A snapshot of an average day in the lives of U.S. teens shows hundreds of thousands are smoking, drinking and ingesting illegal drugs, according to a report from the federal government.
On an average day, nearly 1.2 million teenagers smoked cigarettes, 631,000 drank and 586,000 used marijuana, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found.
BOSTON - Sabrina Rahim doesn't practice any particular faith, but she had no problem signing a letter declaring that because of her deeply held religious beliefs, her 4-year-old son should be exempt from the vaccinations required to enter preschool.
WASHINGTON - A county in southern Virginia closed its 21 schools on Wednesday to clean them to prevent the spread of a dangerous bacterial infection that killed a 17-year-old high school student, officials said.
Tangerang regency in Banten province has recorded five deaths from bird flu after the latest victim, a 12-year-old boy, died from the virus on Oct. 13.
The regency health agency's head of communicable disease prevention, Yuliah Iskandar, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday the boy, a resident of Ceger village in Sepatan district, had suffered high fever from Sept. 30 but was only admitted to Tangerang General Hospital on Oct. 8.
The boy, identified only as Ir, was then transferred to Persahabatan Hospital on Oct. 9 under suspicions he had contracted bird flu.
Almost 90% of teenagers aged 12-18 claim to have been victims of some level of sexual violence, according to a study conducted jointly by the University of Haifa and Ben Gurion University. The research surveyed 1,036 high school students. Additionally, 82% of the boys and 76% of the girls reported said that they had been subjects of violent physical assault.
Prof. Rachel Lev-Wiesel from the University of Haifa's School of Social Work, one of the authors of the study, noted that the results showed a distressing increase in the incidence of violence - both sexual and physical - over the past few years. The number of criminal files opened by the police for assault against children rose from 6,370 in 1998 to 8,805 in 2005. According to the National Council for the Child, the number of children treated for suspected violent attacks or abuse in 2005 stood at more than 37,000, a rise of 120% over the past decade. Of the 37,000, 30.5% were reported physical violence, 9.9% sexual, 13% psychological and 36.8% varying degrees of neglect.
Maggie Fox
ReutersWed, 17 Oct 2007 12:57 UTC
Two drug-resistant "superbugs" are becoming more common across the United States including one that causes hard-to-treat ear infections in children, researchers reported on Tuesday.
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| ©REUTERS/Alexandra Winkler
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| In this file photo a medical technical assistant holds a dish of bacteria culture at the Robert Koch scientific Institute in Berlin October 31, 2001.
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Eating garlic is one of the best ways to lower high blood pressure and protect yourself from cardiovascular disease. A new study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) shows this protective effect is closely linked to how much hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is produced from garlic compounds interacting with red blood cells.
Haider Rizvi
IPSWed, 17 Oct 2007 06:11 UTC
Despite its enormous wealth and highly advanced technology, the United States lags far behind other industrialised countries -- and even some developing ones -- in providing adequate health care to women during pregnancy and childbirth.
The U.S. ranks 41st in a new analysis of maternal mortality rates in 171 countries released by a group of U.N. public health experts on Friday. The survey shows that even a developing country like South Korea is ahead of the United States.
"Women are unnecessarily dying from pregnancy and childbirth complications because the U.S. is moving in a wrong direction," said Beneva Schulte of Women Deliver, a Washington-based group campaigning for women's reproductive rights and access to public health care.
Student health officials say a broad contraceptive program is 'totally needed.'
Students who have parental permission to be treated at King Middle School's health center would be able to get birth control prescriptions under a proposal that the Portland School Committee will consider Wednesday.
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| Graphic shows staph infection incident rates by age and race and percentage of infections by incident type; two sizes; 2c x 4 inches; 96.3 mm x 101.6 mm; 1c x 6 1/4 inches; 46.5 mm x 158.8 mm
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CHICAGO - More than 90,000 Americans get potentially deadly infections each year from a drug-resistant staph "superbug," the government reported Tuesday in its first overall estimate of invasive disease caused by the germ.
