To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. The stories the mothers tell when they gather at the Awendo Health Centre in western Kenya are a catalog of small failures, missed opportunities and devastating consequences. What unites the two dozen or so women who meet […]

But she has other concerns, particularly about her 7- and 12-year-old daughters. The long hospitalization for gene therapy followed by months of recuperation would be hard on them, she said. “They are not babies, but they need me,” Ms. Polanco said. Patients ask when in the course of the disease is gene therapy needed. If […]

The third major change: When prices for drugs covered under Part D, and some under Part B, increase faster than the inflation rate, the law now requires drug manufacturers to pay rebates or face stiff penalties. Although those rebates will go to Medicare, not to individuals, “if you’re responsible for a portion of a drug’s […]

Polio may have been circulating widely for a year, and was present in New York’s wastewater as early as April, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A wastewater sample collected in April in Orange County, N.Y., tested positive for the virus, pushing back the earliest known detection in […]

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when prevention seemed light years away, several scientists launched trials to see whether a tuberculosis vaccine developed in the early 1900s might protect people by bolstering the immune system. The Bacillus-Calmette-Guerin vaccine has long been known to have broad effects on the immune system, and is still […]

Roughly 5,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine intended for Fort Lauderdale, Fla., left the national stockpile’s warehouse in Olive Branch, Miss., on July 19. They somehow ended up in Oklahoma. Then Tennessee. Then Mississippi again. Then, finally, Florida. In Idaho, a shipment of 60 vaccine doses disappeared and showed up six days later, refrigerated rather than […]

Britain on Monday became the first country to authorize a coronavirus vaccine that targets two variants, the original virus and Omicron, the variant that became dominant over the winter. Half of each dose of the Moderna-made vaccine will target the original variant, and the other half will target Omicron. In clinical trials, the vaccine, an […]

Polio outbreaks incited regular panics decades ago, until a vaccine was developed and the disease was largely eradicated. Then on Friday, New York City health authorities announced that they had found the virus in wastewater samples, suggesting polio was probably circulating in the city again. Parents of young children found themselves wondering — perhaps for […]

Lyons Magnus, a nutritional drinks company, expanded a voluntary recall of some varieties of popular products including the oat drink Oatly, Optimum Nutrition protein powder and Glucerna shakes, because of the potential for microbial contamination, the company and federal authorities said this week. The company said in a statement on July 28 that no illnesses […]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed many of its Covid-19 guidelines this week, shifting sharply away from several of the precautions, including quarantines and social distancing, that have long defined the pandemic. The move was prompted by the fact that many Americans now have some immunity to the coronavirus — through a combination […]