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More than 40 people got sick in a gastrointestinal illness outbreak on a Silversea Cruises ship.

Among 681 guests onboard, 38 reported being ill during Silver Ray’s current voyage, along with five crew members, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Their main symptoms were diarrhea and abdominal cramps.

The health agency listed the causative agent as unknown. Silver Ray departed from Callao, Peru on Jan. 4 and is scheduled to arrive at Florida’s Port Everglades on Monday, according to CruiseMapper.

Drugmakers raised the list prices on 575 name-brand drugs in just the first two days of the new year, according to drug price research firm 46brooklyn. Drugs for diabetes, HIV, cancer saw price hikes, among others.

For years a 10% annual price hike was fairly normal, but they've started coming down in recent years. This year's median price hike so far is only 4%, says Antonio Ciaccia, CEO of 46brooklyn.

"While it's early, if that number held throughout the year, that would make it the lowest median price increase in over a decade," says Ciaccia.

January is typically a popular time to raise prices on brand name drugs, but companies can raise them throughout the year. There could even be more later this month, he says.

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A U.S. Department of Agriculture report has found that "inadequate sanitation practices" at a Boar's Head facility in Virginia contributed to a listeria outbreak that left 10 people dead and dozens hospitalized around the country last year.

The report, released Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), reviewed the listeria outbreak linked to the deli meat supplier's facility in Jarratt, Va.

In one case, inspectors said they found "meat and fat residue from the previous day's production on the equipment, including packaging equipment." Other instances included dripping condensation "on exposed product" and "cracks, holes and broken flooring that could hold moisture and contribute to wet conditions."

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The 2024 “winners” of the annual Shkreli awards, given each year to perpetrators of the most egregious examples of profiteering and dysfunction within the healthcare industry, have been released from the Lown Institute, an independent healthcare thinktank.

The recipients are chosen by a panel made up of health policy experts, clinicians, journalists and advocates. The awards are named after Martin Shkreli, the infamous “pharma bro” who rose to international notoriety after increasing the price of lifesaving anti-parasitic drug Daraprim 50-fold.

“All these stories paint a picture of a healthcare industry in desperate need of transformation. In 2024, healthcare practices were put in the spotlight,” Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute, said during the ceremony.

“But doing these awards every year shows us that this is nothing new. We’re hoping that these stories illuminate what changes are needed.”

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U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is calling for new warning labels on alcoholic drinks that inform consumers of the health risks — particularly an increased risk of at least seven types of cancer, including breast cancer, liver cancer and colon cancer.

In the new report on alcohol consumption and cancer risk published on Jan. 3, Murthy also called for the guidelines on alcohol consumption limits to be reassessed.

“Many people out there assume that as long as they’re drinking at the limits or below the limits of current guidelines of one a day for women and two for men, that there is no risk to their health or well-being,” Murthy said in an interview with the New York Times. “The data does not bear that out for cancer risk.”

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Nearly 900 people aboard cruise ships were sickened from gastrointestinal disease in December amid an escalation in both the frequency and severity of outbreaks, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last year, there were 16 outbreaks on cruise ships, from norovirus, salmonella, E. coli or other unidentified pathogens that cause gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea or vomiting. That's the largest number of cruise ship outbreaks in 12 years.

Five of those outbreaks occurred in December. The most recent incident involved the British ocean liner Queen Mary 2, where nearly 13% of passengers and over 5% of crew aboard were infected.

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