Medical News May12th, 2008
Posted on May 12, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized |
Teen Depression Worsened by Marijuana, Government Says
Today the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy sent out a clear message on teen pot use and depression: They’re a bad combination. Issuing a report that analyzes around a dozen studies about marijuana use and mental health, the policy office warned that teens who use marijuana to “self-medicate” may worsen their underlying depression or other mental health issues. The intention of the report, says John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, is to “try to correct two misunderstandings: That teen depression is not a problem and that teen marijuana use is not a problem—marijuana use is not safe.” He advises parents to talk to their kids’ pediatrician if they see signs of depression and suspect drug use.
Purity Products Specialty Vitamins - Shop Now and Save.
Caring career: Nurse need grows acute
Amid an uncertain economy and worrisome unemployment numbers, there’s a well-paying field begging for workers.
Nurses are taking on an increasingly diverse role in health care, opening up new jobs in all kinds of settings, including community health, home care and hospitals. As demand for nurses has risen, so have salaries.
Pay at the beginning of last year among the 23,141 members in the city averaged more than $60,000, according to the New York State Nurses Association. Despite respectable salaries, flexible schedules and work that can be very rewarding, nurses remain in need.
Phila. Race for the Cure draws 45,000
Phyllis Cooperman and her daughter Lisa Kolar jogged arm in arm across the finish line of the Philadelphia Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure yesterday morning with huge smiles on their faces.
“We do it together,” said Cooperman, 63, a 17-year breast-cancer survivor running in her 12th race.
All told, 20 members of the family joined 45,000 others running, jogging and walking the 3.1 mile course on a bright, brisk Mother’s Day morning to raise awareness and money for breast cancer research and treatment.
“We love celebrating her,” said Kolar, 29. “It feels good. Together we are fighting this disease, conquering it.”
Purity Products Specialty Vitamins - Shop Now and Save.
Manufacturers to Boost Number of Flu Vaccines for Next Season
Despite inefficiency of the flu vaccines this year in the U.S., the five companies manufacturing influenza vaccines plan to make a record number of doses for the next flu season. Therefore, they announced at least 143 million doses for the 2008-2009 season, meaning 3 million more doses than the season just ended this month.
It is rather inexplicable, as the request for flu vaccines is very likely to fall after this year’s vaccines were only 44 percent effective against the flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report last month.
Purity Products Specialty Vitamins - Shop Now and Save.
Man Uses Steak Knife To Perform Throat Surgery On Himself
A Man from Omaha used a steak knife to save his own life, performing a tracheotomy on himself.
The man, 55-year old Steve Wilder saved his own life. He stated that he woke up in the middle of the night, completely unable to breathe.
His air passage was so swollen that it was literally shut, and he was suffocating to death.
He stated he got up and panicked, and did not have time to call and wait for help.
He grabbed a steak knife and pushed into his throat, as blood began to come out.
He stated blood was gushing out, but air was gushing in at the same time.
According to reports, Wilder is now doing just fine and felt no pain, he has thanked God for helping him through it.
On Sale Now! Save up to 50% off select items
HIV Prevention Message Failing
The most common HIV prevention strategies - condoms, HIV testing, STD awareness and abstinence - are having a limited impact on the predominantly heterosexual epidemics occurring in Africa, say experts from the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of California.
In a new policy paper, the researchers argue that two interventions currently getting less attention and resources - male circumcision and reducing multiple sexual partnerships - should become the cornerstone of HIV prevention efforts in the high-HIV-prevalence parts of Africa.
In most countries, HIV transmission remains concentrated among sex workers, men who have sex with men and/or injecting drug users and their sexual partners. In many parts of Africa, however, HIV has jumped outside these high-risk groups, creating generalized epidemics spread mainly among people who are having multiple and concurrent (overlapping) sexual relationships. In nine countries in southern Africa, more than 12 percent of adults are infected with HIV.
On Sale Now! Save up to 50% off select items
Consumer Group Presses FDA for Birth Control Patch Withdrawn
A consumer advocacy group petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday for the removal of a Johnson and Johnson transdermal birth control patch from the market due to increased risk of dangerous blood clots.
The bird control patch involved, Ortho-Evra, is marketed in the U.S. by Ortho-McNeil, a pharmaceutical manufacturer based in Raritan, New Jersey, and a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. When applied to the skin, the patch releases synthetic estrogen and progestin hormones to prevent pregnancy. The patch is applied (changed) weekly for three weeks in a row, then one week is skipped.
Ortho-Evra became controversial after an AP investigation in 2005 showing that women using it suffer higher rates of life-threatening blood clots than women taking birth-control pills.
On Sale Now! Save up to 50% off select items
HillaryCare: Why Hillary Clinton’s health-care plan makes sense
You’ve heard a lot - probably too much - about which presidential candidate is best qualified to answer that 3 a.m. phone call in the White House. But if the caller were asking about health-care reform, there’s no doubt which candidate could give the best answers, even in her sleep. That would be Hillary Clinton.
This is no accident, because Clinton has been through this ringer before, in 1993, when she headed her husband’s ill-fated effort to prescribe a cure for the health-insurance crisis. The Clintons bobbled the pill bottle back then, but that brutal political setback taught Hillary Clinton all about one of the most complex public policy issues out there.
Now, 15 years later, the health-insurance system is even sicker, and it’s no surprise that among the three major candidates Clinton has put forward the best, most comprehensive plan to heal it.
Despite what you may have heard, HillaryCare - our name, not hers - is not a single-payer, government-financed health plan. Instead, it retains private insurance companies and competition, but makes a number of major reforms in tax policy and the market. And it does attempt to achieve universal coverage; that is, health insurance for everyone.
77 More Hepatitis C Victims Tied to Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada
Seventy seven more former patients of the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada have tested positive for hepatitis C, and their illnesses are likely the result of the unsanitary methods employed by the now-closed clinic. The 77 cases of hepatitis C combined with those confirmed earlier bring the number of cases linked to clinics run by the same group of doctors to 85.
In February, the Southern Nevada Health District sent letters to 40,000 people treated at the clinic, advising them to get tested for hepatitis B and C, and HIV. The Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada has been under investigation since early January, after health officials learned of three people who had been diagnosed with hepatitis C after being treated there. Ultimately, the Southern Nevada Health District said a total of six people were known to have contracted hepatitis C after being treated at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada. Five of them were treated the same day in late September; the sixth is believed to have been infected in July, the district said. The Southern Nevada Health District investigation revealed that “unsafe injection practices related to the administration of anesthesia medication might have exposed patients to the blood of other patients.” In March, a seventh hepatitis C victim, who had been treated at a clinic owned by the same group that owns the Endoscopy Center, was identified.
Comments
2 Responses to “Medical News May12th, 2008”
Leave a Reply
[…] […]
[…] […]