Paying Off People’s Medical Debt Has Little Impact on Their Lives, Study Finds
Over the past decade, R.I.P. Medical Debt has grown from a tiny nonprofit group that received less than $3,000 in donations to a multimillion-dollar force in health care philanthropy. It has done so with a unique and simple strategy to…
In Battle Over Health Care Costs, Private Equity Plays Both Sides
Insurance companies have long blamed private-equity-owned hospitals and physician groups for exorbitant billing that drives up health care costs. But a tool backed by private equity is helping insurers make billions of dollars and shift costs to patients. The tool,…
Health Insurers’ Lucrative Alliance That Drives Up Patient Bills: 5 Takeaways
Large health insurers are working with a little-known data company to boost their profits, often at the expense of patients and doctors, a New York Times investigation found. A private-equity-backed firm called MultiPlan has helped drive down payments to medical…
New England Journal of Medicine Ignored Nazi Atrocities, Historians Find
A new article in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the oldest and most esteemed publications for medical research, criticizes the journal for paying only “superficial and idiosyncratic attention” to the atrocities perpetrated in the name of medical…
Teen Drug Use Habits Are Changing, For The Good. With Caveats.
Historically speaking, it’s not a bad time to be the liver of a teenager. Or the lungs. Regular use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs among high school students has been on a long downward trend. In 2023, 46 percent of…
Is Bird Flu Coming to People Next? Are We Ready?
Bird flu outbreaks among dairy cows in multiple states, and at least one infection in farmworker in Texas, have incited fears that the virus may be the next infectious threat to people. The influenza virus, called H5N1, is highly pathogenic,…
Judge Orders Timely Housing for Migrant Children Waiting at Border
The federal government is required to “expeditiously” house migrant children who cross into the United States unlawfully, rather than allow them to remain in unsafe open-air sites along the border, a Federal District Court judge ruled Wednesday night. The decision,…
Eyeglasses Improve Income as Well as Sight, Study Shows
If you’re 50 or older and reading this article, chances are you are wearing a pair of inexpensive reading glasses to correct your presbyopia, or farsightedness, the age-related decline in vision that makes it progressively more difficult to see fine…
A.L.S. Drug Relyvrio Will Be Taken Off the Market, Its Maker Says
The maker of the newest treatment approved for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis said Thursday that it would withdraw the drug from the market because a large clinical trial did not produce evidence that the treatment worked. The company, Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, said…
Patient With Transplanted Pig Kidney Leaves Hospital for Home
The first patient to receive a kidney transplanted from a genetically modified pig has fared so well that he was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, just two weeks after the groundbreaking surgery. The transplant and its encouraging outcome represent…
What Doctors Want You to Know About Beta Blockers for Anxiety
Anxious ahead of a big job interview? Worried about giving a speech? First date nerves? The solution, some digital start-ups suggest, is a beta blocker, a type of medication that can slow heart rate and lower blood pressure — masking…
To Curb Bird Flu, Taxpayers Pay Millions to Kill Poultry. Is It Needed?
The highly lethal form of avian influenza circulating the globe since 2021 has killed tens of millions of birds, forced poultry farmers in the United States to slaughter entire flocks and prompted a brief but alarming spike in the price…
Hospitals Must Get Written Patient Consent for Pelvic Exams, H.H.S. Says
The Department of Health and Human Services said on Monday that hospitals must obtain written informed consent from patients before they undergo sensitive examinations — like pelvis and prostate exams — especially if the patients will be under anesthesia. A…
Person Infected With Bird Flu in Texas After Contact With Cattle
At least one person in Texas has been diagnosed with bird flu after having contact with dairy cows presumed to be infected, state officials said on Monday. The announcement adds a worrying dimension to an outbreak that has affected millions…
Bird Flu Spreads to Dairy Cows
A form of avian influenza that is highly fatal in birds has been confirmed in U.S. dairy cattle in Texas and Kansas, the Department of Agriculture announced on Monday. It is the first time that cows infected with the virus…
They Can’t See the Total Solar Eclipse, but LightSound Will Help Them Hear It
On Aug. 21, 2017, Kiki Smith’s teenage sons giddily prepared to watch the partial solar eclipse in Rochester, N.Y. As Ms. Smith listened to their chatter, she felt excluded. “I felt very alone,” she said. Ms. Smith was diagnosed with…
4 Things You Need to Know About Health Care Cyberattacks
The recent cyberattack on the billing and payment colossus Change Healthcare revealed just how serious the vulnerabilities are throughout the U.S. health care system, and alerted industry leaders and policymakers to the urgent need for better digital security. Hospitals, health…
Why Are Older Americans Drinking So Much?
The phone awakened Doug Nordman at 3 a.m. A surgeon was calling from a hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., where Mr. Nordman’s father had arrived at the emergency room, incoherent and in pain, and then lost consciousness. At first, the…
FDA Issues Alert on Heart Pump Linked to Deaths
A troubled heart pump that has now been linked to 49 deaths and dozens of injuries worldwide will be allowed to remain in use, despite the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to issue an alert about the risk that it…
Bacteria That Cause Meningitis Are Spreading Again, C.D.C. Warns
By the Numbers: A rising fatality rate. The illness is caused by infection with a bacterium called Neisseria meningitidis. Last year, 422 cases of invasive meningococcal disease were reported in the United States, the highest number since 2014, according to…
How 2 Families Faced a Catastrophic Birth Defect
Ashlee Wiseman, a waitress at a Sizzler in Idaho Falls, Idaho, was 10 weeks pregnant when a nurse phoned with crushing news: a test of fetal DNA in her blood had found that her baby girl had trisomy 18, a…
Health Concerns Mount for Migrant Children at Outdoor Holding Sites
To Dr. Theresa Cheng, the scene was “apocalyptic.” She had come to Valley of the Moon, an open-air holding site in San Diego’s rural Mountain Empire, to provide volunteer medical care to asylum seekers who had breached the United States-Mexico…
Biden Administration Finalizes Rule Curbing Use of Short-Term Health Plans
The Biden administration announced on Thursday that it had finalized a new regulation that curbs the use of short-term health insurance plans that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act, reversing a move by the Trump administration to give…
Ninja, Twitch’s Top Streamer, Reveals Skin Cancer Diagnosis
Tyler Blevins, the video game superstar known as Ninja, revealed this week that he had been diagnosed with melanoma, a form of skin cancer. Mr. Blevins, 32, said on social media on Tuesday that a mole was removed from his…
Orcas Are Considered One Species. Should They Be?
Killer whales are some of the most cosmopolitan creatures on the planet, swimming through every one of the world’s oceans. They patrol the frigid waters near both poles and periodically pop up in the tropics, in locations from western Africa…
Key Takeaways From Supreme Court Arguments on Abortion Pill Access
A majority of the Supreme Court seemed inclined on Tuesday to reject a bid to sharply limit access to abortion pills. During about 90 minutes of argument, most of the justices seemed doubtful that the plaintiffs, who do not prescribe…
Abortion Pill Dispute Centers on Central Question: Who Can Sue?
The future of access to abortion pills may turn on a basic legal question: Who has a right to bring a lawsuit? Among the anti-abortion doctors involved in the case before the Supreme Court seeking to restrict availability of the…
F.D.A. Authorizes a New Covid Drug to Protect High-Risk People
The Food and Drug Administration has greenlit a new medicine to protect some of the people most at risk from Covid. The agency granted emergency use authorization for Pemgarda, a monoclonal antibody infusion, in immunocompromised people ages 12 and older….
To Live Past 100, Mangia a Lot Less: Italian Expert’s Ideas on Aging
Most members of the band subscribed to a live-fast-die-young lifestyle. But as they partook in the drinking and drugging endemic to the 1990s grunge scene after shows at the Whiskey a Go Go, Roxy and other West Coast clubs, the…
Patients Hate ‘Forever’ Drugs. Are Ozempic and Wegovy Different?
Most people, study after study shows, don’t take the medicines prescribed for them. It doesn’t matter what they are — statins, high blood pressure drugs, drugs to lower blood sugar, asthma drugs. Either patients never start taking them, or they…
Patients Hate ‘Forever’ Drugs. Are Ozempic and Wegovy Different?
Most people, study after study shows, don’t take the medicines prescribed for them. It doesn’t matter what they are — statins, high blood pressure drugs, drugs to lower blood sugar, asthma drugs. Either patients never start taking them, or they…
What’s Next for the Coronavirus?
Rat droppings from New York City. Poop from dog parks in Wisconsin. Human waste from a Missouri hospital. These are some of the materials that are readying us for the next chapter of the coronavirus saga. More than four years…
Living With a Messy Partner? Tips for Handling Different Organization Habits
Last year, Tracy McCubbin — who has been a professional declutterer for two decades and lives by the motto “don’t put it down, put it away” — married a man she described as “very messy.” Both acknowledged the “cosmic joke”…
Diagnosis of Princess Kate’s Cancer Followed Familiar Pattern, Doctors Say
Although it is not known what type of cancer Princess Catherine has, oncologists say that what she described in her public statement that was released on Friday — discovering a cancer during another procedure, in this case a “major abdominal…
Overlooked No More: Yvonne Barr, Who Helped Discover a Cancer-Causing Virus
This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times. Yvonne Barr was a 31-year-old research assistant seeking a new challenge when she was hired by a…
Surgeons Transplant Pig Kidney Into a Patient, a Medical Milestone
Surgeons in Boston have transplanted a kidney from a genetically engineered pig into an ailing 62-year-old man, the first procedure of its kind. If successful, the breakthrough offers hope to hundreds of thousands of Americans whose kidneys have failed. So…
Long Before Amsterdam’s Coffee Shops, There Were Hallucinogenic Seeds
Black henbane has been found at archaeological sites in the Netherlands that date back to the Neolithic Period. But because it is a wild plant that readily grows in the disturbed soil near settlements, experts have been unable to ascertain…
More Studies by Columbia Cancer Researchers Are Retracted
Scientists in a prominent cancer lab at Columbia University have now had four studies retracted and a stern note added to a fifth accusing it of “severe abuse of the scientific publishing system,” the latest fallout from research misconduct allegations…
A Psychedelics Reporter With a Changing Perspective
Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. As a reporter covering psychedelic medicine for the Health and Science desk at The New York Times, the drugs that…
New Havana Syndrome Studies Find No Evidence of Brain Injuries
New studies by the National Institutes of Health failed to find evidence of brain injury in scans or blood markers of the diplomats and spies who suffered symptoms of Havana syndrome, bolstering the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies about the…
The Unbearable Vagueness of Medical ‘Professionalism’
When Joel Bervell thought about professionalism as an undergrad, he thought of “Grey’s Anatomy.” Specifically, he thought about how residents on the show were expected to be, although often were not: on time, prepared for their cases and respectful to…
Pandemic Lockdowns Had Varied Effects on Wildlife
Camera traps, which automatically snap photos of wild animals when they detect motion and body heat, have become key research tools for wildlife biologists. The new study is based on data from 102 different camera trapping projects in 21 countries….
When Teens Visit Doctors, Increasingly the Subject is Mental Health
The News Increasingly, doctor visits by adolescents and young adults involve mental health diagnoses, along with the prescription of psychiatric medications. That was the conclusion of a new study that found that in 2019, 17 percent of outpatient doctor visits…
Female Genital Cutting Continues to Increase Worldwide
More than 230 million women and girls around the world have undergone female genital cutting, according to a new analysis by UNICEF, an increase of 30 million since the organization’s last global estimate in 2016. While the data shows that…
F.D.A. Delays Action on Closely Watched Alzheimer’s Drug
The Food and Drug Administration has decided to delay action on a closely watched Alzheimer’s drug, donanemab, which the agency was widely expected to approve this month. The F.D.A. will instead require donanemab to undergo the scrutiny of a panel…
When Medicaid Comes After the Family Home
The letter came from the state department of human services in July 2021. It expressed condolences for the loss of the recipient’s mother, who had died a few weeks earlier at 88. Then it explained that the deceased had incurred…
Olivia Munn Reveals Breast Cancer Diagnosis After Double Mastectomy
The actress Olivia Munn said on Wednesday that she had been given a diagnosis of an aggressive form of breast cancer last year and soon after had a double mastectomy as part of her treatment. Munn, 43, who has starred…
Kent Campbell, Pivotal Figure in the Fight Against Malaria, Dies at 80
Kent Campbell, an instrumental figure in the global battle against malaria — most notably in Africa, where he led an innovative program providing bed nets to protect rural villagers from the mosquitoes carrying the disease — died on Feb. 20…
The Surprise Ending of ‘Dune,’ the Popcorn Bucket
In the “Dune” movies, a gigantic sandworm can rise from the desert and devour soldiers and military vehicles in its gaping maw. In real life, humans watching movies devour popcorn. These two ideas have been combined to spawn the “Dune”…
Teen Pregnancy Linked to Risk of Earlier Death in Adulthood, Study Finds
Teen pregnancy increases the chances that a young woman will drop out of school and struggle with poverty, research has shown. Teenagers are also more likely to develop serious medical complications during pregnancy. Now a large study in Canada reports…
Paul Alexander, Polio Survivor Who Lived in Iron Lung for 70 Years, Dies age 78
After he was paralyzed by polio at age 6, Paul Alexander was confined for much of his life to a yellow iron lung that kept him alive. He was not expected to survive after that diagnosis, and even when he…
Colon Cancer Blood Test Shows Promise for Early Detection
Early detection of colon cancer can prevent a majority of deaths from this disease, possibly as much as 73 percent of them. But just 50 to 75 percent of middle-aged and older adults who should be screened regularly are being…
With Cyberattack Fix Weeks Away, Health Providers Slam United
More than two weeks after a cyberattack, financially strapped doctors, hospitals and medical providers on Friday sharply criticized UnitedHealth Group’s latest estimate that it would take weeks longer to fully restore a digital network that funnels hundreds of millions of…
Is Lying on the Floor Good for Your Health?
As a child, Josh Patner became accustomed to stepping over his mom, who used to lie down in the kitchen whenever her mother-in-law would call. “My grandmother would talk her ear off,” Mr. Patner, 61, recalled. To cope, his mother…
Dr. Anthony Epstein, Pathologist Who Discovered Epstein-Barr Virus, Dies at 102
In March 1961, Dr. Anthony Epstein, a pathologist at Middlesex Hospital in London, almost skipped a visiting physician’s afternoon lecture about children with exceptionally large facial tumors in Uganda. The physician, Dr. Denis Burkitt, a native of Ireland who called…
Kathy Goldman, Who Fought Hunger in New York City, Dies at 92
Kathy Goldman, who devoted her career as a civic leader to establishing food banks, pantries and free breakfast and lunch programs in public schools to sustain low-income New Yorkers, died on March 5 in Brooklyn. She was 92. The cause…
Overdose or Poisoning? A New Debate Over What to Call a Drug Death.
The death certificate for Ryan Bagwell, a 19-year-old from Mission, Texas, states that he died from a fentanyl overdose. His mother, Sandra Bagwell, says that is wrong. On an April night in 2022, he swallowed one pill from a bottle…
Jool Baby Infant Swings Recalled Over Suffocation Hazard
Jool Baby, a brand of children’s products, has recalled about 63,000 infant swings that were sold at Walmart stores and online because they posed a suffocation risk, federal safety regulators said. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Thursday…
A New Film at SXSW Warns of the Potential Harm of Microplastics
It’s been more than five decades since Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate” was offered a kernel of wisdom about the path to prosperity. “Plastics,” he’s told by Mr. McGuire, the starched corporate executive who offers the advice. “There’s a…
Kansas City Chiefs Fans Needed Amputations After Frigid Game
Several fans of the Kansas City Chiefs who attended a playoff game on a bitterly cold January day in Missouri suffered frostbite that required amputations, according to the hospital that treated them. Twelve people — including some football fans who…
Howard Hiatt, 98, Dies; Steered Public Health Toward Greater Accountability
Howard H. Hiatt, a physician, scientist and academic who reshaped the field of public health, steering it away from the narrow study of infectious diseases toward big-picture issues of fiscal and societal accountability in medicine, died on Saturday at his…
A.L.S. Drug Relyvrio Fails Clinical Trial and May Be Withdrawn From the Market
Leaders of the treatment’s manufacturer, Amylyx, said they would announce their plans for it within eight weeks.
Top US Senators Urge Stores to Stop Sellng Illicit Vapes
The chairmen of five key Senate committees on Thursday warned the chief executives of major convenience stores and wholesalers to stop sales of illicit flavored vaping products that they called “widespread violations of federal law.” The senators voiced their concerns…
How a Sudden Halt to In Vitro Fertilization Shook Alabama Couples
Many suffered setbacks after the State Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos were children. “Someone else’s opinion changed my future,” one woman said.
One Twin Was Hurt, the Other Was Not. Their Adult Mental Health Diverged.
Twins are a bonanza for research psychologists. In a field perpetually seeking to tease out the effects of genetics, environment and life experience, they provide a natural controlled experiment as their paths diverge, subtly or dramatically, through adulthood. Take Dennis…
Alabama IVF Protection Bill Will Reopen Clinics but Curb Patient Rights
The Alabama legislature on Wednesday is expected to approve legislation that will make it possible for fertility clinics in the state to reopen without the specter of crippling lawsuits. But the measure, hastily written and expected to pass by a…
Powerful Psychedelic Drug Gains New Notice as an Opioid Addiction Therapy
The drug company Atai Life Sciences is spending millions to research the compound, and congressional lawmakers from both parties have been pushing the government to promote ibogaine research for substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems. For…
Cyberattack Wreaks Havoc on Health Care Billing
An urgent care chain in Ohio may be forced to stop paying rent and other bills to cover salaries. In Florida, a cancer center is racing to find money for chemotherapy drugs to avoid delaying critical treatments for its patients….
Powerful Psychedelic Drug Gains New Notice as an Opioid Addiction Therapy
The drug company Atai Life Sciences is spending millions to research the compound, and congressional lawmakers from both parties have been pushing the government to promote ibogaine research for substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems. For…
First U.S. Over-the-Counter Birth Control Pill Will Be Available Soon
Why It Matters The medication, called Opill, which was approved for over-the-counter sale by the Food and Drug Administration last year, will be the most effective birth control method available without a prescription, research shows — more effective than condoms,…
How to Support Someone Grieving the Loss of a Pet
On “The Daily Show” this week, the host Jon Stewart broke down as he announced the death of his beloved, three-legged brindle pit bull, Dipper — a raw, touching segment that exemplified the deep grief many pet owners feel. When…
Why ‘Fetal Personhood’ Is Roiling the Right
As I.V.F. grew in popularity, so did the concerns of its opponents. Standard practice involves creating multiple embryos, which are screened for genetic abnormalities, and the ones that appear healthiest can be transferred. Extra embryos are often frozen; by one…
CVS and Walgreens Will Begin Selling Abortion Pills This Month
The two largest pharmacy chains in the United States will start dispensing the abortion pill mifepristone this month, a step that could make access easier for some patients. Officials at CVS and Walgreens said in interviews on Friday that they…
‘All in Her Head’: A Doctor Reckons With Sexism in Women’s Health Care
Six years ago, Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a breast cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in Manhattan, held the hand of a patient who was hours from death. As Dr. Comen leaned in for a final goodbye, she pressed her…
C.D.C. Shortens Isolation Period for People With Covid
Americans with Covid or other respiratory infections need not isolate for five days before returning to work or school, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday, a striking sign of changing attitudes toward the coronavirus. People with…
Alcohol-Related Deaths Surge to Nearly 500 a Day, CDC Says
The study found that deaths linked to alcohol in the United States increased in five years by 40,000. The toll is stark: About 178,000 people died in 2021 from excessive drinking, compared with 138,000 in 2016. During that period, the…
Columbia DEI Chief Is Accused of Plagiarizing Dissertation From Wikipedia
An official in charge of diversity, equity and inclusion at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center was accused this week of plagiarizing large sections of his doctoral dissertation, according to an anonymous complaint filed with the university. The 55-page complaint accused…
R.S.V. Vaccines May Slightly Increase Risk of Rare Neurological Condition
Vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus may have caused a few cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological condition, federal health officials said on Thursday. The numbers were small, on the order of two cases per 100,000 vaccinated people or fewer,…
Long Covid May Lead to Measurable Cognitive Decline, Study Finds
Long Covid may lead to measurable cognitive decline, especially in the ability to remember, reason and plan, a large new study suggests. Cognitive testing of nearly 113,000 people in England found that those with persistent post-Covid symptoms scored the equivalent…
Older Americans Should Get a Covid Booster This Spring, CDC Advisers Say
Americans ages 65 and older should receive an additional dose of the latest Covid vaccine this spring, scientific advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. The spring shot would be a second dose of the…
Lead-Tainted Applesauce Highlights Failings in Food Safety System
The tainted applesauce might have gone unnoticed for even longer had it not been for a family in North Carolina. Early last summer, Nicole Peterson and Thomas Duong were alarmed by their young children’s blood-lead levels in a routine screening….
UnitedHealth Cyberattack Disrupts Prescription Drug Coverage
Updated on Feb. 27 to include new company statements. A cyberattack on a unit affiliated with UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest insurer, has disrupted drug prescription orders at thousands of pharmacies for about a week. The assault on the unit, Change…
A Doctor’s Lifelong Quest to Solve One of Pediatric Medicine’s Greatest Mysteries
At the Kawasaki Disease Clinic at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, led by Dr. Burns, caring for children affected by Kawasaki disease is always linked to the search for the cause. On a recent Wednesday morning, Dr. Kirsten Dummer, a pediatric…
Can You Recycle Medical Devices Like Insulin Pens, Inhalers and Covid Tests?
Most of the plastic in your medicine cabinet is high-quality, medical grade — and devilishly difficult to safely dispose of, let alone recycle. The sorting equipment at standard recycling centers typically can’t handle small items, and wishfully including them only…
Drug Drastically Reduces Children’s Reactions to Traces of Food Allergens
A drug that has been used for decades to treat allergic asthma and hives significantly reduced the risk of life-threatening reactions in children with severe food allergies who were exposed to trace amounts of peanuts, cashews, milk and eggs, researchers…
What to Know About Xolair and Food Allergies
The Food and Drug Administration approved a drug this month that cuts the risk of severe reactions in children and adults exposed to trace amounts of peanuts, tree nuts, milk, dairy and other food allergens — a move that could…
As Medicaid Shrinks, Clinics for the Poor Are Trying to Survive
Those health centers have each seen revenue losses of at least $500,000 because of the Medicaid unwinding, according to Amy Simmons Farber, a spokeswoman for the health center association. By the end of December, Family Health Centers, a network of…
Severe Frostbite Gets a Treatment That May Prevent Amputation
The first time Dr. Peter Hackett saw a patient with frostbite, the man died from his wounds. It was in Chicago in 1971, and the man had gotten drunk and passed out in the snow, his fingers so frozen that…
Study of Patients With a Chronic Fatigue Condition May Offer Clues to Long Covid
Jennifer Caldwell was active and energetic, working two jobs and taking care of her daughter and her parents, when she developed a bacterial infection that was followed by intense lightheadedness, fatigue and memory problems. That was nearly a decade ago,…
Major Embryo Shipping Company Halts Business in Alabama
Cryoport, a major embryo shipping company, said on Friday that it was “pausing” its business in Alabama as it evaluated the state’s Supreme Court decision that declared frozen embryos created through in vitro fertilization to be children. “Until the company…
Hydeia Broadbent, H.I.V. and AIDS Activist, Dies at 39
Hydeia Broadbent, who was born with H.I.V. and as a child became a leading voice in raising awareness about the virus and AIDS, died on Tuesday at her home in Las Vegas. She was 39. Her father, Loren Broadbent, confirmed…
Fertility Clinic Errors Collide With a Redefinition of ‘Personhood’
To the fertility patients whose embryos were destroyed at an Alabama clinic, the circumstances must have been shocking. Somehow, a patient in the hospital housing the clinic had wandered into a storage room, pulled the embryos from a tank of…
Alabama Says Embryos in a Lab Are Children. What Are the Implications?
The Alabama Supreme Court has opened a new front in the legal debate over when human life begins. Embryos created and stored in a medical facility must be considered children under the state’s law governing harmful death, the court ruled….
War and Illness Could Kill 85,000 Gazans in 6 Months
An escalation of the war in Gaza could lead to the deaths of 85,000 Palestinians from injuries and disease over the next six months, in the worst of three scenarios that prominent epidemiologists have modeled in an effort to understand…
Alabama Rules Frozen Embryos Are Children, Raising Questions About Fertility Care
An Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos in test tubes should be considered children has sent shock waves through the world of reproductive medicine, casting doubt over fertility care for would-be parents in the state and raising complex legal…
Bob Moore, Who Founded Bob’s Red Mill, Is Dead at 94
Bob Moore, the grandfatherly entrepreneur who, with his wife, Charlee, leveraged an image of organic heartiness and wholesome Americana to turn the artisanal grain company Bob’s Red Mill into a $100 million-a-year business, died on Saturday at his home in…
Could Your Cat Give You the Plague?
How common is it? In the United States, there are an average of seven human cases per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 80 percent of those cases are the bubonic form of the…
How Sleep Affects Your Mood: The Link Between Insomnia and Mental Health
It started with mild anxiety. Emily, who asked to be identified only by her first name because she was discussing her mental health, had just moved to New York City after graduate school, to start a marketing job at a…
Abortions by Telemedicine and Mailed Pills Are Safe and Effective, Study Finds
The research The study, led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, looked at the experience of more than 6,000 patients in the months after the federal government began allowing abortion pills to be mailed, from April 2021…
Old and Young, Talking Again
On Fridays at 10 a.m., Richard Bement and Zach Ahmed sign on to their weekly video chat. The program that brought them together provides online discussion prompts and suggests arts-related activities, but the two largely ignore all that. “We just…
Lactation Consultant Group Investigates Tongue-Tie Advocate
The national body that certifies lactation consultants is investigating whether a consultant in Boise, Idaho, has been inappropriately pushing an unproven procedure on new mothers struggling to breastfeed, according to a letter reviewed by The New York Times. The lactation…
75 Hard Has a Cultish Following. Is It Worth All the Effort?
Two 45-minute daily workouts. One gallon of water. 10 pages of a nonfiction book. A diet. No “cheat meals” or alcohol. For 75 days. And if you mess up, you have to start from the beginning. Sound like a lot?…
CooperSurgical’s Botched IVF Liquid Destroyed Embryos, Lawsuits Claim
CooperSurgical, a major medical supply company, is facing a wave of lawsuits from patients who claim that one of its products destroyed embryos created with in vitro fertilization. Fertility clinics across the world used the product, a nutrient-rich liquid that…
More Young People Are on Multiple Psychiatric Drugs, Study Finds
The News Growing numbers of children and adolescents are being prescribed multiple psychiatric drugs to take simultaneously, according to a new study in the state of Maryland. The phenomenon is increasing despite warnings that psychotropic drug combinations in young people…
Did You Go Through Fertility Treatment?
As women have begun having babies later in life, the number of patients going through in vitro fertilization treatment has increased significantly. The medical treatment can be life-changing, but it also comes at a price, as some couples go deeply…
A Columbia Surgeon’s Study Was Pulled. He Kept Publishing Flawed Data.
One set of 10 articles identified by Dr. David showed repeated reuse of identical or overlapping black-and-white images of cancer cells supposedly under different experimental conditions, he said. “There’s no reason to have done that unless you weren’t doing the…
US Agencies Start Inquiry Into Generic Drug Shortages
The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services said on Wednesday that they would examine the causes of generic drug shortages and the practices of “powerful middlemen” that are involved in the supply chain. The federal…
Some Pregnant Women and Infants Received the Wrong R.S.V. Shots
This winter, for the first time ever, there were two vaccines available to ward off respiratory syncytial virus, which is particularly dangerous to older adults and infants. Only one of them — Abrysvo, made by Pfizer — was approved for…
Man Dies in First Known Fatal Case of the Alaskapox Virus
An Alaska man died last month of Alaskapox, a rare virus that occurs mostly in small mammals and can cause skin lesions, according to state health officials. Alaskapox was first identified in 2015 in a woman who lived near Fairbanks,…
C.D.C. Considers Ending 5-Day Isolation Period for Covid
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering loosening its recommendations regarding how long people should isolate after testing positive for the coronavirus, another reflection of changing attitudes and norms as the pandemic recedes. Under the proposed guidelines, Americans…
Who Kissed First? Archaeology Has an Answer.
A married pair of researchers have “set the record straight” on the ancient history of smooching.
More Adolescent Boys Have Eating Disorders. Two Experts Discuss Why.
The medical and scientific understanding of eating disorders is changing and expanding. What happened? Dr. Smith: Historically, eating disorders have been conceptualized mostly as anorexia, which has been portrayed as an illness of adolescent females who want to lose weight…
Journal Retracts Studies Cited in Federal Court Ruling Against Abortion Pill
An academic journal publisher this week retracted two studies that were cited by a federal judge in Texas last year when he ruled that the abortion pill mifepristone should be taken off the market. Most of the authors of the…
Memory Loss Requires Careful Diagnosis, Scientists Say
A lengthy report by the Department of Justice on President Biden’s handling of classified documents contained some astonishing assessments of his well-being and mental health. Mr. Biden, 81, was an “elderly man with a poor memory” and “diminished faculties” who…
Will the Super Bowl Affect Fans’ Political Views? Bet on It.
Damian R. Murray, a psychologist at Tulane University, studies how various social circumstances and life events affect people’s political views. For instance, he found recently, becoming a parent makes a person grow more socially conservative. On the eve of the…
Brazil Has a Dengue Emergency, Portending a Health Crisis for the Americas
Brazil is experiencing an enormous outbreak of dengue fever, the sometimes fatal mosquito-borne disease, and public health experts say it is a harbinger of a coming surge in cases in the Americas, including Puerto Rico. Brazil’s Health Ministry warns that…
Brooke Ellison, Prominent Disability Rights Advocate, Is Dead at 45
Brooke Ellison, who after being paralyzed from the neck down by a childhood car accident went on to graduate from Harvard and became a professor and devoted disability rights advocate, died on Sunday in Stony Brook, N.Y. She was 45….
H.I.V. Groups Warn of Privacy Risks in How C.D.C. Tracks Virus Samples
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday revised its guidelines for tracking the genetic signatures of viruses collected from people newly diagnosed with H.I.V., a controversial practice used by state and local health departments to curb infections. The…
Polluted Flowers Smell Less Sweet to Pollinators, Study Finds
The damage that air pollution can do is wide-ranging and well-known: The chemicals produced by human activities can trap heat in the atmosphere, change the chemistry of the oceans and harm human health in myriad ways. Now, a new study…
J&J, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb CEOs Testify at Senate Hearing on Drug Prices
The chief executives of three major pharmaceutical companies appeared in front of the Senate health committee on Thursday to defend how much they charge for drugs in the United States, drawing them further into a confrontation with lawmakers and the…
Alternating Arms for Vaccines May Boost Your Immunity, Study Says
If you’ve presented the same arm for every dose of a particular vaccine, you may want to reconsider. Alternating arms may produce a more powerful immune response, a new study suggests. The researchers studied responses to the first two doses…
Seizures of Psychedelic Mushrooms Rise in U.S. as Demand Grows
Seizures of psychedelic mushrooms across the nation by law enforcement officials have increased significantly in recent years as attitudes regarding their use have grown more permissive, according to a government-funded study released Tuesday. Researchers found that law enforcement officials confiscated…
Many Transgender Americans Face Stigma and Financial Hardship, Survey Finds
Transgender and nonbinary Americans experience stark rates of unemployment and harassment, according to the largest survey of their life experiences to date. The data reflect a longstanding pattern of discrimination at a time when states across the country have passed…
Federal Records Show Increasing Use of Solitary Confinement for Immigrants
The United States government has placed detained immigrants in solitary confinement more than 14,000 times in the last five years, and the average duration is almost twice the 15-day threshold that the United Nations has said may constitute torture, according…
Cancer Diagnosis Like King Charles’s Is Not Unheard-Of
A patient checks into the hospital for a routine procedure to treat an enlarged prostate. And, unexpectedly, a test done in the hospital — perhaps a blood test or an X-ray or an examination of the urethra and the bladder…
Users of Zepbound or Mounjaro Had Lower Blood Pressure in Study
A study of the weight loss drug tirzepatide showed that people who took it had significantly lower blood pressures after 36 weeks of using the medication. Tirzepatide, made by Eli Lilly, is used to treat Type 2 diabetes, under the…
Why Do Women Have More Autoimmune Diseases? Study Points to X Chromosome
Women are much more likely than men to have their immune system turn against them, resulting in an array of so-called autoimmune diseases, like lupus and multiple sclerosis. A study published on Thursday offers an explanation rooted in the X…
He Hunts Sloppy Scientists. He’s Finding Lots of Prey.
Are you done hunting scientists for the day? I haven’t had time today. But if I spent a couple of hours reading papers, I’d probably write four or five comments about errors in scientific papers. It’s not hard to find…
Alternative Therapies Like Meditation and Acupuncture Are on the Rise
The doctor is in. So is the yogi. A sharp shift in health care is taking place as more than one-third of American adults now supplement or substitute mainstream medical care with acupuncture, meditation, yoga and other therapies long considered…
When a Spouse Goes to the Nursing Home
Even as the signals of approaching dementia became impossible to ignore, Joseph Drolet dreaded the prospect of moving his partner into a long-term care facility. Mr. Drolet, 79, and his beloved Rebecca, 71, both retired lawyers and prosecutors in Atlanta,…
6 Reasons That It’s Hard to Get Your Wegovy and Other Weight-Loss Prescriptions
About 3.8 million people in the United States — four times the number two years ago — are now taking the most popular weight-loss drugs, according to the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science, an industry data provider. Some of…
Heat and Wildfire Smoke Are Even More Harmful When Combined, a Study Says
Background: Global warming is intensifying both threats. As humans warm the planet, both heat waves and wildfires are becoming more severe and longer-lasting in the American West. That also means they are more likely to overlap. Researchers have estimated that…
The Dogs That Live Longest, by a Nose
Small dogs with prominent noses live longer than bigger, flat-faced canines, a new study suggests.
U.S. Makes Initial Offers in Medicare Drug Price Negotiations
Why It Matters: The price offers kick off negotiations. The medicines selected for negotiations are taken by millions of Americans to treat conditions like diabetes, cancer and heart disease. The administration identified them in August, beginning a lengthy process intended…
Vertex Experimental Drug Cuts Off Pain at the Source, Company Says
Vertex Pharmaceuticals of Boston announced Tuesday that it had developed an experimental drug that relieves moderate to severe pain, blocking pain signals before they can get to the brain. It works only on peripheral nerves — those outside the brain…
Runner With Long Covid Creates Flagstaff’s Dream Run Camp
Never one to waste a spare moment, Matt Fitzgerald clambered into the second row of his Mazda CX-90 on a recent weekday morning and cracked open his MacBook so that he could work on another book. Mr. Fitzgerald, 52, is…
The Stanley Cup Lead Scare Is Not Something to Worry About, Experts Say
You might have heard of the Stanley tumbler, the hip, trendy water bottle that has people camping outside stores or getting into fights to get their hands on one. They’ve become a fashion accessory, especially since Stanley has made use…
Syphilis Is Soaring in the U.S.
Syphilis, once nearly eliminated in the United States, continues to resurge, reaching the highest rate of new infections recorded since 1950, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday. More than 207,000 cases were diagnosed in 2022, the…
Canada Delays Plan to Offer Medically Assisted Death to the Mentally Ill
Canada is postponing a plan to offer people suffering from mental illnesses the option of a medically assisted death, two cabinet ministers said on Monday. The announcement by Mark Holland, the health minister, and Arif Virani, the justice minister, came…
Teen Drug and Alcohol Use Linked to Mental Health Distress
The Findings: Drug Use as Self-Medication The paper found that the link between substance use and mental health existed even at low levels of drug and alcohol use. Dr. Tervo-Clemmens said that adolescents with low levels of substance use may…
Buried in Wegovy Costs, North Carolina Will Stop Paying for Obesity Drugs
In June 2021, the insurance plan for North Carolina state employees was paying for 2,800 people to take weight-loss drugs. Last year, it paid for nearly 25,000. Medications like Wegovy cost the North Carolina State Health Plan $100 million last…
The Man in Room 117
Sam and Olga had concluded that only involuntary treatment could break the cycle for Andrey — something open-ended, combining long-term injectable medications with intensive therapy and counseling. They are part of a much larger ideological shift taking place, as communities…
Pet Dragons Linked to Salmonella Cases That Sickened Dozens of Children
“I have college students that will come to class with their bearded dragon on their shoulder, which is probably not the most hygienic thing,” said Brian Todd, a conservationist at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in reptiles and…
Obamacare Sign-Ups Hit 21 Million for 2024. Will the Surge in Enrollment Last?
Carley Calvi came to the second floor of a public library in suburban Milwaukee one morning this month without health insurance to cover the vertigo medication she needed. Worse, she said, was not having a doctor she trusted. “I want…
Jon Franklin, Pioneering Apostle of Literary Journalism, Dies at 82
Jon Franklin, an apostle of narrative short-story style journalism whose own work won the first Pulitzer Prizes awarded for feature writing and explanatory journalism, died on Sunday in Annapolis, Md. He was 82. His death, at a hospice, came less…
Phones Track Everything but Their Role in Car Wrecks
Cellphones can track what we say and write, where we go, what we buy and what we search on the internet. But they still aren’t being used to track one of the biggest public health threats: crashes caused by drivers…
Nitrogen Hypoxia: What to Know About This New Method of Execution
The planned execution of a death row inmate by the state of Alabama on Thursday evening will be carried out by a procedure that has never been used for capital punishment in the United States. The inmate, Kenneth Smith, who…
Europe Faces a Measles Outbreak
Back Story: The pandemic and rising hesitancy slowed immunizations. A false claim in the 1990s that said the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism led to a drop in immunization rates. Public health campaigns later recouped much of…
Naomi Feil, Who Promoted Empathy as a Response to Dementia, Dies at 91
Naomi Feil was only 8 years old when she moved into what was then known as a home for the aged, where her parents worked. Living there until she left for college, she learned firsthand, by trial and error, how…
Gene Therapy Allows an 11-Year-Old Boy to Hear for the First Time
Aissam Dam, an 11-year-old boy, grew up in a world of profound silence. He was born deaf and had never heard anything. While living in a poor community in Morocco, he expressed himself with a sign language he invented and…
FDA Issues Warning of Cancer Risk Tied to CAR-T Therapies
The Food and Drug Administration is requiring companies that make specialized cancer therapies known as CAR-T to add a boxed warning that the treatments themselves may cause cancers. The agency noted that the benefits still outweighed the risks of the…
Even Rats Are Taking Selfies Now (and Enjoying It)
When Augustin Lignier, a professional photographer in Paris, was in graduate school, he began to ponder the point of picture-taking in the modern world: Why did so many of us feel compelled to photograph our lives and share those images…
Top Cancer Center Seeks to Retract or Correct Dozens of Studies
Other papers that Dr. David found to contain irregularities were based on data generated in labs other than those of the Dana-Farber scientists, Dr. Rollins said. He said the institute had started reviewing possible data errors in some of the…
How Worcester Polytechnic Institute Weathered a Spate of Suicides
“Were you burned out,” I asked. Her face was flat. “I still am,” she said. “Yeah. Yes, and I still am.” Worcester is famous for the snow dumps it receives in the winter. It has something to do with where…
Berish Strauch, Path Breaker in Reconstructive Surgery, Dies at 90
Berish Strauch, a plastic surgeon whose pioneering procedures and devices to reattach or replace vital body parts included one of the first toe-to-thumb transplants, a device to reverse vasectomies and, perhaps most notably, the first inflatable prosthetic penis, died on…
Six Reasons Drug Prices Are So High in the U.S.
Florida’s plan to save money by importing medications from Canada, authorized this month by the Food and Drug Administration, has renewed attention on the cost of prescription drugs in the United States. Research has consistently found that drug prices in…
The Heart Surgery That Isn’t as Safe for Older Women
Last Thanksgiving, Cynthia Mosson had been on her feet all day in her kitchen in Frankfort, Ind., preparing dinner for nine. She was nearly finished — the ham in the oven, the dressing made — when she suddenly felt the…
What to Know About the Federal Law at the Heart of the Latest Supreme Court Abortion Case
One of the newest battlefields in the abortion debate is a decades-old federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known by doctors and health policymakers as EMTALA. The issue involves whether the law requires hospital emergency rooms…
Nancy E. Adler, Who Linked Wealth to Health, Dies at 77
Nancy E. Adler, a health psychologist whose work helped transform the public understanding of the relationship between socioeconomic status and physical health, died on Jan. 4 at her home in San Francisco. She was 77. The cause was pancreatic cancer,…
With Harsh Anti-L.G.B.T.Q. Law, Uganda Risks a Health Crisis
For decades, Uganda’s campaign against H.I.V. was exemplary, slashing the country’s death rate by nearly 90 percent from 1990 to 2019. Now a sweeping law enacted last year, the Anti-Homosexuality Act, threatens to renew the epidemic as L.G.B.T.Q. citizens are…
Chinese Scientists Shared Coronavirus Data with US Before Pandemic
In late December 2019, eight pages of genetic code were sent to computers at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Unbeknown to American officials at the time, the genetic map that had landed on their doorstep contained critical…
Joseph Zadroga, Who Championed 9/11 Emergency Workers, Dies at 76
Joseph C. Zadroga, whose lobbying helped deliver health benefits to thousands of emergency workers whose health was impaired by inhaling dust and debris at ground zero after the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center — although his efforts…
King Charles’s Prostate Treatment Is Common Among Men His Age
King Charles III will have a procedure to address an enlarged prostate at a hospital next week. The 75-year-old British monarch’s diagnosis is common among men his age, and experts say that typical treatments are not dangerous. An enlarged prostate,…
Cancer Deaths Are Falling, but There May Be an Asterisk
The news Cancer deaths in the United States are falling, with four million deaths prevented since 1991, according to the American Cancer Society’s annual report. At the same time, the society reported that the number of new cancer cases had…
Researchers Scramble to Keep Dog Aging Project Alive
In late 2019, scientists began searching for 10,000 Americans willing to enroll their pets in an ambitious new study of health and longevity in dogs. The researchers planned to track the dogs over the course of their lives, collecting detailed…
Roy Calne, Pioneering British Organ-Transplant Surgeon, Dies at 93
Roy Calne, a British surgeon whose work on organ transplantation helped turn what was once considered impossible into a lifesaving procedure for millions of people around the world, died on Jan. 6 at a retirement home in Cambridge, England. He…
An Ultrasound Experiment Tackles a Giant Problem in Brain Medicine
There is a problem with the recently approved Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm. It can remove some of the amyloid that forms brain plaques that are hallmarks of the disease. But most of the drug is wasted because it hits an obstacle,…
Workplace Wellness Programs Have Little Benefit, Study Finds
Employee mental health services have become a billion-dollar industry. New hires, once they have found the restrooms and enrolled in 401(k) plans, are presented with a panoply of digital wellness solutions, mindfulness seminars, massage classes, resilience workshops, coaching sessions and…
Women With Depression During or After Pregnancy Face Greater Suicide Risk, Even Years Later
What the research shows A research team analyzed records of nearly a million women in Sweden’s national medical registries from 2001 through 2017, comparing 86,551 women who had perinatal depression with 865,510 women who did not. The groups were matched…
Quaker Oats Recalls More Products Over Potential Salmonella Contamination
The Quaker Oats Company added more products this week to a recall that started last month over possible salmonella contamination, raising the total number of products to more than 60. Quaker Oats, which is owned by PepsiCo, initially recalled 43…
The Billionaires Spending a Fortune to Lure Scientists Away From Universities
In an unmarked laboratory stationed between the campuses of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a splinter group of scientists is hunting for the next billion-dollar drug. The group, bankrolled with $500 million from some of the wealthiest families…
Federal Scientists Recommend Easing Restrictions on Marijuana
Marijuana is neither as risky nor as prone to abuse as other tightly controlled substances and has potential medical benefits, and therefore should be removed from the nation’s most restrictive category of drugs, federal scientists have concluded. The recommendations are…
How Women’s Soccer Is Embracing Mental Health
The best way to do that, Common Goal argues, is through the players. According to the organization’s research, players tend not to turn to family or friends outside soccer for support but to look inward, to their teammates. “It is…
Looming Starvation in Gaza Shows Resurgence of Civilian Sieges in Warfare
A U.N.-affiliated panel said the territory could tip into famine very soon. International laws to protect people from human-made famines offer little help.
What Happens When There Is No Food: Experts Say Severe Malnutrition Could Set in Swiftly in Gaza
A panel of experts affiliated with the United Nations has warned that the population of the Gaza Strip is at imminent risk of famine, with more than 90 percent of its 2.2 million people facing “acute food insecurity” and a…
Lloyd Austin’s Hidden Diagnosis: Why Some People Keep Serious Illnesses Private
The U.S. defense secretary is facing scrutiny after failing to immediately disclose to the White House his recent prostate-cancer diagnosis and a related hospitalization, a breach of protocol for which he has apologized. But while the secretary, Lloyd J. Austin…
Use of ADHD Drugs Surged During Pandemic, Study Finds
The News Prescriptions for drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder surged during the coronavirus pandemic, particularly among women and patients ages 20 to 39, according to new research compiled by scholars affiliated with the U.S. Food and Drug…
F.D.A. Warned of Mental Side Effects from Asthma Drug, Singulair. Few Were Told.
Singulair, now a generic, is still used by millions of people in the United States even after thousands of patients and dozens of studies have described harm.
June Jackson Christmas, Pioneering Psychiatrist, Dies at 99
June Jackson Christmas, a psychiatrist who broke barriers as a Black woman by heading New York City’s Department of Mental Health and Retardation Services under three mayors, died on Sunday in the Bronx. She was 99. Her daughter, Rachel Christmas…
F.D.A. to Issue First Approval for Mass Drug Imports to States from Canada
The Food and Drug Administration has allowed Florida to import millions of dollars worth of medications from Canada at far lower prices than in the United States, overriding fierce decades-long objections from the pharmaceutical industry. The approval, issued in a…
Ozempic and Wegovy Users Had Less Risk of Suicidal Thoughts in Large Study
People taking the wildly popular drugs Ozempic, to treat diabetes, and Wegovy, to combat obesity, are slightly less likely to have suicidal thoughts who are not taking them, researchers reported on Friday. Millions of people take Ozempic and Wegovy, which…
Paxlovid Cuts Covid Death Risk. But Those Who Need It Are Not Taking It.
As Covid rises again, killing about 1,500 Americans each week, medical researchers are trying to understand why so few people are taking Paxlovid, a medicine that is stunningly effective in preventing severe illness and death from the disease. A study…
Florida Health Official Calls for Halt to Covid Vaccines
Florida’s surgeon general on Wednesday called for a halt to the use of Covid vaccines, citing widely debunked concerns that contaminants in the vaccine can permanently integrate into human DNA. “These vaccines are not appropriate for use in human beings,”…
Sidney M. Wolfe, Scourge of the Pharmaceutical Industry, Dies at 86
Sidney M. Wolfe, a physician and consumer advocate who for more than 40 years hounded the pharmaceutical industry and the Food and Drug Administration over high prices, dangerous side effects and overlooked health hazards, bringing a new level of transparency…
More Women Who Are Not Pregnant Are Ordering Abortion Pills Just in Case
Why It Matters The practice, known as advance provision, is relatively new and has increased significantly since the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to overturn the national right to abortion. In the study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine,…
La variante JN.1 ya domina en EE. UU.
Hasta donde saben los expertos, la JN.1 no parece causar enfermedad grave en la mayoría de las personas, aunque hasta un caso leve puede hacerte sentir “bastante mal durante tres o cuatro días”, señaló Schaffner. Los síntomas de una infección…
Dry January: How to Set Yourself Up for Success
Dry January sounds like a simple proposition: No alcohol. For 31 days. And some enthusiasts jump in without much planning — perhaps even hungover after a rowdy New Year’s Eve. There is no data suggesting that those folks won’t be…
Ohio Governor Blocks Bill Banning Transition Care for Minors
Background Lawmakers passed the measure earlier in December. Those in favor of the bill argued that parents are pressured by doctors to sign off on transition care treatments for their children. The bill’s sponsor, Representative Gary Click, said parents are…
10 Ways to Support Your Mental Health and Manage Stress in 2024
Since the height of the pandemic, there has been a cultural shift in the way we talk about mental health. It’s as though the years of isolation and uncertainty helped us understand how vital our emotional needs were to our…
Covid Variant JN.1 Now Accounts for Nearly Half of U.S. Cases
As the holiday season winds down and Covid-19 cases start to pick up, a variant called JN.1 has now become the most common strain of the virus spreading across the United States. JN.1, which emerged from the variant BA.2.86 and…
10 Nutrition Tips for a Healthy New Year
As a health reporter who’s been following nutrition news for decades, I’ve seen a lot of trends that made a splash — and then sank. Remember olestra, the Paleo diet and celery juice? Watch enough food fads come and go,…
Idaho Judge Temporarily Blocks Ban on Gender Transition Care for Minors
Transgender minors in the state will be able to receive gender transition care for now, while the challenge against the state ban proceeds.
Your Top Health Questions of 2023, Answered
One thing I love about editing the Ask Well column is the camaraderie of it. Every week we answer a health question: Why am I so congested all the time? (I’ve wondered that, too!) Why does my sleep get worse…
Serious Medical Errors Rose After Private Equity Firms Bought Hospitals
The rate of serious medical complications increased in hospitals after they were purchased by private equity investment firms, according to a major study of the effects of such acquisitions on patient care in recent years. The study, published in JAMA…
What to Know About the Effects of Ketamine
An autopsy report released by the Los Angeles County medical examiner on Friday said the death of “Friends” actor Matthew Perry, who was found face down and unresponsive in a hot tub at his home on Oct. 28, resulted from…
Monica Bertagnolli, NIH’s New Leader, Wants to Broaden Participation in Medical Research
When Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli moved into the director’s suite at the National Institutes of Health, she brought with her a single piece of art, a lithograph created by the granddaughter of a cancer patient she once treated. It depicts…
Biden Administration Warns 9 Governors About Medicaid Losses Among Children
The Biden administration on Monday warned the governors of nine states of unusually high Medicaid coverage losses among children, suggesting that officials were failing to protect young, low-income Americans while winnowing the program’s rolls. Xavier Becerra, the health and human…
Possible Ways to Ease Drug Shortages
At several congressional hearings this year, ideas to fix drug shortages were as numerous as the number of scarce drugs. The rationing of key chemotherapies added urgency to the crisis. Two of these drugs, carboplatin and cisplatin, are inexpensive and…
New Hope — and an Old Hurdle — for a Terrible Disease With Terrible Treatments
Three years ago, Jesús Tilano went to a hospital in a thickly forested valley in Colombia with large open lesions on his nose, right arm and left hand. He was diagnosed with leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that is spread in…
Bellevue Hospital Bariatric Surgery Program Is Under NY State Scrutiny
The New York State Department of Health is scrutinizing Bellevue Hospital’s use of unlicensed technicians to assist doctors in weight-loss surgeries. Bellevue, a large public hospital in Manhattan, churns thousands of low-income patients through bariatric surgery every year, The New…