As officials struggle to fight the opioid epidemic that is plaguing the country, some big cities are considering creating "safe injection" sites. Addicts would be able to use their drugs under the watch of medical professionals, and they would be provided clean needles. While no city has submitted a formal plan, the idea is already stirring up controversy.
Dina Fine Maron, Health & Medicine Editor at Scientific American, explains the science behind safe injection sites. Allowing addicts to use drugs under supervision and with clean needles helps to reduce diseases associated with intravenous drug use such as HIV.
While no city in the United States has a "safe injection" site, Fine Maron says existing sites in Europe and Canada have proven to be a success. Data shows that opening these sites helps reduce opioid-related deaths and problems.
Two U.S. science agencies say 2021 was the sixth hottest year on record globally, part of a long-term warming trend.
U.S. doctors have transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life — a first for medical science. Doctors at University of Maryland School of Medicine said Monday the patient is doing well three days after surgery.
The president of Turkmenistan is calling for an end to one of the country's most notable but infernal sights.
Locked in a dispute over his COVID-19 vaccination status, Novak Djokovic was confined to an immigration detention hotel in Australia on Thursday.
Starbucks says its U.S. workers must be fully vaccinated by Feb. 9 or face a weekly COVID testing requirement
Hundreds of motorists are waiting desperately for help after being stranded all night in freezing temperatures along a 50-mile stretch of highway south of the nation’s capital.
Tens of thousands of Coloradans driven from their neighborhoods by a wind-whipped wildfire are anxiously waiting to learn what's left standing of their lives.
New Year's Eve, Colorado Fires & Free Money
U.S. health officials are cutting isolation restrictions for Americans who test positive for the coronavirus and shortening the time that close contacts have to quarantine.
New Year celebrations are approaching and across the world there is an urge to party. But the desire to let loose is being countered by the highly transmissible omicron variant.
