Whistleblower Doctor Who Exposed China ’ s Rural AIDS Epidemic Dies at 95
Renowned Chinese doctor and activist Gao Yaojie who exposed the AIDS virus epidemic in rural China in the 1990s died Sunday at the age of 95 at her home in the United States.
Gao’s outspokenness about the virus outbreak — which some gauged to have infected tens of thousands — embarrassed the Chinese government and drove her to live in self-exile for over a decade in Manhattan, New York.
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Columbia University professor Andrew J. Nathan, an expert in Chinese politics who had Gao’s legal power of attorney and managed some of her affairs, confirmed her d...
Source: TIME: Health - December 11, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Simina Mistreanu / AP Tags: Uncategorized China Source Type: news
The White House ’ s Latest Move to Rein in Drug Prices
Each year, the U.S. government spends over $100 billion investing in the research and development of new technologies, with pharmaceutical companies being among the chief beneficiaries of this research. These public-private partnerships have led to some of the most important pharmaceutical developments of our time, including the COVID-19 vaccine.
But with that partnership, however, there comes a catch. According to the Bayh–Dole Act, if a business organization takes funding from the federal government in order to develop a new product, the U.S. government has the right to “march in” and control w...
Source: TIME: Health - December 8, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Anna Gordon Tags: Uncategorized Joe Biden Source Type: news
FDA Approves First CRISPR Treatment in U.S.
It was only 11 years ago that scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier first described a new way to edit genes, called CRISPR, in a scientific paper. The discovery is so game-changing that the pair earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for how it could transform the way genetic diseases are treated. Now, on Dec. 8, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the very first treatment in the country based on the technology.
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In the medical world, that’s lightning speed. “It’s incredible,” says Doudna, professor of chemistry a...
Source: TIME: Health - December 8, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
White House Delays Menthol Cigarette Ban, Alarming Anti-Smoking Advocates
WASHINGTON — White House officials will take more time to review a sweeping plan from U.S. health regulators to ban menthol cigarettes, an unexpected delay that anti-tobacco groups fear could scuttle the long-awaited rule.
Administration officials indicated Wednesday the process will continue into next year, targeting March to implement the rule, according to an updated regulatory agenda posted online. Previously, the rule was widely expected to be published in late 2023 or early January.
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The Food and Drug Administration has spent years developing the plan to elimin...
Source: TIME: Health - December 7, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Matthew Perrone/AP Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate wire Source Type: news
Getting Sick All the Time? Don ’ t (Necessarily) Blame COVID-19
Respiratory disease season is in full swing, with influenza, RSV, and COVID-19 case counts rising in various parts of the U.S. Hospitals in some states are also reporting upticks in pediatric pneumonia diagnoses, which experts say seems to be unrelated to the recent spike of pneumonias reported in China.
On the heels of last year’s severe flu and RSV reason, all this contagion has some people wondering if SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may be to blame. Some studies suggest the virus leaves its mark on the immune system even after an acute illness passes, raising an important question: does having COVI...
Source: TIME: Health - December 7, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jamie Ducharme Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
The Updated COVID-19 Shot Works on the Newest Variants
Every COVID-19 vaccine is a step behind the virus. In the time it takes companies to make the shot, SARS-CoV-2 is already busy mutating into different versions that can evade the immune response produced by it.
But even though the latest vaccine targets XBB.1.5, a variant no longer dominant in the U.S., it seems to be doing a decent job at warding off some of the emerging variants. In a study published on the preprint server bioRxiv, scientists led by Dr. David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University, report that the vaccine can generate strong antibodies that can neutralize not jus...
Source: TIME: Health - December 7, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
Panera Bread Faces Second Wrongful Death Lawsuit Over Caffeinated ‘ Charged Lemonade ’
Panera Bread is confronting a second wrongful death lawsuit after a customer allegedly died from consuming its popular caffeinated “charged lemonade” beverage. The lawsuit, filed on Monday, details the death of Dennis Brown, a 46-year-old Florida man who passed away in October after consuming three servings of the drink.
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According to the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Brown’s family in Superior Court in Delaware, Brown suffered a “cardiac event” while walking home from a Panera Bread in Fleming Island, Fla. on Oct. 9. The lawsuit alleges that P...
Source: TIME: Health - December 6, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Nik Popli Tags: Uncategorized News Desk Source Type: news
How to Get Free Flu and COVID-19 Tests and Treatments
As we head into winter, health experts expect that cases of flu and COVID-19 will start to creep up. One piece of good news: if you do get sick, there’s a way to get tests and treatments for both—without paying a cent.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have teamed up with digital health company eMed to create an at-home test-to-treat program that offers free tests for both flu and COVID-19, and, if you are positive, free telehealth visits and antiviral treatments that are sent to your home.
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Source: TIME: Health - December 6, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
Suicides Don ’t Actually Spike in Winter
There’s a long-enduring idea in the media that suicide rates peak in the winter months, when days get darker earlier, stress levels seem to rise, and the so-called “holiday blues” set in. The sentiment is so prevalent that 40% of stories published by news organizations about suicide during the 2022-2023 holiday season made this claim.
There’s just one problem with these stories: no such seasonal trend exists in actual suicide data. In fact, December often sees a lull in suicide numbers worldwide.
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Dan Romer, a research director at Annenberg Public...
Source: TIME: Health - December 5, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Haley Weiss Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
Hospitals Should Be Redesigned to Improve Care
Hospitals are such important places in our lives. It’s where we are born, where we go for help when we’re not well, and where we turn to when cancer, a heart attack, or major injury leaves us hanging by a thread. It’s also where our loved ones spend their time anxiously waiting for us to get better, to hear good or bad news.
So then, why are hospitals such miserable places?
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Most hospitals are so poorly designed, you feel their negative effects the moment you walk through the front door. The unintuitive layout immediately disorients you. The stark, cold l...
Source: TIME: Health - December 5, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Danish Kurani Tags: Uncategorized freelance Health Care Source Type: news
23andMe Hack Breaches 6.9 Million Users ’ Info, Including Some’s Health Data
Some 6.9 million 23andMe customers had their data compromised after an anonymous hacker accessed user profiles and posted them for sale on the internet earlier this year, the company said on Monday.
The compromised data included users’ ancestry information as well as, for some users, health-related information based on their genetic profiles, the company said in an email.
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Privacy advocates have long warned that sharing DNA with testing companies like 23andMe and Ancestry makes consumers vulnerable to the exposure of sensitive genetic ...
Source: TIME: Health - December 5, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Kristen V. Brown / Bloomberg Tags: Uncategorized News Desk wire Source Type: news
What Pigs and Squirrels Can Teach Us About Managing Pain
Over the past several decades, there have been many supporting studies of the health-promoting effects of an optimistic personality. Much research has been done on the connection between a high level of optimism and good health, described well in clinical psychologists Burel R. Goodin and Hailey W. Bulls’ 2014 research paper, appropriately titled, “Optimism and the Experience of Pain: Benefits of Seeing the Glass as Half Full.” The authors state that optimism “is linked to both enhanced physiological recovery and psychosocial adjustment to coronary artery bypass surgery, bone marrow transplant, post...
Source: TIME: Health - December 4, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Dr. David B. Agus Tags: Uncategorized Books freelance Source Type: news
Most Americans Are Quitting Smoking —Except For Those Over 65
An endless supply of trendy takes in recent years claim that among young adults, smoking is cool again. But though they may be hanging from the lips of major influencers and starlets, cigarettes have far more fans in an older demographic, according to new data on adult smoking behaviors in the United States. From 2011 to 2022, the prevalence of smoking habits decreased in every age bracket except one: the 65-and-up crowd.
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Public health campaigns and programs outlining the dangers of smoking aren’t really aimed at older adults, says Rafael Meza, an integrative onc...
Source: TIME: Health - December 1, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Haley Weiss Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
Biden Calls for Replacement of All Lead Pipes Within 10 Years
Most U.S. cities would have to replace lead water pipes within 10 years under strict new rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency as the Biden administration moves to reduce lead in drinking water and prevent public health crises like the ones in Flint, Michigan and Washington, D.C.
Millions of people consume drinking water from lead pipes and the agency said tighter standards would improve IQ scores in children and reduce high blood pressure and heart disease in adults. It is the strongest overhaul of lead rules in more than three decades, and will cost billions of dollars. Pulling it off will re...
Source: TIME: Health - December 1, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: MICHAEL PHILLIS and MATTHEW DALY / AP Tags: Uncategorized wire Source Type: news
Why ‘ Healthspan ’ May Be More Important Than Lifespan
In 2014, then-57-year-old bioethicist Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel wrote an infamous essay titled, “Why I Hope to Die at 75” for The Atlantic. His argument boiled down to this: it’s not worth living as long as humanly possible if those efforts yield extra decades defined by disease and poor health, which data suggest is the fate awaiting many people in the U.S.
Nearly a decade later, neither Emanuel’s mind nor the statistics have changed much. Emanuel still says he plans to stop most life-extending medical care once he reaches age 75, though he’s healthy enough that he expects to live longer natural...
Source: TIME: Health - November 30, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jamie Ducharme Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
