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Health category, Page 55

Pandemic stress prematurely aged teens’ brains, Stanford study finds 
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A Stanford University study published Thursday found that stress from the covid-19 pandemic prematurely aged adolescents’ brains, making them more like those of peers about three years older. By comparing MRI scans from children taken before the pandemic with scans from other kids taken during the...
Importance of HIV PrEP medication for prevention, coverage 
On World AIDS Day, Pennsylvania Insurance Department (PID) Policy Director Katie Merritt joined representatives from the Pennsylvania Commission on LGBTQ Affairs and Hamilton Health Center to highlight the importance of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, medication for HIV prevention, and to detail insurance coverage of the drugs under the Affordable...
Stroke in people Kris Letang's age, condition not as rare as one might think, experts say
Medical experts Wednesday were not surprised to hear the details of Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang’s stroke, saying it might even be considered commonplace for people built as he is. Dr. M. Shazam Hussain, a board- certified neurologist and the director of Cleveland Clinic’s Cerebrovascular Center, estimates one in every...
Highmark Health reports $268M in losses fueled by declining stock market
More than $670 million in investment losses contributed to an overall net loss for local health care giant Highmark Health during the first nine months of the year, according to the organization’s third-quarter financial report for 2022. Highmark Health reported $19.5 billion in revenue from January through September, about a...
Drug slows Alzheimer's but can it make a real difference?
An experimental Alzheimer’s drug modestly slowed the brain disease’s inevitable worsening — but the anxiously awaited new data leaves unclear how much difference that might make in people’s lives. Japanese drugmaker Eisai and its U.S. partner Biogen had announced earlier this fall that the drug lecanemab appeared to work, a...
Study: U.S. gun death rates hit highest levels in decades
NEW YORK — The U.S. gun death rate last year hit its highest mark in nearly three decades, and the rate among women has been growing faster than that of men, according to study published Tuesday. The increase among women — most dramatically, in Black women — is playing a...
Few Americans know or heed U.S. nutrition guide
Here’s a quick quiz: What replaced the food pyramid, the government guide to healthy eating that stood for nearly 20 years? If you’re stumped, you’re not alone. More than a decade after Agriculture Department officials ditched the pyramid, few Americans have heard of MyPlate, a dinner plate-shaped logo that emphasizes...
Why some Western Pa. hospitals choose to remain independent
Editor’s note: This is the final part of a three-day series examining the rapidly changing health care landscape in Western Pennsylvania. Lynn Botelho has lived her life traveling the globe, navigating some of the world’s most time-honored academic institutions. But when she was handed a cancer diagnosis, she looked no...
Allegheny County to close covid testing sites
The Curative covid-19 testing sites located throughout Allegheny County will close by the end of the year, officials said Monday. County officials cited lower numbers of daily infections, deaths and hospitalizations from the virus as they announced changes to testing options. “For the past two and a half years, Curative...
5 things to know about new covid subvariants
Though new covid-19 subvariants continue to crop up, a local infectious disease doctor said there likely won’t be another massive wave of severe infections because of them. New subvariants of the covid-19 omicron variant — like XXB, XBB and BQ.1 — are spreading throughout the United States, said Dr. Matt...
Hospitals embrace mergers as path to survival
Editor’s note: This is the second part of a three-day series examining the rapidly changing health care landscape in Western Pennsylvania. As Excela Health CEO John Sphon irons out the details of a merger with Butler Health System, his message to the public is clear. He believes the alliance...
As Western Pa. hospitals expand, fears grow over higher health care costs 
Editor’s note: This is the first part of a three-day series examining the rapidly changing health care landscape in Western Pennsylvania. Western Pennsylvania’s two health care giants have jumped into a controversial nationwide hospital building boom, spending billions on glitzy, state-of-the-art facilities that critics say patients ultimately will pay for...
After a year, omicron still driving covid surges and worries
A year after omicron began its assault on humanity, the ever-morphing coronavirus mutant drove covid-19 case counts higher in many places just as Americans gathered for Thanksgiving. It was a prelude to a wave that experts expect to soon wash over the U.S. Phoenix-area emergency physician Dr. Nicholas Vasquez said...
Panic buying in Beijing as city adds new quarantine centers
BEIJING — Residents of China’s capital were emptying supermarket shelves and overwhelming delivery apps Friday as the city government ordered accelerated construction of covid-19 quarantine centers and field hospitals. Uncertainty and scattered, unconfirmed reports of a lockdown on at least some Beijing districts have fueled the demand for food and...
UPMC profits down 75% so far in 2022, filing shows
Health care giant UPMC reported Tuesday that it had nearly $200 million in profits during the first nine months of this year — about a quarter of what it reported during the same span a year ago. UPMC said in its third-quarter financial report that labor and supply markets related...
Allegheny Valley Hospital to shift adult mental-health services to geriatric patients only
Adults in the Alle-Kiski Valley seeking mental health care no longer will be able to access in-patient services from Allegheny Valley Hospital in Harrison. Beginning Monday, the facility along Carlisle Street will be shifted to provide expanded psychiatry services for geriatric patients only. “We are not closing the unit but...
Gathering again? Tips for a safe and healthy Thanksgiving
For families who settled for smaller gatherings and remote blessings during the height of the pandemic, this Thanksgiving looks like the return of the big bash. More folks are getting together this year, with the American Automobile Association predicting holiday travel will be nearly back to prepandemic levels. If that’s...
Despite dangerous pregnancy complications, abortions denied
Weeks after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Dr. Grace Ferguson treated a woman whose water had broken halfway through pregnancy. The baby would never survive, and the patient’s chance of developing a potentially life-threatening infection grew with every hour. By the time she made it to Pittsburgh to see Ferguson,...
Pfizer booster spurs immune response to new omicron subtypes
Pfizer said Friday that its updated covid-19 booster may offer some protection against newly emerging omicron mutants even though it’s not an exact match. Americans have been reluctant to get the updated boosters rolled out by Pfizer and rival Moderna, doses tweaked to target the BA.5 omicron strain that until...
Western Pa. medical experts keep watch on amoxicillin shortage
A shortage of the broad-range antibiotic amoxicillin is being felt in Western Pennsylvania, and experts are tracking how it will impact local care. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last month announced a shortage of the oral suspension of the drug, which is used to fight bacteria in a wide...
U.S. overdose deaths may be peaking, but experts are wary
NEW YORK — Have U.S. drug overdose deaths stopped rising? Preliminary government data suggests they may have, but many experts are urging caution, noting that past plateaus didn’t last. U.S. overdose death rates began steadily climbing in the 1990s driven by opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths led by...
‘Covid’s not done with us, and I’m not done with covid,’ Fauci says, as he prepares to step down from his post
WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci knew he was being turned into a villain of the far-right early on in the coronavirus pandemic, when President Donald Trump’s administration stopped defending him. It was the result of a series of choices Fauci stands by to this day, despite all the grief it...
Thousands of experts hired to aid public health departments are losing their jobs
As covid-19 raged, roughly 4,000 highly skilled epidemiologists, communication specialists and public health nurses were hired by a nonprofit tied to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to plug the holes at battered public health departments on the front lines. But over the past few months, the majority of...
Laurel Highlands Workforce, Opportunity Center opens in Hempfield, looks to expand
When members of the Laurel Highlands Workforce and Opportunity Center board were looking for a model, they didn’t have to look far. “We’re a replication site for Manchester Bidwell in Pittsburgh, which has been around for 50 years,” CEO Greg Daigle said. “When it comes to adult training, you go...
1 dead, over a dozen sick from outbreak tied to deli meat
A food poisoning outbreak tied to deli meat and cheese has sickened 16 people, including one who died, U.S. health officials said Wednesday. Most were hospitalized and one illness resulted in the loss of a pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many reported eating meat or...


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