Publisher Health

Getty ImagesThe first study to assess how weight-loss drugs affect the whole of human health has discovered an “eye-opening” impact on the body, researchers say.

A new case of Clade Ib mpox has been detected in East Sussex, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has confirmed.

PA MediaA nurse has become the first person in the UK to undergo an operation that saw a tumour removed through her eye socket using keyhole surgery.

A knowledge gap around cervical screenings is currently “costing lives”, a cancer charity says.

BBCUntil recently, Jane would have described her family as normal, law-abiding citizens. But that changed last summer, when the full-time mum started illegally buying cannabis oil online for her daughter, Annie.

Getty ImagesWhen the BBC reported a

It doesn’t happen often. But when it does, some residents risk losing everything.Three years ago, when Bob and Sandy Curtis moved into an upscale continuing care retirement community in Port Washington, N.Y., he thought they had found the best possible elder care solution.In exchange for a steep entrance fee — about $840,000, funded by the sale of the Long Island house they had owned for nearly 50 years — they would have care for the rest of their lives at the Harborside. They selected a contract from several options that set stable monthly fees at about $6,000 for both of them and would refund half the entrance fee to their estate after their deaths.“This was the final chapter,” Mr. Curtis, 88, said. “That was the deal I made.”C.C.R.C.s, or life plan communities, provide levels of increasing care on a single campus, from independent and assisted living to nursing homes and memory care. Unlike most senior living facilities, they’re predominantly nonprofit.More than 1,900 C.C.R.C.s house about 900,000 Americans, according to LeadingAge, which represents nonprofit senior housing providers. Some communities offer lower and higher refunds, many avoid buy-in fees altogether and operate as rentals, and others are hybrids.For the Curtises, the Harborside offered reassurance. Mr. Curtis, an industrial engineer who works as a consultant, took a comfortable one-bedroom apartment in the independent living wing. “It was a vibrant community,” he said. “Meals. Amenities. A gym.”Every day he spends time with Sandy, 84, who lives in the facility’s memory care unit, an elevator ride away. The staff members there “treat Sandy with love and care,” Mr. Curtis said. “It would have been wonderful if it could have continued.”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 positions of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on vaccines and drug companies are well known. His approach to addiction has been far less scrutinized.In dark bluejeans and work shirt, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood in a Texas farm field, faced a camera and outlined his plan to combat drug addiction.“I’m going to bring a new industry to these forgotten corners of America, where addicts can help each other recover from their addictions,” he said in a 45-minute documentary, “Recovering America: A Film About Healing Our Addiction Crisis,” released in June by his presidential campaign.“We’re going to build hundreds of healing farms where American kids can reconnect to America’s soil, where they can learn the discipline of hard work that rebuilds self-esteem and where they can master new skills,” he continued.As Mr. Kennedy prepares for his confirmation hearings to become federal health secretary, he has faced intense focus for his views of vaccines, the pharmaceutical industry, nutrition and chronic disease. But there has been little discussion of his ideas to address the drug crisis, one of the country’s deadliest problems, which he refers to as a “plague.”According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a federal agency that Mr. Kennedy would oversee if confirmed, roughly 48.5 million Americans have a substance use disorder involving drugs, alcohol or both. According to the most recent provisional federal data, there were nearly 90,000 drug overdose deaths in the 12 months that ended in August 2024.The way Mr. Kennedy overcame his own addiction to heroin informs his approach to treatment generally. He often invokes his “spiritual realignment,” anchored by a belief in God, and reinforced by more than 40 years of daily 12-step-program meetings.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.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. petitioned the F.D.A. to revoke authorization of the shots at a time when they were in high demand and considered life-saving.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to lead the nation’s health agencies, formally asked the Food and Drug Administration to revoke the authorization of all Covid vaccines during a deadly phase of the pandemic when thousands of Americans were still dying every week.Mr. Kennedy filed a petition with the F.D.A. in May 2021 demanding that officials rescind authorization for the shots and refrain from approving any Covid vaccine in the future.Just six months earlier, Mr. Trump had declared the Covid vaccines a miracle. At the time Mr. Kennedy filed the petition, half of American adults were receiving their shots. Schools were reopening and churches were filling.Estimates had begun to show that the rapid rollout of Covid vaccines had already saved about 140,000 lives in the United States.The petition was filed on behalf of the nonprofit that Mr. Kennedy founded and led, Children’s Health Defense. It claimed that the risks of the vaccines outweighed the benefits and that the vaccines weren’t necessary because good treatments were available, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which had already been deemed ineffective against the virus.The petition received little notice when it was filed. Mr. Kennedy was then on the fringes of the public health establishment, and the agency denied it within months. Public health experts told about the filing said it was shocking.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 government is expected to pay lower prices for Ozempic and Wegovy starting in 2027. The Trump administration will decide whether to expand coverage for millions of Americans.Medicare’s prices for the blockbuster weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy are likely to decline starting in 2027, thanks to their inclusion on a list of medicines whose prices will be negotiated directly between the government and drug makers.The Biden administration announced the list on Friday, but the incoming Trump administration will oversee the price discussions this year.Late last year, the Biden administration separately proposed that the federal government expand coverage of weight-loss drugs to millions of Americans, though it’s unclear if the Trump administration will carry out the proposal. Expanding coverage would drive up the government’s overall spending on those medications even if the negotiations result in a deep price cut.The drugs, made by Novo Nordisk, were selected for price negotiations along with more than a dozen other widely used or costly medications as part of a program created by the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden’s signature legislation. It is not clear how much Medicare’s prices for Ozempic and Wegovy could drop. It’s possible that the price cut would be small, as it has been for some of the drugs in the negotiation program so far, which would save little money for the government.But if Medicare negotiates a deep price cut on the weight-loss drugs, it could have ripple effects in the broader market for the medications, which have transformed the treatment of obesity and become a cultural touchstone.The drugs are in huge demand, but many employers, insurers and government programs do not cover them because the cost is so high. On those insurance plans, only patients who can afford to pay hundreds of dollars per month out of pocket can generally obtain them.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.