Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Patients don't care about provider religious ties, expect all needed care

Nearly three quarters of Americans don't care about the religious affiliation of their hospital or healthcare network, but an equal number say they expect their healthcare preferences to take priority over the facility's religious doctrine, a new study finds. The survey comes at a time when the number of Catholic-owned healthcare systems are on the rise, researchers note. And, perhaps unknown to many patients, physicians at those facilities are expected to follow the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services," which places limits on reproductive and end-of-life care methods. Twitter bots tout cannabis as a cure-all despite few approved medical uses

Social media bots are promoting cannabis as a remedy for everything from cancer to insomnia and foot pain, according to an analysis of posts on Twitter. "Social bots regularly perpetuate unsubstantiated health claims on the platform, providing one example of how false statements may drown out solid science on social media," said lead study author Jon-Patrick Allem of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Online triage tool may help patients decide if they need immediate care

An online tool that analyzes symptoms may help people decide whether to seek immediate care in the emergency room or to adopt a wait-and-see strategy, a new study suggests. After analyzing data from more than 150,000 encounters between patients and the Buoy Health triage tool, researchers found that nearly a third of users concluded after using the tool that their situation was less dire and their need for care less urgent than originally assumed. In 4% of cases, patients decided their situation was more serious than they initially thought, according to the results published in JAMA Network Open. China regulator approves imports of J&J's Tremfya

China has approved imports of Johnson & Johnson's Tremfya (guselkumab), the National Medical Products Administration said in a notice on Friday. The drug will be used to treat moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in adults who are suitable for systemic therapy, the administration said. Chicken pox outbreak forces migrant shelter to shutter in northern Mexico

An outbreak of chicken pox has forced the temporary closure of a shelter housing Central American migrants sent to Mexico from the United States, Mexican authorities said on Friday, as officials sought to contain the highly contagious virus. The shelter in the northern city of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, closed on Thursday after 72 people, including 69 children, were diagnosed with the virus, officials in Mexico's Chihuahua state said in a statement. China's top pig producing region vows to return to normal levels in 2020

China's top pig producer Sichuan province pledged to produce 60 million hogs in 2020, around levels in previous years, state media reported on Friday, after a deadly pig disease decimated the country's massive pig herd. China's pig herd is more than 40% smaller than a year ago, after African swine fever swept through the country since it was first detected in August last year. Almost 10 million in U.S. have faced sexual violence at work

Almost 1 in 18 women and 1 in 40 men have experienced sexual harassment in and related to the workplace, according to a U.S. study. That represents almost 7 million women and 3 million men who have reported assault, unwanted sexual contact or verbal harassment by a boss, supervisor, coworker, customer or client, the study authors report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Antibiotics maker Melinta files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Melinta Therapeutics Inc said on Friday it had filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest casualty of a persistent cash burn in the antibiotic industry. The drugmaker, which has four antibiotics on the market, warned that it was running out of cash last month. U.S. hospitals less capable of providing acute care to kids

Hospitals are transferring more and more seriously ill and injured kids to other facilities instead of admitting them, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers examined data representing 205 million emergency room visits by kids under 15 at 3,020 hospitals nationwide between 2008 and 2016. At the start of the study, 6% of children who were too seriously ill or injured to be discharged from the emergency room were admitted to the hospital where they initially arrived for care; by the end, only 2% of these kids were admitted.