When Stephanie caught COVID-19 just before Thanksgiving of last year, her daughter Laurie suggested that she get help.
"She was really not feeling well, and I was like, 'Just go to the doctor,'" Laurie recalls.
But Stephanie, who was 75 at the time, didn't go. A few years before, she had been sucked into a world of online conspiracy theories — far-fetched ideas like one claiming John F. Kennedy Jr. is still alive. With...
President Joe Biden is sending his administration's first national drug control strategy to Congress as the U.S. overdose death toll hit a new record of nearly 107,000 during the past 12 months.
The strategy , released Thursday, is the first national plan to prioritize what's known as harm reduction, said White House drug czar Dr. Rahul Gupta. That means it focuses on preventing death and illness in drug users while...
THURSDAY, April 7, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Urinary tract infections are common and usually simple to treat. But for people who become sick enough to land in the hospital with one, an experimental antibiotic may soon offer a new treatment option -- taken by mouth instead of delivered by IV.
In a clinical trial, researchers found that the pill, called tebipenem HBr, worked as well as a standard IV antibiotic in...
Pfizer and BioNTech pushed the pause button Friday on the process of authorizing its COVID-19 vaccine for the youngest children.
The companies said in a release that they want to wait until data becomes available on a third vaccine dose for children under 5, likely in early April.
They had originally said such data would become available in late March or early April and they would ask for vaccine authorization then.
But under...
THURSDAY, Feb. 3, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Those hard-to-find COVID-19 home tests are becoming more available, particularly with the U.S. government offering four free tests for every household.
So far, roughly 60 million American households have ordered the free tests, according to the White House. But many folks still have a lot of basic questions about them, said Krist Azizian, chief pharmacy officer for Keck Medicine of the...
Pushed to the breaking point, pharmacy technicians are quitting in waves and stores are struggling to hire, leading to shorter hours, delayed prescriptions and risky mistakes.
Heidi Strehl worked as a pharmacy technician at a Rite Aid in the Pittsburgh suburbs for more than 16 years. She loved her customers, enjoyed her job and thought of her co-workers as family. But this fall, Strehl abruptly quit, walking out in the middle of a shift...
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra unveiled the Biden administration’s road map to lowering the cost of prescription drugs.
The plan, summarized in a 29-page document, supports legislation that allows the federal government to negotiate lower prices on the costliest drugs each year.
Lowering the cost of drugs has been a goal by Democrats and some Republicans for years.
Health and Human Services Secretary...
KEY POINTS
WHO official Maria Van Kerkhove said Tuesday that misinformation about Covid and vaccines appears to have gotten worse and is keeping people from getting the shots, driving an increase in cases.
In July, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared Covid misinformation a “serious public threat.”
Most unvaccinated Americans think the Covid vaccines are more of a threat to their health than...
When Americans go to a hospital or visit a doctor, they expect that the drugs they need will be on the shelf — whether to treat an infection or save a life. They can’t imagine that a hospital might tell them their cancer treatment has to be delayed for weeks because of a drug shortage, or that the safest and most effective medications for their condition simply aren’t available.
It’s not unthinkable:...
Pfizer and BioNTech announced Monday their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 among those without evidence of prior infection, hailing the development as “a great day for science and humanity.”
“I think we can see light at the end of the tunnel,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Albert Bourla told CNBC’s Meg Tirrell on “ Squawk Box .” “I...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently issued nationwide guidance allowing qualified pharmacy technicians and state-authorized pharmacy interns to administer childhood vaccines, COVID-19 vaccines, and COVID-19 tests. The new policy represents an important step forward as the country anxiously awaits a coronavirus vaccine.
The guidance comes at a time when routine childhood inoculation rates are...
Since the start of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Amy Kallo, a PharmD student at Midwestern University, worked as a pharmacy intern at a CVS in Chicago. According to Kallo, working at a pharmacy during the pandemic helped to solidify her understanding of the role of pharmacists as educators in their communities. “We are definitely the front line to educate patients,” Kallo said. Kallo explained that when she...