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THURSDAY, May 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Masks may not be required, but Americans should consider wearing one anyway if they live in an area where COVID-19 case numbers are high, federal health officials said Wednesday. That advice currently applies to about one-third of Americans, all of whom now live in areas with high levels of community transmission, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of those areas are in the Northeast. In those regions, "we urge local leaders to encourage the use of prevention strategies like masking in public indoor settings, and increasing access to testing and treatment for individuals," said CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, The New York Times reported. She spoke at the first pandemic-focused White House COVID briefing...

THURSDAY, May 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Faced with mounting pressure to help desperate parents, President Joe Biden on Wednesday invoked the power of the wartime Defense Production Act to get more of the precious product into American homes. Under the new powers, the federal government can use commercial aircraft or air cargo planes owned by the Defense Department to transport infant formula from countries abroad and fly it into the United States, getting it more rapidly onto store shelves. The move comes two days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it was also expediting the approvals process, so that foreign suppliers of baby formula could quickly get their products into the United States. "I know parents all across the country are worried about finding...

THURSDAY, May 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- The first U.S. case this year of a rare and potentially fatal virus known as monkeypox has been diagnosed in a man in Massachusetts who recently traveled to Canada, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday.The illness does occasionally arise in the United States, but the Massachusetts case comes on the heels of unusual outbreaks over the past few weeks of monkeypox in Britain, Canada, Portugal and Spain — countries that typically don't see such cases because monkeypox is largely endemic to Africa. "It's not clear how people in those clusters were exposed to monkeypox but cases include individuals who self-identify as men who have sex with men," the agency said in a statement. "CDC is urging health care...

THURSDAY, May 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Many people who are overweight or obese avoid cancer screening for fear of stigma and judgment about their weight, British researchers report.In a review of 10 published studies, researchers found that many doctors around the world don't look kindly on patients with obesity, an attitude that can affect treatment and screening for breast, cervical and colon cancers."Obesity stigma needs to be challenged and tackled, especially in health care settings," said lead researcher Yitka Graham. She is head of the Helen McArdle Nursing and Care Research Institute at the University of Sunderland in the United Kingdom."The fear of being stigmatized may prevent people living with obesity from accessing cancer screening services, which are vital to early...