The News The Food and Drug Administration announced on Thursday that it had formally ended the agency’s wide-ranging prohibition on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, a longstanding policy that had been denounced as discriminatory. Instead, the F.D.A. is finalizing guidance that includes a questionnaire for all donors that is aimed at learning about…
Why It Matters: The sharp decline is a victory. The W.H.O.’s declaration is an acknowledgment that the world successfully managed an international outbreak even while still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic. The initial response to the outbreak sputtered, much as it did when Covid began to spread. But most countries were able to quell their…
When the Covid-19 public health emergency expires in the United States on Thursday, the coronavirus will not disappear. But many of the data streams that have helped Americans monitor the virus will go dark. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop tabulating community levels of Covid-19 and will no longer require certain case…
Shannon Cummings, 53, has tried to push forward after her husband, Larry, a college professor, died of Covid-19 in March 2020. She flew from her home in Michigan to Southern California to attend a Harry Styles concert with family members and friends. Twice a week, she meets with her group therapy classes. She started going…
A lot went wrong during the coronavirus pandemic as the virus tore through a polarized nation and public health leaders, policymakers and elected officials struggled to respond. Chronic underinvestment in public health at the federal, state and local levels only made things worse. All told, more than 1.1 million people have died of Covid-19 in…
Despite the continuing rise in opioid overdose deaths, one of the most effective treatments for opioid addiction is still drastically underprescribed in the United States, especially for Black patients, according to a large new study. From 2016 through 2019, scarcely more than 20 percent of patients diagnosed with opioid use disorder filled prescriptions for buprenorphine,…
A panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Wednesday that the benefits of making a birth control pill available without a prescription outweigh the risks, a significant step in the decades-long push to make oral contraception obtainable over the counter in the United States. If the F.D.A. approves nonprescription sales…
F.D.A. advisers voted that the benefits of a nonprescription pill outweigh the risks. If the agency decides to move on the recommendation, the progestin-only contraceptive could be in stores within a few months.
Five years ago, a small group of cancer scientists meeting at a restaurant in a deconsecrated church hospital in Mainz, Germany, drew up an audacious plan: They would test their novel cancer vaccine against one of the most virulent forms of the disease, a cancer notorious for roaring back even in patients whose tumors had…
More than 20 years after scientists first released a draft sequence of the human genome, the book of life has been given a long-overdue rewrite. A more accurate and inclusive edition of our genetic code was published on Wednesday, marking a major step toward a deeper understanding of human biology and personalized medicine for people…