Health Archives - Ann Arbor Observer

Research at Risk

Feb 24, 2025 | Health, News |

The Trump administration’s drive to disrupt the federal government is already having an outsized effect on Ann Arbor, from social services to climate activism. (For the impact on just one nonprofit, see Doomsday Planning.) But none matches the economic destruction threatened by a February announcement from the National Institutes of Health, which provides $800 million of the U-M’s $2 billion in annual research funding. The edict would set grantees’ “indirect cost” reimbursement at 15 percent.

Eggflation

Jan 27, 2025 | Business, Health, News |

“I just happened to look back at an invoice from January of 2022, and we were selling eggs for $23 a case,” says Washtenaw Dairy owner Mary Jean Raab. “Yesterday I paid $83 a case.” Another supplier was asking $147.

Gifts of Life

Nov 25, 2024 | Community, Featured, Health, News, Nonprofits |

Dorrie Dils became president and CEO of Gift of Life Michigan in 2016. At the time, she says, the Ann Arbor–based agency was “averaging about 280 organ donors a year.” The number has since more than doubled, to 578 last year.

Magic Mushrooms

Nov 25, 2024 | Health, News |

In 2020, Ann Arbor became one of the first cities in the country to decriminalize the sale of “magic mushrooms.” Now Hosanagar is coinvestigator on a study of psilocybin, the fungus’s psychoactive ingredient, for treatment-resistant depression.

Eli Lilly, Patron of the Arts

Jun 25, 2024 | Culture, Health |

The pharmaceutical giant started with a single location in the Original Fair on North University in 2022. This year, it will be everywhere as the first-ever presenting sponsor of all three fairs.

Cancer Gratitude

Jun 25, 2024 | Community, Culture, Health, News |

An Ann Arbor native, Joan Belgrave is a two-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter. Four years after her husband died, her life took another dramatic turn when a routine biopsy resulted in an especially dangerous diagnosis: “triple-negative” breast cancer.

Lyme Disease Outbreak

May 24, 2024 | Environment, Health, News |

“The number of cases has exploded,” says Beth Ann Hamilton, communications coordinator for the Washtenaw County Health Department.

Seniors Betrayed

Apr 27, 2024 | Featured, Health, News |

With great wealth come great opportunities for financial exploitation. According to a 2023 report from the Justice Department’s Office of Victims of Crime, senior-service agencies that the office funds report that 14 percent of the people seeking their help are victims of financial crimes.

Caregivers in the Family

Mar 25, 2024 | Featured, Health |

Rosanita Ratcliff is a born traveler. She left Ann Arbor to go to college in Arizona, studied...

Rock Cancer

Feb 23, 2024 | Community, Health |

They’d come to film a program called “Rock Cancer.” All of the thirteen young participants have...

Drug Deaths Down

Feb 23, 2024 | Government, Health, News |

EMS responded to 521 overdoses in 2023, up from 458 the year before. Yet deaths were down, from a...

Fired for CBD

Dec 22, 2023 | Education, Featured, Health |

“Do you have a medical marijuana card?” asked a woman from HireRight, the company the U-M uses for...

Calls & Letters | Jan. 2024

Dec 22, 2023 | Health |

To the editor: Your story in the December 2023 issue, Hospital Headwinds, was a missed opportunity to detail the tremendous impact of the University of Michigan Health specialty pharmacy program. Expanding our pharmacy will...