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With just three remaining in the United States, iron lungs are nearly obsolete — but Mona Randolph, a polio survivor, relies on one of the 700-lb. devices to keep her alive.

The 82-year-old Randolph has used the device on and off since being diagnosed with polio in 1956. She was 20 years old at the time, and doctors thought she was too old for the vaccine that had been invented just one year earlier.

She’d gone to the hospital in Kansas City with a massive headache, a fever and difficulty breathing, and doctors immediately put Randolph in an iron lung.

“They happened to have one in the basement because people were not using them much then,” she told The Kansas City Star.

Randolph survived the polio virus, but her left arm was permanently paralyzed, and she became dependent on others to live her life. Though she didn’t have to use the iron lung again for several decades, she needed other treatments, and went to the same Warm Springs, Ga. facility as President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Then in the 80s, breathing became difficult again and Randolph had to start using the iron lung at night. She’s been using it ever since — for 36 years.

She now goes into the 6-foot-long device six nights a week. It takes an hour to get Randolph into the iron lung — which she calls her “yellow submarine” — with the help of her husband Mark and a friend or an aide.

The machine does not cover her head — instead, Randolph’s body goes into the iron lung, which uses negative pressure to expand and contract her chest and lungs to help her breathe.

She uses a more modern device during the day — a CPAP machine — but Randolph says she isn’t a fan. The machine uncomfortably forces air into the lungs through a breathing tube in her mouth, and her three CPAP machines always seem to be broken.

Randolph said that the iron lung, in comparison, is a “relief.”

A 12-year-old girl is recovering from the severe burns she received to nearly half of her body while she attempted a viral and dangerous internet challenge.

Just minutes into a mid-afternoon nap on Friday, Brandi Owens was awoken by a loud pop that echoed throughout her home. Moments later, Owens saw her daughter, Timiyah Landers, running down their halfway engulfed in a fireball that covered almost her entire body.

“She was running down the hallway past my bedroom on fire from her knees to her hair,” Owens, a mother of five from Detroit, tells PEOPLE. “I just screamed, ‘My baby!’ It was so awful.”

Owens and her fiancé then used towels to extinguish the flames, then placed the young girl in the bathtub and sprayed her down with cold water.

“I burned my hands in the process,” Owens, 35, says. “It was so traumatizing to see her on fire.”

The family rushed Timiyah to Beaumont Health, and she was transported to a nearby children’s hospital by the end of the night. She will stay there for the next several months to recover from the extensive second- and third-degree burns that cover 49 percent of her body.

RELATED: Woman, 18, Hospitalized After Attempting Viral ‘In My Feelings Challenge’ Based on Drake Song

“Her vitals are good, but she’s still on a ventilator and feeding tube. They’re slowly trying to wean her off the ventilator,” Owens says. “It will be a long recovery. She had surgery and received temporary artificial skin to her burns, but she’s going to need three or four more surgeries and skin grafts.”

It wasn’t until Owens questioned the two friends who were with Timiyah during the incident that she learned the horrifying truth about what occurred. The girls were engaging in a viral internet trend that sees people douse themselves with rubbing alcohol and then set themselves aflame, known as the “fire challenge.” Videos of the dare have gone viral over Facebook and YouTube.

“After a while, her friends told me what happened,” Owens says. “I was angry, very angry. I couldn’t believe she would do that, she knows better — I don’t know what she was thinking, doing that crazy stuff.”

Stories about young people becoming injured due to viral internet challenges are in no short supply.

In 2017, a couple from Texas connected their 15-year-old son’s suicide to the “Blue Whale Challenge,” a game where participants are asked to fulfill a series of increasingly dangerous dares over the course of 50 days. Earlier this year, an internet trend called the “Tide Pod Challenge” went viral after participants filmed themselves biting into the laundry detergent capsules. It is attributed to at least 10 deaths.

Last month, 18-year-old Anna Worden was hospitalized while attempting the popular “Kiki Challenge,” a once innocent dance trend that soon turned dangerous when thousands of people began to record themselves hopping outside of moving cars to dance to a Drake song.

After her extended hospital stay, Timiyah is expected to make a full recovery. A GoFundMe has been set up to help pay for the family’s mounting medical expenses, which has raised over $2,400 from 50 donors in just under a week.

Because she remains on a ventilator, Timiyah cannot yet tell her mother what influenced her decision to participate in the challenge. But Owens isn’t waiting to raise awareness for other parents about the dangerous dare.

RELATED: Texas Parents Say Deadly ‘Blue Whale’ Online Challenge Led to the Suicide of Their 15-Year-Old Son

“Monitor your kids, monitor what they’re doing. If you can get parental control on their phones, I would recommend that,” she says. “That way they can monitor what their kids are watching, and talk to them about peer pressure. I’m doing that now with my other daughters, I’m doing that now. It was a lesson learned.”

She adds: “I hate having these memories. It’s something I never want to relive.”

Twenty-year-old Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts, who disappeared in the middle of July after going for her usual jog around town, was found dead early Tuesday in a field not far from where she vanished, a police source tells PEOPLE.

The source says the body was located in a field in Poweshiek County.

Confirmation is pending but authorities are confident that it belongs to Tibbetts, according to the source.

Additional details about the discovery — a grim end to a search that captured national attention — were not immediately available.

State investigators are holding a news conference Tuesday afternoon about the case, a spokesman says. He declined to comment further to PEOPLE.

Tibbetts, who was set to be a sophomore at the University of Iowa studying psychology, was last seen alive the night of July 18 while running in Brooklyn, in Poweshiek County, where she lived.

RELATED: Investigators Say They Have ‘Solid Timeline’ in Mollie Tibbetts Case

She had been staying with her boyfriend, Dalton Jack, in his older brother Blake Jack’s home and was dog-sitting while the two Jack brothers were out of town.

After she headed out for some exercise, she was spotted in her workout clothes and her boyfriend told ABC News that he opened a Snapchat photo from her later that night, though it is unclear when it was sent.

Then Tibbetts disappeared. Her family reported her missing the next day after she failed to show up for work.

Both Dalton and Blake were cleared as possible suspects early on in the investigation.

Her mom, Laura Calderwood, called the mystery around what happened to her “excruciating.”

“[There are] no words to describe how you feel when you don’t know where or how your child is,” she said in an interview with ABC.

PREVIOUSLY IN THE CASE: 20-Year-Old College Student in Iowa Vanishes on Jog

Rob Tibbetts, Mollie’s father, could not immediately be reached for comment by PEOPLE but he previously spoke candidly about the case — even appealing directly to her possible captor, asking that she be released.

Hundreds of people helped search for Mollie in the days after she disappeared, while local authorities said they remained baffled by what could be the longest such missing-persons case in the county in recent memory.

RELATED: Missing Mollie Tibbetts’ Dad Addresses Possible Abductor — ‘Do Not Escalate This’

A reward fund for information leading to her safe return broke records in Iowa as hundreds of thousands of dollars poured in.

Mollie’s story also attracted wide notice on social media, with celebrities such as Brandon Routh and American Idol‘s Maddie Poppe sharing information about her.

“She really does not have a single enemy — everybody loves Mollie,” friend Alyssa King previously told PEOPLE, describing Mollie as always there when she was needed and “always trying to make people laugh.”

Mollie was set to attend the wedding of her boyfriend’s brother in early August, about two weeks after she went missing.

The discovery of her remains marked an end that her loved ones never hoped to see.

“We know that Mollie knows how much we love her and how important she is to her entire family,” cousin Emily Heaston previously told PEOPLE, adding, “We know Mollie wants to be home.”

This is a breaking news story. Please return for updates.

Goldfish Cracker lovers might have to take a break from the snack due to fears that an ingredient could potentially be contaminated with Salmonella.

The maker of the small, gold crackers, Pepperidge Farm, announced on Monday that they were recalling four different flavors of their product.

In a statement released by the company on their website, the company explained that one of its ingredient supplies alerted them the whey powder in a seasoning used in four flavors was the subject of a recall.

“Pepperidge Farm initiated an investigation and, out of an abundance of caution, is voluntarily recalling four varieties of Goldfish crackers,” the statement said. “The products were distributed throughout the United States. No illnesses have been reported. No other Pepperidge Farm products in the U.S. are subject to this recall.”

A spokesperson for the company did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

The four products include Flavor Blasted Xtra Cheddar, Flavor Blasted Sour Cream & Onion, Goldfish Baked with Whole Grain Xtra Cheddar, and Goldfish Mix Xtra Cheddar + Pretzel.

Pepperidge Farm urges customers to avoid eating the snacks if they’ve bought them. The company recommends throwing out the snacks that have been recalled or returning. They offer a reimbursement on their website.

This is not the first product that contained whey powder to have been recalled recently. A number of Ritz Crackers products were voluntarily recalled after an ingredient used was possibly contaminated with Salmonella.

Mondelēz Global LLC, the company that produces the snacks, announced on Saturday that 16 products—including Ritz Cheese Cracker Sandwiches and Ritz Bitz Cheese — are being pulled from store shelves in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands because the whey powder used to make them has a “potential presence” of the infection.

Though no illnesses have been reported in connection with the products, the company is issuing the recall as a precaution, they said in a statement.

RELATED: Ritz Cracker Products Are Being Recalled Over Salmonella Concerns

“Consumers who have these products should not eat them, and should discard any products they may have,” said Mondelēz Global.

Those with questions or concerns over the recall can contact the company at 800-679-1791.

“Most persons infected with Salmonella develop diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after infection,” according to the CDC. “The illness usually lasts 4 to 7 days, and most persons recover without treatment.”

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 21, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Many older Americans are unnecessarily screened for breast and prostate cancer, which can lead to treatments they don't need, a new study contends.

 

 

The practice may also be costing the U.S. health care system $1.2 billion a year, the researchers added.

 

 

 

 

Almost 16 percent of those 65 and older are being screened for breast or prostate cancer even though they may have less than 10 years to live, the study found. A 10-year life expectancy is a benchmark for deciding whether to screen or not. And guidelines recommend against screening for these cancers in people with a life expectancy less than 10 years, the researchers said.

 

 

 

 

"Physicians, as well as patients, should consider life expectancy when deciding the necessity of prostate cancer or breast cancer screening," said lead researcher Dr. Firas Abdollah, of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

 

 

 

 

"To achieve this goal, we need to overcome many hurdles," he said, which include the lack of easy-to-use and accurate life expectancy calculators to guide doctors in making screening recommendations.

 

 

 

 

Also, busy doctors may find it hard to explain the concept of life expectancy and why screening is not recommended for certain individuals, he added.

 

 

 

 

Robert Smith, vice president for cancer screening at the American Cancer Society, said: "This can be a hard conversation for doctors to have with patients. If a patient shows some enthusiasm for getting these tests, it's just easier to do the test than it is to have that conversation, especially if you're not that good at doing it."

 

 

 

 

In addition, it's difficult to estimate whether somebody has 10 years to live, Smith said.

 

 

 

 

The report was published online Jan. 21 in the journal JAMA Oncology.

 

 

 

 

Smith said that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends mammograms for women up to age 74. The task force does not recommend screening for prostate cancer at all, he said.

 

 

 

 

Using 10-year longevity as a benchmark for screening is the American Cancer Society's guideline, Smith said.

 

 

 

 

"We recommend that men should not be offered prostate cancer screening if they don't have 10 years of life left," he said. "Our breast cancer guideline is the same."

 

 

 

 

Abdollah said cancer screening aims to detect tumors early, before symptoms appear. "Evidence suggests that detection and treatment of early stage tumors may reduce cancer mortality among screened individuals," he said.

 

 

 

 

Despite this benefit, screening may also cause harm, he said. Screening may identify low-risk tumors that would never become life-threatening, but subject patients to the harms of unnecessary treatment, such as side effects of therapy and a reduced quality of life, he added.

 

 

 

 

For the report, Abdollah and his colleagues collected data on nearly 150,000 people 65 and older who responded to the Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System survey in 2012.

 

 

 

 

Among these people, 51 percent had had a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test or mammography in the past year. Of those who were screened, almost 31 percent had a life expectancy of less than 10 years. The rate of non-recommended screening was 15.7 percent, Abdollah said.

 

 

 

 

This rate varied across the country, from 11.6 percent in Colorado to just over 20 percent in Georgia, the researchers found. States with a high rate of non-recommended screening for prostate cancer also had a high rate of non-recommended screening for breast cancer.

 

 

 

 

Smith said the other side of the coin is that many doctors fail to recommend screening for patients who clearly have 10 years to live or more.

 

 

 

 

About one-third of women who die from breast cancer each year are over 70, Smith said. "That means there is a significant fraction of these deaths that could be avoided if women had been screened," he said.

 

 

 

 

Smith added that many doctors aren't aware of the tools available to predict longevity and many who are aware don't use them. "Doctors need to be better prepared to estimate longevity, and have conversations with patients about cancer screening," he said.

 

 

 

 

Smith did note that as patients get older they tend to lose interest in screening.

 

 

 

 

"There is a natural attrition as you get older -- patients lose interest in prevention and doctors become preoccupied with managing life-limiting conditions," he explained.

 

 

 

 

More information

 

 

 

 

Visit the American Cancer Society for more on cancer screening.

 

 

 

 

 

Oregon health officials have confirmed this week that a teenage girl in Crook County, Oregon, has contracted the bubonic plague. The girl most likely caught the disease from a flea bite during a hunting trip in northern Oregon and is currently recovering in an intensive care unit at a local hospital.

The bubonic plague—yes, the same disease as the "Black Death" that crippled Europe in the Middle Ages—is an infection caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria carried by rodents like rats, squirrels, and chipmunks, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Humans get it from being bitten by fleas, which contract it from feeding on infected rodents.

“Many people think of the plague as a disease of the past, but it’s still very much present in our environment, particularly among wildlife,” Emilio DeBess, a veterinarian in Oregon's Public Health Division, explained in a press release. “Fortunately, plague remains a rare disease, but people need to take appropriate precautions with wildlife and their pets to keep it that way.”

RELATED: Did One Gene Mutation Launch the Black Death?

To keep yourself and your loved ones safe, the CDC recommends avoiding sick or dead rodents, rabbits and squirrels, treating your pets for fleas, and cleaning up any areas near your house where rodents could live (think brush piles or abandoned vehicles).

Once bitten by a flea carrying the bacteria, symptoms usually develop two to six days after being bitten, and include sudden fever, headache, chills, and painful, swollen lymph nodes (known as buboes). Without immediate antibiotic treatment, the infection can spread to the bloodstream (septicemic plague) or to the lungs (pneumonic plague), both of which can be fatal.

Bubonic plague can also lead to gangrene in fingers and toes. In 2012, another Oregon patient lost fingers and toes after contracting the plague from handling a mouse his pet cat had caught, according to the Associated Press.

All of this sounds scary for sure, but the good news is that in addition to being rare in the United States, most of those who do contract the virus will recover with prompt antibiotic treatment.

While the infection is serious, the overall mortality rate for the plague today is 11%, versus 66% before antibiotics were invented.

RELATED: New York City Rats Carry Fleas Known to Transmit Plague

 

 

A infant from Iowa is making slow but steady progress in her recovery after being hit in the head by a softball.

As Lee Hovenga readied to play in a recreational game of softball on May 2, his wife Kassy Hovenga took a seat in the stands behind third base with their 7-week-old daughter, McKenna, according to a Facebook page set up by relatives and friends of the family.

Aside from check-ups and running errands, the game marked McKenna’s very first outing, a post in the group, Healing For McKenna, detailed.

When another pair of teams took the field, Lee took a break and helped Kassy cover herself with a blanket to breastfeed McKenna. But, with their attention diverted away from the field, the couple didn’t notice when a softball was launched over the fence in their direction.

While the softball hit Kassy in the bicep, the couple wasn’t aware that McKenna was impacted, too — until she started screaming a few seconds later and a large lump formed on her head.

According to the Facebook group, the infant was immediately taken to nearby Waverly Health Center in Waverly, Iowa, and was then flown to St. Mary’s Hospital at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Once in Minnesota, doctors placed McKenna on anti-seizure medications as they treated her for skull fractures and two brain bleeds.

RELATED: Mom Speaks Out After Infant Suffers Brain Damage From Falling Off Bed: ‘He’s Not the Same’

In the hours and days after she was hit, baby McKenna suffered multiple seizures, some lasting almost 10 to 15 minutes long, with many of them coming back-to-back in clusters. McKenna was soon put in a “deep coma” and placed on a ventilator, according to Healing For McKenna.

On May 4, medical personnel performed a CT scan on McKenna and found one of the bleeds in her brain had grown larger. They soon ordered a blood transfusion, an update in the Facebook group said.

Another CT scan over the weekend showed McKenna was stable, but, according to Facebook, doctors remain unsure about any brain damage she could have suffered. The family won’t know the degree of it — or if she even has any damage — until she is further into her recovery. As of Sunday, a post on Healing For McKenna announced she had been seizure free for more than two days.

Lee and Kassy declined to comment when reached by PEOPLE, saying in a statement that they “want to focus our strength and time to the care and comfort of McKenna.”

The family has recently set up a YouCaring donation page to help with McKenna’s medical care. Supporters on the page have already raised some $35,000 of their $50,000 goal as of Tuesday, which the family said will only go toward McKenna’s present and future medical expenses.

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The donations — no matter how small — may help the couple during one of their most difficult times.

“Lee and Kassy went through three rounds of in vitro to have McKenna on top of other infertility treatments,” Laura, a relative of the couple, told PEOPLE. “This has been especially crushing to them.”

A doctor in Slovenia has reported on a case with a lesson you might want to remember. If you wind up with a brain implant at some point down the road—including the kind that might someday allow you to control computers with your mind—be sure you don’t try and charge it during a thunderstorm.

According to the report, published earlier this month and spotted by Ars Technica, a 66-year-old patient with a brain implant was in her apartment when it was struck by lightning. The strike was strong enough to “burn and destroy” electrical appliances in the apartment, including a television and air conditioner.

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It was also strong enough to trigger a failsafe that shut off the woman’s brain implant, even though it wasn’t connected to the home’s wiring. The patient was being treated for involuntary neck spasms using a procedure called Deep Brain Stimulation, or DBS. It’s a well-established therapy that has been used for Parkinson’s disease for more than two decades, and was approved to treat severe obsessive-compulsive disorder in 2009. DBS treatment relies on an implant called a neurostimulator, in this case a unit from Medtronic, that sends electrical impulses to electrodes implanted in the brain.

The patient didn’t notice anything was wrong until an hour after the storm, when her spasms returned. She was able to get her implant reactivated and her tremors back under control quickly, and no damage to the implant was found.

But that outcome, according to the reporting doctor, could have been much worse if the implant had been plugged in to recharge during the lightning strike. Though the report doesn’t speculate on just how badly the patient could have been harmed, it does refer to “serious brain injury” in cases where patients with implants were exposed to strong electromagnetic fields. Electrical implants can be shut off or damaged when they get too close to generators, arc welders, or even medical equipment like MRI machines.

A medical neurostimulator isn’t precisely analogous to the kind of brain implants that entrepreneurs including Elon Musk want to develop. In fact, simple brain-computer interfaces have already been shown to work without any implant at all. But more sensitive versions of the technology probably will involve implants, so if you ever decide to literally hack your brain, be careful when you plug it in.

THURSDAY, April 23, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Itchy, blistering rashes from poison ivy, oak and sumac are common and are caused by an oil in the plants called urushiol.

Usually, you can deal with these rashes at home, the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) says. But you should go to the emergency room immediately if you have any of the following symptoms:

• Trouble breathing or swallowing,


• The rash covers most of your body, you have many rashes or blisters, or the rash develops anywhere on your face or genitals,


• You develop swelling, especially if an eyelid swells shut,


• Much of your skin itches, or nothing eases the itch.

If you don't have any of these symptoms, you can probably treat the rash at home, according to the AAD.

If you know you've touched poison ivy, poison oak or poison sumac, immediately rinse your skin with lukewarm, soapy water. This may remove some of the oil from the plants. Thoroughly wash all the clothes you were wearing when you came into contact with plant. The oil can stick to clothing and cause another rash if contaminated clothing touches your skin.

You also need to use warm, soapy water to wash everything that might have the oil on its surface, such as gardening tools, golf clubs, leashes and even your pet's fur.

Avoid scratching, which can cause an infection. And, leave blisters alone. Taking short, lukewarm baths with an oatmeal preparation you can buy at a drugstore, or with one cup of baking soda added to the water, can help ease itching. Short, cool showers may also help.

Other ways to relieve itching include putting calamine lotion or hydrocortisone cream on your skin. Applying cool compresses may also help ease itching. Make a cool compress by wetting a clean washcloth with cold water and wringing it out so that it does not drip.

Antihistamine pills can also reduce itching, but use them with caution, the AAD noted. Do not apply antihistamines to the skin. Doing so could worsen the rash and itch, the AAD said.

See a doctor if the rash does not improve within seven to 10 days, or if you think you may have an infection.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about poison ivy, sumac and oak.

If your company hasn’t launched a wellness program, this might be the year.

As benefits enrollment for 2016 approaches, more employers than ever are expected to nudge workers toward plans that screen them for risks, monitor their activity and encourage them to take the right pills, food and exercise.

This involves a huge collection of health data outside the established medical system, not only by wellness vendors such as Redbrick, Audax and Vitality but also by companies offering gym services, smartphone apps and devices that track steps and heartbeats. Such partners pass worker results to the wellness providers.

Standards to keep such information confidential have developed more slowly than the industry. That raises risks it could be abused for workplace discrimination, credit screening or marketing, consumer advocates say.

Here’s what to ask about your company’s plan.

Q. What information will my employer see?

Many employers get only anonymous, group data. The vendor reports how many workers are overweight or have high blood pressure, for example.

But sometimes employers can see individual results, setting the stage for potential discrimination against those with disabilities or chronic illness. Or they can guess them. Discrimination based on disability and illness is illegal but hard to prove.

Workers should ask exactly what information will get back to their company and whether it will identify them.

Q. Is the program covered under the HIPAA privacy law?

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act restricts sharing of certain medical information to doctors, health insurers and other authorized users. Asking whether a wellness plan is covered by HIPAA is a good, first attempt at judging confidentiality.

Workplace wellness programs offered separately from an employer’s group health insurance plan are not protected by HIPAA. Other privacy laws might apply. But often it’s often impossible for employees to tell without asking.

Even in HIPAA-covered programs, a few, designated managers at your workplace can see health reports including identities, although they’re supposed to keep them confidential.

Q. I don’t understand the privacy policy. Did I give up my HIPAA rights when I filled out my health assessment on the wellness site?

Use of a wellness portal often gives the vendor permission to share personal data with unidentified “third parties.” Those would be insurers, data-storage firms and other partners necessary to the program, vendors say. They’ll protect the information as well as anybody, they say.

But the open-ended nature of the permission gives consumer advocates the creeps. Read the privacy and terms-of-use disclosures. Ask questions if you’re uncomfortable.

Q. My employer says it sees only group results. Does that guarantee privacy?

At smaller firms it’s sometimes easy for managers to match worker identities with results from group reports. The same goes for large companies when wellness data is disclosed by team or division.

Ask how far the results will be broken down.

Q. How many other companies see my wellness data?

Workplace wellness often involves multiple firms gathering or sharing your information. The main wellness provider might work with labs, app publishers, fitness device makers, gyms, rewards fulfillment companies and others — each with its own confusing privacy policy.

Employees deserve a clear explanation of which companies get their data, what form it takes, how recipients will use it and how it is protected, privacy advocates say.

Q. What privacy policies do subcontractors and other third parties have to follow?

One privacy standard for wellness contractors, set by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, requires the primary wellness vendor as well as third-party partners to conform to HIPAA.

But that kind of policy is not universal. NCQA recognizes only a few dozen out of hundreds of wellness companies. And NCQA standards are voluntary and don’t confer consumer rights.

Q. Could somebody try to identify individuals in the group results shared by my wellness plan?

Wellness privacy policies often give vendors broad room to share data stripped of names, addresses and other identifying features. Such information is not protected under HIPAA.

Experts have shown that such results can be re-identified by combining them with public databases. As an extra protection, wellness vendor Limeade and wearable device maker Fitbit prohibit third-party partners from attempting to re-identify the information they share.

But not all vendors do the same.
This article originally appeared on www.khn.org