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Steve Ballou, an ex-smoker for more than a decade, started slipping back into his old ways with cigars. He'd have one when he was out with the guys, then when he was driving home from work, then one after dinner. This went on for several years, but he thought of himself as a cigar aficionado, not a relapsed smoker, since cigarettes were never on the menu. Until he vacationed in the City of Lights....
November 15, 2009
PISCATAWAY, N.J., Nov 16, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - College athletes who use performance-enhancing substances may be at higher risk of other substance abuse, U.S. researchers found. Study co-author Dr. Robert J. Pandina, director of the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., said the study involved 234 male athletes at one university. The study, published in the Journal...
November 15, 2009
Pennsylvanians are tuned in to the health care reform debate, but they are deeply conflicted and a bit perplexed about both parties' plans, according to a new Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll. They give President Barack Obama higher overall marks than Republicans when it comes to reform, but they're not sold on his ideas either. The poll, of 402 state residents conducted between Oct. 27 and Nov....
November 15, 2009
WASHINGTON - Alcoholic energy drinks, marketed under provocative names such as Evil Eye, Max Fury and Slingshot Party Gel, have quickly gained a foothold among younger drinkers. Now the producers of those beverages have a new, perhaps unwanted audience. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday said it will ask them for proof that their products, which blend caffeine and alcohol, are safe. The...
November 14, 2009
Hamburg (dpa) - A German company is preparing to manufacture a copy of the erectile-dysfunction medicine Viagra as soon as the patent in Germany runs out, a business weekly reported Saturday. The US company Pfizer has the German patent on Viagra until 2013. After that, any company can manufacture and sell the substance. Ratiopharm, one of Germany's main makers of generic drugs, has already applied...
November 14, 2009
New Delhi (dpa) - The Indian government will soon introduce a bivalent oral polio vaccine to check the persistent spread of the disease, federal Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said Saturday. India, one of the four polio endemic countries according to the World Health Organization, reported 568 polio cases so far in 2009, though it had a total of 559 cases in 2008, according to government figures....
November 14, 2009
Serbian authorities signed a contract on Friday with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis to buy three million doses of swine flu vaccine, Tanjug news agency reported. The first 500,000 vaccines will arrive by early December, while the rest willd be delivered in two batches between January and March, Tanjug reported. Babies, pregnant women, the elderly and chronic disease patients will have priority...
November 13, 2009
Nov. 13 - Midway through Thursday's daylong educational program on health care, participant Samantha Jones was feeling somewhat overwhelmed by discussions on the health care reform debate. But the owner of Mellow Mushroom restaurant said she was confident that, by the time the day wrapped up - as has happened numerous times during her first three months in the Leadership Chattanooga development program...
November 13, 2009
Braintree Seasonal flu vaccinations for secondary school students are under way, while swine flu vaccinations are expected to take place next month. Superintendent of Schools Peter Kurzberg said the school system has not seen the extremely high absentee rates found in other school systems. He said the system-wide absentee rate has been about 7 percent, although individual schools were higher or lower....
November 12, 2009
ATLANTA, Nov 12, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - An estimated 22 million people in the United States have become ill from H1N1 influenza and some 3,900 people have died, health officials said Thursday. Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the CDC has been providing H1N1 fatality rates from laboratory confirmed cases until now but the new estimates cover April, when the virus...
November 12, 2009
WASHINGTON, Nov 12, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - The health insurance plan available to staffers of the U.S. Republican National Committee covers elective abortions, records show. A spokeswoman for the committee and other officials said Thursday the policy would be changed, Politico reported. Gail Gitcho said the current policy, purchased from Cigna, has been in effect since 1991. The Republican platform...
November 12, 2009
Why does life keep demanding decisions? Why can't I just have a week off now and then? Maybe two or three weeks off, actually. Here I am, on a well-earned vacation, enjoying a breakfast bagel with cream cheese and orange marmalade, and I turn the page of the complimentary newspaper left outside my door to read this headline: "Middle age isn't too late to lose. Women must commit to diet." The writer...
November 12, 2009
Paris (dpa) - A young woman was diagnosed with a crippling illness possibly linked to the vaccine being used protect the French public against swine flu, the health ministry said late Thursday. The woman, who was only identified as a health worker, came down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) six days after receiving her swine flu vaccination. GBS is a rare crippling disease that could lead to death...
November 12, 2009
Oct. 26 - BAHRAIN has stopped testing patients for swine flu, except in exceptional cases. The 'no tests policy' also includes schoolchildren who report to health centres with the symptoms of ordinary flu, Health Ministry communicable diseases section head Dr Muna Al Mousawi told the GDN. "Though we had stopped testing adults some time ago and administered them the anti-viral treatment if they reported...
November 12, 2009
Munich (dpa) - After giving replacement breasts made from pigskin to six women in Germany, doctors in Munich detailed the new method Thursday, saying it results in fewer scars for masectomy patients. Senior doctor Darius Dian said the procedure used a "dermal matrix" made from an underlayer of the skin of pigs. The pig's own cells are removed from the skin. The woman's own cells and blood vessels repopulate...
November 12, 2009
Nov. 12 - Amy Graff has a louse-y job, but somebody's got to do it. For four years now, she has hurried to homes at a moment's notice to stand over the bent heads of kids and their parents. Then she picks out their lice, hair strand by hair strand. Yeah, it sounds gross. And it takes hours. But Graff says she is doing the community a service. There's quite a demand for her unusual kind of help, thanks...
November 12, 2009
When it comes to childhood obesity, Dr. Kemia Sarraf can rattle off a list of alarming statistics. About 17 percent of children ages 6 through 17 are obese in Illinois, while about 30 percent are considered overweight, she said. Weight-related illnesses traditionally associated with adulthood, including high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and Type 2 diabetes, are being diagnosed more and more...
November 11, 2009
The University of Virginia has begun posting its doctors' financial dealings online for the world to see. It's a decision that mirrors a national trend in the health-care industry toward stricter reporting standards and also part of a years-long progression at UVa toward greater transparency. Roughly a year ago, UVa banned the ubiquitous prescription-themed loot - mugs, clipboards, pens and the like...
November 11, 2009
WILKES-BARRE TWP. Margaret Karassik said she was going to the movies with her two sons and she wanted to make sure she got her senior citizen's discount. "I told my son, Irwin, to make sure he mentioned my senior status when he bought my ticket," Karassik said. It was then reality set in. Karassik turned 101 years old on Nov. 3. Her sons - Irwin and Carl - are 80 and 76, respectively. "Irwin said to...
November 11, 2009
A quarter of a million children in England aged 11 to 17 face a higher risk of developing malignant skin cancer by using tanning beds, researchers said Friday. Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the researchers called for urgent legislation to stop sunbed use by minors in England, as is already the case for Scotland and Wales. The risk of melanoma - the most lethal form of skin cancer -...
November 11, 2009
The World Health Organisation on Thursday called on doctors to use antiviral drugs swiftly to the most vulnerable swine flu patients, to prevent severe cases and avoid swamping hospitals. WHO clinical expert Niki Shindo said the agency would issue new guidelines targeting three key groups in countries where the A(H1N1) virus is spreading, to avoid severe cases that could kill within a week. However,...
November 11, 2009
A non-invasive, cold form of laser treatment can help people suffering from chronic neck pain, a condition that affects up to one person in four, a study published online by The Lancet said on Friday. So-called low-level laser therapy (LLLT) entails using a laser's light - but not its fiercely concentrated heat - to stimulate tissue repair and ease pain. Doctors led by Roberta Chow of the Brain and...
November 11, 2009
WASHINGTON - A ban on abortion coverage in the health care legislation passed by the House of Representatives is being interpreted in different ways by each side of the abortion debate. Abortion foes such as the National Right to Life Committee call it a reasonable extension of a long-standing ban on government-funded abortions. Abortion rights supporters such as the National Organization for Women...
November 11, 2009
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov 5, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - U.S. scientists say they are starting a trial of a medication designed to treat the neurochemical defect underlying Fragile X syndrome. Researchers at Seaside Therapeutics in Cambridge, Mass., said Fragile X syndrome - the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability - causes a range of developmental problems, including learning disabilities,...
November 11, 2009
More Africans risk dying from smoking as tobacco use will double over the next 12 years in a continent where 90 percent of people have no protection against second-hand smoke, experts said Wednesday. Africa accounts for 14 percent of the world population and has only four percent of world smokers, presenting an opportunity to tackle the habit and reduce its effects, said Tom Glynn of the The Global...
November 11, 2009
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