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Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday recommended updating the Covid vaccines to target a circulating strain of the virus, while pushing for newer vaccines that provide longer-lasting protection. The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted unanimously in support of tweaking the shots to target an XBB strain, as well as dropping the original coronavirus strain from the formulation. (Lovelace Jr., 6/15)

Pfizer Inc. said it’s capable of making shots targeting Covid-19’s XBB.1.5 strain by the end of July if government regulators recommend it, while another version under consideration would take longer. (Griffin and Muller, 6/15)

The bivalent (two-strain) COVID-19 booster provides substantial protection against death among US adults aged 65 years and older, with no significant signs of waning for up to 6 months, concludes a study published today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly. (Van Beusekom, 6/15)

Two new studies show COVID-19 vaccines are safe in older adults and when administered simultaneously with non-COVID vaccines. Both studies are published in Vaccine. (Soucheray, 6/15)

Confidence in the scientific community declined among U.S. adults in 2022, a major survey shows, driven by a partisan divide in views of both science and medicine that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, 39% of U.S. adults said they had “a great deal of confidence” in the scientific community, down from 48% in 2018 and 2021. That’s according to the General Social Survey, a long-running poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago that has monitored Americans’ opinions on key topics since 1972. (Burakoff, 6/15)

A report based on multiple anonymous sources inside the US government says that researchers working inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) were the first to be infected with the virus that went on to trigger a pandemic and kill millions worldwide. The report in Public cites “multiple U.S. government officials interviewed as part of a lengthy investigation” saying that Ben Hu, who led WIV’s gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, was among the “patients zero” who contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus in November of 2019. (Mack, 6/15)

Scientists in Wuhan working alongside the Chinese military were combining the world’s most deadly coronaviruses to create a new mutant virus just as the pandemic began. Investigators who scrutinised top-secret intercepted communications and scientific research believe Chinese scientists were running a covert project of dangerous experiments, which caused a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and started the Covid-19 outbreak. The US investigators say one of the reasons there is no published information on the work is because it was done in collaboration with researchers from the Chinese military, which was funding it and which, they say, was pursuing bioweapons. (Calvert and Arbuthnott, 6/10)

The new allegations are based on “hundreds of documents” including confidential reports and memos, emails and scientific papers, as well as interviews with US State Department officials who have investigated the pandemic’s source. The report also claims that researchers from the Wuhan laboratory were taken to hospital with “COVID-like symptoms” in November 2019. (Bentley, 6/14)

The invite list for the White House’s upcoming “summit” on naloxone pricing and accessibility has some noteworthy omissions. Two of the most prominent organizations focused on providing cheaper overdose-reversal medications will be conspicuously absent from Tuesday’s event: Harm Reduction Therapeutics, a nonprofit drug manufacturer currently seeking approval for a naloxone nasal spray, and Remedy Alliance, a group that distributes cheap naloxone to harm-reduction groups across the country. (Facher, 6/15)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Opioid Settlement Payouts To Localities Made Public For First Time 

Thousands of local governments nationwide are receiving settlement money from companies that made, sold, or distributed opioid painkillers, like Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, and Walmart. The companies are shelling out more than $50 billion total in settlements from national lawsuits. But finding out the precise amount each city or county is receiving has been nearly impossible because the firm administering the settlement hasn’t made the information public. Until now. (Pattani, 6/16)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Find Out How Much Opioid Settlement Cash Your Locality Received 

Companies that made, sold, or distributed opioid painkillers are paying out more than $50 billion in settlements over nearly two decades. So far, more than $3 billion has landed in state, county, and city coffers. �������ýҕ�l Health News obtained documents from BrownGreer, a court-appointed firm administering the settlements, which show exact dollar amounts — down to the cent — that local governments have been allocated so far. Curious to see how much your locality has received? Click on the documents below. (Pattani, 6/16)

In its life-and-death battle against the drug epidemic, Kentucky has made gains in “breaking down the stigma” to reach out for treatment, Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday while releasing statistics showing the state’s overdose fatalities declined but remain staggeringly high. Kentucky had 2,135 overdose deaths in 2022, down more than 5% from the prior year and the first statewide decline since 2018. (Schreiner, 6/15)

The state of Minnesota is pumping $200 million over the next four years into fighting the substance abuse crisis. Supporters say the changes, which include a slate of new policies, are aimed at reducing overdose deaths and taking a more comprehensive public health approach to addressing substance use disorder and recovery. (Van Oot, 6/15)

Construction workers have nearly twice the rate of substance abuse as the national average, and the rate of suicide for men working in construction is about four times higher than that of the general population. “There were too many funerals that I went to for suicides, too many for overdose,” said Don Willey, who worked with Laborers' Local 110 for 37 years as both a laborer and as a business manager. “We have members that are grandparents that are raising their grandchildren.” (Woodbury, 6/15)

A former Eagle River nurse practitioner convicted on charges that she killed patients by overprescribing millions of opioid pills was sentenced Thursday in federal court to serve 30 years in prison. (Williams, 6/15)

Hospital revenues appear to be on the upswing as more patients receive care — which is welcome news for the hospital industry and not-so-great for insurers. Hospitals have been warning for months that their financial stability is threatened by inflation, labor costs and other factors in the wake of the pandemic, which could ultimately threaten patient care. (Owens, 6/15)

Older adults are catching up on missed hip and knee replacements and other non-urgent surgeries, a shift that will benefit medical device makers this year, Wall Street analysts said after insurer UnitedHealth warned of higher costs due to a spike in some procedures. While heart-related surgeries have returned to pre-pandemic numbers after delays due to lockdowns and hospital staffing shortages, orthopedic surgeries had initially lagged as older Americans chose to postpone them. (Mishra and Leo, 6/15)

Nearly half of 233 hospital and health system employees surveyed had to cancel or reschedule procedures at least quarterly in 2022 due to product shortages, according to a poll conducted from late March to  mid-April by Premier, a consulting and group purchasing organization. Health systems have been managing shortages for hundreds of products, ranging from intra-aortic balloon pumps to chemotherapy drugs. (Kacik, 6/15)

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and Mayor Sheng Thao appeared together in Oakland on Thursday to announce a program intended to boost the diversity of the nation’s health care workers. In brief remarks at Samuel Merritt University, Becerra said HHS’ new Health Workforce Initiative would ensure that medical students from underserved communities have the resources they need to succeed — and that those communities would benefit from their talent. (Castro-Root, 6/15)

Racial bias is everywhere in medicine, including the calculators doctors commonly use to predict a patient’s risk of disease and inform their treatment. A growing movement is encouraging medical specialties and hospitals to reconsider the use of race in those tools. But a new study shows that removing bias isn’t as simple as taking race out of the equation. (Palmer, 6/16)

A majority of Americans with health insurance said they had encountered obstacles to coverage, including denied medical care, higher bills and a dearth of doctors in their plans, according to a new survey from KFF, a nonprofit health research group. As a result, some people delayed or skipped treatment. Those who were most likely to need medical care — people who described themselves as in fair or poor health — reported more trouble; three-fourths of those receiving mental health treatment experienced problems. (Abelson, 6/15)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: What One Hospital’s Slow Recovery From A Cyberattack Means For Patients

In fall 2021, staffers at Johnson Memorial Health were hoping they could finally catch their breath. They were just coming out of a weeks-long surge of covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths, fueled by the delta variant. But on Oct. 1 at 3 a.m., a Friday, the hospital CEO’s phone rang with an urgent call. “My chief of nursing said, ‘Well, it looks like we got hacked,’” said David Dunkle, CEO of the health system based in Franklin, Indiana. (Yousry, 6/16)

New estimates provided exclusively to FiveThirtyEight by #WeCount — a national research project led by the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit that supports research on abortion and contraception — indicate that there were 24,290 fewer legal abortions between July 2022 and March 2023, compared to a pre-Dobbs baseline. These people might have remained pregnant or obtained an abortion outside the legal system, which would not be captured in #WeCount’s data. (Thomson-DeVeaux, 6/15)

Almost a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, 40 percent of women said they believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances, according to new polling from Gallup. The findings of the poll show how Roe’s fall shifted public opinion on abortion, leaving more Americans in favor of access to the procedure and critical of banning it. In 2019, Gallup found that 25 percent of Americans believed abortion should be available under any circumstances. Now, 34 percent of Americans, about 1 in 3, believe abortion should be legal at any point. That increase appears driven almost entirely by women. (Luthra, 6/15)

The Iowa Supreme Court is expected to release a major decision on abortion rights Friday. The court will determine whether or not most abortions can be banned around six weeks of pregnancy. Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. (Sostaric, 6/15)

There’s now one fewer place to access abortion in Utah after Planned Parenthood closed its only clinic outside the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. The Planned Parenthood Association of Utah said on Thursday that the Logan clinic has long been staffed with one provider, who left to take another position in March. The northern Utah city of 52,000 is home to Utah State University and about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Idaho, where abortions have been banned except for in cases of rape or incest since last year. (Metz, 6/15)

Ending a walkout that held up key bills for six weeks, Republicans showed up for work in the Oregon Senate on Thursday after wresting concessions from Democrats on measures covering abortion, transgender health care and gun rights. (Selsky, 6/16)

The new facility represents a dramatic abortion standoff and a stark expansion of abortion services in a region of wide-open range and sky. (Brulliard, 6/16)

Medical schools in states that have banned abortion can't teach abortion care. Sen. Tammy Baldwin wants to make funds available for students in those states to travel for the training. (Huang, 6/15)

House Democrats on Thursday called on Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Safeway and Health Mart to publicly commit to sell the prescription abortion pill mifepristone at their retail pharmacies. Pending lawsuits have jeopardized mifepristone’s approval in the U.S. For now, it is the most common method to terminate a pregnancy in the country. (Kimball, 6/15)

Vice President Harris will mark one year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with a trip to North Carolina to rally abortion advocates as the state prepares to enact its own ban on the procedure. Harris will travel to Charlotte, a White House official said, to deliver what is being billed as a “major speech” focused on the Biden administration’s efforts to protect abortion access and Republican efforts to push “extreme legislation” that would severely curtail access. (Samuels, 6/15)

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, the newest Republican to enter the 2024 presidential race, said he would support a 15-week federal abortion ban with rare exceptions, but stopped short of backing a six-week abortion ban. “Look, I think that the country is not there yet,” Suarez said in an interview with The Associated Press, when asked about a six-week federal abortion ban. (Fortinsky, 6/15)

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a major challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, upholding a landmark law long hailed by tribes for giving priority to Native American families in the adoption of Native children. The state of Texas and a group of non-Native foster parents had challenged the preferences as an infringement on state authority in child welfare policy and unlawful discrimination on the basis of race. (Dwyer, 6/15)

The law requires states to notify tribes when adoption cases involve their members or children eligible for tribal membership, and to try to place them with their extended family, their tribe or other Native American families. It was enacted to address historic injustices: Before the law took effect, between 25% and 35% of Native American children were being taken from their families and placed with adoptive families, in foster care or in institutions. The majority were placed with white families or in boarding schools in attempts to assimilate them. (Snow, 6/15)

Maternity care for Black women needs to be radically improved so that other pregnant women do not end up dying like 2016 Olympic relay champion Tori Bowie, track and field's most decorated woman Allyson Felix said on Thursday. Former 100 metres world champion Bowie, who won gold in the 4x100 metres relay at the Rio Games along with Felix, died aged 32 while she was approximately eight months pregnant and experiencing labour, according to an autopsy report obtained by U.S. media. (6/15)

When Lauren Jones was pregnant with her first child, doctors overlooked a leak in her amniotic sac because her description of the symptoms didn’t strike them as cause for alarm. The symptoms didn’t improve. So when Jones went back a second time, she took no chances — she lied and told them she was spotting. The doctors quickly determined she needed an emergency cesarean section. (Clason, 6/15)

Fathers matter. A new study — a rare effort that focuses solely on the father’s involvement in an infant’s life — shows a striking link between the support that dads offer and better infant outcomes. The research sought to answer several questions about paternal participation in breastfeeding and the use of safe sleep practices for babies. The results showed that fathers play a crucial role in both — and it highlights the need for bolstered parental leave policies in the United States, according to the study, which published Friday in the journal Pediatrics. (Wattles, 6/16)

Patients with HIV in the United States saw an increase in rare, deadly meningococcal infections last year, new preliminary data shows. Nearly 10% of all meningococcal disease cases in 2022 were among people with HIV, according to a report published Thursday afternoon by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Kekatos, 6/15)

Alcohol use has been linked to 61 different diseases, most of which had not been identified as having drinking-related outcomes by the World Health Organization (WHO), according to a new study. Beyond the more widely known conditions — such as liver cirrhosis, stroke and gastric cancers — a new study identified links to diseases including gout, cataracts, ulcers and some fractures, according to a press release announcing the findings. (Rudy, 6/15)

Several Arizona marijuana establishments have voluntarily recalled certain products over potential contamination with Aspergillus and Salmonella. Arizona is one of 23 states that has legalized marijuana for recreational use. ... Three samples that were positive for Salmonella—Cap's Frozen Lemon, Twisted Lemonz, and Ghost Train Haze—involved live resin concentrate. The one that yielded Aspergillus was plant trim, a product called Cherry Punch. (Schnirring, 6/15)

The US Food and Drug Administration yesterday warned consumers and retailers in Hawaii, Georgia, and Minnesota about certain frozen raw oysters imported from South Korea that may be contaminated with norovirus. Hawaiian health officials reported five illnesses in restaurant customers who ate the oysters, and norovirus GII has been detected in two product samples. Minnesota also reported five illnesses, likewise involving people who ate oysters at restaurants. The affected products were also distributed in Georgia. (Schnirring, 6/15)

Taking stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin without having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, the condition for which they are commonly prescribed, can result in decreased productivity, according to a new study. The medications have been widely used by people who don't actually have an ADHD diagnosis but believe they might boost focus or productivity. (Moniuszko, 6/15)

People who prefer to go to bed and get up later — a sleep chronotype known as being a night owl — may die early from bad habits they develop when they stay up late, according to a new study. (LaMotte, 6/16)

How old do you feel? Odds are the age you feel does not match up with the number of candles you blow out on your birthday cake. Middle-aged and older adults tend to feel younger than their chronological age, research shows. Many adults feel a few years to decades younger, and this may be a good thing. A younger subjective age is correlated with better overall health and can serve as a “biopsychosocial marker” predictive of healthy aging beyond chronological age, studies show. (Sima, 6/15)

Full-time workers nationwide need to earn more than $23 hourly to afford a modest one-bedroom rental, according to a new report. ... The report also found there are no states where minimum wage workers putting in 40 hours weekly can afford a modest two-bedroom rental. A worker earning minimum wage must work an average of 104 hours per week to earn enough to pay for it. (Barnes, 6/15)

The policy that the American Medical Association adopted this week to de-emphasize the use of BMI is part of a growing movement away from the single, weight-based metric and toward a broader way of assessing health risk through multiple factors. Yet it will take more than the giant physician group to displace the use of the body mass index throughout medicine. Reliance on the metric is ubiquitous in the ways health care is delivered and paid for — from surgeries to fertility treatment, from drug approvals to insurance reimbursement. (Chen, 6/16)

John Simon III was a hungry baby, a “chunky” toddler and a chubby little boy, his mother said. But by age 14, his weight had soared to 430 pounds and was a life-threatening medical condition. Nine months after weight-loss surgery that removed a portion of his stomach, John has lost about 150 pounds, boosting his health — and his hopes for the future. “It was like a whole new start,” said John, who will start high school in California this fall. (Aleccia, 6/16)

Telehealth companies, health insurers and pharmaceutical manufacturers are playing the blame game amid a shortage of popular weight loss drugs. Wegovy manufacturer Novo Nordisk said in May shortages of certain doses of the weight loss drug are expected to persist through September. The shortage of such medications known as glucagon-like peptide agnostics, or GLP-1s, also includes Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug Ozempic and Eli Lilly's Trulicity, according to a Food and Drug Administration database. (Turner, 6/15)

About 1 in 8 Americans over 50 struggle with an unhealthy relationship with highly processed food that goes well beyond the occasional binge or midnight snack, according to a recent poll. Known as food addiction, the condition isn’t limited to older adults — previous food addiction data had primarily centered around young- to middle-age adults up to around 50, said Ashley Gearhardt, lead author of the latest research by Michigan Medicine and a pioneer in the field of food addiction studies. (Rogers, 6/15)

In addition to Wisconsin and Minnesota, smoke from the fires was also detected over parts of Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and North Dakota, another map showed. “Smoke originating from Canadian wildfires continues to move southeast across Wisconsin,” the state Department of Natural Resources said. “People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion.” The smoke is forecast to push even further south over the next few days, dipping as far south as the mid-South by Saturday. (Smart, Ward and Elamroussi, 6/15)

Bill Goodman, a Weather Service meteorologist in Upton, explained in an interview on Thursday that the smog would not be as dense as it was last week, when New York’s skyline nearly disappeared in a thick, orange haze. This time, he said, the smoke “will be experienced as hazy skies,” and “the smoke at the surface should be negligible.” (Diaz, 6/15)

Smoke from Canada’s wildfires caused hazardous pollution last week in the eastern US. What are the short- and long-term effects? CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen explains. (Hetter, 6/14)

The fluoride feed in drinking water in the Greater Boston area has resumed after a three-month pause for construction, officials said Tuesday. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority said water fluoridation restarted on Monday. “Fluoridated water will be arriving at customer’s homes throughout the next week or so depending on the distance from the water treatment plant and local pipe network configuration,” officials said. (Armanini, 6/14)

The Southern Nevada Health District’s Mosquito Disease Surveillance Program identified the first West Nile virus-positive mosquitoes of the season in the 89074 zip code, where Henderson’s Green Valley development is located. Since kicking off in May, the health district’s surveillance program has tested over 7,000 mosquitoes with 1,100 traps set near parks, wetland areas, wash channels and other breeding grounds across the valley, according to the health district. (Lane, 6/15)

Bayer AG (BAYGn.DE) agreed on Thursday to pay $6.9 million to settle claims by New York Attorney General Letitia James that it misled consumers by advertising Roundup weedkiller, which has been linked to cancer, as environmentally safe. (Stempel, 6/15)

As extreme summer temperatures contribute to the uptick in blackouts across the country, a new study shows that when the two events coincide the public health risks can be profound, especially in the Southwest. The study, published last week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, found that if a multi-day blackout occurs in Phoenix, Arizona, during a heat wave, more than half of the city's population would require emergency medical care to treat heat-related illnesses, and up to 1% of the population – about 13,000 people – would die. (VandenEinde, 6/15)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: California Schools Start Hatching Heat Plans As The Planet Warms 

As hot days become more extreme and common, California education researchers are urging that school districts be required to develop heat plans to keep students safe, just as they have policies for severe storms and active shooters. A policy brief published last month by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation offers a series of recommendations on how education and building codes can help schools become more heat-resilient in the face of global warming. State Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat, introduced legislation this year requiring schools to have heat plans by 2027, and another bill would make it easier for schools to create more shaded spaces. (McMurray, 6/16)

The Biden administration is taking steps to make it easier for young people, particularly those affected by violence, to receive mental health services, part of a move to bolster federal gun-safety efforts with Congress unlikely to pass new legislation. The heads of the US Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services sent a letter to governors highlighting resources and efforts to help states support students’ mental health and well-being, and their work to jointly implement the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. (Gardner and Sink, 6/16)

Transgender athletes can’t play on Texas college sports teams that don’t align with their birth sex under a new law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday. The measure, which expands a similar effort passed in 2021, was among several passed during this legislative session that negatively impacted LGBTQ people — specifically transgender rights. It prohibits Texas’ public colleges and universities from allowing athletes to participate in intercollegiate competitions against students assigned a different biological sex at birth. (Torres, 6/15)

A federal judge heard arguments Wednesday on whether to temporarily block a ban prohibiting Hoosier parents from pursuing gender-affirming care for their transgender children. Plaintiffs represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana urged Judge James Patrick Hanlon to issue a preliminary injunction in the case stopping the new legislation, Senate Enrolled Act 480, from becoming law July 1. (Downard, 6/15)

Advanced Placement Psychology is the subject of the latest skirmish in the monthslong battle between the state of Florida and the College Board. The board said in a statement released on Thursday afternoon that several Florida school districts had raised concerns about the course, noting that its content may violate new state laws limiting how issues of gender and sexuality are taught. (Goldstein, 6/15)

The College Board released a letter Thursday putting its foot down on further demands from Florida to change any of its Advanced Placement (AP) classes, the latest development in the ongoing feud between the company and the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).“[College Board] will not modify our courses to accommodate restrictions on teaching essential, college-level topics,” the company told the Florida Department of Education Office of Articulation. (Lonas, 6/15)

A Colorado surgeon was convicted Wednesday of manslaughter in the death of a teenage patient who went into a coma during breast augmentation surgery and died a year later. Emmalyn Nguyen, who was 18 when she underwent the procedure Aug. 1, 2019, at Colorado Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery in Greenfield Village, near Denver, fell into a coma and went into cardiac arrest after she received anesthesia, officials said. (Planas 6/15)

Lankenau Medical Center said this week it is voluntarily closing its kidney transplant program at the end of July, citing a yearslong decline in the number of transplants at the hospital owned by Main Line Health. The number of kidney transplants at the Wynnewood hospital fell to 8 last year from a peak of 40 in 2016, according to federal data. (Brubaker, 6/15)

On a sunny afternoon, Carolyn Campos and Naomi Bates are midway through a game of checkers. They’re sitting in Campos’ apartment at a facility in Aurora for people who are 62 and older. The two women often finish each other’s sentences. They have an easy friendship, as if they’ve known each other a long time. Yet in fact, they just met in March after they were connected through the Senior Companion Program, which is part of Spark the Change Colorado, a volunteer, service and civic engagement organization. (Cleveland, 6/15)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: �������ýҕ�l Health News' 'What the Health?': Slow Your Disenroll 

More than a million Americans have lost Medicaid coverage since pandemic protections ended. The Biden administration is asking states to slow disenrollment, but that does not mean states must listen. Meanwhile, a Supreme Court decision gives Medicaid beneficiaries the right to sue over their care, and a new deal preserves coverage of preventive services nationwide as a Texas court case continues. Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join �������ýҕ�l Health News’ Mary Agnes Carey to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, �������ýҕ�l Health News’ Julie Rovner interviews Dan Mendelson, CEO of Morgan Health, a new unit of JPMorgan Chase, about employers’ role in insurance coverage. (6/15)

Some years ago, a psychiatrist named Wendy Dean read an article about a physician who died by suicide. Such deaths were distressingly common, she discovered. The suicide rate among doctors appeared to be even higher than the rate among active military members, a notion that startled Dean, who was then working as an administrator at a U.S. Army medical research center in Maryland. Dean started asking the physicians she knew how they felt about their jobs, and many of them confided that they were struggling. (Press, 6/15)

Doctors are generally held in high regard today, but Romans of the first century were skeptical, even scornful, of medical practitioners, many of whom ministered to ailments they did not understand. Poets especially ridiculed surgeons for being greedy, for taking sexual advantage of patients and, above all, for incompetence. (Lidz, 6/13)

In 1988, a 65-year-old man’s heart stopped at home. His wife and son didn’t know CPR, so in desperation they grabbed a toilet plunger to get his heart going until an ambulance showed up. (Silberner, 6/15)

It had been 174 days since lightning struck a tree across from the White House, where Amber Escudero-Kontostathis and three others were sheltering from the Aug. 4 storm. She was the only one who lived. ... Surging up through her foot, it fried her nervous system, stopped her heart and burned gaping holes in her body. For days, she couldn’t move. She had to relearn how to walk. (Wan, 6/12)

Beach wheelchairs are becoming more common at America’s shorelines, thanks to laws, government initiatives and growing demand by disabled travelers. The wheelchairs available at many public beaches either for rent or at no charge have PVC or steel frames and balloon-like tires. A three-wheeled version with a reclined frame lets disabled beachgoers float in the surf. (Angel, 6/7)

More than 50 years since the United States declared a war on cancer, the disease remains the second leading cause of death among Americans. According to federal data, cancer killed nearly 608,000 Americans in 2022, behind only heart disease. Yet researchers, oncologists and advocates say the scientific and political landscapes today are dramatically different than in 1971, when then-President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act into law. (Weixel, 6/12)

Mitchell Montgomery said he knew there was something curious about his new home when he moved in last year, surrounded as it was by empty streets and overgrown lots — and priced below the going rate for many rental houses in Niagara Falls. When he brushed his teeth, for instance, he sometimes noticed a peculiar smell coming through the drain. It seemed like his 8-year-old son’s asthma was getting worse, and his pregnant girlfriend was having occasional nosebleeds and headaches. (McKinley, 6/12)

Longevity researchers have spent decades hunting for a magic pill to slow the aging process. But the best solution—at least for now—may be the simplest one: Move more. (Janin, 6/12)

The grieving process is undergoing its own transformation, becoming a more public and shared experience. The shift is fueled in part by the pandemic, which forced a global reckoning with grief, and a generation of digital natives, who are at ease using social media to share virtually all aspects of their lives, including grief. (Zimmerman, 6/14)

The idea that trauma can be transmitted across generations — originating with long-dead relatives and passed down to future great-grandchildren — can be a difficult concept to grasp. But with regular news of mass shootings, covid deaths, police killings and climate disasters, a growing number of therapists and their patients, particularly among the millennial and Gen Z cohorts, are turning their attention to the far-reaching impact of trauma, past and present. (Zimmerman, 6/12)

Using a tactic known as “pay for delay,” brand-name drug companies who hold the patents to blockbuster medications pay other companies to put off introducing generic equivalents. This lets them keep charging high prices. (Sandeep Vaheesan, 6/15)

Every day, U.S. health-care facilities generate 14,000 tons of waste. One patient being hospitalized results in nearly 34 pounds of waste every day. Of that waste, up to 25 percent is plastic. (Leana S. Wen, 6/15)

I know three Black women who nearly died in childbirth. All were in their early 30s, in good health, and they had access to world-class medical care. But during their pregnancies they spoke of doctors who might have been well-intentioned but seemed more eager to allay their concerns than address them medically. (Renee Graham, 6/15)

I have had a stroke diagnosis. There is absolutely nothing intrinsically heroic about this — my father-in-law had a stroke last summer, and his cognitive function took a bigger hit than mine. In fact, I may not have any cognitive damage; I may never know about cognitive decline until such a thing prevents its full acknowledgment. (David Newman, 6/15)

The current push by Congressional Democrats to pass a federal law guaranteeing that states can’t prohibit the sale or use of contraception might sound strange on its face. Isn’t that already protected by the privacy rights implicit in the 14th Amendment? Yes, it is, the Supreme Court said in 1965. That was then. The same legal theory of privacy under the amendment’s “due process” clause undergirded the court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade — the one the current court’s conservative majority threw out last year. (6/15)

Doctors do not know exactly why or how breast cancer can go dormant in a patient’s body for so long, not advancing for years, until it suddenly begins to grow. But that’s what had happened. Without treatment, Ms. MacKenzie’s cancer would most likely have made its way to her vital organs and killed her. (Kate Pickert, 6/16)

This year, nearly 6 million dogs in the U.S. will receive a cancer diagnosis. That’s approximately three times greater than the number of Americans who will be diagnosed with cancer this year, even though humans are estimated to outnumber pet dogs by nearly 4 to 1. Yet the genetic similarities between human and dog cancers may point the way to treatments that can save lives on both ends of the leash. (Christina Lopes and James Zou, 6/16)