Category: Health Industry

Bay Area Cities Go to War Over Gas Stoves in Homes and Restaurants

Environmentalists say gas appliances spew greenhouse gases and exacerbate asthma. Restaurant owners and chefs say you can’t cook food properly with electricity.

Vaccines Go Mobile to Keep Seniors From Slipping Through the Cracks

A strike team of nurses and others is vaccinating Contra Costa County’s hardest-hit populations right where they live.

Counterfeit N95 Scam Widens as Senator Demands FTC Investigation

Authorities seized 1.7 million fake masks in New York and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell called for a national probe.

Health Workers and Hospitals Grapple With Millions of Counterfeit N95 Masks

Masks imitating the real thing are flooding U.S. ports, and authorities can hardly keep pace.

Gene Screenings Hold Disease Clues, but Unexplained Anomalies Often Raise Fears

Multiple-gene panel tests are frequently offered to patients at risk for diseases such as cancer that can assess more than 80 genes. But in screening a wide variety of genes, doctors might see a variant that hasn’t yet been deciphered and be unable to explain its significance, leaving patients with concerns and no answers.

Food Guidelines Change But Fail to Take Cultures Into Account

For decades, the federal government has tried to guide our eating habits. They once again revised recommendations, but they didn’t incorporate ethnic and cultural differences of the American diet. Here’s why.

If This Self-Sufficient Hospital Cannot Stand Alone, Can Any Public Hospital Survive?

New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, N.C., makes money and does not require taxpayer subsidies. But the county is selling the public hospital because officials say it needs more capital to compete. Civic leaders say the change will lead to higher health care costs.

Patients Fend for Themselves to Access Highly Touted Covid Antibody Treatments

Months after President Donald Trump credited monoclonal antibody therapy for his quick recovery from covid-19, only a trickle of the product has found its way into regular people. While hundreds of thousands of vials sit unused, sick patients who might benefit from early treatment have been left on their own to vie for access.

California Is Overriding Its Limits on Nurse Workloads as Covid Surges

As covid patients flood California emergency rooms, hospitals are increasingly desperate to find enough staffers to care for them all. But some nurses worry hospitals will use the pandemic as an excuse to permanently roll back their hard-won nurse-patient ratios.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: On Capitol Hill, Actions Have Consequences

Several large business groups, including health industry organizations, are cutting off contributions to Republicans who voted against the certification of Joe Biden’s election even after riots shut down the Capitol on Jan. 6. Meanwhile, the outgoing Trump administration not only approved a Medicaid block grant for Tennessee, but also made it difficult for the incoming Biden administration to undo. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times and Kimberly Leonard of Business Insider join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, Rovner interviews KHN’s Victoria Knight about the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” episode.