Author: paige laevy

Leaders of the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services called Mike Lappen in on March 30, 2026, and requested that he resign from his position as administrator of the county’s Behavioral Health Services division. He had been in charge of a $216 million operation that helps some of the county’s most vulnerable citizens, including those dealing with mental illness, drug addiction, and psychiatric crises, for almost ten years. The department did not respond to Lappen’s question about why. Simply put, it had chosen to take “another direction.” In this story, the phrase “another direction” is very effective. Typically,…

On a busy weekday afternoon, the outpatient pharmacy at National University Hospital’s Kent Ridge Wing has a familiar atmosphere: long lines, patients holding paper slips, and pharmacists rushing between counters and shelves. Every day, NUH pharmacies dispense about 2,500 prescriptions. The duration of each counseling session ranges from three to twenty minutes. That adds up quickly and in a way that makes waiting uncomfortable. A small AI-powered terminal called MedBot, a virtual pharmacy assistant that uses generative AI to walk patients through their medication before they even reach the counter, is what’s different now, at least at the Kent Ridge…

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer opened a package on a loading dock at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. The package’s manifest stated that it was a “cosmetic weight loss product.” There were injectable pens containing tirzepatide (Mounjaro) in doses of 2.5 mg, 5 mg, and 7 mg. The package was addressed to a private home in Ohio and had come from a pharmacy in the United Kingdom. It’s highly likely that the person who was waiting for that package thought they were getting a genuine prescription drug at a cost they could afford. What they were getting was a…

In Dr. Nir Barzilai’s lectures, a woman makes sporadic appearances. Even though she is no longer living, she continues to appear because her story is truly hard to describe. She was one of his first centenarians, living in her own apartment at the age of 100 and continuing to smoke after 95 years of nonstop smoking. She gave a clear response when asked if anyone had ever advised her to quit smoking: all four of the doctors who had advised her to do so had since passed away. She started smoking again. She lived to be 110 years old. For…

The majority of Ozempic or Wegovy users are concerned about their blood sugar, waist size, and possibly their heart. Their optic nerve is not on their minds. And that makes perfect sense for the great majority of users; according to European regulators, up to 1 in 10,000 patients may be affected by the ocular risks associated with GLP-1 medications. However, one in ten thousand is a figure worth considering in a nation where about 6% of adults currently take these drugs and where adoption is growing at a rate that has shocked even the pharmaceutical companies making them. Non-arteritic anterior…

Chemotherapy was administered at home to a cancer patient in the Florida Panhandle on January 9, 2026. There is no waiting area. A four-hour drive to a treatment facility is not necessary. No making plans for someone to accompany them while a bag leaked into their arm in a hospital hallway. A nurse approached them. The same course of action was taken. The place was completely different. By all standards, it was a minor issue. Additionally, it was the first delivery under a program that has the potential to transform cancer care for rural patients throughout a whole state.The Mayo…

A common feature of the before-and-after pictures that go viral on social media when someone credits Wegovy or Ozempic for significant weight loss is that the subject appears smaller. lighter. relieved. What happened inside the body during that transformation is what those pictures don’t depict and what no one has been particularly eager to explain in the two years of breathless coverage about GLP-1 drugs reshaping obesity medicine. In particular, the muscle’s fate. Between 20% and 50% of the weight lost while taking GLP-1 drugs is not fat. Lean body mass, which includes muscle, bone, and the metabolically active tissue…

You can sense it before you can name it if you walk into any large supermarket in the United States today. The long, fluorescent sections of cookies, chips, and sweetened cereals that have dominated American grocery shopping for decades are being subtly rearranged in the center aisles. Where family-size bags used to be, smaller packages are starting to appear. “Simply” and “Better For You” banners on companies whose reputations were based on the exact opposite attributes. cereals with high-protein claim labels that were marketed mainly to kids until recently. The food sector is redecorating. And the reason it’s redecorating is…

It’s Any major hospital in Dubai or Riyadh has an atrium that is truly impressive, with polished marble floors, multinational staff moving through hallways with efficiency, and diagnostic equipment that most hospitals in the Midwest of the United States would envy. Over the past 20 years, the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council have developed healthcare infrastructure at a rate that is unmatched in the contemporary world. In the Gulf Cooperation Council, life expectancy increased from 60.5 years in 1978 to 73 years in 2004. During the same time period, infant mortality decreased from 69 deaths per 1,000 live births…

Randy Jackson entered an emergency room in 2002 with blood sugar levels higher than 500. A typical reading is in the range of 70 to 140. According to his own account, his doctor burst his bubble. The figures made it impossible to continue acting as though his body’s condition wasn’t a medical emergency. He weighed over 350 pounds, had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and had spent years in the kind of slow-motion health decline that becomes normal when it occurs slowly enough. Additionally, he was one of the most recognizable faces on American television at the time, sitting…