2 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Health

Hayden Field
Hayden Field
HIPAA-compliant ChatGPT.

Unlike the consumer-facing ChatGPT Health announced Wednesday, the new OpenAI for Healthcare products launching today are designed do things like create reusable templates for discharge summaries and patient instructions, or analyze medical evidence to apply to specific patients.

ChatGPT for Healthcare is already being used by healthcare organizations like Boston Children’s Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.

A screesnhot of a simulated doctor’s prompt in ChatGPT for Health requesting the description of a differential diagnosis on a 79-year-old patient.
Image: OpenAI
The taint bandaid has evolved into the taint zapper

It took six years, FDA clearance, and some rabbits, but this CES health wearable didn’t end up as vaporware.

Victoria Song
Victoria Song
Victoria Song
Behold, the taint bandaid in all its glory.

This is Mor, a wearable for men suffering from premature ejaculation. It zaps the perineum — or the taint — to help you delay orgasm or intensify it. I’ve been covering this device for six years, so enjoy this video, and stay tuned for my full hands-on. (Update: The hands-on is now available right here.)

Justine Calma
Justine Calma
The US is limiting vaccine recommendations for children.

The Trump administration — and antivax crusader RFK Jr. — are cutting down the number of childhood immunizations federal agencies recommend.

”This is just one more example of the decisions coming out of HHS that are sowing confusion,” Daniel Jernigan, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, tells Stat News.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Apple Fitness Plus brings new fitness plans, musical guests, and podcasts for 2026.

Just like last year, Apple has announced new fitness content that will start rolling out next week (if you want to try another app, we’ve got suggestions).

There are new multi-week Strength, HIIT, or Yoga Fitness Comeback workouts, new music playlists, a Strava challenge for Apple Watch owners, and new Time to Walk audio episodes with Penn Badgley, Mel B, and Michelle Monaghan.

Three simulated screenshots of Apple Fitness Plus content on iPhone and Apple Watch
Image: Apple
The wellness wild west is back on its bullshit with unapproved weight loss drugs

It’s far too easy to buy so-called GLP-3s through gray-market websites.

Victoria Song
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Trump signs executive order directing AG to reschedule marijuana.

In the middle of threatening funding for hospitals that provide gender-related care to minors and trying to tack his name onto the Kennedy Center, the president also signed another executive order.

This one directs the Attorney General to take steps to move marijuana from Schedule I classification under federal law, along with heroin, to Schedule III, which includes ketamine and anabolic steroids. It’s something Biden had said he would pursue.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Kohler’s stopped claming its Dekoda toilet camera uses end-to-end encryption.

After Simon Fondrie-Teitler called out the Dekoda health tracker’s incorrect use of the term end-to-end encryption because Kohler does have access to the data it collects, the company has updated the toilet cam’s product pages to now say that user data is “encrypted in transit and at rest.”

Welcome to the wellness surveillance state

We’ll take your blood and urine, please.

Victoria Song
Mia Sato
Mia Sato
“We don’t wear masks” in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

We’re listening to testimony from one of the responding officers who arrested Luigi Mangione in a Pennsylvania McDonalds. The officer testified that Mangione’s medical face mask made him stand out as the person who was reported as being suspicious.

“We don’t wear masks” in the city, officer Joseph Detwiler told the court. “We have antibodies.” This elicited an audible reaction from the audience.

The dark side of optimizing your metabolism

There are known benefits to tracking your glucose levels, but it can also be a slippery slope into disordered eating.

Victoria Song
AI has no idea what I’m eating

Food logging is tedious enough without AI making stuff up.

Victoria Song
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Now everyone can tell Whoop about their blood.

The wearable company offers paid blood tests to US users through its Advanced Labs feature, which launched in September. But now users worldwide can upload their blood results into the app for free, and see biomarkers alongside their daily data. Whoop-organized tests will roll out internationally “in the coming months.”

Photo of woman wearing a Whoop band, overlaid with graphic of her “biomarkers.”
DIY biomarkers.
Image: Whoop
Robert Hart
Robert Hart
Doctors use robot for transatlantic stroke surgery.

The world-first saw a surgeon remotely remove a blood clot from a human cadaver in Dundee, Scotland, all the way from Jacksonville, Florida. It’s been hailed as a breakthrough, and potential life-saver if approved for use on patients.

Robert Hart
Robert Hart
Seven more people are suing OpenAI.

The lawsuits, filed in California, are just the latest to claim ChatGPT harmed loved ones and led to mental health breakdowns. Four died by suicide after interacting with the bot.

Zocdoc CEO: ‘Dr. Google is going to be replaced by Dr. AI’

Oliver Kharraz on competition, healthcare, and where AI really belongs in medicine.

Nilay Patel
Adi Robertson
Adi Robertson
Is your protein powder full of lead?

If you’re using one of 23 popular supplements, some cool and thorough investigative work at Consumer Reports can tell you the answer is probably yes — and explain why US health regulators aren’t doing anything about it.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Tell us how you’re managing your kids’ screen time.

The Pew Research Center published a study of how parents are managing their kids’ screen time. Which got us wondering: how are you, dear reader, managing your kids’ screen time? Do you have time limits for video games? A “kid-safe” phone like Gabb? Do you let your eight-year-old talk to ChatGPT? Let us know in the comments.

Poll showing what percentage of parents know their children interact with various technologies:90% - TV68% - Tablet61% - Smartphone50% - Gaming device39% - Desktop or laptop37% - Voice-activated assistant11% - Smartwatch8% - AI chatbots
Pew Research Center
Justine Calma
Justine Calma
Researchers fertilized human eggs made from skin cells.

The embryos all had chromosomal abnormalities and weren’t meant to lead to a pregnancy. But the results open up questions about potential infertility treatments in the future.