Early hopes that hydroxychloroquine could help treat COVID-19 patients have been dashed by research that questions the drug’s efficacy and safety. It does not appear the FDA’s ruling will impact a Michigan clinical trial.
Robin Erb
Robin Erb covers health care and aging for Bridge Michigan, focusing on a state that is aging faster than most. She has led investigations tracking opioid settlement money and health care worker shortages, and previously spent six years at the Detroit Free Press covering the Affordable Care Act and Michigan's Medicaid expansion. She holds a master's degree from Lourdes University in Toledo.
Robin and her husband raised two children in southeast Michigan — and have failed miserably at training their Beagle-Bassets.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Coronavirus lays bare health disparities amid Michigan protests
Some protesters in Michigan say they are focused on police brutality. Others see George Floyd’s death as “a crisis within crisis within a crisis,” with structural racism the common thread.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Michigan continues to stumble in tracking coronavirus in nursing homes
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services acknowledges its count of nursing home COVID-19 cases is likely inaccurate. And the agency still cannot accurately list how many senior residents have died from virus complications.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Wanted: Michigan blood samples — lots of them — in fight against COVID-19
A biobank at University of Michigan is collecting blood samples from both sick and healthy people as researchers search for clues to treatment and a vaccine.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Michigan’s Beaumont Health cancels merger with Ohio system, vague on why
Neither Beaumont nor Ohio-based Summa Health offered specifics on why the deal was nixed. Beaumont said, however, that its decision was unrelated to financial losses during the coronavirus crisis.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Michigan nursing homes linked to 1 in 4 coronavirus deaths. Tally will grow.
As questions swirl about transparency of Michigan nursing home data, a Democratic lawmaker slams Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s policies that required homes to accept COVID-19 patients as an ‘epic fail.’
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Nearly killed by COVID-19, Michigan doctors, nurses return humbled, smarter
Two new studies suggest 1 in 100 health care workers involved in the care of coronavirus patients may have become infected themselves. Bridge Magazine spoke to some of them about how their experiences changed them.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
Michigan regulators moved fast on dangerous dam. To protect mussels.
In court papers, the owners of a dam that failed this week near Midland acknowledged it was considered unsafe for decades. But Michigan’s only action against the dam was a suit contending it lowered water and killed freshwater mussels.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Michigan appeals court sides with vape shop, against flavored vaping ban
The Michigan Court of Appeals panel upheld a trial court’s injunction against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s emergency rules against flavored vaping products.
Posted inMichigan Environment Watch
As floodwaters bear down on Dow Chemical, worries about water toxins
Dow Chemical evacuates its Midland headquarters as dam breaches bring flooding to the complex’s containment ponds.