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How the entertainment industry relates to mental illness

The shift in television characterizations might be a result of pressure from groups such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which sends out monthly newsletter alerts praising or panning entertainment portrayals of mental illness. Or maybe it's the fact that more than one-fourth of Americans, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder every year. No doubt, a lot of Hollywood insiders can relate. The more accurate portrayals might even be because creative folks are getting tired of the same old stories.

17 Aug 2012

East Meets West to advance hygiene and sanitation practices in Cambodia, Vietnam

East Meets West has received a US $10.9 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve sanitation and hygiene practices among the rural poor in Vietnam and Cambodia.

17 Aug 2012

Communication problems between clinicians and mothers of critically ill newborns

Research from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center suggests that common language may also be the divide standing between mothers of critically ill newborns and the clinicians who care for them.

17 Aug 2012

HHS using pharmacies to sell health law benefits to seniors

The Department of Health and Human Services is touting a partnership with major retail pharmacies to tell seniors about health law benefits.

17 Aug 2012

Mullite can reduce pollution produced by diesel vehicles

Engineers at a company co-founded by a University of Texas at Dallas professor have identified a material that can reduce the pollution produced by vehicles that run on diesel fuel.

17 Aug 2012

Hedge funds see investment potential resulting from health law

Fund managers appeared to be placing bets on health insurers -- starting before the Supreme Court's health law ruling.

17 Aug 2012

Diabetes Research Institute to receive JDRF-HCT grant for islet encapsulation study

JDRF, in collaboration with The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust (HCT), announced today that it has finalized a grant in the area of islet cell encapsulation to Dr. Camillo Ricordi, M.D. and a team of investigators at the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI), based at the University of Miami (FL).

17 Aug 2012

WFP begins series of air drops to deliver food to refugees in South Sudan

"The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) carried out the first in a series of air drops to replenish rapidly diminishing food stocks for more than 100,000 people in South Sudan who have fled fighting in Sudan," the U.N. News Centre reports.

17 Aug 2012

Research examines relative impact of militarization and corruption on civilian populations

New research out of the University of Cincinnati is believed to be the first to examine the relative impact of militarization and corruption on civilian populations. The findings reveal that a specific form of military organization-praetorian militarization-as well as national-level corruption-both adversely affect the well-being of citizens.

17 Aug 2012

Kenyan President announces additional funding for national AIDS response

"Kenya's government, under the leadership of President Mwai Kibaki, has allocated additional funding to its national AIDS response," UNAIDS reports in a feature story on its webpage, noting, "The announcement came last Friday during a high level advocacy meeting in Nairobi."

17 Aug 2012

Promising new treatment for bronchiectasis

Researchers have identified a promising new treatment for non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis, a long-term lung disorder which causes persistent coughing and breathlessness. The results, published in The Lancet, could represent an important advance in the treatment of this debilitating disease, for which very few evidence-based treatments are currently available.

17 Aug 2012

Early MRI scans for acute lower back injury may lead to increased disability

If you've recently hurt your back on the job, getting a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan won't increase your chances of a good recovery, suggests a study in the August 15 issue of Spine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

17 Aug 2012

Innovative financing models can impact health in low-income urban communities

"Having just returned to New York from Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, I'm reminded how lucky we are in this city to have reliable water and sanitation services," David Winder, chief executive of WaterAid USA, writes this post in Huffington Post's "Impact" blog.

17 Aug 2012

Pyruvate kinase M2 fuels tumor growth by influencing H3 histone protein

A metabolic protein that nourishes cancer cells also activates tumor-promoting genes by loosening part of the packaging that entwines DNA to make up chromosomes, a team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports in the Aug. 16 issue of Cell.

17 Aug 2012

Mepolizumab almost halves exacerbations in severe asthma patients

The largest study of patients with severe asthma to date, published in The Lancet special issue on respiratory medicine, shows that those treated with the monoclonal antibody mepolizumab experienced an almost 50% reduction in severe exacerbations, emergency room visits, and hospitalisations compared with patients given placebo.

17 Aug 2012

A view from the field: How Medicare is playing in congressional, Senate races

From Texas to Connecticut, members of Congress and their challengers are pressing their views on the federal health program for seniors.

17 Aug 2012

Retail medical clinic visits increase four-fold from 2007-2009

Fast-growing retail medical clinics are attracting more older patients and delivering more preventive care, particularly flu shots and other vaccinations, according to a new study from the RAND Corporation.

17 Aug 2012

Congressional leaders plan to make the most of this election-year Medicare debate

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, urged his fellow Republicans to "play offense" on the issue while their Democratic counterparts plan to keep the heat on.

17 Aug 2012

Study examines whether eribulin offers added benefit to women with breast cancer

Eribulin was approved in March 2011 for women with locally advanced or metastasizing breast cancer in whom the disease has progressed despite prior drug therapy.

17 Aug 2012

Tobacco use epidemic estimates show urgent need to redouble control efforts

New estimates illustrate the epidemic of tobacco use for over half of the world’s population (representing more than 3 billion adults living in the UK, USA, and 14 developing countries), with around 852 million tobacco consumers (661 million smokers and 247 million smokeless tobacco users).

17 Aug 2012