World’s Oldest Man Dies; Harvey Weinstein’s Medical Care; Soccer and Brain Damage

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John Tinniswood, the world’s oldest man, died at age 112 in Southport, England. (CNN)

President-elect Donald Trump chose Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, of Stanford University in California, to serve as NIH director. Bhattacharya criticized COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates. (AP)

Trump also nominated biotech investor Jim O’Neill to work as HHS deputy secretary. (The Hill)

A key challenge facing Trump’s new public health leaders will be keeping politics out of science, experts told CNN.

Public health experts are concerned about low vaccination rates against COVID, the flu, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) before the holidays. (Washington Post)

British Columbia health officials ran out of leads and closed their investigation into how a teenager became infected with H5N1 bird flu. The teen is hospitalized in serious condition but shows some signs of improvement. (STAT)

The Department of Agriculture said it halted animal imports from Mexico after New World screwworm was discovered in a cow at an inspection checkpoint close to the Mexico-Guatemala border.

Lawyers for former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein filed a legal claim against New York City, alleging he is receiving substandard medical treatment while in custody at Rikers Island. (AP)

A Texas committee that reviews all pregnancy-related deaths will not examine cases from 2022 and 2023, the first 2 years after the state’s abortion ban took effect. (Washington Post)

A former Lurie Children’s Hospital employee filed a lawsuit claiming she was fired for reporting alleged problems in the hospital pharmacy to state regulators. (Chicago Sun-Times)

And at Seattle Children’s, a civil trial is underway to hear arguments about whether the hospital racially discriminated against a former medical director. (Seattle Times)

UPMC said it will phase out its internal medicine residency program at its McKeesport, Pennsylvania, hospital. (WTAE)

The FDA approved Zimmer Biomet’s Oxford cementless partial knee replacement implant, the company announced.

And the agency approved landiolol (Rapiblyk) for treating atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter in critical care patients, maker AOP Health said.

Soccer heading may cause more damage than previously thought, according to new research to be presented at the Radiological Society of North America annual meeting.

Patients who saw a doctor from their own family physician group for after-hours care were 10% less likely to visit the emergency department within 7 days than those who saw a walk-in clinic physician. (Annals of Family Medicine)

Costly multiplex testing with a primary diagnosis of urinary tract infection rose from 2 to 148 claims per 10,000 Medicare beneficiaries between 2016 and 2023. (JAMA Network Open)

U.K. Biobank data showed that irregular sleep was strongly associated with a higher risk of major adverse cardiovascular events. (Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health)

UnityPoint Health nurses in Des Moines are trying to unionize co-workers over pay and working conditions. (Des Moines Register)

In Chicago, Northwestern Medicine nurses threw a wedding for a patient a day before her life-saving open-heart surgery.

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