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How Chronic Disease Became the Biggest Scourge in American Health
The Wall Street Journal Reported:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made combating chronic disease a rallying cry as he looks to overhaul the health department and “Make America Healthy Again.” So how healthy is America, historically? It isn’t that we used to be healthier, data show, but the biggest threats have changed.
The deadliest scourges in the U.S. were once infectious, with influenza and tuberculosis topping the list at the start of the 20th century. Better sanitation and advances in antibiotics and vaccines muzzled them, transforming Americans’ well-being. Medical innovations and antismoking campaigns then spurred decades of progress against heart disease and cancer. But chronic diseases, persistent or long-lasting health conditions, are undermining that momentum, contributing to our stalled life expectancy over the past decade that trails behind that of other wealthy nations.
Much of the gap in life expectancy is due to deaths among working-age adults, says Dr. Steven Woolf, a life-expectancy researcher at the Virginia Commonwealth University.
“Americans die earlier and are sicker than people in other high-income countries,” he said. “This has been true for a long time, and the trend is getting worse.” Drug overdoses from opioids, alcohol, suicide and chronic diseases drive most of those early deaths, researchers said. The U.S. also took a bigger hit from COVID-19, even among younger adults who were at lower risk.
RFK Jr. Pledged Not to Upend US Vaccine System, but Big Changes Are Underway
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. clinched the political support needed to become the nation’s top health official by pledging to work within the decades-old federal system for approval and use of vaccines. Yet his regulators are promising big changes that cloud the outlook for what shots might even be available.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will soon “unleash a massive framework” for how vaccines are tested and approved, according to Commissioner Marty Makary. Details aren’t yet public but the plan is being overseen by the agency’s new vaccine chief, Dr. Vinay Prasad, an outspoken critic of the FDA’s handling of COVID-19 boosters.
Makary and other Trump administration officials already have taken unprecedented steps that raise uncertainty about next fall’s COVID-19 vaccinations, including delaying FDA scientists’ full approval of Novavax’s shot — and then restricting its use to people at higher risk from the virus. They’ve also suggested seasonal tweaks to match the latest circulating virus strains are new products requiring extra testing.
FDA Sets New Requirements for COVID Vaccines in Healthy Adults and Children
Annual COVID-19 shots for healthy younger adults and children will no longer be routinely approved under a major new policy shift unveiled Tuesday by the Trump administration.
Top officials for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) laid out new requirements for yearly updates to COVID-19 shots, saying they’d continue to use a streamlined approach that would make vaccines available to adults 65 and older as well as children and younger adults with at least one health problem that puts them at higher risk.
But the FDA framework urges companies conduct large, lengthy studies before tweaked vaccines can be approved for healthier people. In a framework published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, agency officials said the approach still could keep annual vaccinations available for between 100 million and 200 million adults.
The upcoming changes raise questions about people who may still want a fall COVID-19 shot but don’t clearly fall into one of the categories.
FDA Issues Safety Alert on Popular Allergy Drugs
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned that some people develop severe itching, or pruritus, after stopping long-term use of the antihistamines cetirizine (Zyrtec) or levocetirizine (Xyzal).
Prescribing information for the oral allergy drugs — which are taken daily and sold both in prescription and over-the-counter forms — will be updated to warn about the post-discontinuation risk. The itching typically occurs within a few days of stopping the products.
“Restarting the medicine resolved pruritus in most individuals, and tapering off the medicine after restarting it resolved symptoms in some who tried this approach,” the FDA said in its safety communication. A review of reports to the FDA Adverse Event Report System database showed rare but sometimes serious cases of pruritus that required medical intervention.
Bankrupt 23andMe to Be Bought by Pharmaceutical Company Regeneron for $256 Million
Genetic testing firm 23andMe is set to be acquired by drug company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals following its bankruptcy in March, the companies announced on Monday, May 19. Regeneron purchased the pioneering company for $256 million at bankruptcy auction with the intent of using its genomic data to fuel drug discovery, the company said in a Monday statement.
More importantly to consumers who have privacy concerns during the proceedings, the pharmaceutical company promised to adhere to 23andMe’s existing privacy policy, saying it will “prioritize the privacy, security and ethical use of 23andMe’s customer data.”
“As a world leader in human genetics, Regeneron Genetics Center is committed to and has a proven track record of safeguarding the genetic data of people across the globe, and, with their consent, using this data to pursue discoveries that benefit science and society,” Aris Baras, senior vice president and head of the Regeneron Genetics Center, said in a statement.
