Author: Reporter

A message displayed above a mural of a sailboat bobbing on ocean waves under a cloud-studded azure sky said, “You are the Lighthouse in someone’s storm.” It was an unexpected slogan for a prison wall. On a nearby door painted deep blue, a bright yellow Minion character offers “ways to say hello,” lists of suggestions about how prisoners incarcerated in a segregated unit of Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution at Albion can best greet each other. A handful of “sensory” rooms in the unit offer calming blue walls where harsh fluorescent lighting is dimmed by special covers. The unique environment...

A new strategy to fight an extremely aggressive type of brain tumor showed promise in a pair of experiments with a handful of patients. Scientists took patients’ own immune cells and turned them into “living drugs” able to recognize and attack glioblastoma. In the first-step tests, those cells shrank tumors at least temporarily, researchers reported recently. So-called CAR-T therapy already is used to fight blood-related cancers like leukemia but researchers have struggled to make it work for solid tumors. Now separate teams at Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania are developing next-generation CAR-T versions designed to get...

A blood test for colon cancer performed well in a recently published study, offering a new kind of screening for a leading cause of cancer deaths. The test looks for DNA fragments shed by tumor cells and precancerous growths. It is already for sale in the U.S. for $895, but has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and most insurers do not cover it. The maker of the test, Guardant Health, anticipates an FDA decision this year. In the study, the test caught 83% of the cancers but very few of the precancerous growths found by...

Almost a quarter of people who were dropped from Medicaid during the post-pandemic eligibility reviews are still uninsured and high costs are preventing them from getting on another plan, a new survey from KFF showed. At least 20 million lower-income Americans have lost their federal health insurance since the provision that kept states from disenrolling people during COVID-19 ended in March 2023, according to KFF’s unwinding tracker. That is more than the Biden administration’s initial projection of 15 million people. States have through at least June — some longer — to finish eligibility reviews, so experts say the number...

On a brisk day at a restaurant outside Chicago, Deb Robertson sat with her teenage grandson to talk about her death. She will probably miss his high school graduation. She declined the extended warranty on her car. Sometimes she wonders who will be at her funeral. Those things do not frighten her much. She did not cry when she learned two months ago that the cancerous tumors in her liver were spreading, portending a tormented death. But later, she received a call. A bill moving through the Illinois Legislature to allow certain terminally ill patients to end their own...

Measles outbreaks in the U.S. and abroad are raising concerns with health experts about the preventable, once-common childhood virus. One of the world’s most contagious diseases, measles can lead to potentially serious complications. The best defense, according to experts? Get vaccinated. Here is what to know about the year, so far, in measles. HOW MANY MEASLES CASES HAS THE U.S. SEEN THIS YEAR? Nationwide, measles cases already are nearly double the total for all of last year. The U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention documented 113 cases as of April 5. There have been seven outbreaks and most...