Author: Al Cross
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Resolution to require study of response to hepatitis A outbreak, and recommendations to avoid a repeat, failed in the legislature
The state Cabinet for Health and Family Services won’t have to conduct a study of its response to the hepatitis A outbreak that has killed at least 52 in the state and...
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Drug makers’ payments to doctors may influence their choice of what drugs to prescribe, and that can cost patients real money
By Trudy LiebermanRural Health News Service Peggy, an Indiana woman and reader of this column, recently sent me a lengthy email about her 94-year-old mother who is rapidly...
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State health department funds mobile syringe exchange for Laurel, Whitley, Knox, Clay and Jackson counties
Five Eastern Kentucky counties will soon have a mobile syringe exchange to minimize the spread of infectious diseases and to help get people who are addicted to drugs into treatment,...
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20 test positive for E.coli and six of them are hospitalized, mostly in Central Kentucky; state health department searching for source
Twenty Kentuckians have tested positive for an infection caused by a strain of E. coli bacteria, and public health officials say they have not yet identified the source of the outbreak, the...
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Bill to require ‘reasonable accommodations’ to pregnant women at work passes on last day of legislative session
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill that allows pregnant women “reasonable accommodations” while at work, and supports breastfeeding, passed on the last day of the...
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Statewide tobacco-free-schools bill finally passes, and the governor is expected to sign it into law, effective July 1, 2020
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill to ban the use of tobacco products in all Kentucky public schools and events finally passed on the last...
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Health departments, regional mental-health centers, other entities get a pension fix, but at a cost to some employees’ pensions
Teachers filled the Senate gallery. (Herald-Leader photo by Matt Goins) —– As it closed up shop, the legislature gave local health departments, regional mental-health centers and other government-related agencies another reprieve...
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Judge again blocks state’s Medicaid plan with work requirements for many, says likewise for similar plan already in effect in Ark.
The order vacating federal approval of Kentucky’s plan —– By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News A federal judge in Washington has again blocked Gov. Matt Bevin’s attempts to require many...
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Man who ran drug-treatment facilities in Ironton and Portsmouth, Ohio, is indicted on drug-trafficking charges
Graffiti under the U.S. Grant Bridge in Portsmouth, Ohio (Cincinnati Enquirer photo by Liz Dufour) —– The former operator of Ohio drug-treatment facilities just across the river from northeastern Kentucky was indicted Wednesday...
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Bevin signs bill setting deadlines for insurers to authorize medications prescribed by health-care providers
Gomerpedia.org —– Gov. Matt Bevin has signed into law “a bill that’s expected to ease the process for getting some medications and treatments pre-approved by insurers,” Darla Carterreports for Insider Louisville. Senate Bill...