Category: Global Health Watch

An Arm and a Leg: John Green vs. Johnson & Johnson (Part 2)

The high price of lifesaving tuberculosis drugs makes them inaccessible to many who need them most. On this episode of “An Arm and a Leg,” hear how a decades-long global fight to reform drug patents is helping to lower the cost.

Jimmy Carter Took on the Awful Guinea Worm When No One Else Would — And Triumphed

The effort to end Guinea worm disease relies almost entirely on changes in people’s behavior. There is no cure, no vaccination. When the 39th president of the United States left office, Jimmy Carter campaigned to eradicate the disease.

To Stem the Spread of Monkeypox, Health Departments Tap Into Networks of Those Most at Risk

Although the disease is currently spreading almost exclusively among men who have sex with men, some cases are turning up in other populations — and that number is likely to grow if public health officials don’t effectively nip the outbreak in the bud.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: The Invisible Pandemic

Covid cases are again climbing, but you wouldn’t know it from the behavior of public health and elected officials, much less the general public, all of whom seem to want to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror. Meanwhile, the fallout over the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion on abortion continues even as the Senate fails — again — to muster the votes to write abortion rights into law. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists suggest their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.

Travel in the Time of Covid: Getting There Is Easy — It’s Getting Home That’s Hard

The part of my London visit that I didn’t plan was testing positive for the coronavirus. I couldn’t get back to the U.S., but the U.K. didn’t care what I did or where I went.

Which Companies Aren’t Exiting Russia? Big Pharma

U.S. and global drug manufacturers invested in Russia’s sizable pharmaceutical industry contend international humanitarian law requires they continue manufacturing and selling their products there, even while condemning the Ukraine invasion. Not everyone agrees.

Never Mind Toys, It’s Time to Ask Santa for Crutches and Catheters

As hospitals juggle holiday covid surges and all their other patients, the global supply chain crisis has left them short of critical supplies.

Omicron and Other Coronavirus Variants: What You Need to Know

This new variant has set off alarm bells in the public health community, but much remains to be learned about it.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Delta Blues

Covid is back with a vengeance, with some people clamoring for booster shots while others harden their resistance to getting vaccinated at all. Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration is pushing hard on drugmaker Pfizer’s request to upgrade the emergency authorization for its vaccine and give it final approval. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.

Unraveling the Mysterious Mutations That Make Delta the Most Transmissible Covid Virus Yet

Scientists are trying to piece together why the delta variant so readily infects unvaccinated Americans, spewing 1,000 times more virus particles.