CBC Health News

A Federal Court judge recently granted a judicial review forcing Health Canada to reconsider a Calgary man's request to use medical grade psilocybin to treat extreme pain from cluster headaches. The decision also highlights the need to consider a patient's Charter rights in requests to access controlled substances.

Another Michigan dairy worker has been diagnosed with bird flu, the third human case associated with an outbreak in U.S. dairy cows, health officials said Thursday.

People should be able to get a mammogram starting at age 40 but it shouldn’t be routinely offered for for women under 50 who are of average risk, new Canadian screening guidelines suggest.

At a time when Canada is vastly expanding its child-care system, and just eight months after a major E. coli outbreak in Calgary child-care centres, an Alberta Health Services analysis shows the province is lagging in its rate of daycare inspections, falling short of its guideline of at least one health and safety inspection per year at each of the province's licensed daycare centres.

The newly-launched Pan-Canadian Milk Network is conducting ongoing tests of the Canadian milk supply in an effort to spot any fragments of the H5N1 virus in case any dairy cows become infected here amid an unprecedented outbreak of bird flu in herds across the U.S.

Federal Health Minister Mark Holland said Wednesday he needs new powers to unilaterally take dangerous products off the shelves if they're hurting people and are not being used as intended.

Toronto's top doctor is calling the opioid overdose crisis a drug toxicity epidemic and is pushing for an empathetic health response as officials release preliminary annual data on the city's overdose deaths.

More older adults are becoming homeless in Canada and relying on shelters, straining an already under-resourced system, a group of Toronto doctors says in a new report published by the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The B.C. Coroners Service has found that 126 children and youth younger than 19 died due to toxic drugs between 2019 and 2023.

One in eight pregnant people in Ontario has a disability, but many face barriers to accessible care and disrespect from health-care providers, according to a new report.

Many people who shared a meal of bear meat, harvested from northern Saskatchewan, at a family gathering in South Dakota were infected with trichinellosis, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experts say it’s a common occurrence in wild meat.

A growing number of doctors trained in family medicine are splitting their time doing other duties or, in some cases, not doing family medicine at all.

Drug-related deaths in Newfoundland and Labrador nearly doubled in 2023 over the previous year, according to the latest numbers, with cocaine being the main culprit.

Elon Musk’s startup Neuralink is pitched as a brain implant that will let people control computers and other devices using their thoughts. Turning brain signals into computer inputs means transmitting a lot of data very quickly. Now, the company is seeking a new algorithm that can transmit that data in a smaller package through a public challenge.

The City of Ottawa's plans to put some non-urgent patients in taxis has been blocked by the Ontario Ministry of Health, leaving paramedics with one less option to deal with backed-up emergency rooms.

Disasters that bring people to the emergency room — like fires, floods, heat waves and other extreme weather — often also strike the hospitals themselves. With the number of climate-related emergencies expected to worsen in coming years, experts caution that some parts of the country will need to move quickly to disaster-proof life-saving infrastructure.

A death at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre campus has sparked calls for more safety measures to protect patients and staff at the hospital and the province's Crisis Response Centre — including dedicated security at both sites.

Homeless people in Saskatchewan spend longer in hospitals than a standard stay, according to recent data, illustrating a need for more housing to ease some pressure on hospital capacity.

A Thunder Bay doctor is on a mission to recoup over $160,000 she lent to a woman who was expelled from the University of Manitoba's residency program after she fabricated evidence of a non-existent serious medical condition.

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services spent more than $90 million across its four health zones on travel nurses last year. Meanwhile, says the president of the provincial nurses’ union, her members are being “nickel and dimed.”