More than two-fifths of Oregon community pharmacies require a prescription to purchase syringes, even though they can be sold over the counter, creating an access barrier that could exacerbate the spread of bloodborne diseases like hepatitis C.
Q&A: How can drug repurposing lower drug costs and improve care?
Americans pay a lot of money for prescription medications. In 2023, spending on prescription drugs in the United States topped $722 billion, a trend that’s expected to continue. Yet, nearly 30% struggle to pay for their prescriptions and more than half of adults are worried about the affordability of their family’s medications, according to polling by KFF.
Assessment method may improve the reliability of radiologists’ diagnostic reports
Due to the inherent ambiguity in medical images like X-rays, radiologists often use words like “may” or “likely” when describing the presence of a certain pathology, such as pneumonia.
Female hormones can stimulate immune cells to make opioids that naturally suppress pain
Scientists have discovered a new mechanism that acts via an immune cell and points toward a different way of treating chronic pain. Female hormones can suppress pain by making immune cells near the spinal cord produce opioids, a new study by researchers at UC San Francisco has found. This stops pain signals before they get to the brain.
Low neighborhood walkability is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease
Low neighborhood walkability is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to research presented April 3 at ESC Preventive Cardiology 2025, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology. The findings are also published in the journal Environmental Research.
AI can recommend if you need to be screened for cancer
Currently, recommendations for cancer screening are primarily based on the age of the patient. Therefore, practitioners may not encourage younger at-risk individuals to be screened for cancer. They may unnecessarily encourage older low-risk individuals to screen for cancer. Artificial intelligence (AI) can change this. Farrokh Alemi at George Mason University has edited a collection of five articles by colleagues and students on how data science can be used to predict risk of cancer and enable risk-based AI systems to recommend cancer screening. Their research shows that risk-based models have predict between 60–90% of based on the cancers:
Virtual reality research explores curiosity and spatial memory
Virtual reality reveals that curiosity is key in shaping our spatial memory and mental map formation, finds new research by Cardiff University and Royal Holloway, University of London.
Gene editing reprograms colon cells to combat short bowel syndrome
Knocking out a single gene reprograms part of the large intestine to function like the nutrient-absorbing small intestine. In a preclinical study, Weill Cornell Medicine investigators showed that the technique reversed the malnutrition that results when most of the small intestine is removed.
Two Louisiana infants die of whooping cough amid drop in vaccinations
Health experts are warning that whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is making a dangerous comeback.
How Cory Booker prepped his body to break 25-hour Senate speech record
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker stood on the Senate floor and spoke for 25 hours and 5 minutes this week, breaking the modern record for the longest Senate speech ever.