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FRIDAY, Jan. 6, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- The final touches are being put on the White House's plan to deliver 500 million free coronavirus rapid at-home test kits to households across America.The administration will launch a website where people can request the rapid tests, said four people familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the Washington Post reported. With the help of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), officials hope to start sending out testing kits by mid-January.Test makers and distributors seeking to provide a share of the 500 million tests have already submitted proposals to the government, and the first contract was awarded Thursday evening, said a person with knowledge of the plan. A formal announcement on the specifics of the plan could come next...

FRIDAY, Jan. 7, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- If you have any risk factors for stroke and you like to smoke pot, a new study suggests you should stop toking.Researchers found that people with an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, a rare, severe type of bleeding stroke, who had used marijuana three to 30 days before their stroke were twice as likely to develop a dangerous complication that can lead to greater disability or death. The study was the largest to consider the impact of THC, the component in marijuana that makes someone high, on complications after this type of stroke."We're all vulnerable to a bleeding stroke or a ruptured aneurysm, however, if you're a routine marijuana user, you may be predisposed to a worse outcome from a stroke after the rupture of that aneurysm," said...

FRIDAY, Jan. 7, 2022 (HealthDay News) – Researchers in Austria say a new MRI technique may lead to faster diagnosis and treatment for people with multiple sclerosis.The technique can detect biochemical changes in the brains of people with MS early in their disease, according to findings published Jan. 4 in the journal Radiology.“MRI of neurochemicals enables the detection of changes in the brain of multiple sclerosis patients in regions that appear inconspicuous on conventional MRI,” said study senior author Wolfgang Bogner, from the High Field MR Centre at the Medical University of Vienna. “The visualized changes in neurochemistry of normal-appearing brain tissue correlated with the patients’ disabilities."MS, a disease of the central nervous system, affects nearly 3 million...

THURSDAY, Jan. 6, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Former members of President Joe Biden’s transition team are calling for a new long-term strategy that envisions a world in which humans learn to live with the new coronavirus.Six former advisers published three opinion articles Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association detailing what needs to be done now to make that happen.Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist, medical ethicist and University of Pennsylvania professor who advised former President Barack Obama, is the driving force behind the effort.The experts suggest that the Biden administration take a broader view of the pandemic and acknowledge the virus won’t be going away. They expressed concern about a "perpetual state of emergency" in response to new surges, such as...