Health

OTTAWA — Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said Thursday he did not put any undue political pressure on the independent federal agency that regulates the price of patented drugs to influence its efforts to lower medicine costs.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina senators rejected a bill that would have banned nearly all abortions in a conservative state that has increasingly served patients across a region where Republican officials have otherwise curtailed access.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican legislators in Kansas enacted what may be the most sweeping transgender bathroom law in the U.S.

As a growing number of overweight Americans clamor for Ozempic and Wegovy — drugs touted by celebrities and on TikTok to pare pounds — an even more powerful obesity medicine is poised to upend treatment. Tirzepatide, an Eli Lilly and Co.

SEATTLE (AP) — Washington and Minnesota won't cooperate with attempts to prosecute out-of-state patients seeking reproductive or gender-affirming procedures and treatment, under new laws signed Thursday by the two states’ Democratic governors.

NEW YORK (AP) — The first years of the pandemic saw a huge decline in high school students having sex, according to a government survey . Teen sex was already becoming less and less common before COVID-19.

By comparing the genetic blueprints of an array of animals, scientists are gaining new insights into our own species and all we share with other creatures.

Obesity is a major and growing problem around the world, but especially in the U.S., where more than 40% of adults and about 20% of children now meet the criteria for what doctors say has become an intractable chronic disease.

LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — Alberta Health Services says it's seeing a jump in whooping cough cases in the province's south. The provincial health authority says there are 146 cases of pertussis, more commonly known as whooping cough, in the area.