Author: paige laevy

A school-age child in Los Angeles passed away last year from subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a progressive brain illness. The illness is always lethal. Years after a measles infection—in this case, an infection the child contracted as a baby before they were even old enough to receive a vaccination—it slowly and silently develops. Relatively little national attention was given to the story, which is in and of itself a gauge of the current situation. It should be more shocking than it seems to be for a child to die from a complication of a disease that the US officially eradicated 25…

Every afternoon, you can find two completely different worlds coexisting side by side on Instagram, sometimes colliding. Posts celebrating a range of body types, affirmations about body trust, and therapists reassuring people that hunger is not a bad thing can all be found in one corner. Advertisements for GLP-1 clinics that promise a new relationship with food through a weekly shot in the stomach, celebrity interviews about “managing appetite,” and before-and-after pictures captioned with injection schedules are examples of the other. Both communities are expanding. They’re both noisy. Between them lies a real cultural question that no one has yet…

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…