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Since pharmaceutical companies started funding their FDA drug applications 30 years ago, the agency’s reviews have gone much faster — perhaps too fast.
For more than a century, the drug industry has issued dire warnings of plunging innovation whenever regulation reared its head. In general, the threat hasn’t materialized.
The Rockland County case isn’t expected to cause a major outbreak, but it shows how even this rare disease can pop up in undervaccinated communities.
As the country faces a rise in new infections driven by the omicron BA.5 subvariant of the coronavirus, about 70% of people 50 and older who got a first covid-19 booster shot haven't received the recommended second one, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many undervaccinated Americans have lost interest, and others aren’t sure whether to get boosted again now or wait for vaccines reformulated to target newer strains of the virus.
Existing drugs still treat most infections. But that has discouraged investment in new drugs that will be needed when — not if —the old ones fail.
The drugmaker has the best-selling vaccine to prevent covid and the most effective drug to treat it. Its success has overshadowed the government’s covid-fighting strategy.
After years of failure, the Maryland company aims to attract the vaccine-hesitant with an alternative to mRNA shots. But will it find a market?
The hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin fiascoes have soured many doctors on repurposing drugs for covid. A few inexpensive old drugs may be as good as some of the new antivirals, but they face complex obstacles to get to patients.
Federal health officials haven’t taken a clear position on whether a high-dose influenza vaccine — on the market since 2010 — is the best choice for people 65 and older. Many in that group already opt for the costlier enhanced shot. Those who get the standard vaccine are disproportionately members of ethnic and racial minorities.
A corporate CEO’s call for a fourth mRNA shot struck those closely watching the pandemic as self-serving. It creates public pressure for a fourth dose of vaccine before government experts have time to assess the evidence and settle on the best course forward.
An epic battle is playing out behind the scenes over whether the government should pay for Aduhelm, an FDA-approved Alzheimer’s drug that scientists say has not been proven to work.
In the middle of a measles outbreak in 1977, the Los Angeles school system required students to be inoculated or stay out of class. Other school systems followed the practice. Will it work again now that the county is insisting that teens have their shots against covid?
Although it’s possible to buy travel insurance that provides some health coverage, the devil is in the fine print. Obama-era laws that prevent refusal of payment for preexisting conditions don’t apply to travel insurance.
As scientists argue whether a previous bout of covid offers the same amount of protection as vaccinations, people turn to the courts to decide.
With real-time data streaming in from highly specialized researchers in the U.S. and abroad, NIH scientists became convinced that boosting the covid-19 vaccine was needed to save lives, prompting the president to announce a plan with a Sept. 20 start date. Scientists at the regulatory agencies weren’t yet convinced. A meeting Friday will determine what happens next. Here’s the story from behind the scenes.
A national vaccine court has paid out billions to families who could prove their kids were injured by vaccines. But there’s only a skeletal program for the rare victims of covid vaccination, raising concerns as the pressure for mandated shots grows.
Rare reports of minor heart damage have convinced some scientists that further study is needed before racing to extend covid shots to more children.
Where the coronavirus originated remains a mystery and the Chinese are bucking demands to let investigators see more.
Leading virologists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, are demanding a deeper probe into China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology as they try to identify the source of the deadly coronavirus.
All agree that covid vaccines are urgently needed to stop the pandemic, but simply waiving patents fails to provide technological know-how and address supply chain challenges.
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