FILE - This undated, colorized electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, indicated in yellow, emerging from the surface of cells, indicated in blue/pink, cultured in a laboratory. The National Institutes of Health is opening a handful of studies to start testing possible treatments for long COVID, an anxiously awaited step in U.S. efforts against the mysterious condition. The announcement, Monday, July 31, 2023 comes amid frustration from patients who've struggled for months or years with sometimes disabling health problems. (NIAID-RML via AP, File)

LAURAN NEERGAARD

AP Medical Writer

Medical researchers from universities and the National Institutes of Health rally near the Health and Human Services headquarters to protest federal budget cuts Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

Judge extends temporary block to huge cuts in National Institutes of Health research funding

A federal judge is continuing to block the Trump administration’s drastic cuts in medical research funding. Scientists say the policy will endanger patients and delay new lifesaving discoveries.

Pope Francis meets with Czech Republic's Prime Minister Robert Fico, right, and his entourage at The Vatican Friday, Feb. 14, 2025. (Vatican Media via AP, HO)

A look at Pope Francis’ previous hospitalizations and health problems

Pope Francis was hospitalized Friday for the fourth time since he was elected in 2013. Francis, who was diagnosed with bronchitis last week, had part of one lung removed as a young man and has recurring bouts of bronchitis, especially in winter.

President Donald Trump arrives on the South Lawn of the White House, in Washington, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Scientists warn Trump’s medical research cuts endanger patients as judge blocks the move for now

Scientists warn the Trump administration’s drastic cuts for medical research endanger patients, will cost thousands of jobs and threaten America’s standing as a world leader in science and innovation.

Tim Andrews smiles as he leaves Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Feb. 1, 2025. (Kate Flock/Massachusetts General Hospital via AP)

New Hampshire man is 2nd person known to be living with a pig kidney

A New Hampshire man has become the second person known to be living with a pig kidney. Massachusetts General Hospital announced Friday that Tim Andrews recovered well enough after the Jan. 25 transplant to leave the hospital a week later.

This image from video provided by UPMC and University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences shows Doug McCullough, who has spinal muscular atrophy, during tests of experimental spinal cord stimulation to improve muscle function in Pittsburgh, on March 14, 2023. (UPMC, University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences via AP)

A spine-zapping implant helped 3 people with a muscle-wasting disease walk better

Three people with a muscle-destroying disease destined to worsen got a little stronger when an implanted device zapped their spinal cord.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President Donald Trump's nominee to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services, testifies during a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing for his pending confirmation on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

RFK Jr. kept asking to see the science that vaccines were safe. After he saw it, he dismissed it

The man who hopes to be President Donald Trump’s health secretary says he needs to see data showing vaccines are safe, but he dismissed the evidence shown by an influential Republican senator. Robert F.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's choice to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, appears before the Senate Finance Committee for his confirmation hearing at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Takeaways from RFK Jr.'s first confirmation hearing as Trump’s nominee for health secretary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was pressed to clarify his views on vaccines, abortion and public health priorities in the first of two senate hearings as he tries to make the case to become President Donald Trump’s health secretary.

Towana Looney, who received a pig kidney transplant in November 2024, goes over notes about her recovery with Dr. Jeffrey Stern at NYU Langone Health in New York, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)

The only person in the world with a functioning pig organ is thriving after a record 2 months

An Alabama woman is thriving a record 61 days and counting after receiving a pig kidney, a new milestone in the quest for animal-to-human transplants. Of four other people given experimental pig organ transplants, none survived more than two months.

In this photo provided by Massachusetts General Hospital, patient Mike Garrity, center, speaks with Drs. Joe Garasic, left, and Randy Zusman in Boston, on Sept. 25, 2024. (Jeffrey Andree/Massachusetts General Hospital via AP)

Keeping blood pressure under control is critical. There’s a new option for tough cases

About half of U.S. adults have high blood pressure and too few have it under control. Now some patients who’ve tried everything — multiple drugs, diet and exercise — without help are checking out a different option — zapping away some nerves on their kidneys that are fueling their high blood pressur

A doctor checks the blood pressure of A 94-year-old woman in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, Catalonia region, Spain, Friday, July 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

Up to 4 in 10 people could develop dementia after 55. What you can do to lower your risk

New research suggests that Americans’ risk for developing dementia over a lifetime may be higher than previously thought.

A medical worker takes a swab sample from a worker of the China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) company during a round of COVID-19 tests in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province, Aug. 5, 2021. (Chinatopix via AP, File)

5 things we know and still don’t know about COVID, 5 years after it appeared

Five years after the virus that causes COVID emerged in China it still holds some mysteries. The disease has killed an estimated 20 million people globally, according to the World Health Organization, and thousands are still dying every year.

Alex Berrios walks into his dialysis session in Louisville, Ky., on Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)

Who wants a pig organ? Patients sick and tired of waiting years for a transplant

People worried they’ll never get a scarce human transplant want to know when they might get a pig kidney instead. They call and email NYU Langone Health and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Pig kidney recipient Towana Looney stands with transplant surgeons Dr. Jayme Locke, left, now of the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration and Dr. Robert Montgomery of NYU Langone Health, center, on Dec. 10, 2024, at NYU Langone Health, in New York City. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)

An Alabama woman is doing well after the latest experimental pig kidney transplant

An Alabama woman received a pig kidney transplant last month and is free from dialysis for the first time in eight years. Towana Looney is the fifth American given a gene-edited pig organ in a quest to make animal-to-human transplants a reality.

FILE - A pharmacist holds a COVID-19 vaccine at a pharmacy in New York, on Sept. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon, File)

Don’t wait for a holiday surge. Now is a good time to get your flu and COVID-19 vaccines

Health officials say it’s important to get flu and COVID-19 vaccines ahead of the holidays when respiratory bugs tend to spread.

The organ donor entry on the back of a driver license is photographed in New York on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison)

People opt out of organ donation programs after reports of a man mistakenly declared dead

Transplant experts are seeing a spike in people refusing to become organ donors, their confidence shaken by reports that organs were nearly retrieved from a Kentucky man mistakenly declared dead. The surgery was avoided and the man is still alive.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump waves at a campaign event at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump would be the oldest person to become president. He’s not sharing health details

If he wins next month’s election, Donald Trump would be the oldest person in U.S. history elected president.

This undated photo provided by the Oregon Health & Science University in October 2024 shows Drs. Erin Yamamoto, left, and Juan Piantino, who used special imaging to spot a long-suspected pathway the human brain uses to clear waste. (Christine Torres Hicks/OHSU via AP)

A peek inside human brain shows a way it cleans out waste

A unique peek inside the human brain may help explain how it clears away waste like the kind that leads to Alzheimer’s disease.

A pharmacist holds a COVID-19 vaccine at a pharmacy in New York, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon)

It’s time to roll up sleeves for new COVID, flu shots

Fall means it’s time for just about everybody to get up to date on their flu and COVID-19 vaccines. A lot of older adults also need protection against another risky winter virus, RSV.

FILE - Surgeons work on a kidney during a transplant surgical procedure in Washington on June 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Molly Riley, File)

Donating a kidney is even safer now than long thought, US study shows

People who volunteer to donate a kidney face an even lower risk of death from the operation than doctors have long thought. That’s according to an analysis of 30 years of living kidney donation.

This photo provided by Pfizer in August 2024 shows a packaging for the company's updated COVID vaccine for ages 12 and up, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024. (Steven Decroos/Pfizer via AP)

FDA approves updated COVID-19 vaccines, shots should be available in days

Updated COVID-19 vaccines are on their way. The Food and Drug Administration approved new shots from Pfizer and Moderna on Thursday, and the companies are set to begin shipping millions of doses.

FILE - A doctor points to PET scan results that are part of a study on Alzheimer's disease at Georgetown University Hospital, on Tuesday, May 19, 2015, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Blood tests for Alzheimer’s may be coming to your doctor’s office. Here’s what to know

New research suggests certain blood tests could help doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s disease faster and more accurately.

David Ayares, president and chief scientific officer of Revivicor, holds a package of frozen meat during an interview at the company’s offices in Blacksburg, Va., on May 30, 2024. His company genetically modified pigs, known as GalSafe pigs, so they no longer carry a sugar responsible for alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to red meat. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)

Pig transplant research yields a surprise: Bacon safe for some people allergic to red meat

Some people develop a weird allergy to red meat after being bitten by a lone star tick yet find they can still eat pork from a surprising source - certain pigs originally bred for human organ transplants.

A pig stands in a pen at the Revivicor research farm near Blacksburg, Va., on May 29, 2024, where organs are retrieved for animal-to-human transplant experiments. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)

Meet some of the world’s cleanest pigs, raised to grow kidneys and hearts for humans

Some of the world’s cleanest pigs are being raised in the Virginia mountains to supply kidneys and hearts for animal-to-human organ transplants.

FILE - President Joe Biden, speaks during a presidential debate hosted by CNN with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. Political opponents, armchair pundits and even nervous supporters are demanding that President Joe Biden undergo cognitive testing after his dismal debate performance – even though his physician says he gets, and passes, an annual neurologic exam. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

What cognitive tests can show -- and what they can’t

Washington politics is drawing attention to cognitive testing, a 10-minute series of questions to assess different brain function.

FILE - Lisa Pisano looks at photos of her dog after her surgeries at NYU Langone Health in New York on Monday, April 22, 2024. Pisano, who received a pig kidney transplant -- along with an implanted device to keep her heart beating – has died, her surgeon announced Tuesday, July 9, 2024. She was near death from dual kidney and heart failure when surgeons at NYU Langone Health performed the dramatic pair of surgeries. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum, File)

A woman who received a pig kidney transplant plus a heart pump has died

A woman who received a pig kidney transplant has died. Lisa Pisano received both the kidney and an implanted device to pump her failing heart in April at NYU Langone Health.

In this photo provided by the Mayo Clinic, Marty Kedian poses for a photo in Mayo Clinic’s Head and Neck Regenerative Medicine Laboratory in Scottsdale, Ariz., on June 12, 2024. Kedian regained his voice after surgeons removed his cancerous larynx and, in a pioneering move, immediately replaced it with a donated one. (Mayo Clinic via AP)

A rare voice box transplant helped a cancer patient speak again, part of a pioneering study

A Massachusetts man can speak again after surgeons removed his cancerous voice box and replaced it with a donated one, a pioneering move.

In this undated photo provided by Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Francisco Lopera, left, of the University of Antioquia, a neurologist who has spent decades caring for a large Colombian family plagued by early-in-life Alzheimer’s, confers with fellow researcher Yakeel Quiroz of Massachusetts General Hospital. (Massachusetts General Hospital via AP)

Colombian family’s genes offer new clue to delaying onset of Alzheimer’s

Scientists studying a Colombian family plagued by early-in-life Alzheimer’s have found a rare gene variant that seems to delay initial symptoms by about five years.

Man in Mexico died of a bird flu strain that hadn’t been confirmed before in a human, WHO says

Health authorities say a man in Mexico died from a type of bird flu called H5N2 that has never before been found in a human.

FILE - Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center nurse Maggie Bass, right, gives a COVID-19 vaccine to an unidentified person, Sept. 21, 2021, in Jackson, Miss. COVID-19 vaccines get updated each fall to match newer strains of the virus and government advisers on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, are urging that Americans' next shot target a strain called JN.1. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

FDA advisers urge targeting JN.1 strain in recipe for fall’s COVID vaccines

Government advisers say it’s time to update the recipe for the COVID-19 vaccines Americans will receive in the fall. They recommend targeting a version of the ever-evolving coronavirus called JN.1 But it was a tough choice.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus pandemic at Capitol Hill, Monday, June 3, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Fauci pushes back partisan attacks in fiery House hearing over COVID origins and controversies

Dr. Anthony Fauci was back before Congress, calling Republican allegations that he’d tried to cover up COVID-19’s origins “simply preposterous.”