health

Have you heard about the popular new cannabis health product, CBD? THC’s non-psychoactive cousin, CBD gained fame earlier this decade after being used to successfully treat children with intractable epilepsy. Since then it’s been claimed to alleviate a whole host of conditions, including anxiety, inflammation, pain, and even acne.

A growing number of parents whose kids suffer from seizures have discovered that medical cannabis can reduce their frequency and intensity. Over the past few years, seven states have passed laws giving kids access to that medicine while they’re at school. California’s not quite there. For one Santa Rosa family the stakes are high and the fight isn’t over.

On this edition of Your Call, we discuss the safety of wireless radiation. A new Nation magazine investigation explores how big wireless companies used the same playbook as big oil and big tobacco to deceive the public and create the appearance of scientific uncertainty, while making people think that cell phones are safer than independent science suggests.

When we experience trauma as children — whether it’s the stress of an abusive parent, divorce, substance abuse, or the effects of poverty — do these traumatic events affect our lives even when we grow up?

San Francisco’s Proposition E proposes to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products throughout San Francisco.

The Board of Supervisors already voted for this ban last year. But tobacco companies didn’t like that decision. So they gathered enough signatures to put the decision in the hands of the voters instead.

On this edition of Your Call, Dr. Robert Lustig discusses his new book, The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains.

Autism is extremely hard to diagnose, because it can’t be tested for blood or genes. It’s a behavioral disorder. Often a parent or teacher has to notice the signs and request that a child is tested. Many people are living their lives without realizing they have autism. This includes people in prison.

The flu season is here, and it’s really felt like a nasty one. 

Babies being born early is the No. 1 cause of infant mortality in the United States. After years of decline, it’s back on the rise, particularly for Black women. Now mothers around the Bay Area are demanding solutions.

Elizabeth Rogers is the Associate Clinical Director of the Intensive Care Nursery of the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. KALW’s Ben Trefny sat down with her to hear more about what technologies and medical techniques are being used to save the most vulnerable premature babies.

Click the audio player above to listen to the full story. 

This Saturday, two weeks after President Trump addressed via teleconference the National Walk for Life in Washington, D.C., the 14th annual Walk For Life West Coast took place in San Francisco. 

The open enrollment period for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act begins on Wednesday, November 1st, and runs for three months in California. The Trump administration has cut enrollment periods in half and reduced funding for public outreach from $100 million to $10 million.

The administration has also canceled cost-sharing reimbursements to insurers, which reduce costs for low-income people. In this time of turmoil and uncertainty, what do you want to know to get the best available coverage? Join the conversation on the next Your Call, with Rose Aguilar, and you.

Getting into the bay at Aquatic Park (with no wetsuit!) on a cold, foggy morning in San Francisco —  the water quality was not my top concern.  

On the next Your Call, we’ll have a conversation with Cathryn Jakobson Ramin, author of “Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery.”

The training floor of God’s Gym is definitely old school – one room crammed with barbells, benches, and ancient weight machines.

Maybe you’ve seen the billboards for Prop 61, with AARP and the California Nurses Association urging you to “Vote Yes for Lower Drug Prices.” Or the scary TV commercials warning you to vote no on Prop 61, arguing that drug prices will go up if it’s passed.

For Bayview residents, stocking the kitchen with fresh produce, meats, staples and spices means having to go to several places to get what they need. There is no full service grocery store here, so people have to plan, travel, and get creative. 

Being homeless means it's a daily challenge to get your basic needs met: eating, bathing and using the bathroom. For many women, one extra challenge arises every month when they get their period. 

Talking to peers can be a vital tool for making it through dark times. But what happens when your friends and loved ones aren’t around anymore? That’s the situation for many older gay men in San Francisco, whose community was decimated by the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s.

Six years ago, today, the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as "Obama Care," was signed into law. The goal was to make health care accessible to all Americans, and to eliminate disparities based on income, education, gender and race. 

How could science help us understand our own happiness?

Neonatal medical care has grown tremendously in the last 30 years. Just recently there’s been a change in the treatment we give to babies born prematurely. More and more, parents — not doctors — are making decisions about treatment. Reporter Jenny Gold has the story.

On the September 24th edition of Your Call, author and doctor Damon Tweedy joins us to talk about his new book, Black Man in a White Coat. 

We've come a long way since the first diagnosis of HIV in 1981, but the epidemic is not over. San Francisco is indelibly marked by the epidemic, which reached its height in 80's and 90's, but what is going on now? Dr. Susan Buchbinder is director of Bridge HIV, a San Francisco Department of Public Health HIV prevention research program, and she’s on the steering committee for Getting to Zero San Francisco, an initiative that aims to reduce deaths, new infections, and stigma.

The next time you're in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, if you look carefully you’ll see a symbol of this support: a black cross drawn in marker. It’s the coat of arms for the Black Sheep, the area’s unofficial homeless first aid squad.

Five years after the BP oil spill, what do we know about the long-term effects? On the April 16th edition of Your Call, we’ll have a conversation about the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.  Oil and methane gas spewed into the ocean for 87 straight days. The U.S. government estimates over 4 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf. Recovery teams collected only 17 percent. Where is all of that oil? Five years later, what do we know and what don’t we know? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar, and you.

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