Media Coverage
The work done by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine faculty members (and even some students) is regularly highlighted in newspapers, online media outlets and more. Below you’ll find links to articles and videos of Feinberg in the news.
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MSN online
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Doctors Fearing Legal Blowback Are Denying Life-Saving Abortions
Hospitals and doctors are struggling to toe the line between providing life-saving measures for women and wadding into a legal gray area that’s emerged in the absence of abortion rights. Now physicians are grappling with the added stress of having to determine when it’s legally okay to intervene. There’s also the question of what happens when a patient has to undergo a treatment like chemotherapy, which can be toxic to a fetus. One commonly prescribed drug that doctors say is becoming harder to get for patients is methotrexate. It treats chronic disease like rheumatoid arthritis, but it raises the risk of birth defects and pregnancy loss. Rosalind Ramsey-Goldman, the Gallagher research professor of rheumatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, is concerned that denying patients access to methotrexate will reverse decades of medical progress. In the 1980s, patients with rheumatoid arthritis developed significant deformities when methotrexate wasn’t used in treatment early on. “This is what the rheumatologists are distraught about, especially those of us that have been around for a while,” she said. “To go back to what was happening in the ’80s and before, that is just unbearable.”
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NPR
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Over-the-counter birth control pills are available worldwide. The U.S. may be next
A pharmaceutical company based in Paris is seeking approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an over-the-counter birth control pill. The pill includes progestin only, not estrogen, and is known as a mini pill. If approved, it would be the first oral contraceptive available in the U.S. without a prescription. The lower-risk profile may make it easier to win over-the-counter approval. “The progesterone-only pill as the first over-the-counter pill in the United States would make a lot of sense,” says Dr. Melissa Simon, a professor of clinical gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Because this specific birth control pill does not contain the hormone estrogen, it carries a lower risk of blood clots, which is a risk factor that medical providers screen for when prescribing birth control pills. The FDA review process is expected to take about 10 months, with a decision expected in 2023.
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WebMD
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Fertility Doctors, IVF Families, Post-Roe: ‘We’re Anxious’
“Personhood” legislation has the potential to upend many common IVF practices, experts say. Of greatest concern to fertility practices are potential restrictions on the freezing or discarding of embryos. Most children born in the U.S. as a result of IVF procedures are born from frozen embryos. “The practice of IVF really requires that we generate more embryos than will be used in a given cycle,” says Kara Goldman, MD, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and medical director of the fertility preservation program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. In nature, she says, it’s known that only a small number of eggs will be competent to generate a baby. When patients have completed their family, unused embryos are donated to research, donated for adoption or destroyed. If embryo destruction is outlawed, Goldman says, it will have serious ramifications for the practice of IVF. And if personhood legislation prohibits destroying any embryos, others wonder: would a lab technician who accidentally dropped and destroyed an embryo be subject to charges? If an embryo is declared a person, it could also affect a practice called preimplantation genetic testing, or PGT.
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Yahoo! News
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5 Supplements to Take Out of Your Cart Now
There are more than 29,000 supplements on the market, with another 1000 being launched every year, according to the FDA – but many are a waste of money if not downright dangerous. “Patients ask all the time, ‘What supplements should I be taking?’ They’re wasting money and focus thinking there has to be a magic set of pills that will keep them healthy when we should all be following the evidence-based practices of eating healthy and exercising,” says Jeffrey Linder, chief of general internal medicine in the department of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Supplements you don’t need include vitamins A and E, beta carotene, iron, copper, vitamin C and COVID-19 supplements. Dr. Linder says it is more important to take care of your body by eating well and practicing physical activity, rather than try to make up for that with supplements.
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ABC 7 Chicago
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‘The virus not done with us yet’: Health officials warn of reinfection as BA.5 variant spreads
Governor JB Pritzker is updating the state’s executive order on the COVID pandemic. Under the requirements now, long-term care facilities in areas with moderate transmission will have to test staff every week who are not up to date with COVID vaccinations. The latest strain, BA.5 can sidestep immunity from previous omicron infections and vaccinations. “There is some early data that suggests people who were infected with earlier variants of BA.1 are actually susceptible to being re-infected with this variant,” said Dr. Egon Ozer, a Northwestern Medicine infectious disease specialist. Doctors say that if people don’t get vaccinated and boosted, the virus could mutate into something much more severe. “Every time there’s a new infection, there is a new opportunity for the variant to emerge and to change further, and we don’t know what that change is going to be,” said Ozer.
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Chicago Tribune
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Gov. J.B. Pritzker ends COVID vaccines at colleges as he tweaks many statewide pandemic restrictions
Gov. J.B. Pritzker is ending Illinois’ COVID-19 vaccine mandate for college students and faculty and easing some test requirements for unvaccinated healthcare workers, changes that come despite growing concerns about new coronavirus variants that appear more able to evade immunity. Jaline Gerardin, assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University who works on virus modeling, expressed skepticism at the latest changes to Pritzker’s COVID-19 protocols. “I would feel more comfortable with relaxing requirements if we had a high-functioning surveillance system and were prepared to make tough decisions based on what it was telling us,” said Gerardin. “Since we don’t know what new variants may come our way, when and where they’ll show up, how our existing natural and/or vaccine-induced immunity may or may not protect us…we could be playing with fire since we are flying blind with respect to being able to quickly understand the on-the-ground situation.”
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Chicago Tribune
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After surviving cancer, Chicago woman joins her surgeon to study racial disparities in breast reconstruction
Tokoya Williams wanted to be a cardiac surgeon when she began medical school. But when she was diagnosed with breast cancer during her last year of medical school – leading to chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction – she was forced to put that plan on hold. Now, about 10 years after she first found a lump in her breast, she’s working as a postdoctoral research fellow for one of her own plastic surgeons, Dr. Robert Galiano, associate professor of plastic surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Patients seeking breast reconstruction have several options, including using implants or using tissue from elsewhere in their bodies. As part of the decision-making process, patients often view photos to get an idea of how each option might look. Williams noticed, however, that it was difficult to find images of women of color who’d undergone the procedures. Williams and Galiano suspect issues related to scarring may be part of the reason for lack of photos. For reasons that aren’t fully understood, Black patients often tend to have more visible scars after surgery than lighter-skinned patients, Galiano said.
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Associated Press
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Over-the-counter birth control? Drugmaker seeks FDA approval
For the first time, a pharmaceutical company has asked for permission to sell a birth control pill over the counter in the U.S. Hormone-based pills have long been the most common form of birth control in the U.S., used by millions of women since the 1960s. They have always required a prescription, generally so health professionals can screen for conditions that raise the risk of rare, but dangerous, blood clots. For most women, the drugs are overwhelmingly safe. For every 10,000 women taking combination pills annually, three to nine will suffer a blood clot, according to the FDA data. That compares with one to five clots among 10,000 women who aren’t taking birth control. Medical professionals point out that blood clot rates are much higher in women who become pregnant. “What I definitely see is a misunderstanding of the dangers of these pills. It is much safer to take the pill than to be pregnant” said Dr. Maura Quinlan, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
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The Washington Post
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As the BA.5 variant spreads, the risk of coronavirus reinfection grows
The latest omicron offshoot, BA.5 has quickly become dominant in the United States, and thanks to its elusiveness when encountering the human immune system, is driving a wave of cases across the country. Many people now see the pandemic as part of the fabric of modern life rather than an urgent health emergency. Beyond the direct suffering of such a massive outbreak, there could be economic disruptions as tens of millions of people become too sick to work. “It feels as though everyone has given up,” said Mercedes Carnethon, PhD, an epidemiologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Carnethon said she also isn’t as cautious as she used to be. She is worried she’ll contract the coronavirus again, but doesn’t think a “zero covid” strategy is plausible. Population-level immunity is one reason the virus remains in mutational overdrive. The risk of reinfections has increased because newly emergent subvariants are better able to evade the front-line defense of the immune system, and there is essentially no effort at the community level to limit transmission.
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USA Today
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‘DIY abortion’: Experts warn Americans against ‘extremely dangerous’ herbs in viral post
The changing landscape of abortion access across the country has prompted many Americans to turn to the internet for answers, including how to self-manage an unwanted pregnancy at home. Google searches for “DIY abortion” have skyrocketed since the Supreme Court’s decision in June overturning Roe v. Wade, the nearly 50-year landmark ruling legalizing abortion nationwide. Experts urge pregnant people to stay away from herbal concoctions as they can cause immediate and long-term danger to both the fetus and mother. Dr. Melissa Simon, vice chair for research in the obstetrics and gynecology department at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine said, “It breaks my heart that we are here at this point in time where people are going to attempt something that could potentially kill them.” She further shared, “I really hope that people don’t home remedies to accomplish an abortion…It’s extremely dangerous.”
