In The News: School of Public Health

Asian News International

A study has recently suggested that new mothers consuming placenta pills, following childbirth, will experience little to no effect on their post-partum mood, maternal bonding or fatigue.

Romper

When you're expecting your first baby, the amount of conflicting information on pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting out there can be overwhelming. Should you breastfeed or use formula? Co-sleep or not? So many choices are fraught with controversy, but there's one decision that's now easier to make than ever, because there's even more evidence that women shouldn't be eating their placentas, in any form. It's true that many other mammals do so, but whether you're blending it into a smoothie or popping freeze-dried pills, placentophagy offers no benefits to humans, and it can actually be extremely dangerous for both mother and child.

Science Mag

Celebrity socialite Kim Kardashian West says it boosted her energy level. Mad Men’s January Jones touts it as a cure for postpartum depression. But does eating one’s placenta after birth—an apparently growing practice around the globe—actually confer any health benefits? Not really, according to the first in-depth analyses of the practice.

Vice News

Health care options for thousands of Nevadans narrowed significantly Monday after health insurer Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield — one of the largest health insurance companies in the U.S. — announced it would withdraw from Nevada’s Obamacare state exchange in 2018. Fourteen counties in Nevada are at risk of not having an insurance provider on the state’s individuals insurance exchange in 2018.

Las Vegas Sun

Just weeks after its initial class, the 51ԹϺ School of Medicine appointed an acting dean on Wednesday as founding dean Dr. Barbara Atkinson recovers from surgery. Dr. Shawn Gerstenberger, current dean at the School of Community Health Sciences, will serve as the acting dean.

Las Vegas Review Journal

The U.S. Senate’s draft of a new health care bill promises to cut funding toward Medicaid expansion and cap the program’s budget. Meanwhile, Nevada this month was a signature away from creating a potentially precedent-setting law that would have opened Medicaid coverage to all state residents.

KOLO-TV

800 pinwheels blow in the wind in Carson City, placed in one of the most prominent areas-- the legislative complex. Organizers hope the spinning wheels will bring attention to child abuse and its prevention.

Las Vegas Review Journal

51ԹϺ is among the universities around the country participating in a push by the Obama administration to demographically shore up the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace by signing up more young adults.

Herald Times Online

Summer colds are the worst.

You’re not sure how you caught one, but you did — and now you’d love to know where it came from. Or maybe that’s one of those medical mysteries, the kind that Mary Guinan, Ph.D., M.D. solved. In her new book “Adventures of a Female Medical Detective” (with Anne D. Mather), she takes you on some not-so-cold cases.

KNPR News

The last time KNPR caught up with Mary Guinan, it was in honor of World Aids Day, and we talked to her about her working with some of the first AIDS patients as a scientist with the Centers for Disease Control.

NPR

When they wouldn't hire her because she was a woman, she threatened her superiors. When the media asked her a stupid question, she gave them an earful. And when she thought she had contracted HIV/AIDS, she said, "if that's what happened, that's what happened."

Desert Companion

It was 34 years ago, in 1981, that the first patients of HIV were identified. Even now, there remain more than 36 million people worldwide living with HIV. In 2014, 1.2 million people died from AIDS-related illnesses. Three 51ԹϺ research professors, each manning a different front — from educational memoirs to life-saving baby showers to a possible cure — continue to make headway in this worldwide battle.