Secure data from more than 14,000 adults who participate in National Institutes of Health observational research on long COVID are now available to authorized researchers through BioData Catalyst (BDC). BDC is a cloud-based ecosystem developed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of NIH, to accelerate research on heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders.

The H5N1 bird flu virus is spreading among dairy cattle in the United States, and viral fragments have been detected in milk from grocery stores, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). So far, however, scientists have not found active virus, and health officials say pasteurized milk is considered safe. What’s more, no unusual trends in flu-like illness have been reported to date.

Aging is associated with a reduced ability to generate immune responses against novel infections, as was recently illustrated by the high mortality among older people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a mouse model of human aging and disease, NIAID scientists and Stanford University colleagues have shown that immune systems of...

Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a “moonshot” for Long COVID, which would allocate $1 billion a year for the next 10 years to mandatory research into the disease. The Senator and the United Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) are currently seeking email feedback on a draft of this legislation, not yet formally introduced to the Senate, until April 23, 2024.

Only four out of 10 cancer drugs that were granted accelerated approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) demonstrated a clinical benefit in confirmatory trials after more than five years of follow-up, according to study results presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting (AACR 2024) and published in JAMA.

Case definitions are crucial in science, as they allow scientists to be sure they’re studying people with an illness versus those without the illness. Without an accurate case definition — or if there are multiple contrasting ones — it’s difficult to estimate prevalence rates, identify biomarkers, and discover effective treatments for a condition.

Nearly a quarter of adults disenrolled from Medicaid in the past year say they are now uninsured, according to a survey released Friday that details how tens of millions of Americans struggled to retain coverage in the government insurance program for low-income people after pandemic-era protections began expiring last spring.

A new long COVID project makes information about clinical trials more accessible to people who may want to participate in research while showing gaps in the current search for meaningful treatments. Patient-researcher Ezra Spier developed the new project, called Long COVID Studies. As of its launch on March 26, the site includes details of about 550 trials in the U.S. and 54 other countries.

Melissa Red Hoffman was “feeling really stuck” last summer. A 50-year-old surgeon in Asheville, N.C., Hoffman had been struggling with long COVID since getting infected with the coronavirus two and a half years earlier. “Deafening fatigue” was one of her worst symptoms, she says. “I feel tired behind my eyes from the moment I get up to the moment I go to sleep.” She managed to work part time, but much of her work had shifted to administrative tasks that she did from her couch.

Some consumers covered by Affordable Care Act insurance plans are being switched from one plan to another without their express permission, potentially leaving them unable to see their doctors or fill prescriptions. Some face large IRS bills for back taxes. Unauthorized enrollment or plan-switching is emerging as a serious challenge...

On March 22, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization for Pemgarda (pemivibart), a new monoclonal antibody that lowers the risk of COVID-19 in immunocompromised people. Recombinent monoclonal antibodies are manufactured proteins that resemble the natural antibodies the immune system produces to fight infection. Pemgarda, from the...

Gayle Borne has fostered more than 300 children in Springfield, Tennessee. She’s cared for kids who have rarely seen a doctor — kids so neglected that they cannot speak. Such children are now even more vulnerable because of a law Tennessee passed last year that requires the direct consent of birth parents or legal guardians for every routine childhood vaccination. Foster parents, social workers, and other caregivers cannot provide permission.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can damage the heart even without directly infecting the heart tissue, a National Institutes of Health-supported study has found. The research, published in the journal Circulation, specifically looked at damage to the hearts of people with SARS-CoV2-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a serious lung condition that can be fatal. But researchers said the findings could have relevance to organs beyond the heart and also to viruses other than SARS-CoV-2.

In early 2019, Jennifer Hepworth and her husband were stunned by a large bill they unexpectedly received for their daughter’s prescription cystic fibrosis medication. Their payment had risen to $3,500 from the usual $30 for a month’s supply. That must be a mistake, she told the pharmacy. But...

It’s well documented that Americans pay high prices for health care. But do they pay double or more for prescriptions compared with the rest of the world? President Joe Biden said they did. “If I put you on Air Force One with me, and you have a prescription —...

People 18 years of age and older who are interested in learning more about these trials can visit https://trials.RECOVERCovid.org/autonomic or ClinicalTrials.gov and search identifier NCT06305793, NCT06305806 and NCT06305780. Please do not contact the NIH media phone number or email to enroll in these trials. Two phase 2 clinical trials to...

Longtime LGBTQ political strategist and AIDS activist David Mixner, who became a nationally known openly gay figure in the Clinton administration, died at his home in New York City on Monday, March 11, 2024. The cause was long COVID, reports The New York Times. He was 77. Mixner was HIV...

Evangelical minister Eddie Hyatt believes in the healing power of prayer but “also the medical approach.” So on a February evening a week before scheduled prostate surgery, he had his sore throat checked out at an emergency room near his home in Grapevine, Texas. A doctor confirmed that...

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) involves debilitating fatigue, intolerance to exercise, and cognitive problems. Symptoms tend to get worse after even mild exertion. The cause remains unknown, hampering development of treatments. ME/CFS often develops after an infection—a condition known as post-infectious-ME/CFS (PI-ME/CFS). A research team led by NIH’s Dr....

The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) will launch the world’s first tissue bank with samples donated by patients with long COVID. The move follows research indicating that the virus can continue to linger throughout the body and may hold the key to understanding the cause of the debilitating disorder and lead to effective treatments.