Investigations into the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster revealed that key decision-makers worked on little sleep, raising concerns that fatigue impaired their judgment. Similarly, in 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil…
Category: Anthropology
NIH funding cuts will hit red states, rural areas and underserved communities the hardest
The National Institutes of Health is the largest federal funder of medical research in the U.S. NIH funds drive research and innovation, leading to better understanding and treatment of diseases…
Knocking down abandoned buildings has a lot of benefits for Detroit − but it’s costly for cities
Few cities have experienced a sharper economic change of fortune than Detroit. It was one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation between 1900 and 1950. In the nearly 75…
As tuberculosis cases rise in the US and worldwide, health officials puzzle over the resurgence of a disease once in decline
An outbreak of tuberculosis, or TB – a lung disease that is often accompanied by a hacking cough – began in January 2024 in Kansas City, Kansas, and two nearby…
Philly’s street fentanyl contains an industrial chemical called BTMPS that’s an ingredient in plastic
As much as half of the fentanyl sold on Philly’s streets contains an industrial chemical used in plastics manufacturing. That’s according to our November 2024 testing of fentanyl samples collected…
COVID-19 is the latest epidemic to show biomedical breakthroughs aren’t enough to eliminate a disease
The COVID-19 pandemic transformed over the past five years from a catastrophic threat that has killed over 7 million people to what most people regard today as a tolerable annoyance…
Many more Denver teens have experienced homelessness than official counts show
Denver saw an increase in youth homelessness from 10% to 25% between 2017 and 2021, according to our study recently published in the peer-reviewed journal “Pediatrics.” We are two physicians…
GOP lawmakers commit to big spending cuts, putting Medicaid under a spotlight – but trimming the low-income health insurance program would be hard
Efforts by Republicans in Congress to make steep spending cuts have stirred widespread concerns that the federal government may trim expenditures on Medicaid even though President Donald Trump has previously…
Texas records first US measles death in 10 years – a medical epidemiologist explains how to protect yourself and your community from this deadly, preventable disease
On Feb. 26, 2025, Texas health officials announced the death of a child in a measles outbreak – the first measles death in the United States since 2015. The outbreak…
