That $750 pill and more: 2015's top health stories

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[h=4]That $750 pill and more: 2015's top health stories[/h]The world was hit with multiple disease outbreaks in 2015, from Ebola in West Africa to measles at Disneyland and MERS in South Korea.

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An American doctor who survived the Ebola virus is training health care professionals on how to treat the virus. VPC


Medical workers present Noubia, the last known patient to contract Ebola in Guinea, during her release from a Doctors Without Borders treatment center in Conakry on November 28, 2015.(Photo: AFP/Getty Images)


Infectious disease outbreaks — from MERS to measles and Ebola — dominated health news in 2015.
Ebola
Two years after the beginning of an Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the virus continued to surprise scientists.
The Ebola outbreak — the largest in history — sickened more than 28,630 people and killed at least 11,300, according to the World Health Organization.
While the epidemic subsided in 2015, the virus has never completely gone away. When 2015 began, there were 330 cases of Ebola, mostly in Sierra Leone. By the beginning of December, West Africa document just three Ebola patients. While there are still no licensed treatments for Ebola, doctors learned that aggressive treatment of dehydration and other symptoms help many patients to survive. In another piece of good news, tests showed that an experimental Ebola vaccine protected everyone vaccinated.
The only Ebola cases today are in Liberia, a nation twice declared "Ebola free."
But vanquishing Ebola could be far more difficult than anyone imagined. Scientists this year documented the first known case of sexual transmission of the virus, and studies suggest that male survivors may be able to spread the virus through their semen for nine months or more after recovering from their illness. Scientists learned that Ebola can find "sanctuaries" not just in semen, but in the eye and central nervous system, which includes the brain and spinal cord, said Amesh Adalja, a senior associate at the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. In another puzzling case, Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey survived Ebola, but later developed a life-threatening case of meningitis likely related to her illness. The massive size of the West African Ebola outbreak gave doctors a chance to study such rare occurrences, Adalja said.
USA TODAY
Some health experts say the USA hasn't learned key lessons from Ebola experience




Scientists also learned that Ebola can cause devastating long-term side effects, such as eye pain and vision problems, as well as joint pain so severe that it prevents people from working.

A measles outbreak began at Disneyland in December 2014 and quickly spread across the USA.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Disney)

Measles
A measles outbreak that started at Disneyland over the Christmas holidays in 2014 spread to 117 people this year and changed the national conversation about vaccinations. The outbreak spurred California and Vermont to strengthen their school vaccine laws. Vermont repealed its "personal belief" exemption, which allowed unvaccinated children to attend school if their parents objected to vaccines for philosophical reasons. California went even further, putting an end to both personal belief and religious exemptions. California now allows unvaccinated children to attend public school only if there is a medical reason why they shouldn't be vaccinated, such as treatment for cancer.
USA TODAY
Measles has infected 84 people in 14 states this year

Food items that contain trans fat are shown on November 7, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed a rule change that would eliminate trans fat from all processed foods.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Getty Images)

FDA bans trans fats
In a move expected to save thousands of lives a year, the Food and Drug Administration announced in June that it would require manufacturers to phase out partially hydrogenated oils — the primary source of artery-clogging trans fats — from processed foods over the next three years.
USA TODAY
FDA to phase out trans fats from food

MEDICAL NEWS IN 2015Last known Ebola patient in West Africa recovers | 01:17A 3-week-old girl in Guinea believed to be the last victim of Ebola has recovered, potentially signaling the end of an unprecedented two-year epidemic in West Africa that claimed more than 11,300 lives. USA TODAY

MEDICAL NEWS IN 2015Ebola one year later: What's changed | 02:21It's been one year since Eric Duncan was admitted to a Dallas hospital with symptoms of Ebola. Health experts talk about what they have learned since the outbreak. USA TODAY

MEDICAL NEWS IN 2015CDC Director Tom Frieden on measles outbreak | 01:31On Thursday, CDC Director Tom Frieden spoke with reporters in Atlanta about the recent measles outbreak in the United States. (Feb. 5) AP

MEDICAL NEWS IN 2015Washington State Reports First U.S. Measles Death in 12 Years | 00:43Public health officials said on Thursday that a previously undetected measles infection was found by an autopsy to be the underlying cause of a Washington state woman's death this spring, marking the first known U.S. fatality from the disease in 12 USA TODAY

MEDICAL NEWS IN 2015Why adults with measles are especially dangerous | 01:25Thousands were exposed to the measles in San Francisco after a LinkedIn employee with the disease took public transportation to work.
Video provided by Newsy Newslook

MEDICAL NEWS IN 2015New Mammogram Guidelines: Start Screening at 45 | 00:24In new guidelines, the American Cancer Society recommends most women to begin annual screening for breast cancer at age 45 instead of 40, and switch to every other year at 55. (Oct. 20) AP

MEDICAL NEWS IN 2015FDA to phase out transfats | 02:58The FDA announced today that it will require manufacturers to stop using partially hydrogenated oils, which are the main source of transfats, within three years. Liz Szabo, Taylor Maycan

MEDICAL NEWS IN 2015Turing pharmaceuticals CEO agrees to reverse drug Price Hike | 01:05Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli has bowed to public pressure and agreed to reverse the huge price increase of the life saving drug Daraprim. Shkreli sparked outrage after hiking the cost of the drug over 5,000 percent, from $13.50 to $750 Newslook





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New mammogram recommendations

Radiology Department Mammographer Jackie Riley, left, prepares Jean Lockwood for a digital mammogram in East Lansing, Mich., Monday, Oct. 22, 2001.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Associated Press)

The American Cancer Society released guidelines advising women at average risk of breast cancer to begin getting annual mammograms at age 45 – five years later than it had previously recommended. The society said it reached this conclusion after carefully weighing both the benefits and harms of mammograms for younger women, whose risk of breast cancer is much lower than that of older women. The society said that women can switch to being screened every other year after age 55, an age at which breast cancers are often less aggressive. In another major change, the society said doctors no longer need to perform breast exams during women's checkups, since these exams have not been shown to save lives.
Sky-rocketing drug costs
Concern over high drug costs has been building for years as the prices of cancer drugs rose above $100,000 a year and Gilead Sciences Inc. priced its breakthrough hepatitis C drug at $84,000 for a 12-week treatment.
Outrage over drug prices boiled over in 2015 after USA TODAY reported that Turing Pharmaceuticals had purchased the rights to an old but vital generic drug called Daraprim — used to treat a life-threatening complication of AIDS — and immediately hiked the price from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill.

In this Thursday, Oct. 1, 2015, file photo, activists hold signs containing the image of Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli in front the building that houses Turing's offices, in New York, during a protest highlighting pharmaceutical† drug pricing.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: AP)

Turing's CEO, former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli, fanned the fires of public anger by engaging in public fights on Twitter, even calling a business reporter a "moron." Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Conn., and Rep. Elijiah Cummings, D-Md., announced an investigation of the price increase, along with increases in the cost of heart drugs made by Valent Pharmaceuticals.
The issue resonated with the public. An October poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 77% of those surveyed said that a top priority for Congress and the White House should be "making sure that high-cost drugs for chronic conditions, such as HIV, hepatitis, mental illness and cancer, are affordable to those who need them." In the same survey, 63% said a top priority should be "government action to lower prescription drug prices."
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