Health

SONGPHOL THESAKIT/Getty Images (GENEVA) — The World Health Organization on Friday said it was downgrading COVID-19 and no longer characterizing it as a global health emergency. The U.N. health agency first declared the coronavirus to be an international crisis on Jan. 30, 2020. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. Copyright © […]

Courtesy of Angela Maske (WASHINGTON) — Angela Maske was a college freshman in Washington, D.C., when she first had trouble getting a prescription for birth control pills. Her Catholic-affiliated university wouldn’t prescribe the medication to students as a sexual contraceptive, so Maske spent three months looking for another doctor’s appointment. More recently, her telehealth provider […]

TAMI CHAPPELL/AFP via Getty Images (NEW YORK) — While COVID-19 ebbs — and many of the pandemic-era policies on surveillance data and funding wind down with it — the nation’s public health leaders warned senators on Thursday that a return to “normal” should not mean forgetting the hard lessons learned over the last three years. […]

Images By Tang Ming Tung/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against omicron infection fell to less than 20% after six months, according to a new analysis published Wednesday. Researchers from Italy and the United States looked at some of the most common vaccines used around the world, including Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Sinovac. […]

Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — TV personality Maria Menounos is opening up about a recent health scare, revealing details of a private battle with pancreatic cancer. Menounos, 44, told People magazine she began experiencing symptoms including “excruciating abdominal pain” late last year. When the pain continued after test results came back inconclusive, Menounos said […]

ATU Images/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — Lucy Brown, a medical student at Indiana University, wanted to stay in Indiana for her OB-GYN residency, but when Roe v. Wade was overturned last June, her priorities shifted. States with abortion bans in place fell to the bottom of Brown’s list. “I really, really wanted to stay in […]

Xinhua via Getty Images (WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the first RSV vaccine in the U.S. Scientists have been trying to develop an RSV vaccine for decades after previous high-profile attempts failed. The vaccine, made by the pharmaceutical company GSK, is for older adults. Pfizer and Moderna are also developing […]

Tetra Images/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — The rate of drug overdose deaths linked to fentanyl in the United States has skyrocketed over the last five years, new federal data showed. The rate of overdose deaths involving fentanyl spiked by 279% between 2016 and 2021 from 5.7 per 100,000 to 21.6 per 100,000, according to a […]

xijian/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — Rachel Simner, the mom of a 13-year-old child in Illinois, said she took her child to a local emergency room last September at the urging of her child’s school officials, who had done a suicide risk assessment. Simner, a mom of two, told Good Morning America that when her child […]

xijian/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — The U.S. Surgeon General released an advisory on Tuesday calling attention to the public health crisis of loneliness, isolation and lack of connection in the United States. “Lacking connection increases the risk for premature death to more than 60%. Put simply, this social disconnection increases the risk for premature death […]