AllHealthcare

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's push to revamp health care got a boost Thursday as a new coalition of drug makers, unions, hospitals and others launched a $12 million pro-overhaul ad campaign. Meanwhile, the administration sought to regain control of the health care debate by asking supporters to forward a chain e-mail to counter criticism that's circulating on the Internet. The ...

Children newly diagnosed with epilepsy may not show signs of academic problems early on, but a new study suggests they could benefit from early cognitive testing to spot potential learning disabilities before they surface in school. "There appears to be a window early in epilepsy for intervention to alleviate the impact of learning disabilities on school performance," says Philip Fastenau, professor ...

PORTLAND, Ore. - A 25-year-old former medical assistant on probation for a similar crime laced her breast milk with morphine and fed it to her 2-month-old daughter in an effort to attract the attention of the child's father, authorities alleged Thursday. Sarah Rose Dillard-Lubin, of Aloha, was on probation from California for feeding her son, who was 10 months old at ...

Chocolate eaters in a study of heart attack survivors had lower blood pressure and were less likely to die of heart disease, scientists in Sweden said. [widget:1104] Of the 1,169 patients studied, those who ate chocolate two or more times a week cut their risk of dying from heart disease nearly threefold compared to those who didn't eat chocolate at all, ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Canada has caused a shortage of a radioactive isotope used to detect cancers and heart disease, forcing doctors into costlier procedures that can be less effective and expose patients to more radioactivity. Some 16 million people in the United States - 40,000 patients each day - undergo medical imaging procedures using ...

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Though he'd waited since 3:25 a.m. to see a dentist, a smile graced the face of Arturo Castaneda on Tuesday afternoon as he leaned against his blind man's cane and waited for someone to pull his bothersome tooth. Like hundreds of others who showed up in the pre-dawn hours for free health care at The Forum in Inglewood, ...

SEATTLE -- Atop a hill in Seattle, three of Washington state's pre-eminent hospital systems sit within blocks of one another, equipped with state-of-the-art electronic medical-record systems that track test results, send warnings about dangerous drug interactions and provide medical histories. A patient crossing the street from one hospital to another would be wise to take paper records, however: The systems, made ...

Cash, check or a cord of wood for that doctor visit? As health care costs climb, old-fashioned bartering has seen brisk growth since the economy soured. Hillsborough, N.J.-resident Robert Josefs traded his Web site designing skills for nearly $1,000 in dental work last year when he had no insurance, and many other patients are learning that health care debts don't always ...

A first-of-its-kind osteoporosis drug lowers the risk of bone fractures as well as or better than current medicines, studies in older women and men with prostate cancer suggest. Wall Street sees Amgen Inc.'s genetically engineered denosumab as a potential blockbuster crucial to the company's future. But given the crowded market of treatments for the bone-thinning disease, doctors see its expected high ...

DAYTON, Ohio - A heart transplant recipient who lived a record 31 years with a single donated organ has died at age 51 of cancer, his heart still going strong, his widow said. Tony Huesman died Sunday night. "He had diabetes and cancer," Carol Huesman said Monday. "His heart - believe it or not - held out. His heart never gave ...

Think those noise-canceling earbuds are hot stuff? Imagine if said technology was applied to an advanced type of implantable hearing aid, and you'll have an idea of exactly what Earthlings with severe hearing loss now have to look forward to. For years now, we've watched as cochlear implants became more effective in lab tests, and up until recently, we've had strict ...

NEW YORK - Researchers say a small number of young law enforcement officers who participated in the World Trade Center rescue and cleanup operation have developed an immune system cancer. The numbers are tiny, and experts don't know whether there is any link between the illnesses and toxins released during the disaster. But doctors who coordinated the study, published Monday in ...

TAMPA, Fla. - An autopsy report shows that cocaine use contributed to the heart disease that suddenly killed TV pitchman Billy Mays in June, officials announced Friday. The Hillsborough County medical examiner's office previously determined that the bearded, boisterous TV spokesman had a heart attack in his sleep. His wife found him unresponsive in bed in their Tampa condo June 28. ...

NEW YORK - Agreements between former President Bill Clinton's foundation and two drug companies will lower prices on medications for patients with drug-resistant HIV in the developing world. One agreement, with Mylan Inc., lowers the annual price of four antiretroviral drugs that are used as a second line of treatment when patients develop a resistance to the first drugs they are ...

NEW YORK - A common treatment that uses medical cement to fix cracks in the spinal bones of elderly people worked no better than a sham treatment, the first rigorous studies of the popular procedure reveal. Pain and disability were virtually the same up to six months later, whether patients had a real treatment or a fake one. Tens of thousands ...

Men with angina are twice as likely to have a heart attack as women with early heart disease, research published this morning has found. The study of more than 1,700 patients newly diagnosed with angina (chest pain due to narrowing of the coronary arteries) was carried out by researchers from the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG) and the University of ...

ATLANTA - Get ready to roll up your sleeve three times for flu shots this fall. That's right, three times. This year's flu season is shaping up to be a very different one. Most people will need one shot for the regular seasonal flu and probably two others to protect against the new swine flu. Experts suggest you get that first ...

More than half of nurses who work in emergency departments report they've been physically assaulted on the job, according to an online survey of more than 3,000 ER nurses by the Emergency Nurses Association. Responding to the 69-question survey, the nurses said they have been spit on, hit, pushed, shoved, scratched or kicked by patients while on duty. The incidents are ...

WASHINGTON -- One of the largest spending cuts Congress could rely on to pay for an overhaul of the nation's health care system comes from a Medicare program President Obama has called a "wasteful" subsidy for the health insurance industry. Don't tell that to cancer survivor Maurice Engleman, 82, who says the controversial Medicare Advantage program -- which allows seniors to ...

HARTFORD, Conn. - Aurice Barlow knows what happens when someone can't afford dental care. "I see people walking the streets with toothaches, teeth hanging out of their mouths," said the former nurse's aide. At least 30 percent of the people in this city of 124,500 are impoverished. "Nobody cares," she says. Barlow is worried she'll now become one of them. [widget:1089] ...