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Scopes That Spread UCLA ‘Superbug’ Were Awaiting FDA Clearance

The manufacturer of the scopes that spread a drug-resistant “superbug” to seven California patients had tweaked the scopes' design and was selling them without federal permission to do so, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Seven people have become infected with the drug-resistant “superbug” known as CRE at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center after undergoing endoscopy procedures, and CRE may have played a role in two of those patients' deaths, hospital officials said in February, adding that 179 people were exposed to the germ at UCLA. The scopes — called duodenoscopes, which are inserted by mouth to access patients' small intestine, the pancreas and the liver — were new and had only been in use since June, health officials said last month. The hospital said it traced the bacteria back to two endoscopes manufactured by Olympus Corporation of the Americas.

Obama tells parents to get kids vaccinated to stem measles

President Barack Obama is urging parents to get their children vaccinated in the face of a measles outbreak that has infected more than 100 people in the United States. In excerpts from an interview with NBC News that will air on Monday, Obama said measles was a preventable disease. He said that while he understood there were families concerned about the effect of vaccinations, he said the science was “pretty indisputable.” “We’ve looked at this again and again. There have been 91 measles cases in California, with at least 58 of those epidemiologically linked to a cluster that began at Disneyland in December.

California turkey farm quarantined after bird flu detected

By Theopolis Waters CHICAGO (Reuters) – A California turkey farm has been quarantined after confirmation of the first case of an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza strain in the Pacific Northwest and in a commercial flock, the U.S. government said. The news on Saturday came just weeks after China banned U.S. poultry after an outbreak of another strain of bird flu in the Pacific Northwest. In the latest outbreak, Foster Farms said in a statement that it had informed the U.S. Department of Agriculture after detecting the H5N8 strain on a single turkey ranch in Stanislaus County following routine testing. State and government labs confirmed the findings from samples submitted by Foster Farms, which had experienced a spike in bird deaths, according to the USDA.

Washington state attorney general seeks to raise smoking age to 21

By Eric M. Johnson SEATTLE (Reuters) – Washington state could become the only U.S. state to raise its legal age for smoking tobacco to 21 from 18 under a measure proposed on Wednesday by its top law enforcement official. The legislation, if enacted, would also put the legal age for purchasing and possessing tobacco and nicotine-vapor products on an equal footing with the state's minimum drinking age of 21, with the goal of restricting access to teens and lowering healthcare expenses. The measure, however, would cost the state some $20 million a year in estimated tax revenue. …