Health News

Tiny particles lead medicine from science fiction to nanorobots fighting cancer
TORONTO - More than 40 years ago, the film "Fantastic Voyage" took moviegoers on a journey that was pure science fiction - a submarine and its crew were shrunk to the size of a cell and injected into the bloodstream of a dying scientist. The mission was to navigate their way to his brain, where they would blast apart a soon-to-be-fatal blood clot and save his life.
      

SimplySmart makeup remover towelettes recalled due to bacteria
EASTON, Md. - Some lots of a makeup remover that's packaged as a single towelette have tested positive for a bacteria that could cause eye infections, prompting a recall of the product in Canada and the United States. Celeste Industries Corp. of Easton, Md., has recalled all lots of SimplySmart 'Remove' Makeup Remover, it said in a news release Monday.
      

New research finds brain pacemaker helps Parkinson's, but there are risks
CHICAGO - Parkinson's sufferers who had electrodes implanted in their brains improved substantially more than those who took only medicine, according to the biggest test yet of deep brain stimulation. The study, which followed patients for six months, offers the most hopeful news to date for Parkinson's sufferers. The new technique reduced tremors, rigidity and flailing of the limbs and allowed people to move freely for nearly five extra hours a day.
      

CNN: Sanjay Gupta approached about surgeon general post
WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama has approached CNN's chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, to be the country's next surgeon general, the cable news network said Tuesday. CNN said it has kept Gupta from reporting on health-care policy and other matters involving the incoming Obama administration since learning he was under consideration for the post.
      

'Unintended events' found in 32 deaths at Winnipeg hospitals last year: review
WINNIPEG - The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority says 32 deaths in city hospitals last year had nothing to do with the underlying health condition of the patients. The authority says the deaths were due to "unintended events" resulting from treatment.
      

Shaping good health as tweens and teens outgrow pediatrician
WASHINGTON - Ever watched a teen skulk in the corner of a toddler-packed pediatrician's waiting room, obviously wishing to be anywhere else? Adolescents aren't just big kids, and too many start falling through cracks in the health care system when they pass the stage of preschool shots and summer camp checkups - what a major new report calls missed opportunities to shape the next generation's well-being.
      

N.S. nursing home staff abused residents 30 times over past year: records
HALIFAX, N.S. - Residents of nursing facilities in Nova Scotia suffered 30 incidents of physical, financial or emotional abuse by staff members over a one-year period, which an Opposition politician calls a "disturbing" signal that some caregivers are overworked and undertrained. The list obtained by The Canadian Press under access to information laws is from 73 investigations done by the Health Department between Oct. 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2008. The investigations were done after complaints were filed under the Protection of Persons in Care Act, legislation that has been in force in the province for just over a year.
      

Health Canada works on new safety information for quit-smoking drug Champix
OTTAWA - Health Canada says it is in the process of strengthening safety information on the labels of the smoking-cessation product Champix. In a statement Tuesday, it said it's working with the drugmaker Pfizer to update prescribing information after reports of serious psychiatric symptoms associated with the use of Champix.
      

Drugmaker Merck seeks Gardasil approval for boys
TRENTON, N.J. - Drugmaker Merck & Co. has asked federal regulators to approve use in males for its vaccine against the human papillomavirus, which causes cervical and other sexually transmitted cancers. The application was submitted in late December, Merck spokeswoman Amy Rose said Tuesday.
      

Infant's corpse thrown out with the trash at a New Jersey hospital
JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Police are searching garbage dumps in New Jersey and Pennsylvania for the body of a baby that was apparently thrown out with the trash at a Jersey City hospital. Christ Hospital spokeswoman Barbara Davy says the baby was stillborn on Dec. 21 and the body was placed in the hospital morgue. But the body was gone when a funeral home employee came to pick it up on Jan. 2.
      

China says 19-year-old woman dies from bird flu
BEIJING - A Chinese woman has died from bird flu in a Beijing hospital after contracting the disease last month, the government said Tuesday. The Ministry of Health said Huang Yanqing, 19, died Monday. The official Xinhua News Agency said Huang became ill after buying and cleaning nine ducks in December at a market in Hebei province, which borders Beijing.
      

Program offers lifeline to young women stricken with breast cancer
TORONTO - Some are young mothers in their 30s, others 20-somethings starting their first jobs, and on rare occasions they are even teenage girls just finishing high school. At an age when most of their peers are establishing intimate relationships or starting families, these young women are facing a demon they hadn't expected to worry about for many, many years.
      

CUPE to push Ontario government to honour funding commitments
KINGSTON, Ont. - Union officials representing 8,000 hospital staff meet in Kingston today to call on the Ontario government to honour health care funding pledges. CUPE's Ontario Council of Hospital Unions warns that freezing hospital funding "would kill 9,000 Ontario health care jobs" and degrade patient care.
      

Flu-like symptoms shut down New Brunswick hospital to most visitors
CAMPBELLTON, N.B. - An illness making the rounds in a northern New Brunswick hospital has prompted officials to close the facility to most visitors. Some staff members and patients at Campbellton Regional Hospital have developed flu-like symptoms. The exact nature of the illness has not been determined.
      

Almost 15 per cent of people with dementia under 65, Alzheimer Society finds
TORONTO - Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia are typically seen as afflicting the elderly, but new data suggest an increasing number of baby boomers are also being struck by the brain-destroying diseases. Of the half-million Canadians affected by various forms of dementia, about 71,000 - or almost 15 per cent - are under age 65, says a study by the Alzheimer Society of Canada. Of those, about 50,000 are 59 or younger.
      

Tests helps tease out 'good' stem cells from cancer-causing ones: study
TORONTO - One of the big worries about one day using stem cells to grow new organs and other tissues for curing disease is that these little regenerative powerhouses could give rise to tumours and end up doing more harm than good. Now Canadian researchers have found a way to tell good stem cells from bad.
      

Promised listeriosis probe still lacks investigator
OTTAWA - The Harper government has not yet named the leader of a promised probe into the listeriosis outbreak that killed 20 people - a lag critics say discredits an already suspect process. Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the "arm's-length" investigation last September, four days before forcing an early federal election. But he stopped short of calling for a full judicial inquiry as the death toll climbed from the listeriosis outbreak linked to Maple Leaf Foods.
      

Danny's heart: U.S. College swimmer faces mortality, has open-heart surgery
CHICAGO - This time, when the lanky young man stepped into the pool, his chest was tight. His muscles ached. He pushed off to take his first strokes, and grimaced at the pain. That he was back in the pool just six weeks after open-heart surgery was quite remarkable, but he was still a bit crestfallen. He could only swim a few hundred yards.
      

Scientists hope to prevent malaria by cutting lifespan of mosquitoes
WASHINGTON - Old mosquitoes usually spread disease, so Australian researchers figured out a way to make the pests die younger - naturally, not poisoned. Scientists have been racing to genetically engineer mosquitoes to become resistant to diseases like malaria and dengue fever that plague millions around the world, as an alternative to mass spraying of insecticides.
      

Researchers still don't know what to make of avian influenza strain H5N1
TORONTO - Five years after the avian influenza strain H5N1 started killing poultry and people in Southeast Asia, researchers still don't know what to make of the dangerous and unpredictable virus. After cutting an ever-widening swath through poultry flocks and infecting - and killing - mounting numbers of people in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the virus seemed to almost take a breather in 2008. The year that just ended saw fewer recorded human cases than any since 2003, when this cycle of H5N1 activity began.