Surge in Syphilis Cases Leads Some Providers to Ration Penicillin Catherine Sweeney, WPLN When Stephen Miller left his primary care practice to work in public health a little under two years ago, he said, he was shocked by how many cases of syphilis the clinic was treating. For decades, rates of the sexually transmitted […]

  More ‘Navigators’ Are Helping Women Travel to Have Abortions Lillian Mongeau Hughes Chloe Bell is a case manager at the National Abortion Federation. She spends her days helping people cover the cost of an abortion and, increasingly, the interstate travel many of them need to get the procedure. “What price did they quote you?” […]

  Ketamine Therapy for Mental Health a ‘Wild West’ for Doctors and Patients Dawn Megli In late 2022, Sarah Gutilla’s treatment-resistant depression had grown so severe, she was actively contemplating suicide. Raised in foster care, the 34-year-old’s childhood was marked by physical violence, sexual abuse, and drug use, leaving her with life-threatening mental scars. Out […]

  The FTC Is Attacking Drugmakers’ ‘Patent Thickets’ Elisabeth Rosenthal The Federal Trade Commission has challenged the validity of over 100 drug product patents, focusing on devices used to deliver medicines, like inhalers and autoinjectors, in an effort to increase competition and potentially lower some prices. The FTC says drugmakers illegitimately use the patents to […]

  How Fringe Anti-Science Views Infiltrated Mainstream Politics — And What It Means in 2024 Amy Maxmen Rates of routine childhood vaccination hit a 10-year low in 2023. That, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, puts about 250,000 kindergartners at risk for measles, which often leads to hospitalization and can cause death. […]

  Records Show Publix Opioid Sales Grew Even as Addiction Crisis Prompted Other Chains’ Pullback Ian Hodgson, Tampa Bay Times and Christopher O’Donnell, Tampa Bay Times An executive at Teva Pharmaceuticals flagged Publix Super Markets in October 2015 after detecting what he called in an email “serious red flags” with the grocery chain’s orders of […]

  A Record Number of Californians Are Visiting Emergency Rooms for Dog Bites Phillip Reese Those pandemic puppies are growing up to be a public health concern. The latest California data shows increased rates of emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and deaths from dog bites, with new records set after covid lockdowns. In 2022, there were […]

  Ouch. That ‘Free’ Annual Checkup Might Cost You. Here’s Why. Elisabeth Rosenthal When Kristy Uddin, 49, went in for her annual mammogram in Washington state last year, she assumed she would not incur a bill because the test is one of the many preventive measures guaranteed to be free to patients under the 2010 […]

Senate Probes the Cost of Assisted Living and Its Burden on American Families Jordan Rau, KFF Health News A U.S. Senate committee on Thursday launched an examination of assisted living, holding its first hearing in two decades on the industry as leaders of both parties expressed concern about the high cost and mixed quality of […]

  988-Hotline Counselors Air Concerns: More Training Needed to Juggle a Mix of Calls Colleen DeGuzman In the year and a half since its launch, 988 — the country’s easy-to-remember, three-digit suicide and crisis hotline — has received about 8.1 million calls, texts, and chats. While much attention has been focused on who is reaching […]