Health

  SAN FRANCISCO — In a different city, in a different decade, the news would have changed David’s life forever. Instead the graduate student, who dreams of some day acting and teaching, told himself one thing as he waited for... Read More

New Hampshire will receive an additional $11.9 million to address the state's opioid crisis thanks to the willingness of the Granite State's congressional delegation to reach across the aisle and seek bipartisan support for the infusion of federal funding. New... Read More

A federal judge this week struck down a Trump administration plan that could have required Medicaid recipients to work or volunteer as a condition of receiving subsidized health care. At least 15 states were planning their own work for health... Read More

WASHINGTON — One of President Donald Trump’s health care initiatives intended as a cheaper alternative to Obamacare suffered a crucial defeat in Washington after a judge ruled the policy violates the Affordable Care Act. U.S. District Judge John Bates in... Read More

WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer on Wednesday said Democrats would propose an amendment to a $13.45 billion disaster aid package that would block the Justice Department from carrying out President Donald Trump’s push for a court ruling... Read More

The Blue Dog Coalition on Wednesday threw its support behind two bipartisan bills that aim to lower prescription drug costs and increase transparency in the drug pricing system. The coalition is a House caucus of moderate and fiscally responsible Democrats.... Read More

Less than 24 hours after Senate Republicans shunned the so-called Green New Deal, House Democrats on Wednesday introduced a new bill, the Climate Action Now Act, aiming to hold the Trump administration to the United States' original commitments under the... Read More

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Senate health committee on Tuesday backed new federal regulations to remove roadblocks patients can face in obtaining copies of their electronic medical records. “These proposed rules remove barriers and should make it easier for... Read More

The Trump administration told a federal appeals court Monday night that it believes the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down as unconstitutional. In a letter filed in the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, the Justice Department said it... Read More

WASHINGTON — When Hollywood actor Luke Perry suffered what would be a fatal stroke last month, he was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, one of only 178 hospitals in the country licensed to provide a key advanced... Read More

Last week, Representative Xochitl Torres Small, D-N.M., introduced The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2019 (H.R. 1763), which she and her bipartisan cosponsors say will take definitive steps toward reducing nationwide physician shortages, with an emphasis in rural areas. The bill... Read More

The Trump administration’s reliance on industry-funded environmental specialists is again coming under fire, this time by researchers who say that Louis Anthony “Tony” Cox Jr., who leads a key Environmental Protection Agency advisory board on air pollution, is a “fringe”... Read More

Every time University of Pennsylvania engineer Marc Miskin speaks about his research on miniature robots, someone asks the question: How does it compare to the submarine in “Fantastic Voyage”? That’s the fanciful 1966 sci-fi movie in which a tiny vessel... Read More

Representative Charlie Crist, D-Fla., and Don Young, R-Alaska, have introduced the bipartisan Fairness in Federal Drug Testing Under State Laws Act (H.R.1687). The bill would protect veterans' cannabis treatment options and their ability to be employed by the federal government.... Read More

WASHINGTON — The federal judge who shot down a Medicaid work requirement plan last June remained deeply skeptical Thursday of the Trump administration’s renewed strategy to force enrollees to work. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who last year blocked Kentucky’s... Read More

Dr. Douglas Kwazneski was helping a Pittsburgh surgeon remove an appendix when something jarring happened. The surgical stapler meant to cut and seal the tissue around the appendix locked up. Kwazneski later turned to the Food and Drug Administration’s public... Read More

This week, U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Mike Rounds, R-S.D., introduced bipartisan legislation to repeal a provision in the Affordable Care Act known as the “Cadillac Tax,” which taxes high-cost health insurance plans and impacts middle-class health benefits. In... Read More

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A coal company manager took part in cheating on tests designed to protect miners from contracting deadly black lung disease, a federal grand jury has charged. The grand jury issued a new indictment adding Glendal “Buddy” Hardison... Read More

WASHINGTON — The increasingly powerful Democratic left sees a huge opening this year to promote Medicare for all in Congress. But they need to convince Rep. John Yarmuth, and that’s going to be tough. Read More

On Tuesday, Energy and Commerce Committee leaders wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding a briefing from the company following a consumer complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission that personal health information of certain Facebook users who were participating in... Read More

PHILADELPHIA — Doctors need no special training to prescribe the opioid pain pills widely blamed for fueling a national addiction crisis. But prescribing the medicine considered the gold standard for addiction treatment is another story entirely. Read More

WASHINGTON — The 9/11 fund is running out of money, and will slash payments by at least half for growing numbers of people getting sick or dying from the toxins unleashed in the terror attacks of 2001, officials announced Friday. Read More

Measles may not be the only medical outbreak individuals must cautiously avoid on the streets. Syphilis (Treponema pallidum), a highly contagious sexually transmitted disease (STD), is making a comeback across the US. Furthermore, a congenital form of the infection is... Read More

WASHINGTON — In the legal battle to hold drug companies responsible for the country’s raging opioid epidemic, media attention largely has focused on a national lawsuit set for a late October trial in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio. Read More

In the nation’s opioid epidemic, the carnage is far from over. A new projection of opioid overdose death rates suggests that even if there is steady progress in reducing prescription narcotics abuse nationwide, the... Read More

Detoxing off heroin or opioids without medication is sheer hell. I should know. For many users, full-blown withdrawal is often foreshadowed by a yawn, or perhaps a runny nose, a sore back, sensitive skin or a restless leg. Read More

This week, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), reintroduced the Survivors’ Access to Supportive Care Act (SASCA), a bipartisan, bicameral bill to help improve and... Read More

Noting that science has “brought a once-distant dream within reach,” President Donald Trump on Tuesday night pledged to eliminate HIV transmission within 10 years. Read More

A decision last week by a federal judge in a Maryland lawsuit is expected to influence an appeal by other states that seek to protect their health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act. The state of Maryland filed a... Read More

BALTIMORE — A federal judge on Friday dismissed Maryland’s attempt to protect the Affordable Care Act, known as “Obamacare,” from any Trump administration efforts to dismantle it. Read More