Health Secretary

Health secretary nominee Xavier Becerra told senators Tuesday that confronting the coronavirus pandemic will be his first priority if confirmed, but he also pledged to expand health insurance, rein in prescription drug costs and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in medical care.

British Prime Minister on Sunday renewed his vow to take the country out of the European Union by the Brexit deadline, in an apparent contradiction of a government pledge in court days earlier to ask for an extension if there’s no withdrawal deal. “We will be packing our bags and walking out on” Oct. 31, Boris Johnson wrote in The...

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson battled to fend off allegations of improper patronage and groping a woman as he prepared a final push Monday to fulfill his pledge to lead his country out of the European Union in just over a month — and, he hopes, move British politics beyond its fracture over Europe. Johnson sought to energize Conservative members...

Hurricane Dorian caused limited damage in the northern Caribbean as it left the region Wednesday night, setting its sights on the U.S. mainland as it threatened to grow into a dangerous Category 3 storm.

To save babies from brain-damaging birth defects, University of Pittsburgh scientist Carolyn Coyne studies placentas from fetuses that otherwise would be discarded — and she’s worried this kind of research is headed for the chopping block. The Trump administration is cracking down on fetal tissue research , with new hurdles for government-funded scientists around the country who call the special...

The race to succeed British Prime Minister Theresa May is heating up, the field of Conservative contenders is quickly growing and the focus is squarely on how to handle Brexit. Former House of Commons leader Andrea Leadsom and former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab joined the fray Saturday night. Both had earlier resigned from May’s Cabinet to protest her Brexit policy....

The death toll in a massive fire at an illegally tapped pipeline in Mexico has risen to 109 after 10 more injured people died at hospitals. Mexico’s Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer said Friday that the latest victims who were severely burned died between Wednesday and early Friday. He said hospitals continue to treat about 40 injured victims. The victims were...

Drug overdose deaths hit the highest level ever recorded in the United States last year, with an estimated 200 people dying per day, according to a report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Most of that was the result of a record number of opioid-related deaths. Preliminary figures show more than 72,000 people died in 2017 from drug overdoses across...

As weeks turned into months, the seats of the small plane began to empty out. In the beginning, 15 passengers flew from Vieques to the Puerto Rican mainland — refugees from Hurricane Maria. The storm had ruined the only dialysis center on this tiny island, their home; without treatment, the kidney patients would die. But the thrice-weekly trips have taken...

Gusty winds began to hit the eastern Caribbean on Sunday as Tropical Storm Beryl moved rapidly toward a region struggling to recover from last year’s deadly hurricanes.

President Donald Trump’s long-promised plan to bring down drug prices would mostly spare the pharmaceutical industry he previously accused of “getting away with murder.” Instead he focuses on private competition and more openness to reduce America’s prescription pain. In Rose Garden remarks at the White House Friday, Trump called his plan the “most sweeping action in history to lower the...

Britain’s health secretary says the government will introduce new laws targeting online social media companies if they don’t do more to protect children. In a strongly-worded letter to Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Twitter and others, Jeremy Hunt said their failure to prevent young children using social media and exposing children to its “harmful emotional side effects” was “unacceptable and...

President Donald Trump makes big promises to reduce prescription drug costs, but his administration is gravitating to relatively modest steps such as letting Medicare patients share in manufacturer rebates. Those ideas would represent tangible change and they have a realistic chance of being enacted. But it’s not like calling for Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Skeptics say the overall approach...

In an ironic twist, the Trump administration’s embrace of work requirements for low-income people on Medicaid is prompting lawmakers in some conservative states to resurrect plans to expand health care for the poor. Trump’s move has been widely criticized as threatening the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. But if states follow through, more Americans could get coverage.

Rewriting the rules on health care for the poor, the Trump administration said Thursday it will allow states to require “able-bodied” Medicaid recipients to work, a hotly debated first in the program’s half-century history. Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said requiring work or community involvement can make a positive difference in people’s lives and...

Democrats are shifting to offense on health care, emboldened by successes in defending the Affordable Care Act. They say their ultimate goal is a government guarantee of affordable coverage for all. With Republicans unable to agree on their vision, Democrats are debating ideas that range from single-payer, government-run care for all, to new insurance options anchored in popular programs like...

When it comes to filling jobs dealing with complex science, environment and health issues, the Trump administration is nominating people with fewer science academic credentials than their Obama predecessors. And it’s moving slower as well. Of 43 Trump administration nominees in science-related positions — including two for Health and Human Services secretary — almost 60 percent did not have a...

“Many of you have jobs, many of you have families,” Sen. Al Franken told Democratic leaders gathered on the eve of a hotly contested governor’s election in Virginia. After an expectant pause, he leaned into the microphone and added, “Ignore them.” Franken was jokingly beseeching activists to get out the vote the following day, in what ended up as a...

Turning to an industry he’s rebuked, President Donald Trump on Monday picked a former top pharmaceutical and government executive to be his health secretary. If confirmed, Alex Azar would oversee a $1 trillion department responsible for major health insurance programs, including “Obamacare,” as well as medical research, food and drug safety, and public health. The nomination of Azar is unusual...

Georgia Rep. Betty Price says her comments on people with HIV that ignited a national firestorm were “taken completely out of context.” Price, the wife of former U.S. Health Secretary Tom Price, was in a legislative committee meeting Tuesday when she asked a state health official whether people with HIV could legally be quarantined. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reportsPrice said Saturday...