Sep 29th, 2022 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. The Centers for Disease Control has changed its position on mandatory masking in health care settings, no longer recommending that it be universal. It's a "major departure" from the CDC's previous recommendation of universal masking to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, The Hill says. "Updates were ma...

Sep 29th, 2022 - A retrospective study that analyzed sex disparities in patients with COVID-19 and rheumatoid arthritis found that men had more baseline comorbidities and increased risk of COVID-19–related outcomes, compared with females. “Differences in genetics between sex and sex steroid hormones may play a role in predisposition to COVID-19 infection as well as modulating the disease progression,” according...

Sep 29th, 2022 - A growing number of Americans with cardiovascular disease (CVD) have limited or uncertain access to food, results of a new study suggest. An analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) representing more than 300 million American adults found that, overall, 38.1% of people with cardiovascular disease were food insecure in 2017-2019. Twenty years earlier, t...

Sep 29th, 2022 - Editor's note: Find the latest long COVID news and guidance in Medscape's Long COVID Resource Center. Working with physicians from multiple specialties, the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (AAPM&R) has issued the first set of guidelines related to the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric patients with long COVID. The physiatrist organization also issued separate guidanc...

Sep 29th, 2022 - An outbreak of acute hepatitis of unknown origin last spring, recent pneumonia cases in Argentina since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the monkeypox outbreak ― a string of public health warnings has led some to question whether the threat of infectious disease is greater than it had been. The French Agency for Research in AIDS and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS) provided some answers an...

Sep 29th, 2022 - Medicare Part B premiums will dip in 2023 due to a setback for Biogen Inc.'s Alzheimer's disease medicine, which drew tight payment restrictions because of concerns about its safety and effectiveness. The standard monthly Part B premium will be $164.90 for 2023, a decrease of $5.20 from the 2022 rate, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said this week. Medicare officials increa...

Sep 29th, 2022 - As the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the monkeypox (MPX) outbreak a global health emergency, a new wave of anti-LGBTQ+ vitriol crested alongside it. Now, the MPX backlash has been added to the ongoing circulation of medical misinformation associated with the COVID pandemic, both in the US and abroad. I'm an ID doc and I spend a large amount of my time with patients addressing misinfo...

Sep 29th, 2022 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced $8 billion in new private sector spending to fight hunger, including hundreds of millions of dollars for meals, after lawmakers failed to further extend pandemic-era nutrition supports like universal school meals and increased aid to food banks. The pledges were announced as part of a White House summit on Hunger, Nutrition a...

Sep 29th, 2022 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic toll of the opioid addiction and overdose crisis on the United States reached nearly $1.5 trillion in 2020 alone and is likely to grow, a congressional report seen by Reuters shows. Opioid-related deaths soared during the pandemic, including from the powerful synthetic painkiller fentanyl, exacerbating an already tragic and co...

Sep 29th, 2022 - The Ontario Medical Association (OMA) recommends increasing the supply of healthcare workers, reducing wait times, and expanding access to palliative care to address pressing issues in the healthcare system. To ease the burden on hospitals, the OMA proposes creating Integrated Ambulatory Centres for less complicated outpatient surgeries and procedures. As part of this measure, the association p...

Sep 28th, 2022 - Nightmares May Predict Dementia Healthy middle-aged adults who have nightmares once a week or more were four times more likely to develop dementia within a decade, new research suggests. The results were reported in a study published in The Lancet journal eClinicalMedicine. The large cohort study also showed that older adults were twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia compared with peer...

Sep 28th, 2022 - LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria faces worsening malnutrition in the northwest due to insecurity, high food prices and the impact of climate change, Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) said on Tuesday, calling for the region to be included in United Nations funding plans next year. Gunmen have terrorised the northwest, killing and kidnapping people for ransom this year. Africa's most populous nation is alr...

Sep 28th, 2022 - Growing up, we probably all had a variety of interests and hobbies. I excelled at math and science; I knew I had an analytical mind. But I also enjoyed music, art, and writing. I could be equally satisfied memorizing biochemistry cycles or completing calculus problems as I was writing, playing piano, or singing.  I was fortunate to have a support system and upbringing that encouraged developmen...

Sep 28th, 2022 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. New COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom are rising, leading some observers to wonder whether the United States will see a similar spike soon. "Generally, what happens in the U.K. is reflected about a month later in the U.S. I think this is what I've sort of been seeing," said Tim Spector, MD, p...

Sep 28th, 2022 - Editor's note: Find the latest long COVID news and guidance in Medscape's Long COVID Resource Center. Long COVID is likely to cost the U.S. economy trillions of dollars and will almost certainly affect multiple industries, from restaurants struggling to replace low-wage workers, to airlines scrambling to replace crew, to overwhelmed hospitals, experts are predicting. "There's a lot we need to d...

Sep 28th, 2022 - Who would have thought we would need to refresh our knowledge on polio virus in 2022? Fate seems cruel to add this concern on the heels of SARS-CoV-2, monkeypox, abnormal seasons for RSV, acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) linked to enteroviruses, and a summer of parechovirus causing infant meningitis. But confirmation that indeed an adult had polio with paralytic disease raises concerns among public...

Sep 28th, 2022 - TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's population level immunity to COVID-19 has reached about 90% in major population areas after a recent Omicron wave, though that level of protection is likely to diminish in a matter of months, according to a study published on Tuesday. That level of so-called "herd immunity" reflects partial protection imparted from both natural infection and vaccination, according to t...

Sep 28th, 2022 - (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it will now review only a small number of emergency use authorization requests for COVID tests that are likely to have a significant benefit to public health, including fulfilling an unmet need. The agency is revising its COVID-19 test policy in light of the current manufacturing status and number of cases, it said, adding compan...

Sep 28th, 2022 - TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan's Shionogi & Co Ltd said on Wednesday its oral treatment for COVID-19 demonstrated a significant reduction in symptoms compared with a placebo in a Phase III trial in Asia. The drug, a protease inhibitor known as ensitrelvir, met its primary endpoint in a trial conducted among predominantly vaccinated patients with mild to moderate cases of COVID-19, the company said in a...

Sep 28th, 2022 - Before the pandemic, physicians, like many other professions, came to work sick. The reasons are likely as varied as "you weren't feeling bad enough to miss work," "you couldn't afford to miss pay," or "you had too many patients to see/too much work to do." In Medscape's Employed Physicians Report: Loving the Focus, Hating the Bureaucracy, 61% of physicians reported they sometimes or often come...