An FDA expert panel on Thursday unanimously recommended that the U.S. overhaul its pandemic vaccine strategy and replace initial doses of original COVID shots with bivalent ones that target specific Omicron subvariants.
The big picture: So far, the U.S. COVID vaccine strategy has been developed and revised on the fly, leading at time to public confusion. With all available vaccines following one single composition, health experts argued that vaccination rates could increase.
House Democrats today are set to introduce a largely symbolic bill that would lift longstanding government restrictions on the use of federal funds to cover abortions.
The big picture: Abortion rights advocates have argued that such funding is needed to assure access to the procedure, particularly for low income people and people of color. But its prospects are practically nil in the Republican-controlled House.
A pair of lawsuits challenging abortion pill restrictions in North Carolina and West Virginia look to settle the question on whether states can regulate and restrict drugs that have been approved by the FDA.
A synthetic opioid up to40 times more powerful than fentanyl is scrambling the public health response to the addiction crisis in a growing number of U.S. cities.
The big picture: Nitazine comes in powder, pill and liquid form and requires time-consuming lab work to trace. Often laced into substances that users think is fentanyl or heroin, it's potentially lethal or can causea more severe onset of withdrawal symptoms.
A new dashboard aims to make it easier to look up breast cancer deaths, insurance coverage disparities, COVID vulnerabilities and other health data by congressional district.
Why it matters: The tool, launched today by NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, connects data from sources such as the National Vital Statistics System and the American Community Survey to individual lawmakers' home turf.
An FDA advisory panel meeting tomorrow could start a reset of how the U.S. approaches its COVID-19 vaccine strategy.
Driving the news: The agency has sent signs they want to move from the on-the-fly response that's, at times, left the public confused to an annual vaccination schedule that more closely mirrors flu vaccines.
Fertility technology startups are in the midst of a funding frenzy, reaching more than $800 million in 2022 as demand for fertility services continues to climb.
Why it matters: Increasing demand is not being met with increasing access, and so tech-forward companies strive to fill the gap.
