Melissa Healy

Paramedics transport a man believed to be Hong Kong's first coronavirus patient to a hospital on Jan. 22, 2020.

There’s no good reason to avoid ibuprofen if you’re infected with the coronavirus

March 18, 2020 at 5:18 p.m.

First, some facts: The over-the-counter pain reliever ibuprofen is not linked to a higher risk of COVID-19 infection. Nor has it been linked to complications in those infected with the...

In principle, the federal government can impose quarantine and isolation orders. But it doesn't seem keen to test that power. It's probably not a coincidence that the first people to be quarantined after leaving Wuhan were largely State Department employees and their relatives. "This is a part of their civic responsibility to protect their communities," Dr. Martin Cetron, who directs CDC's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, told reporters when the quarantine began. "So, they understand this." Cetron downplayed the need for the federal government to flex its muscles in issuing quarantines.

Q&A: What can the government force people to do in the name of containing the coronavirus?

March 24, 2020 at 6:37 p.m.

Q&A: What can the government force people to do in the name of containing the coronavirus?

El coronavirus posiblemente se originó en los murciélagos, y se propaga muy fácilmente

January 31, 2020 at 11:06 p.m.

Los científicos chinos que intentan trabajar a toda velocidad para frenar la propagación de un nuevo coronavirus declararon que el brote generalizado es una epidemia, y revelaron que al menos...

How much do scientists know about the coronavirus spreading through China and around the world? What are they trying to learn as the outbreak expands? To make decisions about how best to protect the public's health from the threat of a never-before-seen virus, experts need some answers to a few key questions. Sometimes they have to make decisions without all the answers in hand, or with only partial information. But with more than 6,000 confirmed infections in more than a dozen countries and at least 132 deaths, inaction isn't an option. Here are some of the key questions they want answered, and what is known at this time.

Coronavirus: 5 burning questions scientists want to answer about the outbreak

January 29, 2020 at 4:59 p.m.

Coronavirus: 5 burning questions scientists want to answer about the outbreak.

Robots assemble a car at a Chrysler automobile plant in Michigan. Fatal opioid overdoses were more common in communities where an auto plant closed than in places where plants remained open.

Factory closures may have helped fuel the opioid crisis. Here’s how.

January 7, 2020 at 8:28 a.m.

For the last two decades, U.S. communities stricken by automotive plant closures have been hurting. And death rates among working-age adults have been rising. Researchers have long suspected these dual...

People at high risk of developing diabetes improved their health when they ate all of their meals over a span of just over 10 hours, then fasted for the remainder of their 24-hour day.

Eating only during a 10-hour window improved health for those with common syndrome

December 12, 2019 at 9:00 a.m.

What if a clock did a better job than a scale at promoting weight loss, improving sleep and preventing diabetes? New research suggests it's about time to consider that possibility....

The United States is the only high-income country in which life expectancy is moving in the wrong direction.

Suicides and overdoses among factors fueling drop in US life expectancy

December 12, 2019 at 3:39 p.m.

Recent research establishes that after decades of living longer and longer lives, Americans are dying earlier, cut down increasingly in the prime of life by drug overdoses, suicides and diseases...

This photo from video released via the Thai Navy SEAL Facebook page shows rescuers holding one of the 12 boys inside the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in northern Thailand.

Boys trapped in Thai cave were drugged with ketamine for risky rescue dives

August 22, 2019 at 3:52 p.m.

The drug ketamine has enjoyed a long career as a workhorse anesthetic. It had a brief career as a party drug known as “Special K.” And just last month, it...

A firefighter treats an opioid overdose victim in Rockford, Ill. A new study projects that if present trends continue, opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. will rise sharply in coming years.

Even in best-case scenario, opioid overdose deaths will keep rising until 2022

August 19, 2019 at 9:03 a.m.

In the nation’s opioid epidemic, the carnage is far from over. A new projection of opioid overdose death rates suggests that even if there is steady progress in reducing prescription...

A nurse comforts a patient after an abortion procedure. A new survey of obstetricians and gynecologists finds that 72% of them had a patient who wanted an abortion in the past year.

OB-GYNs remain conflicted about abortion, survey shows, but pills may be changing attitudes

February 11, 2019 at 2:31 p.m.

With the national abortion debate entering a new stage, a survey of U.S. obstetricians and gynecologists has found that while nearly 3 out of 4 had a patient who wanted...

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