Category: NPR

Three experts share advice on how to help the older people in our lives — parents, grandparents, neighbors, relatives, friends — feel comfortable and safe in the pandemic.

Many are worried that Labor Day will be like the Fourth of July and Memorial Day, when travel and celebrations fanned the flames of viral spread, especially across the U.S. South and West.

Scientists say new drugs are on the way for patients with ALS. The latest is a two-drug combo that appears to slow the progression of the fatal nerve disease with a modest but meaningful benefit.

Gyms are reopening with fewer people and more protocols, and they want to rehabilitate their pandemic-battered image. Although there’s not much evidence, they say the science is on their side.

Quest Diagnostics accounts for roughly 30% of Florida’s total of some 4.6 million tests. The state calls the release of results from weeks or months ago an “unacceptable dump of test results.”

One of the strongest mental health parity laws in the U.S. is on the governor’s desk. It aims to help more than 13 million Californians — including those with milder mental illness and addictions.

California lawmakers cleared a bill for one of the country’s strongest mental health parity laws. If signed, it would improve insurance coverage for substance use disorders and addiction.

Certain diagnoses are harder to catch without an in-person connection. And beyond that, a doctor reflects on the loss of a ritual that can provide “real comfort and meaning” to physician and patient.

This pandemic is like war, and federal, state and local health officers are leading the U.S. response. Yet unlike war heroes, who are lionized, they are facing unprecedented attacks and death threats.

A vaccine against the coronavirus needs to keep people from getting very sick and dying. But preventing the spread of the disease is also important, and vaccines delivered by nasal spray may do that.