Public health

Public health

From 2003 to 2022, annual overdose deaths in the United States rose from less than 26,000 to nearly 108,000-becoming the leading nonmedical cause of death, surpassing car accidents and gun violence combined. In Canada, overdose deaths increased almost tenfold in the same period. In both countries, the surge in deaths was supercharged by "synthetic" opioids such as fentanyl, the ultra-potent, lab-made narcotic that has come to dominate the supply of hard drugs.

In September, the USDA warned that an 8-month-old cow with an active NWS infection was found in a feedlot in the Mexican state of Nuevo León, just 70 miles from the border. The finding prompted Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller to step up warnings about the threat. " The screwworm is dangerously close," Miller said at the time. "It nearly wiped out our cattle industry before; we need to act forcefully now."

We live in a paradox. Never before has humanity had access to more information, faster. Yet our decisions, from what we eat to whom we vote for, what we watch and who we date, remain stubbornly resistant to facts alone. Public health campaigns armed with statistics fail to shift behavior. Climate science, however substantive, struggles to ignite action. Heavy economic data rarely changes minds about policy. The uncomfortable truth? We are not the rational creatures we pretend to be.

A spokesperson for the university confirmed the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI) will reopen and three people who were taken to St James' Hospital have since been discharged. The spillage took place at the TBSI on Pearse Street in Dublin city centre at 11am on Tuesday morning. "There was an incident this morning (11am) at the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI) on Pearse Street involving a chemical spill," a spokesperson said. "Three individuals were transferred to St James' Hospital."

Means is a Stanford Medicine graduate who dropped out of her surgical residency and has since made a career infusing spiritual beliefs into her wellness company, social-media accounts, and best-selling book. The exact nature of her spirituality is hard to parse: Means adopts an anti-institutionalist, salad-bar approach. She might share Kabbalah or Buddhist teachings, or quote Rumi or the movie Moana. She has written about speaking to trees and participating in full-moon ceremonies.

It was on [Dax Shepard's] podcast, and we were doing press ... Somehow the conversation derailed into bathing habits, and then we started talking about how we all don't bathe our children very often, and/or ourselves. Like, I shower every day, but I don't wash my hair every day. I don't find that to be a necessity,

Anna af Ugglas, chief executive of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) and one of the study's authors, said: Nearly 1 million missing midwives means health systems are stretched beyond capacity, midwives are overworked and underpaid, and care becomes rushed and fragmented. Intervention rates rise, and women are more likely to experience poor-quality care or mistreatment, she said. This is not only a workforce issue, it is a quality and safety issue for women and babies.

Nearly a quarter of hospitals in England have seen waiting times worsen since the government published its plan to tackle the backlog a year ago, BBC analysis shows. Hitting the 18-week waiting target for treatments such as knee and hip operations was Labour's key manifesto pledge for the health service, and last January it set out how it would get hospitals on track.

Everything on my Instagram feed at the moment is about worms and parasites, she told the Wall Street Journal, ominously adding: I don't know what the heck is going to come out. Maybe your social media feeds aren't full of posts about worms and parasites, in which case, congratulations. But type parasite cleanse into TikTok or Instagram and you'll be inundated with so-called experts peddling expensive herbal supplements that promise to detox the body and rid it of harmful worms and parasites.

Suzanna's Kitchen, a food processing company based in Georgia that focuses on homestyle and comfort foods, has recalled over 13,700 pounds of ready-to-eat grilled chicken fillets, according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service. The chicken may have been contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, the bacterium that causes listeriosis. The USDA made the announcement on January 16, 2026, but the story only received widespread attention several days later.

Last month, the World Health Organization updated its guidelines for GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Among the guidelines were several conditional recommendations, as well as a perspective that took the long view, temporally speaking. "Our new guidance recognizes that obesity is a chronic disease that can be treated with comprehensive and lifelong care," Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization's Director-General, said in a statement.That "lifelong" isn't said lightly.

Public health consultant Dr Ross Keat said supporting people earlier to make small preventative changes would make "a big difference later on". Some 3,500 people in the north of the island within that age bracket are eligible for the checks. The checks will be carried out by two pre-existing nurses that support GP staff and would not replace GP appointments, Keat explained, adding that the cost would be minimal and absorbed by Ramsey Group Practice.

A new norovirus strain, known as GII.17, spiked throughout the Bay Area last winter, according to wastewater monitoring that tracks disease trends. Experts say the strain spreads more efficiently than earlier versions of the so-called winter vomiting disease. Older adults are especially vulnerable, facing complications such as dehydration from gastrointestinal illnesses. As winter returns, the virus is again circulating, with high concentrations reported in the East Bay and on the Peninsula.

In some counties, vaccination rates increased after the pandemic, which got them past the recommended level of protection. Many more counties decreased their rates though.

Clothes, toothbrushes, hairbrushes, a teddy Although it should be two teddies, she re-evaluates, quickly. I can hear her trying to quell her panic. A diehard survivalist preparing for catastrophe? Actually, a beleaguered 44-year-old mother recovering from scabies an itchy rash caused by microscopic mites that burrow under human skin. Far-fetched as it sounds, emergency evacuation is exactly what she, her partner and children (six and four) resorted to in November in a desperate bid to beat the bugs.

During a routine exam, veterinarians found Baylisascaris eggs in the dog's system - the first such formal report of raccoon roundworm in a dog in county history, according to a Los Angeles County Department of Public Health news release. In 2024, two South Bay residents were sickened by the parasite, which can infect the brain, spinal cord and eyes and lead to eye disease and swelling of the brain.

'Old age,' Bette Davis once said, 'is not for wimps.' There's nothing wimpy about the formidable team of Terry Prone (77) and Fergus Finlay (75). The communications doyenne and the former Barnados CEO are about to launch Grey Matters, a new podcast which is billed as 'a long overdue conversation about ageing'.

States like Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia saw the most significant dips. "People have less access to care, and that tends to translate into worse health outcomes," said Matthew Fiedler, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. He added that many households' financial security is at risk: "People will face big bills that they either can't pay, and that hurts their credit. Or they do pay, but it requires them to skimp in other areas."

A drop in precancerous growths in women who hadn't received the jab suggests the existence of a 'herd effect' against the virus.

This systematic review and meta-analysis found no evidence that maternal paracetamol use during pregnancy increases the risk of autism spectrum disorder, ADHD or intellectual disability among children, says the study, which is published in the Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Women's Health. It has been undertaken by a team of seven researchers from across Europe, led by Asma Khalil, a professor of obstetrics and maternal fetal medicine at City St George's, University of London, who is also a consultant obstetrician at St George's hospital in London.

Adult literacy advocate Toni Cordell recounts the story of feeling comforted when her doctor told her that her medical concern could be solved with an easy surgery. She agreed to proceed without asking further questions and didn't understand the medical consent forms because she didn't read well. At a follow-up office visit a couple of weeks after the procedure, Cordell was shocked when the nurse asked, "How are you feeling since your hysterectomy?"

The group aims to begin piloting business certification in Southern California, the nation's silicosis epicenter, as early as this summer, according to testimony by ISFA's CEO Laurie Weber to California regulators Thursday in Sacramento. The audit and training program, which would be expanded statewide later in the year, aims to protect workers without banning artificial stone, she added. "We believe that bans happen when systems fail, and we're here to help fix the system," Weber said. "We want an opportunity to sit at the table and talk about how to solve this together."

The fact of the matter is, the ones that add a nice earthiness to a pasta cream sauce look entirely too similar to the ones that leave you curled up and dying in agony for me to trust any forager's eye test, a point driven home by California's ongoing epidemic/outbreak of mushroom poisoning cases, which in less than two months has left three dozen people sickened and resulted in multiple fatalities.

The Alaska Department of Corrections does not provide comprehensive access to this life saving medication. "I'm gonna give you a little pinch," Spencer said, sliding the needle into a fold of skin on the patient's belly for the subcutaneous injection. Alaska's not an outlier. Despite the fact that those recently released from incarceration are some of the most vulnerable to dying from drug overdose, addiction experts say that many jails and prisons around the country don't provide medication treatment.

From Africa to Latin America to Asia, babies have been carried in cloth wraps on their mothers' backs for centuries. Now, the practice of generations of women could become a lifesaving tool in the fight against malaria. Researchers in Uganda have found that treating wraps with the insect repellent permethrin cut rates of malaria in the infants carried in them by two-thirds.

This research shows we have an opportunity to support patients in a way that can be just as important as the surgery itself.

Almost 1 million Frigidaire minifridges are being recalled because they pose the potential to catch fire, according to a notice from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) released on Thursday. The notice expands an earlier recall from 2024. Canada-based Curtis International is recalling another 330,000 minifridges, on top of the 634,000 minifridges it recalled back in July of 2024.

The cameras aim to change driver behavior and slow traffic - ultimately reducing crashes and fatalities, making Oakland streets safer for all road users. The cameras can be found at  18 locations throughout the City. They can detect when a vehicle is traveling 11 MPH or more above the posted speed limit. When a vehicle is speeding, the camera captures the license plate and a warning is mailed to the registered owner.

In the past, researchers studying peoples' experiences with addiction relied mostly on clinical observations and self-reported surveys. But only about 5% of people diagnosed with a substance use disorder seek formal treatment. They are only a small sliver of the population who have a substance use disorder-and until recently, there has been no straightforward way to capture the experiences of the other 95%.

An NHS manager who siphoned off more than 120,000 from his trust, primarily to fuel a gambling addiction, has been handed a prison sentence. Alec Gandy, a senior operational manager at Dudley Integrated Health and Care NHS Trust, orchestrated a scheme involving fake temporary worker accounts, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) revealed. Gandy created fictitious roles for his friend, Matthew Lane, as a physician's assistant, and his ex-wife, Kaylee Wright, as a paramedic. He then authorised invoices totalling over 123,000 to be paid into these accounts.