European Union regulators on Thursday opened investigations into the American tech giant Meta for the potentially addictive effects Instagram and Facebook have on children, an action with far-reaching implications because it cuts to the core of how the company’s products are designed. Meta’s products may “exploit the weaknesses and inexperience of minors” to create behavioral…
Soon after their arrival in late December 2020, the Covid-19 vaccines turned the pandemic around and opened a path back to normalcy. They prevented about 14.4 million deaths worldwide, according to one estimate. In a small percentage of people, they also produced side effects. Over the course of more than a year, The New York…
Antidepressants are among the most prescribed medications in the United States. This is, in part, because the number of people diagnosed with depression and anxiety has been on the rise, and prescriptions jumped sharply among some age groups during the pandemic. Despite the prevalence of these medications, some patients have “significant misconceptions” about how the…
Two years ago, German doctors stumbled across news reports of a man being investigated for receiving scores of coronavirus vaccines with no medical explanation. Then followed a flurry of speculation about what he had been up to. As it turned out, prosecutors were looking into whether he had been receiving so many extra doses as…
In early 2020, the Food and Drug Administration responded to decades of escalating concerns about a commonly prescribed drug for asthma and allergies by deploying one of its most potent tools: a stark warning on the drug’s label that it could cause aggression, agitation and even suicidal thoughts. The agency’s label, which was primarily aimed…
