Awareness, Vaccinations
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Immunization Awareness

Vaccines are a vital part of healthcare at all stages of life and offer the best protection available against many potentially devastating illnesses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) encourages parents to follow an immunization schedule for babies and young children, protecting them from 14 life-affecting diseases. Pre-teens and teenagers should begin to innoculate against meningococcal diseases (meningitis or septicemia) and HPV (Human Papillomavirus, which can lead to cancer). Adults should continue to protect themselves with a yearly flu shot, tetanus updates, and later in life the shingles vaccine and the pneumonia vaccine.   An important element of immunization […]

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Awareness, Mental Health
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Black Lives Matter – So Does Their Healthcare

Black lives are being lost to COVID-19 at twice the rate of others. Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes compared white women. Black children are more than three times more likely to die after surgery than white children. Black people are 3.23 times more likely to die at the hands of the police than white people. The Black Lives Matter movement protests against the destructive devaluing of Black lives at the hands of law enforcement and other racially-motivated violence; it is equally clear that Black lives need to be more valued in […]

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Drug Savings, Patient Assistance Programs
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Affording Your Meds with Patient Assistant Programs

by Richard Sagall, MD   It’s a choice no one should have to make – pay rent and buy food or get prescriptions filled. Yet all too often it’s a choice Americans, particularly working-age Americans, have to make. Nearly 28 million Americans have no health insurance, and millions more have limited coverage. Many Americans just can’t afford healthcare, and, if they can, they don’t have the money to buy their medicines. Prescription Assistance Programs There is help available for many people who can’t afford their medicines. These programs, frequently called prescription assistance programs (PAPs) or patient assistance programs, are designed to […]

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Safety
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Summer Health

Summer has arrived in the United States. Over the following months, it will be important to protect ourselves from the health risks posed by the sun and heat. Regardless of skin color, exposure to the sun carries many dangers to one’s skin — from wrinkles often associated with aging to freckles, sunburns, benign tumors or cancerous skin lesions. Exposure to heat can also have many negative impacts on one’s health ranging from a rash, exhaustion, fainting, or even death. During the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, being in crowded areas — even outside — without appropriate protection measures can also pose significant […]

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Awareness
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Public Health Crisis: Gun Violence

In 2019, there were 39,457 deaths in the United States involving guns; 24,090 were suicides. This is an increase of 3% more people killed with guns than the previous year and is within 320 deaths of the highest the death toll has been (2017) since gun mortality data was first recorded in 1979. Mass shootings, incidents where four or more people are shot, also increased year over year.    Gun violence is a public health crisis in the United States. The price of lives lost and the consequences for the victims’ families, friends, and communities is truly immeasurable. The economic […]

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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.