Health

This month, as the patient lay anesthetized on a table, a cardiologist made a half-inch incision through the skin of his chest. She removed a small implanted heart monitor with failing batteries and inserted a new one.The patient, like many older males, had been diagnosed with cardiac disease; the monitor would provide continuing data on heart rate and rhythm, alerting his doctors to irregularities.Closing the incision required four neat stitches. In a few hours, the patient, a gorilla named Winston, would rejoin his family in their habitat at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.“Winston, at 51, is a very old male gorilla,” said Dr. Matt Kinney, a senior veterinarian at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance who led the medical team through the procedure. With improved health care, new technology a...

Bristol Myers Squibb, the global pharmaceutical giant, said on Friday that it would acquire Karuna Therapeutics, which makes drugs to treat schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s, in an all-cash deal valued at $14 billion as it looks to strengthen its pipeline of neuroscience drugs.Bristol Myers said in a statement that it would pay $330 per share in cash, a premium of roughly 53 percent to Karuna’s share price on Thursday.An increasing prevalence of schizophrenia, driven in part by an aging population, has led to a push to make more drugs to treat it. The market for such therapies is estimated to grow to $12.6 billion by 2032, according to the research firm Market.Us. Earlier this month, the biomedical company AbbVie bought Cerevel Therapeutics, which develops drugs to treat psychiatric and neurol...

Later in 2020, Ms. Lavelle also complained to the board, describing how she had been traumatized by her daughter’s tongue-tie release.The lactation board, which reports its disciplinary decisions, has not taken action against Ms. Henstrom. A spokeswoman for the board, Susan Brayshaw, declined to comment on the complaints, citing a policy of confidentiality. “Some complaints take significantly longer than others due to the nature of the allegations and related investigations,” she said.Since 2002, the board has revoked the certifications of only three lactation consultants.Ms. Lavelle also filed a complaint against Dr. Zink with the Idaho board of dentistry. The board collected medical records and statements from Ms. Lavelle and Dr. Zink. Dr. Zink told the board that June’s procedure was “u...

Stephanie Scanlan learned about the shortages of basic chemotherapy drugs this spring in the most frightening way. Two of the three drugs typically used to treat her rare bone cancer were too scarce. She would have to go forward without them.Ms. Scanlan, 56, the manager of a busy state office in Tallahassee, Fla., had sought the drugs for months as the cancer spread from her wrist to her rib to her spine. By summer it was clear that her left wrist and hand would need to be amputated.“I’m scared to death,” she said as she faced the surgery. “This is America. Why are we having to choose who we save?”The disruption this year in supplies of key chemotherapy drugs has realized the worst fears of patients — and of the broader health system — because some people with aggressive cancers have been ...

Across the country, neonatal intensive care units provide critical care to seriously ill babies.That care can be lifesaving but also comes at a price, as some parents report receiving multimillion dollar bills for their babies’ hospital stays. Some researchers have questioned whether too many babies are being admitted to the NICU and whether there is a profit motive at play.The New York Times is looking to hear from readers who can share their recent experiences with NICU care. Hearing from families about their experiences helps us better understand where we should focus our reporting.We will not publish any part of your response to this questionnaire without talking with you first. We will not share your contact information outside the Times newsroom, and will use it only to reach out to ...

For the past month, New York City has been inviting teenagers to participate in one of the biggest experiments in the country aimed at helping struggling adolescents: a program offering free online therapy to all residents ages 13 to 17.The city has entered a three-year, $26 million contract with Talkspace, one of the largest digital mental health care providers. After a parent or legal guardian signs a consent form, teenagers can exchange unlimited messages with an assigned therapist and receive one 30-minute virtual therapy session each month.The rollout of the program, NYC Teenspace, on Nov. 15 took many in the city’s large mental health care community by surprise. In interviews, providers hailed the effort for having made mental health care available to teenagers who otherwise might no...