Medicine

The Associated Press reports: Teams of experts are projecting COVID-19′s toll on the U.S. will fall sharply by the end of July, according to research released by the government Wednesday. But they also warn that a “substantial increase” in hospitalizations and deaths is possible if unvaccinated people do not follow basic precautions. The CDC is now reporting an average of …

The Hill reports: House Judiciary Republicans on Tuesday urged the U.S. trade representative to continue opposing a waiver to loosen patent and intellectual property protections on coronavirus vaccines. In a letter to Katherine Tai, the Republicans, led by Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Darrell Issa (Calif.), said the waiver would do little to improve public health. “The waiver would undermine …

The New York Times reports: In an important step toward medical approval, MDMA, the illegal drug popularly known as Ecstasy or Molly, was shown to bring relief to those suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder when paired with talk therapy. Of the 90 people who took part in the new study, which is expected to be published later this month …

NBC News reports: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is calling on the World Trade Organization (WTO) to grant a patent waiver allowing countries to manufacture generic versions of Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines. “There is something morally objectionable about rich countries being able to get that vaccine, and yet millions and billions of people in poor countries are unable to afford …

Axios reports: An oral antiviral drug to stop the virus that causes COVID-19 from replicating could be ready next year “if all goes right,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC on Tuesday, adding that the drug should work against all variants of the virus. Why it matters: Antiviral drugs can be a key pandemic-fighting tool, since not everyone will get …

The New York Times reports: More than five million people, or nearly 8 percent of those who got a first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, have missed their second doses, according to the most recent data from the CDC. That is more than double the rate among people who got inoculated in the first several weeks of the …

Courthouse News reports: An independent advisory panel for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted Friday to recommend the continued use of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine after the single-dose jab was put on pause over blood clotting concerns. Friday’s vote followed similar concerns in the Europe Union over both the J&J jab and the AstraZeneca vaccine, …

Bloomberg News reports: A decision on whether and how to resume vaccinating Americans with the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus shot will probably come by Friday, the top U.S. infectious diseases specialist said. It would be surprising “if we don’t have a resumption in some form by Friday,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said …

CBS News reports: COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna will make a third booster shot for its two-dose vaccine available to Americans by the fall, CEO Stéphane Bancel said this week. Moderna’s vaccine is more than 90% effective against the coronavirus six months after the second shot, studies show. What remains unclear is how long immunity from the virus lasts. The same …

Reuters reports: More than 60 former heads of state, including former leaders of Britain and France, and over 100 Nobel Prize winners called on U.S. President Joe Biden to back a waiver of intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines. A waiver would boost vaccine manufacturing and speed up the response to the pandemic in poorer countries which otherwise might have …

ABC News reports: Women seeking an abortion pill will not be required to visit a doctor’s office or clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. health officials said Tuesday in the latest reversal in an ongoing legal battle over the medication. The Food and Drug Administration announced the policy change a day earlier in a letter to the American College of …

MarketWatch reports: Pfizer Inc. Chief Executive Albert Bourla tweeted late Tuesday that the pharma company has “ramped up” production of its COVID-19 vaccine, and will be able to deliver 10% more doses to the U.S. by the end of May than a previously agreed total of 220 million doses, as well as supply “the full (300 million doses) agreed on …

The New York Times reports: Federal health agencies on Tuesday called for an immediate pause in use of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose coronavirus vaccine after six recipients in the United States developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within about two weeks of vaccination. All six recipients were women between the ages of 18 and 48. One woman died and …

STAT News reports: After 13 years, Google is coming back for patient health records. The tech giant has launched an early user feedback program aimed at exploring how patients might want to see, organize, and share their own medical record data. The work could inform the creation of a consumer-facing medical records tool along the lines of Apple’s Health Records …

Mediaite reports: Dr. Anthony Fauci told MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan that booster shots for the Covid-19 vaccine very well may be needed after about a year or so to maintain immunity against the virus. “We need to be careful about that six month number,” said Fauci, noting that that time period was how long they had been able to study so …

The New York Times reports: New York must immediately begin to offer Covid vaccines to all incarcerated people in the state’s prisons and jails, a judge ruled on Monday, making the state one of few in the nation to provide doses to such a broad population behind bars. The order, the first involving any of the country’s largest correctional systems, …

Reuters reports: Pfizer Inc has started an early-stage U.S. trial of an oral COVID-19 antiviral therapy that could be prescribed to patients at the first sign of infection, the company said on Tuesday. The drugmaker said the antiviral candidate showed potent activity against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in lab studies. Pfizer’s candidate, named PF-07321332, is a protease inhibitor …

The New York Times reports: The coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford provided strong protection against Covid-19 in a large clinical trial in the United States, completely preventing the worst outcomes from the disease while causing no serious side effects, according to results announced on Monday. The findings, announced in a news release from AstraZeneca, may …

The Pew Research Center reports: As COVID-19 vaccine production and administration efforts in the U.S. continue to ramp up, a new Pew Research survey finds public intent to get vaccinated is on the rise. Overall, 19% of adults say they have already received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Another 50% say they definitely or probably plan to …

The New York Post reports: Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli was slapped with a class action lawsuit Thursday from health insurers who claim he engaged in a scheme to create a pharmaceutical monopoly that allowed him to raise the price of an HIV drug by more than 4,000 percent. In the Manhattan federal court suit, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of …