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Urgent CDC data and analyses on influenza and bird flu go missing as outbreaks escalate

Sonya Stokes, an emergency room physician in the San Francisco Bay Area, braces herself for a daily deluge of patients sick with coughs, soreness, fevers, vomiting, and other flu-like symptoms.

14 Feb 2025

An Arm and a Leg: How do you deal with wild drug prices?

Prices for brand-name drugs in the U.S. are three times what the same drugs cost in other countries. And in a recent KFF survey, 3 in 10 adults reported not taking their medicine as prescribed at some point in the past year because of costs.

12 Feb 2025

Study provides a snapshot of substantial mental health burden on nurses

A first-of-its-kind study provides a snapshot of the substantial mental health burden on nurses around the world.

10 Feb 2025

New minimally invasive treatment offers hope for primary aldosteronism

Doctors at Queen Mary University of London, Barts Health NHS Trust, and University College London have led the development of a simple, minimally invasive Targeted Thermal Therapy (Triple T) that has the potential to transform medical management of a common, but commonly overlooked, cause of high blood pressure.

10 Feb 2025

Targeted Thermal Therapy could transform management of common cause of high blood pressure

8 Feb 2025

Dissatisfaction with facial appearance contributes to Zoom fatigue

Facial appearance dissatisfaction is associated with virtual meeting (VM) fatigue, which prompts the use of impression management behaviors and results in lower intention to adopt VM technologies, according to a study published February 5, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Chaeyun Lim from Michigan State University, U.S., and colleagues.

6 Feb 2025

Wash, dry, enroll: Finding Medicaid help at the laundromat

At a SuperSuds Laundromat just south of Washington, D.C., a steady stream of customers loaded clothes into washers and dryers on a recent Sunday morning, passing the time on their phones or watching television.

5 Feb 2025

Uganda launches first ever vaccine trial for Sudan Ebola virus

In a global first, Uganda's Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners today launched a first ever vaccine trial for Ebola from the Sudan species of the virus, and at an unprecedented speed for a randomized vaccine trial in an emergency.

4 Feb 2025

Prehabilitation may improve surgical recovery and reduce complications

A new study published in The BMJ suggests that prehabilitation (also called prehab) may be able to reduce complications and length of hospitalization after surgery, while also improving quality of life and physical recovery.

23 Jan 2025

Study finds certain H5N1 strains in cattle linked to milder human illness; other variants remain a concern

Study reveals that contemporary HPAI H5N1 viruses show reduced replication and immune activation in human lung organoids, potentially explaining milder disease in humans compared to historic strains.

13 Jan 2025

Teacher donates liver to save former student's life

When 5-year-old Ezra Toczek from Alden, New York, faced complications of progressive liver disease, his former daycare teacher, Carissa Fisher, became an unexpected hero.

11 Jan 2025

High job strain linked to increased sleep disturbances in middle-aged workers

In a recent study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, middle aged workers in the U.S. who reported high job strain at the start of the study experienced significantly more sleep disturbances over an average follow-up of nine years.

8 Jan 2025

Sedentary jobs linked to increased risk of insomnia symptoms

People whose jobs are highly sedentary – an estimated 80% of the modern workforce – experience a much higher risk of insomnia symptoms, according to a new study led by University of South Florida psychologist Claire Smith.

7 Jan 2025

Experts warn about counterfeit and illicit alcohol during the holiday season

Experts from a renowned international brewing and distilling centre are warning people to watch out for counterfeit and illicit alcohol - spirits - whether they're travelling abroad over the festive season or celebrating at home.

23 Dec 2024

How America lost control of the bird flu, setting the stage for another pandemic

Keith Poulsen's jaw dropped when farmers showed him images on their cellphones at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin in October.

20 Dec 2024

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': End-of-year chaos on Capitol Hill

After weeks of painstaking negotiations, Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate agreed to a major year-end package of health bills, including new regulations for drug companies and pharmacy benefit managers, and renewals of programs to combat opioid abuse and prepare for the next possible pandemic.

19 Dec 2024

Rage has long shadowed American health care. It’s rarely produced big change.

Among the biggest-grossing films in America in February 2002 were a war drama about American troops in Somalia ("Black Hawk Down"), an Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie ("Collateral Damage"), and a future Oscar winner about a brilliant mathematician struggling with schizophrenia ("A Beautiful Mind").

18 Dec 2024

How a duty to spend wisely on worker benefits could loosen PBMs’ grip on drug prices

Ann Lewandowski knows all about pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, the companies that shape the U.S. drug market. Her job, as a policy advocate at drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, was to tell patient and physician groups about the PBMs' role in high drug prices.

18 Dec 2024

Trump threat to immigrant health care tempered by economic hopes

President-elect Donald Trump's promise of mass deportations and tougher immigration restrictions is deepening mistrust of the health care system among California's immigrants and clouding the future for providers serving the state's most impoverished residents.

17 Dec 2024