BOSTON — Boston firefighter Daniel Ranahan had heard about colleagues getting cancer but he was stunned when doctors discovered a large tumor in his chest. He was only 30 and had been in the Boston Fire Department less than a decade. Yet as he investigated his diagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma in October 2020 and sought [...]
The number of prescription opioid pills shipped in the second half of the 2010s decreased sharply even as a nationwide overdose crisis continued to deepen, according to data released earlier this week. The decline in painkiller prescriptions —dropping below the quantities sold in the mid-2000s when the overdose epidemic accelerated — happened after state and [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The leading decongestant used by millions of Americans looking for relief from a stuffy nose is likely no better than a dummy pill, according to government advisers who reviewed the latest research on the long-questioned drug ingredient. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration earlier this week voted unanimously against the effectiveness [...]
Rocks in Trader Joe's cookies. Insects in its broccoli-cheese soup. Pieces of plastic in Banquet frozen chicken strips. In recent weeks, consumers have seen high-profile food recalls for an unappetizing reason: They're contaminated with foreign objects that have no place on a dinner plate. While no one wants to bite down on stainless steel in [...]
DETROIT (AP) — The federal government is taking a step toward forcing a defiant Tennessee company to recall 52 million air bag inflators that could explode, hurl shrapnel and injure or kill people. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last week said it has made an initial decision that the inflators made by ARC Automotive [...]
DENVER (AP) — Christian Glass was a geology geek, a painter and a young man beset by a mental-health crisis when he called 911 for help getting his car unstuck in a Colorado mountain town last year. Convinced that supernatural beings were after him, he balked when sheriff's deputies told him to get out of [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators earlier this week approved the first RSV vaccine for pregnant women so their babies will be born with protection against the scary respiratory infection. RSV is known for filling hospitals with wheezing babies every fall and winter. The Food and Drug Administration cleared Pfizer's maternal vaccination to guard against a [...]
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — As millions of Medicaid recipients face the potential loss of health coverage for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic, state call centers are getting inundated with questions from people needing help. In some cases, federal officials say, it's taking too long to get answers. Nearly one-third of the states have [...]
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Children who lived close to natural gas wells in western Pennsylvania were more likely to develop a relatively rare form of cancer and nearby residents of all ages had an increased chance of severe asthma reactions, researchers said in reports released earlier this week. The taxpayer-funded research by the University of [...]
Patients who take blockbuster drugs like Wegovy or Ozempic for weight loss may face life-threatening complications if they need surgery or other procedures that require empty stomachs for anesthesia. This summer's guidance to halt the medication for up to a week may not go far enough, either. Some anesthesiologists in the United States and Canada [...]