VR Training Helps Autistic People Navigate Police Encounters

People with autism find interactions with police officers to be difficult, if not harrowing.

They struggle to read social cues and can behave restlessly, increasing the risk that a police encounter might escalate, researchers say.

But an innovative virtual reality (VR) education program might help teens and adults with autism better ...

Weight Loss Surgeries Fall More Than 20% As Patients Turn To GLP-1 Meds, Experts Say

The number of weight-loss surgery procedures in the United States is dropping rapidly in the face of cutting-edge drugs like Ozempic and Zepbound, a new study says.

These procedures dropped by more than 20% between 2022 and 2024, falling below 200,000 for the first time this decade, researchers reported Tuesday at a meeting of the American...

Children Living Near Gas Stations Have Higher Cancer Risk, Study Finds

Children who live near a gas station are more likely to develop leukemia or other childhood cancers, a new study says.

Living within 250 meters (820 feet) of a gas station raises childhood cancer risk, and the risk increases the closer a child’s home is to the pump, researchers report in the journal Environmental Pollution.<...

First Psych Ward Stay Signals Long-Term Mental Health Struggles For Nearly All Patients

A first-time psychiatric admission usually marks the beginning of a long-term struggle with mental illness, a new study says.

About 95% of patients return to mental health services in one way or another within two decades of their first admission to a psych ward, researchers found.

These patients either needed to be readmitted to the...

HHS' Healthy Food Agenda Puts Hospitals On Notice About Patients' Meals

Complaints about hospital food are certainly not new, and Jell-O and fruit juice are often the butt of related jokes. But the Trump administration has recently upped the ante.

It is urging the public to report hospitals and nursing homes that serve sugary drinks, nutrition shakes or meals that it says don’t meet dietary guidelines es...

Supreme Court Issues Stay, Keeping Abortion Pill Mifepristone Available by Mail For Now

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. issued an order Monday that allows patients to continue accessing abortion pill, mifepristone, by mail, for now.

The one-sentence order pauses a Friday ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans that required an in-person pickup for mifepristone, according to T...