SAN DIEGO — Kerri De Nies received the news this spring from her son’s pediatrician: Her chubby-cheeked toddler had a rare brain disorder. She’d never heard of the disease — adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD — and she soon felt devastated and overwhelmed. “I probably read everything you could possibly read online — every single website,” De […]
Esta primavera, Terri De Nies, de San Diego, California, recibió la noticia al hablar con el pediatra de su hijo: su pequeño sufría de un trastorno cerebral poco común. Nunca había oído hablar de la enfermedad -adrenoleucodistrofia, o ALD- y se sintió devastada y abrumada. “Probablemente leí todo lo que podía leer en internet: cada […]
On Friday, the Trump administration announced new regulations governing contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The rules will make sweeping changes to the law’s requirement that most employers provide coverage of birth control with no out-of-pocket costs to women. The changes were hailed by religious groups, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which […]
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Every day, Anna Denny encounters people who know their way around a joint. Denny owns Elevated 916, a smoke shop in north Sacramento that sells tobacco products and smoking accessories. But many of her customers don’t limit their smoking to tobacco. Because they’ve been there, done that, Denny just can’t imagine them […]
Just four hours earlier, Sallie Cutler had been sharing Mother’s Day lunch with her mom, Alyce Cheatham. Then, that same evening, Cheatham, 96, landed in a Portland, Ore., emergency room, lethargic, unable to speak and paralyzed on her right side by a massive stroke. Cutler now admits her first impulse was to demand action. “It’s, […]
If a hurricane strikes where you live, how does it affect your health and well-being? In this Kaiser Health News video, senior correspondent Julie Appleby and Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, discuss the ongoing public and environmental health concerns resulting from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria — and the […]
Days before there was any sign of fire, Nicole and Ben Veum of Santa Rosa, Calif., had been waiting and waiting for their baby to arrive. Nicole’s due date came and went. Her doctor called her into the hospital — Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital — to induce labor. That was Friday. “So we were very […]
They were asleep when the fire reached their home. Charles Rippey, 100, and his wife, Sara, 98, had been married 75 years. They died together, after a caregiver struggled to save them but couldn’t get them out in time. A 27-year-old woman had spina bifida and used a wheelchair. In the hours after the fires […]
Julayne Smithson was working an overnight shift in the Intensive Care Unit at the Kaiser Permanente hospital in Santa Rosa, Calif., when massive wildfires started racing through the city. Smithson had no idea how close they were. She was too busy taking care of her patient. “One of the nurses came up to me and […]
Few people were surprised last week when the Trump administration issued a rule to make it easier for some religious employers to opt out of offering no-cost prescription birth control to their female employees under the Affordable Care Act. But a separate regulation issued at the same time raised eyebrows. It creates a new exemption […]
