Federal health regulators on Wednesday suspended funding to EcoHealth Alliance, less than a month after a congressional committee grilled the nonprofit's president over its ties with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Why it matters: It marked an abrupt turn for the organization, whose funding of studies on bat coronaviruses in China put it at the center of the debate over the pandemic's origins.
Patients prescribed highly effective anti-obesity medications are growing anxious about the increasing difficulty of obtaining them amid long-running shortages driven by blockbuster demand for the drugs.
Why it matters: Their ongoing struggle to locate reliable supplies of drugs like Novo Nordisk's Wegovy is fueling fears among patients that even a brief disruption to their dosing schedule could set back their progress, doctors who prescribe the drugs told Axios.
Fatal drug overdoses in the United States declined last year for the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic, new preliminary federal data show.
The big picture: It's a rare glimmer of positive news amid a drug epidemic that's gripped the nation for over two decades and still continues to kill over 100,000 people each year.
Nearly 1 in 5 women seeking an abortion at the end of 2023 turned to telehealth, a new report finds.
About 8,000 people per month in states with near or total bans accessed medication abortion through telehealth thanks to shield laws in progressive states that protect providers who prescribe the drugs.
Hundreds of young adults will be trained to help their peers access mental health care and other supports in a first-of-its-kind service program aimed at addressing the youth mental health crisis.
Clinical trials using the drug known as ecstasy to treat PTSD may have been tainted by investigator biases and understated possible harmful effects, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review said in a report on Tuesday.
Why it matters: The influential nonprofit's assessment could complicate prospects for the therapy, which has been touted as a treatment for veterans with PTSD and is part of a cohort of psychedelic drugs that has shown promise for treating addictions and mental health disorders.
Lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Wednesday are expected to set in motion a massive reordering of how U.S. pharmaceuticals are developed and made, by advancing a contracting ban on five key Chinese research firms.
Why it matters: It's a sign of how trade and national security concerns have spread from steel, semiconductors and TikTok to the life sciences, where U.S. biotechs and drugmakers are highly reliant on China for testing, ingredients and, in some cases, manufacturing.
