Friday, Oct 24th
Last update03:42:51 AM GMT
Health Glance
Some widely prescribed drugs for depression provide relief in extreme cases but are no more effective than placebo pills for most patients, according to a new analysis released Tuesday.
The new report, appearing in The Journal of the American Medical Association, reviews data from previous trials on two types of drugs and finds that their effectiveness varies according to the severity of the depression being treated.
There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked. The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs.
Twenty-five years ago, Norwegians were also losing their lives to this bacteria. But Norway’s public health system fought back with an aggressive program that made it the most infection-free country in the world. A key part of that program was cutting back severely on the use of antibiotics.
The Senior Medicare Patrol is one of the least-known forces in the government's effort to eliminate such fraud, which drains billions of dollars a year. But it is seen as a valuable part of the Obama administration's bid to overhaul health care and bring down costs.
The 4,700 senior citizen volunteers who serve as the government's eyes and ears have been credited with saving taxpayers more than $100 million since 1997. The program relies on elderly people to apply a lifetime's worth of common sense and skepticism.
Breast cancer is not a single disease but a collection of at least five separate conditions that differ in prognosis and response to treatment, a detailed genetic study has revealed.
This information could then be used by doctors to establish how aggressive the tumour will be, and which therapy is most likely to work.
Vitamin C could play an essential role in the manufacture of stem cells for treating human diseases, new research suggests. The vitamin boosts the reprogramming of adult cells to give them the properties of embryonic stem cells.
Scientists who made the discovery believe it may help them overcome long-standing hurdles in the way of creating the reprogrammed cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). IPSCs offer a solution to the ethical problems involved in producing embryonic stem cells with the potential to become any kind of human tissue, from bone to brain.
They also understand that the criticism over CDC’s own role in this controversy begins with the escalation in the childhood immunization program that started with the introduction of new vaccines for Haemophilus influenza B (Hib) and hepatitis B in 1990 and 91, respectively. And they certainly understand that an honest investigation of the effect of their own policies must include a comparison of autism rates for children born in 1989 or earlier with those born in 1991 or later.
So what has the CDC done with ADDM? They left the investigation of children born in the 1980s out of the ADDM entirely!
How convenient. That means the former head of the CDC was very likely cultivating a relationship with Merck all these years, and now comes the big payoff: Heading up a $5 billion division that sells cervical cancer vaccines (like Gardasil), chickenpox vaccines and of course H1N1 swine flu vaccines, too.
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