Author: Gabrielle M. Etzel

The president of a prominent virology research organization often implicated in debates over the origin of COVID-19 will testify in a public congressional hearing next month, a key step in the House investigation into the cause of the virus. Republicans from the House Oversight and Energy and Commerce committees jointly announced that Peter Daszak, the…

Epidemiologists are renaming the disease Alaskapox out of fear that the name of the illness may hamper tourism and stigmatize the state. Alaskapox, now called Borealpox, gained media spotlight in January following the abrupt death of an elderly man in the remote Kenai Peninsula after he was hospitalized with the disease last November. Joseph McLaughlin,…

The Florida Supreme Court approved the language of an abortion-rights amendment slated to be on the ballot for the general election this fall, a victory for abortion-rights activists and Democrats, who hope it will provide an advantage to their candidates. The court split in a 4-3 decision released on Monday that found the abortion-rights amendment…

A majority of people support access to chemical abortion pills, but there is sharp division along partisan lines over by-mail access to the drugs, according to a public opinion poll published Friday. An Axios-Ipsos poll found that 72% of respondents say they support women obtaining chemical abortion drugs directly from their physician or a clinic,…

House Republicans included several provisions relating to the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic in the final appropriations bill for fiscal 2024. Lawmakers agreed to the 1,012-page, $1 trillion minibus bill in the early morning hours on Thursday ahead of the impending government shutdown if President Joe Biden is unable to sign a bill passed by…

New data from the abortion-rights think tank the Guttmacher Institute show that over 63% of abortions in 2023 were conducted by abortion pill, up 10 percentage points from 2020. Guttmacher, the research arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, estimates that nearly 643,000 abortions in the United States were medication abortions, typically using the medication…

The British National Health Service on Tuesday issued new guidance permanently prohibiting the prescription of puberty blockers for children for the purposes of gender transition. “We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of puberty suppressing hormones to make the treatment routinely available at this time,” an NHS spokesperson said in…

Prominent Democratic economics advisers are arguing that the Biden administration and Congress must revamp rules regarding drug price negotiation to lower the price of new wonder drugs for obesity, such as Ozempic, or run the risk of bankrupting the federal government. “The magnitude of potential benefit and potential cost … posed by these drugs suggests…

Iowa Republicans on Thursday night passed a bill that implicitly protects the personhood status of an embryo in the eyes of the law, which critics contend will be detrimental to the practice of in vitro fertilization. The bill passed 58-36 in the GOP-controlled state House, throwing the state into the midst of a national battle…

EXCLUSIVE — Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is standing firm behind his controversial decision not to force an isolation period for children not vaccinated against measles after an outbreak in his state in February, saying that erring on the side of individual choice should be a key lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic. “What honestly breaks…