Supreme Court won’t block California flavored tobacco ban
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday refused a request from tobacco companies to stop California from enforcing a ban on flavored tobacco products that was overwhelmingly approved by voters in November. R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies sought the high court’s intervention to keep the ban from taking effect...
Hospitalizations signal rising covid-19 risk for U.S. seniors
Coronavirus-related hospital admissions are climbing again in the United States, with older adults a growing share of U.S. deaths and less than half of nursing home residents up to date on covid-19 vaccinations. These alarming signs portend a difficult winter for seniors, which worries 81-year-old nursing home resident Bartley O’Hara,...
China struggles with covid infections after controls ease
BEIJING — A rash of Covid-19 cases in schools and businesses were reported Friday in areas across China after the ruling Communist Party loosened anti-virus rules as it tries to reverse a deepening economic slump. While official data showed a fall in new cases, they no longer cover large parts...
Penn scientists made a universal flu vaccine using mRNA, and they plan to test it in humans
For years, scientists have tried, and failed, to make a one-and-done vaccine that would provide at least partial protection against all types of the flu. A University of Pennsylvania scientist now thinks he has cracked the case, using the same technology that was the basis for the Pfizer and Moderna...
Hopeful glimmers in long war on Alzheimer’s disease
After decades of failure in Alzheimer’s disease research, scientists are buoyed by new findings that could mark a turning point in the field, offering hope that treatment may someday slow the grim deterioration of the brain. The data, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine and presented to...
8 million cleaning, laundry products recalled
About 8 million bottles of laundry detergent, fabric conditioners and cleaning products have been recalled because they have the potential to be contaminated with bacteria. The Laundress products were sold at major retailers nationwide including Bloomingdale’s, Target, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and online at Amazon through September 2022, for between...
Frozen raspberries recalled because they may be contaminated
Exportadora Copramar has recalled 1,260 cases of James Farm frozen raspberries because of the potential that the fruit is contaminated with hepatitis A. Hepatitis A is a contagious liver disease. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, its testing indicated hepatitis A in the raspberries with UPC code 76069501010...
Keep covid military vaccine mandate, defense chief says
ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he wants to keep the military’s covid-19 vaccine mandate in place to protect the health of the troops, as Republican governors and lawmakers press to rescind it. This past week more than 20 Republican governors sent a letter to...
FDA change ushers in cheaper, easier-to-get hearing aids
It’s now a lot easier — and cheaper — for many hard-of-hearing Americans to get help. Hearing aids can now be sold without a prescription from a specialist. Over-the-counter, or OTC, hearing aids started hitting the market in October at prices that can be thousands of dollars lower than prescription...
RSV, flu, covid put pressure on pediatric providers
Every day about 3 p.m., nurses, doctors and staff in the emergency room at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh brace for impact. That hour marks the beginning of an eight-hour stretch that in recent months has been the busiest time of day for the department, which has seen a spike...
Flu season worsens as 44 states report high activity
NEW YORK — The U.S. flu season keeps getting worse. Health officials said Friday that 7.5% of outpatient medical visits last week were due to flu-like illnesses. That’s as high as the peak of the 2017-18 flu season and higher than any season since. The annual winter flu season usually...
Lawmakers, officials reflect on 30-year legacy of Pa.’s CHIP
When Chris Coles’ husband lost his job as a steelworker in the mid-1980s, she feared for her family. She feared for her ability to put food on the table and pay electric bills, and, most of all, she feared for her son Justin’s health. “We lost our health insurance immediately,...
Pandemic stress prematurely aged teens’ brains, Stanford study finds
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A Stanford University study published Thursday found that stress from the covid-19 pandemic prematurely aged adolescents’ brains, making them more like those of peers about three years older. By comparing MRI scans from children taken before the pandemic with scans from other kids taken during the...
Importance of HIV PrEP medication for prevention, coverageVideo
On World AIDS Day, Pennsylvania Insurance Department (PID) Policy Director Katie Merritt joined representatives from the Pennsylvania Commission on LGBTQ Affairs and Hamilton Health Center to highlight the importance of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, medication for HIV prevention, and to detail insurance coverage of the drugs under the Affordable...
Stroke in people Kris Letang’s age, condition not as rare as one might think, experts say
Medical experts Wednesday were not surprised to hear the details of Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang’s stroke, saying it might even be considered commonplace for people built as he is. Dr. M. Shazam Hussain, a board- certified neurologist and the director of Cleveland Clinic’s Cerebrovascular Center, estimates one in every...
Highmark Health reports $268M in losses fueled by declining stock market
More than $670 million in investment losses contributed to an overall net loss for local health care giant Highmark Health during the first nine months of the year, according to the organization’s third-quarter financial report for 2022. Highmark Health reported $19.5 billion in revenue from January through September, about a...
Drug slows Alzheimer’s but can it make a real difference?
An experimental Alzheimer’s drug modestly slowed the brain disease’s inevitable worsening — but the anxiously awaited new data leaves unclear how much difference that might make in people’s lives. Japanese drugmaker Eisai and its U.S. partner Biogen had announced earlier this fall that the drug lecanemab appeared to work, a...
Study: U.S. gun death rates hit highest levels in decades
NEW YORK — The U.S. gun death rate last year hit its highest mark in nearly three decades, and the rate among women has been growing faster than that of men, according to study published Tuesday. The increase among women — most dramatically, in Black women — is playing a...
Few Americans know or heed U.S. nutrition guide
Here’s a quick quiz: What replaced the food pyramid, the government guide to healthy eating that stood for nearly 20 years? If you’re stumped, you’re not alone. More than a decade after Agriculture Department officials ditched the pyramid, few Americans have heard of MyPlate, a dinner plate-shaped logo that emphasizes...
Why some Western Pa. hospitals choose to remain independent
Editor’s note: This is the final part of a three-day series examining the rapidly changing health care landscape in Western Pennsylvania. Lynn Botelho has lived her life traveling the globe, navigating some of the world’s most time-honored academic institutions. But when she was handed a cancer diagnosis, she looked no...
Allegheny County to close covid testing sites
The Curative covid-19 testing sites located throughout Allegheny County will close by the end of the year, officials said Monday. County officials cited lower numbers of daily infections, deaths and hospitalizations from the virus as they announced changes to testing options. “For the past two and a half years, Curative...
5 things to know about new covid subvariants
Though new covid-19 subvariants continue to crop up, a local infectious disease doctor said there likely won’t be another massive wave of severe infections because of them. New subvariants of the covid-19 omicron variant — like XXB, XBB and BQ.1 — are spreading throughout the United States, said Dr. Matt...
Hospitals embrace mergers as path to survival
Editor’s note: This is the second part of a three-day series examining the rapidly changing health care landscape in Western Pennsylvania. As Excela Health CEO John Sphon irons out the details of a merger with Butler Health System, his message to the public is clear. He believes the alliance...
As Western Pa. hospitals expand, fears grow over higher health care costsVideo
Editor’s note: This is the first part of a three-day series examining the rapidly changing health care landscape in Western Pennsylvania. Western Pennsylvania’s two health care giants have jumped into a controversial nationwide hospital building boom, spending billions on glitzy, state-of-the-art facilities that critics say patients ultimately will pay for...
After a year, omicron still driving covid surges and worries
A year after omicron began its assault on humanity, the ever-morphing coronavirus mutant drove covid-19 case counts higher in many places just as Americans gathered for Thanksgiving. It was a prelude to a wave that experts expect to soon wash over the U.S. Phoenix-area emergency physician Dr. Nicholas Vasquez said...
