While the nation’s pediatricians have announced an important, high-minded goal of eliminating racial bias in the medical treatment of children, working parents and other full-time caregivers for kids need a different kind of help, too, for a growing, serious problem — burnout. These seemingly different issues share a common discovery point, rooted in challenges made….
Continue ReadingArchives for May 2022
This could ‘tick off’ red meat lovers: Pest’s bite leads to lasting food allergy
To those who don’t consider the summer complete without devouring racks of sizzling barbecued pork ribs or slabs of charred beef steaks, experts have an odd but true warning: Watch out for the so-called lone star tick. Amblyomma Americanum, a parasitic species distinguished by a prominent light or white dot on the females’ abdomen, has….
Continue ReadingPatients are imperiled by avoidable drug errors and hit with pricing ploy
Big Pharma has made the nation so pill-obsessed that prescription drugs pose big risks to the safety of the seriously sick and injured and the finances of retirees. Recent news stories have warned, for example, that: hospitals have failed to take needed steps to secure medications from lethal mix-ups drug makers and insures play a….
Continue ReadingWhile U.S. moves on, pandemic is inching up and is forecast to worsen
The coronavirus already has killed 1 million and counting in this country. But is that painful reality persuasive enough to get Americans, especially cantankerous politicians, to heed new federal warnings that the pandemic not only isn’t over but that it could surge anew this fall and winter with as many as 100 million new infections….
Continue ReadingA major reversal on long-held view of low-dose aspirin’s heart benefits
Aspirin has gotten its crown knocked askew as a cheap, effective low-dose heart problem preventer for older Americans. That’s because the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has weighed the evidence, heard the comments, and recommended against patients 60 and older taking the common drug to avert cardiovascular diseases. The experts gave this purportedly protective step….
Continue ReadingAs recall of sleep apnea devices expands, U.S. prods firm to act faster
Federal officials have ramped up the pressure on a Dutch conglomerate over its expanding but slow recall of sleep apnea breathing devices relied on by millions of increasingly angry U.S. patients. The Justice Department has issued a subpoena to Royal Philips NV in preparation for an undetermined investigation of the company’s CPAP machines and their….
Continue ReadingBanning menthol from cigarettes will save many Black lives, researchers say
Federal regulators say they soon will ban the manufacture, distribution, and retail and wholesale selling of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, an action expected to take effect in a year or two and which anti-smoking advocates argue could save hundreds of thousands of lives of black and young Americans. The Food and Drug Administration says….
Continue ReadingIt’s everywhere and nowhere: Coronavirus and the risks that remain for seniors and unvaccinated
The coronavirus pandemic has become such a central part of so many people’s lives that the temptation is great to ignore its persistent, calamitous effect — and how some of the worst of these can be dealt with more than ever in relatively easy, safe, convenient ways. Looking recent data about the disease, it is….
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