Health & Wellness News

Good Shepherd Rehabilitation offers a grant program to fund employees' ideas. Projects range from helping those with spinal chord injuries to researching specific topics.

Lehigh Valley Health Network put out a statement saying they have reached an agreement with Aetna. This comes after the healthcare system said they would drop the health insurance company's members in 2023.

Window washing superheroes rappelled down the side of Lehigh Valley Health Network's Reilly Children's Hospital on Thursday. The super-sized excitement included Superman, Spiderman and the Flash.

St. Luke’s University Health Network begins construction on a new Women & Babies Tower that will bring more resources to families in Allentown. The hope is to serve 3,000 families a year.

Lehigh Valley Health Network mixes mocktails, emphasizes seat belt use, and quizzes Penn State Lehigh Valley students on their alcohol IQ in the week before Thanksgiving.

Cetronia Ambulance Corps is on the receiving end of $300,000 from the state. The money was used to purchase brand new defibrillators.

Seeing Eye puppies are bred to be guide dogs for their blind future handler, and in order to do their jobs, they need to be exposed to as many different environments as possible — including the inside of an ambulance.

Lehigh Valley Health Network received new spinal surgery device with a $1million grant. The O-Arm device scans a patient's spine.

Lehigh Valley Health Network warns that the triple threat of COVID, flu, and RSV could overwhelm health systems. Doctors are asking people to take extra precautions to protect themselves and avoid overwhelming hospitals.

Cetronia Ambulance Corps will hold a free health & wellness expo on Saturday, Nov. 12. It will feature hands-only CPR and stop-the-bleed demonstrations, car safety checks and more.

The city of Allentown is participating in National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. There are three area drop-off locations for unwanted or expired medications.

Legislators worked to establish penalties for xylazine use and trafficking in an attempt to lessen its presence in Pennsylvania's illicit drug supply. Some say doing so made way for a new, unclassified veterinary tranquilizer to take its place — medetomidine.

The tax and spending plan drew praise from Republicans for lowering taxes and funding border security, but Democrats condemned it for slashing Medicaid coverage and raising the deficit.

Nearly a year after the Biden administration designated xylazine as an "emerging threat" to the United States, Gov. Josh Shapiro classified it as a schedule III drug, making unauthorized possession a crime in Pennsylvania. Experts say the move has partly served to clear the way for new illicit substances to enter the drug market.

Proposed federal budget cuts would impact programs such as the free summer meal program for children in the Allentown School District.

The $2.75 million payment to the federal government resolves allegations that a pharmacy technician stole controlled substances on about 40 occasions and the health network failed to institute proper controls.

Despite not being approved for human consumption, veterinary tranquilizers are infiltrating the illicit drug supply in Pennsylvania. Harm reduction specialists and health care professionals say these overdoses can't be approached solely with naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug.

A generous donation from a Lehigh Valley native and others funds free swim lessons for children and adults in the River Crossing YMCA's Safety Around Water, or SAW, swim education program.

The bill would limit the manufacture, sale, distribution and use of firefighting foam containing PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, beginning in 2026.

Xylazine, an animal-grade tranquilizer that's not approved for human use, has taken Pennsylvania's illicit drug supply by storm. Known on the streets as "tranq," it accounted for almost 1 in 4 overdose deaths in Pennsylvania by 2023. Last year in Lehigh County, it was a contributing cause of death in 20 of the 112 deadly overdoses, or 17.9 percent of cases.

The funding comes from the commonwealth’s Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program, a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Known as "tranq" on the streets, an animal tranquilizer named xylazine infiltrated drug supplies throughout Pennsylvania since 2019. Its presence in the Lehigh Valley has grown, with deadly consequences.

A regionwide wastewater plan and a hazard mitigation plan both advanced with staff review approvals by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission on Thursday night.