Williams Inference

Nine children in Rochester, N.Y., came down with a strain of S. pneumoniae that resisted all 18 antibiotics approved for kids. It finally succumbed to Levaquin, a drug for adults. The number of new classes of antibiotics in development to combat this and other superbugs is exactly zero. (BW, 10/29/07)

Genetic testing is now available at the drugstore. A company called Sorenson Genomics has started selling a paternity test kit through Rite Aid stores. It appears to be the first time a DNA test is being sold through a major pharmacy chain. (NYT, 11/26/07)

A new, apparently more virulent form of a virus that usually causes nothing worse than a nasty cold is circulating around the U.S. At least 1,035 Americans in four states have been infected so far by the virus, known as an adenovirus. Dozens have been hospitalized, many requiring intensive care, and at least 10 have died. (Wash Post, 12/11/07)

American physician and psychiatrist Joseph Hibbeln compared data on fish consumption with figures on depression and murder in a large number of countries around the world. In countries in which fish consumption is low, Hibbeln found the likelihood of suffering from depression was up to 50 times greater than in countries where it is high. (Ode, Sept 2007)

Trauma is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S., taking 160,000 lives in 2004, more than any other cause except heart disease and cancer. (NYT, 11/6/07)

In August, the PDA approved Pfizer's drug maraviroc, the first in a new class of HIV drugs but only for people with a particular genetic profile - the first time a drug has been approved on the condition that people have a genetic test on a virus. (New Scientist, 8/11/07)

Johnson & Johnson has proposed that Britain's national health service pay for the cancer drug, Velcade, but only for people who benefit from the medicine, which can cost $48,000 a patient. The company would refund any money spent on patients whose tumors do not shrink sufficiently after a trial treatment. (NYT, 7/14/07)

The amount of five major painkillers sold at retail outlets rose 88 percent between 1997 and 2005, according to an Associated Press analysis of statistics from the DEA. (AP, 8/20/07)

Doctors reported this year that a 49-year-old woman in Italy died after 625 days of hospital treatment for drug-resistant TB. The world is facing a return to the era before antibiotics when the white plague, as TB was known, was often a death sentence, according to Mario Raviglione, director of WHO’s Stop TB Department. (Wash Post, 5/3/07)

A child born in Costa Rica today is expected to live longer than an American child born today. An American mother has almost three times the risk of losing a child as a mother in the Czech Republic. A woman is 50 percent more likely to die in childbirth in the U.S. than in Europe. (Nicholas Kristof in the NYT, 5/21/07)

Research by John Wennberg and his colleagues at Dartmouth Medical School suggest that if everyone in America went to the Mayo Clinic, our annual health-care bill would be 25% lower and the average quality of care would improve. If everyone got care at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, our health-care costs would be lower by one third. (WSJ, 4/5/07)

 Bhutan is the first country in the world to institute a complete ban on smoking. It is part of the King of Bhutan’s plan for “gross national happiness,” which hesays is more important than the gross national product. (USN&WR, 4/2/07)

A provocative new study has found that longtime, middle-aged migraine sufferers showed less cognitive decline and memory loss over a period of 12 years than a group of migraine-free adults. (McClatchy-Tribune, 4/27/07)

Men whose mothers ate a lot of beef during their pregnancy have a sperm count about 25 percent below normal and three times the normal risk of fertility problems. (Balt Sun, 3/30/07)

In June 2004, the PDA issued new guidelines making it easier for drug companies to turn herbal remedies into Western medicines. And late last year, the PDA approved its first botanical drug under the new system, an ointment for genital warts called Veregen, made from green-teas leaves. (WSJ, 3/2/07)

Nearly two million people catch bacterial infections in U.S. hospitals every year and 90,000 of them die -seven times as high as a decade ago as germs become immune to almost every antibiotic developed during the past 60 years. (WSJ, 6/8/07)

To save later, some employers are offering free health programs now. In the most radical of various moves, a number of companies give away drugs to help workers manage chronic conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and depression. (NYT, 2/21/07)

GPS technology is now being used in the radiation treatment of prostate cancer. Doctors implant tiny elec¬tromagnetic sensors into the prostate that update a tu¬mor's position and send the coordinates to a computer. (Wash Post, 2/20/07)

"We used to consider metastatic cancer incurable," says Dr. Yoshiya Yamada, a radiation oncologist at Memori¬al Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. But improved radia¬tion therapies are dramatically changing that equation, he says. "We're giving options to people that had no options." (BW, 2/12/07)

"The average provider - doctors or hospitals - has be¬tween 5 and 100 reimbursement rates for the exact same procedure," says Timothy Cahill, president of My Medical Control. "A hospital chain with multiple loca¬tions may have 150 rates for the same procedure. Con¬sumers don't know this." The Georgia Hospital Assoc. started a Web site listing fees for common medical procedures at each of the state's 141 acute-care hospi¬tals. (NYT, 2/27/07)

The cost of sending an employee overseas for proce¬dures like removing a gallbladder can be at least 50 percent less than having the work done in the United States, even if the employer pays for the worker to spend recovery time in a fine hotel. (NYT, 3/2/07)

"Walking may be as close to a magic bullet as you'll find in modern medicine," says Dr. JoAnn Manson, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. "If there was a pill that could lower the risk of chronic disease like walking does, people would be clamoring for it." (Bait Sun, 3/16/07)

Unintentional fatal drug overdoses in the U.S. nearly doubled from 1999 to 2004, overtaking falls to become the nation's second-leading cause of accidental death, behind automobile crashes. (AP, 2/10/07)

 "While more older people are attracted to nursing, the number of people entering nursing in their early to mid-20s remains at its lowest point in 40 years." -Dartmouth economics professor Douglas Staiger. (Wash Post, 1/16/07)

Family members of hospitalized patients of trying to be their advocates can phone for an in-house emergency team if they feel the patient's care is falling short. The in-house 911 has been available at many hospitals, but only to staff members. Now at least seven U.S. medical centers, some of which have multiple hospitals, have brought the patients and family members into the loop. (USA Today, 1/29/07)

Doctors at Johns Hopkins and other medical institutions are beginning to report a curious increase in children with kidney stones, an ailment once found almost exclu¬sively in adults. "Five years ago, we used to see maybe a handful of children a year. Now, it's five or six a month," said Dr. Yegappan Lakshmanan, a pediatric urologist. (Bait Sun, 12/29/06)

Diabetes is striking a growing number of children around the world as parents and doctors fail to diagnose a disease that until recently was associated mostly with middle-aged and elderly people. "The childhood obesity epidemic is really driving diabetes in children," said Francine Kaufman, a professor of pediatrics at USC. (Reuters, 12/5/06) 

 A clinical study of 700 patients funded by Abbott Labo-ratories is using ultrasound probes and other devices mounted at the end of long catheters to identify the type and location of plaque in coronary arteries. The ultra¬sound scans generate so much data that it takes four days to log the initial information received on each patient. (NYT, 11/27/06)

More than 30 commonly used drugs cany a risk - albeit a small one - of inducing potentially dangerous reac¬tions that can cause your heart to beat out of control or, in some cases, stop altogether. "With sudden death occurring in over 300,000 people in the U.S., how many are due to drug effects?" wonders Douglas Zipes, a professor emeritus at Indiana University School of Medicine. "We have no idea." (WSJ, 10/21/06)

Men who use mobile phones for long periods at a time may be at risk of damaging their sperm, according to research presented to a American Society for Reproduc¬tive Medicine conference. (Guardian. 10/24/06)

Schizophrenia patients do as well, or perhaps even bet¬ter, on older psychiatric drugs compared with newer and far more costlier medications according to a study funded by the British government. (Wash Post, 10/3/06)

A study comparing the health of non-Hispanic whites in Britain and the U.S. found that the middle-aged Ameri¬can population is less healthy than their British counter¬parts overall, with a higher instance of diabetes (12.5% v. 6.1%)... high blood pressure (42.4% v. 33.8%).. . heart disease (15.1% v. 9.6%)... lung disease (8.1% v. 6.3%).. . and risk for cancer (9.5% v. 5.5%). Those at the top of the income and education scale in the U.S. suffered diabetes and heart disease at a similar rate to those at the bottom of the scale in Britain. (Daily Health News, 9/12/06)

With 18- to 34-year-olds the fastest growing group of uninsured, states are extending the time children can be a dependent for insurance purposes. In New Jersey, which last year enacted the highest age limit, children can "piggyback" until they turn 30, as long as they live in the state and don't have their own children. (NYT, 9/17/06)

For the sixth year in a row, VA hospitals last year scored higher than private facilities based on patient surveys on the quality of care received. The VA scored 83 out of 100; private institutions, 71. (Time, 9/4/06)

The UK's huge project to investigate how genes and lifestyle combine to cause common diseases has re¬ceived the go-ahead to proceed in full. After a success¬ful three-month pilot scheme, Biobank's organizers will now begin recruiting half a million citizens between the ages of 40 and 69 - about 1 percent of the UK popula¬tion. (New Scientist, 8/26/06)

A mix of bacteria-killing viruses sprayed on cold cuts, hot dogs and sausages to kill strains of the Listeria monocytogenes bacterium that kill hundreds of people a year won PDA approval in August - the first-ever ap¬proval of viruses as a food additive. (AP, 8/18/06)

As one of two medical music therapists at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, Judy Nguyen provides 350 to 400 music therapy sessions a month to patients. She is part of a growing trend to incorporate music, writing and visual art into the clinical treatment of patients. (USN&WR, 6/5/06)

In a healthcare study, Dartmouth Medical School's Dr. Elliot S. Fisher expected to find that people in areas with more health care would be healthier and longer-lived. The opposite was true. "If anything, it looks like there is a substantially increased risk of death if cared for in high-cost systems," he says. (BW, 5/29/06)

Platensimycin, derived from the soil bacterium Strepto-myces platensis, is first antibiotic to kill bacteria by preventing them from making vital fatty acids. Mice that were infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin resistant enterococci -two of the most common hospital superbugs - were cured without apparent side effects. (New Scientist, 5/20/06)

"We can't exclude everyone who got bit by a mosquito." - Lewis W. Teperman, director of transplantation at New York University, on the difficulty of screening organ donors for the West Nile virus. One of his patients died after receiving an infected liver. (NYT, 5/16/06)

To cater to an international clientele, many private hospitals abroad are applying for accreditation (many of them successfully) from the Joint Commission Interna¬tional, the global arm of the institution that accredits most U.S. hospitals. (Time, 5/29/06)

"About half of our customers are now men," said Marika Olsen, a spokeswoman for the Pritikin Longev¬ity Center and Spa in Aventure, Fla. In the past, many men attended only when prodded by their wives. "Now we are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of men who are coming on their own," she said. (NYT, 4/23/06)

A review published last year in the Annals of Internal Medicine examined the connection between a doctor's years in practice and the quality of care he or she pro¬vided. To the surprise of everyone - including the review's author, Harvard Medical School's Dr. Niteesh Choudhry - more than half the studies found decreasing performance with increasing years in practice for all outcomes assessed; only 4% found increasing perfor¬mance with increasing age for some or all outcomes. (Time, 5/1/06)

American women who eat dairy products appear to be five times as likely to give birth to fraternal twins as those who do not. (NYT, 5/30/06)

In a significant shift, researchers are coming to believe that cancer comprises hundreds of subgroups based more on genetic makeup than location. This new think¬ing means that instead of focusing cancer treatment on organs, the emphasis increasingly is going to be on finding the specific genetic changes driving an individual's cancer and targeting them with drugs. (WSJ, 4/4/06)

"If God loves you, you do much better than people who don't have any beliefs." - AIDS researcher Solomon Katz, on a study showing that people who are HIV-positive and believe God loves them lose vital CD4 immune-system cells at only one-third the rate of those who don't believe, or who believe God is punishing them. (San Francisco Chronicle, 4/6/06)

The number of Ohioans dying from the intestinal bacte¬ria known as C. diff jumped fourfold between 2000 and 2005, when the aggressive infection contributed to an estimated 785 deaths. (Plain Dealer, 2/9/06)

In February, the National Center for Health Statistics "announced some spectacular news. The number of Americans dying of cancer fell for the first time in decades. . . . Especially stunning is that fatalities are falling even though Americans are living longer. Can¬cer is a degenerative disease, meaning that the likeli¬hood of contracting one of its multiple forms rises exponentially with age." (WSJ Editorial, 2/23/06)

For the past 10 years, Johns Hopkins pathologist Rob¬ert H. Getzenberg has studied a protein called early prostate cancer antigen (EPCA). In a small study pub¬lished last year, he found that the protein predicted prostate cancer with 90% accuracy. (Bait Sun, 2/27/06)

In the 90s, many drug companies cut back on research focusing on natural products. But now, in some cor¬ners, natural products are returning to fashion. One of the biggest hopes for multiple-sclerosis patients, a Novartis drug, is derived from a chemical found in a fungus called vegetable cicada. Drugs derived from chemicals in sea squirts, Gila monsters and vampire bats are now in testing or recently on the market. (WSJ, 1/9/06)

Abraham Kocheril, the head of cardiac electro-physiol¬ogy at the Carle Heart Centre, in Illinois, has been researching the effects of harp music on respiratory levels and heart rate. He claims that the harp's unique sound holds positive benefits for our hearts. (The Times, 2/18/06)

Common infections, such as cold and influenza, may precipitate some cases of certain cancers. An analysis of 44 years of British pediatric cancer data showed that both leukemia and brain tumors occurred in clusters. These outbreaks of infection contribute to those malig¬nancies, researchers said. (Wash Times, 12/13/05)

Not so long ago, attention-deficit disorder was widely regarded as a children's ailment. But experts are in¬creasingly discovering that it afflicts all ages. Psy¬chologist and author Thomas E. Brown has seen his practice expand to include younger adults and seniors. (Time, Dec 2005)

At the University Hospital of Liege in Belgium, a team of doctors has logged more than 5,100 surgeries by hypnosedation, a technique that replaces general anes¬thesia with hypnosis, local anesthesia and a mild seda¬tive. (Time, 3/27/06)

The number of new prescriptions for impotence drugs fell last year. Doctors wrote about 10% fewer prescriptions last October than they did in October 2004. (NYT, 12/4/05)

Canada's first private primary medical center opened in Vancouver in December. In exchange for a $ 1,000 enrollment fee and about $2,000 in annual charges, patients will be provided "unhurried" access to doctors. (The Week, 12/2/05)

Last year, the FDA approved the heart failure drag BiDil for use by about 750,000 U.S. African Americans, the first drug approved for a specific racial group. (USA Today, 10/20/05)

A growing number of women in their 30s, 40s and 50s are developing eating disorders - long thought to be an illness that almost exclusively affected adolescents. (Bait Sun, 10/28/05)

Two DNA-based vaccines for animals have been approved for use: One is being used to protect salmon from an untreatable disease called infectious hemato-poietic necrosis; another is being used to protect horses from West Nile virus. (WSJ. 9/23/05)

An estimated 98,000 Americans die each year as a result of medical error, and a nearly equal number succumb to infections they acquire in hospitals. (NYT, 8/29/05)

"Arkansas is the only state that screens every student in public school for body mass index. We weight them and measure their height, and with that, we compute the body mass index and mail the results home to the parents," said Gov. Mike Huckabee. (NYT, 8/7/05)

Using advanced lab techniques, scientists have found that with some chemicals, traces as minute as mere parts per trillion have biological effects. That's one millionth of the smallest traces even measurable three decades ago, when many of today's environmental laws were written. (WSJ, 7/25/05)

Researchers in Holland found, for the first time,-chemicals used as antibacterial agents, flame-retardants and detergents in umbilical-cord blood. (New Scientist, 9/10/05)

People with schizophrenia typically do far better in poorer countries such as India, Nigeria and Columbia than they do in Denmark, England and the United States. Patients in India live with their families or other social networks and are given low-stress jobs. (Wash Post, 6/27/05)

A hormone in Gila monster saliva is the basis for a new anti-diabetes drug, Byetta. (USA Today, 6/9/05)

In neurofeedback, people are shown a real-time measure of some seemingly uncontrollable aspect of their physiology - heart rate, say - and encouraged them to try to change it. Astonishingly, many patients found that they could, though only rarely could they describe how they did it. (New Scientist, 5/28/05)

The conventional wisdom for runners is that the older you get, the slower you get. In fact, male and female runners over 50 are increasing their speed - at a faster rate than younger runners, according to Yale medical school orthopedist Peter Jokl. (USN&WR, 4/11/05)

Americans who attend religious services at least once a week enjoy better-than-average health and lower rates of illness, including depression. (WSJ, 5/3/05)

Several Minnesota hospital systems have agreed to grant discounts to uninsured patients and scale back aggressive debt-collection efforts. Minnesota is the first state to broker such a deal. (USA Today, 5/5/05)

Bedbugs are making a comeback, in part because some of the pesticides that had kept them at bay have been phased out. Their resurgence startles even bug experts. Gary Bennett, professor of urban entomology at Purdue, has studied insects for 50 years and says he hadn't seen a case of bedbugs until recently. (WSJ, 4/21/05)

Yoplait Healthy Heart is the first yogurt in the U.S. to serve up plant sterols - naturally occurring substances that scientific research shows may inhibit the absorption of cholesterol. (BW, 4/1/05)

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota is reimbursing its customers for working out regularly, one of the first health insurers in the nation to give its members rebates. Insured members receive up to a $20 monthly credit if they work out for at least eight days a month. (Wash Times, 4/1/05)

Under a new policy that legal specialists say is the first of its kind, Weyco, an insurance benefits administrator, began testing its 200 employees for smoking in January. (NYT, 2/8/05)

"Forty years ago there were only a handful of mental illnesses, and relatively few people were seen as being manipulated by a mental 'illness.' Now there are innumerable mental disorders, created by psychiatrists. In fact the most recent edition of the bible of psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Metal Disorders, covers everyone. If every other diagnosis fails, you've always got 'personality disorder not otherwise specified.'" - Psychologist and writer Dorothy Rowe. (New Scientist, 2/5/05)

The United States stopped opening medical schools in the 1980s because of a predicted surplus of doctors. The Association of American Medical Colleges dropped this long-standing view in 2002. Last month,it recommended increasing the number of U.S. medical students by 15%. (USA Today, 3/3/05)

A physician plans to open what will become Britain’s first privately financed medical school since the 19th century, promising to train doctors in about half the time it takes at one of the nation’s 28 existing medical schools. (CHE, 2/25/05)

Health plans and medical groups around the country are now beginning to pay doctors to answer patient e-mail messages, just as they pay for office visits. “The intelligence of our patients never ceases to amaze me,” say’s Dr. Barbara Walters of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. “Patients can describe what’s going on with them, if given the chance and given the time.” NYT, 3/2/05)

Dr. James C. Rosser, Jr., chief of minimally invasive surgery at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, is using video games to help develop and train a new generation of surgeons. He uses the games as a training tool in his Top Gun Laparoscopic Skills and Suturing Program. (NYT, 2/24/05)

The United States ranks 27th in the world in life expectancy – behind countries with half the national income per capita of the U.S. and with a fraction of the expenditure on health care. (NYT, 2/27/05)

A Harvard Medical School survey found that 38 million adult Americans now take herbal supplements, up 50% from 1997, and 10 million adults practice yoga, up 40%. (New Scientist, 1/15/05)

In 1979, fewer than 10% of the nation’s surgeries were performed outside the hospital setting. Today, the figure is 65%. There were soon be more than 5,000 ASCs, or ambulatory surgical centers, around the country. (Wash Post, 12/21/04)

When Dr. Armand Nicoli, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, began his career,the maladies facing him in his practice dealt a lot with the repression or suppression of impulses. Today, he notes, patients suffer from the inability to control the expression of impulses. (The Median, Fall 2004)

In recent years a number of bacteria including the Lyme bacterium have come to light that are able to trigger symptoms of mental illness, ranging from behavioral problems to depression and full-blown psychosis. Some researchers are ready to challenge the conventional wisdom about the principal causes of mental illness. (New Scientist, 11/6/04)

Until a few years ago, drug-resistant infections were unheard of except in hospital patients, prison inmates and the chronically ill. Now resistant strains of Staphylococus aureus are infecting healthy children, athletes and others with no connection to a hospital. “This is a new bug . . . more dangerous than other staph,” said Dr. John Bartlett of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. (AP, 9/29/04)

At Partners Healthcare System, which offers on-line second opinions from experts at three Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals, a recent review of cases found that the Harvard docs disagreed with the initial diagnosis just 5% of the time – but they disagreed with the treatment plan 90% of the time. (WSJ, 8/12/04)

Postexercise euphoria may be the result of naturally occurring cannabinoids – the same family of chemicals that gives marijuana smokers their high, a new study suggests. (Prevention, 8/04)

Finnish armed forces said they are dismissing more and more young conscripts because they’d grown up addicted to the Internet. “They are physically too weak to do the service, and mentally unprepared to deal with people directly,” said a military official. (The Week, 8/13/04)

Myopia is on the increase in most places, but in some places it has reached extraordinary levels. In Singapore, 80% of 18-year-old male army recruits are myopic, up from 25% just 30 years ago. (New Scientist, 7/10/04)

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida recently offered 3,000 doctors the option to be reimbursed for online medical consultations, using secure, password-protected “web-Visits” to treat everything from cold and flu symptoms to muscle aches and allergies. (WSJ, 9/2/04)

A new study estimates that medical errors in U.S. hospitals contributed to almost 600,000 patients deaths over the past three years, double the number of deaths from a study published in 2000 by the Institute of Medicine. (WSJ, 7/27/04)

Ruby Tuesday is the first chain restaurant to print nutrition facts on the menu. It lists calories, total fat, net carbs and fiber for every dish. (Time, 6/7/04)

The Black Death, which killed a third of Europe’s population in the 14th century, may not have been caused by the bubonic plague, a disease which can be treated today with antibiotics. Two Liverpool University researchers suspect an as-yet unidentified virus was the cause. Historical patterns suggest the virus is dormant and could reappear. (The Week, 6/11/04)

In Denver, developers are building a massive new neighborhood on the site of the former Stapleton Airport that features sidewalks and street patterns that are conducive to walking. In Columbia, Mo., parents escort children to school in “walking school buses.” In Norwich, Vt., doctors are writing prescriptions for walking. (Wash Post, 6/15/04)

When researchers in Spain gave statin drugs to HIV-positive people their virus levels dropped and white blood cell counts improved. The drugs may block entry and exit of the virus from cells. (New Scientist, 8/21/04)

Hospitals and medical practices have started bidding to pay professional sports teams as much as $1.5 million annually for the right to treat their high-salaried players. (NYT, 5/18/04)

People whose mothers had the flu during the first three months of pregnancy had seven times the normal incidence of schizophrenia. (New Scientist, 5/15/04)

A bone density study of the remains discovered in the medieval village of Wharram Percy in England found that the rate of bone loss due to osteoporosis was similar to that in modern women. (New Scientist, 5/15/04)

Walnuts are now more than just nuts. They’re heart savers, the first food to be allowed to bear a qualified health claim by the FDA. Walnuts can now bear a label saying that eating 1.5 ounces a day “may reduce heart disease.” (USN&WR, 4/12/04)

Last year, Terry Salo traveled from his home in Canada to Madras, India, for a partial hip replacement. Before airfare and other expenses, he paid $4,500 for the surgery at Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Ltd., a quarter of the cost for similar treatment in Europe and the U.S. (WSJ, 4/20/04)

The prescription drug Ritalin, best known as a treatment for children with ADD, has been co-opted by a new population: healthy people trying to boost their mental performance. In some circles, Ritalin is known as a “cognitive performance enhancer,” or the academic equivalent to doping in sports. (Chicago Tribune, 4/14/04)

“For the first time in memory, children are projected to have a shorter life span than their parents,” says David Katz, M.D., director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale U. Since 1976, the number of children ages 6 to 11 who are overweight has doubled; in kids ages 12 to 17 it’s tripled. Today, nine million children in the U.S. are overweight. (Child, 4/04)

Six months of brisk walking produced significant physical changes in the brains of subjects ages 60 to 79. They had increased connections between neurons in parts of the brain that make a person better able to pay attention. (Chicago Tribune, 3/17/04)

In doctors’ offices across the country, a group of common bacteria called Staphylococous aureus, or staph for short, are becoming resistant to the antibiotics that have been used to treat them for decades. Overuse of antibiotics does not explain the emergence of this new resistant staph. Many people with these infections have never taken antibiotics before. (NYT, 3/2/04)

Medi-spas are the fastest growing segment of the spa industry. Although there are 9,000 spas in the U.S., only about 500 have a doctor on staff. (Time, Mar 2004) Using an advanced brain scanning technology – the EP-MRSI - researchers in at Boston’s McLean Hospital scanned the brains of 30 people with bipolar disorder in an effort to find new treatments for the disease. In an unexpected twist, 23 of the 30 people in the study reported feeling significantly less depressed after the scan. (USN&WR, 2/16/2004)

In a recent study of 6,700 patients in 12 metropolitan areas, researchers found that the medical care for 30 different disorders, including diabetes, alcoholism and pneumonia, met national guidelines only slightly more than half the time. (NYT, 12/2/03)

An ancient Chinese herbal remedy is the key ingredient in a new inexpensive malaria cure. Recent tests show that Artekin cures nearly 100% of patients, even those with advanced cases of complicated malaria. (Telegraph, 11/16/03)

The 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has about 10,000 new entries or definitions. For the first time, the number of new entries related to health and medicine, almost 25% of the total, rival those related to technology. And 30-40% of the health and medicine entries are age-related. (NYT, 11/23/03)

Palliative care teams, which focus more on the relief of physical and emotional suffering than on cure or treatment, now exist in some 1,500 hospitals, up from fewer than 100 just five years ago. (NYT, 11/18/03)

Sprint planned its new 200-acre office park in Overland Park, Kan., with an eye to fitness. It banned cars, forcing employees to park in garages on the far side of a road ringing the campus and walk between buildings as much as a half-mile apart. (NYT, 10/12/03)

A new study says Americans are consuming more fruits and vegetables and are beginning to lose weight. “This is a shock to me,” says Harry Balzer, author of the study. “I’ve been watching the food industry for 25 years, and we’ve never seen America even hint at losing weight.” (WSJ, 10/14/03)

There are now more than 40 biotech antiangiogenic agents in various stages of clinical trials. These drugs cut off the blood vessels that supply tumors with oxygen and other nutrients necessary for survival and growth. (Wash Times, 11/9/03)

Australian scientists have found a surprising potential cure for skin cancer – the common cold virus. Researchers discovered melanoma cells died after infecting them with the cold bug, called the coxsackievirus. (Herald Sun, 1/8/04)

A new study says PET scans were able to find cancers in locations that had been unnoticed in patients already diagnosed with, or suspected of having, cancer elsewhere. (WSJ, 1/28/04)

Contrary to popular belief, patients with health insurance – not those without – account for most of the increase in emergency-room visits. (WSJ, 10/23/03)

Every day in the U.S., 100 men, women and children – 40,000 or more every year – die from infections caused by bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. (Wash Post, 11/4/03)

In Oregon, nearly 300 people have lost their driver’s licenses since June last year under a new law that requires doctors to notify the state of medical problems that make their patients unfit to drive. (USA Today, 12/2/03)

In a study published in June 2003 of 6,700 patients in 12 metropolitan areas, researchers found that the medical care for 30 different disorders, including diabetes, alcoholism and pneumonia, met national guidelines only slightly more than half the time. (NYT, 12/2/03)

The number of college-age students treated for depression has doubled since 1989 – twice the rate for the general population. (NYT, 9/2/03)

Half of all men who try Viagra fail to renew their prescriptions. (Time, 1/19/04)

It seemed so obvious: Patients in intensive care improve faster if doctors and nurses set specific goals for their recovery. But until two years ago, no one had explicitly tried this approach. Such a goal system is now in place at six Johns Hopkins University ICUs and has spread to at least 70 hospitals across the country. (Balt Sun, 7/21/03)

In Israel, Weizmann Institute scientists have destroyed malignant tumors in mice using a chemical, allicin, that occurs naturally in garlic. The key to their success lies in the development of a unique, two-step system for delivering the chemical straight to the tumor cells. (Weizmann Institute PR, 12/29/03)

Some surveys show that feet have grown an average of a full size larger within just 15 years – a much faster rate of change than before. In addition to better nutrition, growth hormones fed to cattle and other animals could be having an elongating effect, says Dr. Lyle Haskell, a podiatrist in Austin, Texas. (Chicago Tribune, 7/15/03)

One day former astronaut and Lipitor-user Duane Graveline came back from a walk and failed to recognize his wife. He is one of a growing number of people who say they have suffered from amnesia and other nervous-system side effects after taking statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs. (New Scientist, 12/6/03)

Many leading experts agree that animals are transmitting viruses, bacteria and parasites to humans more rapidly than ever before, spawning ailments known as zoonotic diseases. “Influenza is a zoonotic disease. HIV is a zoonotic disease. Monkeypox. SARS,” said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “You can go on and on.” (Wash Post, 6/15/03)

Medicare, in a three-year pilot project, is experimenting with rewarding hospitals that provide superior care for eight common medical conditions with small bonuses. (WSJ, 5/25/03)

Researchers recently discovered that tiny molecules found in a single puff of breath may help screen for a range of conditions, including asthma, cancer and even schizophrenia. A breath test for breast cancer rivals the effectiveness of standard mammograms. (WS, 10/1/03)

The U.S. Medical Licensing Examination Committee has approved a new requirement for all medical students: a clinical-skills exam. The new test will measure communication skills and the ability to gather information through the physical exam. (USN&WR, 6/9/03)

Two children in France who had been essentially cured of a rare immune disorder by gene therapy have subsequently developed leukemia, a blood cancer. (NYT, 6/13/03)

A small group of healthy adults who performed Tai Chi Chih over 15 weeks experienced an average increase of 50% in immunity to the shingles virus. “This is one of the first studies to show that a behavioral intervention can boost a specific immune response,” said Dr. Michael R. Irwin of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. (WSJ, 9/22/03)

Bacteria-eating viruses called bacteriophages - or phages - could be the answer to antibiotic resistance, and the first treatment to use the therapy could be available in 2004. “The beauty is that the phage will only latch onto and destroy (one) strain of bacteria and leaves all the good bacteria unharmed,” said Denise Curnow, CEO of Novolytics. (Wired.com, 6/30/03)

Radiation may damage living cells at surprisingly low energy levels – about 1,000 times weaker than ultraviolet radiation in sunlight. “This work challenges current models of how ionizing radiation damages cellular material. . .,” says biological physics expert Nigel Mason. (USA Today, 5/8/03)

 In studies around the world, botox is being tested as a treatment for stroke paralysis, migraine headaches, facial tics, stuttering, lower back pain, incontinence, writer’s cramp, carpal tunnel syndrome and tennis elbow. Dr. Jean Carruthers, an ophthalmologist and one of the first doctors to use botox, compared it to penicillin for its versatility. (NYT, 3/2/03)

 “Now, for the majority of people diagnosed with cancer, they can expect to live a long period of time. It is not necessarily an acutely fatal disease,” said Julia Rowland of the National Cancer Institute. (Wash Post, 1/29/03)

 Many more women and men in their 70’s and 80’s are surviving heart attacks only to live on with severe heart disease. “These people aren’t cured. They are maintained alive. We have converted heart disease from an acute illness to a chronic disease,” said Dr. Eugene Braunwald of the Harvard Medical School. (NYT, 1/19/03)

 The saliva of vampire bats contains a very powerful anticoagulant. Eighteen months of trials on stroke patients indicate the bat enzyme could be used to dissolve clots for up to three times longer than the commonly used treatment t-PA. (Stroke, Jan 2003)

Two independent teams of scientists report that bodily fluids carry chemical cocktails that include toxic metals, artificial hormones, and ingredients of plastics, flame retardants, pesticides, herbicides, and disinfectants. “The bottom line . . . is that a whole raft of synthetic chemicals that simply did not exist 40 to 50 years ago is now in the bodies and bloodstreams of most Americans,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan of Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. (Science News, 2/22/03)

 Today there are more than 7,000 cases of leprosy in the U.S. compared to fewer than a thousand 40 years ago. “And those are the ones we know about,” said Dr. William Levis of the Hansen’s Disease Clinic at Bellevue Hospital. “There are probably many, many more.” (NYT, 2/18/03)

Type 2 diabetes used to be called adult-onset diabetes because it rarely occurred before middle age, but in recent years, doctors have diagnosed Type 2 diabetes in many young adolescents and children, some no older than 6. (Wash Times, 4/13/03)

The Maryland Shock Trauma Center is the first in the country to use a new machine called Statscan that can take a full-body X-ray in 12.6 seconds, compared to a half-hour for a standard X-ray machine. (Balt Sun, 6/16/03)

New statistics from the National Cancer Institute show that rates for some cancers have been rising. Breast-cancer rates are up 0.6% a year since 1987. Melanoma rates in white males have increased 4.1% a year since 1981 and prostate-cancer in white males has been rising 2.2% a year since 1995. (WSJ, 10/16/02)

The National Institutes of Health has given an $8 million grant to the College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine in Fairfield, Iowa, to study natural healing modalities, including transcendental meditation. (Reader’s Digest, 10/02)

Frailty in the elderly, like senility, is no longer being seen as an inevitable consequence of aging. Characterized by muscle weakness, fatigue, declines in activity, a slow or unsteady gait and weight loss, it is newly recognized as a disease in its own right. (NYT, 11/19/02)

According to CDC estimates, healthcare spending for diabetes amounts to $100 billion today compared to just $2.6 billion in 1969. (NYT, 11/23/02)

Pfizer is working on an appetite suppressant based on a desert weed called hoodia used by the San people of the Kalahari Desert. The San have sucked on hoodia for generations to raise their energy and fight hunger on long hunting trips. (NYT, 4/1/03)

Blue Shield of California is the first major U.S. health insurer to agree to cover online consultations between  patients and their physicians, paying doctors $20 for a “Web call.” (Dow Jones, 12/26/02)

In November, the FDA approved the first defibrillator specifically designed for home use. (AP, 11/13/02)

Medical researchers are finding that while medical spending is higher in locations with a surplus of doctors, they are not finding any corresponding improvement in the health of the affected populations. Life expectancy, for example, is no greater in regions that have more intensive medical care. (NYT, 7/21/02)

Oxford University have developed the first vaccine to target the malaria parasite inside human cells. Previous vaccines against the disease have been unusable, in great part because they have only been able to attack the parasite before it enters the cell. (Wash Times, 8/27/02)

In Great Britain, the number of people killed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria is rising rapidly but was not known until recently because there was no code for deaths caused by them. The number of deaths due to resistant Staphylococus aureus bacteria rose from 47 in 1993 to 398 in 1998. (FT, 12/13/02)

Drug companies are getting into the water business. Baxter International is selling Pulse, a line of waters enhanced with lycopene and soy isoflavones, a plant hormone that is  said to have some estrogen-like properties. (NYT, 8/3/02)

For the first time, cancer has been treated by removing an organ from the body, giving it radiotherapy and then re-implanting it. Doctors in Italy used the technique to treat a 48-year-old man with multiple tumours in his liver. One year after the procedure, the man is alive and well. (New Scientist, 12/18/02)

BMI British Midland has introduced what it claims is the world’s first in-flight diagnostic machine on its long-haul routes. The Tempus 2000 takes readings of a patient’s vital signs and relays them to physicians on the ground. It provides an EKG and measures blood pressure, pulse rate and temperature, plus oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood. (FT, 5/14/02)

Up to 20% of drugs have unknown, sometimes life-threatening side effects discovered in the med’s first seven years on the market. The bottom line, say the Harvard Medical School researchers who conducted the study: “Clinicians should avoid using new drugs when older, similarly efficacious agents are available.” (USN&WR, 5/13/02)

Sentra Healthcare, a chain of hospitals in southeastern Virginia, is the first in the country to create an “electronic ICU” (eICU) where specialist physicians and nurses monitor and help treat critically ill patients in widely scattered hospitals. (Wash Post, 6/2/02)

Hispanic babies tend to be healthier than other children, despite being born into poorer, less-educated families with little health insurance. Only 6.28 % are classified with low birth weight compared with 6.34% of white babies, 7.07% of Asians and 13.01% of blacks. Infant mortality is lower than with other minorities. (San-Antonio Express News, 6/7/02)

Nearly 90% of people who ask their doctors to help them kill themselves later change their minds. Researchers discovered that most people who ask about doctor-assisted suicide are actually afraid of pain and need to be reassured. (Reuters, 7/3/02)

Last year for the first time, there were more live donors than dead ones providing kidneys for transplant. (Wash Post, 8/20/02)

The World Health Organization has repeatedly found that long-term schizophrenia outcomes are much worse in the U.S. and other "developed" countries than in poor ones such as India and Nigeria, where relatively few patients are on anti-psychotic medications, according to Robert Whitaker, author of "Mad in America." (USA Today, 3/4/02)

For the first time, doctors have documented a large-scale U.S. outbreak of antibiotic-resistant strep throat - an episode involving at least 46 Pittsburgh schoolchildren. (AP, 4/18/02)

Research by Amartya Sen of Cambridge University shows that the more a society spends on healthcare, the more likely its inhabitants are to regard themselves as sick. Within India, the relatively wealthy state of Kerala has the highest levels of literacy and longevity - and by far the highest rate of self-reported illness. (FT, 4/14/02)

Americans last year bought $150 million worth of the drug modafinil, which was approved for the treatment of narcolepsy, an unusual disorder that causes people to fall asleep suddenly. Three-quarters of the pills were taken by people who don't have the disease. (Wash Post, 4/28/02)

The number of U.S. medical students choosing general surgery has been dropping sharply in recent years. In 2002, only 75% of the approximately 1,000 available places in first-year general surgery programs in the U.S. were filled by students from U.S. medical schools. (USA Today, 4/16/02)

India has one of the lowest rates of Alzheimer's disease in the world. A diet rich in curcumin, a spice used in yellow curry, may offer a potential explanation and anew therapy for the brain disorder, according to a new study. (Science News)

Three large studies involving 6,000 volunteers will see if Celebrex and Vioxx stop precancerous growths in the colon. "When in the history of drug development has a drug moved from arthritis to cancer prevention and then been fast-tracked into cancer therapy?" asked Dr. Andrew Dannenberg, director of cancer prevention at Cornell's Weill Medical College. "It's completely unprecedented." (AP)

A number of employers and health-care plans are starting to reimburse doctors for e-visits. For example, Blue Shield of California and a group of Silicon Valley employers are testing a program called webVisit from Healinx Corp., that reimburses doctors $20 for certain online consultations. (WSJ)

Scientists at Harvard Medical School recently discovered that in mice, the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas could regenerate. "It was a total surprise - it knocked our socks off," said Dr. David Nathan. . . .and researchers at New York Medical College discovered dividing cells in the hearts of people who died shortly after having heart attacks. "This is a breakthrough, at least for a new way of thinking about the heart's recuperative power and ways to repair a damaged heart," said Dr. Valentin Fuster. (NYT)

Researchers at Dartmouth Medical School examined the survival rates of 232 post-surgical cardiac patients. Deaths in a six-month follow-up period after open-heart surgery were 11% in patients who considered themselves "not at all," "slightly," or "fairly religious." In those who were "deeply" religious, the death rate was zero. (Wash Post)

Kidney-transplant patient Janet McCourt hasn't had to take drugs to keep her body from rejecting the organ for most of the three-plus years since she got the kidney. She is the first person to go through a procedure that combined her immune system cells with those of an organ donor to make her body accept an organ naturally. (AP)

A new medical device called RespeRate is the first nondrug treatment for hypertension to gain FDA approval. Resembling a DiscMan, the device analyzes your breathing pattern with a sensor strapped around your waist; it then produces tones on headphones that gradually lead you to take longer, deeper breaths. (Health)

Some national medical laboratories now allow patients to bypass doctors and order their own medical tests. The most popular offering at HealthCheckUSA.com is the VIP-plus package, which for $75 includes about 40 different blood screenings including thyroid, cholesterol, liver and kidney profiles. (WSJ)

"Under the system designed for mass-marketed drugs, clinical trials are required to show that an agent . . . works in a statistically significant number of people better than a placebo or the accepted standard treatment. In contrast, the new biological therapies will be more like chemical surgery. Every patient is unique; nobody considers it appropriate or workable to impose a single regulated standard on surgeons." - Robert Oldham, CEO of Cancer Therapeutics Inc. (WSJ)

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations now recommends that pain be treated as a fifth "vital sign," along with blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and temperature. (USN&WR)

A Harvard study of 1,000 men and women in Costa Rica, half of whom had suffered a heart attack, found that the heart-attack patients, as a group, were much more likely to have enjoyed daily siestas - and longer ones - than their healthy peers. (Parade)

A number of hospitals are creating miniature malls consisting of banks, bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, drugstores and other offerings. "People think of hospitals as a place to get sick and die. We're trying to change that image so that people start to look at getting preventative care," says the chief executive of UC Physicians in Ohio. (WSJ)

In 1982, 7.1 million, or about 26%, of the 26.9 million elderly were disabled as measured by being unable to perform such daily activities as eating, bathing and getting dressed. By 1999, the total had dropped to 7 million, or 19.7%, despite the overall growth to 35.3 million of the population over age 65. (NYT)

By using a team approach to make decisions about patients in its ICU, Suburban Hospital near Washington, D.C., has cut the amount of time patients spend on ventilators by 23%. The team consists of a specially trained intensivist ( a doctor who specializes in intensive care medicine), a pharmacist, a social worker, a nutritionist, the chief ICU nurse, a respiratory therapist and a chaplain. (USA Today)

If a patient in Seattle or Pittsburgh wants a second opinion from a Harvard Medical School specialist, it's now available online - for $600. The service was started in the summer by Partners HealthCare System operating in 33 states. (CHE)

Surgeons in New York have performed a gallbladder operation on a patient in France by remote control, sending high-speed signals to robotic surgical tools - the first complete surgery to be done with a robot. (AP)

The bacteria that cause stomach ulcers are responsible for virtually all cases of stomach cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the world. (Reuters)

Animal experiments with conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) produced a 30% reduction in existing atherosclerotic plaque. "In animal experiments, nobody has ever reported anything like this. This stuff is just amazing," said David Kritchevsky of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. (Science News)

House calls are making a comeback. The first nationwide online listing of house-call doctors who are currently accepting new patients has been posted on the American Academy of Physicians web site (www.aahcp.org). MM)

Anecdotes from Alabama to Oregon suggest that more and more patients are hiring private nurses or nursing assistants when they go to the hospital. Private agencies that supply nurse's aides report a dramatic increase in requests from hospitalized patients in the past few years. (Wash Post)

Evidence is growing that the lack of social support is as bad for your heart as physical inactivity, smoking and obesity. In a study at Duke University, 50% of heart-disease patients who had neither spouse nor confidant were dead within five years of their evaluation. But only 18% of married or befriended peers had died within the same time frame. (Sun)

Five years ago, only a handful of therapists offered e-mail counseling and interactive chats. Today, an estimated 250 to 300 counseling sites exist, charging anywhere from $1 a minute to $150 and up for a month of e-mail. (USN&WR)

The "Chalice of Repose" project in Missoula, Montana, offers live music to those in the last stages of terminal illness. Doctors, sceptical at first, watched patients on very high levels of painkillers needing significantly lower doses after a visit by the Chalice team. Some even stopped needing painkillers altogether. (Economist)

A new blood-testing system called FastPack analyzes blood samples for PSA levels right in the doctor's office. The 15-minute teat costs about $25 - less that the standard $30 to $70 PSA test. (Wash Post)

A recent survey by the Brain Trauma Foundation found two-thirds of the nation's trauma hospitals don't routinely monitor brain pressure on head-injury patients. Only 85 of the 500 trauma centers regularly comply with all treatment guidelines. (WSJ)

A new three-year graduate program in botanical healing at The Tai Sophia Institute in Columbia, Md., is the first of its kind to be offered in the U.S. (Sun)

Researchers have long distinguished between experiments done in vivo (with a living creature) and in vitro (inside a glass test tube or dish.) Now they commonly speak of doing them in silica - as simulations run on the silicon chips of a computer. (NYT)

French researchers harvested muscle cells from a 72-year-old patient's thigh, grew them in a lab for two weeks and then injected them into a portion of his heart that had died. Five months later, there were new contractions in that area of his heart. (WSJ)

A new DNA-based screening test for colon cancer detected 91% of early cancers and was negative for all 28 of the controls. "The results really kind of knocked our socks off," said Dr. David Ahlquist, a gastroenterologist who headed up the effort to develop the test at the Mayo Clinic. (WSJ)

New findings suggest that brainy card games such as contract bridge may at least temporarily raise production of a key blood cell involved in fighting off illness. (Wash Post)

Studies in recent years have indicated link between the extraordinarily minuscule amounts of fluoride in fluoridated water and youthful antisocial behavior including crime, drug use, violence and poor academic showing, according to Roger Masters, research professor at Dartmouth College. (Insight)

The drugstore chain C.V.S. has begun offering defibrillators on its Web site by prescription for about $3,000, for people at risk of cardiac arrest. (NYT)

A variety of new companies are starting to offer below-market prices on prescription drugs and services like doctor, dental and eye care and medical tests. Even patients with insurance are using the new services as well. The new companies include HealthMarket, HealthAllies, MedAdvantage, AmeriPlanUSA and Medisavers. (NYT)

Doctors are starting to see groups of patients to save time. Health clinics across the country, from a Mayo Clinic affiliate in Wisconsin to Stanford University School of Medicine in California, have new programs in which as many as two dozen patients attend one monthly two-hour group session rather than rely on a traditional individual appointment. (WSJ)

Can obesity be caused by exposure to a virus? Researchers at the University of Wisconsin injected chickens and mice with a human virus (adenovirus 36) and watched them gain 2.5 half times as much weight as uninfected animals, even given the same portions of food. (USN&WR)

A study of 12,725 carotid endarterectomies performed by 532 surgeons over two years in Pennsylvania found that the longer a surgeon had been in practice, the worse the outcome. (Neurology)

A six-year study at Duke University of 4,000 senior citizens found that healthy senior citizens who said they rarely or never prayed ran about a 50% greater risk of dying during the study than seniors who prayed or meditated more than once a month. (USA Today)

A large study of 89,576 twins found that the vast majority of cancers are caused not by inherited defects in people's genes but by environmental and behavioral factors. The new data show that even an identical twin has about a 90% chance of not getting the same cancer as his or her affected twin. (NEJM)

A study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that Americans' health deteriorates during temporary upturns in the economy and improves when business is in retreat. (Wash Post)

In Ontario, Canada, the waiting list for magnetic resonance imaging tests is so long that one man recently reserved a session for himself at a private animal hospital that had a machine. He registered under the name Fido. (NYT)

Electric utility workers exposed to high levels of low-frequency electromagnetic fields are at increased risk of committing suicide. (Reuters)

Moving away from its traditional reliance on public service announcements, the American Cancer Society has launched its first-ever paid national advertising campaign. (Adweek)

A four-month trial of telemedicine at a hospital in the Baltimore area found that adding telemedicine round-the-clock coverage to normal staffing reduced patient mortality by about 60%, reduced complications by 40% and reduced costs 30%. (Sun)

In the first-ever experiment on critically ill elderly people, Medicare will test whether the Dean Ornish program of nutrition and exercise can prevent the need for angioplasty and heart bypass surgery. Over the next three years, about 1,800 elderly heart patients will follow the program. (NYT)

A number of web sites are now soliciting bids from doctors for surgical procedures. PatientWise takes bids on more than 100 procedures, including heart surgery and even brain surgery. (IW)

Leukemia cases among young British children are increasing and doctors suspect improved living standards could be the cause. Youngsters are exposed to fewer common infections than they used to be so their immune systems are weaker and not as good at combating illnesses. (Reuters)

The South Florida State Psychiatric Hospital is the first state mental hospital in the nation to be turned over completely to a private company. (NYT)

A new "patient-friendly" 3D angiogram developed by Siemens Medical Systems takes less than a minute and costs one-third to one-fourth as much as traditional methods. "Low cost is usually associated with poor quality. Here, we're increasing the quality," said Elliot K. Fishman, professor of radiology at Johns Hopkins University. (WSJ)

Scientists at Canada's Ottawa General Hospital report that they have successfully cloned artificial corneas. (BW)

Travelers going to such exotic destinations as North Carolina and Missouri are now getting shots for hepatitis A. (WSJ)

A number of mind-body experts are urging the use of dreams in standard medical diagnosis as an early-warning system. "Many physicians have been stunned by the accuracy of their patient's dreams," says Larry Dossey, M.D., author of The Reinvention of Medicine. (USA Weekend)

Two young Swedes who died suddenly while playing ice hockey were felled by heart inflammation caused by a bacteria never found before in humans. The suspect bacteria came from the Rickettsia family of microorganisms, transmitted to humans by tick bites. (Lancet)

While not a new idea, using phage viruses to fight antibiotic-resistant bugs is attracting new attention. Last year, a female heart patient in Toronto, dying from a resistant bacterial infection, was given an experimental phage treatment which completely cleared the infection. (FT)

In the past decade, the rate of disability among the elderly has been falling nearly three times as fast as it did for the previous eight decades. (WSJ)

Many hospitals around the country are starting to treat pain as a disease in and of itself, and are establishing pain clinics staffed with specialists who focus solely on the relief of suffering. (BW)

Researchers report that Campylobacter, a bacteria that causes food poisoning, is becoming resistant to fluoroquinolones because poultry farmers treat entire flocks with the drug. Doctors have a back-up drug to treat Campylobacter but there is no other drug to treat Salmonella infections. If Salmonella becomes resistant, food poisoning could be fatal. (Nutrition Action Newsletter)

A common antibiotic may be an effective weapon against muscular dystrophy and other genetic diseases. In experiments with mice, injections of the antibiotic gentamicin improved muscle function and halted the progression of a disease that resembles human muscular dystrophy. (WSJ)

There are more than 2 million severe adverse drug reactions and 106,000 medication-related fatalities in U.S. hospitals every year. Most of the adverse reactions occur at the very doses that manufacturers recommend and doctors prescribe. (Newsweek)

Two hundred people in Minnesota and North Dakota have become sick - and four children have died - over the past two years after becoming infected with a drug-resistant germ that until recently had been confined to hospitals and nursing homes. The fatalities are the first to be reported outside hospitals in the U.S. (NYT)

Illnesses of the bowel are on the increase, partly for dietary reasons. "There have been a great many changes in the diet and in the food supply that haven't been good. It's often said that the heart-healthy diet has been great for the heart but hell on the gut," says Dr. Michael D. Gershon, author of "The Second Brain." (Medical Tribune)

Mississippi is the first state to reimburse pharmacists under Medicaid for advising patients with diabetes, asthma and high cholesterol, and those in need of anticlotting drugs. (WSJ)

Osteoporosis is more prevalent in men than previously thought. Although men do not go through menopause, the main cause of the degenerative bone disorder is the same in men and women: an age-related drop in estrogen. "This is surprising," said Dr. B. Lawrence Riggs of the Mayo Clinic, who has found that estrogen naturally falls in men after about age 65. (NYT)

For decades scientists believed that lost brain cells could not be replaced. But Swedish scientists have proved that assumption wrong. Examining the brains of hospital patients who had died of various causes, the researchers found that a region called the hippocampus often was filled with relatively young cells. "The brain may be more capable of self-repair than we think," says biologist van Praag. (Health)

When neurologist John Hughes played Mozart's "Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos" for one of his epilepsy patients, the results amazed him. The amount of time the patient was in seizure dropped dramatically. And when the patient was in a comatose or semicomatose state, his epileptic brain-wave activity declined dramatically. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

At Inova Fairfax Hospital in Virginia, spectators can watch live open heart surgery from a public viewing deck. Several thousand people a year, mostly high school students, observe surgeries. (AP)

Although the economic status of women trails that of men and although they are two to three times more likely to suffer from depression, the suicide rate of women is less than one-fourth that of men. (BW)

Could artificial light be a risk factor for cancer? When it is dark, our bodies produce melatonin, a hormone that may fight the growth of tumors. Artificial light stalls its production. Researchers in Sweden and Finland have found lower-than-normal cancer rates among the profoundly blind whose melatonin output is not disturbed by light. (BW)

"Doctors need to know about 600 or 700 or 800 different conditions. If you just have one condition, and you're an intelligent person, you can know more about it than your doctor," says Tom Ferguson, an Austin, Texas, physician who publishes The Ferguson Report, a newsletter about on-line health information. (USA Today)

A designer drug based on the bacterium used to ferment salami and sauerkraut is being put forward as an alternative to antibiotics. The bug, a bacterium found in the human gut, is claimed to have already saved the lives of eight people. Instead of killing off bad bacteria, the probiotic - lactobacillus plantarum 299V - encourages healthy microbes to grow and squeeze out the unwanted ones. (The Times)

Doctors in Texas are conducting a study of arthroscopic knee surgery in which patients with bad knees are assigned to one of three operations: scraping out the knee joint, washing out the joint or pretending to operate. Two years after surgery, patients who underwent sham surgery reported the same amount of relief from pain and swelling as those who had had the real operations. (NYT)

Kaiser-Permanente, the largest nonprofit HMO, with 9.2 million patients, now has a Web site that lets members register for office visits and send e-mail questions to nurses and pharmacists. The HMO is also testing Web access to lab results and prescription refills. (BW)

Ansett Airlines, the second largest carrier in Australia, is the first airline in the world to provide syringe disposal bins on its international and domestic flights. (AP)

HMOs are moving away from "community" rates for individual policies. Customers who are considered greater health risks, such as those age 50 and older, are being asked to pay more. Low-risk subscribers are paying lower rates. (USA Today)

At the Artificial Muscle Research Institute at the University of New Mexico, scientists have created synthetic sinew that's twice as strong as human muscles. (Newsweek)

Dentists are concerned about the long-term impact on children's teeth of drinking bottled water. "This is a big problem, because we always depended on children drinking fluoridated water. We are seeing more cavities across the board than we saw in the 1980s," said Dr. David Harte, a dentist in Milton, Mass. (AP)

An Oklahoma City HMO has begun prescribing herbal medicine as a money-saving measure. "We used to spend more than $1 million a year on Prozac alone - one month’s worth is, on average, $72. But now, I’d say about 95 percent of the antidepressant prescriptions I write are for St. John’s wort [$9 per month]," said Lawrence Kincheloe, M.D. (Natural Health)

British scientists say they have developed a safe, effective and painless vaccine to prevent tooth decay. It is a plant-based vaccine that is painted on teeth and produces antibodies that prevent harmful bacteria from sticking to teeth and causing cavities. (Reuters)

Heart patients may soon be able to give themselves injections to prevent future attacks. Enoxaparin, a simplified version of the common heart medication heparin, has proven effective in French trials. It’s "sort of an insulin-like injection for coronary artery disease," says cardiologist Elliott Antman. (New Scientist)

Las Vegas is the first city in which automatic external defibrillators have been extensively deployed in public places. The survival rate of people suffering heart attacks on the Strip has jumped from 16 percent to 79 percent. (Health)

Tiny little bacteria that build a mineral shell for themselves could be the cause of kidney stones. Only recently discovered in human and cow blood, nanobacteria are the smallest cell-walled bacteria. (Reuters)

Researchers have found evidence of a possible link between a bacterial infection and Alzheimer’s disease. The bacteria Chlamydia pneumoniae, a known cause of common respiratory ailments, was found in the brains of 17 out of 19 Alzheimer victims. (AP)

Adverse drug reactions accounted for more than two million hospitalizations and more than 100,000 deaths in 1994, making them a leading cause of mortality in the U.S. (Scientific American)

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York announced the formation of a program in ‘integrative oncology’. The initiative will allow specialists to treat patients not only with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy but also with nutrition, meditation and other alternative techniques. (Cox)

A small but growing number of American philosophers have opened private practices as ‘philosopher practitioners.’ The American Philosophical Practitioners Association is leading a state-by-state drive for certification and insurance reimbursement. (NYT)

A Texas study asked two questions of patients about to undergo open-heart surgery: Do you draw strength from your religious faith? And are you a member of some group that meets regularly? Those who answered no to both questions had a sevenfold-higher risk of death within six months after the surgery than those who answered yes to both questions. (Insight)

You are more apt to die from prescription medication than from an accident, pneumonia, or diabetes. Adverse drug reactions may be the fourth-ranking cause of death in the U.S. right after heart disease, cancer and stroke. (USN&WR)

All Americans need more of the B-vitamin folic acid, according to the U.S. Institute of Medicine. It said people were unlikely to get enough of the vitamin from food and should take a supplement or eat fortified foods - the first time a recommendation has been made for intake other than from natural foods for a significant portion of the population. (Reuters)

Lawmakers in New York have set aside $1 million for a statewide cancer mapping project, the first of its kind in the country. (NYT)

Pregnant rats fed the nutrient choline produced baby rats that performed significantly better on memory tests than those of mothers with normal intake of choline. It is the first time that a normal dietary component has been shown to permanently alter the function of a region of the brain. (USA Today)

A dozen surgeons at Shouldice Hospital outside Toronto do hernia operations and nothing else, 600 to 800 each during a year. Their recurrence rate is 1% and the cost is about half of what iris elsewhere. (New Yorker)

‘There is a feeling among a lot of us in the field that the bacteria are winning. We had a window of 50 years where antibiotics worked great. Now we’re seeing on all fronts the development of resistance." — Epidemiologist Dr. I. Glenn Morris Jr. (Sun)

Air travel has been shown for the first time to be a significant factor in causing blood clots in a study at a Honolulu hospital. About 50% of the patients with clots had traveled by air within 31 days of their symptoms developing. (FT)

Sixty of the nation’s 75 colleges of pharmacy have announced plans to replace their four-year degree program with a six-year program, the equivalent of a doctorate. Recipients of a Pharm.D. degree would be allowed to counsel patients about taking medications and evaluate changes in their symptoms. (NYT)

Using only human cells, researchers at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, have grown new blood vessels that are as strong as natural arteries — the first vessels produced without any synthetic materials that are strong enough for grafting. (Science News)

Deaths from prescription drug errors increased at a higher rate over a 10-year period than any other cause of death except AIDS. (USA Today)

San Francisco’s Nob Hill Lambourne Hotel is offering business travelers the services of Charmian Anderson, a psychologist. For $2 a minute, Dr. Anderson will talk to guests in distress on the phone or in person about anything that is bothering them. (WSJ)

The FDA has approved an ultra-sound bone density testing machine made by Hologic Inc., the first osteoporosis test that does not use X-rays. (AP)

"Microbes have crept up the list. They are now the third leading cause of death in the United States. In 1980 they were the fifth. Sometime in the next century they will be on top." - Charles P. Gerba, one of America's chief authorities on the microbial transmission of disease. (Atlantic)

A few select hospitals around the country are giving patients five-star treatment. In luxury rooms at Johns Hopkins' Marburg Pavilion, medical equipment and oxygen lines are aesthetically concealed behind movable paintings and there are no noisy overhead paging systems. Meals, prepared by restaurant chefs, are served by bow-tied, black-jacketed waiters from rolling, linen-covered tables. (Forbes FYI)

Money is cleaner now than it was 25 years ago. In 1972, 70% of coins and paper money were contaminated with bacteria. A new study at New York Methodist Hospital found only 3% of change and 11% of bills to be "infected". (Forbes FYI)

Although patients participating in research at the National Institutes of Health are not supposed to take anything but the medicines under study, a recent survey found that nearly 20% were also taking herbal supplements. The most popular were garlic, chamomile, echinacea, aloe vera, milk thistle and alfalfa. (Wash Post)

"Prescription Drugs Without A Prescription. . . No Prescriptions Needed! - We'll Show You How! - Utilize FDA Drug Importation Policy - All FDA & Non-FDA Drugs - In Conformance with All U.S. Laws & Regulations." - Advertisement in New Age Journal.

Studies have shown that one-quarter of hospital patients treated for flu symptoms actually have elevated levels of carbon dioxide in their blood. (Capital)

Since 1987, people over 55 have been the fastest-growing population among health club members. (UPS)

The incidence of prostate cancer is the same in the U.S. and in Japan, but the death rate is 90% lower there, probably due to a combination of low fat and various anti-cancer compounds in the diet. (Wash Post)

In Seattle, two internists founded MD2, a new type of health care service which offers subscribers, for $12,000 a year, instant access to a physician any time, day or night. Enrollment is limited to 100 families. (American Medical News)

Doctors in Japan report that a baby boy was infected with a strain of Staphylococcus aureus that is moderately resistant to vancomycin. "If we lose vancomycin for staph, we're really going to be in bad shape. It'll be like we never had antibiotics to begin with. . . . Surgery will be a nightmare," said Dr. Stephen Heyse of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (Dallas Morning News)

Deaths from infectious disease in the U.S. have risen 58% since 1990. (JAMA)

A 1996 epidemiological study found that, for the first time, overweight and obese Americans outnumber those of normal weight. (Wash Post)

The FDA has approved the first genetically engineered fertility drugs, which women can self-administer at home. (Wash Times)

Although heart disease kills more Americans than any other disease, much is still unknown about its causes. Up to half of all heart attacks happen to people who have none of the usual risk factors. (Health)

Children's prescriptions of adult anti-depressants have soared from 342,900 in 1994 to 579,700 in 1996. (Wash Times)

Advanced Tissue Sciences of La Jolla, Calif., which already sell artificially manufactured human skin, has grown heart valves, heart muscles and blood vessels in the lab and says it is only a matter of time before it grows a complete heart. (FT)

"Nutriceuticals" are medicines in the form of food such as cookies or candy bars that can help control everything from arthritis to heart disease. NiteBite, a 100-calorie bar with three sources of glucose, is aimed at the 2.7 million Americans with diabetes. (Boston Globe)

A vaccine to prevent urinary tract infections has proved successful in mice and holds promise for people. The advance is also expected to lead to vaccines for other common infections. (NYT)

Between 1922 and 1972, according to the standard psychological literature only 50 cases of multiple personality disorder were diagnosed in America; between 1973 and 1990, about 20,000 were diagnosed. (LA Times)

Doctors in Boston have inserted fetal pig cells into the brains of 12 Parkinson's disease patients - with startling success. In some cases patients have begun walking again. (BW)

Hundreds of vascular procedures that once required surgery are now being performed by interventional radiology (IR). "This is a whole new area of medicine that is being rapidly developed," said Dr. Anne Roberts of the University of California at San Diego. "We need about twice as many operators as there are now available." (USA Today)

Doctors today are seeing more and more people with thyroid imbalances. Already, eight million Americans are being treated for thyroid problems. "We're definitely seeing more of it. Why, is an enigma," says H. Jack Baskin, president-elect of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. (WSJ)

Retinoic acid, a derivative of vitamin A, reverses emphysema in the lungs of laboratory rats - the first time that anyone has identified a means of reversing emphysema. (Wash Times)

New research findings support the unorthodox idea that inflammation in blood vessel walls is an even more fundamental cause of hardening of the arteries than is high cholesterol or elevated blood pressure. "It's really a major shift in the way we think about heart attacks and strokes," says R. Wayne Alexander, chief of cardiology at Emory University. (Wash Post)

"Diseases of affluence," such as heart disease and strokes, are killing more people in the developing world than in richer countries. Such diseases also kill more people in poorer countries than infections like malaria. (Reuter)

British doctors report seeing a microbe that thrived on the antibiotics meant to kill it. Two men treated for infection after under-going major sugery only began to recover after the antibiotics were withdrawn. (Lancet)

Cancer deaths have, for the first time in the U.S., declined. Mortality rates fell by some 3.1% from 1990 to 1995. (Cancer)

Since the start of 1996 nearly 150 products making antibacterial claims have come out, almost double the number launched in 1995. (WSJ)

More than five dozen people were hospitalized after drinking juice made by Odwalla, the nation's largest fresh-juice supplier. Industry officials say the company's plant is a state-of-the-art facility operated at the highest standards of good manufacturing practices. Scientists call such outbreaks "sentinel events," meaning they are indicators of a much broader problem. (WSJ)

In a move that runs counter to national trends, Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore is increasing the number of registered nurses on its staff by 40% and is eliminating the jobs of nursing assistants and technicians. The move is designed to save money and offer better care to its patients. (Sun)

The number one reason people take vitamin and mineral supplements today is to help prevent disease rather than just to meet the recommended daily allowances. American are focusing less on avoidance and more on "proactive" nutrition, according to A. Elizabeth Sloan, president of Applied Biometrics. (Wash Post)

In 1992, 130 of every 10,000 pneumococcal infections in the United States could not be treated with penicillin. By 1995, in some parts of the country, 3,000 of every 10,000 cases were resistant. (CDC)

A group representing most of the nation's podiatrists announced it was forming the first nationwide labor union for doctors. (WSJ)

The Human Genome Project to read the sequence of all 100,000 human genes is now expected to be completed in 2005 - 20 years ahead of schedule. (Red Herring)

Keeping operating rooms cold for the comfort of physicians increases a patient's risk of infection dramatically. When patients were kept warm during surgery, researchers found that they had fewer surgical-wound infections, healed faster and were sent home sooner. (AP)

Scientists have found a link between rheumatoid arthritis and childhood cats. An Australian study found that people with rheumatoid arthritis are more than twice as likely as nonsufferers to have had close contact with cats between the ages of 10 and 15. (USN&WR)

Fitness 55 in Washington, D.C. may be the first club of its kind catering exclusively to men and women who are at least 55 years old. (Wash Post)

Artificial flavorings may help prevent heart attacks. Many artificial flavorings contain salicylates, a chemical cousin of aspirin. A study found that people take in the equivalent of one baby aspirin a day from the artificial flavorings in processed foods. (AP)

The FDA has classified acupuncture needles as medical devices for "general use" by trained professionals, removing a major barrier to insurance coverage for acupuncture treatments. (Wash Post)

At a farm in Massachusetts run by Genzyme Transgenics, goats are being genetically altered to produce medicine consisting of a partly human protein in their milk. A one-year old goat is expected to lactate enough to make a kilogram of an experimental anti-cancer drug for Bristol-Myers Squibb. (WSJ)

For the first time since the AMA began collecting data on physician pay, its survey found that doctors' median income dropped 3.8% in 1994, from $156,000 in 1993 to $150,000. (USN&WR)

The National Long Term Care Surveys, a Federal study that regularly surveys close to 20,000 people aged 65 and older, finds that every year there is a smaller and smaller percentage of old people who are unable to take care of themselves, unable to comb their hair or feed themselves or take a walk. (NYT)

Money is cleaner now than it was 25 years ago. A recent study found contamination in only 3% of coins and 11% of bills compared to 13% of coins and 42% of bills in 1972. (Health)

A common bacteria that most people are exposed to in childhood may cause plaques to accumulate in arteries leading to atherosclerosis. Dr. J. Thomas Grayston of the University of Washington found that almost 60% of tissue samples taken from blocked carotid arteries harbored the Chlamydia pneumoniae bacteria. (BW)

Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest health-maintenance organization, is opening the country's first HMO-based alternative-medicine clinic. (Insight)

Researchers testing a new malaria drug called pyronaridine in the African nation of Cameroon reported a 100% cure rate among 40 patients who took the drug. There are more than 300 million cases of malaria a year, and 1.5 to 2.7 million victims die. (NYT)

Autopsy/Post Services in Los Angeles plans to open 72 franchises in the next two years. The company performed 700 autopsies last year and had to turn down 11,000 more. "People are intrigued by death," says the owner Vidal Herrera. "Death is in." (Newsweek)

"If we hadn't had the experimental Synercid, the chances are 100% that my heart patient would have died." - Dr. Marcus Zervos, who is testing the experimental antibiotic at Wayne State University. (AP)

As of the first of January, the state of Washington began requiring health insurance to cover treatments like acupuncture, massage therapy and other forms of licensed natural health care. (NYT)

A recent study found fewer bacteria in the air of commercial airplanes than are typically found in places like office buildings. And none of the bacteria isolated on airplanes could have caused disease. (NYT)

Therapeutic vaccines, unlike conventional vaccines, are designed to treat patients after they become sick by stimulating the body's immune system. "A lot of treatments, such as antibiotics and chemotherapy, actually suppress the immune system. We were putting the immune system to sleep. Therapeutic vaccines are about waking the immune system up," says the president of a biotech firm. (Financial Times)

In Florida, pickers of the wild saw palmetto berry - a popular ingredient in prostate remedies - are getting $3.50 a pound compared to 25¢ a pound a few years ago. (BW)

A new antibiotic treatment for ulcers has been difficult for many people - doctors and patients alike - to accept because it goes against years of conventional wisdom that stress causes ulcers.. Most people with peptic ulcers can now be permanently cured. "Six to seven years of follow-up studies show less than 1 percent recurrence. That is really quite staggering," said the vice chairman of the American Digestive Health Foundation. (LA Times)

Twenty years ago, about half of all nursing home patients needed help going to the bathroom. Today three-quarters do. Over the same period, the number of people in nursing homes who need help eating has doubled from 30 to 60 percent. (Wash Post)

Two years ago, Mutual of Omaha allowed 200 volunteers to try Dr. Dean Ornish’s diet and exercise program to combat heart disease as an alternative to more invasive treatments. Ninety-five percent of the participants have stuck with the program and only one has required surgery. (Newsweek)

A surplus of 100,000-150,000 physicians and 200,000-300,000 nurses by the year 2000 is forecast by the Pew Health Professions Commission.(Sun)

Two New Yorkers got malaria from local mosquitoes, backing up experts’ warnings that even people who never travel to tropical countries can still get tropical diseases. (AP)

A significant problem has arisen in American cities where Asian-born proprietors of restaurants may "worship" insects and refuse to fumigate in compliance with our health laws. (Paul Harvey)

In Japan, the first heavy ion accelerator designed for medical applications dramatically reduced the size of inoperable cancers in three patients. (Financial Times)

'I was skeptical at first because it seemed too simplistic. Lo and behold it worked,' says a researcher at the National Eye Institute on an experimental treatment which calls for patients suffering from uveitis to eat a protein purified from cow eyes. (WSJ)

A study reported in the journal Neurology found evidence that stroke patients recovered in half the time at a savings of $26,000 per case when they included acupuncture in their rehabilitation. (Warfield's)

In the United States, for the first time, more women are opting for sterilization than any other form of birth control. (Newsweek)

St. Joseph's Hospital in Houston is one of the first hospitals to open a humor room. The hospital believes the program leads to shorter hospital stays for many patients. (Copley)

'This is the way to do surgery better without having to use your own hands. It just doesn't matter where the patient is anymore.' Laparoscopic surgeon Rick Satava on the use of remotely operated surgical robots. (Wash Times)

A growing number of doctors are using E-mail to communicate with their patients. Both doctors and patients consider it superior to the telephone for renewing prescriptions, making referrals, handling questions about minor ailments and symptoms, and communicating test results. (USN&WR)

Minocycline, an antibiotic used to fight acne, can soothe the pain of mild to moderate rheumatoid arthritis according to a study at the Henry Ford Health Sciences Center in Detroit. It is the first use of antibiotics against the disease. (AP)

Thirty-four acrophobic patients participated in a virtual-reality treatment experiment at the Kaiser-Permanente Medical Group in San Rafael, California. They encountered a virtual elevated patio, as well as hills, a bridge over water, and a plank extending from the patio. After the treatment, 90% of the patients achieved self-assigned goals in the real world, such as ascending in a glass elevator. (Wired)

A neural-network computer program developed by Kaman Sciences Corp., is correct 73% to 77% of the time when it predicts prostate cancer. (BW)

Last year, about 400 health care professionals - including more than 200 MDs - took part in a three-day symposium on alternative medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Plans were announced to create a new Center for Alternative Medicine Research at Beth Israel Hospital, a major teaching hospital of Harvard. (Wash Post)

Food poisoning from bacteria, viruses and parasites is escalating in almost every country that gathers statistics on the subject. England and Wales have experienced a nearly five-fold increase over the past decade. (New Scientist)

In December last year, E. coli bacteria found in salami, a product that has never before been connected with an outbreak, sickened 23 people in California and Washington State. 'The more I learn about this organism, the more staggered I am at how virulent it is,' said a scientist at the American Meat Institute. (NYT)

The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine debuted in January as the nation's first peer-reviewed journal devoted to alternative medicine. (Wash Post)

The number of cases of pneumonia has declined since a peak of 3.8 million in 1990, but the number of deaths from pneumonia has risen. Today, 5 to 25 percent of all adult pneumococal pneumonia cases in the U.S. are resistant to penicillin. (Wash Times)

'Despite . . . barriers to universal acceptance of homeopathy, physicians should maintain an open mind about potential benefits. Although we have often relied on drugs such as antibiotics to manage disorders such as diarrhoea, the emergence of resistant organisms may necessitate a change in strategies,' - Editorial in the British medical journal The Lancet.

The market for homeopathic remedies, now about $100 million, has been growing by about 25% a year. A few insurance companies, like Blue Cross of Washington and Alaska, have begun covering homeopathy and other kinds of alternative medicine. (NYT)

'Virtual colonscopy' uses the same computer technology that created the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and enables radiologists to 'fly' through the colon and examine the lining for suspicious lesions and polyps. The procedure requires no anesthesia and takes less than a minute to do. (Wash Post)

In the first televised mercy killing, Dutch viewers watched a wheelchair-bound man suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease die by lethal injection. (AP)

At Harvard University, medicine was this year's most popular career choice among seniors, ahead of business or academia, the usual front-runners. (WSJ)

A survey at Duke University Medical Center found that of 146 patients who had received CPR at the medical center between 1988 and 1991, 61 died immediately. Of the 85 who were successfully resuscitated, only seven patients were ever discharged from the hospital - only five of whom could live independently. (Omni)

A British team has discovered a vital part of the body's strategy for avoiding cancer: a gene that tells cells to divide appears also to prime them to kill themselves. The phenomenon has gone unnoticed partly because of the artificial nature of laboratory studies. To keep cultures alive, researchers generally feed the cells with growth factors which suppress the death signal. (New Scientist)

There are now more Indian-born physicians in the U.S. than native-born black doctors. (CSM)

Kaiser Permanente, the country's first HMO, is offering members the opportunity, for an extra fee, to be treated outside its HMO for the first time. (Balt Sun)

A New York HMO, the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York, announced plans to train 100 volunteers to work in pastoral care in its hospitals. (NYT)