WASHINGTON — The White House, under pressure to contain a growing monkeypox outbreak, announced on Thursday that it was sending 1.8 million vaccine doses to jurisdictions that agree to use a new vaccination protocol, as public health officials prepare for Gay Pride events and the return to college campuses, which they fear could hasten spread…
Facebook and Instagram on Thursday removed the accounts of Children’s Health Defense, an organization led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that is one of the largest U.S. anti-vaccine groups, for spreading medical misinformation. In an emailed newsletter, Children’s Health Defense said Facebook and Instagram had taken down its accounts after a 30-day ban by the…
Test your knowledge of this week’s health news.
At the beginning of this year, there was a thrum of excitement among global health experts: Eradication of polio, a centuries-old foe that has paralyzed legions of children around the globe, seemed tantalizingly close. Pakistan, one of only two countries where wild poliovirus still circulates, had not recorded cases in more than a year. Afghanistan…
A team of scientists has found a cheap, effective way to destroy so-called forever chemicals, a group of compounds that pose a global threat to human health. The chemicals — known as PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are found in a spectrum of products and contaminate water and soil around the world. Left…
JACKSON, Miss. — Like low-income pregnant women around the country, nearly every patient at the Sisters in Birth clinic here is covered by Medicaid, the public health insurance program for the poor. But they face the prospect of losing the coverage two months after their babies are born, when they are still at high risk…
Federal health officials said Wednesday that they were investigating an E. coli outbreak that has been linked to a growing number of illnesses in Ohio and Michigan. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that no food had been identified yet as the source of the “fast-moving” outbreak, which has sickened 14 people in…
Experts say children are not at a high risk of infection. But they have advice to keep everyone — from toddlers to college kids — safe.
After 10 years of effort, medical researchers at Columbia University have developed a very fast and cheap way to detect the extra or missing chromosomes that most often cause miscarriages or severe birth defects. The method, described Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, takes less than two hours using a palm-size device and…
Humans spend about 35 minutes every day chewing. That adds up to more than a full week out of every year. But that’s nothing compared to the time spent masticating by our cousins: Chimps chew for 4.5 hours a day, and orangutans clock 6.6 hours. The differences between our chewing habits and those of our…