Last Word

Nitrous oxide is often inhaled with a balloon. Matt Cardy/Getty Images News ~~~~~ The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning Americans about the ever-increasing and potentially deadly recreational use of nitrous oxide products, particularly among young people. Marketed with names like “Galaxy Gas” and “Miami Magic,” and often sold in steel cartridges known as “whippets,” these products are...

Remember when your family doctor was actually your doctor? That quaint historical period when physicians made independent medical judgments instead of reading from pharmaceutical scripts? When they looked at you as a unique human being rather than a collection of compliance metrics needing correction? Those days are gone. Today’s primary care physician is something entirely different—a...

Wealth can buy health – but only to a point. marekuliasz/iStock via Getty Images Plus ~~~~~ Americans at all wealth levels are more likely to die sooner than their European counterparts, with even the richest U.S. citizens living shorter lives than northern and western Europeans. That is the key finding of our new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. We also found that while...

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Since at least April 2021, the Montana medical licensing board has had evidence, including thousands of pages of patient files and medical reviews, that Dr. Thomas C. Weiner, a popular Helena oncologist, had hurt and potentially killed patients,...

Can genetically modified animals help ease the shortage of organs? After years of research into xenotransplantation, the field is at a turning point — yet risks and ethical issues remain. More than 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for a new heart, kidney or some other organ. Many will die waiting. Some scientists see new hope for these people in organs from pigs that have been...

Some private schools have shut down because of a rapidly escalating measles outbreak in West Texas. Local health departments are overstretched, pausing other important work as they race to limit the spread of this highly contagious virus. Since the outbreak emerged three weeks ago, the Texas health department has confirmed 90 cases with 16 hospitalizations, as of Feb. 21. Most of those infected...