Health

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- At Cleveland's Urban Kutz Barbershop, customers can flip through magazines as they wait, or help themselves to drug screening tests left out in a box on a table with a somber message: “Your drugs could contain fentanyl. Please take free test strips.”Owner Waverly Willis has given out... Read more

As smoke spreads from wildfires in Canada, health agencies are recommending steps to stay safe from bad air qualityByMADDIE BURAKOFF AP Science WriterJune 7, 2023, 3:00 PMHaze from northern wildfires obscures the rising sun as horses train ahead of the Belmont Stakes horse race, Wednesday, June 7, 2023, at Belmont... Read more

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Transgender minors and some adults in Missouri will soon be banned from accessing puberty blockers, hormones and gender-affirming surgeries under a bill signed Wednesday by the state's Republican governor.Beginning Aug. 28, Missouri health care providers won't be able to prescribe those gender-affirming treatments for teens and... Read more

Pope Francis has had three hospitalizations since he was elected pope in 2013, and underwent major surgery as a young man to have part of one lung removed. In between, the 86-year-old pontiff has suffered from bouts of sciatica, or nerve pain, that have made walking and standing difficult. More... Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday it has revoked a crucial federal permit for the proposed NewRange Copper Nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota, a project popularly known as PolyMet, saying the permit did not comply with the water quality standards set by a sovereign downstream tribe.The... Read more

NEW ORLEANS -- A judge's order that would eliminate requirements that health insurance plans include cost-free coverage of HIV-preventing drugs, cancer screenings and various other types of preventive care should remain on hold while it is appealed, the Biden administration argued before an appellate panel Tuesday. It's the latest legal... Read more

NEW YORK -- Two former executives of a company known for offering “orgasmic meditation” sessions have been charged with using sex, psychological abuse and economic exploitation to coerce work from people while taking over their lives, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.The case follows years of scrutiny and a recent Netflix documentary... Read more

The Human Rights Campaign declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. on Tuesday and released a guidebook pointing to laws it deems discriminatory in each state, along with “know your rights” information and resources to help people relocate to states with stronger LGBTQ+ protections.Sounding the alarm... Read more

TOPEKA, Kan. -- Abortion providers sued Kansas on Tuesday, challenging a new law requiring them to tell patients that an abortion medication can be stopped but also existing restrictions that include a decades-old requirement that patients wait 24 hours to terminate their pregnancies.The lawsuit filed in state district court in... Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Saying gender identity is real, a federal judge temporarily blocked portions of a new Florida law that bans transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, ruling Tuesday that the state has no rational basis for denying patients treatment.Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction, saying three transgender children... Read more

Sucralose, a chemical found in the popular zero-calorie sweetener Splenda, has been shown to cause damage to DNA, raise the risk of cancer and cause leaks in the gut lining, according to a new study from North Carolina State University.Splenda is used as a sugar substitute in thousands of foods,... Read more

People are turning to ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot from OpenAI, for everything from meal plans to medical information — but experts say it falls short in some areas, including its responses to appeals for help with health crises.A study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open found that... Read more

Potentially "practice-changing" results from two new cancer drug studies were introduced at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)’s annual meeting this week in Chicago.For lung cancer patients, a drug called osimertinib — taken by pill once daily — was shown to reduce the risk of deaths by more than... Read more

A blood test may help identify individuals at risk for Alzheimer’s before they show any signs of the disease, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Medicine.The blood test looks at the activity of star-shaped brain cells in the blood called astrocytes, according to researchers from the... Read more

The air quality in the New England states may be unhealthy for millions of Americans right now – especially for those with underlying medical conditions – due to a surge in Canadian wildfires in Quebec and northern Ontario, according to a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) press release. "Areas predicted to exceed... Read more

Adults over age 60 who want to stave off memory loss could benefit from taking a daily multivitamin supplement, suggests a recent study from Columbia University in New York and Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard in Boston."Daily multivitamin supplementation improved memory in older adults after one year, an effect that was... Read more

About 10% of all infants born in the U.S. in 2021 were preterm — which means they were delivered earlier than 37 weeks of pregnancy, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Preterm births also make up about 16% of infant deaths.Now, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis,... Read more

Record heat runs through Northeast FOX Weather’s Katie Byrne reports on the record hot weather in the Northeast and how some schools are dismissing kids early due to lack of AC on ‘Your World.’Up to 75% of Americans suffer from chronic dehydration, according to multiple studies — and this becomes... Read more

Jackie Miller James, a social media beauty influencer from Orange County, California, experienced a ruptured brain aneurysm just one week from the due date of her child’s birth, as announced via a GoFundMe account set up by her sisters. James, 35, was discovered by her husband, who rushed her to the... Read more

Adults who aren’t current on their COVID-19 vaccine booster doses may have "relatively little remaining protection" against hospitalization compared to those who haven’t been vaccinated at all, suggests a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study spanned multiple states and examined more than 85,000 hospitalizations... Read more