For nearly three agonizing years, Mariah Freschi and her husband have been trying to have a second baby. The California mother recently underwent surgery to remove her blocked fallopian tubes, leaving in vitro fertilization as her only option to get pregnant. But the cost quoted by her Sacramento-area clinic was $25,000 — out of reach for ...Read more

Los Angeles pediatrician and urgent care specialist Dr. Ilan Shapiro worries for his chronically ill patients as he watches Congress weigh significant cuts to Medicaid.

He thinks of a boy who, before finding Shapiro’s clinic, was in and out of emergency rooms and intensive care units because of severe asthma attacks, instead of competing in ...Read more

Christine and Joey Gibson are trying everything to get their infant son a new liver: traveling to three different states to list him with transplant centers, begging on social media and even offering a piece of Joey’s liver in a swap if a compatible donor has someone in their life who needs an organ.

The waitlist for a liver from a deceased ...Read more

Not long ago, teens had only a handful of ways to be exposed to gambling. Some might see a caregiver buy lottery tickets, others might watch a family member join fantasy sports leagues and some might encounter gambling on a family trip. Gambling was a behavior that had clear boundaries around it as "adults only."

But online gambling has ...Read more

He’s 17 and lives in the Chicago suburbs. He loves theater and recently helped direct a play at his high school. He takes competitive AP courses and is working on his Eagle Scout project.

And he’s been on a journey for four years.

Once a week, the transgender teen injects testosterone into his body. He’s had his eggs frozen in case he ...Read more

Tiny pieces of plastic are infiltrating the large arteries in the neck that carry blood from the heart to the head, with the highest amounts found in fatty buildup in the arteries of stroke survivors, a small study suggests.

The concentration of so-called micronanoplastics in carotid arteries was 51 times higher in plaque from people who'd had ...Read more

ATLANTA — Advocates for transgender children worried a recent decision by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to stop offering gender-affirming care may start a trend among the state’s providers, while advocates on the other side say they hope it does.

Children’s Healthcare is no longer allowing their providers to prescribe treatments to ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — California is heading toward another record year for cases of Valley fever, the disease caused by fungal spores linked to cycles of drought and precipitation.

There were 3,123 reported cases of Valley fever in the first three months of the year, according to state health officials — roughly double the 10-year average for the ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — In December, Stanford School of Medicine colleagues Dr. Nathan Lo and Mathew Kiang got to talking.

Childhood immunization rates were slowly but steadily falling nationwide, from 95% in the years before the pandemic to less than 93% in the 2023-24 school year.

If even that relatively small decline in vaccinations for measles, ...Read more

Multiple myeloma is a type of blood cancer caused by a buildup of abnormal plasma cells in the bone marrow. As the abnormal plasma cells accumulate, they crowd out healthy cells and cause symptoms such as bone pain and tiredness.

In 1980, Drs. Robert Kyle and Philip Greipp, Mayo Clinic hematologists, coined the term "smoldering multiple myeloma...Read more

Eboni Tomasek expected to take home her newborn the day after he was born in a San Jose hospital. But, without explanation, hospital staff said they needed to stay a second night. Then a third. A nurse said her son had jaundice. Then said that he didn’t. She wondered if they had confused her with another African American mother. In any event, ...Read more

People with high blood pressure that is uncontrolled or poorly treated with most medications may benefit from a new drug that is showing promise in clinical trial results, according to a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study found that lorundostat, the drug made by Pennsylvania-based Mineralys Therapeutics,...Read more

Illinois’ first measles case of the year was in an unvaccinated adult in downstate Marion, according to the state health department.

The Illinois Department of Public Health announced the first measles case Wednesday — news that comes amid a swell of measles cases across the country. The health department provided the additional details ...Read more

Kentucky has reported its second case of the measles this year, state officials confirmed Thursday in a press release.

In March, a child traveling through the state was diagnosed with the disease at a health care facility in Kentucky.

The child is not a resident of the U.S., but because they received a diagnosis in the commonwealth, it will be...Read more

The University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy is launching an initiative to examine how non-governmental entities can help protect vaccine policy, information and utilization in the U.S.

Called the Vaccine Integrity Project, the initiative’s steering committee will gather feedback from professionals across ...Read more

ATLANTA — Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is no longer offering gender-affirming care to transgender children as the Trump administration turns up pressure on institutions to stop the practice.

Parents of transgender children receiving care at Children’s started receiving messages last week letting them know the nonprofit health system ...Read more

They’re the fixers, the ones who step in when Affordable Care Act enrollees have a problem with their coverage, like a newborn incorrectly left off a policy or discovering that a rogue broker had signed them up or switched their plan without consent.

Specially trained caseworkers help resolve such issues, which might otherwise cause consumers...Read more

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I'll admit I tend toward negative self-talk, and I'm frequently stressed out about work, family and health concerns. I know other people have problems too, but I feel like they handle it better. What can I do to help myself and be a role model for my children?

ANSWER: Resilient people are made, not born. There isn't a gene or ...Read more