Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
Each week, KFF Health News finds longer stories for you to enjoy. Today's selections are on cancer, birth control, PFAS, heat waves, rats, and more.
The Washington Post:
The New Faces Of Cancer: Young, Outspoken And Online
The experiences of cancer patients have long been told through a narrow, often sanitized lens — framed as battles to be fought and wrapped in neatly packaged survival stories. But today, a new generation of patients is rewriting that script. As cancer rates rise among adolescents and adults under 50 — even as overall rates decline — many are making sure their experiences are seen, heard and understood in all their complicated, unfiltered realities. (Cornejo, Sitz, Monroe and Conrad, 8/31)
The New York Times:
‘Who Am I Without Birth Control?’
As social media and wellness podcasters bombard young women with messages about the pill, many are questioning what they’ve long been told. (Goldberg, 9/2)
The Washington Post:
The Pregnancy Risk Almost No One Knows About
When Marya Zlatnik meets with women in the early stages of pregnancy, she gives them the standard advice: take prenatal vitamins; avoid alcohol, smoking and eating raw fish. But for certain patients, the maternal fetal medicine specialist at the University of California at San Francisco, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, adds another warning: Avoid plastic. (Osaka, Hulley-Jones and Ducroquet, 9/4)
The New York Times:
‘I Could Literally Be Left Behind To Die’: How A Student With A Disability Changed The Law
Every time her middle school classmates streamed outside for monthly fire drills, Kira Tiller had to stay behind, worrying about what would happen to her in a real emergency. Flashing bright lights can trigger seizures for Ms. Tiller, who has epilepsy. So her teachers in Gainesville, Va., would send her to a windowless office during drills to avoid the alarm strobes. When her family requested a real emergency plan, administrators just said they would figure it out. She remembers thinking, “I could literally be left behind to die.” (Rao, 8/25)
Bloomberg:
Scientists Are Challenging Everything We Know About Deadly Heat Waves
Earlier this summer, Glen Kenny spent three days confined to a special chamber inside his University of Ottawa lab where the daytime temperature was set at 104 degrees Fahrenheit. The purpose was to see how the researcher’s 61-year-old body held up in brutal indoor temperatures observed during a 2021 heat wave that killed hundreds of Canadians. (Hirji and Clark, 8/29)
AP:
Land Mines And Tuberculosis Are No Match For Tanzanian Rats Sniffing Out Danger And Disease
The nonprofit APOPO has worked in Morogoro, Tanzania, for more than two decades to train African giant pouched rats for lifesaving missions. (Denton, 9/4)
