Medical Notes: Week of April 19, 2020

If you’ve been taking the drug Ranitidine for reflux or ulcer prevention, the FDA says stop. The agency has also asked stores to pull the drug from shelves because a possible carcinogen builds up in the drug over time, especially if it’s stored at high temperatures. The most common brand name for the drug is Zantac.

Last week we reported that calls to domestic violence hotlines are up since most of us have been ordered to stay home. Now a new study shows that parents are yelling at their children more, too. The study from the University of Michigan finds that over the last two weeks of March, 19 percent of parents admit to yelling or screaming at their kids more often than usual. Twenty percent said they’d spanked or slapped their child, and 12 percent had done it more than a few times. Experts say as “sheltering in place” drags on, it’s likely only to get worse.And finally…with Covid-19 testing in such short supply, why not let a dog do it? We’ve reported on specially trained dogs that can sniff out some kinds of cancer, Parkinson’s disease and bacterial infections. Now the British based medical detection dogs organization is working with Durham University to train Covid-19-sniffing dogs. The aim is to train dogs to screen people in public spaces such as airports, which, in theory, they could do quickly and non-invasively.