The Food and Drug Administration has back-tracked on a major part of its accelerated approval of Aduhelm, a prescription medication targeted at Alzheimer’s patients. The FDA green light for the drug also has created such consternation among medical specialists, insurers, policy experts, and politicians — including with news reports of hidden, cozy dealings between a….
Continue ReadingArchives for July 2021
With 4 million deaths, pandemic’s persistent peril is clear globally. But in U.S.?
The rest of the planet may be seeing what roughly half of Americans cannot: The coronavirus pandemic is far from over and it is savaging humanity in a way that is now sadly preventable. The disease’s global toll now has exceeded 4 million deaths, a number that is likely far under reported, according to the….
Continue ReadingFor the vulnerable and injured, more proof that civil lawsuits provide key way to obtain justice
No matter what the carping critics may claim about the shortcomings of the civil justice system, when Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, and big organizations exploit and harm the vulnerable, lawsuits and what follows may provide a concrete, productive way for the wronged to see remedy and recompense for injuries inflicted on them. Recent news….
Continue ReadingU.S. advances key new protections for patients from ‘surprise’ medical bills
Federal regulators have taken a welcome initial step to bar insurers and health care providers from holding patients hostage in their all-too-common fee fights, with draft rules out now to crush “surprise” medical bills. The politically riven, do-nothing Congress shocked critics by ending 2020 with an actual new law, included in legislation dealing with the….
Continue ReadingPacific Northwest-scorcher shows climate change can create big health risks
Climate change — to those who indulge in counter-factual thinking and who hold anti-science beliefs — may be an abstraction and a mere theory. But weather extremes became a startling, real, and deadly health threat to tens of millions in a swath of the Pacific Northwest in this country and Canada. Days of unrelenting, record-shattering….
Continue ReadingIndependence holiday shadowed by viral variant and deep national divides
With every recent holiday, health officials have warned the public to exercise great caution and to maybe even avoid celebrations in hopes of holding down the spread and deadly consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. But not today. Independence Day, 2021, is different. Optimism prevails across the country about the quelling pandemic. Tens of millions of….
Continue ReadingFor a fun and safe Fourth, don’t fire off guns or blow up fireworks, please
Hoorah, the spectacular Fourth of July fireworks display will return to the National Mall — and with a throng expected to watch in person. Here’s hoping the celebratory pyrotechnics in Washington, D.C., also will be confined to this and other public displays — and not creating mayhem for the next few weeks in neighborhoods across….
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