Health & Safety

Surgeon Christoph Haller and his research team from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children are working on technology that could someday result in an artificial womb to help extremely premature babies.

An artificial womb could build a bridge to health for premature babies

12:30pm April 12, 2024

by Rob Stein

Artificial wombs could someday save babies born very prematurely. Even though the experimental technology is still in animal tests, there are mounting questions about its eventual use with humans.

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A nurse assists a patient in a North Carolina hospital.

Health & Safety

North Carolina readies for launch of Medicaid tailored plans July 1

10:10am April 12, 2024

by Neal Charnoff

North Carolina has initiated a bilingual awareness campaign in advance of this summer’s launch of tailored plans for eligible Medicaid beneficiaries.

An elementary school in Kansas is combating bad behavior — by putting kids to work

9:14am April 12, 2024

by Suzanne Perez

A pilot program in elementary schools gives kids meaningful work as a way to handle post-pandemic behavior problems.

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Denise Lee on her last day of chemo. In addition to chemo and surgery, she was treated with immunotherapy. She's currently in remission.

Health & Safety

After 40 years of smoking, she survived lung cancer thanks to new treatments

8:13am April 12, 2024

by Yuki Noguchi

Scientific advances in immunotherapy and new targeted therapies have increased survival rates. But screening among former and current smokers still needs to improve to save more lives.

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Arizona attorney general says she won't enforce a 164-year-old abortion law

7:19am April 12, 2024

NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat who has vowed to not enforce a sweeping abortion ban upheld by the state's supreme court.

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A mother and son remember a frightening accident and the resulting kindness

5:17am April 12, 2024

Karina Borgia-Lacroix was in a StoryCorps booth in Fort Myers, Fla., last month with her 10-year-old son, Levi, when he asked her, "What is your favorite memory of me?"

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With diary cows getting bird flu, researchers are trying to figure out what mutations could make the virus a threat to humans.

More states are finding bird flu in cattle. This is what scientists are watching for

7:09pm April 11, 2024

by Will Stone

Avian influenza is being detected in more dairy herds. Scientists are paying close attention to how the virus is changing and what that means for its pandemic potential.

A worker separates bags of donated blood at a campaign organized by the Rotary Blood Bank in New Delhi, India.

Health & Safety

Here are 3 solutions to get blood to folks in 'blood deserts.' One is often illegal

8:54am April 11, 2024

by Simar Bajaj

Doctors have coined a term to describe places where blood for transfusions is not readily available: "blood deserts." When blood banks aren't around, they try different strategies to help patients.

Health & Safety

The many roadblocks that keep women from getting mammograms

7:22am April 11, 2024

by Yuki Noguchi

CDC research finds that in addition to cost and access, other factors of daily life keep many women from getting screened for breast cancer. (Story aired on All Things Considered on 4/9/24.)

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Choropleth map showing the average distance a person in each U.S. county has to travel, after the Arizona and Florida abortion bans take effect, to reach an abortion provider

How Florida and Arizona Supreme Court rulings change the abortion access map

5:06am April 11, 2024

How far do women have to travel to access abortion care? An economics professor has been tracking that data since 2009. Interactive maps show how access has changed dramatically since 2021.