Health & WellnessS


Eye 1

Gene therapy 'aids youth's sight'

A 18-year-old whose sight was failing has had his vision improved in a pioneering operation carried out by doctors at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

The London researchers used gene therapy to regenerate the dying cells in Steven Howarth's right eye.

As a result he can now confidently walk alone in darkened rooms and streets for the first time.

Ambulance

China steps up monitoring of deadly virus outbreak

An eastern Chinese province has introduced a daily reporting system to monitor the spread of a virus that has killed 19 children and spread panic among residents, Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.

The enterovirus 71, or EV71, which can cause hand, foot and mouth disease, began spreading in Anhui province's Fuyang city from early March, Xinhua said, but was only publicly reported on Sunday.

Health

Pushing the Single-Payer Solution

It's time for the candidates to stop dancing around real health-care reform and get behind a single-payer system.

As the media coverage of the Democratic presidential race continues to focus on lapel pins and pastors, America is ailing. As I travel around the country, I find people are angry and motivated. Like Dr. Rocky White, a physician from a conservative, evangelical background who practices in rural Alamosa, Colo. A tall, gray-haired Westerner in black jeans, a crisp white shirt and a bolo tie, Dr. White is a leading advocate for single-payer health care. He wasn't always.

People

Keep the slaves entertained: Workplace flexibility associated with reduced absences and improved job commitment

Workers who reported increased work flexibility from one year to the next also had fewer absences for illness and improved job commitment, according to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. In addition, these workers were less likely to say that health problems affected their job performance.

The study's results, based on a health survey completed by 3,193 employees of a large multinational pharmaceutical company, are reported in the current issue of the Psychologist-Manager Journal.

"This study provides evidence that flexibility is associated with health or well-being over time," said Joseph G. Grzywacz, Ph.D., senior author and an associate professor of family medicine. "For managers, the results suggest that implementing flexible work arrangements can contribute to the bottom-line."

Cow

The Criminalization of Raw Milk: A Mennonite Farmer is Hauled Away

On April 25, 2008, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Mark Nolt, a Wenger Mennonite (Horse and Buggy Mennonite) dairyman, threatened for months with arrest for selling raw milk without a permit was removed from his property by state troopers.

Jonas Stoltzfus, a friend, fellow farmer, and Church of the Brethen, was asked by Mr. Nolt to speak for him, and said of the raid yesterday - "Six state troopers and a man with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture trespassed onto his property, and stole $20-25,000 of his product and equipment."

Health

UK: Mother and baby contract superbug

A mother and her newborn baby girl contracted the superbug MRSA, a hospital trust has confrimed. Razvana Ali, 19, was diagnosed with the superbug after the caesarean section at Bradford Royal Infirmary in February.

Mrs Ali, of Little Horton, suspected baby Marwha had caught the same bug when she developed a rash on her body. A spokesman for Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation said: "Cases of MRSA in mums and babies are very rare and taken extremely seriously."

Bulb

Surprising language abilities in children with autism

What began as an informal presentation by a clinical linguist to a group of philosophers, has led to some surprising discoveries about the communicative language abilities of people with autism.

Several years back, Robert Stainton, now a philosophy professor at The University of Western Ontario, attended a presentation by his long-time friend Jessica de Villiers, a clinical linguist now at the University of British Columbia. The topic was Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). De Villiers explained that many individuals with ASD have significant difficulties with what linguists call "pragmatics." That is, people with ASD often have difficulty using language appropriately in social situations. They do not make appropriate use of context or knowledge of what it would be "reasonable to say." Most glaringly, many speakers with ASD have immense trouble understanding metaphor, irony, sarcasm, and what might be intimated or presumed, but not stated.

Eye 1

Counting every thought: What consumers see when looking at ads

Thought-listing exercises are frequently used by researchers to gauge people's reactions to advertisements. But a new paper in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research from the Wharton School of Business suggests two alternative methods that may more accurately reveal what consumers actually notice.

"Despite their success in predicting attitudes, thought-listing techniques are suspect because thought-listing relies on intentional retrieval from memory to report internal cognitive processing, and this intentional retrieval has the potential to introduce bias," write Yanliu Huang and J. Wesley Hutchinson (University of Pennsylvania).

Bulb

University Of Hawaii Cleared For New West Nile Virus Study

Honolulu-- Researchers at the University of Hawaii have been given the green light for a study on the West Nile virus.

The head of the study showed how safeguards have been taken to keep the virus from escaping the lab.

Bell

Australia: Public warned of mossie virus threat

The South-Eastern Sydney Illawarra Health Service is warning residents to avoid all mosquito bites after some of the insects found in Sydney were shown to be carrying a rare disease.