Mainstream reporting this week focused on three public‑health stories: an expanded nationwide recall by infant‑formula maker ByHeart after independent tests found Clostridium botulinum type A in 5 of 36 samples and health officials linked at least 31 infant hospitalizations to the outbreak; a Northwestern Medicine JAMA Network Open study showing current USPSTF lung‑cancer screening criteria would have missed about 65% of cases while a universal age‑based CT approach could detect ~94% and potentially prevent ~26,000 deaths a year; and the WHO/CDC adoption of a diagnostic code for Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome amid a reported ~650% rise in CHS‑related ER visits since 2016, with experts pointing to higher‑potency THC products as a likely factor.
Several important gaps and additional perspectives emerged from alternative sources. Coverage largely omitted that BabyBIG antitoxin vials run about $69,300 each, that BabyBIG can shorten hospital stays by ~3.6 weeks (roughly $94,000 in avoided costs per patient), and that detecting C. botulinum in powdered formula is technically difficult so negative tests don’t rule out contamination; past studies have found clostridial spores in sizable shares of formula samples. On lung screening, reports didn’t emphasize that 10–20% of U.S. lung cancers occur in never‑smokers (20k–40k/year), a high proportion of Asian American women with lung cancer have never smoked (reported ~57%), only ~18% of eligible people were screened in 2022, and low‑dose CT commonly finds nodules (~20%) leading to potential harms from follow‑up. For CHS, independent analyses note racial/ethnic differences in presentations and emerging genetic associations (CYP2C9, TRPV1, ABCA1, COMT, DRD2) that mainstream pieces didn’t discuss. No prominent contrarian viewpoints or broad social‑media narratives were identified in the brief.