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Section: Health

Net Neutrality Repeal Could Have Health Impact

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 in favor of repealing net neutrality regulations, an expected outcome that prompted renewed concern from some about the impact on telehealth and remote monitoring. In a release (PDF) following Thursday’s vote, the FCC lauded the reversal of “heavy-handed utility-style regulations” that would promote network investment that is “key to […]

December 18, 2017

Judge Blocks Birth Control Rules

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A federal judge in Philadelphia on Friday ordered the Trump administration not to enforce new rules that could significantly reduce women’s access to free birth control. Judge Wendy Beetlestone issued the injunction, temporarily stopping the government from enforcing the policy change to former President Barack Obama’s health care law. Read More

December 18, 2017

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Is Your State the Healthiest?

Massachusetts is the healthiest state in which to live this year, according to a new report from the United Health Foundation. The report ranks states on 35 factors that impact health, from vaccination levels and infant mortality rates to environmental pollution and poverty levels. The analysis also pinpoints public health challenges nationwide. Read More

December 18, 2017

CDC Chief to Staff: “No Banned Words”

The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reached out to alarmed agency staff over the weekend to tamp down fears incited by a report that the Trump administration has banned the CDC from using words like “fetus,” “evidence-based,” and “diversity” in its budget submissions. Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, who has led the […]

December 18, 2017

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Kimmel Blasts Congress for Ending CHIP

Jimmy Kimmel returned to his late-night talk show Jmmy Kimmel Live! this week and brought along his infant son Billy, who had undergone heart surgery recently, causing the host to take time off. Kimmel teared up as he reassured his audience that Billy was fine, and took the opportunity to call out the Republican-led United […]

December 18, 2017

Burst of Obamacare Enrollments Show Need

WASHINGTON — A deadline burst of sign-ups after a tumultuous year for the Obama health law has revealed continued demand for the program’s subsidized individual health plans. But the Affordable Care Act’s troubles aren’t over. On the plus side for the overhaul, official numbers showed a sizable share of first-time customers, 36 percent, were among […]

December 18, 2017

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Ignore Race

Sickle cell anemia was first described in 1910 and was quickly labeled a “black” disease. At a time when many people were preoccupied with an imagined racial hierarchy, with whites on top, the disease was cited as evidence that people of African descent were inferior. But what of white people who presented with sickle cell […]

December 13, 2017

Compound Stops Progressive Kidney Disease

Progressive kidney diseases, whether caused by obesity, hypertension, diabetes, or rare genetic mutations, often have the same outcome: The cells responsible for filtering the blood are destroyed. Reporting in Science, a team led by researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School describes a new approach […]

December 13, 2017

PTSD Veterans Struggle to Get Service Dogs

For 10 years, Adam LeGrand was a medic in the Air Force. Then he was injured in rollover accidents and by a pallet of cinderblocks falling on him in Qatar. He developed post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury (TBI) and became suicidal. “The VA [Veterans Administration] put me on a dangerous cocktail of drugs,” […]

December 13, 2017

GOP Steps Up Push for More Funds for Obamacare Marketplaces

Senate Republicans are increasingly resolved to infuse more funding into the Obamacare marketplaces, even as they work on a parallel measure to undermine the health-care law by erasing its mandate to buy coverage. In an email sent to senators Tuesday night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised imminent action on a pair of measures […]

December 13, 2017

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Why Are Pregnant Black Women Dying?

On a melancholy Saturday this past February, Shalon Irving’s “village” — the friends and family she had assembled to support her as a single mother — gathered at a funeral home in a prosperous black neighborhood in southwest Atlanta to say goodbye and send her home. The afternoon light was gray but bright, flooding through […]

December 13, 2017

Suits Target Diet Soda Industry’s Ads

Advertising campaigns behind diet drinks from Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper have long promoted the idea that consumers are taking the healthier, more weight-conscious option when it comes to choosing their favorite sodas. Diet Coke emphasized its drink has “no sugar, no calories.” Diet Pepsi tried launching its slender “skinny” can only a handful of […]

December 13, 2017

States Press Medical Marijuana Users to Give Up Guns

Twenty-nine states and Washington D.C. now allow patients to have access to medical marijuana, but some of these patients are bumping up against a federal law that prohibits the sale of guns to people who use marijuana. Authorities in Pennsylvania and Hawaii have spoken out last week, declaring that people who have medical marijuana licenses […]

December 13, 2017

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Obamacare Options Dwindle for Neediest

WASHINGTON — Josh Brookhart has four health insurers to choose from in Seattle’s King County for 2018, more than many Americans like him who buy coverage on the Obamacare individual market. Yet none of the plans cover all the complex medical care needed for his seven-year-old son, Gabriel. Read More

December 13, 2017

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Ryan: GOP Targets Benefits for Poor and Aged

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said Wednesday that congressional Republicans will aim next year to reduce spending on both federal health care and anti-poverty programs, citing the need to reduce America’s deficit. “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” […]

December 11, 2017

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What Deadline?

I’ll never forget the relief in his voice as we drove home from a session of radiation treatment back in December of 2013. Andrew, a 26-year-old transgender man who would soon become my husband, had been diagnosed with cancer three months earlier. While he was one of the fortunate Americans able to access health insurance […]

December 11, 2017

Ex-Postman Helps Debut Alzheimer’s Stamp

A former mailman, who had to stop the job he loved when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, helped debut a USPS stamp Friday that will help fight the disease. Doug Peterson was a mail carrier in Escondido for 27 years before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease — a brain disorder that destroys a […]

December 11, 2017

Past Injustices Cause Minorities to Avoid Clinical Trials

Clinical research’s sordid past has “left a stain” on the medical community as it tries to gain trust among minority populations and increase clinical trial participation, which remains staggeringly low, says Northwell Health senior VP. Read More

December 11, 2017