In 2021, as the first wave of Covid vaccines became more available to the general population in the US, international travelers from Latin America and elsewhere came to the country to get the lifesaving shot. At the time, an array of federal subsidies and guarantees made it possible for almost anyone to immunize themselves against Covid at little or no up-front cost—a safety net that saved countless lives. Then, this year, the Trump administration—pandering to anti-vaccine activists—rolled back...

Freddie Elmore hasn’t worked for around 20 years. Now, he’s trying to figure out how, and if, he can return to the workforce—not because he thinks he can do so while managing his health, but because he is concerned that he will lose Medicaid. To retain Medicaid coverage, Elmore, who lives with disorders including central pain syndrome and Long Covid, may soon have to work at least 80 hours a month—while caring for his autistic son 49 hours a week, commitments he’s afraid he won’t be medically a...

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to do this?” a doctor asked Heather Watkins shortly after she gave birth to her daughter. Watkins, who has muscular dystrophy, had developed preeclampsia and had to be induced at 39 weeks—exhausted after 26 hours of labor, she didn’t give the remark much thought. Years later, a lightbulb went off in her head: some doctors don’t think disabled people ought to have kids. Even among those who do, training is woefully deficient. Disabled people who become pre...

“In order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence,” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote for the majority in 1927’s Buck v. Bell, the state could—and should—”prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.” Forced sterilization, the court held, was not only legal but laudable. In 1924, 17-year-old Carrie Buck was institutionalized, having been deemed “feebleminded” on the grounds of “promiscuous” behavior. In reality, Buck was raped by her foster family’s...

When a man with painful cystic acne came to dermatologist Eva Rawlings Parker for help in a Nashville clinic, she couldn’t prescribe him doxycycline or minocycline, two medications she’d typically use to treat this condition. This is because the man was a roofer, says Parker, and these medications would have impacted his ability to tolerate heat.

Since May 2021, Rebecca Dotson has navigated type II diabetes with the help of mutual aid. Without the right resources—monitoring devices, insulin, and other medications—unmanaged diabetes can, at worst, kill people; it can also lead to expensive hospital stays and complications including amputations. Insulin is seven to 10 times more expensive in the United States than abroad, on average, which can be disastrous for uninsured and underinsured people.

More than 100 million Americans have medical debt, with half owing more than $2,000; disabled people are twice as likely to have it than those without disabilities. Annually, around half a million Americans are pushed into bankruptcy by health care costs. That’s understandably made medical fundraising through websites like GoFundMe appealing, with Americans seeking a combined $10 billion from 2010 to 2018 for health expenses. But publicly asking for financial support can also be a hindrance, aff

If you go on TikTok or Instagram, you’ll see legions of wellness influencers promoting the benefits of unpasteurized “raw” milk, which hasn’t been heated to kill off illness-causing microorganisms. Raw milk is risky business at the best of times, and despite what some influencers claim, there are no nutritional benefits to drinking it, according to the CDC. But it’s now also a vector for H5N1, the new bird flu spreading through cows.

One Saturday night, I saw a post in a Facebook group for my autoimmune disorder: Thanks to Dr. Brooke Goldner’s vegan smoothie diet, the poster said, she’d been able to stop all medicines for our shared chronic illness. Goldner, a practicing psychiatrist, has garnered a strong social media following, thriving book sales, and business success around an extraordinary claim: that she was able to “reverse” her own case of lupus, a painful autoimmune disorder with no known cure that impacts around 5

On New Year’s Eve 2021, the federal government launched the Affordable Connectivity Program, which has helped over 20 million American households afford internet access with monthly subsidies of $30 (or up to $75 on some tribal lands). But funding for the program is set to run out in April unless Congress acts by Friday—depriving many of those homes of vital resources, especially access to online telehealth.

Christal Castro was casually browsing her Facebook feed one day in 2018 when she came across a post from a friend that stopped her in mid-scroll. The post talked about a gala for an organization headquartered in Los Angeles called CoachArt that helps chronically ill kids. Children ages 5 to 18 could explore hobbies and skills through free classes, including painting, cooking, guitar lessons and martial arts.

In June 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the state’s annual budget into law—which that year included around $15 million (of some $215 billion total) to create and fund a statewide network of treatment centers for sickle cell disease, with training for health workers and improved diagnostic screening. Sickle cell disease, a group of rare genetic disorders characterized by abnormal hemoglobin, can be very painful, cause reduced life expectancy, and involve complications like severe anemi

After three years on prednisone, a steroid not recommended for long-term use, Amy G. saw a new specialist. She had been diagnosed with EGPA, a particularly rare type of the autoimmune disorder vasculitis, which causes blood vessels to be inflamed. When it’s not properly managed, people with EGPA—roughly five in every 200,000 adults—risk potentially fatal complications, including bleeding in the lungs. The doctor wanted to start her on Rituximab, a biologic medication that has been found to help.

Like many students in the fall of 2020, the pandemic threw a wrench into LC Newman’s university plans—not just socially, but physically. After a Covid infection, Newman, then a college sophomore in Tucson, Arizona, never got better. Her symptoms were wide-ranging: her heart felt like it was pounding out of her chest; she developed heat intolerance. That, and repeat infection concerns, led her to self-isolate from the few people she’d regularly spent time with.

A bipartisan bill to reform the national organ donor network has reached President Joe Biden’s desk, spelling the likely end of a troubled monopoly in place for close to four decades. Signed, the law will let HHS officials, who have commended the changes, award multiple federal contracts to manage the network—part of a wider plan to secure better oversight and more transplants each year.

For nearly a year, many people with ADHD and ADD in the United States have struggled to get the medication they’ve been prescribed to manage their condition. Those difficulties stem from a shortage that started with the stimulant Adderall and its generics, then trickled to methylphenidate and lisdexamfetamine, also known as Ritalin and Vyvanse. These drugs are also prescribed to help manage conditions like narcolepsy, traumatic brain injuries, and long Covid.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a landmark 7-2 ruling affecting millions of aging and disabled people: Providers of federally funded health services like Medicaid or Medicare, the court ruled—such as public and private nursing homes—can be sued by individuals for failures and lapses in care. Following the death of 85-year-old Gorgi “Jorgo” Talevski in October 2021, his surviving family members sued the state-run Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, Indiana, alleging that Tale

In February 2021, Geetika Bajpai requested an appointment at Valley Children’s Hospital for her son Aiden. Aiden was less than a year old. He was born with Pitt-Hopkins syndrome, a rare, neurological disorder, which causes people to have an intellectual disability and also poor muscle coordination. Like many people with rare diseases, it took some time for his parents to learn of his exact diagnosis. Even before they did, in June 2021, his parents wanted to make sure he had the best quality of

University of Michigan pediatric neurologist Vivian Cheung made a name for herself studying rare genetic diseases, and in 2008 — when she was on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania — was hired as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, an honor for which she received $1 million a year over the next 12 years to further her research. But after Cheung herself developed a genetic condition so rare it doesn’t have an official name, causing her to start losing her vision, HHMI decide

With the clock approaching midnight, Julia Irzyk could not fall asleep. She was playing solitaire, with her feet up on her La-Z-Boy sofa in her home in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles. She was not just experiencing insomnia thinking about the state of the world: Her blood pressure rose to 195 over 110, well above the norm for most adults of less than 120 over less than 80, according to the National Institute of Aging. That meant she was experiencing a hypertensive crisis, likely linked to her autoimmune disorder lupus. Emotional stress can affect blood pressure, so staying calm was important, yet Irzyk was failing miserably. During this episode in August 2022, her husband — her caregiver — was over 2,000 miles away on a business trip, in Chicago. Her dark gray cat, Disney, seemed to sense something was wrong but could not exactly help her receive emergency healthcare.