Want an appointment with kidney specialist Adam Weinstein of Easton, Md.? If you're a senior covered by Medicare, the wait is eight weeks.
How about a checkup from geriatric specialist Michael Trahos? Expect to see him every six months: The Alexandria-based doctor has been limiting most of his Medicare patients to twice yearly rather than the quarterly checkups he considers ideal for the elderly. Still, at least he'll see you.
Doctors say Medicare cuts force painful decision about elderly patients
Just Say NO to Airport X-ray
Why You should REJECT "Routine" NON-Diagnostic X-ray.
Policies that allow the traveling population to be subject to greater exposure of ionizing, non-diagnostic x-ray will lead to greater incidence of thyroid disease, and greater burden on the health care system of this country. Ultimately it also means more money out of your hands, and into the hands of the pharmaceutical giants, the insurance companies who will raise their rates again with the excuse of greater disease rates, and the manufacturers of these airport x-ray scanners. None of these entities care that your long-term health is at risk, proportionately with greater x-ray exposure.
US cracks down on fake pot as public health hazard
Cracking down on fake pot, the government began emergency action Wednesday to outlaw five chemicals used in herbal blends to make synthetic marijuana. They're sold in drug paraphernalia shops and on the Internet to a burgeoning market of teens and young adults.
The Drug Enforcement Administration responded to the latest designer drug fad by launching a 30-day process to put these chemicals in the same drug category as heroin and cocaine. The agency acted after receiving increasing numbers of bad reports - including seizures, hallucinations and dependency - from poison centers, hospitals and law enforcement, .
UN AIDS chief: Spread of HIV in E. Europe is scary
A near tripling of new HIV infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia over the past nine years is frightening, the U.N.'s top AIDS official said Wednesday.
The United Nations estimates that 1.4 million people were living with HIV in the region in 2009 - almost three times the number in 2000 - and that, combined, the Russian Federation and Ukraine account for nearly 90 percent of newly reported infections in the region.
Radiation Worries for Children in Dentists’ Chairs
Because children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to radiation, doctors three years ago mounted a national campaign to protect them by reducing diagnostic radiation to only those levels seen as absolutely necessary.
It is a message that has resonated in many clinics and hospitals. Yet there is one busy place where it has not: the dental office.
Johnson & Johnson Recalls Children's Allergy, Pain Medications
Johnson & Johnson, the world’s biggest health-products maker, recalled about 4 million packages of Children’s Benadryl allergy tablets and about 800,000 bottles of junior-strength Motrin caplets, citing manufacturing lapses.
“When the manufacturing process was developed, it was not done as thoroughly as it should have been,” Bonnie Jacobs, a J&J spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview today. “There is no indication that the product does not meet quality standards.”
FDA Approves Second Trial of Stem-Cell Therapy
For only the second time, the Food and Drug Administration approved a company's request to test an embryonic stem cell-based therapy on human patients. Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), based in Marlborough, Mass., will begin testing its retinal cell treatment this year in a dozen patients with Stargardt's macular dystrophy, an inherited degenerative eye disease that leads to blindness in children. In July, the FDA released its hold on the first trial of an embryonic stem cell based treatment, for spinal cord injury.
ACT's trial will involve injecting retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells, which nurture the retina, into volunteers with the most advanced forms of Stargardt's, in an attempt to replace dying and no longer functioning photoreceptor cells. In animals, the infusion of healthy cells improved vision and rescued the function of some diseased cells.
More Articles...
Page 128 of 231
Health Glance





























