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Postnatal iron deficiency, especially from ages 6 to 24 months, has long-term consequences lasting into adolescence and adulthood. We aimed to characterize iron deficiency anemia among infants from one central Israeli district by demographic and laboratory parameters. A retrospective chart review was performed on all infants from a single district who had undergone a complete blood count as part of a routine survey for iron deficiency anemia during 2010–2021. Data retrieved included hemoglobin levels, mean corpuscular volume, and demographic features: sex, sector (non-ultraorthodox Jew, ultraorthodox Jew, and Arab), socioeconomic status, and type of residence. The study group comprised 101,650 infants, aged 9 to 18 months. Iron deficiency anemia, defined as a hemoglobin level <11 g/dL and mean corpuscular volume <70 fl was observed in 4296 (4.2%) of the study infants. Iron deficiency anemia was more prevalent among Arab and ultraorthodox Jewish infants, than non-ultraorthodox Jewish infants (6.6% vs. 6% vs. 3%, respectively). It was also more prevalent among infants of low socioeconomic status, and relatively common among infants of rural residence. We identified two specific sub-populations at risk of developing iron deficiency anemia: Arab and ultraorthodox Jewish infants. We recommend enhancing the nationwide intervention program for both clinicians and parents, thereby treating iron deficiency anemia promptly to avoid short- and long-term deleterious health consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To examine and compare the medical burden of measles, influenza and COVID‐19 outbreaks in the city of Bnei Brak, Israel. Methods: The study was conducted during 2018–2021. The numbers of hospitalisations for these infections and their complications were recorded. Hospitalisation rates were determined by using the number of children residing in Bnei Brak and hospitalised with these infections during the study period as the numerators. The denominators were the estimated paediatric cases of measles, influenza and COVID‐19 in Bnei Brak and were calculated under both pragmatic and conservative assumptions. Results: A total of 247, 65 and 32 children were hospitalised with influenza, COVID‐19 and measles respectively. Complication rates were higher following measles than after influenza and SARS‐CoV‐2 infections. Hospitalisation rates were 10% for measles, 0.6%‐1.2% for influenza and 0.15% ‐ 0.25% for COVID‐19 infections. Relative risks (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for hospitalisation following measles compared with COVID‐19 ranged from 42 (26.3–67.3) to 70.1 (43.8–112.1), while the relative risks for influenza hospitalisation ranged from 2.5 (1.83–3.41) to 8.2 (6.0–11.2), compared with COVID‐19 infection. Conclusion: Hospitalisation rates and direct medical burdens of measles and influenza were significantly higher than those of COVID‐19 infection in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Importance: Medical ethics is inherently complex, shaped by a broad spectrum of opinions, experiences, and cultural perspectives. The integration of large language models (LLMs) in healthcare is new and requires an understanding of their consistent adherence to ethical standards., Objective: To compare the agreement rates in answering questions based on ethically ambiguous situations between three frontier LLMs (GPT-4, Gemini-pro-1.5, and Llama-3-70b) and a multi-disciplinary physician group., Methods: In this cross-sectional study, three LLMs generated 1,248 medical ethics questions. These questions were derived based on the principles outlined in the American College of Physicians Ethics Manual. The topics spanned traditional, inclusive, interdisciplinary, and contemporary themes. Each model was then tasked in answering all generated questions. Twelve practicing physicians evaluated and responded to a randomly selected 10% subset of these questions. We compared agreement rates in question answering among the physicians, between the physicians and LLMs, and among LLMs., Results: The models generated a total of 3,744 answers. Despite physicians perceiving the questions' complexity as moderate, with scores between 2 and 3 on a 5-point scale, their agreement rate was only 55.9%. The agreement between physicians and LLMs was also low at 57.9%. In contrast, the agreement rate among LLMs was notably higher at 76.8% (p < 0.001), emphasizing the consistency in LLM responses compared to both physician-physician and physician-LLM agreement., Conclusions: LLMs demonstrate higher agreement rates in ethically complex scenarios compared to physicians, suggesting their potential utility as consultants in ambiguous ethical situations. Future research should explore how LLMs can enhance consistency while adapting to the complexities of real-world ethical dilemmas., Competing Interests: Declarations Conflict of Interest Disclosures. Joshua Lampert declares a consulting role with Viz.ai. All other authors report no conflicts of interest related to this study. Additional Declarations: No competing interests reported.