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Democrats eye Medicare negotiations to lower drug prices

Democrats, newly in control of Congress and the White House, are united behind an idea that Republican lawmakers and major drugmakers fiercely oppose: empowering the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate the prices of brand-name drugs covered by Medicare.

23 Mar 2021

Inherited behaviors, traits that appear during adolescence may be related to adult cannabis use

While some youth experiment with marijuana but don't go on to long-term use, others develop a problematic pot habit that continues into adulthood.

22 Mar 2021

In America, Covid vaccine eligibility is a ‘crazy quilt’ of state rules

In North Carolina, the nation's leading tobacco producer, any adult who has smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime can now be vaccinated against Covid.

22 Mar 2021

Researchers investigate the effect of COVID-19 vaccines on residents of long-term care homes

Long-term care homes have been at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, with 70 percent of COVID-19 deaths having occurred in long-term care or nursing homes.

19 Mar 2021

High obesity rates in Southern states magnify Covid threat

In January, as Mississippi health officials planned for their incoming shipments of covid-19 vaccine, they assessed the state's most vulnerable: health care workers, of course, and elderly people in nursing homes.

11 Mar 2021

California’s vaccine appointment website has glitches. No surprise?

California rolled out a statewide covid vaccination website this week aiming to streamline the appointment process after months of criticism, but the site is riddled with its own snags, preventing many from signing up for shots.

5 Mar 2021

Reopening of long-term care facilities is ‘an absolute necessity for our well-being’

For nearly a year, nursing homes and assisted living centers have been mostly closed to visitors. Now, it's time for them to open back up and relieve residents of crushing isolation, according to a growing chorus of long-term care experts, caregivers, consumer groups and physicians.

4 Mar 2021

Readers and tweeters dispense timely advice for difficult times

Your body’s immune system has produced antibodies that will kill a few thousand kinds of germs and virus. Since you are alive, the chances are quite high you will survive its producing another. Here is how the system works.

2 Mar 2021

Low satisfaction with care access makes Medicare Advantage enrollees to switch to traditional one

More than one out of every 10 seniors (10.5%) enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, also known as a Medicare managed care option, and living in a rural area, switched to traditional Medicare during 2010-2016.

2 Mar 2021

Connecticut is doling out vaccines based strictly on age. It’s simpler, but is it fair?

With Covid vaccines expected to remain scarce into early spring, Connecticut has scrapped its complicated plans to prioritize immunizations for people under 65 with certain chronic conditions and front-line workers. Instead, the state will primarily base eligibility on age.

1 Mar 2021

Researchers are developing 3D structural-sensing robots to handle healthcare tasks

Robots that could take on basic healthcare tasks to support the work of doctors and nurses may be the way of the future. Who knows, maybe a medical robot can prescribe your medicine someday? That's the idea behind 3D structural-sensing robots being developed and tested at Simon Fraser University by Woo Soo Kim, associate professor in the School of Mechatronic Systems Engineering.

27 Feb 2021

Inhalable nanobody shows potent anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity in vivo

Researchers have developed a stable and ultrapotent homotrimeric Pittsburgh inhalable Nanobody 21 (PiN-21) against SARS-CoV-2 infection in Syrian hamsters. They demonstrated the high therapeutic efficacy of this homotrimeric Nb, leveraging both intranasal and aerosol delivery.

26 Feb 2021

Companies pan for marketing gold in vaccines

For a decade, Jennifer Crow has taken care of her elderly parents, who have multiple sclerosis. After her father had a stroke in December, the family got serious in its conversations with a retirement community — and learned that one service it offered was covid-19 vaccination.

19 Feb 2021

Vaccines go mobile to keep seniors from slipping through the cracks

A mobile "strike team" is bringing vaccines to some of Northern California’s most vulnerable residents along with a message: This is how you avoid dying from covid-19.

16 Feb 2021

Vaccine equity is ‘North Star,’ feds say, and clinics are key to fair distribution

Mary Barnett is one of about a dozen seniors who got a covid vaccine on a recent morning at Neighborhood Health, a clinic tucked in a sprawling public housing development on the south side of downtown Nashville, Tennessee.

11 Feb 2021

Scalise’s claim that unauthorized immigrants are getting priority for vaccination misses the point

During a Feb. 2 interview on Fox News, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) claimed President Joe Biden was allowing unauthorized immigrants to move ahead of American citizens to get their covid-19 vaccines.

9 Feb 2021

The state of vaccine supply: ‘Opaque.’ Unpredictable. ‘Hard to pin down.’

Even as the pace of vaccination against covid-19 has steadily accelerated — hitting an average of 1.3 million doses a day in the last days of January — the frustration felt by many of those unable to secure an appointment hasn't waned.

5 Feb 2021

Study: Black people are less likely to live near hospitals that administer COVID-19 vaccines

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy and West Health Policy Center found that in many parts of the country, Black people are less likely than white people to live near a pharmacy, clinic, hospital or health center that can administer COVID-19 vaccines.

5 Feb 2021

Head-scratching over Newsom’s choice of Blue Shield to lead vaccination push

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, struggling to salvage a once-bright political future dimmed by his mishandling of the covid crisis, tapped nonprofit health insurer Blue Shield of California last week to allocate the state's covid vaccine.

1 Feb 2021

How a bounty of vaccines flooded a small hospital and its nearby college

When administrators at Hillsdale College, a conservative liberal-arts school in Michigan, heard its local hospital didn't have a way to store the Pfizer-BioNTech covid vaccine, they offered the use of its science department's ultra-low temperature freezer. The vaccine must be stored at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit.