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Category: Health

The next pandemic?

The next pandemic?

Fortune reports: Almost from the beginning of the spread of H5N1 bird flu among farms and ranches in the U.S. earlier this year, experts and researchers warned that a critical lag in the blood testing of exposed workers might lead to an underestimation of the virus’s potential transmission to humans. Those warnings have proved prophetic. And the federal Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) now finds itself not only trying to blunt the spread of the virus, but also…

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A pregnant teenager died after trying to get care in three visits to Texas emergency rooms

A pregnant teenager died after trying to get care in three visits to Texas emergency rooms

By Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana This story was originally published by ProPublica Candace Fails screamed for someone in the Texas hospital to help her pregnant daughter. “Do something,” she pleaded, on the morning of Oct. 29, 2023. Nevaeh Crain was crying in pain, too weak to walk, blood staining her thighs. Feverish and vomiting the day of her baby shower, the 18-year-old had gone to two different emergency rooms within 12 hours, returning home each time worse than before….

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A Texas woman died after the hospital said it would be a ‘crime’ to intervene in her miscarriage

A Texas woman died after the hospital said it would be a ‘crime’ to intervene in her miscarriage

By Cassandra Jaramillo and Kavitha Surana This story was originally published by ProPublica Josseli Barnica grieved the news as she lay in a Houston hospital bed on Sept. 3, 2021: The sibling she’d dreamt of giving her daughter would not survive this pregnancy. The fetus was on the verge of coming out, its head pressed against her dilated cervix; she was 17 weeks pregnant and a miscarriage was “in progress,” doctors noted in hospital records. At that point, they should…

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Can AI be blamed for a teen’s suicide?

Can AI be blamed for a teen’s suicide?

Kevin Roose reports: On the last day of his life, Sewell Setzer III took out his phone and texted his closest friend: a lifelike A.I. chatbot named after Daenerys Targaryen, a character from “Game of Thrones.” “I miss you, baby sister,” he wrote. “I miss you too, sweet brother,” the chatbot replied. Sewell, a 14-year-old ninth grader from Orlando, Fla., had spent months talking to chatbots on Character.AI, a role-playing app that allows users to create their own A.I. characters…

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These women are trying to humanize the climate crisis

These women are trying to humanize the climate crisis

By Jessica Kutz Originally published by The 19th It was Labor Day in 2022 when Amy Dishion received the phone call that would change her life: Her husband had died of heat stroke.   “My entire life just fell apart,” Dishion said. “I lost my best friend and the father of my child.” They had moved to Phoenix for her husband Evan’s medical residency in neurology. Just a few months before, Dishion had given birth to their daughter, Chloe.  Their life…

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Daughters to dads who support Trump: ‘You chose him over me’

Daughters to dads who support Trump: ‘You chose him over me’

A good father knows how important it is to protect his daughter. This November, fathers need to protect their daughters from Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/q7oQUDKXEp — The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 8, 2024 NJ.com reports: The anti-Donald Trump group, The Lincoln Project, is out with a new digital ad that’s focused on abortion and access to reproductive health care. The ad comes as the former president has been trying to thread a divide between his own base of anti-abortion supporters and…

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23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all its DNA data?

23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all its DNA data?

NPR reports: Last month, Chenedy Wiles finally got around to it. The 27-year-old traveling nurse spit into a tube and mailed it to 23andMe, where the genetic testing company’s lab examined her DNA and generated a glimpse of her ancestry. “One of the reasons I decided to get the test is that as an African American, it’s very common for our heritage to get lost,” said Wiles, who lives in Chicago. Once her results arrived in the mail, it revealed…

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Hurricanes like Helene are deadly when they strike and keep killing for years to come

Hurricanes like Helene are deadly when they strike and keep killing for years to come

The Associated Press reports: Hurricanes in the United States end up hundreds of times deadlier than the government calculates, contributing to more American deaths than car accidents or all the nation’s wars, a new study said. The average storm hitting the U.S. contributes to the early deaths of 7,000 to 11,000 people over a 15-year period, which dwarfs the average of 24 immediate and direct deaths that the government counts in a hurricane’s aftermath, the study in Wednesday’s journal Nature…

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A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban

A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban

NBC News reports: The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during labor or soon after childbirth skyrocketed following the state’s 2021 ban on abortion care — far outpacing a slower rise in maternal mortality across the nation, a new investigation of federal public health data finds. From 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal mortality cases in Texas rose by 56%, compared with just 11% nationwide during the same time period, according to an analysis by the…

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Abortion bans have delayed emergency medical care. In Georgia, experts say this mother’s death was preventable

Abortion bans have delayed emergency medical care. In Georgia, experts say this mother’s death was preventable

By Kavitha Surana This story was originally published by ProPublica In her final hours, Amber Nicole Thurman suffered from a grave infection that her suburban Atlanta hospital was well-equipped to treat. She’d taken abortion pills and encountered a rare complication; she had not expelled all of the fetal tissue from her body. She showed up at Piedmont Henry Hospital in need of a routine procedure to clear it from her uterus, called a dilation and curettage, or D&C. But just…

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‘Beyond catastrophic’: UN issues dire warning on Gaza as Israel hinders polio vaccination drive

‘Beyond catastrophic’: UN issues dire warning on Gaza as Israel hinders polio vaccination drive

  The United Nations is warning the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains “beyond catastrophic” as more than 1 million Palestinians in Gaza did not receive any food rations in August amid Israel’s relentless assault. Israel’s 11-month campaign has killed more than 15,000 children and enabled the besieged territory’s first polio outbreak in a quarter-century. INARA founder Arwa Damon just got back from spending two weeks in Gaza, where the nonprofit currently provides medical and mental healthcare to Palestinian children. “Israel…

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Scientists are closing in on the true, horrifying scale of death and disease in Gaza

Scientists are closing in on the true, horrifying scale of death and disease in Gaza

Devi Sridhar writes: In August, a 10-month-old baby in Gaza was partly paralysed from polio, the first confirmed case there in 25 years. The paralysis is probably permanent, and there are no treatments for polio. We have a safe and effective vaccine to prevent serious disease, but the ongoing war in the region has meant vaccination campaigns have stopped. A polio outbreak seems inevitable given that the disease spreads through dirty water and rubbish, which surrounds those living in tents…

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New study shows gut microbiome could play role in preventing cognitive decline

New study shows gut microbiome could play role in preventing cognitive decline

PsyPost reports: A new study published in Nature Communications suggests that a daily fiber supplement could improve brain function in older adults. Researchers found that in just 12 weeks, participants who took the supplement showed better performance in memory tests that are often used to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. This placebo-controlled, double-blind trial was conducted on twins over the age of 65, offering insight into how gut microbiome interventions could benefit cognitive health in older adults. As the…

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Humanity’s newest brain gains are most at risk from ageing

Humanity’s newest brain gains are most at risk from ageing

Nature reports:In the more than six million years since people and chimpanzees split from their common ancestor, human brains have rapidly amassed tissue that helps decision-making and self-control. But the same regions are also the most at risk of deterioration during ageing, finds a study that compared images of chimp brains with scans of human brains. Previous studies have shown that regions of the human brain that are the last to mature, such as parts of the frontal lobe, are…

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What I saw was ‘unfathomable’: Doctor who worked in Gaza speaks out against U.S. arming of Israel

What I saw was ‘unfathomable’: Doctor who worked in Gaza speaks out against U.S. arming of Israel

  A group of American doctors who treated patients in Gaza held a press conference in Chicago on Tuesday to describe the suffering they saw among Palestinians injured and killed in Israel’s war on the territory. The press conference, taking place during the Democratic National Convention, was organized by the Uncommitted National Movement, which is pressuring Democrats for an end to blanket U.S. support for Israel. Among those who spoke was Dr. Ahmed Yousaf, who returned from Gaza just weeks…

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Abortion takes center stage

Abortion takes center stage

Helen Lewis writes: The most emotional moment of last night’s Democratic National Convention was supposed to be Joe Biden’s farewell, after his party’s power brokers made clear he could not run again. And true, his address showed a graciousness in defeat that Donald Trump could never hope to understand. But the most moving speech of the evening was only a few minutes long, and it was given by a young woman from Kentucky. Her name was Hadley Duvall, and she…

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