American Heart Month 2023

February is American Heart Month, a time when all people can focus on their cardiovascular health and risk factors for heart disease and stroke. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women, affecting Americans of all backgrounds. In the United States, someone has a heart attack every 40 seconds and someone dies from heart-disease related causes every minute. One out of every four deaths in the United States is from heart disease. Coronary heart disease alone costs the United States over $200 billion each year in healthcare costs, medications, and lost productivity.   There are a […]

Thank a Pharmacist For Their Role in Community Health

National Pharmacist Day, celebrated annually on January 12, honors pharmacists across different specialties and in every setting by recognizing the impact they have in healthcare. There were approximately 312,550 pharmacists in the United States as of the most recent census, many of whom have been vital to the public’s health and wellbeing — long before the ongoing pandemic.   Pharmacists are a vital part of healthcare teams and often rank among the most trusted professions, with survey respondents rating the honesty and ethical standards of pharmacists as “high” or “very high.” Pharmacists not only check and dispense medications for patients; […]

State of Healthcare 2022

2022 is coming to a close, leaving behind many challenges to healthcare in the United States. The changes to reproductive freedom and attacks on gender affirming healthcare all while the COVID-19 pandemic rages in its third year while being systematically ignored/normalized have greatly affected how people access healthcare and how much it costs. People in the United States continue to count healthcare costs as a major concern.   In the final days of 2021, we were beginning to see the effects of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Even with the new highly transmissible variant, the CDC cut isolation/quarantine […]

Get the flu shot to avoid complications and coinfections with COVID and RSV

This week is National Influenza Vaccination Week in the United States. Established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2005, this week highlights the importance of continuing flu vaccination through the holidays and beyond. Vaccines against the flu are the best defense against the virus and developing flu-related complications.   The influenza vaccine contains elements of killed or inactivated viruses. The dead virus still contains the antigens they had when active, and a person’s immune response is similar to the immune response from an infection. Despite misconceptions, the flu shot can not cause the flu. Due to […]

Holiday Tips for Safe Travel and Mental Health

The holiday season in the United States and throughout the world has begun, and many people travel to visit family during these months — including some who may be traveling with a chronic illness, all of which have added complications due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We at NeedyMeds have some tips for healthy travel over the holidays along with suggestions for staying safe and mitigating the spread of coronavirus. Getting fully vaccinated and/or receiving boosters of available COVID-19 vaccines is the best way to protect yourself from infection while traveling — especially if you are uninsured; COVID vaccines will […]

About Us

Welcome to the NeedyMeds Voice! We look forward to presenting you with timely, provocative pieces on healthcare reform, patient advocacy, medication and healthcare access, and other health-related news. Our goals are to educate, enlighten, and elucidate; together, we will try to make sense of the myriad and ongoing healthcare-related changes in the U.S. today.