It’s come to this

Patients are resorting to using Groupon (!) for buying medical procedures. “Welcome To Today’s U.S. Health Care.”

Brittany Swanson, who works in the front office at OutPatient Imaging in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, said she has seen hundreds of customers come through after the center posted Groupons for mammograms, body scans and other screenings around six months ago.

Vaping sickness: Could vitamin E be the culprit?

The spate of vaping illnesses, which has caused at least two deaths, might be the result of contamination by a derivative of vitamin E (vitamin E acetate, if you’re interested).

“Might” is the word: At this point, this particular oil is the only common factor among the dozens of cases nationwide.

Hospitals join in on opioid suits

A group of 23 Kentucky hospitals — and, separately, a group of 29 Texas hospitals — are suing opioid manufacturers and distributors over the opioid crisis. That’s everyone from Purdue and Teva Pharmaceutical to McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Cardinal Health. And more.

Texas hospitals charge that surgical procedures on opioid addicts have been complicated and costly, as has treatment of opioid-related conditions such as infections and HIV.

These costs are a “direct and proximate result of the false narrative campaign” conducted by the companies, the lawsuit charges.

Blood (pressure) and guts

People with high blood pressure and depression have a different set of gut bacteria than people with high blood pressure and no depression.

The gut microbiome is getting a lot of attention lately, although we’re not quite at the point of knowing which bacteria are the best ones to have (or if there even is a “best”).

What does this latest news mean? It means “there’s potential for this research to uncover treatment approaches that could improve outcomes in people with treatment-resistant hypertension.”

Anti-vax crackdown continues

Facebook (and by extension Instagram) will activate pop-up windows when people search for vaccine-related information, directing them to legitimate resources for information.

This follows moves by Pinterest (only content from public-health organizations will appear in searches for vaccine info), Amazon (anti-vax videos were removed from Amazon Prime Video), and YouTube (no ads allowed on anti-vax content).

Meanwhile, California just passed a bill cracking down on physicians who offer fake vaccine exemption letters. It “would allow state public health officials to investigate doctors who grant more than five medical exemptions in a year and schools with vaccination rates of less than 95%.”

Keep ’em concealed

CVS and Walgreens have joined Kroger and Walmart in asking customers and patients to not openly carry guns in their stores. (Target made that request back in 2014.) At this point, they say, it’s only a request — not yet an outright ban.

Joe vs. the gallstones

Want to avoid symptomatic gallstone disease? (And really, who wouldn’t?) There’s a simple solution: Drink more coffee!

Path of lesser resistance

As America cracks down on opioid abuse, drug makers are turning abroad. Last week we told you about India; today’s story is about how they’re moving into Australia.

Australia has failed to heed the lessons of the United States and is now facing skyrocketing rates of opioid prescriptions and related deaths. Drug companies facing scrutiny for their aggressive marketing of opioids in America have turned their focus abroad, working around marketing regulations to push the painkillers in other countries.

Elsewhere: Never Too Late edition

A 73-year-old woman* in Andhra Pradesh has given birth to twins. (Her husband is 82.)

* or 74-, depending on which site you visit