(Boston) - Researchers from Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health (BUSM, BUSPH), along with the VA Boston Healthcare System and Harvard Medical School, have found inpatient medical procedures increased more among non-elderly, lower- and medium- income populations, Hispanics and whites, after health care reform went into effect in Massachusetts. The findings, which currently appear in Medical Care, suggest improved access to outpatient care for vulnerable subpopulations since health care reform took effect. The 2006 Massachusetts health reform implementation ...

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, reports that it received fewer reports of injuries from companies in 2011. It is unclear if this is due to an actual drop in injuries or because more companies are failing to report injuries involving their products. CBS News reports that 10 companies were fined more than $4 million in 2011, up substantially from the previous year's two companies. Companies tend to be less than enthusiastic when voluntarily reporting injuries, but the reports are required by law. Some companies may claim they did not report certain ...

AURORA, Colo. (June 13, 2012) – Estrogen-deficient, postmenopausal women who have had their uterus removed appear to have stiffer arteries compared to similar women who have not had a hysterectomy, according to new research from the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The finding may help explain the greater risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in women, reported in previous research. "The message here is that having a hysterectomy may lead to large artery stiffening, which can lead to the development of cardiovascular disease," said Kerrie ...

North-East Passage soon free from ice again? Winter measurements show thin sea ice in the Laptev Sea, pointing to early and large-scale summer melt The North-East Passage, the sea route along the North coast of Russia, is expected to be free of ice early again this summer. The forecast was made by sea ice physicists of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association based on a series of measurement flights over the Laptev Sea, a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. Amongst experts the shelf sea is known as an "ice factory" of Arctic ...

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court held that people harmed by generic prescription drugs cannot sue generic manufacturers under the claim of inadequate warning labels. In PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing, the High Court dismissed the legal claims of two women who suffered physical injury because of the inadequate warning labels on their generic medication. While the Court ruled in 2009 that injured plaintiffs could bring state law claims against pharmaceutical companies for poor labeling on name-brand drugs, the PLIVA ruling bars similar suits against manufacturers of the generic ...

A significant number of teenagers are sending and receiving sexually explicit cell phone photos, often with little, if any, awareness of the possible psychological, interpersonal, and sometimes legal consequences of doing so. Even many of those who believe there could be serious legal consequences are undeterred and still choose to engage in 'sexting'. These findings by Donald Strassberg, from the University of Utah (US), and colleagues are published online in Springer's journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. New communication technologies play an increasingly important ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—June 13, 2012—Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes today are announcing their role in an unprecedented collaboration organized by the National Institutes of Health, which used groundbreaking methods to vastly improve our understanding of bacteria that reside in and on the human body. In a series of coordinated scientific reports, some 200 members of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) Consortium from nearly 80 research institutions used advanced DNA-sequencing techniques to identify the thousands of microorganisms that live on humans. Researchers believe ...

Children are not just miniature versions of adults. Their rapidly-developing bodies have different physiological sensitivities, and pediatric medical care should reflect this. However, for years, the same CT scans, fluoroscopy procedures and other X-ray imaging techniques have been used on both adults and children. Now, concerned about cancer diagnosis and other potential ill-effects of kids' exposure to radiation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is calling for X-ray imaging devices that take into account the unique health care needs of children. Cancer-Causing ...

A new study eases concerns that irrigating crops with water released from sewage treatment plants — an increasingly common practice in arid areas of the world — fosters emergence of the antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause thousands of serious infections each year. The research appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology. Eddie Cytryn and colleagues explain that a large fraction of antibiotics given to people or animals pass out of the body unchanged in the urine and are transferred via sewage systems to wastewater treatment facilities. These facilities ...

A long-used anti-cancer drug could be a starting point to develop new treatments for the incurable nerve disease known as Lou Gehrig's disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), scientists are reporting. Their research showing how the drug prevents clumping of an enzyme linked to ALS appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Lucia Banci, Ivano Bertini and colleagues explain that ALS causes a progressive loss of muscle control as the nerves that control body movements wither and die. Patients become weak and have difficulty swallowing and breathing, ...

A phenomenon first observed by an ancient Greek philosopher 2,300 years ago has become the basis for a new device designed to harvest the enormous amounts of energy wasted as heat each year to produce electricity. The first-of-its-kind "pyroelectric nanogenerator" is the topic of a report in ACS' journal Nano Letters. Zhong Lin Wang and colleagues at Georgia Tech explain that more than 50 percent of the energy generated in the U.S. each year goes to waste, much of it as heat released to the environment by everything from computers to cars to long-distance electric transmission ...

In the aftermath of a workplace injury, slicing through the red tape of the New York workers' compensation process is something you may be ill-equipped for. You just want to get better, and need the money you're entitled to in order to see you through your time of need. Now, a new set of medical testing regulations could further complicate your pursuit of workers' comp benefits. Regulations Require Workers to Go to In Network Testing Facilities Workers' compensation provides payments for wage replacement and medical expenses during the time an employee is incapacitated ...

WOODS HOLE, MASS. – The landmark publication this week of a "map" of the bacterial make-up of healthy humans has deep roots in an unexpected place: the ocean. Microbial communities that live on and in the human body, known collectively as the microbiome, are thought to have a critical role in human health and disease. Five years ago, the National Institutes of Health launched the ambitious Human Microbiome Project (HMP) to define the boundaries of bacterial variation found in 242 healthy human beings. "In order to understand what sick is, it's helpful to define the ...

The National Academy on an Aging Society has released its Public Policy & Aging Report (PPAR) that finds as many as one in 10 people age 60 and over has suffered some form of elder abuse. The National Academy is the policy institute of The Gerontological Society of America. Elder abuse covers a broad range of mistreatment, from physical abuse in a nursing home, to other forms neglect, including psychological and sexual abuse, and financial exploitation by caregivers and family members. Seniors are at risk by a great number of causes. Some have diminished mental ...

Many homeowners in Georgia are continuing to struggle with the current economic crisis. Despite reports of modest improvements in the economy, a lot of Georgians are still floundering in the weak housing market. Stresses are compounded for those dealing with job loss or having their hours cut back. These financial pressures are making it increasingly difficult for people to afford their mortgage payments. Falling Home Values Can Limit the Choices Available to Homeowners Unfortunately, this problem is compounded by the fact that home values continue to drop. Homes ...

When the smell of french fries wafts through the airplane cabin, is it from that guy in 24D scarfing down a fast-food meal — or the jet engines? That question certainly could be food-for-thought for imaginative passengers, as airline companies develop a bigger appetite for the fuels described in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. In the article, C&EN Senior Business Editor Melody M. Bomgardner explains that with successful test flights completed, airlines ...

Building a terrestrial planet requires raw materials that weren't available in the early history of the universe. The Big Bang filled space with hydrogen and helium. Chemical elements like silicon and oxygen - key components of rocks - had to be cooked up over time by stars. But how long did that take? How many of such heavy elements do you need to form planets? Previous studies have shown that Jupiter-sized gas giants tend to form around stars containing more heavy elements than the Sun. However, new research by a team of astronomers found that planets smaller than Neptune ...

Reintegrating into civilian society after a long prison term can be difficult for anyone. Finding a place to live and a way to support yourself is challenging, especially for people who don't have a strong network of family and friends to help them out. The process can be even more troubling for individuals convicted of violent sex crimes and other offenses carrying significant social stigma. Too often, these people are rejected by their communities, even though they are legally authorized to be released from prison. One such case is currently playing out in the California ...

(Boston) - Socioeconomic status across one's lifetime is related to weight gain and risk of obesity in African American women, according to a new study led by researchers from the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University. These findings currently appear online in the journal Ethnicity & Disease. The researchers followed 23,601 African American women under the age of 55 from 1995 to 2009. These women were participants in the Black Women's Health Study, a follow-up study of the health of African Americans conducted by the Slone Epidemiology Center. The women provided ...

According to the Institute of Medicine, preventable medical errors cause almost 100,000 American deaths every year. If these deaths were included in CDC statistics, medical mistakes would be the sixth leading cause of death. Hundreds of thousands more patients live after suffering from medical negligence, but face serious and long-term injuries. While these statistics are alarming, forgoing medical care entirely is simply not an option. So what are you to do about medical errors? As a patient, there are several measures you can take to reduce the risk, as well as after-the-fact ...

Since 1990, annual maternal deaths have declined by almost one half and the deaths of young children have declined from 12 million to 7.6 million in 2010. Some of the world's poorest countries have achieved spectacular progress in reducing child deaths. Rates of child mortality in many African countries have been dropping twice as fast in recent years as during the 1990s. In Botswana, Egypt, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda and the United Republic of Tanzania, the rate of decline was on average 5 percent or more a year between 2000 and 2010. Similar progress has been ...

Increasingly, sex offenders are being stripped of even the slightest semblance of privacy rights. But, in Washington State, the school remains one of the last bastions of discretion for minors convicted of a sex offense. Schools Are Not Sheriff's Departments (But Some Would Like To Change That) Washington law prevents schools from disseminating a student's criminal history to parents, the public or other students. For juvenile sex crimes that result in required registration as a sex offender, school administrators are informed -- but they may only share this information ...

Actress Sharon Stone, best known for her roles in "Basic Instinct" and "Casino" is being sued by her former live-in nanny Erlinda T. Elemen for wrongful termination, harassment and failure to prevent harassment. In a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Elemen alleges Stone terminated her for accepting overtime pay, and repeatedly making comments during the course of her employment that equated being Filipino with being stupid. Elemen also said the actress criticized her accent and told her not to speak in front of Stone's children so ...

A national research collaboration of senior researchers, including a researcher from Moffitt Cancer Center, has found that 20 to 25 percent of "heavily pre-treated" patients with a variety of cancers who enrolled in a clinical trial had "objective and durable" responses to a treatment with BMS-936558, an antibody that specifically blocks programmed cell death 1 (PD-1). PD-1 is a key immune "checkpoint" receptor expressed by activated immune cells (T-cells) and is involved in the suppression of immunity. The clinical trial, designed to assess the anti-tumor activity and ...

An Indiana University team of researchers has conducted the most in-depth and diverse genetic analysis of the defense systems that trillions of micro-organisms in the human body use to fend off viruses. The work is among a collection of 16 research papers released today by the Human Microbiome Project Consortium, a National Institutes of Health-led effort to map the normal microbial make-up of healthy humans. Led by IU Bloomington assistant professor of informatics and computing Yuzhen Ye, the team of bioinformaticists and biologists reconstructed arrays of clusters of ...