For the last few years our Immunizations team has been sending out revised and updated Immunications newsletters. The newsletters are geared to keep our stakeholders and partners current on the state and local immunization issues. You can sign up to receive Immunications via email or get a hard copy in the actual mail. The current issue of Immunications has: [...]
As I’ve mentioned in past updates, global efforts to eradicate polio through widespread immunization campaigns have been incredibly successful. Back in May of this year, only three countries still had endemic polio cases – Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Unfortunately, for the first time since 2007, wild poliovirus cases are again being reported in Somalia. Currently, [...]
The Superior Court judge ruled this morning that our requirement for Registration Certificate holders (dispensaries) to get an approval to operate within one year in order to renew their certificates is unreasonable. Because of today’s ruling, we’re going to accept renewal requests for all the current dispensaries in the state, whether they’re open or not. The [...]
A recent report by the American Cancer Society, suggests what many Arizonans may have suspected, that skin cancer is on the rise. An estimated 82,770 Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer in 2013. In Arizona, one in five of us is likely to develop some form of skin cancer. The most common cause is overexposure [...]
Most people have 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs. One set from the mom and one from the dad. Sometimes something doesn’t go quite right, and one of the chromosome pairs doesn’t divide evenly at the right time, and a person ends up with 3 of one of the chromosomes. Trisomy means three chromosomes instead of the normal 2. There [...]
Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, has been increasing in Arizona and the rest of the nation for the last few years. Pertussis usually runs in a cycle, peaking every 3-5 years and then decreasing again. Symptoms include fits of cough, vomiting after the fits of cough, and a whooping sound during cough. Some complications include pneumonia, [...]
We've issued 61 medical marijuana dispensary operating licenses so far with only 2 weeks left on the 52 week time-clock. We have 21 more inspections scheduled between now and August 6, which is the deadline for Registration Certificate holders to get their Approval to Operate License so they can renew their Certificate (a 1-year timeframe). The [...]
Our Smoke Free Arizona program turned 6 last month. Voters approved the Act back in November of ’06 by a few percentage points. The Initiative language gave us a super-short turn-around time and we turned the key on the program by May of ’07. Implementation of the Initiative was smooth from the get-go and compliance with the [...]
Decisions about what to do to protect babies born at home from Group B Streptococcus caused quite a stir as we were developing our final regulations for the practice of Midwifery in AZ. Group B Streptococcus bacteria are commonly found in healthy women. In fact, about 25% carry the bacteria. It doesn’t cause much of [...]
The AZ Medical Marijuana Act also requires us to periodically accept petitions to permanently add new medical conditions to the list of conditions that qualify folks for a card. In Jan 2012, we’ve received petitions to add PTSD 1; PTSD 2; Depression; Migraines; and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. In short- I didn’t approve the petitions because of the lack of published [...]
