Health category, Page 122

WASHINGTON — Recent laws in several states that protect drugmakers’ contributions toward patients’ prescription copays are highlighting an escalating battle in the larger war on drug pricing. In the past month, Arizona, Virginia and West Virginia became the first states to enact laws restricting insurance companies from excluding most drug...

Music fans apparently caught more than some great tunes at a California music festival this month. The annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival draws about 250,000 people to the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, across two weekends in April. In addition to the impacts that any large event...

Talk about a romantic mood killer. Before you go in close for a kiss with that hirsute dude, you might want to look at a new study out of Zurich, Switzerland, that found men’s beards contain more bacteria than a dog’s fur. The Hirslanden Clinic looked at the “bacterial load...

NEW YORK — As recent illnesses tied to raw turkey , ground beef , cut melon and romaine lettuce suggest, U.S. food poisoning cases don’t appear to be going away anytime soon. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Thursday that the frequency of several types...

It’s like “Sleeping Beauty” with a dose of nightmare fuel: A flat-bodied, six-legged insect moves toward you as you slumber, bound for the blood that surges around your eyes and lips. It crawls on your face. And the poop it leaves behind can be deadly. The triatomine bug, also known...

Allegheny Health Network patients can now find out online what people like — or don’t like — about their doctor. AHN announced Thursday it has implemented a new verified star rating system and comment section for all physicians where patients can give feedback to help others decide who might be...

If your Planet Fitness gym seems a little more crowded this summer, this might be why. The fitness chain announced that it is offering teens ages 15-18 free access to its clubs during the summer. The Teen Summer Challenge kicks off May 15 and goes until Sept. 1. During that...

LONDON — The World Health Organization has issued its first-ever guidance for how much screen time that children under five should get: not very much. The U.N. health agency said Wednesday that children under 1 should not have any screen time while those under five should not spend more than...

Americans are becoming increasingly sedentary, spending almost a third of their waking hours sitting down, and computer use is partly to blame, a new study found. Over almost a decade, average daily sitting time increased by roughly an hour, to about eight hours for U.S. teens and almost 61⁄2 hours...

U.S. Rep. John Joyce, a Blair County Republican, is walking back his assertion that 12 cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis were being treated last week among migrants who had crossed the Mexican border and sought asylum in Yuma, Ariz. The freshman Congressman’s about-face came after a spokesman for the Yuma County...

UPMC Hillman Cancer Center is joining a collaborative clinical trial for acute myeloid leukemia to explore new ways of treating patients. The Beat AML Master Clinical Trial, led by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, will use genetic testing to determine the best course of treatment for the cancer. It affects...

The Pennsylvania Department of Health on Monday attempted to allay concerns about the incidence of a rare cancer in Washington County and the Canon-McMillan School District. A health department spokesman said a new study of a group of Ewing sarcoma cases in and around the district found the rates were...

Could Alexa replace Big Pharma when it comes to pain control? In a news release touting their ongoing programs in information sciences, researchers at Penn State said they believe they can deliver pain control through guided mindfulness practices via Amazon’s Alexa. “In particular with opioid addiction, there has been quite...

The challenges were many when Cynthia Hundorfean accepted the job as Allegheny Health Network’s CEO in 2016. For one, the hospital system reported a loss of $17.8 million in the first three months of 2016 and other losses in years prior. The other challenge was gaining respect in an industry...

Blood drives — 1:30-7 p.m. today , St. Bruno Church, 1707 S. Poplar St., Greensburg — 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday , St. James, Route 982, Youngstown — 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. April 30, Triangle Tech, 222 E. Pittsburgh St., Greensburg Appointments: 800-733-2767 or redcrossblood.org; walk-ins welcome. Meetings • Grief Without the...

A recent column on the Environmental Working Group’s list of fruits and vegetables with the most and least pesticides generated some reader comments. Most wondered if washing eliminates any pesticides residue. While the EWG said washing doesn’t remove the fruit and produce from their list, it’s still recommended to wash...

The United States is on track to surpass the record number of measles cases in a single year since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000, according to figures reported Monday. For the fourth week in a row, health officials have added dozens of new cases to the year’s list...

Workplace wellness programs — efforts to get workers to lose weight, eat better, stress less and sleep more — are an $8 billion industry in the U.S. Most large employers offer some type of wellness program — with growth fueled by incentives in the federal Affordable Care Act. But no...

NEW YORK — Can a genetic test identify newborns at risk of becoming severely obese by middle age? Researchers say they have come up with one, and that it might allow interventions in childhood to avoid that fate. The test examines more than 2 million spots in a person’s genetic...

Meah Ezykowsky was lying unresponsive in her bed when her mom rushed into their Latrobe home, knowing something was wrong. That morning of March 20, 2017, the family learned Ezykowsky had a record-sized meningioma tumor — a noncancerous mass that will impact more than 32,000 people this year. The grapefruit-sized...

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump may soon be able to claim a sweet victory for his deregulation push, with officials preparing to get rid of the decades-old rules for frozen cherry pies. Emails show the Food and Drug Administration planned to start the process for revoking the standard for...

NEW YORK — Three months ago, this flu season was shaping up to be short and mild. But a surprising second viral wave has made it the longest the United States has seen in 10 years. This flu season has been officially going for 21 weeks, according to reports collected...