Oona Zenda

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ozenda@kff.org

Mood-Altering Mushroom Sales Bloom Despite Safety Concerns

KFF Health News Original

The well-known “Amanita muscaria” mushroom is legal to possess and consume in 49 states. The market for gummies, powders, and capsules containing extracts of the fungus is raising eyebrows, though, amid concerns from the FDA and in the absence of human clinical trials.

Can a Fetus Be an Employee? States Are Testing the Boundaries of Personhood After ‘Dobbs’

KFF Health News Original

Laws granting rights to unborn children have spread in the decades since the U.S. and Missouri supreme courts allowed Missouri’s definition of life as beginning at conception to stand. Now, a wrongful death lawsuit involving a workplace accident shows how sprawling those laws — often intended to curb abortion — have become.

How One Patient’s Textured Hair Nearly Kept Her From a Needed EEG

KFF Health News Original

An EEG can help diagnose conditions like epilepsy, sleep disorders, and brain tumors. But a design flaw and outdated Eurocentric practices make the test less effective on thicker, denser, and curly hair types, potentially excluding or deterring some people from getting screened.