What We’re Reading: Xylazine an “Emerging Drug Threat”; White House to Defend Privacy; STIs Reach Record High

Drug Xylazine an “Emerging Drug Threat”

A common animal tranquilizer called xylazine that is being mixed into street fentanyl at higher and higher rates has been designated as an “emerging drug threat,” by the White House on Wednesday, reported The New York Times. This is a formal motion that requires the Biden administration to generate strategies to improve law enforcement response, health interventions, and data collection to fight it, and is the first time that the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy has made this designation. A planned, national response must now be laid out within 90 days, according to a 2018 directive from Congress that created the designation.

White House Plans Ways Protect Privacy

White House officials proposed on Wednesday a new federal rule to limit how law enforcement and state officials obtain medical records if woman leave a state to seek abortion somewhere else after a federal judge ordered that mifepristone, a pill commonly used for abortion, be removed from the market, and they said that they’re consulting with lawmakers, doctors, and pharmacies to battle the ruling, according to the Associated Press. In the wake of this ruling, also on Wednesday the Biden administration announced new proceedings focused on protecting patient privacy, reported The Hill, and HHS issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking the same day, that would prevent a person’s information from being disclosed to “identify, investigate, sue, or prosecute someone for seeking, obtaining, providing, or facilitating lawful reproductive health care,” including abortion.

STIs Reached Record High in 2021, CDC Finds

According to a new federal report, there was a record high of over 2.5 million cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the United States in 2021, reported The Hill. The CDC’s Division of STD Prevention indicated that surveillance of the infections might still be impacted by COVID-19 disruptions, and that increased case counts might be reflective of service utilization increases as health care clinics re-opened and people sought care again. However, the increase could also reflect higher disease transmission. The CDC found that chlamydia was the most prevalent of all tracked infections, with 1.6 million cases, an almost 4% increase, compared with 2000.