This article was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — When the C.I.A. strapped down Khalid Shaikh Mohammed at a secret site in Poland in 2003, those inside the cell included a three-man waterboarding team, black-masked guards — and a doctor. The doctor’s stated role was to monitor…
WASHINGTON — Martin Shkreli, a former pharmaceutical executive serving a seven-year prison sentence for defrauding investors, was accused on Monday of trying to maintain a monopoly over the lifesaving drug Daraprim through anticompetitive tactics. The Federal Trade Commission and the office of the New York attorney general, Letitia James, jointly sued Vyera Pharmaceuticals and the…
As fires continue to rage across Australia, destroying ecosystems and killing millions of animals, it’s hard to imagine any good emerging from such devastation. But it’s long been known that some small plants can benefit from a fire, because they grow back faster than grasses and trees, giving them an advantage in the battle for…
After suffering from a fever and breathing problems for more than 15 days, Xiao Shibing, a 51-year-old resident of Wuhan, China, finally sought help at a hospital. Despite the symptoms, he was not tested for the new coronavirus — a lapse suggesting that there may be far more cases of the virus than are being officially…
People who worked at ground zero after the World Trade Center attack in 2001 have higher rates of cancer than the general population, a new study has found. Since 2002, researchers have followed 28,729 people who worked on the debris pile or at the site immediately after the 9/11 attack. Average time working at the…
African-American men with prostate cancer are almost twice as likely to die from the illness as white men with the same disease. Disparities in medical care, rather than racial differences in the course of the cancer, may be a large part of the explanation, a new study suggests. In a six-year study, researchers followed 18,201…
My husband and I were psychological opposites. I’ve always seen the glass as half-full; to him it was half-empty. That difference, research findings suggest, is likely why I pursue good health habits with a vengeance while he was far less inclined to follow the health-promoting lifestyle I advocated. I’m no cockeyed optimist, but I’ve long…
An epidemic is growing. Here’s what you need to know: Death tolls rises to 80, as China records thousands of new cases. ImageMedical workers with a patient in Wuhan, China, on Sunday.Credit…Chinatopix, via Associated Press An outbreak of a new coronavirus that began in the Chinese city of Wuhan has already killed 80 people in…
WUHAN, China — A top Chinese health official warned on Sunday that the spread of the dangerous new coronavirus, already extraordinarily rapid, is accelerating further, deepening global fears about an illness that has sickened more than 2,700 people worldwide and killed at least 80 people in China. The grim diagnosis came amid concerns that China’s…
Muscles need dystrophin in order to regenerate. Persons suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy lack this essential muscular protein due to mutations in the gene which is responsible for producing dystrophin. As a result, their existing muscle cells deteriorate over time and are gradually replaced by connective and fatty tissue; muscle strength weakens during the course…