SNAP provides a model for ensuring a right to food

Alleviating food insecurity is often seen as one of the fundamental roles a country should fulfill. In some cases, this is encapsulated into a constitutionally formalized "right to food". In other cases, including the U.S., the right to food isn't formalized, but the U.S. government spends billions of dollars per year to help Americans obtain the food they need.

Why respiratory infections are more deadly in those with diabetes

Since the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) first emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012, there have been more than 2,400 confirmed cases of the infection, resulting in greater than 800 deaths—an alarming fatality rate of 35 percent. For this reason, researchers have been eager to identify any risk factors that contribute to the development of severe or lethal disease. Current clinical evidence points to diabetes as a major risk factor in addition to other comorbidities including kidney disease, heart disease, and lung disease.

America's endless battle against lethal drug fentanyl

In a windowless hangar at New York's John F. Kennedy airport, dozens of law enforcement officers sift through packages, looking for fentanyl—a drug that is killing Americans every day.

Lunch break lesson: how to reverse an opioid overdose

At a small shop selling handmade jewelry in South Philly, employees are skipping their lunch break for a good cause. They are getting training they all wanted—in how to save someone who has overdosed on opioids.

Confessions of a cannabis farmer: The Vietnamese getting Brits high

Holed up alone in a suburban British house thousands of miles from home, cannabis farmer Cuong Nguyen spent months carefully nurturing his plants, one of thousands of Vietnamese migrants working in the UK's multi-billion dollar weed industry.

Training social workers in fight against opioids

Nancy Ochoa was 15 years old the first time she used heroin with a group of friends. At 16, four months after the birth of her first child, her occasional drug use had turned into a "necessity."

Plant-based compound may enable faster, more effective gene therapy

Gene therapy has broadened the treatment possibilities for those with immune system deficiencies and blood-based conditions, such as sickle cell anemia and leukemia. These diseases, which once would require a bone marrow transplant, can now be successfully treated by modifying patients' own blood stem cells to correct the underlying genetic problem.

Health care intervention: Treating high-need, high-cost patients

In crisis and with nowhere else to turn, thousands of patients with complex needs—serious mental and physical health problems and substance use disorders—every year flock to emergency rooms in Harris County, Texas and across the country. Referred to as "high-need, high-cost," these patients have limited ability to take care of themselves, making it challenging for doctors to find effective treatments.