“Most of our patients coming for elective work come in through here,” Dr. Hasan Hashmi says as he stands in a hospital waiting room that is completely empty. No patients seeking elective work are in sight nor are any staffers behind the receptionists’ desk to admit them. “The admission staff…
A Carrollton resident is the first person in Dallas County to die from the West Nile virus in 2016, Dallas County Health and Human Services confirmed Monday afternoon. The name and gender of the victim, who was more than 60 years old, will not be disclosed for “medical confidentiality and…
The group of lawyers that shepherded the plaintiffs through the case that eventually led to the Supreme Court toppling most of Texas’ onerous anti-abortion law, House Bill 2, is readying itself to take on the state again, this time over Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s under-the-radar call to require facilities that…
David Daleiden is not going to go to trial for filming the infamous, undercover Planned Parenthood “baby parts” videos. Tuesday, the Harris County District Attorney requested that the remaining charge against Daleiden and his partner, Sandra Merritt, be dropped. Judge Brock Thomas agreed, dismissing claims that Daleiden and Merritt had illegally…
The latest numbers from the Texas Department of State Health Services aren’t great. Texas parents are still taking advantage of a Rick Perry-sized loophole the then-governor created in the state’s requirements for school kids. For the 2015-2016 school year, parents of nearly 45,000 school-aged kids filed for non-medical exemptions from vaccines…
Not all of the women who pull into the driveway at Whole Woman’s Health Clinic in West Fort Worth go inside. For some, facing the images of bloody fetuses on the signs carried by demonstrators manning a gantlet outside, the shouts and the threat of having images of their cars…
One of the last session of the Texas Legislature’s rare moments of compassion and common sense is bearing fruit. A bipartisan coalition of representatives passed a bill that makes it easier to buy naloxone, a medication that can quickly reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Tuesday, Walgreens became the first…
Dallas County officials have officially reported that 10 pregnant women have tested positive for the Zika virus. The mosquito-borne illness is often benign in adults, but contracting it when pregnant can cause severe birth defects, including microcephaly. Each of the 10 pregnant women potentially carrying Zika came in contact with the…
It’s here, ladies and gentlemen, Dallas County’s first spraying of the upcoming, sure-to-be epic mosquito season. Thursday afternoon, Dallas County Health and Human Services announced that one of its mosquito traps in Balch Springs tested positive for West Nile virus. The county sprayed Balch Springs overnight Thursday and will continue…
Image 390650350 from shutterstock, por favor This spring, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave Texas woman who might seek to have an abortion a big boost when it changed the label on mifepristone, a drug that can be used to medically induce abortion. The FDA change — which calls for a…
Regardless of how hearty your constitution is, you are going to want to gear up for 2016’s mosquito season. The threats that have hovered around North Texas in previous years — the West Nile and Chikungunya viruses — are back and Zika virus, the birth defect-inducing, mosquito-borne illness currently running…
This week, misaligned federal priorities and warnings at the Texas Capitol made it clear that the Zika virus is going to pose a very real threat to Texas during the 2016 mosquito season. As temperatures rise and mosquitoes gather, both the state and Dallas County are going to need money…
Early last week, the state of Texas got a bit of good news. Despite Governor Greg Abbott’s categorical refusal to take federal funds to expand Medicaid in the state of Texas — leaving thousands of Texans without the coverage to which they were supposed to be entitled after the passage…
Most of Dallas major hospitals look pretty good in the Hospital Safety Score Survey released this week by the Leapfrog Group, a patient safety watchdog organization. Methodist Charlton Medical Center, Methodist Dallas Medical Center, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and UT Southwestern University Hospital all got A’s on their report cards…
The official count of Zika cases in Dallas County now stands at six, the county’s health and human services department announced Friday, not long after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that the mosquito-borne virus is capable of causing microcephaly and other birth defects. Friday’s confirmed infection…
The last thing the state of Texas’ Republican leadership wants to do is give in and accept the Medicaid expansion mandated by the Affordable Care Act. Texas has the highest uninsured population in the country, but no matter how many Texans might receive access to healthcare if the state would…
Since the Affordable Care Act became effective, nearly a million previously uninsured Texans have acquired health insurance. That’s good, but despite the gains, Texas still has the highest rate of uninsured residents in the country and the highest raw number of uninsured residents. Gains in Texas have come at a…
Last Friday, The New York Times, hit the NFL hard, reporting that the NFL’s research into player concussions was “was deeply flawed and incomplete” and that the league hired attorneys and other personnel affiliated with the tobacco industry to help oversee that research. The implication made by the Times was clear,…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision to update the recommended dosage for women taking the abortion drug mifepristone may give Texas women easier access to abortions in the state. The FDA changed the label on the drug, bringing it in line with the way doctors in other states have…
So far, no one has caught the Zika virus in Texas from a mosquito. The virus has only been transmitted once in the state, and that happened when a man returning to the Lone Star State from a trip to South America had sex with an uninfected woman. As mosquito…
The lack of hard data available to help predict the effects of Texas’ anti-abortion House Bill 2 came up again and again earlier this month when the Supreme Court heard arguments about whether to strike down portions of the law. The most contentious regulation, the one that requires any abortion…
Wednesday, Tarrant County announced that it’s identified its second and third Zika virus cases of the winter. One patient traveled recently to Puerto Rico, the other to El Salvador, both of which are currently in the midst of a Zika outbreak. No other identifying information about the patients has been…
