This article first appeared in STAT, which gave Georgia Health News permission to republish it. Photos are by Bethany Mollenkof for STAT. By Olivia Goldhill In every corner of Latasha Taylor’s home are plants she knows nothing about. After years spent shirking her mother’s calls to join her in the yard at sunrise, Taylor now…
When asked about the stench, neighbors in a rural corner of northeast Georgia tend to mention a single phrase: “The smell of death.” As Steven Adair of Lexington says of the pervasive odor, “It was like tying a couple of dead chickens to your belt. There were people who were miles away complaining about it.’’ The…
In a well-kept west Atlanta yard Saturday, two women held up small pieces of a rock-like material they had spotted on the ground. It wasn’t rock, the two agreed: It was slag. Rosario Hernandez and Eri Saikawa know plenty about west Atlanta’s deposits of slag. The stuff is a byproduct of smelting, and many years ago people…
By Rebecca Grapevine Last year, as Georgia endured the strain of COVID-19, a blue-ribbon commission quietly held regular meetings about how to improve mental health services in the state. The panel issued its report in January, just as the state Legislature convened in Atlanta for its annual session. The experts had spent over a year…
Edie Grice, 19, got the idea while talking with her father. If people receive an “I voted’’ sticker for voting, she wondered, why shouldn’t they have something to represent being vaccinated? Edie, a junior psychology major at Georgia Southern University, and her father, journalist DeWayne Grice, have been strong promoters of COVID vaccinations in the…
By Katja Ridderbusch Michael Goodroe isn’t the type who worries easily or is quickly scared. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, “I was a little sad,” he says as he sits down in his parents’ Roswell bungalow, his hands neatly folded on the large wooden dining room table. “Because I felt that the life I knew…
By Brenda Goodman and Andy Miller Brenda Goodman is a reporter for Medscape and WebMD. Andy Miller the editor and CEO of Georgia Health News. On August 22, 2018, the citizens of Willowbrook, Ill., had just one hour to learn that local EPA officials were investigating high levels of a toxic gas in the neighborhoods…
A big change in drug treatment for cancer is arriving in Georgia. It’s not a new medication. What’s coming is something known as “white bagging,’’ an insurer tactic involving expensive infusion or injection drugs. And at Crisp Regional Health Services in Cordele, Jennifer Taylor, an oncology nurse practitioner, is concerned about the ultimate effect on patient…
Five years ago, Marietta-based Wellstar Health System bought five Georgia hospitals from Tenet Healthcare. The prize of the lot was seen to be North Fulton Hospital in suburban Roswell, not far from Wellstar’s hub. Today, it’s doing well financially, as expected. Two other hospitals, in towns on the southern outskirts of metro Atlanta, have made…
Near America’s largest coal-fired power plant, toxins are showing up in drinking water and people have fallen ill. Thousands of pages of internal documents show how one giant energy company plans to avoid the cleanup costs for coal ash. By Max Blau Mark Berry raised his right hand, pledging to tell the whole truth and…