Real Health

People with compromised immunity, including transplant recipients who take immune-suppressing drugs to prevent organ rejection, may benefit from a third COVID-19 vaccine dose, but this approach does not work for everyone, according to a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine. “Although the third vaccine dose appears to raise the...

For more than a year, public health officials have repeatedly told us that masks save lives. They’ve warned us to keep our distance from our neighbors, who’ve morphed into disease vectors before our eyes. Now they are telling us that if we’re vaccinated, we no longer need to wear masks...

At its first pop-up vaccination event on April 10, the Northeast Mississippi Coalition Against COVID-19 gave shots to nearly 40 people in Shannon, a town where roughly 60% of some 1,800 residents are African American. Though a fraction of the doses typically given out at large mass vaccination sites, the...

For years, medical professionals have been touting telemedicine as a means of expanding access to health care by saving patients time, removing physical barriers, and making it easier to connect with providers. But data show that over the past year, when teletherapy should have been having a renaissance, many barriers to access to care persist, especially for people of color, Time reports.

The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land! For the third time since it was signed in 2010, the nation’s health care law, often referred to as the ACA or Obamacare, survived a Supreme Court challenge. In a 7–2 decision issued Thursday, the justices did not rule on...

The police department in St. Louis County, Missouri, is searching for a local woman who allegedly failed to give lifesaving HIV treatment to her child, who is now one year old, reports KMOV.com. The mother, Britneyeaunya Blackmon, had tested positive for HIV while pregnant but allegedly ignored the advice of...

Renowned CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour, the television network’s chief international anchor, has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she revealed on Monday during the opening moments of her evening news show, Amanpour and Company. Describing the experience as a “bit of a roller coaster,” the British-Iranian journalist spent only a minute or so on the topic before turning her attention to the subject matter that has defined her career: international tension and conflict.

Ending the HIV epidemic in America starts with addressing HIV stigma in the HIV workplace. NMAC believes the best way to create real change is by building partnerships between people living with HIV (PLHIV) and their Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) service providers. Thanks to funding from HRSA-HAB, NMAC put together this new stigma reduction program with three different learning modalities: 1) trainings, 2) technical assistance, and 3) learning collaboratives in a program called ESCALATE (Ending Stigma through Collaboration and Lifting all to Empowerment). Click here to find out how to register. Participants can only register if they are part of a team that includes a PLWH and their RWHAP service provider.

Most cancer patients with solid tumors had good antibody responses after receiving COVID-19 vaccines, but the response rate was lower for those with blood cancers, such as leukemia or lymphoma, according to study findings published in Cancer Cell. People with severe immune suppression, including cancer patients who use immune-suppressing therapy...

Once indulged in mostly by men, alcohol has become increasingly popular among women. In fact, a 2019 survey found that females in their teens and 20s imbibed more often than their male peers, according to NPR. However, the phenomenon is not exactly a win for gender equality. Not only does...

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) this month released revised guidelines for the use of antiretroviral therapy and prevention and treatment of opportunistic infections. The updates reflect the effectiveness of modern treatment but acknowledge that challenges remain for some people living with HIV. Key changes to the Guidelines...

Life expectancy for people living with HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean grew substantially between 2003 and 2017, according to data published in The Lancet HIV. The study looked retrospectively at HIV treatment for people who were at least 16 years old between January 2003 and December 2017, focusing on data from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico and Peru.

In the past few months, media coverage of racism, discrimination and anti-Black violence in the United States has escalated. Now, new findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggest that increasing awareness of these issues might come at a cost, especially for Black viewers, Scientific American reports.

An experimental COVID-19 vaccine from Novavax proved highly effective in a large trial in North America, offering a potential new tool for combatting the coronavirus pandemic. While authorization of the vaccine will come too late for it to play much of a role in the United States, it is expected to make an important contribution to global vaccine access.

Weight gain and obesity can trigger various health problems. But for young Black and Latino women if symptoms include migraines, a whooshing sound in the ears and sudden vision problems, idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) may be the culprit, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. IIH, a rare disease associated with sudden weight...

On June 7, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval of Aduhelm (aducanumab), the first new drug for Alzheimer’s disease in nearly two decades. More than 6 million people in the United States are living with the progressive brain disease, a number that is expected to rise as the population ages. While advocates for people with Alzheimer’s applauded the approval, others say the drug’s effectiveness is modest at best and its cost is excessive.

My name is Tracy Lamar Johnson Jr. I was born in Orlando. I relocated to Columbus, Ohio, when I was 12 years old. At age 14, I ran away from home because I got tired of the physical, mental and verbal abuse. During this time, I was homeless. I was eating out of trash cans, and I started selling my body. On August 15, 2005, I found out that I was HIV positive. I didn’t know what HIV was, but I tried to commit suicide several times because I thought I was worthless and didn’t have anything to offer to the world.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this week that 10,262 fully vaccinated people in 46 states and territories tested positive for COVID-19 between January 1 and April 30. While the number of breakthrough cases is not trivial, it represents a miniscule proportion (.01%) of the 101 million...

The day Dr. Elizabeth Dawson was diagnosed with COVID -19 in October, she awoke feeling as if she had a bad hangover. Four months later she tested negative for the virus, but her symptoms have only worsened. Dawson is among what one doctor called “waves and waves” of “long-haul” COVID...

On June 10, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) extended its approval of. Epclusa (sofosbuvir/velpatasvir) and Mavyret (glecaprevir/pibrentasvir) for the treatment of hepatitis C in children ages 3 and older. Both combination pills are effective against all genotypes of hepatitis C virus (HCV). Hepatitis C is uncommon among children, affecting...