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Callie Richmond/KFF Health News/TNS

Patient dies by suicide after 'insurance issue' delayed medicine for lung disease flare-ups

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.”

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KYLE, Texas — Kenney Blewett was diagnosed with lung disease more than a decade ago but started experiencing flare-ups this year that made him feel like he couldn’t breathe.

Blewett ...Read more

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Study: Psilocybin may ease suicidal thoughts

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

BALTIMORE -- People living with persistent suicidal thoughts may find relief from psilocybin paired with structured psychological support, according to a small clinical trial led by Sheppard Pratt clinicians.

The study, led by Sheppard Pratt chief science officer Scott T. Aaronson and psychiatrist Andrew van der Vaart, offers early evidence ...Read more

Jessica Griffin/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

Penn leads $26 million NIH study to identify early signs of ALS and frontotemporal dementia

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

PHILADELPHIA -- The University of Pennsylvania is leading a $26 million effort to detect early signs of brain diseases in genetic carriers.

Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the project will study people with the most common inherited cause of both amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). ALS is a fatal ...Read more

Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

Pennsylvania has logged 1,000 measles cases, among the biggest outbreaks in decades

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Pennsylvania surpassed 1,000 measles cases Monday, crossing a grim milestone to rank among the largest U.S. measles outbreak in decades.

Pennsylvania reported 106 new measles cases in the past week, totaling 1,004 this year. That includes 992 in the current outbreak that began in April, with Pennsylvania poised to soon surpass an outbreak in ...Read more

Tom Gralish/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

N.J. Gov. Mikie Sherrill accepts offer from Mark Cuban to tackle soaring insurance costs

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Billionaire Mark Cuban will assist a New Jersey panel Gov. Mikie Sherrill created to study how to halt the soaring price of healthcare for public workers in the state.

“I’ll volunteer to be on the committee that cuts health benefits cost. You need someone from the outside that is objective and can stand up to the big health care ...Read more

Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times/TNS

ER visits from foreign-born patients fell drastically during ICE raids, study finds

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

LOS ANGELES — Last summer's Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations left many foreign-born residents of Los Angeles afraid to venture outdoors, even when their health depended on it.

A new study from USC finds that emergency room visits from patients born outside of the U.S. fell by more than 20% in the first four weeks after arrests ...Read more

This Pittsburgh man with a rare form of muscular dystrophy is bucking the odds with a clinical trial drug

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

In an infusion bay at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Billy Ellsworth twists the plastic top off of a bottle of Gatorade. “That was kind of tough, to be honest,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I was going to get it.”

Billy has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disease that causes progressive muscle weakness and affects about ...Read more

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Ask the Pediatrician: How school nurses keep students healthy, safe and ready to learn

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

School nurses care for kids who suffer bumps and bruises or need a quiet place to recover when stomach upset, headaches and other ailments hit. Important as they are, these everyday services barely begin to describe the central role school nurses play in child, family and community health. For many families, the school nurse is the first person ...Read more

Taylor Glascock/KFF Health News/TNS

Bill of the Month: She left after waiting hours in the emergency room. The ER billed her anyway

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Autumn Daniels is no stranger to migraine headaches, which have troubled her since childhood.

The migraine tormenting the 32-year-old in April was even worse than usual. After a week of piercing head pain, she went to an urgent care center near her home in Champaign, Illinois, and received an injection of Toradol, a non-steroidal anti-...Read more

(Michael B. Krieg/Indiana National Guard)/Digital KFF HEALTH/TNS

These 100 nursing homes face perilous flood risk. Minnesota shows what can happen

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

NEW RICHLAND, Minn. — Floodwater seeped through the nursing home’s front door just before sunrise.

Inside the New Richland Care Center, staff members rushed to move 36 residents out of the building on Sept. 19 while they still could. They pushed elderly residents in wheelchairs through 4-inch-deep water to buses waiting in the parking lot, ...Read more

DREAMSTIME/TNS

Mayo Clinic Minute: Understanding brain aneurysms and treatment options

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

In the U.S., approximately 1 in 50 people may have an unruptured brain aneurysm. Understanding the condition and when treatment may be needed can be lifesaving.

A brain aneurysm, also called a cerebral aneurysm, is a bulge or ballooning in a blood vessel in the brain. Aneurysms generally fall into two categories: ruptured aneurysms, which are ...Read more

KFF HEALTH/TNS

Confusion and angst follow state's early rollout of Medicaid work rules

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

MISSOULA, Mont. — Bethany Zulick went back to school in January to become a high school English teacher.

Years ago, she taught English as a second language overseas and loved it.

“It’s so exciting to me to watch someone learn a new word or have that spark of understanding,” she said.

Zulick knew she could earn enough money as a ...Read more

A 20-year-old Amish woman with leukemia got measles and died in Pa.'s largest outbreak in three decades

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

PHILADELPHIA — The headstone had not yet been placed Thursday on the freshly dug grave where a 20-year-old Amish woman was buried this week amid the rolling clover fields and dairy farms at the edge of suburban Philadelphia.

Newly wed, and receiving treatment for blood cancer, she was the last of nine siblings sickened when measles swept ...Read more

Sarah Rice/Getty Images North America/TNS

Editorial: The flawed logic of Medicare for All

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan, has a simple pitch to voters. Imagine, he says, a health-insurance plan with “no premium, no copay, no deductible — just healthcare when you need it.” El-Sayed and other proponents call the idea Medicare for All.

Free, on-demand care for everyone sure sounds good. ...Read more

Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

A Pa. coroner doubted a measles-linked death, sparking anti-vaccine outcry. Records show the state tried to reach him

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Over five days in August, Pennsylvania health officials called the Lancaster County coroner’s office at least three times and sent an email asking to discuss the death of an infant who had tested positive for measles.

They did not connect with coroner Stephen Diamantoni before Gov. Josh Shapiro came to the county to announce at an Aug. 25 ...Read more

Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

Pennsylvania confirms a fifth death associated with widening measles outbreak

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

PHILADELPHIA — A fifth person has died amid Pennsylvania’s growing measles outbreak, state health officials confirmed on Wednesday.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health said in a news release that an unvaccinated resident of Lancaster County tested positive for measles and has died.

Health officials said they would not release any ...Read more

Global health research has proved to be a solid economic investment, in addition to helping make the world healthier. Noko LTD/E+ via Getty Images

Global health research makes America richer and healthier

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Recently, a middle-aged woman came to see me in my ophthalmology clinic because her eyes felt gritty and uncomfortable. She had seen another doctor a month earlier who diagnosed her with eyelid inflammation and wrote her a prescription.

As I examined her eyes, she mentioned in passing the prescription medication she’d been using –...Read more

Spencer Platt/Getty Images North America/TNS

Food safety finds a place among 'kitchen-table' political issues

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

The run-up to the midterm elections is turning into a food fight — literally.

The summer was marred by a massive foodborne outbreak that sickened scores of people and the recall of tens of thousands of pounds of imported meat, turning the safety of the U.S. food supply into a topic of national conversation and a political cause.

Late-night ...Read more

Earl Neikirk/KFF Health News/TNS

Republicans and Democrats Find a unifying target: pharmacy benefit managers

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Amye Joseph says America’s political polarization has made it an “interesting time” in her Tennessee household. She and her husband, Charlie, have been married 35 years. She’s a Republican. He’s a Democrat.

But their shared disenchantment with profit-driven healthcare has provided a unifying target: pharmacy benefit managers, known as...Read more

Kathryn Gamble/KFF Health News/TNS

Rural MAHA followers say Trump health policies haven't reached their communities

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

About half of rural voters identify with Make America Healthy Again, a sprawling political movement championed by the Trump administration, but most said President Donald Trump’s healthcare policies have not benefited their communities, according to a new poll from The Associated Press in partnership with KFF.

About 8 in 10 rural voters — ...Read more