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Besides the long-term effects of Covid-19 on the body, there is growing recognition of the psychological impact that Covid-19 has on the community at large, and growing concern for the enduring effects on the psyche.  The numbers lend credence to the concern: 66.4 million people are recovered from Covid; scores of millions who have yet

Results from a phase 2 placebo-controlled trial of the investigational antiamyloid drug donanemab show that the novel agent met the primary outcome of slowing cognitive decline in patients with early symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease (AD).  Results from the TRAILBLAZER-ALZ trial were presented at the 2021 International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases (AD/PD) and were simultaneously

If people seem a bit more salty Sunday, it could be because springing ahead to Daylight Savings Time (DST) has cost them more than just an hour of sleep.  But first, don’t blame the farmers for the hour hopping. It was Congress. In 1966, it passed the Uniform Time Act making Daylight Savings Time the

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. The Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is investigating cases of thromboembolic events related to AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, but says the benefits currently still outweigh risks.  As of March 10, 30 cases of thromboembolic events had

To ramp up vaccination efforts across the country, the Biden administration is calling on dentists, nurses, medical students, nursing students, midwives, and even veterinarians to administer COVID-19 shots, according to a statement released by the White House Friday morning. On Thursday, the administration also announced plans to increase the number of community health centers giving

By  Victoria Knight As cold weather descended upon Washington, D.C., last fall, I deleted my dating apps. I had tried a few video-chat dates when the pandemic was new last spring. They were fun and novel at the time, and felt like a “quarantine experience.” By summer, I went on several physically distant dates in

Maintaining a healthy plant-based diet is associated with a lower risk for both total stroke and ischemic stroke, results from a study of three large cohorts suggest. A plant-based diet was not associated with risk for hemorrhagic stroke, however, and the data also showed no association between a fully vegetarian diet and total stroke risk,

The CDC has finally released the guidelines many have been waiting for: what life looks like once you’re vaccinated for the coronavirus. It’s a real mix– some things change, some stay the same, and some things we still just don’t know. Here’s an overview. The new rules apply only once you’re fully vaccinated– two weeks after

President Joe Biden on Thursday said he will expand the number of people providing COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States to include a wide swath of medical professionals in order to help the nation return to some sense of normalcy by July 4. In his first prime-time address, Biden said dentists, EMTs, midwives, optometrists, physician

The controversy over how much physical distance is necessary to safely reopen schools may be inching to a close. During a press call with reporters, infectious diseases physicians flagged new evidence suggesting that whether kids are separated by 3 feet or 6 feet in schools doesn’t affect COVID-19 case counts substantially. The study, conducted in

People who take the drug spironolactone, made by Bryant Ranch Pharmaceuticals, need to check their prescription bottle. There is a recall on four lots of this diuretic because the drug bottles could be mislabeled with the wrong strength. Though labeled as 50-mg, bottles could contain the 25 mg. strength, and vice versa.  Taking the wrong

Aaliyah Riccardi was stunned by gifts from doctors she’s never met. When Aaliyah Riccardi, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Connecticut, got home from her rotations, she found four packages on her doorstep. She thought there had been a mistake. There wasn’t. The new mixer, the textbook, and contents of all the other packages

Last month, we reported on an FDA warning and recall on soft, Hispanic-style cheeses from El Abuelito Cheese. The recall has since been expanded, covering more products and more states. Why? These El Abuelito products have been linked to a multi-state outbreak of Listeria, the germ associated with food poisoning. The outbreak has sickened 11

Further evidence supporting the safety of two antiseizure medications in pregnancy has come from a new study. The Maternal Outcomes and Neurodevelopmental Effects of Antiepileptic Drugs (MONEAD) study found no difference in neurobehavioral development in children at age 3 born to women with epilepsy compared with children of healthy women without epilepsy. Most of the

[embedded content] Spoiler alert: The vaccines work! ZDoggMD talks about how the new coronavirus vaccines are remarkably safe and effective and why it’s about time that the CDC stated the obvious. He also touches on Facebook censorship. Following is a rough transcript of his remarks (Note: errors are possible): ZDoggMD: What’s up, everybody? Welcome to

Stacie Kershner, Georgia State University and Karen Johnston, Georgia State University Many U.S. metropolitan areas report that at least 90% of public transit passengers wear masks while on buses to prevent the spread of coronavirus. However, some passengers still wear their masks incorrectly. And some refuse to wear them at all, threatening the health and

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Pregnant women can safely get vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for COVID-19, surveillance data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest. More than 30,000 women who received these vaccines have reported pregnancies through the CDC’s

Half of all Americans, 50.8%, have vulvas. Like most parts of the human anatomy, they require some upkeep, but exactly what type, and how much, can be a contentious question.  Do you need special feminine hygiene products? Most gynecologists would say “no.”  Vagisil, purveyor of feminine hygiene products, was in the news in early 2021

Infants with type 1 spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) showed promising signs, including an increased expression of functional survival motor neuron (SMN) protein in the blood, after 1 year of treatment with oral risdiplam (Evrysdi, Genentech), according to results of part 1 of the FIREFISH study. A boost in SMN expression has been linked to improvements in

On a typical pandemic Thursday night, I found myself scrolling through TikTok. This has turned into the guilty pleasure of my life. Sometimes you need something to do that will make you forget about your own problems and work. On this particular day, I came across a young woman talking about her experience in the

Murray J. Côté, Texas A&M University; Tiffany A. Radcliff, Texas A&M University, and Walter Thomas Casey II, Texas A&M University-Texarkana The governors of Texas and Mississippi announced that they were rescinding their statewide mask mandates and allowing restaurants and other businesses to return to 100% capacity in early March. The moves come while new infection

Each year, roughly 1 in 60 adult patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) aged 65 years and under is hospitalized with urinary or kidney infections, a new study suggests. That’s more than quadruple the rate in a control cohort. Other types of infections affected patients with MS at a higher rate too. Dr Riley Bove “The

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new, once-daily oral stimulant medication for treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in people aged 6 years and older. Azstarys (KemPharm, Inc) combines extended-release serdexmethylphenidate (SDX), KemPharm’s prodrug of dexmethylphenidate (d-MPH), coformulated with immediate-release d-MPH.  Following absorption in the gastrointestinal tract, SDX is converted

Recently, one of the medical directors of one of the adult medicine practices at our sister institution sent me an email asking if I knew how to get certain data on different facets of our practice. She was wondering if we regularly collected data on our no-show rate, as well as how and when appointments

For those of us who remain unvaccinated, thinking instead that herd immunity might come quicker than an open vaccine appointment, a new website could offer some hope for inoculation.  The new vaccine-leftovers website has an easy name to remember and a couple new twists; it matches up vaccine availability to vaccine seekers, but only if

A large, retrospective study shows how germline genetic testing has evolved over time in women with breast or ovarian cancer and reveals a path forward for testing these patients. Investigators found racial and ethnic disparities in genetic testing as well as “persistent underuse” of testing in patients with ovarian cancer. The team also discovered that

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Like other people, patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) who become infected with COVID-19 face worse outcomes if they’re older and more disabled, a biostatistician told neurologists. With the exception of anti-CD20s, registries also suggest that disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) don’t cause higher

“We’re going to be in a ‘Pinkalicious phase’ for the next few months.” — Chris Martin, MD, MSc, of West Virginia University School of Public Health, quoting surprisingly apt advice from the popular children’s book series and applying it to potentially choosing one’s COVID vaccine. “It is sloppy and lazy to lump cladribine and alemtuzumab