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Read article »Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News Spurred by decades of complaints about the high cost of hearing aids, Congress passed a law in 2017 to allow over-the-counter sales, with hopes it would boost competition and lower prices.
Read article »Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News Early in the tumultuous 2020-21 school year, Missouri officials made a big gamble: set aside roughly 1 million rapid covid tests for the state’s K-12 schools in hopes of quickly identifying sick students or staff members.
Read article »Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News As classes get underway this week and next, Montana school and county health officials are grappling with how a new state law that bans vaccine discrimination should apply to quarantine orders for students and staffers exposed to covid-19.
Read article »JoNel Aleccia, Kaiser Health News For years, Kayla West watched the opioid epidemic tear through her eastern Tennessee community. As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, she treated people with mental illness but felt she needed to do more to address addiction.
Read article »Aneri Pattani After Russell Jordan sent a stool sample through the mail to the microbiome company Viome, his idea of what he should eat shifted. The gym owner in Sacramento, California, had always consumed large quantities of leafy greens. But the results from the test — which sequenced and analyzed the microbes in a pea-sized stool sample — recommended he steer clear of spinach, kale and broccoli.
Read article »JoNel Aleccia, Kaiser Health News For months, Joelle Ruppert was among the millions of Americans who are covid vaccine holdouts. Her reluctance, she said, was not so much that she opposed the new vaccines but that she never felt “compelled” by the evidence supporting their experimental use.
Read article »Jordan Rau, Kaiser Health News Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen.
Read article »Jordan Rau, Kaiser Health News Cone Health, a small not-for-profit health care network in North Carolina, spent several years developing a smartphone-based system called Wellsmith to help people manage their diabetes. But after investing $12 million, the network disclosed last year it was shutting down the company even though initial results were promising, with users losing weight and recording lower blood sugar levels.
Read article »Jordan Rau, Kaiser Health News College is a time of transition, but for those managing chronic medical conditions, it may also be the first time they will be wholly responsible for their own health: setting appointments, securing supplies and pharmaceuticals, and monitoring symptoms.
Read article »Aneri Pattani This story is a collaboration between KHN and “Science Friday.” Listen to the conversation between KHN national correspondent Aneri Pattani and John Dankosky, Science Friday’s director of news and radio projects.
Read article »Aneri Pattani COACHELLA, Calif. — Leoncio Antonio Trejo Galdamez, 58, died in his son’s arms on June 29 after spending the day laying irrigation pipes in California’s Coachella Valley. News of his death reverberated through the largely Latino community near the Mexican and Arizona borders — another casualty in a dangerous business.
Read article »Aneri Pattani Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names.
Read article »Rae Ellen Bichell When the coronavirus hit Martha Leland’s Connecticut nursing home last year, she and dozens of other residents contracted the disease while the facility was on lockdown. Twenty-eight residents died, including her roommate.
Read article »Rae Ellen Bichell The child had just started kindergarten. Or, as her mother called it, “Russian roulette.” That’s because her school district in Grand Junction, Colorado, experienced one of the nation’s first delta-variant outbreaks last spring, and now school officials have loosened the rules meant to protect against covid-19.
Read article »Susan Jaffe The Biden administration’s plans to make covid-19 booster shots available next month has drawn a collective scream of protest from the scientific community.
Read article »Susan Jaffe President Joe Biden’s edict that nursing homes must ensure their workers are vaccinated against covid-19 presents a challenge for an industry struggling to entice its lowest-paid workers to get shots without driving them to seek employment elsewhere.
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Read article »Christine Herman, WILL / Illinois Public Media When he became eligible for the coronavirus vaccine in Illinois, Tom Arnold, 68, said he didn’t need any convincing. He raises cattle, hogs and chickens in Elizabeth, a small town in the state’s northwestern corner.
Read article »Christine Herman, WILL / Illinois Public Media Health departments nationwide scaled back their contact tracing in late spring or early summer when covid-19 cases started to decrease as vaccination efforts took center stage.
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