The Columbian

Health Wire

A sign at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica.

Scientists explore using psychedelics to treat alcohol, drug disorders

January 8, 2023, 6:00am Health

Melanie Senn’s father, long dead, appeared to her as she lay back in the dimly lit room at the Santa Monica clinic, a mask over her closed eyes, and the psychedelic trip began. Read story

New drug slows Alzheimer’s but comes with caveats

January 7, 2023, 5:10pm Health

A new Alzheimer’s drug is hitting the market — the first with clear-cut evidence that it can slow, by several months, the mind-robbing disease. Read story

FILE - Zach Clapp, a nurse in the Pediatric Cardiac ICU at Mount Sinai Hospital signs a board demanding safe staffing during a rally by NYSNA nurses from NY Presbyterian and Mount Sinai, Tuesday, March 16, 2021, in New York. Negotiations to keep 10,000 New York City nurses from walking off the job headed Friday, Jna. 6, 2023, into a final weekend as some major hospitals braced for a potential strike by sending ambulances elsewhere and transferring such patients as vulnerable newborns.

NYC hospitals prep for nurse strike amid negotiations

January 6, 2023, 4:30pm Business

Negotiations to keep about 10,000 New York City nurses from walking off the job headed into a final weekend as some major hospitals were already preparing Friday for a potential strike by sending ambulances elsewhere and transferring some patients, including vulnerable newborns. Read story

Alzheimer’s drug that modestly slows disease OK’d by FDA

January 6, 2023, 12:05pm Health

U.S. health officials on Friday approved a closely watched Alzheimer’s drug that modestly slows the brain-robbing disease, albeit with potential safety risks that patients and their doctors will have to carefully weigh. Read story

. In 2022, the proposal from the unions, or the WA Safe + Healthy Coalition, called for strict ratios requiring a certain number of nurses to be on duty in comparison to the number of patients. Their proposal also called for better enforcement of meal and rest breaks for staffers, and ending mandatory overtime policies, among other policies. The legislation made it through the House, but failed in the Senate.

Washington hospitals, health care unions split on best way out of staffing crisis

January 6, 2023, 7:39am Business

Washington’s hospital system found itself facing financial losses approaching $2 billion by the end of 2022, but health care staffers and executives are hoping next week will bring opportunities for aid. Read story

What we know about the ‘kraken’ COVID variant XBB.1.5 and why it’s causing concern

January 5, 2023, 8:46am Health Free

A new COVID-19 variant that was first detected last year has quickly become the dominant strain in the U.S. — and picked up a creepy moniker along the way. Read story

FILE - First lady Jill Biden speaks in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex in Washington, Monday, Dec. 12, 2022, at an educator appreciation event with the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. Jill Biden will undergo a medical procedure next week to remove a small lesion from above her right eye that was discovered during a routine skin cancer screening, the White House announced Wednesday.

Jill Biden to have small lesion removed

January 4, 2023, 8:08pm Health

Jill Biden will undergo a medical procedure next week to remove a small lesion from above her right eye that was discovered during a routine skin cancer screening, the White House announced Wednesday. Read story

Moonlight Pulido stands by the shore at Harbor Lake Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022, in Los Angeles. California is paying reparations to victims, mostly women, who were either forcibly or coercively sterilized by the government. Pulido was sterilized while incarcerated in 2005.

California seeks sterilization victims to pay reparations

January 4, 2023, 8:17am Health

About 600 people alive today can’t have children because California’s government sterilized them either against their will or without their knowledge, and now the state is trying to find them so it can pay them at least $15,000 each in reparations. Read story

FDA finalizes rule allowing mail-order abortion pills

January 3, 2023, 5:18pm Health

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday finalized a rule change that broadens availability of abortion pills to many more pharmacies, including large chains and mail-order companies. Read story