Black lung results from exposure to coal dust. Progressive massive fibrosis is an especially aggressive form, blamed on inhalation of silica dust from the cutting of quartz rock and coal together.
People are dumping corpses in the high desert of western Colorado. But those unloading bodies aren't criminal masterminds. They're scientists. And out here, the usual rules of human decay don't apply.
At the lone hospital in Hugo, a country town, staff members know most of the patients — they are friends and family. But cuts in the GOP health bill could threaten this cherished institution.
Dr. Kurt Newman has spent his career caring for children. In a new book, he argues that children are not just smaller adults, and the differences matter for their treatment.
We're answering more questions about the Republican plan to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, including what the proposed changes would mean for healthy young people and for taxes.
Current law requires all health insurance sold on the exchanges to cover 10 essential benefits — with no annual or lifetime limits to reimbursement. But the GOP plan might let states reinstate limits.
Congressional Republicans say the political risks of failing to make good on their promise to dismantle the Affordable Care Act outweigh the risks of passing an unpopular bill.
Government researchers met in West Virginia this week in response to an NPR investigation and federal study showing much higher rates of the most serious stages of the coal miners' disease black lung.
Dr. Joshua Sharfstein says worry less about the short-term withdrawal symptoms of babies exposed to opioids in the womb, and much more about the lives and mothers they go home to.