Philly has highest STI rates in the country – improving sex ed in schools and access to at-home testing could lower rates

Philadelphia ranks No. 1 among U.S. cities for new sexually transmitted infections – STIs – according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is…

Calls to US poison centers spiked after ‘magic mushrooms’ were decriminalized

Calls to poison control centers spiked across the U.S. for adolescents and young adults exposed to the hallucinogen psilocybin, according to our analysis of data from 55 U.S. poison centers…

Nitazenes found in 5 overdose deaths in Philly – here’s what they are and why they’re so deadly

The Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office found that nitazenes, a synthetic opioid up to 40 times more powerful than fentanyl, were connected to at least five overdose deaths in Philadelphia in…

Michigan Gov. Whitmer proposes a caregiver tax credit − an idea many Americans support

People caring for elderly or disabled relatives need a break – and, in Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has a proposal to give them one. Whitmer’s recently proposed $5,000 tax credit,…

Nitazenes are a powerful class of street drugs emerging across the US

Two deaths in Boulder County, Colorado, in 2023 are the latest in the U.S. to be blamed on the powerful class of synthetic opioids called nitazenes. Most health systems cannot…

Philadelphia bans supervised injection sites – evidence suggests keeping drug users on the street could do more harm than good

The United States remains tightly in the grasp of an ongoing, and escalating, crisis of deaths caused by opioid overdoses. With a record-high 109,000 people dying in 2022, it is…

Massachusetts is updating its sex education guidelines for the first time in 24 years

In June 2023, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shared with the public a draft of a new framework that will guide how elementary, middle and high schools in the state approach…