KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Vaccine Approval Moves the Needle on Covid
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. The Food and Drug Administration gave full approval this week to the covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, which […]
These Governors Push Experimental Antibody Therapy — But Shun Vaccine and Mask Mandates
For months, Joelle Ruppert was among the millions of Americans who are covid vaccine holdouts. Her reluctance, she said, was not so much that she opposed the new vaccines but that she never felt “compelled” by the evidence supporting their experimental use. Nonetheless, after she fell ill with covid last month, Ruppert, a Florida preschool […]
From Uber Rides to Patient Advocates: What It Takes to Increase ER Addiction Treatment
[UPDATED on Aug. 27] For years, Kayla West watched the opioid epidemic tear through her eastern Tennessee community. As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, she treated people with mental illness but felt she needed to do more to address addiction. So in 2020, when the state created a position to help hospitals improve addiction care in […]
Pandemia revela una creciente crisis de suicidios en comunidades de color
Rafiah Maxie ha sido trabajadora social clínica en el área de Chicago durante una década. En todo ese tiempo, vio al suicidio como un problema más frecuente entre los hombres caucásicos de mediana edad. Hasta el 27 de mayo de 2020. Ese día, su hijo de 19 años, Jamal Clay, a quien le encantaba tocar […]
‘An Arm and a Leg’: Meet the Mississippi Lawyer Who Helped Start the Fight for Charity Care
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen. Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, famous for taking on Big Tobacco in the ’90s and winning, worked on a series of ill-fated national lawsuits against nonprofit hospitals. The goal? Get nonprofit — or “charity” — hospitals to actually provide charity care instead of price-gouging and dunning low-income patients. Scruggs […]
Readers and Tweeters Ponder Vaccines and Points of Fairness
Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. Higher Insurance Rates for the Unvaccinated? Snuff Out That Idea This is about Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal’s comments on “All In With Chris Hayes” (“Analysis: Don’t Want a Vaccine? Be Prepared to […]
As Temperatures Rise, So Do the Health Risks for California’s Farmworkers
COACHELLA, Calif. — Leoncio Antonio Trejo Galdamez, 58, died in his son’s arms on June 29 after spending the day laying irrigation pipes in California’s Coachella Valley. News of his death reverberated through the largely Latino community near the Mexican and Arizona borders — another casualty in a dangerous business. “Farmworkers are at the front […]
Pandemic Unveils Growing Suicide Crisis for Communities of Color
This story is a collaboration between KHN and “Science Friday.” Listen to the conversation between KHN national correspondent Aneri Pattani and John Dankosky, Science Friday’s director of news and radio projects. Rafiah Maxie has been a licensed clinical social worker in the Chicago area for a decade. Throughout that time, she’d viewed suicide as a problem […]
Temperaturas extremas aumentan los riesgos de salud de los trabajadores agrícolas
COACHELLA, California. — Leoncio Antonio Trejo Galdamez, de 58 años, murió en brazos de su hijo el 29 de junio después de pasar el día colocando tuberías de riego en el Valle de Coachella, en California. Otra víctima de un negocio peligroso, la noticia de su muerte resonó en la comunidad mayoritariamente latina cerca de […]
Journalists Investigate Vaccine Mandates and Health Worker Burnout
KHN Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber discussed how public health workers are struggling to deal with the pandemic on the “Healthy You: Surviving a Pandemic” podcast on Aug. 12. She also spoke about covid-19 news on WAMU’s “1A” on Aug. 13. Click here to hear Weber on “Health You: Surviving a Pandemic” Click here to hear […]