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(NEW YORK) — In the early months of 2020, doctors were left responsible to treat a little-known virus that prompted the worst pandemic the world had seen in a century – risking their lives in the process. During the study timeframe, from March 2020 to December 2021, 622 more physicians died than expected, according to a recently released study.
Physicians had much lower excess mortality than the general population, perhaps indicative that protective equipment and workplace measures were effective, the researchers wrote.
Despite a potentially higher risk of being exposed to COVID-19, active physicians had a lower risk of being infected than non-active physicians.
“Non-active physicians are those that are retired, semi-retired, or just not actively practicing medicine. Further research is necessary, but that active physicians had lower excess deaths suggests workplace interventions could have protected them,” Mathew Kiang, ScD, assistant professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford University and author of the study, told ABC News.
Yet, health care workers were left with limited protective equipment in the very early days of the pandemic.
“We felt powerless because there were a lot of unknowns … that powerlessness was felt in the fact that we couldn’t adequately protect ourselves,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News. He then recounted discussions on disinfecting previously used masks with UV light and how mask drives were organized to obtain more supplies.
At the time, the hospital environment was filled with uncertainty and fear.
“In the beginning, as I like to say, we all opened up our textbooks to COVID and we only had blank pages, because there had not been any experience with COVID,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News.
“It was a very scary time. I remember seeing the first patient who had COVID and even though I’m not in the highest risk category I was really scared,” Chin-Hong said.
He said many of his colleagues left their hospital scrubs in the trunk of the car, showered before entering their homes, or even lived away from their families during that period.
There were no excess deaths in the physician population after April 2021, the same time vaccines became widely available, according to the study. The study doesn’t prove cause-and-effect between the two, but the vaccine’s presence was undoubtedly appreciated.
“Vaccines certainly added a lot of comfort with health care in general and delivering it. They provided that bonus of protection. We obviously saw immediate benefit in our patient populations when vaccines were rolled out, it was like night and day,” said Dr. Darien Sutton, an emergency medicine physician, and ABC News contributor.
Throughout the pandemic, nearly half of U.S. health care workers say they had suffered from burnout – with women being disproportionately affected than men.
“The pandemic has exacerbated all parameters that define burnout. When you look at providers from physicians to nurses at the bedside, many feel overworked, underpaid, and under-appreciated in these positions,” Sutton said.
The U.S. continues to average around 500 COVID deaths per day, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“If you’re admitted with COVID, [physicians] are very assertive in treating you and have every expectation that even the most fragile patients will be able to get out of the intensive care unit and will be able to be discharged,” Schaffner said.
“The main takeaway is that frontline health care providers like physicians are crucial in our response to the pandemic and we need to do a better job protecting them in future epidemics,” Kiang said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union address Tuesday night, during which he addressed the administration’s accomplishments and set his agenda heading into the new year.
In front of Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, Biden spoke about issues he wished to take on including gun reform, a billionaire minimum tax and restoring abortion rights across the United States.
Included in his agenda were several key health proposals such as funding for new COVID vaccines and variant-tracking; addressing the fentanyl crisis; lowering insulin costs for Americans; and tackling mental health among youth.
Here’s are some of the health plans Biden said he wants to undertake in 2023:
Capping insulin costs
During his speech, Biden addressed his desire to lower the costs of medication, specifically insulin, for all Americans.
Currently, insulin is capped at $35 per month for seniors on Medicare, but the president wants that extended to those under age 65 who either pay for their own health insurance or receive it through their employer.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37.3 million people are living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes in the U.S. Recently, a study found more than 1 million diabetics in the U.S. are rationing their insulin doses to save money.
“Every day, millions need insulin to control their diabetes so they can stay alive. Insulin has been around for 100 years. It costs drug companies just $10 a vial to make,” Biden said. “But Big Pharma has been unfairly charging people hundreds of dollars — and making record profits.”
A report from the RAND Corporation found that the average American spent more than $98 per unit of insulin in 2018, almost more than any other nation.
“There are millions of other Americans who are not on Medicare, including 200,000 young people with type 1 diabetes who need insulin to save their lives,” Biden said. “Let’s finish the job this time. Let’s cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American who needs it.”
Funding for COVID vaccines and tracking new variants
Biden acknowledged during his speech that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet, although he intends to let the public health emergency declaration expire in May.
More than 400 Americans are still dying from the virus every day, according to CDC data, although this is down from more than 2,400 per day during the height of the omicron wave in winter 2021-22.
The president said it’s important to remember the more than 1 million Americans who’ve died already and “remain vigilant.”
Since passing the American Rescue Plan in March 2021, Congress has refused to provide additional funding for the development of new vaccines and therapeutics, free testing programs and replenishing the national stockpile.
“We still need to monitor dozens of variants and support new vaccines and treatments,” Biden said. “So, Congress needs to fund these efforts and keep America safe.”
Addressing the fentanyl crisis
The U.S. is in the throes of a devastating opioid epidemic, driven by synthetic opioids like fentanyl, and Biden did not shy away from talking about it during his State of the Union address.
Fentanyl is between 50 times and 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In 2021, a record 107,622 Americans died from drug poisoning or overdose, with 66% linked to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, the Department of Justice said in a press release last year.
Biden addressed a series of steps to squash the smuggling of fentanyl into the U.S., particularly along the southern border.
“Let’s launch a major surge to stop fentanyl production, sale, and trafficking, with more drug detection machines to inspect cargo and stop pills and powder at the border,” Biden said. “Working with couriers like Fed Ex to inspect more packages for drugs. Strong penalties to crack down on fentanyl trafficking.”
Helping youth tackle mental health
Biden also said he will take steps to address mental health among the nation’s youth.
According to an advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General, rates of mental health disorders including anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation are increasing, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not addressing mental health can lead to disability and poor outcomes among youth.
Biden said this includes increasing mental health services at school and protecting children on social media.
“When millions of young people are struggling with bullying, violence, trauma, we owe them greater access to mental health care at school,” he said. “We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit.”
“And it’s time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us,” Biden continued.
(NEW YORK) — A ruling from a federal judge in Texas — that may come as soon as Friday — could potentially block use of an abortion medication across the United States.
A lawsuit is asking that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone be revoked and that the drug be pulled from the market.
If the judge rules in favor of the plaintiffs, there would be a nationwide injunction on mifepristone, affecting even states where the procedure is legal. Another drug used in combination with mifepristone for abortions, called misoprostol, would still be available, but it’s not approved by the FDA to be used for abortions on its own.
Abortion rights groups fear the decision will restrict abortion even more so than the Supreme Court did when it overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.
“This would be devastating,” Kirsten Moore, director of the EMAA Project, which works to expand access to medication abortion, told ABC News of the ruling’s impact. “This would be taking an FDA approved drug off the market for no public health reason.”
What is mifepristone?
Mifepristone is a drug typically used in combination with another drug to induce an abortion or to help manage an early miscarriage.
The medication works by blocking the hormone progesterone, which the body needs to continue a pregnancy.
This causes the uterine lining to stop thickening and to break down, detaching the embryo. The second drug, misoprostol, taken 24 to 48 hours later, causes the uterus to contract and dilates the cervix, which will expel the embryo.
Mifepristone was authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000. In the U.S., the drugs are approved up to 10 weeks’ gestation, although the World Health Organization says they can be taken up until the 12-week mark.
Medication abortion now accounts for more than half of all abortion in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute.
In December 2021, the FDA announced it permanently lifted its restriction that abortion pills had to be dispensed in-person. Last month, it went further by allowing retail pharmacies to provide the drug too, either by mail or in person, so long as they meet certain requirements.
What is the lawsuit?
In November 2022, a lawsuit was filed by Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian conservative legal advocacy group working to outlaw abortion, on behalf of four anti-abortion medical groups and four physicians, who claim they have used the drug to treat patients.
The FDA says mifepristone is safe and effective when used as directed and no new safety concerns have arisen in the more than two decades since it was approved.
ADF claims the federal health agency “chose politics over science and approved chemical abortion drugs for use in the United States,” according to the lawsuit.
The 113-page lawsuit also argues the FDA exceeded its authority and ignored “intense side effects” because it was under pressure to approve the drug under then-U.S. President Bill Clinton.
“This case is unusual, because it’s challenging a drug that’s been on the market for over 20 years and extremely safe,” Rabia Muqaddam, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told ABC News. “The evidence that they suggest shows medication abortion is unsafe, has been repeatedly rejected by the FDA. And despite the claims having very little legal merit, and the plaintiffs not really having any injury, this case, has the potential to really undermine the remaining access to abortion that exists.”
What would the case decide?
The case was filed in Amarillo, Texas — a state where abortion is already severely limited — and assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was nominated by former President Donald Trump.
Kacsmaryk is known for his conservative stance on issues and, last year, he issued a decision on Title X, a federal grant program that provides confidential family planning and preventive health services.
He ruled that teenagers can’t access birth control without their parents’ permission under the program because it “violates the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.”
If Kacsmaryk rules in favor of ADF, mifepristone would, at least temporarily, be taken off the market and all states where abortion is legal would only be able to offer in-clinic procedures.
This means patients will not be able to access telehealth services to get abortion pills and clinics already experience a surge of patients from states where abortion is illegal could be even more inundated.
“It’s going to impose a really significant burden and cause significant congestion at the clinics that still remain,” Muqaddam said. “We’re seeing long wait times, so many patients trying to travel to access state to seek care. It’s been a huge challenge. It’s going to cause a pretty immediate and extreme constriction and the accessibility of abortion.”
The decision could come as early as Feb. 10, which is the deadline both sides in the case have to file briefs.
(NEW YORK) — Doctors and healthcare providers should monitor pregnant patients’ blood pressure regularly during and after pregnancy, according to a new draft recommendation.
The recommendation was published Tuesday by the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, a volunteer panel of experts that is highly influential in setting medical guidance.
The new draft guidance expands on existing recommendations to include screening for all types of blood pressure disorders during pregnancy. It recommends monitoring blood pressure at each doctors’ visit, starting early in pregnancy and ending six weeks after birth.
Left untreated, high blood pressure during pregnancy can lead to a range of health problems, including stroke, organ damage, seizures and low birth weight for newborns, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One of the most common conditions associated with high blood pressure during pregnancy, preeclampsia, happens in around 1 in 25 pregnancies in the United States, according to the CDC.
Other conditions that can result from high blood pressure include gestational hypertension, eclampsia, and chronic hypertension with and without superimposed preeclampsia, the task force says, noting that risk factors for high blood pressure in pregnancy include a previous adverse pregnancy outcome, having gestational diabetes or chronic hypertension, having a high BMI prior to pregnancy and being 35 years or older.
Regular screening for blood pressure during and after pregnancy can help because it will give health care providers more opportunities to intervene with treatments that can can help reduce health risks, according to the task force. It emphasized the need for expanded blood pressure screenings because of racial disparities that put pregnant Black and Native American women at greater risk.
In the U.S., Black women and Native American women are two to three times as likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women, according to the CDC. Across all races, the U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, with around 700 women dying each year as a result of complications due to pregnancy.
The task force’s new guidance follows a trend of increasing rates of high blood pressure among pregnant women, particularly among women of color.
Blood pressure-related disorders during pregnancy are a leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States.
Black and Native American women experience a disproportionately high rate of blood pressure conditions, according to the CDC
MORE: Serena Williams says she had to advocate to save her life after giving birth
“Importantly, we are using this draft recommendation statement to call attention to the inequities related to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy,” Task Force vice chair Dr. Wanda Nicholson, senior associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion and professor of prevention and community health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, said in a statement. “While taking blood pressure throughout pregnancy is an important first step, screening alone cannot fully address these inequities. We have highlighted additional promising ways to improve health outcomes for those at increased risk and are calling for more research to address this important issue.”
The task force is now seeking comments on the draft guidance, and says more research is needed before it is finalized.
(NEW YORK) — A first-of-its-kind pill designed to help treat postpartum depression is one step closer to being available to new mothers.
The drug, called Zuranolone, is now being reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has until Aug. 5, 2023, to decide whether or not to approve the drug based on an evaluation of its effectiveness and safety.
If approved, Zuranolone, made by Sage Therapeutics, Inc., and Biogen Inc., would be the first pill to treat postpartum depression, a type of depression that occurs after having a baby, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The fast-acting antidepressant would be taken once a day for two weeks.
“We feel a tremendous responsibility to patients with MDD and PPD to deliver a potential new treatment option, which is so desperately needed. Most current approved therapies may take weeks or months to work. We are committed to advancing treatments that could help physicians and patients by addressing depression symptoms quickly,” Dr. Laura Gault, chief medical officer at Sage Therapeutics Inc., said in a statement. “We believe Zuranolone, if approved, could offer a new way for physicians to support patients.”
The medication would also be much handier than other treatments.
Currently, there’s only one drug on the market that’s FDA-approved to treat postpartum depression. The drug, called Zulresso, is only available through a 60-hour, one-time infusion, and can cost as much as $20,000 to $35,000 per treatment.
Postpartum depression affects as many as 1 in 8 women who give birth, according to the CDC.
Symptoms of postpartum depression include withdrawing from loved ones, crying more than usual, feeling worried or overly anxious, feeling anger, doubting your ability to take care of your baby and thinking about harming yourself or your baby, according to the CDC. The symptoms may last for weeks or months after giving birth, and are more intense and longer lasting than the “baby blues” that women may experience after giving birth.
Current treatment for postpartum depression can include talk therapy or antidepressants, according to the National Institutes of Health. While a number of antidepressants may be helpful for the condition, they can take weeks to work.
Zuranolone was found in at least one clinical trial to show promising results.
A trial published in 2021 found that after two weeks of daily treatment using Zuranolone, women treated with the medication had a “statistically significant reduction in their core symptoms of depression compared to women who received a placebo.”
After 45 days, 53% of women who received Zuranolone were in full remission of clinical depression versus 30% who received the placebo, according to the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry.
The clinical trial found Zuranolone was “generally well tolerated” in the women who took it, with some reported side effects including drowsiness, headache, dizziness and upper respiratory tract infection.
(NEW YORK) — Superbugs are now a leading global health risk, according to a major U.N. report published Tuesday.
Major industries like the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries are largely responsible for this growing threat, inadvertently driving dangerous pathogens to evolve to outsmart currently available medications, the report said.
Antimicrobials, which include antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics are commonly used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals and crops. However, their overuse and misuse have led to the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the world, where microorganisms become resistant to treatments that were once effective. AMR has been identified by the World Health Organization as one of the top 10 threats to global health, with the potential to cause significant harm to human health, food security and the environment.
In 2019, an estimated 1.3 million deaths were directly linked to drug-resistant infections; nearly 5 million deaths were associated with AMR. At this pace, researchers estimate that by 2050 there could be up to 10 million additional deaths per year. The economic toll could result in a GDP drop of at least USD 3.4 trillion annually by 2030 as well, according to the report.
“That economic toll will come in terms of actually lives and livelihoods through disruption of trade losses, livestock productivity, and higher health care costs, not counting of course the human toll on lives,” said Dr. Anthony D, So, director of the Innovation and Design Enabling Access Initiative at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “The impact will be felt across sectors and disproportionately will fall upon poorer countries least well-positioned to mitigate the impact of AMR,” So added.
AMR is not only a public health issue, but also has ties to the environment.
“Environment plays really a key role in the development, transmission and spread of antimicrobial resistance,” said Jacqueline Alvarez, ehief of the Chemicals and Health Branch, United Nations Environment Programme. The report mentions that, “AMR is closely linked to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste,” which are “driven by human activity and unsustainable consumption and production patterns.”
“We have real tangible and physical recommendations…This goes beyond government. It talks about practices, it talks about culture, it talks about different sectors that need to really change the dynamics of the things that they are doing,” Alvarez added.
The U.N. report’s authors argued these problems should be fixed with top-down, government-level initiatives, which should be implemented as soon as possible. Specifically, governments should consider freeing up enough funding for national development planning, climate change initiatives and monitoring for the evolution of new superbugs.
Governments should also consider placing regulatory limits on the use of antimicrobials on farms, discharge of wastewater from pharmaceutical companies, improving wastewater management and beefing up safer sanitation practices, the report further urged.
(NEW YORK) — Donnese Tyler said she was at a routine PTA meeting at her son’s Maryland school last year when she suddenly felt an unusual feeling.
“I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what was that?'” Tyler told Good Morning America of the symptoms she felt, which included a sharp pain in her chest and discomfort in her throat. “I said, ‘I hope I’m not having a heart attack.'”
Tyler, 52, also said that when she drank water, the water tasted salty — an atypical symptom she said was a precursor to the medical emergency she quickly began experiencing.
Tyler, whose story was first reported by local ABC affiliate WJLA-TV, credits some of the other moms at that PTA meeting with saving her life.
“I did not want to go, but two of the moms actually drove me to the ER,” Tyler said. “If I had not been around those moms, I would have just driven myself home and laid down, and who knows what the outcome would have been.”
At a Bethesda, Maryland, hospital, Tyler said doctors diagnosed her with SCAD or spontaneous coronary artery dissection, a rare occurrence where a tear forms in the wall of a blood vessel of the heart and separates without warning, according to the American Heart Association.
SCAD can cause a blood clot that may lead to a heart attack, arrhythmia or even sudden cardiac death and some cases require open heart surgery.
What to know about SCAD, heart disease in women
When it comes to heart disease, women can often experience symptoms other than chest pain, including shortness of breath, lightheadedness, pain in the arms or back, nausea and sweating.
Tyler’s symptom of tasting salt in water is incredibly rare and is not supported by any current medical research, according to Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News chief medical correspondent.
Heart disease, which refers to several types of heart conditions, including SCAD and heart attack, is the leading cause of death for women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There is no known cause for SCAD, but it often happens to women who are otherwise healthy and have few to no risk factors for heart disease, according to the American Heart Association. It is also shown in studies to occur more often in women who are, according to the AHA, postpartum and women who are “experiencing or close to a menstrual cycle.”
The most common demographic for SCAD is women in their 40s and 50s, according to the AHA.
Treatments for SCAD can range from medication to surgery to insert a stent to hold the artery open, according to the AHA.
Today, Tyler is in cardiac rehab and said she’s hoping to be well enough to run a 5K this May.
Ashton said the prognosis for SCAD varies, but in Tyler’s case, it’s “a great example” of incredible progress.
“Everyone’s recovery will be determined by how severe their dissection was and what their baseline level of condition was before that,” said Ashton. “So it does vary, but early diagnosis and treatment is critical for survival and the good news — these blood vessels, when there’s a small tear, they do tend to be able to heal spontaneously on their own.”
Tyler said she is sharing her story in hopes of encouraging others not to ignore any symptoms they may notice.
“If something doesn’t feel right, you just feel a little off, definitely get it checked out,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — New York City workers will no longer need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to be employed by the city, Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday.
The mayor said the vaccine mandate for city employees will end Friday, nearly 15 months after his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, implemented the policy, during a vote by the city’s Department of Health. Adams said 96% of the city workforce has received both shots so the mandate for current and prospective employees served its purpose.
“This is the right moment for this decision,” Adams said in a statement.
By comparison, 90% of New York City residents over 18 have completed their COVID-19 vaccine series as of Monday, according to data from the city’s Health Department.
De Blasio issued the mandate on Oct. 29, 2021, and was met with protests and criticism from some employees from various city agencies, including the fire department, police department and department of education.
Roughly 84% of the city’s roughly 331,000 workforce was fully vaccinated when the mayor announced the mandate, according to city data.
Despite those protests, the number of vaccinated city employees rose between de Blasio’s announcement earlier in October and the deadline, with 83% of all city employees reporting they were fully vaccinated before the deadline, city data showed. By Nov. 1, the first full weekday after the mandate went into effect, 90% of the city’s workforce was fully vaccinated, the data showed.
Those who weren’t granted a religious or medical exemption were placed on unpaid leave and some later were terminated.
The Health Department said 1,780 city employees were fired for not complying with the mandate. The agency said those former employees won’t automatically return to their previous positions but “will be able to apply for positions with their former agencies through existing city rules and regulations and hiring processes.”
Adams urged residents to get their vaccine shots and boosters if they haven’t done so.
Since the vaccines were made available to the public two years ago, the weekly hospitalization rate of COVID-19 cases among 100,000 unvaccinated New Yorkers was 36.84 compared to 6.82 among 100,000 boosted New Yorkers, Health Department data showed.
Chimére Smith, 40, from Baltimore, Maryland, during a function at the school where she was a teacher in Feb. 2020, before she contracted COVID-19. – Courtesy of Chimére Smith
(NEW YORK) — Throughout the pandemic, Black Americans have made up a disproportionate share of cases, hospitalizations and deaths compared to any other racial or ethnic group.
Now, doctors and advocates are warning the Black community is facing another barrier: access to long COVID care.
Long COVID occurs when patients who were infected with the COVID-19 virus have lingering symptoms for more than four weeks after recovering. In some cases, these symptoms can persist for months or even years.
It’s unclear what causes people to develop the condition, but research is ongoing.
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey, with the latest update conducted between Jan. 4 and Jan. 16, 28.7% of Black respondents said they currently have or have had long COVID.
By comparison, 27.6% of white adults reporting having or having had long COVID. Hispanic adults were the only racial/ethnic group with a higher percentage reporting long COVID at 31.7%.
However, when it came to adults currently with long COVID who are suffering from significant limitations, Black patients had the highest share of people reporting, the survey shows.
Data shows 34.6% of Black Americans with long COVID report severe limitations on their ability to perform day-to-day activities. Hispanics had the second highest rates of severe physical limitations at 32% and those who reported being multiple races or another race were 30.5%.
‘Nobody wanted to listen to me’
One of those people is Chimére Smith, a 40-year-old former middle school English teacher from Baltimore, Maryland.
Smith said she contracted COVID in late March 2020. Her symptoms started off with a scratchy throat and soon progressed to a myriad of symptoms including extreme fatigue, a persistent cough, fogginess, headaches, nausea, diarrhea and spinal pain.
“I remember trying to do some type of social media dance with my partner and after like two minutes, I had to sit down because the world was spinning,” she told ABC News. “And so, within those first few days, as I said to my partner, ‘I think I have COVID.'”
Smith said she went to two hospitals in the Baltimore area, both of which were familiar with her medical history, but doctors refused to test her for COVID-19.
“They told me that my symptoms were not profound enough to test,” she said. “They told me that they didn’t have enough tests. They told me that I was fine and that I was just being anxious because we were out of school for the unforeseeable future. I got a lot of doctors telling me I was anxious, and that I was okay.”
However, Smith’s symptoms continued for several weeks and even months, to the point where she lost vision in her left eye and was left unable to work or drive.
Smith said she paid more than a dozen visits to doctors and hospitals asking for help, but she said she was discharged after every visit with no treatment plan in place.
Smith said she had never been dismissed by a doctor before and felt discouraged.
“I felt extremely frustrated,” she said. “I was incredibly sad and depressed about that. I felt very despondent. I had several white male doctors sit at my bedside and ask me, ‘Are you sure there’s nothing personal going on in your life? Are you sure? Is it a relationship issue? Was it a job issue?'”
She continued, “But nobody wanted to listen to me. And so, it was infuriating. I felt powerless. The way that some of those doctors talk to me, I can tell they were talking to me that way because I was a Black female patient, who they assumed did not know anything about what was happening to her body.”
In April 2021, Smith testified before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health on the lingering effects of COVID-19.
Implicit bias in the medical field
There is a history of distrust when it comes to the Black community and the health care system due to beliefs among patients that doctors won’t treat them as well as their white counterparts. A 2012 meta-analysis found Black patients were 22% less likely than white patients to receive any pain medication.
There is also a fear of being used as guinea pigs in clinical research or other studies as what occurred during the Tuskegee experiments from 1932 to 1971.
Black men were injected with syphilis to track progression of the sexually transmitted in infection, but the study was conducted without informed consent and patients never received treatment for the disease.
What’s more, eugenics movements in the 20th century saw many women across communities or of color forcibly sterilized.
Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, an assistant professor and physician in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told ABC News there is unconscious and implicit bias in the medical field that may lead to doctors dismissing Black patients compared to white patients.
“I can tell you, for a lot of affluent patients coming to our clinic or white patients, what got them to this clinic is that their doctor took their symptoms seriously and got him to our clinic,” Galiatsatos, a member of the Johns Hopkins Post-Acute COVID-19 Team, said. “Counter that with disadvantaged patients from a socioeconomic standpoint or Black/African-American patients, it took them several doctors to listen to what they’re experiencing before someone took them seriously.”
During the period when she thought no one was listening to her, Smith said she felt like she was going to die before anyone figured out what was wrong.
It wasn’t until a year and two months after Smith’s symptoms first began that she visited a doctor who told her she believed that Smith was suffering from long COVID.
“I had a doctor’s appointment on May 20, which was my 39th birthday, and on that day was when a physician, a Black woman said to me, for the very first time, ‘I believe you,'” she said. “And when she said that I cried like a baby. Because I could not believe somebody was actually telling me, ‘I believe you. Everything that you’re saying to me, convinces me that you had COVID.'”
Trouble accessing care
It’s not just a matter of getting doctors to believe Black patients. There’s also trouble accessing care among the Black community.
“So, with my own eyes, my colleagues and I have seen it in our own clinic, where those that are so economically disadvantaged, those of minority race, their persistence of symptoms by the time they get to our clinic have been going on for a little over a year,” Galiatsatos said. “When we counter that versus populations of higher socioeconomic status or the white race, for instance, those individuals usually catch us well within three to six months.”
There are several factors at play. Black Americans traditionally have less access to insurance – let alone quality insurance — allowing them allowing them to see a doctor at a post COVID clinic.
“So many of our patients that we’ve taken on have had to go through several insurance authorizations just to get a referral to come to us, and that’s what they will say is part of their delay,” Galiatsatos said.
Additionally, despite several clinics opening up across the country, Black patients are more likely to rely on public transportation, meaning less access to clinics. Galiatsatos said fewer than 10% of the patients he sees at the post-COVID clinic are Black.
Black households are also less likely to have internet. According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 34% of Black adults in the U.S. do not have home broadband, meaning they may not have information about long COVID or know where to go to receive care.
What’s more, a 2022 study found Black Americans make up about 15% of the U.S. workforce, but are much more likely than white Americans to hold frontline or essential jobs, accounting for 30% of bus drivers and 20% of food service workers, for example.
“A day missed of work is a day missed of income,” Galiatsatos said. “If those patients have long COVID, they’re going to decide between a paycheck and their health every day and that’s not fair to them.”
To close the racial gap in long COVID care, Galiatsatos recommends more regular implicit bias training among doctors and more telemedicine so patients can access specialized clinics.
Smith, the long COVID patient, said school buildings, historically black colleges and universities, churches and other community organizations can be used to educate Black communities on the effects of COVID and long COVID.
While Smith is able to cook and drive again, she still is unable to work and experiences several symptoms including brain fog, short-term memory loss, joint pain, gastrointestinal inflammation and headaches.
She hopes her story will help educate others and convince them to be their own advocate if they get pushback from physicians.
“This has been my reality for three years,” she said. “I would rather be in a classroom with 40 kids, talking about how to write a great essay, than sitting here talking to you. Three years later, and I still get no comfort. I love telling my story to inspire other Black people and Black families, but I don’t get any joy.”
(NEW YORK) — The hit HBO series “The Last Of Us” describes a post-pandemic world devastated by a mass outbreak of a “zombie fungus” that infects and takes over the mind of its hosts. Originally a video game, the popular show was recently renewed for a second season.
Although its premise is science fiction, the fungus in the show is actually based in scientific reality.
Is the ‘zombie’ fungus real?
Cordyceps – the so-called “zombie fungus” – is a real fungus and is sometimes used in treatments and therapeutics in Chinese herbal medicine.
Although cordyceps does not infect humans, it does infect a wide range of insects.
In ants, cordyceps slowly infects its victims by mind-controlling the host to migrate to a humid climate where the conditions are perfect for its growth. Once a suitable environment has been found, the ant will dig its jaws into a plant and await death.
The fungus will then slowly consume the ant while eventually sending out its own spores – a sort of antenna to enthrall and trap future victims.
Could the ‘zombie fungus’ threaten human health?
There are thousands of species of cordyceps each designed to infect a particular species – luckily, humans aren’t one of them. The human body’s immune system is more advanced than that of an ant and has a higher internal temperature, which would protect it from cordyceps infection.
However, other fungi have made their presence known throughout human history. Ergot poisoning, also dubbed “St. Anthony’s Fire,” is caused by the contamination of grain and has been attributed to mass hysteria events such as the Salem Witch trials in the 17th century, Matthew Fisher, Ph.D., a professor of fungal disease epidemiology at the Imperial College School of Public Health, said.
While some fungi have been known to cause hallucinations on very rare occasions, “a human manipulating cordyceps is vanishingly unlikely,” Fisher said.
Scientists said that while there are approximately 150,000 species of fungi – with a few million yet to be discovered – only about 200 are known to infect humans.
How do fungi currently affect human health?
Fungal infections are responsible for over 150 million severe cases and an estimated 1.7 million deaths per year worldwide, according to one study.
Researchers estimate that nearly a billion people have skin, nail and hair fungal infections annually. More serious fungal infections usually appear in people with other underlying health problems such as asthma, AIDS, cancer, organ transplant recipients and those on corticosteroid therapies.
In a detailed report, the World Health Organization warned in October, 2022, of 19 fungal pathogens representing the greatest threat to public health.
Yet, fungal infections receive less than 1.5% of infectious disease funding while killing more people than tuberculosis – a leading infectious disease killer worldwide.
“It’s really shocking that research on fungal pathogens is so underfunded. Biohazardous threats are much broader than just bacteria and viruses,” Jessica Malaty Rivera, infectious disease epidemiologist and research fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital and The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told ABC News.
Will there be a pandemic caused by fungal infections?
While some fungi can be transmitted from person to person, they generally do not spread as easily or quickly as viruses. Additionally, the human body’s immune response and the availability of antifungal medications make it less likely that a fungus would be able to cause a global outbreak.
It is unlikely that a single fungus would cause a global pandemic on the same scale that we’ve seen with COVID-19. Viruses typically spread through respiratory droplets whereas fungal infections spread through direct skin-to-skin contact or from sharing items.
Despite a low possibility of spurring a worldwide pandemic, the global burden of fungal infections remains high. “Many of these infections can be incredibly difficult to treat and have high mortality rates,” Rivera said.
Is climate change making things worse?
While it is highly unlikely climate change would lead to a zombie-like apocalypse according to experts, the warming of the globe continues to pose a threat to global health.
Research has shown that global pandemics from infectious diseases may become more common as habitats continue to bleed into one another and animals are exposed to species they have never interacted with before, while the space between humans and the natural world shrinks.
A new study also found that when scientists increased the temperature of a particular fungus was exposed to, the pathogen could adapt with certain genetic changes.
“These mobile elements are likely to contribute to adaptation in the environment and during an infection,” postdoctoral researcher Asiya Gusa Ph.D. of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology in the Duke School of Medicine said in a press release accompanied with the study. The research may suggest that pathogenic fungi can adapt to the planet’s warmer temperatures as well – highlighting the danger of global warming.
“It is clear that in a warmer wetter world, we are going to be exposed to more [fungi] than ever before – signs of this were seen during Hurricane Katrina – and this is going to pose an increased public health stress,” Fisher said.
“If we are going to really tackle climate change, we have to get more specific about the impact it has on public health,” Rivera said.
