Diabetes Drug’s New Weight Loss Formula Fuels Cost-Benefit Debate
The long list of side effects that follow ads for the newer expensive drugs to treat Type 2 diabetes sometimes include an unusual warning: They might cause weight loss. That side effect is one that many people — especially those with Type 2 diabetes, which is associated with obesity — may desperately want. So it’s […]
Facing Recall, Newsom Draws Support From Health Care Allies
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Californians upset with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pandemic rules — which shuttered businesses, kept schoolkids at home and mandated masks — helped fuel the September recall election that could spell the end of his political career. But among the allies rushing to Newsom’s defense are doctors, nurses, dentists and other health care interests […]
Claims That CDC’s PCR Test Can’t Tell Covid From Flu Are Wrong
“CDC has just announced they will revoke the emergency use authorization of the RT-PCR tests first introduced in 2/20. … Translation: They’ve been adding flu cases to Covid cases when using that test.” Facebook post, July 25, 2021 Posts circulating on Facebook and Instagram claim the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop using […]
Olympic Dream Dashed After Bike Crash and Nightmare Medical Bill Over $200K
It was a race in Pennsylvania that could have sent cyclist Phil Gaimon to the Tokyo Olympics; instead, a serious crash landed the Californian in two hospitals on the East Coast. Gaimon knows accidents are, unfortunately, part of the sport. He had retired from competitive road cycling three years earlier, but a recruiting call came […]
Pfizer Court Fight Could Legalize Medicare Copays and Unleash ‘Gold Rush’ in Sales
Three years ago, pharma giant Pfizer paid $24 million to settle federal allegations that it was paying kickbacks and inflating sales by reimbursing Medicare patients for out-of-pocket medication costs. By making prohibitively expensive medicine essentially free for patients, the company induced them to use Pfizer drugs even as the price of one of those medicines, […]
Covid Renews Interest in Radiation, but Docs Caution Against Pilgrimages to Radon-Filled Mines
BOULDER, Mont. — Twice a year, Brian Tichenor makes the 1,200-mile drive each way from his home in Kansas to a defunct uranium mine in Montana, where he takes an elevator 85 feet below the surface to sit amid radioactive radon gas to ease the pain from his chronic eye condition. “I found it like […]
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Hot Covid Summer
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on PRX. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Predictions of a “hot vax summer” that would let Americans who had their covid immunizations celebrate the waning of the pandemic are turning out to have been […]
Women Say California Insurer Makes It Too Hard to Get Drug for Postpartum Depression
When Miriam McDonald decided she wanted to have another baby at age 44, her doctor told her she had a better chance of winning the lottery. So when she got pregnant right away, she and her husband were thrilled. But within three days of giving birth to their son, in September 2019, everything shifted. “I […]
Las misteriosas mutaciones que hacen de delta la variante del virus de covid más contagiosa hasta ahora
A primera vista, las mutaciones de la variante delta de covid, altamente contagiosa, no parecen tan preocupantes. Para empezar, delta tiene menos cambios genéticos que las versiones anteriores del coronavirus. “Cuando se supo que la epidemia en la India estaba impulsada por delta, nadie imaginó que sería tan mala o que superaría a otras variantes”, […]
Unraveling the Mysterious Mutations That Make Delta the Most Transmissible Covid Virus Yet
Upon first inspection, the mutations in the highly contagious delta covid variant don’t look that worrisome. For starters, delta has fewer genetic changes than earlier versions of the coronavirus. “When people saw that the epidemic in India was driven by delta, they did not suspect it would be so bad or overtake other variants,” said […]