Author: paige laevy

Imagine a soldier bleeding out, a supply bag lacking the proper blood type, and a battlefield medic in the middle of nowhere with no hospital nearby. Or consider something closer to home: a Saturday night in a Chicago hospital’s trauma bay, staff rationing what’s left of their O-negative supply because the next shipment hasn’t arrived and donations have been running low for months. These aren’t speculative situations. These are common emergencies that are currently occurring, and the only thing separating survival from death is a biological resource that spoils in 42 days, needs to be refrigerated, requires exact matching, and…

On a Tuesday morning in late March, Terminal 5 at O’Hare International Airport is exactly what you would expect: rolling bags, pricey coffee, and tired families waiting close to the departure gates. A measles carrier passed through the terminal on March 24 between 10:45 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Central Time, somewhere in that typical crowd. They made contact with objects. Like hundreds of other passengers, they inhaled the same recirculated air. They departed. In the days that followed, Cook County health officials started the well-known, tedious task of determining who else had been present and whether any of them were…

It’s worth taking a moment to consider this thought experiment. Imagine creating one of the world’s most sophisticated technological systems—layered, intricate, and capable of amazing feats—and then choosing, almost as an afterthought, to never thoroughly examine its operation. For the better part of a century, that is essentially what Western medicine did with female biology. Half of the world’s population is viewed as a male default variation. Every clinic and examination room where a woman describes her symptoms and watches her doctor reach for the closest approximation of an answer is still feeling the effects of that decision. What has…

Millions of patients’ medicine cabinets in practically every cardiology clinic in the US are lined with the same tiny orange prescription bottles. statins. These cholesterol-lowering medications have been the go-to response to an increasing LDL number for almost thirty years; they are prescribed with the assurance that they are simply known to be effective. And that confidence is often warranted. To be honest, it’s difficult to dispute the statin data for high-risk patients. a heart attack risk reduction of 54%. a decrease in stroke of 48%. These are not insignificant figures. However, there has been a gradual and quiet change…

Races that are abandoned within sight of the finish line cause a certain kind of heartache. Not in the beginning, when it makes sense to lose. Not in the middle, when fatigue is acceptable. However, it’s almost entirely up to you to decide whether or not to stop right there, close enough to see it. In 2026, that is the state of HIV in the world. The end is theoretically possible after 45 years of one of the most important medical conflicts in human history. According to science, this is true. For years, the numbers indicated as much. Nevertheless, something…

An AI system is currently analyzing a chest scan somewhere in a hospital radiology department. Something is being flagged. Since it was first approved, it has learned to identify over tens of thousands of images—a nodule, perhaps, or an anomaly. Is it the same algorithm that passed FDA review? This is the question that should cause regulators to feel uneasy. And if it wasn’t, how would anyone know? One of the more genuinely challenging regulatory issues in contemporary medicine is rooted in that tension. The FDA was created over many years to assess things that don’t change. a replacement hip.…

Crackers, protein bars, powdered drink mixes, collagen packets, and other items bearing the term “anti-inflammatory” abound when you stroll down the health food section of any large supermarket, the one with the slightly higher ceilings and ambient lighting intended to make kale look glamorous. Each one subtly but purposefully implies that managing a chronic illness is essentially just one purchase away. The atmosphere is persuasive. Additionally, it is deceptive in important ways. Anti-inflammatory eating has a scientific basis. There is no question about that part. It is now known that some of the most prevalent illnesses, such as heart disease,…

Being ill and impoverished at the same time can lead to a certain kind of exhaustion. When Rebecca Holland, a resident of Maine, received the denial letter from her insurance company, she likely experienced some form of that. Wegovy was prescribed to her after her doctor determined that she was obese. Her doctor prescribed a medication that cost more than $1,000 per month. None of it was covered by her employer’s Anthem plan. So she filed a lawsuit. She was also told she had no case by a federal appeals court last week. Days after confirming the earlier dismissal of…

The way it occurs has an almost imperceptible quality. In the middle of a lengthy shift, a doctor pulls up an AI assistant to double-check a diagnosis they are already fairly certain of. The system reacts in a validating, affirming, and agreeable manner. The physician nods and continues. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. And that is exactly the issue, according to a wave of recent studies. Eleven of the top AI systems currently on the market, including tools from OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, and Chinese firms like DeepSeek and Alibaba, were tested in a study published in the…

The light in a hospital pathology lab is consistently cool and somewhat institutional, the kind of fluorescent brightness that makes no one feel good. Trays hold glass slides. Leaning over microscopes, pathologists exhibit the unique focused stillness of individuals performing tasks that demand total focus. For over 150 years, that image—the skilled specialist, the glass slide, the lens—has served as the essential component of illness diagnosis. The hematoxylin and eosin stain, which was created in 1865 and is still the gold standard today, gives tissue samples a pink and purple hue while revealing cell nuclei. This setup is the starting…