An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Especially in the medical world, it’s far more effective and, often, more convenient to avoid an ailment entirely rather than to treat it. Occupational Health Services (OHS) at Frederick National Laboratory (FNL) has long championed this ideology, but the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 posed new challenges for prevention, especially for employees traveling.

Look at your fingernails. What comes to mind? Now look at the veins in your arms. What about them? Odds are the words “critical” and “historic” aren’t your first thoughts, but they’d be an apt description. At NCI at Frederick and Frederick National Laboratory, nail clippings and blood specimens are two ways to make a difference in scientific research.

The emergence of a virus known as monkeypox has raised many questions, most notably: Is this the new pandemic?

As COVID-19 tore across the U.S. in 2020, drug overdose deaths in Maryland rose to an all-time high. The grim statistic has since decreased slightly but remains higher than before the pandemic. Occupational Health Services (OHS) is taking action against the crisis, putting naloxone kits in employees’ hands in a push to reduce overdose deaths in the community and to protect, promote, and improve health and welfare.

With all the talk around COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, it's easy to forget there's another infectious respiratory disease already looming: influenza. Flu season is going to look a little different this year, according to Sarah Hooper, nurse practitioner (CRNP), RN, manager of the Frederick National Laboratory Occupational Health Services.