For over a decade, taking a pill like Truvada every day has been the standard of care for HIV prevention efforts.

In clinical trials, this type of preventive drug, called pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), can be 99% effective in stopping new HIV infections from sex. In the real world, however, that is not always the case.

People don’t always take their pills. In a study in South Africa, women said they felt there was a stigma to the pill —- a sexual partner might assume they’re taking it because they already have HIV or because they have other partners.

Now a new trial —- called PURPOSE 1 —- points the way to a new preventive strategy —- a twice yearly injection of a drug called lenacapavir. The trial was sponsored by Gilead Sciences, the California-based maker of the drug.

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The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved the experimental Alzheimer's drug donanemab, which slowed the early stages of the fatal mind-robbing disease in studies.

The approval comes less than a month after an FDA advisory committee endorsed Eli Lilly's drug, despite questions from advisory committee members about the potential side effects of the drug. The drug is an antibody that removes beta-amyloid that accumulates in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Eli Lilly said donanemab will be marketed under the brand name Kisunla as a monthly injection, which will be administered via IV infusion. The Alzheimer's treatment will be available for adults with early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, which includes mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia. Patients will be tested for amyloid before starting the medication.

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The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for emergency abortions to go forward, at least for now, in Idaho. Less than 24 hours after Bloomberg News reported on the brief and accidental release of an opinion on the Supreme Court’s website, the justices officially announced that they had dismissed a pair of cases, Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, as “improvidently” – that is, mistakenly – granted, without ruling on the merits of the dispute.

Thursday’s unsigned order from the justices leaves in place an order by a federal judge in Idaho that temporarily blocks the state from enforcing its abortion ban, which carves out exceptions only to save the life of the mother and in cases of rape or incest, to the extent that it conflicts with a federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. That 1986 law requires emergency rooms in hospitals that receive Medicare to provide “necessary stabilizing treatment” to patients who arrive with an “emergency medical condition.”

The 5-4 decision had sweeping implications for states, which intend to use settlement money for drug treatment programs, and for the Sackler family, which made its fortune selling a drug that fueled the nation's opioid epidemic. The ruling may also make it more difficult to resolve other high-profile bankruptcies.

“No one has directed us to a statute or case suggesting American courts in the past enjoyed the power in bankruptcy to discharge claims brought by nondebtors against other nondebtors, all without the consent of those affected,” Gorsuch wrote for an opinion that included Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

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Taking a daily multivitamin does not help people to live any longer and may actually increase the risk of an early death, a major study has found.

Researchers in the US analysed health records from nearly 400,000 adults with no major long-term diseases to see whether daily multivitamins reduced their risk of death over the next two decades.

Rather than living longer, people who consumed daily multivitamins were marginally more likely than non-users to die in the study period, prompting the government researchers to comment that “multivitamin use to improve longevity is not supported”.

Nearly half of UK adults take multivitamins or dietary supplements once a week or more, part of a domestic market worth more than half a billion pounds annually. The global market for the supplements is estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars each year. In the US, a third of adults use multivitamins in the hope of preventing disease.

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The U.S. state of Kansas on Monday sued Pfizer, accusing the company of misleading the public about its COVID-19 vaccine by hiding risks while making false claims about its effectiveness.

In a lawuit, filed in the District Court of Thomas Country, the state said the New Yourk-based drugmaker's alleged false statements violated the Kansas Consumer Pretection Act. It is seeking unspecified money damagees.

"Pfizer made multiple misleading statements to deceive the public about its vaccine at a time when Americans needed the truth," Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican, said in a statement.