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1 week ago | 
medscape.com | Alicia Ault
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has just updated its child and adolescent immunization schedule in a way that states that parents who want to vaccinate healthy children could do so, based on shared decision making with a clinician. The agency also updated the adult immunization schedule to say there is “no guidance” on use in pregnancy.
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1 week ago | 
medscape.com | Alicia Ault
US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisers recommended that manufacturers make no changes to the COVID-19 vaccine that will be available for boosters later this summer. The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBAC) voted 9-0 that the 2025-26 vaccines should stay the same, containing a single JN.1 strain, which has been dominant globally since 2024. “There is efficacy,” said Panel Member Eric J.
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2 weeks ago | 
medscape.com | Alicia Ault
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning that patients who stop taking cetirizine (Zyrtec) or levocetirizine (Xyzal) after long-term use may experience rare but severe itching. The agency said in a drug safety communication that between 2017 and 2023, it had received reports of 209 cases worldwide (197 in the United States) of pruritus developing within a few days of stopping cetirizine (n = 180), levocetirizine (n = 27), or both (n = 2).
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2 weeks ago | 
medscape.com | Alicia Ault
The FDA may be poised to ban talc as an ingredient in the products it regulates, including foods, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. The agency convened what it called an expert panel on talc on May 20, led by FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, MD, MPH, and Principal Deputy Commissioner Sara Brenner, MD, MPH. The 2-hour meeting was livestreamed.
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2 weeks ago | 
medscape.com | Alicia Ault
The FDA will prioritize approval of COVID-19 vaccines which can be proven to generate antibody titers in people over age 65 or people who are 6 months or older and at high risk for severe disease, the agency announced on Tuesday.
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2 weeks ago | 
portugues.medscape.com | Alicia Ault
Se você nunca perguntou se pode orar por um paciente, talvez faça parte da minoria. Em uma coluna recente no Medscape, o Dr. Andrew N. Wilner relatou a história de uma médica que se ofereceu para orar pela esposa dele ao final de uma consulta de rotina. A paciente não tinha nenhuma relação anterior com a profissional e apresentava apenas uma queixa leve. O médico considerou a atitude perturbadora e escreveu que, embora existam situações em que a oração possa ser apropriada, aquele não era o caso.
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3 weeks ago | 
medscape.com | Alicia Ault
Drug overdose deaths declined by almost 27% in 2024, new provisional data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed. The decline continues a downward trend that began in 2023, with a 3% decline that year, followed by steady drops each month of 2024. Overall, there were 80,391 predicted provisional deaths at the end of 2024, down from 110,037 in December 2023. Some 111,029 individuals died from overdose at the epidemic’s peak in 2022.
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1 month ago | 
medscape.com | Alicia Ault
If you have never asked if you can pray for a patient, you might be in the minority. In a recent Medscape column, Andrew N. Wilner, MD, related the story of a physician offering to pray for his wife at the conclusion of a routine visit. She had no previous relationship with the clinician and only a minor complaint.
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1 month ago | 
medscape.com | Alicia Ault
A recently released statement on Trump administration’s drug policy priorities called for a focus on stopping illicit drugs from coming into the United States, prosecuting those responsible for overdose deaths, expanded access to naloxone, and new campaigns “to inform the American people of the dangers of illicit drug use, the hope of a life in recovery, and the ways to prevent an overdose death.” The administration’s plans to address opioid use disorder (OUD) include encouraging state and...
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1 month ago | 
medscape.com | Alicia Ault
At its first meeting under the new administration, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted on recommendations for several vaccines but did not vote on the influenza vaccine, as had previously been scheduled. ACIP was due to meet in February, as it does annually, but the meeting was postponed for unexplained reasons.
