Regulators in South Africa have recalled a batch of the popular Yaz Plus contraceptive pill, after a packaging mix-up which means the contraception could be potentially ineffective.

Squire Patton BoggsA British lawyer has died after a suspected methanol poisoning thought to have killed four others in Laos, south-east Asia.

Experts are puzzling over which interventions are saving lives. The evolving illicit supply itself may hold important clues.After years of relentless rises in overdose deaths, the United States has seen a remarkable reversal. For seven straight months, according to federal data, drug fatalities have been declining.Expanded treatment, prevention and education efforts are playing a role, but drug policy experts believe there is another, surprising reason: changes in the drug supply itself, which are, in turn, influencing how people are using drugs.The fentanyl on the street is starting to become weaker. Anne Milgram, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration, announced last week that for the first time since 2021, the agency was seeing a decline in fentanyl potency, a development she attributed to the government’s crackdown on Mexican cartels and international supply chains. Last year, seven out of 10 counterfeit pills tested in D.E.A. labs contained a life-threatening amount of fentanyl, she said, but that number has dropped to five out of 10.Addiction experts say that other interventions contributed to the declining fatalities, including wider distribution of overdose reversal medications like Narcan; an uptick in some states in prescriptions for medication that suppresses opioid cravings; and campaigns warning the public about fentanyl-tainted counterfeit pills.Harm reduction programs that offer sterile syringe exchanges and fentanyl test strips are also saving lives, experts note. Many treatment and support services that were shuttered during the coronavirus pandemic have become more accessible.“They are all part of a health response to substance use that is bending the curve,” said Dr. Brian Hurley, the president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.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 NHS in England came within “six or seven hours” of running out of gowns and other protective equipment during the Covid pandemic, Matt Hancock has said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter, but not a recall, after microorganisms were found in water samples and finished toothpaste products.An inspection of a Tom’s of Maine manufacturing facility last spring found “significant violations” including the presence of a “black mold-like substance,” and an internal investigation found bacteria in the water used to make the brand’s popular toothpaste, federal regulators said this month.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter dated Nov. 5 to the parent company Colgate-Palmolive reporting that microorganisms were found in water samples and finished toothpaste products during the inspection at a facility in Sanford, Maine, between May 7 and 22.The letter, which accused the company of failing “to follow appropriate written procedures,” was not a formal recall.Donald W. Schaffner, a professor of food and science at Rutgers University, said in an email that the bacteria found might cause illness, particularly for those who are immunocompromised.“If customers read about this issue and they have concerns,” he said, “I think throwing out their toothpaste is a reasonable choice.”The bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa was recovered in multiple water samples that the company took from June 2021 to October 2022, according to the letter. It can cause infections in the blood, lungs and other parts of the body after surgery, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.That water was used to produce a batch of Tom’s Simply White Clean Mint Paste and to rinse down several pieces of equipment, the letter said.The bacteria Ralstonia insidiosa was also found in its water, according to the F.D.A.An inspection of the Tom’s of Maine manufacturing facility in Sanford, Maine, led to the discovery of water containing bacteria.Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesAnother bacteria, Paracoccus yeei, was found in a batch of the company’s Wicked Cool! Anticavity Toothpaste, which is marketed toward children.Colgate-Palmolive, which has owned Tom’s of Maine since 2006, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.An investigator with the F.D.A. also reported finding a “black mold-like substance” at the base of a hose and behind a water storage tank in the facility, one foot from pails and other equipment used to produce the toothpaste.The F.D.A. asked the company to provide a “comprehensive assessment of the design and control of manufacturing operations, a review of all microbiological hazards, a detailed risk assessment addressing the hazards posed by distributing over-the-counter drug products,” as well as an independent assessment of its cleaning effectiveness “to evaluate the scope of cross-contamination hazards.”The agency said that the company had 15 days to respond and specify any work to prevent the recurrence of the violations.

Getty ImagesAn ambitious plan to map all 37 trillion cells in the human body is transforming understanding of how our bodies work, scientists report.

How to avoid a contentious family holiday after the big election.Caroline and James Koster have spent years finding ways to connect across the political aisle. For decades, the couple from Brooklyn, N.Y., would line up at their local polling station with their two sons in tow and cancel out one another’s vote — she tends to be more moderate, while he is more conservative.Their extended family is politically mixed, too. Caroline, 58, gathers with many right-leaning relatives in Kentucky for a family reunion every year. And this month, the couple will celebrate Thanksgiving in Ohio with several of James’s brothers, who do not see eye to eye politically. “We run the gamut from super liberal to centrist to archconservative,” James, 59, said.“You can imagine, for some people, those kinds of differences of opinion drive them apart,” he added. “But we don’t let that happen.”With Thanksgiving a week away, families across a deeply divided nation are putting the finishing touches on their menus and are once again making plans to gather with loved ones who may be at odds over the results of the 2024 presidential election. As the country has grown increasingly polarized, how do families find their way back together for the holidays?“There are longstanding grievances on both sides,” said Kenneth Barish, a clinical professor of psychology at Weill Cornell Medical College and author of the forthcoming book, “Bridging Our Political Divide: How Liberals and Conservatives Can Understand Each Other and Find Common Ground.”“So then the question is: What can we do?” he continued. “How can we have a better conversation? A less angry conversation? A conversation that actually goes somewhere?”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.

Her fight for disability rights included founding a group called Not Dead Yet, which protested the work of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and others.Diane Coleman, a fierce advocate for disability rights who took on Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the right-to-die movement and the U.S. health care system, which she charged was responsible for devaluing the lives of Americans like her with physical and mental impairments, died on Nov. 1 at her home in Rochester, N.Y. She was 71.Her sister Catherine Morrison said the cause was sepsis.Ms. Coleman was born with muscular spinal atrophy, a disorder that affected her motor neurons. She was using a wheelchair by 11, and doctors expected her to die before adulthood.Instead she blossomed, graduating as valedictorian from her high school and receiving a joint J.D.-M.B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1981.It was only after several years of working as a consumer protection lawyer that she shifted her energies to disability rights, joining a flourishing movement that was pushing for anti-discrimination laws at every level of government, including improvements on transit and in buildings.Ms. Coleman was a member of Adapt, considered one of the most militant disability rights groups. She participated in scores of protests, blocking the entrances to buildings where conferences were held or government offices were housed, and she was arrested more than 25 times.Ms. Coleman, center, in 1988 at one of the numerous protests in which she participated. She was arrested more than 25 times.Tom OlinWe 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.

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Republicans in Congress are eyeing cuts to Medicaid, which could threaten health coverage for tens of millions of poor Americans.With Republicans set to control Washington, conservative lawmakers and policy experts who could advise the next Trump administration are discussing long-sought cuts to Medicaid, the government health program that covers roughly a fifth of all Americans and makes up about 10 percent of the federal budget.Some of the changes are being proposed as a way to pay for a law that would extend the tax cuts from the first Trump administration, most of which benefited corporations and wealthier Americans. The policies might slash funding for Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion — which added roughly 23 million people to the program — or require that many enrollees work in order to receive benefits.Representative Jodey Arrington of Texas, a Republican who leads the House Budget Committee, told reporters last week that he favored a “responsible and reasonable work requirement” for Medicaid.And Senator John Cornyn, another Republican from Texas, said of Medicaid, “We ought to look at whether we’re doing it the right way.” He said he supported “block grants,” in which states get lump sums, regardless of how many people sign up for the program.These ideas resurrect conservative proposals going back years, and have appeared in recent House Republican budget proposals and in the high-profile policy agenda known as Project 2025. Work requirements, which struggled to get off the ground in the first Trump administration, would cut federal spending by at least $100 billion over the next decade and cause 600,000 people to lose coverage, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.“If you want to avoid a debt spiral there have got to be reforms made to federal health programs,” said Brian Blase, a former Trump health policy adviser who now runs Paragon Health Institute, a conservative think tank. Mr. Blase has discussed Medicaid reform in recent years with conservative lawmakers and aides.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.