but can sicken customers, roil businesses

Here’s a brief history of some other recent outbreaks that roiled restaurant companies.

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Jul 17 • 1:27 PM EDT • Business • bostonherald.com
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County Environmental Health issues closure notice of Coronado's Glorietta Bay

Beachgoers were advised the ocean water in the area contains sewage and may cause illness.

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Jul 17 • 11:05 AM EDT • Health • kpbs.org
Health officials urge caution as cyclosporiasis cases rise, shoppers turn to local farmers

Growing concerns over a parasitic intestinal illness have prompted some customers at a local farmers markets to take a closer look at how their produce is grown.

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Jul 15 • 7:37 PM EDT • Health • abc7chicago.com
Oklahoma State Department of Health confirms 56 cyclosporiasis cases, 6 hospitalizations

The illness has been reported in dozens of states across the U.S., sickening thousands of people.

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Jul 15 • 7:02 AM EDT • Health • kosu.org
Oklahoma State Department of Health confirms 56 cyclosporiasis cases, 6 hospitalizations

The illness has been reported in dozens of states across the U.S., sickening thousands of people.

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Jul 15 • 4:36 AM EDT • Health • kgou.org