With winter fast approaching, the city of Chicago is reminding people that asylum seekers and homeless residents are in need of clothing, toiletries and other items.
Health
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is setting the price for a five-day treatment of Paxlovid at $1,390, but Americans can still access the pills at no cost — for now. The less commonly used COVID-19 treatment Lagevrio, manufactured by Merck, also will hit the market next week.
Officials approved updated shots that have a single target, an omicron descendant named XBB.1.5. Last month, the CDC recommended the new shots for everyone 6 months and older.
The death rate for breast cancer in the United States dropped 43% between 1989 and 2020, according to the American Cancer Society. Despite this hopeful news, breast cancer mortality rates still remain 40% higher for Black women than White women.
The state still has a long way to go toward ensuring that all Illinois residents can have a safe and healthy pregnancy, Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Sameer Vohra said in a press release.
Neighborhoods on the South and West Sides of Chicago have seen the highest amount of medical debt erased so far, according to officials.
The FDA has been officially exploring the possibility of a menthol ban for more than a decade. In July 2013, the FDA requested comments on preliminary research, data and evaluations with regard to the regulation of menthol.
Dave Graham, who a watchdog report said should be fired for “willful bureaucratic negligence” in the 2020 incident that covered Little Village in dust, is now in charge of environmental inspections and enforcement.
The rise in opioid deaths is largely due to the increase in synthetic opioids like fentanyl, says law enforcement officials.
The Narcotics Arrest Diversion Program, an initiative launched in 2018, offers those arrested for low-level drug offenses who meet certain criteria a chance to have their charges dropped if they agree to meet with a drug counselor.
The recent shift toward e-cigarettes that can’t be refilled has created a new environmental dilemma. The devices, which contain nicotine, lithium and other metals, cannot be reused or recycled. Under federal environmental law, they also aren’t supposed to go in the trash.
The Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) announced the cutoff date on Thursday, making good on a spring promise to limit membership in order to keep costs in check. Activists who want the program expanded rather than curtailed said that the move was expected but nonetheless disappointing.
Demand for donor breast milk has been growing as the country continues to recover from last year’s infant formula shortage that left many store shelves empty following a host of supply chain issues and product recalls.
Awareness of the lung cancer’s effects on women is lacking, experts say, and the U.S. government spends significantly less on its research than on similar studies in men.
About 66,900 Chicagoans, or 2.4% of the city population, have received the new vaccine since updated COVID-19 vaccines were recommended in mid-September, the Chicago Department of Public Health reports.
The measles case involves an unvaccinated individual and was confirmed by public health officials on Wednesday.
