Like many fellow Americans, I had my first psychedelic experience in the middle of the pandemic, in a place where the use of psychedelics is decriminalized. I grew up in a Communist country, and the ban and stigma against psychedelics were tremendous. …
FDA and Health Canada recently approved Paxlovid as an oral treatment option for mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk of progression to severe COVID-19. It is a combination drug containing nirmatrelvir/ritonavir. Nirmatrelvir works by binding…
They are the foundation of the CDC’s 2016 opioid guidelines, resulting in legislation limiting opioid prescribing in 36 states. Morphine milligram equivalents, or MMEs, are used to set arbitrary prescribing limits for opioids by physicians since …
I love generic brand products. I will fight to the last breath for my Shoppers’ Choice Adhesive Bandages rather than pay an extra $0.49 for Band-Aids. So why, then, have I been paying up to $395 every month for brand-name medication for the last …
The world is constantly trying to keep up with the latest COVID-19 variant – from Alpha to Omicron and now Omicron’s cousin BA.2, we have seen how contagious and virulent these variants can be. Viruses are wily adversaries, and they mutate both t…
One year ago, the FDA granted emergency use authorization of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S., and nearly 549 million total vaccine doses have been given since. These vaccines have been safe, effective methods in preventing infection and death from C…
Management of medications is sometimes handled sub-optimally, at least in the United States. At the extreme, physicians who prescribe multiple medications prescribe some medications that treat the side effects of other medications. This could be consid…
I still recall the ICU physician holding my hand and preparing me for the possibility I might not survive the blood clots in my lungs, pulmonary embolism. It was eighteen years ago when out of the blue, I found myself unexpectedly holding the hand of t…
Frustration. If you’ve treated patients with PTSD, I’m guessing that both you and your patients have experienced frustration at numerous points along the treatment course. And it’s understandable – up until this point, the effic…
Despite health professionals’ efforts at conveying the effectiveness of immunization, many African Americans remain skeptical about the COVID-19 vaccine. Getting to the root of this distrust is critical as the Delta and Omicron variants stoke up …
