Recently, the drug Wegovy was approved for use in the UK. Similar to other brand-name semaglutide pharmaceuticals such as Ozempic, Wegovy can be used to treat diabetes. It involves a weekly injection in the stomach, thigh, or arm. It has recently made the news, however, for supposedly being a “game changer” for weight loss, and …
Continue reading “Wegovy – the Side Effects and Controversy”
Worldwide, one in eight people have a mental disorder such as depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety. In the US, major depressive disorder affects around 7.1% of the population, and around 18.1% of Americans have anxiety disorders. There is much money to be made from giving out medication for these mental health issues. Without insurance, a 30-day …
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently released update guidelines pertaining to childhood obesity. The updated guidelines give the specific ages at which doctors should offer certain treatments for obesity: children 12 and older can be offered drugs, while children 13 and older can be offered weight-loss surgery. Childhood obesity is a grave issue in …
Happy New Year, to start off! Best wishes for 2023. This January, a host of pharmaceutical companies based in the US – including Pfizer and AstraZeneca – plan to raise the prices on more than 350 different drugs. Pharmaceutical companies have a history of hiking their prices at the beginning of the year, and this …
Continue reading “Big Pharma’s New Year’s Resolution: Raise Drug Prices”
Last week, an article published in The Atlantic titled “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty” argues for forgiving one another for what we said or did when we supposedly were ignorant of all covid science. The article was written by Emily Oster, a professor of Economics at Brown University. I entirely disagree with the article. Those …
Continue reading “No Pandemic Amnesty: Those in Power Need to be Held Accountable”
Americans pay the highest prices for medical care and prescription drugs of anyone in the world. In fact, drug prices in the US average 2.5 times those in other developed countries, with brand-name drugs costing an average of 3.4 times higher; doctors often prescribe brand-name medicines even when cheap generics are available. Unsurprisingly, the exorbitant …
Continue reading “California to Consider Manufacturing Generic Insulin”
Seven years ago, a study conducted by professors from Princeton and Northwestern University showed that the US is an oligarchy. The authors looked at 1,779 policies enacted between 1981 and 2002, and found that the bottom 90% of the country had no impact on policy. The preferences of anyone outside the top 10% in the …
The number of Americans on prescription medication is higher than ever and has increased substantially in the past few decades; from 1996-2017, the number of prescriptions filled for children and adults rose by 85%. These medications can have serious health effects beyond the diseases they are supposed to treat. According to 2014 data, 1.3 million …
Continue reading “New Study on the Reduction in Medications of Older Adults on the Vegan Diet”
Among developed countries, the US is unique in how much large corporations dictate the doings of government and in the way they prevent Americans from attaining basic rights found in all other industrialized countries. For example, the US is the only developed country without universal health care. The New York Times recently put together a …
The United States is the only developed country without some form of universal healthcare. Despite the rhetoric of American exceptionalism that so many individuals of the nation still espouse, the fact remains that the USA is the only Western country in which 45,000 people die each year from lack of basic medical attention. Americans pay …
Green Humanist 