Mounting Covid Deaths Fuel School Bus Drivers’ Fears
GRIFFIN, Ga. — Natalia D’Angelo got sick right after school started in August. She was driving a school bus for special education students in Griffin-Spalding County School System about 40 miles south of Atlanta and contracted covid-19. One of her three sons, Julian Rodriguez-D’Angelo, said his mother, who was not vaccinated against the covid virus, […]
Low Wages and Pandemic Gut Staffing Support for Those With Disabilities
Ernestine “Erma” Bryant likes her job, but the pay is a problem. She works in a caregiver role as a “direct support professional” in Tifton, Georgia, helping people who have intellectual and developmental disabilities with basic functions such as dressing, bathing and eating. Bryant said it’s fulfilling work. “You can help people be successful — […]
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: The Autumn of Democrats’ Discontent
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on PRX. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Click here for a transcript of the episode. Democrats in Congress and the White House are feverishly negotiating to pass as much of President Joe Biden’s domestic […]
The Checkup Is in the Mail? Soliciting Letter Carriers to Help Deliver Health Care
Two of America’s toughest problems can be tempered with one solution. The baby boom generation is graying, creating an ever-larger population of older people, many isolated, whose needs the nation is ill equipped to meet or even monitor. Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal Service has gone $160 billion into debt, in part as digital communications have […]
California Moves on Climate Change, but Rejects Aggressive Cuts to Greenhouse Emissions
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As California trudges into another autumn marred by toxic wildfire smoke and drought-parched reservoirs, state lawmakers have cast climate change as a growing public health threat for the state’s 40 million residents. But they were willing to push the argument only so far. On Thursday, against the smoldering backdrop of Sequoia National […]
Public Health Experts ‘Flabbergasted’ That Biden Still Hasn’t Picked an FDA Chief
President Joe Biden’s failure to name someone to lead the Food and Drug Administration, more than 10 months after the election, has flummoxed public health experts who say it’s baffling for the agency to be without a permanent leader during a national health crisis. The pandemic has taxed the FDA, an 18,000-person agency whose chiefs […]
At an Overrun ICU, ‘the Problem Is We Are Running Out of Hallways’
BILLINGS, Mont. — Nurses fill the hospital room to turn a patient from his stomach to his back. The ventilator forcing air into him is most effective when he’s on his stomach, so he is in that position most hours of the day, sedated and paralyzed by drugs. Lying on his stomach all those hours […]
Will ‘Dr. Disinformation’ Ever Face the Music?
Earlier this month, Dr. Rashid Buttar posted on Twitter that covid-19 “was a planned operation” and shared an article alleging that most people who got the covid vaccine would be dead by 2025. His statement is a recent example in what has been a steady stream of spurious claims surrounding the covid vaccines and treatments […]
Congress Cites KHN Investigation in Probe of National Academies
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform is requesting a ream of documents from the prestigious National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, spurred by a recent KHN investigation that revealed deep ties between pharmaceutical companies and two members of a committee that took a pharma-friendly stance in a recent report on drug waste. The […]
‘An Arm and a Leg’: They Turned Grief Into Action
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen. In 2004, 24-year-old Manny Lanza urgently needed surgery for a life-threatening brain condition. But he didn’t have insurance, so his hospital refused to schedule the treatment — until it was too late. Manny died waiting. In the months that followed, Manny’s parents, Reynaldo Prieto and Levia Lanza, […]