News Articles
A severe flu season prompted Boston Mayor Thomas Menino on Wednesday to declare a public-health emergency in the city. Boston health officials have confirmed 700 cases of flu - 10 times the number for the entire season last year. "This is the worst flu season we've seen since 2009, and people should take the threat of flu seriously," Menino said in a news release. The Boston declaration is meant to...
1/10/2013
The DEA for nearly a decade has pushed for tighter restrictions on Vicodin, the nation's most widely prescribed drug. The chronic abuse of such painkillers, and devastating toll associated with this abuse, has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. The agency could get its wish later this month when the Food and Drug Administration considers the DEA's request to put Vicodin in the same...
1/10/2013
If you're unlucky enough this winter to slip on an icy surface and break a bone, you may need to do more than just treat the injury. If you're 50 or older, ask your doctor for a bone density test, advises the National Bone Health Alliance. Made up of 47 health care organizations, the alliance says only 20% of those who break a bone are tested or treated for osteoporosis. More than 2 million breaks...
1/9/2013
A new report documents a disturbing rise in the number of cases of cancer related to HPV, a family of sexually transmitted viruses linked to tumors of the cervix, head and neck, and several organs. The spike in HPV-related cancers defies the generally positive trends in cancer, whose incidence and mortality rates continue to fall slightly each year, the report says. It was published online Monday in...
1/8/2013
If you have high blood pressure and haven't treated it yet, consider this: getting it under control may also reduce your risk of dementia, suggests a study out Monday. Men treated with anti-hypertensive drugs were found in autopsies to have fewer microinfarcts (a sign of small strokes), fewer amyloid plaques and tangles (signs of Alzheimer's disease) and less brain atrophy. Those on beta blockers,...
1/8/2013
Jan. 07 - In the interest of good milk production and personal comfort, breastfeeding moms often are willing to try things that fall outside the usual medical advice. For example, some women apply cabbage leaves to their breasts to alleviate soreness, or they take supplements to boost milk supplies. Others sometimes drink beer, thinking it will help bring more milk. To get a better handle on popular...
1/7/2013
A number of cells which attack cancer and HIV have been developed in Japan. Doctors could kill the cancerous cells by injecting huge numbers of the new cells into a patient - which would give the immune system a boost. The research is published in the journal Cell Stem Cell. (c) 2007 World Entertainment News Network
1/7/2013
After a week and a half of assorted holiday madness, I finally left my parents' stately Long Island manse on Dec. 30 and returned to New Jersey. And, no, I wasn't empty-handed. Mama mia's care package included one zip-lock bag filled with chicken; another filled with leftover baccala salad (cod, black olives and vinegar peppers); and two heads of romaine lettuce. "In case you want to make a salad,"...
1/6/2013
Jan. 06 - CORSICANA - Get a flu shot The CDC recommends a yearly flu vaccine as the first and most important step in protecting against flu viruses. While there are many different flu viruses, a flu vaccine protects against the three viruses that research suggests will be most common. Everyone 6 months of age and older should get a flu vaccine. Vaccination also is important for health care workers,...
1/6/2013
Jan. 06 - Donna Elle knows it's hard to stick with a resolution. She also knows that it can be done. She's been doing it for six years. "I started my weight-losing journey in 2003, but it wasn't until 2007 that I buckled down and stuck with it," says Elle, a TV reporter with WRCB-TV Channel 3, deejay and fitness instructor at the YMCA and D1 Chattanooga, a fitness/sports training facility, co-owned...
1/6/2013
Jan. 05 - The Food and Drug Administration has proposed new food safety rules requiring farmers and food companies to be more vigilant in the wake of deadly outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe and leafy greens. While they may be sweeping to other parts of the nation, the rules have been standard operating practices for years for fresh fruit and vegetable growers in the desert Southwest, including Yuma...
1/5/2013
At Maplewood Community Dental Care outside Minneapolis, dental therapist Megan Meyer regularly fills cavities, extracts primary teeth and puts in crowns and spacers. In most U.S. dental practices, these are the sole responsibility of a dentist. But that's not the case at a handful of clinics in Minnesota, where a new type of practitioner handles these and other basic preventive and restorative services...
1/3/2013
The Food and Drug Administration approved a treatment, discovered by a Johnson & Johnson unit, that can be used when other tuberculosis drugs fail. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new treatment for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis that can be used as an alternative when other drugs fail. The drug, to be called Sirturo, was discovered by scientists at Janssen, the pharmaceutical...
1/2/2013
IMAGINE IF a strain of bacteria mutated quickly, swapping genetic material that provided immunity to the most potent medical weapons. Now imagine if we didn't know how to identify precisely that strain or track its spread. You'd have an idea of the threat Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae poses for the patients in America's hospitals and nursing homes. Such so-called "superbugs" are familiar...
1/2/2013
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The Iowa hens at the heart of a massive recall are still laying eggs that could end up on a table near you. And food safety experts say that's OK. The eggs will first be pasteurized to rid them of any salmonella. Then they can be sold as liquid eggs or added to other products. Officials from the two farms that have recalled more than a half-billion eggs say there's no reason not to...
1/2/2013
Jan. 01 - Even as epidemiologists worry about a shrinking arsenal of antibiotics to fight potentially deadly drug-resistant bacteria, researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital are betting on another weapon to prevent infections: robots. It sounds more futuristic than it looks: The hospital uses "robot" devices resembling portable air-conditioning units to saturate the air in sealed rooms with hydrogen...
1/1/2013
Jan. 01 - If you leapt out of bed today bubbling with resolve to greet the new year with a rigorous fitness routine, get ready for a bonus. Research has long established what exercise can do for heart and muscle development. Now, according to an expanding body of research, it could also be growing your brain. The results of several new studies indicate that physical activity may make you better at...
1/1/2013
This New Year's column celebrates change, or at least acknowledges the quickening pace and the grinding inevitability of it, and that it will come in 2013 in both clever and obvious ways. For me, as the year wound down, I got a clear inkling of something to come because I had a cold that I couldn't shake. Urged by the young people around me - my own doctor was on vacation - I used ZocDoc the other...
12/31/2012
Dec. 29 - For thousands of Oregonians, the path to a medical marijuana card starts at a clinic in Southeast Portland staffed by Dr. Thomas Orvald, an 80-year-old retired heart surgeon from Yakima. The Oregon Health Authority says a typical doctor is unlikely to see more than 450 medical marijuana patients at a time. In the past year, Orvald has signed off on 4,180. And he is not alone. The health authority...
12/29/2012
With the presidential election and Supreme Court decision behind us, the federal government is moving forward with the Affordable Care Act. Baby Boomers stand to gain the most. Since the recession, Boomers have been hard hit by unemployment, shrinking nest eggs and rising health care costs. During those years, about 8.6 million Boomers were without health insurance, says a special 2009 report by Commonwealth...
12/28/2012
When seven people arrived at a Delaware hospital in March with drug-resistant MRSA infections, the similarities were alarming. All of the patients had the same strain of MRSA, all had the infections in joints, and all had gotten injections in those joints at the same orthopedic clinic in a three-day span. State health officials found that the clinic had injected multiple patients with medication from...
12/27/2012
A drug shortage led to cancer relapses in children and young adults in 2010, a consequence of the problem of drugs in short supply in the USA, a hospital analysis showed for the first time on Wednesday. The finding suggests that substitutes for drugs in short supply can pose unsuspected health risks for patients with cancer. In this case, the generic drug mechlorethamine is part of a three-month chemotherapy...
12/27/2012
The latest study to look at pop star deaths suggests the odds were stacked against Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse. But Keith Richards has statistics on his side. The study reconfirms that music celebrities really are more likely than the rest of us to die young, but it shows that solo artists (such as Presley, Jackson and Winehouse) may face some extra risks, and those who had rough...
12/20/2012
As states increasingly adopt laws allowing medical marijuana, fewer teens see occasional marijuana use as harmful, the largest national survey of youth drug use has found. Nearly 80% of high school seniors don't consider occasional marijuana use harmful - the highest rate since 1983 - and one in 15 smoke nearly every day, according to the annual survey of eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders made public...
12/20/2012
The nation's most elite fighting forces - celebrated this year in film and best-selling books - are under more emotional strain after a decade of war than commanders realized, according to the senior non-commissioned officer for special operations. A tragic part of that is record suicides this year, says Command Sgt. Maj. Chris Faris. According to Pentagon data, there were 17 confirmed or suspected...
12/20/2012
