Health category, Page 45

NEW YORK — Have U.S. drug overdose deaths stopped rising? Preliminary government data suggests they may have, but many experts are urging caution, noting that past plateaus didn’t last. U.S. overdose death rates began steadily climbing in the 1990s driven by opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths led by...

WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci knew he was being turned into a villain of the far-right early on in the coronavirus pandemic, when President Donald Trump’s administration stopped defending him. It was the result of a series of choices Fauci stands by to this day, despite all the grief it...

As covid-19 raged, roughly 4,000 highly skilled epidemiologists, communication specialists and public health nurses were hired by a nonprofit tied to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to plug the holes at battered public health departments on the front lines. But over the past few months, the majority of...

When members of the Laurel Highlands Workforce and Opportunity Center board were looking for a model, they didn’t have to look far. “We’re a replication site for Manchester Bidwell in Pittsburgh, which has been around for 50 years,” CEO Greg Daigle said. “When it comes to adult training, you go...

A food poisoning outbreak tied to deli meat and cheese has sickened 16 people, including one who died, U.S. health officials said Wednesday. Most were hospitalized and one illness resulted in the loss of a pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many reported eating meat or...

When Josephine Cabrera Taveras was infected with covid-19 in spring 2020, she didn’t anticipate that the virus would knock her out of work for two years and put her family at risk for eviction. Taveras, a mother of two in Brooklyn, New York, said her bout with long covid has...

Millions of retirees are in the thick of Medicare open enrollment, which runs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, but many find the process challenging. Some don’t understand the difference between Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage, many are overwhelmed by Medicare advertising, and only 4 in 10 people review their...

DALLAS — Researchers from two North Texas universities have created a molecule that kills a spectrum of hard-to-treat cancers, including an aggressive form of breast cancer. Their work was published in the journal Nature Cancer. The researchers tested the molecule in isolated cells, human cancer tissue and in mice, with...

UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has put up a tent outside its Lawrenceville hospital so it is prepared to deal with the influx of patients sick with RSV, the director of the hospital’s emergency department said in a video shared on social media Monday. “The tent is a space that...

WASHINGTON — Mailers designed to look like official government forms. Buses sporting scam pitches for Medicare websites. TV commercials featuring celebrities who encourage people to sign up for Medicare plans that do not always include their current doctors. With Medicare’s open enrollment underway through Dec. 7, health experts are warning...

NEW YORK — The U.S. flu season is off to an unusually fast start, adding to an autumn mix of viruses that have been filling hospitals and doctor waiting rooms. Reports of flu are already high in 17 states, and the hospitalization rate hasn’t been this high this early since...

The psychedelic chemical in “magic mushrooms” may ease depression in some hard-to-treat patients, a preliminary study found. The effects were modest and waned over time but they occurred with a single experimental dose in people who previously had gotten little relief from standard antidepressants. The study is part of a...

New research shows vaccinating pregnant women helped protect their newborns from the common but scary respiratory virus called RSV that fills hospitals with wheezing babies each fall. The preliminary results buoy hope that after decades of failure and frustration, vaccines against RSV may finally be getting close. Pfizer announced Tuesday...

A spike in the number of babies suffering from the respiratory illness RSV is increasing the emergency room wait times at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, according to officials. Dr. Raymond Pitetti, director of the emergency department at Children’s, said the surge in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) began about six...

GENEVA — The number of people infected with tuberculosis, including the kind resistant to drugs, rose globally for the first time in years, according to a report Thursday by the World Health Organization. The U.N. health agency said more than 10 million people worldwide were sickened by tuberculosis in 2021,...

BEIJING — The Chinese city of Shanghai started administering an inhalable covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday in what appears to be a world first. The vaccine, a mist that is sucked in through the mouth, is being offered for free as a booster dose for previously vaccinated people, according to an...

As the number of covid-19 infection surged during the pandemic, deaths from heart attacks rose sharply as well, with adults ages 25-44 experiencing the most significant increases, according to new research from scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. “The dramatic rise in heart attacks during the pandemic has...

Children’s hospitals in parts of the U.S. are seeing a surge in a common respiratory illness that can cause severe breathing problems for babies. RSV cases fell dramatically two years ago as the pandemic shut down schools, day cares and businesses. With restrictions easing in the summer of 2021, doctors...

ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. — When Chastity Murry had her first psychotic break, she went into her bathroom and downed a whole bottle of pills, hoping to die. Her teenage daughter had to perform CPR to save her life. Around that same time more than a decade ago, the man who would...

WASHINGTON — Covid-19 drove a dramatic increase in the number of women who died from pregnancy or childbirth complications in the U.S. last year, a crisis that has disproportionately claimed Black and Hispanic women as victims, according to a report released Wednesday.. The report lays out grim trends across the...

Black-white disparities exist in fertility medicine, reflected in life-and-death outcomes for babies, according to a large study of U.S. births. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Pediatrics, is the broadest look yet at racial gaps for women who use in vitro fertilization, fertility drugs or other fertility treatments. Researchers...

Our Medieval ancestors left us with a biological legacy: Genes that may have helped them survive the Black Death make us more susceptible to certain diseases today. It’s a prime example of the way germs shape us over time, scientists say in a new study published Wednesday in the journal...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Students in obstetrics-gynecology and family medicine — two of the most popular medical residencies — face tough choices about where to advance their training in a landscape where legal access to abortion varies from state to state. Abortions are typically performed by OB-GYNs or family doctors, and...

NEW YORK — A new study finds that some people really are “mosquito magnets” and it probably has to do with the way they smell. The researchers found that people who are most attractive to mosquitoes produce a lot of certain chemicals on their skin that are tied to smell....

WASHINGTON — The maker of the only U.S. drug intended to prevent premature births is making a last-ditch effort this week to keep its medication on the market, even as health regulators insist that it doesn’t work. A Food and Drug Administration meeting that opened Monday comes more than two...