Health News

Teen births in US fall to record low, as overall total drops by 2%: CDC

Isabel Pavia/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — The overall number of births in the United States dropped in 2023 as teenage births reached a record low, according to new provisional federal data published early Thursday. In 2023, there were 3.59 million births recorded, a 2% decline from the 3.66 million recorded in 2022, according to the report from the Centers for …

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USDA announces changes coming to school meals: What to know

Tetra Images/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — The nearly 30 million kids who eat meals at schools each day in the United States will soon see some changes to the food they are served. On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a series of changes to nutrition standards for school meals, including one that is a historic first. Here are …

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Woman becomes first patient to undergo combined heart pump implant and pig kidney transplant

Thir Sakdi Phu Cxm / EyeEm/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — In a first-of-its-kind procedure, a terminally ill patient has become the first person in the world to undergo a gene-edited pig kidney transplant and also have a mechanical heart pump surgically implanted. Surgeons at NYU Langone Health, in New York City, performed the operation in two steps, the first being …

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Traces of bird flu virus found in some milk and pasteurized dairy, FDA says

krisanapong detraphiphat/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — As federal agencies and state partners continue investigating outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) — more commonly referred to as bird flu — the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it discovered fragments of the virus in some samples of milk. In an update from the FDA, the agency said it tested milk …

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Ground beef potentially contaminated with E. coli, USDA warns

USDA, Food Safety and Inspection Service (NEW YORK) — A public health alert has been issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service for ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli bacteria. Raw ground beef produced by Greater Omaha Packing Co., Inc. on March 28, 2024, is no longer available for purchase so …

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Possible measles exposure at Indiana children’s museum during total eclipse event, officials say

Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images (INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.) — People who attended a total solar eclipse event at a children’s museum in Indiana may have been exposed to measles, according to museum and health officials. An infected individual traveled to the event at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis on April 8 from out of state, the Marion County Public Health Department …

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Mom of three survives stroke after giving birth, followed by car crash

Christina Aleksanian (GRANADA HILLS, Calif.) — A mom-of-three in California is speaking out after surviving two near-death experiences in a span of six weeks. Christina Aleksanian, 36, of Granada Hills, was recovering in the hospital after giving birth to her third child, a daughter named Stephanie, when she said she felt her hand start to go numb. Aleksanian said she …

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ParkRx aims to provide ‘prescription for wellness’ by getting more people outside

ABC News Medical Correspondent Dr. Darien Sutton walks through Rock Creek National Park in Washington, D.C. with Walk with a Doc board member Chaun Hightower. (Paul Dougherty/ABC News) (NEW YORK) — A community health initiative that partnered with the National Park Service has doctors writing a “prescription” for wellness by getting more people outdoors. “When I look across our medical …

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New race-neutral kidney evaluation moves thousands of Black patients up transplant waitlist

Thir Sakdi Phu Cxm / EyeEm/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — Jazmin Evans is one of more than 14,000 Black kidney transplant candidates who found out that an outdated medical test may have inappropriately calculated their need for a transplant. Evans, 29, was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in January 2012. She started dialysis and was put on the kidney transplant …

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4-year-old who received new heart after waiting 1,025 days goes home from hospital

Texas Children’s Hospital (NEW YORK) — A 4-year-old girl was discharged from Texas Children’s Hospital on Thursday after waiting on the organ transplant waiting list for 1,025 days, or nearly 3 years. The staff at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston lined the halls on April 18 to give 4-year-old Arctura, who received a donor heart on March 29, a celebratory …

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