JoNel Aleccia

JoNel Aleccia was a senior correspondent for KFF Health News until October 2022.

@JoNel_Aleccia

Signs of an ‘October Vaccine Surprise’ Alarm Career Scientists

KFF Health News Original

President Donald Trump has the legal power to authorize a COVID vaccine over the objections of the Food and Drug Administration and vaccine manufacturers. Such a move could further erode public trust in a vaccine and foist an unsafe shot on Americans.

Dozens of U.S. Hospitals Poised to Defy FDA’s Directive on COVID Plasma

KFF Health News Original

The FDA, under pressure from the Trump administration, has authorized broader use of convalescent plasma for emergency treatment in COVID patients. But several major hospitals are resisting, saying they’ll opt instead to use the scarce resource to complete a clinical trial.

With COVID Vaccine Trial, Rural Oregon Clinic Steps Onto World Stage

KFF Health News Original

A small allergy clinic in Medford, Oregon, might seem an unlikely place to recruit hundreds of volunteers to test the Moderna vaccine against COVID-19. But its steward has a record of leading hundreds of clinical trials.

Lost on the Frontline

KFF Health News Original

“Lost on the Frontline” is an ongoing project by Kaiser Health News and The Guardian that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who died from COVID 19, and to investigate why so many are victims of the disease.

The Color of COVID: Will Vaccine Trials Reflect America’s Diversity?

KFF Health News Original

Although racial minorities, older people and those with underlying medical conditions are most at risk from COVID-19, they’ve historically been the least likely to be included in clinical trials for treatments for serious diseases. Will that change with COVID-19?

Bingeing on Doom: Expert on the ‘Black Death’ Attracts Cult Following

KFF Health News Original

A 2016 series on the 14th-century plague became must-see TV during spring’s COVID-19 outbreak — and flooded Purdue medievalist Dorsey Armstrong with questions about parallels between that pandemic and the current crisis.

‘I Couldn’t Let Her Be Alone’: A Peaceful Death Amid the COVID Scourge

KFF Health News Original

For three years, staffers at UCLA Health have been quietly fulfilling final wishes for dying patients in the intensive care unit. Amid the isolating forces of the pandemic, their work has become all the more meaningful.

COVID Survivors’ Blood Plasma Is A Sought-After New Commodity

KFF Health News Original

A possibility that the blood of people who had COVID could save others has set off a mad scramble for donors — with top-dollar offers and a plan that relies on the blood of 10,000 Orthodox Jewish women.

Consumer Beware: Coronavirus Antibody Tests Are Still A Work In Progress

KFF Health News Original

Public officials are putting high hopes on new blood tests as a means of determining who has developed antibodies to COVID-19, and with those antibodies, presumed immunity. But experts caution the tests are largely unreliable and the science is still catching up.