Health

ABC News (LOS ANGELES) — A new heat wave has left 60 million people across 13 states under heat alerts Thursday. Record or near-record high temperatures are possible Thursday in Corpus Christi, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where temperatures could reach 100 degrees. New Orleans could reach 98 degrees, and San Antonio may reach 102 degrees. […]

Reza Estakhrian/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — After several months of steady declines, COVID-19 hospitalizations appear to be ticking up again. For the week ending July 22, hospitalizations rose 12% from the previous week from 7,165 to 8,035, according to data released Monday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While a double-digit percentage jump may […]

FS Productions/Getty Images (FLORIDA) — Cases of leprosy are rising in Florida, according to a new analysis published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) journal. Although the disease is still rare in the U.S. — with just 159 cases reported in 2020 — a study released Monday from the EID […]

ABC News (WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden recently announced his administration’s plans to push private insurance companies to offer the same coverage for mental health services as they do for physical health services, improving upon a well-known hole in America’s health care system, according to the White House. “We must fulfill the promise of true mental […]

d3sign/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — Over 1.7 million women, nearly 3% of women of reproductive age in the United States, live in a county without access to abortion and with no access to maternity care, according to an analysis from ABC News and Boston Children’s Hospital. And 3.7 million, or 5.8% of women of reproductive […]

Makoto Honda / 500px/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — A new study is sounding the alarm about a rise in alcohol-related deaths, especially in women. The investigation, published by JAMA’s Substance Use and Addiction on July 28, examined 605,948 alcohol-related deaths from 1999 to 2020, which didn’t include deaths from injuries, homicides or death indirectly linked […]

Fusion Medical Animation, Unsplash (WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration announced Monday it is forming a new Office of Long COVID Research and Practice to study the condition and help those who have been diagnosed with it. The office, which will be under the Department of Health and Human Services, “is charged with on-going coordination of the whole-of-government […]

Thir Sakdi Phu Cxm / EyeEm/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — A Georgia resident has died after being infected with a rare brain-eating amoeba, according to the state’s Department of Public Health. Health officials said in a release Friday the resident likely contracted Naegleria fowleri — an amoeba that destroys brain tissue — while swimming in […]

Martina Paraninfi/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — Doctors are increasingly discouraging people from using e-cigarettes given the mounting evidence about the significant negative health impact of vaping– even as a smoking cessation tool. For current smokers, “there are other very powerful, safe and FDA approved interventions,” Dr. Petros Levounis, the President of the American Psychiatric Association and […]

Courtesy of Abigail Robinson (NEW YORK) — Elias Robinson-Rodriquez was just 11 months old when he underwent a type of heart transplant so rare it had previously been performed on only six children globally. Elias, now 1, was born with a congenital heart defect called transposition of the great arteries, in which the two main […]