Health

The threat of bird flu to humans appears to be growing. As outbreaks of H5N1—a dangerous strain of avian influenza—continue to affect cows in the U.S., Canada, South America, Europe, and Asia, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on June 5 the first-ever case of a human infection with H5N2, a different strain of avian influenza. The infection was fatal.The case was first reported to the WHO on May 23 by health officials in Mexico City, where a 59-year-old man with several other health conditions was hospitalized. Before reporting shortness of breath, diarrhea, and nausea, the man had been bedridden for three weeks. Testing by the national lab showed that the man had H5N2, and further genetic sequencing confirmed the strain. Unlike the recent U.S. cases of H5N1 in people, the patien...

Washington — Senate Republicans have blocked legislation designed to protect women’s access to contraception, arguing that the bill was just a political stunt as Democrats mount an election-year effort to put GOP senators on the record on reproductive rights issues,The test vote won a 51-39 majority, but that was well short of the 60 votes to move ahead on the legislation.It came as the Senate has abandoned hopes of doing serious bipartisan legislation before the election. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Democrats are trying to instead spotlight issues they believe can help them win the presidency and keep the Senate in November. A similar vote on ensuring nationwide access to in vitro fertilization is expected next week.That bill is expected to similarly stall in the Senate, ...

Updated: June 5, 2024 4:35 PM EDT | Originally published: June 5, 2024 4:22 PM EDTA person in Mexico died after contracting a strain of bird flu that hasn’t been confirmed in humans before, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. The virus was detected in a 59-year-old who had been hospitalized in Mexico City. The person died one week after developing a fever, shortness of breath and diarrhea. It’s the first lab-confirmed case of a person contracting a form of bird flu known as H5N2, the WHO said in a statement, raising questions about a strain that has largely been under the radar. The current bird flu outbreak in US dairy cows is being driven by a different strain — H5N1. The patient, who lived in Central Mexico, had no history of exposure to poultry or other animals and had underl...

Fresh Start Produce Sales Inc. is recalling whole cucumbers shipped to 14 states from May 17 through May 21 because they may have been contaminated with salmonella.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a notice from the Florida-based company Saturday. The company said in the press release that the recalled cucumbers were shipped in bulk cartons to retail distribution centers, wholesalers, and food service distributions in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.The recalled cucumbers are dark green, with a diameter of about 1.5 to 2 inches and a length of about 5 to 9 inches, according to Fresh Start Produce Sales. Neither mini cucumbers nor English cucumb...

Anthony Andrews, a 34-year-old training manager at a bank in London, had been candid from the very beginning, when he directed Jessica Lockett, an art director, to his Instagram profile, @ibdlife. They had matched on Hinge in January 2020, and he wanted to ensure that she understood what life with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and an ostomy bag meant before they got too involved. “Do you still like what you see?” he messaged. Back then, Andrews had been suffering with ulcerative colitis (UC) for 11 years and was days away from a surgery that would require him to wear a bag for the rest of his life. Lockett, intrigued and compassionate, scrolled through his posts, learning quickly exactly what that meant.“A lot of us [IBD patients] will probably feel like they can't necessarily open up, ...

If you’ve ever struggled to find a public bathroom in New York City, “Ur In Luck.” Mayor Eric Adams just announced that the city is embarking on a new effort to expand access to public bathrooms across all five boroughs.Adams launched the project, called “Ur In Luck,” on Monday. Over the next five years, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) will build 46 new restrooms and renovate 36 existing ones, according to the city’s press release.“Part of making New York City a more livable city is tackling the little things—the things we don’t think about until we need them,” Adams said in the press release. “Access to public restrooms is high on that list, maybe even number one or two.”The city currently has nearly 1,000 restrooms that serve its population of about 8 mil...

The next time you board a long flight and decide to enjoy an alcoholic drink before taking a nap, you might want to avoid the temptation.A new study, published in the medical journal Thorax on Monday, found that when people fell asleep after drinking alcohol in a low air pressure environment similar to that on airplanes, their blood oxygen decreased and their heart rates increased. Researchers observed this trend even in people who were young and healthy.“Even in young and healthy individuals, the combination of alcohol intake with sleeping under hypobaric conditions poses a considerable strain on the cardiac system and might lead to exacerbation of symptoms in patients with cardiac or pulmonary diseases,” researchers said in the study. “Higher doses of alcohol could amplify these observe...

Moderna says the same mRNA technology that fueled its COVID-19 vaccine is proving effective in fighting melanoma.The company presented the latest results from its trial involving 157 people with advanced skin cancer at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. In the study, Moderna and Merck combined their cancer treatments—Moderna’s experimental cancer vaccine and Merck’s approved checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda)—to achieve potentially life-changing results for melanoma patients.In the phase 2 study of patients with stage 3 or stage 4 melanoma who were treated after surgery to remove the bulk of their tumors, two thirds received a monthly dose of Moderna’s cancer vaccine for nine months, along with pembrolizumab treatments every three weeks f...

New York — A nurse was fired by a New York City hospital after she referred to Israel's war in Gaza as a “genocide” during a speech accepting an award.Labor and delivery nurse Hesen Jabr, who is Palestinian American, was being honored by NYU Langone Health for her compassion in caring for mothers who had lost babies when she drew a link between her work and the suffering of mothers in Gaza.“It pains me to see the women from my country going through unimaginable losses themselves during the current genocide in Gaza,” Jabr said, according to a video of the May 7 speech that she posted on social media. “This award is deeply personal to me for those reasons.”Jabr wrote on Instagram that she arrived at work on May 22 for her first shift back after receiving the award when she was summoned to a ...

Slipping and sliding in the summer months is great—if you’re at a water park or in a pool, that is. Otherwise, it’s the miserable reality of sweaty feet.“I’ve literally had patients come in and tell me they’re sweating so much, they’ve fallen out of their shoes,” says Dr. Dee Anna Glaser, a professor of dermatology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine and president of the International Hyperhidrosis Society. “Or they can’t wear heels because they’re afraid they’ll slip and break an ankle. It can go from mild and a nuisance to very significant.”In rare cases, sweaty feet are caused by hyperhidrosis, a medical condition that triggers excessive sweating and affects different parts of the body, like the underarms, hands, and feet. It has a strong genetic component, Glaser says: More th...