Category: 4. Health

Elon Musk’s Latest Venture: Using Neuralink To Cure Blindness.

Last Thursday, Elon Musk engaged in a fireside chat with famed startup accelerator Y Combinator. During the discussion, when asked about his brain-computer interface (BCI) venture, Neuralink, Musk revealed the incredible progress the company has achieved. Perhaps the most key development that the technology titan shared is that the company will soon…

A once-obscure federal committee is now at the center of a political firestorm. This week the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which has helped guide national vaccine policy since the 1960s, will hold its first meeting since all 17 of its members were abruptly dismissed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The move—and the appointment of new members known for controversial views—has…

On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eliminated a nearly 50-year constitutional right to abortion and returned the authority to regulate abortion to the states.

The Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade, has vastly reshaped the national abortion landscape. Three years on, many states have severely restricted access to abortion care. But the decision has also had a less well-recognized outcome: It is increasingly…

In Philadelphia, the leading causes of death are heart disease, cancer and unintentional drug overdose. While some of these deaths are caused by things out of our control – like genetics – many are largely preventable.

Preventable deaths are the result of a series of decisions. Whether a person decides to smoke, eat lots of fried foods or be a couch potato, their decisions – sometimes unconsciously – can affect their health.

I’m a health communication expert and public…

Are patients being prescribed more medications not for their health, but to generate profit? A new economic study published in The Journal of Health Economics reveals that cancer patients treated by physicians participating in the 340B Program receive more medications—including those outside clinical guidelines—without improvements in survival.

The federal program, named after Section 340B of the Public…

The plastic pollution crisis has reached global levels, threatening both planetary and human health, and recycling is proposed as one of the solutions to the plastics pollution crisis. However,…

“Fungi gave us penicillin,” says Sherry…

The biggest names in health insurance, including Cigna, CVS Health’s Aetna, UnitedHealth Group’s UnitedHealthcare and Humana are…

Will AI replace doctors? A year ago, most physicians would’ve confidently answered “no.” Medicine, they’d argue, is too complex, too personal, too human to be handled by machines, no matter how advanced.

Now, that confidence is starting to waver. Physicians, like other highly educated workers, are watching what’s happening in another…

Researchers have discovered that the most aggressive melanomas, the deadliest form of skin cancer, overactivate two key processes in mitochondria, the components of cells that provide energy. Blocking these pathways with currently available drugs effectively killed melanoma cells.

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