Health

Ransomware attack takes down LA hospital for hours

By PBS News Hour

One of the greatest threats to private cybersecurity today is ransomware -- a cyberattack that blocks access to a computer until the hacker is paid a ransom. The problem recently took on new urgency when a hospital in Los Angeles…

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One family’s lonely struggle against their child’s rare disease

By Laura Santhanam

“You have to learn about the illness,” she said. “You have to figure out how to explain it to every person you meet every day.”…

Rocky home lives could hinder kindergartener success, study finds

By Lisa Gillespie, Kaiser Health News

Very young children who endure neglect, abuse and dysfunctional home lives go on to struggle as kindergartners, leaving them at risk for more difficult years as adolescents and adults, a new study finds.

CDC: Zika virus linked to ‘series of miscarriages’ in pregnant women

By Nsikan Akpan

Today, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention gave updates on their virus response efforts, U.S. cases involving pregnant women and 14 investigations into sexual transmission of the virus.

First uterus transplant in the U.S. offers pregnancy hope

By Melissa Bailey, STAT

A 26-year-old patient underwent a uterine transplant, the first in the US, on Wednesday at the Cleveland Clinic.

NIH taking first steps to huge precision medicine project

By Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is moving ahead with a major project to learn how to better tailor treatments and preventive care to people's genes, environment and lifestyle.

Why ‘vaginal swabbing’ your newborn might not be a good idea

By Megan Thielking, STAT

Parents-to-be increasingly request 'vaginal swabbing' after C-section births, but experts caution it could introduce viruses to the baby.

HealthCare.gov ‘passive’ on heading off fraud

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — With billions in taxpayer dollars at stake, the Obama administration has taken a "passive" approach to identifying potential fraud involving the president's health care law, nonpartisan congressional investigators say in a report due out Wednesday.

State governments strive to curb epidemic of fatal opioid abuse

By PBS News Hour

Abuse of opioids such as heroin, oxycontin and methadone led to 28,000 deaths last year, according to federal agencies. Many states are taking steps to combat the epidemic, but proposed solutions have attracted their own share of controversy and criticism.

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1 in 2 gay black men may contract HIV in their lifetimes, new data show

By Andrew Joseph, STAT

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated a person’s lifetime risk of HIV diagnosis by sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and state of residence.