Meningitis Outbreak Puts Doctors, Regulators In New Territory
There's new information on the ongoing outbreak of a rare meningitis caused by a fungus that somehow got into a steroid drug. Federal officials now say the drug got injected into 14,000 patients —...
View ArticleOld Drug Gets A Second Look For TB Fight
A small study offers a bit of cautious optimism about the prospects for treatment of tuberculosis, one of humankind's most ancient scourges. This week's New England Journal of Medicine has a report...
View ArticleCDC: Meningitis Mold In Tainted Drug Can Incubate For Months
As the caseload of fungal meningitis linked to a tainted steroid drug climbs, experts are learning more about this human-made epidemic. The signs indicate that cases could still be emerging until...
View ArticleMeningitis From Tainted Drugs Puts Patients, Doctors In Quandary
Two weeks after Matthew Spencer got a spinal injection for his chronic back pain, he felt "not quite right." Nothing too specific: worsening headache, nausea. Then he saw a TV report on a recall of...
View ArticleFDA Says Massachusetts Pharmacy Knew Of Sterility Problems For Months
In a highly unusual step, the Food and Drug Administration has released a report of inspections it conduct this month of the Massachusetts pharmacy at the center of a national outbreak of fungal...
View ArticleBefore Sandy Hit U.S., Storm Was A Killer In Haiti
Hurricane Sandy only sideswiped Haiti during its early days. But reports so far suggest that even this indirect hit led to nearly as many deaths there as in the U.S. after the storm made landfall on...
View ArticleHome Health Care Proves Resilient In Face Of Sandy Destruction
One lasting image of Superstorm Sandy will be very sick patients being evacuated from flooded hospitals. But less visible are thousands of patients who rely on visiting nurses and home health aides for...
View ArticleDespite Anti-Fungal Treatment, More Woes For Some Meningitis Patients
The news for patients who had injections of fungus-tainted steroids just keeps getting worse.
View ArticleMalaria Vaccine Results: Disappointing But Not The End Of The Story
The public health world has waited for the results for more than a year. After a half-billion dollars in R&D, would the front-runner malaria vaccine protect the top-priority targets: young infants?...
View ArticleWith Routine Mammograms, Some Breast Cancers May Be Overtreated
The endless debate over routine mammograms is getting another kick from an analysis that sharply questions whether the test really does what it's supposed to. Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, coauthor of the...
View ArticleMore Women Choose Double Mastectomy, But Study Says Many Don't Need It
It's a startling trend: Many women with cancer in one breast are choosing to have their healthy breast removed, too. But a study being presented later this week says more than three-quarters of women...
View ArticleClinton Reveals Blueprint For An 'AIDS-Free Generation'
Before Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton passes the reins to her successor, she's got a few loose ends to tie up. One of them is mapping out the U.S.'s continuing efforts to combat AIDS around...
View ArticleSARS-Like Virus Found In Jordan, Hunt Is On For Other Cases
The World Health Organization says a new coronavirus has killed two people in Jordan — the third country where the novel microbe has been traced. That brings lab-confirmed cases to nine, with five...
View ArticleAs Childhood Strokes Increase, Surgeons Aim To Reduce Risks
Boston brain surgeon Ed Smith points to a tangle of delicate gray shadows on his computer screen. It's an X-ray of the blood vessels on the left side of 13-year-old Maribel Ramos' brain."If we follow...
View ArticleDangers of 'Whoonga': Abuse Of AIDS Drugs Stokes Resistance
Opportunists who market street drugs may be undermining the global struggle against AIDS.In South Africa, two mainstay HIV drugs have found their way into recreational use.
View ArticleMerck Undercuts Popular Notion That Niacin Prevents Heart Attacks
Niacin, a B vitamin that raises "good" cholesterol, has failed to benefit heart disease patients when taken in tandem with a statin drug that lowers "bad" cholesterol, according to drug maker...
View ArticleBreast Cancer: What We Learned In 2012
The past year has seen more debate about the best way to find breast cancers.A recent analysis concluded that regular mammograms haven't reduced the rate of advanced breast cancers — but they have led...
View ArticleU.S. Ranks Below 16 Other Rich Countries In Health Report
It's no news that the U.S. has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than most high-income countries. But a magisterial new report says Americans are actually less healthy across their...
View ArticleAfter Bringing Cholera To Haiti, U.N. Plans To Get Rid Of It
Not quite 10 months after Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake, a more insidious disaster struck: cholera.Haiti hadn't seen cholera for at least a century. Then suddenly, the first cases appeared in the...
View ArticleAs Hepatitis C Sneaks Up On Baby Boomers, Treatment Options Grow
A smoldering epidemic already affects an estimated 4 million Americans, most of whom don't know it.It's hepatitis C, an insidious virus that can hide in the body for two or three decades without...
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