One of the decisive issues in the presidential campaign is likely to be health insurance. Texas and Ohio vote on Tuesday, and those states alone have nearly seven million uninsured residents; nationwide, 47 million have no health insurance. But that's just the start: millions more are underinsured, unable to pay their deductibles or get access to dental care.
Recently, 60 Minutes heard about an American relief organization that airdrops doctors and medicine into the jungles of the Amazon. It's called Remote Area Medical, or "RAM" for short.
As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, Remote Area Medical sets up emergency clinics where the needs are greatest. But these days, that's not the Amazon. This charity founded to help people who can't reach medical care finds itself throwing America a lifeline.
HARTFORD, Conn. - Patients who believe they suffer long-term problems from Lyme disease are claiming victory over a national doctors group. The Infectious Diseases Society of America has agreed to review its guidelines, which say there's no evidence long-term antibiotics can cure "chronic Lyme" disease - or even that such a condition exists.
Merck, the maker of the very controversial Gardasil vaccine, has a pharmaceutical plant located in West Point, Pennsylvania, that discards pollutants from this facility into the Upper Gwynedd Township Publicly Owned Treatment Works (UGT POTW), according to a press release by the U.S. Department of Justice. The treated wastewater is released into the Wissahickon Creek, a tributary of the Schuylkill River. A federal court complaint was filed alleging that Merck violated the Clean Water Act with various discharges that caused numerous pass through and interference violations at the UGT POTW.
When Michelle Timke's son was born 12 years ago, she had the baby circumcised because "that's just what you did."
John Lauerman
BloombergMon, 28 Apr 2008 11:19 UTC
A brain exercise designed to help people improve memory also boosted their problem-solving abilities, scientists said in a study that may lead to techniques to improve learning and stave off brain illnesses.
Young adults who performed the exercise, a complex matching game of sounds and pictures, improved about twice as much on problem-solving tests as those who didn't participate, University of Michigan researchers said in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
San Francisco - The company that makes Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a counterculture staple, sued many of its personal care competitors Monday over the validity of their organic labels as the once-quiet "green" cosmetic sector has soared in popularity, luring several Wall Street corporations into the field.
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, accused 10 companies and two industry groups of selling and promoting soaps, lotions and other products that are manufactured using conventionally grown crops or chemicals derived from petroleum.
Measles outbreaks in at least seven states are expected to produce more cases in 2008 than in any other recent year, federal health officials said Thursday, warning that measles is highly contagious and can cause severe illness and even death.
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Several strains of mycoplasma have been "engineered" to become more dangerous. They are now being blamed for AIDS, cancer, CFS, MS, CJD and other neurosystemic diseases.
Beijing - A deadly virus has spread rapidly in eastern China, killing at least 21 children and infecting nearly 3,000, Xinhua news agency said on Friday.
Enterovirus 71 began spreading in Fuyang in the eastern province of Anhui in early March but authorities only reported it publicly on Sunday, saying there had been 789 cases.
By Thursday, the number had risen to 2,946, Xinhua said.
Matthew Price
BBC NewsThu, 01 May 2008 22:10 UTC
I think that within ten years that we will have strategies that will re-grow the bones, and promote the growth of functional tissue around those bones.
Dr Dr Stephen Badylak
University of Pittsburgh