Publisher Health

PA MediaLib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey has said he is “minded” to vote against an upcoming bill to legalise assisted dying.

It would be “crazy” to leave breast tissue behind during a mastectomy, a disgraced breast surgeon has told an inquest into the death of one of his patients.

Getty ImagesThe Liberal Democrats have called on the government to exempt social care from the rise in National Insurance.

PA MediaA leading midwife who has led reviews into care failings in the NHS has criticised the health service for “failing” to give her daughter safe care.

As libraries become public stages for social problems — homelessness, drug use, mental health — the people who work there are burning out.On social media, Mychal Threets was spreading the gospel of “library joy” to hundreds of thousands of followers.Known for his energetic delivery and signature Afro, Mr. Threets showed off the book-themed tattoos covering his arms and evangelized about the pleasure of reading while cradling one of his cats. Viewers found his enthusiasm for literature infectious, and he got a kick out of drawing in young readers.But at his job, as a supervisor at the Fairfield Civic Center Library in Solano County, Calif., he was facing new challenges. The library, which he had begun visiting as a child, had become a gathering place for people experiencing issues like homelessness, drug dependence and mental illness.Some of his duties had little to do with cataloging books and recommending titles. Over a year, Mr. Threets said, he filed more than 170 incident reports documenting how library patrons had acted out: property damage, harassment, physical altercations.“There were several instances where people would get in my face and kind of threaten to physically push me,” Mr. Threets said. At one point, he added, a patron threatened to kill him multiple times — visitors pulled knives on each other, too.His anxiety and depression, both present since childhood, had worsened. And he faced an impossible dilemma: What do you do when the pressures of your profession are harming your mental health?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.

Breaking up the C.D.C., moving funds from the N.I.H. — conservatives have floated changes should Mr. Trump regain office.The Covid pandemic dominated the last years of Donald Trump’s presidency, and the discontent it caused most likely contributed to his loss in 2020. But on the campaign trail this year, Mr. Trump rarely talks in depth about public health, dwelling instead on immigration, the economy and his grievances.Still, Project 2025, the blueprint for a new Republican administration shaped by many former Trump staff members, lays out momentous changes to the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.And Mr. Trump’s embrace of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, and his campaign slogan, “Make America Healthy Again,” suggests there will be significant changes to the nation’s public health priorities should Mr. Trump regain the presidency.“I’m going to let him go wild on health,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Kennedy at a rally in New York City on Sunday. “I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on medicines.”Republican critics increasingly describe the health agencies as corrupt, riddled with conflicts of interest and staffed by myopic bureaucrats accountable to no one.Mr. Trump echoed these themes at a rally in Wisconsin: “We’ll take on the corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C., World Health Organization and other institutions of public health that have dominated, and really are dominated by corporate power, and dominated really by China.”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.

When I arrive at an abortion clinic in south London, four protesters – three women and one man – are gathered on the opposite side of the road alongside a picture of the Virgin Mary, which is draped in rosary beads. They are silently mouthing prayers, and ask not to be interrupted.

A large trial showed that semaglutide, sold as Ozempic for diabetes and as Wegovy for obesity, was better than any current medications in alleviating symptoms.The blockbuster drug semaglutide, sold as Ozempic for diabetes and as Wegovy for weight loss, now has a new proven benefit: It markedly soothed knee pain in people who are obese and have moderate to severe osteoarthritis, according to a large study.The effect was so pronounced that some arthritis experts not involved with the clinical trial were taken aback.“The magnitude of the improvement is of a scope we haven’t seen before with a drug,” said Dr. Bob Carter, deputy director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. “They had an almost 50 percent reduction in their knee pain. That’s huge.”Dr. David T. Felson, an arthritis expert and professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, said the study “changes the landscape,” adding that the pain reduction is greater than anything that can be achieved short of knee replacement surgery.The results were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.Knee osteoarthritis affects nearly one in five Americans over the age of 45. Those with obesity are especially likely to develop it because their weight puts more stress on the knee and because obesity is associated with inflammation, which contributes to deterioration of cartilage.There are no good medical treatments. Doctors can suggest patients take over-the-counter pain relievers like acetaminophen or ibuprofen. But long-term use of those medications can damage vital organs.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.

Donald Trump and other Republicans have said repeatedly that she does. Her history on the issue is complicated.One of former president Donald J. Trump’s final television ads before Election Day reprises an old talking point.The segment, released Oct. 17, declares that Vice President Kamala Harris “wants struggling seniors to pay more Social Security taxes while she gives Medicare and Social Security to illegals.”The first half of the statement is inaccurate. Ms. Harris has not suggested raising Social Security taxes for seniors; instead, she has said she supports eliminating the $168,000 income cap on the taxes workers pay to fund Social Security, a threshold above which income becomes exempt. Under that proposal, Social Security taxes would increase for working people who earn almost three times median annual pay, not for struggling seniors.The latter half of the ad’s claim — that Ms. Harris supports giving taxpayer-funded health benefits to illegal immigrants — is a misrepresentation of Ms. Harris’s current proposals. Ms. Harris made statements in 2019 that could be understood this way, but she has stepped back from that position in recent months as her health care platform has become clearer. Mr. Trump has also misstated the Biden administration’s policy. Here is a look at what that is and what Ms. Harris has said about the issue.What is the current federal policy?Immigrants who live in the United States illegally do not qualify for federally funded coverage through Medicare, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health coverage for low-income children. In most states, they are also ineligible to buy private health coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.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.