Here are the top stories in health news this week from Yahoo News partners. ‘There’s no doubt in my mind these people were suffering.’ Some people who have been legally euthanized in the Netherlands in recent years cited autism or intellectual disabilities as the only reason or a major reason for seeking euthanasia, saying they […]
Category: Health
Pandemic learning loss needs urgent attention in U.S., national survey finds
The “educational harm” caused by the coronavirus pandemic has been “devastating,” according to a recent survey of 26 million K-8 students by researchers at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth and Harvard. The researchers also found that the pandemic “exacerbated economic and racial educational inequality,” as lead authors Tom Kane of Harvard and Sean Reardon of Stanford […]
AI takes on grief, with chatbot that lets you talk to dead loved ones
What’s new in the health space? Here are some of the most interesting, under-the-radar stories from Yahoo News partners this week. ‘You absolutely don’t need consent from someone who’s dead’ What does the future of grief and loss look like? An AI company called You, Only Virtual is creating chatbots modeled after deceased loved ones, […]
What it means for the COVID-19 pandemic to be ‘over’
Dr. Joseph Varon comforts a patient in the COVID-19 intensive care unit on Thanksgiving at the United Memorial Medical Center on Nov. 26, 2020 in Houston. (Go Nakamura/Getty Images) Friday’s declaration by the World Health Organization that the coronavirus emergency was “over” marked the end of a three-year journey that saw the world transformed by […]
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy combats a culture of solitude
During the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy did not exactly emerge as one of the nation’s more prominent public health officials, despite the high status of his position. Serious and soft-spoken, Murthy was frequently eclipsed on cable news and social media by the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s top pandemic adviser, […]
What the destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam means for local residents
Rescue workers help residents evacuate from a flooded neighborhood in Kherson, Ukraine, on Tuesday. (Libkos/AP) The destruction on Tuesday of the massive Soviet-era Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River in the Ukrainian city of Nova Kakhovka has damaged homes and is posing a threat to residents, animals, crops and public infrastructure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called […]
Coronavirus is back, but how worried should you be?
Dr. Bob Wachter was an expert who diligently practiced what he preached. For three years, the prominent University of California at San Francisco physician advocated masking and vaccination for those who, like him, wanted to avoid the coronavirus, as well as the mysterious, long-lasting symptoms known as long COVID. When Wachter’s wife contracted the coronavirus […]
Raccoon dogs did not start COVID-19, new study says
The raccoon dog did it: That was the explosive takeaway of a genomic analysis conducted in March by a trio of scientists who had scrutinized data from a market in Wuhan, China, where the pandemic was thought to have begun. Until then, evidence for that conviction had been scant. “This is a really strong indication […]
How to protect yourself from wildfire smoke
Only weeks after Canadian wildfires blanketed the Northeastern United States in thick smoke, the ongoing fires are sending across the Midwest more air deemed unhealthy by the Environmental Protection Agency. Detroit and Cleveland are currently experiencing air considered “very unhealthy,” with Air Quality Index (AQI) readings measuring more than 200. Exposure to wildfire smoke can […]
Smoke from Canada wildfires is impacting air quality across the Northeast
Smoke fills the sky in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Sunday as an out-of-control fire in a suburban community quickly spreads, engulfing multiple homes and forcing the evacuation of local residents. (Kelly Clark/The Canadian Press via AP) A spate of early season wildfires in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia are spreading smoke across the Northeast. […]
Air quality alerts triggered in New York as Canadian wildfire smoke blankets Northeast
Smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketed a large swath of the Midwest and northeastern United States on Monday and Tuesday, casting a thick haze that experts warned was a significant health threat. Air quality alerts were issued in at least eight states, with health officials warning those in sensitive groups, such as children, people with heart […]
Price negotiations begin for heart disease, diabetes drugs and others. Here’s how it will work.
The Biden administration announced last week the first 10 prescription medications for which it will negotiate prices under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), including some of the most commonly prescribed drugs for heart disease and diabetes. The IRA, which Biden signed in August 2022, granted the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) power to […]