articles
America has a $250 billion problem: Microplastics have invaded our bloodstreams and may increase the risk of heart attack and stroke
Fortune May 5, 2024
For all the damage that microplastics are doing to the planet, it may be that only an impending threat to the human body will direct the kind of attention to the issue that it has long deserved. That moment, researchers say, is here. Several recent studies into microplastics, the voluminous and tiny (think 5mm or […]
1 in 3 Americans who die in hospital had sepsis–and that’s just one of the many areas where AI can improve early diagnosis
Fortune March 27, 2024
While much of the public conversation around the rise of artificial intelligence has centered on its potential harms, academic and health care researchers have been quietly but aggressively finding ways to use AI to advance the practice of medicine. Many of those projects will be years in the pipeline, owing in part to the medical research […]
‘Absolutely Horrific.’ What American Volunteer Doctors Saw in Gaza
Time March 15, 2024
John Kahler once again heard the sound, the wailing. Inside a room at MedGlobal’s wound care clinic in Rafah, another one of the 150 to 200 patients seen a day was simply having their wounds cleaned. But this was Gaza, and medical supplies are limited or tapped out entirely. “Wound care usually means debridement—you have […]
‘A third of the Bible has to do with healing the sick’: How a medical oasis sprung up in Memphis to cover the working uninsured
Fortune February 29, 2024
Wendy Thompson had a handful of problems, beginning with the fact that walking had become excruciating. One of her knees was virtually bone on bone. She was also experiencing consistently blurred vision, a dangerous way to try to get around in the Tennessee snow and ice. But her greatest pain existed at the level of […]
‘On par with cancer and heart disease’: Experts, patients warn Congress about the burden of long COVID as the government blows through $1.15 billion without finding a cure
Fortune January 24, 2024
Appearing before a key U.S. Senate committee on Jan. 18, one of the world’s foremost authorities on long COVID-19 laid it on the line. “We developed vaccines at warp speed,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “We are doing trials for long COVID at snail speed.” These were […]
COVID-19 v. Flu: A ‘much more serious threat,’ new study into long-term risks concludes
Fortune December 14, 2023
Almost from the start of SARS-CoV-2’s rampage around the globe, researchers and epidemiologists warned that it appeared to behave differently than known viruses, particularly seasonal flu. That included not only COVID-19’s general contagiousness compared to flu viruses, but also its ability to cause clotting problems in the veins and arteries, result in loss of smell and/or taste, […]
Inside long COVID’s war on the body: Researchers are trying to find out whether the virus has the potential to cause cancer
Fortune November 23, 2023
Long COVID is no stranger to either patients or those immersed in studies of its effects. In the U.S., one in 7 adults–about 14% of the adult population–has experienced symptoms that lasted three months or longer after first contracting the virus. The worldwide estimate for long COVID is 65 million people. What is less clear–because it’s still so […]
The growing case for doing less: How harmless cancers are being overdiagnosed in America
Fortune October 2, 2023
In 2009, Laura Esserman, a breast cancer surgeon and oncology specialist in San Francisco, co-published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggesting that it was time to rethink routine screening for breast and prostate cancer. The current approach, she wrote, wasn’t reducing aggressive or late-stage disease as much as had been hoped. Instead, it […]
Long COVID. Shorter Life? New research reveals an arduous road to recovery
Fortune August 21, 2023
With or without a declaration from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID-19 cases continue to rise. Fortunately, the number and severity of those new cases is nowhere near the terrible peaks of the past three years, and deaths are very low. But that’s not the whole story. Practically since the term “long COVID” was […]
America turned to hospital-at-home programs during the pandemic–but their stunning success calls for a permanent fix
Fortune August 11, 2023
On the first day of May this year, George Hardy appeared at the Emergency Department of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The diagnosis was clear: Hardy was suffering from congestive heart failure–and the 84-year-old spent most of the next 24 hours at the emergency department. Then he went home. But he didn’t leave the hospital. […]