Health Glance
When Clare Rourke woke up one morning March of last year with a sore toe, she didn’t worry too much about it. She, her husband and their three daughters were living in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, for a few months as part of a family year abroad. She and her husband had traveled widely — through India, the Middle East and South America — and had never been seriously ill. And they took necessary precautions, making sure everyone in the family received the recommended vaccinations.
But by the middle of that day, Rourke was sicker than she had ever been before. “I hurt in so many places — my feet, hand, wrists, ankles, elbows, knees,” she says. “I actually remember thinking that I just might die.” Her joints were so swollen, hot and painful that she couldn’t rest her elbows on the bed. Her temperature rose to 104 degrees. “I felt like something was attacking me and I was seriously losing the fight,” she says.
Chikungunya, a highly infectious disease, may soon arrive in the U.S.
Judge overturns strict N.D. anti-abortion law
A federal judge Wednesday overturned as unconstitutional a North Dakota law banning abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland ruled that the law banning abortions when a fetal heartbeat is detected "cannot withstand a constitutional challenge."
Supporters of the measure have cast it as a challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 ruling that legalized abortion up until a fetus is considered viable, usually at 22 to 24 weeks. Abortion rights advocates call the heartbeat law the most restrictive in the country.
Researchers speak to new study exposing link between SSRIs and autism
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health are calling attention to a new study linking anti-depressants with autism.
Published online earlier this week in the journal Pediatrics, the study was joint effort between researchers at Bloomberg and at the University of California at Davis' MIND Institute.
Tamiflu: Millions wasted on flu drug, claims major UK report
Hundreds of millions of pounds may have been wasted on a drug for flu that works no better than paracetamol, a landmark analysis has said.
The UK has spent £473m on Tamiflu, which is stockpiled by governments globally to prepare for flu pandemics.
The Cochrane Collaboration claimed the drug did not prevent the spread of flu or reduce dangerous complications, and only slightly helped symptoms. The manufacturers Roche and other experts say the analysis is flawed
The antiviral drug Tamiflu was stockpiled from 2006 in the UK when some agencies were predicting that a pandemic of bird flu could kill up to 750,000 people in Britain. Similar decisions were made in other countries.
Hidden data
Study: E-cigarettes affect cells similarly to regular tobacco
A new study shows that the vapor from e-cigarettes damages human cells similarly to smoke from traditional cigarettes.
The researchers present the study, published in the journal of Clinical Cancer Research, at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting on April 6 in San Diego. The scientists described how they took human bronchial cells and grew some in an environment with e-cigarette vapor and some in an environment with cigarette smoke.
Some doctors make millions off of Medicare
Some doctors are making millions of dollars off of Medicare, with a handful collecting multi-million payments annually.
One ophthalmologist from West Palm Beach, Fla., collected nearly $21 million, while a cardiologist from Ocala, Fla., received $18 million in 2012. Seven doctors pulled in more than $10 million in payments, while nearly 4,000 are Medicare millionaires.
The doctors' payments were part of an unprecedented data release, which covers 880,000 physicians, therapists, labs and other medical facilities. Medicare paid providers a total of $77 billion in 2012 to care for more than 50 million of the nation's elderly and disabled, according to federal statistics released Wednesday. These figures do not include what doctors collect from patients in co-pays or from private insurers for non-Medicare patients.
Stimulation restores some function for 4 paralyzed men
Paralysis may not last forever anymore. In an experiment hailed as "staggering," a team of researchers at the University of Louisville and the University of California-Los Angeles restored some voluntary movement to four men who were told they would never move their legs again.
The finding, published online today by the journal Brain, upends understanding of the spinal cord and is likely to transform the lives of more than 1.2 million Americans who lack control over their lower limbs.
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