Health & Safety

Virginia considers allowing doctors to help people with terminal illnesses to die

6:14pm February 07, 2024

by Ben Paviour

Virginia lawmakers are considering bills that would allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to patients with terminal illnesses who've been given a prognosis of six months or less to live.

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Health & Safety

Scientists rely on private funding to push long COVID research forward

6:12am February 07, 2024

by Will Stone

Advocates say the federal government no longer views long COVID with urgency. Private donors are funding research, bringing an unprecedented level of collaboration. (Story aired on ATC on 2/6/24.)

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Purple Tomatoes ripening in the Norfolk Plant Sciences test garden.

A genetically modified purple tomato is now available to home gardeners

8:57pm February 06, 2024

by Sasa Woodruff

The plant gets its color — and a boost in antioxidants — from genes from an edible flower. It's the first time gardeners have been able to grow a GMO crop at home.

Long COVID research goes private

5:27pm February 06, 2024

by Will Stone

Advocates say the federal government is no longer viewing long COVID with the urgency it deserves. Private donors are now funding research bringing an unprecedented level of collaboration.

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The U.S. Census Bureau says it's no longer moving ahead with proposed changes to how an annual survey produces estimates of how many people with disabilities are living in the country.

The Census Bureau is dropping a controversial proposal to change disability statistics

2:29pm February 06, 2024

by Hansi Lo Wang

After public outcries, the U.S. Census Bureau says it's no longer moving ahead with proposed survey changes that could have shrunk a key estimated rate of disability in the U.S. by about 40%.

Health & Safety

N.C. officials promote children's dental health

10:46am February 06, 2024

by Neal Charnoff

February is National Children’s Dental Health Month, and North Carolina officials are stressing the importance of kids' dental hygiene.

Rep. Shontel Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, is calling on the FDA to do further investigations into hair straightening products that contain chemicals flagged for health risks.

FDA move to ban formaldehyde in hair straighteners called too little, too late

9:28am February 06, 2024

by Ronnie Cohen

The FDA will soon move to ban formaldehyde in hair-straightening products. It's more than a decade after research raised alarms about health risks and other worrying chemicals remain in the products.

Psilocybin mushrooms jarred and ready for distribution at Uptown Fungus lab in Springfield, Ore. Oregon has decriminalized the use of the psychedelic drug.

As 'magic mushrooms' got more attention, drug busts of the psychedelic drug went up

7:51am February 06, 2024

by Rhitu Chatterjee

Busts of psilocybin mushrooms went way up from 2017 to 2022, a new study finds, even as the psychedelic drug's potential benefits have been explored by scientists.

Doctors face huge stigma about mental illness. Now there's an effort to change that

4:50pm February 05, 2024

by Priyanka Dayal McCluskey

Doctors have long dealt with perceived threats to their careers if they are open about mental illness and addiction. Now about two dozen states are changing licensing forms to lessen the stigma.

Biological age tests or calculators can give you a sense of how fast your DNA is aging. But scientists aren't yet sure what individuals can make of the tests.

Health & Safety

You can order a test to find out your biological age. Is it worth it?

4:37pm February 05, 2024

by Allison Aubrey

Learning your DNA age sounds intriguing. But researchers caution the results might make you nervous. And they don't tell you much about what steps to take next.

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