There may be a silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, with U.S. health officials reporting an “unprecedented” decline in teens’ use of alcohol, marijuana, other illegal drugs and vaping. “We have never seen such dramatic decreases in drug use among teens in just a one-year period,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the U.S. National… read on > read on >
Along with being contaminated, there was also a basic design flaw in COVID-19 testing kits created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention early in the pandemic, a new agency review shows. It was already known that the PCR kits were contaminated, but the CDC’s findings published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE… read on > read on >
Children and teens who use livestreaming gaming platforms may be bombarded with influencer-endorsed ads for energy drinks, junk food and alcohol, new research shows. “This type of marketing can normalize high-fat, high-sugar and high-sodium foods at a time in young viewers’ lives when they’re developing eating habits that are going to follow them into adulthood,”… read on > read on >
Couples struggling to conceive a child through in vitro fertilization (IVF) sometimes are offered an often-painful procedure known as “scratching the womb” as a desperate last hope to get pregnant. As many as one-third of IVF clinics offer the practice in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, a new survey reports. It’s very likely… read on > read on >
Kids with severe epilepsy may take multiple medications and follow special diets, yet still suffer seizures. Now a small study suggests medical marijuana may sometimes help when other therapies fail. British researchers found that medical pot slashed seizures by almost 90% and reduced use of traditional medications. But at least one outside expert cautions that… read on > read on >
The Omicron variant is spreading rapidly in the United States and could trigger a huge wave of COVID infections as early as January, federal health officials said Tuesday. In just one week there was a sevenfold spike in the highly contagious variant’s presence across the nation, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and… read on > read on >
When it comes to fending off new viruses, baby has Mom and Dad beat. An infant’s immune system is better than an adult’s at combating new viruses, researchers say. Compared to adults, babies get a lot of viral respiratory infections, but babies are dealing with these viruses for the first time, study author Donna Farber… read on > read on >
Here’s a social distancing strategy that really worked in the early days of the pandemic: New research shows that providing hotel rooms to homeless people at high risk for severe COVID-19 significantly lowered their chance of infection. In early April 2020, the city of Chicago made 200 rooms at a hotel available to homeless people… read on > read on >
Compared to previous coronavirus variants, Omicron appears to cause less severe illness, but is more resistant to the Pfizer vaccine, researchers at South Africa’s largest health insurer report. The team at Discovery Health analyzed 211,000 positive coronavirus cases during the country’s fourth wave, including 78,000 attributed to Omicron. It’s the first major private study since… read on > read on >
