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A real-world test of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine in more than half a million people confirms that it's very effective at preventing serious illness or death, even after one dose. Wednesday's published results, from a mass vaccination campaign in Israel, give strong reassurance that the benefits seen in smaller, limited testing persisted when the vaccine was used much more widely in a general population with various ages and health conditions. The vaccine was 92% effective at preventing severe disease after two shots and 62% after one. Its...
Scientists are reporting troubling signs that some recent mutations of the virus that causes COVID-19 may modestly curb the effectiveness of two current vaccines, although they stress that the shots still protect against the disease. Researchers expressed concern Wednesday about the preliminary findings, in large part because they suggest that future mutations could undermine vaccines. The research tested coronaviruses from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, and was led by Rockefeller University in New York with scientists from the...
Two new studies give encouraging evidence that having COVID-19 may offer some protection against future infections. Researchers found that people who made antibodies to the coronavirus were much less likely to test positive again for up to six months and maybe longer. The results bode well for vaccines, which provoke the immune system to make antibodies — substances that attach to a virus and help it be eliminated. Researchers found that people with antibodies from natural infections were "at much lower risk ... on the order of the same kind o...
A daily pill combining four cholesterol and blood pressure medicines taken with low-dose aspirin cut the risk of heart attacks, strokes and heart-related deaths by nearly one third in a large international study that's expected to lead to wider use of this "polypill" approach. For more than a decade, doctors have been testing whether the cheap, all-in-one combo pills could make it easier to prevent heart disease, the top killer worldwide. Friday's results show their value — and not just for poor nations. "It's for all sensible countries," s...
The experimental antibody drug given to President Donald Trump has been called one of the most promising approaches to preventing serious illness from a COVID-19 infection. Its maker, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., said the company agreed to supply a single dose, given through an IV, for Trump at the request of his physician under "compassionate use" provisions, when an experimental medicine is provided on a case-by-case emergency basis, while studies of it continue. The new drug is in late-stage testing and its safety and effectiveness are...
The nearly 1 million people around the world who have lost their lives to COVID-19 have left us a gift: Through desperate efforts to save their lives, scientists now better understand how to treat and prevent the disease — and millions of others may survive. Ming Wang, 71, and his wife were on a cruise from Australia, taking a break after decades of running the family's Chinese restaurant in Papillion, Nebraska, when he was infected. In the 74 days he was hospitalized before his death in June, doctors frantically tried various experimental a...
With a coronavirus vaccine still months off, companies are rushing to test what may be the next best thing: drugs that deliver antibodies to fight the virus right away, without having to train the immune system to make them. Antibodies are proteins the body makes when an infection occurs; they attach to a virus and help it be eliminated. Vaccines work by tricking the body into thinking there's an infection so it makes antibodies and remembers how to do that if the real bug turns up. But it can take a month or two after vaccination or infection...
An experimental blood test was highly accurate at distinguishing people with Alzheimer's disease from those without it in several studies, boosting hopes that there soon may be a simple way to help diagnose this most common form of dementia. Developing such a test has been a long-sought goal, and scientists warn that the new approach still needs more validation and is not yet ready for wide use. But Tuesday's results suggest they're on the right track. The testing identified people with Alzheimer's vs. no dementia or other types of it with accu...
New research suggests that antibodies the immune system makes to fight the new coronavirus may only last a few months in people with mild illness, but that doesn't mean protection also is gone or that it won't be possible to develop an effective vaccine. "Infection with this coronavirus does not necessarily generate lifetime immunity," but antibodies are only part of the story, said Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. He had no role in the work, published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine....
Fresh studies give more information about what treatments do or don't work for COVID-19, with high-quality methods that give reliable results. British researchers on Friday published their research on the only drug shown to improve survival -- a cheap steroid called dexamethasone. Two other studies found that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine does not help people with only mild symptoms. For months before studies like these, learning what helps or harms has been undermined by "desperation science" as doctors and patients tried therapies on th...
A small study strengthens evidence that a pregnant woman infected with the coronavirus might be able to spread it to her fetus. Researchers from Italy said Thursday that they studied 31 women with COVID-19 who delivered babies in March and April. They found signs of the virus in several samples of umbilical cord blood, the placenta and, in one case, breast milk. Women shouldn't panic. This doesn't mean there's viable virus in those places and "it's too early to make guidelines" or to change care, said the study leader, Dr. Claudio Fenizia, an...
Several authors of a large study that raised safety concerns about malaria drugs for coronavirus patients have retracted the report, saying independent reviewers were not able to verify information that's been widely questioned by other scientists. Thursday's retraction in the journal Lancet involved a May 22 report on hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, drugs long used for preventing or treating malaria but whose safety and effectiveness for COVID-19 are unknown. The study leaders also retracted an earlier report using the same company's...
Leaders of a large study in the United Kingdom that is rigorously testing the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and other medicines for hospitalized COVID-19 patients say they will stop putting people on the drug because it's clear it isn't helping. Results released Friday from 1,542 patients showed the drug did not reduce deaths, time in the hospital or other factors. After 28 days, 25.7% on hydroxychloroquine had died versus 23.5% given usual care -- a difference so small it could have occurred by chance. The results "convincingly rule out any...
A malaria drug President Donald Trump took to try to prevent COVID-19 proved ineffective for that in the first large, high-quality study to test it in people in close contact with someone with the disease. Results published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine show that hydroxychloroquine was no better than placebo pills at preventing illness from the coronavirus. The drug did not seem to cause serious harm, though -- about 40% on it had side effects, mostly mild stomach problems. "We were disappointed. We would have liked for this...
Malaria drugs pushed by President Donald Trump as treatments for the coronavirus did not help and were tied to a greater risk of death and heart rhythm problems in a new study of nearly 100,000 patients around the world. Friday's report in the journal Lancet is not a rigorous test of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, but it is by far the largest look at their use in real world settings, spanning 671 hospitals on six continents. "Not only is there no benefit, but we saw a very consistent signal of harm," said one study leader, Dr. Mandeep...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Making himself an example for using a malaria drug against the coronavirus, President Donald Trump sent the White House scrambling Tuesday to defend his decision amid medical concerns the unproven treatment could spark misuse of a medication with potentially fatal side effects. Trump's announcement a day earlier that he was taking the drug, hydroxychloroquine, caught many in his administration by surprise and set off an urgent effort by officials to justify his action. The president's own government has warned that the drug s...
For the first time, a major study suggests that an experimental drug works against the new coronavirus, and U.S. government officials said Wednesday that they would work to make it available to appropriate patients as quickly as possible. In a study of 1,063 patients sick enough to be hospitalized, Gilead Sciences's remdesivir shortened the time to recovery by 31% — 11 days on average versus 15 days for those just given usual care, officials said. The drug also might be reducing deaths, although that's not certain from the partial results r...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators on Friday allowed emergency use of the first drug that appears to help some COVID-19 patients recover faster, a milestone in the global search for effective therapies against the coronavirus. The Food and Drug Administration said in a statement that Gilead Science's intravenous drug would be specifically indicated for hospitalized patients with "severe disease," such as those experiencing breathing problems requiring supplemental oxygen or ventilators. President Donald Trump announced the news at the White H...
Scientists on Wednesday announced the first effective treatment against the coronavirus — an experimental drug that can speed the recovery of COVID-19 patients — in a major medical advance that came as the economic gloom caused by the scourge deepened in the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. government said it is working to make the antiviral medication remdesivir available to patients as quickly as possible. "What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious-disease expert. "This will be...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday warned doctors against prescribing a malaria drug touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus except in hospitals and research studies. In an alert, regulators flagged reports of sometimes fatal heart side effects among coronavirus patients taking hydroxychloroquine or the related drug chloroquine. The decades-old drugs, also prescribed for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, can cause a number of side effects, including heart rhythm problems, severely low b...
The new coronavirus made Dr. Jag Singh a patient at his own hospital. His alarm grew as he saw an X-ray of his pneumonia-choked lungs and colleagues asked his wishes about life support while wheeling him into Massachusetts General's intensive care unit. When they offered him a chance to help test remdesivir, an experimental drug that's shown promise against some other coronaviruses, "it did not even cross my mind once to say 'no,'" said Singh, a heart specialist. Coronavirus patients around the world have been rushing to join remdesivir...
It can spread person to person, even if someone is showing no symptoms. The next in line can continue to pass it on. The incubation period is so long that people may not know where or when they picked it up. Details that emerged last week about the new virus from China show how challenging it could be to control this outbreak, health experts say. At first, some were relieved that the virus hasn't proved fatal as often as those that caused SARS, Ebola or some other recent menaces. Now there's worry that it still might cause a lot of deaths if...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A drug that curbs delusions in Parkinson's patients did the same for people with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia in a study that was stopped early because the benefit seemed clear. If regulators agree, the drug could become the first treatment specifically for dementia-related psychosis and the first new medicine for Alzheimer's in nearly two decades. It targets some of the most troubling symptoms that patients and caregivers face — hallucinations that often lead to anxiety, aggression, and physical and ver...
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — People with severe but stable heart disease from clogged arteries may have less chest pain if they get a procedure to improve blood flow rather than just giving medicines a chance to help, but it won't cut their risk of having a heart attack or dying over the following few years, a big federally funded study found. The results challenge medical dogma and call into question some of the most common practices in heart care. They are the strongest evidence yet that tens of thousands of costly stent procedures and bypass o... Full story
Biogen Inc. said Tuesday it will seek federal approval for a medicine to treat early Alzheimer's disease, a landmark step toward finding a treatment that can alter the course of the most common form of dementia. The announcement was a surprise because the drug company earlier this year stopped two studies of the drug when partial results suggested it was not likely to be successful. The company now says a new analysis of more results suggest that the drug helped reduce a decline of thinking skills at the highest dose. The drug, called...
