Health Wire

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra speaks about actions the Biden administration plans to take in response to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Tuesday, June 28, 2022, in Washington.

Biden health secretary pledges medication abortion access

June 28, 2022, 1:24pm Health

President Joe Biden’s top health official said Tuesday that “every option is on the table” when it comes to helping women access abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Read story

FILE - This 2003 electron microscope image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a monkeypox virion, obtained from a sample associated with the 2003 prairie dog outbreak. The U.S. government is building up its supply of monkeypox vaccine to contend with escalating cases identified in a surprising international outbreak, health officials said Friday, June 10, 2022. (Cynthia S.

EU regulator considers clearing smallpox shot for monkeypox

June 28, 2022, 8:22am Health

The European Medicines Agency says it will begin reviewing data to decide if a smallpox vaccine made by the pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic might also be authorized for monkeypox, amid a growing outbreak of the disease across the continent. Read story

FILE - A vial of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is displayed on a counter at a pharmacy in Portland, Ore. on Dec. 27, 2021. U.S. health authorities are facing a critical decision: whether to offer COVID-19 booster shots this fall that better match the omicron variant even though the coronavirus already has spawned still more mutants. Moderna and Pfizer are testing updated booster candidates, and advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will debate Tuesday, June 28, 2022, if it's time for a switch, setting the stage for similar moves by other countries.

U.S. grapples with whether to modify COVID vaccine for fall

June 27, 2022, 10:29am Health

U.S. health authorities are facing a critical decision: whether to offer new COVID-19 booster shots this fall that are modified to better match recent changes of the shape-shifting coronavirus. Read story

Students get lunch of homemade pizza and caesar salad at the Albert D. Lawton Intermediate School, in Essex Junction, Vt., Thursday, June 9, 2022. The pandemic-era federal aid that made school meals available for free to all public school students -- regardless of family income levels -- is ending, raising fears about the effects in the upcoming school year for families already struggling with rising food and fuel costs.

Families brace for changes to pandemic-era free school meals

June 27, 2022, 9:38am Health

Before the pandemic, there was no room in the budget for Kate Murphy’s children to buy lunch at school. She and her husband would buy in bulk and make bag lunches at home. So the free school meals that were made available to students nationwide amid the crisis have brought… Read story

Paul Hunter has taken to sleeping on the roof of his RV, parked along a stretch of NE 33rd Drive in Portland, Oregon. The interior is infested with rats, he says, as well as two rattlesnakes.

Sobering lessons in untying the knot of a homeless crisis in Portland

June 27, 2022, 6:05am Editor's Choice

Michelle Farris never expected to become homeless, but here she was, sifting through garbage and towering piles of debris accumulated along a roadway on the outskirts of Northeast Portland. Farris, 51, has spent much of her adult life in Oregon, and has vivid memories of this area alongside the lumbering… Read story

After years of pandemic weariness, world of nursing begins to recover

Registered nurse Jessalynn Dest looks across the room while treating a COVID-19 patient in the acute care unit of Harborview Medical Center, Friday, Jan. 14, 2022, in Seattle. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is deploying 100 members of the state National Guard to hospitals across the state amid staff shortages due to an omicron-fueled spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations. Inslee announced Thursday that teams will be deployed to assist four overcrowded emergency departments at hospitals in Everett, Yakima, Wenatchee and Spokane, and that testing teams will be based at hospitals in Olympia, Richland, Seattle and Tacoma.

June 26, 2022, 12:47pm Health

When Allan Kinyua arrives for his evening shift at the UW Medical Center near Northgate, the special care unit buzzes with energy. Staffers cart meals and medical equipment in and out of patient rooms, pausing occasionally to check records and doctor notes. Read story

A ‘sucker punch’: Some women fear setback to hard-won rights

FILE - Demonstrators gather at the federal courthouse following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, June 24, 2022, in Austin, Texas. Some opponents of the decision are feeling despair over the historic rollback of the 1973 case Roe V. Wade legalizing abortion. If a right so central to the overall fight for women's equality can be revoked, they ask, what does it mean for the progress women have made in public life in the intervening 50 years?

June 26, 2022, 12:30pm Health

At 88, Gloria Steinem has long been the nation’s most visible feminist and advocate for women’s rights. But at 22, she was a frightened American in London getting an illegal abortion of a pregnancy so unwanted, she actually tried to throw herself down the stairs to end it. Read story

Pregnant people of color more likely to get procedures they didn’t consent to, study finds

June 26, 2022, 6:15am Health

Black, Indigenous and people of color giving birth were more likely than white people to experience health providers coercing them to go along with procedures they did not want, or to have their lack of explicit consent disregarded altogether, according to a new study. Read story