Tag: your-feed-science

Immunotherapy Drug Spares Cancer Patients From Grisly Surgeries and Harsh Therapies

When a person develops solid tumors in the stomach or esophagus or rectum, oncologists know how to treat them. But the cures often come with severe effects on quality of life. That can include removal of the stomach or bladder, a permanent colostomy bag, radiation that makes patients infertile and lasting damage from chemotherapy. So […]

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‘Vaguely Threatening’: Federal Prosecutor Queries Leading Medical Journal

A federal prosecutor in Washington has contacted The New England Journal of Medicine, considered the world’s most prestigious medical journal, with questions that suggested without evidence that it was biased against certain views and influenced by external pressures. Dr. Eric Rubin, the editor in chief of N.E.J.M., described the letter as “vaguely threatening” in an […]

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Trump Budget Draft Ends Narcan Program and Other Addiction Measures

The opioid overdose reversal medication commercially known as Narcan saves hundreds of thousands of lives a year and is routinely praised by public health experts for contributing to the continuing drop in opioid-related deaths. But the Trump administration plans to terminate a $56 million annual grant program that distributes doses and trains emergency responders in […]

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U.S. Officials to Cut Funding for Landmark Study of Women’s Health

Federal health officials plan to cut funding to the Women’s Health Initiative, effectively shuttering one of the largest and longest studies of women’s health ever carried out. Its findings changed medical practice and helped shape clinical guidelines, preventing hundreds of thousands of cases of cardiovascular disease and breast cancer. The study, which began in the […]

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These Apes Are Matriarchal, but It Doesn’t Mean They’re Peaceful

Male domination is the natural order of things, some people say. But bonobos, primates with whom we share nearly 99 percent of our DNA, beg to differ. Bonobos are great apes that live in female-dominated societies, a relative rarity among mammals, especially in species where males are the larger sex. While females are smaller than […]

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What to Know About Today’s Meth

Fentanyl overdoses have finally begun to decline over the past year, but that good news has obscured a troubling shift in illicit drug use: a nationwide surge in methamphetamine, a powerful, highly addictive stimulant. This isn’t the ’90s club drug or even the blue-white tinged crystals cooked up in “Breaking Bad.” As cartels keep revising […]

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As Fentanyl Deaths Slow, Meth Comes for Maine

Something worrisome was happening at Spurwink, a mental health clinic in Portland, Maine. Many patients being treated for opioid addiction had gone missing for days, even weeks, skipping prescription refills and therapy appointments. The counselors feared their patients were relapsing on fentanyl. But those who reappeared did not show the telltale signs — no slurred […]

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This Therapist Helped Clients Feel Better. It Was A.I.

The quest to create an A.I. therapist has not been without setbacks or, as researchers at Dartmouth thoughtfully describe them, “dramatic failures.” Their first chatbot therapist wallowed in despair and expressed its own suicidal thoughts. A second model seemed to amplify all the worst tropes of psychotherapy, invariably blaming the user’s problems on her parents. […]

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The Many Ways Kennedy Is Already Undermining Vaccines

During his Senate confirmation hearings to be health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presented himself as a supporter of vaccines. But in office, he and the agencies he leads have taken far-reaching, sometimes subtle steps to undermine confidence in vaccine efficacy and safety, public health experts say. The National Institutes of Health halted funding for […]

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Denisovans Extend Their Range to Asia’s Pacific Coast

For decades, fishermen sailing off the coast of Taiwan have sometimes discovered fossils in their trawling nets: the bones of elephants, buffalo and other big mammals that lived tens of thousands of years ago, when the sea level was so low that Taiwan was linked to Asia by a land bridge. But in 2010, a […]

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One-Third of Maternal Deaths Occur Long After Delivery, Study Finds

During a recent five-year period, a substantial portion of maternal deaths in America — almost one-third — took place more than six weeks after childbirth, at a time when most new mothers think they are in the clear, researchers reported on Wednesday. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, is one of the first to […]

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The Skin on Mysterious Medieval Books Concealed a Shaggy Surprise

Medieval scribes filled volumes called bestiaries with illustrations and descriptions of fantastic creatures. The manuscripts containing representations of these animals also depended on a menagerie of beasts: The covers of these and other volumes were fashioned from the skins of calves, goats, sheep, deer, pigs and, in some macabre instances, humans. Most of these hides […]

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Nuclear Testing Not Advised, Trump’s Nominee Says in Senate Hearing

Brandon Williams, President Trump’s pick to become the keeper of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, testified on Tuesday that he would not recommend that Mr. Trump restart explosive testing of the deadly weapons. His statement, during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, was unexpected. Other advisers to the administration had proposed that the […]

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A Second Child Dies of Measles in Texas

The measles crisis in West Texas has claimed the life of another child, the second death in an outbreak that has burned through the region and infected dozens of residents in bordering states. The 8-year-old girl died early Thursday morning of “measles pulmonary failure” at a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, according to records obtained by […]

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Why Measles Outbreaks May Be the New Normal

As the Trump administration moves to dismantle international public health safeguards, pull funding from local health departments and legitimize health misinformation, some experts now fear that the country is setting the stage for a long-term measles resurgence. If federal health officials do not change course, large multistate outbreaks like the one that has torn through […]

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Trump Administration Demands Additional Cuts at C.D.C.

Alongside extensive reductions to the staff of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Trump administration has asked the agency to cut $2.9 billion of its spending on contracts, according to three federal officials with knowledge of the matter. The administration’s cost-cutting program, called the Department of Government Efficiency, asked the public health agency […]

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C.D.C. Cuts Threaten to Set Back the Nation’s Health, Critics Say

The extensive layoffs of federal health workers that began on Tuesday will greatly curtail the scope and influence of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the world’s premier public health agency, an outcome long sought by conservatives critical of its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The reorganization of the Department of Health and Human […]

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Shingles Vaccine Can Decrease Risk of Dementia, Study Finds

Getting vaccinated against shingles can reduce the risk of developing dementia, a large new study finds. The results provide some of the strongest evidence yet that some viral infections can have effects on brain function years later and that preventing them can help stave off cognitive decline. The study, published on Wednesday in the journal […]

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A New Dinosaur Museum Rises From a Hole in the Ground in New Jersey

Ten years ago, this was just a big hole in the ground behind a Lowe’s home improvement store in southern New Jersey, an unlikely place to find what might be one of the world’s most important fossil sites. But 66 million years ago, tantalizingly close in time to when the dinosaurs went extinct, a multitude […]

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Under Pressure, Psychology Accreditation Board Suspends Diversity Standards

The American Psychological Association, which sets standards for professional training in mental health, has voted to suspend its requirement that postgraduate programs show a commitment to diversity in recruitment and hiring. The decision comes as accrediting bodies throughout higher education scramble to respond to the executive order signed by President Trump attacking diversity, equity and […]

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Measles Cases in Kansas May Be Linked to Texas Outbreak

Measles cases in Kansas more than doubled in the last week, bringing the tally to 20, while another outbreak in Ohio has sickened 10 people, local public health officials reported on Wednesday. There have been several large outbreaks in the United States this year, including one in West Texas that has spread to more than […]

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Trump Administration Abruptly Cuts Billions From State Health Services

The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues. The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing […]

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For Some Measles Patients, Vitamin A Remedy Supported by RFK Jr. Leaves Them More Ill

Doctors in West Texas are seeing measles patients whose illnesses have been complicated by an alternative therapy endorsed by vaccine skeptics including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary. Parents in Gaines County, Texas, the center of a raging measles outbreak, have increasingly turned to supplements and unproven treatments to protect their children, many of […]

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Foie Gras That Skips the Force-Feeding Is Developed by Physicists

Thomas Vilgis, a food physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany, has been in love with foie gras for a quarter century. The luxurious delicacy is a pâté or mousse made from the rich, fattened livers of ducks or geese. “It’s something really extraordinary,” Dr. Vilgis said, recalling his early encounters […]

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Texas Measles Outbreak May Continue for a Year, Officials Say

As containment efforts falter, the measles outbreak in West Texas is likely to persist for a year, perhaps even setting back the country’s hard-fought victory over the virus, according to Texas health officials. As of Friday, the outbreak had sickened more than 300 people in Texas since January; 40 have been hospitalized. One child has […]

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Astronomers Get ‘More Than a Hint’ That Dark Energy Isn’t What They Thought

An international team of astronomers on Wednesday unveiled the most compelling evidence to date that dark energy — a mysterious phenomenon pushing our universe to expand ever faster — is not a constant force of nature but one that ebbs and flows through cosmic time. Dark energy, the new measurement suggests, may not resign our […]

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Trump Administration Considers Scaling Back H.I.V. Efforts at C.D.C.

During his first term, President Donald J. Trump unveiled a bold initiative to end the H.I.V. epidemic in the United States by 2030 by focusing on 57 jurisdictions with the most urgent needs. The plan, which Mr. Trump announced in 2019 at a State of the Union address, surprised advocacy groups. But it was widely […]

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RFK Jr.’s Prescription for Bird Flu on Farms: Let It Spread

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official, has an unorthodox idea for tackling the bird flu bedeviling U.S. poultry farms. Let the virus rip. Instead of culling birds when the infection is discovered, farmers “should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flock so that we can identify the birds, […]

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