Illustrated Report: How Gun Violence Goes Viral
As chatter and images about guns and violence slip into the social media feeds of more teens, viral messages fueled by “likes” can lead to real-world conflict and loss.
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As chatter and images about guns and violence slip into the social media feeds of more teens, viral messages fueled by “likes” can lead to real-world conflict and loss.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans become disabled or die each year because of a diagnostic error. But some patients are at higher risk than others.
A new study finds that young people who have been injured by firearms are more prone to psychiatric diagnoses and developing a substance use disorder than kids who have not been shot — and their families also suffer long-term ill effects.
The popular actress and author, who died this week, also can be remembered as a progenitor of selling dubious medical information to a trusting public.
Teens share photos or videos of themselves with guns and stacks of cash, sometimes calling out rivals, on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok. When posts go viral, fueled by “likes” and comments, the danger is hard to contain.
Popular e-cigarettes lack packaging that stops kids from consuming the hazardous nicotine inside.
The FDA, Justice Department, and White House have failed to act as vapes with kid-friendly flavors like cotton candy or gummy bears proliferate.
KFF Health News and California Healthline staffers made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
The profound and painful loss — 80 million years of life, compared with the white population — is a call to action to improve the health of Black Americans, especially infants, mothers, and seniors, researchers say.
More than 1 in 5 Americans report having been threatened with a firearm, and almost as many say they worry about gun violence every day or almost every day, a new KFF poll shows.
KFF Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Yes, the U.S. is experiencing an unusual spate of childhood RSV infections. But the critical shortage of hospital beds to treat ailing children stems from structural problems in pediatric care that have been brewing for years.
With their brains still developing and poor impulse control, teens who carry firearms might never plan to use them. But some do.
Recent leaps in medical research have lent urgency to the quest to develop a vaccine against Epstein-Barr, a ubiquitous virus that has been linked to a range of illnesses, from mononucleosis to multiple sclerosis and several cancers.
In a rambling news conference that shocked public health experts, President Donald Trump — without scientific evidence — blamed the over-the-counter drug acetaminophen, and too many childhood vaccines, for the increase in autism diagnoses in the U.S. That came days after a key immunization advisory panel, newly reconstituted with vaccine doubters, changed several long-standing recommendations. Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official Demetre Daskalakis joins KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss those stories. Meanwhile, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call and Anna Edney of Bloomberg News join Rovner with the rest of the news, including a threat by the Trump administration to fire rather than furlough federal workers if Congress fails to fund the government beyond the Oct. 1 start of the new fiscal year.
Lawmakers appear on the brink of passing a spending bill for the Department of Health and Human Services and a bipartisan health policy bill delayed for over a year. But the outlook is bleaker for the health care outline released by President Trump last week. Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times, and Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss those stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews oncologist and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel to discuss his new book, “Eat Your Ice Cream.”
The omicron variant has proved adept at finding hosts, often by reinfecting people who recovered from earlier bouts of covid. But whether omicron triggers long covid as often and severe as previous variants is a matter of heated study.
While supporters cheer the PASTEUR Act as an essential strategy to stem the rise of antibiotic-resistant pathogens, critics call it a multibillion-dollar giveaway to Big Pharma.
The popularity of at-home covid tests has amplified calls from public health researchers and diagnostic companies to make home testing similarly routine for sexually transmitted diseases. But FDA guidelines are lagging.
Researchers say the billions in pandemic funding available for ventilation upgrades in U.S. schools provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to combat covid-19, as well as making air more breathable for students living with allergies, asthma, and chronic wildfire smoke.
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