Weight-loss drugs may lower cancer risk in people with diabetes, a study suggests
Excess body weight can raise the risk of certain cancers, leading researchers to wonder whether blockbuster drugs like Wegovy, Ozempic and Zepbound could play a role in cancer prevention. Now, a study of 170,000 patient records suggests there’s a slightly lower risk of obesity-related cancers in U.S. adults with diabetes...
How do you navigate new covid vaccine guidance? We asked the experts
A drastic shift in national policy recommends that only people 65 and older and others with certain health risks should get annual covid-19 vaccines, but at least one vaccine expert says the guidance raises as many questions as it answers. The Food and Drug Administration published its new policy Tuesday...
Joe Biden’s office says his ‘last known’ prostate cancer screening was in 2014
Former President Joe Biden’s “last known” prostate cancer screening was in 2014, and he had never been diagnosed with the disease before last week, his office said Tuesday. Biden’s aides released the new details about his diagnosis amid intense scrutiny of Biden’s health during his presidency and skepticism that the...
New Trump vaccine policy limits access to covid shots
WASHINGTON — Annual covid-19 shots for healthy younger adults and children will no longer be routinely approved under a major new policy shift unveiled Tuesday by the Trump administration. Top officials for the Food and Drug Administration laid out new requirements for access to yearly covid shots, saying they’d continue...
‘Dilbert’ cartoon creator says he has same prostate cancer as Joe Biden
The creator of the Dilbert comic strip, which was canceled by most newspapers two years ago over the creator’s racist comments, said Monday that he has been diagnosed with the same aggressive prostate cancer as former President Joe Biden. “I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has,” Scott Adams...
RFK Jr. pledged not to upend the vaccine system, but big changes are underway
WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. clinched the political support needed to become the nation’s top health official by pledging to work within the decades-old federal system for approval and use of vaccines. Yet his regulators are promising big changes that cloud the outlook for what shots might even be...
UPMC doc on Biden: ‘It’s impossible to screen your way out of advanced prostate cancer’
More than half of Joe Biden’s peers also likely have prostate cancer. They may not know it because they’re not showing symptoms and doctors generally stop screening for it at age 69. “We don’t often actively look for it at this age,” said Dr. Quoc-Dien Trinh, chair of the Urology...
Komen Walk in Schenley Park draws thousands touched by breast cancer
Tammy McMillan has been attending the Susan G. Komen More Than Pink Walk for years in support of loved ones affected by breast cancer. But she wasn’t so sure about doing this year’s 2-mile stroll through Schenley Park. The 56-year-old Penn Hills resident was diagnosed with breast cancer in November....
Providing health care in rural areas offers challenges for physicians
Dr. Richard Conn is well-versed in the challenges of providing health care in rural areas. The primary care physician has been seeing patients in Connellsville for the past 19 years. “For some (patients), preventive care is foreign to them. There’s a hesitancy to do things,” said Conn, 52, a Fayette...
Easily distracted? How to improve your attention span
MILWAUKEE — Feel like you can’t focus? Like you’ll never finish a book again? Like the only way to keep your mind and hands busy is to scroll on social media for hours? You’re far from alone. One body of decades-long research found the average person’s attention span for a...
FDA clears first blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease
U.S. regulators have approved the first blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, potentially making it easier to find and treat patients with the mind-robbing disease that affects nearly 7 million Americans. The test made by Fujirebio Diagnostics Inc., a unit of Japan’s H.U. Group Holdings Inc., was cleared for...
As Rite Aid collapses, customers and other pharmacies bear the impact
It takes Kathy Younkins just a few minutes to walk to her neighborhood Rite Aid. The 67-year-old has picked up her prescriptions at the company’s Harrison location since the 2000s. But now the Philadelphia-based pharmacy empire is crumbling. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month, blaming “the...
DeSantis signs a bill making Florida the 2nd state to ban fluoride from its water system
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a measure Thursday prohibiting local governments from adding fluoride to their water systems, making it the second state in the country after Utah to implement a statewide ban on the mineral. DeSantis signed the bill at a public event...
EPA announces rollback for some Biden-era limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking waterVideo
The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that it plans to weaken limits on some “forever chemicals” in drinking water that were finalized last year, while maintaining standards for two common ones. The Biden administration set the first federal drinking water limits for PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, finding they...
U.S. overdose deaths fell 27% last year, the largest 1-year decline ever seen
There were 30,000 fewer U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2024 than the year before — the largest one-year decline ever recorded. An estimated 80,000 people died from overdoses last year, according to provisional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Wednesday. That’s down 27% from the 110,000 in 2023....
Lawmakers question Kennedy on staffing cuts, funding freezes and policy changes at health departmentVideo
WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats alike on Wednesday questioned the deep staffing cuts, research funding freezes and drastic policy changes that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made in a few short months at the helm of the nation’s health department. Kennedy, who was to...
FDA, RFK Jr. aim to remove ingestible fluoride products used to protect kids’ teeth
WASHINGTON — U.S. health regulators announced an effort Tuesday to phase out ingestible fluoride supplements sometimes used to strengthen children’s teeth, opening a new front in Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s effort against a mainstay of dental care. The Food and Drug Administration said it will conduct a scientific...
UnitedHealth Group CEO steps down; suspends 2025 outlook on higher-than-expected medical costs
UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty is stepping down for personal reasons and the nation’s largest health insurer suspended its full-year financial outlook due to higher-than-expected medical costs. UnitedHealth cut its 2025 forecast last month following its first quarterly earnings miss in more than a decade. Shares of UnitedHealth, which have plummeted...
Trump signs executive order setting 30-day deadline for drugmakers to lower prescription drug costs
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday signed a sweeping executive order setting a 30-day deadline for drugmakers to lower the cost of prescription drugs in the U.S. or face new limits over what the government will pay. The order calls on the health department, led by Robert F. Kennedy...
At least 10 people sickened in U.S. listeria outbreak linked to prepared foods
SAN FERNANDO, Calif. — At least 10 people in the U.S. have been sickened in a listeria outbreak linked to ready-to-eat food products, and a producer is voluntarily recalling several products, federal officials said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Saturday that federal, state and local officials are investigating...
Zepbound beats Wegovy for weight loss in first head-to-head trial of blockbuster drugs
People taking Eli Lilly’s obesity drug, Zepbound, lost nearly 50% more weight than those using rival Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy in the first head-to-head study of the blockbuster medications. Clinical trial participants who took tirzepatide, the drug sold as Zepbound, lost an average of 50 pounds over 72 weeks, while those...
Trump promises to order that the U.S. pay only the price other nations do for some drugs
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he’ll sign an executive order on Monday that, if implemented, could bring down the costs of some medications — reviving a failed effort from his first term on an issue he’s talked up since even before becoming president. The order Trump is promising will...
2 bladder cancer survivors turn their journey into a lifeline for others
Bill Russell and Jim Rieker are survivors. Both diagnosed with bladder cancer, the men have made it their mission to help others with the disease through the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, the largest bladder cancer advocacy group in the nation. “When I was diagnosed, I didn’t know about the group,”...
Experts call Kennedy’s plan to find autism’s cause unrealistic
WASHINGTON — For many experts, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ‘s promise for “pulling back the curtain” to find autism’s causes in a few months is jarring — and unrealistic. That’s because it appears to ignore decades of science linking about 200 genes that play a role — and...
U.S. infant mortality dropped in 2024. Experts partly credit RSV shots
NEW YORK — The nation’s infant mortality rate dropped last year after two years of hovering at a late-pandemic plateau. Some experts think one reason for the drop could be a vaccination campaign against RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, which is a common cause of cold-like symptoms that can be...
