Health category, Page 42

Pittsburgh City Council has advanced a proposal to use $1 million in covid-relief funding to alleviate residents’ medical debts. Councilman Bobby Wilson introduced the proposal last month and suggested that the city hire RIP Medical Debt, a New York-based nonprofit, to buy dischargeable health care debt directly from hospitals and...

Eating just one freshwater fish a year can dramatically increase the amount of toxic forever chemicals coursing through a person’s blood, according to a new study that reflects more than a half-century of pollution contaminating the Great Lakes and rivers nationwide. The alarming finding is based on an analysis of...

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — The ghostly form floating in a large jar had been the robust reddish-brown of a healthy organ just hours before. Now it’s semitranslucent, white tubes like branches on a tree showing through. This is a pig liver that’s gradually being transformed to look and act like...

When Mike Huss gets an alert from a panic button or call within Allegheny Health Network, he and his team are prepared to jump into action. “If you look at it, some of it is just verbal abuse. Some of it is physical abuse, where someone strikes, punches, kicks, bites...

The last time Tom Soltis spoke to the American Association of University Women’s Murrysville chapter, it was during the emergence of the omicron variant of the covid-19 virus. Soltis recently retired after a career teaching sociology and anthropology at Westmoreland County Community College. He also is the author of “An...

UPMC East will join more than 20 other hospitals throughout the health system in adding robotic-assisted surgery as an option for patients. The da Vinci Surgical System allows surgeons to make small incisions and perform surgery using tiny robotic surgical instruments and cameras. At UPMC East, a dual-console system will...

NEW YORK — Vaccination rates for U.S. kindergarteners dropped again last year, and federal officials are starting a new campaign to try to bring them up. Usually, 94% to 95% of kindergarteners are vaccinated against measles, tetanus and certain other diseases. The vaccination rates dropped below 94% in the 2020-2021...

BERLIN — Travelers whose package tours were ruined by the imposition of restrictions to combat the covid-19 pandemic may be entitled to at least a partial refund, the European Union’s highest court said Thursday. The European Court of Justice weighed in after being asked for its opinion by a court...

In 2021, at the height of the pandemic, Denelle Korin was assigned to the covid wing in an acute care hospital in central Pennsylvania where she worked as a nurse. For months, Korin saw patients die. Like thousands of nurses across the country, she herself put her health and safety...

TOKYO — Japan and South Korea defended their public health restrictions on travelers from China on Wednesday, a day after China stopped issuing new visas in both countries in apparent retaliation. South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said he finds it “significantly regrettable” that China stopped issuing short-term visas to...

A highly contagious respiratory disease targeting dogs has shown up in at least nine states, including Pennsylvania, in recent months, and it’s raising concern among those who work with dogs in the Pittsburgh area. But, while Becky Morrow, a veterinarian and founder of Frankie’s Friends, a nonprofit animal rescue shelter...

HYATTSVILLE, Md. — When Jamieson Brill answers a crisis call from a Spanish speaker on the newly launched national 988 mental health helpline, he rarely mentions the word suicide, or “suicidio” Brill, whose family hails from Puerto Rico, knows that just discussing the term in some Spanish-speaking cultures is so...

A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission plans to take action to address the pollution, which can cause health and respiratory problems. “This is a hidden...

A new strain of covid nicknamed the “kraken” for its dominance over previous strains of the virus has been found in the Western Pennsylvania region, health officials said. Officially known as XBB.1.5, the new covid variant has jumped from just 1% of cases to become the dominant strain in the...

Children struggling with obesity should be evaluated and treated early and aggressively, including with medications for kids as young as 12 and surgery for those as young as 13, according to new guidelines released Monday. The longstanding practice of “watchful waiting,” or delaying treatment to see whether children and teens...

LOS ANGELES — Michael Mendez said that when learned he had hepatitis C, “I didn’t even know what it was.” Mendez, 47, had been homeless for years in Los Angeles, and said he hadn’t gone to a doctor the entire time he was living on the streets. When Mendez got...

WASHINGTON — U.S. health officials on Friday approved a closely watched Alzheimer’s drug that modestly slows the brain-robbing disease, albeit with potential safety risks that patients and their doctors will have to carefully weigh. The drug, Leqembi, is the first that’s been convincingly shown to slow the decline in memory...

Ligonier-based senior care organization Bethlen Communities signed a letter of intent to join Concordia Lutheran Ministries, a senior health care network with in-home care and inpatient locations in western Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the country. Both organizations “will work … toward an expected affiliation date in the spring,” officials said....

Tom Doran has been named Highmark Health Plan president, taking the reins of the country’s fourth-largest Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliate with about 6.8 million members. Doran is not new to the Pittsburgh-headquartered health insurer. Most recently, he served as the health plan’s chief operating officer when former health plan...

More than 1.3% of the adult population in the United States was displaced by natural disasters in the past year, with hurricanes responsible for more than half of the forced relocations, according to first-of-its-kind survey results from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Household Pulse Survey results said that 3.3 million...

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday finalized a rule change that allows women seeking abortion pills to get them through the mail, replacing a long-standing requirement that they pick up the medicine in person. The Biden administration implemented the change last year, announcing it would no longer...

Experts say the next 24 hours will be critical in the recovery of Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills safety and McKees Rocks native who suffered cardiac arrest during a “Monday Night Football” game at Cincinnati. “It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on. But at this point, they are maintaining...

Ken DeFurio, who served as president and CEO of Butler Health System, will lead the new organization formed by the merger of Butler and Excela Health, officials announced Tuesday. The merger was final as of Sunday, Jan. 1. John Sphon, who was CEO of Excela Health, plans to retire in...

The number of young kids, especially toddlers, who accidentally ate marijuana-laced treats rose sharply over five years as pot became legal in more places in the U.S., according to a study published Tuesday. More than 7,000 confirmed cases of kids younger than 6 eating marijuana edibles were reported to the...

PHILADELPHIA — A new drug designed to ward off Alzheimer’s is being tested at more than 100 sites around the world, including the University of Pennsylvania. Called lecanemab, it consists of antibodies that bind to the abnormal proteins that accumulate in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. Previous efforts to...