The reading room includes articles and videos of potential interest to consumers and medical professionals. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the NC Medical Board, its members, and staff. Note: Some links may require registration or subscription.
Medpage Today
November 20, 2023
Advocates are cheering FDA’s recent actions around problematic over-the-counter (OTC) eye drop products, arguing the issue has been neglected far too long. “Historically, nobody cared about over-the-counter drugs,” Rebecca Petris, president of the Washington state-based Dry Eye Foundation, told MedPage Today. Petris added that FDA’s recent actions have given advocates hope that the industry will be more strictly scrutinized going forward. “The good part here is we know the FDA is working really hard on eye drops now,” she said.
Medical News Today
November 20, 2023
A novel treatment could restore a normal sense of smell and taste in people with long COVID who have not responded to other therapies, a new study suggests. Alterations or outright loss of taste and smell are common COVID-19 symptoms, affecting about half of everyone who gets the novel coronavirus. Most of the time, these symptoms clearTrusted Source after four weeks, but for some people it takes months. And for some people with long COVID, distortions in the sense of smell and taste — called phantosmia and parosmia, respectively — related to COVID-19 can last far longer.
STATNews
November 20, 2023
In the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, something strange happened: For a year or two, illnesses that used to emerge like clockwork when fall and winter arrived — flu, RSV, and the myriad viruses that cause colds — did not sicken us. The cause now appears clear: The measures we took to avoid the new disease, including isolating and social distancing, muscled most other respiratory pathogens out of the cold-and-flu-season picture.
