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The rate of medical assistance in dying – also known as euthanasia – has grown in Canada for the fifth straight year, albeit at a slower pace.

Employees at UnitedHealthcare and other companies described being fearful after an outpouring of online vitriol.The fatal shooting last week of an executive on the streets of New York City plunged his family members and colleagues into grief. For rank-and-file employees across the health insurance industry, the killing has left them with an additional emotion: fear, with many frightened for their own safety and feeling under attack for their work.Health insurance companies have increased security measures since the killing of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, and as an outpouring of online rage toward the industry has followed. Health care leaders have spoken with frustration about feeling vilified, and in the Minneapolis suburbs where United is headquartered, police officers stepped up protection of the company’s offices.“Clearly the employees have been shaken,” said Mayor Brad Wiersum of Minnetonka, who said the city was working “just to provide that reassurance and that security, to let people know that we are going to do everything we can to keep them safe.”One UnitedHealthcare worker who processes claims described being cleareyed about the American health care system’s shortcomings, but also believes that she and her colleagues did their best to help patients within the limits of that system. Like most workers interviewed, she did not want to be named because, given the reaction after Mr. Thompson’s killing, she feared for her own safety.The reaction by some others to the killing, the employee said, had been startling and horrifying. The worker, who has been at the company for many years, described being told in recent days by an acquaintance that as an employee of UnitedHealthcare she was responsible for millions of people being denied lifesaving care, and that if she had any ethics, she would see the killing as the impetus to quit her job.“Lots of us were feeling like we were horrible because we’re being accused of working for the evil empire,” the employee said. “But we all do the best we can to do a good job in the system we are in.”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.

A new study highlights the need for public health officials to ramp up bird flu surveillance in our feline companions.Domestic cats could provide an unexpected new route for the bird flu virus H5N1 to evolve into a more dangerous form, according to a new study published on Monday.In the year since the virus began circulating in dairy cattle, it has killed many cats, primarily on farms with affected herds. It has also sickened at least 60 people, most of whom had close contact with infected dairy cows or poultry.So far, H5N1 does not spread easily among people, although studies have suggested that just one or two key mutations could allow the virus to make that leap.There is no evidence that cats have spread H5N1 to people and they may not represent a major avenue for the evolution of bird flu, experts said. Still, if a cat were simultaneously infected with H5N1 and a seasonal flu virus, the H5N1 virus could potentially acquire the mutations it needed to spread efficiently among people.The new study highlights the need for public health officials to ramp up bird flu surveillance in cats, which tend to have frequent contact with both wild animals and people, said Dr. Suresh Kuchipudi, a veterinary microbiologist at the University of Pittsburgh and an author of the paper.For months, the testing of cows and people for H5N1 has been limited, leaving experts in the dark about the true scale of the dairy outbreak. Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it would begin testing the national milk supply to help identify infected herds.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.

Family handout/PAA mum of three who died after a Brazilian butt lift (BBL) procedure had undergone a “frankly barbaric medical practice” in which she gave no informed consent, a coroner has concluded.

The agency is asking the White House to move ahead with plans to drastically reduce the addictive substance in traditional tobacco cigarettes.In the final days of the Biden administration, the Food and Drug Administration is seeking White House approval to propose a drastic reduction in the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, a longstanding goal of public health experts that has faced stiff opposition from the powerful tobacco lobby.The F.D.A. submitted the proposal to the Office of Management and Budget only on Tuesday, a sign that the move was perhaps more wishful and symbolic than realistic for a White House juggling many late-term agenda items. And traditionally, the budget office’s review of agency proposals can take months.“I think it’s a milestone in progress toward the single most game-changing tobacco regulatory policy, in terms of lives that could be saved, that F.D.A. could ever do,” said Mitch Zeller, a former director of the agency’s tobacco center. “Having said that, it’s only a proposed rule, and we’re obviously in the waning days and weeks of an outgoing administration.”Even if the F.D.A. receives clearance from the White House to advance the proposal, whether it can survive once President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January is unclear given the sustained opposition from the industry. The tobacco lobby was also a significant donor to Mr. Trump’s campaign; the cigarette maker Reynolds American had given $8.5 million to his main super PAC by late October.Mr. Trump is known to personally oppose cigarette smoking, but has not weighed in recently on agency issues like nicotine levels in cigarettes. He has chosen Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his likely nominee to run the nation’s top health agency, and Mr. Kennedy has railed against federal subsidies given to tobacco growers, saying they eclipse those sent to other farmers who grow fruits and vegetables. He listed the problem as evidence that “we are just poisoning” people and contributing to chronic disease.“It makes no sense if we want a healthy country,” he said in a speech in August.A World Health Organization study estimated in 2023 that the U.S. Agriculture Department allocated $437 million in subsidies to tobacco farmers from 2015 through 2020.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.

Many say they are relieved to finally have an explanation after decades of struggle.Over her life, Tanya Murphy had become accustomed to hiding her depression. In the Christian social circles in Georgia where she raised her three children, this was the rule — not the exception, she said.“God forbid you have a mental health issue,” said Ms. Murphy, 56, who now lives in Arlington, Va. “And if you do? Girl, all you got to do is fast and pray.”But by the time she reached her late 40s, she knew she couldn’t mask her problems any longer.Ms. Murphy had developed anxiety and started having thoughts of ending her life. She knew she was smart but she didn’t feel that way. Her difficulty focusing — as a child, her teachers called her a daydreamer — had translated into spending thousands of dollars on entrepreneurial projects that she later lost interest in and abandoned.After researching her symptoms online, Ms. Murphy realized that she might have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., a neurodevelopmental disorder that typically involves inattention, disorganization, hyperactivity and impulsivity. She was finally diagnosed, at age 53, by a psychiatric nurse practitioner. After she began taking the non-stimulant A.D.H.D. medication Strattera, attending regular therapy sessions and meditating, her ability to focus improved and the anxiety and the depression faded away.“I cried with joy,” she said. “I knew that I wasn’t crazy. I knew that I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t a failure. I wasn’t lazy like I had been told for most of my life. I wasn’t stupid.”Over the last 20 years, clinicians have increasingly recognized that A.D.H.D. symptoms, which begin in childhood, can linger into adulthood, and that some groups — like women and people of color — are more likely to be underdiagnosed early in life. Now, with the rise of telemedicine, increased awareness of A.D.H.D. and changing attitudes about mental health treatment, new A.D.H.D. diagnoses are surging among older Americans.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 ban on giving puberty blockers to under-18s questioning their gender identify is to be made permanent, Health Secretary Wes Streeting says.

Science Photo LibraryEight women whose smear tests were misread by screeners went on to develop cancer, a major review into cervical screening at the Southern Health Trust has found.

Getty ImagesWomen experiencing painful health conditions, including heavy periods, endometriosis and adenomyosis, are being dismissed when they ask for help, an MPs’ report has warned.