WASHINGTON — Congressional hearings are frequently acrimonious, but they rarely descend into the kind of personal attack that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., waged against teachers’ union leader Randi Weingarten at a House hearing last week on pandemic-related school closures, an issue that continues to excite strong passions. Those passions were expressed in a “very […]
Category: Health
Randi Weingarten, Anthony Fauci, and why are we still talking about pandemic school closures
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, testifies before a House subcommittee hearing on COVID-19 school closures on April 26. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP Photo) WASHINGTON — Long gone are the days when American children started their school day with a laptop at the kitchen table. Since the Omicron surge of early 2022, schools across […]
Doctors perform lifesaving brain surgery on fetus in the womb
In a first-of-its-kind procedure, physicians performed a successful in utero surgery to repair a rare and potentially deadly prenatal condition in a fetus. In utero surgery has been used for other conditions, but this is the first time it has been attempted to treat “vein of Galen malformation” — a rare blood vessel abnormality inside […]
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 […]
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 […]
The COVID public health emergency expires Thursday. Here’s what that means for you.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will allow the federal public health emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic to expire, but not everyone sees it as a cause for celebration. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra had renewed the emergency for 90 days in February, signaling at the time that this would be […]
Bats could hold secret to long life — and other health news you may have missed
A protein found in bats could have “therapeutic potential” for humans. (Getty Images) It’s been a busy week in health news — from saying goodbye to COVID public health and mpox global health emergencies to ushering in a new era of over-the-counter birth control pills. But that’s not all that happened in the wellness space. […]
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 […]
Black doctors call out ‘broken’ system for health care professionals
A doctor holds the hand of a boy in a hospital bed. (Getty images) Black medical professionals are being courted by the Senate to help fill gaps caused by a health care worker shortage that is projected to leave the U.S. with more than 100,000 fewer physicians over the next decade. But Black doctors are […]
Feinstein’s health issues were far more serious than publicly disclosed: What we know
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., attends a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Capitol Hill Thursday. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office on Thursday confirmed that the 89-year-old California lawmaker’s complications from shingles were far more serious than previously known. The disclosure came following a report by the New York Times revealing […]
Who should have the ‘right to die’
“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates. Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images What’s happening Three decades ago, Dr. Jack Kevorkian became the face of the incredibly contentious debate over medically assisted death. Dubbed “Dr. Death” in the media, he claimed to have helped at least 130 patients […]
What you should know about work and aging-brain health
In the upper echelons of politics, there’s no shortage of men and women working well past the conventional retirement age. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who turns 90 next month, has said she won’t seek reelection in 2024, but she continues to serve as the oldest member of the U.S. Senate, despite a recent extended medical absence […]