Author: Hill Castle
The Northeast Valley Health Corp. in Los Angeles County could be a poster child for the benefits of sharing health data electronically. Through a data network connecting its records system with other providers, the health center receives not just X-ray and lab results but real-time alerts when hospitals on the network admit or discharge its patients who have diabetes or asthma, enabling care teams to troubleshoot and significantly drive down emergency room visits. But Christine Park, the community health center’s chief medical officer, said that even with those achievements, data sharing is far from seamless: The hospitals visited by the…
Aaron Bolton, MTPR El biólogo Grant Hokit llegó a una pradera en las montañas de Condon, Montana, en busca de garrapatas. Un sendero cruzaba el campo lleno de pasto alto y arbustos con bayas. Mientras caminaba por el sendero, Hokit cargaba una herramienta hecha a mano con tubos de plástico pegados entre sí que sostenían un enorme rectángulo de franela blanca. Se burlaba de lo “sofisticado” de su dispositivo, pero el estudio científico era muy serio: pasaba la tela por encima de los arbustos y la hierba, con la esperanza de que las garrapatas se agarraran a ella. Durante el…
Ann Bauer, a researcher who studies Tylenol and autism, felt queasy with anxiety in the weeks leading up to the White House’s much-anticipated autism announcement. In August, Bauer and her colleagues published an analysis of 46 previous studies on Tylenol, autism, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Many found no link between the drug and the conditions, while some suggested Tylenol might occasionally exacerbate other potential causes of autism, such as genetics. Bauer, an epidemiologist at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, and her team called for more judicious use of the drug until the science is settled. On Monday, President Donald Trump stood beside…
Every day for nearly 18 years, Alessandra Fabrello has been a medical caregiver for her son, on top of being his mom. “It is almost impossible to explain what it takes to keep a child alive who should be dead,” said Fabrello, whose son, Ysadore Maklakoff, experienced a rare brain condition called acute necrotizing encephalopathy at 9 months old. Through North Carolina’s Medicaid program, Maklakoff qualifies for a large slate of medical care in the family’s home in Chapel Hill. Fabrello said she works with staffing agencies to arrange services. She also learned to give the care ordinarily performed by…
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ATLANTA — Public health officials watched with dread as a panel shaped by the Trump administration took up an agenda to begin dismantling six decades of vaccination development and progress. But while the result seemed foretold, the debate was far from unanimous. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, met at a satellite campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because the agency’s headquarters were still smashed up from a deadly gun attack last month by a man who said the covid vaccine had made him depressed and suicidal. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy…
Families filed nearly 23,000 federal civil rights complaints against schools in fiscal 2024, the highest number ever. That includes about 8,400 cases involving allegations of discrimination against students with disabilities, who have struggled to recover academically from the pandemic. Under federal law, public schools must provide children with disabilities a “free appropriate public education,” to give them the same opportunity to learn as other kids. But pleas for federal intervention are in limbo as President Donald Trump’s administration moves to dismantle the Education Department. The agency helps oversee schools and colleges and has the authority to protect students from discrimination…
Thank you for your interest in supporting KFF Health News, the nation’s leading nonprofit newsroom focused on health and health policy. We distribute our journalism for free and without advertising through media partners of all sizes and in communities large and small. We appreciate all forms of engagement from our readers and listeners, and welcome your support. KHN is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). You can support KHN by making a contribution to KFF, a non-profit charitable organization that is not associated with Kaiser Permanente. Click the button below to go to KFF’s donation page which…
A photo submitted to a federal court with an Exactech vice president’s affidavit shows a view of manufacturing of the Optetrak Logic finned tibial tray at Exactech’s Gainesville, Florida, headquarters in January 2022. In lawsuits filed across the country, patients argue the company failed to correct defects in the implant, allegations Exactech denies. (Legal filings from United States of America et al. ex rel. Brooks Wallace, Robert Farley, and Manuel Fuentes v. Exactech Inc.) Medical device manufacturer Exactech has agreed to pay $8 million to settle allegations that it concealed defects in a popular line of artificial knee implants, which…
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has had a busy few months. He fired the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, purged the agency’s vaccine advisory committee, and included among the group’s new members appointees who espouse anti-vaccine views. The leadership upheavals, which he says will restore trust in federal health agencies, have shaken the confidence many states have in the CDC and led to the fracturing of a national, cohesive immunization policy that’s endured for three decades. States and medical societies that long worked in concert with the CDC are breaking with federal…
The Host Fired less than a month after being confirmed as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Monarez appeared at a dramatic Senate hearing this week alongside another ousted CDC official and directly contradicted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s earlier testimony about why she was fired. Monarez told the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that Kennedy ordered her to agree to approve changes to the childhood vaccine schedule soon to be recommended by a CDC advisory panel, regardless of scientific evidence, and to fire senior career scientists who the secretary felt did…
Biologist Grant Hokit came to this small meadow in the mountains outside Condon, Montana, to look for ticks. A hiking path crossed the expanse of long grasses and berry bushes. As Hokit walked the path, he carried a handmade tool made of plastic pipes taped together to hold a large rectangle of white flannel cloth. He poked fun at this “sophisticated” device, but the scientific survey was quite serious: He was sweeping the cloth over the shrubs and grass, hoping that “questing” ticks would latch on. Along the summer trail, ticks dangle from blades of grass, sticking their legs out…
CHICO, Calif. — Olivia Owlett chose to do her primary care residency in this Northern California college town largely because it faces many of the same health care challenges she grew up with. Owlett is one of four residents in the inaugural class of a three-year family medicine residency program run by the local nonprofit Healthy Rural California. She is the kind of doctor the organization seeks to draw to the far north of California, a region with severe physician shortages. That’s because Owlett knows in her gut what a lack of health care means, having seen family members drive…
Susan Monarez, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Sept. 17 in her first public remarks since she was fired. Some Republicans on the committee accused her of lying and said she hadn’t been on board with the administration’s agenda. As in earlier hearings concerning Robert F. Kennedy’s performance as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, the focus was on Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who cast the deciding vote as HELP Committee chair to confirm Kennedy early this year. Since that vote,…
RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas — Jake Margo Jr. stood in the triage room at Starr County Memorial Hospital explaining why a person with persistent fever who could be treated with over-the-counter medication didn’t need to be admitted to the emergency room. “We’re going to take care of the sickest patients first,” Margo, a family medicine physician, said. It’s not like there was space on that June afternoon anyway. A small monitor on the wall pulsed with the vitals of current patients, who filled the ER. An ambulance idled outside in the South Texas heat with a patient waiting for a…
Trump administration officials, looking at the possible impact of large insurance premium increases for millions of next year’s Obamacare customers, want more people to consider plans with less generous benefits and high deductibles. The agency that oversees the ACA announced early this month that it would expand eligibility for “catastrophic” plans sold in Affordable Care Act online marketplaces. The plans require people to spend more than $10,000 a year on deductibles before the policies pay most medical costs but carry lower monthly premiums than other Obamacare policies. The move reflects growing concern among Republicans about political backlash if Congress doesn’t…
Tucker Jette lives for gaming, but like so many other recent high school graduates, he’s had to come to terms with the reality that he can’t make a living playing video games. And while he may not know yet exactly what he wants to do for a living, said Jette’s mother, Jessie Sather, he does know that earning money for a new computer to support his hobby is one of his top priorities as an 18-year-old preparing to step out on his own. How Jette can independently support such aspirations as an adult is something Sather and her son have…
Julie Appleby, KFF Health News Trump administration officials, looking at the possible impact of large insurance premium increases for millions of next year’s Obamacare customers, want more people to consider plans with less generous benefits and high deductibles. The agency that oversees the ACA announced early this month that it would expand eligibility for “catastrophic” plans sold in Affordable Care Act online marketplaces. The plans require people to spend more than $10,000 a year on deductibles before the policies pay most medical costs but carry lower monthly premiums than other Obamacare policies. The move reflects growing concern among Republicans about…
Penobscot County, Maine, is grappling with the largest HIV outbreak in the state’s history. Home to Bangor, a city of roughly 32,000, the county has identified 28 new cases over nearly two years. That’s seven times the typical number for that length of time. Nearly all cases are among people who use drugs and are homeless. Public health experts and local advocates say the outbreak is fueled by a confluence of on-the-ground factors: the sidelining and closing of programs that distributed sterile syringes to people who use drugs, a shortage of medical providers focused on HIV, and the clearing of…
Jackie Fortiér A key federal vaccine advisory panel whose members were recently replaced by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to vote to recommend delaying until age 4 the hepatitis B vaccine that’s currently given to newborns, according to two former senior Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials. “There is going to likely be a discussion about hepatitis B vaccine, very specifically trying to dislodge the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine and to push it later in life,” said Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “Apparently…
Hasta hace unos años, cualquier indicio de piojos solía ser suficiente para que mandaran al estudiante de vuelta a casa. Recién se le permitía regresar a la escuela cuando tenía la cabeza libre de bichitos. Pero las normas de “cero liendres” fueron reemplazadas por otras de “no exclusión”, que priorizan la asistencia a clase por encima de las molestias que representan estos parásitos del tamaño de una semilla de sésamo. Esa flexibilidad, sin embargo, empieza a generar problemas en algunas escuelas. Padres de Massachusetts, Texas, Ohio y Georgia les están pidiendo a sus distritos escolares que vuelvan a establecer reglas…
Cuando Judith Miller se hizo un análisis de sangre rutinario en julio, recibió una alerta en su teléfono ese mismo día indicando que sus resultados ya estaban disponibles en línea. Así que, cuando su doctor le escribió al día siguiente para decirle que en general todo estaba bien, Miller le preguntó sobre el nivel elevado de dióxido de carbono y la brecha aniónica baja que aparecían en el informe. Mientras esta residente de Milwaukee, de 76 años, esperaba la respuesta, hizo lo que cada vez más pacientes hacen cuando no logran comunicarse con su médico: ingresó sus resultados en Claude…