LONDON — U.K. health officials on Monday urged millions of parents to book their children for missed measles, mumps and rubella shots during a sharp increase in the number of measles cases and the lowest vaccination rates in a decade. The National Health Service is launching a publicity campaign after figures showed there were about … Read more
Cameroon will be the first country to routinely give children a new malaria vaccine as the shots are rolled out in Africa. The campaign due to start Monday was described by officials as a milestone in the decades-long effort to curb the mosquito-spread disease on the continent, which accounts for 95% of the world’s malaria … Read more
NEW YORK — Wastewater testing does a good job at detecting mpox infections, U.S. health officials said in a report Thursday that bolsters a push to use sewage to track more diseases. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers found that over the course of a week, there was a 32% likelihood the tests … Read more
NEW YORK — A New York midwife who gave nearly 1,500 children homeopathic pellets instead of required vaccinations has been fined $300,000, the state’s health department announced this week. Jeanette Breen, who operates Baldwin Midwifery on Long Island, administered the pellets as an alternative to vaccinations and then falsified their immunization records, the agency said … Read more
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Pleas from transgender children’s pediatricians and parents to keep allowing such kids to receive hormone therapies failed to stop Republican lawmakers from advancing a ban on those treatments to the South Carolina House floor on Wednesday. The GOP-led Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee voted to advance the bill within the … Read more
A preliminary review of side effects from popular drugs used to treat diabetes and obesity shows no link with suicidal thoughts or actions, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday. But the agency also said officials cannot definitively rule out that “a small risk may exist” and that they’ll continue to look into reports … Read more
Prescriptions for ADHD treatments surged among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to fuel lingering shortages that frustrate parents and doctors. New prescriptions for stimulants used to treat the condition jumped for young adults and women during a two-year window after the pandemic hit in March 2020, according to a study published Wednesday in JAMA … Read more
People taking the popular diabetes and obesity drugs Ozempic and Wegovy had a lower risk of suicidal thoughts than those taking other medications to treat the same conditions, a new federal study finds. The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was published Friday and comes as European and U.S. regulators look into anecdotal … Read more
Eli Lilly has launched a unique website to connect U.S. patients seeking obesity treatment to doctors, dieticians and its new weight-loss drug, Zepbound. The drugmaker said Thursday it will use the site, called LillyDirect, to pair visitors with third-party mail-order pharmacies for prescriptions and to care providers through a virtual medical weight-loss clinic. The site … Read more
WASHINGTON — Scientists have found a way to help Alzheimer’s drugs seep inside the brain faster — by temporarily breaching its protective shield. The novel experiment was a first attempt in just three patients. But in spots in the brain where the new technology took aim, it enhanced removal of Alzheimer’s trademark brain-clogging plaque, researchers … Read more
