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Another Vote Ahead For Pot In Colorado: This Time, On Taxes As Colorado lawmakers debate rules regulating recreational marijuana use, one big question looms: how to charge taxes that will fund oversight of retail pot businesses. The tax requires a statewide vote. If it fails, some worry that underfunded enforcement will invite the feds to shut recreational pot down entirely. |
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Bedside Manner: Conversations With Patients About Death Doctors often struggle with conversations about death — navigating the murky waters of when and how to convey the risks of procedures and prospects for life expectancy. When doctors are less than forthcoming, out of sensitivity or haste, difficult situations become even more complex. |
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Sequester Slams Head Start Programs Sequestration resulted in automatic cutbacks to several government programs. Many families that rely on Head Start to care for and educate young children have been forced to make other plans. Host Michel Martin speaks with a Head Start teacher in Kansas and NPR Education Correspondent Claudio Sanchez, about how programs have been affected. |
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Pfizer Goes Direct With Online Viagra Sales To Men Men still need a prescription for the diamond-shaped blue pills. But instead of going to the pharmacy in person, or taking their chances buying from an online pharmacy of unknown repute, men will be able to buy Viagra from the maker of the drug itself and have it shipped to their homes. |
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Parents' Saliva On Pacifiers Could Ward Off Baby's Allergies Instead of rinsing off the pacifier when it falls out of your baby's mouth, new research suggests that sucking it clean for them could help keep them from developing eczema and asthma. Researchers say the harmless bacteria in parents' saliva works by stimulating the babies' immune system. |
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Young Girls May Get More 'Teaching Time' From Parents Than Boys Do In elementary school, girls often outperform boys on reading and math tests. Many factors shape academic performance, but two economists say one reason for the disparity might be that parents spend more time reading with girls and teaching them the alphabet and numbers. |
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From Battlefield To Boston: Marine Comforts Bombing Survivors Marine Capt. Cam West lost one of his legs to a bomb in Afghanistan. Now part of the Semper Fi Fund, he's inspiring others with similar injuries to look ahead with hope. |
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Urologists Recommend Less PSA Testing For Prostate Cancer The American Urological Association released new guidelines that, if they're heeded, would dramatically reduce the ranks of men who would be candidates for PSA testing. The prostate-specific antigen test can catch cancer early, but it frequently gives false alarms. |
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Michael Pollan: You Are What You Cook Food writer Michael Pollan once advised "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Now, he tells us how to cook it. In his new book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, he takes a tour of the most time-tested cooking techniques, from southern whole-hog barbecue and slow-cooked ragus to sourdough baking and pickle making. |
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Paleo Diet Echoes Physical Culture Movement Of Yesteryear New ideas about health, like physical culture and the paleo approach, appear at times of massive cultural change. The Industrial Revolution and current digital revolution represent fertile ground, a historian says. Both movements look to the past for inspiration on how to eat, exercise and get back to a more natural way of life. |
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Iowa Court: List Both Same-Sex Parents On Birth Certificates The state's high court says among other things that the move will ensure support from both parents. |
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Political Battle Over Health Law Starts Next Chapter In the three years since the Affordable Care Act became law, public opinion has remained deeply divided with as many Americans opposing the law as supporting it. When Americans begin signing up for health insurance under the act, opinion may finally begin to shake loose. Some people without access to insurance gain it and others encounter new bureaucracies. |
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Capitol Hill Caught Up In Health Act's Sticky Situation Members of Congress have found themselves in another awkward situation when it comes to the federal health law. They wrote the law to require that members and staffs participate in the new health exchanges starting in 2014. But a glitch could stick them with huge out-of-pocket costs. |
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Women's Health Groups Angered By Morning-After Pill Moves Days after President Obama became the first sitting president to speak before Planned Parenthood's national conference, the administration alienated some women's health groups with a controversial decision about access to emergency contraception. |
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Colorado Weighs Reopening Psychiatric Hospital For Homeless Colorado's Democratic governor wants to move mentally ill homeless people to Fort Lyon, a former psychiatric hospital and prison in the southeast corner of the state. Critics say it would make more sense to rent apartments for the people in the neighborhoods where they are now. |
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Outbreak Of New SARS-Like Virus Kills 5 In Saudi Arabia A new virus that causes severe pneumonia and sometimes kidney failure has infected more people. Since the virus first appeared in March 2012, it has infected 24 people, including 17 deaths. |
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Suicide Rate Climbs For Middle-Aged Americans For quite a while, the annual number of fatalities from auto accidents has been a kind of shorthand for health issues that are big and important. Suicides now exceed deaths from crashes. And the middle-aged have seen the biggest increase in suicide rates. |
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Recovery Begins For Mother, Daughter Injured In Boston Fewer than three weeks after they were severely injured in the Boston Marathon bombings, Celeste Corcoran and her 18-year-old daughter, Sydney, are entering a new phase of recovery and rehabilitation. Part of their healing is emotional, not physical. |
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New York Tobacco Regulations Light Up Public Health Debate On Thursday, the City Council will debate proposals including raising the minimum age for buying cigarettes to 21. Also on the table is a ban on tobacco displays behind retail registers. Critics are pushing back, arguing that the changes won't have the intended effect. |
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Imagine A Flying Pig: How Words Take Shape In The Brain Linguists used to think the human brain had a specific region devoted to understanding language. But brain scans now indicate that regions controlling vision, movement, taste, smell and touch are all called into action when we think of a word, too. |
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Obama Administration Appeals Judge's Order On Plan B The administration's decision came a day after the FDA lowered the age for which the emergency contraceptive pill can be purchased without a prescription from 17 to 15. A U.S. district court ruling had ordered it to end all age restrictions on Plan B. |
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Second Thoughts On Medicaid From Oregon's Unique Experiment An influential study of Medicaid in Oregon found that recipients used more health care, spent less money and reported improved health. But the results of a follow-up study are less positive about whether people with coverage were healthier. |
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A Sleep Gene Has A Surprising Role In Migraines Disruptions of sleep are well known as migraine triggers, but now researchers have found a genetic link between the two. In studying families with lots of migraines, they also found a mutation on a gene that helps control circadian rhythms. |
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Mate Doesn't Have Your Back? That Boosts Depression Risk A critical, unsupportive spouse isn't just a drag. That kind of mate increases the risk of major depression, researchers say. People can improve the quality of their relationships, Teo says. Interpersonal therapy and couples therapy can help identify communication problems and come up with practical improvements. |
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Luring Doctors And Lawyers To Rural America Rural brain drain is not a new phenomenon, but some rural communities are trying to attract doctors and lawyers in new ways. In March, South Dakota became the first state to pass a law that offers annual subsidies to lawyers who agree to live and work in rural areas. |
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Ratting Out TB: Scientists Train Rodents To Diagnose Disease For more than a decade, a nonprofit in Tanzania has been using the rat's keen sense of smell to detect buried land mines around the world. Now the group is training the critters to help diagnose tuberculosis at rural clinics. |
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Antibiotic-Resistant Bugs Turn Up Again In Turkey Meat Consumer Reports found that turkey meat that came from birds raised without antibiotics was significantly less likely to harbor antibiotic-resistant bacteria, compared with meat from conventional turkeys that were given antibiotics. But turkey producers contend that they use antibiotics judiciously to help keep their flocks healthy. |
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Mother And Daughter Injured In Boston Bombing Face New Future As victims of the Boston Marathon bombings leave the hospital or prepare to, their stories are beginning to pour out. Celeste Corcoran and her daughter, Sydney, both suffered grievous leg injuries. Their accounts give a fuller toll of the attack and the challenges that lie ahead. |
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FDA OKs Prescription-Free Plan B Pill For Women 15 And Up Under the proposal, teenagers below 15 would now need a prescription to purchase the morning-after pill. That age was previously 17. The plan would also allow the product to be sold on retail shelves, rather than behind the pharmacy counters, with age to be verified by cashiers rather than pharmacy staff. |
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Obama Administration Challenges Morning-After Pill Ruling The Obama Administration has effectively announced it will not abide by a judge's ruling last month ordering the so-called morning after pill to be made available without a prescription to women of all ages. Instead, the administration is offering what it seems to hope will be seen as a middle ground. |
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How Doctors Would Know If Syrians Were Hit With Nerve Gas An international team of doctors is helping Syrian health workers recognize the signs of a chemical attack. They're also teaching them how to collect and preserve tissues as potential evidence if war crimes charges are brought. |
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Caffeine-Laced Gum Has Energized The FDA Wrigley's new caffeinated gum has raised eyebrows at the FDA, which is worried about the potential health impacts on children and teens. |
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Obamacare Could Cover More People At Less Cost Obamacare aims to shift how doctors and hospitals are paid — they'll be rewarded for taking care of the whole patient, not just for every test or visit. But this is an idea that some practices have already embraced, with success. Two practices in Virginia and California have been working like this for years, and have seen their overall costs decline and patient health improve. |
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Criminologist Believes Violent Behavior Is Biological In a new book, The Anatomy of Violence, Adrian Raine argues that violent behavior has a biological basis just like depression or schizophrenia. This raises questions about treatment, accountability and punishment, including the death penalty. |
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Evening Primrose Oil No Match For Eczema's Itch The natural remedy is a popular option for people who aren't satisfied with standard medical treatments for eczema. But a review of the studies finds that evening primrose doesn't help with symptoms. |
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Consensus Builds For Universal HIV Testing Teenagers and adults as old as 65 should get screened for HIV, new guidelines say. People at higher risk of infection, including men who have sex with men and people who use IV drugs, should get retested at least once a year. |
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Why Calif. Doesn't Want Smokers To Pay More For Health Insurance The federal health law allows states to charge smokers up to 50 percent more for a health plan sold through the new exchanges. But a bill moving forward in the California Legislature would prevent that from happening. |
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Big Sibling's Big Influence: Some Behaviors Run In The Family Psychologists have long known that children often model their behavior on the actions of parents or peers. But science has only recently begun to measure the influence of siblings. An older brother's or sister's behavior can be very contagious, it turns out — for good and for bad. |
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Medicaid Expansion To Provide More Care For Native Americans Next year, just over 200,000 Native Americans will become eligible for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The change translates to more money for the Indian Health Service. The expansion will also force Native American health providers to deal with something they've never faced before — competition from non-tribal health programs. |
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Looking Ahead: The Future Of Health Care Policy The country is about to undergo the largest transition of national health policy ever. In the first in a series of look-ahead conversations, NPR's health policy correspondent Julie Rovner discusses the changes already in effect and the complications and controversy to come. |
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If Military Covers Abortion After Rape, Why Not The Peace Corps? Last year, Congress and President Obama passed a law providing insurance coverage for abortion for military women in the case of rape or incest. Will the Peace Corps inspire a similar truce on the same issue? |
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How To Turn Down The Heat On Fiery Family Arguments Psychologists say kids who get entangled in their parents' arguments often suffer shame and low self-esteem. So some are trying to teach parents who feel they just can't stop arguing when they get angry how to "get to calm." |
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Shhh, The Kids Can Hear You Arguing (Even When They're Asleep) In scans of sleeping infants' brains, certain areas light up when they hear angry voices. But is that heightened activation damaging, or does it mean the children are learning to cope? |
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The U.S. has spent millions of dollars since the 1980s on anti-drug ads. But research shows that some of these older public service announcements might be counterproductive. Now that the ads are shifting to reach teens who want to rebel, new studies show they may actually be more effective. |
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E-Cigarettes Bring Smokers Back Inside, For Now   Fewer Americans are buying cigarettes these days, but smokeless products like e-cigarettes are on the rise. They're not regulated like other tobacco products, but the FDA warns that day may yet come. |
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Why Caffeine In Coffee Is A Miracle Drug For The Tired  Historians tell us that caffeine in coffee helped Western civilization "sober up" and get down to business. Now scientific research shows that at low doses, caffeine improves performance on mental tasks, especially in people who are already tired. |
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Freaky Friday: Autonomous Tissue Grabbers Are On Their Way Scientists have deployed hundreds of tiny, experimental robots to help with biopsies. They're as small as a speck of dust. They look like tiny ninja throwing stars. And researchers use magnets to retrieve them. |
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Oregon's Math Problem: How To Measure Health? How hard can it be to measure the health of a population? Oregon is finding out it's difficult to decide even what to track. But the state received almost $2 billion in federal funds to improve the health of its residents and to cut costs. The state faces substantial fines if it can't prove it has done the job. |
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Failure Of Latest HIV Vaccine Test: A 'Huge Disappointment' An oversight committee halted a big clinical study of an experimental HIV vaccine after a peek at preliminary results showed there was no way the study would be able show the vaccine works. More vaccinated people became infected with HIV than those who got placebo shots. |
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Can Faith Alone Treat Mental Illness? The suicide of a prominent pastor's son has many evangelicals talking about how best to treat mental illness. Guest host Celeste Headlee speaks with journalist and evangelical Christian Christine Scheller about how the church responds to mental illness. Scheller lost her son to suicide five years ago. |
