Doctors and hospitals must redouble their efforts to protect patients in their care, as the coronavirus pandemic reversed years of safety advances, and these must be restored top to bottom — and more. This powerful, timely argument has been made in a top medical journal by leading federal regulators at the Centers for Medicare and….
Continue ReadingInfections
With pandemic surging again, will protective measures just get ignored?
The coronavirus pandemic is surging anew, with federal health officials warning that just under half of Americans live in parts of the country where transmission rates have increased sharply enough that they should return to wearing face masks in public, indoor settings. Older Americans, officials say, should get a second booster shot if more than….
Continue ReadingU.S. mourns 1 million coronavirus deaths. Nearly one in three may have been preventable.
President Biden has ordered flags in public buildings across the country to be flown at half staff as the nation officially mourns 1 million American deaths due to the coronavirus pandemic. As he noted in a statement: “One million empty chairs around the dinner table. Each an irreplaceable loss. Each leaving behind a family, a community,….
Continue ReadingThis 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 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 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….
Continue ReadingU.S. finding more and more ways to undercut efforts to quell pandemic
Hundreds of Americans keep dying each day due to the coronavirus. Tens of thousands of people across the country are reporting they are newly infected with the disease, even as at-home testing lowers this count. Thousands of patients still are hospitalized due to the virus that has killed at least 1 million in this country…..
Continue ReadingFDA a giant failure on food safety and nutrition guidance, report finds
Its official title is the federal Food and Drug Administration. But taxpayers are ill-served by the $1 billion they fork over to this behemoth agency to safeguard the foods all of us must consume and to provide sound nutritional guidance in especially confusing times. That’s a significant takeaway for readers of a new, magazine-length takedown….
Continue ReadingU.S. economy really feeling financial crunch of caregivers staying home
A glaring gap in the U.S. health care system — the giving of care at home — is burgeoning into a costly chasm. Pretty much everybody involved needs to pay close attention and finally act to deal with the nation’s failure to support home caregiving for the sick, injured, debilitated, and aged. The consequences of….
Continue ReadingAs U.S. shatters death record, trauma and grief grow unrecognized
Death has not taken a holiday in this country. It has, instead, had a field day, with 2021 breaking records, recording 3.465 million American lives lost — 80,000 more than in history-setting 2020, federal statisticians say. The coronavirus pandemic gets much of the blame for the nation’s grim toll, which was made all the worse….
Continue Reading