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Gay Community Most Vulnerable to Monkeypox Threat, Vaccines Available Soon: CDC

At a Monday media briefing, U.S. public health officials said they are tracking a handful of travel-related monkeypox cases that have been reported across the country.

Anyone can catch monkeypox, but at this time it appears to be "circulating globally in some parts of the gay community," Dr. John Brooks, a medical epidemiologist with the...

1 Dirty Pool, Many Cases of E. Coli: Summer's Swimming Danger

MONDAY, May 23, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- As the weather warms and families flock to pools, dirty water may dampen the fun.

Swimmers at a Pennsylvania community pool learned that the hard way when in June 2021 more than a dozen kids were seriously sickened by two types of bacteria, and .

"These are pathogens that ...

Lower Incomes May Mean Lower Survival After Heart Attack

MONDAY, May 23, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- If you're poor and have a severe type of heart attack, the chance you'll live through it is significantly lower than that of someone with more money, new research shows.

The finding underscores the need to close a divide in health care that hits low-income people hard, said lead r...

Emergency Shipment of Baby Formula Arrives From Europe

A 35-ton shipment of hypoallergenic baby formula from Switzerland arrived in the United States on Sunday, the first delivery in what the Biden administration is calling "Operation Fly Formula" to deal with a nationwide shortage.

The 132 pallets of formula arrived in Indianapolis on a military C-17 cargo plane from Germany, and will be fed ...

3-Dose Pfizer COVID Vaccine Spurs Strong Response in Youngest Kids

Pfizer/BioNTech says a three-dose regimen of its COVID-19 vaccine appears to provoke a strong immune response in the youngest age group of children — those aged 6 months to 5 years.

This is the only age group not yet approved for COVID-19 vaccination by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. According to CNN, Pfizer said it plan...

AHA News: Monitoring Blood Pressure at Home Can Be Tricky. Here's How to Do It Right.

Knowing your blood pressure is a basic part of good health. But monitoring it at home can get complicated.

"It sounds easy – you buy a device, smack the cuff on your upper arm and push a button, right? It's not so easy," said Dr. Daichi Shimbo, co-director of the Columbia Hypertension Center in New York.

High blood pressure is a co...

What Is Monkeypox, and How Worried Should Americans Be?

A worrisome international outbreak of monkeypox, a less harmful cousin of the smallpox virus, has now reached the United States and Canada. As of Saturday, 92 confirmed cases of the illness, and 28 more suspected cases, have been reported across 12 countries, according to the World Health Organization.

Between 1 and 5 confirmed cases are c...

Repeat Infections With COVID-19 May Become the Norm

COVID-19 might be easing into a new status as a widely circulating and somewhat harsher version of the common cold, experts say — a virus that folks could contract repeatedly, even if they were recently infected.

"[SARS-CoV-2] is destined to join four of its family members and become an endemic coronavirus that will repeatedly infect ind...

U.S. Maternal Mortality Crisis Hits Black Women Hardest

With Roe v. Wade hanging in the balance and nearly half of all American states ready to practically ban abortion if the leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court stands, the realities of giving birth in this country are being put under a microscope, and for good reason.

"Today, [America] is considered the most dangerous developed na...

U.S. Rate for a Dangerous Pregnancy Complication Doubled in 12 Years

Rates of dangerous high blood pressure problems during pregnancy more than doubled in the United States between 2007 and 2019, a new study finds.

"The increase in pregnancy complications is alarming because these adverse pregnancy outcomes — including hypertension [high blood pressure] in pregnancy, preterm birth and a low birth weight ...

Poll Finds COVID Low on Parents' Summer Camp Checklist

When choosing a summer camp for their children, many U.S. parents prioritize location, cost and activities. Only one in 10 said COVID-19 precautions are important, a new survey reveals.

Among parents who said COVID-19 precautions would play an important role in their summer camp decision, three-quarters support mask and vaccine requiremen...

Gout Medicine May Also Help Fight Heart Failure

The anti-inflammatory benefits of a common gout medicine may help save the lives of heart failure patients, researchers say.

The medication, colchicine, could also reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in patients whose arteries are clogged with cholesterol, according to the study authors.

"The signal for benefit with colchicin...

Liver Transplants From Donors Who Overdosed Rose During Pandemic

Organs from donors who died of drug overdoses helped keep the number of U.S. liver transplants steady during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study finds.

"When the pandemic began, we saw no decline in liver transplants, which seemed surprising since many surgeries were canceled or postponed," said lead author Peter Lymberopo...

C-Sections Won't Raise Baby's Odds for Food Allergies

Babies delivered by cesarean section are no more likely to have food allergies during their first year of life than other infants, according to an Australian study.

The association between type of delivery and food allergy risk had been unclear, so researchers decided to take a closer look.

For the study, they analyzed data on more t...

The High Cost of Living With Sickle Cell Disease

Americans with sickle cell disease who have private insurance face average out-of-pocket costs of $1,300 a year and a lifetime total of $44,000, new research reveals.

That means that their out-of-pocket expenses are nearly four times higher compared to people without the inherited blood disorder, the new study found.

"Identifying way...

Spring's Double Trouble: Asthma Plus Seasonal Allergies

If you have both asthma and seasonal allergies, there are ways to reduce the impacts of that double whammy, an expert says.

People with asthma, a chronic lung condition, should try to control or prevent allergic outbreaks, said Dr. Miranda Curtiss, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.

It's 'Kids to Parks Day': Get Out, Get Active

It's a good idea to get children outside every day, but especially on Kids to Parks Day, a national day of outdoor play on May 21.

"Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, outdoor time and nature exploration are safe for most kids," pediatrician Dr. Danette Glassy said in an American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) news release.

"And ...

Mystery of Hepatitis Cases in Kids Deepens as CDC Probe Continues

Evidence continues to mount that a specific strain of adenovirus could be implicated in a wave of American children who've developed acute hepatitis of unknown origin, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said Friday.

"The evidence is accumulating that there's a role for adenovirus, particularly adenovirus 41," Dr. Jay...

Big Rise in Marijuana Vaping Among U.S. Teens

FRIDAY, May 20, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- A growing number of U.S. teenagers are vaping marijuana -- a habit that in some ways may be more risky than old-fashioned pot smoking, a new study finds.

Researchers found that between 2017 and 2019, the percentage of teens who reported any marijuana use in the past month ticked u...

AHA News: She Was a Prime Candidate for a Heart Attack, If Only She'd Realized It

Just a few days after Dottie Lewis and her husband, Wayne, returned from vacation to their home in Plymouth, Massachusetts, she started feeling poorly.

This was 2019, a year before COVID-19 shut down travel and before face masks on planes. Dottie often caught a bug while flying. She figured it had happened again.

Dottie was looking f...