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Happy Monday morning y’all. We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Got new fave recipes? Send those (and news tips) our way: [email protected].
Today’s edition: A deep dive on the scarce oversight and fraud within the hospice industry via the New Yorker and Propublica. Federal health officials are cautiously optimistic that RSV cases may be peaking. But first …
Your post-Thanksgiving catch-up: long covid treatments, abortion in Georgia and federal judges
Welcome back from the Thanksgiving respite, where on Capitol Hill, it’s a sprint to the next holiday break. This morning we’re diving into three stories you may have missed and why they matter.
- Covid long-haulers are turning to treatments without robust scientific evidence as the slow pace of research into the condition frustrates advocates.
- Georgia’s Supreme Court has reinstated a ban on most abortions as access to the procedure remains limited across the South.
- Senate Democrats will continue to confirm federal judges next year, but the makeup of the courts over the last two years hasn’t shifted substantially.
Manufacturers are pushing to the market a spate of remedies purporting to treat long covid, often with little data behind them. But the sluggish pace of research into the condition has left covid long-haulers desperate for relief turning to pricey unproven treatments, our colleague Frances Stead Sellers reports.
One nonprofit is promoting ivermectin, which the Food and Drug Administration has approved to treat some parasitic worms. Major professional groups, like the American Medical Association, oppose using the drug outside of clinical trials, and it hasn’t been shown to effectively treat acute covid-19. Others are touting dietary supplements that aren’t regulated by the FDA, a process known as “blood washing” in Cyprus or $25,000 stem cell treatments in the Cayman Islands.
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