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By CHRIS LARABEE

SOUTH DEERFIELD — After a successful move to Yankee Candle last year, the 17th annual Wheeling for Healing event is back on May 19, as the fundraiser seeks to continue raising tens of thousands of dollars for cancer patients receiving treatment within...

By DOUG SELWYN

A recent essay by Blythe Thomas, initiative director at 1000 Days, an organization that fights “to make health and well-being during the first 1,000 days (between pregnancy and a child’s 2nd birthday) a policy and funding priority,” begins by asking...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering loosening isolation requirements for people who test positive for COVID-19, meaning they would no longer have to stay at home for at least five days when infected with the virus.Under the...

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — Some two dozen aspiring nurses spent Monday morning rubbing elbows with four of the region’s top politicians, where they were able to ask what they could do to drum up support for single-payer health care to how to better protect medical...

Staff Report

Less than a month after it began enforcing a longstanding policy restricting the use of anesthesia during colonoscopies and other procedures, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is pausing that action after physicians statewide lobbied the insurer...

Editor’s note: Since this story was published, Blue Cross Blue Shield has paused enforcement of a policy that restricts the use of anesthesia during colonoscopies and other procedures.An updated policy from Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts...

By DOMENIC POLI

The Democrat representing the 2nd Congressional District of Massachusetts has teamed up with a Republican colleague from Florida to sponsor a bill aimed at making it easier for Americans to get medically necessary foods.Jim McGovern and John...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

NORTHAMPTON — Even with less severe cases of COVID-19 than the past two years and a marked decrease since last fall in RSV, officially known as respiratory syncytial virus, a surge in flu cases is keeping Cooley Dickinson Hospital’s emergency...

By ERIC WELD

Raise your hand if you get enough sleep.If you raised your hand, well done. Because in America, a large percentage of us do not sleep or rest enough, and the resultant detriments to our health are too numerous to count.More than one-third of adults do...

By EMILY THURLOW

EASTHAMPTON — In the wake of two highly contentious public hearings that packed the City Council chambers, At-Large City Councilor Owen Zaret came before the Board of Health Tuesday night to present a proposed ordinance designed to stop deceptive...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — A new town department that will provide an alternative to police, with unarmed employees responding to calls that don’t feature violence of serious crime, has its inaugural leader.Earl Miller, regional director of recovery for the...

By DUSTY CHRISTENSEN

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Medical Center intends to close its maternity services unit, leaving Holyoke residents with no place to give birth and receive obstetric care within the city.The decision comes after HMC temporarily closed its Birthing Center in...

By TYNAN POWER

Alice Walker said, “Sexuality is one of the ways that we become enlightened, actually, because it leads us to self-knowledge.” But what happens when sexuality becomes a site of pain and trauma? For far too many people, harmful experiences can limit...

By GINNY HAMILTON

Thanksgiving is notorious as the busiest car travel holiday. The headaches of traffic snarls can be as emblematic of the holiday as cranberry sauce. Most people can be grateful to experience traffic headaches only figuratively. For some, however,...

By GINNY HAMILTON

Do you stand like a duck?Please stand up for a moment and take a look down at your feet. Do your toes point out to the sides? For most of us, the answer is yes.This is often because our outer hip muscles, the hip rotators, are stronger than their...

By GINNY HAMILTON

Early on an August Sunday morning, we pulled out of our driveway in a car laden with bikes, camping gear and beach chairs, determined to beat Cape traffic. We hadn’t even made it to the end of our street when I realized I’d left my phone on the...

By Bryna Greenspan

A few decades ago, high in the Italian Alps, a five-thousand-year-old mummy was found.  Offered up from a melting glacier and discovered by unsuspecting hikers, Otzi the Iceman was remarkably preserved, frozen as he was in the snow for millennia....

By LILLIAN ILSLEY-GREENE

BOSTON — Massachusetts could become the first state in New England to ban non-consensual pelvic examinations on women under anesthesia as outlined in bills filed by state Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, and state Rep. Mindy Domb, D-Amherst.Pelvic...

By LISA SPEAR

Jenny Marshall of Leverett leans back in what looks like a fancy lawn chair while a woman kneeling in front of her is cradling Marshall’s feet in her hands, buffing away at her toenails, rubbing away the cracks in her heels and scrubbing her calluses....

By M.J. TIDWELL

Editor’s note: This is Part 2 of a four-part series on the role of sedatives known as benzodiazepines in the nation’s opioid crisis. Dr. Christy Huff, a Texas cardiologist, was prescribed Xanax after a dry-eye syndrome caused her eyes to “feel like...