Zooming Into the Statehouse: Nursing Home Residents Use New Digital Skills to Push for Changes
Patty Bausch testified remotely before a Connecticut state legislative hearing on Feb. 23, 2021. (Connecticut General Assembly Aging Committee public hearing via YouTube) Patty Bausch isn’t a Medicaid expert, lawyer or medical professional. But she still thinks Connecticut legislators need her input when they consider bills affecting people like her — the roughly 18,000 residents […]
An Anti-Vaccine Film Targeted to Black Americans Spreads False Information
When a filmmaker asked medical historian Naomi Rogers to appear in a documentary, the Yale professor didn’t blink. She had done these “talking head” interviews many times before. She assumed her comments would end up in a straightforward documentary that addressed some of the most pressing concerns of the pandemic, such as the legacy of racism in […]
Women Now Drink as Much as Men — And Are Prone to Sickness Sooner
Victoria Cooper thought her drinking habits in college were just like everyone else’s. Shots at parties. Beers while bowling. Sure, she got more refills than some and missed classes while nursing hangovers, but she couldn’t have a problem, she thought. “Because of what my picture of alcoholism was — old men who brown-bagged it in […]
Hoy, las mujeres toman tanto como los hombres, pero sufren las consecuencias antes
Victoria Cooper pensaba que su consumo de alcohol en la universidad era como los de los demás. Shots en las fiestas, cervezas mientras jugaba al bowling. Tomaba más que otros y las resacas le hacían perder clases, pero así y todo pensaba que no tenía ningún problema. “Según la imagen que tenía del alcoholismo —viejos […]
Boeing Tested Air Purifiers Like Those Widely Used in Schools. It Decided Not to Use Them in Planes.
Aerospace giant Boeing tested two kinds of ionization technologies — like those widely adopted in schools hoping to combat covid — to determine how well each killed germs on surfaces and decided that neither was effective enough to install on its commercial planes. Boeing noted in its conclusion that “air ionization has not shown significant […]
Unused Johnson & Johnson Covid Doses Are Piling Up as FDA Waits to See if Shelf Life Can Be Extended
The Biden administration is encouraging states to hold on to hundreds of thousands of soon-to-expire covid vaccine doses from Johnson & Johnson, given the possibility that additional data will show the shots are viable beyond their expiration date at month’s end. Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told state officials […]
With Roots in Civil Rights, Community Health Centers Push for Equity in the Pandemic
In the 1960s, health care across the Mississippi Delta was sparse and much of it was segregated. Some hospitals were dedicated to Black patients, but they often struggled to stay afloat. At the height of the civil rights movement, young Black doctors launched a movement of their own to address the care disparity. “Mississippi was […]
Kidney Experts Say It’s Time to Remove Race From Medical Algorithms. Doing So Is Complicated.
Alphonso Harried recently came across a newspaper clipping about his grandfather receiving his 1,000th dialysis treatment. His grandfather later died — at a dialysis center — as did his uncle, both from kidney disease. “And that comes in my mind, on my weak days: ‘Are you going to pass away just like they did?’” said […]
With Restrictions Tightening Elsewhere, California Moves to Make Abortion Cheaper
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Even as most states are trying to make it harder to get an abortion, California could make it free for more people. State lawmakers are debating a bill to eliminate out-of-pocket expenses like copays and payments toward deductibles for abortions and related services, such as counseling. The measure, approved by the Senate […]
Trying to Avoid Racist Health Care, Black Women Seek Out Black Obstetricians
In South Florida, when people want to find a Black physician, they often contact Adrienne Hibbert through her website, Black Doctors of South Florida. “There are a lot of Black networks that are behind the scenes,” said Hibbert, who runs her own marketing firm. “I don’t want them to be behind the scenes, so I’m […]