Local
Minnesota combats excessive opioid prescriptions
Letters were sent last week to over 16,000 Minnesota doctors, dentists, and other health care professionals who had prescribed opioids to at least one Medicaid or MinnesotaCare program patient in 2018. The letters let the prescribers know how many opioids they gave patients compared to their peers in terms of opioids prescribed.
Those in the top 25 percent of prescribers will have to participate in state monitored improvement programs next year, and continuous poor performers could be barred from Medicaid, which is one-fifth of the patients in Minnesota. Tony Lourey, the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, had high hopes for bringing about changes in prescriber practices with this program. “They really care how they stack up against their peers.”
Opioid-related overdose deaths continue to increase each year in Minnesota, including a 7 percent increase from 2016 to 2017 to 422 deaths.
National
E. coli at San Diego county fair
On Friday, the San Diego County Health and Human services reported that there were four pediatric cases of Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli that were connected to contact with animals at the county fair. One of the children died.
The exact source was not determined, but all the children visited the animal areas of the fair and the petting zoo. Since the illness, officials have closed off the animal areas of the zoo.
Officials urge anyone who has contact with animals or their environments to wash their hands thoroughly after contact. This form of E. coli can lead to a serious illness which can start anywhere from one to ten days after exposure.
San Diego County News Center
Delish
International
African swine fever’s damage to China pork industry may be more severe than thought
Estimates provided by vaccine, feed additive, and genetics suppliers to large Chinese swine herds indicate that as many as half of the breeding pigs in the country have died from African swine fever or been killed to control the disease, twice as many as officially acknowledged. Farmers also will send their hogs to market prematurely when the disease is found nearby, furthering the swine herd loss.
Earlier in this spring, China’s pork imports were expected to double. Now, the demand could be much higher, driving up food prices. This is in addition to the disease's effect on the livelihoods of China’s 40 million swine farmers.
African swine fever has no cure and no vaccines. Though China has reported 137 outbreaks so far, many more are thought to be going unreported due the decentralized agriculture industry, poor data, and purposeful government obstruction. An anonymous farmer in one of the top pork regions reported, “We were not allowed to report the pig disease,” and that some farmers who did were detained for “spreading rumors.”
To stay up to date on ASF and swine disease news, check out the CAHFS swine disease global surveillance project at z.umn.edu/SwineDiseaseSurveillance.
Questions, comments, feedback about today's Weekly Update? Please email Dr. James Kincheloe.
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James Kincheloe
James received his DVM from the University of California, Davis. He has worked as a herd veterinarian for dairy cows and a small animal veterinarian in California. Jim is interested in agricultural and infectious disease policy, and has collaborated on domestic and international projects across the public health spectrum.