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☆ Workers are clamoring for pricey new weight-loss drugs like Ozempic. Companies are grappling with how to respond.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Companies that pay for workers' health insurance are grappling with how to cover the pricey drugs. Medicare, the federal program that provides health coverage for people 65 and older, doesn't cover weight-loss drugs. ArcBest already has a program to help workers lose weight through behavior changes and nutrition. Krutsch said he wants to build on that, covering the weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Saxenda for employees who aren't able to lose weight without medication. The new weight-loss drugs were in short supply in 2022, and that gave employers time to figure out how to handle them, he said.

☆ FDA says Guillain-Barre syndrome is possible risk of Pfizer's RSV vaccine for older adults
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Guillain-Barre syndrome, or inflammatory neuropathy, is a rare disorder in which the body's immune system mistakenly attacks the nerves. There was also a possible case of Guillain-Barre syndrome in GSK 's RSV vaccine trials, but the company said there was insufficient evidence to confirm a diagnosis. They will also vote Wednesday on GSK's RSV vaccine for older adults. The Guillain-Barre casesIn Pfizer's trial, a 66-year-old man in the U.S. with a history of hypertension developed Guillain-Barre symptoms seven days after vaccination. He was hospitalized again after suffering a fall and was subsequently diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

☆ These 5 health conditions affect the Black community at higher rates—here are early signs to look out for and preventative measures
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Renée Onque | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Health conditions like colon cancer and cardiovascular diseases impact people within the Black community at much higher rates than most other racial backgrounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And even after the onset of life-threatening conditions, systemic issues lead to health disparities that prevent many Black people from accessing the resources they need. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV): "In 2019, Blacks/African Americans represented 13% of the U.S. population, but 40% of people with HIV," says HIV.gov. Metabolic syndrome: Between 1988 and 2012, "Non-Hispanic black women were more likely than non-Hispanic white women to have metabolic syndrome," CDC data shows. Colon cancer: In 2016, Black men had the highest incidence and mortality rates of colorectal cancer, when compared to other racial groups, per CDC data.

☆ From 'relief' to 'not too devastated': Why some laid-off workers aren't rushing to find new jobs
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Jennifer Liu | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

That's how some recently laid-off workers view losing their jobs, despite the era of loud layoffs and ever-constant recession fears. She figured she'd be let go from her social media job at Attentive, an e-commerce startup, once her visa expired in April. Calista Tee, 28, plans to use her post-layoff time to build her social media marketing brand on TikTok and beyond. It's since taken off, and in 2022 she matched 80% of her full-time income. Without the security of full-time income, Tee plans to make small tweaks to her spending habits.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) said it would test the models in the Medicare health program for people age 65 or over and the disabled and the Medicaid program for the poor. The agency also said it would work on developing a mandatory model for payment methods for drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under its Accelerated Approval Program (APP). CMS will announce the first model's start date "as soon as operationally feasible", it said. Development on the Medicaid gene and cell therapy model will start in 2023 and launch for testing in 2026. The agency will start working with the FDA on the accelerated approval model in 2023 but has no planned launched date yet.

☆ I prescribe the popular weight-loss drug semaglutide to my patients. I hesitate to call it a magic bullet.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Hannah Moseley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Dr. Paul Kolodzik has been prescribing semaglutide to his diabetic patients since 2017. The one regret he hears from patients on the drug is they can't enjoy food as much. Before that, I was an emergency physician for about 25 years, caring for patients with strokes, heart attacks, and diabetic emergencies. I started prescribing semaglutide under the label Ozempic to my diabetic patients in 2017Novo Nordisk, a global pharmaceutical company, developed Ozempic as a medication for diabetics to control their blood sugar. So, physicians started prescribing some patients who weren't diabetic Ozempic off-label since Ozempic is not approved for weight loss — even though it's the same generic medicine.

☆ AstraZeneca to Buy U.S. Cardiorenal-Drug Maker
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Joseph Hoppe | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Anglo-Swedish pharma giant AstraZeneca PLC has agreed to buy CinCor Pharma Inc., including global rights to its baxdrostat cardiorenal drug, for an upfront transaction value of around $1.3 billion. It has also committed to a further $10 a share in cash, payable upon a specified regulatory submission of a baxdrostat product. AstraZeneca said the acquisition will bolster its cardiorenal pipeline by adding baxdrostat, an inhibitor that has shown promise in clinical trials lowering blood pressure in treatment-resistant hypertension. The upfront cash portion of the acquisition represents a 121% premium to CinCor’s closing market price of $11.78 on Friday. Combined, the upfront and so-called maximum potential contingent value payments represent a transaction value of around $1.8 billion.

☆ Pediatricians Recommend Weight-Loss Drugs for Obese Children
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Sarah Toy | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Children 12 and older who are obese should be offered weight-loss medications alongside lifestyle and behavioral counseling, according to new American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines. The American Academy of Pediatrics for the first time recommended physicians offer weight-loss drugs for children with obesity, aiming to take early action against an increasingly common condition linked to a host of health problems. Children 12 or older who are obese should be offered medications for weight loss alongside lifestyle and behavioral counseling, according to guidelines published on Monday by the largest professional association of pediatricians in the U.S. The association also recommended that doctors offer to refer severely obese children 13 or older to surgeons to assess whether they would be good candidates for bariatric surgery. It said pediatricians should screen obese children for high cholesterol, diabetes and hypertension.

☆ Wells Fargo issues some top tactical investing ideas for the first quarter
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Alex Harring | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

As the first quarter of 2023 kicks off, Wells Fargo has its eye on what it calls stocks that offer tactical trading opportunities. Wells Fargo analyst Daniel Politzer upgraded Wynn to overweight from equal weight on Monday . Merck also made the Wells Fargo list, with the firm setting a price target of $125. And Wells Fargo has a $50 price target for Dynatrace , which implies 30% over Tuesday's close. Wells Fargo believes the software company has the "only enterprise-grade cloud platform capable of supporting modern workloads in a hybrid environment."

☆ Novartis to pay $245 mln to end antitrust cases over Exforge drug generics
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Jonathan Stempel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

NEW YORK, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Novartis AG (NOVN.S) said on Wednesday it will pay $245 million to end antitrust litigation accusing the Swiss drugmaker of trying to delay the launch in the United States of generic versions of its Exforge hypertension drug. The class-action litigation stemmed from a 2011 licensing agreement between Novartis and Endo International Plc's (ENDPQ.PK) Par Pharmaceutical unit. Novartis's annual U.S. sales of brand-name Exforge exceeded $400 million before generic versions were sold, court papers show. The case is In re Novartis and Par Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Bradley PerrettOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ In COVID U-turn, China's message to the people shifts from war to self-care
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Ryan Woo | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Last week, in one fell swoop, China cut away most of the tenets governing its stifling zero-COVID policies, effectively ending its war on the pandemic. "Be the first person responsible for the epidemic", it has said, which is emerging as China's new public health slogan. So far, China's official COVID death toll remains unchanged at 5,235 since the domestic epidemic curbs were removed. The suddenness of the policy shift has not yet been explained to the public, except that Omicron has weakened. But Beijing resident Charlie Zhang, 42, said he was not enthused about the recent dramatic changes in COVID policies, believing it would be hard for the elderly to recover from Omicron.

☆ Philippine family allowed to correct death certificate of son killed in drugs war
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Karen Lema | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Rodrigo Baylon's son, Lenin, was killed by stray bullets on Dec. 2, 2016, in Caloocan City in a shooting that also killed two women, according to a police report. But Lenin's death certificate had said he died from bronchopneumonia. Lenin was not the only victim whose death certificate did not accurately reflect the violent manner in which police and family members said they died, a Reuters investigation found. Baylon had sought to correct his son's death certificate but a lower court rejected his request in 2019, forcing him to file an appeal. IDEALS said Lenin's case forms part of submissions to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has been asked by a prosecutor to resume its investigation into the drug war killings.

The authors noted that “social forces” may have played a part in the accelerated brain aging seen among their Black subjects. A lot of things contribute to dementia and Alzheimer’s, like high blood pressure and diabetes. Pete Comparoni“Elevated blood pressure is a very strong risk factor for worsening cerebrovascular disease,” King said. One option is through activities like restorative yoga, which Grant said can help address stress and regulate blood pressure and brain function. You have to go to your primary care doctor and check your blood pressure and blood sugar level.

☆ Black leaders on Buffalo’s East Side are building markets to address food insecurity
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Claretta-Bellamy-Byline-Jm.Jpg | Claretta Bellamy | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

The only supermarket on the East Side is Tops, where a white gunman killed 10 Black residents in May. AHRIE / African Heritage Food Co-op“It’s about gainful employment,” Wright, 43, said in October of his future grocery store. African Heritage Food Co-Op“That’s why I don’t call this a food desert,” Wright said. One organization, the Buffalo Black Billion, is led by a local pastor, Michael Chapman of St. John and Gethsemane Missionary Baptist churches. African Heritage Food Co-OpBy providing healthy food, Chapman said he also wants to increase the lifespan of Black residents in the community, for whom health disparities are all too familiar.

☆ How the founder of SiriusXM wants to tackle an organ shortage with 3D-printed hearts and lungs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

She is the CEO of the $12 billion biotech United Therapeutics and founder of SiriusXM. Her company, the $12 billion Maryland-based biotech United Therapeutics, has already put gene-edited pig hearts, lungs, and kidneys into humans in clinical studies. Rothblatt previously founded SiriusXM before starting United TherapeuticsUnited TherapeuticsThe organ research is far from the first moonshot in Rothblatt's career. After that compound's owner, the pharma giant GSK, declined to test it against PAH, Rothblatt founded United Therapeutics in 1996 and bought the rights to the molecule. That drug helped save Jenesis, and United Therapeutics now sells a suite of PAH treatments that have helped over 12,000 patients.

☆ Daylight Saving Time debate sheds light on growing racial inequities in sleep health
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Jacqueline Howard | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the Sleep Research Society and other medical groups have advocated for ending the practice, calling for the adoption of a permanent standard time that would not involve shifting forward each spring and falling back each autumn. She authored a paper, published in September in the journal Sleep, detailing the potential health benefits of adopting a permanent standard time. Now, some sleep researchers worry about the potential effects that continuing to change standard time twice each year may have on sleep health inequities. “Fortunately, sleep health is largely modifiable.”As for the inequities seen in sleep health, it’s not that White adults don’t also experience a lack of sleep and its health consequences – but people of color appear to disproportionately experience them more, and that’s believed to be largely due to social systems in the United States. Improving sleep health has been a national objective in the federal government’s past two Healthy People programs, noted Caraballo-Cordovez, who is not involved in the programs.

The landmark case was the first to test whether the NCAA could be held liable for traumatic brain injuries suffered by players, lawyers said. “The NCAA bore no responsibility for Mr. Gee’s tragic death, and furthermore, the case was not supported by medical science linking Mr. Gee’s death to his college football career,” Bearby said. Alana Gee’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Alana Gee's lawyers said his substance abuse and health problems stemmed from CTE. Tests of Gee's brain tissue following his death concluded that he suffered from CTE and that this “likely contributed” to his cognitive decline, according to Alana Gee's November 2020 lawsuit.

☆ Qatar World Cup: 'Our dreams never came true.' These men helped build Qatar's tournament, now they are struggling to survive.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Aimee Lewis Pramod Acharya Sugam Pokharel | Aimee Lewis | Pramod Acharya | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +31 min

It will be a historic event, the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East, but one also mired in controversy. He had dreamed of watching World Cup matches from the rooftop of the hotel he had helped build. In Qatar, migrant workers can now change jobs freely without permission from their employer. However, a number of European federations have issued a joint statement saying they would campaign at the tournament on human rights and for a migrant workers center and a compensation fund for migrant workers. The motto for Qatar’s bid team in 2010 was ‘Expect Amazing.’ In many ways, this year’s World Cup has replicated that maxim.

☆ When stress is coming at you from all sides, it’s time for a breather. Here are 6 ways to take a break
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Dana Santas | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

The good news is that you can build in stress-relieving “breathing breaks” throughout the day to break the stress cycle and restore calm. Aaron LockwoodUnlike smoke breaks, breathing breaks are actually good for you! Alternate nostril breathingAlternate nostril breathing is a yogic style of breathing that has been specifically shown in research to help ease anxiety. Start off the alternate nostril breathing exercise by using your right thumb to close off the right nostril. Use your right thumb to close off the right nostril.

☆ Fact Check-No evidence drug overdose was main cause of death for George Floyd in 2020
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled Floyd’s death a homicide with the cause of death as “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression” (here). Under cross examination by Chauvin’s lead lawyer, Baker said that certain heart diseases or use of opioids can be fatal but that neither directly caused Floyd’s death. Reuters reporting on additional expert testimony during the trial that countered the defense’s claim that opioid use caused Floyd’s death can be found (here), (here), (here) and (here). But the fentanyl levels in Floyd’s blood should not be the sole factor in determining his cause of death. Available evidence about George Floyd’s death and toxicology test results do not show that his main cause of death was a drug overdose and toxicology results alone cannot identify a lethal level of fentanyl or other drugs in the body.

☆ Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Lyft, Tripadvisor, Take-Two Interactive and more
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Carmen Reinicke | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Lyft – Shares of Lyft plummeted 21% after the company's earnings report showed mixed results in the last quarter. SolarEdge Technologies – Shares of SolarEdge rose 18% after the company reported record revenue in its last quarter that beat analysts' expectations. Revenue fell short of estimates coming in at $967 million instead of $979 million. Perrigo – Shares of pharmaceutical company Perrigo slumped 16% after the company reported earnings and revenue that fell short of analysts' expectations, according to Refinitiv. The company reported $198.3 million in revenue, which beat expectations, according to StreetAccount.

☆ Stocks making the biggest moves in the premarket: Take-Two Interactive, Lyft, TripAdvisor and more
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Peter Schacknow | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Lyft (LYFT) – Lyft sank 17.3% in premarket action after its latest quarterly report showed slowing revenue growth and ridership levels that remain below pre-pandemic levels. The ride-hailing service did, however, report better-than-expected earnings for its latest quarter. TripAdvisor (TRIP) – TripAdvisor shares plummeted 20.8% in premarket trading after the travel website operator's quarterly earnings came in below Wall Street forecasts. Coty (COTY) – The cosmetics company reported earnings that matched Wall Street estimates, with revenue slightly above analysts' forecasts. Planet Fitness (PLNT) – The fitness center operator's stock surged 7.1% in the premarket after its quarterly revenue and profit beat Wall Street estimates and it raised its full-year forecast.

An experimental drug could eventually offer hope to millions of people struggling with uncontrolled high blood pressure, new research has found. Overall, 20% to 30% of adults experience high blood pressure, Brown said in an email. Uncontrolled hypertension accounts for 5% to 10% of all people with hypertension. Hypertension is diagnosed when a person has a blood pressure of 130/80, while a systolic measurement of 120-129 mm Hg is considered to be “elevated.” A normal range is less than 120/80 mm Hg. Those who received the highest dose of the medication saw their systolic blood pressure — the top number in the measure — drop an extraordinary 20 points during the study.

☆ Medtronic Blood-Pressure Device Curbs Hypertension, but Misses Top Goal in Study
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Peter Loftus | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Medtronic device could offer a nonmedication treatment for people with blood pressure that remains high despite treatment with drugs. A Medtronic PLC medical device reduced the blood pressure of people with tough-to-treat hypertension in a closely watched study, but not significantly beyond what medications achieved. The device cut a crucial measure of blood pressure by only about two points more than the average reduction in study volunteers who didn’t get the procedure, researchers said Monday.

☆ Highly processed foods are linked to early death, a new study finds
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Aria Bendix | Aria Bendix Is The Breaking Health Reporter For Nbc News Digital. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

That amounts to more than 10% of annual premature deaths in Brazil among that age group. The authors say their study is the first to estimate the impact of ultra-processed food on the risk of early death. The authors applied that model to Brazil's population and level of ultra-processed food consumption. Ultra-processed foods can often be identified by their long list of ingredients, many of which you wouldn’t normally find in your own kitchen. Willett also said that there may be little benefit to replacing ultra-processed foods with certain items, such as more red meat or foods cooked in a lot of butter.

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