Nancy Shute

If you show up at a hospital emergency department with a high fever and you just happen to have been traveling in Africa, don't be surprised if you get a lot of attention.

Hospitals are on the lookout for people with symptoms such as a high fever, vomiting and diarrhea ...

This summer we commemorate the Freedom Summer participants who faced death — and in some cases were murdered — for trying to transform the racial landscape of America. This week marks the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the bodies belonging to James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew ...

With plans underway to bring one or two Americans stricken with Ebola to the United States, people are wondering how that will happen without unleashing the deadly virus.

On Friday afternoon, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted a guide explaining how hospitals should manage Ebola patients. ...

An irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation is a big cause of stroke, especially for people who have recently had a stroke. But it's not something that most people can feel.

Doctors test for atrial fibrillation by hooking people up to an electrocardiogram machine at the office, or having ...

Doctors have gotten much better at diagnosing and treating sports-related concussions, which is a good thing since Americans suffer up to 4 million sports-related concussions a year.

But we're not so good at is following their advice.

Student athletes and parents sometimes balk at doctors' recommendations to avoid play until ...

The vaccine for human papillomavirus has been controversial from the get-go, partly because it protects against a virus that causes cervical cancer and is spread by sexual activity.

The vaccine's safety has also been contested, with media celebrities like Katie Couric publicizing rare reports of people who became ill ...

Lead is well known for causing permanent behavioral and cognitive problems in children, but a study says it may also cause less obvious problems like depression, too, even at low levels.

That's the word from a study tracking the health of 1,341 children in Jintan, China, where the health effects ...

What's worse, a shot in the arm or a spritz up the nose? Children increasingly have a choice when it comes to vaccination for influenza.

On Thursday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel that advises the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccinations, voted for ...

Think about people dying from drinking too much, and you probably think of the classic disease of alcoholics, cirrhosis of the liver. Or perhaps an alcohol-fueled car crash. But there are many more ways to kill yourself with alcohol, unfortunately, and they account for 1 in 10 deaths in working-age ...

The announcement that popular over-the-counter acne treatments can cause rare but life-threatening reactions sure got our attention. Who among us hasn't slathered that stuff on our face?

The reactions include throat tightness, shortness of breath, wheezing, low blood pressure, fainting and collapse. Hives and swelling of body parts where ...

A form of mammogram that takes multiple images does a slightly better job of finding tumors and reducing women's risk of having to be scanned again, a study finds.

It's the biggest study yet to look at tomosynthesis, also called 3-D mammograms. But it's still unclear if using this kind ...

Children whose parents read to them get a head start on language skills and literacy, as well as lovely cuddle time with Mom or Dad. But many children miss out on that experience, with one-third of children starting kindergarten without the language skills they need to learn to read.

So ...

At age 25, Jason DaSilva had everything — he was smart, talented, good-looking and traveling the world as a documentary filmmaker. Then he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Some people live with the nerve disorder for years without having trouble, but Jason was not one of them. After suddenly falling ...

There's no lack of evidence that children are getting fatter and weaker. And children who are obese or out of shape tend to do worse in school. But scientists are just starting to figure out just what it is in that mix that makes the difference with academics.

It looks ...

It's hard not to be charmed by Hazel and Gus, the flippant yet noble teenagers with cancer in the hit film The Fault in Our Stars. But movies have a bad habit of taking life-or-death health crises and turning them into cliché.

To find out if The Fault in Our ...

Exercise is the easiest way to avoid or reduce the pain of knee arthritis, but most adults aren't getting enough. Six thousand steps a day will do it, researchers say, which is considerably less than the 10,000 steps a day often touted by wellness programs.

"There are really no standard ...

If you've Googled tennis elbow or plantar fasciitis or Achilles tendon pain you've almost certainly come across platelet-rich plasma, a treatment that uses a person's own blood to create an injection intended to speed healing.

You've also probably come across names like Kobe Bryant, Maria Sharapova, Rafael Nadal and Alex ...

Many people with diabetes have switched to newer forms of insulin called analogs, because they can make the disease easier to manage. But that switch can be expensive, a study finds.

Researchers at the Yale University School of Medicine looked at insurance claim data to see how people with Type ...

People who take statin medications are less active than those not taking the cholesterol-lowering drugs, a study finds.

And that's a problem, because lack of activity increases the risk of heart disease and stroke, as well as other diseases. That's just what the statins are supposed to prevent. So people ...

Babies who are exposed to both bacteria and allergens in the first year of life are less likely to develop asthma and allergies, a study finds.

It's the latest wrinkle in the hygiene hypothesis — the notion that exposure to bacteria trains the infant immune system to attack bad bugs ...