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California official comes out of retirement to lead troubled mental health commission

Veteran California public servant Will Lightbourne has stepped in as interim executive director of the state's mental health commission after its previous executive director resigned following conflict of interest allegations.

9 Dec 2024

How measles, whooping cough, and worse could roar back on RFK Jr.’s watch

The availability of safe, effective covid vaccines less than a year into the pandemic marked a high point in the 300-year history of vaccination, seemingly heralding an age of protection against infectious diseases.

6 Dec 2024

Psilocybin helps reduce depression in clinicians amid COVID-19 crisis

Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy resulted in significant reductions in depression among clinicians who provided front-line COVID-19 care in 2020 and 2021.

5 Dec 2024

PAGER technology unlocks new potential for controlling cellular activity

A basic function of cells is that they act in response to their environments. It makes sense, then, that a goal of scientists is to control that process, making cells respond how they want to what they want.

5 Dec 2024

An Arm and a Leg: New lessons in the fight for charity care

Federal law requires that all nonprofit hospitals have financial assistance policies — also known as "charity care" — to reduce or expunge people's medical bills.

5 Dec 2024

Scientists identify molecular mechanism behind idiopathic autism

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by difficulties in communication and social behavior. Approximately 20% of cases are linked to a specific genetic mutation, but the origin of the remaining 80%, known as idiopathic autism, remains a mystery.

4 Dec 2024

Brain signature of resilience suggests a new way to recovery from trauma

Researchers at UCSF find a brain signature of resilience in mice that suggests a new way of treating severe depression.

4 Dec 2024

Homebound seniors living alone often slip through health system’s cracks

Carolyn Dickens, 76, was sitting at her dining room table, struggling to catch her breath as her physician looked on with concern.

2 Dec 2024

New injection treatment could be a game-changer for people with asthma and COPD

An injection given during some asthma and COPD attacks is more effective than the current treatment of steroid tablets, reducing the need for further treatment by 30%.

27 Nov 2024

Trump doesn’t need Congress to make abortion effectively unavailable

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump tried mightily to reassure abortion rights supporters, vowing he would not sign into law a nationwide abortion ban even if Congress sent him one.

27 Nov 2024

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Public health and the dairy cow in the room

Public health, one of the more misunderstood concepts in the health world, is about the health of entire populations, rather than individuals.

26 Nov 2024

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Trump’s nontraditional health picks

President-elect Donald Trump is continuing to staff his incoming administration, and his picks so far for key health policy positions are particularly polarizing.

21 Nov 2024

Washington power has shifted. Here’s how the ACA may shift, too.

President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House could embolden Republicans who want to weaken or repeal the Affordable Care Act, but implementing such sweeping changes would still require overcoming procedural and political hurdles.

21 Nov 2024

Researchers seek to develop noninvasive diagnostics for chronic fatigue syndrome

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a complex and long-term illness characterized by extreme fatigue that doesn't improve with rest, and can worsen with physical activity.

21 Nov 2024

Nationwide IV fluid shortage could change how hospitals manage patient hydration

Hospitals around the country are conserving critical intravenous fluid supplies to cope with a shortage that may last months. Some hospital administrators say they are changing how they think about IV fluid hydration altogether.

19 Nov 2024

Pulses of light show promise in controlling seizures

In what could one day become a new treatment for epilepsy, researchers at UC San Francisco, UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley have used pulses of light to prevent seizure-like activity in neurons.

15 Nov 2024

EASI algorithm set to transform forensic drug identification processes

Relief is coming for crime scene investigators and toxicologists who have struggled to accurately and swiftly identify drugs that have been seized by law enforcement and may be relied on as evidence at trial, thanks to a research partnership between West Virginia University and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

15 Nov 2024

New drug strategy reverses resistance to immunotherapy in pancreatic cancer

A new drug strategy that regulates the tumor immune microenvironment may transform a tumor that resists immunotherapy into a susceptible one, according to a study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and Oregon Health & Science University.

14 Nov 2024

Scientists fear what’s next for public health if RFK Jr. is allowed to ‘go wild’

Many scientists at the federal health agencies await the second Donald Trump administration with dread as well as uncertainty over how the president-elect will reconcile starkly different philosophies among the leaders of his team.

14 Nov 2024

Maryland is training more health workers to offer abortion care

In the two counties around nurse practitioner Samantha Marsee’s clinic in rural northeastern Maryland, there’s not a single clinic that provides abortions.

13 Nov 2024