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Health category, Page 57

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...
People with long covid face barriers to government disability benefits
When Josephine Cabrera Taveras was infected with covid-19 in spring 2020, she didn’t anticipate that the virus would knock her out of work for two years and put her family at risk for eviction. Taveras, a mother of two in Brooklyn, New York, said her bout with long covid has...
5 mistakes you’re making with Medicare open enrollment
Millions of retirees are in the thick of Medicare open enrollment, which runs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, but many find the process challenging. Some don’t understand the difference between Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage, many are overwhelmed by Medicare advertising, and only 4 in 10 people review their...
Researchers create molecule that kills hard-to-treat cancers
DALLAS — Researchers from two North Texas universities have created a molecule that kills a spectrum of hard-to-treat cancers, including an aggressive form of breast cancer. Their work was published in the journal Nature Cancer. The researchers tested the molecule in isolated cells, human cancer tissue and in mice, with...
As RSV surge continues, UPMC Children's adds tent to deal with influx of patients
UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has put up a tent outside its Lawrenceville hospital so it is prepared to deal with the influx of patients sick with RSV, the director of the hospital’s emergency department said in a video shared on social media Monday. “The tent is a space that...
Medicare enrollees warned about deceptive marketing schemes
WASHINGTON — Mailers designed to look like official government forms. Buses sporting scam pitches for Medicare websites. TV commercials featuring celebrities who encourage people to sign up for Medicare plans that do not always include their current doctors. With Medicare’s open enrollment underway through Dec. 7, health experts are warning...
U.S. flu season off to a fast start as other viruses spread
NEW YORK — The U.S. flu season is off to an unusually fast start, adding to an autumn mix of viruses that have been filling hospitals and doctor waiting rooms. Reports of flu are already high in 17 states, and the hospitalization rate hasn’t been this high this early since...
Psychedelic 'magic mushroom' drug may ease some depression
The psychedelic chemical in “magic mushrooms” may ease depression in some hard-to-treat patients, a preliminary study found. The effects were modest and waned over time but they occurred with a single experimental dose in people who previously had gotten little relief from standard antidepressants. The study is part of a...
Strong RSV vaccine data lifts hopes after years of futility
New research shows vaccinating pregnant women helped protect their newborns from the common but scary respiratory virus called RSV that fills hospitals with wheezing babies each fall. The preliminary results buoy hope that after decades of failure and frustration, vaccines against RSV may finally be getting close. Pfizer announced Tuesday...


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