It’s been an extraordinary week in America, as anger, pain and heartbreak have swept across the country over the killing of yet another black man at the hands of police. The protests, unrest, outrage and fear have been impossible to ignore, and they come amid a pandemic that had already turned life upside down for…… MORE
The federal government’s “Operation Warp Speed” vaccine program, with its emphasis on quick production and testing of experimental coronavirus vaccines, is fueling fears already stirred up by vaccine skeptics, two experts said Friday. The approach itself is not unreasonable, said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and professor of pediatrics…… MORE
Covid-19 isn’t the only health crisis threatening our nation right now. CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks to epidemiologist Dr. Camara Jones about the serious impact of racism on public health. Jones is senior fellow at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute and the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine. She…… MORE
Researchers in the United Kingdom have put an abrupt stop to an arm of their Covid-19 trial that involves the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine. The Recovery trial, a large UK-based trial investigating potential coronavirus treatments, has stopped including hydroxychloroquine in its study due to there being “no evidence of benefit,” researchers announced on Friday. Other arms…… MORE
Americans are putting their health at risk while trying to protect it. About a third of Americans surveyed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have used some kind of risky cleaning practice to stop the spread of Covid-19, the CDC said on Friday. People have put bleach their food. Others have gargled…… MORE
Practice social distancing, wear a mask, wash your hands (for at least 20 seconds) — the recommendations to prevent coronavirus are a familiar refrain to most Americans. There’s little guidance, though, when it comes to sex in the age of Covid-19. So three Harvard physicians examined the likelihood of coronavirus infection in a number of…… MORE
A group of health and medical colleagues has penned an open letter to express their concern that protests around the United States could be shut down under the guise of coronavirus health concerns. The letter — which went on to draw more than 1,200 signatures — focuses on techniques to reduce harm to people protesting…… MORE
In a little over a week, Americans have gone from taking their first hesitant steps outside again to marching in tightly packed crowds in cities all over the country. Any uncertainty about venturing out during the coronavirus pandemic has been seemingly put aside by many to protest police brutality after watching video of George Floyd…… MORE
Coronavirus patients with high blood pressure have twice the risk of dying from the infection, an international study has found. High blood pressure has been known to worsen the risk of serious symptoms, but the study, published Thursday in the European Heart Journal, shows just how bad the risk is. The international team of researchers,…… MORE
Racism is a health problem “that takes a toll on people of color and contributes to the development of other chronic diseases,” according to doctors studying health inequities. Structural racism causes emotional and mental harm, said Dr. Aletha Maybank during a panel discussion Thursday sponsored by the American Medical Association. Maybank is the association’s chief…… MORE
A lot of terms were used to describe the man that opened fire on Republicans members of Congress at their baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia on Wednesday. “Bernie Sanders supporter”, “left wing extremist”, “disturbed”, and “troubled” were the most common used by those investigating the matter, those who were among the targets and those who…
Usually us curmudgeons like to go on and on about how sports, music and movies were better in “our day”. I think that you can add Congressional hearings to that list as well. That’s what I was thinking during both the James Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions testimony the last couple of weeks. While…
While James Comey was sucking up all the oxygen in the room, there was a pretty major science announcement last week. It turns out that the human species might be much older than we originally thought. Fossils found in Morocco place our earliest ancestors on the planet as far back as 350-thousand years ago. Until…
Welcome to US Open week here in Wisconsin. Many of you will be venturing down to Erin (or Hartford or Richfield–I’ve seen all three used to describe the location of the course in stories) for practice rounds the next three days–or for the competitive rounds Thursday through Sunday (and possibly Monday–more on that later). Here…