WASHINGTON — Millions of people who enrolled in Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic could start to lose their coverage on April 1 if Congress passes the $1.7 trillion spending package leaders unveiled this week. The legislation will sunset a requirement of the COVID-19 public health emergency that prohibited states from booting people off Medicaid. The [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The lack of clear direction and priorities at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's tobacco division has hampered its ability to regulate electronic cigarettes and other products, according to an expert panel assembled to examine problems at the agency. A blistering report released earlier this week describes the FDA's tobacco program as [...]

NEW YORK (AP) — The number of deaths in the United States dropped this year, but there were still more than there were before the coronavirus hit. Preliminary data — through the first 11 months of the year — indicates 2022 will see fewer deaths than the previous two COVID-19 pandemic years, according the Centers [...]

Federal health officials have revised a tool to track the rising cases of severe obesity among children who were previously off the charts. Updated growth charts released late last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now extend to a body mass index of 60 — up from previous charts that stopped at [...]

DETROIT (AP) — A large study by federal highway safety regulators found that more than half the people injured or killed in traffic crashes had one or more drugs, or alcohol, in their bloodstreams. Also, more than 54 percent of injured drivers had drugs or alcohol in their systems, with tetrahydro-cannabinol (THC), an active ingredient [...]

Young women diagnosed with breast cancer often must delay pregnancy for years while they take hormone-blocking pills. A reassuring new study finds they can take a two-year break from these drugs to get pregnant without raising their short-term risk of cancer com-ing back. “This is really good news for young women and their doctors and [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Expedited drug approvals slowed this year as the Food and Drug Administration's controversial accelerated pathway came under new scrutiny from Congress, government watchdogs and some of the agency's own leaders. With less than a month remaining in the year, the FDA's drug center has granted 10 accelerated approvals — fewer than the [...]

As more nurses leave their jobs in hospitals and health-care centers, foundations are pouring millions of dollars into efforts to ensure that more stay in the profession and get more out of the job than just the applause and pats on the back they got during the bleakest days of the pandemic. Philanthropic pledges announced [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic sent Heidi Whitney's daughter into a tailspin. Suddenly the San Diego middle schooler was sleeping all day and awake all night. When in-person classes resumed, she was so anxious at times that she begged to come home early, telling the nurse her stomach hurt. Whitney tried to keep her daughter in class, [...]