UPMC Mercy hospital’s $510M expansion on track for spring 2023 opening
Hot orange sparks rained down on freshly erected steel beams Tuesday morning as construction workers welded and hammered while harnessed to high-rise scaffolds and aerial lifts overlooking the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh. Two giant cranes rotated nonstop, hoisting building materials weighing thousands of pounds across the busy construction site of...
Pfizer asks U.S. officials to OK promising covid-19 pill
WASHINGTON — Pfizer asked U.S. regulators Tuesday to authorize its experimental pill for covid-19, setting the stage for a likely launch this winter of a promising treatment that can be taken at home. The company’s filing comes as new infections are rising once again in the United States, driven mainly...
Flu rips through University of Michigan campus, bringing CDC to Ann Arbor
DETROIT — Influenza is sweeping the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus, with 528 cases diagnosed at the University Health Service since Oct. 6. The outbreak is so sudden and large — 313 cases were identified the week of Nov. 8 alone and 37% of flu tests that week were...
More Americans expected to enroll in Affordable Care Act health plans as costs drop, benefits increase
If you’ve shopped the Affordable Care Act marketplace for a health plan in recent years only to be disappointed by its price tags, you might want to try again. More Americans than ever qualify for federal subsidies to reduce what they spend on health insurance in 2022 — including millions...
Pittsburgh doctor on pandemic: ‘We will be living with this virus, there is no covid zero’
Pittsburgh-based Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert and critical care and emergency medicine physician, wrote in a opinion piece this week that it is impossible “to eliminate or eradicate covid-19.” “This is not possible with an efficiently spreading respiratory virus that has an animal reservoir and can spread from...
Makerspace aims to help young people with mental health challenges at facility on Pittsburgh’s South Side
Noelle Conover said she worries that all too often, children who suffer from serious mental health problems and the facilities helping them don’t get as much attention, funding and resources as young people with other types of more visible ailments. She recalls the many resources made available to her and...
Alzheimer’s drug cited as Medicare premium jumps by $21.60
Medicare’s “Part B” outpatient premium will jump by $21.60 a month in 2022, one of the largest increases ever. Officials said Friday a new Alzheimer’s drug is responsible for about half of that. The increase guarantees that health care will gobble up a big chunk of the recently announced Social...
Highmark CEO David Holmberg’s pay dipped to $7.8M in 2020
Highmark Health CEO David Holmberg made $7.82 million in total compensation in 2020, about $325,000 less than the previous year, records filed Friday show. The reduced compensation and bonus package amid the covid-19 pandemic follows Holmberg reaping a pay increase of about $660,000 in 2019, an 8.8% hike, according to...
A dozen Western Pa. health systems pledge to comply with vaccine mandate for hospital workers
UPMC’s top doctor affirmed Thursday that Pennsylvania’s largest health system and nongovernment employer will comply with a newly issued federal mandate that all health care workers get vaccinated for covid-19 by early January, in line with prior pledges by competing medical providers in recent months. Dr. Donald Yealy, UPMC’s chief...
Longtime nurse chief tapped to lead UPMC’s flagship hospital in Pittsburgh
A longtime champion for engaging front-line health care workers in executive decision-making will take the helm of UPMC’s flagship hospital operation at the start of next year. Sandra Rader — a seasoned chief nurse and vice president of patient care services before becoming chief operating officer — has been promoted...
‘Strong’ start to kids vaccine campaign, but challenges loomVideo
WASHINGTON — The campaign to vaccinate elementary school age children in the United States is off to a strong start, health officials said Wednesday, but experts say there are signs that it will be difficult to sustain the initial momentum. About 900,000 kids aged 5 to 11 will have received...
5 things to know about potential expansion of booster shots
Pfizer on Tuesday asked the Food and Drug Administration to give the go-ahead on covid-19 booster shots for anyone 18 or older. According to the Associated Press, the company is submitting early results of a 10,000-person booster study to back up its request. The study suggested a booster shot could...
Pfizer says its covid pill cut hospital, death risk by 90%
WASHINGTON — Pfizer Inc. said Friday that its experimental antiviral pill for covid-19 cut rates of hospitalization and death by nearly 90% in high-risk adults, as the drugmaker joined the race for an easy-to-use medication to treat the coronavirus. Currently most covid-19 treatments require an IV or injection. Competitor Merck’s...
Edgeworth doctor leading AHN team honored with a 3-star recognition
Dr. Benny Weksler is helping patients breathe a little easier. As system chief of thoracic surgery at Allegheny Health Network, the Edgeworth resident leads the lung cancer lobectomy surgery program, which recently was recognized for its work. Lung cancer is by far the leading cause of cancer death among both...
Covid vaccinations for kids begin in U.S.
Hugs with friends. Birthday parties indoors. Pillow fights. School children who got their first covid-19 shots Wednesday said these are the pleasures they look forward to as the U.S. enters a game-changing phase in fighting the pandemic. Health officials hailed shots for kids aged 5 to 11 as a major...
CDC gives final clearance to covid-19 shots for children 5 to 11
U.S. health officials on Tuesday gave the final signoff to Pfizer’s kid-size covid-19 shot, a milestone that opens a major expansion of the nation’s vaccination campaign to children as young as 5. The Food and Drug Administration already authorized the shots for children ages 5 to 11 — doses just...
FDA paves way for Pfizer covid-19 vaccinations in young kids
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration on Friday paved the way for children ages 5 to 11 to get Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine. The FDA cleared kid-size doses — just one-third of the amount given to teens and adults — for emergency use, and up to 28 million more American...
UPMC’s Dr. Kurt Weiss received grant for research on cancer he’s experienced
Kurt Weiss was supposed to go mountain climbing with the Boy Scouts. He never went. Little did he realize that there was another uphill challenge in front of him. Weiss’ right leg hurt so badly the day of that Boy Scouts’ adventure in 1989, his mother took him to the...
Merck agrees to let other drug makers make its covid pill
LONDON — Pharmaceutical company Merck agreed to allow other drug makers to produce its covid-19 pill, in a move aimed at helping millions of people in poorer countries get access to the potentially life-saving drug, a United Nations-backed public health organization said on Wednesday. The Medicines Patent Pool said in...
Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early covid-19
A cheap antidepressant reduced the need for hospitalization among high-risk adults with covid-19 in a study hunting for existing drugs that could be repurposed to treat coronavirus. Researchers tested the pill used for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder because it was known to reduce inflammation and looked promising in smaller studies....
FDA advisers back Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11
WASHINGTON — The United States moved a step closer to expanding covid-19 vaccinations for millions more children as a panel of government advisers on Tuesday endorsed kid-size doses of Pfizer’s shots for 5- to 11-year-olds. A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted unanimously, with one abstention, that the vaccine’s...
One Day to Remember creates memories for terminally ill Western Pa. parents and their familiesVideo
As an oncology nurse at Hillman Cancer Center in Pittsburgh, Rachel Antin saw the pain. A sick parent would give everything he or she had to get well enough to be with their children. Antin watched as families struggled to find time together, away from the chemotherapy and blood tests...
Explainer: Is it time to get a covid-19 booster? Which one?
Millions more Americans just became eligible for covid-19 boosters, but figuring out who’s eligible and when can be confusing. And adding to the challenge is that this time around, people can choose a different brand of vaccine for that extra dose. A number of factors, including the vaccine you started...
Salmonella outbreak tied to onions sickens more than 650
NEW YORK — A salmonella outbreak tied to onions has sickened more than 650 people in 37 states, U.S. health officials said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at least 129 people have been hospitalized. No one has died. Nearly all of the illnesses were reported in August...
Covid-19 vaccine: CDC panel backs expanded booster rollout
WASHINGTON — Millions more Americans are closer to getting a covid-19 booster as influential government advisers on Thursday endorsed extra doses of all three of the nation’s vaccines — and opened the possibility of choosing a different company’s brand for that next shot. Certain people who received Pfizer vaccinations months...
