Media Coverage

An Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos can be considered “extrauterine children” under state law has major implications for how in vitro fertilization, commonly called IVF, is performed. Each cycle of IVF is a multistep process that is keyed to a patient’s menstrual cycle in the beginning. First, a patient needs to take injectable hormones every day for a 10- to 12-day period, explains Eve Feinberg, MD, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist at Northwestern University in Chicago. Those hormones prime multiple eggs to mature inside the ovary, in little fluid-filled sacs called follicles. Patients are monitored regularly, often daily. Once those follicles reach a certain size, the patient takes a different hormone that gets the eggs ready to be retrieved. Each cycle of IVF is a multistep process that is keyed to a patient’s menstrual cycle in the beginning. First, a patient needs to take injectable hormones every day for a 10- to 12-day period, explains Dr. Eve Feinberg, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist at Northwestern University in Chicago. Those hormones prime multiple eggs to mature inside the ovary, in little fluid-filled sacs called follicles. Patients are monitored regularly, often daily. Once those follicles reach a certain size, the patient takes a different hormone that gets the eggs ready to be retrieved. “By definition, 45% of all embryos grown in the laboratory ‘die,'” she says. “And the charge of wrongful death can now be applied. As a reproductive specialist, that idea is terrifying,” Feinberg says. “Who wants to assume that risk?”

Patients of color should have access to physicians who are sensitive to skin and hair conditions unique to them and know how to treat them. Sixteen clinics nationwide now specialize in caring for patients of color. The clinics were prompted in part by a history of racial and ethnic disparities that have afflicted the health-care system, experts said. “Communities that have been historically underserved or at times mistreated have a mistrust of the health-care system,” said Roopal Kundu, MD, professor of dermatology and medical education at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and director of its Center for Ethnic Skin & Hair. “We are rebuilding this trust.” The clinics treat conditions common to dark-skinned individuals, such as hyperpigmentation or hypopigmentation, when areas of skin are darker or lighter than the normal skin tone; keloids, or excessive scar tissue that develops once an injury has healed; and hair loss or other scalp disorders. Some of these, such as pigmentation and keloids, occur more frequently in people of color. Others, for example hair loss and scalp ailments, afflict both Blacks and Whites but require different treatments. Many of these clinics are run by dermatologists of color, which inspires patient confidence, experts said.

A woman went to the pharmacy to pick up her oxycodone prescription, only to find out they had given it away to someone else who knew her name and birthday. A CVS spokesperson said the person picking up for the woman gave the identifying information required that validated a relationship with her. In Illinois, it is not required to show a state ID when picking up highly addictive narcotics. Others can prevent this from happening to them by advocating for themselves and telling the pharmacist specifically who is allowed to pick up their prescriptions. “The idea that it’s 90 pills out there is an opportunity for at least one, if not more, people to start to have a problem,” said Sterling Elliott, PharmD,, assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine who shared Jones’ concern. Elliott focuses on how patients use opioids safely, and he called what happened to Jones’ pills diversion. “They’re moving it out into a secondary marketplace in the street, and that’s a whole other realm of danger,” Elliott said. It’s that behavior that fuels the nation’s epidemic. The CDC’s latest data from 2021 show 45 people died each day from prescription opioid overdose.

A medication used to treat asthma can now be used to help people with food allergies avoid severe reactions, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday. Xolair, the brand name for the drug omalizumab, became the first medication approved to reduce allergic reactions caused by accidental exposure to food triggers. Patients as young as age 1 with allergies can take the drug by injection every two to four weeks, depending on their weight and their body’s response to allergens. An estimated 17 million people in the U.S. have the type of food allergies that can cause rapid, serious symptoms, including severe, whole-body reactions that are potentially deadly. The drug has been used “off-label” to treat food allergies, said Ruchi Gupta, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Food Allergy & Asthma Research at Northwestern University. She welcomed full approval of the product. Xolair is a monoclonal antibody, a type of treatment that works by blocking the body’s natural response to allergens.

JN.1 currently accounts for about 93 percent of cases nationwide, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s unusual for a single variant to make up almost all cases, but JN.1’s dominance gives us a unique window into the risk of reinfection for many people. If a person is exposed to the same variant or a very similar one in the months that follow a bout of Covid, their body is often equipped to recognize and combat it before it can cause an infection. Scientists disagree on exactly how long that protection lasts, but estimates range from around two to six months. But JN.1 has “many more mutations than we’re used to seeing,” said Marc Sala, co-director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Covid-19 Center in Chicago. That’s why people who were recently infected with another variant, even one that was previously dominant, may get infected again.And those who do get infected with JN.1 will likely find themselves well protected for as long as it remains the dominant variant. Right now, it isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

The Center for Disease Control is poised to loosen restrictions after a COVID infection. But doctors say people still have a responsibility of diligence. “People who have covid instead of isolating for five days, making the recommendation that they isolate until they stop having a fever,” Michael Angarone, an infectious disease specialist with Northwestern Medicine said. The key is to still test and if someone is positive for SARS Co-V2, the virus that causes COVID, the fever may last for up to three days. “And once they haven’t had a fever for 24 hours without taking any fever, reducing medications, they can come off isolation,” Angarone said. But as cases rose and federal health experts were worried about the triple threat of respiratory illnesses, COVID, flu and RSV, they backed off. “There were a lot of people getting sick but we just weren’t seeing as many people getting severely ill,” Angarone said. “I think the more they’ve gotten the infection, the less severe the symptoms are and it tends to be a little bit short-lived.”

Here’s exactly what happens: First, your airways become swollen and inflamed. The muscles around your airways begin to contract, and your airways begin to narrow. Plus, your airways may also produce extra mucus, which also reduces the space for air to flow through. You may start coughing or wheezing, or you might realize that you’re feeling short of breath. Your chest may feel tight and painful. You may feel like you’re not able to breathe in enough air—or you may feel like you’re trying to breathe through a straw. If you have a child with asthma, encourage them to speak up if they feel like they are on the verge of having an asthma attack. “If they are home, they need to tell whoever is there to help them,” says Luis Torero, MD, a pediatric pulmonologist with Northwestern Medicine’s Regional Medical Group. “If they are at school, the same thing. They shouldn’t be shy.” And if you’re the one with asthma, the same advice applies. If you need help, ask.

While much has been written about the physical toll of long covid, less is known about how the condition affects relationships. Common symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog and dizziness can make it difficult for someone with long covid to help with household chores, go out on dates or be physically intimate. As a result, experts say many long-covid patients struggle with strained relationships. Many of the challenges couples face when one partner has long covid are similar to the challenges of any relationship, such as communication, sexual intimacy and navigating career and home priorities. But when one partner has long covid, how couples approach these issues often requires extra planning, compassion and compromise. Long covid is also uniquely challenging for couples because of how much uncertainty it brings into relationships, said John S. Rolland, an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and author of “Helping Couples and Families Navigate Illness and Disability.” “It becomes a question of ‘When do we start to plan our lives as if this is not going to go away?’” Rolland said. “If every hope is put on a cure, what happens if the illness doesn’t go away?” With long covid, he said, people may focus so much on trying to cure the illness that they forget to maintain a healthy connection with their partner.

Losing your hair or experiencing thinning hair is a stressful and often embarrassing experience that affects millions of people in the U.S. But the good news is, for most individuals, this is a temporary condition that can be reversed with the right treatments and products. “The most common cause of hair loss is androgenetic alopecia, aka male pattern hair loss or female pattern hair loss,” explains Amy Forman Taub, MD, FAAD, a board-certified dermatologist and assistant professor at Northwestern University Medical School. “The second most common is called telogen effluvium and can be caused by many things, including severe stress, childbirth, certain drugs and thyroid abnormalities,” Taub says. If you notice hair loss three to four months after a mild to severe bout of Covid or the flu, you can almost bet that is the cause. But there are other causes too. “People can also develop hair loss from underlying medical conditions like alopecia areata,” Taub says.

The doctor tapped at his computer, ordering a routine prostate exam for an 80-year-old man, when a dramatic yellow alert popped up on the patient’s electronic health record. “You are ordering a test that no guideline recommends,” it warned. “Screening with PSA can lead to harms from diagnostic and treatment procedures. If you proceed without a justification, the unnecessary test will be noted on the health record.” The message was part of a strategy Northwestern Medicine investigators were testing to see if it would prompt doctors to stop ordering unnecessary screenings for older adults. “To our knowledge, this is the first study to significantly reduce all of the unnecessary testing or treatments studied using point-of-care alerts,” said lead researcher Stephen Persell, a professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “We believe that incorporating elements like a focus on potential harms, sharing social norms and promoting a sense of social accountability and reputational concerns led to the effectiveness of these messages,” Persell said in a university news release.