Articles related to COVID-19

The FDA added a warning that Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine may trigger Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) in a small number of people. Of the 12.5 million Americans who received this vaccine, about 100 people reported having GBS, which is an acquired demyelinating polyneuropathy that often begins in the lower extremities and ascends over time with loss of reflexes, causing muscle weakness, or in the most severe cases, paralysis.

Despite many doing their research and learning all they can about the COVID-19 vaccine, patients may still come to you for more help. To assist your patients with their questions about the COVID-19 vaccine, here are 12 facts and insights shared by Sherita Golden, MD, MHS, chief diversity officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine, who specializes in diabetes, heart conditions and patterns of disease in diverse communities.

Messenger RNA (mRNA) is in the spotlight right now as the basis of the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines for COVID-19. Thanks to this newfound prominence, its profile has been raised as a powerful tool in cancer research as well. As a courier of genetic information and protein assembler, mRNA can tell scientists which genes are active within a cell and produce the proteins that alert the immune system to the presence of cancer.

The results of the International Ivermectin Project Team were finally published this week in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, and although they’re positive, they haven’t escaped criticism, and most researchers still want results from a randomized controlled trial. In addition, many studies included in the analysis were not peer reviewed, which was a limitation, and studies varied widely in terms of dosage, treatment duration, and inclusion criteria.

There are several reasons why the COVID-19 Delta variant – responsible for the COVID crisis in India – has public health experts and doctors concerned, including its transmissibility and disease severity. You likely already know the Delta “variant of concern” is more contagious than previous variants (denoted by the Greek alphabet), but here are five other important details you should be aware of.

The 27-member petition, which is led by Dr. Linda Wastila, a professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, calls the notion of approval to stimulate vaccination rates “backward logic.” The group of clinicians and researchers claim data should be from completed phase III trials, not interim results. “Slow down and get the science right,” the group wrote in a blog post published in The British Medical Journal.