CDC’s new guidance for treating COVID-19 long-haulers warns against relying on labs, imaging results alone
By Dave Muoio
FierceHealthcare.com—The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new interim guidance late Monday for healthcare providers treating patients with post-COVID conditions—an umbrella term the agency is using to capture a wide range of physical and mental health issues that sometimes persist four or more weeks after an individual’s COVID-19 infection.
Sometimes referred to as “long COVID”, the conditions can present among COVID-19 patients regardless of whether they were symptomatic during their acute infection, the agency wrote in the guidance.
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A surprising pandemic side effect: People are more engaged with their health
By Shantanu Nundy and Felicia Hsu
StatNews.com—About a month ago, one of our patients, a man in his mid-40s, came to the clinic for an in-person visit for the first time in more than 12 months. For the past few years, he’s struggled with sky-high blood pressure and always seemed to be teetering on the edge of the major stroke.
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Mayo Clinic, nference AI analysis finds no real-world link among COVID-19 vaccines and brain blood clots
By Andrea Park
FierceBiotech.com—After a strong start to the U.S. vaccination campaign, the rate of daily shots has significantly slowed in recent weeks—despite nationwide offers of free beers, doughnuts and million-dollar lottery checks as inoculation incentives.
The plateau is largely driven by lingering uncertainty about the long-term effects of the three available COVID-19 vaccines, from Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.
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Device Makers Have Funneled Billions to Orthopedic Surgeons Who Use Their Products
By Fred Schulte and Elizabeth Lucas
KHN.org—Dr. Kingsley R. Chin was little more than a decade out of Harvard Medical School when sales of his spine surgical implants took off.
Whin has patented more than 40 pieces of such hardware, including doughnut shaped plastic cages, titanium screws and other products used to repair spines—generating $100 million for his company SpineFrontier, according to government officials.
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How Healthy Are the New Plant-Based ‘Fake Meats’??
By Steven Reinberg HealthDay reporter
USNews.com—More and more Americans are seeking out healthier, greener and more ethical alternatives to meat, but are plant-based alternatives like the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat truly nutritious substitutes?
The answer is yes, according to new research funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
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For Those Facing Alzheimer’s, A Controversial Drug Offers Hope
By Jon Hamilton
NPR.org—Soon after Phillip Lynn got married in 2014, he began to forget things. He’d repeat himself.
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Hundreds of vaccinated Indonesian health workers get COVID-19, dozens in hospital
By Stanley Widianto, Kate Lamb
Reuters.com—More than 350 doctors and medical workers have caught COVID-19 in Indonesia despite being vaccinated with Sinovac and dozens have been hospitalized, officials said, as concerns grow about the efficacy of some vaccines against more infectious variants.
More of the workers were asymptomatic and self-isolating at home, said Badai Ismoyo, head of the health office in the district of Kudus in central Java, but dozens were in hospital with high fevers and falling oxygen-saturation levels.
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Supreme Court upholds Obamacare health care law, rejecting GOP challenge
By Devin Dwyer
CNN.com—The Supreme Court on Thursday, in long-anticipated decision, rejected a challenge to the Affordable Care Act in a case involving whether the individual mandate can be severed from the rest of the law—or whether the whole law must be struck down.
The court ruled 7-2, with Justice Stephen Breyer writing for the majority, striking down a lower court ruling, saying the plaintiffs—Texas and 17 other GOP-led states—did not have standing to sue.
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