Meredith Cohn

4 days ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Meredith Cohn

Ticks carry all kinds of bad stuff that could pose a risk to our health. There is now one more on that list in Maryland. It’s called babesia and it causes something potentially terrible called babesiosis. That’s buh-bee-zee-oh-sis, if you’re seeing that for the first time — and pretty sure you are. For years, there had only been a really small number of infections, so most doctors likely haven’t even seen a case.

1 week ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Meredith Cohn

Thousands of people in Maryland have lost their federal jobs or positions tied to the U.S. government. But there are manywho still have a cubicle in one of the many federal agencies in Maryland or Washington. Some may be clenching their teeth or gripping the steering wheel extra tightly as they inch along newly clogged Baltimore or Washington beltways and highways, maybe for the first time in years after working from home, to an office they may barely recognize.

1 week ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Meredith Cohn

A popular tool called MyIR used to track Marylanders’ vaccination history suddenly went offline Thursday, making immunization records tougher to track and possibly more expensive for consumers to access. Dr. Meena Seshamani, who became Maryland’s health secretary in April, said in an interview Thursday evening that the department is being forced to make “hard choices” to end the service since the Trump administration withdrew $222 million in funding tied to the coronavirus pandemic.

2 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Meredith Cohn

Johns Hopkins University plans to tap the power of its $13.2 billion endowment to help fill some of the gaps left by a major drop in federal research funding, officials said Monday. Hopkins leaders say they cannot tap much of the university’s endowment because the funds are designated to specific priorities by donors or must be preserved. But the stop-gap grant funding will come, in part, from earnings generated by the endowment to sustain what the university considers critical research.

2 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Meredith Cohn

The state’s troubled maximum-security psychiatric hospital, Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup, has tested positive for Legionella, state health officials confirmed Friday. It’s the latest state-operated building to identify the bacteria that causes Legionnaire’s disease. It was also recently detected in six other buildings, including two courthouses in Baltimore City and the State Center complex where the state health department itself is housed.