TUESDAY, Sept. 21, 2021 (HealthDay News) — As the highly contagious Delta variant has swept across the United States, the country has reached a tragic milestone. COVID-19 has now killed more Americans than the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic did, when roughly 675,000 people died. It didn’t have to be thatContinue Reading
TUESDAY, Sept. 21, 2021 (HealthDay News) — An animal tranquilizer, xylazine, is increasingly linked to drug overdose deaths across the United States, health officials say. According to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, xylazine has turned up in overdose deaths in 25 of 38Continue Reading
MONDAY, Sept. 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) — New research offers good news for women with an aggressive HER2-positive breast cancer. A targeted therapy, trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd), sold as Enhertu, triples the length of time that the cancer remains in check when compared with the current gold standard, trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1).Continue Reading
MONDAY, Sept. 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Starting in November, the United States plans to lift travel restrictions on people coming from overseas who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. This move by the Biden administration will open the United States to relatives separated from families as well as business travelers.Continue Reading
MONDAY, Sept. 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Pregnant women infected with certain strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) may have a heightened risk of preterm birth, a new study suggests. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that can cause genital warts. Most of the time, the immune system clears the infection.Continue Reading
MONDAY, Sept. 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) — A smaller dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine safely triggers a strong immune response in children as young as 5, the company announced Monday morning. “Over the past nine months, hundreds of millions of people ages 12 and older from around the world haveContinue Reading
MONDAY, Sept. 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) — If a person is diagnosed with COVID-19 in the United States right now, it’s almost certainly caused by the Delta variant. The highly transmissible variant, which caused crippling surges in India and Britain this past spring and fueled case spikes in the UnitedContinue Reading
MONDAY, Sept. 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) – If Americans who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccines are dismayed by the lack of information on booster shots for them, their wait should end soon. Data on booster shots for those vaccines is only a few weeks away fromContinue Reading
MONDAY, Sept. 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) — A study of millions of people vaccinated against COVID-19 has identified those at greatest risk of hospitalization and death after breakthrough infection. The most vulnerable are those who are immunosuppressed from chemotherapy, a recent bone marrow or solid organ transplant, or HIV/AIDS. AlsoContinue Reading
MONDAY, Sept. 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Hospitalized opioid addicts die at a rate similar to people who have a heart attack after leaving the hospital. Nearly 8% of patients addicted to opioids died within 12 months of hospital discharge, according to researchers from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).Continue Reading
FRIDAY, Sept. 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) — An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday recommended a third Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine booster shot for all Americans aged 65 or older, as well as for those deemed to be at high risk for severe illness. According toContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Sept. 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Pfizer is expanding the recall of its anti-smoking drug Chantix (varenicline), the company announced Friday. The nationwide recall of all Chantix 0.5 mg and 1 mg tablets was prompted because they may contain levels of a nitrosamine, N-nitroso-varenicline, that are at or aboveContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Sept. 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) — In kids and teens, symptoms of long COVID rarely last more than 12 weeks, a new international study reports. The researchers also found that exposure to the highly contagious Delta variant did not result in more serious disease in children compared to earlierContinue Reading
FRIDAY, Sept. 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) — U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisors will meet Friday to consider whether it is safe and effective for Americans to receive a third “booster” dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The FDA posted the materials it intends to use in the review onContinue Reading