Public health

Public health

From her student years at Radcliffe College where she volunteered with the Black Panthers to provide sickle cell disease screening in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, to her work on HIV prevention when she was on the faculty of the University of Zimbabwe, to her pioneering role on AIDS care in Africa as the Rockefeller Foundation's point person on health equity, to her tenure as the commissioner of health for both New York City and New York State,

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss what the so-called "Donroe Doctrine" means for international order after the US military extracted Maduro from Venezuela amid rumblings over Greenland and Cuba, the background and evolving situation in Minnesota after an ICE agent killed a woman during a raid, and how changes to the federal recommended childhood vaccine schedule dangerously denormalize routine vaccines with guest Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Professor of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

Well, there are also new alcohol guidelines to go along with it. The new guidelines remove the previous recommendation that men limit their alcohol intake to two drinks or less per day and women to one or less. Now, the guideline simply advises, "Limit alcohol consumption for better overall health."

The CDC says even moderate drinking can increase health issues; going above the line, even more so. It recommends no more than one drink a day, which means around seven a week, for women (the amount doubles for men). Based on the NIAAA's guidance, having four or more drinks in a day counts as binge drinking, no matter how spaced out the drinks are. This was a rule I also broke fairly frequently at parties and weddings.

There were 286 patients on trolleys in emergency departments yesterday

Endometriosis occurs when tissue like the lining of the womb grows in other places, such as ovaries, fallopian tubes and other organs. "The pain is excruciating, at its worst it's like barbed wire inside me and clinging to my organs. I am so ill I can often spend days in bed," Maguire said. She said she is furious that she is having to go through an early medicated menopause as she awaits surgery - a wait which she has been told could take several years.

Decades of research show that people who have more years of education, more cognitively demanding jobs or more mentally stimulating hobbies all tend to have a reduced risk of cognitive impairment as they get older. Experts think this is partly thanks to cognitive reserve: Basically, the more brain power you've built up over the years, the more you can stand to lose before you experience impairment.

Health and Human Services (HHS) General Counsel Mike Stuart has referred three children's hospitals to the agency's inspector general's office: Seattle Children's Hospital, Children's Hospital Colorado, and Children's Minnesota. Gender-affirming care for trans youth is legal in all three states. But HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last month announced that medical practitioners who provide gender-affirming care to minors are out of compliance with federal health care standards. Now, the agency is enforcing that declaration.

On Wednesday Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the U.S. Department of Agriculture released new official guidance that effectively overturns the food pyramid. The recommendations encourage Americans to eat real food and to consume more saturated-fat-rich foods such as red meat and whole-fat dairy. The dietary guidelines inform U.S. nutrition policy, shaping dozens of federal feeding programs, including meals for the military and school lunches.

Tanning bed use is tied to almost a threefold increase in melanoma risk, and for the first time, scientists have shown how these devices cause melanoma-linked DNA damage across nearly the entire skin surface, reports a new study published in Science Advances and led by Northwestern Medicine and University of California, San Francisco. Melanoma, the deadliest skin cancer, kills about 11,000 in the U.S. each year. Despite decades of warnings, the precise biological mechanism behind tanning beds' cancer risk remained unclear.

Driving with the heater on for an extended period can raise body temperature and reduce oxygen levels inside the car, causing fatigue and creating a false sense of comfort, which reduces reaction times and concentration levels. While there isn't a specific offence for drowsy driving in The Highway Code, this can be considered careless or dangerous driving, potentially resulting in an unlimited fine and three to 11 penalty points.

In the Philippines-where extended families share meals daily, church communities gather weekly, and people spend hours each day on social media-57% of citizens report feeling very or fairly lonely, according to Meta-Gallup's 2023 Global State of Social Connections report, the second-highest rate globally. Separate surveys suggest Filipino youth are among the loneliest in Southeast Asia.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has updated its vaccine recommendations, and it's quite different from the existing vaccination schedule. The biggest change is that fewer vaccines are now recommended for all children. The routine list went from 17 down to 11. Psst Check Out 3 New Health Care Laws: Here's What's Covered for New Yorkers The other vaccines aren't completely gone. Some will be recommended for kids who are at higher risk, and some will also be available to all kids