Health and Medicine

The Illinois legislature has sent the governor legislation amending the state law that decides when doctors can object to caring for a patient based on moral principle.

A measure to prohibit tobacco sales to people younger than 21 has failed in the Illinois Senate.  

The legislation sponsored by Democratic Sen. John Mulroe of Chicago would not have made young smokers criminals. But supporters say they want to prevent young people from getting hooked.  

The proposal failed 23-25 Thursday with three ``present'' votes.  

Opponents argued that 18-year-olds should be able to buy tobacco because they may join the military. That was the argument 45 years ago in lowering the drinking age to 18, which is back at 21.  

The Illinois medical marijuana industry saw $2.2 million in retail sales during April, the largest one-month figure yet. Program director Joseph Wright says the program now includes 36 dispensaries and 6,200 qualified patients.

Researchers analyzed why some hospitals make big profits and found a surprise: Seven of the 10 most profitable hospitals are nonprofits, including one in Urbana, Illinois, where hospital tax exemptions are headed for a contentious court battle.

Illinois health officials are reporting a cluster of cases of a rare bloodstream infection they detected while investigating a Wisconsin outbreak.

Illinois health officials have proposed new rules requiring parents who oppose vaccinating their children based on religious reasons to provide a special document to schools and child care facilities each year.  

The Illinois Department of Public Health proposal is in response to a law approved last year. The law created a ``certificate of religious exemption'' for children whose parents don't want them to be vaccinated for religious reasons.  

Governor Bruce Rauner has created a task force to root out waste, fraud and abuse in taxpayer-funded health care programs. The Republican signed an executive order to implement that group, which will also seek ways to prevent waste in state and federally funded Medicaid and employee health insurance programs. Rauner says the cost of state-run health care programs increases when no one watches to stop abuse and fraud. The state spends more than $19 billion a year on Medicaid and the state employee group health insurance plan.

A Bloomington human services provider is cutting back because of the states nine month long budget stalemate. LIFE-Center for Independent Living will no longer be open on Friday's, beginning today. LIFE-CIL is a not for profit that helps provide clients with services enabling them to live on their own. The organization serves about 2,200 in McLean, Livingston, Ford and DeWitt Counties.

The central Illinois heroin and opioid epidemic has reached the point Congressman Darin LaHood is asking the Obama administration to schedule a federal community forum in the 18th district.

Late last month, LaHood, a Republican from Dunlap, sent a letter to the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. LaHood said the administration has already held two hearings with 10 more to be scheduled.

HyVee Grocery stores including the one in Bloomington are recalling a brand of blue cheese because of potential unwanted bacteria.

Human service providers make for better communities. That's what the head of a human service provider umbrella organization says. Judith Geithner is CEO of Illinois Partners for Human Services, which represents over 800 Illinois non-profits. She's speaking before the McLean County Chamber of Commerce Friday morning. She says human service providers not only provide jobs for a community, like any other small business, but also make it possible for others to work.

The legal age to smoke in Illinois would increase from 18 to 21 under legislation introduced in Springfield.

Ginnie Flynn, with the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians, doesn't smoke now. But she did when she was younger. She says cigarettes were easily accessible from a convenience store near her college dorm.

The City of Bloomington says its Lincoln Leisure center on the near west side will reopen Wednesday evening. The center housing a variety of community and recreational programs was closed last month for asbestos abatement when friable asbestos was found in the furnace room. Ideal Environmental Engineering says it has finished the job and done air tests showing asbestos levels below OSHA thresholds.

Illinois Republican congressman Rodney Davis is pushing a bill that he says will provide a more open market for things like corrective lenses. During a tour of Identity Optical in Normal, Davis says the bill would allow companies like Identity Optical compete in markets where health care industries limit patient choice.

There is not yet a lot of demand for medical marijuana in central Illinois.

Anyone under 18 caught "vaping" could have to do community service, or pay a fine. Electronic cigarettes don't contain tobacco, but the vaporized solution users inhale does contain nicotine.

Senator Julie Morrison, a Democrat from Deerfield, says she doesn't consider them safe. Morrison says she'd kept stories about young people puffing on e-cigs. "They were openly and blatantly using these product publicly because there was no reason they shouldn't," she said.

A man who traveled to South America has developed the third case of Zika virus in Illinois. The Illinois Department of Public Health previously reported two pregnant women tested positive for the mosquito-borne virus after traveling in Honduras and Haiti. The department announced the third Illinois case on its website Thursday. Most people exposed to the virus suffer only mild symptoms, but the risk is far greater for pregnant women because of a possible link to a birth defect.

The asbestos that was discovered in Bloomington's Lincoln Leisure Center a week ago has been taken out of the building. The city says Ideal Environmental took the material from near the building's furnace. A full evaluation of the building will also be presented to the city. Last week the center, which houses activities ranging from dance, music therapy, and art, was closed when staff discovered the potentially cancer causing asbestos. No date has been set to re-open the facility on South Lee Street, and most of the programs centered there have been moved elsewhere.

The incoming director of the Illinois Department on Aging says her immediate goal will be to help older residents of the state live at home as long as possible. Jean Bohnhoff has been striving to do just that as director of the committee on aging for Effingham city and county in southern Illinois. Bohnhoff is from the rural village of Dieterich, just southeast of Effingham. She begins her new position in Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration February first, and calls it the ``opportunity of a lifetime.''