The availability of safe, effective COVID vaccines less than a year into the pandemic marked a high point in the 300-year history of vaccination, seemingly heralding an age of protection against infectious diseases. Now, after backlash against public health interventions culminated in President-elect Donald Trump's nominating antivaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the nation's top health official, health experts and vaccine advocates say a confluence of factors could cause renewed, deadly epidemics of measles, whooping cough, meningitis, or even polio.
A Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company raised its drug prices, and then board members and executives received phone calls threatening violence. A health care company's board meeting was disrupted after board members were targeted in "swatting" attacks that wrongly sent law enforcement officers to their homes. These incidents happened before the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, UnitedHealthcare's chief executive, in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday. The police had not offered a motive for the shooting as of Thursday night, or said it was related to Mr. Thompson's work in the insurance industry. The killing, however, stunned business leaders, some of whom were already concerned about safety. Over the last five years, there has been a sharp rise in targeted attacks, digital and offline, of executives and their families.
The shocking, targeted killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson Wednesday struck a nerve on social media, triggering an outpouring of negative experiences with the tangled healthcare system in the U.S. Many people shared searing stories of healthcare denials from health insurers. One person said his mom's scan to check on her stage IV lung cancer was recently denied. In another post, a dad shared the letter UHC sent him denying a wheelchair for his son with cerebral palsy.
In its latest update, the U.S. government said the annual visa limits on EB-3 would reset with the fiscal year that began October 1.
That would allow embassies and consulates to resume taking applications for these visas. The number of visas issued in October is not available. In September, no EB-3 visas were issued.
More than 1,000 nurses throughout the sprawling UPMC network have signed an open letter to the health care giant’s executives calling for better staffing, pay raises to encourage experienced nurses to stay on the job and additional paid time off for nurses.
The petition comes as Pennsylvania is expected to see a shortfall of more than 20,000 nurses by 2026, according to SEIU Healthcare. The union, which is publicizing the letter campaign, said it has been signed by both unionized and non-unionized nurses.
Two years after its groundbreaking debut, the Emergency Nurses Association’s (ENA) Emergency Nurse Residency Program (ENRP) has impacted 70 emergency departments nationwide.
The program now reaches new heights with enhancements designed to empower further and support emergency department (ED) nurses. The ENRP remains steadfast in its mission: providing critical education and resources for academic nurses and those transitioning from non-emergency settings to sharpen their clinical judgment, decision-making, and sociocultural adaptation to the fast-paced ED environment.