Twelve patients became seriously ill after receiving injections that supposedly contained stem cells from umbilical cord blood, according to the Food and Drug Administration, which issued a warning to the California company, Genetech, that made the blood product they were given. (The company has no connection with Genentech, the biotechnology corporation.) The F.D.A. said on…
Having a pill stuck in the throat can be irritating or even dangerous, but it is important to stay calm and find a solution. The following is what to do when a pill becomes stuck in the throat. The United States National Safety Council note that 5,051 people passed away from choking in 2015. For…
Lice are easy to confuse with dandruff, which is a very common problem. While lice are a temporary infestation, dandruff is a chronic skin condition. Every year, 6 to 12 million people in the United States get head lice. Most are children ages 3 to 12 years old. Both lice and dandruff are usually treatable…
Times Insider delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how news, features and opinion come together at The New York Times. For a new feature, “Heroin Addiction Explained: How Opioids Hijack the Brain,” which appears today, Times journalists wanted to approach the opioid crisis from an underrepresented perspective: to illustrate, in pictures and words, what each step of…
It’s not easy to say that any particular development in health or medicine was the most important in a given year. But if we had to choose some highlights, we’d opt for these unforgettable events and findings. We learned many doctors do not disclose financial ties when they publish research. Image From left, Douglas A.…
It’s not easy to say that any particular scientific development was the most important in a given year. But if we had to choose some highlights, we’d opt for these unforgettable events and findings. A scientist’s use of the Crispr technique set off a global firestorm. Image He Jiankui speaking before the Second International Summit…
Often I have lain under a sheet on a gurney in a hospital hall, dreading what would happen during some ghastly procedure related to my ovarian cancer. One incident, filtered through a narcotic haze, still haunts me, though it must have occurred more than five years ago. I watched the ceiling roll by as someone…
New research that features in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) discovers that a compound present in green leafy vegetables helps prevent nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in mice. Green leafy vegetables, such as lettuce and spinach, contain high concentrations of nitrate, a compound that may keep fatty liver at bay. Nonalcoholic…
The 46-year-old man showed up at hospital emergency room in Chicago, complaining that his left knee hurt. The X-rays above showed why. Fourteen years earlier, he’d been shot in the knee. That’s the image on the left. The bullet was not removed, and over the years his knee had ground it into tiny pieces, as…
E-cigarette maker Juul, which has vowed to make cigarettes obsolete, is near to inking a deal to become business partners with Altria, one of the world’s largest tobacco companies. The union — which would create an alliance between one of public health’s greatest villains and the start-up that would upend it — entails cigarette giant…