Author: Emma Yasinski

Emma Yasinski

I am a freelance science and medical journalist, fascinated by how the scientific process leads to incredible discoveries, but also can lead to publication bias leaning toward positive findings and minimizing negatives. With a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Lafayette College and a Master’s in Science and Medical Journalism from Boston University, I’ve written about clinical trial transparency, organ donation, and basic molecular biology for publications like The Scientist, The Atlantic, Undark.org, Kaiser Health News, and more. At MedShadow, I research and write about the sometimes unexpected ways that medicines can affect us, and what we can do if and when it does.

Dave Walker, RPh, learned about heat rash long before he became a pharmacist. “I remember anticipating summer vacation as a kid. We were always busy planning and participating in neighborhood activities — bike rides, hikes, fishing, and camping trips. The neighborhood moms had a ready supply of Band-Aids, Bactine, and antiseptic cream to take care of those expected and inevitable scratches, scrapes, cuts, and insect bites along the way,” he says. “But, I also remember a couple of occasions when I developed an itchy, stinging rash on my back, abdomen, and upper legs. My mother called it prickly heat or…

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Read through MedShadow’s coverage of the side effects of drugs and you’ll see many of the same side effects mentioned over and over. For example, patients report nausea after taking a whole host of drugs, such as those for Lupus, HIV prevention, cancer and more. It’s crucial to differentiate side effects from symptoms, explains Suzanne Soliman, PharmD, founder of the Pharmacist Moms Group, so that you and your healthcare provider can work together to improve your care. She says, when she works with patients who are experiencing new symptoms or side effects, the first step is for her to take…

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When Pat (now 71) was in her 40s, her vaginal dryness became so severe that the vaginal tissue would flare with even a gentle wipe. She’d been exposed to a drug called DES (diethylstilbestrol) when she was in utero, which caused myriad health issues as she grew up, and was likely behind the dryness. For her, coconut oil made a huge difference. “If only I had known I was not alone with this personal issue,” she says. Vaginal dryness is likely more common than you think. It can affect women of any age, but is especially prevalent among those who…

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The primary cause of acne is clogged pores. Your pores can be clogged by bacteria, dead-skin cells or sebum, an oily substance secreted by your skin. The clogs cause redness and inflammation, which can be painful. Some doctors and patients believe that our diets can be the root cause of certain types of acne, but, for the most part, our lifestyles and hygiene are not to blame. Many women experience hormonal acne, which flares up at specific times during their menstrual cycles, or because of hormonal conditions, such as polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), a disorder that affects many women. What…

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Angela Ridgel, PhD, an exercise physiologist at Kent State University, usually helps patients exercise at the gym, while studying how it might improve their cognition and brain health. But many exercise routines on land, such as aerobic or stretching ones, for example, can be challenging for people with multiple sclerosis (MS), she says. “When you’re doing exercise [on] land, which is what we mostly do in my lab, that would have a tendency to make MS patients overheat and then exacerbate their symptoms,” she adds. So she teamed up with a doctor who specializes in working with MS patients to…

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When Lily was diagnosed with cervical cancer at age 27, she blamed herself. “Why hadn’t I taken care of myself properly?” she thought. She had regularly skipped her annual Pap smears—a common procedure, in which the doctor collects cells from the vagina wall to test for signs of cervical cancer. “I didn’t think I needed to go,” she said. But when she started bleeding and experiencing daily pelvic pain, she finally visited her OB/GYN and found out that she had cervical cancer. She’s been treated, but regrets having postponed screening because the disease left her infertile. Lily is now an…

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A new chemotherapy drug promises to treat some patients with pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who have been unable to take the other two other chemo medicines because one can cause allergic reactions and the other is frequently in short supply.  This summer, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fast-tracked the approval of Rylaze, a newer version of the chemo drug Erwinaze to treat ALL (leukemia) , made by Jazz Pharmaceuticals, which was previously distributed Erwinaze. The agency approved Rylaze based on an ongoing Phase 2/3 trial of about 102 patients, with an average age of 10.  The rare disease…

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May 26 Update: Only 62.6% of patients taking methotrexate, an immunosuppressant drug used in some cancer patients, mounted an effective antibody response to Pfizer’s vaccine, according to a study Stephanie, a Stage 4 endometrial cancer patient who has undergone both chemotherapy and immunotherapy since 2019, has been especially cautious throughout the pandemic. “We know how deadly this virus is, especially for older people and those who are immunocompromised,” like herself, she says. “And if not lethal, the complications for Covid-19 survivors are severe.”  The jury is still out on how exactly the COVID-19 vaccine affects cancer patients. Yet some studies point…

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The immediate side effects of chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy that treat cancer are well known to those directly affected by them. The reactions can include debilitating nausea, fatigue and dizziness as well as hair loss. What you may not know is that certain adverse effects of these life-saving medicines can last a lifetime.  Over the last several decades, cancer treatment has improved dramatically. Since the 1980s, survival rates have grown for all cancers. However, as people live longer, researchers have found more signs that the treatments that kill cancer cells can also attack healthy cells as well as organs, leading…

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FDA

MedShadow is introducing a weekly news feature called Quick Hits: brief summaries of recent news items related to our mission. Light therapy is under investigation as a way to ease the fatigue and depression that people with cancer often suffer from. Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City conducted a series of clinical trials examining whether regular exposure to bright white light from a light box could improve their symptoms. In the latest trial, cancer patients exposed to the bright white light saw their depression symptoms subside much more than a control group…

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