The Trump administration has warned more than 500 hospitals that they are failing to provide the public with enough information about prices. And the administration argues the lack of disclosure is keeping healthcare costs higher than they should be. The Associated Press exclusively obtained the list of hospitals that have received letters on the issue since April. Failing to comply with the warnings comes with penalties as high as $2 million a year. The letters are part of a push to do more to enforce price transparency standards that President Donald Trump established in his first term. They come as Trump is trying to show people he's addressing cost of living concerns ahead of the November midterm elections.
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Federal health regulators have signed off on the first new sunscreen ingredient for the U.S. market in more than 25 years. The announcement Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration will give Americans access to a skin-protecting chemical long used in Europe. The FDA says the chemical, bemotrizinol, meets the agency’s standards for protecting from dangerous sun rays while causing little irritation. It will initially be sold in the U.S. under the brand name Parsol Shield. Efforts to introduce new sunscreen products have long been delayed by the FDA’s bureaucratic system for updating its list of safe drug ingredients
At least 100 people have died from Ebola less than a month after authorities declared an outbreak of the disease in eastern Congo. Attacks on health workers from angry residents, skepticism among some locals and armed conflict in hot spots continue to challenge efforts to stop the spread. Out of the 550 cases of the disease confirmed as of Sunday, there have been 101 deaths and 19 recoveries. That's according to the latest situation report late on Monday. However, the number of cases is believed to be higher because the outbreak was confirmed weeks late, and the response has been challenging in part because the virus has no approved vaccine or treatment.
Survivors including health and aid workers recall their experiences and lessons during the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo. The outbreak, history’s second-biggest with more than 3,400 reported cases and over 2,200 deaths, was stopped with the aid of vaccines. In Beni, a bustling commercial hub near the borders with Uganda and Rwanda, some fear that a repeat of mistakes made at the time and the lack of an approved vaccine might make the response to the current outbreak more challenging. A total of 550 cases of the disease were confirmed as of Sunday in the current outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, which can cause Ebola disease, including 101 deaths and 19 recoveries.
Congo says confirmed deaths in its Ebola outbreak have reached 100 out of 550 cases.
Three more cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed, including one outside Texas, demonstrating the difficulty of stopping a pest that could potentially devastate the nation’s cattle industry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday the new cases were found in a dog from New Mexico and hundreds of miles away in a goat and calf in Texas. The screwworm is actually a fly, which produces a larva that eats live flesh instead of dead material. Females lay their eggs in open wounds any any warm-blooded animal such as cattle, but wildlife, pets and occasionally even humans can be infested. Before it was irradicated in the 1960s, the fly was an annual warm-weather scourge of cattle ranchers.
The New World screwworm fly is threatening the $113 billion U.S. cattle industry for the first time in more than a half century. An infestation from its flesh-eating larvae has been confirmed in south Texas in a 3-week-old calf in La Pryor, about 100 miles southwest of San Antonio. Federal and state officials had been working to keep the parasite from reaching Texas since its late 2024 appearance in southern Mexico. Before that, it had been contained in Panama for years. The U.S. eradicated the pest by the early 1970s by breeding sterile male flies and dropping swarms from planes to mate with wild females. Millions are being released each week now.
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine is seeing a rising number of premature births, emergency cesarean sections and other pregnancy complications.
Authorities have raced to slow the Ebola disease outbreak in Congo with strict measures, including by limiting public gatherings and enforcing social distancing. Officials have also urged people to limit physical contact, wash their hands regularly and report suspected cases quickly. The precautions, though not always adhered to, are reshaping social life in a country where weddings are typically vibrant, daylong celebrations bringing together hundreds of relatives, friends and well-wishers. For Jean Claude Érable and his bride Solange Hahati, celebrating their wedding on Saturday in such conditions meant having some family members and friends absent on one of their happiest days.
A rising number of babies are being born prematurely in Ukraine, particularly in regions near the front lines. In some areas, rates have nearly doubled since the war started with Russia’s invasion in 2022. Experts say the reasons for premature births are often complex, but the profound psychological and physical stress the war is inflicting on pregnant mothers is contributing. And the delicate work of keeping the fragile newborns alive is made only more difficult by the conflict. In one hospital in Ukraine's south, mothers descend with their children into the shelter each night. In the narrow, dimly lit hallways, they rock and soothe their infants to sleep.