Medicine

The Daily Beast reports: Anti-vaxxers have long used GoFundMe to raise money to spread their dangerous message—but now the site is cutting them off, The Daily Beast has learned. “Campaigns raising money to promote misinformation about vaccines violate GoFundMe’s terms of service and will be removed from the platform,” spokesman Bobby Whithorne told The Daily Beast. Last week, the American …

NBC News Philadelphia reports: As a mumps outbreak continues to grow at Temple University, school health officials said Thursday they will offer free vaccinations to students and staff. At least 86 people are tied to the mumps outbreak at the North Philadelphia university which has some 40,000 students and 4,500 staff members. The Philadelphia health department said Thursday that 16 …

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports: In a move experts say is medically unsound — and can be dangerous — Gov. Matt Bevin said in a radio interview Tuesday that he deliberately exposed all nine of his children to chickenpox so they would catch the disease and become immune. “Every single one of my kids had the chickenpox,” Bevin said in an …

Time Magazine reports: An Italian politician who opposed mandatory childhood vaccinations has been hospitalized with chickenpox. Massimiliano Fedriga, who is part of the far-right League party, was under observation for four days earlier this month after getting chickenpox, according to local news reports. It’s an ironic twist in fate for Fedriga, who opposed the introduction of the so-called Lorenzin law …

Time Magazine reports: President Donald Trump’s proposed 2020 budget includes nearly $300 million meant to “defeat the HIV/AIDS epidemic” in the U.S. — even as it calls for a 12% reduction in total funding to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The proposed budget calls for $140 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to …

NBC News reports: Thirty-five percent of gay and bisexual men at high risk of HIV infection were using PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, the daily pill that prevents HIV infection, in 2017, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2014, just 6 percent of these men used PrEP. However, despite the nearly 500 percent …

The Daily Beast reports: An unvaccinated Oregon boy became the first person in over 30 years to contract the deadly tetanus infection in the state. The 6-year-old boy was playing on a farm when he cut his head, according to a case report by the CDC. His parents cleaned and stitched the wound at home, but a week later, he …

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Food and Drug Administration approved a controversial drug for depression that could be the first of a long-awaited wave of new treatments, but that has also raised concerns about abuse. The drug, a nasal spray that manufacturer Johnson & Johnson JNJ 0.21% has branded Spravato, is a close chemical relation to ketamine. Ketamine is …

The New York Times reports: For just the second time since the global epidemic began, a patient appears to have been cured of infection with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The news comes nearly 12 years to the day after the first patient known to be cured, a feat that researchers have long tried, and failed, to duplicate. The …

The New York Times reports: The drugmaker Eli Lilly will begin selling a cheaper version of its most popular insulin, Humalog, in an effort to head off criticism about the rising costs of prescription drugs, the company said Monday. Lilly will begin selling an “authorized generic” of Humalog 100 for $137.35 per vial, a 50 percent discount off the list …

Science Daily reports: In a study with significant implications for human organ transplantation, researchers have successfully grown functional mouse kidneys inside rats from just a few donor stem cells. The results of the study, led by researchers from the National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Japan, will be published in an upcoming issue of Nature Communications. For patients with end-stage …

The Asheville Citizen Times reports: A chickenpox outbreak at a private school now ranks as North Carolina’s largest since a vaccine for the virus became available more than 20 years ago, health officials say. As of Friday, 36 students at Asheville Waldorf School had contracted the varicella virus, known to most as chickenpox. The school has one of the highest …

STAT News reports: For years, so-called influencers — celebrities, former reality television contestants and sometimes, former lawyers or other professionals — have hawked diet teas and hair products everywhere from Facebook to Snapchat. And now, pharma is catching on. An entire industry has cropped up to link drug makers with the industry’s own version of an influencer — people, usually …

The Salt Lake Tribune reports: Amid a flurry of national proposals to bring exorbitant U.S. drug prices in line with other countries’ charges, one Utah insurer has a different option for patients: Pay them to go to Mexico. PEHP, which covers 160,000 public employees and family members, is offering plane tickets to San Diego, transportation to Tijuana, and a $500 …

Gay Star News reports: Britain’s High Court today ruled to overturn pharmaceutical company Gilead Science’s patent extension on Truvada. The HIV medication is also used for PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis). When taken as advised, this stops HIV negative people acquiring HIV. PrEP is not yet available on the NHS in England and Wales. The NHS is currently conducting a trial to …

Via press release from the Williams Institute: A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official disclosed that the agency will roll back support for the collection of data on the health and well-being of LGBT people through the Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). “The BRFSS is one of the few federally-supported data collection activities that make the needs …

The Associated Press reports: For the first time, researchers have used the cloning method that produced Dolly the sheep to create two healthy monkeys, bringing science an important step closer to being able to do the same with humans. Since Dolly’s birth in 1996, scientists have cloned nearly two dozen kinds of mammals, including dogs, cats, pigs, cows and polo …

CNN reports: Gonorrhea is becoming harder and in some cases impossible to treat with antibiotics, the World Health Organization said. “The bacteria that cause gonorrhea are particularly smart. Every time we use a new class of antibiotics to treat the infection, the bacteria evolve to resist them,” said Teodora Wi, a human reproduction specialist at the WHO, in a news …

This will be a lifesaver for many people: The Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced its approval of Teva’s abbreviated new drug application the first generic of Gilead’s Truvada (emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil). The drug is indicated both as a treatment for HIV-1 in combination with other antiretroviral drugs and for pre-exposure prophylaxis to prevent sexually acquired HIV infection …

Via press release: To kick-off Pride Month, the de Blasio Administration today published and distributed New York City’s first-ever LGBTQ Health Care Bill of Rights, which details health care protections on local, state and federal levels to empower LGBTQ New Yorkers to get the health care they deserve. It also reiterates that medical providers and their support staff are legally …