Tag Archives: health

Supreme Court Arguments on Idaho’s Abortion Ban: 5 Takeaways

The abortion case before the Supreme Court on Wednesday featured vigorous questioning and comments, particularly by the three liberal justices. At issue is whether Idaho’s near-total ban on abortion is so strict that it violates a federal law requiring emergency care for any patient, including providing abortions for pregnant women in dire situations. A ruling […]

Beth Linker is Turning Good Posture On its Head

For decades, the idea of standing properly upright carried considerable political and social baggage. Slouching was considered a sign of decay. In the early 20th century, posture exams became mainstays in the military, the workplace and schools, thanks in part to the American Posture League, a group of physicians, educators and health officials that formed […]

Penny Simkin, ‘Mother of the Doula Movement,’ Dies at 85

Penny Simkin, a childbirth educator and author who was often described as the “mother of the doula movement,” died on April 11 at her home in Seattle. She was 85. The cause was pancreatic cancer, said her daughter, Linny Simkin. Ms. Simkin, a physical therapist turned birth educator, was a pioneer in helping women have […]

Federal Officials Find No Live Bird Flu Virus in Initial Milk Tests

Federal regulators on Friday said that they had not yet discovered live bird flu virus in the first batch of retail milk samples they tested, a reassuring indication that the milk on store shelves remains safe despite an outbreak of the virus among dairy cows. In an online update, the Food and Drug Administration said […]

At Least Three Women Were Infected With H.I.V. After ‘Vampire Facials’

At least three women were infected with H.I.V. during cosmetic “vampire facial” procedures at an unlicensed spa in Albuquerque, federal officials said Thursday. It is the first time that H.I.V. transmission through cosmetic injection services has been documented, they said. The three were among a cluster of five people sharing highly similar H.I.V. strains, four […]

One in Five Milk Samples Nationwide Shows Genetic Traces of Bird Flu

Federal regulators have discovered fragments of bird flu virus in roughly 20 percent of retail milk samples tested in a nationally representative study, the Food and Drug Administration said in an online update on Thursday. Samples from parts of the country that are known to have dairy herds infected with the virus were more likely […]

Antidepressants: What to Know About Uses and Side Effects

Antidepressants are among the most prescribed medications in the United States. This is, in part, because the number of people diagnosed with depression and anxiety has been on the rise, and prescriptions jumped sharply among some age groups during the pandemic. Despite the prevalence of these medications, some patients have “significant misconceptions” about how the […]

FDA Approves Antibiotic to Treat Urinary Infections

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the sale of an antibiotic for the treatment of urinary tract infections in women, giving U.S. health providers a powerful new tool to combat a common infection that is increasingly unresponsive to the existing suite of antimicrobial drugs. The drug, pivmecillinam, has been used in Europe for […]