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The United States has reportedly lent its support to a multilateral agreement to waive intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines. Proponents of the waiver would have us believe this will get more people vaccinated more quickly. In fact, it will do nothing of the sort. The leaked text is purportedly part of a compromise between

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Now is not the time for the U.S. Congress to cut international COVID-19 funding, says Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, JD, because we’re so close to “crushing” COVID-19 this year. A Senate deal announced April 4 allocated $10 billion

Researchers might have already found an answer to questions about the lingering cognitive issues in long COVID patients.  Scientists said in a study published last Friday that an overstimulated immune system could be the one responsible for the brain fog and all other cognitive problems post-COVID syndrome patients are experiencing, ABC News reported Tuesday.  The Role

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. The U.S. is getting a first glimpse of what it’s like to experience COVID-19 outbreaks during this new phase of living with the virus, and the roster of the newly infected is studded with stars. Cabinet members, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,

“We don’t just flip ’em a scalpel and say, ‘Hey, good luck, I’m going to be down the street drinking a beer.'” — Christopher R. Porta, MD, of Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, on the rigorous oversight of surgical trainees. “We expected to get different results.” — Lawrence Casalino, MD, of Weill Cornell

Is regular use of erectile dysfunction drugs really linked to serious vision problems? A team of researchers has found evidence confirming the link between the two. Phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE5Is) are a group of medications that are typically used to treat erectile dysfunction. Viagra and Cialis, for instance, are among the major types of PDE5Is. For their new paper,

The drug-coated balloon (DCB) for peripheral interventions had its share of troubles in recent years before making a comeback, with the field of available devices perhaps even poised for expansion. In a randomized trial, an investigational paclitaxel-coated DCB with both a quirky design and confectionery name achieved achieved better patency outcomes in femoropopliteal lesions, with

A nonprofit advocacy group from Washington D.C., Environmental Working Group, released its yearly analysis on which fruits and vegetables are “dirty vs clean” when it comes to the average amount of pesticides each holds on Thursday. The lists are created from data that is released by the Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration. Environmental Working

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. There’s a strong likelihood that the antidepressant fluvoxamine (Luvox) may moderately lower rates of hospitalization due to COVID-19 in unvaccinated patients, a new systematic review and meta-analysis has found. But outside experts differ over whether the evidence from just three studies

The 24-hour news cycle is just as important to medicine as it is to politics, finance, or sports. At MedPage Today, new information is posted daily, but keeping up can be a challenge. As an aid for our readers, here is a 10-question quiz based on the news of the week. Topics include a possible

In a meeting that took place Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration said that regulators need to determine if additional or different COVID-19 vaccines will be needed by June of this year.  As variants continue to emerge, New England Journal of Medicine editor-in-chief Dr. Eric Rubin called the meeting “a good opportunity to show how

Radiofrequency renal denervation provided progressive reductions in blood pressure at 3 years in patients on antihypertensive medication but this did not translate into fewer antihypertensive drugs, new results from the SPYRAL HTN-ON MED trial show. At 36 months, 24-hour ambulatory systolic and diastolic blood pressures were 10.0 mm Hg (P = .003) and 5.9 mm

Many people who have had COVID-19 have gone on to develop diabetes. But diabetes is relatively common, and COVID is too, so that doesn’t necessarily mean one leads to the other. The question is whether people who have had COVID are more likely to develop diabetes than those who haven’t. And if so, is it

Similar outcomes in patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) suggest that antibiotics selected by Gram staining were noninferior to those based on guidelines and also significantly decreased the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics in this patient population. The findings were published Friday, April 8, in JAMA Network Open. The multicenter, open-label, noninferiority, randomized trial, Gram Stain-Guided Antibiotics

As the shuttering of 41 pediatric inpatient beds at Tufts Children’s Hospital in Boston draws near, nurses rallied on Tuesday over their concern that the closure will severely limit access to care. Though the Tufts Medicine Health System reasoned in its public announcement of the closure that it would convert 41 pediatric inpatient beds at

In the spring of 2020, COVID-19 brought rising levels of stress, anxiety and depression. But stay-at-home orders and a national emergency prompted many psychiatric and psychotherapy offices to shut down and cancel in-person appointments. The country needed a robust – and fast – transition to mental health telemedicine. And the pandemic turned out to be

New research sheds light on how different cell types behave across all intestinal regions and demonstrates variations in gene expression between these cells across three independent organ donors. Research led by Joseph Burclaff, PhD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explained that the regional differences observed in the study “highlight the importance

A study published Wednesday in Nature detailed how the virus that causes COVID-19 infects crucial immune cells, causing inflammation, and ultimately severe symptoms of the disease.  The authors of the study found that SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, infects monocytes and macrophages. Monocytes are immune cells in the blood that lookout for invaders. Macrophages are found

In a final decision on the funding of the controversial Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab (Aduhelm), federal officials largely stuck to their draft plan to limit Medicare payment to patients enrolled in clinical trials. On Thursday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its national coverage determination (NCD) for funding aducanumab, and other anticipated similar

[embedded content] Join medical resident Siobhan Deshauer, MD, as she meets Mona, a pediatric rheumatology patient. (Following is a partial transcript. Note that errors are possible.) Deshauer: Hey, guys! I’m Siobhan, a fifth year medical resident. Now, I’m training to become an adult rheumatologist, and part of that process is doing one month in pediatric

Just when it looked like COVID cases were starting to fall after the high peaks of January, infections are rising once again around the world. The main driver of this latest surge is the more infectious BA.2 sub-lineage of the omicron variant, which has been becoming more common ever since Christmas. In the UK, increased

A recently published set of treatment flow diagrams uses simplified diagnosis and management pathways to help primary care providers (PCPs) in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere treat patients with allergies. Most patients with allergy problems first see PCPs, not allergists, the authors write in Allergy. The new flow diagrams help PCPs treat anaphylaxis, asthma,

A black fungus outbreak affected thousands of people in India when the country was battling a surge in COVID-19 cases last year. Researchers have now pointed out that the burning of cow dung is likely behind the epidemic. Mucormycosis (CAM), more commonly known as black fungus, is a rare fungal infection caused by molds called

Conduction system pacing (CSP) produced the same degree of cardiac resynchronization, ventricular reverse modeling, and similar clinical outcomes as did biventricular pacing (BiVP) in patients with heart failure and wide QRS, a small, randomized study has shown. The rates of complications requiring reintervention were equivalent. However, x-ray time was slightly longer with CSP, Margarida Pujol-López,

The investigational drug trofinetide showed modest benefit in girls and young women with Rett syndrome, the phase III LAVENDER study showed. After 12 weeks of treatment, significant differences in two co-primary endpoints and a key secondary endpoint were seen with trofinetide versus placebo, reported Jeffrey Neul, MD, PhD, of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, in a

American women are more likely to diefrom a preventable health cause than women in other developed countries. The reason? High healthcare costs deter them from seeking medical help.  The Commonwealth Fundreleased a report Tuesday that looked at women’s health in 11 high-income countries. It found that American women had the highest mortality rate at reproductive ages. The

Metacognitive training (MCT) is effective in reducing positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, new research suggests. MCT for psychosis is a brief intervention that “combines psychoeducation, cognitive bias modification, and strategy teaching but does not directly target psychosis symptoms.” Results from a meta-analysis of 40 studies with more than 1800 total participants with schizophrenia showed

The list of COVID-19 symptoms has gotten bigger after experts added nine more entries to it this week.  On Monday, the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) updated its list of COVID-19 symptoms to include nine more signs that could help people tell if they have contracted the novel coronavirus.  COVID-19 Symptoms List  The original signs