Every week the number jumps. The epidemic of a mysterious lung illness, first reported this spring, has swept across the nation, jumping from a few to more than 1,000 cases in 48 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released in early October.
Posted on November 4, 2019 - 11:19am
Sherry D. Martinez thought she had the flu. The then-45-year-old had all the usual symptoms—fever, fatigue, sore joints—and then some. When it became difficult to breathe, a doctor diagnosed her with pneumonia and sent her home with antibiotics. A few days later, bumps appeared on Martinez’s skin. When she scratched at them, they oozed. Her doctor put her on stronger antibiotics, but still her condition worsened. She developed a rash and severe eye pain.
Update 10/1/2018: James Allison has won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Berkeley News Center reports on the announcement here.
Hear the letters BMI and the first thing you probably think of is “body mass index.” Keep your eyes peeled because “brain-machine interfaces” could soon hijack more than just the acronym.
To a very real degree, Charvi Shetty’s future was molded by her college roommate. Or rather, her roommate’s health.
“She had asthma,” says Shetty, who graduated from UC Berkeley with a bioengineering degree in 2012 and took a master’s in biomedical imaging from UCSF in 2013. “She had to use an inhaler six times a day. She told me that her childhood memories were of going to the ER, not Disneyland or the beach, and she was never allowed to play outside because of her allergies. Asthma controlled her life.”
After Berkeley became the first city in the nation to pass an excise soda tax one year ago, opponents dismissed Berkeley as such an outlier that the victory was inconsequential. “Berkeley is not necessarily the trendsetter that they claim to be,” Roger Salazar, spokesman for the No Berkeley Beverage Tax campaign, was quoted saying. “They are a nuclear-free zone. They give free pot to low-income folks. Berkeley is Berkeley.”
Posted on November 3, 2015 - 12:56pm
Two women face each other at a small table at the back of a café in Berkeley. A hot autumn sun pulses through the glass. One of the women, sturdy in a chambray shirt and large glasses, shakes her head with a false smile: “Then I just lost it.”
Her friend, a slightly older 60-something in running shoes, her lean left knee tucked below her chin, nods in understanding.
Posted on April 29, 2015 - 4:45pm
I grew up in Los Angeles in the 1960s and ’70s as the middle of three sisters—no brothers—and I took the “boy role.” I was athletic, did more of the outside chores (although we all had to weed the lawn), and wore pants in elementary school as soon as school rules changed allowing us to do so.
Update: The Berkeley City Council on May 12 unanimously voted to make Berkeley the nation’s first city with a “Right to Know” law about health risks associated with radio frequency radiation from cell phones.
Posted on August 19, 2014 - 11:55am
