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Now that avian influenza is circulating among dairy cattle in at least 12 states in the U.S. and has infected three dairy workers, health experts are keeping a close eye on whether people can be infected from consuming infected milk or meat.So far, the federal government maintains that the risk of getting infected is low for the general public, and that commercially sold milk remains safe to drink. That’s despite the fact that U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that about 20% of milk sold in stores contains fragments of the bird flu virus H5N1. Those fragments so far are not active, however; researchers report that they could not generate any live virus from them in the lab, and animals exposed to them did not develop infections.Both agencies also say that pasteurization, or hea...

Paris — Water in the Seine River had unsafe elevated levels of E. coli less than two months before swimming competitions are scheduled to take place in it during the Paris Olympics, according to test results published Friday.Contamination levels in the first eight days of June, after persistent heavy rain in Paris, showed bacteria such as E. coli and enterococci beyond limits judged safe for athletes.The report was published by monitoring group Eau de Paris one day after a senior International Olympic Committee executive said there were “no reasons to doubt” races will go ahead as scheduled in in a historic downtown stretch of the Seine near the Eiffel Tower.The first Olympic event in the cleaned-up Seine is men’s triathlon, including a 1.5-kilometer (under 1 mile) swim, on the morning of ...

Waking up in a pool of sweat can feel alarming. And even though lots of people sweat more overnight, it’s a sign that things may not be working as they should: the body’s core temperature typically decreases slightly during sleep. But a variety of medical and lifestyle factors can signal to the brain that it’s time to start sweating, leading to scorching-hot wakeups. We asked experts how to figure out what’s leading to those sweat-drenched sheets, and what to do about it.It could be a medical issueSweating at night can indicate that something is going on health-wise, says Dr. Aarthi Ram, a sleep medicine specialist at Houston Methodist. You could be going through menopause or have an abnormal thyroid or a neurological disorder—or even an infection like tuberculosis, malaria, or typhoid fev...

Philadelphia has experienced the biggest drop in gun violence among major U.S. cities so far in 2024, according to a new report from a Washington D.C.-based think tank.The Center for American Progress (CAP) released Tuesday its analysis of Gun Violence Archive (GVA) data, which is an online archive of gun violence incidents gathered from more than 7,500 law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources each day. CAP analyzed “gun homicides and gun violence victimizations” data from 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2024 from Jan. 1 to April 30 (which CAP referred to as “year to date,” or “YTD”). CAP defined “gun violence victimizations” as all firearm-related injuries and deaths.“Philadelphia has seen the most significant decline in population-adjusted gun violence victimizations YTD of the 50...