Adobe
For all the explosive controversy over the approval of the first treatment for Alzheimer’s disease in nearly 20 years, hardly any patients have actually gotten it yet.
The drug’s eye-popping, $56,000 annual price and questionable benefit to patients have been a shock to the bureaucracy that makes the health care system run and that’s having a clear effect on uptake. Some analysts estimated last month that fewer than 100 patients were dosed in the first weeks after the therapy was approved, though availability will likely ramp up over the coming months.
Though the Food and Drug Administration said in approving the therapy, Aduhelm, that the data indicate a likely benefit, hospital and insurer committees are conducting their own analyses, acting as another set of gatekeepers. They regularly review new treatments, but the lingering questions about the drug’s efficacy, as well as the logistical challenges of delivering an infused drug, are complicating and prolonging t
A new study casts doubt on the genetic test that eliminates a majority of potential embryos from use in vitro fertilization due to possible abnormalities.
The selection process limits the success of IVF, especially among older women and those diagnosed with premature ovarian aging.
As reported in
Nature Cell Biology, researchers found that embryos often develop into healthy babies regardless of whether or not they’ve been blacklisted by the test, and have demonstrated how supposedly defective embryos self-correct during gestation.
“This is going to revolutionize how IVF moves forward,” says Ali H. Brivanlou, head of the Laboratory of Synthetic Embryology at Rockefeller University. “This test is obsolete and should be replaced with more precise technology to assess in vitro-fertilized embryo quality.”
Dr. Steven Landers, president and CEO of the Visiting Nurse Association Health Group, administers the COVID-19 vaccine to Sam Ferguson of Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Opening another front in the nation’s response to the pandemic, medical centers and other health organizations have begun sending doctors and nurses to apartment buildings and private homes to vaccinate homebound seniors.
Boston Medical Center, which runs the oldest in-home medical service in the country, started doing this Feb. 1. Wake Forest Baptist Health, a North Carolina health system, followed a week later.
In Miami Beach, fire department paramedics are delivering vaccines to frail seniors in their own homes. In East St. Louis, Illinois, a visiting nurse service is offering at-home vaccines to low-income, sick older adults who receive food from Meals on Wheels.
Between 2 million and 4.4 million older adults are homebound and at extremely high risk of dying from COVID-19. Yet, they haven’t been recognized as a priority group for vaccines.
Between 2 million and 4.4 million older adults are homebound and at extremely high risk of dying from COVID-19. Yet, they haven’t been recognized as a priority group for vaccines.