Health officials say seven people in three states, including children, have been sickened by E

Climbing stairs has been increasingly ingrained in exercise guidance, but it can sometimes be hard to find a place to do it

A former Colorado funeral home owner who helped her ex-husband hide nearly 200 decomposing bodies in a building is asking for leniency ahead of her sentencing in federal court

Conductor Juanjo Mena, former principal conductor of the Cincinnati May Festival, says he will retire this year because of Alzheimer’s disease

As the U.S. flu season winds down, health officials say the flu vaccine didn’t work very well

Cuba is grappling with a fast-growing wave of synthetic drug use that is hitting young people hard

A new study in the journal Nature Cities shows that as temperatures rise aboveground, the number of subway riders reporting uncomfortable heat belowground increases

Cuban officials are preparing to withdraw a medical brigade from Guyana after it moved to provide full salaries to the doctors and nurses instead of mostly paying the Cuban government

Losing an hour of sleep as daylight saving time kicks in can do more than leave you tired and cranky the next day — it also could harm your health

A Connecticut city has joined hundreds of others around the country that have installed new firehouse alarm systems that aim to reduce firefighters' stress when calls come in

Jamaica’s foreign ministry says it is ending a decades-long agreement with Cuba involving its medical missions

A Kenyan woman who survived breast cancer is knitting prostheses and training others to make them in a country where silicone ones are expensive

More than 150 Cuban medical staff have departed Honduras after the Central American country's new government abruptly cancelled the agreement

Experts say adults can help children cope with the latest conflict in the Middle East by making space for conversation, validating their feelings and limiting exposure to frightening or inaccurate information

The medical charity Doctors Without Doctors says 26 staff working with the group remain unaccounted for a month after attacks in South Sudan

This is a MedPage Today story. Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommend vitamin A for all patients with measles -- not just severe cases -- but experts warn that this shouldn't be seen as a replacement for vaccination. In a recent opinion piece for Fox News, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote that studies support the administration of vitamin A "under the supervision of a physician for those with mild, moderate, and severe infection" and that it can reduce mortality from the disease. He also indicated that the CDC had recently broadened its recommendation to use vitamin A in all measles cases, not just severe disease. While Kennedy appeared to support measles vaccination in that opinion piece -- he wrote that vaccines "contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons" -- he also noted that the choice to vaccinate is a personal one. Taken together, experts...

This is a MedPage Today story. A strike involving nearly 5,000 healthcare workers at Providence Health in Oregon, which began Jan. 10, has come to an end. Late Monday, eight RN bargaining units voted overwhelmingly to ratify their contracts and end the strike, which was believed to be the largest involving healthcare workers, and the first involving physicians, in the state's history, according to the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA), which represented the workers. Among the key provisions in the contracts were that nurses will receive wage increases ranging from 20% to 42% over the life of the contract, with an immediate 16% to 22% raise upon ratification, and that patient acuity will be factored into staffing plans. "As RNs, we believe that these contracts will lead to greater recruitment and retention of frontline nurses as wages become more aligned with other health systems, and we have staffing language that will allow us to spend more time with the patients that need the most...

This is a MedPage Today story. Public health officials are looking into reports of a small potential uptick in neurologic complications of influenza in children -- particularly a rapidly progressing and dangerous condition called acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE). Adrienne Randolph, MD, MSc, of Boston Children's Hospital, said she reported about 12 potential cases of flu-associated ANE to CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) in the past few weeks. Randolph's position as the leader of the Pediatric Intensive Care Influenza Network gives her particular insight into what's happening with influenza complications in children across the country. "There's not a study going on to say that these cases are all really acute necrotizing encephalopathy," Randolph told MedPage Today, urging caution about making preliminary conclusions. "That's why I informed the CDC about potential cases across the U.S. that I was made aware of. They can...

This is a MedPage Today story. A patient at Provident Hospital in Chicago allegedly stabbed an emergency physician in the chest. (FOX 32) A physician in the U.K. is facing a second hearing over sexual misconduct allegations that he talked to female patients in a "hypnotic way." (BBC News) A Florida nurse may lose her eyesight after a patient allegedly attacked her and broke nearly every bone in her face. A 33-year-old man has been arrested in the attack. (WFLA, NBC Miami) Nebraska family physician Jacob Smith, MD, has been accused of distributing child pornography. (KOLN) Missouri physician Sonny Saggar, MD, was sentenced to nearly 3 years in prison for healthcare fraud, after billing federal payers for doctor visits that were actually performed by assistant physicians. (KSDK) Five-year-old Thomas Cooper's mother watched in horror as he burned to death in a hyperbaric chamber that went up in flames. The family plans to take legal action in the coming weeks. (Detroit Free...

This is a MedPage Today story. Thousands of employees of federal health agencies have been let go in a chaotic and slow-rolling Trump administration purge over the holiday weekend. While the total number of dismissed employees appears to be smaller than originally expected, the changes sowed confusion as some staffers received termination notices over the weekend, while others waited for expected firings that never came. This includes members of CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service, a 2-year fellowship program that trains the next generation of "disease detectives." One employee from an agency within HHS who asked to remain anonymous described "chaos and confusion" as leadership "tries to sort this all out." Initial reports suggested about 5,200 employees across HHS agencies -- among about 80,000 total employees -- would be let go, but on Tuesday the totals were unclear. The focus was on "probationary" employees, or those generally within the first year of their...

This is a MedPage Today story. HAVANA, Fla. -- For a rural community, this town of 1,750 people has been more fortunate than most. A family doctor has practiced here for the last 30 years. But that ended in December when Mark Newberry, MD, retired. To attract a new doctor, Havana leaders took out want ads in local newspapers, posted notices on social media, and sweetened the pot with a rent-free medical office equipped with an x-ray, an ultrasound machine, and a bone density scanner -- all owned by the town. Local leaders hope the recruitment campaign will help attract candidates amid a nationwide shortage of doctors. "This is important for our community," said Kendrah Wilkerson, Havana's town manager, "in the same way that parks are important and good future planning is important." According to a Florida Department of Health report, doctor shortages affect all or part of nearly every county, but less populous counties, such as Gadsden, where Havana is located, have the...

This is a MedPage Today story. A new journal purports to improve the publishing process through open access and public peer review, but it was co-founded by researchers who challenged the U.S. response to COVID-19 -- including President Trump's pick to lead the NIH, Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD. Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, PhD, have founded the Journal of the Academy of Public Health, where "good scientists can publish whatever their studies conclude," Kulldorff said in a post on X. Kulldorff reported the backdrop for launching the journal in a perspective, charging that commercial publishers have a corner on the market, with universities paying "an enormous amount of money for journals that contain articles that are both written and peer reviewed by their own scientists, which they provide to journals for free." "As a result, scientific journal publishers have huge profit margins reaching almost 40%," Kulldorff stated in the perspective. Unlike traditional publishing,...

This is a MedPage Today story. Cleveland Clinic officials fired back at a conservative organization's "Woke Alert" attack ad that asked if the large health system was "the wokest hospital in America," saying the ad's claims are "riddled with inaccuracies and lies." The ad, by Consumers' Research, says clinic officials "prioritize care based on skin color, perform child sex changes, push transgender propaganda on vulnerable kids, insert DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] into everything they do, and spend millions on climate activism." The organization also seized on a sentence in a 2023 statement from clinic CEO Tom Mihaljevic, MD, in which he said "providing high-quality healthcare is only part of our mission." Consumers' Research said Mihaljevic's statement is evidence "the Cleveland Clinic is prioritizing woke policies over patients." The 30-second ad, titled "Exposed," is reportedly running on mobile billboards at the Ohio state capitol building, the Cleveland Clinic's...

This is a MedPage Today story. Artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to prescribe medications to patients -- if a new bill makes its way through Congress. The proposed legislation, sponsored by Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), would amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to clarify that AI and machine learning technologies can qualify as a practitioner eligible to prescribe drugs if authorized by the state involved and approved by the FDA. The bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in January. But Adam Rodman, MD, MPH, a hospitalist and director of AI programs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston, told MedPage Today that the technology is not nearly where it needs to be for this kind of prescribing. However, "[t]hings are accelerating so quickly," he added, "I don't doubt that we will be having this conversation," at some...

This is a MedPage Today story. A German physician who was arrested last summer on suspicion of killing four patients is now suspected of killing 10, and in some cases he allegedly tried to cover up evidence by starting fires. (AP) Pediatrician Anita Damodaran, MD, has been accused of animal cruelty after a March 2024 incident in which a cleaning woman found a malnourished dog inside a plastic storage bin in an apartment. Damodaran was reportedly being evicted from the apartment at the time of the incident. (FOX 32) Ohio physician Andrew Campbell, MD, was accused of setting fire to another doctor's home, and was placed on administrative leave from the University of Toledo Medical Center. (13ABC) Families involved in an ongoing investigation weren't happy to learn that the Virginia neonatal nurse accused of harming infants was granted bond. (WRIC) A student has sued the University of California San Francisco Benioff Children's Hospital over its internship program that supports...