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Annual overdose deaths fell for first time in four years
BY MELISSA PATRICK KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS For the first year since 2018, Kentucky saw a drop in drug overdose deaths last year. Provisional data gathered by the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center shows that 2,127 Kentuckians died of overdose in 2022, 5% less than the 2021 figure of 2,257. “I think it’s important that…
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FDA approves new booster, recommends a second booster for some
BY MELISSA PATRICK KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS The best way to protect yourself from severe illness, hospitalization and death from Covid-19 is to get vaccinated and boosted. This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a second Omicron booster, also referred to as the bivalent Covid-19 vaccine, for immunocompromised people and people over the age…
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Unvaccinated attendee of big revival has state’s third case of measles in three months
Kentucky ranks very low in measles vaccinations KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS An unvaccinated Jessamine County resident who attended the large, spontaneous revival at Asbury University has Kentucky’s third reported case of measles in three months, the state Department for Public Health said Friday. “Anyone who attended the revival on Feb. 18 may have been exposed to…
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Bill to ban transgender health or mental-health care of minors in Kentucky has a head of steam in the state House
BY MELISSA PATRICK KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS A far-reaching anti-transgender bill filed Tuesday, Feb. 21, was assigned to a legislative committee the same day it was filed, has received the first of three required readings and already has 20 co-sponsors. House Bill 470, sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Decker, R-Waddy (Shelby County), says: “The provision of gender…
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Bill to let advance-practice registered nurses prescribe controlled substances on their own passes Senate
BY MELISSA PATRICK KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS After years of debate and months of negotiations, a bill to create a path for Kentucky’s advanced-practice registered nurses to prescribe controlled substances independently has passed the state Senate and gone to the House on a 30-2-1 vote. Senate Bill 94 was the result of a compromise brokered by…
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Kentucky’s abortion bans deny standard health care to women who have non-viable pregnancies, Herald-Leader reports
KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS The Kentucky laws banning abortion “do not legally permit the standard-of-care treatment for a nonviable pregnancy,” writes Alex Acquisto of the Lexington Herald-Leader. “As a result, doctors must refer patients needing otherwise medically recommended terminations out of state in droves, along with people desiring elective abortions, according to interviews with seven providers…
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Radio reporter describes with personal detail what it’s like to go to another state to buy legal cannabis for a medical condition
KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS What is it like for Kentuckians to buy cannabis in another state under Gov. Andy Beshear’s executive order? WUKY’s Karyn Czar, who has one of the 21 medical conditions specified in the governor’s order, a side effect of chemotherapy, got legal cannabis in Illinois, the only adjoining state where Kentuckians can buy…
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Delta-8 THC is legal in Kentucky but has risks and new rules
KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS “While politicians debate whether to legalize medical marijuana in Kentucky, a lesser-known product that gets people similarly high is flourishing in the state. And it’s already legal,” reports Morgan Watkins of the Courier Journal.Delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol, which is moderately less potent but “almost identical to the delta-9 THC in marijuana that drives the…
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Risk is lower, but it’s NOT time to resume pre-pandemic life, New York doctors write in one of the nation’s top medical journals
An editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Wafaa M. El-Sadr, Columbia University; Dr. Ashwin Vasan, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; and Ayman El-Mohandes, City University of New York We’ve come a long way. From the early, terrifying days of a rapidly spreading deadly infection to the current…
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Beshear says ‘it’s time’ to end U.S. COVID emergency, set May 11, but notes expiring programs; estimated 260,000 to lose Medicaid
BY MELISSA PATRICK KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS Gov. Andy Beshear agreed with President Biden’s decision to end the COVID-19 public health emergency on May 11, a decision that will bring an end to several programs that were put in place to help people during the worst of the pandemic. “I think it’s time,” Beshear said at…
Tag: Kentucky Health News
