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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

Stateline/TNS

High-risk pregnancy doctors publish new standards for care under state abortion bans

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

As physicians continue to navigate care for patients with complex pregnancies in states with abortion bans, a group of maternal-fetal medicine specialists has developed new guidelines to help providers in those states navigate legal risks for themselves and medical challenges for their high-risk patients.

Maternal-fetal medicine specialists ...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

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

Jemal Countess/Getty Images North America/TNS

US poised to boot legal immigrants from Medicaid, including refugees and sex-trafficking victims

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants with legal status are at risk of losing government health coverage starting Oct. 1, state data shows, signaling that the impact of Medicaid changes in President Donald Trump’s signature legislation from 2025 may be greater than anticipated.

Many lawfully present immigrants will be among the first people to ...Read more

Costly Medicare mistakes you should avoid making (Part 2)

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Medicare covers the bulk of your health care expenses after you turn 65. But Medicare’s rules can be confusing and mistakes are costly. If you don’t make the right choices to fill in the gaps, you could end up with high premiums and high out-of-pocket costs. Worse, if you miss key deadlines when signing up for Medicare, you could have a ...Read more