Doctors Take Aim At Epidemic Kidney Stones With Lasers
The nation is in the midst of a kidney stone epidemic. New research shows 1 in 10 American men and 1 in 14 women has had one. And prevalence of kidney stones has shot up in recent years.
View ArticleTwo Mutations Can Transform A Swine Flu Virus
Flu pandemics don't happen very often. So many people might feel the relative fizzle of a flu pandemic three years ago somehow immunizes the globe against another one for awhile. But don't relax, say...
View ArticleWorst Of West Nile Epidemic Appears To Be Over
The numbers for West Nile virus cases continue to rise, up 35 percent in the last week. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is confident the nation has turned the corner on its...
View ArticleEbola's Unlikely Victims: Health Care Workers
The Ebola virus continues to strike people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since May, the World Health Organization has counted 72 confirmed, probable or suspected cases and 32 deaths. As usual, a...
View ArticleTiny Bubbles: Injectable Oxygen Foam Tested For Emergency Care
A lot of medicine's direst emergencies come down to one problem: lack of oxygen. Cardiologist John Kheir started thinking about that when a little girl in his care, drowning from lung hemorrhages, died...
View ArticleSwedes Perform Pioneering Uterine Transplants; Americans Not Far Behind
A Swedish medical team has transplanted uteruses from two women in their 50s to their daughters. Meanwhile, Shots has learned that an Indiana group is recruiting women willing to undergo womb...
View ArticleScientists Parse Genes Of Breast Cancer's Four Major Types
Scientists have known for a while that breast cancer is really four different diseases, with subtypes among them, an insight that has helped improve treatment for some women. But experts haven't...
View ArticleMini-Counseling Sessions Can Curb Problem Drinking
Brief counseling from primary care doctors reduces "risky" drinking, defined as having more than four drinks a day for men, three for women, a federal task force says. About one in three Americans...
View ArticleDisease Detectives Catch Deadly African Virus Just As It Emerges
New viruses are popping up all over these days – Heartland virus in Missouri last month, a new virus in the same family as SARS in Saudi Arabia this month. And now, a never-before-seen hemorrhagic...
View ArticleVitamin D No Help For Colds
Should you take Vitamin D supplements to prevent colds and shorten the misery? Like other theories about the benefits of vitamin D, it seems like a reasonably good idea. After all, some lab studies...
View ArticleWhy Experts Can Pounce On New Diseases Faster As They Emerge
Scientists have recently discovered three new human viruses.
View ArticleArabian Coronavirus: Plot Thickens But Virus Lies Low
It now appears that the new coronavirus found on the Arabian Peninsula is more widespread than initially thought, even though only two people are known to have gotten sick from it. At first it seemed...
View ArticleMeningitis Outbreak Update: List Of Hospitals Released
The government has named 75 medical facilities that received a potentially contaminated drug suspected of infecting 47 patients with meningitis nationwide.
View ArticleSpecial Pharmacies Suspected In Meningitis Outbreak
The tainted drug believed to have caused 170 cases of rare fungal meningitis and 14 deaths came from a so-called "compounding pharmacy" in Massachusetts. But this is no corner drugstore. It's one of...
View ArticleMeningitis 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 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 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.
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