About this herd immunity concept . . .
You have no doubt read, or heard on the teevee, that experts are now saying we are unlikely to achieve herd immunity to the Covid-19 virus. Many people take this to be terrible news, a cause of despair, and even a reason not to bother to be vaccinated.No, no, and no. The fact is the term herd immunity was bandied about far too much, and far too irresponsibly, from the beginning. It isn ' t even a sharply definable concept, as a matter of fact. The idea is that if enough people are immune, whether from vaccination or having been infected, the virus will not find enough susceptible hosts for trains of transmission to be main...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 4, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
PROP ’s Disproportionate Influence on U.S. Opioid Policy: The Harms of Intended Consequences
ConclusionDespite being turned back from an effort to bluntly reduce opioid prescribing by the FDA in 2013 based on a lack of scientific evidence for its position (17,18), PROP has had a disproportionate effect on opioid policy in the Untied States for almost a decade. PROP found a willing federal regulatory partner in the CDC, and while PROP may not have “secretly written” the 2016 CDC Pain Guidelines (75), they certainly enjoyed disproportionate representation on CDC’s review panels and Core Expert Group (23-25) in a process that lacked transparency (22, 23, 26, 27). When the CDC admitted that its Pain Guideline ha...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - May 3, 2021 Category: Palliative Care Tags: CDC health policy kollas opioids pain prop Source Type: blogs
PROP s Disproportionate Influence on U.S. Opioid Policy: The Harms of Intended Consequences
ConclusionDespite being turned back from an effort to bluntly reduce opioid prescribing by the FDA in 2013 based on a lack of scientific evidence for its position (17,18), PROP has had a disproportionate effect on opioid policy in the Untied States for almost a decade. PROP found a willing federal regulatory partner in the CDC, and while PROP may not have secretly written the 2016 CDC Pain Guidelines (75), they certainly enjoyed disproportionate representation on CDCs review panels and Core Expert Group (23-25) in a process that lacked transparency (22, 23, 26, 27). When the CDC admitted that its Pain Guideline had been...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - May 3, 2021 Category: Palliative Care Tags: CDC health policy kollas opioids pain prop Source Type: blogs
A physician ’s personal story with opioids
I once spoke at a leadership forum on opioid abuse. I was asked to speak about the role of hospital systems in addressing this important issue. As I thought about what I would say, I realized there was very little I could add. The crisis is epidemic, and hospitals are ill-prepared to do anything proactive. […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 28, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/andy-lamb" rel="tag" > Andy Lamb, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Physician Orthopedics Source Type: blogs
Bottleneck: The Place of County Jails in California ’s COVID-19 Correctional Crisis
Hadar Aviram (UC Hastings Law), Bottleneck: The Place of County Jails in California ’s COVID-19 Correctional Crisis, Hastings J. of Crime and Punishment (2021): This Article examines a lesser-known site of the COVID-19 epidemic: county jails. Revisiting assumptions that preceded and... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - April 28, 2021 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
Ohio joins Indiana and Kentucky in funding Pear Therapeutics ’ digital addiction treatments
Ohio is third state to fund Pear’s digital therapeutics to tackle addiction (pharmaforum):
The company has been pushing for more reimbursement of its three marketed DTx products in the US following a first FDA approval in 2017.
Pear said that the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS) and RecoveryOhio are providing access to Pear’s FDA-approved DTx reSET and reSET‑O, for treatment of substance use disorder and opioid use disorders, respectively.
Funding is provided by the State Opioid Response (SOR) 2.0 grant, administered by OhioMHAS, and part of the US Department of Health and Human Serv...
Source: SharpBrains - April 26, 2021 Category: Neuroscience Authors: SharpBrains Tags: Brain/ Mental Health Technology & Innovation addiction cognitive-behavioral-therapy digital therapeutics FDA Indiana Kentucky Ohio opioid use disorder Pear Therapeutics prescription digital therapeutics reSET reSET-O substance Source Type: blogs
A New Prescription for the Opioid Epidemic: 360-Degree Accountability for Pharmaceutical Companies and Their Executives
Rebecca Delfino (Loyola Law School), A New Prescription for the Opioid Epidemic: 360-Degree Accountability for Pharmaceutical Companies and Their Executives, Loyola L. School, LA Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2021-03: We can no longer ignore this--A national crisis resulting in... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - April 26, 2021 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
Dying of loneliness: the COVID-19 epidemic in children and adolescents
We stood at the bedside. Our eyes met through plastic goggles and face shields. Wordlessly, we acknowledged a palpable shift. We three pediatric emergency physicians staffed our New York City ER that late fall day, caring for the third teen in a row echoing the same sentiments: I feel exhausted, hopeless, alone. C OVID-19 is wreaking havoc on the […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 24, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/rachel-kowalsky-mary-birmingham-and-shari-platt" rel="tag" > Rachel Kowalsky, MD, Mary Birmingham, MD and Shari Platt, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions COVID-19 coronavirus Emergency Medicine Infectious Disease Pediatrics Psychiatry Source Type: blogs
Target Vaccine to'High-Contact' People
Actively seeking out people with lots of contacts for vaccination could bring the epidemic under control much more quickly than vaccinating people at random. Vaccinating just 15% of the population would be enough to crush the epidemic—so long as it was the right 15%. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - April 9, 2021 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy R. Gulden Source Type: blogs
Misguided Opioid Narrative Takes On More Water
Jeffrey A. SingerThe seemingly unsinkable prevailing narrative that the opioid overdose crisis was caused by health care practitioners ‘hooking” their pain patients on opioids just took on more water.Researchers in the surgery departments at Case Western Reserve University, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and American University of Antigua College of Medicine expected that opioids used to manage pain in trauma patients would lead to a higher rate of injury‐related deaths—including the subcategories of suicide, homicide, and “unintentional deaths” (a leading cause of which is drug overdoses). Using sta...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 6, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
Time to Reboot “Medicare-For-All”
By MIKE MAGEE
In the fog of the Covid pandemic, many are wondering what ever happened to prior vocal support for universal coverage and Medicare-for-All. Expect those issues to regain prominence in the coming months. A bit of recent history helps explain why.
The January 6th insurrection, followed by the past weeks two mass shootings, have served to remind our citizens that we must address a range of issues while continuing to confront the pandemic threat.
Modern civilized societies rely on a double-armed approach to maintain order, peace and security. The first arm is laws. But laws are of little value without ev...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 5, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health Policy Medicare Politics Public Health Medicare For All Mike Magee Source Type: blogs
The pandemic ’s epidemic: opioid use disorder and subpar suboxone access
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated America ’s health, taking more than 500 thousand American lives, upending the economy, and perpetuating racial health disparities. It also has worsened the country’s ongoing opioid use disorder (OUD) epidemic. In fact, in the twelve-month period ending June 2020, 83 thousand Americans died of a drug overdose, the highest ever recorded in a one-year period and 21 percent higher than the previous year. This dramatic increase in overdose deaths is mostly attributable to the […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, a...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 26, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/jonathan-staloff-and-claire-simon" rel="tag" > Jonathan Staloff, MD and Claire Simon, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Meds Psychiatry Source Type: blogs
Scientificness
By way ofPharyngula, there ' s this: In case you don ' t know, Thomas R. Holtz is one of the world ' s foremost vertebrate paleontologists. And no, there ' s no such thing as the Dinosauria kingdom, dinosaurs are definitely animals, and birds are dinosaurs, just as humans are mammals. I draw your attention to this because it is an epidemic --people who think they know more about a subject than actual experts. They are following the example of their Dear Leader, which is why they can just decide that masks don ' t protect against transmission of Covid-19, that climate change is a hoax, or that ta...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 22, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Zero weight loss from zero calorie drinks? Say it ain ’t so
Are you trying to cut back on calories by making the switch from regular soda to diet soda? Do you prefer carbonated water with a bit of flavor, such as Hint or LaCroix? Or maybe you’ve purchased a carbonating device like SodaStream or Drinkmate?
Research suggests that none of these choices may actually help with weight loss. Worse, they might even lead to weight gain! The reason might surprise you. It sure surprised me.
The problem with regular sodas isn’t just the calories
If you’re drinking two 12-ounce cans of regular Coke each day, you could eliminate 280 “empty” (non-nutritive) calories by switching to a ze...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 22, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Diet and Weight Loss Health Nutrition Source Type: blogs
Five year persistence of Ebolavirus in humans
The current outbreak of Ebolavirus disease in Guinea, which began in February 2021, may have originated from a survivor of the 2013-16 outbreak in the same country. Phylogenetic analysis of genome sequences revealed that viruses from the current outbreak group with the Makona variant, which caused the 2013-16 epidemic. The new isolates are most closely […] (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - March 19, 2021 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology acute infection ebolavirus Guinea persistent infection sexual transmission viral viruses Source Type: blogs
