Leana Wen Discusses Patients’ Different Priorities, Bad COVID Policies
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Leana Wen, MD, MSc, has been one of public health’s most vocal advocates, offering smart analysis and calling out problems with the federal response. One of the most significant contributors to U.S. pandemic failures, she said, has been the prolonged devaluing of public health. That’s part of the reason Wen set […]
Neuroscientists posit that brain region is a key locus of learning
Small and seemingly specialized, the brain’s locus coeruleus (LC) region has been stereotyped for its outsized export of the arousal-stimulating neuromodulator norepinephrine. In a new paper and with a new grant from the National Institutes of Health, an MIT neuroscience lab is making the case that the LC is not just an alarm button but […]
What’s This About Delta Being 1,000 Times More Infectious?
You’ve been hearing it a lot lately: the Delta variant is 1,000 times more infectious than the original version of SARS-CoV-2. So where does that figure come from? It’s from a study by the Guangdong CDC in China — published earlier this month as a preprint on both medRxiv and virological.org — that experts are […]
Naked With Other Doctors
I am sitting in hot springs deep in the dark and crisp air woods — naked. It has been a day of lectures and workshops at a retreat with my fellow physicians. We are all naked in the effervescent, warm bubbles of the springs. In the dark, I can recognize who people are by the […]
Private Equity Is Ruining American Healthcare
For-profit insurance companies have long been regarded as the ultimate offenders in medical profiteering. However, they distract from the unscrupulous involvement of private equity (PE) in medicine, a similarly culpable and even more insidious economic titan. PE is a unique, unregulated investment platform with the objective of aggressively generating short-term revenue for the firm and […]
H5N6 Bird Flu Infection Hits China – MedicineNet Health News
Latest Infectious Disease News FRIDAY, July 16, 2021 A man in China has been hospitalized with the H5N6 strain of avian flu, which is one of several potentially dangerous strains that can infect humans. The 55-year-old man came down with a fever and tested positive for the virus on July 6. He was […]
I’m Bipolar. Like Britney Spears, I Deserve To Control My Life.
On June 23, singer Britney Spears testified to the nightmare she’s been living since 2008, the year her father, Jamie, was appointed her conservator. Even the “Free Britney” movement couldn’t have imagined the details of her testimony: forced to take a drug that made her feel “drunk”; touring against her will; unable to remove the […]
Doctors Go Unpaid for a Month of Work
About 10 emergency physicians still haven’t been paid for the shifts they worked in April at two hospitals in New Hampshire, staffing firm owners told MedPage Today. They’re owed nearly $140,000 for hours worked at Lakes Region General Hospital and Franklin Regional Hospital — part of the former LRGHealthcare, which went bankrupt and was bought […]
Listeria Outbreak Linked to Precooked Chicken – MedicineNet Health News
Latest Infectious Disease News TUESDAY, July 6, 2021 One death has been reported in a listeria outbreak that appears to be linked to precooked chicken served in health care facilities, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. Three people in Texas and Delaware became sick after they ate foods at a […]
Q&A: Are We Doing Enough to Prevent Suicides in Healthcare Workers?
Tyler Black, MD, has been treating kids in crisis as a child and adolescent psychiatrist in emergency department and short-stay inpatient care for the past 12 years and has been researching suicide for about 15 years. He’s a clinical assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and […]