Vending machines are the latest tool for fighting opioid overdoses
WASHINGTON — Vending machines that have long been stocked with snacks are getting repurposed to distribute life-saving supplies to help fight the opioid epidemic. A growing number of cities and local governments are making so-called “harm reduction” items, including the overdose-reversal drug naloxone, available for free via machines. Interest in...
Charleroi native opening fitness studio in Rostraver
Natalie Raitano has lived in New York and Los Angeles. The fitness expert has acted on television shows and trained numerous celebrities. But for her, there’s no place like home. Raitano moved back to Charleroi, Washington County, right before the pandemic in 2020 to be closer to her family. “I...
Former TV actress opening SUPERBODIES by Nat in Rostraver
Natalie Raitano has lived in New York and Los Angeles. The fitness expert has acted on television shows and trained numerous celebrities. But for her, there’s no place like home. Raitano moved back to Charleroi, Washington County, right before the pandemic in 2020 to be closer to her family. “I...
Washington & Jefferson to start offering bachelor’s degree in nursing
Washington & Jefferson College plans to start offering a bachelor’s degree in nursing starting in the fall of 2024. W&J leaders say the move makes sense, with nurses in high demand and the school able to partner with nearby Washington Health System’s Washington Hospital. The college plans to enroll 24...
New blood donation rules allow more gay men to give in U.S.
WASHINGTON — Gay and bisexual men in monogamous relationships can donate blood in the U.S. without abstaining from sex, under a federal policy finalized Thursday by health regulators. The Food and Drug Administration guidelines ease decades-old restrictions designed to protect the blood supply from HIV. The agency announced plans for...
As public health emergency ends, pandemic-era support programs have already been fading away
WASHINGTON — The formal end of the national Public Health Emergency on Thursday is largely a symbolic and psychological step, representing the country’s formal emergence from the covid-19 pandemic. But behind the scenes, several core aspects of America’s pandemic-era emergency safety net are also coming to a close, from extra...
Annual health fair in Unity livens up wellness, safety education
The excited shouts and laughter of third graders filled the halls of Charter Oak Church as students from four area school districts gathered Wednesday to learn from local health care professionals and community members at the annual Latrobe Area Hospital Aid Society Children’s Health Fair. The event, which began in...
Duquesne now allowed to recruit students to planned osteopathic medical school
Duquesne University is allowed to begin recruiting students to its planned college of osteopathic medicine, a significant step toward opening in the fall of 2024. The college rising along Forbes Avenue on the Bluff now has pre-accreditation status from the Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation, campus officials said Wednesday. The...
FDA panel backs over-the-counter birth control pill
WASHINGTON — Federal health advisers said Wednesday that a decades-old birth control pill should be sold without a prescription, paving the way for a likely U.S. approval of the first over-the-counter contraceptive medication. The panel of FDA advisers voted unanimously in favor of drugmaker Perrigo’s request to sell its once-a-day...
Start mammograms at 40, not 50, a U.S. health panel recommends
Women should start getting every-other-year mammograms at age 40 instead of waiting until 50, according to a draft recommendation from a federal task force. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has long said women can choose to start breast cancer screening as young as 40, with a stronger recommendation that...
3 ways Shapiro’s budget would change public health in Pennsylvania
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — When Josh Shapiro pitched his first budget as Pennsylvania’s governor during a nearly hour-and-a-half speech in March, the Democrat...
U.S. backs study of safe injection sites, overdose prevention
For the first time, the U.S. government will pay for a large study measuring whether overdoses can be prevented by so-called safe injection sites, places where people can use heroin and other illegal drugs and be revived if they take too much. The grant provides more than $5 million over...
UPMC cancer doctor invites patients to bicycle in the Rush to Crush Cancer benefit
Dr. Mounzer Agha asks his patients the normal questions of a physician, but there’s one additional inquiry he’s been making. “I have been talking to my patients about bike riding,” said Agha, director of the Mario Lemieux Center for Blood Cancers at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Shadyside. “Being a...
WHO downgrades covid pandemic, says it’s no longer emergency
GENEVA — The World Health Organization said that covid-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions of people worldwide. The announcement, made more than three years after WHO declared the coronavirus an...
Harmonicas for Health rehabilitation program is ‘exercise for the lungs’
A program at Allegheny Health Network is working to help patients breathe easier through music: patients spend 10-12 weeks learning to play the harmonica because playing it can help increase lung capacity. In its early stages, the Harmonicas for Health program is proving to be beneficial, said Kevin Nauer, manager...
CDC’s Rochelle Walensky resigns, citing pandemic transition
NEW YORK — Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, submitted her resignation Friday, saying the waning of the covid-19 pandemic was a good time to make a transition. Walensky’s last day will be June 30, CDC officials said, and an interim director wasn’t...
‘No Addict Left Behind’ details heartbreak of addiction and the hope of recovery
Joey Pagano sat on the sidewalk across from the Charleroi police station. The year was 2011. He called his mother, Cindy Pagano, and told her he couldn’t take it anymore. He had just robbed a gas station. He needed drugs. His life was unravelling. “I wanted to die,” Pagano said....
FDA weighing 1st over-the-counter birth control pill
WASHINGTON — U.S. health regulators are weighing the first-ever request to make a birth control pill available without a prescription. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration meet next week to review drugmaker Perrigo’s application to sell a decades-old pill over the counter. The two-day public meeting is one of...
38th annual Children’s Health Fair to be held in Unity
More than 500 third grade students will have a chance to explore robotic medicine, dental hygiene and other topics next week at the 38th annual Children’s Health Fair at Charter Oak United Methodist Church in Unity. The event is hosted each year by the Latrobe Area Hospital Aid Society in...
Covid dropped to 4th leading cause of death in U.S. last year
NEW YORK — U.S. deaths fell last year, and covid-19 dropped to the nation’s No. 4 cause, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. Covid-19 deaths trailed those caused by heart disease, cancer and injuries such as drug overdoses, motor vehicle fatalities and shootings. In 2020 and 2021,...
As covid health emergency ends, tracking methods change, too
When home covid tests first became available, they were flying off the shelves and customers often struggled to find them. Now at Mainline Pharmacy’s Harrison City location, home covid tests are available, but kept behind the counter. Erica McClain, pharmacy tech, said people come in to ask for them “every...
U.S. approves 1st vaccine for RSV after decades of attempts
WASHINGTON — The U.S. approved the first vaccine for RSV on Wednesday, shots to protect older adults against a respiratory virus that’s most notorious for attacking babies but endangers their grandparents, too. The Food and Drug Administration decision makes GSK’s shot, called Arexvy, the first of several potential vaccines in...
Brighton Rehab therapists preparing to go on 9-day strike, union reps say
Physical, speech and occupational therapists at Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center in Beaver County are preparing to go on a nine-day strike over claims of unfair labor practices, including what they say is the nursing home’s failure to bargain in good faith. During a news conference Wednesday afternoon, therapists represented...
Pink eye may be a sign you have covid: What to know about the new virus symptom
A common and relatively mild malady is yet another symptom people should watch for in the fight against covid-19, experts say. Conjunctivitis — commonly known as pink eye and typically brought on by a virus, bacteria or allergies — can be a symptom of a covid infection. And public health...
Is nurse shortage myth or reality? Question drives Pa. hospital staffing debate
Is a shortage of nurses preventing hospitals from hiring enough? Or is there a sufficient supply of nurses, but not enough willing to work in hospitals? That’s a central question in the debate over a proposed Pennsylvania law that would require hospitals to provide a minimum number of nurses for...
