Longtime nurse chief tapped to lead UPMC’s flagship hospital in Pittsburgh
A longtime champion for engaging front-line health care workers in executive decision-making will take the helm of UPMC’s flagship hospital operation at the start of next year. Sandra Rader — a seasoned chief nurse and vice president of patient care services before becoming chief operating officer — has been promoted...
‘Strong’ start to kids vaccine campaign, but challenges loomVideo
WASHINGTON — The campaign to vaccinate elementary school age children in the United States is off to a strong start, health officials said Wednesday, but experts say there are signs that it will be difficult to sustain the initial momentum. About 900,000 kids aged 5 to 11 will have received...
5 things to know about potential expansion of booster shots
Pfizer on Tuesday asked the Food and Drug Administration to give the go-ahead on covid-19 booster shots for anyone 18 or older. According to the Associated Press, the company is submitting early results of a 10,000-person booster study to back up its request. The study suggested a booster shot could...
Pfizer says its covid pill cut hospital, death risk by 90%
WASHINGTON — Pfizer Inc. said Friday that its experimental antiviral pill for covid-19 cut rates of hospitalization and death by nearly 90% in high-risk adults, as the drugmaker joined the race for an easy-to-use medication to treat the coronavirus. Currently most covid-19 treatments require an IV or injection. Competitor Merck’s...
Edgeworth doctor leading AHN team honored with a 3-star recognition
Dr. Benny Weksler is helping patients breathe a little easier. As system chief of thoracic surgery at Allegheny Health Network, the Edgeworth resident leads the lung cancer lobectomy surgery program, which recently was recognized for its work. Lung cancer is by far the leading cause of cancer death among both...
Covid vaccinations for kids begin in U.S.
Hugs with friends. Birthday parties indoors. Pillow fights. School children who got their first covid-19 shots Wednesday said these are the pleasures they look forward to as the U.S. enters a game-changing phase in fighting the pandemic. Health officials hailed shots for kids aged 5 to 11 as a major...
CDC gives final clearance to covid-19 shots for children 5 to 11
U.S. health officials on Tuesday gave the final signoff to Pfizer’s kid-size covid-19 shot, a milestone that opens a major expansion of the nation’s vaccination campaign to children as young as 5. The Food and Drug Administration already authorized the shots for children ages 5 to 11 — doses just...
FDA paves way for Pfizer covid-19 vaccinations in young kids
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration on Friday paved the way for children ages 5 to 11 to get Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine. The FDA cleared kid-size doses — just one-third of the amount given to teens and adults — for emergency use, and up to 28 million more American...
UPMC’s Dr. Kurt Weiss received grant for research on cancer he’s experienced
Kurt Weiss was supposed to go mountain climbing with the Boy Scouts. He never went. Little did he realize that there was another uphill challenge in front of him. Weiss’ right leg hurt so badly the day of that Boy Scouts’ adventure in 1989, his mother took him to the...
Merck agrees to let other drug makers make its covid pill
LONDON — Pharmaceutical company Merck agreed to allow other drug makers to produce its covid-19 pill, in a move aimed at helping millions of people in poorer countries get access to the potentially life-saving drug, a United Nations-backed public health organization said on Wednesday. The Medicines Patent Pool said in...
Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early covid-19
A cheap antidepressant reduced the need for hospitalization among high-risk adults with covid-19 in a study hunting for existing drugs that could be repurposed to treat coronavirus. Researchers tested the pill used for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder because it was known to reduce inflammation and looked promising in smaller studies....
FDA advisers back Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11
WASHINGTON — The United States moved a step closer to expanding covid-19 vaccinations for millions more children as a panel of government advisers on Tuesday endorsed kid-size doses of Pfizer’s shots for 5- to 11-year-olds. A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted unanimously, with one abstention, that the vaccine’s...
One Day to Remember creates memories for terminally ill Western Pa. parents and their familiesVideo
As an oncology nurse at Hillman Cancer Center in Pittsburgh, Rachel Antin saw the pain. A sick parent would give everything he or she had to get well enough to be with their children. Antin watched as families struggled to find time together, away from the chemotherapy and blood tests...
Explainer: Is it time to get a covid-19 booster? Which one?
Millions more Americans just became eligible for covid-19 boosters, but figuring out who’s eligible and when can be confusing. And adding to the challenge is that this time around, people can choose a different brand of vaccine for that extra dose. A number of factors, including the vaccine you started...
Salmonella outbreak tied to onions sickens more than 650
NEW YORK — A salmonella outbreak tied to onions has sickened more than 650 people in 37 states, U.S. health officials said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at least 129 people have been hospitalized. No one has died. Nearly all of the illnesses were reported in August...
Covid-19 vaccine: CDC panel backs expanded booster rollout
WASHINGTON — Millions more Americans are closer to getting a covid-19 booster as influential government advisers on Thursday endorsed extra doses of all three of the nation’s vaccines — and opened the possibility of choosing a different company’s brand for that next shot. Certain people who received Pfizer vaccinations months...
FDA approves mixing covid vaccines; backs Moderna, J&J boosters
WASHINGTON — U.S. regulators on Wednesday signed off on extending covid-19 boosters to Americans who got the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine and said anyone eligible for an extra dose can get a brand different from the one they received initially. The Food and Drug Administration’s decisions mark a...
Here’s what you need to know about the White House plan to vaccinate children
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Wednesday announced plans to get young children vaccinated against covid-19, a move health officials say will help curb the pandemic, save lives and stabilize the economy. “We’re completing the operational planning to ensure vaccinations for kids ages 5 through 11 are available, easy and...
How Pittsburgh set the stage for recent pig-to-human transplant surgery
A team of surgeons in New York reached a milestone last month in transplant medicine: A kidney from a pig attached to a human patient wasn’t immediately rejected — and the organ appeared to function normally. Announced this week, the procedure was performed at New York University’s Langone Transplant Institute....
Food Podcast: Halloween and checking food labels for bad sugarsVideo
On the latest episode of the Food Podcast presented by Clearview Federal Credit Union on the TribLIVE podcast network, the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank focuses on sugar. With Halloween right around the corner, kids, and lots of adults, will be eating a large amount of candy. “Halloween is a...
Pig-to-human transplants come a step closer with new test
Scientists temporarily attached a pig’s kidney to a human body and watched it begin to work, a small step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants. Pigs have been the most recent research focus to address the organ shortage, but among the hurdles: A...
U.S. regulators lay out plan for over-the-counter hearing aids
Health regulators on Tuesday unveiled their proposal to allow Americans to buy hearing aids without a prescription, a long-awaited move intended to make the devices more accessible to millions of people with hearing problems. The Food and Drug Administration said the proposed rule would cut red tape that currently requires...
Health clubs want you back. Here’s what they’re offering
Health club chains are pedaling hard to woo pandemic-weary consumers back to the gym. But some of the largest companies are taking different paths as the industry waits to see whether covid-19 infection rates recede enough to make consumers feel safe to resume communal workouts. Discount chains YouFit and Planet...
Covid-19 and pregnancy: Women regret not getting the vaccine
PHENIX CITY, Ala. — Sometimes when she’s feeding her infant daughter, Amanda Harrison is overcome with emotion and has to wipe away tears of gratitude. She is lucky to be here, holding her baby. Harrison was 29 weeks pregnant and unvaccinated when she got sick with covid-19 in August. Her...
Vaccine mix-and-match approach poised to get FDA clearance
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration is poised to clear the use of a covid-19 booster from a different manufacturer than the one that supplied a patient’s original inoculation, according to people familiar with the matter. The FDA is still considering the scope of the measure, including whether to...
