Tag Archives: medicine

FDA Asked To Probe Musk’s Brain Implant Company

Reuters reports: A U.S. lawmaker involved in health policy has asked the Food and Drug Administration why it did not inspect Elon Musk’s Neuralink before allowing the brain implant company to test its device in humans. Reuters reported last month that FDA inspectors found problems with record keeping and quality controls for animal experiments at Neuralink last June, less than …

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Amazon Begins Online Sales For OTC Birth Control Pills

CNN reports: The rollout is underway for Opill, the first over-the-counter birth control pill approved in the United States, and online sales begin Monday morning, according to drugmaker Perrigo. Consumers can start ordering Opill online Monday, and orders will be fulfilled within a day or two, Sara Young, senior vice president and chief consumer officer at Perrigo, said in an …

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CDC Drops Five-Day Isolation Guidance For COVID

CNN reports: People who test positive for Covid-19 no longer need to routinely stay away from others for at least five days, according to new guidelines from the CDC issued Friday. The change ends a strategy from earlier in the pandemic that experts said has been important to controlling the spread of the infection. The agency says it’s updating its …

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Biden To Visit Walter Reed Hospital For Annual Physical

CNN reports: President Joe Biden is going to receive his annual routine physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Wednesday, which will likely be the last presidential health update before the 2024 election as Biden faces persistent questions about his age. The president is expected to be seen by his physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who has previously issued …

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Alabama Health System Halts IVF After Court Ruling

The Hill reports: The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system is pausing all in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments for fear of lawsuits and criminal prosecution following a recent ruling from the state supreme court. A spokesperson said the health system is evaluating the first-of-its-kind decision that declared frozen embryos are entitled to the same protections as humans, and those …

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Anthony Fauci To Release Memoir In June: “On Call”

Axios reports: Anthony Fauci, arguably the world’s most famous living doctor, will be out June 18 with a memoir called “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service.” Fauci, 83 — as chief medical adviser President Biden, and longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — helped steer the U.S. through peak COVID with calm, relentless …

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World’s First Malaria Vax Program Begins In Cameroon

The BBC reports: The world’s first routine vaccine programme against malaria has started in Cameroon, in a move projected to save thousands of children’s lives across Africa. The symbolic first jab was given to a baby girl named Daniella at a health facility near Yaoundé on Monday. Every year 600,000 people die of malaria in Africa, according to the World …

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NYC Midwife Fined $300K For Faking Childhood Vaccine Records Of 1500 Kids, Gave Them “Homeopath Pellets”

Gothamist reports: The state alleged that midwife Jeannette Breen falsified the immunization records for about 1,500 children statewide at the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year. Breen was penalized $300,000 and permanently barred from administering vaccines reportable to the state, officials said. The state said the fabrications included records of vaccines for polio, chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella, but excluded …

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FDA Allows Florida To Import Drugs From Canada

Axios reports: The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a plan allowing Florida to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, opening the door for states to buy direct from pharmacies there to stock their state-run health programs. The approval, the first of its kind, allows the Biden administration to show it’s addressing a major voter concern in an election …

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Study: COVID “Cure” Likely Killed Tens Of Thousands

Politico Europe reports: Nearly 17,000 people may have died after taking hydroxycholoroquine during the first wave of COVID, according to a study by French researchers. The anti-malaria drug was prescribed to some patients hospitalized with COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic, “despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits,” the researchers point out in their paper, published …

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CDC: Latest COVID Strain Now Dominant Across US

The New York Times reports: As the holiday season winds down and Covid-19 cases start to pick up, a variant called JN.1 has now become the most common strain of the virus spreading across the United States. JN.1, which emerged from the variant BA.2.86 and was first detected in the United States in September, accounted for 44 percent of Covid …

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CDC: High COVID Levels Ahead Of Holiday Travel

Axios reports: Wastewater analysis sites nationwide are showing high levels of COVID-19 as we head into the holiday travel season, per the latest CDC data. Almost every state reporting such data is showing at least “high” levels compared to baseline trends, with many reporting “very high” levels, as defined by the CDC. As of early December, 22 states had “very …

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CDC Reports High Incidence Of Flu In Multiple States

Yahoo News reports: The U.S. flu season is underway, with at least seven states reporting high levels of illnesses and cases rising in other parts of the country, health officials say. The CDC posted new flu data on Friday, showing very high activity last week in Louisiana, and high activity in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico and South Carolina. …

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CDC Data Shows New COVID Variant Now Dominant

NBC News reports: A new Covid variant has become dominant in the U.S., but relatively few people have thus far gotten the new shots that could offer some protection against it. The variant, called HV.1, replaced EG.5 as the country’s most prevalent this week, according to data released Friday by the CDC. Just around 3.5 % of the U.S. population …

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CVS Pulls Decongestants As FDA Says They Don’t Work

The Insider reports: CVS this week said it is pulling many popular decongestants from its shelves after advisors to the Food and Drug Administration said the active ingredient simply does not work. In September, an advisory panel to the FDA ruled that phenylephrine, when taken orally, is no better than a placebo despite being on the market for more than …

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75,000 Kaiser Permanente Workers Go On Strike

CNBC reports: More than 75,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente — the nation’s largest health-care nonprofit organization — went on strike Wednesday at hospitals and medical offices in five states after the company and labor negotiators failed to resolve a dispute over staffing levels. The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions has described the work stoppage as the largest strike of health-care …

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POLL: 46% Of Adults Plan To Get New COVID Booster

ABC News reports: Nearly half of all adults in the United States plan to get the newly recommended COVID-19 vaccine, according to results from a survey released Wednesday. The latest poll conducted by the KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor found that 23% of U.S. adults say they will “definitely” get the updated booster, 23% say they will “probably” get it, while …

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Diagnostic Testing For Long COVID May Come Soon

NBC News reports: More than three years into the pandemic, the millions of people who have suffered from long Covid finally have scientific proof that their condition is real. Scientists have found clear differences in the blood of people with long Covid — a key first step in the development of a test to diagnose the illness. The findings, published …

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Musk’s Neuralink Seeks Volunteers For Brain Implants

Ars Technica reports: After years of delays, regulatory rejections, and allegations of animal abuse, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company, Neuralink, is now recruiting its first human volunteers to have an experimental robot implant an experimental device directly into their brains. In a blog post Tuesday, the company announced that an independent institutional review board and an unnamed hospital site granted …

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COVID Infections Surpass 2020’s First Pandemic Peak

Fortune reports: U.S. COVID infections are hovering near levels of the pandemic’s first peak in 2020, and approaching the Delta peak of late 2021, according to wastewater surveillance and modeling by forecasters. Viral wastewater levels are not far behind all of the pandemic’s 2020 peaks except for one—the initial peak of March 2020, which they’ve already surpassed. And they lag …

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