Public Health

WHEATLAND, Wyo. — Brandon Graves said covid-19 arrived in Wheatland the way new movies do in this High Plains farming town: months after hitting the big cities and without much fanfare. “It kind of trickled in and it never really exploded here,” said Graves, a lifelong resident and mayor of the town of about 3,500, […]

SANTA ANA, California. – El banco de alimentos a veces ofrece carne de cangrejo congelada y otras “carne” vegetariana. Antes del 4 de julio tenía pocos productos y se anunciaba que estaría cerrado por dos semanas. Aunque nunca sabe exactamente lo que va a recibir, Lesli Pastrana está agradecida por el banco de alimentos Mercado […]

SANTA ANA, Calif. — One week the food pantry had frozen crabmeat; other weeks, deli meat or plant-based “meat.” The week before the Fourth of July, there was no meat at all, and a reminder that the pantry would be closed the next two weeks. Even though she never knows exactly what she’ll get, Lesli […]

It took five months for the Biden administration to make a substantive policy change to advance abortion rights. And even that change was buried in a 61-page regulation setting rules for 2022’s Affordable Care Act enrollment. The policy would reverse a Trump administration rule requiring insurers that cover abortion to send separate bills for that […]

Stephen Matthew Shumaker counted on in-home, in-person demonstrations to drive his water filtration business, which serves the Atlanta area. So when covid-19 hit and no one was inviting people indoors, he turned to the air-cleaning part of his operation. He sent cards in the mail advertising air purifiers using ActivePure technology to new homeowners: “KILL […]

The Food and Drug Administration’s approval in June of a drug purporting to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease was widely celebrated, but it also touched off alarms. There were worries in the scientific community about the drug’s mixed results in studies — the FDA’s own expert advisory panel was nearly unanimous in opposing its […]

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Dr. Rachel LaCount grasped a metal hoop at a playground and spun in circles with her 7-year-old son, turning the distant mesas of the Colorado National Monument into a red-tinged blur. LaCount has lived in this western Colorado city of 64,000 nearly her whole life. As a hospital pathologist, she knows […]

When the number of covid-19 cases among inmates in Pennsylvania state prisons last fall topped 1,000 and staff cases hovered in the hundreds, the union representing 11,000 corrections officers began lobbying to get prison staffers to the front of the line for vaccinations. John Eckenrode, president of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association, pressed state […]

When a parent takes an infant to the Children’s Health Center in San Francisco for a routine checkup, a pediatrician will check the baby’s vitals and ask how the child is doing at home. Then Janelle Bercun, a licensed clinical social worker, who is also in the room, will look at Mom or Dad and […]