Latest California Healthline Stories
Hurricane’s Health Toll: A Texas Doctor Taps Lessons From Katrina
After weathering the catastrophe in New Orleans 12 years ago, Dr. Ruth Berggren moved to Texas, where she again finds herself in the center of a hurricane crisis. In a Q&A, she draws parallels between the harrowing events and pinpoints risks in Harvey’s aftermath.
Kids Find Breathing Room At Asthma Camp
Camps teach children how to rely less on grownups and more on themselves to manage the chronic lung disease that afflicts 1 in 6 California children.
Number Of Dialysis Patients In California Surges
The increase — 46 percent over the past eight years — isn’t because the number of new kidney failure cases is rising. It’s because dialysis patients are living longer.
Asthma, More Deadly With Age, Takes Heavy Toll On Older Adults
Death rates for older adults with asthma run five times higher than younger people, and serious complications are far more common.
California Funds Nonprofits To Serve Food As Medicine
The state is investing $6 million in a three-year effort to deliver healthy meals and groceries to chronically ill Medi-Cal patients at doctors’ offices, clinics and hospitals.
Lag In Brain Donation Hampers Understanding Of Dementia In Blacks
A long history of racism and cruel experimentation in health care are among the reasons African-American families oppose donating patients’ brains for study.
Cuando las heridas no sanan, las terapias pueden costar hasta $5 mil millones
Cerca de 6,5 millones de personas en el país tienen heridas que tardan meses, y hasta años en sanar… si llegan a curarse. El costo, económico y psicológico, de estos padecimientos es astronómico.
When Wounds Won’t Heal, Therapies Spread — To The Tune Of $5 Billion
The market for wound care products booms among a growing older and diabetic patient pool, but many treatments are untested and funding for research falls short.
Denial, Appeal, Approval … An Adult’s Thorny Path To Spinraza Coverage
The FDA granted approval for Spinraza in late December for use on children and adults with spinal muscular atrophy. Insurance coverage is mostly focused on infants and children.
Drug Puts A $750,000 ‘Price Tag On Life’
The high cost of Spinraza, a new and promising treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, highlights how the cost-benefit analysis insurers use to make drug coverage decisions plays out in human terms.