Yuki Noguchi
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Since 2000, there's been steady progress on rates of smoking, with a percentage of U.S.
adults who smoke declining from about 23 percent then to about 11 percent in 2023.
But the Lung Association says much of that progress is being undermined by the Trump administration.
Last year, it virtually eliminated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office on Smoking and Health and cut many positions at the Food and Drug Association's Tobacco Control Unit.
The Lung Association says that's imperiled programs like state's quit lines, which offer phone or tech support to smokers trying to quit.
Normally GLP-1 medicines like Wegovy and Zepbound are prescribed for people whose body mass index indicates they are overweight or obese.
But there are also people like Christy Woodard, who at 125 pounds is no longer overweight, but takes a GLP-1 drug.
She's on them because the bariatric surgery she got four years ago did not eliminate some of the hormonal factors that drove her weight gain.
Doctors' views about the benefits of GLP-1s vary.
Many say body size is not the only indicator.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health helps set standards and limits for things like workplace exposure to chemicals or respiratory hazards.
Last April, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
slashed 90 percent of its staff and budget, then brought back about a third of the agency, including at the coal miners' surveillance program under congressional pressure.
As of this week, HHS reversed course on an additional 400 workers who'd received layoff notices.
The unit representing the workers say it will take time to restart the work that was idled.
Artificial intelligence can identify which patients are at risk of spread of cancer that develops in the throat.
Based on a database of imaging scans, the tool can identify when cancer cells have spread beyond the lymph nodes, requiring more aggressive treatment.
The technology has also allowed patients with low probability of spread to avoid unnecessary punishing treatments.