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Decision about weight loss drugs not easy

Americans elect their leaders on the premise that those individuals will be capable of making the right decisions on difficult, as well as easy, issues. An issue on which members of Congress might have to render a decision, possibly in the early weeks of the new legislative session, is the kind of topic that could generate opposition and trigger anger, no matter how the decision making shakes out. The issue is whether Medicare and Medicaid should pay for popular anti-obesity drugs for many more Americans than those already eligible for that benefit. The Biden administration ...

New year offers new opportunities

“Fast away the old year passes” is a line out of the old Christmas carol “Deck the Hall with Boughs of Holly.” A year from now, some people are likely to be singing that line about the year 2025 that is now newly upon us. What is important, though, is what will happen between now and then. Many people are optimistic; many are very pessimistic. One of the important points that the Mirror sought to convey to readers in its Christmas Day editorial was that Christmastime is full of opportunity. However, opportunity is virtually nothing for those who fail to couple it with ...

Horseshoe crabs among species facing extinction

Our television screens have been showing heart-wrenching images of abused dogs and cats, and with those images have come pleas for financial help to try to save those and other animals, many of them on the verge of death. Images such as those are not just from “somewhere else.” The Altoona-based Central PA Humane Society can attest to that. The Humane Society’s exemplary work was a chief reason why it was selected as the beneficiary of this year’s Altoona Mirror Season of Sharing Campaign. On our TV screens this year also have been numerous pleas for financial assistance on ...

Christmastime is full of opportunity

Pope Francis’ appeal for peace in the world last Christmas fell on deaf ears. The world is no closer to peace now — Christmas 2024 — than it was then, and perhaps even farther away, judging from the scope, deaths and destruction of the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and the long-running civil wars in Syria and Yemen. Whether there are any prospects for “constructing” a more peaceful world over the next 12 months is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the only one who knows is the Savior Jesus, whose birth on earth Christians around the world are celebrating today. For the Jewish ...

New breast cancer options under review

At this purportedly joyous time of the year — although for many people it is not — there is reluctance to focus on topics perceived to be troubling, especially health topics that have a potentially negative implication. However, the Wall Street Journal, on Dec. 13, reported on a health issue whose details will be welcomed by many women and couples but rejected without hesitation by others, and each group’s reasons for embracing its respective position are worth reflecting upon. Neither side is wrong, at least not at this time, although some individuals — women as well as men ...

Airport optimism good for all

Altoona-Blair County Airport Manager Tracy Plessinger delivered a message to the airport authority on Dec. 11 full of optimism and evidence of how airport leadership has poised the air facility for the future. But perhaps unbeknownst to him at the time, he also made the best of the opportunity to deliver a scope of understanding beneficial to entities well beyond the specific environs within which the airport is headquartered and conducts operations. The important question then is whether enough non-airport entities grasped the wider reference of what Plessinger outlined and, better ...