As a deadly heat wave scorched the Pacific Northwest last month, overwhelming hospital emergency rooms in a region unaccustomed to triple-digit temperatures, doctors resorted to a grim but practical tool to save lives: human body bags filled with ice ... [Continue Reading]
Wildfire Smoke Drives People in Low-Vaccinated Areas Indoors, Raising Outbreak Fears
MISSOULA, Mont. — Missoula’s new downtown library was teeming with people who might typically spend a Saturday afternoon hiking, biking or otherwise making the most of Montana’s abundant outdoor recreation. One look at the soupy haze ... [Continue Reading]
Analysis: Necessary or Not, Covid Booster Shots Are Probably on the Horizon
The drugmaker Pfizer recently announced that vaccinated people are likely to need a booster shot to be effectively protected against new variants of covid-19 and that the company would apply for Food and Drug Administration emergency use ... [Continue Reading]
With a Diagnosis at Last, Black Women with ADHD Start Healing
Miché Aaron has always been a high achiever. The 29-year-old is in her third year of a planetary sciences doctoral program at Johns Hopkins University, where she researches minerals found on Mars. She’s a former NASA space grant scholar ... [Continue Reading]
Novavax’s Effort to Vaccinate the World, From Zero to Not Quite Warp Speed
On a sweltering June morning, Novavax CEO and covid vaccine maker Stanley Erck stood on a stage unmasked and did something that would have been unthinkable six months ago: He shook hands with Maryland’s governor. Erck was ... [Continue Reading]
Influx of Medical School Students Could Overwhelm Montana Resources, Program Leaders Warn
Opening two new medical schools in Montana would stretch and possibly overwhelm the state’s physicians who provide the clinical training that students need to become doctors, according to leaders of a University of Washington medical school ... [Continue Reading]
Why We May Never Know Whether the $56,000-a-Year Alzheimer’s Drug Actually Works
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval in June of a drug purporting to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease was widely celebrated, but it also touched off alarms. There were worries in the scientific community about the ... [Continue Reading]
Journalists Tackle Delta Variant, Hospital Prices and Public Health Spending
Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber discussed the covid-19 delta variant on NPR’s “The 1A” on July 2. Click here to hear Weber on NPRSenior correspondent Julie Appleby discussed hospital price transparency on WGN’s ... [Continue Reading]
Delta Variant Surges in Colorado as the Bands Play On
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Dr. Rachel LaCount grasped a metal hoop at a playground and spun in circles with her 7-year-old son, turning the distant mesas of the Colorado National Monument into a red-tinged blur. LaCount has lived in ... [Continue Reading]
Journalists Discuss Long Covid, Delta Variant, Clinic for Migrants
California Healthline producer Lydia Zuraw told of her experience with long covid and how singing helped her shortness of breath on Newsy’s “Morning Rush” on Thursday. Click here to watch Zuraw on NewsyClick here to read ... [Continue Reading]
Unprecedented Lobbying Effort Scores Big Win for California Public Health
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — After more than a decade of fruitless entreaties from public health advocates, Democratic lawmakers have secured a landmark agreement that promises $300 million a year in new state funding to fortify and reimagine ... [Continue Reading]
Damage to Children’s Education — And Their Health — Could Last a Lifetime
Before the pandemic, 16-year-old Na’ryen Cayou had everything he needed. He had his own room. A partial scholarship to a boys’ prep school. A spot playing trombone in the marching band, performing in parades all over New Orleans. ... [Continue Reading]
How One Rural Town Without a Pharmacy Is Crowdsourcing to Get Meds
WALDEN, Colo. — The building that once housed the last drugstore in this town of fewer than 600 is now a barbecue restaurant, where pit boss Larry Holtman dishes out smoked brisket and pulled pork across the same counter where pharmacists dispensed ... [Continue Reading]
Analysis: Why We’ll Likely Never Know Whether a Covid Lab Leak Happened in China
Early in this century, post-SARS, and in a period when China started allowing more students and scientists to study abroad, collaboration and exchange between American and Chinese scientists blossomed. Many of China’s top ... [Continue Reading]
Covid’s Lingering Effects Can Put the Brakes on Elective Surgeries
The week before Brian Colvin was scheduled for shoulder surgery in November, he tested positive for covid-19. What he thought at first was a head cold had morphed into shortness of breath and chest congestion coupled with profound fatigue and loss of ... [Continue Reading]