Health

From fireproofing the areas surrounding your home to putting a pet alert decal in your window, experts say there are things you can do in advance to prepare for an emergency evacuation due to wildfires.More than 26,400 people in Saskatchewan have been evacuated due to wildfires so far in 2025, according to numbers provided by the Red Cross and the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency. The two agencies have handled the bulk of evacuations in the province.Some evacuees have been forced to leave with only the clothes they were wearing. CBC News spoke to experts from the Canadian Red Cross, the Canadian Automobile Association and the Saskatchewan First Nation Emergency Management office about how to best prepare for getting to safety in the event of a wildfire evacuation, and what to do when you ...

Adam Davidson-Harden is admittedly a latecomer to appreciating William Shakespeare, but the Ontario high school teacher now likens studying the Bard to "lifting weights, for language."He said he worries that mental muscles aren't getting a workout these days if students lean on shortcuts like generative artificial intelligence for schoolwork.When Davidson-Harden queried a student about a recent assignment on The Tempest that included a non-existent quote, the student admitted to using GenAI "to avoid the messy and slower process" of sifting through the play, the English and social studies teacher from Kingston, Ont., said.That student lost a valuable opportunity, he said: engaging with the content, formulating an opinion, finding support for their perspective and stringing together sentenc...

Working three full-time jobs, raising kids and tending her blooming garden: Angeleta Cox says her mother, Sonia Elizabeth Cox, never really slowed down all her life. Then, at the age of 64, a diagnosis of Alzheimer's slammed the brakes on the vibrant life she'd painstakingly built after immigrating to Canada from Jamaica in 1985."The onset of the symptoms came on very fast," Cox said of her mother. "She forgot my dad first, and she wasn't able to respond to my brother, so I became a care provider for her," said Cox. Sonia Elizabeth died late last year, after years of battling Alzheimer's.More women get diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease than men. In developed countries, studies suggest about two-thirds of people with Alzheimer's are women. It's a pattern seen in Canada, too, where women ac...

Day 6Worldwide shortage of hormone replacement therapy leaves women strugglingThe long list of symptoms of perimenopause and menopause range from inconvenient to debilitating. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can be a huge help, but a worldwide shortage of HRT is leaving women in the lurch. Alison Shea, an Assistant Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology and Psychiatry at McMaster University explains why the shortage is so problematic. Karen Golden can vividly recall the symptoms of menopause she experienced during a shortage of her hormone replacement therapy (HRT) medication five years ago."It wasn't a good time," recalled the Toronto-based lawyer. She had started undergoing HRT to deal with sleep issues and anxiety related to menopause several years ago.But in 2020, there was a shortag...

This First Person column is written by Macenzie Rebelo, who lives in Toronto. For more information about First Person stories, see the FAQ. Growing up, I was a cautious child and quickly labelled as a "worrywart" by a school counsellor. But it wasn't just worrying. I had frequent panic attacks and was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when I was seven. Anxiety was a tangible feeling I knew through and through. It was just a part of who I was from my childhood.So, several years later, when I sat in the emergency room as an adult with severe chest pain, I was surprised when my symptoms were described as symptoms of anxiety. I knew from multiple experiences what a panic attack was. This intense chest pain was foreign and unknown – 100 per cent not anxiety. I left the hospital that day feelin...

Health officials in York Region are warning of a confirmed measles case on an Air Canada flight that landed at Toronto's Pearson International Airport last month.York Region Public Health says the confirmed case was on Air Canada Flight AC 8881, departing from Newark, New Jersey and landing in Toronto on July 30th. Anyone who boarded the flight from Newark around 5 p.m. and anyone who was at Person's Terminal 1 that evening between 7:30 and 11 p.m. may have been exposed to measles, officials said. If you were on that flight, officials are asking people to fill out a contact survey with the identification number 2025034. Health officials in Ontario say recent data shows the number of new measles cases is down to single digits for the first time since January. Since the outbreak began in Oct...

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued a recall notice for some Andalos brand pastries distributed in New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec and sold online.Most of the recalled products were sold at a bakery in Montreal and served to customers between June 25 and July 26.Pistachios have been the subject of several related recalls over the last two weeks, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency says the latest alert was triggered by its investigation into a foodborne illness outbreak.On Tuesday, the Public Health Agency of Canada said 52 people in Quebec, Ontario, B.C. and Manitoba got sick and nine landed in hospital after eating contaminated pistachios and baked goods containing the nut.The health agency told The Canadian Press Wednesday that it expects more salmonella cases linked to this o...

During his more than 30 years as a paramedic in B.C., Terry McManus has had many sleepless nights. "You come home from work and there's something still on your mind. Or you rip a strip off of a waiter or waitress because the ice isn't cold enough. It has nothing to do with the waiter or the ice. It's something you're carrying from last week, or a year ago."McManus, who is now retired from the job, witnessed and experienced trauma every day while out on calls. But he says the support for his and his colleagues' mental health was lacking."I, personally, have had a counsellor, a mental health professional, tell me to stop the session because the information I was giving them was way too graphic. They didn't like it. That's just one call out of thousands that we want to talk about. It wears on...

The Trump administration says it is pulling half a billion dollars from U.S. government-funded research projects to create new mRNA vaccines.In a statement this week, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic, announced a "co-ordinated wind-down" amounting to the cancellation of $500 million worth of mRNA vaccine development under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). The technology itself was hailed as recently as the COVID-19 pandemic.In 2023, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to two scientists whose mRNA discoveries made it possible to create COVID-19 vaccinations. The committee credited mRNA technology with helping to save millions of lives, prevent severe COVID-19, reduce disease burden and enable societies...

A Manitoba health authority has admitted an Indigenous man, who died four months after a delayed confirmation his cancer had returned, was subject to racism while seeking treatment.Stephen Rockwell's mother, Leona Massan, said hearing that from health officials in July provided a "tiny bit of peace," but it doesn't undo the pain of a health-care system that brushed her son aside during three straight visits to Thompson's hospital in late 2023.He had "tumours all over the place" once the CT scan was finally completed, Massan said."And these guys here at Thompson General Hospital, they just made him suffer."Rockwell, who worked as a community safety officer in Thompson and dreamed of becoming a police officer, was a "big goofball" who enjoyed making people laugh, his sister Stacey Rockwell s...