The Federal Aviation Administration did away with a rule that had required an off switch for the sign even though smoking on U.S. flights ended years ago.The days of airplane cabins hazy with cigarette smoke are long gone, but a reminder of that era is still visible inside commercial jets.Smoking has been banned on commercial flights in the United States for decades, but the Federal Aviation Administration is only just updating an outdated rule to reflect that reality. Starting on Tuesday, the illuminated overhead “No Smoking” sign no longer requires an off switch.That obsolete requirement had become “time-consuming and burdensome” for airlines and airplane manufacturers to comply with, the F.A.A. said in a rule enacting the change. In February, for example, United Airlines was briefly unable to use a handful of new Airbus planes because the “No Smoking” signs on board couldn’t be shut off, causing the airline to delay a few flights. The issue was resolved after the F.A.A. granted United an exemption.Dozens of such exemptions have allowed that requirement to live on while the agency focused on more pressing matters. But the long life of the mandate also reflects how entangled smoking once was with commercial flights, which began in the 1910s.“The rise of aviation literally parallels the rise of the cigarette,” said Alan Blum, the director of the University of Alabama’s Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society.Pipes, cigars and chewing tobacco were once more popular than cigarettes, but that began to change in the early 20th century, according to Dr. Blum. During World War I, cigarettes were added to rations for American soldiers fighting abroad.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

News presenter Andrea Byrne has said she feared her husband would be “better off” without her during the couple’s seven-year experience of infertility.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to reduce the number of fractures and broken bones missed when doctors analyse X-rays, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

The Ames Test offered a fast and inexpensive way to identify carcinogens, leading to the banning of chemicals linked to cancer and birth defects.Bruce Nathan Ames, a biochemist who discovered a revolutionary method of detecting potential carcinogens, paving the way for the banning of many commonly used chemicals, died on Oct. 5 in Berkeley, Calif. He was 95.His wife, Giovanna Ferro-Luzzi Ames, said his death, in a hospital, was from complications after a fall.The so-called Ames Test, developed in the 1970s, is still used by drug manufacturers and pesticide companies to check the safety of their products. It involves exposing chemicals to a mutant strain of salmonella bacteria that Dr. Ames created; how the bacteria responds to a chemical makes it possible to determine whether that chemical caused DNA damage and therefore might lead to cancer in humans.In an America increasingly concerned about the effects of pollution and industrial chemicals, the test offered a quick, inexpensive alternative to animal testing, which was so prohibitively expensive that regulators were able to test only a fraction of chemicals on the market.“It changed the regulatory sphere,” said Angela Creager, a science historian at Princeton University who is writing a book about the Ames Test. “It showed that it was actually possible to get toxicity information on every chemical if we wanted to.”After capturing the attention of the national press, Dr. Ames remained in the spotlight as he used the Ames Test to expose the toxicity of a number of commonplace chemicals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Some members of the public have not taken Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s call for new ideas to improve the health service as seriously as he might have hoped.

After 44 days, Kendric Cromer, 12, left the hospital. While his family feels fortunate that he was the first to receive a treatment, their difficult experiences hint at what others will be up against.Kendric Cromer, 12, left Children’s National Hospital in a wheelchair on Wednesday, wearing a T-shirt and cap printed with designs from the anime series “Naruto” and a black face mask. Staff lined the hallway, cheering and waving noisemakers. He had just become the first patient to receive a gene therapy for sickle cell since it was approved — a therapy that is expected to free him from the ravages of the disease.After 44 days in the hospital, he was a bit dazed.“I thought I would have sickle cell for the rest of my life,” he said. The disease had deprived him of his childhood, making everyday activities, like playing basketball or riding a bike, impossible because they could bring on searing pain, often resulting in hospitalizations.But despite the celebratory atmosphere, Kendric and his parents are still shuddering over what they endured during his hospital stay.Nothing, absolutely nothing — not all the discussions with doctors, not all of their reading and highlighting of texts, not the 13-page consent form that included organ damage and even death as possible outcomes — prepared them for what he would go through.About 100,000 people in the United States have sickle cell disease. For the 20,000 or so with the most severe disease, gene therapy may be their only hope of living a normal life. The disease is caused by a mutation in hemoglobin genes that leads to crescent-shaped red blood cells, which tend to get stuck in blood vessels, causing episodes of excruciating pain. The blockages can damage organs, cause strokes and shorten lives.Until recently, most saw no way out.Then, last December, the Food and Drug Administration approved a $3.1 million sickle cell gene therapy by Bluebird Bio of Somerville, Mass., and a $2.2 million treatment by Vertex Pharmaceuticals of Boston. That potentially gives patients like Kendric, if their insurance will pay for the therapy, a path to a life that is not shadowed by the ravages of the disease.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Single patient records will be at the heart of the government’s new strategy for the NHS in England, ministers say.

Published41 minutes agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBy Michelle RobertsDigital health editorSir Chris Hoy, six-time Olympic cycling champion, has revealed he has advanced prostate cancer. The 48-year-old says the cancer has spread to his bones and is terminal. Tributes have poured in and charities say raising awareness of the disease could help save other lives. Prostate cancers can behave very differently. While some can spread quickly, others are very slow growing and may need minimal or even no treatment.What is prostate cancer?The prostate is a gland that is about the size of a walnut which sits just below the bladder within the pelvis.It surrounds the urethra – the tube that takes urine out of the body through the penis.Prostate cancer – abnormal and uncontrolled cell growth – often develops slowly. There may be no signs or symptoms for years and some people never develop any problems from it.But in others, the cancer can be aggressive and deadly.Prostate cancer that’s detected early has the best chance for successful treatment.Image source, Getty ImagesHow common is prostate cancer?One in six men will get prostate cancer at some point in their lives, says Cancer Research UK. It is most common in older age – among men over 75. Cases in the under-50s are rare.Men whose father or brother were affected by prostate cancer are at slightly increased risk.It is also more common in black men.Prostate Cancer UK has a 30-second online risk checker,

The Supreme Court ruled in June that the original plaintiffs, anti-abortion doctors and groups, did not have standing to sue. Now three states are trying to continue the legal fight.A lawsuit seeking to sharply restrict the abortion pill mifepristone — a case the Supreme Court threw out this year — has re-emerged in a version that presents new challenges for abortion-rights supporters and the federal government’s ability to regulate abortion medication.The revised lawsuit was filed this month by the conservative state attorneys general of three states — Missouri, Idaho and Kansas — against the Food and Drug Administration in the same federal district court in Texas as the original case. It seeks to reverse numerous regulatory changes the F.D.A. has made since 2016 that greatly expanded access to mifepristone.It also asks for new restrictions, including to outlaw the medication for anyone under 18. And it takes aim at the fast-growing practice of prescribing abortion pills through telemedicine and mailing them to patients, including those in states with abortion bans.In the United States, abortion pills are prescribed up to 12 weeks into pregnancy and are now used in nearly two-thirds of abortions. The typical regimen involves mifepristone, which blocks a hormone needed for pregnancy development, followed 24 to 48 hours later by misoprostol, which causes contractions like a miscarriage. Decades of research has found the pills to be overwhelmingly safe, and serious complications rare.The original lawsuit, filed in 2022 by anti-abortion doctors and groups, was rejected in June by the Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling. The court said that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue because they couldn’t show they had been harmed by the F.D.A.’s decisions on mifepristone. But that ruling didn’t extinguish the case’s chance of being revived.Last year, Missouri, Idaho and Kansas petitioned to join the suit at the lower court level and were granted the status of intervenors. The states were denied permission to intervene at the Supreme Court level, but after the original plaintiffs’ claims were rejected, the states remained part of the lower court case, and this month they filed an amended complaint as plaintiffs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

The new rules under the Affordable Care Act would include emergency contraception, a newly approved nonprescription birth control pill, spermicides and condoms.The White House announced on Monday that it would propose new rules under the Affordable Care Act that would require insurers to cover over-the-counter birth control at no cost to patients, as it seeks to expand access to contraception and cut out-of-pocket costs.The rules would include emergency contraception, a newly approved nonprescription birth control pill, spermicides and condoms and would affect 52 million American women of reproductive age who rely on private health insurance. They will be subject to a 60-day public comment period and, if finalized, would represent “the most significant expansion of contraception benefits” in more than a decade, said Jennifer Klein, the director of the White House Gender Policy Council.The proposal comes just two weeks before the election as Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, make the case that the threat to reproductive rights extends beyond the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that eliminated the national right to abortion.“At a time when contraception access is under attack, Vice President Harris and I are resolute in our commitment to expanding access to quality, affordable contraception,” President Biden said in a statement. “We believe that women in every state must have the freedom to make deeply personal health care decisions, including the right to decide if and when to start or grow their family.”The court ruled in that case that the “right to privacy” did not confer a right to abortion. In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said the same rationale should be used to overturn other “demonstrably erroneous decisions” that relied on a right to privacy, including Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 case declaring that married couples had a right to contraception.“Clarence Thomas said the quiet part out loud, that contraception could very much be at risk and it is at risk,” Ms. Harris told the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in June.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.