Big Pharmacy Chains Also Fed the Opioid Epidemic, Court Filing Says

By Kristie J. Fields 7 hours ago

A Virus-Hunter Falls Prey to a Virus He Underestimated

By Kristie J. Fields 15 hours ago

They Evoke Darth Vader, but These Masks May Save Your Doctor’s Life

By Kristie J. Fields 1 day ago

Trump Administration Coronavirus Testing Strategy Draws Concerns: ‘This Isn’t the Hunger Games’

By Kristie J. Fields 2 days ago

Fear of Covid Leads Other Patients to Decline Critical Treatment

By Kristie J. Fields 2 days ago

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Big Pharmacy Chains Also Fed the Opioid Epidemic, Court Filing Says

By Kristie J. Fields 7 hours ago

A Virus-Hunter Falls Prey to a Virus He Underestimated

By Kristie J. Fields 15 hours ago

They Evoke Darth Vader, but These Masks May Save Your Doctor’s Life

By Kristie J. Fields 1 day ago

Trump Administration Coronavirus Testing Strategy Draws Concerns: ‘This Isn’t the Hunger Games’

By Kristie J. Fields 2 days ago

Big Pharmacy Chains Also Fed the Opioid Epidemic, Court Filing Says

By Kristie J. Fields 7 hours ago

Through years of lawsuits and rising public anger over the opioid epidemic, the big American pharmacy retailers have largely eluded scrutiny. But a new court filing Wednesday morning asserts that pharmacies including CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens and Giant Eagle as well as those operated by Walmart were as complicit in perpetuating the crisis as the manufacturers and distributors of the addictive drugs.

Specifically, the complaint lays out evidence that:

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A Virus-Hunter Falls Prey to a Virus He Underestimated

By Kristie J. Fields 15 hours ago

“This is the revenge of the viruses,” said Dr. Peter Piot, the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “I’ve made their lives difficult. Now they’re trying to get me.”

Dr. Piot, 71 years old, is a legend in the battles against Ebola and AIDS. But Covid-19 almost killed him.

“A week ago, I couldn’t have done this interview,” he said, speaking recently by Skype from his London dining room, a painting of calla lilies behind him. “I was still short of breath after 10 minutes.”

Looking back, ruefully, on being brought down by a virus after a life as a virus-hunter, Dr. Piot said he had misjudged his prey and had become the hunted.

“I underestimated this one — how fast it would spread. My mistake was to think it was like SARS, which was pretty limited in scope. Or that it was like influenza. But

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They Evoke Darth Vader, but These Masks May Save Your Doctor’s Life

By Kristie J. Fields 1 day ago

Even among the surreal sights of an intensive care unit crowded with Covid-19 patients, Dr. Elaine Fajardo’s mask stands out.

Jet-black silicone with magenta-capped filters protruding from both sides, it is more commonly the protection of choice at construction sites and industrial plants. But for Dr. Fajardo, it has been a precious and potentially lifesaving medical resource.

“I think these really saved us from a crisis,” said Dr. Fajardo, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut.

In the past, Dr. Fajardo, like most health care workers, relied on disposable N95 masks, which are in critically short supply globally because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now she is the beneficiary of a prescient decision: As the virus raged in China, Yale hospital administrators bought about 1,200 of the reusable silicone masks, known as elastomeric respirators, and gave them to doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists starting

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Trump Administration Coronavirus Testing Strategy Draws Concerns: ‘This Isn’t the Hunger Games’

By Kristie J. Fields 2 days ago

The Trump administration’s new testing strategy, released Sunday to Congress, holds individual states responsible for planning and carrying out all coronavirus testing, while planning to provide some supplies needed for the tests.

The proposal also says existing testing capacity, if properly targeted, is sufficient to contain the outbreak. But epidemiologists say that amount of testing is orders of magnitude lower than many of them believe the country needs.

“For months, it was a tennis game, it was going back and forth between the feds and the states, and it’s now landed with the states,” said Scott Becker, executive director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

Mr. Becker noted that the

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