(WTTW News)

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law a bill that provides more protection for patients coming to Illinois to seek gender-affirming health care. The move comes as several states attempt to restrict gender-affirming care for transgender people.

(WTTW News)
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Medical debt affects 27% of Cook County residents. Of those, 42% are people of color.

Workers at Howard Brown Health strike on Jan. 4, 2023. (WTTW News)

Howard Brown Health will next year mark 50 years of serving the health needs of the LBGTQ and HIV-positive communities. Going forward, it will do so minus about 16% of its workforce. 

Vicki Strawn walks with her son, Nate Strawn, months after receiving a heart transplant. (WTTW News)

At the age of 51, Vicki Strawn suffered a heart attack. Living with cardiac problems came with limitations that made it difficult to walk or cook. Strawn finally got the call she’d been waiting for on May 16, 2021.

(WTTW News)

The Illinois legislature was busy in 2022, enacting hundreds of new laws, many of which will take effect on Sunday.

Strep A illustration. (CDC)

“It’s too soon to say whether iGAS case numbers are just returning to pre-pandemic levels or if they are rising beyond what we would normally expect based on what we know about GAS seasonal patterns,” CDC spokesperson Kate Grusich wrote In an email.

 A registered nurse works on a computer while assisting a COVID-19 patient in Los Angeles. (AP Photo / Jae C. Hong, File)

Hospital systems around the country are rolling out fees for some messages that patients send to physicians, who they say are spending an increasing amount of time poring over online queries, some so complex that they require the level of medical expertise normally dispensed during an office visit.

(WTTW News)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s also a time when heart attacks and strokes spike. Research shows heart attacks spike by 30% to 40% in the last two weeks of the year.

Roseland Hospital. (WTTW News)
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Under the leadership of CEO Tim Egan, Chicago’s Roseland Community Hospital has awarded business to his friends and acquaintances, employees have donated to his political funds and he has appeared in a campaign ad for the state’s comptroller.

(CNN)

Pharmacies across the country are seeing surging demand for child-friendly versions of Amoxicillin, Tamiflu and other drugs. That demand has led at times to empty shelves and parents having to try multiple pharmacies to find their child’s prescription.

This illustration made available by the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health depicts cells in an Alzheimer’s affected brain, with abnormal levels of the beta-amyloid protein clumping together to form plaques, brown, that collect between neurons and disrupt cell function. (National Institute on Aging, NIH via AP)

Japanese drugmaker Eisai and its U.S. partner Biogen had announced earlier this fall that the drug lecanemab appeared to work, a badly needed bright spot after repeated disappointments in the quest for better treatments of the incurable disease.

(WTTW News)

recent study from BMJ Global Health says as many as 1.35 billion young people ages 12-34 across the globe are engaging in listening practices that could make them susceptible to hearing loss. 

(WTTW News)

There have been about eight flu hospitalizations for every 100,000 people this season — rates typically seen in December or January. The RSV hospitalization rate is 10 times higher than usual for this point in the season, too. 

A number of dry shampoos have been voluntarily recalled. (WTTW News)

A number of dry shampoos have been voluntarily recalled over high levels of a cancer-causing chemical, benzene, which has been linked to leukemia and other blood disorders, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Amber Morgan, from South Bend, Ind., listens to the heartbeat of Tom Johnson, from Kankakee, at Travelodge by Wyndham Downtown Chicago, on Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022, in Chicago. (Michael Blackshire / Chicago Tribune via AP)

Amber Morgan and Tom Johnson met for the first time Saturday, four years after he received a heart transplanted from the body of Andreona Williams, who was 20 when she died from asthma complications

Brian Wallach and Sandra Abrevaya are pictured at their Kenilworth home. (WTTW News)

Brian Wallach and his wife, Sandra Abrevaya, founded I AM ALS to find a cure for the disease and to advocate for those who have the progressive neurodegenerative disease.