Dr. Herbert Pardes, a psychiatrist and a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health who brought order to the merger of two major medical centers that became New York-Presbyterian Hospital and ran it for 11 years, died on April 30 at his home in Manhattan. He was 89.…
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How Poor Tracking of Bird Flu Leaves Dairy Workers at Risk
Even as it has become increasingly clear that the bird flu outbreak on the nation’s dairy farms began months earlier — and is probably much more widespread — than previously thought, federal authorities have emphasized that the virus poses little risk to humans. Yet there is a group of people…
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Environmental Changes Are Fueling Human, Animal and Plant Diseases, Study Finds
Several large-scale, human-driven changes to the planet — including climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the spread of invasive species — are making infectious diseases more dangerous to people, animals and plants, according to a new study. Scientists have documented these effects before in more targeted studies that have…
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Milton Diamond, Sexologist and Advocate for Intersex Babies, Dies at 90
Academic conferences are usually staid affairs, but the 1973 International Symposium on Gender Identity, held in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, was an exception. Everything was peaceful until a psychologist named John Money stood and yelled, “Mickey Diamond, I hate your guts!” Milton Diamond, a sexologist who had gone by Mickey since childhood,…
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RFK Jr. Says Doctors Found a Dead Worm in His Brain
In 2010, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was experiencing memory loss and mental fogginess so severe that a friend grew concerned he might have a brain tumor. Mr. Kennedy said he consulted several of the country’s top neurologists, many of whom had either treated or spoken to his uncle, Senator Edward…
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Study Suggests Genetics as a Cause, Not Just a Risk, for Some Alzheimer’s
Scientists are proposing a new way of understanding the genetics of Alzheimer’s that would mean that up to a fifth of patients would be considered to have a genetically caused form of the disease. Currently, the vast majority of Alzheimer’s cases do not have a clearly identified cause. The new…
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Kris Hallenga, Who Urged Young on Breast Cancer Awareness, Dies at 38
When Kris Hallenga was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer — the most advanced form — at 23, questions swirled through her head: “Why didn’t anyone tell me to check my boobs? Why didn’t I know I could get breast cancer at 23?” If she hadn’t known that she could…
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Lead in Beethoven’s Hair Offers New Clues to Mystery of His Deafness
At 7 p.m. on May 7, 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven, then 53, strode onto the stage of the magnificent Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna to help conduct the world premiere of his Ninth Symphony, the last he would ever complete. That performance, whose 200th anniversary is on Tuesday, was unforgettable…
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First Patient Begins Sickle Cell Gene Therapy That F.D.A. Approved
On Wednesday, Kendric Cromer, a 12-year-old boy from a suburb of Washington, became the first person in the world with sickle cell disease to begin a commercially approved gene therapy that may cure the condition. For the estimated 20,000 people with sickle cell in the United States who qualify for…
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Orangutan Seen Healing His Facial Wound With Medicinal Plant
Scientists observed a wild male orangutan repeatedly rubbing chewed-up leaves of a medicinal plant on a facial wound in a forest reserve in Indonesia. It was the first known observation of a wild animal using a plant to treat a wound, and adds to evidence that humans are not alone…