KFF Poll: 59% Disapprove of HHS Secretary’s Job Performance
A new KFF (formerly Kaiser Family Foundation) poll found that 59% of respondents disapprove of how U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing his job.
The poll results, released by KFF on Oct. 9, also found that 62% of respondents disapprove of how Kennedy has handled American vaccine policies.
“Views of Kennedy are largely partisan, with most Republicans and MAGA [Make America Great Again] supporters approving of his overall job performance and his handling of vaccine policy, while large majorities of Democrats disapprove,” a poll summary said. “Just one-third (35%) of adults say they trust Kennedy to provide reliable vaccine information, including 67% of Republicans, 27% of independents, and 13% of Democrats.”
Only 4% of poll participants say Kennedy’s controversial Sept. 22 claim that Tylenol usage by pregnant women increases the risk of autism for the children they’re carrying is “definitely true,” while 35% believes the claim is “definitely false.”
A Health & Human Services fact sheet on autism cites “large-scale cohort studies, including the Nurses’ Health Study II and the Boston Birth Cohort” that “report associations between in utero exposure [to acetaminophen] and later diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sept. 24, in response to Kennedy’s statement, that “there is currently no conclusive scientific evidence confirming a possible link between autism and use of acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol) during pregnancy.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics said, “Studies do not point to a causal link between the use of acetaminophen and autism in children or in pregnancy, and extensive research indicates there is no single root cause of autism.”
Research: Smith+Nephew’s ALLEVYN Dressing Reduces Pressure Injury Risk
New research published in International Wound Journal discusses the efficacy of Smith+Nephew’s ALLEVYN COMPLETE CARE soft silicone multi-layer wound dressings in reducing the risk of pressure injuries on patients’ heels.
The Sept. 30 study noted that the dressing’s “advanced structure” facilitates “the dissipation of shear forces through internal layer-on-layer frictional sliding within the dressing.”
Researchers used experimental frictional energy absorber effectiveness (FEAE) testing and computational finite element modeling to quantify “the capacity of this dressing to mitigate strain and stress concentrations in the soft tissues of the supported posterior heel.
“The dressing demonstrated considerable frictional sliding between its adjacent layers, resulting in FEAE = 93% under simulated, clinically relevant usage conditions. This was associated with the dissipation of shear forces and alleviation of strain/stress concentrations in the skin and underlying soft tissues below the dressing.”
The study’s authors were Darla Orlova, Aleksei, Orlov, and Amit Gefen, all from the school of biomedical engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Smith+Nephew supported the research study.
A 2022 study — Incidence of pressure injuries in fracture patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis — published in the Journal of Tissue Viability reported that 19.9% of all pressure injuries occurred on patients’ heels. Only sacrococcygeal areas (56.7%) were more common pressure injury locations.
