Health category, Page 79

Recognizing that many Americans rely on texting, U.S. regulators are weighing whether to require that phone companies allow people to text a suicide hotline. The Federal Communications Commission last summer voted to require a new “988” number for people to call to reach a suicide-prevention hotline. Phone companies have until...

Diana Briggs remembers the days when her son Ryan suffered through 400 seizures a day. She believes the legalization of medical marijuana — five years ago — in Pennsylvania changed his life. Ryan, who went through a medical emergency at birth 21 years ago, is now a special-needs adult with...

A contentious bill that would end Connecticut’s long-standing religious exemption from immunization requirements for schools, beginning with the 2022-23 school year, now awaits action in the state Senate. The legislation passed on a 90-53 vote in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives just before 3 a.m. on Tuesday, following more than...

LONDON — The European Union’s drug regulatory agency said Tuesday that it found a “possible link” between Johnson & Johnson’s covid-19 vaccine and extremely rare blood clots and that a warning should be added to the label. But experts at the agency reiterated that the vaccine’s benefits outweigh the risks....

Federal officials on Friday reversed Trump administration restrictions on using human fetal tissue for medical research. The changes clear the way for using government money on work that in the past has led to treatments for a variety of diseases, including covid-19. Government scientists now will be able to resume...

One of the region’s largest medical providers will be closing a facility in New Kensington and its rival will be opening a new one within days of each other in May. Allegheny Health Network will close its outpatient center in the former Citizens General Hospital on May 11, the network...

The migraines came first. Two or three weeks after she recovered from covid-19 in August, Jennifer Gorzock said she started experiencing the intense headaches, along with fatigue and disorienting mental fog. She noted her experience with the covid illness itself was relatively mild. She needed medications to get through it...

WASHINGTON — Women seeking an abortion pill will not be required to visit a doctor’s office or clinic during the covid-19 pandemic, U.S. health officials said Tuesday in the latest reversal in an ongoing legal battle over the medication. The Food and Drug Administration announced the policy change a day...

UPMC wasn’t the only multibillion-dollar U.S. health system that got hundreds of millions of dollars in pandemic-spurred federal relief, and then went on to rake in more money in 2020 than it did pre-pandemic. It’s not merely thanks to hefty bailouts and slowly rebounding hospital coffers that UPMC and other...

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia on Thursday become the latest country to restrict use of the AstraZeneca vaccine by recommending that it not be given to people under age 50. The announcement came after Australian drug regulators held a series of urgent meetings earlier in the day. The recommendation came after...

WASHINGTON — After an unprecedented push to test and track covid-19, public health workers are grappling with a worrisome side effect: a collapse in screening for sexually transmitted diseases that have been on the rise for years. Testing for diseases like chlamydia and gonorrhea plummeted in many parts of the...

A nurse who worked for Highmark Inc. reviewing insurance coverage authorization requests filed a federal lawsuit against the company on Tuesday, alleging that it failed to pay required overtime. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh, seeks class-action status and includes claims for violations of the federal Fair...

BOSTON — New research suggests the protection the Moderna vaccine gives against covid-19 lasts for at least six months. The report Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine echoes what Pfizer said last week about its vaccine, which works in a similar way. Both reports were based on follow-up...

U.S. regulators have approved the first new drug in over a decade for children with ADHD, which causes inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. The Food and Drug Administration late Friday OK’d Qelbree for treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children ages 6 to 17. It comes as a capsule that’s taken...

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin on Monday submitted a congressional inquiry with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding an HIV outbreak in West Virginia’s largest county. The West Virginia Democrat asked for the inquiry on behalf of the Kanawha County Commission two months after a CDC official warned that...

President Joe Biden’s administration is looking for ways to improve face masks — and will give out $500,000 in prizes to help do it. The Mask Innovation Challenge invites Americans to submit ideas to make masks more comfortable to wear and to eliminate “barriers to use,” such as discomfort, contact...

WASHINGTON — U.S. health officials have authorized two more over-the-counter covid-19 tests that can be used at home to get rapid results. The move by the Food and Drug Administration is expected to vastly expand the availability of cheap home tests that many experts have advocated since the early days...

A French pharmaceutical company on Monday was ordered to pay hundreds of millions of euros in damages and fines for its role in one of the nation’s biggest modern health scandals, with a Paris court finding the firm guilty of manslaughter and other charges for selling a diabetes drug blamed...

UPMC officials on Friday came together to make a concerted push for monoclonal antibody treatment for covid-19, strongly encouraging covid-positive individuals who are most at risk for hospitalization and death to ask for the treatment. Dr. Erin McCreary, an infectious disease pharmacist, described monoclonal antibodies as “copies of antibodies that...