Health

A bill passed by Louisiana lawmakers Thursday could see the state become the first in the country to classify two abortion-inducing drugs as controlled and dangerous substances—a move doctors and reproductive rights advocates say could have far-reaching implications for health care access in the state. The bill, SB 276, passed the state Senate with a vote of 29 to 7, after having passed in the House with a vote of 66 to 30 on Tuesday. It will next go to Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who is expected to sign it into law. Supporters of the bill say it will protect pregnant people from coerced abortions, while opponents argue that the two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, have many other uses aside from abortion, and that reclassifying them as controlled substances would make it more difficu...

New research suggests the HPV vaccine is preventing cancer in men, as well as in women, but fewer boys than girls are getting the shots in the United States.The HPV vaccine was developed to prevent cervical cancer in women and experts give it credit, along with screening, for lowering cervical cancer rates. Evidence that the shots are preventing HPV-related cancers in men has been slower to emerge, but the new research suggests vaccinated men have fewer cancers of the mouth and throat compared to those who didn't get the shots. These cancers are more than twice as common in men than in women.For the study, researchers compared 3.4 million people of similar ages — half vaccinated versus half unvaccinated — in a large health care dataset.As expected, vaccinated women had a lower risk of deve...

Millions of people in the U.S. report using marijuana daily or nearly every day, according to an analysis of national survey data, and those people now outnumber those who say they are daily or nearly-daily drinkers of alcohol.Alcohol is still more widely used, but 2022 was the first time this intensive level of marijuana use overtook daily and near-daily drinking, said the study’s author, Jonathan Caulkins, a cannabis policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.“A good 40% of current cannabis users are using it daily or near daily, a pattern that is more associated with tobacco use than typical alcohol use,” Caulkins said.The research, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, was published Wednesday in the journal Addiction. The survey is a highly regarded source...

New York — A Michigan dairy worker has been diagnosed with bird flu — the second human case associated with an outbreak in U.S. dairy cows.The patient had mild eye symptoms and has recovered, U.S. and Michigan health officials said in announcing the case Wednesday. The worker had been in contact with cows presumed to be infected, and the risk to the public remains low, officials said.A nasal swab from the person tested negative for the virus, but an eye swab tested positive, “indicating an eye infection,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.The first case happened in late March, when a farmworker in Texas was diagnosed in what officials called the first known instance globally of a person catching this version of bird flu from a mammal. That patient also...

Jordyn Bristow can’t remember how or why she became unbearably repulsed by feet. All she knows is that starting about three years ago, when she caught a glimpse of someone’s bare feet, she wanted to vomit. The urge hasn’t let up. “I start gagging—it’s horrible,” says Bristow, 18, who lives in Tasmania, Australia. She was recently at a grocery store when her dad pointed out an older man wearing flip-flops, which accentuated his cracked and apparently infected ingrown toenails. She started dry-heaving and had to leave the store and sit outside, struggling to catch her breath.Bristow has podophobia: an overwhelming fear of feet. While it’s unclear exactly how many people share this aversion, experts agree it’s rare. (It’s basically nonexistent in scientific literature.) That means it’s often ...

Most people are familiar with the best things to eat for a healthy heart: vegetables, low-fat dairy, and lean proteins like fish. Some fish like salmon also have the added benefit of being full of omega-3 fatty acids, which are healthy fats that can help to raise good cholesterol and lower triglycerides.Or so we thought. Studies on the benefits of fish oil, and fish oil supplements, haven’t been as conclusive when it comes to actually preventing heart disease for people who aren’t at higher risk. In the latest, published in BMJ, researchers report that people with no history of heart problems who regularly took fish oil supplements actually increased their risk of atrial fibrillation.The study involved more than 415,000 men and women in the health-data hub UK Biobank who agreed to share th...

For years, federal physical activity guidelines have told Americans how much time they should spend moving each week: at least 150 minutes, or 75 minutes if workouts are particularly vigorous. But the popularity of wearable fitness devices has made many people obsessively track their step counts instead, often shooting for the goal of 10,000 per day (even though some studies suggest that number is arbitrary).Is the length of your workout or your daily step count a better measure of wellness?“Both are good metrics,” says Dr. Rikuta Hamaya, a preventive-medicine researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and lead author of the new study. But Hamaya and his colleagues wanted to know if one was better than the other, so they designed a head-to-head comparison. The resulting study, pu...

(WASHINGTON) — Cyberattacks against water utilities across the country are becoming more frequent and more severe, the Environmental Protection Agency warned Monday as it issued an enforcement alert urging water systems to take immediate actions to protect the nation's drinking water.About 70% of utilities inspected by federal officials over the last year violated standards meant to prevent cyberthreats, the agency said. Officials urged even small water systems to improve protections against cyberattacks, noting that recent assaults from adversarial nation states like Russia and Iran have impacted water systems of all sizes.Some water systems are falling short in basic ways, the alert said, including failure to change default passwords or cut off system access to former employees. Because ...

People with HIV can breastfeed their babies, as long as they are taking medications that effectively suppress the virus that causes AIDS, a top U.S. pediatricians’ group said Monday in a sharp policy change.The new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics reverses recommendations it had in place since the start of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s.It recognizes that routinely prescribed drugs can reduce the risk of transmitting HIV via breast milk to less than 1%, said Dr. Lisa Abuogi, a pediatric HIV expert at the University of Colorado and lead author of the report.“The medications are so good now and the benefits for mom and baby are so important that we are at a point where it is important to engage in shared decision-making,” Abuogi said.The drugs, known as antiretroviral therapy, d...

The summer of 2023 was the hottest on record since 1850, and this summer could be just as sweltering. That puts older adults—a group especially vulnerable to heat-related illnesses—at elevated risks for a number of health conditions and outcomes. Older people are less able to regulate changes in body and environmental temperatures, and higher temperatures put them at increased risk of dehydration, heat stroke, blood pressure changes, muscle cramps, and dizziness.These issues are likely to become far more prevalent than they currently are. From now until 2050, the number of people 60 years or older will double to nearly 2.1 billion, making up 21% of the global population, according to projections from the World Health Organization. Giacomo Falchetta, a scientist at the Euro-Mediterranean Ce...