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Ask the Pediatrician: Social media, body image and self esteem: What's the connection?

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Ever since social media burst on the scene in the early 2000s, parents and health experts have worried about the potential impact on kids, particularly those in their early teens. Now researchers are asking how the curated content that kids see online makes them feel about themselves.

Newer studies show that picture-perfect selfies and videos ...Read more

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Recovering from a stroke

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Stroke is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. and a major cause of serious disability for adults. More than 795,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke each year. Risk increases with age, especially after 55, but strokes can occur at any age.

Recovering from a stroke varies from person to person, says Dr. Felix Chukwudelunzu, M.D., a ...Read more

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Commentary: The case for racial equity in public health

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

President Donald Trump’s administration has signaled its intent to eliminate programs that acknowledge and address racial disparities in health care. It has set out to defund reproductive health services, undermine Medicaid and dismiss public health data that highlights racial inequities.

If these policies continue unchecked, they will ...Read more

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Feds chop enforcement staff and halt rules meant to curb black lung in coal miners

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

In early April, President Donald Trump gathered dozens of hard-hat-clad coal miners around him in the White House East Room. He joked about arm-wrestling them and announced he was signing executive orders to boost coal production, “bringing back an industry that was abandoned,” and to “put the miners back to work.”

Trump said he calls ...Read more

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In Arizona county that backed Trump, conflicted feelings about cutting Medicaid

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

GLOBE, Ariz. — Like many residents of this copper-mining town in the mountains east of Phoenix, Debbie Cox knows plenty of people on Medicaid.

Cox, who is a property manager at a real estate company in Globe, has tenants who rely on the safety-net program. And at the domestic violence shelter where she volunteers as president of the board, ...Read more

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Language service cutbacks raise fear of medical errors, misdiagnoses, deaths

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

SAN FRANCISCO — Health nonprofits and medical interpreters warn that federal cuts have eliminated dozens of positions in California for community workers who help non-English speakers sign up for insurance coverage and navigate the health care system.

At the same time, people with limited English proficiency have scaled back their requests ...Read more

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Minnesota was among the first to launch Youth Mental Health Corps, but DOGE cuts could put it in jeopardy

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Sometimes it’s their home life. Other times it’s friendships, dating or rumors circling at Murray Middle School.

Whatever the subject, Anjali Hay listens to the St. Paul students’ concerns, points them to others when she can’t meet a need and keeps on them about schoolwork.

“They feel they can come to me as a trusted adult,” the 20...Read more

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Silence on E. coli outbreak highlights how the administration changes undermine food safety

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Colton George felt sick. The 9-year-old Indiana boy told his parents his stomach hurt. He kept running to the bathroom and felt too ill to finish a basketball game.

Days later, he lay in a hospital bed, fighting for his life. He had eaten tainted salad, according to a lawsuit against the lettuce grower filed by his parents on April 17 in ...Read more

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Glaucoma-related vision loss is often preventable, but many can't afford treatment

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

COLUMBIA, S.C. — It’s as if she’s squinting through a smoke-filled room. But it’s Charisse Brown’s eye condition, glaucoma, that diminishes her vision.

Brown, 38, has worked all her adult life, with a personal policy of keeping two jobs at once. But when she started losing sight in her left eye last year, she was forced to quit her ...Read more

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US just radically changed its COVID vaccine recommendations: How will it affect you?

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

As promised, federal health officials have dropped longstanding recommendations that healthy children and healthy pregnant women should get the COVID-19 vaccines.

"The COVID-19 vaccine schedule is very clear. The vaccine is not recommended for pregnant women. The vaccine is not recommended for healthy children," the U.S. Department of Health ...Read more

Moderna wins narrower US approval for new COVID vaccine

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Moderna Inc. gained U.S. approval for a new COVID vaccine for a narrower group of people, in the latest sign that regulators are restricting access to immunizations under the leadership of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The company’s second-generation vaccine is cleared for all adults over 65 and anyone over 12 who ...Read more

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CDC shifts child COVID vaccination guidance after RFK Jr. post

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its childhood vaccination schedule to say that healthy children “may receive” COVID shots — softened from its previous stance calling for them — after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it would no longer be recommended.

When parents want “their child to be ...Read more

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A new COVID subvariant spreads rapidly as Trump pivots away from vaccines

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

A new, highly transmissible COVID subvariant has been detected in California — heightening the risk of a potential summer wave as recent moves by the Trump administration threaten to make vaccines harder to get, and more expensive, for many Americans, some health experts warn.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ...Read more

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Who should be screened for skin cancer?

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the U.S. More than 6 million adults are treated for it each year, says Dr. Michael Colgan, a Mayo Clinic Health System dermatologist in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Melanoma is an aggressive form of skin cancer. In 2025, an estimated 104,960 cases of invasive melanoma will be diagnosed in the U.S., and an ...Read more

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Valley fever cases are expected to spike in California. Here's how to avoid it

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

LOS ANGELES — For the second year in a row, California is on track to have a record-breaking number of valley fever cases, which public health officials say are driven by longer, drier summers.

There have been more than 4,000 cases of valley fever reported statewide from January to April, an increase of more than 3,000 cases compared with the...Read more

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Massachusetts brain tumor cluster: Nurses not satisfied with Newton-Wellesley study

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

BOSTON — A nurses’ union isn’t satisfied with a Mass General Brigham investigation that found the brain tumor cluster at Newton-Wellesley Hospital is not connected to working conditions.

The hospital has identified six nurses who have worked on the facility’s fifth-floor maternity unit and reported benign (non-cancerous) brain tumors �...Read more

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Penn Medicine health system ceases gender-affirming surgery for patients under age 19

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

PHILADELPHIA — Penn Medicine will no longer provide gender-affirming surgery to patients under age 19, effective this week, citing new federal orders targeting such procedures among transgender minors.

President Donald Trump issued in January an executive order that bars federal funding for gender-affirming care, including hormone therapy, ...Read more

Immigrants fear losing crucial health care if Minnesota legislators revoke access

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

MINNEAPOLIS — Micaela has spent three decades tirelessly cleaning houses, working as a clerk and now owns a shop in the Twin Cities that she tends to seven days a week, only closing Christmas and New Year’s Day.

But those efforts have left telltale signs on her body. She struggles to walk because of debilitating knee pain brought on by ...Read more

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LGBTQ+ researchers sue Trump administration over grant terminations

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

BALTIMORE — An association of LGBTQ+ and allied health professionals sued the Trump administration last week on behalf of researchers whose funding related to LGBTQ+ health issues was terminated.

GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality filed the suit against the National Institutes of Health and U.S. Department of Health and ...Read more