What to Do When Health Insurance Denies Care You Really Need

If there’s anything worse than being sick, it’s being sick while dealing with insurance issues. But unfortunately, that situation is all too common. Recent research from the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that researches health care issues, finds that 17% of U.S. adults have in the past year had their insurance company deny doctor-recommended care, … Read more

The Global System for Distributing Mpox Shots Is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It

From its epicenter in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa’s mpox epidemic is spreading fast, reaching a dozen other African nations so far. The single most important tool for extinguishing the fire is mpox vaccination, which prevents infection and illness. Until yesterday, not a single dose of mpox vaccine was available in Congo. Few … Read more

Do At-Home COVID-19 Tests Still Work?

These days, many people use at-home COVID-19 tests when they feel ill, rather than going out to get tested by a professional. (That’s when they bother to test at all.) But for all their convenience, the antigen tests commonly used at home have never been as accurate as PCR tests done in a lab—and the … Read more

Teen Vaping Hits 10-Year Low in U.S.

(WASHINGTON) — Fewer adolescents are vaping this year than at any point in the last decade, government officials reported Thursday, pointing to a shrinking number of high school students who are using Elf Bar and other fruity, unauthorized e-cigarettes. The latest survey numbers show the teen vaping rate fell to under 6% this year, down … Read more

How to Make—and Keep—Friends at Work

Priya, an engineer in California, was on a deadline. Under pressure, she emailed a younger friend working on the same project to ask for some data that the project needed to get done on time. She and the woman weren’t super close, but Priya considered her colleague an ally and a buddy—previously they had “trauma-bonded,” … Read more

The Weight Loss Drug That Can Prevent Diabetes

The weight-loss drugs that have become so popular in recent years actually began as diabetes medications, and a new study shows that they continue to provide strong protection against that chronic disease. Eli Lilly, the makers of tirzepatide—which they sell as Mounjaro for diabetes and Zepbound for weight loss—announced recently that in its longest study … Read more