A troubled heart pump that has now been linked to 49 deaths and dozens of injuries worldwide will be allowed to remain in use, despite the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to issue an alert about the risk that it could puncture a wall of the heart. The tiny Impella pumps, about the width of…
On Aug. 21, 2017, Kiki Smith’s teenage sons giddily prepared to watch the partial solar eclipse in Rochester, N.Y. As Ms. Smith listened to their chatter, she felt excluded. “I felt very alone,” she said. Ms. Smith was diagnosed with a degenerative condition as a child and lost the last of her vision in 2011….
Ashlee Wiseman, a waitress at a Sizzler in Idaho Falls, Idaho, was 10 weeks pregnant when a nurse phoned with crushing news: a test of fetal DNA in her blood had found that her baby girl had trisomy 18, a catastrophic genetic abnormality, and was unlikely to survive. Devastated, she called her partner, Clint Risenmay,…
To Dr. Theresa Cheng, the scene was “apocalyptic.” She had come to Valley of the Moon, an open-air holding site in San Diego’s rural Mountain Empire, to provide volunteer medical care to asylum seekers who had breached the United States-Mexico border wall and were waiting to be apprehended by American authorities. Among the throngs at…
The Biden administration announced on Thursday that it had finalized a new regulation that curbs the use of short-term health insurance plans that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act, reversing a move by the Trump administration to give consumers more access to cheaper but skimpier plans. Under the new rule, the short-term plans…
The warning was stern: Do not enter the water. Not because of the tide. Not because of sharks. Because of the sewage. For almost two centuries, rowers from Oxford University have raced their rivals from Cambridge in a contest that typically ends with jubilant members of the victorious crew jumping into the River Thames in…
How do champion skaters accomplish their extraordinary jumps and spins? Brain science is uncovering clues. By Pam Belluck Pam Belluck is a neuroscience reporter and figure skating fan. March 27, 2024 The recent World Figure Skating Championships produced exciting results, including a 19-year-old American landing a quadruple axel and a 40-year-old pairs skater who became…
Killer whales are some of the most cosmopolitan creatures on the planet, swimming through every one of the world’s oceans. They patrol the frigid waters near both poles and periodically pop up in the tropics, in locations from western Africa to Hawaii. Although their habitats and habits vary widely, all killer whales are considered part…
A majority of the Supreme Court seemed inclined on Tuesday to reject a bid to sharply limit access to abortion pills. During about 90 minutes of argument, most of the justices seemed doubtful that the plaintiffs, who do not prescribe abortion pills or regularly treat abortion patients, even had standing to bring the challenge. The…
The future of access to abortion pills may turn on a basic legal question: Who has a right to bring a lawsuit? Among the anti-abortion doctors involved in the case before the Supreme Court seeking to restrict availability of the pill is Dr. Christina Francis, who leads one of the anti-abortion groups suing the Food…
