The Columbian

Health Wire

Influential panel raises doubts on youth suicide screening

April 12, 2022, 2:59pm Health

An influential U.S. group is raising doubts about routine suicide screening for children and teens even as others call for urgent attention to youth mental health. Read story

According to Clark County Public Health, a cluster of fentanyl overdoses was identified in Clark County between Nov. 15-21, 2021.

Overdose deaths in Washington jumped 66% from 2019 to 2021

April 12, 2022, 2:58pm Health

New data shows the number of people dying from drug overdoses in Washington continues to rise, according to state health officials. Read story

FILE - Medical staff prepare to move the body of a deceased COVID-19 patient to a funeral home van at the Willis-Knighton Medical Center in Shreveport, La., Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021. Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in April 2022 confirms that 2021 was the deadliest year in U.S. history.

COVID-19, overdoses pushed U.S. to highest death total ever

April 12, 2022, 10:22am Health Free

2021 was the deadliest year in U.S. history, and new data and research are offering more insights into how it got that bad. Read story

Joyce Ares sits for a portrait in the dinning room of her home March 18 in Canby, Ore.

Can blood tests for cancer really help save lives?

April 12, 2022, 6:05am Health

Joyce Ares had just turned 74 and was feeling fine when she agreed to give a blood sample for research. So she was surprised when the screening test came back positive for signs of cancer. Read story

Workers in protective gear watch over residents line up for the COVID-19 test at a residential block, Monday, April 11, 2022, in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong province. The manufacturing hub of Guangzhou began tightly restricting departures and arrivals Monday as eastern China battles the country's latest major COVID outbreak.

Guangzhou closes to most arrivals as China’s outbreak grows

April 11, 2022, 8:19am Health

The manufacturing hub of Guangzhou closed itself to most arrivals Monday as China battles a major COVID-19 surge in its big eastern cities. Read story

Jim Schmersahl, owner of Halcyon Shades, poses in a "clean room" used in making N-95 masks at the company's production facility Friday, March 18, 2022, in University City, Mo. Halcyon is small company that normally makes window shades, but when the pandemic hit, its sales plummeted. Halcyon applied for the state grants to make PPE as a way to try to keep its employees at work and keep the company afloat.

Efforts to make protective medical gear in U.S. falling flat

April 11, 2022, 8:08am Business

When the coronavirus pandemic first hit the U.S., sales of window coverings at Halcyon Shades quickly went dark. So the suburban St. Louis business did what hundreds of other small manufacturers did: It pivoted to make protective supplies, with help from an $870,000 government grant. Read story

Rob Purdie, left, who has valley fever, checks in with his doctor at the same clinic where he serves as the Program Development Coordinator at the Valley Fever Institute at Kern Medical on March 22, 2022, in Bakersfield, California. Infectious Disease Physician Dr. Arash Heidari examines the port on Rob's head that is used to deliver medicine to treat his Valley Fever.

‘Superblooms of fungus’: How climate change is making valley fever worse

April 11, 2022, 6:05am Health

“On a pain scale of one to 10, it was a 10,” Scott Shirley recalled. “The worst pain I’ve ever felt.” Read story

Mann-Grandstaff Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Spokane.

Tech glitches at Spokane VA site raise concerns about nationwide rollout

April 11, 2022, 6:00am Health

Spokane, Washington, was supposed to be the center of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ tech reinvention, the first site in the agency’s decade-long project to change its medical records software. But one morning in early March, the latest system malfunction made some clinicians snap. Read story

A staff member distributes free traditional Chinese medicine amid a rise in COVID-19 coronavirus cases across the country in Sihong, Suqian city, in China's eastern Jiangsu province, on Aug. 1, 2021.

China promotes traditional cures as Pfizer pill alternatives

April 10, 2022, 6:05am Health

As Hong Kong’s outbreak became the deadliest in the world, among the aid Beijing sent to the financial hub were 1 million packets of honeysuckle, rhubarb root, sweet wormwood herb and other natural ingredients, all mixed according to principles of traditional Chinese medicine. Read story