Health

By Jacqueline Howard, CNN As an emergency medicine physician, Dr. Owais Durrani sees this issue regularly first-hand: When he clamps a pulse oximeter onto a patient’s fingertip to measure their blood oxygen levels, the small device can yield less accurate readings in people with darker skin tones, reporting levels higher than what they actually are.

By Brenda Goodman, CNN Pfizer says it has enough promising data on its respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, vaccine designed to protect newborns that it will end enrollment in the study and submit for US Food and Drug Administration approval by the end of the year. RSV is a common respiratory virus that typically causes

By Brenda Goodman, CNN It’s shaping up to be a severe season for respiratory syncytial virus infections — one of the worst some doctors say they can remember. But even as babies struggling to breathe fill hospital beds across the United States, there may be a light ahead: After decades of disappointment, four new RSV

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN After nearly three years of the pandemic, national test scores for students aren’t where educators hoped they would be — does that mean it’s time to break out the math and vocabulary drills? Maybe not, experts say. The National Center for Education Statistics, a branch of the US Department of Education,

CNN, NET TV, WPLG, WJHG, GETTY IMAGES By Madeline Holcombe, CNN After nearly three years of the pandemic, national test scores for students aren’t where educators hoped they would be — does that mean it’s time to break out the math and vocabulary drills? Maybe not, experts say. The National Center for Education Statistics, a

By Jen Christensen, CNN A monoclonal antibody treatment for Alzheimer’s disease that showed promise in a Phase 3 trial may have contributed to a study participant’s death, according to an adverse events report obtained by the digital health publication Stat. Eisai, the company that makes the experimental drug lecanemab, said in a statement to CNN

By Jen Christensen, CNN Amoxicillin, a common antibiotic used to treat a broad range of conditions, is in short supply, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. The agency lists amoxicillin oral solution in its drug shortage database, which relies on reports from manufacturers. The oral solution is an anti-infective used with pediatric patients.

By Brenda Goodman, CNN The Omicron BA.5 subvariant is no longer the dominant cause of Covid-19 infections in the United States, according to estimates released Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Instead, a host of new sublineages — offshoots of BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5 — are now responsible for the majority

By Deidre McPhillips, CNN Flu season has ramped up early in the United States, and flu hospitalizations are worse than usual for this time of year, according to data published Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s been more than a decade — since the H1N1 swine flu pandemic — since

By Jen Christensen, CNN Amid a surge of respiratory infections, children’s hospitals across the United States are so busy that some had to set up tents to handle patient overflow. The viruses are partly to blame for overwhelmed hospitals and packed emergency rooms, but for some, the problem is staffing: Many hospitals have empty beds,

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN Knowing you have higher than normal blood pressure — and taking medications daily to treat it — may be one key to avoiding dementia in later life, a new study found. Scientists already know that having high blood pressure, particularly between ages 40 and 65, increases the risk of developing dementia