Архив рубрики: Здоровье Америка

If you’ve tried to schedule a doctor’s appointment recently, you might have had to flip your calendar to a different season. There simply aren’t enough physicians in the U.S.: By 2037, the deficit is expected to reach 187,130 doctors, including more than 8,000 cardiologists and 4,000 nephrologists. That means patients routinely wait a long time—an average of 38 days, according to some data—before they’re able to snag an appointment with a doctor they really need to see.

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“People are constantly trying to get in to see doctors,” says Dr. Gerda Maissel, a physician in New York’s Hudson Valley who works as a patient advocate and helps people navigate the health care system. She once worked with a man who wanted to see a specialist at a major academic center about his worsening neurological disease. After he accepted an appointment 10 months down the road, “he and his wife were just beside themselves,” she recalls. “He had a tremendous need, and the academi..

On his first day back in office, President Trump ordered a sweeping 90-day spending freeze on almost all U.S. foreign aid, initially making exceptions only for military funding to Egypt and Israel and emergency food aid. The “stop-work order” in the directive had immediate consequences for people’s health and wellbeing.

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HIV clinics around the world funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a highly successful aid program launched by George W. Bush that has saved more than 25 million lives, had to cancel appointments and turn patients away. Two-thirds of the staff of the President’s Malaria Initiative—the world’s largest funder of malaria control programs, also founded by George W. Bush—have been fired. Humanitarian assistance programs in Gaza, Sudan, and Syria that provide services like clean water and cholera treatment were halted. Oxygen supplies are no longer reaching health facilities in some low-income countries.

Fu..

Walk down your grocery aisle, and you’ll spot many foods containing ingredients you won’t find in Europe. The unusual way the U.S. regulates ingredients is in the news and the hot seat right now, thanks to the recent ban of a food additive—red dye 3, an artificial dye linked to cancer in animals—and the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). During his confirmation hearing on Jan. 30, Kennedy said that compared to Europe, the U.S. “looks at any new chemical as innocent until proven guilty.”

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“It needs to end,” he said.

Here’s what to know about some of the most controversial food additives under the microscope and why additives are regulated differently in the U.S.

Key ingredients banned in Europe but allowed in the U.S.

Titanium dioxide is used to make foods and beverages whiter and brighter. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers it safe for human consum..

On Jan. 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new drug called suzetrigine to treat moderate-to-severe pain. The prescription pills, sold under the brand name Journavx and made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, are taken twice a day and represent the first new class of pain medications in 20 years—and the first non-opioid painkiller since that class first appeared on the market in the 1980s.

While opioids are currently the most potent and effective way to control pain, they are associated with a significant risk of addiction, and have fueled an epidemic of addiction and overdose deaths in the U.S. in recent decades. From 1999 to 2017, deaths from overdose due to prescription opioids increased more than seven times, exposing a dire need for effective but nonaddictive ways to manage pain.

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Here’s what to know about suzetrigine.

How suzetrigine works

One major conduit for pain transmission in the human body is through sodium channels. Peop..

On Jan. 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new drug called suzetrigine to treat moderate-to-severe pain. The prescription pills, sold under the brand name Journavx and made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, are taken twice a day and represent the first new class of pain medications in 20 years—and the first non-opioid painkiller since that class first appeared on the market in the 1980s.

While opioids are currently the most potent and effective way to control pain, they are associated with a significant risk of addiction, and have fueled an epidemic of addiction and overdose deaths in the U.S. in recent decades. From 1999 to 2017, deaths from overdose due to prescription opioids increased more than seven times, exposing a dire need for effective but nonaddictive ways to manage pain.

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Here’s what to know about suzetrigine.

How suzetrigine works

One major conduit for pain transmission in the human body is through sodium channels. Peop..

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), doubled down on his view that ultra-processed foods and food additives are “poisoning” Americans during two days of Senate confirmation hearings this week.

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Food makers have been permitted to “mass poison American children,” Kennedy told lawmakers from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Jan. 30. “That’s wrong. It needs to end. And I believe I’m the one person who’s able to end it.”

The day before, however, while appearing before the Senate Committee on Finance, Kennedy signaled that he does not intend to take ultra-processed foods off the market, only to ensure Americans are educated about their health effects. If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which plays a key role in U.S. food policy.

Here’s what to know about ultra-processed foods, and ..

I was just starting out in pediatrics in 1998 when Andrew Wakefield published the study that would haunt my entire career in primary care. The article in The Lancet claimed that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine caused autism. The methodological flaws were readily apparent to followers of medical research: among many issues, the study involved only 12 children and was correlative—it didn’t prove causation. In short order, several larger and better conducted studies definitively countered Wakefield’s claim. Yet I spent the first ten years in primary care pediatrics discussing Wakefield’s misinformation with nearly every family before the MMR vaccine was given at a child’s 12-month visit. Painstakingly, I reviewed the issues with Wakefield’s work that were obvious to doctors—even at the time—and presented my patients with the steady accumulation of data that failed to find any association between MMR and autism.

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Then, something historic and ..

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was grilled by Democratic senators during his confirmation hearing on Jan. 29, who confronted him with conspiratorial and conflicting statements he has made about COVID-19.

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Here’s what to know about Kennedy’s positions on COVID-19, and why some experts and lawmakers are concerned about him leading the U.S.’s response to a next potential pandemic.

Kennedy’s racial and ethnic claims about COVID-19

Kennedy has held some controversial and unsubstantiated views on COVID-19 and ethnicity.

According to a 2023 video shared by the New York Post, when Kennedy was a presidential candidate, he said at a private dinner in New York City, “There is an argument that [COVID-19] is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi J..

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was grilled by Democratic senators during his confirmation hearing on Jan. 29 and Jan. 30, who confronted him with conspiratorial and conflicting statements he has made about COVID-19.

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Attempting to understand how Kennedy would square his past questioning of the safety of vaccines, Sen. Bernie Sanders asked him if he believed that the COVID-19 vaccine was successful in saving millions of lives.

“I don’t know,” Kennedy said. “We don’t have a good surveillance system.”

In reality, both the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have several systems to collect and track side effects and adverse events of vaccines. And many studies have consistently shown that COVID-19 vaccines dramatically reduce people’s risk of hospitalization and death from the disease.

Here’s what to know about Kennedy’s p..

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, speaks with a raspy quiver in his voice. That’s because he has spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological condition that causes the muscles affecting the vocal cords to spasm.

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Kennedy has previously spoken about the way the condition affects his life. He “can’t stand” his voice, he told the Los Angeles Times last year. “I feel sorry for the people who have to listen to me,” he said in a phone interview with the outlet. “My voice doesn’t really get tired. It just sounds terrible. But the injury is neurological, so actually the more I use the voice the stronger it tends to get.”

Here’s what to know about how common spasmodic dysphonia is, what causes it, and how it’s treated.

What is spasmodic dysphonia?

Spasmodic dysphonia (SD) is a rare disorder that causes involuntary movements of the voice box, says Saul Frankford, an assistant professor in t..