OTTAWA, Apr 8, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Canada Safeway Ltd. are recalling some Safeway-brand ground beef due to possible E. coli contamination. The CFIA said the lean ground beef affected by the recall was sold at some Canada Safeway stores in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northeastern Ontario. The affected packages bear a "Best Before" or a "Freeze By" date of March...
April 8, 2009
The longstanding practice of prescribing heartburn medication to help asthma patients is "ineffective and unnecessarily expensive," according to a study released Wednesday. For nearly two decades, doctors have prescribed heartburn medication to patients with severe asthma symptoms such as sneezing, coughing and breathlessness, believing the symptoms were caused in part by acid reflux. "The longstanding...
April 8, 2009
ORLANDO, Fla. Michelle Stevens first noticed the red, blotchy patches on her toddler's feet after he started walking. Every time Noah walked outdoors in their grassy backyard, the blotches appeared. Before long, the itchy patches - signs of eczema - began popping up on Noah's legs and in the crease of his arms. Even in his sleep, Noah scratches his arms and legs, making the rashes worse. For parents...
April 8, 2009
HOUSTON, Apr 8, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - A U.S. professor of optometry says eye exercises may help a variety of vision disorders. Dr. Janice Wensveen of the University of Houston College of Optometry says patients' reaction to a prescription of eye exercises commonly range between surprise and relief. "They're curious, especially when we tell them, instead of putting a Band-Aid on it like we do with...
April 8, 2009
Parents who took their infant girl off life support after deciding to donate her heart to another ill child where stunned when doctors said she began breathing on her own on Wednesday. Two-month-old Kaylee Wallace was born with a brain malformation that was expected to prevent her from breathing without medical assistance. Her parents chose to take her off life support and donate her heart to another...
April 8, 2009
Apr. 8 - The Lake County Health Department will offer free information and testing for sexually transmitted diseases as part of STD Awareness Month. Officials say chlamydia and gonorrhea are among the most commonly reported infectious diseases in the United States. Nearly 1,000 cases of those two diseases were reported in Lake County last year. And nearly half of the new STD cases reported each year...
April 8, 2009
Owensboro families with autistic children now have a local Web site where they can get information about the disorder. The Autism Support Network of Owensboro created the site a couple of months ago to help people navigate through the mountain of information on the Internet. Some areas of the site are still under construction, according to Ann Pierce, the president of the local volunteer group, but...
April 8, 2009
Apr. 8 - As an expanded number of Setton Farms' pistachio products fell under a growing recall Tuesday, federal agencies were still no closer to determining whether any of the tainted nuts had sickened consumers. "We're still in the same place - no definitive links between pistachios and human illness," Dr. David Acheson, assistant commissioner for food safety at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,...
April 8, 2009
Apr. 8 - CHARLESTON, W.Va. Charleston resident Sandy Fisher got divorced a year ago and lost her private health insurance. She told U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller that she has had to postpone medical tests and visits to physicians because she had such difficulty getting Medicare coverage. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., visited Charleston on Tuesday as part of his two-week tour of West Virginia to listen to people...
April 8, 2009
OTTAWA, Apr 8, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Canada Safeway Ltd. are recalling some Safeway-brand ground beef due to possible E. coli contamination. The CFIA said the lean ground beef affected by the recall was sold at some Canada Safeway stores in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northeastern Ontario. The affected packages bear a "Best Before" or a "Freeze By" date of March...
April 8, 2009
Apr. 8 - PIEDMONT - Her smile, braces and all, showed her happiness: Kathryn Lusk was one healthy child. But before getting a free health screening Tuesday, the Piedmont Elementary student didn't know with 100 percent certainty. "You're kinda scared to see what you get," the 11-year-old said. "But when you see you done good on your test, you're kinda relieved." Lusk and about 550 other kids from Piedmont...
April 7, 2009
Elizabeth Beasley is a creative type - she acts in Greensboro's community theater and drew the cover art for her elementary school's 2008-09 yearbook. But this is the 9-year-old's first time putting that energy into charity fundraising. "If I live to see that they found a cure for cancer, I will feel really, really good," Elizabeth says. She's handing out pencils adorned with ribbons carrying the message...
April 7, 2009
The recall last week of 2 million pounds of pistachios because of concerns about salmonella contamination has been expanded, and federal officials say more recalls of foods containing pistachios are on the horizon. Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, the California company that is the nation's second-largest processer of pistachios, originally had recalled all of its pistachios harvested since September....
April 7, 2009
BUFFALO, N.Y., Apr 7, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - A meta-analysis of 174 attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder studies finds treating behavior works as well as giving drugs, a U.S. researcher said. The study, published in Clinical Psychology Review, finds teaching parents and teachers how to respond when ADHD children do things the right way as well as when they display harmful or aggressive behavior...
April 7, 2009
WASHINGTON, Apr 7, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - A five-year U.S. communication campaign highlights that almost every 10 minutes an American gets infected with HIV, White House officials said. Officials from the White House, Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday that the campaign, Act Against AIDS, aims to combat complacency about the...
April 7, 2009
DALLAS, Apr 7, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - The illegal drug use that resulted in the 2006 death of a Southern Methodist University fraternity member was not an isolated incident, school officials say. In barring the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house from holding any events until November and fining it $5,000, SMU officials said its investigation found that Jake Stiles, 20, of Naperville, Ill., was not the only...
April 7, 2009
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Apr 7, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - A Canadian study shows that if people live near a grocery store close enough to walk to, they will keep their weight down. Researchers at the University of British Columbia show those who live within two-thirds of a mile of a grocery store are half as likely to be overweight, compared to those living in neighborhoods without grocery stores,...
April 7, 2009
STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Apr 7, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - A U.S.-led study suggests insecticides that would kill just older mosquitoes would be a better way of controlling malaria. Pennsylvania State University Professor Andrew Read said such an approach would be a more sustainable way of controlling the disease and might lead to evolution-proof insecticides that never become obsolete. Each year malaria kills...
April 7, 2009
MIAMI, Apr 6, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - Sipping on sports drinks all day may provide an energy boost, but can also result in tooth erosion and hypersensitivity, U.S. researchers said. New York University dental researchers found that prolonged consumption of sports drinks may be linked to a condition known as erosive tooth wear, in which acids eat away the tooth's smooth hard enamel coating and trickle...
April 7, 2009
Apr 06, 2009 (Ventura County Star - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) - If obese or overweight Americans don't begin to eat right and fit more exercise into their schedules, there could be another economic crisis on the horizon, according to Dr. Joseph Donnelly, director of the Center for Physical Activity and Weight Management at the University of Kansas. "No one, and I mean no one...
April 7, 2009
Jan. 9 - The craze over skin-smoothing collagen has spread to "nabe" hotchpotch, with restaurants serving up the protein-rich fare - usually in the form of pig's knuckles - getting prominent play on TV and in magazines. Besides eateries serving nabe containing collagen, the high-protein connective tissue found between animal bones, drugstores are also selling the gristle in supplement form. Health-conscious...
April 6, 2009
Jan. 9 - The craze over skin-smoothing collagen has spread to "nabe" hotchpotch, with restaurants serving up the protein-rich fare - usually in the form of pig's knuckles - getting prominent play on TV and in magazines. Besides eateries serving nabe containing collagen, the high-protein connective tissue found between animal bones, drugstores are also selling the gristle in supplement form. Health-conscious...
April 6, 2009
Apr. 7 - PARIS - On Monday mornings, a group of five women stretch and lift weights through a one-hour "Fit After Fifty" exercise program. "You don't want to hurt yourself, obviously," personal trainer Lori Britting told the group, "but you want to feel a nice stretch." After trying their hand with exercise balls, bungee cords and weights, the group went off refreshed, joking with one another as they...
April 6, 2009
WASHINGTON, Apr 7, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced an expansion of the nationwide recall of possibly bacterially tainted pistachios. The FDA said Setton Farms Inc. of Terra Bella, Calif., is expanding its voluntary recall of pistachios to include all roasted shelled pistachios and roasted in-shell pistachios from its 2008 crop due to potential contamination with...
April 6, 2009
Apr. 7 - Even the health insurance provider declared them an unhealthy lot. That's why Wesley Towers' employee group health insurance plan had crept up 27 percent over the past three years due, in part, to a plethora of claims not only for doctor's visits, but prescription drug coverage. As the nation works to overhaul the health care system, locally Wesley Towers, a retirement community, knows that...
April 6, 2009