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Winter safety tips for older adults

Winter is a special time for celebration. It should also be a time for added caution if you or someone in your family is an older adult. It is the season for falls, slips on icy streets and other dangers that can be especially harmful for older adults.

25 Oct 2012

NetBio to present ANDE system at 2012 IEEE homeland security conference

Current DNA analysis methods require expert users in a controlled laboratory environment and take weeks to months to produce results. The ANDE system from NetBio would allow the generation of CODIS-quality DNA profiles by non-technical users in a field environment in less than 1.5 hours.

25 Oct 2012

Med school enrollment grows 1.5%

But officials warn that a cap on federally funded residencies could slow the number of doctors coming into the system.

25 Oct 2012

Obama administration to relax Medicare benefit rules

As part of a proposed settlement in a national class-action lawsuit, the federal government would expand benefits for skilled nursing and home health care to the chronically ill.

25 Oct 2012

Tips to help turn your alligator skin into suede

All winter flakes are not made of snow. Cold weather, with its low relative humidity, wreaks havoc on our skin, making it dry and flaky. Skin dries out if it's deprived of moisture and this dryness often aggravates itchiness, resulting in a condition commonly referred to as "winter itch."

25 Oct 2012

National Proactive Surveillance Network launches today

The National Proactive Surveillance Network, the world's first online medical database designed to help men track the progression of their prostate cancer while avoiding complications from overtreatment, launches today.

25 Oct 2012

Medicare, abortion grab attention in some House, Senate races

News outlets offer another round of coverage on the Wisconsin Senate race and a tight New York House race, while candidates' views on abortion are spotlighted in Indiana and Missouri.

25 Oct 2012

New York Times blog features interview with Indian polio expert

To mark World Polio Day, the New York Times' "India Ink" blog features an interview with Naveen Thacker, a member of the team that led India's polio eradication efforts. The country has not recorded a new case of polio since January 2011 and is in line to be declared polio-free in January 2014 if no new cases occur, according to the blog.

25 Oct 2012

Appeals court blocks Ind. law barring Planned Parenthood funding

The state had sought to cut Medicaid funding because Planned Parenthood also provides abortion services.

25 Oct 2012

Obama, Romney bring health policy resumes to the presidential race

But swing state voters continue to be skeptical of the two candidates' positions and plans. The Los Angeles Times reports how Ohio voters are critical of President Barack Obama's healthcare law because they see their healthcare costs continuing to rise and also skeptical that a man as rich as Mitt Romney could understand their needs.

25 Oct 2012

Global Health Service Partnership 'could be the start of something big'

Writing in GlobalPost's "Global Pulse" blog, Claire Panosian Dunavan, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the University of California, Los Angeles, reflects on the Global Health Service Partnership, a new public-private partnership launched by Vanessa Kerry, daughter of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) "to boost the education of doctors and nurses in sub-Saharan Africa."

25 Oct 2012

U.K. aid system exploits sub-Saharan Africa, disregards impact on poor

Noting a recent U.N. study showed that, despite progress on tackling child mortality globally, sub-Saharan Africa "is trailing far behind," David Dominic, a consultant for non-governmental organizations, writes in this Huffington Post U.K. opinion piece, "The more we look, the more it seems that the U.K. aid system, with regards to sub-Saharan Africa, is carefully designed to control and exploit the region, with scant regard for the impacts upon the poor. That is, aid seems to be used as a tool of modern imperialism."

25 Oct 2012

Holiday feast survival guide from NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University

Holiday dinners are filled with heaping dishes of comfort foods, fattening favorites and savory treats. It is no wonder these meals often leave us feeling stuffed with guilt and holiday remorse.

25 Oct 2012

Meningitis outbreak spreads; Mass. revokes Compounding Center's license

The Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy has permanently revoked the license of the New England Compounding Center, the facility implicated in a nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis, Gov. Deval Patrick announced Tuesday. ... State Director of Healthcare Safety Madeleine Biondolillo said ... investigators witnessed "black particulate matter" in some vials of medicine returned amid the nationwide recall of NECC's products.

25 Oct 2012

ISSCR selects Cell Press to publish 'Stem Cell Reports'

Cell Press is delighted to announce that it has been chosen by the International Society for Stem Cell Research, ISSCR, to publish its new Open Access journal 'Stem Cell Reports'.

25 Oct 2012

Indonesia plans to include HIV treatment in universal health care coverage

During a meeting with UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe on Tuesday, Indonesia Minister of Health Nafsiah Mboi "pledged to scale up HIV testing and treatment programs" with a "focus on 141 districts where key affected populations are the highest," a UNAIDS feature story reports.

25 Oct 2012

Swing state highlights: Sprinting to the finish line in Ohio, Virginia and Missouri

KHN's Sarah Barr samples campaign news coverage each week from swing states to see how health policy developments, and other political issues, are playing, including the Senate races in Ohio, Virginia and Missouri.

25 Oct 2012

Examining the need for TB indicators, activities in global AIDS response blueprint

In a post in the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog, Lucica Ditiu, executive secretary of the Stop TB Partnership, examines the need to include tuberculosis (TB) in the global AIDS response blueprint that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced at the XIX International AIDS Conference.

25 Oct 2012

Four-point plan to improve palliative care discussions

In an editorial appearing in the October 25 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, medical oncologists at Johns Hopkins and Brigham and Women's hospitals provide a four-point plan for integrating palliative care discussions throughout the treatment of patients with terminal illnesses.

25 Oct 2012

Communicable diseases responsible for majority of deaths in Africa, WHO official says

Speaking on Monday in Luanda, Angola, at the opening session of the inaugural meeting on Medical Education, sponsored by the Faculty of Medicine of Agostinho Neto University, WHO Regional Director for Africa Luis Gomes Sambo said communicable diseases account for 63 percent of deaths in Africa, with HIV and tuberculosis (TB) responsible for the majority of those, the Angola Press reports.

25 Oct 2012