Medicine and Health
R.J. Reynolds Pivots to New Cigarette Pitches as Flavor Ban Takes Effect
R.J. Reynolds has wasted no time since California’s ban on flavored tobacco went into effect in late December. “California, We’ve Got You Covered,” the company declared in bold letters on a flier mailed to its cigarette customers. The law prohibits flavors, odors or “tastes” in tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes. But antismoking experts argue that […]
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‘Very Harmful’ Lack of Data Blunts U.S. Response to Outbreaks
ANCHORAGE — After a middle-aged woman tested positive for Covid-19 in January at her workplace in Fairbanks, public health workers sought answers to questions vital to understanding how the virus was spreading in Alaska’s rugged interior. The woman, they learned, had underlying conditions and had not been vaccinated. She had been hospitalized but had recovered. […]
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Drug-Resistant Infections in Hospitals Soared During the Pandemic, C.D.C. Says
The spread of drug-resistant infections surged during the coronavirus pandemic, killing nearly 30,000 people in 2020 and upending much of the recent progress made in containing the spread of so-called superbugs, according to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths caused by infections impervious to antibiotics and antifungal medications rose 15 […]
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FDA Orders Juul to Remove E-Cigarette Products from U.S. Market
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday ordered Juul to stop selling e-cigarettes on the U.S. market, a profoundly damaging blow to a once-popular company whose brand was blamed for the teenage vaping crisis. The order affects all of Juul’s products on the U.S. market, the overwhelming source of the company’s sales. Juul’s sleek vaping […]
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F.D.A. Aims to Cut Down on Smoking by Slashing Nicotine Levels in Cigarettes
The Food and Drug Administration is planning to require tobacco companies to slash the amount of nicotine in traditional cigarettes to make them less addictive and reduce the toll of smoking that claims 480,000 lives each year. The proposal, which could take years to go into effect, would put the United States at the forefront […]
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The Battle Over Gender Therapy
And just like that, after four years of painstaking work, Leibowitz, de Vries and the rest of their group were being called out as traitors by peers and the community they sought to care for. “We understood the enormity of the need for these standards from the beginning,” Leibowitz told me. “I’m not sure we […]
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How Covid Did Away With the Sick Day
Many workers find themselves, consciously or not, mimicking the way their bosses behave. They witness managers answering emails from bed, and feel they should do the same. So some bosses are taking a firmer line on using their leave. Jim Canales, head of the Barr Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on arts, education and climate, […]
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Violence in Rural Mexico Ensnares Doctors, Causing Worker Shortages
“They forget about a patient’s primary right, which is to be cared for wherever they are, and it’s because of this that we needed to resort to contracting foreigners,” Dr. Jorge Alcocer Varela, Mexico’s secretary of health, told reporters at a recent news conference. The announcement about the Cuban doctors provoked outrage among many Mexican […]
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F.D.A. Moves to Ban Sales of Menthol Cigarettes
Public health advocates have long sought a menthol ban. When the landmark Tobacco Control Act passed in 2009, giving the F.D.A. the authority to regulate tobacco products, menthol was exempted from the tobacco flavors that would be banned. The exception rankled public health groups and a cadre of former U.S. cabinet health secretaries, who noted […]
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