"How Coronavirus Cases Have Risen Since States Reopened" in The New York Times July 9 claimed, "Florida and South Carolina were among the first to open up and are now among the states leading the current surge. In contrast, the states that bore the brunt of cases in March and April but were slower to reopen have … Continue reading Are Surging State COVID-19 Cases Due to Early Reopening?
Category: Health Care
Bodies are arriving at Anahi Ortiz’s office faster than he can process them. “We’ve literally run out of wheeled carts to put them on,” Ortiz, a coroner in Columbus, Ohio, recently told the Washington Post. The cause of death isn’t the coronavirus, however. It’s drug overdoses. Ortiz says sometimes his office will get as many … Continue reading Another Deadly Cost of COVID-19 Lockdowns: “A Hidden Epidemic” of Drug Overdoses
Last October, California expanded the scope of practice of pharmacists to allow them to prescribe HIV pre‐exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post‐exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to people at risk. Similar legislation is currently being considered by the New York state legislature. I have argued here that the Food and Drug Administration should reclassify PrEP and PEP as over the counter. While allowing pharmacists … Continue reading FDA Should Help Defeat Another Viral Epidemic—HIV—By Reclassifying PrEP And PEP Over The Counter
Americans’ mental and emotional health can’t be ignored in the fight against COVID-19. Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services for mental health and substance use, joins the show to explain the physiological effects of extended isolation. McCance-Katz is both an epidemiologist and a psychiatrist. That enables her to have a … Continue reading How Extended COVID-19 Lockdowns Pose a Serious Threat to Mental Health
In recent months, even as our attention has been focused on the coronavirus outbreak, there have been a slew of scientific breakthroughs in treating diseases that cause blindness. Researchers at U.S.-based Editas Medicine and Ireland-based Allergan have administered CRISPR for the first time to a person with a genetic disease. This landmark treatment uses the … Continue reading Gene therapy and CRISPR strategies for curing blindness (Yes, you read that right)
Researchers in the U.K report that the inexpensive and commonly‐used steroid dexamethasone reduced the fatality rate of COVID-19 patients on ventilators by 30 percent. This wonderful news makes a lot of sense to health care practitioners. As we learn more about the workings of the novel coronavirus we now understand that many of the most critical cases … Continue reading Another Lesson in Politics, Central Planning, and the Practice of Medicine
In an editorial last week, the Los Angeles Times declared it conventional wisdom that COVID-19 proves Bernie Sanders was right about “Medicare for All,” because with universal health coverage, the government wouldn’t have to send emergency aid to “hospitals and state health programs.” This assertion is completely false, however, and we know because billions in … Continue reading Canada’s Government-Run Health Care System Crumbled under COVID-19
Will government-controlled national health insurance increase Americans’ life expectancy? Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and some of his colleagues in the House of Representatives often claim that “Medicare for All” legislation will improve American longevity and reduce American health care costs. According to a comprehensive 2018 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the United States has … Continue reading Government-Controlled Health Care Won’t Help Us Live Longer
Fidel Castro, the dictator who ruled Cuba with an iron fist for almost six decades, has been dead for more than three years now. Unfortunately, his regime didn’t die alongside him. The Caribbean’s largest island is still under the burdensome yoke of communism. Since Castro took over in 1959, Castroism has been characterized by the … Continue reading How Cuba’s Dictatorship Hides its Dead Children
As new cases of COVID-19 continue to be diagnosed in the US and abroad, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday announced the state is prepared to introduce its own brand of hand sanitizer, free of charge, called NYS Clean hand sanitizer. At the press conference unveiling the brand, Cuomo remarked, “This is a superior … Continue reading Why New York’s Hand Sanitizer Stunt Won’t Work
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